Saturday, May 01, 2004
(10:07 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Caption Contest
Per Adam Robinson's suggestion in the comments. (This post was formerly titled "And you thought John Kerry was unphotogenic.")
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(5:19 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
The War
Let's look at the rationales for the Iraq war, crossing off the ones that have proven false:
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction pose a direct and immanent threat to the United States and its allies.- A restructuration of the Iraqi regime along "democratic" lines will prompt a renaissance in the Middle East (though unlikely, this result is not yet strictly "false," since the restructuring process is obviously not complete).
A US-led invasion is the only way to stop human-rights abuses and brutality in Iraq.
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(2:50 PM) | Monica:
Eighty-Pound Lenin & Mao
When someone makes a tongue or typing slip-up and I draw attention to it, I do it out of no malignity but sheer delight in language and all the zany possibilities it reveals.Thank you sincerely, Robb, for your suggestion of printing on an 80-pound Lenin—which reminds me that I saw Mao in the inner sanctum enclosed in glass, in Beijing, as guards swooshed me swiftly past. I have no reason to believe that was not the late Chairman Mao.
The strangest thing about the viewing was not the fantastic length of the queue outside the mausoleum (Think, oh, I don’t know, what’s popular in the U.S.? Disney Land/World? Assuming they have really long lines at Disney World, think that but in Chinese proportions. Think Disney World times a billion. A thousand.). Nor was it the colossal alabaster statue in one of the long outer rooms, sitting in front of a landscape-painted wall like the ones in my neighborhood’s Mexican restaurants. What was really queer about dead Mao was the unearthly glow-in-the-light-green color of his face.
I figure it would have cost them about thirty cents’ worth of makeup to fix that. In American money, that’s less than a nickel.
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(7:37 AM) | Robb Schuneman:
Those Evil Natured Robots...They're Programed To Destroy Us
Some points lacking in interest:* Favorite question ever asked to me on a daily basis:
ME: "Hello, this is Impressions Printing, can I help you?"
THEM: "Yeah, how much is printing?"
Really people, do you not realize the idiocy of this question? Would you be wanting one copy of your naked Mrs. Garrett and Tootie photo, or 200,000? Full color or black and white? On a nice 80 lb lenin, or the back of my biology notes from 9th grade? THE PRICE MIGHT DEPEND ON THESE THINGS AND SO MUCH MORE, YES? YES! DANGIT!
** Second favorite question ever asked to me on a routine basis:
MYSELF: "Okay, so I've got all the info, and can get you a quote real quick, what quantity would you like to order?"
THEM: "Well, that depends on the price."
ME: "Okay, but you know..we can quote for several different quantities just..you know, if we can have a ballpark of what you're looking for.."
THEM: "Well, I really don't know..I mean it really depends on how much they are."
moment's breath
ME: "Right..okay..but I mean..are we looking at like..200,000-250,000 copies? Somewhere up there..or-"
THEM: "Oh NO NO NO NO..hoo..no..I just need like 100."
Way to entrap me in a Catch 22. I have to know the quantity you might want in order to tell you the price. Yet you tell me you can't tell me the quantity until you know the price. AMAZING! There are flies in your eyes! Seriously, don't play these stupid little games with me missy/buster! I fail to believe you don't have some general concept of how many flyers, wedding announcements, books, or anal leakage during pregnancy pamphlets you need.. I have more faith in you than that!
If these two basic concepts could be addressed somewhere in elementary school or in the home at some point from now on, it would really be the bee's knees, and expedite every process everywhere.
And I am all for expediting processes.
Sorry for a work post. I thought there'd be more to it, but now that I'm through with that..I fear that it's all I got.
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Friday, April 30, 2004
(10:43 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Archive Fever
Over at The Pickle, Monica suggests that people read her stuff from the Pickle. Since I was the only reader of The Pickle when it first came out (originally as Oh, the Organization), and since Adam doesn't have a Google search, I decided to comb the archives for her writings. Here are some posts:
- Coincidences
- Red Story
- I can't go on. I'll go on.
