Nemanja Protic

@nemanjabb.bsky.social

2386 Followers 1088 Following

Likes words + pictures. Still here (in academia, thinking about contemporary lit, visual culture, & politics of aesthetics). Coined the phrase "It's Adam & Eve, not Adam & Jeeves" as a [bad] argument against labour exploitation.

I too believe in the intrinsic goodness of human beings, but it means nothing. In their hearts, killers are good, as we Germans have reason to know. So what? I might spend a night drinking with a killer, and as the two of us watch the sun come up, perhaps we'll burst into song or hum some Beethoven. So what? The killer might weep on my shoulder. Naturally. Being a killer isn't easy, as you and I well know. It isn't easy at all. It requires purity and will, will and purity. Crystalline purity and steel-hard will. And I myself might even weep on the killer's shoulder and whisper sweet words to him, words like brother, 'friend, 'comrade in misfortune? At this moment the killer is good, because he's intrinsically good, and I'm an idiot, because I'm intrinsically an idiot, and we're both sentimental, because our culture tends inexorably toward sentimentality. But when the performance is over and I'm alone, the killer will open the window of my room and come tiptoeing in like a nurse and slit my throat, bleed me dry.
An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom. — Charles Baudelaire The epigraph to Roberto Bolaño’s 2666.
Cover of Stages of Rot by Linnea Sterte showing a floating beluga carcass against a field of green-toned bones.
A woman, her back turned to the camera, is looking out at the St Lawrence River, hills, and a ferry.
I believe in the Diaspora, not only as a fact but a tenet. I'm against Israel on technical grounds. I'm very disappointed that they decided to become a nation in my lifetime. I believe in the Diaspora. After all, they are the chosen people. Don't laugh. They really are. But once they're huddled in one little corner of a desert, they're like anyone else: Frenchies, Italians, temporal nationalities. Jews have one hope only-to remain a remnant in the basement of world affairs—no I mean something else—a splinter in the toe of civilizations, a victim to aggravate the conscience. —Grace Paley, "Two Sad Short Stories from a Long and Happy Life, Collected Stories!
New Yorker comic showing a post-apocalyptic image with a grown up telling children by the fire: “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for sharebolders."
Poster for Dead Heat
Poster for ARCO, an animated feature, showing a robot and two kids against beautiful peach-coloured clouds.
Fuselli’s Nightmare: a lady sleeps, a demon sits on her chest, while a horse head watches!
The Titty Twister House Band in vampire form. From Dusk Till Dawn.
Sorry there is not enough space to include the entire letter as alt-text.
Poster for Anatomy of a Fall showing a body bleeding in the snow. Striking, really.
A poster for The Sound of Falling showing a blonde girl of about 6 breaking the fourth wall while surrounded by adults that, mournfully, look the other way.
Cover of Benjamin Balthaser’s ANTI-ZIONISM AND THE CULTURES OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH LEFT.
The cover of After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace by Robert Polito.
Cover of The Mood Machine by Liz Pelly.
10 inch 78 rpms Victor RCA - 216252 — “Over the Hill” (A) by “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” (B) by Lewis James - 18441 — “Send me a Curl” by Geoffrey O’Hara and “All Aboard for Home, Sweet Home” by Louis James and Shannon Four - 18612 — “Carolina Sunshine” by Sterling Trio and “Golden Gate” by Charles Heart and Elliott Shaw - 18632 — “Wonderful Pal” by Sterling Trio and “There’s a Lot of Blue-Eyed Marys Down in Maryland” by Shannon Four - 18458 (Chipped/cracked) — “For the Two of Us” by Horace Wright and Rene Dietrich and “I Hate to Lose You” by Peerless Quartet - 18442 — “Long Boy/Medley One Step” and “Indianola/Fox Trot” by Victor Military Band - 216068 — “Wait till You Get Them Up in the Air, Boys” by Billy Murray and “They’re all Sweeties” by Billy Murray and Henry Burr - 18483 — “Bluin’ the Blues/Fox Trot” and “Sensation Rag/One Step” by Original Dixieland Jazz Band - 45155 — “Smiles” by Lambert Murphy and “The Radiance in Your Eyes” by Reinald Werrenarth - 16386 — “Officer of the Day March” and “King Cotton March” by Arthur Pryor’s Band - 16053 — “Adeste Fideles” and “Lead Kindly Light and Nearer My God to Thee” by Westminster Chimes - 17842 — “Noel (Holy Night)” by Venetian Trio and “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” by Felix Arndt - 60009 (Cracked) — “I’ve Loved Her Ever Since She was a Baby” by Harry Lauder (one-sided) - 216039 (Chipped) — “The Rose of No Man’s Land” and “Watch, Hope and Wait, Little Girl (Till I Come Back to You) by Henry Burr - 216240 (Cracked/chipped) — “Broadway Rose” by Charles Harrison and “Rose” by Lewis James - 16967 — “The Herd Girl’s Dream” and “Happy Days” by Neapolitan Trio - 18376 — “The Darktown/Stutters’ Ball-Fox Trot” by Six Brown Brothers and “Razzberries-One Step” by Van Eps Trio - 18193 (Chipped/cracked) — “Stack of Barley Medley—Irish Reels” by John Kimmel and “Geese in the Bog Medley—Irish Jigs” by John J. Kimmel - 216074 — “Patches—Fox Trot” and “Dardanella—Fox Trot” by Coleman’s Orchestra
The Simpsons’ “That’s a paddlin” as a meme.
It’s me with a giant jar of Nutella!
