THE ZERO-DEGREE NOISELESSNESS OF DEATH: LECTIO I-IV
Speech may be a function of Logos, where rational compositions serve as cultural appropriation, or speech may serve a revolutionary, contestatory role by internally rupturing the structures of Logos at the very points of its own contradictions; screams and laughter may be reactive phenomena, resulting from the neurotic exigencies of life, or they may serve serve as rebellious eruptions of corporeal energy, heterogeneous outbursts of expropriation, where Logos is disrupted by the libido; silence may be the zero-degree noiselessness of death, where life itself is betrayed, or silence may be that moment where sovereignty is elliptically expressed as incommunicable inner experience.
-“Impossible Sovereignty,” Allen S. Weiss
In Medieval philosophy and theology, a lectio (literally, a “reading”) is a meditation on a particular text that can serve as a jumping-off point for further ideas. Traditionally the texts were scriptural, and the lectio would be delivered orally akin to a modern-day lecture; the lectio could also vary in form from shorter more informal meditations (lectio brevior) to more elaborate textual exegeses (lectio difficilior).
–In the Dust of This Plane: Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1, Eugene Thacker
LECTIO I: Kate Zambreno’s Green Girl
LECTIO II: Horror vs. The Patriarchy
LECTIO III: Joe Wenderoth pushes the surface
LECTIO IV: The Dionysian Excess of Living
Letters to Wendy’s Q &A
Recently uploaded to Joe Wenderoth’s Youtube channel is a fourteen part q & a with students about his book Letters to Wendy’s.
Question one: “What inspired you to write Letters to Wendy’s?”
After a long pause, Joe’s answer is: “Umm, a desire for power.”
Follow this link to see the first video. In it, Joe reads a few selections from the book after the teacher takes role. (Can anyone identify the teacher. A prize to anyone who does.)
Links
John D’Agata’s review of Letters to Wendy’s.
Letters to Wendy’s, the musical.
A review of Bruce McCulloch’s live version of Letters to Wendy’s. McCulloch was a member of Kids in the Hall. (Whose theme song was written by Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet. I used to listen to Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham in the car!)
Letters to Wendy’s Myspace page.
Unrelated article about letters sent to the families of victims of a 2000 massacre at a Wendy’s in New York.
Snopes article about a finger reportedly found in a bowl of Wendy’s chili.
Page where you can learn more about adoption, a cause beloved by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas.