CSPAM Book club for book matters and also reading!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > CSPAM Book club for book matters and also reading!

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

i wanna reed Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave And The Commodification Of Ghosts

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 01:26

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 21:44

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

maybe Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation for the tankies :3:

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 01:30

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

i once ate a book on a bet

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 01:56

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

vonnegut is really good but also overrated

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 19:21

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

read my lips: no new texas

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 02:57

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

Epic High Five posted:

Votes so far are shaking out differently than I expected but still v good

nov 8th all over again

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 03:31

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

when do the polls close?

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 04:52

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 21:53

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

An Eternal State

�It had never even occurred to me that in the Soviet Union anything could ever change. Let alone that it could disappear. No one expected it. Neither children, nor adults. There was a complete impression that everything was forever.� So spoke Andrei Makarevich, the famous songwriter and musician, in a televised interview (1994). In his published memoirs, Makarevich later remembered that he, like millions of Soviet citizens, had always felt that he lived in an eternal state (vechnoe gosudarstvo) (2002, 14). It was not until around 1986 and 1987, when reforms of perestroika (reconstruction) were already afoot, that the possibility of the socialist system not lasting forever even entered his mind. Many others have described a similar experience of the profound feeling of the Soviet system�s permanence and immutability, and the complete unexpectedness of its collapse. And yet, Makarevich and many Soviet people also quickly discovered another peculiar fact: despite the seeming abruptness of the collapse, they found themselves prepared for it. A peculiar paradox became apparent in those years: although the system�s collapse had been unimaginable before it began, it appeared unsurprising when it happened.

When the policies of perestroika and glasnost� (openness, public discussion) were introduced in 1985, most people did not anticipate that any radical changes would follow. These campaigns were thought to be no different from the endless state-orchestrated campaigns before them: campaigns that came and went, while life went on as usual. However, within a year or two the realization that something unimaginable was taking place began to dawn on the Soviet people. Many speak of having experienced a sudden �break of consciousness� (perelom soznania) and �stunning shock� (sil�neishii shok) quickly followed by excitement and readiness to participate in the transformation. Although different people experienced that moment differently, the type of experience they describe is similar, and many remember it vividly.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 21:56

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

anyone uh started it?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2017 06:01

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

ive read chapters 1 2 and 3

and 3 has some great bits, made me laugh

also lol by the time u get to chapter 2 u will realize why i recommended this book :3:

reminder u can get a digital copy on the chat thing that someone else can link

quote:

The institutional power the Komsomol delegated to its authorized representatives was everywhere redeployed for the creation of �normal life.� The Komsomol committees became sites for this production. Their members were increasingly chosen according to the principle of belonging to svoi. Irina describes the composition of her committee in the early 1980s:

Anastasia, my close friend and a very energetic and bright person, was elected to the Komsomol committee. Soon she started feeling lonely there without me and decided to bring me in. So I ended up on the Komsomol committee �out of friendship� [po druzhbe]. Eventually, when Anastasia left to join the Communist Party � I started feeling lonely on the committee without her and arranged for my other friend Natalia to get elected to it too. After that we attracted another friend, and eventually built a fantastic Komsomol committee that consisted almost exclusively of friends. I have very warm memories of that committee.

Building the committee on these principles meant that its members shared an understanding that many texts and assignments were performed at the level of form, with the constative meanings ignored, and that critical discussion of this practice would usually be avoided�a practice that would be difficult to maintain if the committee included activists. Komsomol Committees therefore became sites of deterritorialization. Natalia recalls, �We liked to gather in the committee room for a meeting. Naturally, this took place during working hours. We would first quickly discuss some Komsomol issues, and then we would sit around for hours doing our own thing, chatting with each other, drinking tea, and generally avoiding regular [obychnuiu] [library] work.�

# ¿ May 1, 2017 01:27

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

oh and spoiler alert

:siren:

the ussr dissolved and is no more
:siren:

quote:

Natalia and Irina even used a coded phrase, �to leave for the raikom� (uiti v Raikom), that only svoi understood: �If we wanted to go to an art exhibition or to a caf� during work, we told the chair of our department that we needed �to leave for the raikom.�� These techniques of personalizing and domesticating the time, space, institutions, and discourses of the state, by citing authoritative forms, went on at all levels of the ideological hierarchy, including the Communist Party committees that were superior to the Komsomol committees. Occasionally this led to comical situations. Once, Natalia and Irina told the boss of their department at the library that they needed to leave for the raikom. Instead, they went to try out a new pizzeria that had recently opened in the neighborhood. An hour later, the department boss also showed up at the same pizzeria with another senior colleague. They were both members of the party committee and had also left work allegedly for urgent business at the local party raikom. After sitting down at a table they noticed Irina and Natalia. �It was very awkward,� Natalia remembers, �I almost choked laughing. We were sitting at different tables and behaved in the most civilized way, as if everything was fine.�

In her 1983 diary, Lena (born in 1963), a student in the journalism department at Leningrad University, described how an invented authoritative assignment was used by university students for truancy. On June 4, 1983, Lena and her friend Mila, also a student, were talking in front of the seminar room at the university:
Mila says: �Lena, let�s not go to Irina Pavlovna�s [Russian literature] seminar.�
�I wonder how you plan to do that?�
�Let�s say that we have an interview for the student paper with the secretary of the Komsomol committee of the Kozitsky television factory.�
I laugh in response�this is our permanent excuse, since we can�t be bothered to come up with a new one. Mila approaches Irina Pavlovna and with a very preoccupied expression starts: �Irina Pavlovna! In twenty minutes we have to be ��and so on.
I am standing nearby with a pitiful and slightly desperate expression, showing with all my posture that, of course, I would not give up the chance of going to my favorite Russian seminar for any riches of the world. But, alas, the reality is harsh�. What awful things realism does to people! Irina Pavlovna is moved (or pretends to be).
She says: �Of course, girls, you should go.�
And, destroyed by sorrow, we slowly leave. The others stare at our backs with envy. Outside of the building we start jumping with joy.
�So,� says Mila, �where should we eat?�
We are going to the caf� on the corner of Srednii Avenue and 8th Line Street.55

this svoi thing sounds pretty chill
pretending that all the communisty poo poo is meaningless and using the system to chillax with friends is my kind of fully automated space communism

# ¿ May 1, 2017 01:29

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

i finished it today!

# ¿ May 3, 2017 17:20

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

but theres a week extra or something i dunno

# ¿ May 3, 2017 17:20

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

i didn't expect to like it as much as i did!

# ¿ May 3, 2017 17:21

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

thread reopened for low energy discussion

I liked this paragraph

We will use the slang term stiob to refer to the ironic aesthetic practiced by groups such as the Mit�ki and necrorealists. Stiob was a peculiar form of irony that differed from sarcasm, cynicism, derision, or any of the more familiar genres of absurd humor. It required such a degree of overidentification with the object, person, or idea at which this stiob was directed that it was often impossible to tell whether it was a form of sincere support, subtle ridicule, or a peculiar mixture of the two. The practitioners of stiob themselves refused to draw a line between these sentiments, producing an incredible combination of seriousness and irony, with no suggestive signs of whether it should be interpreted as the former or the latter, refusing the very dichotomy between the two.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 04:17

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 21:44

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVx3lt8ZKHw

# ¿ May 18, 2017 04:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > CSPAM Book club for book matters and also reading!