A still from Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, showing Peter Sellers' President Muffley warning that there is no fighting in the war room.
Dril tweet: issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the terror group ISIL. you do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them"
Chalamet!
The three Goblins from Ridley Scott’s LEGEND (1985)
Poster for the movie La Grazia. An old man in a black suit against a sweeping murky sky.
The cover of an early Dylan Dog comic,’ published by the Italian comics giant Sergio Bonelli Editore. It shows a crying man — the hero of the series — carrying a presumably dead woman, while zombies walk behind him through the ruins of London.
Poster for Mike Leigh’s TOPSY-TURVY
A little wooden house with a yellow door. Decked out with Christmas wreaths.
The sky, and clouds, and tops of bare branches.
A mountain of old, worn shoes.
Ghoulie sticks his head out of the toilet bowl.
Premier Doug Ford's government also this week passed its controversial Bill 33, which enables the government to more easily remove elected trustees and temporarily take over school boards, make new regulations and compel boards to allow police officers into schools. Mr. Calandra has said the new legislation is necessary to address problems in schools.
Poster for Netflix show Long Story Short
The budget also proposes to eliminate "the inefficient Underused Housing Tax" and luxury tax on aircraft and vessels, which CRA says will help save administration costs.
Hanks masked
Poster for the movie The Rule of Jenny Pen, showing a silhouette of a plastic doll with two men on top of its head — one standing and one in a wheelchair — the former standing menacingly over the latter.
A picture of an assface (aka Pierre Poilievre) who has been the leader of Canada’s federal conservatives since 2022.
Chantzy @chantzy.bsky.social •4m 1. We haven't come out the other end of Covid 2. I've never called for everyone masking every time they leave the house. I've called for more allies to mask in essential public spaces in solidarity with long COVID sufferers 3. Masks are *not* just for those who are sick
Star Wars Lego figurine.
Which emerging Al companies are you most jazzed about? The Toronto-based firm Ada provides personable Al customer support agents to slash wait times. There's also GlüxKind, from Vancouver, which is developing a self-driving baby carriage. Self-driving baby carriages evoke the kind of dystopian imagery that makes people not like AI. That's fair. But Al can also invent medicines
The cover of Bread and Wine by Samuel Delany and Mia Wolff.
Two posts pointing out some weird shit happening in the US of America.
A book — CARELESS PEOPLE by Sarah Wynn-Williams — on hold by 470 people at the Toronto Public Library.
Dr. D, gratefully retired @rjdexmd.b... • 1d From an email I received from a Sanofi vaccine specialist in May: "As of 2025, Sanofi is the commercial lead for Nuvaxovid® in Canada and the commercial management of Nuvaxovid® is currently in the process of being transferred from Novavax." 1 0 5. 企 ••• Dr. D, gratefully retired @rjdexmd.b... • 1d "We are working diligently to accelerate this transition process. At this time, we are not planning to bring Nuvaxovid® to the market for fall 2025 in Canada. We are working towards making Nuvaxovid® available in Canada in subsequent immunization seasons."
“Radicals advocated for the human rights of women, arguing for the necessity of seeing women as human beings rather than as females limited to roles as wives and mothers.”
The cover of Charlie Kirk’s shitty book.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
An evil goofy-looking dude.
Two evil people.
A page from Hulk, who is fighting a dog-monster and calling it “bad dog.” Lots of colour and punching.
Some Southern people having a fancy, good time.
A bunch of young men in a funny pose.
What is the Meaning of Life? It's Philip Carey's Persian Rug (Of Human Bondage). Life has no meaning, but like the Persian rug, "as the weaver elaborated his pattern for no end but the pleasure of his aesthetic sense, so might a man live his life [so that] it made a pattern out of the manifold events of his life, his deeds, his feelings, his thoughts [so] he might make a design, regular, elaborate, complicated or beautiful".
Family lawyer Scott Byers, who's based in Swift Current, Sask., said he and his colleagues have started seeing some of the factors Sproat described becoming a reason for divorce. It started with the pandemic and couples having diverging views on things like vaccinations, but that's shifted more recently, Byers said. "As the years have passed since the pandemic, I'm certainly seeing more clients come in telling me, 'My spouse isn't the person that I knew when [we] met. He puts his ear buds in and he's listening to these podcasts and a lot of thinkers associated with the so-called manosphere.'"
Poster for GREEN ROOM. A man-punk wielding a machete.
Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski Ill, who uses the stage name Theo Von
We found a witch, yells a villager while gathering a posse. From Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.
Cover of Larry Birnbaum’s BEFORE ELVIS: THE PREHISTORY OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
Still from Back to the Future 2, showing Biff Tannen and his gang in quasi-fascist, quasi-punk regalia.
Charlie Brown saying “Good grief.”