Home for the heteronomous | "Get a job — and some human rights!"
Sunday, June 29, 2008
(2:13 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
A Naive Question on Mugabe
Why have the election at all? At the moment it became clear that Mugabe would use violence to coerse people to vote for him and especially once the opposition candidate dropped out, he had effectively maintained his hold on power -- so why go through the farce of an election and inauguration ceremony?
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Saturday, June 28, 2008
(9:49 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Another Point about Torture
Bob Hebert writes about torture, continuing his long streak of addressing the most important issues while being almost completely ignored. His arguments were familiar to me, and they are more than enough to convince any reasonable person that torture should never be allowed.
I did think of an additional point, however -- at some point, these "bad apples" are going to return to civilian life. A good number of them will likely go into some form of law enforcement. Do you really want someone who sodomized a prisoner with a broomstick, forced a prisoner to howl like a dog while urinating on him, etc., etc., putting handcuffs on you?
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
(12:01 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Friday Afternoon Confessional: Caring is Creepy
I confess that I have read as many contemporary works on my dissertation topic as I am able to handle for now and that I want to begin an initial draft of the first chapter. I confess that the accelerated dissertation schedule I have set for myself alternately seems to be insane and to be the only way for me to maintain my sanity.
I confess that the standard dissertation format, at least in theology -- in which one plows through chapter after chapter of summary of the recent debate, then enjoys the release valve of the final "constructive" chapter, which in any rational system would be the beginning of the book rather than the (tenuously connected) end of it -- seems to be pretty soul-crushing for all involved.
I confess that I'm getting fatigued from reading Agamben, though I may well be reading his masterwork.
I confess that I'm not eating enough fruits and vegetables. I confess that in the two weeks since I "started jogging," I have gone jogging three times.
I confess that while out with a friend on Tuesday night I suddenly fell into a spell of intense loneliness, tinged with despair. It remained consistent all day Wednesday as well, dissipating somewhat on Thursday. I confess that writing about it here appears not to have helped.
Daniel Trask, author of two novels, might get into trouble for DMR, his book about taking retards to the zoo. Apparently, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation isn't happy about it.
(Adam R has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
(2:42 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
A Googleplex
I notice that one can add an RSS thread for Google Reader -- presumably one's own list of posts -- to Google Reader.
I was one click away from doing it out of curiosity, but then decided against it. I didn't want to risk creating an infinite regress situation that would swamp my account, Google's servers, and ultimately the Internet as a whole.
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
(10:40 AM) | Brad:
Amazing
Via the Advanced Theory Blog, I came across this absolutely brilliant remix of Radiohead's "Nude." It defies any description that will do it much justice. Just watch.
(Brad has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
(1:58 PM) | John Emerson:
Obama's at the country club, looking for the real killers
"Obama's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by" (Karl Rove).
"The key to the statement is that in the image he is with 'a beautiful date.' Not Michelle Obama .... When you think of a "beautiful date" specifically at a country club, do you picture an African-American woman? Would Rove's target audience? Or do you picture him there, a black man, smoking a cigarette indoors at a country club, with a white woman on his arm?" (HW at Talking Points Memo)
What you picture is O.J. Simpson at the country club with Nicole -- or, more recently, O.J. with a different white woman at the country club where he's looking for "the real killers", the way Obama will be using ineffectual police measures to find the terrorists.
Fortunately, the other black man in America's country clubs is Tiger Woods. But for that, Rove's meme would have won the election. Give him points for virtuosity and effort.
(John Emerson has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
(2:01 AM) | it:
Wednesday Sex: Americans Aint Getting None!
[This shameless attempt to generate irritated comments is brought to you this week by Infinite Thought, who is currently a sexy vampire, like Drusilla in Buffy, having recently been diagnosed as being allergic to the, er, sun].
Despite Elvis, despite all your bleach-blonde hardcore, and despite all that geo-political muscle-flexing, it is quite clear that Americans aren't really having sex at all, or, if you are, aren't doing it properly. You also can't flirt very well and don't understand insinuation. I blame one thing: the CV. The constant demand to sell your very being in every possible social situation leaves no room for any other mode of address than 'Hi, I'm Chuck. I've been with Shell for five years and before that I was with Evil Arms Corp Inc following my MBA from Harvard.' I imagine sex between Americans, when they ever do manage it, is interspersed with one or both partners getting up at various points to sit at their laptops and work on their employment history.
