Buy the book: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/narcissus-in-bloom/ Narcissism is the defining pathology of the twenty-first century, but what if it is not self-obsession that defines us but a need for self-transformation? Narcissus in Bloom is a short history of the self-portrait, beginning with Renaissance painters like Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and Caravaggio, through to photographers and celebrities like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, Lee Friedlander and Hervé Guibert. Analysing the ways that so many artists have regarded their own image, how might the age of the selfie be considered as a time of transformation rather than stasis? By returning to the original tale of Narcissus, and the flower from which he takes his name, this book offers an alternative reading of narcissism from within the midst of a moralising subgenre of books that argue our self-obsession will be the death of us. That may be so. But what will we become after we have taken the watery track, and rid ourselves of the cloistered self-image given to us by late capitalism? Support Zer0 Books and Repeater Media on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books ----- Other links: Check out the projects of some of the new contributors to Zer0 Books: Acid Horizon Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/acidhorizon Merch: crit-drip.com The Philosopher’s Tarot from Repeater Books: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/the-philosophers-tarot/ The Horror Vanguard Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard Buddies Without Organs Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/buddies-without-organs/id1543289939 Website: https://buddieswithout.org/ Xenogothic: https://xenogothic.com/ ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9ZQpBVRWOo

I can't lie, I discovered the work of Mike Davis late. I had heard the name before, but didn't really know his work. After hearing him on a podcast earlier in the year I decided to buy his book "City of Quartz" and reading it, I was blown away by it's prescience. If you don't know Mike Davis, he's a social commentator, urban theorist, historian, and political activist. He is best known for his investigations of power and social class in his native Southern California. He is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award. Again, thank you Mike for taking the time to talk to all of us, we appreciate your work and all that you continue to do. From the book "City of Quartz": "Like the Tramp scares of the 19th century or the Red Scare in the 20th, the contemporary gang scare has become an imaginary class relationship, a terrain of pseudo-knowledge and fantasy projection. But as long as the actual violence was more or less confined to the ghetto, the gang wars were also a voyeuristic titillation to white suburbanites devouring lurid imagery in their newspapers or on the television. Then in December 1987 fission became fear as Southside gang hitmen mistakenly gunned down a young woman outside a theater in the posh Westwood Village entertainment district near UCLA. Westwood's influential merchants, who had recently induced the LAPD to enforce curfew ordinances to repel non-white youthfrom the Village, clamored for extra police protection, while local Council Member Zev Yaroslavsky, then essaying a Koch-like challenge to Mayor Bradley, posted a huge reward for apprehension of the 'urban terrorists'. You can read Mike's latest piece in New Left Review here: newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/ri…2FdJfrM4-udUdl_Y You can watch Mike earlier in the year on Democracy Now! here: www.democracynow.org/2020/5/22/mike…face_dangerous You Can Buy Mike's latest book, "Set the Night on Fire" here: www.versobooks.com/books/3164-set-…e-night-on-fire Thank you guys again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and everyone of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined, BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programming, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH! Become a patron now : www.patreon.com/join/BitterLakePresents? ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVG-0jgro6Q