Author Archives: Lee

Notes on Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Episode 11

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Lee

Sometimes you have some money in your pocket and you feel content and secure. And sometimes you spend that money and fill your belly up with what you desire, and then “you feel empty, disgusted with yourself.” Henry Miller returns … Continue reading →

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Alyosha Karamazov’s Laughter

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Lee

Alyosha’s sinful laugh after reading the love letter. And then the laugh is repeated, it isn’t sinful any longer. With the first laugh he seems to be laughing at the girl who is in love with him. With the second … Continue reading →

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Notes on William S Burroughs’ “Ghost of Chance”

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Lee

William S Burroughs’s Ghost of Chance (1995, High Risk Books) has a simple political point at the heart of it: humanity will perish if it continues at odds with nature. It’s a familiar theme. Human beings are destroying the environment … Continue reading →

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“This is realism”: Lessons from Poetry

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Lee

Langdon Hammer describes the stone that Yeats’s fisherman sits on (in the poem “The Fisherman”) as “resistant” and “non-ideal, that is, real”. This equation of “non-ideal” with its common meaning of “imperfect” (as in “my new flat isn’t ideal…”), while … Continue reading →

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Notes on Honoré Daumier, Don Quixote (1868)

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Lee

He’s instantly recognisable, though he has no face. He has no face because he doesn’t know who he is. He’s Don Quixote, famous for his confused identity. In this blurred image, he really could be a knight-errant. His armour could … Continue reading →

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Kathy Acker on William Burroughs

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Lee

As I prepare to talk about William S Burroughs at the end of the month, I’ve been re-reading Kathy Acker’s essay “William Burroughs’s Realism”. You can find her essay in Bodies of Work (Serpent’s Tail, 1997). The following is a … Continue reading →

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Some thoughts on Michael Hardt

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Lee

I’m getting back into some philosophy.  First thing to read: Michael Hardt’s An Apprenticeship in Philosophy: Gilles Deleuze (University of Minnesota Press, 1993).  It’s an old book and an important one, and I thought it deserved a re-read. This is … Continue reading →

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William S. Burroughs and Scientology

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Lee

I’ve been reading Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the ‘Weird Cult’ by David S. Wills.  (Beatdom Books, 2013)  It’s an excellent book, that describes in clear and engaging prose the development of William Burroughs’s ideas and beliefs, particularly his shifting … Continue reading →

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Deleuze and Guattari: Creative versus Utopian Thinking

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Lee

It’s been almost a year since I last posted here, and it feels like it’s about time I explained what happened with those three “projects” I described in my last post.   The projects were to be: a follow-up to the … Continue reading →

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Hegel after Deleuze and Guattari

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Lee

I’m currently working on three separate projects, each of which will appear on this blog in the not too distant future. One will be a follow-up to the “Deleuze, Guattari and May’68” paper I posted last year; another will be … Continue reading →

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