Going Dumb, Post-9/11

A Draft of CXXII Cantos

2011-03-23T21:24:00.000-04:00

being first year associate attorney doing doc review - flying jet over libya to defend the united states

A Draft of CXXI Cantos

2011-03-22T21:55:00.002-04:00

Shaolin master. Baseball game – fat slob – cave drawing on wall of selfish girl having fun at party at baseball game from now-fat former shaolin student who got lupus or some other disease involving the scientific letters “DJ.” Shoalin master realizes it was worth it. former student had committed unselfish act for lonely selfish girl. Question is what shaolin master had done for fat former-student: he had not trained him as shaolin monk, but rather had done something one-off to help him.

Remediation, Or: Perfect Acai Consumer Bill of Rights

2010-03-21T16:25:00.004-04:00

http://news6health.com/indexb2f.php

http://www.powersupplements.com/acai/acai-berry-scams.html

acai scam scam exposed scam exposed

LOL WUT

2010-02-10T23:15:00.001-05:00

Wut is the dialectic of enlightenment

Wut is biopower

Wut is empire

Wut is the rhizome

Wut is MIAMI VICE

marked as spam

2009-04-27T00:33:00.001-04:00

Comment(s) marked as spam Show

igot2lambos (3 days ago)

Reply | Spam

what is the meaning, do u know?

Jopekar (3 days ago)

Reply | Spam

look in the info thingy to the right

igot2lambos (1 day ago)

Reply | Spam

i c

jakeryan37 (5 days ago)

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this song is beautiful and deep,no words are nessesary

The hypnotically ambient "Sweet Lullaby" combines contemporary dance rhythms with melodies sampled from the indigenous vocal chants of Central Africa, the South Pacific, and other ancient cultures.

Upon hearing the tune, Tarsem says he was temporarily lured away from the lucrative commercial industry by the pure, young voice of a Pygmy girl singing a cappella at the close of the track.

Being Emphatic, Post-9/11

2009-03-19T21:50:00.002-04:00

Postmodern Bonnie and Clyde:

To: {souleater}

From: runawaydevil

Subject: Re: Hello there!

well you see... [color=red][size=5]i fucking love you! [/size] [/color]

Msg id: 1302244771

To: {souleater} (1340807)

From: runawaydevil (1209054)

Date: Wed Mar 8, 2006 9:00 am

Subject: Re: Lyrics!

Aha yey! you make me feel so loved :hearts: and yes i do love you,

Your wonderful *kiss*

Msg id: 1302290948

To: runawaydevil (1209054)

From: {souleater} (1340807)

Date: Wed Mar 8, 2006 10:59 am

Subject: Re (2): Hello there!

Well thanx fer caring so fucking much you, you, you sexy beast you!

tehee ttyl

18r beautiful!

Msg id: 1302296648

To: runawaydevil (1209054)

From: {souleater} (1340807)

Date: Wed Mar 8, 2006 11:12 am

Subject: Re (2): Lyrics!

Yeah I'm so glad that you feel that way about my cuz I love you too! so

You didn't call last night what's up? well I hope that you have a good day

today & hopefully I'll ttyl tonight or something! well *hugz&kissez!* XOXOXO

Take Care!

*kiss*

Msg id: 1330764621

To: runawaydevil (1209054)

From: {souleater} (1340807)

Date: Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:00 pm

Subject: Hey Beautiful!

Hey howz it goin'? I'm ok I guess... but I'm still sorry that you got into trouble! :( & when I tried to call ashley I was thinking of you & I think that when I went to dail her number to apologize I accidently dailed your number I'm so so sorry! :( That totally sux that your grounded for a month! God your parents are totally unfair! :cussing: My mother was nothing like your parents... know why cuz she'z been living on her own since she was 15 and she used to hang out with 25 year olds and stuff so she knows what it's like to be us... :) too bad your parents don't.... they should get with the program and realize that times are ever changing and they can't stop it!... like what if man kinds life style changes are they going to refuse to change too! cuz they won't make it very far then! well I hope to talk to you some time soon, I miss you! *singing* "I want you, I need you, I have you, I won't let anybody have you", tehee Slipknot rulez! :D well hope to see you soon or sumthin'! Take Care! Love You! :love:

Msg id: 1331568479

To: {souleater} (1340807)

From: runawaydevil (1209054)

Date: Mon Mar 20, 2006 7:10 pm

Subject: Re: Hey Beautiful!

rawr i hate them

so i have this plan

it begins with me killing them

and ends with me living with you

so we are set

im going to try and call you but i really dont know if i'll be able to

to

they are treating me like shit

i hate them sooo much

but i love you and hope this wont bring us far apart

i hope to talk to you soon

love you with all my heart

:love:

Msg id: 1334483680

To: runawaydevil (1209054)

From: (souleater} (1340807)

Date: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:51 pm

Subject: Re (2): Hey Beautiful!

Well I love your plan but we need to get a little more creative with

Like details & stuff! I wish they wouldn't treat you that way! grrrr! it angers me to hear that I dislike them very much! Don’t worry I love you too… my sexy beast! I hope to hear from you soon too! Take Care my love! You have the key to my heart & soon enough you shall have my heart… if I die anyways cuz if I give it to you now I’ll die then you won’t be able to hear me say how much I love you!

:love: XOXOXO :love

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ROTFLAMO!!!!

How can affect manifest itself in LOLspeak? Or, to ask a slightly more modest question: how can one convey emotion in an online conversation? Precisely those "expressions" that have been created to, supposedly, replicate nonverbal signals - smileys, LOL, :hearts:, etc - seem to deaden online text. "LOL," used unironically, kills a joke in a way that "real" laughter never could. We could blame "online chatting," blogging, short-form and poorly edited online content as formats; we could suggest that these are simply structurally impoverished media, unable to convey a full range of human emotions. Yet, as I think comes across very strongly in the above, there is something intensely "pathetic" (i.e., pathos-evoking) about LOLspeak. If one puts enough exclamation points after LOL, it becomes a bit uncanny; that is, this excessive emphasis highlights the impossibility of the task at hand (to convey a spontaneous gesture using a repeatable symbol) by harping on the need to add emphasis to something that by definition must be self-sufficient (an out-loud laugh). Yet here is another source of uncanniess: a laugh is supposed to represent plenitude; inasmuch as LOL fails to achieve this plenitude (or ":hearts: xoxoxoxxoxoxo" fails to be a gesture of genuine love), it "represents" the implicit failure of these "real" gestures on a level that is paradoxically more "immediate." There is something repulsive about "LOL" (even more so with LMAO, or <8,>

Does this mean that LOLspeak is the only possible critical language in which to assess the manifest failure of new media to serve as a fulsome form of expression? Good question. I'm trying to write an article about this for n+1, the most important literary journal of our time (this is Gawker's best meme [pronounced "mi-mi", BTW] so far).

Define Irony

2009-03-08T20:31:00.004-04:00

Jonathan Krohn, 14, has written a book. It is 86 pages long. It is entitled Define Conservatism. LOL@ his age, his prepubescent voice, his home-schooling, the fact that he plays golf. Etc.

More interesting: the book's title. There is something about it that stands out. On the one hand, it has the naive, overly-literal simplicitly of a 14 year old who wrote a book: i.e., his book is an attempt to "define conservatism," which he claims has been bastardized into a political stance as opposed to a philosophy (? I think this is what he is saying, dunno tho). Thus, we might argue that he titled his book to straightforwardly reflect his aims.

On the other hand, there is something of a conscious aesthetic choice. "Define Conservatism" has something of the ironic over-simplification, the post-double-entendre, about it.

This reminds one of the cover of a K. Anthony Appiah book, or perhaps:

Or:

One almost has the sense that Krohn is playing with our preconceptions; the title acts as an ironic gesture that anticipates objections based on his young age. I know you think I'm young, that I speak in declarative sentences and ask my parents the meaning of various common words. But in fact, it is you who is woefully ignorant: you who lambaste conservatism (that's you Barack - the "most radically leftist president in my lifetime!") don't even know what it means! Just as "Gay Ideas" - which evokes both a naive intellectualism (I'm gay, and these are my ideas), a naive homophobia (what a gay idea!), and a reappropriation of that homophobia - makes a highly self-aware aesthetic gesture that supersedes its supposedly straightforward denotative meaning, "Define Conservatism" seems to hint at a sophisticated grasp of the aesthetic possibilities of language - and perhaps the creation of an entirely new politics based on the endless play of signification. Look 4ward 2 seeing more!

18th brumiere of Soulja Boy

2009-03-08T04:28:00.003-04:00

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Prestige Tweets

2009-03-04T01:20:00.002-05:00

THE_REAL_SHAQ

At firehouse subs, dat turkey on wheat wit extra mayo is gooder dan a mug, lolabout 13 hours ago from TwitterBerry

lindsaylohan

cocaine cheezeburgers and champaign dreamsabout 4 hours ago from TweetDeck
schwarzenegger@robotchampion This group wants your ideas to make California better and your input on current CA issueshttp://bit.ly/o2Ar4
5:12 PM Feb 27th from TweetDeck
Our work is not over. We were in a crisis. But crisis provides opportunity for real reforms for California.12:37 PM Feb 19th from web
DaveJMatthews@bigbrowneyes Bam!5:36 PM Feb 26th from twitterrific in reply to bigbrowneyes
yokoonoLove someone.Express it.When you express your love you are not only expressing it to the one you love but to the Universe. I love you! yoko3:52 PM Feb 13th from webONO: GIVE PEACE A CHANCE The International Remixes - OUT NOW on iTunes & Beatport: http://tinyurl.com/ono-gpac12:12 PM Feb 20th from web
snoopdogg@vanivasky getn the day startd with some tweets ya diggabout 10 hours ago from web in reply to vanivasky@Woodifield chickn and waffls player!!!about 6 hours ago from web in reply to Woodifield@yellaarknigga family is #1 yoabout 10 hours ago from web in reply to yellaarknigga
KarlRoveTrying to figure out why all my DMs don't show up on TweetDeck. Any ideas?8:03 PM Feb 27th from TweetDeck

Subversive Commercials

2009-03-02T21:26:00.004-05:00

This commercial, which I just saw while watching the Hannity report on my flatscreen television, may at first seem to reify blah blah sexism. However, we might look more closely to find the potentially subversive element lurking within. As the burglar waits in the dark, his reflection on her pristine floor-to-ceiling windows the only hint of his presence, so too does this subversive kernel lurk within the fabric of this supposedly "mainstream" commercial. As in Britney Spears' performance at the 2007 VMAs or Hans Holbein's "Ambassadors", there is a "tache" (stain) on this work. But in a move that makes this work perhaps more radical than the aforementioned canonical texts, it consists precisely in the (unheimlich) aesthetic contours of the work.

