She always pulled my card, my trump card. She'd piss me off to no end with some drivel about 'us,' and instead of owning up to whatever it was she thought I was doing I'd go off the deep end. I'd tell her that we shouldn't be together and that it's best that way because I have bad ideas and evil thoughts and that I'm a bad person at my core. She'd, of course, contain this semblance of freedom, this moment of agency and potency with her 'coy' laughter. Containment. She got what she wanted, she had that bumblebee in the jar and she shook it just enough to get it buzzing and pissed off. Then we'd fuck. She wanted me pissed because she'd know I'd give her a good fuck then. She wanted that red rocket of evil and hatred penetrating her fucking cul de sac. Then I had transmuted that evil, which I normally turn on myself, into a lightning bolt of energy and sexuality.
We both ended up pleased by this outcome as we lay there sweaty, her giggling, us talking about some bullshit 'social' 'theory,' a condom still hanging from my deflating dick.
I kind of miss those nights. I haven't been laid since about then. It's been almost a decade, since a woman with no concept of father has come and smacked me over the head, sucked my dick in the car, and drunk me under the table. I do miss that. As much as I tell myself I want a 'normal' girl, a girl with fewer tantrums, a girl with fewer liberal thoughts. I wanted a conquered wife, a traditional girl. That shit blew up in my face when I dated briefly a girl, also with no concept of a father, who quietly accepted my frequent impotence. Too bad she didn't open up that other door.
This violent woman I dated. She reduced me to tears some nights, and some nights I repaid the favor. I've walked out on her. She walked out on me. I was always 'disappointing' her with promises that were never fulfilled.
"No, honey. I can't take you to the circus. Daddy has to work."
"No, honey. I can't fuck you right now. Daddy has to please mommy."
War robots through and through. Whatever happened to the Spartans? They had such a complete system for destroying the ego, the self. From the outside, it looks so simple. I wonder though, how one-dimensional being trained to become a war robot is? After all, the same mind who can pen poetry and philosophy is being honed into a maelstrom of fighting techniques and weapon mastery, to fight until the every last drop of life has left the body.
So simple it seems. But what's under the hood?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Fragile Absolute
My friend Mike was on a Slavoj Zizek kick and he sent me this. It's dated but always relevant.
I read this paragraph in Zizek's _Fragile Absolute_ and it was just
screaming out your name:
"One should not confound this primordially repressed myth (this
fundamental fantasy) with the multitude of inconsistent daydreams that
always accomnpany our symbolic commitments, allowing us to endure
them. Let us recall the xample of a 'straight' sexual relationship.
The sucess of Peter Hoeg's _The Woman and the Ape_ indicates that sex
with an animal is today's predominant form of the fantasy of full
sexual relationship, and it is crucial that this animal is as a rule
male: in contrast to cyborg-fantasy, in which the cybordg is, as a
rue, a woman (Blade Runner)--that is , in whcih the fantasy is that of
Woman-Machine-- the animal is a male ape copulating with a human
woman, and fully satisfying her. Does this not materialize two
standard common daydreams: that of a woman who wants a strong animal
partner, a potent 'beast' not a hyserical impotent weakling; and that
of a man who wants his female partner to be a perfectly programmed
'doll' who fulfils all his wishes, not a living being? What we should
do in order to penetrate the underlying 'fundamental fantasy" is to
stage these two fantasies together: to confront ourselves with the
unberable ideal couple of a male ape copulating with a female cyborg,
the fantasmatic support of the 'normal' couple of man and woman
copulating. The need for this redoubling, the need for this
fantasmatic supplement to accompany the 'straight' sexual act as a
spectal shadow, is yet another proof that 'there is no sexual
relationship.' (Fragile Absolute, p. 65-66)
I had this roomate once...
