K Punk: classic or dud?

i quite enjoyed one of those insane comment-staged fights with carlin.
he seems like an interesting chap.

I wonder why he doesn't have the comment function any more. I find him one of the most interesting bloggers out there. Although I tend to let the Lacanian jargon wash over me.

duuuuuuuuuuuud.

Although I tend to let the Lacanian jargon wash over me.

that leaves the pooterish bile, then: awesome for you.

You seem to be following me around.

i mean ok, he could be well be a scintillating visionairy when it comes to fucking docotr who or whatever but since this is on ilm i refer to

- his godforsaken attempts to pluck stuff out of the pop charts for his dismal services (rihanna is an robot, fnarrr)

- hauntology etc, truly the most specious and intellectually bankrupt rearranging of a record collection i've ever witnessed

duuuuuuuuuuuud.

-- r|t|c, Friday, 29 June 2007 14:58 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ this

don't even know who you are

xposts

i mean ok, he could be well be a scintillating visionairy when it comes to fucking docotr who

lolololololol 8080

should probly mention that i havent read anything of his for a year, haha

but stop me if i'm wrong.

rtc otm, pseudo-intellectual bullshit of the first order.

i mean ok, he could be well be a scintillating visionairy when it comes to fucking docotr who

Are you talking about old-ILX here lol

He's had some interesting posts on Lynch. He was interesting on Joy Division. Not 100% sure about "hauntology", but since I haven't actually heard that Ghostbox stuff, benefit of the doubt. Not sure why the pseudo in front of the intellectual, why do you think he's a pseud (a term I find more used by anti-intellectuals than anyone else)

And all you guys who say dud, I'd be interested to know whether you read blogs (well obviously since you're conversant with K Punk) and if so what blogs you actually like?

Ban Zelda Zonk

OK, ban me. Bye!

haha oh yeah you know what his best, most awkwardest one was - the oedIpod!!!! classic

actually, didn't nick southall co-opt that one for a bit as well

I don't read him, or any other bloggers, but bccasionally I get linked to stuff he's said by people who know me and think I might be interested in specific ideas, and generally they're right.

x-post - I don't think so!

i used to read blogs. he is a classic pseud in that his ideas are all modifications of whatever hackademic gods he's worshipping to the thing in hand, and as with the bataille-on-paris thing on the reynolds thread it's ultimately a boring parlour game.

ok no you just quoted him

I did? When?

I really get into about one out of every five or ten posts, skim over a few here and there, and usually notice my eyes glazing over during most of the 'critical' talk over philosophers of the 20th century.

I had never heard the term "pseud" until I started posting on ilx.

I had never heard the term "pseud" until I started posting on ilx.

Were you brought up by wolves or something?

Huddled in the safety of the pseduo silk kimono.

Oh balls. Here's the rest.

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono wearing bracelets of smoke
Naked of understanding
Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears
Safe in my own words, learning from my own words
Cruel joke, cruel joke

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono a morning mare rides
In the starless shutters of my eyes
The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind
To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scarred
A refugee, refugee

No, seriously, is "pseud" some british thing?

Not sure why the pseudo in front of the intellectual, why do you think he's a pseud (a term I find more used by anti-intellectuals than anyone else)

I have no problem with intellectuals, just with peeople who want to sound like intellectuals by smothering their analysis of Aqua or the like with critical theory speak. Being intellectual doesn't mean being unintelligible.

"Pseud" as in pseudo-Freud? That's hilarious. Of course he's not a pseudo-intellectual (incidentally, the last time I heard that slur it was used by Hannity against Hitchens - nuff said).

Ban Zelda Zonk

Zelda Zonk, just so you know, there are a lot of morons round here. But if you accept the stormy climate, it's all good.

'pseud' might be but 'pseudo-intellectual' seems like a fairly standard construction.

Of course he's not a pseudo-intellectual

he's pretty much the definish.

I really get into about one out of every five or ten posts, skim over a few here and there, and usually notice my eyes glazing over during most of the 'critical' talk over philosophers of the 20th century.

Yeah. k-punk strikes me as kind of an asshole (cf. Dissensus right before he quit) and possibly batshit insane to boot, but I like him anyway. I read his blog pretty regularly until it began to seem. ... predictable; I still find it really engaging, tho intermittently. Liked his writing on the Fall.

he is a classic pseud in that his ideas are all modifications of whatever hackademic gods he's worshipping to the thing in hand, and as with the bataille-on-paris thing on the reynolds thread it's ultimately a boring parlour game.

