tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:/feedMiguel Rivera2016-04-02T01:35:51-07:00Miguel Riverahttps://tenderbuttons.svbtle.comSvbtle.comtag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/the-catch-shondalands-newest-thriller2016-04-02T01:35:51-07:002016-04-02T01:35:51-07:00The Catch: The Bunny-Ears Lawyer Gets a Welcome Makeover In The World of Detection<p>Ah, Shondaland. What would I do without you? <em>The Catch</em> is the newest addition to the production house’s stable, and a series which I can admit to having some trepidation about. The trailer was a little bit alarming, after all. There were just too many white people. Still, <em>The Catch</em> manages to deliver enough thrills and provocations to fit well with Rhimes’s oeuvre. It is worth noting that Rhimes only serves as executive producer, as is the case with the often mis-attributed <em>How To Get Away With Murder</em>. Maybe someday Peter Nowalk will get his well deserved credit.</p>
<p>But we’re not talking about <em>HTGAWM</em>, we are talking about <em>The Catch</em> which has enormous shoes to fill. The series follows Alice Vaughan, a private detective played by Mireille Enos, who was conned by her fiancé. Vaughan is dead set on revenge, and must balance her quest for extra-legal justice with the daily upkeep of her detective firm, which comes to the viewer in the form of the weekly mystery plot.</p>
<p>The series manages to do a lot with a premise that isn’t immediately arresting. Enos and Peter Krause (who plays Vaughan’s con-artist ex-fiancé Benjamin Jones) have fantastic chemistry and establish the emotional stakes of their relationship believably despite the time constraints of a 40 minute TV episode. The pilot in particular shines as it flits freely through time showing tender moments that make Jones’s con hit particularly hard. Krause is firing on all cylinders in a moment where his character asks Vaughan to run away with him. He does more acting with his facial expressions than most actors do in their entire life. The anguish and various obligations that pull at Jones come across spectacularly in this scene. This strong emotional core, and the degree to which the ambiguity of the relationship between Vaughan and Jones is captured so authentically as their absurd cat-and-mouse game begins makes the series immediately captivating. It’s almost as if the series itself doesn’t trust how convincing its actors have been, as in the second episode Elvy Yost’s character is given the unenviable task of delivering expository lines like “maybe he’s saying it was real and he really loved you.”</p>
<p>Another of the series’s strengths is the way in which it complicates the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BunnyEarsLawyer">“Bunny-Ears Lawyer”</a> and <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsufferableGenius">“Insufferable Genius”</a> tropes. Alice Vaughan is an outstanding investigator, orders of magnitude better than her peers, colleagues, and subordinates. However, as a human being, she has no frustrating or uncanny personality quirks. She just <em>works</em>. She is strikingly relate-able in her disposition, and the low-key and intimate moments of humanity which are such a trademark of Shondaland are on full display here. Vaughan is Sherlock Holmes without the neurosis. Just like Olivia Pope and Annalise Keating, Alice Vaughan is a character who is no less human for her superheroic proficiency at her job. The Holmesian quirkiness can often function as both a narrative and character developmental cop-out. A character who feels so human, particularly in the context of detective work where the genre of detective fiction is so riddled with Holmes ripoffs and reinterpretations, is a breath of fresh air. To further complicate these tropes, Vaughan is rarely alone. She’s the boss of an enormous detective firm, and her excellence comes as much from her inherent detective skill as from her ability to delegate.</p>
<p>Despite these refreshing changes, <em>The Catch</em> still suffers from all the failings of the detective TV genre. Just like House or Sherlock Holmes in his various incarnations, despite the narrative conceit of Vaughan’s flawless detective work, she is wrong far more often than she is right. It’s a necessary evil, as a television show where the protagonist was always several steps ahead of the viewer wouldn’t be much fun. House, Holmes, and Vaughan seem clueless precisely because they have to serve the function of making the viewer feel intelligent and allowing the viewer to draw conclusions about the mystery that might be correct <em>before</em> anyone in the show does. Still, this odd disjunction is no less unsettling for its necessity.</p>
<p>The show stumbles, too, in asking too much of Mireille Enos. She just doesn’t play composed well. While her chemistry with Krause and fantastic work in the more tender, vulnerable, and humanizing moments are crucial for making the show work, she does not command the screen or have the authoritative presence flawlessly delivered by Kerry Washington and Viola Davis. Because their character archetypes are so similar, it’s difficult not to compare their acting. Washington and Davis never seem to be out of their depth as performers. If anything, <em>Scandal</em>‘s script asks far too little of Washington. Enos just has not expressed the same kind of mastery of the masterful dimension of her character. Even in the moments where she is supposed to be holding all the cards, it seems like she’s holding on by a thread.</p>
<p>Even with my complaints, <em>The Catch</em> delivers. It takes a lot to make me tune into a show week to week, and there is no question <em>The Catch</em> is a priority in my rotation. The show is undeniably Shondaland for better or for worse. In Alice Vaughan we get another engaging protagonist, a genius without any overly theatrical neurosis but rather with all of the small recognizable flaws that make one human, along the same lines Olivia Pope and Annalise Keating. Just like <em>Scandal</em>’s later seasons and <em>HTGAWM</em>, <em>The Catch</em>’s weekly plots play second fiddle to the overarching narrative and largely get lost in the shuffle of the episode. Though Enos’s performance leaves a little bit to be desired in the moments where Vaughan is expected to appear as calm, collected, and in-charge, it is an open question as to whether Enos will become more comfortable in the role as the series progresses. </p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/three-essays-in-psychoanalysis-zizek-bdsm-and-the-possibility-of-sovereignty2016-03-10T00:05:19-08:002016-03-10T00:05:19-08:00Three Essays in Psychoanalysis: Zizek, BDSM, and the Possibility of Sovereignty<p><em>This is the third of my series of essays in, rather than on, psychoanalysis. In preparing these pieces, I hope to provide for myself fertile ground from which to grow additional thoughts and reason through some of the evergreen problems in psychoanalysis and ethics. It is worth noting, also, that these three essays were written in the span of about sixty minutes.</em></p>
<p>In Zizek’s essay, “Love Thy Neighbor? No Thanks” he gets a number of things wrong. Particularly striking among his errors is the veneration of fascist art objects to which he credits the ability of a certain kind of insurgent potential to the system known as “ideology.” Where one can encounter his error most blatantly is in his rendering of sexual masochism in relation to torture. Zizek writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What distinguishes the masochistic spectacle from a simple scene of torture is not merely the fact that in the masochistic spectacle, for the most part, violence is merely suggested; more crucial is the fact that the executioner himself acts as the servant’s servant.” (Zizek 71)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To expose the issue with this formulation, I will posit two suggestions. The first is Zizek’s fixation on the spectacle as distinct from the non-performed. This dichotomy isn’t particularly well established, even as he develops his reasoning with the band Laibach and the novel <em>Dune</em>. What is the difference between the “simple scene of torture” and the “spectacle” of sexual masochism? For Zizek, it is precisely that Laibach, <em>Dune</em>, and sexual masochism invite a “close reading” of ideology and power that undoes them. </p>
<p>Indeed, to a point, this is correct. The relationship between the sexual sadist and the sexual masochist is one of extreme complication that I can only begin to elucidate here. The sexual sadist experiences pleasure by inflicting pain by definition, but also potentially experiences pleasure by way of the knowledge that the pain inflicted is experienced by the sexual masochist as pleasure. To put this another way, there is a reason the sadist does not engage in “the simple scene of torture.” Often, the pleasure derived in a BDSM relationship is far more complicated than simply dominating the masochist, although transgressing limitations is a crucial aspect of this relationship.</p>
<p>But what is at issue here is Zizek’s schematic understanding of this relationship, particularly exposed by Zizek’s assertion of the mere suggestion of violence in BDSM sex. This is a theoretical weakness as a result of factual inaccuracy, because for many authentic violence is essential for gratification in BDSM sex, but this violence is bracketed by the mutual understanding of the pleasure of the sadist in inflicting pain and the pleasure of the masochist in experiencing pain. </p>
<p>Additionally, there is in the realm of conception a “simple scene of torture” where the subject of torture just so happens to be a masochist and experiences pleasure in a way that is non-relational, just as the torturer’s experience of pleasure is non-relational, in contrast to BDSM sex where pleasure can be experienced relationally. Why I defy the rules of Zizek’s thought experiment in this way is simply to make the point that the vexed power relation can still exist in the “simple scene of torture.” The torturer becomes the servant of the masochist if the torturer happens to encounter one, whether or not the torturer has knowledge of this fact or not.</p>
