I've decided I'm going to drop English 335 for fall quarter.
When it comes down to it, it really wasn't that hard of a decision and it says a lot to me that it was such an easy decision to make. I don't need the course other than as another elective with Tony, and while I like Tony and I like what he has to offer, I keep returning to this question of what am I really getting out of it?
What benefits do I receive by taking this class? More explorations into postmodernism, poststructuralism and all these other post-philosophies through literature?
English 335. From what I understand of it from talking to Tony, it's part 3 in a series started with Nanotexts. Bookending itself with The Invention of Morel. But if there's one thing I've picked up from classes with Tony, it's that it doesn't end. Sure, you might move on. You might take a break and explore some other realm of thought, but it's circular. Everything returns. Everything crosses back on itself.
It's the natural rhythm of things. For every up, there is a down. They are inseparable.
Doing that independent study project with Tony, I learned some things. I also learned there's a lot that I don't know and have quite a bit to explore. But what I'm getting at is this question of how necessary is Tony to this: as a professor, as a friend, as a mentor, as a resource.
These are baby steps at best, but I think it's time I walked on my own. I have the tools and knowledge at my disposal to try to figure this out on my own. The class would be fun, but really, I'll be "in" it whether I'm there or not. I know half the people signed up (you know who you are) and in fact will be living with one of them next year.
This summer I started an autodidactic project wherein I plan on exploring the nature of messengers, messages and communication through this postmodern lens. It's one of the reasons I froze my Facebook account for the summer. And so far it's been just as engaging and interesting to me as any of the classes I've taken with Tony. I'm asking questions and looking for answers, deconstructing and tearing apart the very words I use to talk about this.
I'm going my own direction with this, and by that I mean that I'm moving forward in these thoughts. I don't know if it's necessarily the "right" direction, but I could ask the same thing of Nanotexts, of Parasites or of Augmented Realities. Because really, the only difference between those courses and this is that we relied on Tony for direction and have been trusting that it's right. It might be. He does have a few years seniority on all of us in this, but so what? Tony himself has said that his cult-leading days are behind him and on the last day of class spring quarter Alex said something to the effect of
"Tony doesn't need followers. He doesn't want them."
Consider this me losing the training wheels. I'll be around. I'll keep exploring and thinking. But I'm striking out on my own. If I think I need help, I know where I can turn, but until such time I'm taking this into my own hands.
Showing posts with label Parasites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parasites. Show all posts
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Awkward Sauce
"Well, that was awkward."
"Awkward sauce."
"And... cue awkward silence."
Awkward: 5. Ungraceful, ungainly in action or form; uncouth: a. of things, action, speech, etc.
-OED
It's not awkward. Awkward is what we've taken to calling that which makes us uncomfortable.
"I don't like talking to him, he's awkward."
Is he? Or is it your perception of him and the effect that he has on you that's "awkward?"
For the most part, I'm arguing about semantics. I'm arguing about the meaning of a single word and how its use or misuse can completely change how we interpret a thought (exactly the kind of stuff I imagine is going on in the 202 class).
While I respect Josh's aim here, it's important to notice that he defines "awkward" and the situations that create it rather explicitly, but in general conversation when we describe something as awkward there's a much broader concept in mind. Awkward in that sense isn't simply the causal relationship between a kind of statement and reaction, but additionally the power we give that relation (in its ability to make us uncomfortable).
I asked the plurk world about why silence makes us uncomfortable and the conversation kind of turned into a discussion on awkwardness.
After bouncing some thoughts around for a bit, what I got out of this was the idea that awkwardness is based in power relations and silence and communication are networks through which we notice (or not notice) these power relations.
It was stated repeatedly that whether or not we become uncomfortable with silence is dependent upon the company we keep, i.e. the familiar makes us more comfortable with the silence which translates to less awkwardness and the converse of that as well. And we are comfortable because in this company there is no struggle in the power relation; it can be assumed that those issues have been worked out already.
So when we are in company where silence makes us uncomfortable, the power relations are not defined. We're on less steady ground because we do not know who has the power or control in that interaction. So we seek to fill the silence as a way of exerting control and demonstrating that we have some semblance of power, of authority.
But there is also power in silence. In our information driven society, knowledge is power and silence is a key way of withholding that knowledge. Secrets. And here I would probably make some kind of connection to Derrida and The Gift of Death, but I'm not that far into it.
We demonstrate that we have power, by expressing knowledge, by speaking. And so again, we kill the silence. We exclude the silence from our lives, replacing it with noise after noise after noise because the ones who can convince take power and to convince someone of something means you need to communicate with them.
After a point though, the sounds we use to break the silence become noise, they become meaningless. As I saw last quarter in reading Serres's Parasites, they cease to interrupt us and so lose their power. As was the case with Low for many members of the tooth-hurty class, you just kind of glaze over it.
Mentat said, "While the professor speaks we are to be silent and listen or raise our hands if we have something to say before we speak." What of when that is not the case? Well, that brings me now to class on Wednesday when Tony did his I'm-not-going-to-talk thing as the perfect example of how silence translates to power. What Tony effectively was trying to do was translate himself from a role as teacher (authority figure in the front, bringer of sounds) to that of noise (hiding in the background interrupting only as much as we pay attention to it).
Silence is striking and often more powerful of an interruption than noise in part because of its subtlety but also because of its in-your-face obviousness. Silence is always there and we take it for granted, so to bring attention to it makes it that much bigger.
"Intention does not disappear: it will have it's place, but from this place it will no longer be able to govern the entire scene and the entire system of utterances."--Derrida
But to notice it in this context is to immediately make us uncomfortable. Without that authority figure, without Tony telling us what to do and directly guiding the conversation, the class doesn't know who has the power or who has how much of the power. In this way, even silently, Tony is still able to control the class, despite not wanting to.
Here again, I must thank Mentat for wording things so well, because "silence creates a SPACE." And in our society, that space must be filled otherwise it feels wasted. So someone talks, someone breaks the silence so it doesn't feel "awkward" and we move along.
One last point that I think I'll try to save for a larger post later and so only introduce briefly here, but in relating sound and silence, we come to another binary system. As such, we also are faced with the Other. Silence is the great opposition. It is the absence that is always with us and so we cannot relate to it in the same way we do sound.
Questions, Comments, Concerns, Rebuttals?
"Awkward sauce."
"And... cue awkward silence."
Awkward: 5. Ungraceful, ungainly in action or form; uncouth: a. of things, action, speech, etc.
-OED
It's not awkward. Awkward is what we've taken to calling that which makes us uncomfortable.
"I don't like talking to him, he's awkward."
Is he? Or is it your perception of him and the effect that he has on you that's "awkward?"
For the most part, I'm arguing about semantics. I'm arguing about the meaning of a single word and how its use or misuse can completely change how we interpret a thought (exactly the kind of stuff I imagine is going on in the 202 class).
So I adapted a new way of life about a year and a half ago. I decided that I wasn't going to "do awkward" anymore. Now, it has changed my life.-From a Facebook Note by former plurker and nanotexter Josh Foley
I thought I would share how this happened and what it means to not "do awkward." I have been getting a lot of skepticism and giggles at the concept. People seem to not understand what it means to rid myself of awkwardness. Well, I thought I would explain it. There are a few things that characterize awkward:
Lies
Something not being said
A misunderstanding
So how do I rid myself of awkwardness?
I've eliminated white lies. I just tell the truth no matter what. It always turns out better.
I say what's not being said. Its not awkward if you talk about it.
I clarify misunderstandings. I'll stop the conversation just to explain fully.
What have the benefits been from this:
I can be a much more genuine person. I never create stupid lies to cover up my tracks or make excuses. I can feel good and honest with those around me.
I become a role model for those around me. If I stand up and say what's not being said, it allows for others to do the same. It helps me be an Ally.
Conversations go much more smoothly.
I am happier.
I like people more.
I can be around anyone.
I've done it and you can too! You should try it out for a while. It helps a lot to say to yourself in awkward situations..."I don't do awkward." You'll be amazed how comfortable just thinking/saying that makes you.
