screening shock

Music: Shirley Horn: I Remember Miles On Monday Nicole Kidman begins production on a new film project titled The Visiting by German director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Hirschbiegel landed the gig after filming the impressive The Downfall, a film about the last days of Hitler's life. The film is a contemporary remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, trading out the focus on strange, vine-covered pod-plants for a deadly pathogen/viral scenario that will, unquestionably, trade on Hollywood's relentless "state of exception fever."

From the details that have been revealed about the film, it is the Jungian, maternal shadow (viz., the animus) of Spielburg's War of the Worlds in more ways that one (I mean, how else can you read two sci-fi films about the same damn crisis with each half of what was once the most powerful and beautiful couple in the world?). In remaking of Well's classic, Spielburg spun a "crisis of the sovereign" tale in which phallo(go)centric authority is challenged and reasserted at the level of (fragmented) family. The scene for asserting the Law of the Father was predictably individualistic (e.g., when the goodly President can't save you from terrorists, its up to daddy). It appears The Visiting will trade in daddy for the matriarch (e.g., "for the Love of Mother")--only this isn't the castrating prosthetic mother of Star Trek First Contact, nor is it the dominatrix-cum-passive virgin a la Trinity in the Matrix fils. This is the classic "power woman" finding her motherhood and the retreat into the consoling bosom and womb-of-secret-knowledge sort of role (you know, the Sally Field sort of thing). Kidman plays a psychiatrist who discovers the key to an epidemic illness is extra terrestrial (and, as we all know, these green meanies from outer space zombify the public into not-so-mindless drones when they fall to sleep), and apparently she loses her son to the aliens, and then, must work to get him back to obtain said key. Sounds like the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Golden Child while Sally Field looks on from a comfortable yet stiff chair in a waiting room kind of movie.

That the filming script is caught up in the same imaginary that scripted Kidman and Cruise's lives is almost uncanny, if you've seen clips of the press conference for The Visiting. I say almost uncanny because what Kidman says is also laughable. Apparently in the film script Kidman plays a psychiatrist (which is male in the serialized novel), and inevitably she was asked to comment on her ex-husband's rant against psychiatry some months ago:

I have a father who is a psychologist, so my life has been research [presumably for the role]. Yeah, of course [psychiatry is worthwhile]. I think all sorts of things do, in terms of Buddhism, in terms of therapy. I think people choose things that they need that are going to help them. And obviously, I've seen my father do some magnificent work.

All of this is quite curious, representing a conscious attempt to frame filmic fantasy in terms of public controversy (otherwise, why the hell have a highly publicized press conference before shooting begins?). Folks will see the film for the Anima/Animus drama as much as they will the safe feeling of abjection/horror.

What is truly perverse, however, is the traumatic gap around which these fantasies swirl and serve to protect: At the same conference Kidman made it a point to say that news coverage of the tragic flooding of New Orleans caused pangs of identification, because the her role involved a traumatic separation from her child, like the thousands of families separated by Katrina . . . . Aliens, Terrorists, Katrina . . . earthquake?

Have we truly become accustomed to the fantasy that our lives are thoroughly scripted? Kidman is basically Tom Cruise here, the crisis is still one of the fragmented family, and self-consciousness is only possible these days (at least mass self consciousness) with bigger and bigger, jaw-dropping impossibilities.

It seems sonority (particularly what my buddy Mirko calls "dialectical sonority) is the only thing these days that can cut through the imagery of atrocity, the Real SHOCK of pained voices and barbaric screams.

Walter Benjamin, we need you now more than ever.

(in)security

Music: ELO: Eldorado: A Symphony by the Electric Light Orchestra One of the worst feelings in the world is being asked to live up to your projections, which may or may not mirror this nebulous thing called “potential,” which, all to often, is discerned in death (or self-consciously, in dying or the falling away). I was approached some months ago to share my thoughts—to intercourse causally, I supposed—about my adventures in psychobabble vis-à-vis rhetorical criticism. This would not be a problem if I were not situated between two highly respected, well-known associate professors flown in from other parts of the country to do the same thing.

And so for days I have been reflecting on my own insecurity, on not being secure in my ability to provide something that will bridge these two “names.” And then I got to thinking: well, shit, this subject position is not uncommon. Indeed, it would seem my abject insecurity is almost overdetermined since, as any person in humanities would recognize, we live in a time without security!

For starters, post-tenure review has effectively removed tenure, pitting us hapless Lefty types against Academic Administration (the Borg, the Tower, etc.,) . . . and as we all know, we live in apocalyptic times on top of that! For over two decades we have been besieged by the neo-liberal suits pouring out of Harvard business school and flooding the federal government . . Clinton or Bush, it doesn’t manner none (invest in your human capital!). And then, we’ve been derided by snotty journalists on the pages of the New York Times, snarling that Derrida was full of nonsense on the obituary page, and accusing Butler for occultic, needlessly obfuscating prose. And then, leaders in my own field of rhetorical studies have been arguing that we need to learn to talk to money by steering research toward the real world and the scientific! I know, then, what to convey to these students of rhetorical criticism: it’s downright suicidal to pursue a degree in rhetorical studies these days because

THE HUMANITIES ARE FALLING! THE HUMANITIES ARE FALLING!

The academy is McDonaldizing and McNuggetizing everything; and if you don’t produce, produce, produce--and more importantly, produce those frankenmeats that can be noshed on by figures in the entertainment industry--then rhetorical studies will DIE!

THE HUMANITIES ARE FALLING! THE HUMANTIES ARE FALLING!

Or could it be that my own insecurities reflect a much deeper disciplinary neurosis?

Well, it has been said many times and many ways: rhetorical studies is fundamentally a neurotic discipline. With no definitive object and therefore no “method” to approach this object, the “field” is literally built on a fundamental, generative anxiety. Once we get to the point of security and coherence, we’re done for.

This logic does not bode well for my personal life, neither. What happens when I’m not functioning on heartbreak and emotional deprivation? What happens when you take my apocalypse away?

weather update: we're ok

Music: Coheed and Cambria: IV Just a note:

I wanted to let my peeps not in Texas know that things will be fine here in Austin. The traffic is not pleasant and water is flying off the shelves, but the weather reports are getting better. As a sign that we're going to be spared, I should mention that the Austin City Limits festival is still on, and only about seven bands have cancelled (and those were quickly replaced). So, the kids are alright here. I am mourning the fact, however, that there's not much excuse for a hurricane party anymore.

I hope the displaced folks will have something to return to; I'm being cautiously optimistic that Rita may just break apart at the moment she hits shore.

EDIT: Goodness, I just got out of a meeting and caught one of the many monitors in our building (we're the comm people so they have monitors blasting every cable news station), and it appears New Orleans and Lake Charles are now going to have to take care of the unwelcome guest. Damn! I hope you folks in Louisiana are doing OK; I hope Rita cracks up . . . .

hermeneutics

Music: The Chameleons: What is the Meaning of Anything, Basically Shaun forwarded along this link to a column from The Daily Tar Heel, along with the invitation to have a field day finding fallacies. It is, I agree, a good article to teach in undergraduate classes: not only can you work some wonders here with informal logic, but you might further encourage the dialoguing on race in the classroom.

The sad thing is that I’ve heard members of my own extended family say such things at dinner tables. It is astonishing, too, how these sorts of widespread beliefs escape media scrutiny (as if they do not exist . . . Trent Lott, anyone? Barbara Bush? Our President?).

pets

Music: Tori Amos: To Venus and Back Every year the First Vice President of the National Communication Association, the major professional association of my training, selects a "big name" scholar to speak at our national convention. Last year Celeste Michelle Condit, a rhetorical scholar who initially made a splash by incorporating articulation theory and British cultural studies into media and rhetorical studies, was chosen to be the speaker. For over a decade now Condit has been researching the rhetoric of science, and more narrowly, stuff in the biological and genetic sciences. Her talk last November was "How Should We Study the Symbolizing Animal?" and it was just published (it came packaged with the most recent NCA newsletter, Spectra.

I didn't get a chance to see the lecture, but I did receive a number of reports, and they boiled down to this narrative: "she said we needed to learn to talk to money better, and doing research that explores the language of human biology was one way to go about it." Having just read the speech, I can see where folks could get that idea, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a much more nuanced argument than this.

