making a list to finish writing this week's newsletter - not clear to me it's actually possible but if anyone guesses what all those have in common then I'll give you a free yearly subscription to https://youngvulgarian.substack.com
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Something about difference between the thing as it projects itself (or conceives itself to be projected) in the world and its actual meaning or importance. Can't express it well, but the gap between the signifier/signified for in-group vs out-group
I can’t explain this beyond vibes only but my gut is telling me to guess this is something about gender. Maybe about how men in international politics behave? The mountain being the most on the nose metaphor ever for how young men are relatively privileged yet all we hear about is their needs.
Something along the lines of requiring an invite before being allowed to speak to the person or enter the location? Maybe that invite needing to be vetted somehow too.
Things that give the appearance of being one thing but are actually something different..? I'm not sure I've thought that through properly. Something to do with the front end being stage-managed or protected.
This is a word cloud for a novel written in the style of Thomas Pynchon of a woman threading words into columns of print and you're using it as an extended metaphor for the shrieking hell around us.
I’m gonna go with power and control. They’re linked but in different forms:
Authoritarian power
Cultural power
Control over space
Public displays of power
Colonial power.
Or is it clothes? Do you have to change out of your everyday clothes and put on a special paper suit to...go to Nigeria...or have sex with... I'll get my hat.
Not sure about the rest, but the seed vault apparently cost around 2.4 million kr to maintain in 2019. How much does Boris Johnson have to pay in child support again?
Can I just clarify, is this the journey your newsletter is going to take this week? From Assad to Johnson via the other stops? Like some fucked up narrative tube map? Or do they have something fundamental in common?
Things that we have radically changed our opinion on depending on context? Zoo enclosures used to keep animals in, now they are often to protect animals from people. Johnson was a harmless buffoon on HIGNFY and became less harmless and so on?
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You’re writing a newsletter about them.
I like this, it's like a particularly deranged round of Only Connect.
(Or lack of, in case of Boris?)
(I have genuinely had one about Svalbard)
Authoritarian power
Cultural power
Control over space
Public displays of power
Colonial power.
This is my best guess.
Something about artifice.
Things which are more boring inside than they appear to be from the outside? Apologies to Kylie Jenner; no apologies to Boris Johnson.