While I respect Josh's aim here, it's important to notice that he defines "awkward" and the situations that create it rather explicitly, but in general conversation when we describe something as awkward there's a much broader concept in mind. Awkward in that sense isn't simply the causal relationship between a kind of statement and reaction, but additionally the power we give that relation (in its ability to make us uncomfortable).
I asked the plurk world about why silence makes us uncomfortable and the conversation kind of turned into a discussion on awkwardness.
After bouncing some thoughts around for a bit, what I got out of this was the idea that awkwardness is based in power relations and silence and communication are networks through which we notice (or not notice) these power relations.
It was stated repeatedly that whether or not we become uncomfortable with silence is dependent upon the company we keep, i.e. the familiar makes us more comfortable with the silence which translates to less awkwardness and the converse of that as well. And we are comfortable because in this company there is no struggle in the power relation; it can be assumed that those issues have been worked out already.
So when we are in company where silence makes us uncomfortable, the power relations are not defined. We're on less steady ground because we do not know who has the power or control in that interaction. So we seek to fill the silence as a way of exerting control and demonstrating that we have some semblance of power, of authority.
But there is also power in silence. In our information driven society, knowledge is power and silence is a key way of withholding that knowledge. Secrets. And here I would probably make some kind of connection to Derrida and The Gift of Death, but I'm not that far into it.
We demonstrate that we have power, by expressing knowledge, by speaking. And so again, we kill the silence. We exclude the silence from our lives, replacing it with noise after noise after noise because the ones who can convince take power and to convince someone of something means you need to communicate with them.
After a point though, the sounds we use to break the silence become noise, they become meaningless. As I saw last quarter in reading Serres's Parasites, they cease to interrupt us and so lose their power. As was the case with Low for many members of the tooth-hurty class, you just kind of glaze over it.
Mentat said, "While the professor speaks we are to be silent and listen or raise our hands if we have something to say before we speak." What of when that is not the case? Well, that brings me now to class on Wednesday when Tony did his I'm-not-going-to-talk thing as the perfect example of how silence translates to power. What Tony effectively was trying to do was translate himself from a role as teacher (authority figure in the front, bringer of sounds) to that of noise (hiding in the background interrupting only as much as we pay attention to it).
Silence is striking and often more powerful of an interruption than noise in part because of its subtlety but also because of its in-your-face obviousness. Silence is always there and we take it for granted, so to bring attention to it makes it that much bigger.
"Intention does not disappear: it will have it's place, but from this place it will no longer be able to govern the entire scene and the entire system of utterances."--Derrida
But to notice it in this context is to immediately make us uncomfortable. Without that authority figure, without Tony telling us what to do and directly guiding the conversation, the class doesn't know who has the power or who has how much of the power. In this way, even silently, Tony is still able to control the class, despite not wanting to.
Here again, I must thank Mentat for wording things so well, because "silence creates a SPACE." And in our society, that space must be filled otherwise it feels wasted. So someone talks, someone breaks the silence so it doesn't feel "awkward" and we move along.
One last point that I think I'll try to save for a larger post later and so only introduce briefly here, but in relating sound and silence, we come to another binary system. As such, we also are faced with the Other. Silence is the great opposition. It is the absence that is always with us and so we cannot relate to it in the same way we do sound.
Questions, Comments, Concerns, Rebuttals?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Widdershin Writings Episode IV: A New Quarter
I've returned from spring break, freshly exhausted from a great start to racing season for crew and have now started classes.
I only technically have two classes, Chem 121 and Anth 365 (Peoples of Latin America), but am working on an independent study project with Tony that has turned into a kind of case study into what I can best describe as the ontological and socio-political effects music has on culture and literature/art. Like any study experience with Tony though, I'm sure there are many levels beyond this that I'll only start to see once I've been working with and analyzing the texts provided for a few weeks.
Which is, to say, expect more than a few posts with postmodern philosophical influences over the next few months.
I like this idea of independent study because it lends itself to that self-taught experience that makes learning far more valuable than your usual class experience. In that I am helping to create this course of study and have an active role in choosing the texts and directions it will go, it becomes a far more personalized curriculum.
Now, I'm not saying everyone should go out and make their own independent study plans with one of their professors, I myself only resorted to this option after realizing a schedule of three classes on top of my athletics, youth mentoring and club activities would not be conducive towards any kind of sane or healthy living for a full quarter.
I've realized too that in choosing this independent study though, I've pushed myself one step closer to becoming Kai. It was after all, her sitting through the second Nanotexts course last year during her own independent study with Tony that we became acquainted. Perhaps this means I'm transitioning to a new role in this hierarchy of the plurk/English environment Tony has introduced us to. Maybe somewhere amongst this group of thirty or so new Parasites is the next Ace.
And so the evolution and perpetuation continues.
I only technically have two classes, Chem 121 and Anth 365 (Peoples of Latin America), but am working on an independent study project with Tony that has turned into a kind of case study into what I can best describe as the ontological and socio-political effects music has on culture and literature/art. Like any study experience with Tony though, I'm sure there are many levels beyond this that I'll only start to see once I've been working with and analyzing the texts provided for a few weeks.
Which is, to say, expect more than a few posts with postmodern philosophical influences over the next few months.
I like this idea of independent study because it lends itself to that self-taught experience that makes learning far more valuable than your usual class experience. In that I am helping to create this course of study and have an active role in choosing the texts and directions it will go, it becomes a far more personalized curriculum.
Now, I'm not saying everyone should go out and make their own independent study plans with one of their professors, I myself only resorted to this option after realizing a schedule of three classes on top of my athletics, youth mentoring and club activities would not be conducive towards any kind of sane or healthy living for a full quarter.
I've realized too that in choosing this independent study though, I've pushed myself one step closer to becoming Kai. It was after all, her sitting through the second Nanotexts course last year during her own independent study with Tony that we became acquainted. Perhaps this means I'm transitioning to a new role in this hierarchy of the plurk/English environment Tony has introduced us to. Maybe somewhere amongst this group of thirty or so new Parasites is the next Ace.
And so the evolution and perpetuation continues.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Perhaps this is where we're headed
And we've crossed a line
Or perhaps the better way to put it is crossing a threshold
Off through the looking glass to join the Hatter
Though maybe I'm thinking of the Other
Who is it I see in the mirror?
So many questions -- what are you thinking -- asked
I'm exhausted
I want to hide behind these allusions that
keep things distinct.
We've lost ourselves in this blur.
It's all a fog.
Dense.
Grey.
Cold.
Warm my hand in yours.
But who are you strangers beside me?
Inside me.
Eat. EAT. Forever hungry for more, hungry for love.
What was the tea party but a civilized orgy?
What is class but an orgy of ideas?
Well the orgy is over. [or near enough]
But we're still here.
"watching myself write and create is painful sometimes."
The inside looks at the inside from the outside
Of course it's painful.
It's excruciating.
The ultimate pleasure-pain, like crack for the mind.
It takes a certain kind of crazy to
return
to this constant ontology
analyze analyze analyze
When we connect the dots, we lose them.
They become just another part of the line.
But they get just as lost when they remain
disconnected
The individual is a cancer upon the hive mind.
It stimulates the kind of change
necessitated by its mutation
For it is something new.
Or else it is destroyed
Rarely does it remain benign
[p]lurking silently
ignored or else forgotten
There's a crack in the glass:
A hole in the fourth wall.
We can taste it and know it is there
like a gut reaction
but this does not mean we see it.
It is invisible to us just as the wall was.
And yet we run at it
smashing ourselves on it
bugs on the window
window to the soul
blink away the disturbance
Something changed.
It scared us.
Or at least it scared me.
And so we back slowly away from the reflection.
But it stays there.
Perhaps not physically
but mentally it stayed with us
like that trip to Vegas
So we're running in circles.
Always ending up right where we started.
Alice was just a little too nice and innocent.
Ace was just a wild card.
Didn't it take the Queen to cross the landscape?
Or perhaps the better way to put it is crossing a threshold
Off through the looking glass to join the Hatter
Though maybe I'm thinking of the Other
Who is it I see in the mirror?
So many questions -- what are you thinking -- asked
I'm exhausted
I want to hide behind these allusions that
keep things distinct.
We've lost ourselves in this blur.
It's all a fog.
Dense.
Grey.
