Review Copies

This is indeed by itself a sufficient reason for writing a book ; but add to this what has many a time wrung books from modest authors, the impetuous appeals from known and unknown friends. Moreover, he had bought a big work, and, what is worse, had read it, and this labour was not to be thrown away. Thence originated the present treatise, which, we flatter ourselves, will fully satisfy the reader ; for the main part he will not understand, another part he will not believe, and the rest he will laugh at.

Kant, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (download here)

"So soon as Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia was printed, for whose publication he had been eagerly waiting, he bought the volumes at seven pounds sterling, and this at a time when Kant, the privat-docent, was anything but well off, and when that amount of money meant more than it does now."

Robert Hoar

Thanks to Alberto for noting Kant's recognition of the need for a review copy...

Social Negativity

I'm not sure I'm exactly glad to know that I'm not the only one subject to random snowball attacks the moment there is exactly one inch of snow. I obviously have an amazing ability to attract social negativity "into my life" (as New Age types like to say). When I used to have a regular appointment in Brighton which involved walking along the main road by Preston Park I was regularly subject to abuse screamed from passing cars (usually the "c" word). Many out there would no doubt feel I deserve such treatment, however I continue to find it harrowing, what have I done?

Birthday negated

Thank you to all those who sent best wishes on my birthday yesterday. The virtual card above is kindly from IT - uncannily like my actual life. I can say we had a very nice Indian meal, the Gerhard Richter show was disappointing, and the evening viewing consisted of Iron Man / and Zizek: the movie - how postmodern. 'Normal' service may be resumed in a couple of weeks, but I can be seen at the following:

‘The Future Lasts a Long Time: longue durée Marxism’, ‘Many Marxisms’, Historical Materialism annual conference 2008, School of Oriental and African Studies, Central London (Sunday 9 November 2008).

10am-11.45am

TIME, TEMPORALITY, HISTORY
Chair and discussant: Alberto Toscano
Benjamin Noys
The future lasts a long time: Longue durée Marxism
Andrew McGettigan
What is orientation in Marxist thinking? Communist practical reason and historical time

‘Outsourcing Authority: On Lars Von Treir’s The Boss of it All’, The Žižek Centre for Ideology Critique, Cardiff School of European Studies, Cardiff (18 November 2008). 5pm

Respondent to John Lechte’s ‘Agamben’s Politics of the Image’, Goldsmiths, the University of London (2 December 2008).

Collapsing / Birthday

Collapse V has just been announced. I'm intrigued because I always had the sneaking suspicion Kant outwitted correlationism, but unfortunately without any real evidence or the time to check...

Anyway back to my thoroughly correlationist reading of Lars Von Trier's The Boss of it All, and of course happy birthday to IT (whose birthday falls the day after Margaret Thatcher and my dad). Thirty, pah, wait until your staring down the barrel of 39... (and I don't look a day over 37)

All together now: 'For she's a jolly good fellow, etc.' (ah, see the Butlerian performative gender subversion - which IT will loathe).

Cover Competition (so far)

Some kind suggestions for the cover. The first two from espacioprovisional; I'm quite taken with the Christopher Wool image - the 'gridding' coupled to the 'splashed'/'smeared' paint (look I am not TJ Clark...) seems to resonate.

Steven Parrino, Untitled (1997)

Christopher Wool, Untitled (2005)

The second nicely classical suggestions from Dave. I did think about Goya, but all the usual 'horror' images; my partner would like this, and I find it disarmingly cute. The Caravaggio is typically great, but I've got the feeling already "taken" by some other book (frustratingly I can't remember which).

Goya, The Dog (1820-23)

Carvaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes (1599)

If either of you want a "prize" from the stash of books let me know. More suggestions gratefully received. My first book had a very poor picture of Bataille (going cheap though) for the cover, when if I had the sense I should have suggested a still of him as a seminarian from Day in the Country. The second had a rather nice cover but was written under such horrible circumstances that I can't recover any real affection for it.

Perhaps there is also a case for suggesting better alternative book covers for existing works? Considering the state of my thinking at the moment this may well make up future posts in lieu of more intellectual labour...

Cover Competition

In lieu of meeting the stringent meme criteria here's a delaying tactic: please suggest possible image(s) for the cover of my new book. I'm still writing (one chapter and a conclusion to go; plus a series of traumatic rewrites no doubt - due December 2009 / published 2010), and the publishers haven't said anything about what might be acceptable so I make no guarantees. Also the Spinal Tap gag about black letters on a black cover is unacceptable... Anything good / helpful will get some reward (did I tell you about the piles of books making my office uninhabitable?).

Here are my thoughts (so far):

Gerhard Richter's "Record Player" (1988) from the Baader-Meinhof series. The other images in the series seem too obvious (and my book doesn't of course mention the RAF). Nothing also about music in the book either, but there is something that seems to evoke non-dialectical negativity in this image (for me). As I've been told (via a reliable source) publishers believe that a UK audience doesn't need a cover that has anything to do with the contents of the book, so anything goes.

Jeff Wall "The Destroyed Room" (1978)
Is this too obvious?



Jeff Wall "View from an Apartment" (2005)
I also like this, for no very obvious reason except perhaps I'm currently using a postcard of it as a bookmark. There's also something about the density of everyday life that seems to echo what I'm trying to think about dissolving.

This (or other images), from Masataka Nakano's "Tokyo Nobody" (something nicely apocalyptic about his work, and the book is amazing.

On the "long list" there's Titian's "Flaying of Marsyas" (1570-76) (too pretentious?) and I really love Caravaggio, but then nothing seems suitable. I'm starting to wish I was clever / famous enough to have one of those annoying openings when an artwork allegorises the project as a whole (Cf Foucault's The Order of Things, and the descent into stylistic tic in new historicism); I'm not.