CelesteMarcus

Monster of the Enlightenment Mary Shelley was a child of the Enlightenment, literally. She was the daughter of two radicals, the great philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and political philosopher William Godwin. Famously, Shelley’s...

" Whether del Toro intended it or not, more than anything the monster seems to imitate the stunted philosophical musing of Elon Musk." libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

David Foster Wallace and Democracy David Foster Wallace said that life as a famous writer is comparable to working as a TV weatherman in a mid-sized city. You’re only recognized when you are “in the right place at the right time.” Desp...

"Fascism, especially if coupled with the methods of entertainment, offers the relief of passion so ferocious it blinds and hypnotizes supporters into waging war on their own society." libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Enhance your #snowday by reading my essay on Klaus Mann's delicious antifascist novel Mephisto, a savage takedown of elite complicity that has no relevance whatsoever to contemporary America
libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

On 18 March 2025, Israel broke the ‘ceasefire’ agreement of 17 January 2025 in Gaza, killing at least 414 Palestinians, including 174 children.

@forensicarchi.bsky.social

forensic-architecture.org/investigatio...

Monster of the Enlightenment Mary Shelley was a child of the Enlightenment, literally. She was the daughter of two radicals, the great philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and political philosopher William Godwin. Famously, Shelley’s...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Monster Of The Enlightenment Mary Shelley was a child of the Enlightenment, literally. She was the daughter of two radicals, the great philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and political philosopher William Godwin. Famously, Shelley’s...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

"Wollstonecraft and her radical circle were engaged in a debate about man’s nature: was man essentially good and therefore suited to live in an egalitarian, free society based in reason? Or was man, as he so often appeared—particularly at that moment—base, ignorant, and violent?"

Democrats Built Trump's Army The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second administration have been characterized, among other things, by an obscene display of policing power, one that has largely alarmed liberals because it appea...

but you cannot deny that biden funded the police, gave money to CBP knowing they were violent. Lots of people died by police violence when Democrats were president.
libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Secretaries of the Invisible  - Liberties “I am no more than a secretary of the invisible thing.” Czesław Miłosz begins one of his poems with this evocative declaration of artistic vocation. In this spare statement, the poet abandons any pret...

Who serves best doesn't always understand.

— Czesław Milosz

libertiesjournal.com/articles/sec... #booksky #writingcommunity

The Besieged 1. In the late autumn of 1914, the German army waged all-out war against the small Flemish town of Diksmuide. Having failed to capture Paris before the arrival of British troops on the continent, the ...

“Hundreds of us had gathered there to share in her distress, and so none of us was alone...

'When the black cloud comes, if one flame flickers / We will feast on the tongues of the last bootlickers'...

I am still screaming with them. So are you."

❤️‍🔥 #Grateful

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

The Besieged 1. In the late autumn of 1914, the German army waged all-out war against the small Flemish town of Diksmuide. Having failed to capture Paris before the arrival of British troops on the continent, the ...

This is a phenomenal read.

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

The Besieged 1. In the late autumn of 1914, the German army waged all-out war against the small Flemish town of Diksmuide. Having failed to capture Paris before the arrival of British troops on the continent, the ...

Last year I set out to review Joseph Leo Koerner's Art in a State of Siege for @readliberties.bsky.social. That morphed into a study of how the First World War changed artistic expression, fascist art anxiety, and one year of bootlicking backlash in the USA: libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Kafka Inc. Dr. Franz Kafka, as he is officially listed, is buried in Prague’s New Jewish Cemetery, about a mile down the road from where I live in the neighbourhood of Žižkov. The greater Olšany Cemetery, which ...

Kafkology, Kundera contends, “produces and sustains its own image of Kafka, to the point where the author whom readers know by the name Kafka is no longer Kafka but the Kafkologized Kafka.”

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

The Rise and Fall and Rise of American Publishing - Liberties I knew the jig was up when one day, in the fall of 1995, my boss and publisher Peter Osnos asked me to lunch. I was then editorial director of Times Books, an imprint of Random House. Previously, I ha...

On publication and its discontents

libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

Eternal Fascism: Contemporary Russia in Fourteen Characteristics In the 1930s, as now, the world preferred not to notice the obvious. The cost of that willful blindness was 75,000,000 dead. Our blindness is no less willful today, and this time we are practicing it ...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Hidden in the Bourgeois - Liberties The hero of The Magic Mountain — the perfectly ordinary, blond, blue-eyed Hans Castorp —  is the typological bourgeois male. I spent seven years writing a book about the novel of which he serves as pr...

