180 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2024
  2. Nov 2024
    1. for - fascism, polarization and climate crisis - interventions - love and listening strategy for climate crisis - Roger Hallam - Trump winning US election - is an opportunity - Roger Hallam - perspectival knowing - Deep Humanity - mini assemblies - Roger Hallam - listening - fascism - social intervention - from - Illuminem article - Proximity: The antidote to fascism - Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjorkskov - on horizontal and vertical decision-making

      Summary - Roger Hallam advocates for a new strategy for the rise of fascism, populism, polarization and the climate crisis - love - He believes that we need a new social strategy based on love, on reaching out to the other side with compassion and listening to them - He cites numerous research studies that show that this can be transformative, for instance, citing pyschologist Carl Rogers - SRG complexity mapping tool, Deep Humanity and Indyweb could be synergistic to this program because both depend on: - diversity and - perspectival knowing

      from - Illuminem article - Proximity: The antidote to fascism - Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjorkskov on horizontal and vertical decision-making - https://hyp.is/0Tv_Rqr3Ee-_-X8fKkCfpg/illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/proximity-the-antidote-to-fascism - Medium article - An Emerging Third Option: Reclaiming Democracy from Dark Money & Dark Tech Seven Observations On 2024 and What’s Next - Otto Scharmer - cutting across political lines / https://hyp.is/exS8dKtNEe-pfz-IhQFiZA/medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/an-emerging-third-option-reclaiming-democracy-from-dark-money-dark-tech-3886bcd0469b

    1. for - Substack article - A global history of societal regulation - metacrisis, polycrisis - role of the commons and cosmolocal coordination - Michel Bauwens - from - Illuminem article - Proximity: The antidote to fascism - Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjorkskov - on horizontal and vertical decision-making

      article details - title: A global history of societal regulation - publisher: Substack - date_ 2024, Nov 20 - author: Michel Bauwens

      Summary - Michel presents a history of economic and societal coordination and makes the claim that the commons has an important role to play in maintaining a wellbeing species that balances: - human activity - health of the natural environment - peace between different human groups - In particular, he observes the important role that cosmolocal coordination may play - Michel takes us to a journey through history to explore the various different systems that different cultures used in the past - It's very interesting that in modernity, we have a system which is seen as absolute but a study of history shows how relative it is - That raises the question of why the current system feels so intractable? What gives it its entrenchment - Perhaps it's that the global spread of neocapitalism around the globe has made it "too big to fail"? - and it will actually require failing before a new phoenix can emerge from the ashes? I hope not!

      from - Illuminem article - Proximity: The antidote to fascism - Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjorkskov on horizontal and vertical decision-making - https://hyp.is/0Tv_Rqr3Ee-_-X8fKkCfpg/illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/proximity-the-antidote-to-fascism

  3. Oct 2024
    1. China Sea as the edge of the world and is used to imagine the margins of the world as a realm of marvels and unknown dangers.
    2. Benjamin's travelogue is a product of his imagination, influenced by biblical authority and rumors, rather than actual geographical knowledge.
    3. Jewish utopia in the Arabian Peninsula, where 300,000 Jews live in 40 cities and 200 villages, free from the rule of gentiles.
    4. personal experience and is likely an insertion made by him or a later editor.
    5. universal Jewish community that despite its dispersion among various Muslim and Christian regimes still managed to preserve a strong sense of unity and cohesion

      big Jewish community is the focus of his travel, he doesnt notice other things, rest is fictious

    6. "a day's journey" to indicate close social interactions among Jewish communities,
    7. rather a way to link places along a real but somewhat abstracted route.
    8. travel times in the Sefer masa'ot may be unrealistic.
    9. medieval understanding of travel writing.
    10. mprecise unit of "a day's journey" and the parasang, an ancient Persian unit of measurement
    11. partiality for southern French communities,

      appreciates its literary purposes

    12. geography is experienced through human movement on specific routes.
    13. Book of Travels as a literary work rather than a positivist account,
    14. literary grid that allows the author to reflect on the medieval world from a Jewish perspective.
    1. for - article - Why Human (Contributive) Labor remains the creative principle of human society - Michael Bauwens - PhD thesis - From Modes of Production to the Resurrection of the Body: A Labor Theory of Revolutionary Subjectivity & Religious Ideas (2016) - Benjamin Suriano - to - P2P Foundation - more detailed presentation of Benjamin Suriano's PhD paper

      Summary - This is a review and high recommendation of the PhD dissertation of Benjamin Suriano by Michael Bauwens - The subject is the historical analysis of labour in medieval times, and - how Christian monasticism provided a third perspective on labour that was an important alternative to the false dichotomy of - cleric - warrior - that was inclusive of the alienated within class majority - a proposal for revival the spirit of this spiritual view of labour - as a means to mitigate modernity's meaning crisis as it relates to the lack of purpose usually associated with work in contemporary society

      to - P2P Foundation - more detailed presentation of Benjamin Suriano's PhD paper - https://hyp.is/7PeMMIxtEe-NOmuU08T3jg/wiki.p2pfoundation.net/From_Modes_of_Production_to_the_Resurrection_of_the_Body

  4. Sep 2024
    1. it is through the ascetic formations of monasticism that an opening was made for reevaluating labor positively rather than negatively

      for - false dichotomy - throughout history - clerics and warriors - excluded majority of the working class - inclusive third way - reviving works as spiritual activity - Benjamin Suriano

    2. Society was thus ruled largely through a bipartite structure of oratores and bellatores, clerics and warriors, with little place for the lot of ordinary workers.

      for - false dichotomy - common throughout history - clerics and warriors - alienated masses of the ordinary workers - Benjamin Suriano

    3. What is needed, and what I attempt to think through within this dissertation, is then a return to labor as a self-transcending activity. This is nothing short of resurrecting a revolutionary sense of labor as itself an act of resurrection, a fundamentally social and creative activity whose final cause is to raise humanity into a new historical body beyond any reduction to the merely mortal flesh prescribed by the present.

      for - quote - reviving the view of labour as a spiritual activity - to counter the meaning crisis of modernity - Benjamin Suriano - question - how do we find the eternal in labour? quote - reviving the view of labour as a spiritual activity - to counter the meaning crisis of modernity - Benjamin Suriano - (see below) - What is needed, - and what I attempt to think through within this dissertation, - is then a return to labor as a self-transcending activity. - This is nothing short of resurrecting a revolutionary sense of labor as itself an act of resurrection, - a fundamentally social and creative activity - whose final cause is to raise humanity into a new historical body - beyond any reduction to the merely mortal flesh prescribed by the present. - Thus, the laboring body qua labor - always already harbors all the seeds for its immortality, - for producing the perfection of life for itself, - which is the qualitative perfection of eternal life. - The task, then, - is not to eliminate its religious consciousness, - but to develop it from the true rationalization of labor - according to its own ratio of perfection, - i.e. to therein find its corresponding religious forms of thought - that illuminate and reinvest in its capacities - for the infinite and eternal."

    4. Because the substantial surplus expropriated by the few allowed them to invest their time into developing a state, military, and cultural apparatus that reproduced their exploitative position of privilege, the collective consciousness ruling this sociopolitical body tended to comprehend its free citizenship abstractly, as if a natural given, with little consciousness of the contribution of the laboring body

      for - cliche - the more things change, the more they remain the same - quote - labour - transforming - to - spiritual - sacred - meaningful - Benjamin Suriano - adjacency - meaninglessness of labour in modernity - sacred - spiritual - reviving spirit of monastics Benjamin Suriano - meaning crisis - John Vervaeke

      adjacency - between - the meaninglessness of labour in modernity - Benjamin Suriano - the proposal for revival of labour as spiritual activity -- mitigating the meaning crisis - John Vervaeke - adjacency relationship - In his PhD dissertation, Benjamin Suriano argues that reviving the spirit of Christian monastics of the medieval era could mitigate modernity's meaning crisis.

      quote - labour - transforming - to - spiritual - sacred - meaningful - Benjamin Suriano - (see below) - Because the substantial surplus expropriated by the few - allowed them to invest their time into developing a state, military, and cultural apparatus that reproduced their exploitative position of privilege, - the collective consciousness ruling this sociopolitical body tended to comprehend its free citizenship abstractly, - as if a natural given, - with little consciousness of the contribution of the laboring body

    5. the failure to think through and cultivate labor, as the material capacity for socially creating radical change, leaves the religious, as the cultural expression of real desires and intentions for radical change, to its most repressively alienating and distorting forms. If the disappearance of the standpoint of labor has coincided with the return of the religious in the form of radical fundamentalisms, might the return of the standpoint of labor, in a new more holistic way, coincide, not with the disappearance of the religious, but its return to a more rational form?"

      for - adjacency - labor - religion - system change - Benjamin Suriano - Deep Humanity - quote - labor - religion - system change - Benjamin Suriano

      quote - labor - religion - system change - Benjamin Suriano - (see below) - The failure to think through and cultivate labor, - as the material capacity for socially creating radical change, - leaves the religious, - as the cultural expression of real desires and intentions for radical change, - to its most repressively - alienating and -distorting forms. - If the disappearance of the standpoint of labor - has coincided with the return of the religious in the form of radical fundamentalisms, - might the return of the standpoint of labor, - in a new more holistic way, - coincide, - not with the disappearance of the religious, - but its return to a more rational form?

      adjacency - between - labor - religion - system change - Benjamin Suriano - Deep Humanity - adjacency relationship - It is a well.known fact that most people do not like their jobs - If that is the case that - 5 days of inhabiting a unjoyful space is the price we pay for 2 days of inhabiting a joyful space - we should strive to invert this situation - If we spend - 33% of our life sleeping and - 50% working, - then half our life is spent in an emotionally lacking space and this is harmful - The big question is this: - How do we transform business so we that we make work - more meaning-full and - less meaning-less? - Another way to phrase the question is: - How did we rekindle the Deep Humanity found in each of us? - How did we rekindle the sacred in every moment, including at our place of work?

