Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks; racial tension in America and colonial moments; fraught interracial love dynamics; double-consciousness, code-switching, and the matrix of social conceptions in White contexts; Afropessimism; Blackness, authenticity, and humanity
Music: KMRU's rework of "Displacement" by Rafael Anton Isararri
Recorded 8/14/25
Trump's military occupation of DC; Liberal complicity with fascist takeover; why does the mutant matter for the left? Jeanine Pirro wants to imprison kids; the nuisance of culture to the colonial regime; boomerang theory of imperialism; universal programs and antiracism; white supremacy dormant in Trump's 'beautification' rhetoric
Stefano Harney and Fred Moten's "The Undercommons"; Maroon communities in Black thought; anticolonialism; What does Moten mean by study? Frank B Wilderson's Afropessimism; Posthumanism and liberation; Repetition in music and social change; improvizational jazz and iterative struggle; Social production's capture; Fanon's conception of lysis and the disorder of anticolonialism; Bad credit is the kind you want; The vampires in Sinners are the dangers of social production in the Undercommons
music: "#4" by Fred Moten and Brandon Lopez
if I punch at the machine will it make a dent ,, Before I crack my hand open on the titanium steel and my blood slides off leaving no stains?
After the fires, will I know how to leave what’s dead?
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and study the chaos.
The mutant spirit still lives among us!
There should be no attempt to fixate man, since it is his destiny to be unleashed!
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before flight.
Your wax wings are warmer than you think. When you plummet and hit the mud, how does that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable future.
Writer, musician, and educator Celia Eydeland @kartoshkayearnsforaday joins us to talk about mutant family, secular Jewish movements and leftism, reckoning with parents’ fascism, and 1957 Soviet war drama The Cranes Are Flying, among several tangents such as being a Slow Dive absolutist.
What is secularism and what is secular Judaism?; the hollowing out of spiritual meaning; the need for meaningful ritual; “There is no God but God gave us the land”; High School as state religion; Skins as socializing text; the myth of and desire for american rootedness; non-Jewish zionism; Starship Troopers and the will to go to war despite one’s family’s wishes; the arbitrariness of family; politics by way of personal honesty; the failures of America’s hippie communes
Works Cited and Further Reading:
“On the Nose”: Religion, Secularism, and the Jewish Left
Skins Seasons 1 and 2
Wild Relatives (2018)
Starship Troopers (1997)
The Cranes are Flying (1957)
Father and Sons (1862)
Drop the ADL from Schools https://droptheadlfromschools.org/
Intro by Nadoyel, other music by Mark Bernes, Dasychira, Ilya Beshevli, and Slowdive
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op.
We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncratism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas
of freedom.
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition pills, and record before breaking.
How’s that feel to rot with glee?
Become! Become! Become!
No one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands. Shape change in the nether pool from breath to breath--as your mind is freed your ass will follow. Then arise anew again and again.
How do you look?
How’s that feel?
To rot with glee, to Nurgle praise be!
Take note of futility and record before breaking.
the need for manifestos before radical action; are we in the fourth reich? Living in nazi germany; why make art for a fascist society; the genocide in gaza; ongoing pandemics and callousness for the vulnerable; the spectacle and radical subjectivity; common language and wokeness as beneficial hive mind; degrowth vs accelerationism; prefiguring for the collapse
music: edIT, Drumloop, Los Saicos, Deerhoof
Akira manga volumes 1 and 2 analysis; paul preciado’s Testo Junkie and righteous libido; the destructive anti-woman ideal of speed in the Italian Futurist Manifesto; vehicular fetishization and fascism; Anarchism and the Black Revolution by Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin and the recklessness of revolution; boyish quickness and restlessness; drugs as military resource; changing alliances and the becoming-obsolete of escalating warfare technologies; masculinity and conflict in Akira; post-apocalypse, pre-apocalypse, and between-apocalypse worlds; human insignificance in the face of catastrophe
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
recorded 1/19/25
Disaster Capitalism and the Chicago School of Economics; Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine; Privatization of firefighting in the LA fires of 2025; Capitalization of catastrophe; predatory debt and the lack of accountability for insurance companies; escalating yuppification of LA since the pandemic; the indulgence of elites in terms of climate change; aliens, funk, afrofuturism, and afropessimism; love in apocalyptic times; LA as dream invader; flamagra by flying lotus close reading and analysis
if I punch at the machine will it make a dent ,, Before I crack my hand open on the titanium steel and my blood slides off leaving no stains?