In "How Should We Study the Symbolizing Animal?" Condit argues that: (1) so called bio-humanists have been following a highly positivistic, if not internally contradictory, model of "consilience" that (in a manner not wholly dissimilar to the remarks of John Locke in An Essay on Human Understanding, in my humble opinion) is this sort of grand unified theory of knowledge; (2) this wouldn't be so bad if (a) those who subscribe to the model weren't getting all kinds of money and (b) humanists were so committed to the view that it's "text all the way down"; (3) to combat the encroachment of overly simplistic sociobiological causality and, thereby, guarantee our continued survival, humanists need to develop "alternative responses" to bio-humanism; (4) the first step in developing a better response is understanding what is at stake, and what is at stake is the overly simplistic model of "One Cause, One Effect" causality and the "Multiple Interacting Causes and Effects" models; and finally, (5) better, alternative responses should aim to integrate (theoretically) the processes of symbolizing and human animality, which may be achieved by: (a) studying the processes of amplification (how symbolization alters/enhances/and so on the biological); (b) moving to a model of symbolic circulation which is homologous to biological processes; and (c) studying fantasy.

Fantasy? Yes, you read me right: fantasy! But this is no complex model of fantasy, no sir. By fantasy Condit says "I mean loosely to demarcate those realms where symbolic flows specifically pretend to denote not being outside their own symbolic realities. In our culture these include fiction appearing in television, film, and novels, as well as games, including video-games and all viewer-oriented sports. The classical example of a fantastic being is the unicorn . . . ."

Ok, I'm repressing the urge to rant. But before I make the critical remarks that are inevitable, let me say that being tapped to do the Arnold lecture in our field is like winning a grammy, only that you have to speak to a very bright audience that is comprised of scientists and rhetoricians (a tough crowd). You have to craft a speech that is digestible when heard, leaving anything too complex to the side. You have to be provocative, perhaps even "stir it up." And above all, you cannot be a bore.

Despite these rhetorical challenges, I nevertheless have a number of reactions: I'm glad to see posthumanism get a nice shout-out here, and I'm pleased with the (largely implicit) critique of the transcendental subject here. The "post- theory" project is starting to pay off, at least in terms of a disciplinary visibility. But, dammit: did I read a shout-out to Deleuze and complexity theory? Nope, I didn't, which is a pity, because the recourse to the "flow" metaphor here could benefit from a coupling with the concept of emergence, which better focuses any project on "amplification" or "circulation." Second, it would seem the new form of jeremiad in our discipline is now the evolutionary apocalyptic: survival of the fittest the academy requires we talk to those who talk to money (see, there's an extra step that the reporters left out). Third, it is a straw-person to say that humanists have embraced "its text all the way down," and I cannot think of anyone who does say that (except perhaps Derrida, but even then, you cannot always take the man for his words! [wink wink]). As for fantasy: well, shit. It's like Ernst Bormann all over again-but this time fantasy is nothing but surface without any depth; it is opposed to the "real world," and so on.

There is no unconscious here; indeed, everything seems to take place on some kind of biological field of multiple causality (notice the fantastic being of the pink elephant in the living room here is that mac-daddy of all fantastic symbolizing, "the dream"). But if you keep pushing at fantasy, it seems to go "all the way down," doesn't it? What is hypnosis? Why do I keep picking at this scab because it hurts?

Is it just me, or do these intellectual battles with dualism-and the Searle-esque fiat of its magical disappearance--get tiresome?

biconicity and the haunting of hutchence

Music: Rilo Kiley: More Adventurous Almost seven years ago, Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS, hung himself with his belt in a hotel room after (apparently) binging the previous evening on alcohol (and cocaine and Prozac). He was in a custody battle and extremely depressed; no one would have predicted, however, that he would take his life.

Shortly after this shocking news, rumors began to circulate that Hutchence's death was an accident. I recall hearing the rumors myself: Hutchence died of autoerotic asphyxiation--that his, he was choking himself to enhance an orgasm whilst jacking off. The coroner's report denies, unequivocally, that there is any truth to the rumor. Yet, because Hutchence was nude when he was found, the rumor continues to circulate (remember: many of us sleep in the nude with no inclination to touch or kill ourselves! or at least if we do, only in dreams!).

There is an important reason why this rumor lingers, indeed, there's an important reason why the rumor is deeply articulated to the figure of Hutchence even if one does not believe the rumor is true: the appeal of Michael Hutchence is unquestionably and stereotypically Freudian since, in the popular imaginary, he embodies the explosive intersection of sex and death. This script is clearly discernable in their first hit, "Devil Inside," which pretty much says it all, but, also reconsider the under-rumble grooves of "Need You Tonight" with Hutchence's barely sung, whispered lyrics. The song communicates a simmering sexuality, a controlled, dark rage, . . . a brilliantly calculated attempt to make money (I would completely have wrote INXS off after Kick, but 1992's Welcome to Wherever You Are redeemed the band as a group capable of writing something that is not a total "sell-out"). The video for "Need You Tonight" is also very hot but hints of something dangerous just beneath the neatly packaged pop song. Hutchence, in other words, has/had this dark, murderous "edge" about him that inspires something akin to a rape fantasy but, unlike Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis, it was willed not just by women, but even secretly by "straight" men: he is, as Katie said last night at the bar, "a bicon."

Biconity is a very rare charismatic trait only possessed by few "entertainers" in the popular imaginary. As we all know, Johnny Depp is the Patron Saint of Biconicity. He is frequently cited by most self-identified "straight men" as the boy they would most likely sleep with. And let's just go ahead and admit it: Johnny has nice (some might say "feminine") ass. Hutchence is, of course, of the same order--and note that both men, despite their long locks and characteristically "feminine" style, walk a line of controlled masculinity; both are mysterious as if to hide an underlying rage (off the top of my head, we can include Angelina Jolie and Winona Rider, as well as David Gahan and--despite recent buffness--Trent Reznor among the bicons). Both men exude a controlled uncontrolledness that maybe--just maybe--tempt death. Hence, it is easier and more consistent with the popular fantasy of such bicons to presume an accidental death during a sexual act than the selfish and utterly helpless, "uncontrolled" suicide. These bicons are clothed in death; they indeed pose the question, "to be or not to be," a kind of biconic death chic pursued by our fashionistas at Calvin Klein during their "To Be" advertisement campaign.

"I love being famous," said Hutchence in a happier day prior to his passing, "it's like a totally Freudian thing--it makes me feel wanted, loved and noticed. Anyone would want that wouldn't they?" Of course they would; nothing is more painful than getting all the love you want.

Given the powerful, death-sex charge of Hutchence in the popular imaginary, I have to ask the "What the FUCK?" question about the show Rock Star INXS, which has been airing on both VH1 and CBS for many, many weeks. Since I moved to Austin I've been sucked into the show for those reasons typically cited under the category of "oppositional reading," though I acknowledge my enjoyment is also in some sense channeled precisely by the intended, dominant reading ("look at all these hotties that you'd like to sleep with"). First, the show is hosted by David Navarro who, if he didn't talk so much, and if his obesssionally neurotic compulsiveness was not widely broadcast in his "reality television" show with his now (eww, gross) legal partner, Carmen Electra, might rank among the bicons. But he's too much of a dork to be a bicon (even though he is hot and, when his mouth is closed, does walk that razor line of sex/death). That Navarro hosts this thing is overdetermined, as his faint trace of biconitciy signals the presence of Hutechence's ghost.

What is so strange about Rock Star INXS is how overwhelmingly present Hutchence is, despite the fact he has been mentioned only once or twice in the many month run of the show. Last night Katie (a Ph.D. candidate in our department) and I got into a discussion about who has been booted off. She said she and her partner wept when the last woman was "voted off" by the band. I said, of course, that there was no way in hell a woman would be chosen. The only "chick" that could have possible worked, we agreed, was Jordis, who had both the "hot chick" and "lesbo" appeal as well as the aesthetic closest to death. The obviously most talented lyricist was "Ty," but he was too gay and, well, too black for the corporate handlers (make no mistake about it: the band members actually making the choice are these handlers, channeling the spirit of capital like happy mediums for "the man"). Indeed, who they choose will be the closest to Hutchence's ghost. This means that the new lead singer will be fuckable from most sexual vantages (even if straight people are not conscious of their homoerotic desire), but also walk the razor's edge: he will seem to tempt death; part of him will not be transparent; he will not talk too much nor reveal too many secrets; he will seem to harbor a secret . . . that he wants to fuck you and to kill you, if not himself.

In other words, the remaining members of INXS are in therapy and longing to restore their symptom (Hutchence was known to be far from "easy to get along with," if you know what I mean). I see it's getting close to 10 a.m. so I need to get to other work . . but let me explain this last point: putting yourself into a therapeutic situation is akin to getting a new computer. When you get a new computer you get frustrated (as I have been for two days now): none of the software you used to use is on it, and it is no longer compatible; nothing quite works the same as it used to--new commands, new little software quirks; you don't have all the right passwords or admin codes, and so on. Now, if you're like me, you desperately needed a new computer and so you succumbed to need. But today and last night I found myself cursing the new computer: where's my Roxio Toast? Why won't it load? Dammit! I just want my desktop the way it used to be.

