Academia Art Emotional Support Water Bottles Free-For-All Reheated

Reheated (75)

January 16, 2023 by David 84 Comments

For newcomers and the nostalgic, some items from the archives:

Today’s Word Is Chutzpah.

Living in Glasgow is a work of art. Now hand over your wallet.

Writing in the Guardian, Liam Hainey rushes to defend Ms Harrison’s low-effort art project, denouncing “budget butchers” and asking his readers to “look at the bigger picture.” All while carefully ignoring anything that might trouble the assumptions of the freeloading arts community. Mr Hainey, a former Green councillor, dismisses the widespread mockery of Ms Harrison’s hustle as “predictable.” Yet much of the mockery occurs because hustles of this type are themselves so predictable – and what we’re seeing, once again, is a display of arrogant presumption, one that’s routine among a socially and politically narrow subsidy-seeking caste.

Mr Hainey tells us, triumphantly, that the money spent on Ms Harrison’s project isn’t in fact being wasted because it was already earmarked for art that would probably be unpopular and which nobody asked for. The uncomprehending Mr Hainey instead suggests that the hustlers be given more of the money that someone else had to go out and earn. Because they’re artists, you see, and therefore more deserving of your earnings than you are.

You’re Doing It All Wrong.

Josefin Hedlund wishes to correct your erotic preferences.

It occurs to me that if even momentary attraction requires a thorough pre-emptive vetting of each person’s geographic and educational background, and knowledge of their bank balance and socio-political views, then something’s gone horribly wrong. I should think few of us have time to maintain what sounds like a hugely impractical academic sorting fetish… But love and sex are, says Ms Hedlund, unequally “distributed,” with an unfair amount of both going to people who are deemed lovable and attractive by the people loving them. And this is because of capitalism. It’s “obvious,” you see.

The Wrong Neighbours.

Student demands veer into the absurd – and are hastily deferred to.

You see, being so pious, and so very, very special, they mustn’t endure proximity to the wrong level of melanin, what with the risk of contagion and a loss of specialness.  A student organiser of the protests, Daniel Clayton, said, “My main complaint to the University administration… is that we are not taken seriously at all. It is not appropriate to dismiss student concerns as being ludicrous.”

Passionate Attachments.

From the pages of Salon, wrenching tales of “water bottle separation anxiety.”

What follows is a catalogue of unobvious woe and amateur dramatics. “Activist Manuela Barón” – whose area of activism is left fashionably unspecified – explains how her ancient, battered water bottle had become a “part of” her, and how the loss of it, at airport security, resulted in a swell of emotional activity: “I cried as I went through the scanner and ran off to my gate; I didn’t realise it would be like saying goodbye to an old friend.” At which point, it occurs to me I may be misusing the word explain.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.




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