- And finally, her maiden voyage for The Weblog, three days ago: The Honor is Mine
Going through the archives of a blog, any blog at all, is pretty depressing at some points -- for instance, the inevitable posts about how "I just figured out how to do X with the template, don't you like it?" Then there are good memories, too, like the time I said I didn't like meatheaded guys who threaten to beat each other up all the time and everyone acted like I had just said that I enjoyed molesting children. In any case, I believe that I have fully catalogued the writings in question. For those who think this represents having "too much time on my hands," it took ten minutes, during a study break.
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(9:26 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
I said to my reflection, Let's get out of this place
John Holbo wrote another post about literary studies blogging. (I interrupt: I've discovered through blogging that I have very little control over the contents of my Windows clipboard, or cut-and-paste cache. I'm constantly trying to paste a URL and getting, say, a paragraph of an IM conversation that I don't even remember selecting, much less copying.) I already responded to his first one at Crooked Timber, though there is a long and distinguished line of such posts over at John and Belle. The remark I would like to make here is only tangentially related to the proposal ("lit studies people should blog, because it will make them less boring"), which, if it's going to happen, certainly isn't going to happen at John Holbo's request after such a patronizing characterization of lit studies people in general.
The remark: maybe strict disciplinarity is not the solution, but the problem. At this late date, is a re-professionalization of academia along the lines of law or the priesthood really what we need to do? Is it the solution to some kind of problem that is still extant? Is it going to make education better or the job market for educators more rational? Perhaps, even taking into account the human suffering and bitter disappointment involved in the current regime, the collapse of academia as a "profession" represents an opportunity for a creative re-thinking of the life of the intellect as a whole. But no, we cling to our fragments, wanting more and more degrees to certify our competence in more and more narrow and inappropriate areas (for instance, the degrees in creative writing -- what the fuck?). Just as the university is most falling apart, its position as the big Other guaranteeing our intellectual credentials increases, hence my Hardt and Negri quote in my previous post on this topic. Let's just admit it: the academic humanities are dead as a "career option." We're very fortunate that the liberal arts still persist as a parasite on the "corporate scientific research/athletic/vocational school" institutions that our universities have become, but let's not kid ourselves about the prospects for the future.
The study of the humanities is not a "profession" and never really was or should have been -- expertise in the human condition is not as easily verified as, say, expertise in chemistry or chess, or adequate performance of liturgical rituals or court briefings. We can continue this farce of acting like it is, acting like philosophy is a game we can play, or we can look for other options. Like blogging. Aspiring lit professors should quit their adjunct jobs, go get certified to teach high school, and start blogs where they can talk about Fred Jameson all they want. Sure, it's not prestigious, but why did you ever think that your cocktail of radical feminism/Marxism/psychoanalysis/queer studies was going to be prestigious, compulsorily acknowledged by all? If you want that kind of objective prestige, go play chess -- if you want to understand people, go play poker. (Objective prestige is available to the person who identifies the reference in the previous sentence.)
I know that all of this goes far beyond the scope of the simple question of whether more lit-studies blogs are a good idea, but that's just my theoretical side coming out. I now need to go read some theology, a discipline in which the method is absolutely clear: go into a room by yourself, lock the door, and make stuff up.
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Thursday, April 29, 2004
(10:04 PM) | Robb Schuneman:
Step Back, I Know Who I Am. Raise Up Your Ear, I'll Drop the Style - and Clear.
Perhaps the most entertaining IM I have ever received, minus the one in which a friend told me he was gay, happened moments ago. Picture it, if you will. Innocent Robb Schuneman (take note of the singular N, fair webmaster) sits at his computer, talking with Adam Kotsko and various friends from high school, when demands are made upon him he is unprepared to meet. Not so much unprepared, as uninitiated. Aw, heck, i'll just go LIVEJOURNAL-esque for a moment and post the whole AIM conversation. Prepare.mathmaloney: hi im on line now
mathmaloney: guess who
ChAlkeaTer: John Maloney? (ED. Note, a friend from Olivet I haven't talked to in a very long time)
mathmaloney: not hardly
ChAlkeaTer: hmmm
ChAlkeaTer: do you know John Maloney?
mathmaloney: T.Y.L.E.R!!!!!
mathmaloney: does that help
ChAlkeaTer: Tyler?
