I’ve been thinking about the dynamic behind a perspective of history and
its flexibility as chapters are added to it. Events lend more to the
effect on an event as circumstances unfold, so the event is not limited
by time but it’s ongoing as it is continually discussed and understood.
From what I glanced at in the Gertrude Stein piece, I resonate with:
yeah, I never *got* bombing. I check out in worrying about it or
thinking its threat is real.
A passage you start with in A History of Bombing could condition the
rest of the reading. I think that has to do with why it’s titled “A”
history and not “The” history - to keep in mind there is no intent to
monopolize any part of history. I started with “the History of the
Future.” As I’m enrolled in a different course that focuses on sci-fi, I
have been thinking about how sci-fi is not about the future but about
conditions of the time, and its extrapolated future. Is anyone else fascinated about their level of self-awareness about the nature of the subject?
Addressing the general aspect of Lindqvist’s work, I found that in
toggling between chronological points the experience serves to elucidate
one moment or event using another. I think the kinesthetic action in
this is interesting, and keeps me engaged in weaving together a more
complete picture using separate threads as if I’m not merely here for a
show, that I’m actually taking active part in its construction - which
of its epistemological state in my mind, I am. Though “there is no exit”
in the text because there is no completion to this narrative, making
the task of taking a course that refers to this text a really neat way
to extend comprehension of something that is pretty weird: there’s some
earthly possibility that one action can extinguish the surface of the
world and render every single thing into ash. Isn’t it odd that a
species has come to that level of technological advancement?
High level abstractions of this occurring appear as entertainment now, as delivery systems of this devastating thing's looming existence, and as
still the primary concern of those in the reality TV shows about
preparing for a post nuclear apocalypse life. That possibility is now
iconic (distorted); is it any less horrific/are we any more
desensitized? For me what calls to mind are scenes in Terminator 2 Judgement
Day or the short story By the Rivers of Babylon by Stephen Vincent
Benet and the countless like. It also takes part in music. Something
shareable regarding the documentary Atomic Cafe: Long ago I liked a song
by Desaparecidos, a project by a singer-songwriter who usually sang sad
folk songs while wailing. Desaparecidos means “the disappeared” and the word is
related to a political movement responding to the Argentinian govt
dropping 30000 people into the ocean in the 1970-80s; so the
extrapolated material of this musical project often has to do with the
singer’s tension with political interventions. The track Popn Off at the F
off of the album Saddle Creek 50 (the track listing reads kinda like a
poem about nuclear war, but maybe I read too much into things) samples
some audio represented in the footage. And I had a "imagine seeing you
here!" moment; media traveling is commonplace to many, but for me when I
notice it it's like greeting someone you haven't seen in a long time.
There is no documentarist voicing over any footage in Atomic Cafe; its
footage is purely sequenced - some, though, edited to juxtapose audio of
PSAs to separate documentary footage, for example, the scene of the
Bikini Atoll natives being “happy and well” while footage showing that
that is not the case. The sample audio in the song in this song I linked
was of a representative of the army talking about the atomic bomb, “one
of the the most beautiful things ever seen by man,” I believe he said.
The speaker talks about this as if he were curating an event, or
readying the viewers for a god live-painting an explosion. Perhaps the
atomic aesthetic style came from the phenomenon of spectatorship (of
media). Some artists are propelled into famed recognition for their
translation of what’s considered as beauty, something adoptable,
accepted, stomach-able. We don’t accept the non elected. Priming people
to think that this ghastly awful thing is a thing of beauty then
diminishes some part that it is a ghastly awful thing, making other
things also believable like, ducking and covering is a suitable counter
measure.
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