Having my way with Ulysses

Different ways of bringing off a coup.

• Eumaeus

He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.1:41 am

  • Establish dominance, think alpha male. But less is more, remember Al Gore in 2000? Not that kind of alpha male. Carry your revolution as if it has a really big dick, but you don’t need to whip it out to prove it.  Be everybody’s daddy.
  • Don’t play musical chairs. Be ruthless whilst removing the former bastards in power. Why have a coup if you keep all the same people around?
  • Make friends with the army, but don’t make promises. You don’t want the people with the weaponry suddenly thinking they can throw a better revolution than yours.
  • The military likes to play with their guns, so let them handle any civil opposition that will undoubtedly crop up.  You can’t bake a cake without breaking a few eggs. You can, however, hire somebody to break the eggs and bake whatever you tell them to bake.
  • Come up with a proper pronunciamiento to justify your new world order to the masses.  Clarity trumps veracity.  Remember a real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation.
  • The first person to tell a story wins, so get out there with whatever truth you like, and fast.  Remember, a proper coup happens suddenly.
  • When delivering your first epistle, don’t try to be more fascinating than thou.  The proletariat hates a show off.
  • The proletariat also hates a smartypants. Don’t lead with your philosophy.  People need to be wined and dined a little, talk about them, then you can get down to ideology.  Promise things.
  • Once you are in, spread out. The initial revolution will be a public in-your-face event, but remember that the best coup carries on behind the scenes and under the table for years to come. Quietly take over whatever you like, but of course start small. Identify all the mechanisms of public discipline and link them together one by one, under your own power structure.
  • Keep track of everything and everybody, subject everybody to a field of visibility and let them all know it: in this way you ensure that if anybody steps one toe outside of your idea of what they ought to be doing, they will make themselves visible. Let visibility be their trap, if only to prevent a coup designed to depose you.
  • Get rid of the old regime’s intellectuals, particularly if they are smarter than your intellectuals. Endeavor to have the smartest intellectuals. Do this through assimilation if you can at all manage it. Otherwise, just toss the ones you don’t like to the military.  Now go.

A lady’s grace, gave and withheld.

• Sirens

To take care of oneself one must only study what is really useful in and for existence. Diogenes Laertius quotes these remarks of Diogenes the Cynic. The latter “was surprised to see the grammarians devote so much study to the morals of Ulysses, and to neglect their own, to see musicians tune their lyre so well, and forget to tune their soul, to see mathematicians study the sun and moon, and forget what is beneath their feet, to see orators full of zeal for speaking well, but never pressed to act well.”4:12 pm

Anima

Oh Christ why did they mount me next to the piano.  I may be inanimate, but I can still smell that one’s breath.  Ick.  And what kind of priest wears a beard?  Why didn’t they mount me in the dining room.  That one with the kidney disease eating kidneys (sweets to the sweet) has very nice breath.  He doesn’t take care of himself either, though.  Orders expensive whiskey then sends his son sir I did sir begging for money.  Hm.  At least I get to watch those two alive ones at work.  they get to move around.  Be warm, be moist.  I have to charm from my wall.  Lidia faded a bit but she’s back.  Look at her.  Holding that new one’s hand.  Yes.  Entice him.  Let him think he is the player and we are their harps.  Leave me here to hang around over the stench.  No problem.  It’s not like I have a choice or anything.  Oh my aching back.  Please, somebody give the guy a mint, some gum, an Altoid.  Something.  He does know music, I suppose he does have that.  But look around at all this disappointment.  Makes me want to fall right off the wall and crush myself.  Or somebody else.  That could be amusing.  Piano sounds nice, that tuner will have to come back for his tuning fork.  I could have told him; I saw it right there.  But nobody can hear me.  Well, except for you.  I exist.  And I know what it takes for me to exist.  I have studied existence, I get it.  All these broken people singing here, wrecked upon the bar reef, eating in the dining room.  Waiting.  Focusing their attention on the music.  They don’t know their danger.  Would be better for them to focus on their own lives and households.  They each think all is lost.  That’s the song they hear, no matter what tune they play.  But will they be persuaded to save themselves?  As easy stop the sea.  You who read me, can you be persuaded to save yourself?  What do you hear?