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<img alt="gorey1.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/gorey1.jpg" width="500" height="416" border="0" />
<i>from Edward Gorey "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"</i>
With all the talk of <a target="_blank" href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org">the coldly rational</a> I've been itching to advance my own perspective on things. <a target="_blank" href="http://blissout.blogspot.com">Simon's remarks on Dr K's interpretation of Bataille</a> has given me the necessary push. Regardless of what anyone says about this strain of post-Spinozian thought I'm convinced that rather than being a position one just arrives at, the practitioner is almost always sensitive to the pervasive pressures life. The "coldly rational" seem often to be foreigners stranded abroad, forced to discover some common ground with seemingly hostile locals, slaves to dehumanising drugs (Burroughs spoke of the "algebra of addiction", counting out the hours till the next fix, normal bodily functions suspended by smack) or even just the hypersensitive observers of daily life, traumatised by the brutal machinations of a world geared to ravenous self-interest.
<img alt="gorey2.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/gorey2.jpg" width="500" height="987" border="0" />
<i>from Edward Gorey "The Hapless Child"</i>
Of course this plays into Mark's withstanding criticism that he is beyond subjectivity, that this strain of thought isn't about him and his experiences, that to suggest as much is to trivialise his work. To heap insult onto onto injury I'd probably try and dignify my remarks by (horror of horrors!) recalling personal experiences which lead me to suspect that the coldly rational was, just that, a headspace.
<img alt="evil_buddha.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/evil_buddha.jpg" width="500" height="683" border="0" />
<i>from my personal sketch books, Egypt 1994</i>
What hasn't been mentioned in any of his quite austere diatribes against fascist child-bearing types, structurally evil lawyers, child abusing roman catholics and other "tortured monkeys in hell" is often hilarious contexts in which the "coldly rational" is deployed in art and literature. Burrough's is the arch practitioner of this infinitely black humour. His humorous skits were arguably the very apex of his talent. In them he was able to present the undiluted horror of his cosmology to his widest audience without compromise. He's forever inseparable from the grisly Dr. Benway and the talking asshole, and the latter, well it's almost the definitive cold rationalist tale isn't it?
<img alt="crumb.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/crumb.jpg" width="500" height="467" border="0" />
<i>Robert Crumb "Anal Antics"</i>
The premise to the parable of the talking asshole is this; your mouth has elected itself as the primary spokesperson for your body. Through speech (Burroughs's virus from outer space) it exerts an notional authority over some of the rest of the body's organs, organs held together in the theoretical concept of "the person" through a contract devised together for their mutual benefit. This kit of parts concept of the body is exactly what leads Burroughs to theorise dissension between them and the story encapsulates his philosophy as though it were a riddle. As a junky his body would have rubbed his face in this immutable fact every time it craved a fix.
<img alt="grosz.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/grosz.jpg" width="500" height="746" border="0" />
<i>George Grosz cover of Die Pliete. "Have a blessed New Year."</i>
Within the visual arts one can most usually spot cold rationalist in line drawings, etchings, linocuts, comics etc. The artist works alone, without the clutter of multimedia, their vision often spelt out in black and white, and again at it's apogee there is a penetrating humour. Edward Gorey's ultra-bleak illustrated novellas often feature the appalling fates of hapless children, the comedy derives from society's perhaps unrealistic affection towards children. Robert Crumb is again a philosopher of the blank and the numb, dissecting the banale with brutal satire in much the same way as expressionist Grosz.
I suppose all of the above artists stand in judgement over the living as though they were themselves dead people. If I have one problem with cold rationalism it is this, that to aspire to (or claim!) the clairvoyancy of bloodless subjectivity is to pretend to be dead. To return again to Burroughs, he often remarked that if there is one con trick you can't get away with, it's to pretend to be death, because death itself will find you out.
<i>from Edward Gorey "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"</i>
With all the talk of <a target="_blank" href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org">the coldly rational</a> I've been itching to advance my own perspective on things. <a target="_blank" href="http://blissout.blogspot.com">Simon's remarks on Dr K's interpretation of Bataille</a> has given me the necessary push. Regardless of what anyone says about this strain of post-Spinozian thought I'm convinced that rather than being a position one just arrives at, the practitioner is almost always sensitive to the pervasive pressures life. The "coldly rational" seem often to be foreigners stranded abroad, forced to discover some common ground with seemingly hostile locals, slaves to dehumanising drugs (Burroughs spoke of the "algebra of addiction", counting out the hours till the next fix, normal bodily functions suspended by smack) or even just the hypersensitive observers of daily life, traumatised by the brutal machinations of a world geared to ravenous self-interest.
<img alt="gorey2.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/gorey2.jpg" width="500" height="987" border="0" />
<i>from Edward Gorey "The Hapless Child"</i>
Of course this plays into Mark's withstanding criticism that he is beyond subjectivity, that this strain of thought isn't about him and his experiences, that to suggest as much is to trivialise his work. To heap insult onto onto injury I'd probably try and dignify my remarks by (horror of horrors!) recalling personal experiences which lead me to suspect that the coldly rational was, just that, a headspace.
<img alt="evil_buddha.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/evil_buddha.jpg" width="500" height="683" border="0" />
<i>from my personal sketch books, Egypt 1994</i>
What hasn't been mentioned in any of his quite austere diatribes against fascist child-bearing types, structurally evil lawyers, child abusing roman catholics and other "tortured monkeys in hell" is often hilarious contexts in which the "coldly rational" is deployed in art and literature. Burrough's is the arch practitioner of this infinitely black humour. His humorous skits were arguably the very apex of his talent. In them he was able to present the undiluted horror of his cosmology to his widest audience without compromise. He's forever inseparable from the grisly Dr. Benway and the talking asshole, and the latter, well it's almost the definitive cold rationalist tale isn't it?
<img alt="crumb.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/crumb.jpg" width="500" height="467" border="0" />
<i>Robert Crumb "Anal Antics"</i>
The premise to the parable of the talking asshole is this; your mouth has elected itself as the primary spokesperson for your body. Through speech (Burroughs's virus from outer space) it exerts an notional authority over some of the rest of the body's organs, organs held together in the theoretical concept of "the person" through a contract devised together for their mutual benefit. This kit of parts concept of the body is exactly what leads Burroughs to theorise dissension between them and the story encapsulates his philosophy as though it were a riddle. As a junky his body would have rubbed his face in this immutable fact every time it craved a fix.
<img alt="grosz.jpg" src="http://www.woebot.com/images/grosz.jpg" width="500" height="746" border="0" />
<i>George Grosz cover of Die Pliete. "Have a blessed New Year."</i>
Within the visual arts one can most usually spot cold rationalist in line drawings, etchings, linocuts, comics etc. The artist works alone, without the clutter of multimedia, their vision often spelt out in black and white, and again at it's apogee there is a penetrating humour. Edward Gorey's ultra-bleak illustrated novellas often feature the appalling fates of hapless children, the comedy derives from society's perhaps unrealistic affection towards children. Robert Crumb is again a philosopher of the blank and the numb, dissecting the banale with brutal satire in much the same way as expressionist Grosz.
I suppose all of the above artists stand in judgement over the living as though they were themselves dead people. If I have one problem with cold rationalism it is this, that to aspire to (or claim!) the clairvoyancy of bloodless subjectivity is to pretend to be dead. To return again to Burroughs, he often remarked that if there is one con trick you can't get away with, it's to pretend to be death, because death itself will find you out.