"Treadmill" appears to be a commercial targeted at the merely-conservative, middle-American male or even the particularly interpellated soccer female. An attractive but "mainstream" 30-something woman prepares to "work out" in her spacious suburban home. She talks on her cell phone to her girlfriend, puts on some trance music, and gets ready to "blow off some steam"/burn off the cheeseburger she snuck for lunch. The threats that she faces (her house being burgled, possibility of rape) and the vehicle for her subsequent rescue (institutionalized authority of the panoptic "security system," comforting voice of the white male phone operator) seem to reify this conservative ethos. A male viewer might want to get Brinks for his stay-at-home wife; the stay-at-home wife might see it as a way to protect herself from the fears that she must invent for herself to assuage her constant boredom.

Yet there is something both menacing and awkwardly comic about "Treadmill," and moreover the menace and the comedy are mutually reinforcing in a decidedly unheimlich way. The threat of sexual abuse - the fact that the burglar (there are actually two - are you seeing the possibilities here?) decides to break in while looking at the woman, dressed in her tight running clothes, knowing that some sort of confrontation would ensue in the "break-in" - is quite risque for a Fox ad. More intriguing is the shot at 0:15-0:17, a zoom in from behind the woman on the treadmill. Whose perspective does this shot represent? The viewer of "Treadmill," a sexual pervert who has violent scopophilic designs on the soccer mom? (This would be a traditional film-theoretical, Mulveyian position). Or perhaps the woman herself, fantasizing about her own violation from the security of her treadmill and iTunes?

And what of the awkward little dance our fair-haired heroine performs at 0:20 when she jumps off the treadmill? How does she know to head for the loveseat, in which the cordless phone is buried? Here we go: because she knew that Matt From Brinks Home Secuity was going to call. Why does it matter that he has called? The "breakers-in" have already left. Most crucially: Matt From Brinks Home Security is going to "send help right away." Again: why? why is she reassured by this? What kind of help does a lonely, scared woman at home need? And what kind of help can Matt From Brinks Home Security provide?

The tache, then, is the fact that the woman's self-negating desire is revealing to have structured the very aesthetic form of "Treadmill" itself. The woman - who exists, needless to say, only within the diegesis (or does "woman" exist at all?) - has structured this explicitly "sexist" and sexually violent tableau via her own fantasy, which itself is a symptom of the larger cultural gestalt in which the viewer is thus seen to participate. The unheimlich of "Treadmill" - the simplistic, declarative title serving as deadpan reminder of the totalizing nature of suburban spleen - consists in our realization that the double-mediation of the fantasy (the masculine-interpellated viewer's [even if female] voyeuristic/sexually fantasy of transgressing this 'idyllic' - for the Fox News demographic - scene) is rendered comical and unerotic because the female character who is supposedly the object of the scene is in fact its subject.

career decisions

2009-02-26T21:13:00.004-05:00

PRESTIGE RANKINGS

Plz rank the following:

Harper's MAGAZINE (smoking cigarettes and discussing the relative merits of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Stein in a Soho office building)

Graduate school

the opportunity to continue driving your "vintage" car in nice weather, reading theory on the beach, listening to LCD soundsystem while driving to class (UCLA)

being super interdisciplinary, getting real rigorous (chicago)

mnstrm academic prestige (YALE)

i-BANKING: whippin tradez, broing out at the office, feeling real good walking home from work, or taking a black car - really, whatever you feel like. you're liberated - you don't need need the convenience of a cab, instead you can flâne all the way from the FD to the LES. on the other hand if you're tired, it's not a problem, just take the black car. the confidence, convenience - the choice - to contemplate that which you understand, dialectically, from a position of comfort.

the French - they "get it"

2009-02-22T15:56:00.014-05:00

I stole this highly bloggable video from HRO, but I think it's worth a second analysis driven by an ironism with a different number of repetitions of the word "post" in front of it (this is a de facto admission that my blog is now nothing more than a reblog of HRO, and certainly not the most successful one at that - see HRO Exegesis). Charles writes:

I haven’t ever really listened to the Presets too indepth, except for this one Lifelike remix of them. But I have heard that they are ‘amazing’ live, and they probs are. N e ways, this music video is pretty meaningful bc it was directed by the same person who made M83’s “Kim and Jessie.” I think I can really identify with this music video because I am a teen from the suburbs who wants to go to the city and ‘get my dance on’ but then also get meaningful at a beach bonfire.
<3>

Okay. But also: I think I can really identify with this music video because I am a "young adult" from a city nostalgic for a suburban experience that I didn't have. I want to go to the Hollywood walk of fame and "get my dance on" as if I were a t(w)een from the suburbs. What's authentic about this video is that is evokes a nostalgic longing for an experience of urban life as something aesthetically supple, something new and forcefully alienating and beautiful. The first shot of a sped-up LA freeway scene (0:30), interspersed with our tween walking to school in his uniform, is infused, if not with the wide-eyed, naive awe of a suburbanite's first view of the big, godless city, then with his first wonderous view of a TV commercial for a global investment bank with calm professionals presiding over the chaotic urban scene outside of their gleaming office tower. Though it's not particularly interesting to point out that this shot is "cliche" (here we go again), the aesthetic power of the shot is due more to an evocation of the form which we might imagine a suburban longing for the dissolution of subjectivity offered by the anonymous metropolis, cars whizzing past, would take. Indeed, we don't ever have to "imagine" what form it would take, because the desire itself is cultivated by, e.g., these advertisements (and more forcefully, Hollywood film - it is not insignificant that this is L.A. and not New York).

The shot is thus all the more powerful because we've seen it before. The desire being evoked here is not our desire for "that (postmodern) urban experience"; rather, it is a nostalgia for that desire. This also extends to the way the video treats a notion of "Hollywood culture." As our tween sashays down the Walk of Fame, bowling over Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, there is a gleeful kind of irony which, precisely because it is not "post-" (or rather, because it is "post-post-"), feels naive. Wouldn't it be nice to just genuinely ironically enjoy pop culture, instead of having to try to ironically enjoy it? This need to try (Baudelaire's "heroic" affirmation of the present in all its squalid glory), and the effort to navigate the neverending series of quotation marks it unleashes, is a trope to which the French are especially (uniquely?) well-suited.

The French director of this video, Eva Husson, also directed a video for M83. Though I think the unheimlich humor of the M83 video is slightly tangential in regards to this aesthetic, M83 is perhaps the best example of the contemporary Baudelairean attempt to confront postmodernism. Is it a surprise that M83 is French as well?

These could be shots from the Presets video. On the one hand, blissful, "authentic" suburban tween life; on the other, the promise of the Real of urban anonymity and amorality. And again, with the suburban scene, it is the highway in the background which makes the photograph particularly moving; rather than a pure bucolic/rural - and thus historically "previous" to the urban - ideal, it evokes a knowing naivete and willfully heroizes precisely the ironic/knowing aspect. With the urban scene, this is again a generic shot, and what's important about it is the intentionally pseudo-authentic details (grainy stock, saturated colors). Note the similarity to shots from Heat, Miami Vice, and Roadtrip 2K8:

LOL @ CAPITALISM

2009-02-02T22:44:00.001-05:00

What It's Like to Date a Hotshot

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DATE A HOTSHOT
COSMOPOLITAN
JULY 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

Congressmen in Washington are like movie stars in Hollywood. They’re everywhere, they’re always shorter in person – and yet, everyone is still totally impressed.

As a government major at Georgetown, I was a shameless political groupie. I tracked the rarest of species in our nation’s capitol – the young, unmarried, good-looking politician. Actually, I only found one. The year before, he was one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People. Like a teenager with a crush on Brad Pitt, I taped the photo to my desk, where it stayed (embarrassingly) for 8 months.

Of course, I never expected to actually meet him.

But one evening, out to dinner, I spied him at the table next to mine and courageously introduced myself. I was 21; he was turning 32 that evening. A junior in college, I had never dated a guy older than 24, let alone one with such a formidable resume: Ivy League school, law degree, a prestigious political family, and – oh yeah – an office on Capitol Hill with 20 staff members.

I didn’t realize it then, but I had already fallen into the insidious “he’s better than me” trap – by putting him on a pedestal, I was unconsciously telling myself that I wasn’t worthy. In the coming months I would realize how misguided this mindset was.

Our five-minute intro turned into an entire evening of flirting as he invited me along with as he celebrated his birthday. We went from the restaurant to a swanky hotel bar, where he asked for a birthday kiss – and I practically fainted from excitement.

When he said goodnight late that evening, it never occurred to me he would call again. But I was wrong; he called the next week, and the week after.

In retrospect, I’m not sure why I was so surprised – as the dating columnist for The Georgetown Hoya, I knew a thing or two on how to keep a man’s interest. Or at least, a college guy’s interest! But one of the most eligible bachelors in DC? I really believed I was in over my head.

The concept of him being interested in me was so shocking that my normally healthy self-esteem couldn’t get to my brain!

Unnerved by talking with him on the phone, I would prepare little “cheat sheets” so I wouldn’t blank on conversation topics. (Who does that??) I would compare myself constantly to him: He makes six figures, I get an allowance. He meets with world leaders, I stopped by my professor’s office yesterday.

Again and again, I fell short in my own mind. Of course, I’m not the only woman to find herself involved with a man who she views – either consciously or unconsciously – as “superior” to herself. He doesn’t have to be a movie star; I’ve watched beautiful, confident girls reduced to awkward, desperate messes wondering why their boyfriends – the star of the basketball team or a rich doctor or anyone else who generally intimidates them – would ever want them.

I was pretty far along that road when he asked me on a weekend ski vacation. I lost five pounds, bought a new pink ski suit and compulsively planned out every outfit. Then we got there – and … he couldn’t ski. Not sort of couldn’t ski, but god awful, I-hope-he-doesn’t-break-his-leg couldn’t ski.

Out there on the slopes, he wasn’t a hotshot politician, he was just a guy. A guy with no coordination. Later, watching C-Span together (although I’d really rather watch Oprah), he got the Kuwaiti ambassador’s name wrong – and I corrected him! Suddenly, I began to see beyond the image to the real person, who wasn’t so intimidating after all.

