Why I Have Earned A Sticker Today

Things I did by my big-girl self:

1. Visited the library's special archives collection, leafed gently through a Charles' Dickens Bleak House part issue, communicated for 20 minutes with a young Nigerian man about what pages I wanted copied, then copied those for a class of 18.

2. Tried a cashew chicken wrap, which tasted like wet garbage.

3. Yelled at the ridiculously expensive vending machine for sucking away the Dr. Pepper money I put in it.

4. Taught a class of 20 students who stared at me as though they did not realize they were, indeed, in college.

5. Explained to a student that yes, turning in all your stuff late will inevitably affect your participation grade. (His succinct argument? "But...I did it. Just late.")

6. Realized with ten minutes left to go before my presentation that my officemate had accidentally absconded with my copies. Found a line at the copier. Prayed, did a small rain dance, and fell on the mercy of the lady in front of me so that I was able to make copies.

7. Did a superlative presentation on sanctioning construction, the subordination of image to text, and the perceived infallibility of writing in BH.

8. Fought off the Migraine from Satan's Own Personal Store of Surprises.

9. Made intelligent comments about anarchism, scientific Marxism, and literature without my head exploding.

10. Drove an hour and forty minutes home to the first food I'd seen (at 9 pm) since lunch.

I want a sticker. Right now.

- b -

Fun, Fun, Fun

I'm trying to figure out how to spend a $75 Amazon gift card. I love tons o' ideas, but any suggestions would obviously be appreciated.

I’m getting ready to leave for my HRM class tonight. I love it like the plague.

Anyway, some quick pics / links b/c what fun is an extended rant on HRM?

Fun Music:

Fun Radio Station:


Fun Movie (I hope):


Peace,

-j

The Indifferent Spectator

Just finished a marvelous book, Victorian Literature and the Victorian Visual Imagination, for a seminar book review. The book itself is a collection of 15 essays based around visuality and literature in the Victorian period, nicely done on its own, but one of the essays tackled a particular idea I find intriguing: the idea of sanctioning constructions.

In the Victorian era film was just beginning to take off as a medium. Photography was in its birth pangs. And a thousand tiny gadgets (think: kaleidoscope) were being born to sort of capture various sorts of "photographs-in-motion," to represent optical illusions, and to constantly remind Victorian readers/viewers of this new sort of reality they were in.

Optical illusions, particularly, were challenging the notion of "seeing is believing" because they taught the Victorian's that vision was flawed and could be unreliable. As a result, a constant awareness of the Victorian idea of self-as-spectator sort of emerged - an awareness that "yes, I am watching this thing happen, I am disengaged, and can be objective about it."

"Sanctioning constructions," then, are things that remind the viewer, "Hey! You're watching this! You're not a part of it!" The construction might be as simple as a pair of binoculars (a tool through which to see).

I think I'd like to argue in my seminar paper that the narrator serves as a sort of literary "sanctioning construction," stepping out every so often to remind the reader that they are effectively a "spectator" of the text. The essay I read in the book argues that constructions foster indifference; I'm inclined to wonder how that might translate over to The Woman in White or even Bleak House.

That said, I be tired of this quarter. I like theory sometimes (and certain types of theory always), and I enjoy Victorian lit, but I'm starting to get pangs for Keats and Shelley. I miss them. I miss Romantic literature. I miss the Rousseau sort of pastoral freedom of it all. I miss poems, period.

I think I'm getting end-of-quarter drag. A presentation this week (on serialized issues of Bleak House), a 12-15 page paper on sanctioning constructions, and then a 20-30 page paper on mid-high-low Japanese avant-garde culture and kitsch as a reimagination of the cultural aesthetic binary.

Geh.

I want it to be over.

- b-

Hey, Let's Live Forever

Reno 911! was as excellent as promised. Although I have no further need to see Lt. Dangle in a thong, I did discover that your mother is a ukulele.

My (albeit vague) prediction regarding the ending of The Idea of Culture was pretty correct. Rather than providing a rigorous philosophical system, Eagleton instead focuses on discussing the problem at hand, developing a common culture in this case. He asserts that, due to the growing influence of production and value-exchange, the personal sphere / private life as been enveloped in economics; as a result, activities no longer have simply a moral or humanistic value. What Eagleton advances is that once the activities that are common to us all are removed from the economic field, we’ll become more capable of developing a common culture. While he’s not necessarily advocating something a priori to humans, he does agree that there are some activities common to all humans – the ability to feel pleasure/pain (Rorty), our relationship to the environment, etc. If these activities are commodified as culture, then there’s little likelihood of humans recognizing the similarities between themselves: affording culture or recognizing the merits of another’s culture is problematic in this instance.

Eagleton makes a few other interesting observations vis-à-vis T.S. Eliot. Although he eschews Eliot’s elitist tendencies, he notes that, like any good elitist, Eliot has populist leanings. High and low culture are not necessarily different types of culture; the high / low distinction rests on a person’s ability to take something away from a cultural phenomena. As Eliot noted, some of his readers may catch his allusions toward the Iliad, others may just have gut reactions to his work. (It is worth noting that Eliot mentions the latter are more important to him.)