... and she was really sexy. She was married to some ad executive out in L.A. She was going to school at UC Boulder. We were in the same program. She had space in her house, so I moved in. I pleaded with her to not get a divorce, but she did. Shit got weird (for me) for a bit. I began dating a girl, and it ended after she (and I) got the hint that I probably mentioned my roommate's name too much in conversation. She was dating a guy at this point. Some assistant D.A. for the city of Boulder. He had just acquired a C.I.O. job for a new airline out of Denver, a real hot shot. I was treated to the occasional rocking bed sound, but worse than that were images like this as I passed the laundry to enter my basement apartment.
Atypical response from a Chinese student.
Dredging the old folders I found this gem because it struck me as a bright, yet atypical response from a Chinese student in the level of vitriol that it contained.
First a synopsis of the lecture to which the student, Kaibin, is responding:
First a synopsis of the lecture to which the student, Kaibin, is responding:
Now Kaibin's response:Liberal Representation and Global Order: The Iconic Photograph from Tiananmen Square
Contrary to the fears of public sphere theorists, liberal-democratic public culture always has been underwritten by visual images. Iconic photos are one example of how images organize social knowledge and ideologies, shape understanding of specific events and periods then and subsequently, influence political action both topically and by modeling relationships between civic actors, and provide figural resources for subsequent communicative action. The iconic image achieves its status not because of its news value, but because it embodies basic conceptions of political identity in a manner that provides aesthetic resolution of fundamental contradictions in the dominant social order.
The photo of a solitary Chinese man standing calmly before the barrel of a tank in Tiananmen Square exemplifies how photojournalism negotiates the tension between democracy and liberalism. The image of a lone individual stopping a tank in its tracks is rightly celebrated for its contrast of an anonymous figure of personal autonomy with a stock depiction of the totalitarian state. Yet as the image articulates individual human rights and a universal form of citizenship in a silent, empty public space, it displaces the vividly encultured expressions of popular democracy that had defined the historical event and suggested the possibility of alternative versions of modern development. This displacement can be traced from the design of the image itself through its history of appropriation. Thus, the Tiananmen icon is indicative of a shift from democratic to liberal norms of representation throughout U.S. public culture, and of a liberal vision of global order.
Hi Jason and all,Frankly, as a Chinese, I am very unhappy about the topic of his lecture. This topic has become a cliche in academics and international politics. It is nothing new and I bet what he'll say is but repetition of what many others said in early 1990s. I think Hariman should learn from Ward Churchill and criticize the U.S. government first (if he has that kind of courage) if he is seriously concerned about democracy, particulary when democracy is being threathened in the U.S. since Mr. Bush came to presidency. As a "distinguished" scholar, he should keep up with the changing world situation, not just be preoccupied with something that many others did before and with something on which a lot of literature is available and with what happened long before. His interests in delivering a lecture on such an out-dated topic to graduate students and scholars of a research 1 university, for me, reflects his neo-colonialist and ethnocentric point of view and cold-war thought about the world order and accomplics the U.S. government to use democracy as a name to intervene domestic affairs in other countries. For our department and CU, spending so much money and so much efforts on a lecture that could not yield to any new research orientation is but a waste.Of course, as a Chinese, I am concerned with democracy in China. Democracy is developing toward a healthy direction. And we are confident of dealing with it on our own and don't want outside interference and misleadingly blind and empty comments. We don't want people who understand little about the contemporary Chinese situation to mislead others.Can you forward this message to others? Thanks.Regards,Kaibin
Dream: 01/11/10
Do you ever have one of those dreams whose residual effect persists after you've awoken. The first time I experienced this was with a dream I had as a 7-year-old about a girl I knew and a boy I was friends with in the second grade. The dream morphed from me using the toilet to take a leak at my house to those two friends showing up and me eating the chlorine cake that my mother would hang on the side of the toilet. My stomach was upset well into the day, and I even stayed home from school I was so sickened. I do recall going to the grocery store with my mother that day and eating Whoppers as my mother declared that I wasn't sick. That's the kind of mother she was; quick to come to your aid in support of your view, then equally as quick to discount it with a mixture of scolding and laughter.
