experiments in living

Where was the last photo taken? The one you said you live there. It's beautiful! I want to live somewhere like that!

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:28:59 +0400

oxford! not that i see much of it except the inside of a library in these sad times…

rogueish: nixonplumbingco: socialistexan: sociolab: The...

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:33:02 +0400

nixonplumbingco:

socialistexan:

sociolab:

The Karl Marx MasterCard Is Here

The German bank Sparkasse Chemnitz recently launched a Karl Marx credit card. The bank let people vote online for 10 different images, and Marx was the “very clear winner,” beating out a palace, a castle and a racetrack, among others.

Irony?

This makes me want to vomit.

Easy access to your trust fund cash anywhere you go you post-ironic hipster pieces of shit. Buy yourself a 100 dollar t-shirt with a recycled corporate catch phrase on it with the father of socialism on your card. Consume consume consume, it’s what Marx would’ve wanted.

“Marx’s overcoat was to go in and out of the pawnshop throughout the 1850s and early 1860s. And his overcoat directly determined what work he could or could not do. If his overcoat was at the pawnshop during the winter, he could not go to the British Museum. If he could not go to the British Museum, he could not undertake the research for Capital. What clothes Marx wore thus shaped what he wrote. There is a level of vulgar material determination here that is hard even to contemplate….

“To keep a roof over one’s head and food on the table, the intimate materials of the body had to be pawned…. For Marx, as for the workers of whom he wrote, there were no “mere” things. Things were the materials - the clothes, the bedding, the furniture - from which one constructed a life….

“It has become a cliché to say that we should not treat people like things. But it is a cliché that misses the point. What have we done to things to have such contempt for them? And who can afford to have such contempt? Marx, having a precarious hold on the materials of self-construction, knew the value of his own coat.” (Stallybrass, “Marx’s Coat”)

Given Marx’s own precarious relation to the financialization of consumption, I think putting his image on a credit card is actually a rather fitting tribute (also, FWIW, Sparkasse Chemnitz is a state-owned bank).

i live here though scroooooo yooooooo

Wed, 22 May 2013 04:54:29 +0400

i live here though scroooooo yooooooo

"I’m not sure which is worse: intense feeling, or the absence of it."

Wed, 22 May 2013 04:40:50 +0400

“I’m not sure which is worse: intense feeling, or the absence of it.”

- Margaret Atwood (via orlalro)

this is a yung ting saying NO to men and YES to political...

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:24:04 +0400

this is a yung ting saying NO to men and YES to political philosophy. i literally almost called up can who has been phoning me up and flirting with me AGAIN, to say that yes I would come and see him, but then I remembered how I spent all the weekends of first term going up to see my trashy ex simon, ie the 30 year old man who was using me for sex and had a completely idiotic politic and hadn’t had a job in seven years and thought that made him noble. its like j. cole says, ‘pussy is blinding’, or like enjorlas says - ‘marius, you’re no longer a child. I do not doubt you mean it well, but now there is a higher cause. who cares about your lonely soul, we strive towards a higher goal, our little lives don’t count at all.’ so i would just go up and see simon and have sex with him and not concentrate on my economics work, and that’s exactly what i was planning to do with this guy Can and now, like, no, because i very much want the higher things in life. and OK, sure, spending two days in brighton won’t ruin my revision schedule, but i like myself so much better as the girl who distrusts men and spends all her time in the library working and loves political philosophy and comparative government more than anything, than the girl i would be if i slept with him when i should be studying for my end of year exams. there is flirtation and then there is the higher ends in life, and now that i am capable of choosing the latter i most certainly will do so. to be honest, i do feel a connection with him, i always have, but if it’s meant to be then he will wait, and it will happen at some point down the years. i just, don’t want to be the girl who lets guys have sex with her anymore. i want to achieve everything i can, live for myself, and prove that working class eastern european immigrant women are more than we are cracked up to be. i gave him everything, and i gave simon everything, and now i won’t give any man anything. all that i have is my own.

"TW: Sexual Assault I felt a sour taste in my throat, the one that immediately precedes my gag..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:02:50 +0400

“

TW: Sexual Assault I felt a sour taste in my throat, the one that immediately precedes my gag reflex, when I read the NY Times piece about an immigration official who forced a woman to perform oral sex on him in exchange for her green card.

