“Le globe terrestre est couvert de volcans qui lui servent d’anus.”
“The terrestrial globe is covered with volcanoes, which serve as its anus.”
From: Georges Bataille, ‘The Solar Anus‘. via Surreal Documents in a post[1] on Skullflower.
Jahsonic
Burgemeester van Dodenstad
I think plate boundaries are the real “anuses” of the globe.
You sound as if you may be right. But do the plates “fart” like the volcanoes?
Ahem, a clever bon mot by Monsieur Bataille, I guess, but what does it mean? Anything? Why are volcanoes…er whatever the plural of anus is, anuses? I mean, are they expelling waste? I’m just being picky here, this is what bugged me about another thing he wrote-I think it was him-about garbage in industrial urbanized society. It seemed to me he just wanted to riff self-indulgently on the topic, and he was pretty darn good at it! But it was absurd too.
If he was just being “poetic” here, he can have all the license he wants. Was he?
Or am I confusing Bataille and Baudriallard again??
Why are volcanoes…er whatever the plural of anus is, anuses?
I guess that’s why I posted the picture, volcanoes look like ani.
If he was just being “poetic” here, he can have all the license he wants. Was he?
Was he? I think he was and wasn’t, that’s what I like about continental philosophy. They provide a poetics of life. A life which is pretty much incomprehensible.
You sound as if you may be right. But do the plates “fart” like the volcanoes?
Well, extreme pressure at converging plate boundaries can cause ruptures like tsunamis and earthquakes. That’s a lot like a fart. They also involved in the production of volcanoes. So if I were to refine Bataille’s metaphor a bit, I’d say that plate boundaries are the anuses or the anus of the world, and volcanoes are either the pus-filled boils or the cystic zits of the world.
I’m sure this doesn’t change Bataille’s point with that phrase though. I’m not aware of it.
volcanoes are either the pus-filled boils or the cystic zits of the world.
Love it
Thanks again.
J