The dream I had on the 11th had this residual effect. Luckily, it only persisted for about 5 minutes after waking. Two disconnected pieces of the dream will remain seared in my mind for some time. I'm at what looks like a house party. It's evening. I can faintly make out lights strung in the air and people around the periphery. None I can make out. I walk down the steps that go into the back door. There's a phone on a stand next to a tree about 10 feet from the steps. I am on the phone talking to a man who, I am informed by disembodied voices, is speaking to me from a research station in the Arctic. He's trying to give me his address, and I can hardly hear his voice. He keeps repeating his address. The pen and paper I'm using aren't working, so I ask him to hold as I get an actual pad and a new pen. I return to the outdoor area, and that same phone rings. Apparently, the way I rested the phone back down on the cradle hung the phone up. I assume it's him calling me back. It's not. It's my grandmother. She's been dead for almost 6 years.
She says hello. Her voice sounds quiet and somewhat infirm. I return with a hello. Instead of how she is doing, I drop the bomb. "What's heaven like?" I ask. I was feeling somewhat brave. She responds, "Everyone is dead." I then hear an explanation of what that means. I get the gist that the dead are the non-believers. She was one of the few devout Catholics who is in heaven, but she's surrounded by dead, non-believers. I tell her that, since I don't believe in an afterlife, I won't have to worry myself with being surrounded by the dead because I'll be one of them. The conversation ends. I enter the house, and now the house has morphed into the interior of a bar. This sets up the second part of the dream.
I'm at the bar. There are people there. I notice at one table a woman, more a girl really, looking at me. She has light blue eyes, and they're locked on mine for a length of time, the kind of length that indicates attraction, which some study that you'd read about in the news has determined scientifically. I'm convinced that she's interested. She's with friends or family, I'm not sure. Several are at her table. She stands next to it. I build up some courage, and when I see her again, she has re-entered the bar wearing a dress. She's still at this table, only now she is with a girlfriend. I muster up some courage, talk with the friends that I've apparently accompanied to the bar, and set off to make my move.
I approach her table and say a simple hello. She's speaking out loud to her friend about the hot guys at the bar. She's ignoring me as is her friend. She scans around the bar as if I'm not there. Dejected, I walk away. I pass my friends' table. Apparently, by the short conversation that we have the girl is my friend's sister. I say my goodbyes. I want to leave this bar. "Just don't pity me." I say as I leave the bar area for the exit. On my way out, I stop into the restroom. As I round a corner of the bathroom, I see that a man using one of the stalls has barricaded his section off with several trash cans. He's on his phone as he unseats himself from the toilet he's been using. I'm trying to focus on using the urinal, and I wake up. I have to take a piss.
People tell me that when they've dreamed of going to the bathroom they've inadvertently gone somewhere in their house or in their bed. I suppose that I'm glad that in my dream all the usual anxieties surrounding women, the afterlife, and even pissing in public are involved. The one saving grace of the dream is that I didn't follow through and piss my bed that day. As I get up to go to the bathroom my ego is still smarting from the dream. I'm still actually feeling somewhat hurt and dejected. The worst feeling is being treated as if you're not there, and the dream girl switched from locking eyes with me to being oblivious to me. I'm thinking of this as I try to take a piss and I'm having trouble still. I'm thinking too much and the anxieties have me all pinched up. Nothing is flowing. Eventually I do piss, and I go lay back down in bed.
Dreams like this reference my current state of affairs. My fascination with the dead and with being treated as if I'm not there are recurrent elements in my fantasies. They do have something in common. When you're being utterly ignored, you're non-existent socially. As an ignored entity whose only affirming presence is that of your own self-awareness you consider yourself as good as dead to the others. After all, you came all this way to be among others. For them to completely ignore you sends a message that your presence is more than not welcome--you presence isn't even worth their time to acknowledge. I'm going to see how long I can go unnoticed. My one magic trick is my disappearing act.