After the 22-year-old Colombian woman, whose name has not been released, went in for an interview for her green card with immigration agent Isaac Baichu in December of 2007, she started receiving phone calls from Baichu demanding sex. When he called her to meet in a restaurant’s parking lot in Queens, she was prescient enough to stash her cell phone, which was recording their conversation, in her purse. Her cell phone captured Baichu asking for sex “one or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.” Later in the tape there’s a minute-long pause when, the reporter writes, the young woman “yielded to his demand out of fear that he would use his authority against her.” The Times posted an audio clip of the woman’s recording in the web edition of the article (yay, multimedia?).

The sexual exploitation of immigrant women is nothing new, but there’s a very specific pattern of abuse tied to this case. News of a Miami ICE agent who made a pit stop at his home so he could rape the Haitian woman he was responsible for transporting to detention and reports of sexual assault on a woman held at the Don T. Hutto Family Residential Facility, a de facto prison in Texas for families awaiting immigrations processing, come to mind. Similar scandals have been reported in Maryland (Deputy Lloyd W. Miner this year), California (Agent Eddie Miranda in 2007) and Georgia (Agent Kelvin R. Owens in 2005).

”

- Anti-Immigrant Fever Ignites Violence Against Women

Julianne Hing

From RaceWire, 3/27/08

(via whitedenial-ontrial)

See also:

Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ. He has physically assaulted pregnant immigrant women, forced them to sleep in soiled sheets by denying them sanitary products for menstruation, and notoriously shackled detained immigrants to the bed as they gave birth.

(via le-kif-kif)

clementinevonradics: Please Know: Whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun Or...

Sun, 19 May 2013 03:15:28 +0400

clementinevonradics:

Please Know:

Whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun

Or the nights you collapse into my lap, curling your body
into a thousand broken questions

You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I will love you when you are a still day.

I will love you when you are a hurricane.

of things worth loving for their own sake…

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:55:02 +0400

of things worth loving for their own sake…

last night was fun

Sat, 18 May 2013 13:54:55 +0400

last night was fun

this is me wondering if the economics exam is going to go well...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:40:29 +0400

this is me wondering if the economics exam is going to go well or not

"1. There will be several days that you daydream about stepping in front of a city bus. Don’t. It..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 03:48:42 +0400

“

1. There will be several days that you daydream about stepping in front of a city bus. Don’t. It will not be beautiful. It will not be brave. It will be selfish. It will be broken. Your mother will cry.

2. Don’t write for him. Write for you. Write for others like you. Write so the girl that thinks about stepping in front of public transportation doesn’t. Don’t be selfish.

3. When you will yourself to sleep and it doesn’t come- get up. It doesn’t matter that it’s 3 am. There will be other 3 am’s. Take a shower. Take two. Wash him out of your hair. Write a poem. Read the same book you’ve read 202 times again. The 203rd time might tell you something different. Don’t stay in bed- you will think about the bus again.

4. Don’t kiss him because he’s broken. Don’t kiss him because his laughter never reaches his eyes. Don’t try and fix him. Fix yourself first. Be selfish. He can’t save you.

5. Date yourself. Take yourself out to eat. Don’t share your popcorn at the movies with anyone. Stroll around an art museum alone. Fall in love with canvases. Fall in love with yourself.

6. Dress up and wear red lipstick and get drunk with your friends. They’re the ones that will pick you up. Don’t kiss him. Or him. Don’t fall asleep on strange couches with strange boys. When his hand slides up your dress walk away. Hit him. Don’t kiss him. He can’t save you.

7. Get another tattoo. Get five more. Get another hole in your ear. Don’t listen to your dad. You will still be able to get a job. Did you really want to be employed by someone like your father? Haven’t you had enough of judgmental old white men anyway? Get fuck you tattooed in tiny letters on your hip.

8. When you feel the yearning for a new city- start over. Take 200 bucks and a three suitcases. Work anywhere that will have you. Meet strange people and forget your name. Call yourself Ruby. No one will know the difference. Remember to call your mother. Don’t be selfish. Come home when you find yourself in the strangers and the small one bedroom apartment.

9. Don’t whisper evil things into your own ear. Other people are going to shout them at you. Be your own hero. Keep a sword on your key ring.

10. Don’t step in front of a city bus. It will not be beautiful. Live. Stay up all night with a boy that promises you everything and means it. Live. See shitty local bands with a friend. Wear a different band’s t-shirt. No one will care. Live. Have a baby girl with tiny fingers and tiny toes someday. Pour love into her until it’s overflowing. Live. Wake up. Staying in bed all day is not poetic.

Live. Live.

Live.

Do you hear that? It’s me. It’s your life. Wake up.

”

-
(via victorielle)

have read 470 pages of hal varian’s intermediate microeconomics in two days and keep thinking...