Cold.
Warm my hand in yours.
But who are you strangers beside me?
Inside me.
Eat. EAT. Forever hungry for more, hungry for love.
What was the tea party but a civilized orgy?
What is class but an orgy of ideas?
Well the orgy is over. [or near enough]
But we're still here.
"watching myself write and create is painful sometimes."
The inside looks at the inside from the outside
Of course it's painful.
It's excruciating.
The ultimate pleasure-pain, like crack for the mind.
It takes a certain kind of crazy to
return
to this constant ontology
analyze analyze analyze
When we connect the dots, we lose them.
They become just another part of the line.
But they get just as lost when they remain
disconnected
The individual is a cancer upon the hive mind.
It stimulates the kind of change
necessitated by its mutation
For it is something new.
Or else it is destroyed
Rarely does it remain benign
[p]lurking silently
ignored or else forgotten
There's a crack in the glass:
A hole in the fourth wall.
We can taste it and know it is there
like a gut reaction
but this does not mean we see it.
It is invisible to us just as the wall was.
And yet we run at it
smashing ourselves on it
bugs on the window
window to the soul
blink away the disturbance
Something changed.
It scared us.
Or at least it scared me.
And so we back slowly away from the reflection.
But it stays there.
Perhaps not physically
but mentally it stayed with us
like that trip to Vegas
So we're running in circles.
Always ending up right where we started.
Alice was just a little too nice and innocent.
Ace was just a wild card.
Didn't it take the Queen to cross the landscape?
Saturday, February 27, 2010
A Precursor
Here, I'm going to revisit a briefly touched on topic from a previous blog post.
"I have a few parasites of my own, and for once I'm not talking about the Fool. These are more vampires upon my time and energy than mental illness."
What do we consider our friends and peers, especially those whom we acquaint ourselves with through that amorphous realm we call the classroom? Through Nanotexts, Parasites and interactions further provoked by and because of these settings, I’ve come to learn the difference between @cephalopod and @vladislavxodasevic (the url doesn’t lie, he is not @nerbiotxiste), and Kai and Andrew the same as they have learned to tell Acelessthan3 from Danny.
But in this triumvirate, what role do we each play? As Jack (Joe? The man in the hat) put so concretely in a comment on one of my blogs, “And is this what you want? To be the host, to be the giver, to be the useful? Or maybe this role [is] symbiotic in your eyes; you extract joy from the parasitic encounters. Is that more accurate?” In short, what do we want from each other, from this interaction?
I responded in a separate post:
“I think you hit the nail on the head as the saying goes when you ask if I have been feeding, guesting, leeching ‘all along, under the mask of the host.’ Because when it comes down to it, is not the rule of the extrovert to do so?”
But that only answers the question of what I want, or rather what I do, in general. When we change scale and zoom in on the specific interactions that happen between Andrew, Kai and I, we find a quantum tangle of interlocking and overlapping wants.
“Acelessthan3 asks What do you want of me?”
Before I deleted the responses and effectively rebooted this update, Andrew had asked me if it was directed at anyone in particular. I lied and said something akin to “No one. Everyone. Anyone who cares to answer.” It was directed at him specifically in an attempt to goad him into giving me the biggest thing I want of him, his attention, to see some of that energy come my way.
I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of it had to do with the fact that I’m attracted to him and have been essentially since Nanotexts spring quarter. It’s not something we talk about, like the bats lurking in the shadows of the belfry, but the elephant in the room acts as an invitation.
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
In the perfectly parasitic relationship, we find that both these statements hold true. The included wants to use, the excluded wants to be used.
I have something Andrew needs: namely books, the ability and willingness to listen, to act as someone to bounce ideas off, to push him past these creative and innate barriers keeping him from producing. But despite all outward appearances, this host has his own agenda, seeking to leech and feed in a libidinous want for attention. And it can never be quite satisfied, is always “Hungry for love,” so the host invites again and again.
Then in this plurk: http://www.plurk.com/p/3oyhk2 a little after Andrew responded with this:
We find a short discussion about Ace/Danny in relations to Ceph/Kai and Vlad/Andrew, the kind of thing you would expect to find in a private plurk, the kind of thing I don’t think I was ever really meant to see. In a sense, it was Awkward Sauce.
I can’t speak much on the Kai/Andrew relationship except for what I’ve observed, which is a slight parallel to the Danny/Andrew as I know it. Insomnia manifests from this relation, perhaps the spreading of an infection. He wrote a lot about sleep in his last thought experiment so I think he’s been infecting her and not the other way around.
Kai and I seem to have more of a mutualist relationship than parasitic. We gain in each other an outlet, a vent for all those little frustrations that we don’t allow ourselves to express in the greater population of our peers. We foster in each other an openness that allows the id room to stretch.
But we also seem to share in what I’m sure Rickels would call an oral fixation, namely our cookie connection. We put food in each other’s mouths, just as we are able to put thoughts in each other’s heads.
We ingest the food, the cookies, the parasite of each other and so are interrupted. And we spread this infection as well with our inside jokes that carry over between irl interactions and plurk interactions, the private and the public. Andrew is infected, bacon snickerdoodle, anyone?
"I have a few parasites of my own, and for once I'm not talking about the Fool. These are more vampires upon my time and energy than mental illness."
What do we consider our friends and peers, especially those whom we acquaint ourselves with through that amorphous realm we call the classroom? Through Nanotexts, Parasites and interactions further provoked by and because of these settings, I’ve come to learn the difference between @cephalopod and @vladislavxodasevic (the url doesn’t lie, he is not @nerbiotxiste), and Kai and Andrew the same as they have learned to tell Acelessthan3 from Danny.
But in this triumvirate, what role do we each play? As Jack (Joe? The man in the hat) put so concretely in a comment on one of my blogs, “And is this what you want? To be the host, to be the giver, to be the useful? Or maybe this role [is] symbiotic in your eyes; you extract joy from the parasitic encounters. Is that more accurate?” In short, what do we want from each other, from this interaction?
I responded in a separate post:
“I think you hit the nail on the head as the saying goes when you ask if I have been feeding, guesting, leeching ‘all along, under the mask of the host.’ Because when it comes down to it, is not the rule of the extrovert to do so?”
But that only answers the question of what I want, or rather what I do, in general. When we change scale and zoom in on the specific interactions that happen between Andrew, Kai and I, we find a quantum tangle of interlocking and overlapping wants.
“Acelessthan3 asks What do you want of me?”
Before I deleted the responses and effectively rebooted this update, Andrew had asked me if it was directed at anyone in particular. I lied and said something akin to “No one. Everyone. Anyone who cares to answer.” It was directed at him specifically in an attempt to goad him into giving me the biggest thing I want of him, his attention, to see some of that energy come my way.
I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of it had to do with the fact that I’m attracted to him and have been essentially since Nanotexts spring quarter. It’s not something we talk about, like the bats lurking in the shadows of the belfry, but the elephant in the room acts as an invitation.
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
In the perfectly parasitic relationship, we find that both these statements hold true. The included wants to use, the excluded wants to be used.
I have something Andrew needs: namely books, the ability and willingness to listen, to act as someone to bounce ideas off, to push him past these creative and innate barriers keeping him from producing. But despite all outward appearances, this host has his own agenda, seeking to leech and feed in a libidinous want for attention. And it can never be quite satisfied, is always “Hungry for love,” so the host invites again and again.
Then in this plurk: http://www.plurk.com/p/3oyhk2 a little after Andrew responded with this:
We find a short discussion about Ace/Danny in relations to Ceph/Kai and Vlad/Andrew, the kind of thing you would expect to find in a private plurk, the kind of thing I don’t think I was ever really meant to see. In a sense, it was Awkward Sauce.
I can’t speak much on the Kai/Andrew relationship except for what I’ve observed, which is a slight parallel to the Danny/Andrew as I know it. Insomnia manifests from this relation, perhaps the spreading of an infection. He wrote a lot about sleep in his last thought experiment so I think he’s been infecting her and not the other way around.
Kai and I seem to have more of a mutualist relationship than parasitic. We gain in each other an outlet, a vent for all those little frustrations that we don’t allow ourselves to express in the greater population of our peers. We foster in each other an openness that allows the id room to stretch.