And when I took the big man OFF campus, I realized that I … well, I just wasn’t that into him. Sure, it was an ego boost to date a prominent A-Lister. But beyond that, we didn’t have much in common.

The irony didn’t escape me. All this time I had been building him up in my mind and underestimating my own qualities, forgetting that no one can be in a good relationship with an idol – it has to be equal. And if you don’t have self-respect, how can he respect you?

The whole thing made me laugh. After all, I had asked myself so many times, “Why does he want to be with me?” when I should have been asking “Why do I want to be with him?”

2 alien8ed 2 blog?

2009-01-31T18:27:00.004-05:00

I keep saying that I'm going to "start blogging again." My initial rationalization for my own lack of posting was that I didn't have time and wasn't "inspired"; first, I was traveling: no computer access, and I needed to "devote my time to my bros." Then I was working on a farm: blogging didn't feel very "organic," and I spent most of my time thinking about artichokes, potatoes, kale, sm0king w33d, and getting swoll. Then I was "living at home," i.e. preparing espresso beverages for overweight and wealthy residents of Georgetown, going to yoga and saying "ooom" while thinking about the attractive yuppies in spandex that surrounded me, and then going to bed at 11PM. None of these seemed to be conducive to the type of critical reflection and ironic meta-commentary which I supposed myself to be good at.

Yet with the exception of my liveblogging of Tool Academy - which I thought would be more transcendental than it was in the end - I've written nothing. The only reason I'm writing this right now is because I'm super-b0red. In fact it pains me to write this half-assed self-reflective bullshit, most of all because I look like a a live-journaler circa 2002. I think I've figured out the problem.

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com

http://www.autoadmit.com

Not that I thought I had a monopoly on ironic irony - i.e. the ironizing of one's own irony, the reflexive analysis of the failure of irony to achieve its critical intent - but these people just do it so much better. Here's an example from Autoadmit. This is an online discussion forum - "The most prestigious law school admissions discussion forum in the world" - on which law school students post about various topics. Most of these topics are related to a. salaries at "BIGLAW" firms b. grades in law school c. making fun of women, blacks, Asians or Jews, and finally, d. prestige. The forum is governed by an extremely strict discursive code; if you don't "get it," the forum will be completely unintelligible. This involves an ironic appropriation of all the cliches of wealthy white professionals. Thus the main point of discussion is the relative "prestige" of various situations, consumer goods, races, or sexual acts. A representative example:

ITT: I list the Prestigious Masterworks of "Classical Music

Date: October 12th, 2008 10:46 AM

Author: To be fair

To be fair,

This is a list of the MOST PRESTIGIOUS compositions from each era. This list is not all inclusive, but is merely meant to highlight the best of the best.

*Baroque Period*:

(Late) Monteverdi:

Selected Late Madrigals

The Coronation of Poppea

L'Orfeo

Bach -

Mass in b minor

St. Matthew Passion

The Art of the Fugue

WTC Bk. I and II

Handel -

"The Messiah"

*Classical Period*:

etc, etc. This is an exacting rehearsal of the tedium, pedantry, and arrogance of a corporate lawyer. Other posts sucessfully recreate the latter's sexism or racism (e.g.: "ITT: Rate this prestigious southern blonde," "rate this prestigious WGWAG"). Though in some cases the goal seems to be pure 'trolling' (e.g. threads with the subject heading "KIKE KIKE KIKE") the above example is much more subtle. We might wonder if in fact the poster is simply trying to prove his "prestige" (in this case, highbrow cultural literacy) yet the thread's topic contains a number of references which make it obvious to someone familiar with Autoadmit that the poster "gets it" (use of "ITT," acronym for "in this thread" and in this case completely redundant, use of "prestige," and most of all the use of extraneous capitalization ["MOST PRESTIGIOUS"]. So, s/he "gets it." But beyond that, the poster probably also "gets it" on a second level of reflexivity: that it is precisely this supposed self-awareness which is "prestigious," that prestige is actually a relatively useful term for describing the type of framework which gives the poster's life meaning.

I won't waste any more time with my own meta-pedantry here, but the dilemma this raises should be relatively obvious. First of all, with regards to this second-order self-reflexivity or "post-irony," there is the question of whether it is meaningfully critical - whether the above poster is just rehearsing the same pedantry on a different level. I've addressed this in the past in regards to this blog.

Secondly - I think a large part of my hesitation to post comes from the realization that I'm getting pwned by people doing the same thing as me. Hipster Runoff is the primary example here. "Carles" has completely exhausted all of the memes that I thought were funny (LOLing at electro-bangers, authenticity, and hipster racism/sexism/consumerism etc). The bro-meme has been so co-opted that there is now a show on MTV called Bromance.

I'm going to try to come up with some new memes for my large reading public. In the meantime I will work on "real"-izing the backlog of my authentic experiences over the past half year or so. So like, stay tuned.

ITT: I liveblog TOOL ACADEMY

2009-01-14T23:33:00.004-05:00

11:30: Just finished "Real Chance at Love", a spinoff of a spinoff of Flavor of Love. Was going to read Foucault but this looks more authentic/has more bearing on "The History of Sexuality."

11:32: These guys think they are competing for title of "Mr. Awesome" - but actually, they are trying to avoid pwnage (PUR OWNAGE) by their girlfriends who sent them to the "tool academy" bc they are gaytards.

ex: "my boyfriend's name is terrence...but, he goes by, Celebrity." pause.

so they think they are being celebrated for their bro-ness, but actually "we're all laughing at them" bc theyre bros.

this guy "Matsuflex," i'm actually 100% sure I met him at the pool at the Luxor in Vegas in June. I am going to find pictures to prove this. he was ordering RBVs. i was drinking free tequila shots out of plastic shot glasses (aka robotussin cups)

11:40: the bros are about to get pwned.

"are u guys ready 2 go inside and parti with the ladies"?

11:41 "where's the girls at?"

11:42: "there's been a slight change of plans." long pause. "there is no party" four censored expletives.

11:43 ok so, now it's a commerical break. i've never done this "liveblogging thing" before but just to pick up on what i was saying earlier: these guys think they are being affirmed in their broness, brodom, brodaciousness, all these other adjectives which have already been completely co-opted by exactly the demographic which i thought i was making fun of when i used them like 6 months ago. the point, supposedly, is that in fact they are...fuck commercial is over.

11:46: bullshit pro-feminist rhetoric. ("you've all been pretty crappy boyfriends.") "gentlemen: you are not, Mr. Awesome." medium pause. "you are all complete tools."

11:47: just realized that "liveblogging" is actually using twitter. i dont know how to tweet though - maybe i need to go to the "tool academy"?

11:48: unintentional lulz: "do you think i'm excited to be in like, a prison academy - bro?!!"

11:51: now they have a group therapy session. therapist is british. prestigious? one guy admits, "i guess there's some stuff i need to work on."

11:54: ok so back to what i was saying. the critique of humanism has been co-opted by humanism to reaffirm it's own openness to critique and thus completely eviscerated. thus it comes to seem "inauthentic" to, e.g., critique advertising for determining our interests and personalities because this has been recuperated for a bourgeois notion of aesthetic purity. at the moment when the bro starts saying "bro" ironically, "bro" is no longer ironic. next commercial: was "bro" ever ironic?

12:00: this one girl took off her engagement ring because she thinks that it represents something "fake" now. i'm starting to think this might be scripted.

12:01 matsuflex: "black, asian white, i bang all sorts of chicks." is that a reference to that Calvin Harris song?

12:03 b0red, checking out matsuflex's myspace.

12:11: "she was trying to emasculate me, and im not gonna allow that, im gonna break some stuff, im gonna pick up this heavy chair and im gonna throw it. and you're gonna like it."

12:12: found a ph0to of matsuflex from my facebook:

12:14: matsuflex breaks out his "matsu-panties" (black HUGO BOSS underwear). is this progressive? i saw a tranny last night when i was running, she was carrying groceries. a small shiver ran down my back, and i finally "got" the tranny thing. how bataille-esque would it be to just, like, change your gender? the little thrill we get from 'acting a little gay' or. commercial is over.

12:19: mastuflex is making out with his girlfriend.

12:20: one of the bros: "i want to prove to america that i'm not a tool and that i can BE, Mr. Awesome." very interesting. this is a post-colonial strategy: use the liberatory ideology promulgated by the oppressor as a cover for domination to in fact resist processes of

interpellated subjectification. instead of allowing himself to interpellated as "tool," he reclaims the (manifestly illusory) rallying cry of Mr. Awesome. did anyone see "The X Files: I Want to Believe"? or Miami Vice?

12:25: is it even worth discussing the fact that this is scripted? how could i rise above the level of irony already implicit in this show?

12:26: final scene, where one gets eliminated: they are all wearing thom browne.

12:28: more evidence of colonialism, specifically "identifying with your oppressor": when dmitiri, after getting eliminated, says, "i know i'm not a tool," one of the other guys scoffs, suggesting that he has appropriated the discursive framework of the Tool Academy. does this have potential as a strategy for revealing the inherent "lack" on which discourse is based (Santner)? i.e., is it possible that this guy, by asserting that dmitri's being kicked off the show represents some sort of ontological failure (that he "really is" a tool, and that that really means something - even though just one day ago they had never heard of "The Tool Academy" and it

's linguistic rules), is revealing the inherent constructedness of the tool/non-tool (even, perhaps, bro/non-bro) dichotomy? could we go a step further and say that he is in fact revealing the arbitary nature of linguistic meaning itself (Derrida)?

stay tuned for Tool Academy 2:

NY Observer: the new GoingPomo?

2008-08-12T22:45:00.001-04:00

Has the NY Observer ascended to the heights of urban(e) irony?

http://www.observer.com/2008/fore-birdie-beatrice-inn

I've Been Waiting for This Moment, for all my LIFE

2008-07-30T21:33:00.003-04:00

OH LORD

more on this later, but

queenuvdiamonds (5 days ago)
I don't want to sound stupid or weird but when I have this song super loud(in the car. or by myself at home) or really loud on my headphones. i'll close my eyes and fade away. like an out of body orgasm. nevermind. its stupid. awesome freakin' song ...

jscorpio78 (5 days ago)
thats not stupid its a kick ass tune...go with it

Which is more powerful, this or the Phil Collins? Which Miami Vice is more powerful, the original or the movie? Which is more real, TV or film? Is Miami Vice the movie realer because it is based on a TV show? Sorry guys I'm farming right now so a full discussion will have to wait.

