Now I will write a completely self-indulgent summary of the last day or so.
On Thursday evening, Capria and I attended a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the Seattle Symphony conducted by Itzhak Perlman. The music was, of course, amazing. But the opening of the evening was particularly powerful as well. After the concertmaster took her seat, the place was completely silent. And then, the swish-thump of Perlman's crutches as he came onto the stage. It was pretty amazing.
After the concert, Capria helped me bake banana bread for the Deleuze reading group I'm part of this quarter. We had to make one loaf vegan, which I had never done before. It turned out fine.
Friday was a lot of fun: the morning I spent chatting with my friend Artur, who is currently studying in France, about the church fathers. After that, some reading and then our discussion group met on campus. We focused on Deleuze's theory of difference in itself and its implications for philosophy. After that, I went to a coffeeshop where I read from Samuel Delaney's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand for the posthuman narratives class, and hung out with my friend Brian.
In the evening, the Tottens came over for pizza and beers.
This morning Capria and I cleaned house and I worked on my Master's essay. I'm about to return to Delaney. Tonight I'm trying a new recipe for mussels gratin.
You should come visit us in Seattle, where you can have as good a time as we do. I basically feel as if I need to come down with some chronic illness within the next year or two to make up for the fun I'm having right now.
My posts as of late have been sporadic and not very informative. There are reasons for this. One, I have been busy, and for some reason I can't just sit down and rattle off a post.
The second reason, however, is a bit more philosophical. I resist writing if I don't have anything to say. And, quite frankly, since there are people who actually read this, most of the time I believe my writing is not worth the effort to read.
I'm discovering that in the cyberpunk and scifi traditions, fictional predictions of the futures which uncannily resemble today, the most violent acts involve removing someone from the network, disrupting the system of information flows. Bodies are much less important than the ability to communicate. Hence, cutting one off from cyberspace is like banishment.
In the same way, I believe information itself can become something violent, an intervention in the world of real minds and bodies moving in and out of contact with one another. A lingo term might be "Reality Hacking." My posts hack into your reality, albeit willingly on your part, in the same way your comments/posts disrupt my own.
In and of itself, there is nothing evil about this kind of violence. It's the violence of ontology, the shock of community, the trauma which is life. Some of you call it “kicking someone’s ass.” At the same time, I wonder if the proliferation of the particular kind of intervention which is netspace does not come at some cost. For example, I would rather spend time thinking about a particular subject (or, even better, acting on it in my everyday behaviors, habitus, consumption, conservation, etc. etc.) before I inflict my opinion about it upon you. Or, I would rather talk with you about it face to face before I write something down. Incessantly sending out my ideas into the world sounds a bit too narcissistic in my mind.
To look at it from another angle: in composition we talk about two different kinds of writing. One could be called gesturing, such as the kind of writing you would find in an old fashioned diary or journal (remember those?) and the other could be called critical, such as what I do here or what I ask my students to do for a term paper. Gestures are acts of thought, very dynamic, exploratory, suggestive. Criticism is a statement, a clearly articulate set of ideas with a stake in the real world. Gestures lead to criticism, and good criticism always sparks more gestures, but they have different functions with different roles.
Sometimes I think that networks turn gestures into criticism. (You might say I am doing it right now.) I often wonder what the effects are, or what the cost, even in time and energy, in reading all of these gestures as pieces of criticism. Or, as a writer, feeling as if I have a lot of critical opinions other people should spend time reading. Sometimes I do, but often I don't. And when I don't, I shouldn't act as if I do.
What I am getting at here doesn't just go for blogging. Academia, my home turf, suffers mightily from this problem. I think it comes from taking yourself too seriously. I think one can take reality seriously without overvaluing one's self. I'm trying to learn how to do that.
George Oppen, one of my favorite poets, sums it up pretty nicely when he writes of "Clarity in the sense of silence." If I go awhile without writing a post, think of it as an attempt to sense silence. That said, please feel free to break the silence on this issue with some comments.
You knew I'd have to say something. I've been a Steelers fan pretty much from birth, and now they are playing the Seattle Seahawks, my home and arguably the greatest city in the US.
I think it's a great position to be in. Don't get me wrong. I will not cease to talk smack to Seahawks fans until the last second of the game. But if they win, I'll have to be excited for them.
Such is the beauty of football: all of the violence and (usually) none of the killing.
Yesterday's game was the biggest adrenaline roller-coaster I've been on in a while.
I love Pittsburgh.
It's been a while. Spent a nice break in PA with my family and then flew home to immediately start the new quarter. I am teaching a composition through literature course and taking a seminar on posthuman narratives, which is hot. I am also writing my master's essay on manifestations of life in the american and european avant-gardes. I didn't realize how great self-determined research could be. This is what I've been missing thus far.
My friend sent me this story. I think it speaks for itself but, like a politician might do, I will give it a moral: TV is not only evil, it is dangerous. Get off your butt and read a poem.
A blanket apology: if you were expecting a christmas card from us and have not recieved one, it is because we are lazy. We bought the cards and postage but never got the chance to fill them out. Thankfully, they'll still be good for next year.