    6. From Modes of Production to the Resurrection of the Body: A Labor Theory of Revolutionary Subjectivity & Religious Ideas

      for - PhD thesis - Benjamin Suriano - From Modes of Production to the Resurrection of the Body: A Labor Theory of Revolutionary Subjectivity & Religious Ideas" (2016).

  5. Aug 2024
  6. Mar 2024
    1. Das Climate Change Center Austria (CCCA) hat eine Liste mit 600 schnell umsetzbaren Vorschlägen erstellt, die in den Nationalen Klima- und Energieplan Österreichs aufgenommen werden können, um das Erreichen der EU-Klimaziele sicherzustellen. Dazu gehören strengere Tempolimits. In dem Bericht des CCCA werden Vorschläge bewertet, die im Rahmen einer Konsultationsprozesses beim Umweltministerium eingereicht wurden. https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000209427/kein-gratisparken-tempo-100-was-dem-klima-laut-experten-am-meisten-hilft

      CCCA-Bewertung: https://ccca.ac.at/fileadmin/00_DokumenteHauptmenue/02_Klimawissen/RefNEKP/Bericht/NEKP_Wissenschaftliche_Bewertung_der_Massnahmen_der_Stellungnahmen_Februar2024.pdf

  7. Feb 2024
    1. As long as money hasexisted, the problem of counterfeit currency has too, but it became aparticular problem once printed notes went into general circulation. Ineighteenth-century North America, Benjamin Franklin – who owned a firmthat printed money for several of the colonies – hit on the idea of misspellingPennsylvania on official currency, on the grounds that forgers would spell it

      correctly and the notes could easily be spotted as counterfeit, but that only went so far.

  8. Jan 2024
    1. This is why choosing an external system that forces us todeliberate practice and confronts us as much as possible with ourlack of understanding or not-yet-learned information is such a smartmove.

      Choosing an external system for knowledge keeping and production forces the learner into a deliberate practice and confronts them with their lack of understanding. This is a large part of the underlying value not only of the zettelkasten, but of the use of a commonplace book which Benjamin Franklin was getting at when recommending that one "read with a pen in your hand". The external system also creates a modality shift from reading to writing by way of thinking which further underlines the value.

      What other building blocks are present in addition to: - modality shift - deliberate practice - confrontation of lack of understanding

      Are there other systems that do all of these as well as others simultaneously?


      link to Franklin quote: https://hypothes.is/a/HZeDKI3YEeyj9GcNWKX4iA

    1. You should read with a pen in your hand andenter...short hints of what you feel...may be useful; forthis be the best method of imprinting [them] in yourmemory. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

      original source?

      it's Benjamin Franklin letter to Miss Stevenson, Wanstead. Craven-street, May 16, 1760.<br /> see: https://hyp.is/HZeDKI3YEeyj9GcNWKX4iA/www.gutenberg.org/files/40236/40236-h/40236-h.htm

  9. Dec 2023
    1. I think that what we have to 01:23:24 do is have the revolution that Benjamin Franklin said we need if because if we don't solve the problem in the United States I don't see us solving the global 01:23:39 problem
      • for: quote - James Hansen, quote Benjamin Franklin, climate crisis - leverage point - political revolution

      • quote

        • If we don't solve the problem in the United States, I don't see us solving the global problem
      • author: James Hansen
      • date: Dec 2023

      • comment

        • Tipping Point network
  10. Nov 2023
    1. the Arendt Papers include letters to and from Hanan J. Ayalti (pen name of Hanan Klenbort), Walter Benjamin, Rosalie Littell Colie, Robert and Elke Gilbert, J. Glenn Gray, Waldemar Gurian, Rolf Hochhuth, Hans Jonas, Lotte Kohler, Judah Leon Magnes, Mary McCarthy, Ruth H. Rosenau, Gershom Gerhard Scholem, Paul Tillich, Eric Voegelin, Ernst Vollrath, Anne Weil, Helen and Kurt Wolff, and many others.
      • for: Deep Humanity, DH, Jessica Denson, David Rothkopf, ethno-nationalism
      • summary
        • good interview with writer David RothKopf exploring the ethno-nationalist parallels between ethno-nationalist authoritarian leaders, in particular Trump and Netenyahu and the continuous attempt to subvert democracy. The discussion also explores the dangers of attempts to inject religion into government and the historical background and reason why the founders of the United States explicitly separated church from state.
        • it's important to understand all perspectives, and how people define "right" and "good" from their perspective
        • EVERYONE wants a good life, but these definitions may vary greatly. We need to map out the nuances
        • adjacency between
          • Trump
          • Israel-Hamas conflict and Benjamin Netenyahu
  11. Oct 2023
    1. The narrative technique owes a good deal to W. G. Sebald, who loved to ruminate on strange and troubling episodes from history, blurring the boundary between fact and fiction.

      Benjamín Labatut also falls into this genre.

  12. Sep 2023
  13. Aug 2023
    1. Steiner, Benjamin. “Aby Warburgs Zettelkasten Nr. 2 ‘Geschichtsauffassung.’” In Zettelkästen. Maschinen der Phantasie, edited by Heike Gfrereis and Ellen Strittmatter, 154–61. Marbacher Kataloge 66. Marbach am Neckar, 2013. https://www.academia.edu/8637204/Aby_Warburgs_Zettelkasten_Nr_2_Geschichtsauffassung_.

    2. Wer Warburgs Zettelkasten folgt, folgt ihm bei seinenGedankengängen; vom Bankenwesen in Florenz, der mit-telalterlichen Handelsgesellschaft, dem Herausbilden vonIndividualität, der rastlosen Berufsarbeit der Calvinistenund der reformierten Form der Askese bis zu Warburgseigener Herkunft aus alter jüdischer Bankiersfamilie.378Der Zettelkasten ist Warburgs Ariadnefaden durch seinelabyrinthische Bibliothek wie sein labyrinthisches Denken:vom Werwolf zur Geschichtsauffassung. Ein Gedanke,eine Idee oder ein neuer Begriff entstehen nicht in einergeradlinigen Progression, sondern in einem Prozess desHin- und Herbewegens von Idee-Einheiten und Querver-weisen, der so lange andauert, bis sich neue Schnittstel-len und Knotenpunkte gebildet haben.

      machine translation:

      Anyone who follows Warburg's list of notes is following his train of thought; from the banking system in Florence, medieval commercial society, the development of individuality, the restless professional work of the Calvinists and the reformed form of asceticism to Warburg's own origins in an old Jewish banking family. 378 The Zettelkasten is Warburg's Ariadne thread through his labyrinthine library and his labyrinthine thinking: from werewolf to history. A thought, an idea or a new concept does not emerge in a linear progression, but in a process of moving idea units and cross-references back and forth, which lasts until new interfaces and nodes have formed.

  14. Jul 2023
      • Title
        • The landscape of biomedical research
      • Authors
        • Rita González-Márquez,
        • Luca Schmidt,
        • Benjamin M. Schmidt,
        • Philipp Berens
        • Dmitry Kobak
      • Date
        • April 11, 2023
      • Source
      • Abstract
        • The number of publications in biomedicine and life sciences
        • has rapidly grown over the last decades,
        • with over 1.5 million papers now published every year.
        • This makes it difficult to
          • keep track of new scientific works and
          • to have an overview of the evolution of the field as a whole.
        • Here we
          • present a 2D atlas of the entire corpus of biomedical literature, and
          • argue that it provides
            • a unique and
            • useful overview
          • of the life sciences research.
        • We base our atlas on the abstract texts of
        • 21 million English articles from the PubMed database.
        • To embed the abstracts into 2D, we use
          • a large language model PubMedBERT, combined with
          • t-SNE tailored to handle samples of our size.
        • We use our atlas to study
          • the emergence of the Covid-19 literature,
          • the evolution of the neuroscience discipline,
          • the uptake of machine learning, and
          • the distribution of gender imbalance in academic authorship.
        • Furthermore, we present an interactive web version of our atlas that
          • allows easy exploration and
          • will enable further insights and facilitate future research.
  15. Jun 2023
    1. The models were named after Benjamin Bloom, who chaired the committee of educators that devised the taxonomy. He also edited the first volume of the standard text, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals

      Benjamin Bloom was the originator (and the taxonomy was named after him)

    1. I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a little book short hints of what you find that is curious or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such particulars in your memory, where they will be ready either for practice on some future occasion if they are matters of utility, or at least to adorn and improve your conversation if they are rather points of curiosity.

      Benjamin Franklin letter to Miss Stevenson, Wanstead. Craven-street, May 16, 1760.

      Franklin doesn't use the word commonplace book here, but is actively recommending the creation and use of one. He's also encouraging the practice of annotation, though in commonplace form rather than within the book itself.

    1. By the 1980s the adage had implausibly been reassigned to Benjamin Franklin. The 1986 book “Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching” by Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers contained the following passage:[12]1986 (Seventh Printing 1991), Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching: A Description and Analysis by Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Chapter 7: The Silent Way, Quote Page 100, Cambridge … Continue reading These premises are succinctly represented in the words of Benjamin Franklin: Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.

      The misattribution of this quote often seen in educational settings likely stems from Richards & Rodgers from 1986.

      See also: - https://hypothes.is/a/cKMkaAZQEe6dq0fkeyNabA - https://hypothes.is/a/YWrJKgZPEe6dy2sJU5KcSw

    2. Several English renderings have been published over the years. The following excerpt is from “Xunzi: The Complete Text” within chapter 8 titled “The Achievements of the Ru”. The translator was Eric L. Hutton, and the publisher was Princeton University Press in 2014. Emphasis added to excerpts:[1]2014 Copyright, Xunzi: The Complete Text, Translated by Eric L. Hutton, Chapter 8: The Achievements of the Ru, Quote Page 64, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified with … Continue reading Not having heard of it is not as good as having heard of it. Having heard of it is not as good as having seen it. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice. Learning arrives at putting it into practice and then stops . . .

      The frequent educational quote "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.", often misattributed to Benjamin Franklin, is most attributable to 3rd century Confucian philosopher Kunzi (Xun Kuang or 荀子) who wrote:

      Not having heard of it is not as good as having heard of it. Having heard of it is not as good as having seen it. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice. Learning arrives at putting it into practice and then stops . . .