2008-03-08T13:31:00.004-05:00

I miss kissing.... I am 6'3", 185 lbs and, yes, in shape. No pot belly; working on that six pack now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyUIvv3KowU&NR=1 (right click link above - open in new tab or window)

I have only been with 3 women in my life, but I won't disappoint you... I learned from those best women in how to please a woman.

TY 4 your time, please forgive my temporary brashness and calendar age (53 y/o but 25 y/o mindset). I don't play with people's hearts - I won't be your anchor.

ONE Lucky Lady Gets Free Rent, Food + $500 / week allowance - AND more importantly, a very genuine and nice male FRIEND - Yes, you are "lucky" - I have tried meeting a nice woman in many ways. Meeting someone nice is not easy, but I truly am a real sweetheart. I will be glad to have you talk in person to sincere young women who know me and who will vouch for me. On a "commercial" note, my offer is worth $50,000 per year (your rent share plus allowance). Heck, my offer is as good as having a fulltime job or doubling your income. I should be flooded with replies - I am being so sincere, so real, so honest, so down to earth... BUT world is full of sh*t, I know (sob silently)... BUT, please know this, I am very, very sincere. Talk to me on the phone - you WILL know from your own heart. I am not bullsh*t and never will be. PLEASE READ THIS AD. I don't expect you to be gullible, but I PROMISE you I can prove everything I say here. I am truly a very nice man. I don't know how I can pour my confident, strong heart out anymore than I am doing right now. I talk with my feelings. I am not your average guy. I am a pieces (zodiac sign - a true romantic) in touch with his feelings.

SO... (inhales and hopes a lady knows his heart) .... ONE Female, Zero Rent, Zero Food - $500 / week Spending Allowance 4 YOU 2 Splurge. That's $2,165 per month or $26,000 per year for you to squander. Not bad, huh? It will pay a few of your bills, no? Spend your allowance as you see fit. Spend it on us, you, the apartment - your pick - your choice - your spending allowance. Why am I so generous? Because I make a great living and will be glad to share it. I would spend this kind of money on a pursuit or fondly retaining the attention of a real girlfriend. OK, so I am generous; I have always been generous and always successful financially in life. You can't take it with you SO...

Looking for ONE female. ONE bedroom, Very Large, Very Nice Executive Condo, Walk-IN closet, 24/7 Doormen, Excellent / Very Safe Neighborhood (Battery Park) and all the upscale amenities. Rector Place / South End Ave, Battery Park. Excellent View of Freedom Tower construction and Statue of Liberty. Lower Manhattan near Financial District. Come and go as you please. I would be interested in your NSA (no strings attached) friend with benefits companionship. Share a bed but no rush. No means No. 18 to 40 y/o. I am 53, but have all the youthful charm and health of a 25 y/o. I love life. I am a "#10 catch." I am charming, fit, SWM, HEALTHY (d/d free), handsome and prefer same type females. I am an excellent friend, good companion, listener and conversationalist. I even cook well and love a clean apartment. I am very young at heart. I work at home on Fridays. You will really like me - and, no, you don't have to "love" me... just continue to love my friendship. Write me for my phone numbers - Call me - it won't take long for you to see that I am a genuine sweetheart. So why waste my time alone? I have a VERY small 7 pound (bread loaf size) very, very cute male Papillon dog (hope you don't mind - he's a sweetheart). Your small dog OK. Serious inquiries only PLEASE (send a pic)... I smoke indoors, but will quit for the right you. TRUE. And if you don't mind being seen with me in public, then we could go out as friends and enjoy the city - my treat.

Sincerely and humbly, Peter
P.S. Yes, I am toxic, but not poisonous...

I finally figured it out.. I miss kissing, cuddling and warmth - that's the real me. Pics below...

Spring Break

2008-02-11T02:58:00.001-05:00

Hotel Prices Prices for South Padre 2008!
To: members of South Padre 2008!!!

Islam A.Moneim
4:29pm Feb 8th
Hey guys,I found a real cool deal at Southbeach hotel in South Padre. The hotel is two block from the beach so it's at a walkable distance from the beach. This package is through StudentCity.com therefore there will be a lot of incentives like:1.Free VIP parties2.$50 gas card per room3.two meals per day4.$50 card for groceries and liquorOne room at the hotel for 5 people will cost a total of $240/person for 5 days and 5 nightsIf you want a similar package or any other modifications I will be able to arrange it for you. I am the Representive for StudentCity at SOSU so I can get you other hotels/condos for different prices. They have beach condos for 10 people for as low as $400 for 7days 7 nights! so Just Ask! I am trying to get all the info and signing people up in the next 5-7 days so let me know if your interested so I can get you a reservatoin. The more you wait the higher the prices go up, so the sooner the better. If you are interested you can facebook me or call me at 580-775-0504
Islam A.Moneim.

Protest

To: members of South Padre 2008!!!

From: GONEPOMO

1:57 am Febuary 11th

Dear South Padre 2008!!!,

It is with a sad heart and a heavy pen that I write this missive, but I feel that it is my duty to announce to the world, and the greater Facebook community, that, as a matter of conscience, I must resign from this group.

While the simple but heroic aims of South Padre 2008!!! - the creation of a larger community of intersubjective communication and public discourse, free jello shots, nice, big titties, low-priced tattoos, and all-inclusive pricing - have always stood out in my mind as the paradigmatic example of modern manhood, with the continued presence of our beautiful country in the land of Iraq, I feel that I must resign in protest from this formerly beautiful community. How can we sit here, sipping our drinks out of some girl's bellybutton or asshole, while our bros are getting fucking pummelled in Iraq? As I was playing Halo last night with my buddy Tim Riggins, I realized that, instead of teafragging (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teafragging) some toolbox across my hall, I could be sitting in a tank teafragging some fucking Muslims in the desert. It is only because of the privileges of aristocratic birth, what the French call "bien naitre," that I am able to teafrag from the comfort of my dorm room. Given this realization, I am not, in good conscience, able to recreate myself in our country's beautiful seaside resort of South Padre along with other Citizens. I ask that those of you for whom the ideals of brotherhood, liberty, and global peace still mean anything join me in resigning from this group in protest.

No Pomo

2008-02-09T13:59:00.000-05:00

I am going to attempt to, as Deleuze says, try to insert myself in the history of philosophy through an "ass-fuck". No homo, no pomo.

In his essay "The Uncanny," Freud spends 10 pages going through the etymological history of the words "uncanny" (unheimlich) and "homely" (heimlich), reprinting the entire entry from a 1860 German dictionary and paying special attention to the examples of usage given. Heimlich is that which is "homely, familiar, intimate, belonging to the house, not strange, domesticated, tame"; it is "intimate, arousing a pleasant feeling of quiet contentment.

Yet it also means "concealed, kept hidden, so that others do not get to know of it or about it and it is hidden from them." In the German Bible, "die heimliche Weisheit," (the secret wisdom), "Gottes heimlichen rat", (God's secret wisdom).

Unheimlich - "arousing uneasy, fearful horror." Schelling is quoted: "uncanny [unheimlich] is what one calls everything that was meant to remain secret and hidden and has come out into the open."

We can see the "uncanny" semantic slippage between these two ostensible antonyms in a passage from Schiller that Freud quotes: "To the left of the lake lies a meadow hidden [heimlich] among the trees." The meadow is thus homely, comfortable - it is made comfortable by its seclusion, its intimacy. By the same token, it is "concealed, kept hidden".

What do we get from this digression? For Freud, the uncanny is the "return of the repressed": something that was meant to remain secret and hidden somehow bubbles up, makes itself known. Most interestingly, this is not simply a question of unconscious memories from childhood. Freud's examples of the uncanny are automatons, epileptic fits, dopplegangers. These throw into relief a certain lack, a certain absence: some sort of mechanical and meaningless Real underneath the veneer of apparent reality. The heimlich in the unheimlich, the "domestic" and comfortable space is precisely absent, and this is what makes the "homely" itself "uncanny".

Let's skip ahead a bit. I cite here the UrbanDictionary.com entry on the phrase "no homo".

1.
no homo

1363 up, 81 down

Phrase used after one inadvertently says something that sounds gay.
His ass is mine. No homo
by ELJ

2.
no homo

477 up, 65 down

Said to show that you aren't gay after saying something that sounded gay.
Hay man, pass the nuts. No homo
I cornered him in my room and nailed him with a board. No homo
by Anonymous

3.
no homo

567 up, 171 down

phrase NOT coined by Cam'Ron, but by his young protege Juelz Santana.used after a phrase that sounds ambigously gay or 'homo', so that your friends won't call you a 'homo'. very homophobic.
'no homo but we cockin' em' - Juelz Santana'
yo homie, i just spent five hours talking with my man on the phone, no homo' - random dude

What we should note so far is on the one hand the seemingly "unambigious" and "straight"-forward meaning -- "I am not gay," "what I just said did not have any homosexual subtext" -- and on the other hand, the contexts in which the phrase is used: sites of classically 'male' performance (threats of physical violence [his ass is mine, we cockin em, etc], eating [pass the nuts], and male friendships/bonding [i just spent five hours talking with my man on the phone]).

We come next to this:

5.
no homo

248 up, 96 down

It is added in a sentence:
1) to make it sound less gay.
2) to say if you're not kidding; Seriously.

1) Paul and I had each other's back all the time, no homo.
2) No homo though, Paul was a good friend.
by joooon crack

Thus "no homo" can both disavow a meaning that was felt to be implicit or at least potentially implicit for the listener, and it can also emphasize a claim as "serious" and genuinely intended. In the above example, a classically 'male' pact of solidarity through physical and perhaps psychological reciprocal defense (Paul and I had each other's back all the time) is cleansed of any 'accidental' or unwanted homsexuality. In regards to the same relationship, however, the male bond is affirmed by the use of the same phrase. Thus it is precisely the fact that there is "no homo" that we know that Paul really was "a good friend". Although joooon crack sees these meanings as distinct, it seems fair to say that the same work is accomplished in each instance: the straight male relation is affirmed through a disavowal of the threat of "homo." As in the "unheimlich" within the heimlich, it is the homo within the no homo that is in fact already accomplishing the no homo.

We might look briefly at what is probably the paradigmatic instance of no homo:

The scene is situated as an instance of urban male braggadoccio par excellence: a game of dice, money changing hands, male camraderie, displays of misogyny, etc. When one of the participants violates the unwritten code of ethics governing the interaction, Cam'ron must prove that he is not a pussy, that he is himself no(t) homo, and that he won't let this guy pwn him. What is so fascinating is that he does this via an action that he knows very well might be seen as homo. Thus when, while peeing in dude's face, he says "no homo? no homo. no homo. no homo" etc, it is, as we saw above, a refutation of any potential homo element and at the same time an affirmation of the sincerity of his act: this is for real, this is decisive, and thus, precisely in this decisiveness - in this decisively "homo" act - I have proved that I am not homo, I am "no" homo.

