ANUS. Schopenhauer’s Obit anus, abit onus on your mind May 2019 day after French mother’s day as think of MOTHER q.v. not yet 80, not yet ill, more or less estranged @ time of writing, & wonder how you’ll feel when she dies. Story told in several sources, raises intractable questions re. relation of philosopher’s philosophy to her/his life cf. COMPASSION, HATE, SPINOZA. B. Russell’s unconcealed antipathy towards Schopenhauer = jealousy? & AS himself jealous of Hegel, thought he (AS) was Kant. BR calls AS’s outlook tired & valetudinarian, quietistic, implic. = pessimistic. Considers AS’s doctrine of weakening WILL q.v. insincere if judge by his life > begs 1st question re. ‘sincerity’s’ relation to doctrine = can philosophical doctrine re. e.g. relinquishing will be sound if philosopher = e.g. willful? > 2nd question re. how sincerity = measured cf. e.g. New York University Loneliness SCALE q.v. & cf. ALONE, FAKE, TRUTH. Acc. BR, AS didn’t weaken his own will: dined @ good restaurant, many trivial love affairs, was sensual rather than passionate, v. quarrelsome, unusually avaricious. To illustrate AS’s meanness BR recounts anus incident: ‘On one occasion [AS] was annoyed by an elderly seamstress who was talking to a friend outside the door of his apartment (cf. NOISE & see AS’s essay on subject). He threw her downstairs, causing her permanent injury. She obtained a court order compelling him to pay a certain sum (15 thalers) every quarter as long as she lived. When at last she died, after twenty years, he noted in his account book: “Obit anus, abit onus” [n. ‘The old woman dies, the burden departs.’]. It is hard to find in [AS’s] life evidence of any virtue except kindness to animals, which he carried to the point of objecting to VIVISECTION q.v. in the interests of science. In all other respects he was completely selfish. It is difficult to believe that a man who was profoundly convinced of the virtue of asceticism and resignation would never have made any attempt to embody his convictions in practice.’ Hollingdale’s Penguin intro Essays & Aphorisms less judgemental & more detailed: Caroline Luise Marguet = seamstress aged 47 ( not ‘elderly’ as per BR), AS threw her downstairs August 1821; CLM sued AS, claimed that injuries made it imposs. for her to cont. profession vs. AS insisted she’d been making too much noise. Litigation cont. almost 5 years. At 1 point while AS in Italy all his goods seized & placed under distraint until returned from hol. & went to court. March 1826 AS sentenced to pay Mlle. Marguet 60 talers (c. £9) per annum for rest of her life. CLM d. 1852 = 26 years payment = total 1560 talers = £234 not that much? see Speenhamland allowance scale 1795 & cf. MONEY. On receiving copy of CLM’s DEATH q.v. certificate (= not ‘account book’ as per BR), AS wrote across it Obit anus, abit onus. @ time of death CLM = 73 yrs. old thus now anus ‘old woman’ alth. nowadays many would reject sobriquet as ageist cf. DEMENTIA, NON CISMENTIS & Burton (1621) correctly observes that dotage = ubiquitous, not symptom of age For we are ad unum omnes, all mad… not senex bis puer, delira anus [an old man is in his second boyhood, an old woman dotes] but say it of us all, semper pueri, young and old, all dote [BUT TALKING ABOUT AGE NOT DOTAGE = IRREL.?] Contr. David Jack’s account, The Lancet 349, May 10 1997: says seamstress = Caroline Marquet, ‘old Arthur’ went > Switzerland & Italy instead of remaining to defend himself against Marquet/Marguet’s charges; she stubbornly survived for another 20 years & AS ‘master of the sound-bite’ wrote on her death certificate ‘Obit anus, obit onus’ = corrected in Lancet June 21 1997 Donald Galford outrage @ mutilation & mistranslation of S’s diary sic entry = another ERROR q.v. + DJ’s ‘twenty years’ also wrong if Hollingdale correct. DJ points out that anus retains anatomical meaning ‘so perhaps old Arthur had a sense of humour after all.’ Lat. ānus n. = m. ring, anus, f. old woman, sibyl; adj. aged, old; nothing in AS’s sentence other than context to indicate which n. intended > could transl. as Arsehole dies, debt departs, or Sibyl dies, debt departs = example of same word, divergent meaning = poss. HOMONYM q.v., Lat. dict. doesn’t give dates for ānus n. m., f. vs. OED from class. Lat. ānus ring or circle, posterior opening of alimentary canal < same Indo-European base as Armenian anowr necklace, ring, perhaps also Early Irish áinne ring although latter at least as likely to be loan from Latin; obs. meaning 2. = opening @ base of flower adds semantic layer to expression sl. obs. Bugger the begonias & ānus no longer means old woman > begs another question re. wh. came 1st, woman or orifice + how homonyms arise/are formed; must have different etymological paths otherwise they’re synonyms (Fowler) see e.g. KNOWLEDGE q.v. ‘remarkable’ differences in chronol., n. & v. (OED), also DATE n. 1&2, also SCALE q.v. again 7 nouns, different roots. Lat. ānus ring surely preceded posterior opening [TO VERIFY] but when & why did sibyl/woman happen & what’s her connection to ring/posterior orifice? Cf. AS’s extremely low opinion of women in general not only CLM > some of his writing unreadable see e.g. annotations to ‘On Women’ ‘what happened to you?’ … ‘Wasting my time’ … ‘skimming – v. stupid & boring’, begs 3rd Question re. whether can subscribe to/sympathize with ideas of sexist philosopher, Answer = no? > vengeful appropriation & distortion of concepts. BR scathing about ‘old bachelor’ who lived w. poodle Atma didn’t procreate, emulated Kant in everything apart from early rising, regarded world as penal colony & place of atonement but AS’s philosophy = more important than BR’s e.g. Wittgenstein regarded latter as sell-out vs. AS influenced e.g. BECKETT q.v., Proust also Wagner + many others find comfort in Schopenhauerian sadness e.g. fulcrum on which Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name turns = proleptic (‘later’) regret @ loss (love, passion), WASTE q.v. Protagonist physically sore after 1st anal sex, says soul & body meet in anus not pineal gland STUPID q.v., suffers shame & loathing, fucks a peach next day, possibly revenge &/or envy & see Clemens, ‘Do I dare to fuck a peach?’ (2020), sprawling on a pin, butt ends, easy tool + Do I dare to eat a peach? = poss. allusions to anal sex & FELLATIO q.v. in Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’ = far-fetched? but anus in Aciman could be regarded as seat of future/‘later’/too late knowledge i.e. Sibylline orifice wh. here reveals pleasure/suffering nexus now & to come = something to think about you’ll have to reread the novel & cf. MONTAIGNE, STONE, STOOL = what you can learn from your excrement = daily (if lucky) toilet bowl book of Sibylline leavings that have issued from anus. Many ānuses i.e. Sibyls in Wn. art incl. Michelangelo Sistine ceiling, Mantegna, Tintoretto, Rembrandt & Turner paints her w. Aeneas Book VI tells him she’s old bc. has been granted as many years as grains in handful of dust but forgot to ask for handful of eternal youth. In Satyricon Sibyl hangs in bottle & when children ask her what she wants says I want to die cf. END-OF-LIFE. Colonoscopy = sort of prophesy i.e. whether you have/might one day have COLON q.v. CANCER q.v. & will die sooner rather than later, necessitates complete voiding of bowel prior to insertion of tube through anus under local anaesthetic, tube = equipped with CAMERA q.v. + some kind of laser blade to cut away cancerous cells. You felt nothing 1st full anal penetration = disappointing, saw whole thing on SCREEN q.v. day after watching 1st ½ Call Me by Your Name while drinking 3 litres Peglyte™ laxative had to keep running to toilet DecemberNovember 2018; anal + screen connections only just occurring to you & screen itself = poss. modern version Sibylline leaves > Sibyl will need its own ENTRY q.v. + cf. Edwards’s (2019) descrip. courteous voiding prior