<p>Similarly, <em>Dune</em> and Laibach offer nothing unique in their depictions of totalitarianism. The reading of a reproduction of these processes, however spectacular, does not offer anything distinct from reading power in its “simple scene.” A totalitarian government offers all the identifiable contradictions and gaps that a spectacular reproduction of totalitarianism offers insofar as it is only a reproduction. For the spectacular to work as Zizek claims, it must expose those contradictions in a way that suggests a certain kind of reading — it must contain a polemical assertion — rather than simply offering the potential for the reading. Otherwise, all one can do is see the totalitarianism in fiction and say “this is bad, though the logic of the aesthetic object does not tell me so I know it to be true. Anyone who encounters this aesthetic object would feel as I do.” This is the performance of insurgency with no action. Power structures are rendered but remain uncriticized. Spectacle is no closer, no more detailed, no more insurgent of a rendering of a power relation than the actual power relation is in itself.</p>
<p>The other issue is drawn out by the work of Georges Bataille in <em>The Accursed Share: Volume II & III</em>. Earlier, I discussed BDSM sex as primarily relational. Certainly, it is, but not fundamentally relational as Zizek would claim. Bataille opens up a space for non-relational pleasure, a space in which the sexual sadist and the torturer are far more aligned in disposition than in Zizek’s formulation. Bataille writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Anyone who believes in the worth of others is necessarily limited; he is restricted by this respect for others, which prevents him from knowing the meaning of the only aspiration that is not subordinated within him to the desire to increase his material or moral resources.” (Bataille 178)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the unrelationality that can underpin both BDSM sex and the “simple scene of torture.” To put in Bataille’s own terms, this is the description of the sovereign individual. Bataille goes on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The fact is that solidarity keeps man from occupying the place that is indicated by the word "sovereignty”: human beings’ respect for one another draws them into a cycle of servitude where subordinate moments are all that remains, and where in the end we betray that respect since we deprive man in general of his sovereign moments (of his most valuable asset).“ (Bataille 178-179)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bataille, earlier in the piece, discusses the need for a disregard of the partner in a sexual exchange for sovereign erotic pleasure. For Bataille pleasure must always be sovereign or it is not pleasure. All of this is a roundabout way of suggesting that the distinction Zizek calls for between the "masochistic spectacle” and the “simple scene of torture” is wrong. While it is my belief that the kind of relational sexual pleasure in BDSM sex that is characterized by the complicated power relation Zizek describes, Bataille asserts that truly pleasure-generating eroticism is sovereign and requires disregard for the partner. This disregard would be the disposition of the sexual sadist or the torturer. My adjustment to Bataille is only that the disregard is always the subconscious specter (or jouissance) of colloquial (non-sovereign) pleasure even in the relational BDSM sexual exchange. The space opened up by the relational BDSM sex, where who exactly is the servant and who exactly is the master is unclear despite outward appearances, is the space for both the sadist and masochist to experience sovereign pleasure: that desubjectivizing pleasure that has been agreed to and yet can never be anticipated or that pleasure that comes as a surprise when the subject ceases relationality because the subject ceases entirely.</p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/three-essays-in-psychoanalysis-the-jouissance-of-the-cultural-superego2016-03-09T23:25:51-08:002016-03-09T23:25:51-08:00Three Essays in Psychoanalysis: The Jouissance of the Cultural Superego<p><em>This is the second of my series of essays in, rather than on, psychoanalysis. In preparing these pieces, I hope to provide for myself fertile ground from which to grow additional thoughts and reason through some of the evergreen problems in psychoanalysis and ethics. It is worth noting, also, that these three essays were written in the span of about sixty minutes</em></p>
<p>What does the cultural superego, above all else, demand? Or rather, what is its “stated” demand? It demands that one love thy neighbor as thy self. It demands that one enter into a kind of egalitarian relational with the “diverse” subjects interpellated into ideology. The cultural superego effaces difference and suggests that all are equal in content and the same in kind. We are all “one,” units to occupy space in ideology. For the narcissist, or the philosopher, (they are one and the same) there is no contention more odious. Lacan, in <em>The Ethics of Psychoanalysis</em> (1986), has exposed the function of the cultural superego in an astonishing close reading of the process of neighborly love. Lacan writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“every time that Freud stops short in horror at the consequences of the commandment to love one’s neighbor, we see evoked the presence of that fundamental evil which dwells within this neighbor. But if that is the case, then it also dwells within me. And what is more of a neighbor to me than this heart within which is that of my jouissance and which I don’t dare go near?” (Lacan 186)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lacan goes on to write:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My egoism is quite content with a certain altruism, altruism of the kind that is situated on the level of the useful … all the neighbors are maintained equally at the marginal level of reality of my own existence … Perhaps the meaning of the love of one’s neighbor that could give me the true direction is to be found here. To that end, however, one would have to know how to confront the fact that my neighbor’s jouissance, his harmful, malignant jouissance, is that which poses a problem for my love.” (Lacan 187)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The cultural superego says “I want you to love your neighbor.” But are we to believe this? Lacan says no. Like Saint Martin and the beggar (“But perhaps over and above the need to be clothed, [the beggar] was begging for something else, namely, that Saint Martin either kill him or fuck him”), the object of desire that is stated, loving thy neighbor, falls vastly short of the jouissance. To begin in elucidating the jouissance of the cultural superego, we can begin with what we can exclude. After all, in Lacanian terms, loving thy neighbor is the one thing that the cultural superego cannot allow. Such a narcissistic and consumptive love threatens to undo the relationality that the cultural superego seeks to instantiate through this maxim. </p>
<p>The jouissance of the cultural superego is precisely the sublimation of the jouissance of the subjects that are organized under its rule. The stated aim of the cultural superego, to inspire neighborly love, is not the jouissance of the cultural superego. Still, Freud argues in Civilization and its Discontents that this neighborly love is the refocusing of libidinal energies away from jouissance and toward this relation. Lacan reveals both how wrongheaded Freud was in this regard and precisely what the jouissance of the cultural superego is. That is: the production of beauty. Beauty is a barrier to the jouissance of the subject. Lacan writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The true barrier that holds the subject back in front of the unspeakable field of radical desire that is the field of absolute destruction, of destruction beyond putrefaction, is properly speaking the the aesthetic phenomenon where it is identified with the experience of beauty — beauty in all its shining radiance, beauty that has been called the splendor of truth.” (Lacan 216-217)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How often is it that the particularly libidinous engage in the production of beauty? And what a trap has been laid for us. Perhaps a quotation from Kanye West might be productive here. In an interview with <em>Details</em> magazine, he says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“People ask me a lot about my drive … I think it comes from, like, having a sexual addiction at a really young age. Look at the drive that people have to get sex—to dress like this and get a haircut and be in the club in the freezing cold at 3 a.m., the places they go to pick up a girl. If you can focus the energy into something valuable, put that into work ethic…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Crudely put, and obvious ideological interpellation aside, the sexual addiction West describes is merely libidinal energy rushing toward jouissance that the cultural superego frantically seeks to mediate. West shows himself as a victim of the cultural superego who has sublimated his jouissance and redirected his libidinal energy in favor of the jouissance of the cultural superego: the production of beauty. The jouissance of the subject and the jouissance of the cultural superego are mutually exclusive and yet mutually constitutive. And yet, there’s certainly a paradox that must be elucidated more clearly here. Is it not my libidinal energy redirected by the cultural superego that has produced this work? Though my jouissance is displaced, that structure has found satisfaction in my analysis of it.</p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/three-essays-in-psychoanalysis-the-categorical-imperative-entrenched-in-ideology-kant-and-zupani2016-03-09T22:58:27-08:002016-03-09T22:58:27-08:00Three Essays in Psychoanalysis: The Categorical Imperative Entrenched in Ideology: Kant and Zupančič<p><em>This is the first of my series of essays in, rather than on, psychoanalysis. In preparing these pieces, I hope to provide for myself fertile ground from which to grow additional thoughts and reason through some of the evergreen problems in psychoanalysis and ethics. It is worth noting, also, that these three essays were written in the span of about sixty minutes</em></p>