We might even extend this productive semantic ambiguity into a reading of the broader category in which the homo/no homo discourse is situated, that of pomo. It is clear that Cam'ron is here going quite pomo - this video is self-consciously exaggerated, its stereotypes are played up the nth degree, and it must be seen on some level as self-parodic and self-referential. Yet on another level Cam'ron, like David Lynch or Slavoj Zizek, is being quite sincere. His pomo is precisely no pomo: he means it to be taken quite seriously, his face-pissing is a genuine act of self-affirmation.

I would finally want to extent this question of pomo/no pomo to the critical project in which this blog is engaged. On one level I would claim that this blog is "no pomo", that it is itself attempting to gain some sort of critical purchase in regards to postmodernism (at least in regards to postmodernism on Jameson's definition, as the 'cultural logic of late capitalism,' a symptom); but on the other hand, postmodernism has itself already anticipated and preempted such a critique: pomo is already 'in' no pomo such that 'no pomo', especially in the way i have tried to perform it, is itself the height of pomo. My desire to be no pomo is predicated on the acknowledgement of a certain element of pomo within my discourse, and the disavowal of that element is itself the affirmation of that element's structural necessity and ultimate determinative power. The hope, I guess, is that being no pomo is able to productively include the pomo within itself, and that its reflexivity about its own conditions of possibility means that rather than disavowing one's pomo, one is able to use it. Still: could this not be the ultimate victory of postmodern qua "structural logic of late capitalism"? Is the pomo not "using" me? Does my blog not objectively function as cynical advertisement for e.g., Thom Browne, Cam'ron, Friday Night Lights? Stay tuned.

Transcending Capitalism

2008-01-15T22:56:00.000-05:00

Thoughts?

Shitting and I-Banking

2008-01-07T18:35:00.000-05:00

[yes, that's a Thom Browne suit!, and yes, he's a real live I-banker!]

At the Denver airport, I'm taking a shit and reading Motor Trend ("The Homeland Security Administration has raised the threat level to, ORANGE."). After about ten minutes - I'm really just biding my time, this article on the new BMW 1 series (modeled on the 1978 2002) is really interesting, - I decide to rejoin my family, and I drop the Motor Trend on the floor, kick it to the side, then immediately leave for fear of being mistaken by the gentleman in the adjacent stall for a toe-tapper.

Isn't it exciting that Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses? What an historic moment! I think that this suggests that the country is finally ready for CHANGE. Obama, to me, represents CHANGE, leadership, a new perspective - most of all, an optimism about our country. The Democratic Party represents hope and the promise of liberal democracy, a better future for everyone, not just the special interests of a few wealthy people.

Two interesting articles in the Times today - our favorite intellectual prude Stanley Fish, arguing as always that his job as a humanist is "useless", and a piece on the decline in prestige of medicine and law. To my mind, these articles are treating a similar theme - the ways in which we try to make our intellectual, critical/ethical existence coincide with our "mundane," worldly existence.

Apparently law and medicine are losing ground because young people like myself are more interested in having "creative freedom" and integrating their work and "personal lives" such that the former becomes an outgrowth of the latter. This means, of course, that we're drawn to investment banking and management consulting, where we can truly realize our creative passion, where as Marx wrote we can "hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner."

For Stanley Fish (and here I agree with the ol' curmudgeon!), no effort to justify the humanities from some outside, quantitative or social perspective (e.g., it exposes people to morally fortifying examples from literature, gives people greater critical thinking skills that they can they apply to other areas of their existence - say, their I-banking job after getting a History degree at Princeton) will work, and moreover such efforts end up devaluing humanities-oriented thought in the first place. "The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say."

Let me put it this way: is it a kawinkydink that I vacillate between wanting to be an arrogant, effete theory-hipster with an endowed chair at Berkeley, and wanting to be a high-fiving, Red Bull-drinking I-Banker who works 100 hours a week and can only relieve the tension created by my lifestyle through flagrant consumption that feeds the sublime machine to which I enslave myself?

No. This is a paradox that I have been trying to work through for the past two years, and I don't seem to be moving anywhere except into a more and more deeply emotional appreciation of the impossibility of resolving it.

How is it that investment banking (the Times article actually does cite this) could seem to people to be the most self-creating and intellectually 'integrated' profession? I think it's because i-banking is essentially what is going on, in the broadest sense of the term. It is simply bullshit to suggest that 21st century American culture is not defined by the confluence of global capital, highly specialized and exclusivized consumption, and a general sense of giving oneself over to a sublime, technologized, rationalized system the complexity of which is impossible to understand. No one knows what the fuck is going on in international finance. Though it is a cliche to cite the subprime issue, it really is quite indicative. Basically, people try to come up with more and more esoteric (the word I-bankers love to use is "exotic") forms of accounting for money, which entails allowing complex, interconnected systems to become more an more autonomous. Like critical theory, investment banking spins off more and more into its own autonomous, rational, Platonic realm of pure forms; like Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, "the fully enlightened world radiates disaster triumphant". Also like Adorno and Horkheimer, I-bankers feel fucking baller: they have situated themselves at the center of this absurd realm and have produced themselves as its product, in the same way that esoteric theory is always already an ironic self-deconstruction, an exercise in the proving of one's own uselessness, one's own ideological determination.

My latest solution to this career indecision is to try to combine them: I will be a Deleuzean schizoanalyst of the futures market (as Soros applied Popper's pragmatism to the market and made billions), I will be the next Jeff Koons, or, most recently, I will become an investment banker as an art project: I will get patrons to pay me to be an investment banker, on top of which I will make huge bonuses because I will actually be an investment banker, I will think like one, I will become one, and the patrons will get "nothing" in return, which will be precisely the substance of the art-work, and my own position as artist will be confirmed in the completeness of my existence as an I-banker, as the next Patrick Bateman.

Mon Coeur Mis à Nu

2007-12-16T02:32:00.001-05:00

From: GONEPOMO
To: Tim Ingalls
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 2:31 AM
Subject: Re: dream come true

i literally just spent 2 hours shopping online after i talked to you because i was so depressed about being home and not knowing what the fuck to do with my life
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Ingalls
To: GONEPOMO
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 11:59 PM
Subject: Re: dream come true

yo, don't steal my style, DAWG
BTW should I get the new rescue or the other ones?
TIm
On Dec 15, 2007 5:40 PM, GONEPOMO < ****> wrote:
if you want to buy those APC's - "Tobi" is running 25% off everything. PERFECTGIFT is the coupon code. im thinking of getting a pair for myself.

"The Waning of Affect"?

2007-12-09T14:04:00.000-05:00

Well, "it's been a while, since I" posted on this blog. The other day, as I competed with the anorexo-bunnies at the gym, pwning all of them by staying on the elliptical for 50 minutes and burning over 600 calories, listening to Justice remixes and watching "True Life: I'm having an arranged marriage" on MTV, I thought: wouldn't it be delicious if I could somehow capture this moment, somehow evoke it on my blog, make it pop? A woman (whose parents had emigrated from Pakistan), quite upper-middle class, with big Chanel sunglasses, was speaking about how according to her religion, she could not hold hands with her fiancee, whom her parents and picked out for her, until they were married. She spoke of her excitement, the fact that though she had "always thought," like any American girl, that she would meet the man of her dreams and fall in love all on her own, that had somehow never quite happened, and now she wanted to follow the dictates of tradition, to be a part of that ancient cultural tradition with which she had perhaps lost touch.

Can't hold hands, yet her, and her parents, and her fiancee, were more than willing to have camera crews follow her, watch her spray perfume at the last moment in her Chevy Tahoe before she meets her fiancee for the first time. I'm watching this, with the deadening, misspelled and unpuntuated subtitles blurting endlessly along the bottom of the screen, big fat electro'd beats "ironically" blaring in my ears, I'm feeling good, I'm syncing my movements with the beat, I'm burning those calories, getting real toned, she's real nervous about meeting this guy but excited, he seems nice, she wants to hold hands, her ass looks great in those Seven jeans, she's so happy to be part of this ancient tradition which despite her family's immigration, despite all the changes wrought by their life in the big new world, despite their fabulous financial success, is still alive in her and her fiancee's union - through them the tradition lives on, and the best part is that MTV is capturing it and spreading the information to all these white people, indeed all these Americans whether they're white or not, so that they can have an appreciation of her tradition and realize that Islam is not some "Other" but is really just another cultural tradition, which America, the melting pot (or perhaps we should dispense with that metaphor, let's just call it a global village), can accommodate and celebrate.

Jameson suggests that postmodernity is characterized by the "waning of affect". Perhaps our MTV lovebirds are affectless; more substantially, one can imagine bored, cynical teenagers sitting on their woven-polyester couch in some suburban, aesthetically dead bungalow, flipping aimlessly through channels, pausing on "True Life," chuckling a little, or perhaps showing some "genuine" (however qualified we want that term to be) interest in it, "believing," half cynically and without any actual intellectual committment in the story being told, but certainly moving on to MTV2 within a few minutes.

What about this, though?

"Against cynicism, a thin but fabulous hope - of ourselves becoming realer than real in a monstrous contagion of our own making." (Massumi)

Culture Industry: DA REMIX!

2007-11-26T22:45:00.000-05:00

Someone tipped me off to this paper by Xiaochang Li, a Comparative Media Studies master's student at MIT on Soulja Boy in the context of "viral video." Let me say that it is more than worth your time to read this, in the same way that it is more than worth your time to watch the YouTube video that Soulja Boy released and on which this paper comments.

Aiyo, Lil Chang, lemme break dis one down for you. Aite, one, you've clearly read some Noam Chomsky or something. I'm sure your school makes you read all the pomo-generator shit that MIT Press puts out. Lemme hit you with some fresh azz isht: dis Culture Industry jaint, by my dog T.Ado (Theodor Adorno).

