One day its Walter Benjamin on the reversing of the ratio of authors to readers over time ("Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer. As expert, which he had to become willy-nilly in an extremely specialized work process, even if only in some minor respect, the reader gains access to authorship." See Walter Benjamin Snack.) Another day its Viola Kolarov Timm on the two "spears," Shakespeare and Britney (The image [of a body scattered over a battlefield] is reminiscent of Freud's definition of modern man as a "prosthetic god" who grew techno extensions in the place of missing body parts, and of another cripple with oversized ears and hands, Mickey "the Mouse who roared" or, less cynically put, sang our lullabies. His club of perpetual -- nihilistic--childhoods is the educational institution next to the haunted playground that graduated Britney Spears to "Slave 4 U." See "On Hamlet's Crypt," Imaginations, Issue 2-1, 2011 by Viola Kolarov Timm.) Today it is Zadie Smith on Jay-Z ("On 'Who Gon Stop Me,' Jay-Z asks that we 'please pardon all the curses' because 'when you're growing up worthless,' well, things come out that way. Black hurt, black self-esteem. It's the contradictory pull of the 'cipher,' rap terminology for the circle that forms around the kind of freestyling kid Jay-Z once was. What a word! Cipher (noun): 1. A secret or disguised way of writing; a code. 2. A key to such a code. 3. A person or thing of no importance." See "The House that Hova Built," by Zadie Smith in The New York Times Style Magazine, Men's Fashion Fall 2012.)
Above image: Anne Sherwood Pundyk, "Ghost Transmissions," Painting and Video Installation 2012.