Hey, he's just DEEP INTO BATAILLE-LAND and is never coming out. I can dig it, sort of.

incidentally, the last time I heard that slur it was used by Hannity against Hitchens - nuff said

So what you're saying is that because someone called Hitchens a pseudo-intellectual, the term is automatically an off-limits slur?

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/soulseeking/no-music-day.htm

tsk i do feel a bit tainted with zelda's "anti-intellectual" jibe now. really i have no problem with his going pseudo-ott over stuff, the breadth of his discourse, his pretension if that's what you want to call it; save for the fact that i find his actual ideas just really quite barren and predictable

plus he's fostered this whole claque of similar bloggers that make it into even more of a parlour game shut-in

No, seriously, is "pseud" some british thing?

I never thought of that, maybe it is

really i have no problem with his going pseudo-ott over stuff, the breadth of his discourse, his pretension if that's what you want to call it

it's the way he uses it as a cloak to disguise the dearth of ideas which gets me - i am only ever able to tell when he starts writing about stuff that i know about though

k-punk uses 'anti-intellectual' a lot and it's lol-y mainly because his scope of what constitutes the, uh, 'realm of the intellectual', is so narrow. i have never, ever got the sense that he likes r'n'b or girls aloud or any of the other new music he writes about. i can believe he likes the smiths though.

I like his big attempt at consistency and systemisation. In the archives there is some brilliant writing on glam, postpunk, politics etc.

This hauntology stuff is like the systemisation overreaching itself and making do with the boring, comfortable Ghostbox aesthetic because it's so convenient for musing over. The results of these musings are completely palty too, it's so repetitive and never gets anywhere close to what it says it's doing.

The thing is, I can see he might be an intellectual you disagree with, or find his critical tools offputting, but I think it's plainly absurd to say he's a pseudo-intellectual, a pretend intellectual. He plainly knows his stuff and thinks about stuff and talks about it within an intellectual framework. Yeah, talking about popular culture within a Marxist/Lacanian/Baudrillardian framework is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, I'm not sure it's even my cup of tea. But it's not a priori pseudo-intellectual. As for dearth of ideas, come on.

Oh aye, I did quote him there, but that was on teaching rather than on philosophy, per se.

So what you're saying is that because someone called Hitchens a pseudo-intellectual, the term is automatically an off-limits slur?

I don't think k-punk is a pseud(o-intellectual) in the sense of not actually having read or thought about this stuff at length and in depth; it's just that he seems to be endlessly staking out and elaborating a position that is, among its other shortcomings, no longer at all fashionable.

(but was about ten years ago, woe)

i like k punk but spizzazz was more thought provoking.

Not really. That Hannity used it against Hitchens just proves that it's all too often used as a random slur against "real" intellectuals (I don't think many would argue that Hitchens isn't one - whether you like him or not). I'm all for its being used, but there's a time and place for it.

Fair enough, I'd agree that Hitchens may be a lot of things, but a pseud he is not. I'd stick by my assertion about k-punk above, though.

hitchens is not a pseud exactly, but neither is he an intellectual; he's a saloon bar ranter and formerly entertaining journalist.

I don't think k-punk is a pseud(o-intellectual) in the sense of not actually having read or thought about this stuff at length and in depth; it's just that he seems to be endlessly staking out and elaborating a position that is, among its other shortcomings, no longer at all fashionable.

Well, if one definition of pseudo-intellectual is staking out positions that are no longer fashionable, I'll give it to you!

my problem with reading much k-punk is that i have spent three years studying analytic philosophy and whilst i sort of decides that stuff wasn't "right" it has left me with a liking for clear argumentation. with k-punk it often seems to me he trips himself up over writing what essentially seem to be rather simple points. also i dunno how continental philosophy really works but some of the time he seems to merely use his chosen philosophers as appeals to authority, he could argue the point probably in more depth and more interestingly if he didn't just pull out so and so philosopher to "prove" whatever is the case. i don't read him that often tbh but his ideas seem kind of apocalyptic in a fashion i rather like but they lack urgency. it all seems rather remote compared to the fever of the likes of carmody and carlin but i guess they are doing something else altogether.