<p>In reading Kant, Lacan and Zupančič engage in moderately disingenuous renderings of the Categorical Imperative. Zupančič, at least, is quite up front about this and indeed accomplishes a great deal in her front-loaded critique of Kant’s failures in reasoning. She outlines this in argument in <em>Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan</em> (2000). Zupančič criticizes Kant due to the fundamental error in his ethics which, according to Zupančič, are supposed to exist only on the level of the Categorical Imperative. That is to say, all the content of morality is determined by the maxim followed for no reason other than duty. Zupančič writes of Kant’s ethics, “a sharp break, a ‘paradigm shift’, is required to move from the logical to the ethical” (Zupančič 10). And yet Zupančič accuses Kant of failing to achieve this sharp break that his ethics require. Zupančič points to Kant’s unwillingness, first elucidated by Lacan, to admit to the possibility of the perverse subject motivated by jouissance to fuck the object of his or her lust and then submit themselves to death immediately afterwards. In Kant’s view, surely this is absurd. No one would exchange their life for one sexual act, a momentary pleasure. But jouissance and the death drive suggest precisely the opposite, there is nothing to preclude this potential and nothing to suggest it is an impossibility other than the regulatory forms of ideology in the Athusserian sense or civilization in the Freudian sense. Zupančič, again, takes Kant to task for his discomfort with the violent execution of a king. To narrate it briefly, Zupančič says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“‘diabolical evil’ inevitably coincides with ‘the highest good’, which is precisely why, in his discussion of the formal execution of the monarch, Kant is forced to describe it in the same terms as he would describe a pure ethical act.” (Zupančič 91) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Zupančič goes on to say: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<em>diabolical evil, the highest evil, is indistinguishable from the highest good, and that they are nothing other than the definitions of an accomplished (ethical) act.</em> In other words, at the level of the structure of the ethical act, the difference between good and evil does not exist. At this level, evil is formally indistinguishable from good.” (Zupančič 92)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Zupančič, still, falls short of saying precisely what the issue Kant encounters is. There should be no ethical framework beyond the categorical imperative, and yet there is: ideology. Or, if you like, civilization. Zupančič posits (quite powerfully and productively) that Kant’s Categorical Imperative offers a radical freedom if, as she says, Kant’s ethics are only those that require the space of form (in this case, duty) expand into the space of content (in this case, ethics). This is a zero-degree ethical moment in which the structure of ethics can be formulated in relation to any such maxim that can be discharged for no reason other than duty (eliminating the pathological). This is ethics outside of ideology, ethics that produces ideology insofar as ethics is an inherently relational system. But, for Kant, the Categorical Imperative is not the zero-degree ethical moment. Kant’s trepidation about the execution of the monarch, his denial of jouissance, his inability to conceive of the perverse subject, Kant’s Categorical Imperative is already oriented in the direction of propagating ideology and/or civilization. For Kant, “diabolical evil” can never be the source of a maxim that is ethically permissible because such a maxim would threaten ideology. An example might be, “one must always lie.” Such a notion would be generalizable and thus a maxim which is morally permissible. To lie, however, to <em>always</em> lie and never for even an instant speak the truth, this is certainly threatening to the fabric of an ideology or civilization. Another example that Zupančič actually cites is that of Sade. Sade’s maxim, “that anyone can do what they wish to my body, and I can thus do anything I wish to any other body” is also generalizable in the same way but even more striking in its threat toward relationality and what I have described as ideological fabric, a description to which I am indebted to metaphor and colloquialism. </p>
<p>What makes Kant shudder in the face of these maxims when his own ethics establishes a space for them to be the source of morally good action? It is, as I have said, ideology. Zupančič’s immeasurable value, then, is her desire to extricate Kantian ethics from ideology and raise them to the full value that is promised by their potential. The only ethics worth following is the one that is completely free. The ethics of the lie or the ethics of Sade, where the potential space for radical freedom opens up in the form of an incalculable number of maxims and moralities. </p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/bernie-sanders-the-american-political-system-why-we-vote-and-why-we-dont2016-02-01T23:40:39-08:002016-02-01T23:40:39-08:00Bernie Sanders & The American Political System: Why We Vote and Why We Don't<p>In the previous two election cycles, I advocated for Obama adamantly. I advocated for voting adamantly. In 2008, I wrote about the Sorites paradox in relation to the way voting as a civil responsibility gets diffused, and as an explanation to account for the feeling of impotence voting brings with it. Now, I know I made a mistake. At the very least, I made an ideological mistake. Perhaps, though, not a material one.</p>
<p>For one, there is no way any individual should have to, or even can, reconcile their decision to cast a vote with the massive loss of life that a United States president is almost necessarily implicated in. I candidly bear a sense of responsibility, as a voter and an American, of someone who in some small way contributed to the death of innocent people in Syria, in Afghanistan, and in other parts of the Middle East and the world. There is simply no way the moral subject can shed the relation of proximate cause that comes from participation in American electoral politics and an international system of state violence. This is something the voter can never accept, but perhaps alienates themselves from, or bears like the albatross of the ancient mariner.</p>
<p>Still, I had a reason for supporting Obama, and that reason was born from compassion. In my younger days, I believed not voting was an act of supreme privilege. I believed that the majority of people who consciously opposed voting were those with family members and friends who had enough money to insulate themselves from the policies of the federal government and not feel the impact of those policies on their daily lives. After all, to say Obama and McCain were interchangeable or Obama and Romney were interchangeable is intellectual dis-ingenuity of the highest order. Politicians are not the same, and they would not enact the same policies.</p>
<p>For me, the reason to vote was my father. My father has been unemployed from his job as a child labor attorney for the state of Florida since the end of my highschool career. As I watched my family slide from comfortably upper middle class to lower middle class, watched the disposable income dry up, watched my father’s health take turns for the worse, watched him denied coverage or charged absurd premiums for his so-called “pre-existing condition,” I knew the only solution was something like the Affordable Health Care Act. And today, my father has insurance through Obamacare that gets him lifesaving medication and treatments for his diabetes and his hepatitis B. If you ask me how I can vote and accept the albatross of drone strikes and other atrocities, that is how. But it is my privilege and geographical positioning that allow me to experience my father’s health issues in a certain way, with a certain affective resonance, and experience the massive loss of life on the other side of the world in a way that makes it manageable to me. In a way that stops me from being utterly crushed by the weight of this sin. And, really, the only thing that lets me sleep at night is that another president, a McCain or a Romney, could have taken innocent lives in even more staggering numbers — and my father and people like him wouldn’t have health care.</p>
<p>Still, we’re in an entirely new realm of ideological expression when it comes to the dichotomy between two emergent front runners, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. I think another question that must be adjudicated here is the question of whether voting has any meaning at all. Conspiratorial readings of the American election system ring completely false to me. There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that votes do not impact the result of elections, no evidence whatsoever that there is some broader rigging of the results of national and local elections in the United States. However, that’s not to say that all votes count — they don’t. I know this as well as anyone, as my parents brought me to the various rallies outside of the Florida capital in 2000 to protest the gross injustice — a stolen election — that took place. Still, I refuse to concede that voting does not matter. I would gladly hear an argument that suggests that from a material perspective, votes have no causal relationship to election results. The evidence I am familiar with suggests that they do. This causal relation is perverted and refracted through representational democracy, but it exists none-the-less. It is not a certainty that one’s vote will count, but it is likely. That likelihood, in the face of the very material consequences federal policy decisions will have on the lives of many, is what motivates me to vote.</p>
<p>So what of my advocacy for voting? What of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders? Yes, I’ve conceded my mistake. But if you’ve been reading closely, you should already know — I wouldn’t do anything differently. Because I am happy my father has health care and I want him to keep it, or for it to improve. Because having a black man stand in the highest office of the land sent a powerful message to society, not one of a solution, but one of a promise left unfulfilled. For every way Obama diffused the racial discussion with claims of “racism is over,” he reinvigorated the discussion three times over. And that’s to say nothing of the existential consequences of having a man like him, his discourse, his presence, stand at the head of the United States. President Obama was deeply flawed and as complicit in murderous actions as any other US president. But his presence in the White House was a profound one. </p>
<p>My hope is that the discourse Bernie Sanders hopes to put forward is also profound. Even if he can’t pass a single piece of policy, is stymied by the House and Congress at every turn, I (perhaps quite foolishly) believe Sanders is earnest in his commitment to many policies I agree with. I can’t help but be moved to tears by Sanders’s impassioned defense of gay soldiers serving in the US military in 1995, engaging in the sort of discourse that did not carry the political capital it does today. I can’t help but be filled with an unparalleled feeling of joy and wonder to hear of Sanders’s participation in the March on Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That is a commitment, in my view, that one can’t fake.</p>
<p>Killer Mike, in an interview on Stephen Colbert’s <em>The Late Show</em>, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bernie Sanders is the only politician who has consistently taken [the social justice platform of Dr. Martin Luther King developed in the last 2 years of his life] into politics. Right now we have an opportunity to elect someone who is directly out of the philosophy of Kingian non-violence … This opportunity in history is not going to come in another 20 years … If we don’t take this opportunity now, we’re going to be sitting around a campfire mad because they nuked the world to hell, I’m afraid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a particularly striking sentiment, but what I feel the most is the notion of time. Time is not on our side. And, simply put, there is no way another politician can make the claim to authenticity, can display the commitment that Bernie Sanders has displayed, in a way that’s also palatable to the average American. There are people I’d love to pull out of the activist community, all of whom are not white men, who would make far better presidents than Bernie Sanders or any other politician. But there is something to be said about Sanders unique position both ideologically and in time. Killer Mike says this opportunity won’t come in another 20 years. I say this opportunity will never — <em>never</em> — come again. Not like this. Not when it’s so close I can taste it.</p>
<p>Voting should not be the end of one’s engagements with the conditions that determine the existence of our world. There are many other, far more crucial, modes of participation one should engage in for a better world. Those include direct action. Those include having certain kinds of conversations and behaving in certain kinds of ways that support a change in how we treat each other. Voting is not a strong expression of political power, and for many it is not easy. There are better ways to spend one’s time in the interest of social change. There are other ways to express commitments to certain kinds of ideologies, ways that lay beyond the horizon of my thought, ways that I am still trying to determine and lay out for myself. It is my trepidation that to engage in a course of advocating for voting, the act of voting is positioned as the most critical expression of political power for the subject. That’s not true, and we must all be creative and apply concerted and consistent effort toward our mutual goals. Still, for those who have the leisure time and aren’t being discriminated against by their local polling stations, voting might be worth considering.</p>
<p>So, what am I saying? I’m saying you should consider voting, and specifically consider voting for Bernie Sanders. I hope you register as a democrat and get your ass to the primary and I hope you vote in the general. Maybe I’ll regret this hope. Certainly, I could be wrong. Perhaps Sanders, like all politicians, is full of shit. And perhaps I’ll be sitting here in eight years thinking about all the fucked up shit that was done in the name of the United States done under President Sanders’s authority and by his administration. For those who choose not to vote and not be implicated in the acts of violence the United States perpetrates, I don’t begrudge you that choice and admire your commitment. I trust that you are expending your political energies in more productive venues of which there are plenty and I hope you can reach out to me to help you in your good work. But this compulsion I have to vote and to suggest that other people consider doing the same is encapsulated in a quote by Cornel West. West says, “I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.” Never have I felt that imprisonment more than now. And what I can say now that I didn’t say eight years ago or four years ago is that if you don’t vote, I understand. It’s not your responsibility. And it’s not your responsibility to carry the albatross that many people bear — whether they chose the burden or don’t even have the slightest awareness of it. If I’m to be faulted for this position, so be it. Vote Bernie Sanders.</p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/derrida-differance-and-the-fundamental-unknowability-of-the-human-subject2016-01-24T21:49:00-08:002016-01-24T21:49:00-08:00Derrida, Differance, and the Fundamental Unknowability of the Human Subject<p>To give an account of Derrida’s Differance is to do what many scholars consistently fail to achieve. Indeed, there is much about Differance that must be elucidated outside of an academic context as much of Derrida’s work defies the conventional academic register. However, to what extent Derrida’s playfulness is necessary to the larger point at hand.</p>
<p>What immediately becomes clear in reading this text is that Derrida is intent on being playful. He repeats phrases as incantations rather than explanations (“Differance is neither a word nor a concept”), he toys with words meanings, and often combines these two types of play — just mark all the time “present” and “presence” are used throughout the essay. </p>
<p>A key function of the non-word/non-concept Differance is that of temporalizing. Differance describes the process of signification where an object, idea, word, or concept is supplanted — putting it off into the distance, but a visible distance none the less. The movement involves the passage of time, the effaced “item” is reachable across a certain measurement of time. Differance also collapses notions of time and space, as the reach can be measured in both temporal and spatial terms. For conventional signification, that which is represented leads down a “rabbit-hole” where each item in the distance, when reached, leads to yet another item in the distance. This is the chain of reference Derrida describes. Differance, itself, functions differently however. It supplants nothing, and stands as itself, representing in a moment all of its possible meanings.</p>
<p>The process of “signification” for Differance (indeed, Differance is not a word or a concept so it does not signify as such) is fundamentally different than that of all other words. Differance does not engage the referential chain that Derrida elucidates as the functionary of signification more generally, wherein a signifier represents a signified through such a chain. Instead, Differance “is neither simply active nor simply passive … it speaks of an operation which is not an operation.”</p>
<p>Derrida is shackled by the lack of specificity offered by language in all his work. Much of his complexity is derived from the deliberate abandonment of notions of discrete meaning. “Differance” is an example of how Derrida deploys language, as “Differance can refer to the whole complex of its meanings at once, for it is immediately and irreducibly multivalent, something which will be important for the discourse I am trying to develop. It refers to this whole complex of meanings not only when it is supported by a language or interpretive context (like any signification), but it already does so somehow of itself.” To translate in brief, Differance represents each of its possible meanings at once regardless of context, unlike other language which is defined by its context. Differance is multivalent in such a way through a process, as stated, independent from signifying as such by existing outside of (because it is “older than”) the referential chain of signification. Differance is the model for how Derrida wishes language functioned. For language to function similarly to Differance, one need not deploy the same symbol for multiple distinction meanings or deploy a symbol with an incomplete or unclear meaning. Differance serves to bridge the gap between the fundamental unknowability of the human subject by another as a result of language’s lack of specificity or lack of demonstrative content.</p>
<p>Derrida asserts that, in the case of Differance, he is simply representing a concept that has appeared in the work of Saussure, Hegel, Heidigger, Nietzsche, and others. Differance exists outside of the problems of language precisely because of the age and necessity of the concept to facilitate language, presence, the present, Being, and beings. It’s a process that underpins metaphysical and ontological structures which produce language. Differance, however, is unrelated to presence and absence and defies such dichotomies in a way other language does not, thus explaining Derrida’s assertion that it is not a word or concept.</p>
<p>The trace which is Differance means that Differance as a process is constantly effaced and this essay is Derrida’s attempt at excavating that which is unnamable. Derrida’s deliberate carelessness (a non-paradox, Derrida is selective and precise in the ways he opts to be careless) in regard to language complicates the reader’s understanding of what exactly is being said. “Differance” is a unit on a page, but it isn’t a word. “Differance” cannot be named, and yet the unit on the page exists to represent something else. This representation is not signification as such, because the process is different and what is being represented is far more vast and outside of conventional systems of representation. Through the process of naming, a certain function is enacted and because Differance is outside of that function (the function that produces a referential chain) it cannot be named. </p>
