Music: The sound of the clothes drier. I looked up from proofing and decided that it's 7:46. It is "OK" to stop working and take a break and watch a movie or simpy do nothing academic. Geez, I'm beat. These past two weeks have been intense, and it's been non-stop paperwork. I long for winter break and fiction.
Music: Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3 Derrida’s passing has become, unfortunately, much more than many would have hoped. The recent obituary in the NYT has been denounced by a number of academics as “mean-spirited” and thoroughly inappropriate, not only because the measure of a person is not simply his or her recorded thought, but his or her discrete existence--as a human being worthy of hospitality. As Judith Butler has pointed out, at issue in the many strange obituaries written presumably to “honor” Derrida is a tacit anti-intellectualism that is particularly conspicuous in the past few years (witnessing the last three presidential debates—whereby stuttering and either/or thinking passes for resolve and character—seems evidence enough).
UC Irvine (who houses the U.S. Derrida archive) has established a “memorial” online that testifies to a kind of “archive fever” that is unavoidably political, the supporting signatures of protest a veritable “who's-who” among academic super-stars:
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/remembering_jd/bois.htm
Derrida’s death has issued a cry: is it one to battle, or a whimper?
In the current battle of the “culture wars” the same anti-intellectual charges are appearing yet again: academics deliberately deploy jargon for the purpose of obfuscation, which is either (a) fashionable; (b) designed to create insiders and outsiders; or (c) deployed to create an inflated sense of expertise serving some sort of wish to establish a cult following. Certainly Derrida represents the/a Father for many, but those who have seriously struggled with his work—especially his recent work on justice and responsibility—would be quick to deny any kinship to P.T. Barnum or Gongora.
Typically, academics have defended the use of strange and difficult prose in three ways: (1) challenging language unsettles or “defamiliarizes” readers, thereby leading to new ways of thinking, and perhaps, new ways of contending with problems; (2) difficult language some how better captures the fullness of human experience, which will always forever elude representation regardless; and (3) jargon is shorthand for longer arguments too tedious to recount in this or that context of discussion.
I worry, but then, I guess that's what I'm paid to do in a sense. Is Derrida’s death coming to symbolize a more widespread dying? I personally am guarded against any apocalyptic death knells for the humanities (and tire of hearing them among rhetoricians). But since 1996 (the Sokal Hoax, followed by Nussbaum’s nasty attack of Butler in The New Republic), this charge of the academy producing “mere rhetoric” has intensified and participates in the increasing tendency to devalue intellectual labor in favor of more commodifiable/captial friendly academic objects (e.g., grants, cures for disease, MBA drones). In other words, the dismissal of Derrida as a spellbinding magus is in a very real sense a dismissal of what I—and many others—do for a living too. In this sense, it is almost tragic that Derrida’s death is not is own; “we” take it personally. And the problem with this kind of taking is that it appears "fashionable"--if not totemic.
I had meant to post these remarks some weeks ago, but tropical storms and travels got in the way. What follows is a rough recapitulation of my remarks in the the haunting seminar two weeks ago. I began by riffing on a few clips from the often overlooked classic horror film, Black Christmas, also known as Silent Night, Deadly Night, which was released in 1974. I highly recommend that readers see the original before its remake appears in late 2005, which will undoubtedly have to contend with the trouble of the caller-id box (I am led to wonder if the uncanny vocalics will arrive via the internet, television, or not at all).
The film is about a Phi Kappa Sigma house terrorized over Christmas Break by a prank caller known variously as “the moaner,” “super-tongue,” or “Billy,” who so named because of an uncanny a-bill-ity to speak in many voices quickly, and sometimes inaudibly.
There are five phone calls in the film, which transition from the obscene to the creepily psychotic. What begins as an unwanted tonguing of the ear in the first call turns into the cunning-lingus of an interior dialogue in the final four. The charismata of some repressed interiority.
Unlike the slasher films that this film inaugurates, the killer is not discovered by the end of the film. But we do know where he hides: inside. We the spectators know that the girls do not know that the hideous phone calls are coming from the house. The film is therefore a pedagogy of the uncanny, of the internalized and familiar alien, the parasite, the ear-hugging counterpart of Ridley Scott’s face-hugging alien that implants. Only here, the mind or mental scene is the womb and inhabitable space of uncanny occupation. In other words, the horror is at home, in me, the alien is inside. We are the Other, or rather, the Other subtends us.
Black Christmas is about abortion.
I mean abortion here in many senses, and perhaps the most fundamental being that of the jettisoning of speech, the vocalic baby. Avital Ronell reminds about Freud’s lament for his son in Civilization and Its Discontents: the prosthesis of the telephone is a surrogate for the child that Freud tells us we have lost because of the technology of, what else, the railroad! That is, like long-distance traveling, the telephone represents the autoamputation of feet (and remember, the killer need not go anywhere once he is inside, but he is nevertheless presumed outside when he calls.) In other words, the uncanny thing about this film has everything to do with the presence of the human voice and the announcement its body is absent. At the level of formal association, we are talking about castration here: at the moment of symbolic entry, the body is gone forever. “Billy, what you mother and I want to know is, what have you done with the baby?”
Well, the baby has been aborted (remeber the "spirit of 73!"). This is key: the baby is a fleshy object of barter—-indeed, a part-object. Freud reminds us the baby is interchangeable: the penis, the feacal stick, and money. Biology is bartered away in the symbolic. There is no reconciliation; the cogito is haunted by the body. That is the price (and the forced choice) one pays for self-consciousness.
Try as one might——there is no discernable reason for the murders. Of course, from a Freudian vantage there is a rhyme, however. The most we can piece together is a melody in a minor key. The killer identifies himself as Billy, and he and Agnes have done something horribly wrong. Billy’s parent figure wants to know what he and Agnes have done with the baby.
The psychotic caller is clearly haunted, and reacts violently, to young, nubile women. To the right of receptive plumbing. The possibility of conception is punished (again, a theme of most slasher pictures in general: teens fuck, then get whacked).
In this respect, the super-tongue moaner is just one or two vocal chords away from those golden-tongued, pro-life fanatics on free-speech alley at LSU.
Of course, as a social symptom, Black Christmas is a commentary on the medical abortion debate. Roe v. Wade was settled just one year prior, and the news media were ablaze with the so-called “Spirit of ‘73”; the film is an index of social anxieties about the uncanny of childbearing (the alien inside that we must domesticate). In reference to Peter—-the creepy, priggish, high-strung and temperamental boyfriend--and his double, the psychotic moaner, we have the consequence of certain knowledge too: death and psychosis.
This is to say, if I know absolutely, if I am certain, I can kill others and myself.