Lil Chang seems to unquestioningly accept the "Soulja Boy phenomenon" as a story of someone "making it big" without the assistance of - even in defiance of - mainstream labels and the corporate culture-industry-esque record industry. Soulja uses methods "theoretically available to every member of his generation" to promote himself; though his goals may be self-promotion and financial gain, he supposedly has found a way to achieve these goals in such a way that the power is in his hands and not that of the corporation - he makes them come to him (as evidenced by the fact that he IMs the record executive, instructing him to "Meet me at my crib"). Though the culture industry is intact, it is seemingly just a shell of its former self, eviscerated of any economic power, and only providing the means through which the individual can realize himself. (Isn't this already sounding suspiciously like the free-market wet-dream?)

Lil Chang really hits his or her stride, however, when they break down the utopian political possibilities engendered by Soulja Boy's viral video self-promotion:

"What's more, there are a number of disparate groups represented across gender, age, and location, all of them reinterpreting the dance through their own communities, and linked through their ability to watch the videos across various devices, emphasizing at once a sense of connectivity, but also an urge to represent local communities and groups. In short, Soulja Boy as a phenomenon presents itself as more of a mode than a community, a practice that allows existing communities based on characteristics that are generally thought to be "disappeared" in the digital space (gender, age, race etc.) to foreground themselves."

(By the way, hasn't your thesis advisor at MIT told you that identity politics is DEFINITELY not hip anymore?)

Let's grant Lil' Chang that this phenomenon really does represent the possibility of individuals having access to the tools to "make it" in a radically democratic way that was never before possible. Though I think this is a bit utopian - isn't this the type of claim that's been made for every new form of mass media in democratic states? - we can let it stand. In fact, I think Lil Chang's argument reveal itself to be even more pwned if we grant that this is the case. Because if Soldier Boy has used radically democratic means to achieve his dream, we must next ask: what is his dream? What has he achieved?

He has precisely pwned himself, and this time it's not something to be proud of. As Adorno trenchantly perceived over 60 years ago, the culture industry (i.e., capital's colonization of the cultural sphere) has most insidiously and effectively achieved its ends precisely when it seems to have gentrified itself, when the desires of the masses are seamlessly congruent with the interests of capital. What the culture industry is 'selling' is mass culture as such, or better capitalism as such - a subjectivity perfectly adapted to the imperative of culture that is purchaseable, disposable, and constantly unfulfulling (thus creating the need for ever more consumption). One line T.Ado drops is particularly on point here: "The culture industry does not so much fabricate the dreams of the customers as introduce the dreams of the suppliers among the people." Thus it is not just that we are 'sold' the idea that we want a certain type of culture, or that we want ever more of it, but that this type of culture is essentially a conduit for the reproduction of subjectivities that are subjected to capital. Having "made it," having "achieved his dream," what will Soulja Boy do now? Well, he's signed to a major label, so most of the (substantial) profits from CD sales, tours, merchandise (tee-shirts, customizable Soulja Boy shades - did they come up with the idea to sell those after he wore them or was it the other way around?) will go to the label owner. But he will become rich too; then he'll buy lots of shit, such as the shit that he talks about in the song (BAPES, etc) that he probably couldn't afford when he was first rapping about it.

This much touted "radical democratic" "convergent" media which brought Soulja Boy to fame has achieving nothing more than reproducing the economic structure which it supposedly evaded and laying the ground for its further acceptance in the millions who watch, listen to, and buy Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy may feel himself to have "achieved", to have become successful, and - as have similar artists whose careers progressed the "normal" way, i.e. through being promoted by a label - he is successful, and he probably is happy. Without going into the question of false consciousness, the point is that the objective effect of his use of "viral video" and "radical-democratic" media is the same as if his rise to fame were due to overpromotion through marketing, except that now, the labels don't have to waste their money, Soulja Boy did all the work for them, and the profits - but more importantly the reproduction of mass culture - will be generated just the same. Soulja Boy may be evidence of a "new" trajectory for mass cultural phenomena, but to look naively at this as an instance of increasing individual creative freedom and self-actualization ignores the end result of such "new media," which is anything but liberatory.

Britney as Vanitas

2007-11-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else see a relationship between this Holbein painting ("The Ambassadors," 1533) and Britney Spears? Holbein's use of the vanitas/memento mori is striking it a way that I cannot get over. While one is tempted to dismiss the "anamorphic" rendering as sort of silly, a "vain" technical flourish, it makes the skull completely unintegrable with the aesthetic and narrative space of the painting itself. The vanitas is somehow excessive, scandalous even; or rather it makes the painting itself scandalous, uncomfortable to look at, embarrassing. The work of art is of course always 'calling out' to us, interpellating us as a subject that sees it; yet here there is another layer: it sees us seeing ourselves as called out by it, and it mocks us for it. I think, then, that this is a sort of formal achievement of the representative function of the vanitas in painting. It's not just a question of either the futility of earthly existence or the carpe diem imperative, but a reminder of our position in creating the terms by which such questions arise in the first place (i.e., how our subjectivity is not given, not transcendent, not 'eternal').

Take another look at the Britney video below. Obviously this video is very uncomfortable. There is something about how she sort of stands around with this spectacle whirring along effortlessly around her. When she used to make all of the moves, when her body was 'toned,' more machinelike (a sex robot, both there just for me and totally indifferent to my existence), when her face was more successfully frozen into an expressionless come-hither/I-don't-even-need-you-to-get-off look, she was integrated into this spectacle, it worked with her and around her. Now she is a "stain," as Lacan calls it, in this spectacle: that which destroys the interpellative coherence of the representation. When she moves around awkwardly, it's too human; her body is too voluptuous; her wig reminds us that she has real hair; her off-cue lip-syching makes it too obvious that she actually speaks. Yet we can't help but feel that she is now somehow less real, less human, less "Britney" than she was before. The stain is that unassimilable mark that is both more human (the skull, the fact of death) and less human (it feels less alive, less "full," than the ambassadors standing next to it) And this "stain" calls out to me; in noticing it I have let myself be tricked into acknowledging the fact that it is there for me, that, to the extent that it is a signifying event, it is there in me, and that it is signifying nothing other than 'me'.

So, Holbein. The vanitas reminds us of our frailty, of the essential constructness and humanness (i.e., in the sense that these are the same thing) of aesthetic pleasure, of life as experienced by the subject; with Holbein (as opposed to the traditional use of the vanitas, where it is simply a 'normal' skull placed along with other objects in the picture), it does so in a thoroughgoing way, not just as one more 'motif' in the work; we must experience this constructedness and our own place as the chief (if you'll pardon my reference to Ayn Rand) 'architect' of it. The new Britney, this 'failed' Britney, this 'more real' Britney, is fascinating, horrifying, and most of all uncanny for this same reason: we cannot get over, we cannot 'forget,' her 'actual' presence in this spectacle, which is actually nothing other than a sign for our own presence which her 'absence' would/should otherwise smooth over.

Inhaling your own shit is hip

2007-11-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

Hippest new trend of November 2007: Jenkem.

"Originally Posted by pickwick
Well today I finally did it. I became probably the first person in America to huff his own shit gas."

It's Britney, Bitch!

2007-11-06T02:45:00.000-05:00

OMG Guys.

Um, this reminds me of Adorno's dictum that "the greatness of a work of art consists solely in it's ability to give voice to that which ideology hides."

While I'd love to amuse myself by relating this to Foucault's "truth games" (see the 'perfomative' S&M at the end), the sublimity of technology (maybe I could throw, like, Baudrillard in there?), the radical contingency of the subject implied by the double-remove of a lip-sync'd "It's Britney, bitch," or by spouting out some faux Perez Hilton-esque sassy commentary about some small detail that you can only notice by pausing the video, somehow I can't help but feel that posting a video such as this, which every ironic little college student does, is not only nothing other than 'sound and fury, signifying nothing,' but some sort of bullshit, ultimately conservative resistence-as-acquiescence. I would like to take refuge in the notion that one could reactivate the type of critique found in Adorno's Minima Moralia and that this could then mean something, be an outraged but not sanctimonious protest, an ethical working through, a bringing-to-the-fore of 'inherent contradictions.' I'm not sure, really, that that's anything other than self-indulgence.

That said, here are some funny things I noticed about this.

-Hey Britney, have you put on some weight there??!!!11!?? I mean, you still look great but maybe that baby took a toll on you or something!

-Those moves are cool but next time try to get them sync'd up a bit better!

-'Gimme more'? GREAT! LOVES the refrain. Perfect for clubs, can't wait for the Oakenfold remix, also it speaks so eloquently to the current state of our consumption-oriented culture!

-This will be GREAT for the emerging tween market. I envision a whole line of Britney-branded stripper poles. Perhaps a brand of low-fat, low-carb(on) diet cereal.

Blow my DILZ, Wes Anderson

2007-11-05T00:03:00.000-05:00

I want to like Wes Anderson. In fact, I feel an almost pathological need to justify his work. His films hinge on a total aestheticization of their content; indeed the content becomes merely a staging ground for a refined, highly contextualized, highly specific, and explicitly referential aesthetic practice. As I have definitively proved, according to a strict, logical theorem derived from a synthesis of the work of analytic philosophers A.J. Ayer and John Rawls, aestheticization of narrative and emotional content -- a rewriting of the form/content dialectic where form not only subsumes content but destroys any independent existence of the latter and in which the former becomes not a transcendental category but itself a contingent, material expression of contemporary life -- is one of the only viable and 'genuine' ways of producing art today. Thus Anderson, bird-lipped, pale, and kitted out in slim bespoke 2-button suits, with his anal-retentive framing technique, his hipster color palette, his exquisite eye for the perfect juxtaposition of "quirky" though always self-consciously stylized subcultural details with the obvious constraints and influence of wealth, power, and the culture industry, would seem a perfect hero, a Baudelairian "painter of modern life."

No, Wes, no. I'm sorry. Your art is bullshit. First clue: wearing LL Bean duck-hunting boots and shorts, in Austin, Texas, bespeaks a failure to understand that, ironic or not, self-aestheticization must be firmly rooted in, indeed must grow out of, a deep contextual understanding, that is to say, it must contain an element of reflexivity. This outfit suggests rather a simple affirmation of the "preppy tradition" in defiance of circumstance, as if Anderson is intent on proving the transcendental ethical virtues of WASPiness. Second clue -- and this follows from the first --: the pleasure in each of his films, but especially this recent celebration of hipster colonialism entitled Darjeeling Limited, derives not from a self-reflexive awareness of the contingency of the aesthetic and emotional content; rather, this pleasure derives from a regressive defiance of this contingency, a forceful, childish insistence that these things are pretty, sad, 'cool,' regardless of - almost in ignorance of - their circumstance.
In "Hotel Chevalier," a short which precedes Darjeeling Limited, we get a little tableau that encapsulates all his work. Indeed, having seen this, there's hardly need to see anything else of his. There is a quite beautiful scene which consists of a slow-mo of Natalie Portman, posing exquisitely, awkwardly, nude, Jason Schwartzman covering her up with a bathrobe, and the two of them walking to the balcony of their fancy-but-not-cheesy, aristocratic-but-quirky, hotel room. Why is this scene pleasurable? Because Natalie Portman looks hot. She looks anorexic, but powerful - short hair, self-conscious self-eroticization. Because Schwarztman looks cool - long hair, ironic mustache, but rich. Clearly rich. Because the hotel is dope, and Paris is beautiful, and the idea of a life of young, attractive, ironic, anorexic leisure is decadent and appealing. And it is appealing, and one does not need to deny that. We should, however, try to problematize it; without this, Wes Anderson might as well be doing socialist realism (late capitalist realism?).