This want or need to "restore" things to the way it used to be is what drives people to go to therapy. The therapists trick--if she knows what the hell she's doing--is to substitute your old (now impossible to return to) symptom with a new one that is less damaging, self-destructive, and so on. The move is toward displacement.

That said, INXS is clearly not using this situation to develop a new symptom. The obvious, healthy move for the band would to be to hire the black guy or to hire a woman (preferably Jordis). This would force them to develop a new band--and a new sound. But this doesn't feel like that pain they know so well; and, well, it's not as commercially viable as going for the ghostly. As they are obviously haunted by Hutchence--"silence speaks volumes," as THEY say--the band will pick the one that is closest to the way they hurt. Mig, therefore, is a complete goner--he's too European, meaning that, for the U.S. market he comes off too faggotty (his best performance was, after all, a Frampton cover!). Now, if they truly wanted to commune with ghosts, they would pick Marty, the blonde guy whose dark version of "Hit Me Baby" was perhaps the best thing the show has produced (I hope they release this song on a compilation because it was, I admit, brilliant). But Marty is too much death and not enough sex. Hence, I predict they will choose J.D.: He's a little right of biconicity, but he is a little mysterious, proud, sometimes stoic, and recently much less cheesey (he started by wearing very dumb hats and stuff like Jamiroquai--super-cheesy!). J.D. may be an alcoholic enough for the band; but he's much too anal to truly evoke Hutchenceness. So while I predict J.D. is the new lead singer of INXS, insofar as this band is still trying to restore their symptom instead of simply moving on to another, more healthy wounding, the band won't make it more than two years with him.

Here's a photo of the future guy. Note the Skull and Pistols on his shirt (like "The Devil Inside," the wardrobe choice says it all).

the death bomb

Music: Joni Mitchell: Blue Examining Patocka's Heretical Essays, in The Gift of Death Derrida comments that "it is from the site of death as the place of my irreplaceability, that is, of my singularity, that I feel called to responsibility." He continues, however, that in forming responsibility there is necessarily a substitution, a slight of another (an-Other-singularity) in pursuit of a general responsibility or—perhaps worse, I am uncertain—an absolute responsibility (Abraham's sacrifice; the sublimity of not simply succumbing to the law, but becoming the law). It would seem as witnesses to catastrophe we have much trouble finding the middle way, the centered-responsibility (which is not centered at all, ironically; it wavers between the singular and the collective) or something like it, a comfort with being able to help sometimes but often never.

The state tends toward sublimity: this morning there was another ritual moment of silence, and bells were rung, and stately faces stared in false memory. The 2001 "Tribute of Light" will return to the night sky and fade at dusk on Monday.

Irresponsibility is modeled so well by meting death; it is indeed a sad day.

I honk for hypens . . .

Music: Slowdive: Souvlaki

. . . and now, I clap for colons!

of exceptions and emergencies

Music: CNN at the Volkswagon dealership I’m sitting in the “customer refreshment” area at Austin’s only VW dealership. The good ol’ boys at the dealership in Baton Rouge—you know, the boys who had to rebuild my engine because they didn’t put the oil plug in right during a routine servicing—have apparently not screwed something in right, again . . . or rather, have screwed me again. We’ll see. Oil’s been leaking for weeks, but here you have to schedule an appointment like going to the doctor’s office.

There’s a big, brown cricket walking across the floor. It’s dragging what appears to be a damaged, back right leg.

So, I’m sitting in the “customer refreshment” area at Austin’s only VW dealership, and CNN is blasting at an uncomfortable volume level. I never watch CNN. Today they’ve titled their coverage of Katrina hurricane “Katrina: State of Emergency,” and alternately, “Heroes: The American Spirit.” Right now we’re being treated to a montage of still photographs of rescuing (mostly in New Orleans), to the soundtrack of some sort of tribal-bongo “state of emergency hurry up and go” kind of canned music. At this point, I probably only have to describe what I’m seeing and hearing, as most of y’all know what I’d say about it: the maudlin machines are in full force, and the Spielburging continues.

From what I’m seeing now, CNN is worse than the network news. I was listening to an interview with Jim Lehrer last night, who was detailing how CNN’s decision to cover the O.J. Simpson trial changed news coverage forever. He said CNN executives believed that the trial would last a day, but it turned into a year-long story. CNN didn’t plan to cover it that long, but lo, their ratings spiked.

What’s the moral to all of this? I’m tempted to say: “Blame O.J.”

Of course, we know more forces contribute to this movie-fi-cation, the hyperrealization, of catastrophe. God dammit! I can’t even escape it at the freakin’ car dealership: as a mediated citizen, I’m constantly being primed to support the domination of wealthy white men (yeah, yeah, it’s more complicated than that, but y’all know what I mean). Apparently academics are jumping on the CNN-ifcation, the Spielburging, of catastrophe: my boi Rog reports that a meeting was held among a group of scholars and teachers wherein it was proposed some sort of conference panel should be put together detailing the heart-felt sense of empathy and heroism of . . . well, read it for yourself, then you can gag with me.

soul: on hope and death

Music: Sam Cooke: Keep Movin' On The story often told of the writing of "A Change is Gonna Come" is that it was inspired by Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind" and composed in 1964 after a gig in Durham, North Carolina, when Cooke spoke with a number of student sit-in demonstrators. In his forthcoming book, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, Peter Guralnick makes a strong case that the song is Cooke's most poignant commentary on race relations in the segregated south—if not the most memorable of 1964. I remember being at Aric Putnam's house many, many years ago and his playing the song, and singing along, and my sneezing because of the dog hair; I remember thinking about how well Aric—-a white guy raised in a racially diverse part of California-—understood the experience of the black folks he grew up with, and that his connection, his way of "staying in touch" in the Scandinavian whiteness of Minnesota (the snow and the skin) was by playing old soul records. I've been a huge fan of Cooke since that time, since Aric explained to me just why Cooke was the best soul singer of all time (and according to Mohammed Ali, the best "rock singer" too). Otis Redding, another of Aric's favorites, said that his vocal role model was Cooke. Guralnick explains that this is not a counter-intuitive statement when you hear Cooke in the raw (just hear the live in Harlem album! No sweetness and light there!). Anyway, Aric taught me how to hear the hope of pain.

Now that the national imaginary is saturated with a discussion of race and poverty (which means that the repression machines are also in full force), "A Change is Gonna Come" keeps playing in my mind:

I was born by the river In a little tent, and ooooh, just like that river I've been running ever since

It's been a long time coming, but I know A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die 'cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky,

It's been a long time coming, but I know A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown Somebody keep tellin me don't hang around

It's been a long time coming, but I know A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother and I say brother help me please But he wind up (knocking) me back down on my knees

There have been times that I thought I couldn't last for long But now I think I'm able to carry on

It's been a long time, but I know A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

Cooke said the lyrics came to him all at once, "as if it were dictated to him in a dream." Cooke's friend and occasional collaborator Bobby Womack describes the song as bone chilling: "Sam asked me to come in his house. He wanted me to hear something. When I heard it, I said, 'Man, this is spooky. The song is so spooky.' He said, 'It feels like death, don't it?'" Although Cooke rarely performed the song after he sang it on The Tonight Show for a national audience in February of 1964, it was almost immediately embraced as civil rights anthem and has been subsequently covered by scores of artists, from the Band and Solomon Burke to Tina Turner and Karen Young. In many ways "A Change is Gonna Come" captures the soul of soul music because of its message of hope in the face of certain death.

The song "feels like death," but ambivalently. This is not necessarily a dreaded kind of death, since there is, by the mere fact of utterance, some portent of joy. The change that is gonna come to us all is dreadfully certain, but there may be a better change before that final one that may or may not take us "beyond the sky." Cooke and Womack's attempts to name the musical feeling and timbre of "A Change is Gonna Come"—it's spookiness, its deathliness—is the task of poets or philosophers attempting to pen-down the ineffable truth of feeling. The philosopher Jacques Derrida spent the last decade of his career writing about this feeling, the woeful joy of this "gift of death," eventually articulating a notion of ambivalent waiting and openness to change that he termed "hauntology." In Specters of Marx: The State of Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, Derrida critiques an obsession with the present and with presence---"presentism"—by celebrating the figure of the ghost as feeling of death that lives, of learning to feel at home with ghosts. Because the specter is neither absent nor present, but somewhere curiously in-between, it causes in us a kind of anxious waiting. In addition to reminders of soul-deep and historical pain, ghosts are harbingers of hope. “The anticipation [for the ghost] is at once impatient, anxious, and fascinated," says Derrida. "this, the thing (‘this thing’) will end up coming. The revenant is going to come. It won’t be long. But how long it is taking.” Hearing "A Change is Gonna Come," in a way, enacts a politics of “temporal disjuncture” that resists the finality of mourning and emplacement in the present. Instead of placing our bets on a certain metaphysic or an absolute understanding of the Real, in his own way, like Derrida, Cooke's singing recommends a posture of listening and an openness to hope. He tells us how to live with ghosts.

