Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Where Is the Edge of the Electrified Grid?



  • Nap, like me, OK in the cold still but prefer hot more, always has but more so now as old as me in cat years, photo by Earthgirl
  • I had started a bleggalgaze and started a riff on Stephen Miller and the utility of racists for herding Democrats and started the daily aggregating but then someone tweeted an anti-bull-fighting gif complete with final minute of torturing the animal to death I only saw one second am still goddamn seeing it I deleted the bleggalgaze deleted the Democrats love of  crackers kept the links posted the Nap to dose my fury at horrifying human delight in torturing animals and watching animals tortured, since I am reading and talking about Anne Boyer with three friends I remembered this poem, the first from *Garments Against Women:"

THE ANIMAL MODEL OF INESCAPABLE SHOCK

Anne Boyer

If an animal has previously suffered escapable shock, and then she suffers inescapable shock, she will be happier than if she has previously not suffered escapable shock — for if she hasn’t, she will only know about being shocked inescapably.
  
But if she has been inescapably shocked before, and she is put in the conditions where she was inescapably shocked before, she will behave as if being shocked, mostly. Her misery doesn’t require acts. Her misery requires conditions.
   
If an animal is inescapably shocked once, and then the second time she is dragged across the electrified grid to some non-shocking space, she will be happier than if she isn’t dragged across the electrified grid. The next time she is shocked, she will be happier because she will know there is a place that isn’t an electrified grid. She will be happier because rather than just being dragged onto an electrified grid by a human who then hurts her, the human can then drag her off of it.
           
If an animal is shocked, escapably or inescapably, she will manifest deep reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her. If she has manifested deep reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her, she will manifest deeper reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her and then dragged her off the electrified grid. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for electrified grids. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for what is not the electrified grid. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for dragging. She may also develop deep feelings of attachment for science, laboratories, experimentation, electricity, and informative forms of torture.

If an animal is shocked, she will manufacture an analgesic response. These will be incredible levels of endogenous opioids. This will be better than anything. Then later, there will be no opioids, and she will go back to the human who has shocked her looking for more opioids. She will go to the shocking condition — called “science” — and there in the condition she will flood with endogenous opioids, along with cortisol and other things which feel arousing.
  
Eventually all arousal will feel like shock. She will not be steady, though, in her self-supply of analgesic. She will not always be able to dwell in science, as much as she now believes she loves it.

That humans are animals means it is possible that the animal model of inescapable shock explains why humans go to movies, lovers stay with those who don’t love them, the poor serve the rich, the soldiers continue to fight, and other confused, arousing things. Also, how is capitalism not an infinite laboratory called “conditions”? And where is the edge of the electrified grid?









SEWING

Anne Boyer

Having given up literature, it was easy to become fixed on the idea of a single shirt, one with two pieces, no facings, not even set-in sleeves.

What can be done? How can two flat pieces joined together in four places accommodate a grown woman's torso, not at all flat, and with arms often in motion? It's just the same thing over and over, like when I used to listen to music, always stuck on a track, just this time in flannel, that time in linen, so many double pointed darts around the waistline cinching it in
(Platonic ideal).

2 comments:

  1. 1) that's a good-looking cat

    2) i enjoyed the bonnie prince billy 'in good faith' music video

    3) i read the 'sacred harp' wikipedia article

    4) i watched bits and pieces of the televised impeachment hearing

    5) i received an estimate for new water heater with installation - wasn't it less than this last time?

    6) a guy i knew in college has a niece that has kickstarted a collection of translations of quatrains by rumi - here are two


    a)

    When mankind gathers on that final day

    And faces pale from fear of reckoning,

    I'll hold your love in the palm of my hand,

    And I will say, 'By this I'm saved or damned.'




    b)

    This earthen body is the heavens' light.

    Its nimble ease, its speed, its purity

    Are the angels' envy and delight.

    The devil can't come near its lack of fear.


    rumi tranlated by zara houshmand

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  2. 1)here's a line from a not yet published book co-authored by my iranian-american friend's niece - it's someone else's autobiography [she's ghostwritten for sonia sotomayor, among others] so i am not sure if she herself believes this assertion or not -

    "Enlightened beings only appear to come and go, making themselves available for a time in this faltering world, but in reality they are never gone. Enlightened beings are always present here and now if you truly yearn to see them..."


    from Running Toward Mystery: The Adventure of an Unconventional Life







    2)the u.s. citizenship and immigration service has finally sent me the documentation of my paternal unit's processing paperwork as he crossed the border as a canadian teenager, and swore allegiance as a 26 year old - i note that his self-described race in 1929 was 'british' - as was his nationality in 1940

    3)if our current president is re-elected next year it will increase the probability of missus charley consenting to move to a country with higher taxes and lower temperatures

    3a)if our current president is not re-elected it does not completely rule out our relocation north

    3b)if we sell our house here the new water heater's nine year warranty goes with the house

    ReplyDelete