But we also seem to share in what I’m sure Rickels would call an oral fixation, namely our cookie connection. We put food in each other’s mouths, just as we are able to put thoughts in each other’s heads.
We ingest the food, the cookies, the parasite of each other and so are interrupted. And we spread this infection as well with our inside jokes that carry over between irl interactions and plurk interactions, the private and the public. Andrew is infected, bacon snickerdoodle, anyone?
Monday, February 22, 2010
These are crazy times down at Kostylo Music
I'm responding here to These are crazy times down at Kostylo Music
These kinds of challenges, these interactions aren't isolated, Joe/Jack. Where does this energy come from and where is it going?
The hardest part about this parasites experience is that we lack a concrete direction. We're trying to push, to grow, thus this desire to feel challenged by something, but we don't really have that in the sense that we are used to. @nanotext is dead and @the_author seems to be far more laissez-faire.
So we turn to each other. And we have all this energy -- and when I say energy I really mean ideas -- that we get from the books. These buzzwords that fly around like lightning strikes. But the thing about words is they're necessary. Each time you create something new, you need to also create a vocabulary for it in order to talk about it, describe it, know it. We see this in queer and feminist theory as they seek to push away from the patriarchal nomenclatures that limit their culture, the same can be said of the ontological endeavors of our work with parasites.
So we have all this energy, but where is it going? Into each other. We feed and grow from the interactions we have with each other. We channel this energy so it does something, otherwise so what? What are we learning?
Up until the point where I blatantly asked you (Joe/Jack) on wave to comment on some of my blog posts, I was feeling dissatisfied, unchallenged.
And then you rose to the occasion and asked some of the very questions I didn't even know I wanted to be asked, some of which hit me on a very personal level. And I still don't have a complete answer for you on those questions despite what I may have posted previously.
But the fact remains, we are crazy, all of us. But we're all crazy together.
_______________________________________
This next section I started writing last night before I went to bed.
The one thing that scares me most is myself. I have potential and that has always been one of my greatest strengths. But it is also a temptation. I learned this lesson through introspection, through the cultivation of a (mostly) transparent identity that leaves little to the imagination, through the few critically honest voices who have been (un)kind enough to call me on my shit.
I am arrogant. I am narcissistic. I am negligent of my own health and wellness when it comes to fulfilling the (over)burden of responsibilities I commit myself to. I refuse to admit to myself the honesty of my sexual and romantic desires.
These are what I know to be some of my greatest faults, but in consciousness I know them; I see them and recognize them for what they are. They are my faults. They are my faults. They are. My fault.
And for the most part, I try very hard to compensate. I project humility. I act interested in others. I take care of my body and mind in every other way possible. I speak quietly to the ones I trust. I'm not perfect at it, and every once in a while I get so caught up in what I'm saying or doing that the mask falls askew.
But I wonder how much of this act -- and I cannot deny that it is an act -- is me. Am I what people perceive me as, what I project? Or am I what I fight against in my core? Are these secret thoughts and desires the "real" me, or merely a psychic parasite like an id that won't submit?
I find that there is a balance between who I want to be (what I project) and who I am underneath that is likely the best portrait one could take. The lines are smudged and blurry.
"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."
You've probably seen this on some elementary school teacher's wall before. I could really care less about the last three lines. It's the first two that I want us to consider. What happens when our thoughts do not match our words? Do the words carry any kind of meaning anymore? Do our actions change?
After a point, the act, the disconnect between thought and action, becomes more than an act. It becomes reality.
Perhaps it takes a kind of strength to be able to disconnect and separate these two. And if I'm posting this, it shows how insecure I feel about my strength. I want validation that any of this makes a difference to who I am. And so I seek challenge. I seek discomfort and put myself in places I don't like to be, I put myself in front of temptation and see how much I can resist.
I use external stimuli in the form of interactions with my peers to authenticate my internal struggle with identity and locate where I stand socially. If I know myself, I become another tool in my arsenal. I become something that can be used to effect change, to channel some of this external energy toward something better.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Responding to J
This post is actually a collection of what would be comments on my own blog posts responding to @kostylomusic's comments on my posts, but it felt weird to me to separate such a compendium of ideas, many of which are vaguely connected, to the individual posts where they would have to be searched for and read in order to find context.
If you prefer it that way, I've provided links to the original posts as sub-heads, but my responses are collected here.
Power to the Sheeple
In essence, the first part of your argument is saying that we are all the same because we are all different and so the idea of a status quo to begin with must be false; I cannot deny that. But as an idea and concept, the status quo exists, and it is one of those vague, "normalized" notions that everyone understands but no one can ever quite define.
A lot of my background in this idea of normalization of society is based in my reading of Grant Morrison's the Filth and the "Status Quo" of that graphic novel and more generally, my experience as a student journalist through high school and seeing the kind of mass media effects on our country. So when I say something is agreed upon by society I generally mean the kind of agreement you would find were you to poll the general public.
I agree that parts of me will always fit into somebody's interpretation of status quo, but do the parts make the whole? Am I as a self-identifying individual defined by the facets of myself that other people label? And here we come to an impasse, because I don't think so and wouldn't want it to be so.
But I tend to follow a very Gestaltist line of thought on these matters and perceive problems and ideas as wholes, which is why I'm always trying to connect and build what I'm learning in say Eng 227 to Eng 238 to Eng 203 to Anthro 201 to Physics, Linguistics, etc.
In short it comes down to the difference between the 1 vs 100 line of definitions and which you follow. You make a good case here that I will always fall into the status quo in some way on the individual level and that is not a bad thing, but just as anything it does not hold true the wider and broader you open that lens.
People will always be able to put me into different boxes, but it is the act of defying the box that I attempt to seek. And so it comes with a level of cognition, being able to recognize the boxes and subvert them as much or as little as is in my power and desire.
There's an egotistical, arrogant side of me that I think unavoidably flavors posts like this one because they're about me and how I view the world.
myroommate-my-profile
"So what? … What happens now, Danny? What happens now..."
Much like the silence that permeated our classes on Wednesday, I don't really have a set answer for this, Joe. The most I can tell you is what I would like to see happen, what I can see happening based on prior experience and from a combination of the two what will most likely happen.
A Sudden Exodus
And here you've asked a question I've been asking myself for months. What do I want?
And I must say, there are days when I want nothing more than escape. Because you're very right in saying that I keep myself busy as a distraction. It is easier for me to become engaged in this, that and the other thing. It's almost a demand of my extroversion that I find something to occupy my times. Idle hands are the devil's playground.
Which isn't to say I don't like being involved in the things I keep busy with. Hell, I love them to death, but recognizing them as distractions from other aspects of my life poses a problem. Because of my inborn sense of order/honor/rules I cannot willingly abandon my involvement. I've made a commitment and intend to keep it.
But what of when that ends? And I'm no longer beholden to that activity? Perhaps what I need is a little devil in my life.
We Have An Infestation
Again, we come to the question of what I want. And in this particular context, I think I prefer not to answer the first part of your comment because after talking with Kai and Andrew during our Bacon Cookie (debacle? Adventure? Whatever you feel like calling it.) we agreed that answering this first part would only ever result in an incomplete answer. I would need some kind of reflection of how they view our collective relationship. In order to fully comprehend the nature of the relationship.
Yes, a lot of this is introspection on my part and there is value in that, but the strength in that kind of observation and critique would be in comparison, with perhaps an outside observation. Perhaps Kai and Andrew (and I think Tony since he's seen us together the most) would be willing to write a small piece on this three-way interaction.
As far as the second part goes, I think you hit the nail on the head as the saying goes when you ask if I have been feeding, guesting, leeching "all along, under the mask of the host." Because when it comes down to it, is not the rule of the extrovert to do so?
Relating again back to the Bacon Cookie Adventure, I found myself tired. At my youth mentoring that I do every Thursday afternoon, I sat and watched a slideshow, nodding off.
Change my context a few hours later though, put me in a room with friends, and I'm wired. I'm still tired. I'm rhyming apparently, but I have the ability to maintain the kind of mental focus I was unable to sitting and watching a slideshow.