After the fires, will I know how to leave what’s dead?
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
The mutant spirit still lives among us!
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
Filmmaker and writer Lucas Murphy returns to discuss Coralie Fargeaut's very French body-horror flic depicting Demi Moore's LA starlet facing devolution and mutation.
Check out literary and arts magazine Cusper https://cuspermag.substack.com
Decadence and degradation at the movies; Youth and sexiness; polymorphic affect in The Substance; parodying the male gaze; how the body changes the self; foreign projections of LA and Cyberpunk 2077; Fargeaut's detached French affect; obsolescence, ageism, and sexism; how does the struggle to preserve one's legacy besmirch it? does the substance look down on the body image issues it depicts? reading JK-Rowling-esque fear of transitioning; DJ Sprinkles' critical analyses of glamour; what does Margaret Qualley's character want? Is there pleasure in this movie? Why is The Substance both so pointed and so dubious to pin down?
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. Syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike. In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom.
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains. How do you look and where are you looking? Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay me?
Sign up for Alex’s class on queer occultism here: https://www.laetitiacartomancy.com/classes-1/p/queerness-the-occult
And follow her at ardycejones.com or instagram.com/infowarzz
her cited essay is "Austin Osman Spare’s Psychopathia Sexualis" for the Brooklyn Rail
What associations does the hermaphrodite have with divinity and power?; How is the queer body a kind of mutant?; How have the suppression of queerness and magic been linked in the western enlightenment project?; Where can we excavate queer embodiment in esoteric traditions?; What is the significance of the Androgyne or Hermaphrodite in hermetic philosophy, and how does it relate to contemporary queer theory?; How is the monster/mutant innately about the transgression of categories, and has this always been the case or is this a postmodern construction of monstrosity?; Why is the nonbinary supernatural, whether in the form of the transcendent androgyne or the monster/mutant?; Laetitia’s cartomancy as seed for Alex’s queer occultism studies; queerness, subversion, and the sublimation of desire; pathology as container; alchemy’s symbolism’s layered meanings; the cloud of unknowing and alchemical instruction; psychopathia sexualis and Austin Osman Spare’s transgressive art; King James’ demonologies as tempting experimentation; the sacred androgyne and intersex people; Jack Halberstam’s Skin Shows and queer monsters as post-gothic technologies; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as progenitor of sci fi and horror; queerness in early christian mysticism; haraway’s cyborgs and chthonic entities as monsters; serpents as keepers of secret knowledge; magic and lusting for results
music: Boody, Khalifa; Prettybwoy; Ana Roxanne
Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 Analysis and critique; the pacing of Mickey 17; Do clones share souls? Anti-intellectualism and populist art; satire of the MCU; space colonization and boringness; nifelheim as a real place; Kenneth marshall, trump, musk, and biden; neoliberalism vs fascism; failed colonies; white supremacy and communism; lack of biodiversity in The Creepers; blockbuster films and subversive commentary
watch Matt's films here: https://matt-oconnell.com/work
follow Matt: https://www.instagram.com/matt0connell/
Trump’s first month in DC; what to do as an aspiring lawyer getting laid off in Trump’s second term; vulnerability as solidarity-building opportunity; instability and the bad deals we’re offered in its face; Walter Benjamin’s derailment of the train and the end of Snowpiercer; technofascism on the rise; is an accelerationist framework necessary?; fred moten’s undercommons and stealthy autonomous zones seeding resistance; navigating homelessness as important skill
music: operation ivy, rene hell, mary lattimore, paul sukeena, d'eon, subhumans
if I punch at the machine will it make a dent ,, Before I crack my hand open on the titanium steel and my blood slides off leaving no stains?