So let us keep the discussion open, then, and not stop talking about it. I'm sure my friends in Louisiana are getting tired of talking about it; I'm confident they're exhausted—to the point that they cannot talk about it any more. But the ghosts of slavery and genocide continue to haunt us, and we've got to learn to live with it without packaging it up or reducing it to a t-shirt slogan (you know, "it's a black thing; you wouldn't understand . . . .").

local reporting is less racist

Music: Joy Division: Heart and Soul This morning I've been busy prepping for a guest lecture in Rod Hart's famous rhetorical criticism class. I've been tapped to say something of my current work (on haunting) as well as something on "psychoanalysis and rhetorical critcism." Here's the the reading list I put together for those of y'all who are curious what I'm up to these days. Later this afternoon I hope to start work on an essay I'm writing with Tracy Stephenson Shaeffer on the use of music in performance art.

Meanwhile, I thought I would pass along the guts of an email sent by Shaun Treat, a series of news articles from Baton Rouge's paper, The Advocate, which he says are much more accurate than cable and network reports:

Mayor Ray Nagin, issuing "a desperate SOS," vented his own frustration with state and federal officials, calling the situation a "national disgrace." In a statement to CNN, Nagin said: "This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running out of supplies... No additional troops have arrived. People have promised. I'm sick of the promises," he said. "I am pissed. I am absolutely pissed off," Nagin said. "People are frickin' dying every day. They (state and federal officials) need to get off their asses." The full story here.

The mayor [of Baton Rouge] told reporters Katrina dealt such a knockout punch to the city's tourism industry that the city's coffers will run out of cash in two weeks. U.S. Rep. David Vitter, R-La., blasted the federal government's relief efforts as "ineffective." Bush made a strong commitment to aid survivors, Vitter said. "But in terms of operations of the federal government, it's been a failure." "If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican. New Orleans city Councilwoman Jacquelyn Clarkson said troops arrived late Thursday but that, "It's too little, too late." Racism is partly to blame for the deadly aftermath of Katrina, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, calling Bush's response to the disaster "incompetent." The full story here.

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line ˜ much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome since last Sunday. "How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage. The full story here.

PMAC used as triage center. The full story here.

BR hotels evict some evacuees, cite state laws on reservations, own costs The full story here.

Police, deputies show force to quell riot rumor. The full story here.

Gossip adds to turmoil. The full story here.

Reports about firefighters being held hostage in St. Bernard Parish were just rumors, said Col. Henry Whitehorn of the Louisiana State Police. Fox News had reported that firefighters were trapped and being pinned down in the Bellsouth building across the street from the ExxonMobil refinery in Chalmette. Whitehorn said he spoke with fire chief Thomas Stone of Chalmette, who said two firefighters were not being held hostage, but got sick and were airlifted out by helicopters. The full story here.

About 32,000 customers of Entergy Corp. in the Baton Rouge area operated without electrical power for the fifth day Friday in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The full story here.

Shelters exceed capacity in area . As of Friday morning, Chad Theunissen of the American Red Cross said Red Cross shelters in the 10-parish capital area were housing 10,412 evacuees, even though their combined capacity is 9,637. "We're 800 over capacity, and the closest place I know that has a (shelter) vacancy is Shreveport," Theunissen said. The full story here.

Five days after Katrina, frustrated refugees still wait. Full story here.

____

Andy King emailed me yesterday to say that, as he was helping distribute needed supplies to families, he was listening to a radio report that said there was a riot in the very place he was standing. There was, of course, no riot he said.

phobogenesis

Music: David Bridie: Act of Free Choice Finally today on the television someone dared to say it: On the Today show Chris Matthews said that the real issue was one of race, and that Katrina has ripped the "scab" of poor race relations right off. Two days ago Andrei Codrescu touched on the issue when he said New Orleans was once home to the most brutal slave trading operation, and suggested (albeit indirectly) that the fantasy of miscegenation white people, roaming the quarter with their beads and tacky hurricane tubes, seem to embrace is just that, a fantasy. The celebration of the "melting gumbo pot" of a racially harmonized community is a screen for phobic fantasies about black men. Carnival—as anyone who has been to the parades will likely admit—is a mournful event, the eve of apocalypse.

I'm on a number of listserv groups dedicated to New Orleans and Baton Rouge culture, and folks "on the scene" are posting reports of what's really happening. The one thing that everyone is saying is Flava-Flave: "don't believe the hype." It's important to repost the latest message I have received, since I think it best captures the general sentiment of the posts and emails I'm getting from friends:

Delivered-To: mailing list brgoths@esotericka.org Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 06:59:20 -0700 (PDT) From: "-k." To: brgoths@esotericka.org Subject: Re: [brgoths] Hurricane suckfest

[someone] wrote: i am about 1800 hundred miles from ground zero, but my friends and family are telling me it looks like all hell is fixin' to break lose in baton rouge.

Jesus fucking Christ, for the last time there are: -No lootings -No Rioting -No rapes -No murders -No carjacking -No fires

There have been a couple minor incidents quickly handled by the BRPD. Baton Rouge is doing fine. Parts of the city still don't have power (for instance [so and so] and i still are out) and gas and hotel rooms are hard to come by. Other than that the city is puttering along fine. PLEASE stop spreading the bullshit misinformation.

As with any catastrophe, the deep-seated fantasies that provide us maps of meaning begin to surface; rumors are passed along that transform a relatively innocuous incident into a violent confrontation (remember the game in kindergarten, "I Got a Secret," where you whisper something in your partners ear, and by the time it reaches the end of the room, passing among 13 of your bestest friends, it has become its opposite?). Wal-Marts in Baton Rouge are experiencing a run on guns. Shaun Treat reported that a family went into a service station and asked for free food. They were turned away and left peacefully. Hours later it was reported that a "gang" of "black thugs" tried to hold up the service station.

Fortunately, the news media are starting to write about the rumor problem. This morning NBC journalists were reporting, from New Orleans, that bus drivers and other emergency personnel were not driving into the city to evacuate people because they feared for their lives. The very same kind of misinformation is contained in a myriad of posts that I am seeing on LSU listservs. The chair of one department at LSU alerted its members that "The security problems of New Orleans are affecting our area. Please be careful as you walk or drive across campus or in downtown Baton Rouge. LSU has taken the precaution of locking all buildings on campus, even during the day." A lock down? Is that really necessary? My friends there say that it is not necessary.

Mass hysteria should be defined less in terms of Hollywood (e.g., the depiction of people in Spielberg's War of the Worlds) and more in terms of what it really is: a collective form of anxiety hysteria, "where the anxiety is attached in more or less stable fashion to a specific external object (phobias)" (from Laplanche and Pontalis's The Language of Psycho-Analysis). We have in this essentially mediated situation two phobic objects: (a) the black male (e.g., "thug" is the word that is used in the posts I'm seeing); and (b) the angry mob (e.g., the Hollywood idea of mass hysteria, which is a barbaric fantasy we can trace back to Hobbes "bellum omnium contra omnes" in the so-called state of nature). In this case, thought, the angry mob is underwritten by the black male (read: "gang") because, to riff on Frantz Fanon, since the days of slavery, the black male has functioned as a "phobogenic object" (for an awesome and timely dissertation project on racial fantasy, see Kami Chisholm's webstie!). A phobogenic object is that "external thing," the constitutive outside if you will, that anchors fantasy so that it can function to produce meaning for our lives. Everyone—-most especially black men—-can succumb to a phobic fantasy because it is woven into a culture that we internalize as we grow older, the very same culture that you and I internalize and share to give our subjectivity a sense of place—-an anchor (Stuart Hall would term this a "cognative map," but it is still fantasy all the same).

