So no one was interested in talking politics. I understand. Here is a Wallace Stevens poem about desire.
"The Well Dressed Man with a Beard"
After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
The aureole above the humming house...
It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.
duration press has a very cool website. They also offer a great free ebook collection for anyone interested in reading some recent poetry. My friend Emily recommended Rosmarie Waldrop's book Lawn of Excluded Middle which I am currently reading and highly recommend.
I was reading the nytimes the other day and saw this picture of an islamic politician and a christian politician talking at a conference in Iraq on Middle East democracy or something of that nature. Most of you know my conflicted (some would say neurotic) politics but I found something really refreshing in the picture and it has to do with democracy. I don't know what they were saying to each other, it could have been pretty heated, but at least they were talking as different people and trying to forge some sort of functional society out of that. Slavoj Zizek has this lecture called "A Plea for Fundamentalism" that makes the argument that a strong ideological identity is the best way to have a healthy society and I think he's right.
What do I mean by that? The fundamentalism he's talking about here is not the fascistic tinged versions we see in certain branches of islam and christianity. Its the version that says "I am me and you are you, I believe I am right and you are wrong, but you believe the same about me. Now, how are we going to live together?" In acknowledging the difference you are actually free to acknowledge the other as other instead of trying to annex them into some sort of ideological construction. You identify with them and distinguish yourself from them at the same time. And then you can actually start talking.
In this country, and in a place like France as we've seen recently, there has been too much hegemony and not enough Zizekian fundamentalism. That sounds really counterintuitive, but think about it, particularly in the issues that divide us. When's the last time you saw a Christian leader and a gay rights leader actually talking about the issue of same-sex marriage? I think it may only be possible in acknowledging and allowing for those differences while acknowledging that we have to come to some sort of consensus about how to live together.
Of course, there aren't a whole lot of people blowing up themselves over an issue like same-sex marriage, and that's the problem with too much fundamentalism: the other becomes absolute other.
I know this is always a hot topic among many of us, but I'm not trying to rehash the old arguments. Just some thoughts.
I've had a long day. I spent the late afternoon talking about Marcel Duchamp, that most singular avant-gardiste. who is very difficult to read and excessively playful at the same time. The mantra repeated by a lot of the predecessors of Duchamp, like Eliot and Pound, talked all the time about the necessity for difficult art.
And generally I agree with them.
Marcel Duchamp is a difficult artist. John Cage is a difficult musician. Ezra Pound is a difficult poet. They draw me back, because difficult things do.
But tonight I wanted a different kind of difficult. I wanted to listen to one of my new favorite Iron and Wine songs, The Trapeze Swinger. I keep coming back to it because I love it. And I don't know how it makes me better, although I KNOW it.
I don't know if Duchamp makes me better. I know he makes me smarter. I know he is actually addressing "Aesthetic Questions" and that that is important and worth something.
I also know that Sam Beam makes me happy and live in a way that's just . . . better. Not that art's ultimate virtue is making us better.
And I know that the way Sufjan Steven's sings about John Wayne Gacy, Jr. makes me feel like crying in a way that I scares me.
Will Duchamp, or Pound for that matter, ever make me cry? I doubt it.
Eliot can come close.
So can George Oppen.
Does this make me some sort of sentamentalist, the worst kind of ciritc out there?
Generally, I don't know.
This is the first blog entry I've ever made from home.
Which means I'll probably be blogging a bit more regularly. I finally got a real computer at home, which allows me to get real work done. And also a source of endless distraction.
It's been a good fall so far. A lot of the same. We went out to Montana to see Capria's family, which was fun. Her brother has three sons between 5-1 and they are a lot of fun. We don't see them often.
I've been working on William Carlos Williams and the Avant-Garde, Wallace Stevens and Martin Heidegger, and inculcating English 202 students with the radical values of free thought. Last week I was able to attend this, a seminar by Alexander Nehemas, a visiting lecturer from Princeton. It was very cool.
A great thing about having a computer is getting to work on my french by listenting to philosophical discussions on radio france. Fun.
Another new distraction? Capria bought me one of those joysticks with 5 atari games for the TV. All I need in my life is video games.
Last night we went to see Good Night, and Good Luck with friends. I think black and white film is such an amazing medium.
I got this in the mail yesterday. The author is coming to UW in February.
Now you know more about my life than you wanted.