“A Long Project Is Like A Secret Houseguest, Hidden In Your Study, Waiting To Be Fed And Visited.”

Be contemporary. Have impact. Strive for it. Be of the world. Move it. Be bold, don’t hold back. Then the moment you think you’ve been bold, be bolder. We are all alive today, ever so briefly here now, not then, not ago, not in some dreamworld of a hypothetical future. Whatever you do, you must make it contemporary. Make it matter now. You must give us a new path to tread, even if it carries the footfalls of old soles. You must not be immune to the weird urgency of today.

Wisdom from Ian Bogost’s commencement address at the University of Iowa, a fine addition to this ongoing archive of timeless advice. Pair with Greil Marcus’s fantastic 2013 School of Visual Arts commencement address.

(↬ austinkleon)

The news of Irrfan's death has left both the film industry and his fans in shock and mourning. As we grieve the loss of this extraordinary artiste, we look back at his rich career path that bears a testimony of his struggles, triumphs and consistent brilliance over three decades.

A CRITIQUE OF THOMAS PIKETTY'S 'CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY' - 3

A CRITIQUE OF THOMAS PIKETTY’S ‘CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’ – 3

  CONTAINING CAPITAL – 3

  Prasanna K Choudhary

Thomas Piketty zimbio.com

3. CAPITAL SOCIAL AND SELF-EXPANDING – 1

MONEY IS NOW PREGNANT. Goethe, ‘Faust’, Part I, Scene5.1

Let me begin with Thomas Piketty’s definition of capital, labor and ‘return on capital’. After all, ‘capital’ and ‘return on capital’ form the basic theme of the book.

Piketty writes, “In this book, capital is defined as the…

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To Jyotiba, from Savitribai Phule: These aren’t love letters, but tell you what love is all about,,In memory of this remarkable WOMAN… 🙌 — International Journal of Research (IJR) To Jyotiba, from Savitribai Phule: These aren’t love letters, but tell you what love is all about,,In memory of this remarkable woman, here are letters that Savitribai Phule wrote to her life partner, Jyotiba – her comrade-in-arms in the struggle for the emancipation of India’s disenfranchised people.Below are translations from the original Marathi,The first letter, […]

'An ideal society should be mobile, should be full of channels for conveying a change taking place in one part to other parts. In an ideal society, there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared. There should be varied and free points of contact with other modes of association. .. This is fraternity, which is only another name for democracy. Democracy is not merely a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen.' Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), 'Annihilation of Caste'.

REVISITING NATIONALISM - 1

REVISITING NATIONALISM – 1

REVISITING NATIONALISM  – 1      

Prasanna K Choudhary

NATION, NATION-STATES AND NATIONALISM

1648.The Thirty Years’ (1618-1648) European War ended in the Treaty of Westphalia. In this devaststing war, fought in the background of the Reformation, the…

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The immense hope, and forbearance Trailing out of night, to sidewalks of the day  Like air breathed into a paper city, exhaled  As night returns bringing doubts  That swarm around the sleeper’s head  But are fended off with clubs and knives, so that morning  Installs again in cold hope  The air that was yesterday, is what you are,  In so many phases the head slips form the hand.  The tears ride freely, laughs or sobs:  What do they matter? There is free giving and taking;  The giant body relaxed as though beside a stream  Wakens to the force of it and has to recognize  The secret sweetness before it turns into life—  Sucked out of many exchanges, torn from the womb,  Disinterred before completely dead—and heaves  Its mountain-broad chest. “They were long in coming,  Those others, and mattered so little that it slowed them  To almost nothing. They were presumed dead,  Their names honorably grafted on the landscape  To be a memory to me. Until today  We have been living in their shell.  Now we break forth like a river breaking through a dam,  Pausing over the puzzled, frightened plain,  And our further progress shall be terrible,  Turning fresh knives in the wounds  In the gulf of recreation, that bare canvas  As matter-of-fact as the traffic and that day’s noise.”  The mountain stopped shaking; its body  Arched into its own contradiction, its enjoyment,  As far from us lights were put out, memories of boys and girls  Who walked here before the great change,  Before the air mirrored us,  Taking the opposite shape of our effort,  Its inseparable comment and corollary  But casting us further and further out.  Wha—what happened? You are with  The orange tree, so that its summer produce  Can go back to where we got it wrong, then drip gently  Into history, if it wants to. A page turned; we were  Just now floundering in the wind of its colossal death.  And whether it is Thursday, or the day is stormy,  With thunder and rain, or the birds attack each other,  We have rolled into another dream.  No use charging the barriers of that other:  It no longer exists. But you,  Gracious and growing thing, with those leaves like stars,  We shall soon give all out attention to you.

—John Ashbery, “Spring Day” Art Credit Lottie Hedley

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYa3_Ph7nHc)

Gettysburg

Reblogged from Flickr Blog:

"The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1-3, 1863, at a small town in Pennsylvania. With an estimated 50,000 Confederate and Union casualties, the battle was a major turning point in the American Civil War."reads the…

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