At Liberties, the wonderfully eloquent Morten Høi Jensen wrestles again with the enigma of Thomas Mann, whose outward ordinariness allowed him to, as Mann perhaps flatteringly put it, "hide in the bourgeois realm without actually becoming bourgeois.” libertiesjournal.com/articles/hid...

Eternal Fascism: Contemporary Russia in Fourteen Characteristics In the 1930s, as now, the world preferred not to notice the obvious. The cost of that willful blindness was 75,000,000 dead. Our blindness is no less willful today, and this time we are practicing it ...

Consider how these fourteen characteristics align with Donny and his party—and that since the 1960s at least, the GOP have pushing same.
The GOP is a fascist party has been for a long time.
That the national Democrats are don’t fight this…
libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Eternal Fascism: Contemporary Russia in Fourteen Characteristics In the 1930s, as now, the world preferred not to notice the obvious. The cost of that willful blindness was 75,000,000 dead. Our blindness is no less willful today, and this time we are practicing it ...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Eternal Fascism: Contemporary Russia in Fourteen Characteristics In the 1930s, as now, the world preferred not to notice the obvious. The cost of that willful blindness was 75,000,000 dead. Our blindness is no less willful today, and this time we are practicing it ...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

In the mail, mentally-enriching new issue of @readliberties.bsky.social , featuring my meditation on The Poet as Seer: Miłosz and Merton 👁️

libertiesjournal.com

#LibertiesJournal #Miłosz #Merton #PoetryAsWitness #LiteraryCulture #SpiritualWriting

Eternal Fascism: Contemporary Russia in Fourteen Characteristics In the 1930s, as now, the world preferred not to notice the obvious. The cost of that willful blindness was 75,000,000 dead. Our blindness is no less willful today, and this time we are practicing it ...

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic... Good to keep in mind when observing our own leaders too.

"... the ratio of words written by Kafka to words written about Kafka is now estimated to be about 1:10,000,000. A symbolic punishment for a man who himself claimed to be “made of literature.” 🪳Kafka Inc., Jared Marcel Pollen. libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Kafka Inc. Dr. Franz Kafka, as he is officially listed, is buried in Prague’s New Jewish Cemetery, about a mile down the road from where I live in the neighbourhood of Žižkov. The greater Olšany Cemetery, which ...

Loved this essay by Jared Marcel Pollen on Kafka.

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop - read by Yahia Lababidi One Art The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys,

True, Celeste. Heartbreak remains.. Still, enduring these losses enlarges our inner life in unforeseen ways. What once felt like exile becomes a kind of apprenticeship in tenderness, for ourselves & worlds we carry within

Somehow, this bittersweet poem comes to mind: soundcloud.com/yahia-lababi...

Texas Police Invested Millions in a Shadowy Phone-Tracking Software. They Won’t Say How They’ve Used It. One sheriff who leads an anti-smuggling task force says the software helps “develop leads to eventually obtain probable cause.” Civil liberties experts say its use violates constitutional rights.

NEW: Police—sheriffs, Texas state cops, and even ICE—can follow the location of your smart phone without a warrant.

Yet, we know little about how this software has been used.

via @texasobserver.org + @pulitzercenter.org

www.texasobserver.org/texas-police...

I think it is part of maturing, Yahia, but even the wisdom it confers does not sweeten heartbreak

First page of Kafka's Letter to His Father. The document shows aged paper with a cream or beige tone, typical of early 20th-century stationery that has yellowed over time. The page appears to be standard letter-size paper with some visible wear, creases, and aging marks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#/media/File:De_Kafka_Brief_an_den_Vater_001.jpg

The ratio of words written by Kafka to words written about Kafka is estimated to be about 1:10,000,000. Is anything left to say?

by Jared Marcel Pollen

libertiesjournal.com/online-artic...

Kafka at PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho...

#books #literature

“I Am Trying To Live A Life I Do Not Understand” - Liberties Frequently, in conversation with others or in an incessant inner monologue, I try to imagine what a world after this, after this political crisis, after this historical paroxysm, will look like. I lov...

libertiesjournal.com/articles/iam...

I wrote about losing my countries for @readliberties.bsky.social

The Long View #003 - Chaim Soutine with Celeste Marcus YouTube video by The Kennan Institute

🎥 The Long View #003 with Celeste Marcus is now available on YouTube and Spotify!

Michael Kimmage and Celeste Marcus discuss the life and art of Chaim Soutine and the themes that shaped his work.

Watch or listen here:

▶️YouTube: youtu.be/pa_33KAlrxQ
🎙️Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/16Au...