The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa used 137 aliases, or heteronyms, as he called them, to manifest h
| The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa used 137 aliases, or heteronyms, as he called them, to manifest his many writerly personae. About this multifarious crowd, contributor Nolan Kelly observes “all they have in common, across various forms and styles, is a shared belief in the unknowability of the self and the porousness of all identities.”Philosophers have long posited self-knowledge as a foundational necessity for a moral life. But what if that goal is not merely illusive but impossible? The very notion of a self may be a comforting fiction, a tale we tell to mitigate our fear of mutation, even dissolution. “We are merely ashes,” Pessoa writes in The Book of Disquiet, “endowed with a soul, lacking any shape, not even that of water, which takes the shape of the glass containing it.” Perhaps, though, there is solace, even pleasure to be found in this shapelessness. A sense of inexhaustible possibility. Today we aren’t bound by who and what we were the day before. This, too, may be a fiction. Yet it’s one that tilts against certainty, in particular moral certainty. An understanding of the self such as Pessoa’s might prove a useful corrective in this moment of dire convictions. – Albert Mobilio, Co-Editor, Hyperallergic Weekend | |
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| Drawings of Migration and Pandemic In her dozens of pastels on handmade paper, Mie Yim seems to start each one over, never attempting to make a variation on a theme. John Yau |
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| Beer With a Painter: Chie Fueki “I am interested in the symbols that are flooding our world, which everybody can recognize, but which have almost no meaning.” Jennifer Samet |
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| Required Reading Here are the stories from the past week that you don’t want to miss. Hrag Vartanian |
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| Steinlen Cats Tea Towel Cats have been fascinating artists ever since the first one crawled into its local homo sapiens’s cave in search of a free meal. This charming tea towel, which features illustrations by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, is only the latest example of the art world’s feline fixation.Shop more art-inspired tea towels! |
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