There is, then, a moral pedagogy here, even in the ecstasy of the slash (note I riff again, there is the bar of the pre-symbolic subject; as Camper Van Beethoven has sung on its melancholic lament to His Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart: “Never go back”): it is much much easier to kill people, or to legislate what they can and cannot do with their bodies, when you are deadly certain that you absolutely know. For example, when you know with certitude the point at which life begins, what qualifies as life, vouchsafed by the inestimable gift of God’s word.
So, in respect to this film I’m saying that we cannot know the motive of the murders, even though we can know it as an index of larger social issues. In the diagetic space, by virtue of the telephone, we can also know this: FIRST, the association of the feminine with passivity; SECOND, the passivity of answering the call; and THIRD, the productiveness of reception, otherwise known as hospitality.
Let me go backwards, beginning with hospitality as an openness to the visitation of the other—-something which we discussed some weeks ago. I direct you to the passage on your handout.
I dare say that those who trash Freud haven’t read him meticulously. I think that that’s what my whole work tries to address: the need for re-ambiguating areas that need to be thought about. Freud’s fundamental insights are actually, as someone like Shoshanna Felman will have shown, very feminist, very subversive. He was persecuted. He was, and continues to be, treated like shit. Also by masculinists, writers and men. Philosophers think he’s a pansy. Only gays and some outrageous feminists like Freud. . . . Nietzsche is a more difficult case because he’ll rant and rave against women. And before you know it, he’s turning around, and he’s a woman. His ear was inseminated by a woman, with his great thought, the eternal return. She’s the father of his thought, he claims . . . He’s the womb. . . . What happens when men hysterically rant and rave, and yet nonetheless identify themselves with women, creates a far more complicated mapping than one can grant. Throwing away Freud and Nietzsche can produce a ghetto of fairly homogenous feminism. --Avital Ronell
The point here is ostensibly a defense of Freud—-principally his many charged writings on the question of woman, that is, “what do women want?”—-by detour of Nietzsche: both men welcomed insemination despite appearances. But I think the more important, underlying notion is this: despite their superficial hubris, both men were productive because of their passivity and openness to something beyond their control. For Freud this was, of course, the unconscious, and for Nietzsche, well, I’m not so sure but it has something to do with power and will. Regardless, Freud and Nietzsche let themselves get fucked. They are pansies.
So why the telephone, then? The telephone demands a similar receptivity as a technology; it makes us open; it opens up. This is why the shit of all telephonics, telemarketing, is possible, and also why, just like email spam, telemarketing will always live to dispense nothing. I’ll get to the theoretical point Ronell would want to make here shortly; but first, if the telephone subjects us to the call of the Other, then we arrive at my . . .
SECOND point in reverse, the passivity of answering the call. The mere gesture, “Hello? Hello? Who is this?” is at some micro-level a beholden-ness to the big Other, until it becomes, comfortably, just another other, another brother or sister or bum, on the other end of the line. The almost abject passivity of actively answering the call is comedic upon first sight: The sorority sisters (whom we cannot call Scissor Sisters; that moniker belongs to gay men singing in the falsetto), the sorority sisters temper their fear with laughter:
Sister One: “He’s expanded his act.” Sister Two: “Can that be more than one person?” Sister One: “No, Clare, that’s the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing their annual obscene phone call.”
And sister One urges the phone sex onto some more sexually repressed sorority down the row (you’ll recall she is the character who likens the numeric exchange to a blow job, as if to say, “call me sometime”). Like all horror films, at first blush the Other is just another; he is with certainty fixed as disposable. And how does the fastest tongue in the West respond to being so fixed? In regular voice, with the threat of death: “I’m going to kill you.”
Seeing phoning is not the same as hearing it. The sonorous seems less fixed, more present, and therefore, more potentially violent. The comedy of PASSIVITY is not so funny with the assignment of gender: despite the fact that genders are structures, and therefore, social performances, the feminine and masculine are assigned an indelible, impossibly restrictive signifier. Men call, women answer. For Love and Rockets: "The telephone is empty," sings Danial Ash, "now I realize the time." In a lysergic haze, the telephone tells us nothing--or it teaches us nothing is there, in dialtone. The promise of communication, and Peter's observes, is the dial-tone (an it it haunts all sorts of spirits). But in the end, like the phallus, it is nothing at all.
AND SO WE ARRIVE, then, with the association of women as the passive receiver (woman ARE the phallus; while men desire to possess it). The association is initially obvious with mention of what is perhaps the most obscene word of them all: cunt. Of course, the origins of this word were not always obscene—at least when we consider its proto-Germanic rooting in the “hollow place” (the root term of “ku”), as well as the preeminent philosophy of that hollow place of categories which actively stamps and stains the world in the key of transcendental (there is a hymnal: “I come, I come, Immanuel . . . .”). Curiously, insofar as the phone is the mediating prosthesis, the obscenity is centered on orality, not the barter of genital intercourse (Lacan tells us that there is no sexual relationship anyway).
Avital Ronell, whose work is the topic of my lecture today, says that she decided to write about the telephone as an object that is less and more than itself because of her ethics of reception. As a writer, she identifies with the switchboard operator, letting the calls come through as the calls themselves decide to do; the agency here is not hers, but belongs, well, to the letter. Like Avery Gordon, she opens herself to ghosts, this time, though, the materiality of language itself. She occupies, as she puts it, the position of the feminine, refusing the phallic creed of absolute knowledge. She would be, unlike Sister One, more like sister Three: receptive, not so sure that she knows who the caller is, but she takes him deadly seriously. She advocates an Derridian ethic of hospitality, but in a way that stops short of not being able to judge.
So, I have opened with this mini-meditation in order to vivify the stakes of responsibility within an ethic of hospitality. The risk of hospitality and heeding the call (to conscience, to the Other) is that you may get someone threatening to kill you--or worse, as was the case with Heidegger and National Socialism, you might get the call of Legion, a topic we will take-up again with the topic of charismata and exorcism.
Black Christmas teaches us that the Other may not be so singular as we are wont to assume. By extension, this would be the true of the individual who heeds the call too. The telephone explodes. It is synecdoche for the self/Other dialectic in the field of electricity, symbolic of “autoamputation,” as McLuhan puts it. An interrogation of its uncanny effects confronts us with our deepest fears about the Other, and helps us to frame yet again the ethical challenge of technology. Today we begin our investigation of gadget love and loss, the dominance of gadgetry, the phallus, the telephonic dildo.
