A monstrous or inhuman character does not possess qualities not possessed by other men— he simply possesses them to a greater or less extent than other men. Fiction is precisely this altering of proportions.

- Kenneth Burke, theorizing in preface to his collected fictions 🫀

He has an enquiring mind, which he converts into a liability, or at best employs industriously to arrive at zero. I can say nothing in his favor except that he is busy.

- Kenneth Burke, dragging the 'hero' of his novel-like creature in the preface :)

' * The reader may summon it here also, as he chooses. For if my hero lacks humor, he does not lack grotesqueness and the grotesque is but the humorous without its proper adjunct of laughter. '

- Kenneth Burke, asterisking in preface to his collected fictions 🖤

More children have been killed in Gaza by Israel than the number of students enrolled at Case Western Reserve University.

I'm not sure such a line can be drawn, Ben. In many ways, divorcing theory from practice *limits* one's insights into a field and begets conservative readings. It also keeps us humble and open to emerging changes in poetics. Love is complicated.

nybooks.com/articles/2011/…

Reminder from Petronius today. We say ‘my heart was in my mouth’ for fear-stricken, Latin says ‘mihi anima in naso erat’, “my spirit was in my nose”.

I'll be reading at this event next week: May 7th 7pm Freedom to Write for Palestine at Judson Memorial Church. Fundraiser for We Are Not Numbers, a non profit supporting young writers in Gaza

When we were compiling Vol. 01, it was extremely important that CRB's first fiction and poetry in print center Cleveland writers. I'm excited to share we'll now be publishing new un-excerpted fiction and poetry on the website on a consistent basis, from Cleveland and outer space.

What we're seeing on college campuses is extraordinary bravery by the students who have the courage to escalate a movement—BDS—that has been sustained by activists and college students for years, operating in part on the South African apartheid model. This is how movements work.

Poor Radu. I must cut his hair today but it is nice to see him sunbathing on that wretched pillow.

when the contradiction between the academy's self-conception as a bastion of critical thought & its practical function of the reproduction of class society becomes too glaring, administrators will always give the lie to the former & call the cops

It is a good day when life delivers a barton smock poem to this mind.

I always look forward to Samantha Rose Hill 's substack, and this week did not disappoint. It included Arendt's personal narrative (c 1963) to Jewish Currents on her relationship to Zionism.

Highly recommend this substack.
samantharosehill.substack.com

insane that columbia has locked down campus to everyone. no research, no books, no labs. no libraries, no medical services appointments, no studio or practice space. no lectures, no concerts. just the pure administrative university and its disciplinary power.