Wed, 15 May 2013 02:18:09 +0400

have read 470 pages of hal varian’s intermediate microeconomics in two days and keep thinking i see indifference curves everywhere

what I ended up getting was as usual not what I wanted, but...

Tue, 14 May 2013 04:41:33 +0400

what I ended up getting was as usual not what I wanted, but instead this book and an even more entrenched cynicism about romantic love. cos, i remember how much fun we used to have together and the things he said to me, and regret, sometimes, how i didn’t let him have what he wanted: no strings attached. i got other things instead, though. this amazing book. hours spent in the library listening to this and reading isaiah berlin while it rains outside, feeling the greatest happiness i have ever felt. writing essays that express my ideas. all this richness. being co chair of the student union’s women’s campaign, organising things with a lovely group of people. a job in bangladesh in the summer. a brain which won’t stop ticking away and thinking about things and constructing ideas, not any more. a lot of friends in college who aren’t judgemental and selfish like he is. volunteering in an advice centre for asylum seekers with amazing people, actually making a difference at last. plans. a moral identity and a background justification for my actions, higher pleasure, a sense of dignity. all these things which i’ve written essays about this year, all these things which i’ve started to feel this year. i feel different now, i think as i go the short walk from my room to the library. about him, about everything.

Womcam <3

Tue, 14 May 2013 01:18:40 +0400

Womcam <3

maybe I should fight harder for you but I said I’d let you go when you wanted me to so, so...

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:11:42 +0400

maybe I should fight harder for you

but I said I’d let you go when you wanted me to

so, so slow

can you feel me letting go?

I, I know that we turn away

when the cracks begin to show

and now we’re sleeping with the television and all the lights on,

one of us is leaving soon but we’re both already gone.

stuck at the lost and found,

we watch things disappear…

looking for the missing piece, but it was never here.

ever hour I find a way, a way

to convince myself to stay

back and forth, I can’t juggle

lying here,

need to stand up and struggle.

but life gets stranger than fiction each year, and crueler, and funnier and you have me caught...

Fri, 10 May 2013 05:13:00 +0400

but life gets stranger than fiction each year, and crueler, and funnier

and you have me caught between fire and air

unable to breathe or burn.

"I became aware of the world’s tenderness, the profound beneficence of all that surrounded me, the..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 03:22:35 +0400

““I became aware of the world’s tenderness, the profound beneficence of all that surrounded me, the blissful bond between me and all of creation, and I realized that the joy I sought in you was not only secreted within you, but breathed around me everywhere, in the speeding street sounds, in the hem of a comically lifted skirt, in the metallic yet tender drone of the wind, in the autumn clouds bloated with rain. I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all, or a predaceous sequence of chance events, but the shimmering bliss, beneficent trepidation, a gift bestowed upon us and unappreciated.””

- Vladimir Nabokov (via attollo)

sophiaselfish: В моем городе нет моря, но куда бы я ни шла, мое...

Mon, 06 May 2013 03:22:09 +0400

sophiaselfish:

В моем городе нет моря, но куда бы я ни шла, мое море со мною.

enduring love, pt. 2

Sun, 05 May 2013 04:24:02 +0400

he plays music down the phone to me, and i hold the it close, letting the music drift out from between my fingers, close to my heart. i want to see you. you need someone who appreciates you. i hear his voice, how it’s changed, how his words have changed… remember his eyes, his skin, hear the desire in his words. now, there are things i would choose over anything else, above him: knowledge, passion, dignity. but a love that strong permanently changes you, moulds you around it. when it is gone, the shapes it carved in your skin remain, and the space it left yearns, sometimes, for what it once held. i think of his passion and intelligence and strength, remember the awe in his eyes as he looked at me, the song he wrote for me one day. come and see me before you leave. i can’t, of course… i can’t risk for a single moment being distracted from studying. but i remember the phone calls down the years, how the attachment grew stronger with time, and wonder if there are some things that are just meant to be. i dream about him that night, daydream the next day, tell myself off for being weak.

Avoid cognitive distortions that may skew the perception of your self, your relationships and your world

Thu, 02 May 2013 03:14:12 +0400

thebootydontlie:

15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.

Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you’re a failure.

Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. ‘Always’ and ‘never’ are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.

Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don’t watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.

Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start “what if’s.” What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.

Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who’s smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment’s relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.

Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don’t believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).

Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what’s fair, but other people won’t agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.

Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.

Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.

Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.

Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.

Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.

Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be ‘right’ often makes you hard of hearing. You aren’t interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.

Heaven’s Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn’t come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the ‘right thing,’ if your heart really isn’t in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.