ChAlkeaTer: I'm afraid it doesn't really, unless you mean the boy my sister likes? Is this Jennie?
mathmaloney: someone is going to clean my kitchen tonight
ChAlkeaTer: Is her name Jennie?
mathmaloney: I want the trash out too
ChAlkeaTer: haha
ChAlkeaTer: trash night is monday
ChAlkeaTer: it's already been out and back
ChAlkeaTer: and is now collecting
ChAlkeaTer: in anticipation of being put out once again
mathmaloney: its getting a life now
ChAlkeaTer: the trash is getting a life?
mathmaloney: yep
ChAlkeaTer: like..it's becoming sentient and stuff?
ChAlkeaTer: that might suck
ChAlkeaTer: like..it sounds cool in theory and what not
ChAlkeaTer: but I don't think anyone wants thinking trash..too much potential for a bad sci-fi movie.
mathmaloney: it is setting up house keeping under the stove
ChAlkeaTer: that's where the ants are!
ChAlkeaTer: it can't live there, they wouldn't mix well.
ChAlkeaTer: it will simply have to find another place
mathmaloney: ever heard of cohabitate
ChAlkeaTer: Are they a hardcore band?
mathmaloney: i mean it, i want my kitchen cleaned
ChAlkeaTer: where is your kitchen?
mathmaloney: above your room
ChAlkeaTer: there's only the roof above my room
ChAlkeaTer: like
ChAlkeaTer: the kitchen is down the hall
ChAlkeaTer: past the living room
mathmaloney: no a garage is above your room
ChAlkeaTer: no..the garage connects to the kitchen
ChAlkeaTer: you go through the kitchen, turn left..and there's a door that leads to the garage.
ChAlkeaTer: like, honestly, there is but one story to this house
ChAlkeaTer: Scout's honor
mathmaloney: sounds like you know the way to the kitchen
ChAlkeaTer: sadly, yes. It is a trail of tears I have travelled many a time
mathmaloney: go clean it
ChAlkeaTer: why do you care if my kitchen is clean?
mathmaloney: because it is my kitchen as well
ChAlkeaTer: really..
ChAlkeaTer: that's interesting
mathmaloney: you better watch you language when you are talking to your mother
ChAlkeaTer: But..I didn't say anything offensive
ChAlkeaTer: unless "interesting" is offensive
ChAlkeaTer: is this my mother?
mathmaloney: how many moms do you have
ChAlkeaTer: As far as I know, only one
mathmaloney: then it is
mathmaloney: clean the kitchen
ChAlkeaTer: Oh, well..alright. I was planning to do dishes anyway, since the dish washer is broke..but the rest is pretty clean.
ChAlkeaTer: when did you change screen names?
mathmaloney: i never had a screen name
ChAlkeaTer: Sorry momz... I can't go clean your kitchen... I'm busy looking at porn on the internet...
mathmaloney: clean the kitchen!
ChAlkeaTer: I'm afraid you aren't my mother
ChAlkeaTer: I think you might have the wrong screen name for your son
ChAlkeaTer: sorry
ChAlkeaTer: are you there?
ChAlkeaTer: hello?
(10 minutes pass)
mathmaloney: yep
mathmaloney: clean the kitchen
mathmaloney signed off at 9:15:18 PM.
Please don't IM this woman on my behalf, she made an honest mistake. But I love the fact that I was in a situation where I tried to convince her I wasn't lying, and yet her son is likely going to get in trouble tonight when the kitchen isn't cleaned, since he was such a smart alec on the COMPUTER!
Great stuff. Ha.
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(7:42 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Pomegranates
Alarm clocks should respond more appropriately to power outages. If the power comes back on and the alarm is set to "on," the alarm should go on right then. We would all resent it -- for the panicked moment of trying to turn off the alarm when one was just innocently plugging it back in, and even more for the loss of yet another excuse to sleep in.
A plan for the future: finish at CTS, then go to Glasgow for a PhD in Theology and Literature (for me, theology and theory, 3 years of reading the complete Lacan in French); come back to Illinois, read Higher Math for Dummies, and get certified and become a high school math teacher. (How else could I ever find a wife, now that the door to ministry in the Church of the Nazarene is closed?)