to anal sex > euphoric intestinal emptiness followed by depression/sadness cf. DOWN, PAINKILLER & colonoscopy doesn’t compensate with pleasurable sex, must refill intestine cautiously, 99% gut flora probably wiped out & gut more inflamed than ever = why you feel depressed afterwards. By time you’re ānus i.e. old will have been required to have several colonoscopies bc. increased risk colon & other cancers as age & NB parson’s nose isn’t chicken’s anus as you thought when a child but small fatty joint which holds bird’s tail feathers, regarded as delicacy when well-roasted & crisped, called sot-l’-y-laisse in Fr. only a fool would leave it vs. you always left it bc. believed chicken had shat out of it cf. KNOWLEDGE again & see de Chauliac Rectal Recipes (1915) for dishes featuring anus &/or intestines e.g. Anneau de boeuf en croûte, Rimmed rabbit, Guttled shark & cf. sweetbread(s) = pancreas or thymus glands of young animal usually calf alth. sometimes pig, must be soaked & blanched soon after slaughter to RENDER q.v. organs firm, believed health-promoting bc. pale in colour & colour = preserved if you place in fresh spring water after boiling 5-10 mins (Acton, 1845) Fr. sweetbread = ris de veau, ris = laugh/ter > literal & perverse? ‘calf’s laugh.’ See also Bersani 1987 alth. rectum ≠ anus & cf. OFFAL, SORREL, SORROW, THYME, TIME.
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HUMAN. Patch’s essay ‘Homo fabricans’ (2019) interprets ubiquity of utterance ‘It’s [part of] what makes us human’ as sign of anthropopanic & anthropoanxiety (ugly coinages) i.e. insistence on activities that make you human incl. breeding, cohabitation, cross-fit, fellow-feeling, flesh-eating, kindness i.e. twds. your kind, LOVE q.v., monogamy, social dining = sign of widespread dis-ease re. species status in ANTHROPOCENE q.v. + disintegration of almost everything. Phrase ‘What makes us human’ = ellipsis of ‘What makes us feel like human beings,’ human here = adjective, maybe even metaphor = human i.e. you feel like a human = you’re not, possibly there’s no such thing + suggestion that ‘human’ = emotion or sensation rather than empirical entity. ‘Human being’ implies that to be human you have to be (= tautology?) > dead people = neither human nor people & NB impossible to ‘be’ dead (see below). V. complicated. Also word’s multiple origins e.g. Bewell c. 2007 cited Vico’s derivation ‘human’ from Lat. humus earth, soil, ground bc. humans = [APPARENTLY] only species who put dead in ground but you couldn’t find in Vico = Bewell’s ERROR q.v.? vs. OED says human partly borrowed from Fr. humeigne, partly Lat. humanus = same root as homin/homo + ANUS q.v. signifies ‘people’ rather than animals or GOD q.v., animals & God not recognized as beings i.e. ‘people,’ women also excluded in certain periods & places cf. CLITORIS & NB Lat. humanitas = feminine noun human nature, civilization, culture, humane character vs. homo = why many still refer to ‘man’ when mean human, use of ‘man’ as gender NEUTRAL q.v. = semantically problematic bc. man/human ≠ synonyms > perhaps follow Shelby’s (2003) suggestion to ditch man & human & use whoman instead since (almost) includes all 3 words man/woman/human + interrogative Who is human? Clever (alth. still bi- rather than polygendered). Homo = biol. genus, comprises modern human (retain term for now) + number of extinct hominids, possibly a dozen = result of extensive ape RADIATION q.v. @ mid/late Miocene >÷ hominid/pongid > erect bipedal hominids w. small brains & large jaws cf. HUNGER from Homo erectus > Homo sapiens (H.s.) lit. rational/wise person > more doubts re. what counts as homo/human bc. not always (not often) rational/wise e.g. some ethicists’ arguments re. brain-dead H.s. = not people vs. so-called higher primates to be recognized as persons in LAW q.v. >protection from e.g. hunting/capture/consumption of. Patch & others regard C21 species panic as result of proliferation anthropoids from 1990sff > SMART q.v. devices perform many human functions + display human-like behaviours e.g. cajoling, choosing, comforting, consoling, cooking, counting, creating, curating e.g. your music @ home & in office e.g. Ellipsis = medical AI software can read patients’ symptoms – & also prescribe meds? TO VERIFY. 