[2 June 2024]: "Primitive Hypertext" — LSD and "meta medium"; sperm whale alphabet; galactic halos, adnan + the interiority of materials; black propaganda and hoax publications; respecting artifice

LSD and "meta medium"; sperm whale alphabet; galactic halos, adnan + the interiority of materials; black propaganda and hoax publications; respecting artifice

Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.

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Butler, Octavia, and Samuel Delany. “Octavia Butler Samuel Delany.” Science Fiction-Media in Transition, August 29, 1998.

This is part of the newsletter's “Primitive Hypertext” (after Octavia Estelle Butler) strand. An annotated list of five things I’ve read/seen/heard and want to share.

Read more about the newsletter rhythm here.

Hiya!

I was a greedy little writer this week! I finished most of my pages and even got a few for public sharing.

[27 May 2024]: "Using the Word as Bait" — blind bisexual goose; green porno; slippery texts; sloshy belly of texts; eggs; love as curiosity + quantum mechanics; heresy + agitation; erotic consumption

[31 May 2024]: Jumu'ah ("day of congregation"; gathering) — "he broke the arrogance/of my definitions" (clinton) x "where you fall between everyone" (spillers) x "a dead sleep in the cave" (Qur'an)

I do not care much about stats/follows/likes, but I will say that the hesitant and shy writer in me is excited that this newsletter has reached over 1,000 subscribing readers! I enjoy Substack because it reminds me of my early years with blogging. Slowly, I have drifted off of Instagram in favor of Substack as my core social media experience. It’s been nice.

Starting this week, I will be reposting the Primitive Hypertext bits over on the Orange Tangent Study Instagram page every Monday after the newsletter goes out. Give us a follow <3.

On to the primitive hypertext!!!

An invitation for me: What is a word or phrase connecting all five links?

***Scroll to the end to see where I landed***

An invitation for you: What is another word or phrase connecting all five links?

Leave a comment

Another invitation for you: Which of these links do you want to share with a friend?

Share

1. Davis, Erik. The Institute for Illegal Images. The Paris Review. March  4, 2024.

   I have followed Erik Davis’ work for a while because I appreciate the hyperlocal specificity of his research. And really, don’t you love reading about the intersection of computer technology, psychedelics, and spiritual practices? Admittedly, I have never finished his books; I am baited by the footnotes to go everywhere but to the end of the book. I am not reading his next book until I finish the ones I started. Paris Review featured an adapted excerpt of Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium, and this excerpt motivates me to wrap up his other books. Given my interest in substrates and in eating language and gastronomical spiritual practices, it makes sense that I’d care about the ritual of ingesting artistic designed LSD-laced paper or blotters. Davis draws a connection between psychedelics, fine art, chemistry, print media, and material culture studies to shift attention to the blotter as what he calls “meta medium.”

   

2. Sommer, Lauren. What are Sperm Whales Saying? Researchers Find a Complex ‘Alphabet’. NPR. May 7, 2024.

   

   This was a really surprising article for me. Usually, I get nervous when scientists attempt to decode non-human communication. But this piece does something a little different. First, there is acknowledgment that humans are not the only intelligent communicators and that other species have developed complex language systems before humans. It reminds me of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s reminder (“They’ve [plants'] been on earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.”) in Braiding Sweetgrass:

   

   Second, there is a beautiful reminder that “not finding evidence of something” doesn’t mean nothing is there.

3. Adler, Laure. Beginning with Color: An Interview with Etel Adnan. The Paris Review. October 4, 2023.

   

   Instead of (too much) commentary, I want leave you with two questions — questions brought to the fore by this interview: — To what extent do you imagine the interiority and desires of the materials you work with? Consider the materials as collaborators and sometimes independent actors, not the artist as lord and the material as obedient worshippers. Do you listen to your materials? I remember trying to describe my relationship to the materials that I use (and that use me) and knew very quickly that I was drifting into “wooh wooh b***h” territory, but when I am working with fixer and developer on silver gelatin paper, I am listening for…something. When I am working with my Xerox machine, I let her lead. It is not that I made a decision as much as me being attuned to the affordances (what the thing can do) and its interior interests (consider grain direction and the force necessary to fold against the grain). Each material interaction is a negotiation. I like it when Adnan replies, “I deal with them. I answer them.” What would one’s practice look like if we engaged with the substrate, the materials, and the conditions in the way Adnan suggests as a “discourse between the self and the….”?

   

   — What is the “halo around [your] thought”? For a moment, I want to talk about halos. Halos are circles or rings of light. As a Catholic high school student, I experienced religious iconography depicting saints with halos and also when I visited churches throughout Europe and once in Mexico City. In addition to halos in religious iconography, there are examples of halos in other fields. For example, in meteorology, a halo is “a ring or light that forms around the sun or moon as the sun or moon light refracts off ice crystals present in a thin veil of cirrus clouds.”

   

   Within astronomy, which I imagine has overlaps with meteorology, there are galactic halos. The image below is from the 2022 Center for Astrophysics: Harvard and Smithsonian news release, The Tilt in our Stars: The Shape of the Milky Way's Halo of Stars is Realized.

   

   A galactic halo is “ a nearly spherical volume of thinly scattered stars, globular clusters of stars, and tenuous gas observed surrounding spiral galaxies, including the Milky Way—the galaxy in which the Earth is located.” The galactic halo is considered the “invisible” part of a galaxy which extends beyond the visible portion. It is something like a “hazy fog.” Unlike galactic disks that can still function as an incubator for new star formation, the galactic halo comprises old stars. More on galactic halos:

   

   I did not know that galactic halos are “dominated by invisible dark matter,” creating a “scaffold upon which ordinary, visible matter hangs.”

   When Adnan mentions the halo — I think she is talking about a fuzziness or fog around the thing. With all these different registers and types of halos, when I ask, What is the “halo around [your] thought”? I think I am asking What is the “halo around [your]” sentence?

   Theological: What is the “halo around [your]” sentence? or what is the presumed / self-deputized sanctity of your ideas?

   Meterological + Astronomical: What is the “halo around [your]” sentence?

   or what is the foggy blur that exceeds your stated idea?

4. Newitz, Annalee. The Strange History of Operation Midnight Climax, the CIA’s Bizarre Brainwashing Experiment. MIT Technology Review. April 12, 2024.

   

   I left this article wanting, but was excited to see the mention of black propaganda, or a form of propaganda designed to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. For the last two years, in a somewhat inconsistent manner, I have been designing a course of hoaxes, scams, duplicity, and all forms of bunk. I have stopped and started, haunted mainly by the sheer deluge of content.

5. Binyam, Maya. Percival Everett Can’t Say  What Novels Mean. The New Yorker. March 11, 2024.

   

   This was fun to read because Everett did not seem interested in using the occasion to self-congratulate. I pulled this excerpt because I am curious about questions of authenticity and artifice.

An invitation for me: What is a word or phrase connecting all five links?

beyond reach

An invitation for you: What is another word or phrase connecting all five links?

Another invitation for you: Which of these links do you want to share with a friend?

Thank you for reading,

Kameelah 👽

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How to cite this newsletter: Rasheed, K. (Year, Month Day). Newsletter Title. I Will (?) Figure This All Out Later. URL