It's been a staring into the void kind of week. Worms of the Senses for August 3.
In the Gap
It's been a staring into the void kind of week. Worms of the Senses for August 3.
alexanderbillet.substack.com
Alexander Billet
@ubupamplemousse.bsky.social
I write about music and arts, cities, and radical memory. Author, "Shake the City" from 1968 Press. Substack: alexanderbillet.com Insta: instagram.com/ubupamplemousse/
“What is will power?” asked Toad. “Will power is trying hard NOT to do something that you really want to do,” said Frog.
From a presentation I gave for a @sobinfluencia.bsky.social book club earlier this month. Theorizing communism through music.
More Sounds, Greater Furies
Thinking communism through music.
alexanderbillet.substack.com
I reviewed Julia Alekseyeva's book on film, revolution, and molecular antifascism for the Historical Materialism website. Seriously great book.
Re-enchanting the Moving Image: On Julia Alekseyeva’s Antifascism and the Avant-Garde - Historical Materialism
There was a time when the works of Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, and Matsumoto Toshio were lauded as innovative and revelatory well outside the ranks of film school aesthetes and underground video stores...
historicalmaterialism.org
My review of @ajawoods.bsky.social’s sharp book on the ‘cultural Marxism’ conspiracy theory has been translated into Portuguese at the Brazilian website Carbono.
Carbono@carbonoufrgs.bsky.social · last wk.O Marxismo Cultural é apresentado como uma conspiração de esquerda por parte da extrema direita. Mas isso tem fundamento? @ubupamplemousse.bsky.social, na sua resenha sobre o livro de A.J.A. Woods, lança luz sobre como a ideia é uma reação da direita aos anos 60. Leia👇 www.ufrgs.br/carbono/2026...
I wrote a long thinky essay on Repo Man, punk, noir, and attempts to escape history.
Time, Time, Time, Forever Time
Repo Man’s (attempted) escape from history.
open.substack.com
Brief ruminations on the sloppy spectacle of July 4th and the moving parts of incipient fascism.
Dipshit and Repetition
Latter-day fascism as enforced tedium.
open.substack.com
“Worms of the Senses” for this week includes some introductory thoughts on Repo Man, the latest album from Debt Rag, and a debate of the Marxist understanding of consciousness.
Inward Chaos
A pulp-punk masterpiece, spooky materialism, and whatever "adult punk" is. Worms of the Senses for July 6.
open.substack.com
I've got a poem on the website for Locust Review also appeared in the latest print issue. A bit of a riff on how easy it is for the worst and most murderous tendencies in late capitalism to wrap themselves in righteousness.
Cruelty — Locust Review
Don’t worry. / Don’t hesitate. / You are good . / You are righteous . / And righteous goodness / can never be cruel.
locustreview.com
It was an experiment. Write a poem that probes the rhythms of daily life (and its disruptions) that can still pass as a good poem. I think it turned out well, but I leave the final judgment up to you.
De-ontology
Murder sonnets (with interruptions).
open.substack.com
A nation of barbarians, lumbering toward the void with inexplicable enthusiasm.
What I’ve been seeing, hearing, reading this past week…
Chaos Into Poetry
From Brecht, to Bifo, to Berlin...
open.substack.com
It took me long enough to get my thoughts on Boards of Canada’s latest album organized and written, but I must say I’m pretty pleased with the results.
Beyond the Inferno
The eschatology of Boards of Canada’s latest.
open.substack.com
I knew this moment was coming when I became a father. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be so soon…
Good stuff from Current Affairs. “Becoming a thing in someone else’s consumer lifestyle is a slow death, a literal stripping away of humanity and unmaking of self.”
“Obsession” and the Horror of Treating People Like Products
In director Curry Barker’s hit indie horror film, we can see the fundamental ghastliness of consumer society.
currentaffairs.org
This is me upping my post frequency, experimenting with an old format, and sharing a bit about the best culture I’ve been taking in of late. Enjoy.
Ways of Remembering
Hypnagogia, technicolor midwest gothic, and a human statue of Lumumba. Worms of the Senses for June 22.
alexanderbillet.substack.com
Like the rest of the world I am watching the World Cup and it has spurred thoughts on the need for a renewed form of the cosmopolitan ideal.
Every Gathering a Carnival
Thoughts on radical cosmopolitanism, the authoritarian city, and the World Cup.
open.substack.com
If Musk really wanted to benefit people, he could spend more time thinking about the real causes of human suffering and less time doing cringey and expensive stunts like shooting a Tesla roadster into space. https://bit.ly/4emuDuO
What Elon Musk's Trillion-Dollar Payday Is Costing the Rest of Us
The tech mogul will leverage the initial public offering of SpaceX into more sociopathic wealth-hoarding.
bit.ly
That Musk becomes a trillionaire the same time as inciting anti-migrant violence in the North of Ireland is so on the nose it would be laughed out of a first year screenwriting class. Without this kind of catastrophic brutality, there cannot be this level of hoarded wealth.
As if Iraq didn’t already teach us this.
Dissent Magazine@dissentmag.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe war with Iran will not produce a more democratic country. Much more likely are a protracted civil war that results in a failed state, the continuation of an oppressive state apparatus that partially submits to U.S. demands, or a survivalist regime locked into cycles of conflict.
Been absent for a bit. Here's why. On acid communism, family abolition, and reading Sartre at my son's birth.
Human Project
Acid communism, family abolition, and reading Sartre at my son’s birth.
alexanderbillet.substack.com
More on art, new heights of alienation, and late capitalism.
Will the Highlighters Survive?
(Post-)(Anti-)industrial drawing.
alexanderbillet.substack.com