      The translation of which appears in Xunzi: The Complete Text, Translated by Eric L. Hutton, Chapter 8: The Achievements of the Ru, Quote Page 64, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. 2014.

      Variations of the sentiment and attributions have appeared frequently thereafter.

    3. There is no substantive evidence that Benjamin Franklin crafted this expression.
  16. May 2023
  17. Apr 2023
    1. The ever-growing army of coordinators for Title IX — the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination — is one manifestation of the bureaucratic bloat, which since the 1990s has helped propel tuition costs far ahead of inflation.

      Benjamin Ginsberg has documented bureaucratic bloat since the 1970's and only the tiniest fraction is down to Title IX, which is a political red herring here. A much larger amount of bloat can be attributed to professionalization of running the university allowing professors more time for teaching and research and less administrative work. Commercial specialization of this sort has increased because of increased competition within the capitalistic system which has grown there. A sizeable portion also goes into development efforts as educational funding has shrunk (due primarily to conservative efforts) as well as administrative functions to run fringe benefits like athletic centers, activities, lazy rivers, climbing walls, etc. which are used to recruit students into a much more selective number of universities.

  18. Mar 2023
    1. Paris on the Amazon?: Postcolonial Interrogations of Benjamin’s European Modernism (pp. 216-245) Willi Bolle From: A Companion to the Works of Walter Benjamin, Camden House (2009) Edition: NED - New edition https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt14brv7g

      ...and complete but constitutes an open repertoire, always in movement, expressing and stimulating the spirit of experimentation and invention. Let us remember that Benjamin, in his early work Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street, 1923/28), argued in favor of direct communication between the “ Zettelkasten ” (card box...

      communication between?! though it is 2009 and after Luhmann's reference to communication with slip boxes....

  19. Feb 2023
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwKjuBvNi40

      Ben Rowland uses index cards to outline the plot of his screenplays. This is a common practice among screenwriters. Interestingly he only uses it for plot outlining and not for actual writing the way other writers like Vladimir Nabokov may have. Both Benjamin Rowland and Duston Lance Black use cards for outlining but not at the actual writing stage.

    1. Card indexes were a tool to manage information overloadand enabled one to move and recombine letters, words and ideas – which led WalterBenjamin to describe the explosion of the book into its fundamental components,recorded on cards, so that they could be recombined (Benjamin, 2016[1986]: 43).

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten<br /> http://fremdlesen.de/?p=297

      cartoon of Luhmann's zettelkasten asking him for a beer

      Zettelkasten: Niklas hol' mir 'n Bier!<br /> Niklas Luhmann: Hatte ich doch bloss nie diessen ver-fluchten zettelkasten erfunden!

      translation:

      Niklas get me a beer!<br /> If only I had never invented that damn note box!

      Link to: Effort of maintaining a zettelkasten: https://hypothes.is/a/ahU8YqmoEe2tL79vZF9PvQ

    1. About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator.[18] It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, thought I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.

      Even the greats copied or loosely plagiarized the "masters" to learn how to write.The key is to continually work at it until you get to the point where it's yours and it is no longer plagiarism.

      This was also the general premise behind the plotline of the movie Finding Forrester.

  20. Jan 2023
    1. What is propelling humankind into this nightmare, as Benjamin sees it, is not the force of evil or fate. Instead, it is one of modernity’s prized ideals and constitutive achievements: progress.

      !- comment : progress trap - Benjamin understands the logic of the progress trap

    2. “This is how one pictures the angel of history,” Benjamin writes. “His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay . . . and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned. . . . This storm is what we call progress.”

      !- quotable : Walter Benjamin - commentary on Paul Klee's Angelus Novus painting

    1. Benjamin Richler’s Guide to Hebrew Manuscript Collections is the basicreference work for navigating the different libraries and collections of He-brew manuscript collections

      Benjamin Richler, A Guide to Hebrew Manuscript Collections (Jerusalem, 1994), 2nd rev. ed. (Jerusalem, 2014). For an entry on the Geniza, see ibid., 79–81. See also entries for specific libraries and collections.

  21. Dec 2022
  22. Nov 2022
    1. When he was coming up as a writer, the author and journalist Rex Murphy would write out longhand favorite poems and passages. He was asked, what’s that done for you? “There’s an energy attached to poetry and great prose,” Murphy said. “And when you bring it into your mind, into your living sensibility, by some weird osmosis, it lifts your style or the attempts of your mind.” When you read great writing, when you write down a great line or paragraph, Murphy continues, “somehow or another, it contaminates you in a rich way. You get something from it—from this osmotic imitation—that will only take place if you lodge it in your consciousness.”

      This writing advice from Rex Murphy sounds like the beginning portions of Benjamin Franklin's advice on writing and slowly rewriting one's way into better prose styles.

      Link to Franklin's quote

  23. Oct 2022
    1. Book Club led by José Ramón Lizárraga & Tiera Chantè Tanksley on Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want by Ruha Benjamin 8pm EST on Thursday, November 17th, 2022
    1. Walter Benjamin termed the book ‘an outdated mediationbetween two filing systems’

      reference for this quote? date?

      Walter Benjamin's fantastic re-definition of a book presaged the invention of the internet, though his instantiation was as a paper based machine.

  24. Sep 2022
  25. Jul 2022
    1. Famously, Luswig Wittgenstein organized his thoughts this way. Also famously, he never completed his 'big book' - almost all of his books (On Certainty, Philosophical Investigations, Zettel, etc.) were compiled by his students in the years after his death.

      I've not looked directly at Wittgenstein's note collection before, but it could be an interesting historical example.


      Might be worth collecting examples of what has happened to note collections after author's lives. Some obviously have been influential in scholarship, but generally they're subsumed by the broader category of a person's "papers" which are often archived at libraries, museums, and other institutions.

      Examples: - Vincentius Placcius' collection used by his students - Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten which is being heavily studied by Johannes F.K. Schmidt - Mortimer J. Adler - was his kept? where is it stored?

      Posthumously published note card collections - Ludwig Wittgenstein - Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project - Ronald Reagan's collection at his presidential library, though it is more of an commonplace book collection of quotes which was later published - Roland Barthes' Mourning Diary - Vladimir Nabokov's The Original of Laura - others...


      Just as note collections serve an autobiographical function, perhaps they may also serve as an intellectual autobiographical function? Wittgenstein never managed to complete his 'big book', but in some sense, doesn't his collection of note cards serve this function for those willing to explore it all?


      I'd previously suggested that Scott P. Scheper publish not only his book on note taking, but to actually publish his note cards as a stand-alone zettelkasten example to go with them. What if this sort of publishing practice were more commonplace? The modern day equivalent is more likely a person's blog or their wiki. Not enough people are publicly publishing their notes to see what this practice might look like for future generations.

  26. May 2022
    1. Thus, the sensitive seismographer of avant-garde develop-ments, Walter Benjamin, logically conceived of this scenario in 1928, of communicationwith card indices rather than books: “And even today, as the current scientific methodteaches us, the book is an archaic intermediate between two different card indexsystems. For everything substantial is found in the slip box of the researcher who wroteit and the scholar who studies in it, assimilated into its own card index.” 47
      1. Walter Benjamin, Einbahnstra ß e, in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1928/1981), 98 – 140, at 103.

      Does Walter Benjamin prefigure the idea of card indexes conversing with themselves in a communicative method similar to that of Vannevar Bush's Memex?

      This definitely sounds like the sort of digital garden inter-communication afforded by the Anagora as suggested by @Flancian.

    1. What did Franklin himself think about abortions? In 1728 during his early years as a printer, he generated controversy over something he would end up doing himself. According to “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” by Walter Isaacson, he “manufactured” an abortion debate, largely because he wanted to crush a rival, but his own opinions may not have been too strong about it. Franklin wrote a series of anonymous letters for another paper to draw attention away from Samuel Keimer’s paper: The first two pieces were attacks on poor Keimer, who was serializing entries from an encyclopedia. His initial installment included, innocently enough, an entry on abortion. Franklin pounced. Using the pen names “Martha Careful” and “Celia Shortface,” he wrote letters to Bradford’s paper feigning shock and indignation at Keimer’s offense. As Miss Careful threatened, “If he proceeds farther to expose the secrets of our sex in that audacious manner [women would] run the hazard of taking him by the beard in the next place we meet him.” Thus Franklin manufactured the first recorded abortion debate in America, not because he had any strong feelings on the issue, but because he knew it would help sell newspapers.

      Benjamin Franklin manufactured the first recorded abortion debate in America to help sell his newspapers and to crush a rival.

    2. Jesuit’s bark, also known to us as quinine, was an important anti-malarial drug. According to Molly Farrell, an associate professor of English and the history of science who first reported on Franklin’s abortion entry in Slate, it was also “mistakenly thought to be an abortifacient.” 
    3. The ninth edition entry, reprinted in Slate, also recommends the use of “Harts-horn.” Harts-horn, according to Merriam-Webster, is an “American pasqueflower.”  According to “Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West” by herbalist Gregory L. Tilford, pasqueflowers were used by Native Americans to induce abortions, or speed up childbirth.  
    1. Copies of The American Instructor:

    2. The recipe details, moreover, assume that these “unmarry’d Women” had the kind of knowledge of arithmetic that the book’s earlier instructional sections had taught. The recipe insists on careful attention to measurement and counting. And it asks the preparer to work with repeated multiples of three. Franklin had a track record of promoting female education, and of arithmetic for them in particular. He advocates for it in his early, anonymous “Silence Dogood” articles, and in his Autobiography singles out a Dutch printer’s widow who saved the family business thanks to her education. There, Franklin makes an explicit call “recommending that branch of education for our young females.”

      Evidence for Benjamin Franklin encouraging the education of women in mathematics.

    3. John Tennent’s The Poor Planter’s Physician to the end. Tennent was a Virginia doctor whose medical pamphlet had first appeared in 1734.*

      Virginia physician John Tennet's pamphlet The Poor Planter's Physician first appeared in 1734, and included details for effecting abortions. Benjamin Franklin found it to be so valuable that he copied it into his book The Instructor (1748).