Music: Tori Amos: Scarlet's Walk I'm at the computer, again, composing lecture notes for tomorrow. I hate this last to the minute stuff. Cal, my tutor, even cut the catechism session short today because I seemed hasty. Anyhow, haste or not, I'm taking a break. Sort of. Here's an epigram that I like:
What prompted the project was the surprise that I experienced when I read the interview in which Heidegger was asked to describe the nature of his relationship with National Socialism, and he said he didn't really have a relationship, all he did was take a call from the SA storm trooper. . . . Heidegger certainly is a redneck in many ways and highly problematic as mortals go, but what interested me was this response, which is a very compelling response and non-response at once. If I had been the thinker of the call and had made the call on technology, warning that we live under its dominion in yet undecipherable ways, then I would clearly be codifying my response. I thought he was providing an access code to a truer reading. I went after it. --Avital Ronell, interview with Diane Davis
. . . or, fantasies of Avital Ronell dispelled. I decided I needed to read the Heidegger Ronell kept riffing on, and suddenly, The Telephone Book has become, well, readable. It still resists me, this noisy text, but the key was the call, "What Calls for Thinking," two introductory lectures given by Heidegger and collected in the Basic Writings edited by David Farrell Krell. Heidegger riffs on the meaning of "called thought" in a German wordplay that doesn't quite translate I suspect: What do we name thought, and what kind of thought is hailed (called thought). This latter kind of thought, thinking that is called upon or called for, is the truth of telephonics (and tele-phonies, such as myself): whatever ever it is, it emplaces me, makes me beholden, and we are thrown into the stupidity, ignorance, and sort of abandoned, risky, potentially dangerous posture of answering. This would be, I guess, answerability Bakhtin? I don't know with any certainty, but the words on the line do.
I've decided, then, to lecture a bit on Heidegger and the Ronell with the exemplar of the obscene phone call. The film, Black Christmas, an overlooked gem from the 1970s when manipulated recorded voices was all the rage in horror films (a project begun with The Exorcist and the backwards speech of Pazuzu, the Dung God whom the Priests mistake as THE accuser). In any event, if you've seen this film, you'll know the source of my disappointment and the glory of the film: the cause for the strangeness of the multi-voiced phone calls from within are never explained. After the first phone call from "the moaner" in the film, one of the sorority sisters asks, "that can't be just one person, can it?" Another retorts, "sure, it's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." Well, there you are, the risk of hospitality and heeding the call (to conscience, to the Other): you may get someone threatening to kill you--or worse, Legion.
"As a provisional object--for we have yet to define it in its finitude--the telephone is at once lesser and greater than itself." --Avital Ronell, The Telephone Book
I stumbled across, or rather, was recommeneded Avial Ronell's The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech, because I mentioned to an e-colleague I was writing a book on speech as a ghost. But of course you've found Ronell's book helpful, he said. I thought he meant Dictations, a book on Goethe, haunted writing, and the author-as-function. I have read parts of that, but I had trouble getting snared by the problematic. No, he meant The Telephone Book, with pages oblong and difficult to copy, and text deliberatley splattered and squeezed and arranged in resistant ways--that is, ways resistant to reading. This tome is hard to keep open in your lap because of its irritating binding, too.
I suppose I am pleased, like a reader online who said Ronell's text resists him so much that he has fantasies about her--aided by the fact that in the public eye she always appears wearing something "severe" (that would be black). I found her appearance in the new documentary about her friend and mentor, Derria, charming. All three of us, men, two doubles of themselves as someone "like" me struggling with a text that says "no," me, as someone who can presumably understand this material in a way that is teachable, get hot over smart women in severe clothing (but here, in pastels). Another PP, the father, mentoring brother, once said of a lost opportunity: "you don't need to be associated with all those self-important theorists wearking black clothes."
So, in a moment of (masculinist) reflection, I need to ask why my longing to be called by someone like her is a longing at all (and why I identify my attraction to the objet a of SEVERITY). This is not merely a simply double-standarding of the author: women writing difficult prose are too transgressive. Rather, this is a question: "What is a father?"
Associations with bodies aside (or rather, I think on some uber-genius level that is the point: the telephone reminds of of an ontological split), she makes a strained analogy between the telephone and the unconscious, since the telephone as mechanical/technology is always already "on the side of death" as a prothesis, like the PP ("pleasure principle," part-object, penis, Freud), and through its passing through we are reminded of a place where we cannot go (the navel)--the chord disappears into the wall. But I do want to read this like I read some of Joyce; it is at once deathly serious and simultaneouly an obscene phone call. The phone is the referentless object at some level, after all: now mobile as an accessory that you are important.
So my problem is that I have assigned this text for others to read, and I do not know what it is saying beyond the obvious self/alterity problematic. No shall I pretend to undestand what is at stake--other than deconstruction and subject of her lastest book, Stupidity.
No one likes to feel stupid. Then again, I've learned that coming to terms with "not quite getting it" is the only way to be a happy academic. At least, it's the only way to be an academic that is not always so "severe" (even if I do admit my own wardrobe is monochromatic). On the other hand, I worry about the kind of anti-intellectualism that greets difficult prose and thought as well. That sort of thing will not too. It's always about finding the middle, isn't it?
Music: Tiga: "Hot in Herre" Ivan was pretty terrible east of us, but he spared us the spectacle of Atlantis; this had the effect of duding-out on the lot of us who have learned to “party” at the mere whiff of apocalypse. I do not wish natural disaster on anyone, most especially myself, but the general social air is one of shrugging disappointment: without impending doom, there seems less of an incentive to “party.” The so-called “Hurricane Parties” were much less festive this year—mine was even called off.
I suppose we could have a “taxes” party, but April seems so far away. Halloween, then. Yes, Traumarama II awaits.
Music: Icon of Coil: Machines Are Us The conference was interesting.
I regret to report that A Flock of Seagulls played at the House of Blues on Saturday night, and that I was there. The band managed to hold out for the “I Ran” encore for over an hour by subjecting us to various random songs from their impressive oeuvre. We had fun; the band mistook that for a canonizing impulse. We were only laughing, but they seemed pleased just the same. It was a win-win situation of beaming. I suppose.
Afterward, a member of our party rode a mechanical bull, and then we headed to the Whirling Dervish, the place to be scene. I tried to hit on someone one, if I recall correctly, but she was more interested in Jen. The other eligibles hovering around were all Roger’s ex-girlfriends, or skinny reeds obviously into blow. I think if I get some tattoos I could be somewhat competitive, at least in bars for the black-clad and almost jobless, but I don’t put things in my nose, well, nothing other than my fingers, and usually then when only trying to liberate a fugitive.
Someone’s dog is barking loudly outside. It is a high-pitched bark, and it is incessant. I dream of anti-freeze.
Much work to be completed this week. The seminar is moving along, and I think I will have a pretty good idea of the book I want to write come December. There are grumblings the class is more formal and less “open” than the last seminar, which bums me out, but then again, one feels much more comfortable speaking when there are eight pairs of eyes on you. There are seventeen in this one, so I think folks feel less inclined to share. My pretentious ass rambling on in defense of this or that binary probably doesn’t help.
