A Winter Waltz...

We Wait and Wonder...

On Brooms

Pathos

Continuing Motifs

All the World is Green

Spheres

Lore

I Am - Kalandra

Cholo Headbands On...

Clementine

Crap is your life!

Good Mourning!

La Bohemia...

POLE & SUREPKA — Ветер Северный

 POLE & SUREPKA – North Wind

Incoming Philo-Soft...

Lute Suite

Post-Punk

Green Knight and Oak and Holly Kings

Nordic Sun

Classical Dragon

The Who Sell Out...for Consumerist Anti-Consumerism

No More MOD Life!

Cowboys and Sunsets

The Accountant

Look at Us

The Man with the Scar

Snail Mail - Second Most beautiful Girl in the World

She fell down, headfirst in the sound

Tried to stop herself from moving, but it was too profound

Touch her pants, to try to quit your glance

'Cause you just notice the dirty way that American girls dance

Did she go right to your head?

When she danced upon the bed

Is she a dream or is she a drag?

Can she do the shag?

Later on, to find out she was on

There's nothing so unbearable as knowing that she's gone

Dream awake to try to make her stay

You know that you give her everything, but she does it anyway

Did she go right to your head?

When she danced upon the bed?

Is she a dream or is she a drag?

Can she do the shag?

La-da-da, la-da-da

There's one thing that you will never know

Is how she got to be so, whoa, whoa, whoa

Beautiful

She's unreal, exactly how it feels

I think they've got a line for it, she invented sex appeal

You undress, and try to get some rest

'Cause you'll just think of her summer hair and her wintry caress

Did she go right to your head?

When she danced upon the bed?

Is she a dream or is she a drag?

Can she do the shag?

Dissident

LSD

Life in America

Bluebird

Shotguns

Ren Again

1st of May - Coulton

More on Outdoor f*cking traditions

I, Moron

Laufey - Goddess

Wildflower and Barley

Mackay

Addiction

Aestheticized Art & Politics

The Future of AI: Is it to be Lipstick for Pigs?
Nicholas Diaz, "Against Likable Art"

In Aesthetic Theory (written between 1956 and 1959 and published posthumously in 1970), sociologist and philosopher Theodor Adorno, a member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, wrote “Foreignness [Fremdheit] to the world is an element of art.” However, such a statement is no longer true when considering contemporary artistic trends. In contemporary society, we have witnessed an expulsion of otherness, as philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han’s book The Expulsion of the Other suggests. This attitude toward foreignness or alterity has extended to various spheres of society from politics to psychiatry to culture and art. It is largely based on what Han calls likability, a cultural phenomenon that developed recently in today’s society of positivity. 

In his 2020 publication, The Palliative Society, Han claims that our society is “increasingly a society characterized by a mania for liking. Everything is smoothed out until it becomes agreeable and well-liked.…. Nothing is meant to cause pain. Not just art but life itself should be instagrammable, that is, free of rough edges, of conflicts or contradictions that could cause pain.” Contemporary society, Han argues, is one that is excessively algophobic. He writes, “Today, a universal algophobia rules: a generalized fear of pain. The ability to tolerate pain is rapidly diminishing. The consequence is a permanent anesthesia. All painful conditions are avoided.” The culture of likability follows this algophobic societal trend, as artistic forms are anesthetized. They are forced to become agreeable and well-liked, which implies both a removal of pain and an adaptation to prevailing tastes. This phenomenon assimilates art and homogenizes it into a culture of positivity and sameness, leaving no space for negative alterity or foreignness. 

The revolutionary potential of art, then, its core of negativity, has been stripped from it by likability. “Art,” Han states, “must be able to alienate, irritate, disturb, and, yes, even to be painful. It dwells somewhere else. It is at home in what is foreign. It is just this foreignness that accounts for the aura of the artwork. Pain is the tear through which the wholly other can enter. It is precisely negativity that enables art to provide a counter-narrative to the dominant order.” Art’s creative and revolutionary potential relies on negativity. The purpose of art is not to benefit wellbeing or be free of rough edges; it is to disrupt and cause pain. This art provides counter-narratives and critiques the dominant order; it does not adapt to likability and assimilate into a homogenous cultural mass of sameness. It diversifies and revolutionizes; it introduces what is wholly other into the world, which causes pain to the status quo. 

However, the status quo of excess positivity and algophobia anesthetizes art, which causes us to miss out on art’s radical purifying potential. “What has been forgotten is that pain purifies,” Han writes. “It has a cathartic effect. The culture of the likeable and the agreeable lacks any opportunities for catharsis. We are thus suffocated by the residues of positivity which accumulate beneath the surface of the culture of likes.” The culture of likability represses what is painful and excludes any potential for otherness, resulting in residual harm from excesses of the Same. Painful art, on the contrary, embraces otherness; it possesses the element of foreignness Adorno speaks of. This negativity cathartically purifies and revolutionizes the social order, which is currently trapped in an excess of positivity .

Now Gimme a Kiss...!

Cody Jinks

Well, the world tears down all those who go astray
We pay a price for going our own way
Oh, and wisdom's often born of our scars
And we find ourselves losing who we are

Go on, hit the highway, disappear in the night
You gotta see the world all by yourself, and that's alright
You ain't leaving me worried, you were born to roam
The thing about outlaws and mustangs, they always come home
They always come home

You outlaws and mustangs, restless and on the run
Oh, come all you misfit daughters and you prodigal sons
You don't have to apologize
For your free, exploring mind

Go on, hit the highway, disappear in the night
You gotta see the world all by yourself, and that's alright
You ain't leaving me worried, you were born to roam
The thing about outlaws and mustangs, they always come home
They always come home

Go on, hit the highway, disappear in the night
You gotta see the world all by yourself, and that's alright
You ain't leaving me worried, you were born to roam
The thing about outlaws and mustangs, they always come home
They always come home, hey

Oh, they always come home
Oh, they always come home
Oh, they always come home
Oh, they always come home
Oh, they always come home

Rajasthani soul

Surrealism for the Ear...

Rajasthani people or Rajasthanis are a group of Indo-Aryan peoples native to Rajasthan ("the land of kings"),[2] a state in Northern India. Their language, Rajasthani, is a part of the western group of Indo-Aryan languages.

Meeting the Master

The English...

Weird, huh?

Nothing to Declare