      Surely the pamphlet had appeared previous to 1734 as there's a copy labeled as the third edition which Benjamin Franklin had reprinted in 1734, which lists him as the publisher.

    4. William Mather’s 1699 Young Man’s Companion also has one (the London book would inspire the very first arithmetic book to be printed in the colonies in 1705, by Franklin’s old boss Andrew Bradford). In Mather’s book, though, the recipe was short, misleading, and ineffective. It includes an entry for “Terms provoked,” a heading also found under comparable medical books with abortifacient concoctions (where the “term,” or period, needs “provoking”). Unfortunately for Mather’s readers, however, he prescribes “stinking Arach,” or goosefoot, which is an emmenagogue (an agent to stimulate or regulate menstruation) but not a reliable abortifacient. He also makes the even more dubious suggestion to “take a draught of White wine” under a full moon.
    5. In this week’s leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” Yet abortion was so “deeply rooted” in colonial America that one of our nation’s most influential architects went out of his way to insert it into the most widely and enduringly read and reprinted math textbook of the colonial Americas—and he received so little pushback or outcry for the inclusion that historians have barely noticed it is there. Abortion was simply a part of life, as much as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

      Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has written in a leaked draft opinion of Dobs v. Jackson Women's Health that "The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation's history and traditions."

      However, historians have shown that in fact it was so deeply rooted in in early America that Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the country actively inserted medical advice about abortion into a widely read and popular primer on math and reading.

    1. SUPP RESSION of the COURSES.NOW I am upon Female Infirmities, it will not be unfeafonable to touch upon a common Complaint among unmarry’d Women, namely, The Suppression of the Courses. This don't only dis¬ parage their Complexions, but fills them, belides, with Sundry Disorders. For this Misfortune, you muft purge with Highland . Flaggy (commonly call'd Belly-ach Root) a Week before you exped to be out of Order ; and repeat the Same 2 Days after : The next Morning, drink a Quarter of a Pint of Pennyroyal Water, or DecoBion , with ia Drops of Spirits of Harts-horn , and as much again at Night, when you go to Bed. Continue this, p Days running; and after Refting 3 Days, go on with it for p more. Ride out every fair Day, ftir nimbly about your Affairs, and breath as

      much as poflible in the open Air. YOU muft feed upon a warm and cordial Diet, enrich’d with a great deal of Muflard, Nutmeg, Horfe-radijh and Garden, l Crejfes ;'at the lame Time avoiding every''"j thing that is aftringent, flegmatick, and 1 windy. And let your Drink be Beer, M brew’d with Sorrel-Leaves , or elfe Ground 1 Ivy-Tea . • 1 T O prevent this Complaint, young Women muft Ihake off Sloth, and make Ufe of their Legs, as well as their Hands* - They Ihou’d be cautious of taking Opiates j too often, or Jefuits-Bark , except in Cafes of great Neceffity; nor muft they long foie pretty Fellows, or any other Trajb whatfoe- ver.

      https://archive.org/details/2574010R.nlm.nih.gov/page/n47/mode/2up?q=misfortune

  27. Apr 2022
    1. The project's structure is idiosyncratic. The convolutes correspond to letters of the alphabet; the individual sections of text— sometimes individual lines, sometimes multi-paragraph analyses —are ordered with square brackets, starting from [A1,1]. This numbering system comes from the pieces of folded paper that Benjamin wrote on, with [A1a,1] denoting the third page of his 'folio.'[3] Additionally, Benjamin included cross-references at the end of some sections. These were denoted by small boxes enclosing the word (e.g., ■ Fashion ■).[4]

      It's worth look looking into the structure of Walter Benjamin's Arcade Project as the numbering system that he used on his zettels is very similar to that of both Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten as well as the street numbers of 1770 Vienna.

      link to - https://hypothes.is/a/4jtT0FqsEeyXFzP-AuDIAA - https://hypothes.is/a/lvGHJlNHEeyZnV-8psRNrA

    1. Such radical compositional approaches arecontemporaneous with the Surrealist use of montage, but predateBurrough’s cut-up-fold-in technique, and ‘put[...] the avant-gardeclaims of hyperfiction to shame’ (Krapp, 2006: 362).

      The compositional approaches mentioned here are those of Wittgenstein and Walter Benjamin.


      What was Burrough's cut-up-fold-in technique?

    2. Walter Benjamin employed a similar technique (Benjamin, 2006,2007).

      Walter Benjamin used a zettelkasten like note taking technique.

    3. What Iam alluding to here is well drawn out in Walter Benjamin’s reflectionin his Moscow Diary on how we ‘grasp’ a visual image. ‘One does notin any way enter into its space’, he writes. Rather, ‘It opens up to usin corners and angles in which we believe we can localise crucialexperiences of the past; there is something inexplicably familiarabout these spots’ (Benjamin, 1985: 42).
  28. Oct 2021
    1. This love for the ocean grew over the years, so much so that when she saw photographs by Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong – showing a mermaid swimming in an ocean of plastic bottles – it impacted her deeply.
  29. Sep 2021
    1. Imitation, Paul says, allows us to think with other people’s brains. It is a key technique — globally and transhistorically — for learning, from babies imitating parents to apprentices imitating masters. And yet imitation is seen in contemporary US society, and schooling especially, as so debased that it is frequently punished. In fact, if Paul is correct (and I think she is, and have thought so for years when teaching writing), we should build imitation into many more of our lesson plans.

      On the importance of imitation...

      I'm reminded of Benjamin Franklin imitating what he thought were good writers to make his own writing more robust.

      See: https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm

      Maybe the aphorism: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," should really be "Imitation is the sincerest form of learning."

  30. Aug 2021
    1. The Echo & Narcissus Writing Club is all about mimicking the work of exceptional writers in order to learn from them.

      I'm reminded here of a portion of Benjamin Franklin's passage in his Autobiography where he describes his writing process and work to improve.

      Also the main plotline of the movie Finding Forrester.

  31. Jul 2021
    1. Dafür spricht das Credo des Literaten Walter Benjamin: Und heute schon ist das Buch, wie die aktuelle wissenschaftliche Produktionsweise lehrt, eine veraltete Vermittlung zwischen zwei verschiedenen Kartotheksystemen. Denn alles Wesentliche findet sich im Zettelkasten des Forschers, der's verfaßte, und der Gelehrte, der darin studiert, assimiliert es seiner eigenen Kartothek.

      The credo of the writer Walter Benjamin speaks for this:

      And today, as the current scientific method of production teaches, the book is an outdated mediation between two different card index systems. Because everything essential is to be found in the slip box of the researcher who wrote it, and the scholar who studies it assimilates it in his own card index.

      Here's an early instantiation of thoughts being put down into data which can be copied from one card to the next as a means of creation.

      A similar idea was held in the commonplace book tradition, in general, but this feels much more specific in the lead up to the idea of the Memex.

  32. Jun 2021
    1. Writing is a verb, a practice. It is labor. A paper is at least one step removed from that labor and learning. It is a product of your labor, not your labor itself. So our grading system should align with what this course is mostly about, which is your acts of learning, your labors of writing. 

      I'm reminded here of a portion of Benjamin Franklin's passage in his Autobiography where he describes his writing process and work to improve:

      About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator.[18] It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, thought I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.

  33. May 2021
    1. Not to sound like an English professor or anything, but as a professor of English, I can’t help thinking of Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Benjamin suggests that fascistic governments aim to maintain the status quo by providing citizens with the means to express themselves aesthetically without reforming their lives materially.
  34. Apr 2021
    1. As I was gearing up to start my PhD last fall, I received a piece of advice that made a lot of sense at the time, and continues to do so. My colleague, Inba told me to 'write while I read', meaning that I should take notes and summarize research while I read it, and not just read and underline article after article. That way, not only do I not lose my thoughts while I'm reading an article, but I am actively thinking through the arguments in the paper while I am reading it and my writing is thoroughly grounded in the literature.

      This is generally fantastic advice! It's also the general underpinning behind the idea of Luhmann's zettelkasten method.

      I'll also mention that it's not too dissimilar to Benjamin Franklin's writing advice about taking what others have written and working with that yourself, though there he doesn't take it as far as others have since.

  35. Jun 2020
    1. Rush inserted a note in Philadelphia’s American Daily Advertiser in September telling Black people they had immunity to yellow fever, a conclusion he had reached based on his belief i n their animal-like physical s uperiority. Quite a few Black nurses s uffered hor-ribly before Rush realized his gross error. I n all, 5,000 people per-ished before the epidemic subsided in November and federal officials returned to the city.

      Interesting to see notes about small outbreaks like this while seeing similar racist ideas and policies hundreds of years later during the COVID-19 outbreaks.

    2. Early in 1791, months before writing to Jefferson, Banneker had helped survey the nation’s new capital, Washington, DC.

      I think it has not been since middle school that I've seen a reference to Banneker...

  36. Apr 2020
    1. La naturaleza de esta tristeza se esclarece cuando se pregunta con quién empatiza el historiador historicista. La respuesta resulta inevitable: con el vencedor. Y quienes dominan en cada caso son los herederos de todos aquellos que vencieron alguna vez. Por consiguiente, la empatía con el vencedor resulta en cada caso favorable para el dominador del momento. El materialista histórico tiene suficiente con esto. Todos aquellos que se hicieron de la victoria hasta nuestros días marchan en el cortejo triunfal de los dominadores de hoy, que avanza por encima de aquellos que hoy yacen en el suelo

      La historia la cuentan los vencedores.

  37. May 2019
    1. If we’re speaking of garden-variety errors, the most common error I’ve observed that manages to get past any number of sets of expert eyes and wind up printed in books is the use of “lead” where “led” is meant—that is, the past tense of the verb “to lead.”
    2. I still firmly believe that copy editors need only enough grammar to get them through the demands of their particular manuscripts; being a grammarian is entirely beside the point. Or to put it another way, grammar is part of what you do as a copy editor, but only a part. That said, it’s fun to know about the subjunctive, so I’ll concede that particular pleasure.

      Copyediting vs grammar knowledge. Or, and grammar knowledge.