I like his big attempt at consistency and systemisation. In the archives there is some brilliant writing on glam, postpunk, politics etc.

i'd agree with this

also, this is as good a place as any to admit that while i don't reak kpunk much anymore, i'm well addicted to hyperstiti0n (highly highly toxic)

xpost : It's not MY def. of pseudo-i -- that's just why I think it's easy to call him that. Also, acrobat OTM re authority & apocalypticism.

The above K-Punk quote seems a bit overtaken by events now. I think he originally applied it to neo-liberalism, and how neo-liberal capitalism presented itself as some sort of "natural order". Of course, in the brexit/trump era, we're seeing neo-liberalism replaced with something even worse

https://k-postpunk.blogspot.com/2019/01/and-jesus-said-follow-me-and-i-will.html

an epigone! bloomian!!!

Neoliberal capitalism still positions itself that way tbh

His ideas of cyberspace-time and the dominant mood of modern capitalism being anxiety, not boredom as in the past, are beyond vital. I’m happy there is still such interest in his work.

excellent long review of the collected works:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2019/02/28/long-read-review-k-punk-the-collected-and-unpublished-writings-of-mark-fisher-2004-2016-by-mark-fisher-edited-by-darren-ambrose-with-simon-reynolds/

in my (not so long) review i also forgot to say "why doesn't this 800-page book have a fkn index?" even tho it is literally the book's biggest and most obvious failing

While some of the distinctive qualities of the blog are indeed absent, the book compensates for this by providing a clearer sense of continuity than is available from posts accessed individually via a web browser.

Show your workings...it doesn't sound like the collection is giving a lot more than what Capitalist Realism does.

Reading through the review I have a feeling of not wanting to read anymore around that brand of anglo anti-middlebrow culture like Joy Division/The Fall/Ballard/Cronenberg. It never reckons with the limitations that kind of escapism provided and the reviewer doesn't address how that stuff totally bypasses the younger left ppl he connected with.

all that stuff maybe not but KP also raves abt moloko!

i want fizzles to explain why the three-part fall essay is bad not good

i'm not sure i'd say it was bad not good. i remember reading it and thinking it was great that someone was going in deep on The Fall in ways that I also found interesting. There were things that I disagreed with iirc, but that may just have been hair-splitting. I'll give it a re-read and report back.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-necessity-of-being-judgmental-on-k-punk-the-collected-and-unpublished-writings-of-mark-fisher/

"The lack of index is frustrating"

k-korrekt as we used to say

also sorry, MF decided he liked coldplay and you have to also: http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/001181.html

Reading Jenny Turner's piece last night and it was hard agree on his dismissal of Sebald.

I think this could've been reviewed alongside A Hidden Landscape.

I've also been reading around what Nina Power is up to these days and there is an added bit of sadness. The connections with Nick Land begin to get at the progressive and reactionary nature of this group and it's projects.

I think this could've been reviewed alongside A Hidden Landscape

SO DO I

I must not be looking right, but can't find the piece and playlist (?) on the site, even though Turner tweeted it should be there by now?

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6aoCiRc4psD2TV0KM1Y6EN

Thanks Ogmor

dare I ask for an explanation of wtf is going on with Nina Power?

Sebald is best read as migrant literature, with all the mythologizing – both positive and negative – of host cultures that experience of estrangement entails. His take on Suffolk is bound to be different from Fisher's, and to speak of 'mittelbrow' strikes me as an unnecessary dig at Sebald's German roots. Anyhow, I have nothing but respect for Fisher, I'm just not sold on the Sebald-as-reactionary trope – there are plenty of other factors to consider, including the generational one.

As for Nina Power:

https://write.as/7v8fbjq9ekoaxl3z

That letter is kind of barmy. Here's NP's response https://ninapower.net/2019/03/14/248/

Oh right, so I guess that's cleared everything up.

Hmmm, can't say I'm reassured by her using the "trans activists" dogwhistle or unapologetically attending a Women's Place meeting.