In short, I was feeding off the energy of the room. And I suppose technically I was not host to begin with as we were at Andrew's apartment, but this interaction really applies to all of my relationships.
If you prefer it that way, I've provided links to the original posts as sub-heads, but my responses are collected here.
Power to the Sheeple
In essence, the first part of your argument is saying that we are all the same because we are all different and so the idea of a status quo to begin with must be false; I cannot deny that. But as an idea and concept, the status quo exists, and it is one of those vague, "normalized" notions that everyone understands but no one can ever quite define.
A lot of my background in this idea of normalization of society is based in my reading of Grant Morrison's the Filth and the "Status Quo" of that graphic novel and more generally, my experience as a student journalist through high school and seeing the kind of mass media effects on our country. So when I say something is agreed upon by society I generally mean the kind of agreement you would find were you to poll the general public.
I agree that parts of me will always fit into somebody's interpretation of status quo, but do the parts make the whole? Am I as a self-identifying individual defined by the facets of myself that other people label? And here we come to an impasse, because I don't think so and wouldn't want it to be so.
But I tend to follow a very Gestaltist line of thought on these matters and perceive problems and ideas as wholes, which is why I'm always trying to connect and build what I'm learning in say Eng 227 to Eng 238 to Eng 203 to Anthro 201 to Physics, Linguistics, etc.
In short it comes down to the difference between the 1 vs 100 line of definitions and which you follow. You make a good case here that I will always fall into the status quo in some way on the individual level and that is not a bad thing, but just as anything it does not hold true the wider and broader you open that lens.
People will always be able to put me into different boxes, but it is the act of defying the box that I attempt to seek. And so it comes with a level of cognition, being able to recognize the boxes and subvert them as much or as little as is in my power and desire.
There's an egotistical, arrogant side of me that I think unavoidably flavors posts like this one because they're about me and how I view the world.
myroommate-my-profile
"So what? … What happens now, Danny? What happens now..."
Much like the silence that permeated our classes on Wednesday, I don't really have a set answer for this, Joe. The most I can tell you is what I would like to see happen, what I can see happening based on prior experience and from a combination of the two what will most likely happen.
A Sudden Exodus
And here you've asked a question I've been asking myself for months. What do I want?
And I must say, there are days when I want nothing more than escape. Because you're very right in saying that I keep myself busy as a distraction. It is easier for me to become engaged in this, that and the other thing. It's almost a demand of my extroversion that I find something to occupy my times. Idle hands are the devil's playground.
Which isn't to say I don't like being involved in the things I keep busy with. Hell, I love them to death, but recognizing them as distractions from other aspects of my life poses a problem. Because of my inborn sense of order/honor/rules I cannot willingly abandon my involvement. I've made a commitment and intend to keep it.
But what of when that ends? And I'm no longer beholden to that activity? Perhaps what I need is a little devil in my life.
We Have An Infestation
Again, we come to the question of what I want. And in this particular context, I think I prefer not to answer the first part of your comment because after talking with Kai and Andrew during our Bacon Cookie (debacle? Adventure? Whatever you feel like calling it.) we agreed that answering this first part would only ever result in an incomplete answer. I would need some kind of reflection of how they view our collective relationship. In order to fully comprehend the nature of the relationship.
Yes, a lot of this is introspection on my part and there is value in that, but the strength in that kind of observation and critique would be in comparison, with perhaps an outside observation. Perhaps Kai and Andrew (and I think Tony since he's seen us together the most) would be willing to write a small piece on this three-way interaction.
As far as the second part goes, I think you hit the nail on the head as the saying goes when you ask if I have been feeding, guesting, leeching "all along, under the mask of the host." Because when it comes down to it, is not the rule of the extrovert to do so?
Relating again back to the Bacon Cookie Adventure, I found myself tired. At my youth mentoring that I do every Thursday afternoon, I sat and watched a slideshow, nodding off.
Change my context a few hours later though, put me in a room with friends, and I'm wired. I'm still tired. I'm rhyming apparently, but I have the ability to maintain the kind of mental focus I was unable to sitting and watching a slideshow.
In short, I was feeding off the energy of the room. And I suppose technically I was not host to begin with as we were at Andrew's apartment, but this interaction really applies to all of my relationships.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Rules
I once took a personality text to define what kind of alignment I am based in the D&D rules set. http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-alignment-test1
I got Lawful Good. Some notable examples given are Superman, Sherlock Holmes and:
I was reminded of it when @Billchu13 and @Dahamburgler approached me one day while I waited for a friend for lunch and asked what alignment I thought the X-men's Magneto would fall under (for the record, I answered Lawful Evil)
I bring this up because of a recent thought brought on by my writing and then thoughts on life in general. You see, I believe rather strongly that you must know the rules in order to be able to break them. Be they the rules of the game, the rules of convention or the rules of society. Not to say that you cannot break the rules if you don't know them, but to break rules unintentionally is ignorance.
This is a matter of intention and creating meaning. The act of breaking a rule, knowing full well the consequences of your actions makes the act a political statement against the rule or system the rule represents. So there is a morality to the breaking of the rules that define our morality.
Comparing this to the ideas expressed in the Avital Ronell clip from Examined Life, we find that the honor of the Lawful Good or Lawful Evil is exactly the kind of alterity that maintains a level of consciousness about their actions. They are bound by their moral code, it is the law that obligates them to act honorably and in doing so occasionally question the higher authorities that ask of them to compromise for the greater good.
In starting over with parasites, we are effectively rewriting the rules, but this requires us to break the old rules.
Destruction is a messy process.
But so is rebuilding.
If love as Serres puts it is the great inbetween, the included and excluded third connecting two points, the parasite, then this what we are doing is an act of love. It is the chaos of noise before we habituate (there I go using that word again). This rebuilding is the fever that we talked about in class.
In that sense then, what we are doing is an intentional act. We know we are breaking the rules and are making a statement in order to create the kind of meaning we want to get from this class.
On a completely separate note:
While watching @low's clip of Melville I started thinking about Cinema as an act and how it relates to this class.
Cinema is a performance. Cinema is noise. Cinema is a "labor of love." Labor -> pregnancy -> production. See that thought process? It is the incubation and internalization of all the work being put into the production. Cinema is the intermediary between audience and director/producer in the same way a book is the intermediary between author and reader.
And it is uttered from the mouth of the actors.
I really have no idea if or how I was going to develop this any further. I just thought I'd share in case it made any of you readers felt compelled to question any of this.
I got Lawful Good. Some notable examples given are Superman, Sherlock Holmes and:
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
I was reminded of it when @Billchu13 and @Dahamburgler approached me one day while I waited for a friend for lunch and asked what alignment I thought the X-men's Magneto would fall under (for the record, I answered Lawful Evil)
I bring this up because of a recent thought brought on by my writing and then thoughts on life in general. You see, I believe rather strongly that you must know the rules in order to be able to break them. Be they the rules of the game, the rules of convention or the rules of society. Not to say that you cannot break the rules if you don't know them, but to break rules unintentionally is ignorance.
This is a matter of intention and creating meaning. The act of breaking a rule, knowing full well the consequences of your actions makes the act a political statement against the rule or system the rule represents. So there is a morality to the breaking of the rules that define our morality.
Comparing this to the ideas expressed in the Avital Ronell clip from Examined Life, we find that the honor of the Lawful Good or Lawful Evil is exactly the kind of alterity that maintains a level of consciousness about their actions. They are bound by their moral code, it is the law that obligates them to act honorably and in doing so occasionally question the higher authorities that ask of them to compromise for the greater good.
In starting over with parasites, we are effectively rewriting the rules, but this requires us to break the old rules.
Destruction is a messy process.
But so is rebuilding.
If love as Serres puts it is the great inbetween, the included and excluded third connecting two points, the parasite, then this what we are doing is an act of love. It is the chaos of noise before we habituate (there I go using that word again). This rebuilding is the fever that we talked about in class.
In that sense then, what we are doing is an intentional act. We know we are breaking the rules and are making a statement in order to create the kind of meaning we want to get from this class.
On a completely separate note:
While watching @low's clip of Melville I started thinking about Cinema as an act and how it relates to this class.
