A quick test. Can you guess the occupation of the person quoted below? 

OK, officially, I now hate white people. I am a white people [sic], for God’s sake, but can we keep them – us – out of my neighbourhood?

Yes, once again, via Facebook, an educator speaks. Specifically, Rutgers University history professor James Livingston, following a visit to the Harlem Shake burger restaurant, which was, in his words, “overrun with little Caucasian assholes who know their parents will approve of anything they do.” In this case, the children of unsightly and problematic pallor were sliding on the floor and singing loudly. Activities that no brown-skinned child has ever indulged in, and which, naturally, the professor felt obliged to racialize:

Slide around the floor, you little shithead, sing loudly, you moron. Do what you want, nobody here is gonna restrict your right to be white.

And nothing enhances the purchase of a burger quite like a crescendo of racial animosity:

I hereby resign from my race. Fuck these people. Yeah, I know, it’s about access to my dinner. Fuck you, too.

While the professor claims that his vehement dislike of white people, and especially white children, is only now official, readers may arrive at their own conclusions. “I just don’t want little Caucasians overrunning my life,” the educator subsequently explained: 

Please God, remand them to the suburbs, where they and their parents can colonize every restaurant, all the while pretending that the idiotic indulgence of their privilege signifies cosmopolitan — you know, as in sophisticated “European” — commitments.

So, to recap. Our white-and-woke educator is upset, one might say fuming, that white people – other white people, that is – are “colonizing” his neighbourhood. Unlike him, you see, those other white people are privileged and indulged, and presumably crawling with mites. And unlike him, they should be remanded to the suburbs, where they belong.

Oh, and by the way, here’s Jelena Pasic, the Croatian-born owner of the restaurant in question. Readers are invited to speculate as to how Ms Pasic might feel about some neurotic, racist wanker trying to shame away her customers.

Update: 

The gallery says Lee Bul’s famous artwork Majestic Splendor (1991–2018) caught fire while it was being removed from the exhibition. Majestic Splendor is composed of sequin-covered rotting fish. When it was shown in 1997 at New York’s MoMA, it had to be removed as the smell made visitors feel sick. For the Hayward show, the fish were placed in potassium permanganate. Although it is not flammable, the chemical does increase the flammability of other combustible materials. On receiving advice, the gallery decided to withdraw the artwork, but it spontaneously combusted mid-removal.

However, “only minimal damage” was inflicted by the self-destructing art, the pre-destroyed magnificence of which can be savoured in detail here. 

Via Julia. 

Classy lady of note. || In coffee-related news. || Thriller, deconstructed. || This is not drawing. || A robot that draws on walls. || Because you’ve always wanted one. || The cost of lowered standards. || The British at play. Yes, we all do it. || Footpath of note. || A famous fibreglass foetus. || Monolith action figure. “Zero points of articulation.” || It’s a suitcase and a mini-kitchen. || It’s a pocket knife, a bottle opener, and a pivoted USB stick. || New York, seen from above, in very high definition. || Snake attack. (h/t, Julia) || Ten hours of ocean creatures. || Camel versus cactus. || Excuse of note. || This. (h/t, Dicentra) || The Einstein Theory of Relativity, 1923. || Please stop noticing reality. || Meet the robots of Ocado. (h/t, drb) || And finally, a size-conscious twister overcompensates.

Following a number of enquiries as to why I don’t have a specific tag for items involving the cartoonish Laurie Penny, I thought I’d compile a few of my posts on the British left’s foremost unreliable narrator. It’s necessarily incomplete – there are several short posts and endless, lengthy comments I haven’t included – but it should convey a flavour of Laurie’s intermittent relationship with reality, her ongoing struggles with logic, and her delightful personality. 

And 8 minutes should do it. Specifically, 8 minutes of Ms Sandrine Schaefer, whose Pace Investigations No. 7, seen in edited form below, “asks how one copes with acceleration and deceleration while enduring institutional mediation, shared space, and other external forces.”

Well, obviously.

This immense artistic work, “repeats 15 times consecutively over 6 hours and 27 minutes. In each cycle, the performance duration is either increased or decreased by half.” And thus, “What begins as a 1 minute performance incrementally becomes a 2 hour 13 minute performance, then incrementally becomes a 1 minute performance again.” “The tension between mechanical and affective time is,” we’re told, “always palpable.”

A tension illustrated by the deafening applause that greets the climax of Ms Schaefer’s performance, and by the lady seen on the right, around 1:30, who enters this arena of profound activity armed with carrier bags, and who then looks unsure of what to do, before heading to the adjacent cafeteria, seen on the left, where a fortifying beverage is purchased.

It’s nail-biting stuff. And do stay tuned for Ms Schaefer’s much-anticipated revisiting of the Great Coat Hanger Feat – seen previously here – not once, but many times.