"Sebald is best read as migrant literature, with all the mythologizing – both positive and negative – of host cultures that experience of estrangement entails. His take on Suffolk is bound to be different from Fisher's, and to speak of 'mittelbrow' strikes me as an unnecessary dig at Sebald's German roots"

Agree the pun is weak but I think he has point on Sebald's lack of attention.

a weird argument i remember with MF -- on a vanished iteration of the k-punk blog in maybe 2005-ish, in the comments, and so i think doubly long-lost to web-rot -- was cheerfully throwing at him the criticism that he was terrible at dialectics. i forget even why -- it was probably a pop-cultural discussion, i never engaged him abt politics

anyway he came back (disarmingly in the sense that i had no comeback, and memorably in the sense that i knew there and then that this was a big thing to say, and never forgot it): "i'm glad i'm not -- dialectical thinking is a bad thing!"

well, it turns out -- i didn't find this out for years -- that nick land loathed dialectics, and he was still involved with CCRU at that time (and i don't think land had made his break for the grimmer neo-reactionary shores yet) (accelrationism was also a few years off). but the funny thing is -- as i realised when i was reading this book to review it, and as jenny t has much more space to say nore about it, he *is* a dialectical thinker, in the sense that he has two contradictory sides to his thought which he uses to work on one another. the gentle attention to small intimate subtleties and the world-bestriding cyber-amplified world of implacable historical momentum. he spoke both languages -- and they did operate on one another -- but i'm not sure how much he consciously decided to explore this as it was happening, or even (actally) how much he was aware of it as a forked tendency in him. war and scission were modes he chose, i think knowingly submitting to the flawed perceptions that come with them -- and they gave him his reach, but i don't actually think they were the best of him.

Is yr review online anywhere mark?

it's in the wire, so i guess yes if yr a subscriber and can access their archive but basically no

did zero get up to some more bullshit?

Could all those who continue to confuse @RepeaterBooks with Z*ro please read this note of clarification, and also share as widely as possible pic.twitter.com/7h5aNCYbRI

— Alex Niven (@Alex_Niven) June 5, 2018

(that tweet is old but was just retweeted by Niven)

I work in further education, like k-punk did, and I once printed a quote from one of his blogs and stuck it on all the noticeboards at work, because it described exactly our situation:
" lecturers are conscripted into performing endless bureaucratic procedures which and have nothing to do with their ostensible function (to improve teaching and learning) and everything to do with the concealed function of improving the representation of the college through the abstract mechanisms of paperwork and statistics. This has served to create a virtual college, which is prioritised over the real college in every conceivable way."

https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/24137

Since Mark Fisher's death in 2017, his acolytes have cemented his legacy in philosophy, literature and music. They've done so through anthology books, public talks and now, with the release of On Vanishing Land, vinyl records. The album comes courtesy of Hyperdub's Kode9, who has launched a spoken-word sub-label called Flatlines. The label's first release is this audiovisual essay, made in 2006 and exhibited in 2013, which Fisher worked on with the philosopher, writer and sound artist Justin Barton.

On Vanishing Land is a 40-minute narration of a walk Barton and Fisher took along the Suffolk coast. It also includes snippets from interviews they conducted that introduce themes of long-lost societies and the machinations of capital to the piece's main subject: the idea of the eerie. These voices accompany an ambient score that features contemporary experimental musicians such as Gazelle Twin, Raime, Skjølbrot, Baron Mordant and Ekoplekz. But unless you're familiar with the artists' hallmarks, it won't likely be clear whose music is playing when.

In W.G. Sebald's footsteps? Either way, I'm very curious to hear this, thanks for the link.

KP deeply disliked sebald, so no (but yes)

unless you're familiar with the artists' hallmarks, it won't likely be clear whose music is playing when

as a way of glossing "it all sounds exactly the same" this made me lol a bit

You're right, I hadn't remembered that. From the Wire:

Rob Turner writes of Mark and his hauntological partner-in-crime Justin Barton:

The pair’s wonky tour guide, shifting from nerdy digressions on Brian Eno to enthusiastic riffs on TV horror shows, is a reply to WG Sebald’s celebrated study of the same coastline The Rings of Saturn. In a 2011 essay for Sight & Sound, Fisher described that book as a trudge through Suffolk that entirely failed to look at the place, offering instead “mittel-brow miserabilism, a stock disdain, in which the human settlements are routinely dismissed as shabby”. Here, in apparent solidarity with the humans trapped in this realm, the narrator is gripped by the features of the landscape, reading lost poems of late capitalism in the stacked iron containers of Felixstowe terminal.

I agree that Sebald's Suffolk 'trudge' wasn't about Suffolk or that coast per se, but that wasn't really Sebald's point to begin with. Either way, I'm looking forward to this.

He is kinda right. Austerlitz > Rings of Saturn in my book. Though I must say, after spending a few days in Great Yarmouth this summer, it was kinda funny reading his description of Lowestoft. But also really harsh.