How, then, does this differ from the most conservative/affirmative of cultural production? Only in that Anderson is playing to a different (richer, younger, more 'aware') demographic. The ideology, the impulse behind it, is the same. Everything here, all the impossibilities of this scene, are staged not as a sort of beautiful nostalgic failure (as in, I would argue, Miami Vice) but as something real, a "really" beautiful "lifestyle." Anderson's cultivation of a very specific aesthetic is a question of instituting his own self-production as a model for others; he is saying, look at how beautiful this lifestyle I've thought up is. Wouldn't you like it? Or, at the very least, wouldn't you like something equivalent of your own? The problem is, it is completely un-self-aware, and the embededness of his aesthetic with the usual suspects - capital, social class (here obviously fictional, yet still operative as an ideological category), and race (i.e., how blacks and Indians are always props in his films) - is not thematized at all, only valorized and itself aestheticized.

Though Carbon Neutrality is Hip, It is Not Easy

2007-11-04T12:13:00.000-05:00

As we've learned from celebrity icons such as Britney Spears, who shaved her head so as to reduce the need for air-conditioning in her L.A. mansion, being hip is not easy. It requires hard work, dedication, and often a fair amount of anxiety. Like this morning, after I took a piss, I hesitated for a good thirty seconds about whether to flush the toilet: would the energy and water that I saved from not flushing more than offset the damage that would be caused when I later would have to scrub down the yellow-stained bowl with cleaning products?

These and other questions, while they may appear to be the preserve of inexperienced hipsters like myself, are actually questions that even the most powerful hipsters are facing every day. As this Times article suggests, celebrities, writers, and other hip yuppies confront difficult eco-choices every day.

Not So Dino-Riffic High Bid

2007-10-31T00:18:00.000-04:00

	You have been outbid. Bid again now!

Hi James,

There's a new highest bid on this item, but there's still a chance to make it yours. Increase your bid to have a chance at winning.

Barney - Barney's Adventure Bus (DVD)
Current price:	$2.60
End time:	Oct-31-07 14:12:53 PDT
Your maximum bid:	$2.43
View Item Go to My eBay

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Going Dumb, Pre-Adolescence

2007-10-30T15:59:00.001-04:00

As Lacan writes, we are in effect going dumb before we come out of the womb. I urge you all to peep this:

It looks like our little friend on the right here will be well prepared for a life of supermanning that "ohhh!" - perhaps he will begin with that nice little ballerina in the middle, who seems to be game?

Barney - The Dino-Riffic Collection

2007-10-30T03:04:00.000-04:00

Not so Dino-Riffic omission,
March 27, 2007
By M. Douglas "barney seeker" (Grand Blanc, MI USA) -

My daughter is a Barney freak. We're always on the lookout for Barney DVD's she doesn't have. That's why we bought The Dino-Riffic collection. Unfortunately, there was no information on the website listing to tell me that this collection was 3 common DVD's she already had. She was very dissappointed.

H2 and Porsche Cayenne S Drivers are Pussies

2007-10-28T19:05:00.001-04:00

Recently, I was in da club (or rather out da club, waiting to gain entrance da club). As I shivered (those jeans may be expensive, but that doesn't mean they're warm!) and tried to look cool, I saw this dude roll up in an H2. He parked it in the middle of the street, got out, and start walking towards da club. He was about to bypass me (clearly he was headed for the VIP), but I stopped him and asked: "Hey man - how come you didn't get the H1?" He shrugged and moved along, feigning aristocratic indifference, but I knew that my comment must have ruined his evening. After all, what kind of pussy buys an H2? Is he not wealthy enough - was his line of credit not generous enough - for him to have afforded the H1? Surely he wasn't concerned about gas mileage, ostentatiousness, convenience, or the welfare of other drivers, so what prevented him from going all the way?

The same thing applies to Porsche Cayenne S drivers. These pathetic, blue-collar individuals could not afford the quad-exhaust, 520hp, contrast leather interior, and overall classiness of the Cayenne Turbo, let alone the Cayenne Turbo S. They are effectively unable to actualize on their own dreams; they are like those would-be Olympic athletes who, having trained their whole lives, make it to the tryouts but simply fail to man up and make the team.

Pussy

High School Varsity B-Ball

Oh yeah baby.

Carbon Neutrality is Hip

2007-10-27T22:37:00.000-04:00

Ok guys,

In my last post I talked about how I learned that global warming is a hoax. This made me realize that it was okay to drink water. But then I remembered something. I've heard that a lot of Hollywood stars and other accomplished people are going carbon neutral. This may sound like bologna, but it's actually pretty cool. Here's the deal: you can buy "carbon credits." If you buy enough of them, you can become carbon neutral. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both carbon neutral. Also, most products can now be bought in carbon neutral forms: jeans, cereal, dishwashers, and even houses. Most stars buy only carbon neutral products.

The coolest thing, though, is that this isn't just a mainstream trend. It's really urban and hip. Urban subcultures, such as squatters, are often really carbon neutral. Fixies are very carbon neutral. Lofts, organic restaurants, trannies, Girl Talk, and other things that happen in Williamsburg are all, to varying degrees, carbon neutral.

Maybe it's not worth it to forgo that glass of water; I, for one, was glad I had it. But it's probably worth it to buy a carbon offset for it.

If you're interested in going carbon neutral, check this out.

Global Warming is a Hoax

2007-10-27T22:15:00.000-04:00

Whew! Well, I have to say that we all went pretty dumb last night! When I woke up at 1PM today with a throbbing headache, stumbling towards the fridge to get some nice, cold water I was struck with a scary thought. What is going to happen when all of the polar ice caps melt and there is no more fresh, cold water? I had heard a lot about global warming recently and it sounds pretty scary. One of the things that is supposed to happen is that the polar ice caps are going to melt. These are the sources for all of our water. While this may not matter much to people in developing countries like India or Africa, where their supply of water is already low, those of us in America like our water nice and cold and plentiful!

My head pounding, I wondered if perhaps I should not drink the water. I decided to do a little research, and I found out that global warming is actually a hoax. According to Richard Lindzen, who is a scientist, the Scientific Community is unsure of whether global warming is even happening at all. Thus, I decided to drink the water.

Reading List

2007-10-22T02:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Female Public Sphere,

Due to a not-insignificant level of interest from my readership of the female persuasion, I thought it would befit my generous and aristocratic spirit if I were to provide some guidelines for those seeking to make my acquaintance. Namely, I have provided below a reading list that constitutes the minimum level of education that I expect from female suitors. If you have not read the following, or are not willing to do so before a F2F meeting, I would be willing to consider chatting online or perhaps even a webcam 'encounter,' as long as you agree to play the Youtube recordings of Zizek lectures at the European Graduate School at the highest possible volume, and within sight of the webcam, during our 'encounter'.

Deleuze & Guattari, Mille Plateaux
Marx, Das Kapital (All four volumes, preferably in the original German or in French translation)

Ellis, American Psycho

Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex

Stine, Goosebumps (All installments. Note that French or German translations are acceptable. Alternatively, familiarity with the entire Fear Street series will be accepted on the condition that all volumes were read in German translation - French translation NOT acceptable)

Hegel Phenomonology of Spirit (must be in original German)

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (translation OK)

Joyce, Ulysses

Nietzsche's œuvre complète (must be in original German, and must have been read while on long walks in the Schwarzwald, while wintering in St. Moritz, or while under the influence of peyote)

Good luck, and may the best -Φ win!

[Note: thanks to kushakov for alerting me to my lack of an "eeks" at the end of Mille Platea[x]. Quelle horreur que ca soit si je l'ai laissé comme avant!]

P.Diddy Fails to Ball Once Again

2007-10-21T14:24:00.000-04:00

P.Diddy is always on the verge of balling: he's got the yacht(s), he runs marathons, wears Tom Wolfe suits, etc, yet he's always a little bit on the wrong side of laughable. I don't think he ever gotten over his role as pathetic sidekick to Biggie Smalls (e.g. his lines in Hypnotize). Here is an example of an almost successful attempt at balling: the ad verges on aesthetic coherence and a nice post-9/11 soft-porno feel, yet by the time he's pulling off her underwear and staring into the camera while biting her stomach we can't help but laugh.

It's all the more embarassing when someone as ostensibly non-baller as David Lynch can pull it off with such aristocratic ease:

Lifestyle Irony

2007-10-20T14:58:00.000-04:00

Why Can't Anyone Tell I'm Wearing This Business Suit Ironically?

This piece in the Onion, about ironizing one's life to the point where one has actually assumed the traits which one is ironizing, is quite amusing:

"But what good is all this hilarity if there's no one else hip enough to appreciate it? On the 8:12 a.m. commuter train, everybody just assumes I'm one of them. So does my secretary, my assistant, and every single one of my colleagues at the law firm, where I'm now a partner. I even married this clueless girl from Connecticut—loves shopping and everything—and we have two ironic kids. I swear, they look like something out of a creepy 1950s Dick And Jane reader—I even have these hilarious silver-framed pictures of them in my cheesy corner office. But still, the humor is lost on everybody but me. I'm probably the most fashionable guy on the planet at this point, but no one understands. God! Do you have any idea how difficult it is being so far ahead of your time? Some days, it's enough to make me want to embrace conformity like all the other sheep."

The serious question which I believe this article implies is: to what extent does ironic performance depend on 'an audience'? The article hinges on the "writer's" assumption that the effectiveness of irony lies in other people "getting it"; that is, it implies that the subversive effect is to be gained through making others realize that, e.g., corporate existence is hollow and worthy of parody.