The economic precariousness of American life combined with the post-puritanical imperative that all work is good and that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough is not entirely the fault of its good citizens. Indeed, there is much to be said for the pioneering expansiveness of hard-working Americans, with their no-nonsense friendliness and direct modes of address. Don't misunderstand me: I like Americans. I just don't know how one would sleep with one. Would it be a business-type arrangement? A form of exercise? A short-cut to a job offer? Something to put on the CV?
Part of this sexlessness involves the decision about what a body is for. Half of you seem to have decided that it is a machine for processing fat and have turned yourselves into lard-factories for that purpose alone. The other half seem to be on a bid for immortality with levels of health-fanaticism that make Arnie in The Running Man look like Homer Simpson. Neither of these corporeal cults are sexy. I mean, I'm not claiming that British folk don't eat too many pies and look like pasty, rotten-toothed minor Dickens characters, but after a couple of pints we are pretty sexy, at least we think we are, and therefore probably are, a bit.
Americans, because they are remarkably consistent as characters whether drunk or not, are less able to create the excitement that arises from a previously rude person becoming friendly, or vice versa. Your frat-boy stripper-raping jocks would do exactly the same horrible things after twenty beer-stands as after three (besides, your beer has no alcohol). Your whiny, inappropriate-sense-of-self-deserve women would still bitch and moan in bed in the same way as they would outside of it: 'he didn't even bother looking for my G-spot! Lo-ser!'
Still, perhaps the impending global economic crisis will create great roving hordes of desperate, ambiguous sexy Americans who'll do anything for the kind of approval no longer available in the job market. It's the only way to break the tyranny of sex-as-work, you crazy puritans!
(it has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
(12:01 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred: Strangely warmed
I hate allergies. I hate it when allergies make the prospect of a casual stroll to enjoy the nice weather seem too exhausting to contemplate.
I hate having been such a spendthrift of late. I hate that I still don't have any teaching work for next fall. I hate how bad a lot of academics are about answering e-mail. I hate the many inexplicable delays that characterize academic life more generally.
I hate that several packages have yet to arrive: two books I ordered from Amazon, plus additional copies of my Zizek book.
I hate it when several figures from my past come back in rapid succession.
I hate it when people say "the surge" was a success -- and even more when those same people take that made-up success as evidence that we'd be stupid to leave.
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Monday, June 23, 2008
(5:49 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Weird!
From the front page of the NY Times website: apparently Obama has yet to appear at a mosque and asked a Muslim representative not to speak on his behalf at one. I have absolutely no idea why this would be the case.
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
(1:59 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Soviet-style
CRalerts us of a Bloomberg column in which it is averred that opponents of suburban sprawl "would apparently love nothing more than for the population to be confined to Soviet-style concrete-block high-rises and be forced to take state-run streetcars to their little jobs at the mill."
Let me say that I, for one, would be in favor of Soviet-style concrete-block high-rises and state-run streetcars (are there other kinds of streetcars?). As one who grew up in the suburbs, I often felt confined to my own home. It was spacious, of course, but at the same time rather lonely. Presumably in the Soviet system, I could've had easier access to friends.
Perhaps there would've even been some type of make-shift yard or playground generously supplied by the authorities. We did have a nice swingset with monkey-bars, etc., in our yard, but again -- it wasn't as much fun for just me and my sister. Even if we didn't have many friends in our stark, concrete building -- nothing really matches the hominess of cheap drywall, after all -- we would've had access to the aforementioned socialized transit system.
Indeed, even after becoming adults, we would've been able to get around without needing to personally operate a piece of expensive and quickly-depreciating heavy machinery on which we'd need to pay exhorbitant insurance premiums mandated by state law. Perhaps that trade-off would've meant working fewer hours at the good old mill! More time for family, for friends, for repainting the concrete walls. Hell, more money for paint! Though one would assume that the only color of paint available would be grey.
Oh, how I sometimes long for the stark Soviet upbringing! I imagine that it would've been possible to give people simple and rational directions to my dwelling place, rather than saying, "Yeah, go up Deer Creek Lane and then kind of follow the curve around. Then turn right and follow that curve to the left, and we're the fourth identical house on the right. It's the one with the nice big yard we never fucking use because we're working so many hours, to pay for the landscaping that we put in to keep our neighbors from bitching about our ugly yard -- which we can't actually verify that they're doing, because we never talk to them."
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
(9:54 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Sacrifice
Even at this late date, one often hears pundits speak whistfully of some alternate history where Bush would've asked the American people to "sacrifice" -- either after 9/11 in general or specifically with regard to Iraq. Normally the idea is that there is something morally beneficial inherent to "sacrifice," even in service of a bullshit war. Frank Rich's column today includes a somewhat strange variation on the theme:
Perhaps if Americans had been asked for shared sacrifice at the war’s inception, including a draft, they would be in 1968-ish turmoil now. But they weren’t, and they aren’t. In 2008, the Vietnam analogy doesn’t hold. The center does.
I'm not sure what to make of this. Would it be better, in Rich's mind, if the American people were in turmoil over the war? If we follow the Vietnam analogy, it seems that the "sacrifice" would incline at least a significant majority of people to be more receptive to McCain's promise of victory -- after all, we don't want to have done all this "sacrificing" for nothing!
To the extent that I can decipher his intention, it does seem that Rich thinks "turmoil" would be a truer, more authentic reaction than the complete tuning-out that he is discussing in the rest of the column. Even for a war opponent, it would appear, "sacrifice" has the magical property of making things more deeply meaningful.
I predict that no matter who wins the presidential election, we're going to see a lot of commentary calling on the new president to break with Bush by calling for "shared sacrifice" -- on climate change, on Iraq, whatever. We just need "sacrifice," damn it! We need our president to preside over "sacrifice!" Bush's mistake wasn't lying our way into war, constantly defying the constitution and the law, instituting torture -- no, it was leaving us to our sordid little lives, failing to give us meaning through "sacrifice."
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Saturday, June 21, 2008
(12:05 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Making Sexism Sexy Again
A recurring motif in recent movies -- particularly Judd Apatow-brand film products -- is that if men fulfill their most basic human duties, such as treating others like human beings, displaying basic competence in any activity, etc., women will fall in love with them. It's not even that this marginal effort will allow the woman to finally see the diamond in the rough that the man really is -- it's just that there literally are no better options out there.
On the one hand, the most likely interpretation of this phenomenon is sexism. On the other hand, maybe we men have unconsciously colluded to depress expectations to such a degree that these movies turn out to be fair-minded sociological portraits -- yet more proof that homosexuality is not a choice.
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Friday, June 20, 2008
(12:01 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Friday Afternoon Confessional: Profound Mumblings
I confess that I walk around my neighborhood assessing people's lawns. I confess that though my current landlord takes much better care of the lawn than my previous one, I still sometimes wish he would edge. I confess that sometimes when I look at the huge field of a school along the Brown Line, I daydream about mowing it. My summers of lawn care have permanently scarred me.
My grocery bagging days have produced a similar effect. I confess that the dedicated baggers always do a shitty job (two items per bag! throw the pasta sauce in with the bananas!), but the cashiers normally use some basic common sense.
I confess that I'm not good on the phone. People always seem to assume I'm upset or depressed, especially if they don't know me well. Text messaging is really the way to go for me, and I confess that I quickly became addicted, even before getting my phone with deployable keyboard.
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Thursday, June 19, 2008
(10:25 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Ultimate ATM
At a bank near my apartment, there is an ATM that formerly asked you to input the desired amount "in multiples of $1.00." I normally inputted an amount such that the withdrawal and the fee would add up to a round number, making myself one of the few people with exact change in a world full of $20s.
One weekend, the ATM was shut down for repairs, and when it came back, it asked you to input the desired amount "in multiples of $5." It was disappointing, but better than nothing, and I still strategized my withdrawal amounts to get $5s. Then yesterday I went to the ATM and inputted $57.00, apparently thinking of what the total withdrawal would be with the fee included. Imagine my surprise when it gave me the exact amount -- it had been capable of giving ones the whole time, and the message to input the amount "in multiples of $5" was apparently just a polite request.
Lost Girls is Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's pornographic/fairytale version of The Magic Mountain, in which Alice (formerly of Wonderland), Wendy (who used to knock around with Peter Pan) and Dorothy (for whom there is no place like home) all find themselves holed up in a Jugendstil hotel on the eve of the First World War, and spend their time recalling their previous adventures and generally being extremely louche. Today, when incessant artistic plagiarism and cross-referencing are so rife, it's bracing to find something which uses the past as a spur to making strange rather than smugly filing away old styles in the continuum. Lost Girls is an amalgam of all the fin de siecle fixations with aberrant sexuality, opiated decadence and ornamented obsessive elegance, on the eve of their destruction and replacement with a masculine machine aesthetic.
The book does this, interestingly enough, by using plagiarism as estrangement. The hotel proprietor leaves in each room a White Book (cunningly concealed in one of those perennially unread hotel Bibles) in which subtly reworked explicit versions of Oscar Wilde, Pierre Louys and Guillame Apollinaire are accompanied by hardcore parodies of decadent artists and/or lithographers like Aubrey Beardsley, Franz von Bayros, Alphonse Mucha and Egon Schiele (who have little in common other than their sinuous lines and prurience) - Alice uses this, amongst other things, to coax her friends out of the conformist identities they've set up for themselves. Of course, when questioned by Alice (a part-time pornographer herself) the proprietor strenuously denies these are forgeries. The book intersperses these morphings of original works with Gebbie's own stylistic promiscuousness to the point where they blur into one another. Decadent art provides a way for them to blur their fantasies and their experiences to the point where the gap between one and the other seems irrelevant.
'...I mean of course it's all terribly decadent, wallowing in the senses like that, all pleasure and no purpose. Everything just decoration and icing sugar...'
Wendy, who has attempted to become a suburban housewife after her days frolicking with Peter and his Lost Boys, is married to a Harold, a (seemingly asexual) closet case, who disapproves somewhat of the hotel architecture, which has many similarities with the work of Otto Wagner - a box where every surface is filled with tendrils and phantasmagoric embellishments. He dismisses this effeminacy to the proprietor as mere 'noodles', and continues: 'if you're talking about real artists for our time, you can't beat the chappies who design our ships'. As well a dullard and closet case, Harold is clearly a closet Corbusian, his gripes seeming like a declaration from L'Espirit Nouveau. Or even a Vorticist, the actual contemporary art of 1914: and with Lewis he would have disdained decadence and 'the mid-Victorian languish of the neck'. Lost Girls draws on an art that was already finished by 1900, and Cubism and Futurism are nowhere to be seen - the only concessions to the early 20th century are the odd lifting from Matisse and (of course) an orgy at the premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps. The line of Lost Girls is nearly always curved, sinuous, no cubistic sharpness or rectilinear geometry to be seen. The art of the 1890s, still present in the minds of these older women (ranging from their 30s to 60s) holds out unfilled possibilities, of a world of untrammeled fantasy, of hallucinatory, languid sexuality unencumbered by work or by war (although colonialism and the approaching catastrophe are always lurking at the corner of the frame).
For the Lost Girls, then, all that will come after - from the war onwards - is by implication an effacement of fantasy in favour of a machinic empiricism. The irrationalist line, meanwhile, serves to take the characters out of the everyday lives they've imposed upon their fantasies, and return them to their real desires, those that they have to hide in polite society. Whether or not their fantasies could be imposed upon a machine aesthetic, meanwhile, is another matter. In short, can we imagine a Constructivist pornography, or would it have to be tied up with all the things - power and sadism, mainly - which are absent from the girls' fantasies?
(Dominic has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
(5:41 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
A Literary Organ
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that The Valve, a literary blog founded to help advance the discussion of literature, has -- after just over three years of existence -- finally decided to engage in an extended discussion of a particular work of literature, namely, George Eliot's Adam Bede. A bold choice, to be sure.
They appear to have set themselves a reasonably leisurely schedule, so I'm sure that we'll still be able to count on all the philosophical quibbling, pop-cultural analysis, and really fucking long posts by Joseph Kugelmass that we've come to expect from the site over the years.
(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)
(8:59 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred: True Crime
I hate alarm clocks with overly aggressive snooze features. I hate it when the mail for the whole building comes in one big unsorted pile. I hate buying an externally beautiful red pepper and finding that it's rotten on the inside -- though doing so did teach my a valuable moral lesson.
I hate John McCain. I hate his horrifying grimace:
The present logo, provided by Edward Williams, is a colored pencil drawing by Janet Williams, entitled "Wite Out." Click here for a larger version.
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