In times of crisis, the objects that we consciously use to anchor a meaningful subjection are thrown to the wind (in this case, quite literally), and so we tend to rely on more deep-seated fantasies and their objects. In the aftermath of Nine-eleven, the State deliberately chose to evoke the fantasy of spiritual warfare (good vs. evil), although these choices were scripted more than they know, and the object of anxiety was the demon. In this natural catastrophe recourse to a righteous goodness simply does not fit (though I'm sure Pat Robertson will eventually say something to the effect of "them sinful people brought it on themselves" . . . just you wait!). This time the hysterical phobic fantasy is racial in nature; if you want the complete coordinates of the phobogenic object around which it orbits, look no further than the lyrics to Ice T's "Straight Up Nigga":

Damn right I'm a nigga/and I don't care what you are/Cause I'm a Capital N-I-double-G-E –R/Black people might get mad Cause they don't see/That they're looked upon/As a nigga just like me I'm a nigga not a Colored man/Or a Black or a Negro/Or an Afrom American I'm all that/Yes I was born in America true/Does South Central/Look like America to you?/I'm a nigga a straight up nigga/From a hard school/Whatever you are/I don't care/that is you fool/I'm loud and proud/Well endowed with the big beef/Out on the corner/I hang out like a house thief/So you can call me dumb or crazy/Ignorant, stupid, inferior or lazy/Silly or foolish/But I'm badder and bigger/And most of all/I'm a straight up nigga

Should we be surprised, then, that there are untruthful rumors that young women are getting raped in shelters, or that "gun toting thugs" are stealing cars. Should we be astonished that the White Republican Regime that runs our government and that wages war against "brown" others across the globe was slow to respond to "the Big One"? Not surprised. Angry.

the maudlin machines

Music: The Miseducation of Lauren Hill Yesterday was a dreadful day, for many reasons, but mostly because of the death of hundreds (thousands?) of people I do not know. This morning I am, however, angry.

Those who routinely read the Rosewater Chronicles know that I have four basic scripts: (1) Freudian readings of popular culture; (2) updates about my mundane adventures in partying; (3) ruminations on my musical proclivities; or (4) bitching about the mass media for its horribly effective role as an Ideological State Apparatus, Althusser's jargon for the way in which the mass media help to "prepare the masses" for domination by lining the contents of consciousness.

This morning after the first hour of "hard news," NBC's Today Show starting airing heart-wrenching segments of "personal" stories of loss. The lead off was Harry Connick Jr. speaking about how "weird" it was to see his city underwater. Connick was flown into New Orleans by NBC as their new "correspondent," and apparently is also a headliner in telethon that NBC will air tomorrow night (Tim McGraw, we are told, will also play). After minutes of Connick looking dumbfounded and then jokingly comparing the horror of being stuck in the Superdome to watching a bad Saints game, the show turned to a montage of various white people crying over maudlin music, calling out to lost parents whom they are waiting to hear from. If I might coin a term, NBC is "Spielburging" this disaster, and I find it disgusting.

Proof enough that the news media do not have to Spielburg their coverage is The News Hour with Jim Leher. Last night the show aired lengthy stories that featured the stranded talking about their experiences: no montage, no John Williams-style music, no telethon advertisements (and therefore, no impending DVD that you can buy in a month at Circuit City). I sobbed watching the interview of a man who spoke of losing his wife, of literally not being able to hold onto her as she floated away. But sobbing, I didn't feel cheap, or that I was watching some sort of unreal movie. I felt like this was truly the kind of hard reporting Andrei Codrescu called for yesterday.

Spielburging coverage of disaster participates, ironically, in a sort of inhumane brand of alienation. It only takes twenty-four hours for the news media to begin generating what Baudrillard terms "the hyperreal" by starting up their maudlin machines. The only aspect of the hyperreal that Baudrillard has not quite got right is that the fuel for these machines is genuine Love.

they're saying thousands

Music: Robert Wyatt: Rock Bottom I don't have anything coherent to say, but that on my way home from the office I listened to the news on NPR, then saw two news broadcasts about how things worsened in Louisiana. Friends in Baton Rouge say gas is harder to find; LSU has become a shelter; Tulane is relocated to Jackson . . . and they fear thousands have drown. Calling friends in LA, you usually get the "circuits are busy" message--if I hear from anyone, it's when they call me. It's simply horrible, and try as I might, my mind keeps dwelling on it . . . this tacit guilt that I just moved a month ago, and earlier this morning emailed a slew of buddies in Louisiana my cheerful "Austin report." I regret sending the report now; I regret not doing more; I regret not knowing what I can do to feel like I'm doing more. Jesus. All those people. And we knew it was coming all along. It's the whole feeling one has when hanging in the quater: that any day now, the big one will come, so DRINK UP!

[EDIT: Now hours later from this post. I emailed my friends in Louisiana to apologize for sending my "update" about moving to Austin during what turned out to be a very, very bad day. Shortly after my apology, this email arrived:

Delivered-To: slewfoot@mail.utexas.edu X-IronPort-MID: 1601762724 X-SBRS: 3.7 X-BrightmailFiltered: true X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-Ironport-AV: i="3.96,159,1122872400"; d="scan'208"; a="1601762724:sNHT18099032" Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:58:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Deep Throat Subject: Your happy post on CMST-L To: jgunn@LSU.EDU

This is off list because it is personal.

Once again you have proven just how insensitive and churlish you really are. How crass and immature to totally ignore what has happened even to make a jestful post.

My extended family has lost more than six homes in the Greater New Orleans and River Parishes area that we can confirm so far.

And you want to update us on Austin?

Thank God you are no longer here.

Good riddance.

I recognize that intellectually I should dismiss this kind of message, but emotionally it hurts. I suspect this is one of the LSU students whom I recommended that we get rid of . . . even so, I don't wish any misery on him or his family (if anyone knows how to read all the gobbledegook to identify this person, please let me know). What happened is truly terrible. I'm sorry I've hurt someone's feelings, but dammit, I'm NOT happy or in any way gleeful THOUSANDS OF FOLKS have lost their homes! I'm mortified that thousands are presumed dead. Shit. I don't know what to say. [end edit]

I guess I never expected it to come so soon. I guess that's what residents thought too. As much as I cannot stand the guy (god he's an asshole), Codrescu's editorial today on NPR was dead right. He does a marvelous job of capturing the centrality of poverity in all of this: it's a class thing. Indeed, it's a race thing. And on that note, just one more comment before I drown my feelings and try to sleep: compare the coverage of the Tsunami and then Katrina. Looting is the emphasis in the national media here, despite the protests of the Mayor of New Orleans (you'd loot too if you were starving!) . . . I cannot recall any obsession with reporting looting with the recent Tsunami . . . . Maybe I'm looking for something to gripe about, but . . . Jesus. I should go.

an austin update

Music: Einsturzende Neubauten: Tabula Rasa I just posted the following "report" to friends via email. I figured some of you less familiar folk might appreciate the narrative too. Here goes:

Dear Colleagues, Friends, and Those Who Pretend to Be Either for Polite Conversation,

A number of you have asked for an update on moving to and life in the grand city of Austin-or as I like to call it, Aus-Vegas-so I would like to take an extended moment to say things are swell, hot as hell, and, no, I will not be voting for Kinky Friedman for the governor of Texas. I like to be kinky and I like the country artist by the same name, but, I lived through the election and governorship of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and, just like the Governator and the increasingly long line of Flashy Male Politicians, Kinky smokes a cigar. Never elect a charmer with a cigar, which we all know, as Monica Lewinsky would tell you, is blatant token of patriarchical conspiracy.

Speaking of smoke, it's 103 today, but the weather people are quick to remind viewers (almost gleefully), "with the heat index it feels like 110 degrees." I don't care where you live, the weather people will always behave as if the weather is somehow unseasonable. In Minnesota they always seemed so concerned and surprised that it was going to dip below zero in January; and in Baton Rouge, weather people seemed astonished reporting another hurricane was headed for the Louisiana coast. It's no different in Austin: the "news" consists of the six digit temps here, a murder committed by a UT student, and an over-tuned furniture truck clogging traffic for folks coming in from Bastrop and Houston. Oh yeah, and Kinky Freidman is running for governor. Simply put, it's hot in Austin and the traffic during rush hour is the absolute pits.

Speaking of hot pits: Brad dumped Jennifer for Angelina. It's so hard being pretty.

Anyhoo, so, let me cover the domestics department before I move to intimate apparel and dress clothes. I moved into a cute town home in a tree-covered condominium complex on the northeast side from downtown (it is exactly 6.1 miles from my home to my parking spot at "work"; my parking spot, incidentally, is directly across from my building!). It's quite suburbish looking, but literally six to ten minutes to downtown, so, I'm pleased with the location (I would prefer to live downtown, but I'd have to make the salary of, well, Brad Pitt). I've got about 1500 square feet, which means my home looks less like a museum and more like a bachelor pad. To my right are Ryan and Chase, two nice college students who covet my extra parking space and have been asking to rent it. To my left is Kay Allen, aka Ms. Kay, a feisty 86 year old and former Airstream country-touring type who stays busy with the Pink Ladies and other social groups. She likes to cook for me and we swap cooking magazines. She also likes to tell me how I should keep my patio, and complains about the neighbors' cigarette butts on my side of the carport. "That isn't mine Ms. Kay. I don't smoke," I said the other day. Today she suggested that I put a running board I had on the carport into storage because it was unsightly. I complied. She has jet white hair and a mischievous smile. I visit her about once or twice a week just to say hello check in on her.