Ivan the hurricane seems headed to the gulf. On that note, I think I need a beer.
Music: Trashcan Sinatras: Weightlifting Well, I have just finished winnowing my paper for delivery tomorrow morning at the Louisiana Communcation Association Conference in New Orleans. I'm curious about this conference (which was put together by a recent LSU grad and friend of mine)--about what to expect. I hear it's casual but I'm confused about what that means (tie or no tie? jacket?). In my paper I added mention of William S. Burrough's story about the "man who taught his asshole how to talk." Surely those who haunt the quarter will not be offended by scat, right?
It's all about the Symbolic, in the END.
I am much more excited about seeing the original line-up of A Flock of Seagulls LIVE AT THE HOUSE OF BLUES Saturday night! AFOS "best of" was one of the first cassettes I purchased as a young person discovering all sorts of things (not necessarily sexuality, but certainly new hair-styles, as well as Olivia Newton John and Hall & Oats). Me, Shaun, a very cool new grad Ben, and Meredith-the-badass-Lawyer-Wanna-Be are meeting up with some folks there--Jess and Linda--and then afterward wandering deeper along Decatur, getting our learn on for "sensuous knowledge." I'll be giving Jen the MASTERPIERCER a buzz after the show for a hook up (Jenn works at the Rings of Desire, which I like to refer to as the "holes of desire," personally). Jen has the most amazing tatoos ever--my favorites by far. I'll try to photograph them this weekend and post them here.
Anyhoo, I've not gone out on the town in a while, so this little "conference" trip is overdue. We start slogging again on Monday. Ho-hum.
Current Music: Elbow: Cast of Thousands I was just about to write on the irony of my 9:30 p.m.-lethargy and my sitting at a screen when I realized I was half through an Elbow song, "I've Got Your Number," and that its lazy, ambling cynicism works much better to express it. The song has this jazzy, bass-heavy beat with light, twinkling vibes and guitar work, and the song just ambles along. But the lyrics are accusatory, and about three mintues in there is the BLARE from an organ, staccato-like. BLAAAAAARRRRRR da-da-da-da-do-do go the keys, in a sort of violently forced harmony. That perfect ambivalence. It's accusatory. The listener is implicated, there is a guilt. But then the lyric goes toward the end, "You've got my number." Well, there you are. Nice ending.
I've been reading Levinas to make sense of Derrida on hospitality, or rather, reading lots of secondary sources on Levinas to make sense of Levinas to make sense of Derrida. As far as I "get it" so far, the ethical--realm of self and other--is "haunted" by the realm of the political (justice), and vice-versa. This haunting always implies a thirdness (a la Peirce, only it's the socius itself). If it were simply a matter of me and you, Levinas says, then there would be no problem. But once there is a me and you a third is always already implicated--the world--in the "face of the other," bringing with it the law and the rest.
Well, my language certainly is not as accurate as the philosophers who like to throw around terms like "the face" in a very particular way. But as best I gather, the analogy is my listening to the Elbow song, they got each other's number, and I'm here to adjudicate the whole matter.
This doesn't translate well, necessarily, for the project at hand: what is the practical import of haunting in respect to disappearance--particularly that of the state-sponsored variety? Avery Gordon is on the brain, and her insistance that our ethical task with ghosts is to make room for justice--Benjaminian remembrance. I suppose the triangulation here is US, the GHOSTS, and the social between us, the space of memory. Well, this is the whole point of all ghost stories, Freud on the uncanny, and hysterics in general: when we forget or repress the social/superstructural/field of power animating bodies there can be no justice.
I admit I'm not certain how to lay this all out--how to get it--at least outside of an aesthetic or purely philosophical sense (my problem with Derrida to begin with). Perhaps I am foolish to even make the gesture that I somehow "get it." After all, someone has my number.
My intellectual problem mirrors the social one, I guess. I say I am listless, but here I sit with the compass, to encircle my associations and circumscribe the . . . oops, the catechism is leaking out of me. Which reminds me of a good joke; so, a farmer and his goat walk into a bar . . . .
I should really get to bed. I hate it that I am a morning person. It is so much more sexy, more romantic, to be a night owl. I could pretend (if I smoked), I could hoot. But someone's always got my number, the missing third and second to this monologue. It reminds me of Tracy's monologue last night: She laid spread-eagle, on the cold, black floor, and made a bed. Staring at the ceiling with a microphone in her left hand, she proceeded to spill the contents of a late night fretting over what her performance would be the next day. It was hilarious, and sleepily serious, and brilliant.
And I worry I will be doing the same thing here, in 10 minutes. But without the outlet. Or microphone.
Last night at one o'clock someone was beating on the side of my house. It scared me. Took an hour and a half to get back to sleep.
Oh, I hope that don't happen again. Creeps.
Music: Depeche Mode: "Dream On" "DEFIXIONES refers to the warnings engraved in lead which were placed on the graves of the dead in Greece, Asia Minor, and elswhere in the Middle East. They cautioned against moving or desecrating the corpses under threat of extreme harm."
--Liner notes to Galas' Defixiones: Will and Testament: Orders from the Dead
Thursday the haunting seminar was somewhat frigid, which was to be expected I guess (the lecture was on hysteria and hysterics; upending gender always begs its re-inscription in very palpable ways; I get stuck in here, you know?). Everyone in the class is wicked smart and crucial to the beast we have become; even so, our size conjures images of Hobbes' Leviathan, our own girth chilling speech. I suspect as we go deeper we will get chattier (that is, I will shut-up more), and the "social contract" of civility will gradually erode into an erotics of proximty, of disclousre--but still at a safe "academic" distance.
The distance is as regretable as it is necessary; those among us who resist "selling-out" simply burn-out in the end.
At least my own personal investment is working itself out in terms of the themes of the book I want to write. I work ahead of the class only by a few days; it seems like my concern is increasingly and unavoidably Derridian (a figure I had hoped to avoid; he haunts all of this literature). Gender is a central issue; it would seem justice, too, follows in its wake. I worry about the themes of the book, which are getting as large as the class and, I worry, threaten to explode the tidy text into an unwieldy, evocative exercise in intellectual diarrhea (a la Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book). I'm not smart enough to write like that; I must have definite, concrete objects upon which to meditate.
The objects thus far: for the opening, I have gender, and a favorite film of mine, Mulholland Drive; I have the "spectral voices of nine-eleven" as an object--and that chapter is finished; I want to do canned laughter/the "laff box," and the answering machine. Finally, I wanted to look at popular music experimentation in voice. I mentioned earlier Burrough's tape "cut-ups," which work nicely. So, too, does the backwards-masking stuff. Speech in reverse.
