Marguerite Duras, The Lover

we're sorry we are one day late to IAD, 2023

God is never in a hurry, but God is never late.

Adrian Rogers

"As scripts easily generate endless iterations of varied forms, the difference between one form and another is no longer a critical integer but instead the output of a totalizing mathematical process. Any formal complexity in this context becomes normative and thereby ineffective as a mode of resistance to power. Moreover, form can be generated today without concern for constructability, because advances in digital software are paired with ever-more-sophisticated building technologies. With constructability becoming less of a concern, contemporary architecture produces increasingly more exuberant forms, each one just as anomalous as the last, creating a conceptual milieu that is ultimately homogeneous, despite any specific differences between individual forms.What capacity does architecture have to be critical in this context? While it is tempting to identify the problem as an infatuation with software, perhaps the problem lies in the inherent attitude around time that the digital presents. The techno-zeitgeist of today has returned to a present-based avant-garde, one in which the limits of form are defined by the technical possibilities of the present and in which time might be the integer of possible resistance. If this is so, what might a different attitude toward time look like? For this, it is possible perhaps to turn to Theodor Adorno’s study of Beethoven’s late works. Adorno finds in Beethoven’s late works a return to classical conventions after a long period of rejecting them almost entirely, and yet this classical recapitulation does not follow formulaic classical structures. Instead, Beethoven introduces caesuras and ruptures between classical conventions, and as such, he identifies the fragment as a formal idea, which informs the path that music and other disciplines take in the nineteenth and twentieth century. But Adorno’s analysis is of interest not simply because he succeeds in identifying a formal change that marked the beginning of a new period in musical history, but rather because Beethoven’s unusual treatment of classical conventions problematizes the existing relationship between form and time. The classical conventions that appear in the work inevitably embody a temporal dimension, due to their emergence within a specific historical context and their corresponding associations with particular styles. Yet because of gaps and breaks between these conventions, the classical elements no longer follow the formulaic sequence of classical form, and are thereby transformed from stylistic determinants to autonomous fragments within a work. Untethered from style, they become possibly unbound from time. So, in a way, Beethoven’s late works were neither imitative nor innovative. Instead they rewrote the relationship between the parts of classical form through an approach that did not rely purely on formal anomaly to break from the past, but that disrupted temporal continuity by breaking up the narrative sequence of a piece, and in so doing, questioning the historical context within which the work unfolds. Beethoven’s work looks neither forward nor backward in time, but rather sits outside a temporal progression. Anachronisms no longer operate as historical reference; as fragments they acquire a different capacity to identify with other moments and other eras—including those that had not yet occurred.Adorno called this phenomenon lateness, and it is different from the modern relationship to history, which focused on a break with precedent, and different from the postmodern relationship to history, which focused on citation and a return to past historical styles. Instead, lateness exhibits temporal ambiguity. The result is something nondialectical, not of the zeitgeist, and not of the avant-garde. Late works are neither of the present nor of the past. They are, as literary critic Edward Said wrote, in and apart from the present."

Lateness

Someone banged loudly on the outer door. “Kel, come on!” bellowed Neal. “We'll be late!”

“Hose.” Lalasa dragged out a fresh pair. “I'll tie one leg if you'll do the other.”

“Neal, hold on,” Kel shouted. “I have to fix something!” She struggled into both hose, then tied the points on her left side while Lalasa did up the right. Before they were half done Neal banged on the door again. “Go without me!” Kel ordered.

“No! Come on!”

Points and hose tied, Kel struggled back into her slippers. “Thank you,” she told Lalasa warmly. “I'll have that tea when I get back from the tests.” She ran to the door and yanked it open.

Neal stood there, red-faced with impatience, ready to knock again. “About time,” he said. They trotted down the hall.

“Why are you in such a tearing hurry?” demanded Kel, stopping in the classroom wing to adjust the hose on one leg. “We'll get there.”

“You don't understand,” Neal said when they ran on. “If you're even a little bit late, the Stump makes you repeat the last year. He did it to two boys three years ago. And if you're really late, you have to repeat all four years. Edmund of Rosemark, a year before we started, was that late. He refused to do four more years and went home.”

“Why is he so hard on latecomers?” Kel asked.

“You know the Stump. He says tardiness in a knight costs lives.”

  —  Page (Tamora Pierce)

Excuses

At first I think maybe the technology shift changed the narrative, but that actually does not hold up under scrutiny.

Something of the editor stopping to ask -- "Wait. Do kids still use clock radios?", and deciding " may as well change it". And fit the person while they are at it. Maybe with the random dude they needed something Mr. Weatherbee would buy -- he experienced the blackout too.

Lol

I must sleep. Sleep is the mind-healer. Sleep is the big-life that brings total ability to fucking do anything. I will face my bed. I will permit the blankie to pass over me and snores to pass through me. And when sleep has gone past I will turn the outer eye to greet the new morning. When the sleep has gone there will be everything. Energy and will to live will remain.

he can infodump so deep inside me I'll have trivia running down my leg

they should invent a new type of "staying in bed for 2-3 hours after you wake up repeatedly opening and closing apps on your phone" where it makes you feel awesome and energized and emotionally fulfilled

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

This is for the people who didn’t party in their teens and twenties. For the people who didn’t have that “coming of age” movie experience with shenanigans and revelations. This is for the people who mostly keep to themselves. Who maybe prefer things to be quieter and gentler. This is for the people who don’t feel like they belong in a culture that values loud parties and flashing lights. I see you. And you are valid.

This is literally my favorite tweet of all time. It’s so powerful.

She Freaken Forgor Me