Cinema is a performance. Cinema is noise. Cinema is a "labor of love." Labor -> pregnancy -> production. See that thought process? It is the incubation and internalization of all the work being put into the production. Cinema is the intermediary between audience and director/producer in the same way a book is the intermediary between author and reader.
And it is uttered from the mouth of the actors.
I really have no idea if or how I was going to develop this any further. I just thought I'd share in case it made any of you readers felt compelled to question any of this.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Autodidactism
The best way I could describe any class I've had with Tony Prichard would be to call it encouraged autodidactism. You get the most out of it if you use the class not as an end, but as a starting point.
Autodidact, from the Greek meaning self-taught.
After watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox last week, I plurked about Tony's methods and was promptly asked if I was a TA. I was quick to correct Halfdome and say that I wasn't, but I can fully understand where he could get that idea. Whether I mean to or not, I have a way of stating my opinions with a kind of force that comes across as either knowledgeable or arrogant depending on whether or not I actually know what I'm talking about.
I'm an autodidact of patterns and connections. Gestault -- whom I've brought up previously -- would be my chosen school of psychology. I observe. I watch. I see. I listen. There will always be a part of my consciousness paying attention and squirreling information away for future comparison.
You say 2. They say 2. I can usually figure out together you're making 4.
Now that I'm actually thinking about it, this probably explains why I love film noir so much, but I digress.
Parasites, much like it's predecessor, Nanotexts, and I'm sure the majority of the other English classes Tony has taught where a majority of the course work takes place outside of the formal classroom setting, lends itself especially well to the autodidactic.
http://www.plurk.com/p/3mr7ne
Assignments like our blog posts and thought experiments with rather loosely defined prompts offer themselves towards the kind of self-induced exploration of ideas that most traditional midterm-and-research-paper English classes fail at providing for.
@nanotext mentioned the idea of multiplex consciousness in an offhand plurk back in December while I was enrolled in the GLBT Literature course. It was an example of his thoughts of the moment, that fleeting experience of multiplicity as many windows opened not only through into this digital world of plurk and wave and blogs, but also into the mind. Nanotext has multiplex consciousness.
Like one of those thought parasites, this small idea infected me and remained nearby, a postulation on the sense of identity tickling me as the Fool developed.
So when we came to our thought experiment, it seemed only natural that my exploration would be into multiplexity and how it relates to this parasite of the mind. Some of the best reading I've done for this class has not come from the assigned texts, but the supplementary books I have found within Tony's library and online and drawing the lines that I saw connecting them.
But at the same time, there exists a danger in this. Distraction and interruption. Diversion. It's a fickle balancing act between staying focused at the task -- in this case readings -- at hand and those supplementary articles that we devour alongside them.
I can tell already you see where I'm going with this. The word is on your lips. With all his talk of eating and shared tables, Serres has trained you well in identifying these parasites.
Autodidact, from the Greek meaning self-taught.
After watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox last week, I plurked about Tony's methods and was promptly asked if I was a TA. I was quick to correct Halfdome and say that I wasn't, but I can fully understand where he could get that idea. Whether I mean to or not, I have a way of stating my opinions with a kind of force that comes across as either knowledgeable or arrogant depending on whether or not I actually know what I'm talking about.
I'm an autodidact of patterns and connections. Gestault -- whom I've brought up previously -- would be my chosen school of psychology. I observe. I watch. I see. I listen. There will always be a part of my consciousness paying attention and squirreling information away for future comparison.
You say 2. They say 2. I can usually figure out together you're making 4.
Now that I'm actually thinking about it, this probably explains why I love film noir so much, but I digress.
Parasites, much like it's predecessor, Nanotexts, and I'm sure the majority of the other English classes Tony has taught where a majority of the course work takes place outside of the formal classroom setting, lends itself especially well to the autodidactic.
http://www.plurk.com/p/3mr7ne
Assignments like our blog posts and thought experiments with rather loosely defined prompts offer themselves towards the kind of self-induced exploration of ideas that most traditional midterm-and-research-paper English classes fail at providing for.
@nanotext mentioned the idea of multiplex consciousness in an offhand plurk back in December while I was enrolled in the GLBT Literature course. It was an example of his thoughts of the moment, that fleeting experience of multiplicity as many windows opened not only through into this digital world of plurk and wave and blogs, but also into the mind. Nanotext has multiplex consciousness.
Like one of those thought parasites, this small idea infected me and remained nearby, a postulation on the sense of identity tickling me as the Fool developed.
So when we came to our thought experiment, it seemed only natural that my exploration would be into multiplexity and how it relates to this parasite of the mind. Some of the best reading I've done for this class has not come from the assigned texts, but the supplementary books I have found within Tony's library and online and drawing the lines that I saw connecting them.
But at the same time, there exists a danger in this. Distraction and interruption. Diversion. It's a fickle balancing act between staying focused at the task -- in this case readings -- at hand and those supplementary articles that we devour alongside them.
I can tell already you see where I'm going with this. The word is on your lips. With all his talk of eating and shared tables, Serres has trained you well in identifying these parasites.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a Parasite
You really didn't think Tony chose to show the Fantastic Mr. Fox to class just because he loves the movie, right? Sure, that might be the reason why he chose it over other movies that well could have been viable options. Or maybe I'm just paranoid with any decisions Tony makes regarding all content of the course. I've learned not to underestimate the potential for ulterior motives.
Regardless, Mr. Fox is not only a parasite, but he has been infect by some rather nasty ones.
On a basic level, and here I refer to my readings with Serres' Parasites, Mr. Fox is a parasite. The whole movie is about his ability to steal from and feed off of the human farmers: Boggis, Bunce and Beans.
We want him to win because he's cute and witty and fun whereas they're cold and mean, but like Serres relays, Mr. Fox is the rat at the tax-collector's table, "a guest at an interrupted banquet."
The noise that sends the fox away is the rather extreme of his tree home being bulldozed into oblivion.
http://www.plurk.com/p/3lakp1
Look at the second image @vladislavxodasevic posted on this plurk. Now, tell me, how does that compare to this image of Mr. Fox:
Mr. Fox is infected with us, our thoughts, our anthropomorphic ideals. Like our good friend The Tomcat Murr, he is become human and this sets him and his furry compatriots apart from the rest of the world.
It repeatedly comes up in the dialogue of the movie that Mr. Fox has what he calls a phobia of wolves. They terrify him for reasons that are never completely spoken. However, when we see the wolf at the end of the movie, Mr. Fox does not react with what we would imagine to be phobic fear, but rather a kind of logical interest.
He greets it in English, Latin and French and receives no answers. As foils, Mr. Fox and the Wolf represent opposites of the animal spectrum. Where Mr. Fox is completely anthropomorphized and infected with human thought, the Wolf is wild. Mr. Fox wears clothes and walks upright. The Wolf runs on all fours.
It could be said then that Mr. Fox has a phobia not of wolves, but of the wild nature that the wolves represent. He is the epitome of the anthropomorphized, he is essentially human and the wolf then is everything he is not in that sense.
Regardless, Mr. Fox is not only a parasite, but he has been infect by some rather nasty ones.
On a basic level, and here I refer to my readings with Serres' Parasites, Mr. Fox is a parasite. The whole movie is about his ability to steal from and feed off of the human farmers: Boggis, Bunce and Beans.
We want him to win because he's cute and witty and fun whereas they're cold and mean, but like Serres relays, Mr. Fox is the rat at the tax-collector's table, "a guest at an interrupted banquet."
The noise that sends the fox away is the rather extreme of his tree home being bulldozed into oblivion.
http://www.plurk.com/p/3lakp1
Look at the second image @vladislavxodasevic posted on this plurk. Now, tell me, how does that compare to this image of Mr. Fox:
Mr. Fox is infected with us, our thoughts, our anthropomorphic ideals. Like our good friend The Tomcat Murr, he is become human and this sets him and his furry compatriots apart from the rest of the world.
It repeatedly comes up in the dialogue of the movie that Mr. Fox has what he calls a phobia of wolves. They terrify him for reasons that are never completely spoken. However, when we see the wolf at the end of the movie, Mr. Fox does not react with what we would imagine to be phobic fear, but rather a kind of logical interest.