Another plan for the future: drop out of CTS this very minute, two weeks before the semester is over, so that I won't have to write a paper on Moltmann's critique of Barth. The plan doesn't extend very far beyond that. The irony is that I could probably start writing right now and just dig for supporting quotes, but I want to do it "right," I want to go through huge swaths of text, to make sure that I don't just pick out things I like without really understanding what's at stake.
It is a wonderful gift to have a group blog, and an incoherent one at that. If you can't tell the different authors apart from the first couple sentences, then why bother having multiple authors? Hopefully the group effect can be even more apparent this summer -- a time period for which I cannot wait. I'm claiming that I'm going to read the whole Church Dogmatics, but maybe I'll just follow à Gauche through his selected Hegel secondary literature. Or both?
Dialog is just depressing. I can understand why Tara spends all her time on Academy -- her gifts for tact and subtle occupation of the moral high-ground are better employed there. Through my whole time on Academy, I never remember getting into a meta-discussion about our feelings about how everyone was discussing -- people were allowed to get pissed off and leave or to be total assholes to each other. People's emotions are tightly wound up with both theology and politics, but somehow the former has become an area in which real conflict is not allowed, while politics was always about conflict. (Probably something to do with the Enlightenment or the rise of the nation-state -- any Cavanaughians out there to help me out?)
I still haven't sent my Bonhoeffer paper in. The cover letter is what's holding me up. I don't know if I should say, "Enclosed please find" or "Enclosed, please find." Plus, you know how tight my schedule is -- not a moment to waste. I wonder if our dramatic act of refusal could be blogging -- our ontological destruction.
UPDATE: Thanks to Rebekah for catching my embarrassing misspelling.
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(2:25 AM) | Robb Schuneman:
There's No Beast, Obviously. The Floor Just Creaks, Obviously.
It has been raised, the question that is, of whether or not Robb has changed his CDs. The question has actually been raised twice now. Let us answer with a resounding YES! I have changed the CDs in my car. As it happens, however, I've been spending the last 2 weeks or so trying to make up for a semester of slackerdom, and thus time has been proverbially of the essence.Well, I'd like to leave it at that, but my conscience won't let me. I skipped last week because I was extremely busy, it's true. But also helping in this was the fact that...gosh..I hate to admit it..but um, Justin Timberlake's "Justified" occupied a space within my car stereo.
I'm sorry. So..so sorry. And I mean for myself. See..the trouble with systems, is that they inevitably will fail. Usually this is like the upcoming system error of Dance-pop Minogue-esque Holly Valance, but, sometimes something must hack the system off, and it spits out something like this. I have to say, throughout the album there were perhaps even time where I was actively like "Oh..this is perhaps not the worst thing ever", and yet, then 5 seconds later Justin would come in. Yeah..I can get down with the beats and what not, and why not? The world's best producers made this album for JT, and then he came along and screwed it up. I..nevermind..I'm not going to try to justify this listening, it was just a terrible experience that I'm glad I made it through. LET IT BE KNOWN, however, that I did pick up some nice tips with the ladies. Routinely, in class, when that pretty girl I like sits next to me, I now turn and say:
"Little baby with the sun dress on
Looking so "dang" right you're wrong
Make me wanna write my own little song for you
The way the thing just wiggle in the air
Turn around and then you flip your hair
I could think of a couple positions for you"
Does that...I mean..I'm sorry..but is there anything connecting those statements at all? Like..They sort of rhyme..in that 1-4 2-3 pattern..but not nearly enough to justify throwing random lustful phrases all together, especially ones as full of CORN as those...
I dunno, it's still really pretty classy LIKE FREDDY BLASSY, and I have been quite a hit around campus since that week. THANKS JUSTIN! No..but that's actually the worst part of the album...Justin really seems convinced that phrases like that are cool..and he seems to actually think of himself as something other than a complete and total TOOL. I find that strange. it'd be interesting to psycho analyze someone like that.
Also..LET IT BE KNOWN..that someone within the Weblog's circle of friends is responsible for sending this album to me, though upon my hesitant request. So, if you speak bad about me, you speak bad about everyone by double association.