I recently picked up Diamanda Galas' new double-album, Will and Testament. I've listened to it twice now, and think that the project (combined with her 1990 Plague Mass) might provide me with a language for what I'm getting at with the haunting of voice. Galas has made a career out of manipulating her voice in performance; what she is able to do with her bodily expression is nothing other than the uncanny. The new album was commissioned to "unearth," in a sort of Benjaminian historiography of "blasting," the Armenian, Assyrian, and Anatolian and Pontic Greek genocides between 1914-1923, which I admit I hadn't know about until reading the insert. The album is dreadful, beautiful in places, striking that uneasy abjection of sublimity: at once monstrous and divine. It marks an aural counterpart, in a way, to Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Whereas the latter deifies atrocity, Galas exposes it for what it really is: horrible. Well, I slide; it's ambivalent.
In this melancholic key, I should admit I also screened Exorcist: The Beginning this weekend. Although I appreciated the attempt to wed the following three films (and its well-taken attempt to explain the relation between The Exorcist and Exorcist II: The Heretic), the film was dreadful. Genocide, again, was the theme (seems to be this weekend in info-tainment), as the subjection of native Africans is compared to Jewish annihilation in facile juxtaposition. The center of this unfortunate mediation is Father Merrin who, of course, is a resurrected white dude (who happens to be rearing a small black boy). Unquestionably, this film was conceived in the aftermath of 9/11, when "W" was ventriloquizing Gerson's "evil" tropicopia.
I suppose this sounds so very morbid; I guess it is more of an exercise in pretentiousness (as is typical of only children and their ilk). Things are not bad here; things are looking up. That's when mourning made good on it--the object removed returns with a vengence, disguised as something less familiar.
It was such a lonely week without my computer (which died and took a week resurrecting), which I rely on to feel connected to the "world" lately. Whether that's simply pathetic or a reality for far too many of us, I'm not sure. At the very least, graphical interface is my telephony. Now, just how phony is that?
. . . and then there is politics, something to get mournful about, undoutedly. When your "great white hope" looks like Lurch, well, as my mentor was fond of saying, "there you are."
Music: The Red Stick Ramblers: Bring It Down Pretty good day for what it's worth, even though the heat index is 108 and the humidity howevers just below that about eight points (as a blogging friend wrote, it feels like your lungs are getting punched when walking outside). Finished a writing project; successful library hunt; got a thumbs-up from the doctor about cholesterol levels; the press likes my pitch for the book cover and we can get the copyright to "The Fool" tarot card easily; bachelor party to look forward to this evening.
Yesterday went to the new dentist; he confirmed my fear that the last dentist was too interested in making money ($1200 of dental work--and that's after the insuranced kicked in); said my teeth were just fine. I went to dinner last night with Mindy and had a blast talking about random stuff.
Now for the beatings: Nickelback is pegged with rocks, and walks off stage. Danzing gets punched in the face. "Am I Demon?" Apparently not.
Music: Peaches: Fatherfucker Dear [Student's Name],
What a treat to hear from you! I very much appreciate your sharing your recent mental chaos with me. Let me say at the outset I am sincerely flattered that you feel comfortable enough to approach me with some frankly seriously issues. Let me tell you that, in my line of work, the rewards are very few. We're not paid very much; we're asked to do too much for what we are paid; and most students, frankly, are more interested in doing the least amount of work to get a piece of paper so they can "get a job." Every once in an while we learn about how our teachings have contributed positively to someone's life, and these revelations really are what we live for. That is to say, the rewards of research or teaching reduce to having made a positive impact on a student's life or way of thinking. You've made my day telling me about my positive impact on your way of thinking.
Because of the nature of your disclosures, there's no way I can adequately respond to it all. Some of the issues you raise are very deep, moral issues that no email response can do justice to. I will share my thoughts on a number of the topics you raise, but these are personal opinions and certainly nothing more than that.
Incidentally, you should also note that I am responding to you via my private email address; this is because some of the issues you raise, namely the use of drugs, is subject to review by the university and other state officials (technically speaking, email exchange on LSU servers belong to LSU). So on these personal issues, if you have a private account not affiliated with LSU, I'd urge you to do that.
This said, if you will humor me a bit, I'll take this as "teaching moment" opportunity at first, before I discuss my opinions. I very much appreciate your compliments about my learning--and I've studied a lot in the last ten years--but in the grand system of smart people in this universe, I am of a much lower planetary order. Indeed, what I want to suggest is that I don't know all that much, and I try to make sense of the chaos around us just like you do. In my line of thinking, there is no absolute truth, but different ways of getting at it and defining it. And this can be mind-bogglingly frustrating.
There's this dude, Jacques Lacan, who says that in our lives we often seek out very wisdomatic people to give us our bearings. This quest for "leaders" reproduces the function parents had when we were children. Lacan calls this person "the subject who is supposed to know" When someone goes to therapy, the therapist is usually the "subject who is supposed to know," the wisdomatic person who will tell the person on the couch what is really bothering them.
Here's the trick of therapy, though: in reality, the therapist has NO CLUE what is troubling the patient! Most therapists don't! The person who really knows the problem is actually the patient him or herself. So, successful therapy is really achieved when the patient realizes that the therapist REALLY DOESN'T HAVE THE ANSWERS. Successful therapy usually involves the patient USING the therapist to help herself. The therapist becomes, in a sense, a tool.
The analogy I want to draw here is this: teaching involves this dynamic of students presuming the teacher is the "subject supposed to know," that the teacher has all the answers. I use this dynamic in the classroom to help folks learn. You always know the dynamic is in play when students care what you think about them. When a student starts to look for me for "answers," then they are presuming I am the keeper of wisdom, you know. When a student cares about how I personally think about them, real learning can happen.
Every once in a while, though, someone like you comes along as says: I need an answer! And this is the point that I have my teaching moment: dude, I ain't got the answers. Indeed, they don't exist. Each person moves along in life, trying as best as they can to make sense of it, and certainly should be suspicious of those claiming to have the answer.
People claiming to have the answer or "truth" are not to be trusted. They may have, in fact, that answer or truth. But don't accept it on blind "faith." Indeed, blind "faith" is what the more dogmatic religions ask of us. The less dogmatic religions suggest that "faith" is in constant conversation with "doubt," and that this is normal (Kierkegaard is a great read on this problem).
So to switch from teacher mode to me as person with opinions: first, yes, I know exactly what you mean when you say you slowly emerged from your youthful religion with wide eyes. I had the same experience, of course. What is important to think about, though, is whether that experience necessarily means all religious organizations or bad, or all religious teachings are bad, and so on. Spirituality is very important to a large number of folks, including me. One thing you might have learned in the rhetoric of religion class is that, at a very basic level, because of the way language works, we cannot help but be religious. Just watch the ravings of an atheist: they're just as "religious" in the denial of Spirit as the most devout fundamentalist. To wit: keep an open mind, keep searching. Knowledge is in the quest and the search, not in "the answer." Be wary of those with "the answer"
And that leads me to Michael Moore. Many people are saying that the country has never been more divided. But if you look at our history, the United States has always been a "work in progress" of overcoming division. That is to say, the very idea of our Union is premised on overcoming a split or divide; "we" have always been that way. The Civil War is case in point. Without division, there is no union; one requires the other.