2nd decade 2000s Smartspeakers e.g. Alexa, ECHO q.v., GOOGLE q.v. Assistant (GA) = in vanguard > next generation frictionless, lidless devices w. double-sided SCREEN q.v. + discontinuation OFF/SLEEP q.v. q.v. modes by late 2020s > objections from some ¼s re. personal agency & privacy, latter declared thing of the past cf. EXTINCT, PEGASUS PROJECT & most H.s. capitulated bc. impossible to function in modern world without double-screened, frictionless devices if e.g. want to park, travel on bus/plane/train, shop e.g. for food cashless/contactless society now also card-free & chequeless except France + uncontacted tribes fewer & fewer in no. or perhaps more uncontactable? vs. mass-produced interiority everywhere else see Shulevitz 2018 & cf. AMAZON, BEZOS, DATE, DESERT, WASTE. Building on Patch, Tallis (2024) says phrase ‘What makes us [feel like a] human [being]’ = protesting too much + attempt to justify destructive & violent comportment towards all other species & howlwhole planet. Tallis also notes contradiction @ HEART q.v. of anthroposuperior arguments such as ‘Hunting is what makes us [feel] human’ i.e. bc. H.s were once hunter-gatherers with small brains & big jaws + ‘Art/culture/technology is what makes us [feel] human’ i.e. cleverer than other species who don’t have art/culture/technology at least not as recognized by H.s. > permits smaller-jawed H.s. to hunt/kill/consume species seen as culturally deficient = non sequitur as well as contradiction can’t have your bison & eat it too i.e. either you’re hunter-gatherer or you’re culturally etc. superior & NB H.s. don’t eat other H.s. uncultured or otherwise ANTHROPOPHAGY q.v. still = mostly taboo e.g. Cora Diamond (1978) ‘we do not eat our dead’ alth. doesn’t give reason(s) cf. BISKET, CRUSOE, RECYCLING. Some historians of the future/prophets cite H.s. as only species actively engaged in bringing about own extinction/obsolescence cf. END OF LIFE, SUICIDE to be completed by close C21 alth. perhaps far-fetched to regard this as neo-Darwinist capitalist plot (‘survival of the richest’) vs. others maintain optimism & good cheer, regard Anthropocene as cause for celebration rather than concern since other species & life forms e.g. cockroaches, flies, MOSQUITOs q.v., moths, ‘invasive’ organisms & bacteria, would make even more of a mess of it & pointless to resist inevitable EVOLUTION q.v. from Homo erectus (orig. known as Pithecanthropus erectus) > Homo sapiens > Homo faber (= poetic trans. of H. Bergson’s Evolution créatrice) > present-day Homo fabricans = what makes you whoman = ways in which you’re made i.e. fabricated by technologies you’ve fabricated & can no longer CONTROL q.v. & cf. ANTHROPICAL, ANTHROPOCIDE, ANTHROPINISTIC, ANTHROPOCHOROUS, ANTHROPOAGONY ANTHROPOGENY, ANTHROPOGONY, ANTHROPOLATRY.
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QUEUE. Queue Studies = massively & rapidly growing area see esp. Joseph Panici Panico, Queuing Theory (1969), Lee Kovarsky ‘The American Execution Queue’ (2019), Leif Richter, Queuing COVID Queues (2023). Kovarsky article gives detailed descrip. ‘death row’ in early C21 US. Execution queue (xq) @ that time = arbitrarily constituted arguably not a queue, random selections for killing from among those (many) sentenced to death cf. BINGO, CAPITAL, CROWD. Kovarsky says reason for xq in 1st place = RACE q.v. from C18 onwards, death penalty = public display violence us. against slaves, retaliation for crimes deemed assault on power cf. Foucault re. European spectacles violence/death & cf. DISCIPLINE, POLICE, PUNISH. C19/20 US death penalty (dp) + execution (x) = legal lynching deemed more civilized