  38. Apr 2019
    1. “But beyond the pleasure of Dreyer’s prose and authorial tone, I think there is something else at play with the popularity of his book,” he explained. “To put it as simply as possible, the man cares, and we need people who care right now.”

      I believe that the main reason why Benjamin Dreyer's Dreyer's English: an Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style is so well-read, is that he's funny.

      The humor is dry as a paper board, for example:

      The NSA may be reading your emails and texts, but I’m not. If you prefer “Hi John” to “Hi, John,” you go right ahead.

      and:

      For the sake of clarity, we use hyphens to helpfully link up a pair or passel of words preceding and modifying a noun, as in: first-rate movie fifth-floor apartment middle-class morality nasty-looking restaurant all-you-can-eat buffet However, convention (a.k.a. tradition, a.k.a. consensus, a.k.a. it’s simply how it’s done, so don’t argue with it) allows for exceptions in some cases in which a misreading is unlikely, as in, say: real estate agent high school students And though you may, now that you’re staring at these constructions, wonder worryingly about the reality of that estate agent or the sobriety of those school students, I’d urge you to stop staring and move on. (Staring at words is always a bad idea. Stare at the word “the” for more than ten seconds and reality begins to recede.)

      Another thing, Dreyer is both funny and witty. Here's a bonus example of this:

      As a lexicographer friend once confided over sushi, the dictionary takes its cues from use: If writers don’t change things, the dictionary doesn’t change things. If you want your best-seller to be a bestseller, you have to help make that happen. If you want to play videogames rather than video games, go for it. I hope that makes you feel powerful. It should.

  39. Jan 2019
    1. The hupomnemata contribute one of the means by which one detaches the soul from concern for the future and redirects it toward contemplation of the past.

      I'm reminded here of Walter Benjamin's note on the "Angelus Novus" illustration: "His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees on single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurts it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the peril of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress" (Theses on the Philosophy of History).

  40. May 2018
    1. But if, among our internal states, distinct ex hypothesi from sensation, there were to be found some which vary quantitatively, as I have attempted to show elsewhere,20 this singular character would per-haps allow us to attempt to use them to spiritualize the universe. In my view, these two states of the soul, or rather these two forces of the soul which are called belief and desire, whence derive affirma-tion and will, present this character eminently and distinctly.

      Belief and Desire

    2. Leaving such speculations aside, and confining ourselves to positive facts, the formation of each thing by propagation start-ing from a point is not in doubt, and justifies us in admitting the existence of leading elements (éléments-chefs).

      עוד עיסוק במקור. מעניין להשוות לחוסר סיבתיות של בנימין וכל זה

    3. Among the variations, let us not confuse those which are pro-duced accidentally and from outside, by the vagaries of chance, and those which are due to the long-standing struggle, in the heart of each organism or of each state, between the triumphant ide-al that constitutes it, and the constricted and stifled ideals which chafe beneath its yoke, yearning to emerge and blossom forth. The former are usually neutralized; in most cases it is only the latter which come to fruition. All historians, knowingly or not, make this distinction. Beside the great facts which they relate often, for the sake of their conscience, they emphasize with special care the smallest reforms and the most obscure discussions, barely noted by their contemporaries, which attest to the appearance of new re-ligious or political ideas.

      היסטוריה והעבודה של ההיסטוריון

    4. Beings, or rather manufactured objects, would be, with respect to the manufacturer, that which our furniture or tools are to us: mere means, which no sophistical juggling will ever disguise as ends with respect to our acts.

      כלים, זכור לי שדיברנו על משהו שקשור לכלים ובנימין. נראה לי בהקשר של גתה...

    5. In this respect, the Hegelian system can be considered the last word in the philosophy of Being. Embarked on this path, one will have to concoct impenetrable, and basically contradictory, concepts of becoming and disappearance, the old empty pap of Teutonic ideologues.55 By contrast, nothing could be clearer than the concepts of gain and loss, of acquisition and divestment, which take this place in the philosophy of Having, if we may thus name something which does not yet exist. Between being and non-being there is no middle term, whereas one can have more or less

      Becoming and disappearance בנימין מת על זה לא?

    6. How could the least ornament creep into these austere rhythms and enliven even a little the eternal psalmody of the world? From the marriage of the monotonous and the homogenous what could be born but tedium? If everything comes from identity, aims at identity and returns to identity, what is the source of this dazzling torrent of variety? We may be certain that the fundamental nature of things is not as poor, as drab, or as colourless as has been sup-posed.

      שוב מדבר על קצב

    7. We might also observe that every sufficiently prolonged pro-cess of evolution exhibits a succession and interlacing of phenom-enal layers which are remarkable alternately for the regularity and the caprice, the permanence and the fugacity, of the relations they present to us.

      קצב ותדירות, זכור לי שגם בנימין מדגיש את זה (משהו על המוזיקה שהיא הכי נעלה או משהו כזה בגלל הקטע של הקצב...)

    8. everything ends with difference, where, in the higher phenomena of thought and history, it finally breaks free of the narrow circles in which it had bound itself, namely the atomic vortex and the vital vortex, and transforming the very obstacle it faced into a fulcrum, surpasses and transfigures itself. It seems to me that all similari-ties and all phenomenal repetitions are only intermediaries, which will inevitably be found to be interposed between some elementa-ry diversities which are more or less obliterated, and the transcen-dent diversities produced by their partial immolation

      מערבולת, כמו הדימוי של בנימין. גם טארד משתמש בזה כשהוא מדבר על המקור.

    9. For identity is only the minimal degree of difference and hence a kind of difference, and an infinitely rare kind, as rest is only a special case of movement, and the circle only a particular variety of el-lipse. To begin from the primordial identity is to posit at the ori-gin of things a prodigiously improbable singularity, an impossible coincidence of multiple beings, at once distinct from and similar to one another; or else the inexplicable mystery of a single simple being, which would subsequently, for no comprehensible reason, suffer division.

      מקור, origin

    10. When wa-ter vapour crystallizes into a thousand different needles or simply liquefies into flowing water, does this condensation really, as we are inclined to think, entail an increase in the differences inherent in the water molecules? No; let us not forget the freedom which the latter formerly enjoyed in the state of gaseous dispersion, their movement in every direction, their impacts, and their infinitely varied distances. Is it then that the differences have decreased? Again, no: all that has happened is that one kind of difference has been substituted for another, that is, internal differences for mu-tually external ones.

      התגבשות, כמו שבנימין מתייחס לזיכרון בפתיחה של ילדות בברלין 1900 - מעניין להתייחס לזה

    11. But when, before our eyes, the provincial diversity of customs, of costumes, of ideas, of accents, and of physical forms, is being levelled by modernity, by the uni-ty of weights and measures, of language, of accent, and even of conversation—a levelling which is the necessary condition for all these minds to come into contact with one another, that is, to be-gin to work, and to develop more freely their individual character-istics—then the tears of poets and of artists attest to the price of the social picturesqueness which has been sacrificed for the sake of these advantages.

      מודרניות

    12. If we look at the so-cial world, the only one known to us from the inside, we see agents, men, much more differentiated and more sharply characterized as individuals, and richer in continual variations, than are the mech-anisms of government or the systems of laws or of beliefs, or even dictionaries or grammars, and this differentiation is maintained by their competition. A historical fact is simpler and clearer than the states of mind of any of its actors.

      היסטוריה

  41. May 2017
    1. In the ebb and flow of its changing rhythms—additions, revisions, reformulations and retrievals—Benjamin's Arcades Project provides an extraordinary case study in the labour of conceptual construction via the configuration and reconfiguration of archival materials. The voluminous ‘Notes and Materials’ that make up the Arcades as it has come down to us remained unpublished until 1982, finally appearing in English only in 1999 (GS V; AP). Only since their publication has it been possible to get a clear sense of the overall trajectory of Benjamin's thought during this period—rendering redundant, or at least displacing, many of the polemics associated with previous cycles of reception. The notes and materials are organized into twenty-six alphabetically designated ‘convolutes’ (literally ‘bundles’) or folders, thematically defined by various objects (arcades, catacombs, barricades, iron constructions, mirrors, modes of lighting…), topics (fashion, boredom, theory of knowledge, theory of progress, painting, conspiracies…), figures (the collector, the flaneur, the automaton…), authors (Baudelaire, Fourier, Jung, Marx, Saint-Simon…) and their combinations.
    2. The Arcades was a vast and ambitious project, not simply in terms of the mass and breadth of its archival sources (sought out by Benjamin in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris), but also—indeed, primarily—with respect to its philosophical and historical intent, and the methodological and representational challenges it posed. Its sprawling, yet minutely investigated historical object was to act as the point of entry into the philosophically comprehended experience of metropolitan capitalism—not some past experience, or the experience of a past phase of capitalist development, but the experience of the capitalist metropolis in Benjamin's own day—through the construction of a specific series of relations between its elements ‘then’ and ‘now’. The practice of research, conceptual organization and presentation that it involved was self-consciously conceived as a working model for a new, philosophically oriented, materialist historiography with political intent.
    3. One-Way Street, a quasi-constructivist collection of fragments written between 1923–1926 and dedicated to Lacis on its publication in 1928, and the unfinished Arcades Project, begun in the late 1920s, both exhibit a modernist experimentation with form that can in part be attributed to Lacis' influence
  42. Oct 2016
  43. atlspaceplacerhetf16.robinwharton.net atlspaceplacerhetf16.robinwharton.net
    1. Although Ponce City Market is the best modern representation of the arcades, this description is reminiscent of Atlantic Station. Stratified from the clamor of downtown, Atlantic Station is a residential area that can be self-functioning. In addition to the shopping center of nice stores and restaurants, there is a Target and Publix that supply the basic necessities of residents. The culture and architecture of Atlantic Station almost discourage unity with the downtown of Georgia State, and the Station operates in its own affluent bubble.

    2. Until 1870, the carriage ruled the streets. On the narrow sidewalks the pedestrian was extremely cramped, and so strolling took place principally in the arcades, which offered protection from bad weather and from the traffic.