He greets it in English, Latin and French and receives no answers. As foils, Mr. Fox and the Wolf represent opposites of the animal spectrum. Where Mr. Fox is completely anthropomorphized and infected with human thought, the Wolf is wild. Mr. Fox wears clothes and walks upright. The Wolf runs on all fours.
It could be said then that Mr. Fox has a phobia not of wolves, but of the wild nature that the wolves represent. He is the epitome of the anthropomorphized, he is essentially human and the wolf then is everything he is not in that sense.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Some notes on blogging
I've been a casual blogger for going on three years now, and I feel like I've learned a few things. For example: the people you want to read your posts will read them regardless of length; however, if you only post text, you limit the medium of blogging.
I've p-lurked around a few of the Parasites blogs (a more or less full list can be seen here: http://nanotexts.blogspot.com/), and I'm liking what I'm seeing. Ideas are flowing. There isn't quite as much feedback as any of us would like, but I think that's a continual problem in a class like this. But I wanted to share something with the parasites.
Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
Blogging as a way of disseminating information opens possibilities because you are not limited in the way that a hard copy paper is limited, which is one reason I really enjoy that Tony utilizes it as a main format for writing.
Hyperlinks, embedded videos and pictures all offer the possibility of a greater, and here I mean that in the sense of greater as larger, experience for the reader. I'm not saying it's necessary to include these things, but I think it would be foolish to neglect them as available tools to work with. You wouldn't use the heel of your shoe on a nail if you have a hammer within reach, would you?
So post, play and explore the possibilities of this medium known as blogging. Especially if you're feeling stuck on what to say next.
I've p-lurked around a few of the Parasites blogs (a more or less full list can be seen here: http://nanotexts.blogspot.com/), and I'm liking what I'm seeing. Ideas are flowing. There isn't quite as much feedback as any of us would like, but I think that's a continual problem in a class like this. But I wanted to share something with the parasites.
Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
Blogging as a way of disseminating information opens possibilities because you are not limited in the way that a hard copy paper is limited, which is one reason I really enjoy that Tony utilizes it as a main format for writing.
So post, play and explore the possibilities of this medium known as blogging. Especially if you're feeling stuck on what to say next.
Monday, January 25, 2010
So I'm reading this book, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr.
And it's made me think.
Love is a parasite.
That interrupts your thoughts.
"'Oh, Chiara - my Chiara!' he cried out in the most painful grief. " Abraham is infected as he debates with Madame Benzon, and his love cries out, interrupting his statements against the frailty of the woman's heart.
We find examples of this same kind of interruption as we explore more of the happenings surrounding Julia and Princess Hedwiga, even our dear Tomcat Murr as each is interrupted by thoughts of Kreisler or Herr Hector or Kitty respectively.
Like the earworms I discussed in an earlier blog post, this love wriggles its way in and replicates itself, replacing what thoughts you would otherwise have. It is virus. It is an infective agent.
In parallels to the blood parasite of Shivers, it overrides rational thought.
So I now wonder, what is the parasite we're dealing with in Tomcat Murr? Why would Tony choose this as a text? Merely to bring up Toxoplasma Gondii seems a great deal of work for a rather small reference.
I can't shake the thought that there is a parasite hiding in this text that I'm missing. Something bigger among the ideas and tropes presented. Perhaps I'm infected with it already.
And it's made me think.
Love is a parasite.
That interrupts your thoughts.
"'Oh, Chiara - my Chiara!' he cried out in the most painful grief. " Abraham is infected as he debates with Madame Benzon, and his love cries out, interrupting his statements against the frailty of the woman's heart.
We find examples of this same kind of interruption as we explore more of the happenings surrounding Julia and Princess Hedwiga, even our dear Tomcat Murr as each is interrupted by thoughts of Kreisler or Herr Hector or Kitty respectively.
Like the earworms I discussed in an earlier blog post, this love wriggles its way in and replicates itself, replacing what thoughts you would otherwise have. It is virus. It is an infective agent.
In parallels to the blood parasite of Shivers, it overrides rational thought.
So I now wonder, what is the parasite we're dealing with in Tomcat Murr? Why would Tony choose this as a text? Merely to bring up Toxoplasma Gondii seems a great deal of work for a rather small reference.
I can't shake the thought that there is a parasite hiding in this text that I'm missing. Something bigger among the ideas and tropes presented. Perhaps I'm infected with it already.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Earworms, soundbytes and other afflictions of the mind
If you're familiar at all with Doctor Who, you did indeed hear that in your head in the voice of David Tennant's tenth incarnation of the Doctor.
The power of suggestion in these sorts of situations is strong. Words and images are agents of infection.
William S. Burroughs says it very succinctly here: Word is virus.
And the virus is the infection of thoughts and ideas.
It's not quite so sinister as
but, what if I were to post something like this:
I'm guessing you saw the title and had some sort of visceral reaction of "No way in hell am I clicking on that." Whether you watched the video or not, you've just been Rickroll'd. The power of suggestion.
I started exploring this idea earlier in a plurk: http://www.plurk.com/p/3cle13 and you can see from Betzi's reaction exactly how powerful that kind of suggestion is.
All it take is the small seed, the idea of an idea to make you think.
Now, you ask, how does this relate to parasites? That is, after all, why I'm blogging about this.
It has to do with two trees and two serpents.
The first pair shared a parasitic relationship. Nidhogg lays at the base of the world-tree Yggdrasil, gnawing at the roots, sucking the life out of the very world he inhabits.
The second serpent roosted not at the base of the tree, but dwelt amongst the branches. Revelations called him Satan and the Devil, but so far as I know, no name was officially given in the stories of Genesis. He -- and I use this pronoun loosely -- offered us the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He infected us with ideas.
And though these two serpents are reflections of each other from very different mythologies, it is their parallels that lead me to believe that within certain contexts, they can represent much the same thing. Namely, the serpent-parasite as knowledge. If they can be taken as the same serpent, one attains knowledge directly from the tree. He is parasite to the tree, but the tree reacts. He becomes infected with this pathogen of words. And as is his imperative then, he spreads it, furthering the contamination of the tree itself.
And perhaps the tree as a source of ideas by "God" is meant as a warning, which is why it would be made forbidden, which is why as the world tree it would encompass anything and everything.
We live such internal lives, creating false realities of the mind, much like this blog or plurk. Each timeline could then represent the internal reality of the plurker, specifically the internal reality as formed by their ideas.
This brings me, finally, to earworms.
Earworm: a song that gets stuck in your head. The earworm wriggles its way in and aggressively holds its place against any and all challenges. They feed on our thoughts, replacing them with lyrics and melodies. And sometimes the mere suggestion of a song is enough to implant the worm in your mind.
They are parasites upon the parasite of our thoughts.
Earworms are contagious. But as Betzi said in the above linked plurk, "It does beg the question, though: why share an earworm?"
Perhaps it is not the decision of the host, those afflicted by the song in question, but the earworm itself, wishing to replicate itself as ideas are wont to do. All I had to do was post a link to the Rick Astley song, make you see the title and it was enough to put the entire song in your head (assuming of course that you know the song or internet meme). Music is never a "mere suggestion" after all, if you know the tune it is almost instantly playing in your head.
Earworms are our modern snakes.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Avatar or an exploration into the word gratuitous
I realize that I say this at risk to my own well-being, but I did not like Avatar. This is not to say that I did not enjoy myself or find it entertaining, but it did not live up to its hype and as a work of cinema I found it overly epic.
To be honest, parts were pretty damn good. I will admit that. I'm impressed that they spared no expense to get what they got right, right. The Na'vi language was an impressive linguistic endeavor (I await the day people start speaking it like they do Klingon/Elvish). The graphics and animation were by far some of the best I've seen in quite a while, but…
watching it in 3-D didn't really add anything to it. Sure there was depth, and? I cannot justify why any movie would ever be 3-D. I think I'll wait until someone comes out with a full on hologram image movie before I spend the extra money on this again. Do something new, something interesting with the medium or spare me your special effects and keep it flat. If it's good, it should speak for itself.