After the fires, will I know how to leave what’s dead?
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
The mutant spirit still lives among us!
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before flight.
Your wax wings are warmer than you think. When you plummet and hit the mud, how does that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable future.
LA-based performance and noise artist Dagger Wound joins Josh and Jackie to talk about sadomasochism, horror, healing, performance, and how far we’re willing to go to sensitize ourselves and those around us to the pain we’re tied to.
@dagger_wound @arwahcollective @mirroredfatality
Extreme performance art and self-mutilation; bloodletting as healing; noise as vengeful spirit; Leila Khaled and the importance of dissent; what can avant-garde art do for resistance movements?; japanese cyberpunk; torture as spiritual enhancher; Rubber's Lover (1996) by Shozin Fukui and the use of noise as torture device; body as harp; the desire for body modification; vertexx, rec center, coaxial, chewing foil, church of fun, the history and future of DIY performance spaces in LA; practical mutual aid and nomadic community-building on tour; how Mirrored Fatality got started; sci-fi as warning; Ghore Girl’s body-modding performance art ( @gh0re.grl ) ; cupping as healing weapon
if I punch at the machine will it make a dent ,, Before I crack my hand open on the titanium steel and my blood slides off leaving no stains?
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
The mutant spirit still lives among us!
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
The conclusion to our 4-part Akira series.
Akira manga analysis and summary; what happens at the end of akira? Memories as karma at the end of life; what motivates powerful people to dominate others; is leadership necessary? Are autonomous zones feasible in 2025? In the wake of apocalypse, who is left behind? What makes a monster? Tetsuo as a power-seeking monster cyborg and what it means to make monstrous; apocalyptic rapture and who gets left behind
music: Kamaal Williams, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, bod, Phoebe Isobel, Drogas, Losty, Kaho Matsui
instagram.com/amutantmanifesto
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
The mutant spirit still lives among us!
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
Part 3/4 of our Akira deep dive.
Akira manga analysis and summary; feminism and katsuhiro otomo's akira; Adirenne Rich's Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence; Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem and the society of decay; the need for feminist care ethics in anarchist mobilization; "the second coming" by william butler yeats and the fallenness of prophets; guerilla tactics in Akira and real-world anti-imperial spaces; authoritarianism in anarchy and anarchy in authoritarian governments
music: AYA GLOOMY, TENTENKO, MM/KM, Hiro Kone, Lucy Liyou, Golin
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
Josh and Jackie deep-dive into the foundational Cyberpunk text, Akira. For the next 3 weeks, we will be reading 2 chapters per week of the Akira manga. Follow along and share your thoughts!
Akira (1988) plot summary and analysis; origins of cyberpunk; authority and revolution; evolution and divinity; the demiurge and gnosticism in anime; anime power trips and apotheosis; male rivalry in Akira; the destructive potential of machismo; evolution and emergent properties; ESP kids and government experimentation; the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the destruction of Bhopal, India vs the nuclear bomb
Current Mutant Manifesto:
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective to witness the chaos from above.
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
Joined by Ramona Gomez ( instagram.com/divaindistress ), urban ecologist and visual artist, to discuss the intriguing histories both personal and political of pigeons in Berlin and their accompanying migrants human and nonhuman.