      The utility of built environments arise from the needs of the people; Benjamin's argument for built environments is that they adapt to the various interactions of their tenants, supporting the idea that our interaction with an area serve to shape our built environments.

    3. Shops in the Passage des Panoramas: Restaurant Veron, reading room, musie^J \) shop, Marquis, wine merchants, hosier, haberdashers, tailors, bootmakers, ho-) siers, bookshops, caricaturist,

      There is no connection between the various shops in the arcades; rather, the arcades were an assemblage of stores that provided various necessities for tenants. This characterizes the evolution of a built environment here described by Benjamin, first from a place of necessities to a place of art.

    4. Toward the end of the ancien regime, there were attempts to establish bazaar-like shops and fixed-price stores in Paris.

      Arcades, resemble the bazaars of the Middle East, which according to the New World Encyclopedia, appeared in the Middle East around the fourth century. Bazaars were a street of shops where goods and services were exchanged or sold, and preceded the modern-day supermarket. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bazaar

    5. A

      The article “Pokémon Go Has Created a New Kind of Flaneur” by Laura Bliss equates contemporary Pokémon Go players to the wanderers of the nineteenth century. Charles Baudelaire in 1863 coined the idea of a flaneur, a French term for those who “stroll the city streets” merely to collect observations of their environment. The contemporary app encourages players to explore urban areas and collect Pokémon at historic, cultural, and forgotten spaces of their city.

      While the game encourages electronic exploration of the city, “le traineur” is not grounded in reality. Bliss admits that most players rarely look up from their phones to observe the areas they wander, which discredits their association with the flaneur. The consumers characterized by Benjamin were intentional in their exploration of arcades. French arcades supplied the needs of tenants, who perused the stalls and walkways with purpose. Benjamin even describes the role of facial expressions as a form of advertisement employed by vendors in the arcades, and the joy of consumers at these expressions. While I think the article presents a relevant comparison to our preceding flaneur, I believe the similarities are exaggerated; contemporary players are more absorbed in an electronic arcade than their actual built environments.

    6. Evidently people smoked in the arcades at a time when it was not yet customary to smoke in the street. “I must say a word here about life in the arcades, favored haunt of strollers and smokers, theater of operations for every kind of small business.

      Here we note the impact of the arcades on the separation of public and private spaces. Arcades became an amalgamation of the two spaces, and garnered the intimacy of personal activities like smoking while making these public and communal affairs.

    7. it is wholly adapted to arousingdesires.

      This observation connects to my highlight on page eleven. Arcades impacted the early evolution of advertisement; as characterized by the highlighted section above, storefronts were arranged to encourage quick and expansive recognition of goods and deals in a store. The design of the arcades was meant to slow the consumer and encourage exploration, a form of forced advertisement.

    8. Fourier on the street-galleries: “To spend a winter’s day in a Phalanstery, to visit all parts of it without exposure to the elements, to go to the theater and the opera in light clothes and colored shoes without worrying about the mud and the cold, would be a charm so novel that it alone would suffice to make our cities and castles seem detestable.

      This observation reveals the extent to which built environments are shaped by convenience. This idea is prevalent in new additions to the city to improve walkability in a heavily trafficked city; the emergence of Beltline and the recent introduction of streetcars are meant to relieve the stress of driving. Spaces like the Beltline even encourage alternate forms of transportation, like biking and skating.

    9. . The Phalanx has no outside streets or open roadways exposed to the elements.

      The cultural significance of this design must have revolutionized business across the world. A new independence from weather would allow an increase in the openness of the market. It would also encourage specialization, and the introduction of new products as vendors could sell a more diverse array of goods.

    10. Chaptal, in his speech on protecting brand names in industry: “Let us nQtassume that the consumer will be adept, when making a purchase, at distinguish­ing the degrees of quality of a material. No, gendemen, the consumer cannotappreciate these degrees; he judges only according to his senses. Do the eye or,the touch suffice to enable one to pronounce on the fastness of colors, or tcdetermine with precision the degree of fineness of a material, the nature andquality of its manufacture?”

      Here we note the evolution of the idea of value as something of a social construct, that it is not determined by the actual utility or composition of a good, but by the worth allocated to that good. This foreshadows the dependency of society on brand, and the development of a more materialistic society.

    11. Together with these comes the fixed price, the known and nonnegotiable cost.”

      This statement reveals the impact of arcades on gender stereotypes. Generalizations such as the resistance and strength of men made that gender more qualified for employment as salesmen.

    12. windows were adorned with splendid hangings and with curtains embroidered in marvelous patterns. Chairs, fauteuils, sofas . . . offered comfortable seating to tired strollers. Finally, there were artistically designed objects, antique cabi­nets, . . . glass cases full of curiosities, . . . porcelain vases containing fresh flow­ers, aquariums full of live fish, and aviaries inhabited by rare birds.

      This characterizes the idea of attraction in the market, as advertising became the exotic nature of a storefront. Brand and class were at this time determined by appearance of a street salon.

    13. the Egyptian campaign lent frightful importance to the fashion for shawls. Some generals in the expeditionary army, taking advantage of the proximity of India, sent home shawls . . . of cashmere to their wives and lady friends.. . . From then on, the disease that might be called cashmere fever took on significant proportions.

      Empress Josephine of France adorned these shawls, shipped to France from her son in Egypt. Napolean and his officers brought them from their campaigns abroad. Josephine was a trend-setter in French fashion, and despite her initial distaste for the garments, she would devote much of her wealth to these shawls in her lifetime. https://historiquecouture.wordpress.com/2007/04/07/the-cashmere-shawls-of-empress-josephine/

    14. The narrow streets surrounding the Opera and the hazards to which pedestrians were exposed on emerging from this theater, which is always besieged by carriages, gave a group of speculators in 1821 the idea of using some of the structures sepa­rating the new theater from the boulevard. / This enterprise, a source of riches for its originators, was at the same time of great benefit to the public.

      The streets of Paris in the 1870s are a bit reminiscent of Atlanta, though not for exactly the same reasons. Parts of Atlanta, like Paris at this time, are not very accommodating to pedestrians because of the introduction of vehicles. The arcades introduced a safer and easier way for pedestrians to reach the opera while also benefiting businesses, and I can't help but think that this could be a possible solution for Atlanta's lack of pedestrian access/desirability.

    15. “The arcades are sad, gloomy, and always intersecting in a manner disagreeable to the eye. . . . They seem . . . destined to house lithographers’ stu­dios and binders’ shops, as the adjoining street is destined for the manufacture of straw hats; pedestrians generally avoid them.”

      This description of the arcades is drastically different from those we came across before. Throughout the article, the arcades have been described as teeming with business, commerce, life, and diversity, with a multitude of shops, consumers, and flaneurs. In stark contrast, this description characterizes the closed-in alleyways as "sad" and "gloomy." I can only assume that lithographers' studios and binders' shops are equally as gloomy and dull, since, according to the author of this particular quote, are doomed to populate the arcades. What, I wonder, happened to the useful, lively arcades Benjamin described in the beginning of the excerpt?

    16. Trade and traffic are the two components of the street. Now, in the arcades thesecond of these has effectively died out: the traffic there is rudimentary. Thearcade is a street of lascivious commerce only; it is wholly adapted to arousingdesires. Because in this street the juices slow to a standstill, the commodityproliferates along the margins and enters into fantastic combinations, like thetissue in tumors.—The flaneur sabotages the traffic. Moreover, he is no buyer. Heis merchandise.

      According to Benjamin, there are two components of the streets, but the arcades are notably lacking in one, which differentiates them. While there is abundant trade, the flaneurs managed to "sabatoge traffic" by their nature. Their purpose is not to simply get from place to place--they have purpose. They simply observe, and that's what make them merchandise--they add character to the arcades and are, as the Citylab article describes, amazed with their findings.

      Bliss, Laura. "Pokémon Go Has Created a New Kind of Flâneur." CityLab. The Atlantic Magazine, 12 July 2016. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

    17. Passage Vero-Dodat.

      This map shows the location of a number of the remaining arcades in relation to each other.

      (http://www.lahistoriaconmapas.com/atlas/city-map/covered-passages-paris-map.htm)

      Arcades Map. Digital image. The Telltale Blog, n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2016. http://telltaleblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/secret-passages-of-paris-map.jpg.

    18. A

      The Passages of Paris and Benjamin's Mind by Herbert Muschamp details the rich history surrounding Benjamin's "Arcades Project" and the influence it had on the city of Paris. Though left incomplete on Benjamin's death in 1940, "The Arcades Project" nevertheless remains one of the most important urban analyses of the time. Benjamin was born to a Jewish art dealer in Berlin. He was educated there, but the Paris Arcade Project began in 1927 as a newspaper article. The manuscript was recovered by essayist George Batailles and was later taken to the Bibliotheque National in Paris. In the many sections of his analysis, Benjamin included both his own reflections and a vast amount of research material, which includes passages from other historical and architectural sources. Benjamin considered this type of building the most important during his time period because they signaled the end of an age production and the beginning of an era of consumption.

      The article describes the arcade as a building type that predated Haussmann's grand boulevards. Essentially, the arcades were pedestrian passages between buildings--alleyways with iron and glass roofs over top of them. They were typically lined with shops and small restaurants, or tea rooms. The other even goes so far to describe the arcades as "the embryo of the suburban mall." Surprisingly, the arcades had been left behind, for the most part, when Benjamin was in Paris, Haussmann Boulevards having ripped through Paris to make room for new urban fantasies. Benjamin, however, was still a bit stuck on the old ones. He remains fixed on the "phantasmagoria" that exists in the arcades, and his criticism aims to bring awareness to his readers and "release them from the hold of manufactured states of mind," which are oftne proliferated by the architects of this age.

      Muschamp, Herbert. "The Passages of Paris And of Benjamin's Mind." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Jan. 2000. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

    19. Passage du Caire. Erected after Napoleon’s return from Egypt. Contains some evocations of Egypt in the reliefs—sphinx-like heads over the entrance, among other things.
    20. The physiognomy of the arcade emerges with Baudelaire in a sentence at the beginning of “Le Joueur genereux”: “It seemed to me odd that I could have passed this enchanting haunt so often without suspecting that here was the entrance.”

