Tag Archives: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

running on near empty

Do pessimists live longer on average? Perhaps. That is, if they can steer clear of fatalistic pessimism that shades into despair and oppression.Is optimism possible in the face of all this misery? And perhaps more importantly, even if there is … Continue reading

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hannah : bagful of banals

We are told (Isaiah 12:1): “And you shall say on that day [of the Messianic redemption], ‘I thank You, O L-rd, for You were wrathful with me!’” A polarizing figure. The godmother for anti-Zionist far lefties who can crank up … Continue reading

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mercedes: 99 sagging luftballons

…This is one awful waste of millions of dollars that perfectly reflects the hype and hoopla of the Super Bowl and what it stands for: The market economy’s conspicuous waste. It reads like a surreal scene from a Rainer Fassbinder … Continue reading

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guns or butter

If we eat iron it will make us strong. Political satire of the most biting. But satire by nature accepts and is somewhat complicit in the forces that brought what is being critiqued to the fore. The Dadaism of which … Continue reading

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tin drums: marching to a different beat

…Nobel laureate Günter Grass is expected to be released from a Hamburg hospital within days, after undergoing what his secretary called a routine test. Grass was admitted on Monday, less than two weeks after his poem criticising Israel triggered a … Continue reading

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Day-O : cut him some slack?

There was a great deal of controversy over jazz and swing music in Nazi Germany, with a public antipathy towards it, yet for the higher ups the debate was more nuanced. To even conceive of Goebbels as a jazz afficionnado … Continue reading

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correctional devices

Truth at the margins. Playing with trauma and variations on holding the traumatic moment. There is an uneasy relationship with popular culture, kitsch, and an underlying current of fascism. As Adorno said, “The encouragement of kitsch is merely another of … Continue reading

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obey

Obey.  If you put them in a line, will they just keep going? Are they brought up that way? Obedience.  The question might not be centered around perverse pleasures and sadism, but of placing oneself in view of the all … Continue reading

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ethics and idle fancy: in the attic

Kafka was as much about non-arrival at destinations as he was about non-belonging. In any event there are problems of destination and leaving, coming and going often resemble each other. But as Kafka seems to figure, the pull of Jews … Continue reading

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above the law: shadows of angels

Germany using Israeli lawyers to help “repatriate” Kafka manuscripts and literary legacy back to Germany. Keeping the works under lock and key, like incarcerated hostages out of Jozef Fritzl. It should burnish the national brand, used as export propaganda for … Continue reading

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