The move was relatively uneventful, and at this point, I'm unpacked and almost organized. Reisha visited not too long ago, and we explored the city together: South Congress shopping is fun if you can take the heat; the UT campus is massive; rich people live in pretentious houses perched in the beautiful western foothills; you can get the best Bloody Mary's in town at the Hyde Park Bar and Grill, and across the street, the best veggie burger in town at Mother's; and 6th street is a massive drunken frat boy Mecca on Thursday nights. But, if you've visited Austin for more than two days, you already know its slow magic. The "vibe" of the city is infectious: it starts slow ("so what? It's hot here") and creeps up your legs ("my, that sound is catchy") and then reaches your eyes ("holy cow! Look at that produce section!") and finally your brain ("so much to do!") and heart ("I love it!"). I could write about this for many pages, so for brevity, here's some top five lists:

FIVE THINGS I HATE ABOUT AUSTIN:

5. The weather: Did I mention it was hot? It's been 100 degress everyday for weeks.

4. The length of red lights. Jesus H. Christ, who programs these things? Red lights on average are at least one and a half minutes. I regularly hit a light that intersects with highway 183, which is, I kid you not, four and a half minutes long! A colleague told me last night that she keeps a novel in the car for this purpose! Because the lights are so long in this town, they are routinely run and so you have to wait a little and look both ways when they go green on you (just like some of those intersections in downtown Baton Rouge, only people run lights more here).

3. The access roads along every major highway are crazy. Austin tops every city I've lived in for the most "access" roads. Every major highway has access roads that run one-way along each side. These access roads are also named, brilliantly, the highway that they access (why not call it "Frontage" or "Access Road?"). So, if you're trying to get to the Arrowhead Framing Shop, for example, the directions from MapQuest may say: "Exit 183 West at Burnett Road. Take the ramp onto 183 West, turn a slight right to 35 S, continue East on 183." Get the picture?

2. Bad drivers who don't use turn signals and who are generally not polite. Apparently these exist in Austin too. I thought I might escape them moving here, but they've followed me. You know the kind: they cut you off, they never signal, and when they see you're trying to get over they speed up beyond the speed limit so that they can get into your blind spot.

1. Tex-Mex and Mexican foods. This stuff is very, very bad for you. Reason? L-A-R-D.

FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT AUSTIN:

5. Getting lost: it's always easy to get un-lost here, and getting around town is a breeze! Apparently the city planners decided to use a grid system. So, if I'm lost, I just keep driving and eventually hit a road that I know. It's awesome!

4. Independent record shops: there's a ton of them here, and more than a handful have bin after bin of used vinyl (happy vinyl-hunting Sundays are here again!). Waterloo, a shop off of South Lamar, is an awesome shop with just bout everything you'd expect from an indie music store, with Beatles action figures, books, and employee picks lining the walls (but minus the better than thou attitude so aptly described by Nick Hornby in High Fidelity). Every shop has its own HUGE section called "Texas Music," which is only slightly smaller than the general "Rock and Rhythm and Blues" section. Texans are very proud of their music (and for good reason; the local bluegrass band The Greencards is divine).

3. Grocery shopping: Wow, talk about selection-and just about every kind of hot pepper you can imagine. They have a huge Hispanic market called Fiesta, and on weekends mariachi bands play in the produce section and people dance around the melons. There are two Whole Foods close by (including their headquarters) and a H.E.B. specialty shop called "Central Market," which carries live crawfish when they're in season. I can get any edible or potable that I so desire in Austin-even French truffles.

2. LIVE MUSIC of any variety. Ok, so, if you know me you know I'm a "music guy." I've yet to get my first paycheck, and so am afraid to venture forth for music, but I've already caught some for free without trying at lunch eateries. The Austin City Limits music festival is coming up in September, and the line up is simply mind-boggling! There is also a huger festival called "South by Southwest" that features even MORE bands in the Spring (so y'all come visit!)

1. Tex-Mex and Mexican foods: Good grief this food is so good! There is almost literally authentic Hispanic food on every corner. I have not one, not two, but FIVE mom and pop joints less than a mile from my home. This is dangerous . . . .

As for the university experience, things couldn't be better in my new department. First, the office staff is simply amazing and friendly. Upon my arrival last month, I was given an Office Depot catalog and told to pick out some furniture and supplies! Now, this generosity is tempered somewhat by the size of my windowless office (imagine a janitor's closet and you'll have a good idea of its cavernous expanse). But to compensate I have supplies coming out my nose, and they bought a fake window that emits UV rays to stave off depression (and yes, I've decorated wall-to-ceiling with music posters again). Second, I've been assigned two very energetic graduate assistants to help out with the massive, 250-student class of Rhetoric and Pop Music, which I'll start teaching tomorrow. The technology wired into each classroom is amazing (I'm still too enamored of the chalk board, I guess), but fortunately, the grads will be taking care of all of that. All I have to do is lecture and look pretty.

My colleagues are very nice and friendly, joke a lot, and have no difficulty ribbing the new guy. Last Sunday there was a write-up in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper about my book, which printed with a glossy promo photo of yours truly. The write-up represents a modest attempt to actually report the contents of the book, but for the most part, it's a "look at the crazy guy UT has hired" sort of story. "You haven't been here two weeks and you have your picture in the paper!" Ms. Kay joked, but my colleagues pretended to be less impressed: "Would've been good if the reporter read the book, huh?" "Did the reporter know what he was saying?" Alas, the article makes it appear that I not only plagiarize George Bernard Shaw, but mangled his prose too ("an agonistic is an atheist without his convictions"). There's faculty in the department that have thousands upon thousands of dollars of grant money researching health communication about the AIDS pandemic and, lo, Josh appears in the paper talking about what a fool he is. No doubt this ribbing will continue through October; apparently there will be a write-up about my work on the "occult" on the front university web page just prior to Halloween.

Well, I'm anxious to get into a routine so that I might start researching again. After almost two months away from writing and reading, I'm starting to feel guilty. Being at the University of Texas, where the chair somewhat jokingly reminds one at various meals that "we expect you to publish your butt off," I'm feeling the pressure. It's not a horrible pressure, but pressure nonetheless. I'm anxious to get cracking on the new book project, but before I get there, I have to promised articles to complete before the national conference in Boston in November.

I recognize that I am in the middle of the so-called "Honeymoon" period, and that within a couple of months, Austin's own unique brand of crap will start to pile up. I'm going to hold on to this feeling as long as I can, though. If there's anything that's keeping me from bellowing shrieks of unbridled joy, it's that you are all are not here, and that Katrina has made a number of people I love miserable. I started writing this update days before the hurricane, and I feel somewhat strange sending it in the midst of Katrina's destruction. I'm betting those of you in Louisiana may welcome a distraction (not to mention an invitation: I have plenty of space for your visiting!). I miss my friends and colleagues in Baton Rouge, especially, and look forward to seeing the lot of you in Boston. By that point, I'll be back to my good ol' grouchy self with excuses enough to drink a Hurricane!

Love,

DJ Joshie Juice

barnyard flesh menagerie

Music: Blue Oyster Cult: Agents of Fortune You might be tempted to believe that today's subject is yet another genius punk band name dreamed up by Jello Biafra. Nope. Baryard Flesh Menagerie is a new, soft-core porn movie in the Luddite/Agrarian sub-genre starring a look-alike of the Most Famous Rhetorician Ever: Kenneth Burke (wowwwwnnnn-chica-chica-wowwwnnnnn-nnoooow-chica-chica).

Just joshing.

In the manifesto for that academic field formerly known as Rhetorical Studies, Kenneth Burke wrote that "insofar as the individual is involved in conflict with other individuals or groups, the study of this same individual would fall under the head of Rhetoric." For Burke the study of rhetoric (or "The Rhetoric") concerns the search for habituated and often unconscious patterns of human behavior in order to discern a kind of forecast (akin to the weather, but without percentages). He continues that

The Rhetoric must lead us through the Scramble, the Wrangle of the Market Place, the flurries and flare-ups of the Human Barnyard, the Give and Take, the wavering line of pressure and counterpressure, the Logomachy, the onus of ownership, the Wars of Nerves, the War. . . . one need not scrutinize the concept of "identification" very sharply to see, implied in it at every turn, its ironic counterpart: division. Rhetoric is concerned with the state of Babel after the Fall. Its contribution to a "sociology of knowledge" must often carry us into the lugubrious regions of malice and the lie.