<p>Still, Differance is not the transcendental signified which Derrida so loathes. When he uses a word like “origin” or speaks of the “age” of Differance, he is again being careless. He has collapsed temporality and spatiality yet again, and what would be more accurate would be say that Differance is <em>behind</em> or <em>apart from</em> processes of naming, representation, reference, and systems of language. Names are substitutions but Differance is that which needs no representation and simply is. A language model of such linguistic objects, perhaps, would enhance communication and depth of knowledge between human beings.</p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/the-culture-report-2015-edition2015-12-31T14:38:15-08:002015-12-31T14:38:15-08:00The Greatest Albums, EPs, and songs of 2015<p>2015 was a spectacular year for music. I listened to more music this year than I have during any other time in my life. I was overwhelmed by the quality, the emotional depth, and the innovation of artists across genres. There’s far more good shit than I can outline here. When I usually write things like this, I worry that it will disproportionately favor releases from later in the year that are more fresh on my mind or that it will not accurately reflect my listening habits. In this case, neither of those things are true. This is, perhaps, the most accurate “best of” list I’ll ever make in terms of reflecting what I actually listened to throughout the year.</p>
<p>Oh, and this also seemed like the year where everyone started talking shit on making best of lists. Enjoy.</p>
<h1 id="strongalbumsstrong_1">
<strong>Albums:</strong> <a class="head_anchor" href="#strongalbumsstrong_1">#</a>
</h1><h2 id="sicko-mobb-emsuper-saiyan-vol-2em_2">Sicko Mobb - <em>Super Saiyan Vol. 2</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#sicko-mobb-emsuper-saiyan-vol-2em_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>Generally, the kind of music I listen to is for a person of a specific disposition. Sicko Mobb’s second Super Saiyan mixtape, topping my end of the year list, is no exception. The manic “drill” (I guess — I’m not a scholar here) subgenre is not for everyone. Still, the most important thing about this record is every time I hear it I feel fucking incredible. A hybrid style of singing and rapping, autotune, and lyrics that are outrageous beyond my wildest imagination are all on my bucket list for a good rap record. Sicko Mobb delivers. And they delivered me through a year of emotional turmoil. Top marks. Standout tracks include “Drugs In Me,” “Own Lane,” “Trending Topic,” and “80s”.</p>
<h2 id="peewee-longway-emthe-blue-mampm-vol-2em_2">Peewee Longway - <em>The Blue M&M Vol. 2</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#peewee-longway-emthe-blue-mampm-vol-2em_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>I’m not a complicated person, so if a predictable pattern begins to emerge about the records I like, that is by design. Longway, like Trav and Ceno of Sicko Mobb, Longway is good at delivering arresting lines with melodic cadence. From there, however, Longway departs from any other rapper I’ve heard this year reaching heights only previously achieved by Future’s <em>Pluto</em>. Longway’s lines in the chorus of “No Squares,” alone, make this a perfect release. High profile features propel the listener through this mixtape and well-advised iconography of the blue M&M really draws a person in. Don Draper, eat your heart out.</p>
<h2 id="tofubeats-empositiveem_2">tofubeats - <em>Positive</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#tofubeats-empositiveem_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>tofubeats enjoys the rare honor of being an artist that dropped two classic albums back to back. While <em>First Album</em> (great name, guy) showcases tofubeats as a fan of all genres of electronic music, a true student of the game, <em>Positive</em> has tofubeats exploring a more consistent and self-defined style. tofubeats is the antibody to the lazy, formulaic j-pop production that luminaries (or, if you will, semi-annoying old fogies) like DJ Taku have complained about in recent years. A lot of samples of clapping, electric guitars, and weird noises really make this record stand out. Oh, and Skylar Spence flexing on the legendary track “Without U.” </p>
<h2 id="kamasi-washington-emthe-epicem_2">Kamasi Washington - <em>The Epic</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#kamasi-washington-emthe-epicem_2">#</a>
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<p>As a truly not-knowledgeable person who sometimes delivers opinions on music out of habit and hubris, I’m immediately attracted to the ego of an artist who names their record <em>The Epic</em>. I don’t have the right vocabulary to describe the complexities of this album, but I can say Washington wrote a Real Jazz™ record. No pretend shit. <em>The Epic</em> seems to dance between styles and flirt with a format right before changing things up. One of the more outstanding features of the album is how exquisitely the tracks are ordered. “Miss Understanding” really gets the blood pumping, and closing with an arrangement of “Clair de Lune” is pretty fucking moving.</p>
<h2 id="purity-ring-emanother-eternityem_2">Purity Ring - <em>Another Eternity</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#purity-ring-emanother-eternityem_2">#</a>
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<p>Sometimes when I am doing something, usually something creative, I get this weird feeling. It’s not really particularly pleasant. It’s like something is tugging on a loose thread of my brain and pulling and pulling and won’t stop until the project is finished. I rarely get that feeling when listening to music, but that’s how <em>Another Eternity</em> makes me feel. It’s filled with lyrics that are simple yet call for complicated thought and sounds that sound oddly familiar placed into an alien context. It’s an album that is always its best, whether the beats sound like they could be for a rap record or beamed to Earth from a spaceship. I listened to this shit so much this year that I actually got nervous when I realized I was up on it when it came out and I would have to review it in some capacity. I guess I did okay.</p>
<h2 id="drake-amp-future-emwhat-a-time-to-be-aliveem_2">Drake & Future - <em>What A Time To Be Alive</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#drake-amp-future-emwhat-a-time-to-be-aliveem_2">#</a>
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<p>I gotta admit, I didn’t like this joint that much when it first dropped. I felt like I was listening to a bunch of Future b-sides where Drake hopped on every track. That goes to show how wrong first impressions can be. Even at my most charitable early listens, I thought to myself: “‘I’m the Plug’ sucks.” But I’m listening to that shit right now and it’s <em>good</em>. When you pair Metro Boomin and Future, a certain sound comes through and it causes many listeners to hear what you expect and not what is actually there. But Drake gets to be his Drake-y-est on “Scholarships,” “Plastic Bag,” “Change Locations,” and (obviously) “30 for 30”. There’s a lot of feelings lurking beneath the surface of this album and it deserves to be approached with fresh ears. </p>
<h2 id="capsule-emwave-runnerem_2">Capsule - <em>Wave Runner</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#capsule-emwave-runnerem_2">#</a>
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<p>Yasutaka Nakata enjoys a rabid fan following primarily because of his production for Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Capsule, however, is where he cut his teeth. It’s the only project in which he considers himself a member and performs with, despite being the sole producer for both Perfume and KPP. Capsule, historically, has stuck pretty close to the sound of Perfume and KPP. However, Nakata departs from that convention with this album in favor of another — American “EDM”. Zedd and Nero can drop records all day and they’d never be as hot as this. Nakata is a master of his craft, and if he’s making shit that sounds like American electronic music he might as well be doing a public service.</p>
<h2 id="negicco-emriceampsnowem_2">Negicco - <em>Rice&Snow</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#negicco-emriceampsnowem_2">#</a>
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<p>I actually wrote about the first single off this record, “Triple! Wonderland,” last year. I called it one of the best songs of all time, so it only makes sense the record that it leads into is superlative. This is classic j-pop for the OG heads, with very little hip-hop, R&B, or electronic music influence to be found. Well, except that that one song, “Futari No Yuugi,” that channel’s disco in a similar fashion to Daft Punk’s <em>Discovery</em>. Actually, things do get kind of funky later in the album, with moments where it’s more Halcali or Vanilla Beans than Morning Musume. The style is life-affirming, there are a lot of pianos, violins, and children’s toys to be heard, and there’s probably a sick ass dance that goes along with every track.</p>
<h2 id="justin-bieber-empurposeem_2">Justin Bieber - <em>Purpose</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#justin-bieber-empurposeem_2">#</a>
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<p>At this point, it’s pretty redundant to talk about how good of a record this is. Everyone is in agreement. But you know, it’s a little bit annoying for long time Justin Bieber fans. Annoying in the way that it was annoying for me to be mocked endlessly for reading A Song of Ice and Fire and then when the fuckin TV show came out… well, everyone knows how this story ends. But, still, this album is the shit. It might not be better than <em>Journals</em>, but it’s pretty damn good. I could make all the predictable Michael Jackson comparisons but it’s pretty hard to feel sympathetic for people who are rich and famous. Maybe not the best strategy, Justin. But I’ve never been a fan because I liked him as a person, I’m a fan of the art. “No Sense” is the sleeper hit. Why isn’t that a single? A question for the ages. Oh yeah, you all heard Travis Scott’s <em>Rodeo</em>? That shit was pretty good too.</p>
<h2 id="father-emwho39s-gonna-get-fucked-firstem_2">Father - <em>Who’s Gonna Get Fucked First</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#father-emwho39s-gonna-get-fucked-firstem_2">#</a>