Although I am a rabid, liberal, Left sort of guy, I do not trust Michael Moore. Michael Moore is someone who claims to have "the truth," and "the answers." I am suspicious of those kind of people. I love his movies and books--they are hilarious and do capture my politics. But I see Moore (and Al Franken, too) as our liberal response to figures like Rush Limbaugh. Both are polemicists. Both say things that are "out of context" and stretch the truth. Michael Moore is a propagandist--one that I love, mind you, but a propagandist all the same. He uses the conventions of film to create a story that tells it "our way." But these conventions can be manipulated. For example, in his famous *Roger and Me*, it seems like Reagan comes to town right at the point when Gary IN is falling apart. But this is because of the way the film is cut, to give the semblance of chronology. Actually, Reagan came way after the problems Gary experienced (if I recall correctly). The point is Moore, like Limbaugh, is a "media figure." His role is just, though: it gets us talking, doesn't it?
You see, I think that in the field of the mass media, it is virtually impossible to have sustained, political discussions. In a sound-bite world, news is show business. Politicians know this, so they "cut corners" or don't tell the whole truth--precisely because doing so requires time, and time is money. Moore realizes these limitations, and so, like a good media figure, has adopted the tactics necessary. Ultimately, I think Moore is a godsend because he gets people talking--hopefully thinking. But I am personally as suspicious of him as I am the spokespeople of our government.
Okie, so you have some specific questions. You ask:
What I would like to better understand and know: Is there really any proof that these rich white CEOs are conspiring to keep the American people in the dark while they carry on with REALLY shady business practices, which includes raping the American workforce? If so, is it really as bad as it has been said? Do they pay for and rely on these conservative media freaks to make it seem like the word "liberal" is a bad shameful word.
I don't doubt that there are conspiracies; Enron et al. is proof enough that businessMEN conspire to make money. But I think what you mean by conspiracy is different. You seem to be asking about some larger, collective effort. And my answer is that there is no such larger effort. What we need to think about is ideology and structural reasons for why wealthy white men are running this country.
Recall in class we discussed "ideology" as the "collective beliefs, attitudes, and values" of a given community or population. I then said ideology tends to support those already in power, and that it does so by making ideology seem like "common sense." Wealthy white dudes are in power, and stay in power, because we are in a society that ideologically supports it. It's not that wealthy white dudes conspire to make money and keep us in the dark. Rather, its that to get wealthy (the ideal on our country), one has to follow certain rules and do certain things to get ahead; one has to 'play the game." That "game" is a structure that people are situated in. In a sense, then, what I'm saying is that the "game" of making money and keeping power centered in wealthy white men runs US, we do not run IT.
It's complicated, [student's name], and would take me a long while to explain how I think this whole shebang works, but the "bottom line," so to speak, is that the system runs the show (like the Matrix movies), and we depend on the system to keep us alive and going. There is no conspiracy, in other words. Rather, it is simply "common sense" that things are done the way they are done. That common sense, us socialists would argue, is "warped" and inhumane. But it takes a very long time to change common sense (recall, for example, that it was only recently was it 'common sense' to sit next to an African American in a restaurant or on a bus).
Now, there is the issue of the Bush administration, which I have written about a lot of places. To say there is no "rich white dude" conspiracy does not mean there is not an agenda, particularly on the part of the religious right. The current administration is certainly one funded by the religious right, and its rhetoric is often that of spiritual warfare. Bush's key speech writer, for instance, is a graduate of Wheaton College (the Midwestern double of Baylor in Texas), and all of Bush's early speech craft was of the "born again" variety. These kinds of values (born again) are guiding state policy. I find that scary.
Why is that scary? Well, you mentioned the student who dropped my religion class because of my pentagram "cloak" (it's actually a computer dust cover). You mentioned he said that I am going to "hell." Well, lets think about this statement. If someone is saying to me that I am going to hell, then what are they really saying? They are saying I am not a full fledged human being, that I'm some "creature" or foreign thing that has his just doom coming. That kind of talk is "dehumanization." Dehumanizing others who do not believe or think like you do is a common thing in more fundamentalist circles. What this student said is no different than when Bush II called the citizenry of North Korea, etc, as "evil." When you call someone evil, you turn them into non-people. When people are understood as non-people, it's easier to destroy them.
See, that's what the Nazi's did with the Jews. Call them "rodents," "inhuman," or monsters, characterized them as "evil" or destined to go to hell, and then its so much easier to destroy them. Hitler say he had the "answer," the truth. He called it "the final solution." More than 6 million people were murdered as a part of that answer.
There are the Iraqi's that were abused at Abu-Grabe prison. How can you abuse someone like that? Well, only by thinking they are not real human beings, only by seeing them as "Other."
This is what I mean by the return of "political demonology": the way in which politicians, since the Bush II regime, have been using the rhetoric of Othering, or of dehumanization, to justify aggression and violence. It's the oldest rhetorical move in the book. Nothing new. And I think it is that which Franken and Moore are so concerned about, the way in which fundamentalist, so-called "Christian" values of a VERY CERTAIN kind are fueling blind violence.
I am personally suspicious, then, of folks who not only claim to have the "truth" and all the right "answers," but especially of folks whose answers distinguish between those who are real human beings, and those who are monsters and should be destroyed, or those who will "go to hell." In my book, saying so and so is going to hell is a horrible, dehumanizing thing to say.
Indeed, I am always amazed at the preachers on "Free Speech Alley," who seem less there to save souls than to comfort themselves by insulting people and dehumanizing them.
You say:
I'm very curious as to how Fahrenheit 9/11 is going to affect this country, if it does at all. I'm afraid that the people against it will succeed at making other potential viewers think MM is a crazy liberal lunatic and that this new movie is nothing but lies and not worth seeing.It's like "preaching to the choir," really. The film may rally the Left to the polls, but that's it. MM is a demagogue and a populist; he cannot escape that (and he knew that when he got into the business). I doubt it will be on the radar come October, and I seriously doubt it will really have that much of an influence on the election.
I do think, however, Ralph Nader poses a problem, but that's another story.
I honesty think that Bush is not that bad of a guy. I think his heart is in the right place, and that he has faith in his God and believes he is doing the right thing. You'll note Clinton said as much recently in interviews about his book; he only differed with Bush in terms of the timing.I even have friends who believe Bush is the best choice for protecting us from the terrorists, which I think is a bunch of bullshit. That's what Bushie wants, everyone to be afraid.
