Fin Keegan

A World of Colonial Knavery

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:38:00 -0400

And this passion unearths a world of colonial knavery. Time and again, we learn of juries stacked against Nationalists, of an Establishment so incensed by Irish claims to self-determination that the Law, held rigorously apart from policy in Great Britain, becomes an instrument of oppression when Ireland is involved and extrajudicial considerations are brought into play. In Dungan’s words, “the establishment sought to subvert its own laws for political purposes”–much as we saw a later empire/democracy of similarly split character, George W. Bush’s United States, treating Guantanamo inmates as “enemy combatants” to sidestep a Due Process that, properly observed, is the envy of the world.

from my review of Myles Dungan’s book on C19 Irish political trials, Conspiracy

Our Man in Bohemia: Some Novels of Roberto Bolaño

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:00:27 -0400

Our Man in Bohemia: Some Novels of Roberto Bolaño:

If novels could write, they would write Bolaño novels. His work glints with literary likenesses. Rare is the writer who combines the formal cool of Alain Robbe-Grillet with the thrills of Robert Louis Stevenson: Roberto Bolaño is that happy alchemist…

Surrealist NYC: Burning Deck

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:27:48 -0400

Surrealist NYC: Burning Deck:

surrealistnyc:

On this date 72 years ago, André, Jaqueline and Aube Breton, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Wifredo Lam and Helena Holzer, and Victor Serge and his son escaped Vichy France onboard the Capitaine Paul-Lemerle in Marseille bound for Martinique.

During the previous months there, Breton, Max Ernst,…

Surrealist NYC: The First Black Surrealists

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:24:26 -0400

Surrealist NYC: The First Black Surrealists :

surrealistnyc:

Étienne Léro—born in Lamentin, Martinique, a student in Paris, and the first black surrealist—founded the journal Légitime Défense in 1932 during the days of the Scotsboro trial to draw on the revolutionary energy in the movement and condemn the culture and administration of his colonial…

Surrealist NYC: VVV, View, and WWII: Europe After the Rain

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:48:32 -0500

Surrealist NYC: VVV, View, and WWII: Europe After the Rain:

Love this blog…digging out intriguing connections…

surrealistnyc:

(For larger version, click on image. Europe After the Rain, 1940-42, Wadsworth Athenaeum)
“We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well.”—Alfred Jarry

Medium of war, Max Ernst. Europe After the Rain remains his pullulating masterpiece, in…

An Awfully Big Adventure

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:24:38 -0500

An Awfully Big Adventure

Surrealist NYC

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:42:14 -0500

Surrealist NYC:

Fascinating stories on this new blog about the Surrealists in exile in New York…

surrealistnyc:

(Cover: Max Ernst; image credit: James Cummins Bookseller)

In June, 1942, André Breton officially launched Surrealism Overseas with the publication of the first issue of VVV in New York. He and Max Ernst advised David Hare and Lionel Abel in selecting and editing articles for the…

"Every good human quality is related to a bad one into which it threatens to pass over; and every bad..."

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 11:58:35 -0400

“Every good human quality is related to a bad one into which it threatens to pass over; and every bad quality is similarly related to a good one. The reason we so often misunderstand people is that when we first make their acquaintance we mistake their bad qualities for the related good one, or vice versa: thus a prudent man will seem cowardly, a thrifty one avaricious; or a spendthrift will seem liberal, a boor frank and straightforward, an impudent fellow full of noble self-confidence, and so on.”

- Schopenhauer, On Ethics (via liberumarbitriumindifferentiae)

"Mr. Simpson said the technology was originally designed for shipping goods and for cattle. “It was..."

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 05:46:01 -0400

“Mr. Simpson said the technology was originally designed for shipping goods and for cattle. “It was never intended for people,” he said.”

- Chammah and Swartsell, “Student IDs That Track the Students”, New York Times: Oct 7th 2012 [via New-Aesthetic Tumblr]

"I didn’t know how close [the Short Story form] is to song, how much it depends on rhythm. When..."

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:30:00 -0400

“I didn’t know how close [the Short Story form] is to song, how much it depends on rhythm. When I learned that I was rather pleased that something could come to me as an image and that I could work with that, that I was working much more from rhythm and images than, say, from characters, plots, and ideas.”

- Colm Tóibín, Penguin Podcast, May 2012: URL

nevver: The content factory

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:12:11 -0400

nevver:

The content factory

The Culture Singularity

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 12:27:43 -0400

“We’re close to a world where culture automatically and magically creates infinitely more culture.”
-Mike Rugnetta, “Are Memes & Internet Culture Creating a Singularity?”, PBS Ideas Channel, 22 Aug 2012: URL

"The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may..."

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:45:44 -0400

“The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.”

- Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth”

Monday First Sentences | Every Monday, we offer the opening sentences of a Penguin Classic to start the week.

(via classicpenguin)

nevver: How to Cope in These Tough Times

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 08:05:19 -0400

nevver:

How to Cope in These Tough Times

"I happen to believe that the filter process in apps like Instagram and now increasingly pervasive..."

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 17:35:42 -0400

“I happen to believe that the filter process in apps like Instagram and now increasingly pervasive across digital photography is a semi-conscious process of legitimisation in time, engraining disposable images of the moment with a patina of memory and experience, in order to save and justify them.”

- James Bridle, June 2012: booktwo.org

Andy Warhol’s words to Lou Reed… He said, “How...

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:11:01 -0400

Andy Warhol’s words to Lou Reed…

He said, “How many songs did you write?”
I’d written zero, I’d lied and said, “Ten.”
“You won’t be young forever
You should have written fifteen”
It’s work, the most important thing is work
It’s work, the most important thing is work

The Human Homunculus

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:13:04 -0400

via Rourke, this image is a Somatotopic representation of the human homunculus or Cortical Homunculus.

The cortical homunculus is a visual representation of the concept of “the body within the brain” that one’s hand or face exists as much as a series of nerve structures or a “neuron concept” as it does a physical form.

-Wikipedia: Cortical homunculus

"If you want to stay hale and healthy,stop worrying about trifles and do not allow anger to take hold..."

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 07:31:00 -0400

“If you want to stay hale and healthy,stop worrying about trifles and do not allow anger to take hold of you. Do not drink too much wine, and do not overeat. Have a light lunch and skip the afternoon nap. Have a pee before your bladder gets too distended and do not strain too hard when at stool. If there are no doctors around, do not worry: the best doctors are a happy mind, the absence of stress, and moderation.”

- Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum (c1300)

The Line of Propriety

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 11:56:00 -0400

It is thanks to Joyce that we have a much clearer idea, not only of what went on in people’s inner lives in Dublin in 1904 but in urbanized life everywhere: these men and women’s secret trials and triumphs, their uncensored desires and fears, were hidden from view before brave artists such as Joyce (and Tolstoy and Flaubert before him) broke Victorian taboos and demolished the line of propriety.

-Fin Keegan, Dubliner: The Story of James Joyce amzn.to/KZA1iy

fuckyeahmanuscripts: proustitute: James Joyce, Ulysses,...

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 11:11:33 -0400

fuckyeahmanuscripts:

proustitute:

James Joyce, Ulysses, autograph manuscript, “Circe” episode. Fall 1920.

Happy Bloomdsday!