Harsh is ok, though.

Just listened to the record. It wasn't off putting - it was rather special to hear Mark's voice in this way - but as a spoken word album, well, it is what it is, and nothing more: you hear it once, enjoy it, but probably will never listen to it again. I hate that this is how it goes, but it is how it goes.

I've been really enjoying On Vanishing Land and have listened to it repeatedly. It reminded me a bit of Patrick Keiller's films, Robinson in Space particularly.

RIP Mark Fisher on the anniversary of his death. I taught Capitalist Realism this fall, and was pleasantly surprised how much students connected with Fisher's ability to connect the ongoing crisis of capitalism with depression and anxiety. He saw something.https://t.co/vONLSBLuSA

— Jason Read (@Unemployedneg) January 13, 2020

I liked him as a lecturer.

https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/mark-fisher-blogosphere/

:(

man, really feels like these trajectories have sped right up pic.twitter.com/j2ZV0G2ESf

— michael (@Sisyphusa) July 6, 2020

nina power is now writing in the telegraph about cancel culture

lol, didn't click yr link before posting

honestly fisher would have been on her side

this isnt a big development, nina has been on youtube with some very dodgy people over the last couple of years, she always has that look on her face where she's just said something a bit naughty,

only a finite amount of books you can read in a lifetime, and an infinite amount of tedious and horrible writers!

^^^ truth.

Still working my way through “Capitalist Realism,” so grateful for his provocations. https://t.co/N19DxsR7Dp

— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) July 12, 2020

https://crackmagazine.net/2023/01/kode9-releases-previously-unheard-conversation-with-mark-fisher/

Kode9 has shared a previously unheard recording of a conversation between himself and the late Mark Fisher, 6 years after his passing. The recording is from a conversation between the producer and theorist from 1998.

According to a note shared on Kode9’s Instagram, the conversation “was the first of a series of recorded conversations whose aim was to explicate/clarify/transmit the embryonic mythos.”

He continued: “Due to the mnemonic fade and/or nonrecovery of other minidiscs, it is unclear whether subsequent recordings existed”.

https://thequietus.com/news/tariq-goddard-repeater-zero-books-mark-fisher-statement/

Tariq Goddard the co-founder and publisher of Zero & Repeater books is stepping down from both titles today, it has been announced.

Goddard, an author and tQ contributor, founded Zero in 2009 with Mark Fisher to combat “anti-intellectualism” in modern culture and went on to publish key works by Eugene Thacker and Owen Hatherly, as well as the groundbreaking Capitalist Realism by Fisher himself.

The pair left Zero in 2014 to co-found Repeater with Watkins Media alongside Al Niven and Tam Shlaim, where they published more notable work by the likes of Dawn Foster, Robert Barry and David Stubbs. In 2021 Watkins bought Zero, bringing it back under the same ownership as Repeater.

In a statement released via Watkins this morning, Goddard says: “Repeater and Zero Books are publishing imprints that have become a culture. That culture will endure longer than the individuals that helped bring it about, and although I will be leaving the imprints, it is impossible to leave what they have created. Success in business is easily measured in sales and exposure, but influencing a block of time, registers in a more general and less personal way. The strength and influence of Repeater and Zero Books is felt as much in the publishing ether, and in the creation of our own community and niche, as it is in market share or famous names. Both imprints followed the simple brief of trying to discover what was happening, and create it if it could not be found. After seventeen years I go with the deepest gratitude to the friends that contributed to that process, who worked for us and with me, and to all of you that supported our titles in numbers we hardly dreamed of in 2007/8.

“As a writer I have never thought of our, or any authors, as exalted beings, despite sharing the motivation to try and and attain such heights in print, but I believe I have understood them better than I do other people, and I will miss them all, certainly more than some of them I have crossed swords with might suppose. It is always surprising when different types of author have recourse to use exactly the same phrase, especially when it is not a particularly writerly one, and in the last few weeks that has been to thank me for ‘taking a chance on’ them.

“I want to thank them all for taking a chance on me, and to you, our readership, for taking a chance on us. Goodnight and joy be with you all.”

I liked this episode of Acid Horizon linking Fisher and Hillman on depression: https://pod.link/1512615438/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xODAzMjkyMA

(This coded as very Buddhist to me and the nature of meditation? Could be a useful way of opening up explorations of inner space and simply the radical act of stopping.)