But the key here is to note that Bush is not running this show. He is, as it were, a puppet for folks behind the scenes. When you and I or anyone attacks Bush, we need to recognize Bush the human being is actually very different from Bush II: The Movie. I think the folks behind that follow-up blockbuster are the ones who are using the tactics of righteousness to secure "national interests."
You say:
Of course they want to keep us safe because that makes them look good, but what exactly are those people in the White House up to? Do you know anything about this? Any suggestions of what I should read?Read everything! I tire of it all so easily; trying to figure out what is true and what is not is hard in our media-saturated environment. It seems to me the better route toward understanding what is REALLY going on is to read foreign newspapers. You can do that online (e.g., the London Times). It won't give you the "answer" either, but with an outside view it helps to get a better sense of what is going on from the world's perspective.
When I was in Berlin in April, it was a real eye opener. Because media in the states in part must cooperate with the US govt. to get information, it limits their ability to be totally objective (and we must keep in mind the media are owned by large corporations who depend on the US govt. to protect their international interests, and so forth). By and large, the world HATES the US govt. (not Americans per se) because of their tactics of righteousness. Invading a largely contained country and deposing a dictator despite the protests of the UN was a really bad blow to US credibility. It's hard to argue that you are ultimately interested in humanitarian efforts and protecting human rights when you defy all the institutions that were set-up to enable that cause.
You say:
Anything you'd care to share that'd enlighten me, or give me a clearer, overall picture of what's going on with the divisiveness of this country?Like I said: I don't have the answer. You simply got to think about it on your own, read, and come to some conclusions yourself. Beware of someone who says they have it all figured out--because this is so complex. The mass media try to reduce that complexity to sound bites, which is why things lead so easily to unverifiable platitudes. Watch what the pundits do on Sunday morning political shows (of which I am a junkie). After every assertion, what does an official say: "well, it's more complicated than that." The reason they say that is because it usually is, even if I don't agree with their values or politics.
It's always more complicated than we wish it were. This is why very strict, black-and-white belief systems are so comforting. It reduces the complexity of human life to manageable answers and guidelines. A great example of this is Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand (bascially, conservativism made easy). Compare it to fundamentalist religion and you'll see the same appeals.
You ask:
No, Baton Rouge and Louisiana is just different. When I make fun of people on I-10, it is hypocritical in the sense that I am dehumanizing, too (although that examples does connect with people for some reason!). People are no smarter or dumber than folks I experienced in DC, Minnesota, and Georgia. They are very different, and on the whole, *poorer* and less educated. But this does not translated into slowness. I've met many a wicked smart local, my friend. Take you, for instance ;-)Which reminds me; I often wondered what you TRULY think about the South, Louisiana, and Baton Rouge? Is it as terrible as many northerners believe it is?
That's a fair question [student's name]. When I was 23, I finally decided drug-exploration was not for me anymore for a number of reasons. First, I got bored. After talking to god numerous times, I just decided the dripping walls had said all I needed to hear. I believe drugs do open the "doors of perception," as Huxley says. But continuously opening those doors gets tiresome.Another question I wanted to ask you a while back but never got around to it: I remember you mentioning that you used to do acid at the original Mellow Mushroom, yet you've never tried ecstasy. That struck me as sort of odd since we talked a lot about the rave culture and the Temporary Autonomous Zones (I really enjoyed that reading). Before you said that, I would have certainly figured you'd have done it at least once to personally see what it was all about. Just out of curiosity, why haven't you tried it? I believe it's definitely something everyone should experience at least once!
Second, there is a LOT of scientific evidence to show psychotropic drugs mess with your serotonin transmitters and sensors. I don't know anything about how brain chemistry works, but I do know that if you do too much mind-altering stuff that chemistry changes. I know of folks whose "depressions" were worsened by taking too many psychotropics. "Rollin'" especially can give you some real problems. So, dude, I'm not going to be a parent and say "don't do it," but I would encourage you to read more about this stuff before you ingest it.
Third, when I was in high school we knew the source of our drugs (a buddy's brother, who was a chemist and pot grower). You hear horror stories about the drug supply today. It's possible to ingest driano!
Finally, drug use really can lead to worse addictions. My best friends in high school smoked a lot of dope. I never did care for the stuff (makes me paranoid). Toward the end they smoked a ton, and eventually, that's all they did. Of my group of friends, I was the only one to FINISH college. To this day, I believe they are "pot heads." Like everything, absent moderation drugs change the way your brain works.
So, in answer to your question why I have never done ecstasy: because I think it is better for me not to take drugs. I have depressive tendencies and don't want to make them worse. I am an addictive personality, and don't need to encourage it. And in my line of work, not destroying my mind is important. Just don't want to risk it, you know?
Anyhoo, read more about ecstasy and pot. There's lost of literature out there. Moderation is always the key, of course, but there are dangers to consider . . ..
I hope this answers your questions [student's name], and gives you some food for thought. I guess what I'm saying is: I don't have the answers; it is all chaos and you just have to make the best sense of it that you can; yes, drugs can help you perceive the world differently, but be careful; and finally, religion is a complicated thing. Don't let those who abuse spirituality to hurt people get in the way of your seeking a spiritual life.
And all this from a guy who keeps saying he does not have the answers. See, I contradict myself. And that is, in part, my point.
Love from Spanish Town,
[King Rhomby]
Current Music: The Cure: The Cure When the last Cure album arrived, David and I enacted the usual ritual (which began with, as I recall, Depeche Mode's Ultra): we gathered in my living room, procured some beverages, and sat patiently and listened to every song, pausing in between tracks to discuss what we heard. The new Cure album arrived today, and I purchased it promptly, of course. But listening to it just an hour ago reminded me of how much I miss David and our rituals. I feel particularly lonely tonight because I do not know anyone here who shares my love or my passion for the Cure. Robert could burp and I'd by the disk.
Three bands comprise my holy trinity: The Cure, Depeche Mode, and The Smiths. Every album released is a sacred event, even though, since my graduation from high school in 1992, the albums from each (well, the Smith's broke-up--so Morrissey for the Smiths) have been progressively cheesy.
So I have listened intently to the new album from The Cure twice, and while writing this, it is on the third rotation. It is very different from the last two albums, and the theme is angry, unquestionably. Compared to the previous two albums (Wild Mood Swings and Bloodflowers), this one sounds muddy, meaning that on a number of tracks Smith's voice is filtered and distanced from the listener. The two opening tracks are very "fuzz," meant to be played loud. I think, en toto, the Cure's first self-titled album is more "rock" than they have ever been. "Us or Them" (track six) is playing now, and it clearly is a screed against US aggression after 9/11. Other songs, from "Lost" to (my favorite of the album) "Never" to the ten-minute closing track, "The Promise," are frustrated rants about the unrealistic, mass-mediated idols of romance. Smith screams on this album; he screams a good bit, and the guitar work is frantic.
