velcro city tourist board
a blog by Paul Graham Raven
science fiction / social theory / climate futures / infrastructure / utopian narratology / sometimes cats
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The Greimas square-dance
More KSR on anti-anti-utopianism, this time at Commune Magazine: Clearly we enter here the realm of the ideological; but we’ve been there all along. Althusser’s definition of ideology, which defines it as the imaginary relationship to our real conditions of existence, is very useful here, as everywhere. We all have ideologies, they are a necessary…
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Pessimism of the Intellect / Optimism of the Will
KSR’s angry optimism [CCCBLab, Barcelona]: The way that we create energy and the way that we move around on this planet both have to be de-carbonized. That has to be, if not profitable, affordable. Humans need to be paid for that work because it’s a rather massive project. It’s not that it’s technologically difficult (we…
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Instant Archetypes: 21st Century Tarot from Superflux
As acolytes of the Cult of Ellis may already be aware, the Kickstarter campaign for the Instant Archetypes card deck has just gone live. If you’re interested in futures, the occult, hypermodernist semantics, lush and unique artefacts, or some mix of all four of those — and if you’re still reading this blog, I figure…
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The liturgy of business
Sarah Constantin has been talking to a marketing advisor; the advice she’s been getting confirms pretty much every assumption I’ve accumulated about the cultish dynamics of business culture. So, how do you keep from sounding like a jerk when you’re essentially bragging and making big requests? A lot of pleasantries. A lot of framing phrases…
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On the choosing of sides
The present period of history is one of the Wall. When the Berlin one fell, the prepared plans to build walls everywhere were unrolled. Concrete, bureaucratic, surveillance, security, racist walls. Everywhere the walls separate the desperate poor from those who hope against hope to stay relatively rich. The walls cross every sphere, from crop cultivation…
Who is Paul Graham Raven?
“… who, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with [his] voice, thanks to the god in [him].”