There is a general concern for meaning. I am concerned. I try not to be. But I have been born. It is too late. It would be in your best interest to ignore this… deviation. Return to your life of safety and comfort. Refuse to question. Refuse curiosity.
“The real game is not to mask the the subject but the playing itself.” Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes
other deviations
Miss Mandible and I
A “deconstruction” of David Barthelme’s Me and Miss Mandible. As I constructed this text, I realized the paradoxical futility of deconstruction as a method of criticism.
May 2025
for any purpose (or lack thereof): lukas@briefdeviation.net
As soon as I got the opportunity to teach for the first time, I divided the students into small groups and told them to take turns writing a sentence and then passing it on for the next student to add. I began each sheet with one sentence: “This page has one author.”
The Canon
Consciously or not, all ideas come from somewhere. I don’t believe in citations for the same reason I don’t believe in absolute, fixed origins. Nonetheless, I can provide a personal collection of the works I was fond of and when I first interacted with them (or rediscovered them after a time). These sources may be just as or even more influential than those cited in texts themselves. I will post them at the end of each year. Think of this as a working bibliography for anything I do.
“For to be a ‘this’ is in fact also to be a ‘that,’ and every ‘that’ is also a ‘this. ‘THAT’ is then itself
already both ‘this’ and ‘not-this,’ both a right and a wrong. But ‘THIS’ is also itself already both
‘this’ and ‘not-this,’ both a right and a wrong. So is there really any ‘this’ as opposed to ‘not-this,’
any right as opposed to wrong? Or is there really no ‘this’ as opposed to ‘not-this,’ no ‘right’ as
opposed to ‘wrong’? A state where ‘this’ and ‘not-this’-right and wrong-are no longer coupled as
opposites is called Course as axis, the axis of all courses.” Zhuangzi
And the only thing I ever used photoshop for…
“One night as he sat at his table head on hands he saw himself rise and go.” Samuel Beckett, Stirrings Still
Had to start somewhere:
