Monday, August 21, 2006
(11:59 PM) | Brad:
Tuesday Hatred: Red Wine Edition
Two bottles of cheap red wine are empty on the desk, the dog is at my feet under the desk, and I've five hours before I need to be awake and hungover for work. An ideal time to hate!For starters, I hate academic fanzines. With all due respect to the editorial staff the International Journal of Žižek Studies (but not to the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies because I do not have sufficient faith that they know any better), a veritable who's who of people due all respect, or at least the civility not befitting a drunken rant, I really just do not get it. That is, I do not find Žižek to be either so underexposed, what for his playing the role of the blogging intellectual's Paul Krugman the last few years, or so patently significant or novel to warrant such a journal. (One man's fusion of Lacan & Hegel is another man's Schelling, I guess.) And I unashamedly like much of his work! Sure, I see the practical significance of such a journal -- it's a great way to professionalize an otherwise career-killer, and it is good to get like-minded people on the same page (literally) -- but its practical significance is, for me, analogous to spouse-swapping orgies. There is a potential for a tremendous practical boon, but it is otherwise sullied by other equally practical things like (a) wanting only to hang out with your spouse-swapping-orgy friends, and when you don't having to feel other couples out before you can feel them up; or (b) sleeping on a wetspot you had no hand (or otherwise) in causing or enjoying. If it is not like that at all, then it is most certainly like showing up to a Def Leppard concert wearing their Hysteria Tour t-shirt w/out a hint of irony -- because such earnestness is bound to an invitation to the spouse-swapping orgy backstage. With this in mind, book your Žižek tickets early! Perhaps what I hate more, though, is that I'll likely submit an article to the journal within year's end, and be rejected by the end of 2008.
Moving on ... I hate that every woman I've ever slept with, excluding my wife, has gotten a divorce. Perhaps most tragic on this list is the ex-girlfriend whose wedding I performed, a scant year after she asked to meet me at a picturesque park so that she might tell me that she might be pregnant with somebody else's baby, namely, her ex-fiancé's (she, in fact, wasn't), and that all things considered she'd really rather get back with him, and that "Hey, maybe you'd like to perform the wedding?!"
I hate that pornography is now a legitimate source (and, for some, medium) of philosophical discourse. I can't link to it at the moment, perhaps in the morning, but Infinite Thought has a fantastic example of this (link works now). Now, I don't hate the philosophical reflections made about pornography. Nor am I fundamentally opposed to the idea that a cumshot to the eye might be indicative of something more than bad aim, good sense or retribution. No, I just fear that it threatens to ruin, by virtue of such a discourse being a readymade excuse, the potential scandal of the posthumous porn-stash discovery. Paul Tillich died too soon, sadly.
I also hate that I am more embarassed of the random bits of deviant pornography in my internet history than my wife, K., ever is -- including the she-male pictures sent tonight from the Weblog's resident Eliade-fellator, Pat R. Which leads me, finally, to the money-shot: I hate that this embarassment is likely due to the fact that I not-so-secretly suspect my wife's best orgasms are reserved for when we watch wife-swapping orgy porn together.
Drink up, friends! But remember to follow that shot of hate with that chaser called Love.
