“…Catastrophe may reemerge from memory in the shape of a wish.”—Joseph Roach
I feel that this is a quote that we have not yet unpacked so deeply in class. Even so, this piece of Roach’s discussion on performance, autochthony, allochthony, and origins stuck out to me. Maybe it’s partially the elegance of the phrase: the juxtaposition of starting with the heavy consonance and lexical drama of “catastrophe” and ending with a wistful “wish.” Plus, the evocations of “wish”, for me, are almost magical—of blowing out birthday candles and of coins dropped into fountains—and I think of our most treasured hopes and dreams.
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