Dangit. I need a new system. Oh, but let me mention, in spite of Justin, Primal Scream was in the car that week too..and they nearly redeemed the raunchy stank that was left in my car in the wake of "JUSTIFIED"...Gosh, I do love Primal Scream.
On to this week, which was still somewhat weak overall, but anything was better than the week prior.
Okkervil River - Stars Too Small To Use
Okkervil River is probably my favorite "below the below the radar" band. That is to say..they aren't necessarily even known by indie kids, but their album can still be bought at most any Amazon.com. I guess that makes no sense as there's only one Amazon.com. Twinging dangerously near that "Alt-country" category, but coming back with more folk and blatant rock, Okkervil River is great stuff. They also seem to play Oklahoma City once every 2 months or so. For instance, they are playing here on May 2nd again, this time with The Minus Story. And, I'll likely be there yet again even though Enon is playing the same night, because last time they remarked that they liked my "My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable" shirt, and I store away all nice comments in a little zip-lock bag. I've lost where that was going, and all because for some reason that stupid LIT song got in my head. Anyway, this album is their first, and certainly not their best, but still good enough to be the highlight of an otherwise somewhat weak week. Anyone ever play the Atari game Bird Week? So good.
Anyway, what later would become a definable craft for these guys, is here being formulated. Songs like "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion", "Kathy Keller" and "He Passes Number Thirty-Three" show the amazing beauty that was to come. Really..I'd love to see those songs re-recorded today, with some better quality, and the advance in skill all have taken, especially the lead vocalist. On this CD they are a little raw, but that's almost part of its particular appeal. At least..it is until the singer is just moaning off key at about the 6 minute mark of some songs. However, their song writing prowess is undeniable, and this is definitely worth the listen, if perhaps not reccomended for first exposure.
Relative tour dates to those within the PREFERRED WEBLOG COMMUNITY:
05/07 Madison, WI - Catacombs
05/08 Chicago, IL - Schubas
05/11 Bloomington, IN - Second Story
Camerata Academica des Salzburger Mozarteum f. Geza Anda - Mozart: Piano Concertos nos. 20, 21 & 1
We've talked about this already, yet, I've still got 4 discs to go in this box set, so I don't know what I'll find each week. However, the Concertos do seem to keep getting better and better. Perhaps Mozart hit his stride later in life, I don't really know that much about him, but these are probably some of the more beautiful pieces I've ever heard.
To have something to talk about - anyone ever watch Garfield's Nine Lives? After Pete's Dragon, it was probably my personal favorite as a child. Particularly of interest this week is Garfield's fourth life, where he was a court musician's cat. And, the musician was actively working on a big symphony for the King, when the joker busts in and says the king has demanded a CONCERTO for that night, and if the guy can't finish it he will DIE! Long story short..Garfield ends up writing the finale for the guy, and it's all bluesy, and everyone loves it and loves Garfield. But then he decides that he hates work, so he doesn't write any more music.
May God Bless Garfield. Seriously, I'd like to see someone try and be Devil's Advocate if the church nominated Garfield for sainthood. What the heck are you gonna say? Seriously..remember how in one life he was a girl, and his master played piano for him every night..and then when he/she was dying, the master played the most beautiful concert ever for her, then that night Garfield/whatever his girl name was, died there on the piano from old age? Freaking beautiful. I cried. And I'm not kidding, and I'm not ashamed. GO NEWSBOYS! The cat is flawless!
Also - more classical and blues mashings need to happen, let us take our lead from the orange.
Relevant Tour Dates -
I'm pretty sure everyone on this recording is dead, but Garfield the Movie is guaranteed to suck on June 11th of this year. Although..it does have Bill Murray in the title role..and Jennifer Love Hewitt as a reason to go see it, and Jimmy Kimmel and Nick Cannon..oh..nevermind..sorry. Ha ha..dude was on Nickelodeon's ALL THAT!
Adam Again - Worldwide Favorites
I talked a lot about Adam Again back when their albums proper came through the CD player a few weeks ago. So, suffice to say, I think they were probably the best thing to happen to Christian music in the 80's and early 90's, and it's a shame people were listening to freaking "Go West, Young Man" instead of this, which is actually good.