At this point, I'm not sure what to make of the album. There are a number of fun, throwback pop songs here (e.g., "The End of the World," and "alt.end," with it's fakey hand-clap percussion), and I think I like the angry turn of a number of the tracks. But right now it feels uneven. I wish David were here to talk about it.
Current Music: Roxy Music: Avalon An apt lyric, I suppose, having just come to terminal from the screen, which was airing the latest "hot" video by a band called Switchfoot. They look interchangeable, somewhat like the folks ambling about campus, but less, you know, authentic. The song was pitiful . . . and television and cable networks belt this out like so much shit, peppered every now and again with a golden nugget of Korn . . . no, I mean real gold, like Coheed and Cambria.
Well, it's been a while. I completed intersession, which was exhausting. I have no idea how the students do two of those courses back to back. Teaching two is more than I can take; I've promised myself I won't do it again. I mean, the students are great and all (much more tolerant than regular semester), but we're both just so tired.
Now I'm in the middle of book revisions; it's not going too bad, although I'm starting to feel the pressure of the deadline (July 2). Today I worked through chapter three (of eight). Chapter five and six need some work, and the conclusion needs an overhaul. I think I can get it done on time, but all this formatting stuff is taking more time than I supposed. I may post a link to a chapter or two if I can get over my coding laziness.
Tomorrow the committee from the Craft come to discuss my petition. We shall see. If there is no more than one black square, I should become first degree in a couple of weeks.
Aside from joining secret societies, I've been thinking about buying a house. I probably will start seriously pursuing that after Christmas (the idea is to get credit cards paid down as much as possible). I am set on an older home, arts and crafts/craftsman style. Those are not as plentiful as I had hoped. And most are out of my price range for where I would like to be (downtown or the Garden District).
Then: I've been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan lately. They've re-mastered a number of albums in SACD. Awesome. Also old Yes albums have been on heavy rotation (good for vacuuming, since huffing Scotchguard fumes is no longer a pastime, you see).
And, um (dare I admit it?), um, I've been jamming to Hall and Oates. Yes. That's right. They've re-mastered the Hall and Oates catalog, and I couldn't resist. Maneater--along with Chicago IV and A Flock of Seagulls--were among my first musical purchases ever . . . well, my first cassette purchases ever. "Maneater" is a classic, as is "Family Man" (birth of the adult contemporary "sample"!). I remember Disco Mickey Mouse, Pac Man Fever, and some 45's by Survivor and Juice Newton before my cassette obsession.
And I just ordered the new Culture Club box set for half price. It's absolutely for the DJ business, of course.
Current Music: David Sylvian: Gone To Earth Today is the second day of intersession, and I'm teaching two courses, one from 9 to noon, and a second from 1 to 4. I did this last year as well, and my body forgot what it was like. Now body and mind are reunited in physical and mental exhaustion. Why the heck did I sign up to do this again? Then the credit card bills come and I remember.
Fortunately, it's not so bad, as both classes are full of good, friendly students. The one's that seemed "offended" by my PG-13 style, thankfully, dropped. The afternoon group is chattier, but both seem affable and willing to work. That helps more than I can say; it's really easier to put in your "all" when they seem like they're really willing to get something out of it. College is transformative at times. I don't know why I feel this way, but I actually think you connect more and change folks more during the summer sessions than the actual semester. One day I'll try to figure that out.
So, anyhoo, I'm writing this and running on fumes. There is a party one door down in an hour, my neighbors Linda and Goga. I want to go and say hello, but I fear in a half an hour I will be noshin' on a pillow. I'm simply beat.
Not much linkage to add to bloggage. But for music: lately I've been very hot on the new Iron & Wine album. It's very, very sweet (hushed lyrics and soft, acoustic guitar) in the Nick Drake sort of way, but also much more self-conscious than Drake. I love it, but I do hope the third album moves in a different direction. Otherwise, they will become a parody of themselves and end up on SNL and as an $8.99 end-cap at Target. (Did I mention I was horrified to find Snow Plow on sale at TARGET! Geez!)
I'm also groovin' on old David Sylvian albums. It's 80's sounding, but then, that's my idiom so anyone who doesn't like my 80's vibe can each canned cheese (that is, current, corporate packaging). I have a soft spot for the bass-heavy, crooning, minor chord thing. This is why Talk Talk's last two albums are, well, perfection. I love the minimalist grooves of Japan/Sylvian . . . hard to explain. Perhaps one day I'll figure it all out and let you know (nods to Camper Van).
Well, I'm very associative which means the sandman calls. Goodnight.
Is a new track on Morrissey's new album, and it's characteristically hilarious and deathly serious. The sentiment is something like, "god gave me all this desire I didn't quite know what to do with." But you know what? St. Bernard did! Check out his desire in all its synesthesiatic glory (the visual, invocatory and oral drives are clearly crossing their wires!). Thanks to DJ Mirko for that link. In other news, I finally finsihed what I hope is the next-to-last version of my essay on spectral voices ("ghosts"), which I've put online here in the event my computer goes up in flames (the mutha effin' fire alarms in my 12-ft. ceiling home keep twerping at 3.a.m. argh!). I've been working on this article for four years (it started as a piece of the CSCA Conference called "commodity terrorism"). It is the blueprint, of sorts, for the book I am supposed to start writing in July on speech-as-ghosts. The theory parts will become their own chapters, the 9-11 stuff will become a case study, and to it I'll be adding the case studies of charismata (speaking in tongues), one of the canned laughter (the laugh-track in sitcoms), one on the answering machine, and I think, now, one of William S. Burroughs' taped "cut-up" experiments. Years ago I started collecting these obscure recordings and bootlegs of Burroughs' playing with tape machines. I never knew why I liked them, but now I'm glad I have them. They're creepy, of course, and that's the point. Actually, I think the case study will orbit Burrough's "cut-ups" and the backward masking rumor panic of the 1980s/1990s (remember, religious authorities and the afflicted were warming concerned parents that there were hidden, backward messages promoting suicide in Judas Priest and Ozzy Osborne records?).
Anyhoo, I'm excited about the new book project and look forward to some uninterrupted time for reading and writing.
Speaking of books, I need to get my butt in gear for the revisions of "Modern Occult Rhetoric." The press is supposed to have it by July 2. Ack! Between here and there, though, I've got two intersession courses to teach; that will be exhausting.
Finally, I'm tentatively planning a road trip to visit friends in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Fayetteville, and sites in between. It would also be great to visit my folks, as well as Eric and his family in Maine. That would make for a good summer of traveling--3 weeks, at least.
Well, I need to get ready to go up to school. Much photocopying to be done.