The dream I had on the 11th had this residual effect. Luckily, it only persisted for about 5 minutes after waking. Two disconnected pieces of the dream will remain seared in my mind for some time. I'm at what looks like a house party. It's evening. I can faintly make out lights strung in the air and people around the periphery. None I can make out. I walk down the steps that go into the back door. There's a phone on a stand next to a tree about 10 feet from the steps. I am on the phone talking to a man who, I am informed by disembodied voices, is speaking to me from a research station in the Arctic. He's trying to give me his address, and I can hardly hear his voice. He keeps repeating his address. The pen and paper I'm using aren't working, so I ask him to hold as I get an actual pad and a new pen. I return to the outdoor area, and that same phone rings. Apparently, the way I rested the phone back down on the cradle hung the phone up. I assume it's him calling me back. It's not. It's my grandmother. She's been dead for almost 6 years.
She says hello. Her voice sounds quiet and somewhat infirm. I return with a hello. Instead of how she is doing, I drop the bomb. "What's heaven like?" I ask. I was feeling somewhat brave. She responds, "Everyone is dead." I then hear an explanation of what that means. I get the gist that the dead are the non-believers. She was one of the few devout Catholics who is in heaven, but she's surrounded by dead, non-believers. I tell her that, since I don't believe in an afterlife, I won't have to worry myself with being surrounded by the dead because I'll be one of them. The conversation ends. I enter the house, and now the house has morphed into the interior of a bar. This sets up the second part of the dream.
I'm at the bar. There are people there. I notice at one table a woman, more a girl really, looking at me. She has light blue eyes, and they're locked on mine for a length of time, the kind of length that indicates attraction, which some study that you'd read about in the news has determined scientifically. I'm convinced that she's interested. She's with friends or family, I'm not sure. Several are at her table. She stands next to it. I build up some courage, and when I see her again, she has re-entered the bar wearing a dress. She's still at this table, only now she is with a girlfriend. I muster up some courage, talk with the friends that I've apparently accompanied to the bar, and set off to make my move.
I approach her table and say a simple hello. She's speaking out loud to her friend about the hot guys at the bar. She's ignoring me as is her friend. She scans around the bar as if I'm not there. Dejected, I walk away. I pass my friends' table. Apparently, by the short conversation that we have the girl is my friend's sister. I say my goodbyes. I want to leave this bar. "Just don't pity me." I say as I leave the bar area for the exit. On my way out, I stop into the restroom. As I round a corner of the bathroom, I see that a man using one of the stalls has barricaded his section off with several trash cans. He's on his phone as he unseats himself from the toilet he's been using. I'm trying to focus on using the urinal, and I wake up. I have to take a piss.
People tell me that when they've dreamed of going to the bathroom they've inadvertently gone somewhere in their house or in their bed. I suppose that I'm glad that in my dream all the usual anxieties surrounding women, the afterlife, and even pissing in public are involved. The one saving grace of the dream is that I didn't follow through and piss my bed that day. As I get up to go to the bathroom my ego is still smarting from the dream. I'm still actually feeling somewhat hurt and dejected. The worst feeling is being treated as if you're not there, and the dream girl switched from locking eyes with me to being oblivious to me. I'm thinking of this as I try to take a piss and I'm having trouble still. I'm thinking too much and the anxieties have me all pinched up. Nothing is flowing. Eventually I do piss, and I go lay back down in bed.
Dreams like this reference my current state of affairs. My fascination with the dead and with being treated as if I'm not there are recurrent elements in my fantasies. They do have something in common. When you're being utterly ignored, you're non-existent socially. As an ignored entity whose only affirming presence is that of your own self-awareness you consider yourself as good as dead to the others. After all, you came all this way to be among others. For them to completely ignore you sends a message that your presence is more than not welcome--you presence isn't even worth their time to acknowledge. I'm going to see how long I can go unnoticed. My one magic trick is my disappearing act.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Life functions at a premium
We receive apocalyptic reports about the collapse of marine ecosystems. The fishing industry's industrial capacity and wartime technology can track and intercept large fish stocks as they migrate, when they spawn, and where they hide. It's an amazing multimillion dollar industry. I tend to agree that it will soon collapse. But out of that collapse a phoenix will rise, and it will serve as a bellwether for a possible future.
