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Audio Road Tripping across the U.S.A.

Driving in a car too small to store much Is a good way to make sure your audio road trip does not land you in the poor house. Is there such a thing anymore? Poorhouse? I mean, I've read about this quaint English institution that condemned poverty in the strongest possible terms, but what, and how different was 1996 and PRWORA? That's the acronym for welfare reform, in case you pondering. And that was passed under Bill Clinton, as was some hardcore anti person-of-color-caught-up-in-crime legislation. And that is supposed to be the more socially concerned side of the political spectrum? Oof. Well, what's the difference between neoliberal Democrat and neoliberal neocon Republican anyway? Eh? Yes, at some point I really should start talking about traveling and checking out musical equipment. Hm.  So, it was winter of 2018, and after quite a few years in the wilderness of good audio equipment (Harman Kardon Soundsticks are ok, but come on), I was in the mood again. T

Constituting a Knowledge of Non-explainable Difference

Bataille draws a distinction between that which is homogeneous (hence explicable, capable of submission to a scientific knowledge, an order of ordering principles), and that which is heterogeneous, beyond explanation, unyielding to analytical construct. The unconscious in psychology, the sacred in Durkheim, the laborer not at his workplace - all constitute the realm of the heterogeneous. And of course with Bataille, "the heterogeneous world includes everything resulting from unproductive expenditure" (Bataille: 69, emphasis in original). Recalling The Accursed Share, only in profitless destruction, in removal from the order of things, can man find the original intimacy which everything productive has alienated him from. But now it can never be complete, because it is not man, but an object / victim that man can remove in such way - only the sacrificed can completely achieve that lost intimacy, man can only gain a fleeting, vicarious aspect of it.   Moving to a consideration o

When Everything is so wrong with Everything

  An Olympic Village that was developed with the hope that it will leave a legacy of accessible housing, area redevelopment, inclusion, and economic growth, fails to fulfill its promises a decade on. The private sector got the best bits, the taxpayer funded parts did not achieve objectives or provide a return, relocated residents remain outsiders looking in.  London.  The political theater of a disgraceful leader's disgrace being paraded around (is there such a thing as liberal "red meat"?), potential legal jeopardy, possible criminality, CONSPIRACY! While the economy burns the common people. Who, to be sure, liberal or conservative (US designations), continue to vote against their own self interest or for their own self indulgence.  Washington.*  A small town in the midwest lurches, gently and slowly, from one denuded crisis to another. The health system is struggling, the economy is struggling, the people are tough but feel the struggle, common cause around common cau