I was reminded of Burke's dialectical understanding of "rhetoric" after reading a story in this morning's Austin American-Statesman: "Iraq war debate flares in Crawford; Sides exchange rhetorical jabs but no blows" (you can read it here, re-titled without 'rhetoric'). Local journalist Patrick Beach seemed to be having trouble filling up his allotted space, but he managed to frame some things in a way that was amusing: "A near-skirmish broke out" but didn't. "At the anti-Sheehan, pro-Bush rally in the afternoon [yesterday], the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance—many of them shouting the 'under God' clause . . . ." And Joan Baez joined the "predictably . . . more peaceful" "anti-war" camp (I wonder if she sang "Blowin' in the Wind?" I'm still wondering what the answer is, too). It's clear which camps Beach would locate the "give" and the "take," or "identification" and "malice." I can just see an angry-fisted, cowboy-boot wearin' good ol' boy screamin' "UNDER GOD!" in my face accompanied by a wee bit of tobacco spittle. "Moooooooooo" to you too.

Jump-cut now to a story Dr. M has brought to my attention: This weekend's Human Zoo" exhibit at the London Zoo. Eight humans are presumably on display through Monday to raise awareness about the role "we" play in the ecosystem (what we used to call the food chain). Admirably, the types of bodies range from the portly and pasty to the muscled and tanned, and there are four of each sex, but of course there is a lot to complain about since the politics of representation is thick on these bodies (the sign that not having a black person on display was discussed is the fact that they are all wearing identical, green, fake fig leaves; as Burke might argue, gestures of equality always betoken the opposite). Of course, the Sheenan Showdown in Crawford and the Human Zoo are both obvious examples of the human barnyard, and the lie of each is easily betrayed by the portable: let us imagine that the anti-war protesters were made to play pocket scrabble in the nude, and then, that Joan Baez drove her big black SUV into the London Zoo so that she could play "Love is Just a Four Letter Word" over and over at the exhibit. Suddenly the comic frame widens to reveal the truly tragic: Cindy Sheenan is playing a largely unreflective role in the drama of protest (as they say, "you know how we do . . . "). Of course Joan Baez showed up, but it could just as well have been Bono or the Boss (their roles largely scripted and interchangeable, which leads you to wonder: Joan, why the fuck did you show up in an SUV instead of a Ford Fiesta?). Playing scrabble the peaceniks continue to achieve the same thing: a largely peaceful counter-protest and "info-tainment" style coverage. "Iraq debate flares in Crawford!" reads the headline, but the story fails to mention the "debate" is really about how to properly reckon with the death of approximately 15,000 U.S. military personnel. Sorry to be such a cynic, but in our times the size of the spectacle is usually in proportion to the LIE. Twern't always the case . . . .

And rather than reveal the role of humans in the welfare of "animals," the Human Zoo merely masks a profound inability to laugh at ourselves with an exhibit that presumably reflects the human capacity to laugh at ourselves. For their promotional photo op the caged humans decide to behave like primates, picking through each other's hair in search of imaginary bugs. The tacit Darwin joke is appreciated (remember, Joan Baez is playing Dylan tunes at the zoo now), but it also underscores a kind of speciest arrogance that relegates the AIDS epidemic to those other human animals on the darker continent. Baez's imaginary sob-singing in this context would demand a eight emaciated, starving, HIV-infected children in the cage . . . .

But back to the comic: I commented to Dr. M Londoners should just re-title the Human Zoo "Wal-Mart" and get it over with. I think that if you truly want to see humans engaged in the malicious "Wars of Nerves" plant yourself in a Super Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon after paper readers have had a chance to see the circular. You will see a range of people of different races and creeds, mostly clothed in middle and lower class symbology (sometimes you get treated to a real amazing exhibit: a very very large human jetting around in a scooter with little more on than a fig leaf!), and behaving like they are in a barn. If you venture into the aisles, be sure to wear steal toed shoes or boots, as Wal-Mart humans have been known to remove toes with their steely carts on wheels as they make their way, blindly, to the super-sized American flag car magnet display so they can stock up for their anti-Sheenan protest-going down in Crawford this afternoon. A new slogan: "Wal-Mart: The Rhetoric in Action."

I'm in Sunday ramble mode. Sorry peeps. I should get to Wal-Mart for jambalaya supplies. Oh, but a word on Hurricane Katrina: I'm worried about my peeps in Louisiana. Apparently I escaped Louisiana just in time; I'm so used to hearing hurricane warnings this time of year that it's very odd to experience the buffer in reportage. Buds in Louisiana: I have room plenty for guests if you need a place to stay, and I'm only seven hours away . . . .

33 1/3: the decay of aura

Music: Japan: Oil on Canvas At the interview almost two weeks ago, the reporter pulled a small book out of the kind of flap-bag you'd expect to see a reporter carrying. It was Erik Davis' contribution to Continuum Book's brilliant Thirty-Three and One-Third series, an in depth analysis of Led Zeppelin's fourth album (I've always called it four, but apparently the proper album title is the unpronounceable series of sigils each band member branded himself with at Jimmy Page's insistence). The reporter said he thought I would really dig it. We has right. Davis' book is witty, smart, and wonderfully perverse. I love it.

I also picked up the volume on James Brown's Live at the Apollo and Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, but neither are as good as Davis' clever reading of Zeppelin's famous album cover, the reputation of the band members (especially Page's rep as a minion of Old Scratch), and the way occult rhetoric works in general. His analysis of the "magic" of playing an LP (he argues rock LPs are totems and the experience of hearing them akin to spells) is right on, and I think, better than most occult practitioners I have read (and I've read many), he "gets it":

Vinyl records embody the enchanting power of modern commodities in a particularly potent way . . . . The stylus rides the groovy like a tiny rollercoaster, physically reproducing the fluctuations that shape sound from the air Analog is an analogy, then, a graven metaphor. And what analog is like is the wave, the undulating continuities that everywhere weave the natural world, from the rolling seas to the rolling hills to the petal of the rose. This inscribed analogy is also a kind of "magic." After all, analogy--this is like that--is the basic rhetorical move of spellcraft, which speaks and pictures the hidden correspondences between things, between, for example, planets and plants and the human body.

After a lovely discussion about what Walter Benjamin meant by the "decay of aura" and its relation to the rock LP of the early 1970s, Davis then moves to a discussion of the mystique of the album cover, teaching the delighted reader the basic function of occult rhetoric along the way. The following passage is probably the most lucid observation about occultism written by a journalist (!) in the last decade:

When confronted with such inscrutable signs [the Zeppelin sigils], our natural impulse is to decode them, to "know what they mean." But when it comes to [Zeppelin sigils], strict meanings are neither their nature nor their function. These sigils, and the musical sounds they announce, don't mean stuff so much as make stuff happen. And they make stuff happen by frustrating the conventional processes of meaning. And this, by the way, is one of the basic procedures of the occult. The signs on the wall are unclear, so they draw you in, like strange lights on the horizon. And by the time you see that they're nothing like you expected, it's too late: you have already crossed the threshold.

Well, he's got it right all right. I hate to admit it, but this little $10 book does a much better job explaining modern occult rhetoric than my too-long tome that costs four times as much. Davis' little treatise on Four is a delight to read and I recommended to anyone with an interest in the occult. I'm not terribly enamored by Led Zeppelin myself, though I do appreciate Four much more having read Davis book too.

girlcrushing

Music: Wire: Chairs Missing Because the New York Times is apparently the measure of all things valuable in the popular imaginary, the story that they ran last week, "She's So Cool, So Smart, So Beautiful: Must Be a Girl Crush" (story requires membership), has inspired much discussion on television programs and local newspapers across the country. For example, this morning the Today show devoted a lengthy segment to the topic (Matt Lauer's annoying, "but it never turns sexual?" was a irritating display of masculine reinscription).

"Girl Crush," the emerging, white 20-something rationalization for homoerotic desire, is catching-on in the popular media as a polite and "guilt-free" way for young and middle-aged women to talk about their infatuations with other women. It is, basically, one of the more insidious forms of homophobic discourse to date. The NYT story has already been lambasted for its binarism (among other things), but I cannot help myself this morning: the "girl crush" is merely a displacement for a fundamental bisexuality common to most of us to greater or lesser degrees. What is so curious about the write up is the way in which those of us born with cocks are portrayed:

[The girl crush] is not a new phenomenon. Women, especially young women, have always had such feelings of adoration for each other. Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively. What's new is the current willingness to express their ardor frankly.

Apparently the writer is serious; not that men ever had feelings of adoration or worship for each other. No sir. We never get nervous when we meet someone we admire that has a dick. Nope. All that stuff about Ancient Greek culture: poppycock! History is bunk.

