sweet effay

Mark K-P, the Metatron of Uttunul, is on top form at the minute expounding cold rationalism to the world in general, and Simon Reynolds in particular, in the wake of attending a lecture by Carlo Ginzburg which (he thinks) confirmed his suspicions of Bataille. He starts off at Hyperstition, here and here, then inexplicably legs it to his own blog to continue the fight. If it all seems a bit too heavy, you can get some comic relief from the trolls in the comment boxes. You can also watch me defend part of my claim that the entirety of Western intellectual life after 1928 owes its existence the work of Georges Bataille.

Anyhow, in case anybody out there is under the impression that I am a rationalist of some description (including a ‘Pagan Rationalist’ as some would have it), consider the following from Mark himself:

It's not as if people just put on music for no reason; they don't just get up and put on any record in an aleatory way regardless of the effect it has them. That would be 'irrational'.

I will now outline exactly how records are put on in the Little House on the Flatlands:

Preliminary Remarks
1. Storage – Vinyl and CDs are racked separately but ordered in the same way. Artists are arranged alphabetically with their releases in chronological order. Albums with multiple artists on are alphabetically racked with reference to their title. Live albums are racked according to date of concert rather than date of release. Compilations are racked according to the date of recording of the latest track therein rather than the date of release. Cassettes are currently boxed up and play no part in what follows.
2. Equipment – Record deck (slot 0) and multiplayer CD which carries five CDs (slots 1-5).

Loading Procedure
Starting at the beginning of the alphabet, play one vinyl album. Load CD player as follows: Slots 1 & 2 to contain newly acquired CD’s which have not yet been played twice in slots 1 or 2. These may be ascertained by checking list of said CDs. Unplayed CDs have a star next to them. CDs may be chosen from list but, if available, at least one must be a starred CD. Cross off CD or star as appropriate. Should list be exhausted, these slots may be filled with any item one chooses - This has never happened.
Slots 3 to 5 to contain CDs selected from racks in alphabetical order, but in such a way that each is a different artist, e.g. Aa1, Ab1, Ac1 NOT Aa1, Aa2, Aa3.

Play CDs

Reloading procedure.
CDs replaced in racks, and chronologically next album by same artist (if there is one) pulled forward in rack to mark place. Loading proceeds as before with slots 3-5 moving along the aforementioned alphabetical progression. Slot 0 is loaded strictly alphabetically, i.e. Aa1, Aa2, Aa3 NOT Aa1, Ab1, Ac1.
When this has been repeated so often that the end of the racks is reached (currently about ten weeks, but diminishing with each circuit, no matter how quickly I buy up stuff). Start again with next chronological album by each artist, handily identified by being pulled slightly forward in rack.
Repeat until record collection exhausted, then begin again.

Exceptions
In the case of multiple CD albums overrunning slot 5, hold back until the next load and fill vacancies with CDs from list of albums which have not yet been played twice in slots 1 or 2. Multiple CD or vinyl compilations can, and should, be split.
Should an album be acquired which is chronologically earlier than the point at which we are in the rack, start replaying that artist’s albums chronologically from the new album.

I rest my case