Monday, July 22, 2024

Alfred Döblin


'Alfred Doblin (1878-1957

Hive mind is a meme which places an entomological spin on human behavior. Actually in a beehive, the queen dominates and there's little room for alienation.You don't find bees behaving like characters in Berlin Alexanderplatz, the Alfred Doblin novel made into a TV series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Better yet there are no Holden Caulfield bees or bees that jump off bridges after reading the Sufferings of Young Werther. As Lionel Trilling once pointed out non-conformity can be a form of conformity. It's called trying too hard. You've seen those characters with the Count of Monte Cristo fixations entering the gathering wearing green cowboy boots and red scarfs around their necks. You don't find too many bees (except for the queen) dressed to kill. Conversely the comforts of the hive where identity is set are often lost on the average girl or guy. Prescribed behavior may be the order of the day in the military, therapeutic communities or cults like the Branch Davidians. But for your average lifer every day is an exercise in self-invention. You get up feeling a little like Meursault inThe Stranger then it's SOS (shave, shit and shower) and off to another thankless day drowning in a sea of workstations.

read "An Incident of Defenestration" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and also read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

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