Walter Benjamin - On Some Motifs in Baudelaire
In the mid-nineteenth century, the invention of the match brought forth a number of innovations which have on thing in common: a single abrupt movement of the triggers a process of many steps. The development is taking pace in many areas. A case in point is the telephone, where the lifting of a receiver has taken the place of the steady movement that used to be required to crank the older models. With regard to countless movements of switching, inserting, pressing, and the like, the “snapping” by the photographer had the greater consequences. Henceforth a touch of the finger sufficed to fix an event for an unlimited period of time. The camera gave the moment a posthumous shock, as it were. Haptic experiences of this kind were joined by optic ones, such as are supplied by te advertising pages of a newspaper or the traffic of a big city. Moving through this traffic involves the individual in a series of shocks and collisions. At dangerous intersections, nervous impulses flow through him in rapid succession, like the energy from a battery.
It’s Time To Give Up
There’s really no point in not seeing Iron Man. Alien v. Predator is on mute on the tv in front of me and, though I’ve been adding my own amusing dialog, it still doesn’t really compare.
What Costume Shall The Poor Girl Wear?
I just bought tickets for this. I’m getting over the sticker shock as we speak, so I’ll be excited again about three hours from now.
Tonight’s Screening: Holy Mountain
Works Cited (4.16.08)
Michael Haneke’s Cache
Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (original and remake)
Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf
Michael Haneke’s Benny’s Video
David Rodowick’s The Virtual Life of Film
Roland Barthes’s The Pleasures of the Text
Roland Barthes’s Writing Degree Zero
Roland Barthes’s The Eiffel Tower
David Cronenberg’s The Fly
David Cronenberg’s Rabid
Brad Bird’s Ratatouille
G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box
Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves
David Markson’s This Is Not A Novel
J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals