thinking about the two classes i am taking and pomo in general, i wrote this to my new sci-fi prof.
I am worried that the class concentrates too much on the text, I am so used to reading under and around book, not noticing if they are "good" or "bad" but important and not important (and even then that sets up a binary)
and arguing for an exteme empriicsm in my christian scripture class (ie nothing is knowable)
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
email from the vv., no such luck- content not style.
cannot find the phone # for the resturant of the birthday dinner, and the adress may be for another rest. scared that this will be a fuck up- the bowling is already a kybosh, and i cant afford the treat bags, and i dont know how many people are coming b/c i havent had one rsvp- and a bunch of people are working or broke.
god this will be disaster.
cannot find the phone # for the resturant of the birthday dinner, and the adress may be for another rest. scared that this will be a fuck up- the bowling is already a kybosh, and i cant afford the treat bags, and i dont know how many people are coming b/c i havent had one rsvp- and a bunch of people are working or broke.
god this will be disaster.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
So, now that we’ve got a war against terrorism, Bush, Blair and company are
tying it all together. It’s not a war against an ideology or tactic but a
war against those evil people who brought the twin towers down, so it’s all
OK. Saddam Hussein has ties to al Quaeda and is a terrorist, those in
Chechnya have ties to al Quaeda and are terrorists, those who bombed Bali,
Muslim professors, drug dealers—all of them are terrorists who hate America,
who are tied with radical Islam and need to be dealt with post haste.
There’s a problem here—well, several, but the most immediate is a really
lousy definition of terror. What qualifies? The West has tied ideas of
liberation to violence. The second amendment of the US constitution calls
for the right of a population to rise up with "well formed militias." France
celebrates Bastille Day as a national holiday—the storming of the Bastille
was the start of a revolution that contained something they called the
"Reign of Terror." We still talk of this kind of violence—in a speech given
this month to a military base in Virginia, Bush talked about liberating the
Iraqi people with bombs.
Terrorism is an ideological distinction: it means "those people who use the
tools of statecraft without owning a state," and they’re often in
desperation. People talk about the suicide bombers in Palestine as
terrorists, but they commit violence because their attempts to gain land
have been suppressed. The non-violent attempts at solving this problem—the
Camp David accords under Carter and the agreements between Rabin and Arafat
under Clinton—have not been effective, but that’s mostly because peaceful
solutions rarely work.
If a peaceful solution was successful in the twentieth century it was
because they were the safer of two options for a government nervous about
insurgency- Look at Gandhi or Martin Luther King Junior or Mandela. Who was the FBI more likely to give concessions to? Martin Luther King, with his utopian vision and non violence, or Malcolm X, who gave a speech called /The Ballot Box or The Bullet/ (to reduce things to their most simple, he favored the bullet) or divided people into "House Niggers" and "Field Niggers"—those who gave in to the dominant racism and those who fought against it? Or there was the South Western Township of Johannesburg, an all black forced ghetto where those who refused to revolt were disciplined with burning tires around their neck, and Winnie Mandela was one of the perpetuators. Even Gandhi was more peaceful at his time and place, the more dangerous option were Hindu nationalists who threatened to blow up trains and mentions. This is not to suggest that violence is a positive, just that it tends to be effective because the state understands it, and perhaps it is only because there were two options made these pacifist movements effective.
The little difference between the violence of the state and the violence of those who are stateless, and the proof that combat is effective as liberation is disheartening to those who work for a peaceful solution. The only way to prevent violence is to recognize that it exists for Bush and for Arafat, for J Edgar Hoover and for Malcolm X, but to make it and us versus them, a good use of violence against an evil use of violence is absurd. What we need to do, and the only way to progress is to deny all violence. This will force a third way, between those who have and those who have not and cause genuine change.
tying it all together. It’s not a war against an ideology or tactic but a
war against those evil people who brought the twin towers down, so it’s all
OK. Saddam Hussein has ties to al Quaeda and is a terrorist, those in
Chechnya have ties to al Quaeda and are terrorists, those who bombed Bali,
Muslim professors, drug dealers—all of them are terrorists who hate America,
who are tied with radical Islam and need to be dealt with post haste.
There’s a problem here—well, several, but the most immediate is a really
lousy definition of terror. What qualifies? The West has tied ideas of
liberation to violence. The second amendment of the US constitution calls
for the right of a population to rise up with "well formed militias." France
celebrates Bastille Day as a national holiday—the storming of the Bastille
was the start of a revolution that contained something they called the
"Reign of Terror." We still talk of this kind of violence—in a speech given
this month to a military base in Virginia, Bush talked about liberating the
Iraqi people with bombs.
Terrorism is an ideological distinction: it means "those people who use the
tools of statecraft without owning a state," and they’re often in
desperation. People talk about the suicide bombers in Palestine as
terrorists, but they commit violence because their attempts to gain land
have been suppressed. The non-violent attempts at solving this problem—the
Camp David accords under Carter and the agreements between Rabin and Arafat
under Clinton—have not been effective, but that’s mostly because peaceful
solutions rarely work.
If a peaceful solution was successful in the twentieth century it was
because they were the safer of two options for a government nervous about
insurgency- Look at Gandhi or Martin Luther King Junior or Mandela. Who was the FBI more likely to give concessions to? Martin Luther King, with his utopian vision and non violence, or Malcolm X, who gave a speech called /The Ballot Box or The Bullet/ (to reduce things to their most simple, he favored the bullet) or divided people into "House Niggers" and "Field Niggers"—those who gave in to the dominant racism and those who fought against it? Or there was the South Western Township of Johannesburg, an all black forced ghetto where those who refused to revolt were disciplined with burning tires around their neck, and Winnie Mandela was one of the perpetuators. Even Gandhi was more peaceful at his time and place, the more dangerous option were Hindu nationalists who threatened to blow up trains and mentions. This is not to suggest that violence is a positive, just that it tends to be effective because the state understands it, and perhaps it is only because there were two options made these pacifist movements effective.
The little difference between the violence of the state and the violence of those who are stateless, and the proof that combat is effective as liberation is disheartening to those who work for a peaceful solution. The only way to prevent violence is to recognize that it exists for Bush and for Arafat, for J Edgar Hoover and for Malcolm X, but to make it and us versus them, a good use of violence against an evil use of violence is absurd. What we need to do, and the only way to progress is to deny all violence. This will force a third way, between those who have and those who have not and cause genuine change.
Monday, January 06, 2003
January 6, 2003
I got quite an e-mail this morning from Anthony Easton:
You don't know me, but I was surfing tonight – thinking about God, wanting to abandon him and wondering why after reading Foucault, Derrida and Lacan, after absorbing the postmodern ethos, why I still go to church – why I can't jettision my faith.
I don't have an answer, and I don't have an answer to why I am Christian in the first place. I read your essay by random (by the holy spirit?) and I wanted to tell you that it moved me to tears, I'm not sure it changed my life or my thinking-I still struggle, but maybe it was the first pebble in a landslide.
Well, I'm glad I know you now. After reading one of your posts, I have a feeling the Theological FAQ entry you read was this one of mine. In that case, it must have been the Holy Spirit, because I don't know who else could see you through reading such a rambling, rhetorically clumsy post. (Then again, if you've made it through Derrida....)
Maybe your remarkable journey has brought you to Church and refuses to leave, despite your exposure to all that continental postmodernist chaff, because in your heart you know the liturgy is more real than trendy nihilistic lit-crit, more real than atomizing and isolating modern liberalism from which those schools still drink so deeply, more real than all the fleeting capital and social power and lust that consume our attention and finally our souls, more real than the bland sentimentality that passes for spirituality in our culture, more real than all those who thunder with rants and bombs and rolled eyes against its small but insistent voice.
"Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." What else needs to be said? The finest minds of the West say nothing comparable to those three staggering claims. I think you still go to Church because God draws you there, to hear and eat and drink and live those visible words with your brothers and sisters, to give you life and purpose and patience with our world's agonies while you and all the other people of God wait and work together for creation's perfection.
Jesus loves you, Mr. Easton. No deconstructionist can take him off of that cross, or take him away from the Father's bosom, or take the taste of that eucharistic wine from your lips, or take you off his mind. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Live in that love and you will truly live. Leave it and, well, you're stuck with Foucault.
Thanks so much for your e-mail. My apologies if I'm being too presumptuous or preachy. I do hope a landslide is coming. My family will be praying for it. Write any time!
I got quite an e-mail this morning from Anthony Easton:
You don't know me, but I was surfing tonight – thinking about God, wanting to abandon him and wondering why after reading Foucault, Derrida and Lacan, after absorbing the postmodern ethos, why I still go to church – why I can't jettision my faith.
I don't have an answer, and I don't have an answer to why I am Christian in the first place. I read your essay by random (by the holy spirit?) and I wanted to tell you that it moved me to tears, I'm not sure it changed my life or my thinking-I still struggle, but maybe it was the first pebble in a landslide.
Well, I'm glad I know you now. After reading one of your posts, I have a feeling the Theological FAQ entry you read was this one of mine. In that case, it must have been the Holy Spirit, because I don't know who else could see you through reading such a rambling, rhetorically clumsy post. (Then again, if you've made it through Derrida....)
Maybe your remarkable journey has brought you to Church and refuses to leave, despite your exposure to all that continental postmodernist chaff, because in your heart you know the liturgy is more real than trendy nihilistic lit-crit, more real than atomizing and isolating modern liberalism from which those schools still drink so deeply, more real than all the fleeting capital and social power and lust that consume our attention and finally our souls, more real than the bland sentimentality that passes for spirituality in our culture, more real than all those who thunder with rants and bombs and rolled eyes against its small but insistent voice.
"Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." What else needs to be said? The finest minds of the West say nothing comparable to those three staggering claims. I think you still go to Church because God draws you there, to hear and eat and drink and live those visible words with your brothers and sisters, to give you life and purpose and patience with our world's agonies while you and all the other people of God wait and work together for creation's perfection.
Jesus loves you, Mr. Easton. No deconstructionist can take him off of that cross, or take him away from the Father's bosom, or take the taste of that eucharistic wine from your lips, or take you off his mind. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Live in that love and you will truly live. Leave it and, well, you're stuck with Foucault.
Thanks so much for your e-mail. My apologies if I'm being too presumptuous or preachy. I do hope a landslide is coming. My family will be praying for it. Write any time!
My idea:
Goddard(sp) wanked over american film, bogart et al, but felt guilty and recreated it- or alluded to it subtly, or almost mocked it.
Vadim loved american film from the gut, he made films with tits and ass and with pleasure. with american actresses not as a way to analyze but as a way to say thank you.
compare how Vadim uses Fonda in Barberlla- as an english speaking sex kitten as a blonde bombshell as the authentic version ( ie only americans were blonde bombshells) of bardot ( in fact he recreated And God Created Women in 1979 with DeMornay) with how Goddard uses Seberg (as a francophone, as one who is masculinzed, as one who talks instead of fucks, who rejected hollywood)
Goddard(sp) wanked over american film, bogart et al, but felt guilty and recreated it- or alluded to it subtly, or almost mocked it.
Vadim loved american film from the gut, he made films with tits and ass and with pleasure. with american actresses not as a way to analyze but as a way to say thank you.
compare how Vadim uses Fonda in Barberlla- as an english speaking sex kitten as a blonde bombshell as the authentic version ( ie only americans were blonde bombshells) of bardot ( in fact he recreated And God Created Women in 1979 with DeMornay) with how Goddard uses Seberg (as a francophone, as one who is masculinzed, as one who talks instead of fucks, who rejected hollywood)
Sunday, January 05, 2003
DOAs discontinuing the columns. I wish i cared more, but frankly glad to get it over with. Working on other things, sent something into the journal eds, and vv. southside call box will post something of mine next week, Toms mailing me me the moz peice back so I can rewrite it-why do i feel like shit ?
Saturday, January 04, 2003
Hedieh Tehrani- a muslim and iranian, who has acted in some of the most moving films from its burgoning scene, and has become somewhat of a cult figure, goes out like she should- clad in full chador and is only on screen in full chador- that is unless she is on vaction.
When on vaction is she clad like this
This reminds me of an article i read in W or Dutch(memory shot, away from my boxes) about the new buyers of Coutre- and most of the buyers of risque or adventorus coutre (ie Galliono for Dior, JPG, LeCroix) are the wives of Saudi Princes
and also an article about the lingre counters in ridyah most expensive shops, where lace is not uncommon
what are the politics of this ?
When on vaction is she clad like this
This reminds me of an article i read in W or Dutch(memory shot, away from my boxes) about the new buyers of Coutre- and most of the buyers of risque or adventorus coutre (ie Galliono for Dior, JPG, LeCroix) are the wives of Saudi Princes
and also an article about the lingre counters in ridyah most expensive shops, where lace is not uncommon
what are the politics of this ?
Friday, January 03, 2003
Thursday, January 02, 2003
These are portals as well. They palm pilot attached to a joystick. It provide a couple of things If you moves left,right,up and down. It needs to belong to the group in question then be used with great delicacy and can they are "ways to find your own control timbre and direction of sound . Fathers" in the words of Borges. As On the right is a mini synth. a poet who considers himself a lyricist with about 16 keys that produces acoustic i found Ginsberg and Whitman important first rather then elctronic sound. Over the Shoulder steps. But without Anthologies i could not like a Cello Fret is another keyboard claim Thom Gunn or Edward Carpenter or that thru an apple program manipultes the Frank O'Hara . If you do not belong sounds and adds new ones. By direction to the group then they provide entrance. I am sorry if my blog did collect three kinds of anthologies. Maybe collect not make sense . I meant i is too precious. Accumlate . The first was heading to the University for a are the huge omnibuses put out by concert. I got in on Claireview with the major academic publishers . you can a full train. But there was a pick up ten dollar copies of the hockey game at the Cloiseum and the big ones. Freshman shed them like a train was empty for half my trip. snake shakes skin. After the english course The concert itself had 20 people while si through , they do not need across town the hockey game had 1000 them anymore. There are a few interesting times that. Sometimes how far you are things about these books. The first is away from other people is made beyond it seems to be a portal. An clear . The concert Itself was magnifcent. There easy way to find connections. You discover was a whole new instrument and a Anne Sexton in Heath because it reminds midi manipulater and a jazz master playing you of Sylvia Plath in Nortons. Then counterpoint to a tape and a disklavier you find a copy of Anne Sextons . It was an maazing hybrid a complete poems that has a forward by way to find the warmth and richness
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