RS, on some of his favorite female artists such as Ani DiFranco and Bjork
The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690)
Games for Actors and non-Actors (1992)
Context: Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a dance piece where the dancers danced in the first act and in the second showed the audience how to dance? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a musical where in the first act the actors sang and in the second we all sang together?... This is... how artists should be—we should be creators and also teach the public how to be creators, how to make art, so that we may all use that art together.
The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690)
Context: I say, life and figure are distinct attributes of one substance, and as one and the same body may be transmuted into all kinds of figures; and as the perfecter figure comprehends that which is more imperfect; so one and the same body may be transmuted from one degree of life to another more perfect, which always comprehends in it the inferior. We have an example of figure in a triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid bodies, where into a body is convertible; and from this into a cube, which is a perfecter figure, and comprehends in it a prism; from a cube it may be turned into a more perfect figure, which comes nearer to a globe, and from this into another, which is yet nearer; and so it ascends from one figure, more imperfect to another more perfect, ad infinitum; for here are no bounds; nor can it be said, this body cannot be changed into a perfecter figure: But the meaning is that that body consists of plane right lines; and this is always chageablee into a perfecter figure, and yet can never reach to the perfection of a globe, although it always approaches nearer unto it; the case is the same in diverse degrees of life, which have indeed a beginning, but no end; so that the creature is always capable of a farther and perfecter degree of life, ad infinitum, and yet can never attain to be equal with God; for he is still infinitely more perfect than a creature, in its highest elevation or perfection, even as a globe is the most perfect of all other figures, unto which none can approach.
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 660
“Disease of the home and of the life comes about in the same way as that of the body.”
Freeman (1948), p. 170
Variant: Disease occurs in a household, or in a life, just as it does in a body.
Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay
On body horror in “Interview: Tade Thompson” http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-tade-thompson/ in Lightspeed Magazine (October 2017)
Kathy Acker: Where does she get off?
Kathy Acker: Where does she get off?
Context: A friend told me that there are these clean and sober dykes that have piercings every couple months just to get high. It's about learning about my body. I didn't know my body could do this. It's not exactly pleasure. It's more like vision. I didn't know the body is such a visionary factory.
Basically we grew up not wanting to know that we had bodies. And it's not as if these piercings are in that deep — it's just on the surface. So if that little thing can do so much, who knows what else we can experience?