I started Minima Moralia by Adorno last night, and, so far, it’s a pretty good book (all 30 pages that I’ve read). The bite-sized philosophical segments are very interesting as, like Nietzsche, Adorno wanders the philosophical landscape, offering his concise, often biting commentary in short bursts. I’ve already noticed how his aesthetic philosophy forms the foundation for many contemporary thinkers.

The new Canary is out, and I picked up a copy. They may not love me, but I still love them. Once again, a wonderful diversity of writers. Is it me, or is John Ashberry in vogue again?

And don’t listen to Rach.

Cheers,

-j

See This Movie or You Hate America. Communist.

Go see this movie or I’ll beat you with your own shoe:

* * *

Hopefully, I’ll come back with a couple new poetry journals tonight. Generally, the local independent bookstore, which is right beside the move theater, carries a good selection / variety of poetry journals, anywhere from Poetry to Rattle to Fulcurm to the Denver Quarterly. There’s only one local journal since Huntington is anti-literacy it seems. (Seriously, the news blurbs on the WSAZ website – our local TV station – must be written by middle-schoolers. They’re awful). Granted, the selection is always a bit light on the “experimental” side, but it’s the best place this side of Columbus or Cincinnati to buy your poetry in-store. Their actual selection of poetry books, however, leaves much to be desired. I’ve only bought Angle of Yaw from there; otherwise, it’s standard fare.

One thing you’ll notice is that I don’t subscribe to poetry publications as a general rule. For two reasons: A) I don’t mind paying a few extra bucks to support the publication, and B) I hate, hate, hate when I receive “special issues”. All fiction issues or issues devoted to one theme, one poet, etc. generally don’t flip my switch. So rather than take the chance of only receiving two or three good issues of a zine when I paid for four, I’ll buy / order them individually. Yes, this may make me narrow once again, but I have plenty of fiction I enjoy reading – and I do occasionally find a piece of fiction in journals that catches my eye – away from poetry. One man can only read so much.

* * *

I’ve been informed that Daya is a big Stanley Fish fan. Good thing I gave him a glowing review in a previous post. So let it be known that I was referring to fish sticks, not Stanley Fish. Haddock to be exact.

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday, everybody!
"Tonight...you."

- b -

Create A Commie.

....enough said, really.

Click here.

- b -

In Defense of Low Culture

First, for kicks: my most recent paper proposal (for my seminar on aesthetics and politics):

In The Culture Industry, Theodor Adorno posits the idea that the accoutrements of popular culture – including entertainments such as film and certain kinds of literature – in reality lull the masses into a state of passivity, making them oblivious to their own labor-mandated circumstances and difficult economic situations. This mass-produced culture, Adorno and Horkheimer argue, poses a certain danger to the ‘high’ cultural arts.
In this paper, I intend to tackle the question: what happens when mass-produced culture becomes ‘high’ culture? Or, more specifically, what happens when the culture industry spawns what Takayuki Tatsumi calls “the perverse aesthetics of bad taste?” I believe that, contrary to what Adorno and Horkheimer might consider the death of ‘high’ culture, the reintroduction of ‘low culture,’ or perhaps the conscious reconfiguration of it as the avant-garde, might in fact collapse the aesthetic standard set by the culture industry or at least change the paradigm in which the standard is created.
To this end, I intend to rely on several Eastern theorists and scholars, including Tatsumi and Susan J. Napier,to examine the so-called rise of the avant-pop movement—full-blown in many Eastern cultures, particularly Japan, and rapidly growing in America—and what the rise of such a movement might imply for the concept of the ‘high’ culture, low culture, and the economic circumstances from which both arise.

I agree with most of j's comments regarding Eagleton, Rorty, and aesthetics, although I must admit myself to be more in the Eagleton camp, and here's why. It isn't that Eagleton's a spurned lover. It's that Rorty, in his "here, let me pass you a mint julep, because i'm an intellectual - liberal ironist - and we, well we are of a special breed, aren't we? let's laugh gently at the hijinks of the unintellectual kiddies" sort of way manages to really, really irk in the craw of people who don't at all feel that way or like that sort of attitude.

I have a prof who refers to Rorty as "Papa Rorty," because at the end of the day there's a lot of Rorty that's Freudian in nature. "Ignore logic," Rorty says, "because it too is just a vocabulary, and we're poeticizing the Enlightenment. So never you mind if the logic seems circular, because that doesn't matter - we'll all end up in circles anyway. At the end of things, our subconscious is guiding a lot of what goes on."

...in treating aesthetics and culture in this post I was also going to deal with my novel-writing, as genre fiction is often seen as a form of "low culture" and I have a plethora of issues with that; however, I think I'll leave that post for another day.

In the meantime, for your edification, click here for your fun Youtube video of the day: George Washington.

He's got a wig for a wig and a brain for his heart.
He'll kick you apart.