      The "physiognomy" or outward appearance of the arcades, as described by Beaudelaire, is unsuspecting and easily overlooked, much like the hidden places described in the NPR article about Atlas Obscura. Like the Time Square Hum, the arcades, a marvel of architecture and Parisian culture, blend in seamlessly with the environment. It serves as a reminder that, in the middle of the busy streets, "is this kind of little gem waiting for you if you're willing to sort of slow down, look around, listen and kind of start asking questions" as Thuras says in the article. This is much like the flaneurs that Beaudelaire himself described.

      Shapiro, Ari. "'Atlas Obscura' Tour Of Manhattan Finds Hidden Wonders In A Well-Trodden Place." NPR. NPR, 20 Sept. 2016. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

    21. Shops in the Passage des Panoramas: Restaurant Veron, reading room, musie^J \) shop, Marquis, wine merchants, hosier, haberdashers, tailors, bootmakers, ho-) siers, bookshops, caricaturist, Theatre des Varietes. Compared with this, the Pas-' sage Vivienne was the “solid” arcade. There, ,one found no luxury shops

      (http://en.parisinfo.com/paris-museum-monument/100264/Passage-des-Panoramas)

      From the image and description of the Passage de Panoramas, it is clear that these arcades were, in "the embryo of suburban shopping malls," offering a wide variety attractions, and even restaurants.

      Passage de Panorama. Digital image. Paris Tourist Office, n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2016. http://en.parisinfo.com/var/otcp/sites/images/media/1.-photos/80.-photos-sugar/lieux-de-loisirs-et-de-culture/passage-des-panoramas-%7C-630x405-%7C-%C2%A9-otcp-marc-bertrand/10653601-1-fre-FR/Passage-des-Panoramas-%7C-630x405-%7C-%C2%A9-OTCP-Marc-Bertrand.jpg.

      Muschamp, Herbert. "The Passages of Paris And of Benjamin's Mind." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Jan. 2000. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

    22. nd those who cannot pay for . . . a shelter? They sleep wherever they find aplace, in passages, arcades, in corners where the police and the owners leave them undisturbed.”

      This is a good example of the use of public for the benefit of all, and it is the exact opposite of the the Yale Law Journal article we read. Instead of discriminating against a certain class of people by altering the physical environment, shop owners and even law enforcers allow their presence and gladly share the space. This exemplifies the diversity of the city and the overall accessibility of the arcades.

    23. There were two parallel lanes covered by canvas and planks, with a few glass panes to let the daylight in. Here one walked quite simply on the packed earth, which downpours sometimes transformed into mud. Yet people came from all over to crowd into this place, which was nothing short of mag­nificent, and stroll between the rows of shops that would seem like mere booths compared to those that have come after them

      In his essay on Atlas Obscura (Joshua Foer et al.), Ali Shapiro reminds us that the world is filled with 'astounding stuff' still waiting to be discovered. Atlas Obscura is a "guide tot eh worlds' hidden wonders" (Shapiro) that details those wonders of the world that people tend to overlook. One of the book's writers, Dylan Thuras, took Shapiro on a tour of Manhattan to find some of these hidden gems in his own backyard. Projects like Atlas Obscura and the Arcades Project serve a crucial purpose in a world where day to day life has become far to monotonous. Especially in the 21st century, where we live and die by our routines, we often miss the amazing environments and creations around us. It's important to go out and find these places, as they provide a much needed escape from the daily grind. These places are all around us, all we need to do is look for them.

      Shapiro, Ali. “‘Atlas Obscura’ Tour Of Manhattan Finds Hidden Wonders In A Well-Trodden Place.” NPR.org. Accessed October 2, 2016. http://www.npr.org/2016/09/20/494733654/atlas-obscura-tour-of-manhattan-finds-hidden-wonders-in-a-well-trodden-place.

    24. This passage is the locus classicus for the presentation of the arcades; for notonly do the divagations on the flaneur and the weather develop out of it, but,also, what there is to be said about the construction of the arcades, in an eco­nomic and architectural vein, would have a place
    25. Rue-galerie.—“The street-gallery . . . is the most important feature of a Phalan­stery and . . . cannot be conceived of in civilization. . . . Street-galleries . . . are heated in winter and ventilated in summer. .

      You can tell that the arcades were important to people because they put in great effort to keep them functional and comfortable year round.

    26. Rainshowers annoy me, so I gave one the slip in an arcade. There are a great many of these glass-covered walkways, which often cross through the blocks of buildings and make several branchings, thus affording welcome shortcuts. Here and there they are constructed with great elegance, and in bad weather or after dark, when they are lit up bright as day, they offer promenades—and very popu­lar they are—past rows of glittering shops

      I find it interesting the different circumstances that lead people to discover new places. For Deverient, the weather led him to discover the novelty of the arcades. Whether or not we go out in search of new places, we seem to find them eventually. This discovery only happens in cities like Paris and Atlanta, where walkability allows for more flexible routes.

    27. The second floor contains the street-galleries. . . . Along the length of the great avenues, . . . they form street-salons. . . . The other, much less spacious galleries are decorated more modestly. They have been reserved for retail businesses that here display their merchandise in such a way that passersby circulate no longer in front of the shops but in their interior.” Tony Moilin, Paris en Pan 2000

      This passage reminded me of a topic we discussed in our Mapping class. We talked extensively of how in the 1950s and 1960s, a lot of buildings were demolished for being multipurpose establishments, much like the ones discussed here. A lot of the buildings were occupied for retail purposes on the bottom floor and housing purposes on the top floors. This was deemed and unfit living condition due to the fact that people in the mid-1900s believed that it was bad for one's mental health to live in such an establishment. It is interesting to see how similiar multipurpose buildings began to spring up in the late 1800s and were subsequently demolished, in the US at least, just 50-odd years later. Ironically enough, more and more of the same building models are beginning to resurface today. Atlanta is growing at such a rapid pace that developers are having to contiually expand upward.

    28. Evidently people smoked in the arcades at a time when it was not yet customary to smoke in the street. “I must say a word here about life in the arcades, favored haunt of strollers and smokers, theater of operations for every kind of small business

      It seems like the arcades were a sort of escape from constricting societal norms. The arcades were a place where people felt leniency.

    29. The king, the queen, the royal family, when they get into or out of their carriages, are forced to get as wet as any petty bourgeois who summons a cab before his shop. Doubtless the king will have on hand, in the event of rain, a good many footmen and courtiers to hold an umbrella for him . . . ; but he will still be lacking a porch or a roof that would shelter his party. . . .

      This note of Benjamin's highlights the equalizing power that arcades held. While the Royal family may have certain commodities that others don't, it is very likely that when visiting the markets, they will become wet and muddy just like all the commoners. The arcades show no bias to its visitors. The Royal family is just as succeptable to all the gross, dampness of the arcades on a rainy day as anyone else would be. This note is particularly important because it emphasizes how diverse the arcades are in regards to their customers. Because of such diversity, the markets create a sense of community between the rich and the poor, withering away at the extremely classist nature of French society.

    30. Lining both sides of these corridors, whichget their light from above, are the most elegant shops, so that the arcade is a city,a world in miniature □ Flaneur □, in which customers will find everything theyneed

      Arcades are large buildings that house a plethora of small shops and merchants, selling to the general public. The stores offer a wide variety of goods, ranging from clothing to food and drink. A parallel in society today would be Atlanta's city markets, such as the Ponce City and Krog Street Markets.

    31. In other respects as well, the theater in those days provided the vocabulary forarticles of fashion.

      One main argument being presented in this article is that the cityscape in a certain time period can be credited for altering certain aspects of that time's culture as well. Here, the author is arguing that theater had an effect on women's clothing choices. Heavier fabrics were exchanged for lighter ones, even in winter. This shows how the built environment contributes to the culture of the region of the area, similarly to how these arcades were indicative of behavioral patterns in French society.

    32. The argument by M. Pour in favor of the arcades takes the form of verse. An extract:We whom they would banish—we are more than useful.Have we not, by virtue of our cheerful aspect,Encouraged all of Paris in the fashionOf bazaars, those marts so famous in the East?And what are these walls the crowd admires? These ornaments, these columns above all?You’d think you were in Athens; and this temple Is erected to commerce by good taste. (Pp. 29—30

      French poets and playwrights of this time seem to surround a large amount of their writings around the arcades. Arcades could be the beginning of the cutural importance modern society puts on shopping. It brings many people to a crowded place, increasing potential for socializing or even romance.

    33. Lacenaire

      Pierre Francois Lacenaire was a notorious French murderer and poet. He did a lot of his writing while in prison, awaiting trial. After his death, there were many poems, plays, and other literature written about him. It was within an arcade, located at 271 Rue Saint-Martin in Paris that he committed a double murder.

    34. Because in this street the juices slow to a standstill, the commodityproliferates along the margins and enters into fantastic combinations, like thetissue in tumors.

      As stated by Muschamp in the article from the New York Times, Benjamin was a strong advocate for arcades. He believed "the Paris arcade was the most important building type of the 19th century." If that is true, then why does he compare the Parisian arcade to a tumor? He implies that the arcades block the ebb and flow of the city, much like a tumor disrupts normal functions within the human body. It is a very intriguing point for him to add to his novel, making me wonder what it's purpose is within his collection.

      Muschamp, Herbert. "ART/ARCHITECTURE: The Passage of Paris And of Benjamin's Mind." New York Times 16 Jan. 2000: n. pag. New York Times. Web.

    35. Evidently people smoked in the arcades at a time when it was not yet customary to smoke in the street. “I must say a word here about life in the arcades, favored haunt of strollers and smokers, theater of operations for every kind of small business.

      As mentioned in my last annotation, arcades were extremely diverse establishments. However, they provide variety not only in the array of stores available, but also in the kinds of people that frequented them. Socially, arcades were progressive in nature, accepting certain customs, such as public smoking, that weren't necesssarily accepted elsewhere. These places were more than simply shopping plazas; they were imperative to the identity of French society at the time. Arcades were facilitators of both commerce and community.