Also, Worldwide would be my nomination for best Christian song ever. And that includes Amazing Grace, Dancing With The Dinosaur, and Mozart's Coronation mass. And I have no clue why. It's extremely short and I always play it about 5 times in a row. Such a simple chord progression, such simple lyrics. The voice sounds like Michael Stipe, of course, and I have no clue what it is about it, but I never get tired of the song, which is pretty rare. I'm too much of a fan boy to go on any further, but suffice to say, this is why I still occasionally give Christian rock a chance.
Weather Report - This Is Jazz, Vol. 40 - The Jaco Years
I'm not a big fan of this type of jazz, sadly, for whatever reason. I don't know if it's the "electronic" sounds I can't get used to, or maybe something just hasn't clicked yet. I don't know..whenever I hear anything with a bit of Fusion to it, I automatically think people are going to come out and start having sex. So, blame my prudent upbringing for my lack of appreciation I guess. Mainly, it's the "spacey" sound that they give all the instruments, from the keyboards to the bass. If I can get past the porn type boogies going on, I then have to deal with the fact that it sounds a little like I'm in a future ride at Disney world. However, Weather Report is probably the best of this brand of jazz, and as such, there are a lot of enjoyable moments on this cd. Jaco certainly is an amazing bass player, that much I can recognize. I just wish they'd cut the synthesized sounds they have to give to everything. Dang those 1970's and their drugs!
Primus - Animals Should Not Try To Act Like Humans
By all standards, I should probably hate Primus. It's not hook based, it's not anything to "groove" to, it's not relaxing. But, dang..it's good. This album is a far cry from Frizzle Fry and the like, but it still is good to have Primus back together again. It sounds a lot more like the Colonel Les Claypool's Frog Bridage stuff, but, I say that being a casual Primus fan, so I can't really give in depth analysis. I think a lot of people were hating on this cd, but heck, it was a throw in with a DVD, rather than an album proper. And, if this is the main 3 just screwing around again, when they actually set out to make an album it should be fantastic. I would try to explain why I like Primus, against all reason, but I've already been spending most of this post trying to justify myself, so dangit, I'm just leaving "Primus is really good" alone. Robb should not try to act like he knows stuff about music.
Tour Dates That Matter, on the Primus, Hallucino-Genetics tour-
06/09/04 Milwaukee, WI North Stage at Summerfest
06/18/04 Rochester Hills, MI Meadow Brook Music Festival
06/19/04 Toronto, ONT Hummingbird Centre
06/26/04 Chicago, IL UIC Pavilion
NOFX - Heavy Petting Zoo
I have certain moods where I am all about the straight up pop-punk rock. Dangit, this is a week of totally killing everything I stand for. That being said, NOFX are normally one of the bands in this category who qualify the most, along with like..Zebrahead and some others, but I'm not so sure about this album. It seems to have some of the same elements, but results to cheap tricks rather than killer..I don't know..killer whatever it is. Maybe it's just the fact that I was just hearing it on my car stereo, rather than blasting through the walls courtesy of Andy Kring. But, they seem here to basically be doing the pop punk thing..where I'm not sure they're that far above Blink 182. Heck, I'm not sure they're really outshooting Slick Shoes or Ghoti Hook with this one. It's still enjoyable. In fact, that's one of the weird things about the "pop punk". I find almost every bit of it decent at least, certainly listenable, yet very, very rarely do I find it definitively "good". All bands within the genre seem to permanately occupy that middle ground of "okay-ness", seldom ever moving above it. I wonder if that's just a trait of the genre, trying to appeal to the mediocre teens who don't wanta go "hardcore", but don't want to listen to like, The Calling either. Weird. I dunno, I think many of our friends have more experience in the punk rock field, so perhaps they can inform me here. But, heck, I still get a kick out of album titles like "The War on Errorism" and song titles like "Hobophobic", so NOFX are okay in my book.
That's all. I'm nearly done with school. One paper, 3 finals to go. May the world only explode..
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Tuesday, April 27, 2004
(9:33 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Strange Project
First of all, I'd like to thank Monica for joining the staff here at the Weblog. I encourage all of you to read the remarkably snarky comment section to her first post, which put up much better comment numbers than my posts usually do. I look forward to a long, productive blogging relationship.
