so, what's going on with me in terms of productivity and actual attempts to actually do something?

it's been hardware crashes. the big one was the laptop failing at the beginning of may. since then, i've been trying to catch up, and been slowed down by all kinds of errors.

the most recent was a processor crash last week that took my hard drive down with it. i was able to recover the data with a chkdsk, but it took me all week to figure that out.

i've just finished the season 14 (mar 19th - may 1st) process. i was hoping that would buy me some time before i got into season 15. but, i'm going to have to dump the card again soon in the next few days, meaning i'm going to have to get through season 15 before i can get back to the concert reviews.

this machine is markedly slower, and cannot multitask. so, i should rephrase this: i'll be working out season 15 renders overnight, and am probably just about ready to get back to the concert reviews starting early next week.

the short in the broken laptop seems to be in the monitor out, so i'm thinking about converting it into an editing station with a remote monitor attached to the out; that is, taking the lid off of the laptop altogether and just using it as the bottom of a tower. i'll need to get the board to power up first...

it's been a year of setbacks. see, and here's the thing: my lifestyle has been a consequence of this. i couldn't have been more productive given the technological bottlenecks, so why not go drinking? but, hopefully, i'm close to getting back on track.

i'm agreeing with this guy quite a bit.

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/walter-benn-michaels-the-trouble-with-diversity-election/Content?oid=24418522

this is really accurate, i think. it's a good summary of what i've been trying to say here for quite a while.

i picked most of this up not by reading but by experiencing protest movements first-hand. they erect their own hierarchy, which is pretty much a reflection of society's, and then they label the act of adhering to it as "intersectional anti-oppression". i mean, it took me months to really get my head around it. but, it kind of hit me like a sack of bricks when i did. and, all i got in return for pointing it out was this perception that i didn't understand it - that sitting around and living a burkean fantasy is actually deconstructing it, via foucault, and not just upholding it through construction - and if there was a deconstruction underlying the construction, it was something inverted that i maybe didn't understand, but i must object and claim it wasn't actually there!

there's an essay out there explaining how foucault was basically just restating burke. unfortunately, most foucaldians are just going to react by reading up on burke, right - it almost doesn't matter, because they don't have the slightest idea who he was, anyways. and, if they learn they're conservatives in the end, they're just going to change the letter on their lapel. but, it might do us a lot of good if they do.

he's right: the left neo-liberals just don't understand that they're neo-liberals.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/let-them-eat-diversity/