Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics
Very compelling extract in e-flux of Beatriz Preciado’s book Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics. I am quite fascinated by her ideas and the way she established her own medical protocol and what she suggests about self-administered Testo. (Not to be confused with Tesco — do not rush out and rub patches of Tesco on your elbows)
As an aside: I did wonder if by consuming a certain brand of ice cream one might also achieve similar results in that you’d be connected into the stream of a molecule that ultimately leads to corporate synthetic steroids and pharmaceutical decisions. Thus in the future will “pharmacopornographic capitalism” also include shooting up milk? Milk, in some parts, being whacked full of hormones and let’s face it, pretty open source. Needless to say any work that make me contemplate milk in such terms on a Tuesday will certainly be read.
Click the quote below to read entire piece. Preciado’s book available in all intelligent bookstores. (Probably unlikely to be found in the candle, pillow, softest bathrobe type bookshops.)
Icing sugar weather event
We are coming to the close of the icing sugar weather event, where snow dusted us. This follows our freeze your phalanges off 5 day retreat. It was very mild mannered snow. The temperature is due to rise from tomorrow onwards. Thus our arctic pause may be over.
It’s never over in Antarctica, where following our lead in some sort of reverb/feedback ping of arctic inflow from us, they recorded the lowest temperature ever -93.2 C yesterday.
Despite this news I still want to be reincarnated as a penguin (if anyone is filling out the order forms there in reincarnation headquarters.)
Rideaux: curtains and fireplaces tour
Here are some snaps of my curtain and fireplace tour at Rideau Hall recently. I was intrigued by how impractical the fireplaces seemed i.e. that they were not lit so often. But the curtains were impressive. There was a distinct lack of tinsel in the very minimal Christmas decorations. No 1970’s salute in here! Ribbon seemed to be the favoured decoration.
Also, this item. This giant shell? Did you donate it to the Canadian people or the GG ? If so, step up and identify yourself as nobody is entirely sure where this shell or whatever it may be came from. Solve this national mystery in the comments section!
You can never say enough about the weather …
140 miles pr hr winds hit England and Ireland this week. East Anglia saw a sea-surge that tipped houses into the sea (or should that be dragged houses into the sea?). The images are astonishing. This story on the BBC also caught my ear: a lifeboat station in Norfolk was pulled into the sea in the surge. Lifeboats being precisely that which rescues people from the sea, being thus swallowed up by the sea prior to any rescuing is very strange and leaves one with the question: what remains?
I remain perplexed as to why the weather is not THE story each and every day. Increasingly, this season there are more and more of these storms. India, The Philippines, Cuba, England, Scotland & more.
Arctic front: Sari up!
I am writing to you from the arctic front. The arctic front has been with us much of the week. The lack of cloud cover means bright sun amid the very minus temperatures. I am writing this to you indoors with three coats on, a hat and am reaching for the ski-ing gloves. Tonight the temperature will sink to -16 with windchill. This is nothing compared to my very recent trip to Ottawa where the temperature was -25 in balmy mornings!
Here is picture of me in the Governor General’s greenhouse. (There is a banana tree at the very far end of it which had bunches of green bananas growing on it. I did ask the RCMP person if he ate them for breakfast to no definitive response). I was not randomly in the greenhouse. I was invited to attend the Gov. General Literary Awards by the Canada Council. We had a splendid evening, mostly because the people who work in Rideau Hall are very lively and very fun. Thank you to them for the many lively exchanges I had that night. I also particularly appreciated the French editor or publisher from Boreal who didn’t bother to heed the dress code and looked more ravishing than most in his Mark’s Work World shirt. More defiance of dress code is needed and should be applauded! Also short people should not be instructed ever to wear Long Dress. The planet is already struggling enough without the visual affront of the likes of my-short-self in such garb. Fortunately I am grateful to the sari (and her owner) for containing me, much more elegantly.
Thank you to Sandy and Siobhán for collectively dressing me. Shortly I shall post my curtains and fireplace tour of Rideau Hall.