Second, I'd like to point you toward a great post over at Spurious, entitled "Why I am not a destiny." It led me to reflect on my own relationship to philosophy. It is demonstrably different from Lars Iyer's or à Gauche's or Anthony Smith's, and I don't know what that means. My true fear in relation to philosophy is not so much lacking the ability to comprehend or engage with philosophy, but rather lacking the proper credentials. I keep seeing myself studying Lacan at some divinity school, or doing my dissertation on Žižek in a department of comparative literature -- just as I'm studying Derrida and Hardt and Negri at a seminary, and fully intend to do my thesis on one of those names that we're all addicted to dropping.
I like Karl Barth and Robert Jenson, and I fully expect that I'll enjoy Hans Urs Von Balthasar and any number of other theologians (though not Moltmann so much, I'm discovering), but I like them in some sense as philosophers, or, better, as literature -- I want to flatten out the distinction, put everyone in the same plane, put together Robert Jenson and Alain Badiou and Thomas Pynchon. I wish I didn't live in America, so that I wouldn't feel like such a jackass for using Christian thinkers, but in the abstract, I'm not embarassed to deploy these people. It's part of the tradition. Augustine is part of the tradition. The apostle Paul is part of the tradition. Jesus Christ? I don't know -- let's leave him alone for the moment -- but the gospels are definitely fair game. (This is partly in response to IB Bill's comment on my last post along these lines -- no, I don't think that Christianity is "true" in the sense that society will fall apart or God will be pissed off if people stop identifying themselves as Christians. In fact, we stand an even chance of being better off if there are fewer Christians, depending on which groups we're depopulating.)
I wonder if Robb has changed his CDs lately.
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(10:09 AM) | Monica:
The Honor Is Mine
Adam Kotsko has invited me to write for his blog. I’m answering the call without trepidation and with just one stipulation: I expect the pay here will be better than at The Pickle. Mr. Robinson is taking advantage of the fact that I didn’t start writing for The Pickle until after I was fired. Can I get some legal advice here?The Pickle aside, Mr. Kotsko, this is your weblog—and a fair mite classier than certain other blogs which will not again be mentioned here. I am honored that you have asked me to participate in your most edifying project. The edifice of flapdoodle which I shall fabricate on your weblog, no incisive ray of keen insight will be able to penetrate.
Regarding my delinquency in responding to your invitation, I pray your clemency. I’ve been employed in dreams of my bicycle dealer, on whom I have a wonderful crush. This is infatuation of the best kind: reciprocated admiration of someone who is completely unavailable (i.e., is a parent in a happy traditional marriage). I’m biking up after work to talk to him about my bike cleats (which I’m wearing around work all day today, since I forgot to bring my dress shoes).
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Monday, April 26, 2004
(10:56 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Suggestion for Reform
The print function for web browsers should be changed in the following way. It should calculate out how many pages it's going to print, and if it finds out there are going to be two lines of bullshit (or a banner ad, or linebreaks) as the sole content the last page, it should pop up with a message saying, "The last page of this print job is just going to be two lines of bullshit. Would you like to skip it?" I would click yes.
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(8:08 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Nietzche
Today is the big day for discussing Flannery O'Connor. Barring complications, I plan on prowling in comment sections rather than "weighing in" with a lengthy post.
In the Common-place Book, Adam Smith quotes Alasdair MacIntyre. I know virtually nothing about MacIntyre, although I love the quote where he says that being asked to die for a modern nation-state is like being asked to die for the phone company. The nation-state is a big deal in Christian circles these days -- it reminds me of how grunge became such a big deal in Christian rock circles somewhere around 1998. Cheap shots aside, here is the quote:
It is of course true that genealogists now occupy professorial chairs with an apparent ease which might have discomfited Nietzche and that even when they praise the aphorism as the genuinely Nietzschean genre, that praise is expressed, as I noted earlier, in conventional academic journals and lectures. If and when some post-Nietzschean is finally invited to give a set of Gifford Lectures, his or her academic hosts can reasonably expect the conventional form of his or her utterance at least partially to neutralize its content. Apprehensions that instead of lectures they would be presented with a set of Gifford aphorisms or Gifford prophecies are surely groundless. Yet that those apprehensions should thus be rendered groundless is itself disquieting.
