Ballerinas Dance with Machine Guns

Yesterday I did not touch the internet and it was good. Finished 2 books (Li Yu’s 17th century Chinese erotic novel The Carnal Prayer Mat and Judith Butler’s Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence), listened to a calculus video lesson (trying to flex the math-y section of the brain), photographed and filmed the snow, watch an episode of Chris Marker’s series on Greece (The Owl’s Legacy), listened to lectures on numismatics and epic poetry, watched a film about a witch hunt. When I got a phone call about a chapbook I’m publishing, I could only say “weee” and giggle awkwardly to express consent (sleep deprivation?). I thought about checking my email before going to sleep, but then decided, no. Decided to fall asleep listening to Javanese court music.

I must contextualize. When I woke up I was nightmaring…someone turned around and they were without a face. I knew who it was. The face looked scratched out and it was horrible. Before going to sleep (later that day) Levinas came to me by way of Judith Butler—Levinas on the face, the face as the locus of intersubjectivity…errr maybe not intersubjectivity, but being for the Other?

But the body can also be a face. A while ago I wrote something about the vulnerability of bodies, how people can become assholes when bodies are not present. Something happens to the way we relate to each other—there isn’t the dance that Merleau-Ponty writes about—the way we have to continually reorient ourselves when in the presence of others. I watch your eyes as we talk. You move and I turn to face you. Push, pull. We can push and pull when we write each other, but there’s a…delay. Judith Butler creates a relational ethics grounded in (on?) the precarious corporeal body. Vulnerability as the primary link to the social. Does anyone know if she has written about her ethics in relation to cyberculture?

So.

My birthday is on Jan 26. I will be 24. Last year nobody remembered, probably because I deleted my facebook. If you would like to send me something tactile, you can email me for my address.  loneberry [at] gmail [dot] com.

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