    36. Evolution of the department store from the shop that was housed in arcades.Principle of the department store: “The floors form a single space. They can betaken in, so to speak, ‘at a glance.’” Giedion, Bauen in Frankreich, p. 34. [A3,5]

      Here, Benjamin is trying to convey the lasting importance of arcades. He notes how these mini markets are the beginning of a culture centered on consumerism. One of the main components of consumerism are large-scale department stores, holding a wide variety of goods and services under the same roof. The arcades offered a more primitive version of similar large stores that we see today, such as Macy's and Target to name a few.

    37. “The coulisse3 guaranteed the ongoing life of the Stock Exchange. Here there was never closing time; there was almost never night.

      "The stores are felt to this animation, cafes remain open all night; everything is noise, laughter, gaiety, until the first light of dawn had replaced the expiring fires gas. "

      • Leo Lespes and Charles Bertrand, Paris-Album on the Passage de l'Opera
    38. The regime of specialties furnishes also—this said in passing—the historical-matrialist key to the flourishing (if not the inception) of genre painting in the Fortiesof the previous century

      The Arcades served as a catalyst for the spreading of art and knowledge. It could be said that the built environment was crucial for the flourishing of culture.

    39. People associated the “genius of the Jacobins with the genius of the industrials,”but they also attributed to Louis Philippe the saying: “God be praised, and myshops too.

      I think Phillipe may have been subtly adverstising his shops here. He relates his shops to God himself. Today, we see similar forms of advertising in which the product is compared to something people think they need.

    40. The magic columns of these palaces Show to the amateur on all sides,In the objects their porticos display,That industry is the rival of the arts.

      Herbert Muschamp's analysis of "The Arcades Project" offered an incredible amount of insight in to the structure of and ideas surrounding this work of literature. Muschamp first gives a background of author Walter Benjamin's life and ultimate tragic death in 1940. Benjamin's work was described as a series of notes and quotes he gathered in preparation to write an incredible novel about the life and culture of the French arcades. Unfortunately, he was unable to finish it, but from his notes alone, scholars were able to piece together his thoughts and identify his inspirations. Benjamin's inspiration were loosley gathered from Marxism, Surrealism, and the Enlightenment schools of thought. Much like the Surrealists, Benjamin wanted to rebel against conventional literature and art, and his collection is referred to by Muschamp as the "ultimate anti-book". Benjamin attempts to clear the air of the fog of romanticism and unveil the issues surrounding the Parisian markets beloved by so many. He addresses these areas with heavy skepticism in an effort to see the ugly side, consisting of debauchery, gambling, and prostitiution. In doing so, Benjamin created a very artistic collection of thoughts and notes, making a very paradoxical piece of literature many scholars regard very highly to this day.

      This article made this passage easier to comprehend. The scattered nature of the reading is extremely off-putting initially, but the article offered a lot of clarification. It is very easy to see how Benjamin's background and various ideologies play a part in his writings. A lot of the points he makes are very obviously from the Surrealistic school of thought. The way in which Benjamin sees these arcades is one of admiration, but at the same time, he is still wary of their effect on French society. He does not put them on a pedestal; instead he analyzes the arcades to the nth degree in order to truly understand these things he finds so fascinating. Many of the notes he gathered include the darker side of Parisian arcades, including prostitution and gambling. It almost seems as if he finds these arcades to be a kind of necessary evil in the evolution of French society at the time.

      Muschamp, Herbert. "ART/ARCHITECTURE: The Passage of Paris And of Benjamin's Mind." New York Times 16 Jan. 2000: n. pag. New York Times. Web.

    41. “The Passage du Caire is highly reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of the Passage du Saumon, which in the past existed on the Rue Montmartre, on the site of the present-day Rue Bachaumont.” Paul Leautaud, “Vieux Paris,” Mercure deFrance (October 15,1927), p.

      "Once the center of making straw hats who side with workshops printing and lithography, the passage of Cairo is now the heart of the industry and trade of tailoring. An exotic way, cluttered with various objects that also deserves to be restored ..." (Monique Joly, retired Paris teacher)

    42. I hate houses of more than one story, houses in which, by contrast with the social hierarchy, the meek are raised on high while the great are settled near the ground.

      This quote is very intriguing to me because the whole idea behind the cultural changes in the 18th-19th centuries was equality. Like Cuvillier noted, the architecture promotes inequality. The way society is structured, and the way things are built, it indirectly segregates people based on class and status.

    43. I do not at all hesitate to write—as monstrous as this may seem to serious writerson art__that it was the sales clerk who launched lithography. . . . Condemned toimitations of Raphael, to Briseises by Regnault, it would perhaps have died; the sales clerk saved it

      This quote shows how important the arcades were to culture and art. As Bouchot says, even the greatest Renaissance artists could not have saved the art works. It was the commoners and the shopkeepers that were vital to its survival.

    44. At this turning point in history, the Parisian shopkeeper makes two discoveries that revolutionize the world of la nouveaute

      The arcade is the site for many cultural revolutions to take place. In this case, it was the way shopkeepers keep their shops. We see these practices still used to this day that were originally started in the arcades.

    45. If an eruption of the hilltop of Montmartre happened to swallow up Paris, as Vesuvius swallowed up Pompeii, one would be able to reconstruct from our sign­boards, after fifteen hundred years, the history of our military triumphs and of our literature.”

      I find it very interesting that they were to do this. I also don’t think the location was a coincidence too. The arcades represent and show the culture of France in the present and past. So to go along with the signboards, any one who would have came across ruins of the arcades could also learn about the French culture.

    46. There are a great many of these glass-covered walkways, which often cross through the blocks of buildings and make several branchings, thus affording welcome shortcuts.

      This is an example of how the architecture has changed the culture and way of life for the people. Before, when it was raining or storming, it was very difficult to go out and shop for what you need. Now, with the glass panels, people can go out with ease and not have to worry about the weather.

    47. The Passage du Caire

      This an image of the Passage du Caire which was built in the heart of the French Revolution. The architecture reflects this time period. The citizens are France had to choose between the two paths that were a head of them, monarchy or democracy. This building represents that choice.

    48. Business, you see, sir, . . . is the ruler of the world!

      Capitalism was and still is a huge part of cultures all around the world, including France. The arcades are a direct result of capitalism

    49. What a cheerful air this small, half-darkened room has in my memory, with its high book­shelves, its green tables, its red-haired garqon (a great lover of books, who was always reading novels instead of bringing them to others), its German newspapers, £ every morning gladdened the heart of the German abroad (all except the ogne paper, which on average made an appearance only once in ten days)

      This is an example of what Shapiro writes about in her article. Julius Rosenberg found himself a hidden gem in the arcades. He didn’t find it because it was the most ornate store or the most prestigious. He found it because he was in awe of the atmosphere and culture of the store. He loved it because of its simplicity in design but extraordinary experience created by the arcades.

    50. the Pas-' sage Vivienne was the “solid” arcade. There, ,one found no luxury shops. □ Dream Houses: arcade as nave with side ch

      This quote directly relates to Shapiro’s article. Benjamin describes the Passage Vivienne as being “solid,” which he means it is the true arcade, what the arcade is really about. He also compares it to being the side chapels to the nave of a church, showing how it is not the main attraction in the arcades.

    51. Here (using sheep) the first experiments were conducted with the guillotine

      The guillotine is an important piece of the French culture during their revolution. It being invented in the arcades goes to show the arcades impact on the French culture.

    52. Trade and traffic are the two components of the street. Now, in the arcades thesecond of these has effectively died out: the traffic there is rudimentary.

      The culture in France has created a more social environment from which the arcades have been a result of. In stead of spreading the shops out like suburbanization in the U.S, they put them together to create a more connected society, culturally and economically

    53. Thesearcades, a recent invention of industrial luxury, are glass-roofed, marble-paneledcorridors extending through whole blocks of buildings, whose owners havejoined together for such enterprises

      The arcades were a recent invention, and it was due to a changing culture. The industrial revolution really sparked this change, from all of the decorations of the arcades, to the reason so many people were there. People were moving into the city to work in factories, in stead of traditionally working in the country side.

    54. Clerks

      Ari Shapiro’s article on "Atlas Obscura” which is a website, and now also a book, that is a guide to the world’s hidden gems and unknown places. Dylan Thuras is the co-founder of the website and the author of the book, and he meets up NPR and takes them on a tour of Manhattan. First, he takes them to City Hall Station that is after the last stop on the subway, and shows them the beautiful architecture and design of the forgotten station. He then takes them to an “earth-room,” after that, he takes them to a South American lunch counter in a freight entrance. It is very cheap, but also very good. It the result of the culture of the people in that area on a tighter budget, who can not afford expensive lunches. These hidden gems are everywhere, in every city, and all it takes is a little exploring to find them.

      The Arcades are an example of one of these hidden gems that was talked about in Shapiro’s article. The average person would not usually find the arcades, especially not the average tourist. Even when they do find it, there are so many things in the arcades that it is easy to walk right past some of the best places in the arcades. There are many places in the arcade like the South American lunch counter that served or still serves a purpose due to cultural needs or ways.

      Shapiro, Ari. "'Atlas Obscura' Tour Of Manhattan Finds Hidden Wonders In A Well-Trodden Place." NPR. NPR, 20 Sept. 2016. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.

  44. Sep 2016
    1. Graeme Gilloch

      This link shows all of Gilloch's work, including all of those related to Walter Benjamin. Gilloch is currently a professor at Lancaster University.

  45. Feb 2014
    1. The Benjamin Franklin Programming Practice Model
      • Find a program that you greatly admire and read it.
      • Takes note on the roles, inputs, and outputs of each major component.
      • Take notes on how the components interact.
      • Rewrite the program.
      • Compare your code with the original.
      • Note where you can improve and study accordingly.
    2. Benjamin developed his method in his early teens and worked hard at practicing his craft. Here is the exceprt with a few added line breaks for legibility. About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts.

      Benjamin Franklin on developing proficiency.

    3. The hard part is teaching the consequences of each choice.

      Once you get the syntax and basic language idioms out of the way this is the real problem that faces us no matter what language we pick.