For what it signals is the capacity of the contemporary university not only to dissolve antagonism, to amasculate hostility, but also in so doing to render itself culturally irrelevant.
I admire a good bluster as much as the next guy, but I fear the problem with our modern post-Nietzscheans may well be their super-abundant cultural relevance. Hanging out at Barnes and Noble last night, I leafed through Harold Bloom's The Western Canon, where he noted that professors were setting aside the Great Monuments of Western Literature in order to study movies, advertisements, etc. I'm sure a PhD program in pornographic studies is forthcoming, if not already extant.
And who can deny the commercial success of heavy theory? It truly is the new literature, the thing to read for those who want to be in the know, who want to be superior -- Derrida is the new Joyce (according to Bloom), Foucault the new Proust (excavating the past), Lacan the new Pound (standing in the background of so many careers). Who can read Derrida's Monolingualism of the Other without being struck by the fact that this is what literature is now? The triumph of theory is an outgrowth of the tremendous success of literature in the modern world, the paradoxical mass-production of subversion. At the beginning of the century, it was a Supreme Court case about the obscenity of Ulysses; at the end, a controversy about Cambridge University's decision to award an honorary degree to Derrida's "cognitive nihilism." (I really am sorry to be landing so hard on Derrida -- it's my class.)
Does this represent a loss? Perhaps in the institutionalization of the impulse of "literature," we did indeed suffer a loss, but the modernists properly-so-called already knew they were writing in order to be archived by university professors. In France, the professors themselves managed to become artists, a feat rendered very difficult for those professors living in the metropole -- but, perhaps, occasionally accomplished nonetheless by the stray American (or the stray Hungarian or Slovene).
We cannot go back to being a Christian society, unless we're willing to unleash the horrific violence that would entail. Calling secularism a religion doesn't change anything, doesn't have any force whatsoever -- at least not when the goal is the reestablishment of Christianity. Neither are we ever going to be able to return to a society in which every schoolchild reads Julius Caesar, unless we're willing to radically restrict the group to be educated. It pains my heart to say it -- my inner imperialist is weeping -- but there really is no going back. And thanks be to God!
(à Gauche's response to Adam Smith's query about the idea of the university contributed significantly to the thought process behind this incoherent -- dare I say aphoristic? -- post. Consider it a response to them both.)
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Sunday, April 25, 2004
(8:51 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Asceticism of Protest
Has there ever been a person, a real person, who renounced the pleasures of the world out of protest? Not because of the pollution those pleasures bring, not because of the clear reason such renunciation will engender, but because worldly pleasures are quite simply not good enough?
Kafka's "Hunger Artist" seems to fall outside the normal rubric of asceticism. The popular perception within the story-world is that he is an aesthete, devoted to fasting as to an art form, fasting-for-fasting's-sake--a nihilistic fasting. When he reveals his real motivation, that he simply never found any food he liked, it at first sounds completely absurd, again outside the pale of "normal" asceticism. (Zizek's reading of this story strikes me as completely wrong: it is not the case that the Hunger Artist is actively eating nothing [italics in original]; he is not, sad to say, tarrying with the negative.)
Yet Kafka is known to have had an active religious imagination, and I would ask whether the ascetic is ever doing anything but waiting for a food he'll really like -- purifying himself for the food of heaven, refusing anything but the food of heaven, like the mystic nun who starved herself by eating nothing but the eucharistic elements. Is asceticism always a protest? Has there ever been a world in which such asceticism, such protest, was more necessary, precisely because completely incomprehensible? The asceticism of veganism: the beginning, perhaps of a new religion for our time, a great refusal of the artificiality that penetrates to our very bones.
I walk through the grocery store, drive down the street, look in the refrigerator, and ask, "Where can I find some real food?" Without knowing quite what it means, I choose to abstain until confronted with real food, consuming words with a strange incomprehension bred by hunger, by the deepest dissatisfaction. For me there has never been any moderation between the real thing and nothing at all, and so occasionally I tense up, shaking my fist at the world, shaken physically by a dissatisfaction, above all, with myself.
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