alternative to illegal lynching. Reasons for xq 1960sff = lengthier post-prosecution process + jurisdictions’ inability to kill using lawful method e.g. can’t obtain correct ingredients for lethal injections > California = longest dq but @ time of (Kovarsky) writing no execution for 1 decade. Kovarsky also says capital charge + sentence largely exhaust political payoff + it’s v. complicated to organize execution > states prefer to leave men (mostly, majority = African American) in xq. Arbitrary system (not a system; see above) = worse than random vs. Kovarsky proposes date-stamp q-maker (or maybe not: article = dense @ this point & you’re not a lawyer alth. could/should have been) but Kovarsky says there’s no empirical evidence re. x’s deterrent effect, also cites shocking rate ERROR q.v. & cf. NAACP Death Row Fact Sheet 2016? 1973-2013 156 of those sentenced to death = found innocent = NAACP calculate 1 in 10 people = exonerated based on no. judicial killings 1973-2013 (1142 total). ‘Death row’/xq sugg. some kind of ORDER/LINE q.v. q.v., q. as telos i.e. death = end of line = word used in America for queue, implies something STRAIGHT q.v. vs. queue etymol. = Anglo-Norman keu, keue, kue, kuwe, que, queue also O. Fr. cue ref. to animals (i.e. tail), band of parchment attached to document bearing SEAL q.v., stalk of plants, barrel/cask, handle > 1794 line of people waiting to proceed/be attended to, modern Fr. queue = stalk/tail & Fowler says should pron. queue ku [INSERT ACCENT] i.e. koo not kee-you = wrong but also says should pron. RABIES q.v. w. 3 syllables ra-biez + symbols. Kovarksy’s [TOO MUCH KOVARSKY: WILL NEED TO CUT] observations re. sorting dissensus + absence legally enforceable sorting criteria sugg. ways in which ordered q. = agent of control > cf. Sharr’s (2014) view of q-ing tape used @ airports & other venues, ‘queue management systems’ e.g. Tensator’s Tensabarrier https://www.tensator.com We are efficiency. We are profitability not q. of consent but q. of subjugation > q. management systems (qms) aim to compress & SPEED q.v. customers along but time waiting also = more $ € £ etc. + force-feed attendees w. ads = trapped until rich enough not to q. e.g. Nexus Trusted Traveler Scheme @ US/Canadian border = FAST TRACK q.v., application = expensive, paid, but Nexus interview invitation letter sent to wrong address 2017, no reply when phoned US Customs & Border Protection Center automated message We cannot answer your question > website Please select an item under Trusted Traveler Programs… Please select an item under Application Paid and No Interview Yet > imposs. to create GOES (Global Online Enrolment System ) account no refund > not trusted traveler have to q when arrive in Canada = queue as sign of defeat + hierarchy = possible reason for widespread antipathy to q-g + deliberate use q + delay as tactics humiliation see e.g. esp. Occupied Territories, Palestinians obliged to go through (to ‘CROSS’ sic q.v.) numerous & different kinds of checkpoint (cp.): internal/external cp. (between territories/between territories & Israel), mobile cp. (tanks, = ‘flying cp.’), control towers with turnstiles = makeshift cps (in Palestinian towns/villages). Tavil-Souri 2011study of Qalandia (Q q.v.) cp. notes bazaar-like quality Q, place where people come to sell/meet/exchange e.g. 1 cigarette-seller cfd. Q to airport duty-free zone = unconscious IRONY q.v. bc. waiting in q. @ Q cp. = imposed duty & not free & most Palestinians can’t go to airport, @ cp. made to wait for hours &/or turned back &/or cp. = randomly closed = part of ‘matrix of control’ resulting from 1990s negotiations (‘peace process’) & securocracy i.e. ideology of SECURITY q.v. vs. make Palestinians feel insecure by e.g. erecting cp. (+ WALL q.v.) in middle of town &/or shut down cp. when people = q-g inside turnstile to pass to next turnstile = stand there ALONE q.v. can’t go backwards or forwards cf. slaughterhouse + other regimes