The Japanese love their fish. They hate liberals, tree huggers, whale savers, and green peace meddling in their affairs. In an act of sovereignty they flout all marine laws and take whatever they want from the ocean. So be it. Enterprising Japanese, I suspect, have frozen the embryos of their most beloved fish so that when their stocks do collapse they will have a premium on the fish when they raise and farm the last remaining ones.
It's a matter of patenting life. If the Japanese can patent some element of the process and purport to have restocked the ocean of a given variety of marine life, then they will charge a premium every time it is harvested. The Japanese in this sense are a metaphor for any legitimate, legal entity with the technological prowess and diplomatic pull to push its agenda globally. One possible future has the majority of our staple foods being the property of some commercial entity by proxy. Gone is an abundance of life for all to take. In its stead is the enterprise, which ensures a specific quantity of food and collects a premium anytime that food is harvested. The world becomes its livestock pen. Land-based and marine-based sovereignty becomes a thing of the past.
Will the people rise up? Not if entertainment is free, utterly and unabashedly available and free. We're already championing many methods of simulating the many functions of human enjoyment, from hunter gatherer simulations in a neo-medieval fantasy game environment to sex robots and three-dimensional immersions--we're already developing what might become the givens for human needs attainment.
One possible future has us with all the entertainment options we want and well within reason while life functions--food, reproduction, and health care--at a premium. This reversal of the once taken for granted bounties of life's nutrition and the occupations that harness them will give way to a bee-hive bureaucracy of entertainment. If we lose our tie to the land altogether then we've stepped closer to the simulation of life and experience that is the focus of some many dystopian futures.
I cooked all this up while I stared at what I now considered to be my last two cans of tuna.
The Japanese love their fish. They hate liberals, tree huggers, whale savers, and green peace meddling in their affairs. In an act of sovereignty they flout all marine laws and take whatever they want from the ocean. So be it. Enterprising Japanese, I suspect, have frozen the embryos of their most beloved fish so that when their stocks do collapse they will have a premium on the fish when they raise and farm the last remaining ones.
It's a matter of patenting life. If the Japanese can patent some element of the process and purport to have restocked the ocean of a given variety of marine life, then they will charge a premium every time it is harvested. The Japanese in this sense are a metaphor for any legitimate, legal entity with the technological prowess and diplomatic pull to push its agenda globally. One possible future has the majority of our staple foods being the property of some commercial entity by proxy. Gone is an abundance of life for all to take. In its stead is the enterprise, which ensures a specific quantity of food and collects a premium anytime that food is harvested. The world becomes its livestock pen. Land-based and marine-based sovereignty becomes a thing of the past.
Will the people rise up? Not if entertainment is free, utterly and unabashedly available and free. We're already championing many methods of simulating the many functions of human enjoyment, from hunter gatherer simulations in a neo-medieval fantasy game environment to sex robots and three-dimensional immersions--we're already developing what might become the givens for human needs attainment.
One possible future has us with all the entertainment options we want and well within reason while life functions--food, reproduction, and health care--at a premium. This reversal of the once taken for granted bounties of life's nutrition and the occupations that harness them will give way to a bee-hive bureaucracy of entertainment. If we lose our tie to the land altogether then we've stepped closer to the simulation of life and experience that is the focus of some many dystopian futures.
I cooked all this up while I stared at what I now considered to be my last two cans of tuna.
I'm in need of a caption for pictures like this.
This is a security force operating in the small Angolan province of Cabinda, which has been in the news. Seeing this scene, I can't help but see a group of bad guys that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are going to face down on the streets. I also see this as a lost genre foray of the late Miles Davis. I could see him pulling off a stunt like this for an album cover and perhaps trumpeting some post-apocalyptic jazz to accompany the theme.
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