More specifically concerning: claire dederer
norming
4 February 2024, around 19.07.
Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, one cannot judge or admire this particular society by assuming that the language it speaks to itself is necessarily true. —Guy Debord (The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Ken Knabb, §202) I am in a book group or class (I suppose […]
cleanly
5 February 2024, around 12.48.
Orpheus running into a spot of trouble, cropped from Johann Wilhelm Baur’s illustrations to Ovid (ca. 1641) The hand that desires to cleanse the sores of other men must itself be clean, or the last state of the soul it touches may be worse than the first. —Eleanor Shipley Duckett (The Gateway to the Middle […]
biophagous
9 February 2024, around 17.26.
Erysichthon, engaging in some ill-judged arboriculture, cropped from Johann Wilhelm Baur’s illustrations to Ovid (ca. 1641) …soon memory pours forth from every direction, sprouting its vines and flowers up around you till the old garden’s taken shape in all its fragrant glory. Almost unbelievable how much can rush forward to fill an absolute blankness. —Mary […]
de monstra demonstranda
22 February 2024, around 11.26.
Medea, bad mommy extraordinaire, engaging in a bit of light witchcraft, illustration by Johann Wilhelm Baur to Ovid (ca. 1640s) The school of Criticism has made known in print its superiority to human feelings and the world, above which it sits enthroned in sublime solitude, with nothing but an occasional roar of sarcastic laughter from […]
Adversaria (11)
29 February 2024, around 4.00.
‘…poetry, which is like modern dance for uncoordinated people’ —Claire Dederer (Love & Trouble, ch. 13) ‘…The Editor, an avuncular but testy figure who might send a few encouraging words written in a discouraging hand’ —Lavinia Greenlaw (Some Answers Without Questions, p. 99) ‘I read the letters but couldn’t understand them. I could understand the […]
allerdings
1 May 2024, around 8.49.
…it’s a mistake to argue with a book that contains no arguments. —Becca Rothfeld (‘Nellie Bowles thinks you should outgrow progressivism’) It took me longer than I like to admit to realize that the diversity of topics in most modern essay collections was driven not by the author’s personal interest, but by the crass casualty […]