wh. deploy systematically unsystematic methods > confuse/derange/drive > desperation. C21ff. disciplinary q-g = more or less ubiquitous amongst underclasses in affluent nations even if subtler & less coercive than in Occ. Terrs. e.g. @ CALAIS q.v. refugee camp 2015 v. disturbed by volunteer enforcement of q. system via erection of HUMAN q.v. barrier > camp-dwellers unable to break line, pre-disciplined into q-g @ sight of volunteer van bearing clothes, food etc., camp-dwellers shout ‘Line line line line!’ even th. don’t yet know what lining up for & cf. Milner 2011 re. No BORDERs q.v. critique of q-g system in refugee camps, controlled operations in humanitarian food distribution > sedimentation of victim identity vs. generous benevolent citizen volunteers vs. Derrida on reciprocity of hospitality (1996?). Many studies of q.s incl. Ehn & Löfgren, Secret World of Doing Nothing (2010) = ethnography of infra-ordinary activities incl. waiting incl. q-g incl. account of ‘Thinking ticket machine’ invented Sweden 1960s (E&L = Swedish) = take ticket & wait in crowd not line > interesting q. re. when is a q. not a q.? + also consider Sharr (again): can you form a q. of 1? + (general, existential question) For what/whom are you waiting? + @ what point would you consider queue too long/slow/futile for you to cont. waiting in it? (MOTHER q.v. instructed you to wait no more than 20 mins) E&L say q = normative territory full of unwritten distancing rules but cf. Agnew 2026 restructuring of q. in pandemics era (PE) > q-ing protocol now written & on display @ shops, airports etc. + many Tensabarriers & consumers/travelers obliged to practice (more) patience so as to avoid becoming HOSPITAL patient + affluent people now routinely subjected to infra-ordinary practices formerly assoc. w. ‘poor’ [elsewhere] dole queue + eastern Europe/Russia inefficiencies of command economies. Q-g during PE not social activity as described by previous ethnographers bc. must maintain requisite phys. distance, also qs. where qs. were not e.g. to enter shops in rich nations = consumer-in-danger (from VIRUS q.v.) vs. economy-in-danger if consumers stop consuming > buy things but don’t breathe on anyone cf. MASK or buy online don’t have to q. cf. AMAZON. Many different q-g cultures & styles, can be skilled @ q-g & cf. Richter Queuing Covid Queues again for chapter on how people occupied themselves mostly SMARTphones q.v. = early c21 abolition of emptiness/idleness/boredom. Longest qs. you’ve experienced prob. Wimbledon tennis for entry to ground-courts mid-1980s + entering Canada November 2018 bc. new machines & you didn’t have Nexus (see above) + THINK OF OTHER E.G.S + LONGEST YOU’VE EVER WAITED FOR ANYONE > q. as existentially & emotionally significant e.g. feelings aroused if duration of wait = uncertain + your need to be 1st in q. e.g. @ airport departure gate when everyone else = sitting DOWN q.v. + resentment @ streaming of passengers into zones A, B, C, D acc. to amount paid for ticket & where seated in (cheaper) part of plane but certain qs. = self-subjection e.g. don’t have to travel/shop vs. methods of refusal? – q-barging = ANARCHIST q.v. resistance or unfair? Cf. also virtual qs. to which subjected e.g. on phone esp. to airlines, ‘wait time’ = illusory cf. illusory time displayed on domestic appliances e.g. washing machine/tumble-drier + UPDATEs q.v. on computer = digitally-fabricated time w. hypnotic rotating hourglass icon but any kind of waiting may occur in asynchronous zone if done correctly > not WASTE q.v. of time but suspension of same > how waiting = converted > pleasure but NB also idealism of this view for those in xq. or trapped in cp. turnstile & also consider Ove Andsnes’s call for study of (grammatical) sentence as q + q as embodied grammatical sentence + q/sentence as sentence to wait i.e. for MEANING q.v. & cf. BECKETT, LAST, LATE, TRIAL, WHAT ARE YOU WRITING?
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