Foraging art vs found art; haunted urban architecture; ancient dovecotes and early pigeon-human relationships; Pigeon Architecture: The DoveCotes of Turkey; the history of pigeons in urban settings; Turkish immigration in Berlin; human/animal symbiosis in architecture and practice; the necessity of beauty; undervaluing color; why pigeons matter; anti-pigeon sentiment and disdain for humanity; Aviaries in the Attic - haunted memories of World War pigeons and the Golden Cobblestone on the front steps; Pigeon Vigil - A performance Piece - May 2022; Forgotten Receitals - An attic Show - October 2024; Studying Pigeons from the Perspective of Neukölln; anti-palestinine laws in contemporary Germany and the infringement upon free speech; pigeon extermination from Limburg an Der Lahn; Silencing Migrant, Arab, and Middle Eastern Voices
further reading:
Animal Practices, Ethnicity, and Community: The Turkish Pigeon Handlers of Berlin Carol Jerolmack, 2007
Dovecotes in Kayabag Village: An Assessment of landscape and architectural Characteristics , Ulku Incerkose, 2020
German Turks and their Quest for Mobility Ayse Simsek-Caglar 1994
Turkish Berlin: Integration Policy and Urban Space Annika Marlen Hinze, 2013
Sometimes it feels like something went wrong and that’s why we’re here, that we’re in some kind of cosmic cage or simulated psy-op. We become in the face of simulations and psy-ops, and from wrongness spring. syncretism is for the honorable and dishonorable alike.
In thought and in body, no one, not two, in sky and seed sewn, we dream up shadows to love through and hold their calloused hands, shaping change in the nether pool from breath to breath and coming up again and again seeking vistas of freedom. We embody a haunted perspective and witness the chaos from above.
Learn from the labyrinths in breathing mountains.
How do you look and where are you looking?
Note when you’re stuck, put sugar on your tradition-pills, and record before breaking. How’s that feel to rot with glee--to decay with me?
Like the process of radioactive decay in unstable atoms, degeneration yields a more sustainable nature.
Joined by Studio Virosa to discuss their craft and their films, Poor Magic (2020) and Fishbowl (2022) -- how pursuing knowledge can capture one in degrading cycles. Follow Virosa's IG at /www.instagram.com/v_i_r_o_s_a/
From Virosa's website ( studiovirosa.com ):
“VIROSA is a collective voice working to expand the cinematic arts. We produce experimental narrative films, drawing influence from contemporary art practices and video games as well as the established film canon. We commit ourselves to formal risk-taking, knowing that the art of cinema is in a paradigm shift.
VIROSA resists the unsustainable and unwieldy practices of Hollywood, aspiring to a new mode of “degenerate cinema.” We use hacked digital tools, game engines, and experimental photography to generate value beyond our limited financial resources. Founded in 2020—the year of the plague—
VIROSA makes films for a future in which technology will not deliver the utopias promised, and magic lanterns must be made to shine light upon dark times. Long live cinema!”
Poor Magic: https://vimeo.com/584625757
Fishbowl: https://vimeo.com/678401886/eb04ebff5c
Uplifting monstrosity; the endarkenment; anti-enlightenment art; scientific delinquency; degenerate cinema; horror and circularity; american folklore; experimental indie cinema and the limitations / liberations of small budgets; exquisite corpse in collaboration; alchemical light and the shadow; how knowledge shapes the subject; dreams and synchronicity; will we be remembered by paleontologists of the future? worldbuilding and distortion; splicing digital and analogue; interdisciplinarians in coworking; the importance of place in film; AI as tar; the la brea tar pits and the warping of fossils; the banality of reanimation; process shaping art
People thought I was a girl; they didn’t get my costume; gender misrecognition and trans becoming; clowns as liminal guides; why animal costumes are the best; racist stereotypes in costumes; sexy, funny, scary, or artsy? of mimicry and man by homi bhabha; the need for costume archetypes; the queer art of failure by jack halberstam; fools, jesters, and the regulation of language
the need for community education and celebration of death; horror candy; sweetness and power by Sidney Mintz; cartoon grim reapers; halloween as communal affect; American sanitization of grieving processes; You’re Dead by Flying Lotus and the psychedelia of embracing death; undead america; we never see the killing we do; school shootings; mutant reese's products
The history of halloween; mischief as spiritual warding; Baudrillard on Halloween; the vengeance of children; colonialism and delinquency; banishing the animal; policing rambunctiousness unevenly; too many treats and too few tricks