“Bilingualism strikes me as a kind of synesthesia. Instead of seeing colors associated with letters and words, instead of hearing melodies, what I hear with language is the play and echo of the other language. The option to say it differently, and thus to live it differently. Language is not only a means of communication or description. It’s a framework in which we process existence. Yi writes: “It is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet it is impossible in my native language.” As every bilingual person and translator knows, there are certain words—a feeling, a way of being—that is absent in one language but perfectly brought to life in another. A word that, by existing, gives permission to be. What if you need that which does not exist in your language?”
— Yoojin Grace Wuertz, Mother Tongue
“من از زمانی که قلب خود را گم کرده است میترسم
من از تصویر بیهودگی این همه دست
و از تجسم بیگانگی این همه صورت میترسم”—
Forough Farrokhzad – from I Pity the Garden
man az zamaani ke ghalbe khod raa gom karde ast mitarsam
man az tasvire bihoodegiye in hame dast
va az tajassome bigaanegiye in hame soorat mitarsamI fear the age that has lost its own heart
I fear the sight of all these idle hands
And the look of alienation in every face
imp:
“disorder” just means “opposition to the ordained authority” and is characterized as pathological because it threatens societal order .. the categories themselves are arbitrary. theres nothing “wrong” with people who arent complicit with oppressive social relations
“Can the movements and flows of an opened body be represented, or does representation itself only function upon a foreclosure of such nomadic flesh?”
— Jonathan Kemp, The Penetrated Male
countervisuality 