A plurker, angst4less made some pretty good points here: http://www.plurk.com/p/3bae0d
This was a movie made to appeal to the masses and to get their attention with its message. It did this, the whole environmental thing was played off far better than the cutesy Disney-Pixar Wall-E, but would it kill them for some subtlety? Ooh, wow, big bad militant corporate machine is gonna kill the beautiful world. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but give me a twist, give me a story, give me something unexpected! I'm spoiled from my literary endeavors, I need depth.
What bugged me the most though was that the entire movie was such an etically spawned creation of the xenoist humans that made it. Yes, it's a fucking movie, get over it, Danny, but if you're going to realistically depict an alien culture and ecology, stick with that. Why do the sentient species have to be so goddamned human?
To explain my displeasure, if you paid attention to the biology of the fauna on Pandora you would likely have noticed a few common traits amongst the various species shown that do not translate over to the Na'vi. Most noticeably it can be seen in the eyes and legs. Almost all the creatures encountered are hexopodal and had four eyes. The fact that they all have some kind of tentacles/antennae carrying a direct cerebral interface of nerves suggest a common ancestor. So why do the Na'vi look so human?
To quote a Wikipedia article on the creatures of the movie:
"In addition to feline features, the species was redesigned to look more like humans so audiences could relate to them better. Cameron said that Avatar was more "science fantasy" than true science fiction and said that he would explain in the novel for the film why in the fictional universe the Na'vi look like humans."
Someone please get me this book adaptation, because it bugged the crap out of me. The way I see it, they're watering it down for their mainstream audience that can't stomach something being different and original and, oh yeah, maybe a little realistic in their fantastic little playworlds.
Still, I did get something interesting out of this movie, and that was the idea of the moon essentially being a giant neural network. It was a superorganism of the most badass kind. Based on the movie, it seems Avatar's creators claim the planet is not conscious, that as the character Neytiri said at the Tree of Souls, Eywa does not choose sides.
This may be well and true, but as an interconnected ecosystem, the natural response would be to fight back against intruding systems. It's the immune system of white blood cells and lymphocytes, etc on a macro scale. Stir the ant's colony or the hornet's nest and they will swarm you.
Feed them with pretty imagery and empty plots and they'll remain the docile creatures they are, shelling out money for more. Insert some culturally and universally exhausted "message" that people might respond to because they've been conditioned to agree with it otherwise they're horrible human beings, and you're golden.
Okay, now that the ranting is out of my system, let's take another look at this.
Humanity are the bad guys in this movie. Ooh, now that's different. Usually in alien movies, it is the outsiders with the giant machine coming in to wipe out the technologically inferior human race. But it's a harsh truth on our Western culture that we are the destroyers. If history has proven anything, it's that we live up to this capitalist image. We are the invading conquerors.
And so the only enemy we face is ourselves. If nothing else then, this movie puts up a fun house mirror showing humanity at our worst. But the question is, do we see this? Like the animalistic vampire, are we incapable of the introspection necessary to overcome our downfall? Are we, as a race, as a species, blind to our own capabilities?
For a movie like this to come out, clearly not on the individual levels, but what of the superorganism of humanity? Governments and societies and cultures. I think enlightened, or gaining that enlightenment. We know something is wrong and needs to be fixed, but as I'm learning in my health class, fixing the problem is only a temporary step. For there to be long term, sustainable change, you must change attitudes and all the small actions that led up to the problem in the first place.
Taken on the macro scale of a civilization, it means we must start with ourselves. It is why I laugh at all this news about Peace Talks and Environmental Summits. They won't work because they do not address the issue at hand. And we see this in Avatar. Diplomacy fails and the two clashing cultures resort to war.
So war is the only answer we have. Or rather, the only one we choose consistently. So no, we are ignorant beasts no better or worse than the savages we claim to lord above. But at least we know what we are.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Twilight: An Addiction, or Why I Will Never Read That Series
So I've been reading this book, Crack Wars by Avital Ronell that Tony --
Nanotext? Professor Prichard? The lines of formality have been so blurred that I don't really know how to refer to him anymore. I mean, I'm working on a collaborative novel with him and a bunch of other people, and as such have been to his house and met his wife and daughter but am still going to be in a classroom setting with him as the "authority" figure next quarter in Parasites. Quite frankly I see him more as a friend and mentor than as a teacher. But I'm getting off topic.
that Tony gave me to read a little over a month back. It's been slow going, mostly because I've only opened it sporadically when I wasn't running back and forth from one activity to another or studying for my actual classes. It's all about literature and addiction, and addiction as a parasitic entity. A drug, or rather something you can be addicted to, does not necessitate the use of chemicals, it is more complex than a chemical reaction, but can be anything that sustains the interplay between want, need, choice, freedom: drawing toward but never quite crossing the line in that suicidal euphoric rush of death.
But today I woke up, sat down and really started to get into it.
That is until I came across an annotation posing the question, "Who are we when we write? drug dealers? pharmacists? output's quality depends on your skill." This of course made me laugh as I thought of the author of the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyer. For her blatantly terrible books with their anti-feminist images (stalker vampire, possessive werewolf, weakling heroine) to seduce so many readers, many of whom are educated, respectable feminists, she can't be a writer. All the good authors are terribly difficult to read at times and yet are still considered undeniably good despite and because of any criticism they may receive. Meyer on the other hand is merely addictive.
I went to a panel the other week where her works were described as a relationship. You become involved with the books much in the same way you became involved with that stupid 15-year-old boy/girl who broke your heart back in middle school. But such a relationship isn't really a relationship. It's an addiction. There is an interplay (my I like using that word) of power dynamics in which you seek to appease and acquire that which you want.
So in a sense, she's a drug dealer, peddling to the masses of capitalist America. She isn't wholly to blame, her agent and her publishing company and the movies all play a big role in that as well, but as a writer, she's nothing more than a pusher for her romanticized, impossible, idealized, fantasy world. I cannot support that. There is so much more richness to be found in the reality I perceive around me, I don't want to waste my time. If I'm going for escapism, I'm going to take a little more fun without such unhealthy undertones. Give me fairy tales where at least you can learn from the darkness you encounter.
Nanotext? Professor Prichard? The lines of formality have been so blurred that I don't really know how to refer to him anymore. I mean, I'm working on a collaborative novel with him and a bunch of other people, and as such have been to his house and met his wife and daughter but am still going to be in a classroom setting with him as the "authority" figure next quarter in Parasites. Quite frankly I see him more as a friend and mentor than as a teacher. But I'm getting off topic.that Tony gave me to read a little over a month back. It's been slow going, mostly because I've only opened it sporadically when I wasn't running back and forth from one activity to another or studying for my actual classes. It's all about literature and addiction, and addiction as a parasitic entity. A drug, or rather something you can be addicted to, does not necessitate the use of chemicals, it is more complex than a chemical reaction, but can be anything that sustains the interplay between want, need, choice, freedom: drawing toward but never quite crossing the line in that suicidal euphoric rush of death.
But today I woke up, sat down and really started to get into it.
That is until I came across an annotation posing the question, "Who are we when we write? drug dealers? pharmacists? output's quality depends on your skill." This of course made me laugh as I thought of the author of the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyer. For her blatantly terrible books with their anti-feminist images (stalker vampire, possessive werewolf, weakling heroine) to seduce so many readers, many of whom are educated, respectable feminists, she can't be a writer. All the good authors are terribly difficult to read at times and yet are still considered undeniably good despite and because of any criticism they may receive. Meyer on the other hand is merely addictive.
I went to a panel the other week where her works were described as a relationship. You become involved with the books much in the same way you became involved with that stupid 15-year-old boy/girl who broke your heart back in middle school. But such a relationship isn't really a relationship. It's an addiction. There is an interplay (my I like using that word) of power dynamics in which you seek to appease and acquire that which you want.
So in a sense, she's a drug dealer, peddling to the masses of capitalist America. She isn't wholly to blame, her agent and her publishing company and the movies all play a big role in that as well, but as a writer, she's nothing more than a pusher for her romanticized, impossible, idealized, fantasy world. I cannot support that. There is so much more richness to be found in the reality I perceive around me, I don't want to waste my time. If I'm going for escapism, I'm going to take a little more fun without such unhealthy undertones. Give me fairy tales where at least you can learn from the darkness you encounter.
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