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<p>When I put that Jeremih and Shlohmo record on my list last year, I wrote this long anecdote about a specific sexual encounter but decided that would be too explicit, so I replaced it with something really boring about “sensual R&B.” I think Father would be really upset to have his record described in that way, so I’m not going to do that. But I’m not going to talk about my sex life, either. I guess if you put <em>Who’s Gonna Get Fucked First</em> up next to Bryson Tiller’s <em>T R A P S O U L</em>, they are two albums uniquely suited for engaging in particular types of activities. Besides the fact that Father is a rapper and Tiller is a singer, they describe two different dispositions toward sex. So what I’m saying is, these albums are mirrors where one might find their self reflected… sexual mirrors. </p>
<h2 id="no-tolerance-emyou-walk-aloneem_2">No Tolerance - <em>You Walk Alone</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#no-tolerance-emyou-walk-aloneem_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>A lot of people think straight edge hardcore is pretty one dimensional. But I’ve never agreed with that. Floorpunch addresses a lot of different topics. Friendship, one’s community, personal choice, and proportionate reprisal for wrongdoing. <em>Twin Killing</em> might as well be an ethical treatise. But, <em>You Walk Alone</em> isn’t about any of that. Nor does it really sound too much like Floorpunch. For me, this record captured specific feelings I’ve had about being straight edge at different moments in time. Also, the songwriting which is at various times parts Brotherhood, YOT, and Confront (among other things) is unreal. I’ve always thought hardcore was a genre ill suited to the LP, but I’ll set <em>You Walk Alone</em> next to <em>Twin Killing</em> as two of the greatest long sequences of straight edge hardcore songs (because <em>Twin Killing</em> is a CD comp of previous material — but still adequately serves my analogy) to come out since the 1980s. </p>
<h2 id="dempagumiinc-emwwddem_2">Dempagumi.inc - <em>WWDD</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#dempagumiinc-emwwddem_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>Time is a flat circle… or some shit. So to close the list of long records, it’s nice to have an album that is so generically dissimilar to Sicko Mobb and yet draws from an identical emotional palette. Dempagumi.inc plays a genre of music called “Dempa” which is best left to readers to research themselves. However, I will concede that this album could probably go on one of those Guantanamo music torture lists. Many friends who ride in cars with me can attest to its efficacy in that regard. This album is upbeat to a fault and obscenely catchy. But for people who keep cinematic sounding anime openings from the 80s and 90s on rotation, this album is worth checking out.</p>
<h1 id="strongepsstrong_1">
<strong>EPs:</strong> <a class="head_anchor" href="#strongepsstrong_1">#</a>
</h1><h2 id="ilovemakonnen-emilovemakonnen-2em_2">ILoveMakonnen - <em>ILoveMakonnen 2</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#ilovemakonnen-emilovemakonnen-2em_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>When this record dropped, I was compulsively reloading Makonnen’s Instagram in a car with my friends listening to <em>WWDD</em>. Thank Apple Music that I was able to listen to it immediately. There are very few albums with the power to move me so deeply in the presence of my peers. They, too, were equally moved. I could write a book about how good this EP is, but I’ll try to stick to the highlights. Makonnen alternates between introspective tracks about lost love and upbeat club-intending joints about flipping all night and having a lot of money. “Flippin All Night” into “Being Alone with U” is the most explosive sequence of songs ever conceived. Both hit so hard in regards to their respective subject matters. I also really enjoy songs with signature onomatopoeia (see Speaker Knockerz: “skrrt”) so the “HUAGH” of “Where Your Girl At” really pushes the EP over the top. Once I was done listening to the album, a friend who had just done the same sent me a text that said, “life is a gift.” Yes, yes it is. </p>
<h2 id="tomggg-embutter-sugar-creamem_2">Tomggg - <em>Butter Sugar Cream</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#tomggg-embutter-sugar-creamem_2">#</a>
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<p>This EP is another one I have a lot of difficulty describing. Maybe another predictable pattern of the music I like is it involves samples of weird noises that sound somewhat like various children’s toys. In this regard, Tomggg excels. <em>Butter Sugar Cream</em> is an accurate inventory of how this album sounds. The influence of hip-hop production is strong, but these songs have their roots in the Shibuya-Kei style of acts like Macdonald Duck Eclair, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, and Strawberry Machine. Happy music to be happy to.</p>
<h2 id="dame-emcharm-schoolem_2">Dame - <em>Charm School</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#dame-emcharm-schoolem_2">#</a>
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<p>Ugh, I have been dreading writing this one. Dame is a cool band because their fanbase has involved a bunch of people getting exposed to a type of music they’d never listen to and realizing they love it. <em>Charm School</em> is a good record for this purpose because the songwriting and lyricism are exquisite. As with Makonnen, sometimes I hear things and I find myself so stirred I just have to stop everything and take a deep breath to figure out what the hell is going on. That’s how I feel when I hear this. Uh… yeah… it’s good… listen to it. </p>
<h2 id="firewalker-emdemoem_2">Firewalker - <em>Demo</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#firewalker-emdemoem_2">#</a>
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<p>One of the least surprising things in this random, apathetic universe is when a smart person who is in good bands and listens to good bands writes a bunch of songs that are really good. So, in that respect, Firewalker was probably the least surprising thing to come out this year. That is not to detract from how incredible of a demo this is, but merely to recognize my own incredible powers of foresight. I have a list of the greatest hardcore songs ever written, and alongside Warzone - “Face Up To It,” Unified Right - “Joke After Joke,” Crucifix - “Skinned Alive,” and Hoax - “Leech,” I put Firewalker - “Nothing Left”. Or maybe I should put “Sicker Than You”… or maybe “Scorcher”! I just can’t decide. </p>
<h2 id="exit-order-emexit-orderem_2">Exit Order - <em>Exit Order</em> <a class="head_anchor" href="#exit-order-emexit-orderem_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>I like hardcore records with a good drum sound and crazy guitar tone and Exit Order really delivers on those fronts. Everything about this record is just perfectly executed and mixed, it really stands up to detailed scrutiny. The vocals are just dripping with the contempt and intensity that many fail to channel. I also really like the pick slide in “Begging.” Once, in my own band, our guitar player, a pathological pick borrower, got yelled at for doing a pick slide where the pick just so happened to split in two. I imagine that Exit Order recording probably sent a lot of picks to the rock n roll graveyard.</p>
<h1 id="strongsongsstrong_1">
<strong>Songs:</strong> <a class="head_anchor" href="#strongsongsstrong_1">#</a>
</h1><h2 id="zedd-quotdone-with-lovequot_2">Zedd - “Done With Love” <a class="head_anchor" href="#zedd-quotdone-with-lovequot_2">#</a>
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<p>Zedd is an adequate producer, but this song is really an opportunity for Jacob Luttrell to belt out some choice bars about the hope of mending the heart of a potential romantic partner. Among all the previous conditions I’ve mentioned that make a record hit for me, the most crucial is how it makes me <em>feel</em>. And boy does this track make me feel. Zedd does an admirable job here, though. The song is infectious, and the upbeat melody paired with the more melancholy lyrics make for a memorable mixture. </p>
<h2 id="drake-quotsoyquot_2">Drake - “S.O.Y.” <a class="head_anchor" href="#drake-quotsoyquot_2">#</a>
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<p>Drake has taken a lot of heat for the lyrical content of songs like “How About Now.” “S.O.Y.” is a leaked track along the same lines, about overwhelming success in the face of a naysaying ex lover. But you know, everyone needs songs like this from time to time. And doesn’t he have reason to be frustrated? After all, he was told he’d never be as big as Trey Songz and that he wasn’t as good as Ludacris! It’s true, “S.O.Y.” is a lot more low key than my other most listened to Drake tracks like “Legend,” “Know Yourself,” and “Preach” but something about the Jordan Vega feature really puts this on some “greatest of all time” shit. I can just feel myself cruising in that unspecified expensive car. Thanks, Drake.</p>
<h2 id="ilovemakonnen-quot2-phonesquot_2">ILoveMakonnen - “2 Phones” <a class="head_anchor" href="#ilovemakonnen-quot2-phonesquot_2">#</a>
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<p>You know what the definition of injustice is? The definition of injustice is when Drake releases a new song on OVOSound Radio, the entire internet fucking explodes and that shit is ripped onto youtube in five seconds… but when Makonnen drops a new song on the 11th installment of OVOSound Radio, <em>nobody even fucking notices</em>. I wish I could listen to this song more often without having to fucking search the entire OVOSound episode 11 bullshit and listen up until the point it comes on. This song is fucking good. What is wrong with people!? </p>
<h2 id="santigold-quotwho-be-lovin-mequot_2">Santigold - “Who Be Lovin Me” <a class="head_anchor" href="#santigold-quotwho-be-lovin-mequot_2">#</a>
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<p>I love when you can see a friendship between musicians unfold across a feature exchange. “Who Be Lovin Me,” then, is the sequel to Makonnen’s “Forever.” After Santigold’s magnanimous feature, Makonnen returns the favor for Santigold’s first LP in a minute due out in 2016. But thankfully, we get this beautiful glimpse into the future. Santigold and Makonnen send a message just like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” If we out here making moves, there’s no time for the romantic dilly-dalliers. </p>
