Quote from: Secretchief on October 31, 2025, 03:11:14 AMNew piece from New Juche in the newest Wanted issue: https://whatiwanted.org/index.html
Finally got around to reading this, and no surprise, I love it.
I feel like this short piece gives the reader a taste of so many different aspects of his writing, which are focused on to different degrees in different books. Similar to The Devils, he is somehow able to make a place feel like a live organism, mapping roads down to the veins or representing one's body with footpaths all going in separate directions, from the first paragraph. Later on, you get the historical context needed, stuff anthropologists/sociologists find essential to know. But he is not just any researcher; there is that typical feeling when reading him that you've just stumbled upon a social scientist's journal where he keeps his most unethical notions and that if he had not written them down, he would not be able to ignore them, and he would eventually lose his position that grants him the privilege to study, with justifiable/acceptable cause, the poverty, violence, exploitation, and ecology/architecture that he feels so (we'll just say) strongly about. Additionally, it is quite cool to see him addressing his academic life so directly in his New Juche writings, going so far as to mention professors and fellow researchers he is walking with. You have the suspiciously neutral regard for and ever so subtly erotic descriptions of institutional/historical violence, similar to Bosun or The Worm. The generational struggle it has created; the rags people are left in after expenses have been paid with all of their meager wages and horrible loans and them waiting in doorways in the hot sun for something to happen; and him watching them and him loving them. I do not pretend to understand New Juche's erotic fascination with the blend of history/time/place/architecture/economy/body use/etc., but nevertheless, as always, when he slips into those descriptions of subtle triggers that turn into some kind of ecstasy, it is surprising and beautiful, forming an autotheory of pornographic appreciation/prurience and genuine empathy for seemingly everyone and everything around him, a genuine, true, not harmful, love. This love is what I think enables him to treat people he is researching in an academic context with respect, dignity, and professionalism. Nevertheless, when he slips into these moments, you feel him being pulled apart and losing himself in this moral private/public contradiction; it is truly hypnotic the way he portrays his own hypnosis with his surroundings. Not to mention the graphic descriptions of his body and its ailments remind me of those two pages describing the horrific discolored nature of his rectum in Mountainhead. Overall, an excellent short display of his style and skill. Thanks for sharing! I will keep my eye on this journal till it ends.
P.S: In case anyone missed it, per their Instagram, Infinity Land Press will be starting a yearly series of New Juche's older unprinted/OOP works along with new material in "beautiful and affordable soft-cover volumes."
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https://www.instagram.com/p/DS2XVYPDG_4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
P.P.S: Someone help me find Water Margin pleaseee