- b -

My Problems with Stuff that Doesn't Matter

Last night was one of those rare occasions where B discussed the happenings in her novel, which she’s apparently rewriting from scratch. She’s essentially beaten the life from this text for the greater part of two years, and it finally seems like, at least conceptually, she’s making some headway. While I wouldn’t normally blog about such a development, what brought a smile to my face was that she managed to include Nietzsche’s slave morality and some small Rortian tidbits in her description. So, philosophically speaking, she’s developed a good framework, and she has always been good with character development. I have high hopes for being a golf / poet husband by the time I’m 30.

I’ve almost finished with The Idea of Culture by Terry Eagleton (sadly, I won’t be able to finish before Thursday because of classes). He’s done an excellent job of outlining the evolution of culture – culture as civilization, culture as something aristocratic, and culture as certain productions or activities. But, as it seems is always the case with Eagleton, I’m able to articulate my (dis)likes of him quite clearly, especially when compared with other theorists.

The third distinction given above seems increasingly dubious for two reasons. One, culture as an activity is increasingly being re-assimilated into culture as something aristocratic of privileged. Check out the prices at your local theater house and you’ll see what I mean – how often can you afford to have a good vantage point. Moreover, do you have the resources (time, money, etc.) to pursue a culturally-enhanced life? Second, in such a seemingly transaesthetic culture (B’s been talking to me about this, though she hasn’t used the term transaesthetic) where almost every facet of production, politics, and the economy is aestheticized to some degree, it’s increasingly difficult to point to one activity as culturally superior to another. Is Shakespeare more important than cinema? Not necessarily – the films by David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick are certainly important cultural guideposts. And it’s increasingly difficult to identify the appropriate criteria on which to judge culture relevance or superiority. Granted, I still think Of Mice and Men is superior to Epic Movie (without having seen it) or Tom and Jerry in many regards, but how do I make this judgment and are there still redeeming features of Epic Movie or Tom and Jerry that lift them into important cultural status? Or is everything just apart of the collapsing high vs. low culture dichotomy, which is B’s stance.

There’s an interesting chapter on culture ways where he polemics that Western culture is becoming stagnant and uninspired without a political / spiritual / culture ideal, some metaphysical goal or object of desire. This statement in and of itself isn’t startling or original – Baudrillard has been doing this for decades (sometimes literally repeating himself for decades) – but he brings it into perspective quite nicely by comparing Western culture with fundamentalist Muslim cultures where everything gravitates toward spiritual culture. The major difference, according to Eagleton, is that culture’s energy, its central focus that generates such energy. Almost off-handedly, he notes that ecological concern has almost become a legitimate universal principle ala religion or capitalism. While Eagleton doesn’t explicitly advocate a return to increased spirituality or Enlightenment ideals, anyone familiar with Eagelton understands his modernist leanings and amusement with all things pomo.

But I’m getting the most amusement out of his number of Rorty references. It’s almost as if he’s a spurned lover. Yes, anyone familiar with postmodernism knows Rorty: the liberal ironist, the man who insists there’s no one correct discourse or way of living, the man that undermines any attempts to posit evaluative criteria, the man who quietly glosses over that his philosophy is a purely Western creation based on Western ideals and ideally situated for the privileged University of Virginia professor lifestyle. Eagleton makes no small effort to repeatedly point out these issues with Rorty’s philosophy as if no other pomo philosopher has these leanings. I haven’t read every Eagleton work, so maybe he reserves a book or two for Foucault, Lyotard, and the gang. It certainly seems as if there’s a white guy feud going on between the two though. I’ll need to purchase a new book by Rorty to keep dibs on the tabloid-ness. Nothing like two well-to-do white guys abstractly beating up on one another. My conceptualization of Enlightenment culture undermines your outdated metanarrative! Your mother sure liked my metanarrative!

My final major interest with the book is an underlying contradiction in his section discussing nature vs. culture, i.e. what shapes humans. The popular pomo stance is that humans are purely cultural beings, completely malleable according to their surroundings. Think Foucault. Eagleton, in his modernist suit, argues otherwise, positing that there is something essentially human in our ability to feel pain or our aversion to death (nature). I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for such existential, evaluative criteria, but it sure seems to grate against his anti-essentialist leanings, essentialism in this context meaning that you can define humanity or history by one idea or theme (think classical Marxism). To me, modernism and essentialism, in many respects, went together hand in glove, but perhaps I missed a distinction that he made between the two. Either way, he gives a big nuh-uh to those who visualize humans as cultures with skin.

Like I said, I haven’t finished the last chapter, but I’m pretty sure that he’ll advocate some modernist criteria that unifies rather than fragments. I’d like to see something work, but Eagleton isn’t an analytic or technical writer so, more than likely, he’ll propose a system and leave its development to others. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as focusing too much on the technical issues often obscures the central themes.

Sorry for waving my philosophic phallus about like that. Next time, I’ll post a warning and bring wet naps for all. But isn't it more clear than ever that this blog, for me, is a bitter outlet for my 8 to 5 life? Golf / poetry husband by 30 -- remember that!

-j

Shots of Wisdom

Happy President’s Day! Unless, like me, you’re at work and wondering why. See, I’m completely useless unless the markets are open, unless I can transact business with banks, unless I can contact our firm's service team. Since I can do none of the above today, I’m literally performing warm body duties today unless some project suddenly materializes. Of course we all now realize that doom is inevitable.

The poetry front is still pretty quiet. Received a rejection from the Parthenon West Review, though they do something nice by offering submitters a discount on their newest issue. But it does seem like a “we weren’t meant to be lovers, but I’ll still be your friend” deal.

But I am up this week at the No Tell Motel, so slip into something comfortable and dim those lights.

In her graduate theory seminar, my wife is going over Rorty. Have I mentioned 1) that I’m lame and 2) that I’m terribly envious yet? And she doesn’t even like Rorty. The shame!

This time next month, I’ll be in Myrtle Beach for a golf week. This weekend, it’s supposed to be 60 degrees here. Time to start preparing.

I’m informed B that her aesthetics post was as biased and subjective as mine, and she agreed. I was expecting more resistance, but I figure she’s saving her energy for bigger battles. The realization that we come from different worlds aesthetically is hardly earth-shaking knowledge at this juncture.

I feel as if cogent thoughts are eluding my grasp right now. I shouldn’t neglect you, o’ blogger, the entire weekend again.

-j

Poetic Aesthetics Revisited

Because my previous post was too much sap and I needed to cleanse my palate, a few thoughts in response to j's points about poetic aesthetics that he clarified (and yes, the clarification did help, but there are a few dead horses I would like to beat, thanks).

1. It's amusing to act as though the poems that take chances are always the more modern, form-resistant ones. Sadly, most modern poems have the burden of working within the contexts of preexisting genres and forms, thus being forced always to reinvent what came before. Neat narrative arcs, tercets and quatrains might certainly seem "conservative" but in reality represent the original shaping of a genre ex nihilo. It's a bit like condemning the phrase "the apple of one's eye" as a cliche - the passing of time has rendered the phrase cliche, not the phrase itself: when it was written the first time it was as original as anything 'new' and 'edgy' might be. Newer poems may seem form resistant or edgy, but give it a couple of years and they'll be as conservative and trite as anything on the market. Also, finding one memorable image/phrase per "conservative" poem, I would argue, is simply skimming the poem for an easy, surface interpretation that is easily rewarding when in reality a close reading would offer something much more complex.

Another thought. Some authors 'reinvent' traditional forms. That's good, yes? But the authors who are working in 'non-traditional' forms are reinventing the traditional forms as well, if only by working on their inverse. There really is nothing new under the sun.

1a. A lack of stringest logic is, in fact, the foundational base of New Criticism. The interpretation of a poem, this school of thought argues, lies in the inherent (seeming) logical paradox of any poem. Thus interpretation (of the logical sort) always stems from illogic of a kind.

1b. I need to take the word 'traditional' out of j's vocabulary. However, his comments on said abstractions are actually quite a champion for older more obscure schools of poetry.

1c. I would argue that the epistemology outside of a poem itself is always reader-produced, but that may be just me. It's only natural to want to impose order on chaos.

2. A good poem that gets it work done quickly. Well, I imagine that's possible. But if you want to compare poetry to sex, well. Sometimes a quickie is okay, but it takes a marathon night to enjoy the full experience (i.e., Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes.)

And THAT is my contentious, Romantic, old-poet-worshipping response. ....I couldn't help myself.

- b-

Your Moment of Vomit-Inducing Sentiment For The Day

The other night, j and I had a profound, in-depth, 45-minute argument (that kept us both awake past our typical bedtime) on capitalism v. socialism. He accused me of playing devil's advocate. I accused him of being arrogant and condescending. We came to no agreement whatsoever, wound ourselves up enough that we were still talkative come bedtime, and ended up vehemently analyzing each other's argumentative styles. Then we went to bed, laughed at ourselves, kissed goodnight, and fell asleep.

He pokes fun at me for idolizing writers who died long before I was born and for having a sort of strange scholar-crush on Shelley and Keats. I mock him for finding an interest in poetry that, to me, has all the charm and interest of a bare, dusty cabinet.

I champion capitalism, mock socialist politics, get embarrassed when he buys copies of the Socialist Review, and deny staunchly that I have an interest in theory (with the exception of gender studies and New Historicism). He wants desperately to be placed on a government watch list, considers himself a proud member of the pomo army and arches his eyebrow at queer theory.

But we have our Saturday night anime marathons, our regular episodes of ATHF, our silly academic in-jokes and our ridiculous arguments. We have an absurd sense of humor, a love for deep conversations, and a penchant for becoming way too attached to our cat. And we love each other a lot.

There's nobody in this world I'd rather argue with.

That said, either today or tomorrow, I'm going to write my post on poetry and why his idea of poetic aesthetics is ridiculous, and all bets will be off. Abandon hope, all ye who challenge the notions of a Romantic scholar.

- b-

To Clarify

Yesterday, B noted that my poetry aesthetics post was rather monolithic and dismissive; to a degree, I agree (what is it with all this rhyming?). My intent was to avoid needless hedging, constant reminders that “this is a generality,” etc. I still did that anyway it seems.

So, to clarify, my post was not a personal invalidation or rejection of any other poetry aesthetics. I’m married to someone getting a degree in all the dead white guys that don’t do much for me. Rather, I was just pointing out my stylistic preferences and some underlying rationale. I appreciate the craft and talent of those who fall outside my purview, and, heck, I even own a Billy Collins book (though it was a gift, so it probably doesn’t count).

There, that quasi-disclaimer should cover things.

Because I missed a cool zombie party thrown by one of B’s friends for an HRM class where the teacher printed out a PowerPoint presentation and then proceeded to read directly from the slideshow, a picture:

Yeah, it's the Monty Python bunny.


-j

I'm paid by the word

This is the downside of sharing a blog with one’s significant other. I’m forced to read her topics of graduate school discussion, which are always the coolest topics around. Basically sex and death in their various manifestations. I’m not hesitant to publicly admit that I’m envious and, ideally, would be working toward a degree in philosophy or an MFA wherein I could discuss sex and death to my contentment. Unfortunately, I’m stuck learning about the intricacies of pork-barrel legislation and the questions you can(not) ask during a job interview. The most risqué topic that I’m likely to encounter would be the secret relationship between Ben Bernanke and the French Franc before it went out of circulation. Or maybe Alan Greenspan reads trashy romance novels and daydreams about using the words inflation and fishnet in the same Beige Book. Not nearly as exciting as learning that the author of Alice in Wonderland was the day’s Michael Jackson.

Lately, I’ve been trying to articulate my poetic aesthetics (rhyming not a prerequisite). In no particular order:

1. To be vague, I like poems that take chances. Your traditional narrative poem, broken neatly into tercets or quatrains and with a conservative arc, just doesn’t cut it for me. Sure, I still read my fair share of these poems, but, often, they do little to inspire or, ultimately, interest me. I may take away a good image or even a nice phrase, but since I’m a capitalistic man (time is money!), one memorable phrase / image per poem doesn’t cut it.

This statement has many exceptions as there are numerous authors who seem to use more traditional “forms” in order to challenge them, give their work some subversive feel, or even imbue their words with an unrealized energy. Rock on!

1a. Stringent logic isn’t a concern. While I hope the writer isn’t flipping through a photo album and is just naming objects, I’m not concerned with whether a particular relationship seems ill-defined or if something seems out of place. Go ahead – make the poem surreal, unconventional, and thought-defying. I like to unravel puzzles and be intellectually challenged.

1b. I’m less and less concerned about abstraction, which could be closely related to my penchant for far-out, philosophical / experimental poetry. I’m not concerned with whether every image or idea is firmly grounded in reality. So what if the poem is nebulous or the relationships are post-structural in nature. Good – it makes the poem worth reading again. This doesn’t apply to abstraction used in traditional ways (trees are pretty, beer is hoppy, etc.)

1c. Give me a poetic epistemology that is outside of the poem itself. I enjoy poems that have a meaning posterior to the actual text. Once again, I don’t necessarily think, for book purposes, poems should have a narrative arc. But if you have 12 poems that ruminate on why God isn’t a cannibal, then put those twelve poems together. Who cares if they’re not a series or if they are all completely different?

2. Like Jeff Bahr and others, I prefer work that gets its job done quickly. If a poem stretches five or six pages (or book-length), I’m likely to be found asleep or in another journal / book.

There, two main points and three sub-points created haphazardly.

Nothing new on the poetry front for quite awhile. I will be sending off a new batch this weekend, and I’m setting a post-graduation target to begin paper submission to the old print publication dinosaurs. I’m still not thrilled with the idea, but there are many quality print pubs and the online universe is only so big for my rapid and amazing fame.

Despite the news / calendars / years of historical tradition, Valentine’s Day is actually tomorrow because that’s when B and I are celebrating. If you celebrate today, you’re lame.

-j

When it rains, it pours....

Dear Climate:

Hi. I really don't have much of a problem with you. In high school, when you threw fits in winter and caused icy snowy nastiness, I was your best friend. I think I treated you pretty well. And you know, I'm not normally in the habit of complaining about you.

But lately, it's felt a little bit like you have it out for me, and your attitude is starting to piss me off. If you think it's funny to cause icy snow nastiness on the only two days of the week that I actually have somewhere kind of important to be - like school, to get my degree - then I'm afraid our formerly good relationship is going to sour very quickly.

If you do not immediately cease and desist, then in the future, I'll be referring all pissed professors, missed discussions, and general existential angst over ridiculous things - like, say, my participation grade in my seminars and the perceived respect my professors might think I have for their classes - your way.

Nobody likes a douchebag. Please behave.

Sincerely yours,

- b-

Alice in Smutland...

I knew, I knew when we started reading Alice in Wonderland in my Victorian Novel seminar that something would be ruined, because there is no such thing as an innocent text in grad school. Dig deep enough and you'll find laters of erotica, sadism, and malice in even the most charming of children's tales.

Now granted, Alice already bad a bit of a bad rap in lieu of the drugs-and-alcohol vibe throughout the novel (and you know, she does ingest a lot of random substances in there). And always-pervy Disney made the movie version somewhat trippier than it may have needed to be (Disney did a lot of unnecessary things including weird hidden porn in half their movies).

So, you know, I was ready to be introduced to the tale of utter debauchery that was Alice. What I was not ready for is to find out that Lewis Carroll is potentially a pervert of the ilk that would be arrested on Dateline NBC running off of someone's porch with his pants half-zipped.

Besides being a writer, as it turns out, Carroll was a photographer - and he took pictures of little girls. Lots of little girls, none of whom were his own. A lot of them clothed. A lot of them not. A lot of them nudes that, to me, are somewhat appalling.

Click here for an example of Carroll's more provocative works. FAIR WARNING - you may find these images disturbing (they do contain nudity) and they are NOT suitable for certain viewers.

Interestingly, there are two sides to this debate, and many scholars point out that taking Carroll out of historical context is quite unfair. To our modern, Dateline eyes and with our current (and very real fears) of child predators and pedophilia, what Carroll was doing hinges on pornographic and abusive. In Victorian culture, however, taking photographs of children was certainly acceptable, and while the majority were not nudes other photographers did occasionally take child nudes as a part of their work. So from a more Victorian context, while Carroll might certainly have been odd, he wasn't at all exploiting or abusive children. (For a similar debate, check out scholarship on J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan.) To be fair, there is no evidence whatsoever that Carroll had or desired sexual relationships with children.

I don't know. What I do know is, Alice now creeps me out like never before. And no matter how brilliant they were, I probably wouldn't let either of those men anywhere near any kids I knew.

- b -

[Something Witty]

Just like getting to work, blogging is a difficult enterprise on Mondays. Especially when my weekend is comprised of analyzing a job advertisement and beating my head against [insert random solid objects] trying to force inspiration to open its bowels. I think I may have succeeded, though, as at least one poem came out that B approved of, and I have another festering.

Backstory: when I was youngish (10-14), I wanted to be a meteorologist. However, upon visiting the local weather station, the weatherman told me that I’d need four classes of thermodynamics and two classes of upper-level calculus. I loathe advanced math. Jump to the future, and I’m getting an MBA this spring. Also, The weather forecast over the next two days / nights: rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow. If you spot me thunder and hail (plus a nifty super-weather computer), I could be a meteorologist. The moral of this story: weathermen lie about everything.

Not only do I have a quasi-obsessions with the weather, but B commutes 1 ¾ hour each way to school on Monday and Wednesday. So for two days a week I salute global warming (in winter anyway).

People at work often pass around coupons and, somehow, I was included in the circle. Probably because my weekly exploits to the grocery store, where I proceed to purchase innumerable items that aren’t on the list, are stories of lore. This morning, however, I actually took some coupons from the coupon envelope. Is $6.50 in savings actually worth how old I feel?

-j

He's Slowly Unlearning How to Play the Guitar

Finished Terry Eagleton’s Marxism and Literary Criticism. I feel guilty about considering this a book since it consists of a whole 76 pages, but it’s still a good read if for no other reason than Eagleton, as always, is concise and clear. I’m looking at you Frederick Jameson (I can never get motivated to start, let alone finish, his Postmodernism). The small text does a surprisingly solid job of explaining the history of Marxist literary criticism, the often-conflicting undercurrents, and why one cannot simply examine art / literature solely with regards to the proletariat (crude Marxist literary criticism).

Overall, Eagleton explicates on the interaction between ideology (as an entity that allows wo/men to make sense of their existence), a work’s form, and how these elements affect the proletariat & bourgeois. I’m always taken aback when I read how numerous intellectuals during the Bolshevik Revolution wanted to implement strict standards on writing – i.e. socialist realism – that seem (perhaps more) hegemonic than their bourgeois / capitalist counterparts. Then again, I almost always forget how thoroughly modern, at its base, Marxism actually is. I suppose that’s why it’s always looked upon with a sneer. Depending on one’s perspective, it’s one of two major modernist / Enlightenment projects (the one that failed, mind you) or it’s another scattershot weapon of choice for some pomo philosophers. Either way, not a very good outcome for Mr. Marx. And while many contemporary thinkers seem to pay homage to Marx’s ghost (it’s probably the intimidating beard), no one actually seems intent on providing a cogent Marxist text for 21^st century. Being the pomo ho that I am, I’d have a difficult time swallowing any grand narrative, but shouldn’t someone give it a try?

Three cheers for aporia – ever since I declared myself done with Palsy Aria, I’ve been drawing a total blank on new topical matter. Yes, it’s only been about a week, but normally I can at least write something bad. Actually, I may have just accomplished that. It doesn’t help that I spent three hours in work-related training this morning / afternoon and then another two in HRM busy work. But at least there’s Trinity Blood tonight w/ B and then “Global Grilling” on ATHF tomorrow night.

Add the newest issue of American Letters and Commentary to the list of lit journals I’ve picked up so far in 2007.

Until next time boys and girls,

-j

Adorno...and Smurfs

....seriously, I have no idea who comes up with this, but I'm glad I have professors who find it for me:

Adorno and Smurfs.

For those who care, the German refers to p. 125 of Adorno and Horkheimer's "Culture Industry" essay; nerd Smurf begins his rant at "the development of the culture industry has led to the predominance of the effect, the obvious touch" and ends at "the totality of the culture industry has put an end to this."

I love YouTube.

- b -

Beating Down The Cultural Morass With A Stick

"His love of people as they are stems from his hatred of what they might be."

The quote above belongs to Theodor Adorno and comes from his work Minima Moralia, a curious and almost poetic collection of written fragments confronting the idea of publics and privates, post-Enlightenment aesthetics, and the living of a "good" life when life itself has been made into a sort of profit and product.

To give you an idea of where Adorno is coming from, it's helpful to consider the words of a professor of mine: that Adorno doesn't hate the Enlightenment, not really; he just thinks it never went quite far enough. This book - and indeed most of Adorno's works - are an effort to take the Enlightenment farther than it ever wanted to go. Minima Moralia itself was written by Adorno as a gift to his friend Max Horkheimer (what a birthday gift, eh?) and is, in tone and delivery, intimate and affectionate - the conversings of a friend to a friend. There's a certain amount of gentle understanding, an amiable relationship with the reader, that comes through in the text. Moreover, the setup of the text itself - in a collection of fragments, some related only indirectly, and all full of cultural allusions that may or may not be explicit - might appeal to the reader who needs his or her philosophy in bite-sized, more digestible chunks.

As a writer, I found some of Adorno's riffs on language and writing particularly amusing, especially his response to writing that is considered "trite" or "banal." Writers turn their noses up at such writing, he claims, because something shameful within us is drawn to what we despise therein. We loathe it, because we recognize ourselves in it. Similarly, a declaration of "how lovely!" about a given work becomes an excuse "for an existence outrageously unlovely." Adorno spends a great deal of time in this work sketching out the Otherness of a world we have drawn into existence - through our writing, our speaking, and our economic state. In essence, Minima Moralia is a funhouse mirror of the current life we live.

There's also a certain poignancy to this text - Adorno's use of the emigrant as an example of the alienated man, person-as-product, stems partially from his own experiences as a Jew who fled from Hitler's fascist regime. His constant references to mutilation, splintering and brokenness bespeak a personal pain as well as the horror that no one, in the current cultural morass, can determine his own life.

I found this easily the most digestible and interesting of Adorno's works, and the personal tones made it easier for me to have a stake in the social philosophies he tries to advance. The snippets are worth reading on their own and interpreted individually, but as a whole, too, this book offers some startling assessments of what our lives really are, how inescapable our circumstances remain, and the contexts that determine our very existence.

Oh, and it is easy to understand, with a little effort. I was hysterically amused by the book's back cover, which offered the following reviews:

"A primary intellectual document of this age." - Sunday Times
"The best thoughts of a noble and invigorating mind." - Observer

Which is shorthand for, "uh....I totally didn't read that. But a smart guy wrote it, so, uh, kudos!"

I knew there was a reason I never became a journalist.

Next I'm diving into Alice in Wonderland, which seems to be a fitting antidote to the twisted innocence I managed to lose via Adorno here. Although Alice in a Ph.D. seminar is highly likely to become an eros/thanatos melange of darkness, homoerotica, and sadism.

Huzzah for grad school: turning your favorite books into annals of lust, darkness and shattered innocence since ancient Greece.

- b -

Over-reaction of the Year Award

Congratulations to the Boston!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070209/ap_on_bi_ge/suspicious_devices

I wish I were in Dixie-land

I finished Amsterdam last night, and it’s certainly vintage McEwan. In Amsterdam, McEwan conjures up base emotion to make this novel disturbing in its all-too-humanness, in how every pen-stroke is a blow to the main characters and an indictment against those who watch. What's intriguing in his writing isn’t so much the outcome – the outcomes are generally predictable in their very essence. Rather, it’s the writing’s fatalistic arc, how the characters are seemingly resigned to / controlled by their fate. While McEwan may not write with determinism in mind, it's a central theme in his major works. Even though Amsterdam is presented in third person, the prose is filtered through each character’s thought process, leaving the reader believing that it had to happen this way. McEwan convinces the reader that his story, his interpretation of events is the only correct one and that the (sparse) details he provides is all that's necessary.

I apologize for the ambiguity, but I don’t have the volume in front of me plus I don’t want to reveal too much.

Received back issues of Caketrain 2 & 3 yesterday. I gave the poetry a skim in each, and there are several big names and excellent pieces throughout. One observation (and I’m striving for objectivity here) is that Caketrain 4 is the most experimental of any issue. Yes, there are “experimental” pieces in every issue, but issue 4 seems less intent on fulfilling a narrative poetry quota (not that I have anything against narrative poems a priori) and more intent on forcing the reader upon strange realities. Maybe this young journal is now comfortable in its britches. If you have a spare $20, I’d encourage you to pick up a couple issues of Caketrain; it’s definitely a journal intent on publishing innovative writing.

Even though my Thursday evenings are free, it’s the most difficult day of the week for me to write. After four days of work and two nights of classes, I just want to watch basketball, read something non-philosophical, or play Civilization IV. Plus, I’m pretty confident I’ve finished Palsy Aria, at least insofar as I’m done explicitly exploring its themes, so I’m still searching for my next project. No, I’m not writing with another (chap)book in mind or suggesting that any collection or series of poems should have a narrative arc that unifies everything. I just like to write with a cohesive, abstract theme guiding me. I have some ideas, but I need something to grab me.

I wish WV wasn’t a literary cesspool.

-j

Once more unto the breach!

Since it is officially Futurama quote day, I'll leave the following as an offering and a tribute to the cataclysmic collaboration between Jason and I:

[George Foreman's talking head]: "This could be the most one-sided fight since 1973 when Ali faced an eighty-foot-tall mechanical Joe Frazier. My memory isn't what it used to be - but I think the entire Earth was destroyed."

We'll hope synergy doesn't birth armageddon by accident.

In the meantime, my purview is naturally going to be a bit different from the one boasted by the post-pomo-philosopher-poet we all know and love. I'm a Romanticist at heart (my Ph.D. candidacy is in the field), a medieval scholar in spirit, and a reader of critical theory and philosophy - as well as an avid anime watcher, a visual kei fan, a current student of French, and a writer of Delightful Genre Novels That Will One Day Be Published. And, if a reviewer were to describe my literary/cultural interests, it might sound something like this:

"If Frisky Dingo and Abel Nightroad curled up beneath a tree with John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley to speak in old English and Japanese while Master Shake analyzed the homoerotic content of the coupling and proceeded to write a queer theory analysis of it - well, that might sound a little bit like brandy's tastes."

Consider yourself warned.

Naturally then, my posts are liable to range anywhere from book reviews, to theoretical rants, to cooing adorations of poets who died long before I was born, to....well, Jason said it best: a grab bag, indeed.

And so, in parting, a brief summary of books I'm currently reading:
T.W. Adorno, Minima Moralia
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Paul Gravett, Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics
Richard Altick, The English Common Reader

Chaos, ahoy!

- b -

An Example of Inanity

One thing B forgot to put into the heading:

Exploring the origins of goodness, evil, and neutrality:

"What makes a good man go neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?"

-- Zapp Brannigan

I don't know, Zapp, but we must find out.

-j

Yes, It's True

First off, I’m not normally this much of an exhibitionist.

I don’t believe this project is doomed from the start, but I’ve been wrong before. The last time B and I collaborated on a poem, we made it to about line three. Not necessarily a good omen. But with the nudging of a few e-poets, I convinced her that this public experiment would be fun. And, according to Dr. Phil, it would enrich our marriage. (Okay, I made that last part up, but maybe I’ll get brownie points for name dropping.)

I’m sure we’ll traverse quite the topical landscape. Since my B & I’s aesthetics are almost impossibly different in many areas, it should make for an interesting conglomeration of viewpoints. For example, I show her the contemporary poetry that I enjoy, and she gets nauseous. Then mention I enjoy Steinbeck, and she projectile vomits. (For a frame of reference, she prefers Keats and Shelley).

But, no need to unveil everything at once. I do plan to concentrate many posts on all things poetic, whether it’s acceptance / rejection info, where my poetry is at online / in print, books I have received, general rants about the po-biz, and poems / sites you can’t live without. Since I plan on using critique boards less and less, I hope to maintain contact with several e-poets whose work I enjoy and admire.

When surfing other blogs, I always enjoy discovering what other people are reading. I’ll attempt to reciprocate by listing what non-poetry books / journals I’m reading. Why not poetry? I’m pretty idiosyncratic about my reading: I often skip around in new poetry books for awhile before reading it straight through, I almost always skip the fiction in lit journals, etc. So I’ll just list what po books / journals I’ve received, and you can assume that I’ll eventually make it through them.

Currently reading: Amsterdam, Ian McEwan

Have read so far this year:

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Pure Immanence: Essays on a Life, Gilles Deleuze
Paper Machine, Jacques Derrida
The Illusion of the End, Jean Baudrillard

Po items received this year (or maybe the tail end of last year):

Contributor copies of Caketrain 4 and Cranky 8
Forklift, Ohio 15
Big Crisis, Nate Pritts
New issues of Denver Quarterly, 14 Hills, and No: A Journal of the Arts
Angle of Yaw, Ben Lerner

I plan to post a list of two of links when I get time this weekend to good blogs, po websites, etc. this weekend.

I hope you enjoy the grab-bag of inanity to follow.

-j