<h2 id="kero-kero-bonito-quotpicture-thisquot_2">Kero Kero Bonito - “Picture This” <a class="head_anchor" href="#kero-kero-bonito-quotpicture-thisquot_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>I love taking photos with my phone. It’s a useful exercise to remember what I like and what I don’t. Brand names, restaurant dishes, articles of clothing, snack packaging. I can use these photos as touchstones to recall what I did on a given day. Considering how widespread my feeling is, it’s surprising that more songs like “Picture This” haven’t been written. Sarah raps her way through the virtues of snapping pics of anything and everything, although with a small touch of cautionary irony. Still, songs that let us revel in the quotidian things we like to do that our parents scoff at is important. But this is a song that also cautions people against living too much in the past. True artistry if I ever heard it.</p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/the-zero-degree-of-social-conceptualization-flesh-outside-of-ideology-in-hortense-spillers-and-louis-althusser2015-10-26T14:14:08-07:002015-10-26T14:14:08-07:00The "Zero Degree of Social Conceptualization": Flesh Outside Ideology in Hortense Spillers and Louis Althusser<p>Hortense Spillers and Louis Althusser have a lot in common. They have both published monumental works that cast a long shadow. They both engage with notions of psychoanalysis and redeploy those ideas along innovative trajectories. However, Spillers is often left out of crucial conversations about gender (where she is supplanted by Foucault, Rubin, and Butler) and ideological interpellation (where she is supplanted by Althusser). Spillers’s “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” (1987) must be put into the broader conversation with these theorists. In this case, specifically, Spillers exposes fundamental blind spots in Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (1970).</p>
<p>When Spillers writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would make a distinction in this case between “body” and “flesh” and impose that distinction as the central one between captive and liberated subject-positions. In that sense, before the “body” there is “flesh,” that zero degree of social conceptualization that does not escape concealment under the brush of discourse, or the reflexes of iconography. (67) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>she refers to a functionary similar to Althusser’s “Ideology.” However, there are crucial distinctions in their two constructions. This could be attributed to Althusser’s obtuseness. For the enslaved person in the context of North American chattel slavery, there is no “family state apparatus” and “educational state apparatus” (251) — kinship relations and educational structures for the enslaved person must exist entirely outside of the state apparatus and on the (provisional) “periphery” of ideology. Althusser speaks of the sixteen year old child being “ejected ‘into production,’” but the enslaved person always-already exists “in production” when present within the context of North American chattel slavery, because they are rendered as capital rather than as participants in capitalism. </p>
<p>The numerous ways in which Althusser’s enduring example (not metaphor), the “police hail,” fails to account for certain lived experiences is made clear by Spillers and contemporary examples. When Althusser writes “that very precise operation which I have called <em>interpellation</em> or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other) hailing: ‘Hey, you there!’,” (264) it rings false to the readers who are aware that there are many “flesh” forms (as distinct from “body”) that the police do NOT hail. Rather, to these forms (human subjects in contestation, being divested of subjecthood and inherently resisting that divestiture) have a will imposed upon them (violence), have an identity imposed upon them (violence), and have physical force imposed upon them (violence). This is a far cry from the “recruitment” to which Althusser refers. Althusser might be encountering the same problem seen in much of Marxist thinking, the inability to conceptualize the moral subject who is constantly divested of that marker (moral subjecthood) and attempted to be rendered as capital. The inability to conceptualize the talking commodity, “the commodity’s scream.”<sup id="fnref1"><a href="#fn1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>Althusser, in his attempt to elucidate the functioning of “ideology” contributes to the “brush of discourse” and “the reflexes of iconography” that erases the “flesh/body” distinction that Spillers exposes. In fact, the “zero degree of social conceptualization” that Spillers describes exists outside of ideology. “Flesh” is the human form divested of gender and moral subjecthood, but struggling against those divestitures. “Flesh” is the human form that ideology cannot acknowledge or that ideology actively refuses.</p>
<p>Althusser and Spillers are on the same page to a certain extent. When Althusser writes “Ideology has a material existence” (258), he anticipates Spillers construction of ethnicity as an function of appraisal (or ideological interpellation, if you will) that has “dangerous and fatal effects” (66). For Althusser, though, ideology is a far more collaborative and far less violent process. Althusser seems to have no inkling of the violence ideology could enact on a subject he could never recognize — a resistant subject that is rejected by ideology. Spillers is intimately familiar with this type of subjecthood and her enumeration, as has been demonstrated, has enormous consequences for Althusser’s thinking.</p>
<p>For Spillers, ideology attaches “narrative” to “flesh” and creates the “body”. This is a different sketch of ideological interpellation from Althusser. Althusser takes for granted that “the practical rituals of the most elementary everyday life” (263) apply to every human form. Though a human form might be present in a space over which ideology has cast its web, the human form can be “flesh” and be divested of “the fact of knowing … that [the contested subject has] a name of [their] own, which means that [they] are recognized as a unique subject” (263). After all, what is the name of the enslaved person? The one <em>inflicted and branded</em> upon them by the enslaver? To this point, Spillers deploys the example of the “slave ship.” She writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those African persons in “Middle Passage” were literally suspended in the “oceanic,” if we think of the latter in its Freudian orientation as an analogy for undifferentiated identity: removed from the indigenous land and culture, not-yet “American” either, these captive persons, without names that their captors would recognize, were in movement across the Atlantic, but they were also <em>nowhere</em> at all. Inasmuch as, on any given day, we might imagine, the captive personality did not know where s/he was, we could say that they were culturally “unmade,” thrown in the midst of a figurative darkness that “exposed” their destinies to an unknown course. (72)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Spillers example is not metaphorical, but literal. For both Spillers and Althusser, the question of ideology plays out across interactions and human forms and occurs within real space. </p>
<p>Another issue at hand is the fact that although the “flesh” of the enslaved person or resistant subject has a set of unique practices which might be constitutive of ideology in certain contexts, because those practices are disavowed by the ideology at large and misunderstood when apprehended by functionaries, branches, agents of the ideological stat apparatus (you were waiting for that one, weren’t you?) they can only produce a pseudo-ideology because no narrative is produced by the practices that can transform the “flesh” into “body” within the ideology at large. When Althusser writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I say: the category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology, but at the same time immediately I add that <em>the category of the subject is only constitutive of all ideology insofar as all ideology has the function (which defines it) of ‘constituting’ concrete individuals as subjects.</em> In the interaction of this double constitution exists the functioning of all ideology, ideology being nothing but its functioning in the material forms of existence of that functioning. (262)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and more specifically relevant, “There is no practice except by and in an ideology” (261), he is incorrect. The failure here is the ability to conceive of the “flesh” as Spillers has described, and the inability to identify practices that transfer from one ideology (pre-kidnapping, pre-enslavement, pre-“Middle Passage”) into another in such an unclean fashion that these practices can never reproduce the ideology they were torn from. There is a narrative here, there is a genealogical tie to ideology that these practices have, but it is unrecognizable under the ideology at hand. What is the narrative? Spillers writes, “If we think of the ‘flesh’ as a primary narrative, then we mean its seared, divided, ripped-apartness, riveted to the ships hole, fallen, or ‘escaped’ overboard” (67). This narrative, fundamentally, cannot attach itself to “flesh” and produce a “body,” and thus a subject who is constantly being stripped of their subjecthood exists outside of ideology. It is the zero degree of social conceptualization, a self-awareness that exists <em>in spite</em> of ideology, rather than because of it.</p>
<h6>Works Cited</h6>
<p>Althusser, Louis. <em>On The Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses</em>. London: Verso Books, 2014. Print.</p>
<p>Moten, Fred. <em>In The Break: the Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition</em>. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Print.</p>
<p>Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” <em>Diacritics</em> 17.2 (1987): 64. Web.</p>
<div class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn1">
