If you’re interested in Plato, you’re reading the wrong book. If you’re interested in difficult childhoods, sexual misadventures, aesthetics, cultural history, and the reasons that a club sandwich and other meals—including breakfast—have remained in the memory of the present writer, keep reading.
—from Yvonne Rainer Feelings Are Facts: a life, 2013. 496 pp. | 7 x 9 in | 143 b&w illus. MIT Press.
Many people want to know why, out of the entire white segment of society, we want to criticize the liberals. We have to criticize them because they represent the liaison between both groups, between the oppressed and the oppressor. The liberal tries to become an arbitrator, but he is incapable of solving the problems. He promises the oppressor that he can keep the oppressed under control; that he will stop them from becoming illegal (in this case illegal means violent). At the same time, he promises the oppressed that he will be able to alleviate their suffering—in due time. Historically, of course, we know this is impossible, and our era will not escape history. – from Stokley Carimichael The Pitfalls of Liberalism (quoted in Adam Pendleton, Just Back from Los Angeles: A Portrait of Yvonne Rainer 2016–2017. Single-channel black-and-white video. 13′ 51”. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.)