False Alephs

The other day, I re-read Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘The Aleph’. It was a timely reminder that the notional every place is just that, a notion. When it comes to fiction, one of the most important elements can be desire—it makes characters seem autonomous. This led me to considering what makes the Aleph attractive in Borges’ fiction.

The letter Aleph, of the Hebrew alphabet. It is not pronounced as part of words.

My Bloody Valentine: Gender Theory and Cyberpunk

I was originally writing this as part of the second instalment of the My Bloody Valentine: EPs 1988-91 review but decided it would make sense to spin it out as it is more of an artistic profile than a part of the track by track review. I decided I wanted to break away from the dynamics of gender and sex for a moment when describing My Bloody Valentine, because despite the theory often sounding reasonable it just does not seem pertinent half the time. This came up in conversation yesterday when I was watching footage of one of Primal Scream's Screamadelica gigs. For all the rock'n'roll clichés, gender seemed the last thing worth discussing. Certainly not from the standpoint of diagnosing patriarchal societies or something like that. Reading this blog post about Oneohtrix Point Never inspired me a little. More after the jump.

Atemporality

Because I'm ahead of schedule on my Cloud Nothings review (and I need to do some reference listening to Fugazi before I'm ready to finish my assessment), I've decided to write a brief piece on two cultural concepts which have been informing my understanding of Attack on Memory but are also integral to how time is constructed in art: atemporality and Italian Futurism. In recent years the theme of atemporality has been advanced in large part by two authors and intellectuals: Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. Of the two, William Gibson is the one I've spent some real time reading.