Against nature is fascism

For utopia, is anti-politics

The clueless narcissism of the American bourgeoisie.

WHEN I FOUND MYSELF in Chicago, I used to meet Lauren Berlant for a drink. I asked Lauren to pick a place, and the place they chose was a bar in a Whole Foods grocery. This is one of the thousands of things I learned from my intellectual hero Lauren Berlant: in Chicago, the Whole Foods has a bar.

It’s not what I would call a charming bar, but Lauren seemed to appreciate the genericness. Genre was one of their favorite topics, after all, and anyway why should we pretend to be people who would never set foot in Whole Foods? Lauren told me they liked to write here. The supermarket was crowded and fluorescent; I think it was a hideout, too.

I drank beer. To tell the truth, I would have preferred a cocktail, but I wasn’t sure whether this bar would serve me one, and I wanted to get my drink quickly, inconspicuously. I didn’t want any fuss. On this point, it turned out, my philosophy differed from Lauren Berlant’s.

I remember Lauren asking for a sparkling water with bitters. It wasn’t on the menu. It disturbed the flow of our transaction at the Whole Foods bar. In fact Lauren tried to engage the bartender in a whole conversation about bitters. What flavors were available? Any unusual ones? The bartender didn’t have very much to say on the topic, but Lauren kept at it. The exchange turned awkward a long time before it ended. At least once, Lauren and I exited the bar and walked out into the grocery part of the Whole Foods, where there were more bitters to choose from. 

And this was hilarious

Berlant clarified the relationship between the “commons” and sensibility, challenging the normie “structure of feeling” framework that pervades much cultural Marxism,...

"Cultural Marxism!"  And on and on.

THE FIRST TIME I met Lauren Berlant a bottle of Diet Sprite exploded in their hands.