As for men, to the extent they may feel such emotions for each other [Josh-lation: "provided they are not fags"], Dr. Caplan [a Harvard sociologist], Dr. Caplan said they are less likely than women to express them. They are not reared to show their emotions. "A man talking about emotions about another man? Everybody's homophobic feelings are elicited by that, and that's because men aren't supposed to talk about feelings at all," Dr. Caplan said.

All of this is in fact true: boys don't cry, after all. But it is curious that Caplan seems to rule out any possibility of the "man crush" (or the way in which the cultural colonizes the biological, like a parasite). All she needs to do is watch how certain boys' eyes glaze over when they talk about a favorite coach or ball player (duh!). Or she could talk to the legions of young men who flock to "rock and roll" concerts and ask them what they think about the lead singer. Or she could watch Almost Famous . . . or My Bodyguard or even fucking Twins for Christ sake. Dr. Caplan is obviously on "auto-pilot" here, because what we know is supposed to be the case and what actually happens are very different. Oh, and, of course, she's never spent any time in a European city observing men with each other.

Nevertheless, it's easy to dismiss this kind of reporting out of hand, were it not for what I think is an even more damaging "scientific fact" that is discussed in the story:

Dr. [Helen] Fisher, author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Love, said girl crushes are as natural as any other kind of love. But they are romantic without being sexual. Love and lust are distinct urges, Dr. Fisher said. This was one of the findings she and colleagues from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the State University at Stony Brook made when they analyzed the brain scans of people 18-26 years old who were experiencing new love. Love and lust, it turned out, could be mapped to several different parts of the brain. "The brain system for romantic love is associated with intense energy, focuses energy, obsessive things—a host of characteristics that you can feel not just toward your mating sweetheart," Dr. Fisher said, adding that "there's every reason to think that girls can fall in love with other girls without feeling sexual towards them, without the intention to marry them"

Oh dear: we're thrown back to the decade of the brain (why Caplin is not talking about genetic codes instead is a mystery). As a rhetorician, it's somewhat amusing to see all the problems with the assumptions made here (how was "lust" operationalized? how do you code, exactly, "red is loud like a trumpet?"). Anyhoo, apparently human beings are desiring machines with many different tracks that don't cross because we're neurologically wired to experience them separately. Huh. So my falling in love with my sweetie has nothing to do with my wanting to have sex? Huh. Gee, and all this time I thought these feelings were somehow related . . . I guess the Symbolic has tricked me . . . and millions of lovers (gay, straight, and everything inbetween) everywhere . . . .

The Girl Crush: just another, Harvard-sanctioned way to say, "but I'm not gay . . . ."

publicity/surveillance

Music: VH1: I Married Sebastian Bach There's nothing quite like opening up the newspaper and seeing your face on the front page of the "Arts" section. The first book review of Modern Occult Rhetoric is in, and it's a mostly kind write-up in the Austin American-Statesman by Jeff Salamon, a well-respected and well-known arts and music writer (I remember reading something he wrote in Rolling Stone many years ago, and he used to run with the Village Voice crowd). I've been in the paper before, so, of course, I knew to expect there would be things said that I didn't like, or details that are not quite right, or that I would appear to be plagiarizing George Bernard Shaw. It could have been so much worse (e.g., he could have quoted me comparing alien abduction stories to Christ's crucifixion, which I did do to make a point about how mundane the strange can become, which could have led to picketing from the Conservative Student Coalition or whatever the junior neo-cons call themselves here). It could have been much better too (just who qualifies as a "radical professor," and why is respecting women related to cultural trauma?). So I suspect this is baby bear's porridge. The true horror will be reading book reviews in academic journals (if anyone is ever inclined to write one). Of course, I cannot stand the damn thing anymore, so it's nice to read someone had fun reading it, even if only in the "friendly" parts, perhaps even if he says it's "like the Chimera of Greek lore, an odd beast . . . ."

(my) circus: that petrol emotion

music: Archer Prewit: Way of the Sun Reisha was visiting this week, and so I had little interest in keeping up with the blogosphere. I'm having a field day this morning trying to plug the vacuum of post-companion depression and am enjoying catching up. Amanda's Inertia 30 performance project is well underway (30 performances of 30 minutes a piece in 30 days in 30 discrete locations). Check out the underscore collective blog for the roving reports. As Christopher Swift might say, "Communication. Rhetoric. Performance!"

Reisha and I witnessed a lot of less intellectually stimulating yet thoroughly entertaining performances this week: 80s prog rock at the Carousel Lounge, an amateur strip show at an unnamed gay club on 5th, and disgustingly grandiloquent domiciles perched on the west hills of Austin ("look ma! I'm rich!"). Perhaps the most intriguing or disturbing performance, however, involved immaculately clean farm animals. Wednesday evening we went to the opening night of the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus show, which was, in a word, sad. In part, the sadness was because the circus seemed so out-dated: the music reeked of the eighties, as did the aesthetic in general. And part of that sadness came from me, no doubt, because the troop that hit Austin this year was apparently the blue troop, the one known for lots and lots (and lots) of singing (and singing and singing—never a moments rest from SINGING!). It's like American Idol with animals occasionally shitting on stage, but with lip-synching and a wee-bit of racist and sexist clowning routines. Anyhoo, on the other side, this sadness was not reducible to simple nostalgia; it was hard for us to figure out, and I've been thinking for a few days now about what it was that left me feeling mildly unnerved as we exited the arena. There were moments of sheer delight (trained goats and pigs during the opening extravaganza), terror (anything that "Crazy Wilson" did) and honest to goodness fun (the main clown David Larible is quite talented), but throughout the overly long display of tour-abused streamers and Las Vegas-style gyrations on the backs of horses and elephants, one could sense a sort of desperation. Perhaps these folks were feeling as if they were going through the motions for the last time, that they represent the "last generation" of the grand ol' days of the circus?

For me, an obvious example of the sadness was Slyvia Zerbini's act, which I'm sure delights a large number of folks, but had me all giddy inside for the wrong reasons: here's a ninth generation circus performer who has worked up an act involving white horses and trapeze maneuvers. She emerged from the bowels of the arena with a team of horses to Yanni or Enya or something musically floaty like Yanni and Enya, then slithered to a perch which was then dangled in the air where she defied gravity for a while, then she was lowered and with a whip made the horses move around in formation under dim, "magical" lights. Then, about seven minutes into this routine, the perch lowered again in the center ring and she was lifted up in the air while the ringmaster began singing this colossally clichéd song: "Come together. . in the light we are all one . . . the horses are running." Or something like that. In any event, each of these performative elements were designed to stir a latent patriotism and feeling of "unity" over a peculiar feminine, fantasy like aesthetic—not too far off from the unicorn scenes in Ridley Scott's Legend (maybe the circus should enlist Jon Anderson to sing during this act?). Oh God, it was so terrible, this hodgepodge of hoke! I loved it!

Zerbini's act doesn't quite work, then, and seems to be symptomatic of "trying too hard," as if she's bringing out the precious family china for a quick snack. In this respect the act does represent a kind of nostalgia, at the very least an homage to the days when one needn't combine two acts to keep the audience entertained (or three acts, if one thinks about the schmaltzy singing of the ringmaster). Yet, in the context of the circus as a whole, it's almost as if the circus wants to squeeze out Barnum's contribution, that the circus is striving to push beyond its working class roots toward an "upper class" aesthetic, a Las Vegas style display—like all those fancy homes in the Austin foothills--that no longer celebrates community ("Come together . . . ") in terms of a display of people doing amazing things, but only in terms of the people's things (". . . the horses are running").

There was no soul to this circus. This is the source of sadness; you cannot will soul, a sense of authenticity and genuine enjoyment (or even jouissance if you will), even by peddling excess.

If I turn again to the sadness I brought to the circus, I am led to confront my own childhood memories (I think I was eight the last time I went to the Ringling Bros. circus), which are certainly joyful and nostalgic; wouldn't it be fun to be there again, in eight-year-old land, just for a day? But I'm also caused to reflect on my own empty displays. I packed an awful lot of show and tell into this past week; I just purchased a new home for all my stuff; I've spent hours unpacking and decorating the condo, and will soon do the same for my office at school. I'm drawn, obviously, to my own conspicuous sense of style. The "three ring thing" is no doubt homologous to my public (and in some sense private) style, as well as the last three years of my life, my approach to the career, indeed, the whole enchilada (I wanted to write "shabang," but William Hung's American Idol cover of "She Bangs" has ruined the word forever). Well, I hope others sense more soul than sadness . . . .

Gee, that's maudlin. I didn't mean to get all "sad clown" writing about the circus. So next time I'll work on something along the same theme of spectacle and soullessness, but more upbeat and about Carrot Top's muscle-bound quest to repress his homosexuality . . . .