<p>See Fred Moten, <em>In The Break</em> (2003), pg 8-13 <a href="#fnref1">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/the-decentering-of-white-experience-in-cornelius-eadys-brutal-imagination2015-09-10T16:57:05-07:002015-09-10T16:57:05-07:00The Decentering of White Experience in Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination<p>Cornelius Eady’s <em>Brutal Imagination</em> is a poetry series reminiscent of Kamau Brathwaite’s <em>The Arrivants</em> in terms of scope and timelessness. Eady’s formulations speak to the heart of the issue of racial injustice and provide a compelling account of how white fear of the (unjustly and incorrectly) criminalized Black body results in alteration of white sensory perception. This alteration precipitates the perpetration of violence and terror onto Black bodies, whether at the hands of police or armed vigilantes (à la George Zimmerman).</p>
<p><em>Brutal Imagination</em> is told from the perspective of the, to borrow Jung’s verbiage, collective unconsciousness of fictional Black “subjects” created by white minds to serve a certain purpose — whether it be in the furtherance of an advertising or criminal scheme (and, really, what’s the difference?). The most significant subject is the fictional Black “phantom” (borrowing the word choice of one of my professors) that Susan Smith accused of kidnapping her two children in 1994, when in reality she committed filicide.</p>
<p>Eady begins his sequence with a poem entitled “How I Got Born,” referring to the coming-into-being of the phantom. Eady writes “Though it’s common belief / That Susan Smith willed me alive / At the moment / Her babies sank into the lake”, alluding to the ever-presence of this fictional accusatory scapegoat of the criminalized Black body. Because of white fear — Eady goes on to refer to the face of a Black man as “the scariest face you could think of” — a feedback loop is established where the notion of the criminalized Black body can be scapegoated and that process reinscribes the stereotype that empowers the cultural bias. Eady’s first poem talks about the reemergence of this cultural trope as Susan Smith engages in mothering of this phantom through the motherly gesture of dressing — “So now a mother needs me clothed / In hand-me-downs / And a knit cap.” — and the phantom responds with a defiant and adolescent gesture of “Whatever.”</p>
<p>Though the sequence beings with the phantom and Susan Smith closely aligned — as they share the feeling of bereavement — Eady recontextualizes the tragedy and decenters Smith. In the exterior world outside of the poem, Smith grafts the phantom to herself and drags it along, attempting to take formerly invisible aspects of Blackness and make them hyper-visible to draw all attention away from herself and her crime. Just as Peter Pan staples his shadow to his feet, Smith does the same to this fictional Black body. Eady works within this context and alludes to the phantom being a shadow (in “The Law”) which serves to account for how the phantom, a shadow, is circumscribed by Smith’s “light,” a distracting light to avoid criminal culpability. Within Eady’s paradigm, however, there is a reversal. Not Smith, but the phantom is the center of the narrative and the source of all existential insight offered by the sequence. Only Smith’s exteriority is depicted in the form of excepts from her confession in the piece “Birthing,” where the phantom observes but has no involvement in the actual death of the children. </p>
<p>In this way, the phantom serves to drag Smith along through an exploration of this collective unconsciousness of fictional Black creations like Uncle Tom, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, Buckwheat, and Stepin Fetchit. The moral judgment of Smith rendered is inconsistent and intermittent, as this is not her story but rather the story of the phantom. The phantom grants the reader insight into the one feeling shared with Smith, bereavement, but later in “Why I Am Not A Woman” says of Smith that “The children didn’t mean a thing / To that woman.” Smith’s guilty feeling about the crime and her lack of caring — both feelings experienced by way of symbiosis or observed by the phantom — are never reconciled. The only thing that is clear is that the phantom has far more concern for the children than Smith. This is most evident in the piece “Who Am I?” where the phantom says “And here is the one good thing: / If I am alive, then so, briefly, are they, / Two boys returned, three and one,”. The phantom’s conscience paired with a duty to accomplish the task of his creator or summoner, Smith, are consistently at odds. </p>
<p>“Sightings,” “Where Am I?,” and “Composite” deliver an interesting perspective of the multilocal existence of the phantom, as he moves throughout mythology behind the curtains of reality to eventually engage with Uncle Tom and Buckwheat. The phantom’s ability to move in this way, outside of physicality, parallels the suspicion of Black men that occurs when a phantom like this is created, whether in the case of Smith or Charles Stuart in 1989. Black communities are forced to share this burden of “fitting the description” predicated on a falsehood. The phantom’s presence on TVs, fliers, and on the lips of people are all locations where the oppressive force that afflicts this burden is generated. </p>
<p>“Sightings,” beyond depicting different locations for the subject of the phantom, benefits from a parallel to Schrodinger’s cat in the case of the falsified witness reports. The phantom says “I signed or didn’t sign the register. / I took or didn’t take the key from his hand. / He looked or forgot to look.” Unlike the discrete space that houses the phantom, the still-living children, and Uncle Ben, what is described here is a probabilistic space created by the unreliable eyewitness accounts of white people whose sense are compromised by conscious or unconscious racial bias. A similar phenomenon is explored in “Charles Stuart in the Hospital” where the police are described by Eady as doing “quick, but sloppy work” in regards to taking down descriptive information about phantasmic Black assailants. </p>
<p>Eady’s sequence decenters whiteness and the white sensory experience by only providing an outside perspective on those things and restricting its perspective to elucidating the existential concerns of a non-existent imaginative construction. Furthermore, Eady gives life and agency to a previously dismal category of the white-imagined disposition of the Black American. James Baldwin speaks to this process in “Take this Hammer,” where he says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>what I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessity, my own psychology, my own fears and desires … now here in this country we’ve got something called the ‘nigger’ … I didn’t invent him, white people invented him … I’ve always known that I’m not a ‘nigger.’ But if I am not the ‘nigger’ and if it’s true that your invention reveals you, than who is the ‘nigger’?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This category to which Baldwin refers is the same one which collectively houses the phantom, Aunt Jemima, and Buckwheat. These constructions are created for a purpose, to serve a “necessity” of the white mind, whether they be receptacles for envy, fear, or hatred. And, indeed, this category has no relationship with the actual experience of Blackness or being Black in an interior sense, but these non-existent subjectivities are violently projected onto and sublimate the Black body when subject to the gaze of a white supremacist power structure. Eady takes a more charitable approach to these creations, as opposed to relegating them to the realm of theoretical detritus. They’ve been stapled to the feet of white folks and dragged around for so long, after all. Isn’t it only fair they’re granted a life in a mind far more robust and beautiful than the one that birthed them?</p>
tag:tenderbuttons.svbtle.com,2014:Post/kero-kero-bonitos-intro-bonito-a-nastolgia-fueled-fever-dream2015-08-11T09:05:56-07:002015-08-11T09:05:56-07:00Kero Kero Bonito's Intro Bonito: A Nastolgia Fueled Fever Dream<p>I wish I had discovered Kero Kero Bonito last year. If I had, their record <em>Intro Bonito</em> would have been a shoo-in for my prestigious TOP WHATEVER OF 2014 list. But, my ignorance means they didn’t make the cut, so I owe it to them to give this release a comprehensive analysis.</p>
<p>KKB comes from an interesting new generation of musicians who have their roots in electronic music, production, and remixing. Emerging from the same crowd as Spazzkid, Meishi Smile, and Maxo (whose excellent Dragon Ball / Hokuto no Ken theme song cover can be found <a href="https://maxoisnuts.bandcamp.com/track/dragon-ball-hokuto-no-ken">here</a>) KKB manages to channel nostalgia for retro video games and fandom of Japanese pop music into something wholly unique.</p>
<p>Despite the trappings of contemporary pop music, KKB sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before. The sing-alongs and call-and-response pull me into the songs in a way few other bands do. The figurative audience participation is reminiscent of a Japanese rap group called Love and Hates, helmed by two charming women, with which KKB also shares a few other surface similarities. The experience delivered by <em>Intro Bonito</em> is rooted in familiarity but feels completely alien. Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled, the group’s two produces, pull liberally from video game soundtracks. The sub-three minute songs are rife with familiar noises and jingles, including superlative use of Mario 64 samples in a standout track, “Sick Beat.” Vocalist Sarah Midori Perry’s baffling lyrics delight the mind’s eye. They range from rapper’s braggadocio (about Perry’s video gaming acumen), to keeping a small, cute, crocodile “warm and moist” (metaphors, anyone?), to a downright unsettling song about violent conflict between cats and dogs (which appears on the album twice - once in English and once in Japanese).</p>
<p>It’s a special moment when fans of formerly stigmatized niche hobbies can find their childhood represented in art, and <em>Intro Bonito</em> proves to be an immensely satisfying listen for geeks and nerds everywhere in the same way one might enjoy hearing an 8-bit mash-up of the Dragon Ball and Hokuto no Ken theme songs. However, Kero Kero Bonito aspires to loftier aesthetic goals. KKB is a group that uses the memories and sensibilities of someone who sat alone in their room playing Playstation JRPGs and doing the deep dive into Japanese idols and turns it into music that is engaging for any discerning listener.</p>