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September 12 ’23
At the outer edge of landfilled featurelessness, there’s a giant mirrored office building. It’s the tallest structure for miles.
The non-architecture is fascinating in its use of the most basic of right angles and its absolute mimicry — its only ornament being the doubling of its environment.
The late day sun is radiating off the upper third of its western face. Dark green McNugget-shaped shrubs, huddled around its base.
It is Saturday and the vast parking lot is empty. We are parked diagonally across a couple of spaces — waiting to meet a stranger regarding a Craigslist ad. We are early.
The lot and grounds are well kept. The only thing out of place is a mound of what looks like dirty white fabric heaped on the sidewalk, kind of centered to the entrance of the corporate monolith.
Looking more closely, the pile is actually a filthy, oversized plush bear, lying face down, arms splayed. Its position makes it seems like a comic crime scene.
Outside, the temperature is vibrating around 95 degrees. The derivative sunlight is intensifying and now fills over half of the western face of the mirrored office building. The blazing, colorless void is impossible to look at directly.
Sites in Use
A chic, flat, Petra von Kant stagy-ness pervades photographer and image-maker Bernadette Van-Huy’s work and site. We like the plain use of avoidance and directness, immensely.
Graphic Design
@belenbru
@povae
@jordykuster
@chrustchrustchrust
@n.d__s
@mike_lythgoe
Style
@princesa._.5
@kareemabvisuals
@dan.yosefi
@omidaghd
@nicolaandmanuel
Architecture
& Design
@highlypraised__
@frnck.jssld
@mariomontesinos.me
@septembrearchitecture
@kuo__duo
@flaviabroi_ceramics
Art
@ajile.le.cercle
@linneaskoglosa
@schaedyn
@wretchedofthescreen
@larissalaban
Photo
@liamcriv
@amomentonfilm
@maryam.touzani
@olgacbozalp
Shops on Cargo
Pseudo Diary
In Form Library
A$140
In Form Library
A$140
PROVOKE
$325
REFUGI
€39
Diego Berjón
€21
Club del Prado
$45
Corduroi
$140
Goings-On(line)
Emily Brontë, The Visionary (1846)
Neil Jenney, Girl and Vase (1969)
Stephen Carpenter, Soul Survivors (2001)
Marc Camille Chaimowicz at WIELS (2023)
Givenchy, Fall/ Winter (2000-01)
Oracle
57. The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind)
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Seek help quickly, as regards a large burden of responsibility — or else disastrous failure will result.
- A situation has become corrupt and rotted — a long term, committed restart, that focuses on the beautiful and dignified aspects of life, is necessary.
- Assemble/rally a team to help with weighty, large scale projects.
- To be sincerely and deeply effective, one’s influence must be gentle but ceasless — it can never lapse.
* * *
From “Cargo”: In last week’s Oracle a theory came up regarding “the right thing to do” — that, “the right thing to do” is not a certainty, but an endless process of “trying to do the right thing.” We found this notion to be rather beautiful, and wondered if the Oracle had anything further to say about it.
Responsibility is a collective affair — it requires a team. If a team is not sharing the load, the situation will collapse.
The focus of responsibility cannot be negatively motivated (thinking here of Arendt’s warnings about “negative solidarity”). Attempts to “do the right thing” must be motivated by Dignity (writ large) and Beauty (writ large) not a focus on what is wrong with “the other.”
And yes, “the right thing to do” cannot be a singular bold gesture, but must be an endless/ceaseless gentleness of influence — since every person and thing is wildly incomplete, singular rightness is absolutely impossible. Therefore, violence is ineffective in the long term — untiring commitment to benevolence is best.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Ten of Wands, reversed. When upright the card points to a burden of accumulated responsibility — a situation in which help will be needed to sort the overwhelming. When the card is reversed as it is here, the burdensome situation has reached a crisis point and will need immediate sharing of the load or disaster will be unavoidable.
Our first hexagram this week is #18, Work On What Has Been Spoiled (Decay). The subject here is of prolonged corruption and subsequent decay — and what to do about it.“We must first know the causes of corruption before we can do away with them… so that a relapse may be avoided.” “Success depends, however, on proper deliberation.” “What has been spoiled through one’s fault can be made good again through one’s work.” First try to identify the cause of the impurity (Shame? Greed? Fear?). Then break and begin again. The restarting should be initiated by stirring/drumming up all the good aspects of life (partaking in that which brings one healthy joy and casting out all that is degrading and gross). Then, regularizing these beautiful aspects of life into an oft tended rhythm. The result should be something like durable tranquility.
There was one change this week, of which the specific notes are: there has been negligence, it is serious and now deep-seated — only with the commitment of others (a team) can progress be made.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #57, The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind). The image here is of the persistence of wind; that is, wind effects/influences by ceaseless action (erosion, waves, the dispersal of clouds). The image is used as a metaphor for how to secure impact or sway: “one must have a clearly defined goal, for only when the penetrating influence works always in the same direction can the object be attained.” “Penetration produces gradual and inconspicuous effects. It should be effected not by an act of violation but by influence that never lapses. Results of this kind are less striking to the eye than those won by surprise attack, but they are more enduring and more complete. If one would produce such effects, one must have a clearly defined goal, for only when the penetrating influence works always in the same direction can the object be attained.”