Yet - and I say this in all honesty - if we were to be a bit less ridiculous than the ostensible writer of this column, I think that this type of "lifestyle irony" could be a legitimate form of subversion. The key is not conceiving of it as a sort of external performance, a question of instructing others or revealing to them their own conformity - in the end obviously a self-aggrandizing hipness, which is obviously where this article gains its humorous effect - but rather as a practice. If we look at Foucault's notion of ascesis (in Vol. 3 of the History of Sexuality), the"work of the self on the self," I think we can come to conceptualize lifestyle irony as a legitimate way of navigating one's social existence. If one feels - how could one not? - that this social existence is in some fundamental sense patently absurd, and that the options for a self-sufficient, self-realizing subjectivity are extremely circumscribed, I think a limited self-ironizing which is directed at assuming one's position in the social order while attempting to preserve a critical perspective on it at the same time, and artfully "enhancing" that existence with a sense of the existential hilarity of the whole situation, is a potentially ethical position to take. Though it is easy to criticize such a practice as pure aestheticism and ultimately conservative - and this is a critique often leveled at Foucault, e.g., by Habermas - I think it provides a potential foundation for a critical existence that, while it may not presume the progressivist ability for constant, real, and practically unemcumbered social change - is a more solid foundation for anything that could come to be useful as social praxis. I subscribe wholeheardtedly to the Marxist notion that some sort of critical subjectivity is necessary for praxis; thus I think we need to start by examining the positions of possibility for such a position. I don't believe that these positions are easy or well-defined; the unpredictable and "irrational" commitment to "lifestyle irony" mirrors these difficulties, and is I believe a site, perhaps, for their realization.

Bro-Economics

2007-10-19T16:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Global Public Sphere,

As a result of the massive volume of traffic on this blog in the past few days, I have received a number of comments via email, most of them positive. Yet some disgruntled readers have chided me for what they see as my blatant sexism. Phrases such as "sexed-out $lutz," "hotties," and "bangin' 80s aerobics-instructor bitchez" seemed to have struck a nerve with some of these sensitive souls. Rather than simply laughing at these pussies, or feeling sorry for them (since they clearly aren't getting any), I would like to point out that the discipline of economics teaches us that women are in fact destined to play a different role in society than men.

The key concept here is that of comparative advantage. A person has a comparative advantage in an activity if that person can perform the activity at a lower opportunity cost than anyone else. Differences in opportunity costs arise from differences in individual abilities and from differences in the characteristics of other resources. Thus one should specialize in one's comparative advantage; in this way the maximum amount of goods gets produced in a society (a goal which, as we all know, is the inherent telos of human existence). Since women have vaginas and wombs, their comparative advantage is coitus and childbearing. Since men have penises, their comparative advantage (to borrow from Lacan) is signification.

It is important to remember here that there does not have to be an absolute comparative advantage, but only a dynamic comparative advantage. This means that individuals, economies, or genders don't necessarily have to be inherently more productive, but, through learning-by-doing, can come to specialize in a certain area and gain a comparative advantage. Thus other aspects of gender differences - intelligence, bravery, etc. - may not be the direct result of biological difference but a result of historical specialization based on social organization. For example, women now have a dynamic comparative advantage in crying, hand-holding, sewing, and reading, while men have a dynamic comparative advantage in making money, lifting, playing Halo 3, and other forms of bro-ing out.

Thus, in most cases it would be a Pareto improvement for women to give it up more frequently, and for men to concentrate on bro-ing out when the marginal benefit of getting play exceeds the associated marginal costs (hand-holding, talking, brushing teeth).

I hope this answers the various objections that have so far been made; however, as this blog serves to engage the public sphere, where a perfect meta-language reigns and discourse is always conducted on a fully inter-subjective and rational level, the discussion will continue, and I welcome further comments or suggestions.

Miami Vice as Gesamkunstwerk/Mass Ornament

2007-10-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

Baudelaire wrote that director Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral, The Insider) is "looking for that quality which you must allow me to call 'modernity'...he makes it his business to extract from fashion whatever elemental it may contain of poetry within history, to distill the eternal from the transitory." Modernity, as Baudelaire defines it, is "the ephemeral, the fleeting, the contingent."

For those of us looking for the modern-day Ulysses, such as Pitchfork Music, postmodern (i.e., for our purposes, sufficiently contemporary and socially critical) art has to have some sort of sad irony about it, some supposedly fractured Wasteland-esque evocation of the poverty and inanity of mass culture. Even films such as Tarantino's, I think, essentially imply this type of critique: by trying to create "real"-seeming, vibrant characters whose behavior is an agglomeration of cliches from other films, he suggests that reality is now simply mimed, a simulacrum, andthat we cannot have even moving films but only ironic inanity.

Michael Mann - Baudelaire's "Painter of Modern Life" - is someone that these ostensibly cultured and critical hipsters might look down upon. The plot in Miami Vice is not only cliche, it doesn't know it's cliche; it's not only violent, it expects the violence to be frightening and moving. Yet who's to say that Tarantino actually knows how cliche he's being? The presumption of a position from which one can perform the ironic critique with pure remove is the same bird-lipped modernist elitism that people like Tarantino are trying to get away from.

Does anyone really not find modern life - let's call it "late capitalism" for fun - to be almost sublime? If you're not a Luddite - actually, even if you are - can you deny that there is something intoxicating about mass culture, about huge, technologized cities populated with complacent receptacles of ideology, about millions of people on treadmills across the world, listening to techno on their iPods and dreaming their little dreams?

In Miami Vice, we get an evocation of all that is terrifying and beautiful about late capitalism: shiny white cars lost in the crowd on the freeway; slick, mindless dudes talking on their cell phones; sexed out $lutz in glittery bodysuits writhing at "velvet-rope" clubs, "go-fast" boats zipping along an overdeveloped coastline. Globalization (international drug trade, Chinese-Cuban businesswoman as the post-feminist embodiment of the 'Protestant Work Ethic', the faux-internationalism of Miami) figures large; mass culture is treated simply as it is and evoked straightforwardly. The film lets it speak for itself, and it is unbearably moving. The tendency to dismiss films like these as cheesy is, I think, an indication of the fact that people are uncomfortable with the position it puts them in. Take a look at this trailer:

or this admirable home-made thing:.

I don't want to hear that the Linkin Park/Jay-Z mash-up is "bad." When Jay-Z drops the line "Boeing jets" while the teaser cuts to a drug-running plane, then cuts back to the club scene, then to Colin Ferril pulling a 360 in the Ferrari, then to Colin Ferril and Gong Li making out in a limo - which looks like a sort of sublime, frenetic business transaction - this is the beauty of late capitalism. The suffocating literalness of the trailer - matching Jay-Z's raps with 'related' scenes ("blow you to smithereens" gets played over a car getting blown up) and the beat to intercut shots of Colin Ferril and Jamie Foxx cocking various guns - brings us even closer to the text. As in Wagner's use of leitmotifs in der Ring des Nibelungen, the film aestheticizes itself through a synthesis of the aural and visual (creating a "kinetic" feel) and thus the viewer is forced to experience it more intimately and fully. It's not just a song playing over images from the movie, which happens to enhance the mood of the film, but rather the two fuse and come to work "directly on the emotions" - and yet, of course, it's anything but direct; it's wholly mediated through the trappings of late capitalist-gemeinschaft/gesellschaft. This "mediated authenticity" is the exactly the sublime element of late capitalism; what's so fun about hitting the club with your bros is that when you're dancing to Soulja boy with some hottie, it feels real, yet it also feels rediculous and false (like those fake titties! HIGH FIVE BRO!!!!!!!). This is the pleasure of Krakauer's "mass ornament," the aesthetics of the mechanization of human life, here taken to its logical late-capitalist conclusion with the mechanization of culture as such. Miami Vice "works on us"; it leaves little space for the comfortably ironic transcendental liberal subject. Therein lies its beauty and, indeed, its political possibility

Thus, I think it is reasonable to say that Miami Vice exists in the space of the contemporary gesamkunstwerk.

Hipster Fascism

2007-10-18T20:02:00.000-04:00

We all love Simian Mobile Disco, or at least we did last year before they got all recuperated and stuff, and of course we still welcome any new pearls of culture they might have for us post-electroclash Brown students who still like to sweat out those $15 drinks at Bungalow 8 courtesy of our trust funds.

This new video for "Hustler," which, as even the most aged, Wheetabix-and-prune-eating gramps knows is the dopest track on their album, thus initially seems like good old hipster fun: some bitchez dancing around in American Apparel bikinis, and before we get uncomfortable and start feeling like bros at a strip club, they luckily start 'ironically' smearing food on their chests, spraying Redi-whip in their mouths, and puking up neon colors. Just like Vice: we get to see some hot anorexo-bunnies in various sexually compromising situations, but the gross-out factor makes it a. hip (i.e. different from, say, Maxim) and b. politically correct, for those in the know, since it's not actually debasing women or satisfying voyeuristic male desire - it's teasing us for our desire to see them debased, dancing around for our pleasure, and then allowing us the convenient self-critical perspective within the text itself. While we get grossed out by the spectacle of these hotties throwing up peanut-butter and smearing it all over their face, it becomes funny because we're slightly embarassed that we were just plain old aroused - no irony (gasp!) - before it got gross. Their fetishistic pleasure - satisfied with hot dogs, Twix, and Redi-Whip - becomes our passive affirmation of a feminist "fuck you."

Yet is it really a "fuck you"? As our favorite over-the-hill theory dork Stanley Fish says, "Think Again!" Like Godard's ironic cinema, in which we, the spectators, are "given" what we "want" from capitalism - fine honey$, dudes with dope suits smoking unfiltered Gaulloises - and then castigated for it with a formal, Brechtian distantiation - Simian Mobile Disco, or whatever RISD grad directed this video, are offering us a too-easy way out. We still want these things from our films and our music videos. Bridgette Bardot in Contempt is maddiningly beautiful and unsatisfactory. We always want MORE of her, the same way we want MORE of Britney Spears (well, no longer). This is precisely what is unfulfilling about these so-called false desires that are supposedly being critiqued by, e.g., Godard and our RISD grad. To critique them as such does nothing; it makes us feel guilty for what is essentially not our fault, and it denies us the modicum of satisfaction offered by the staging of these false desires.

Rather, what they should do is "go all the way"; give us what we want. This, in fact, is what capitalism, or whatever ideology we're trying to transcend here, is afraid of and always denies, because it reveals precisely the failure of capitalism to contain within itself "all that we want." Instead of this safe distance of already-given self-critique and ironic awareness, a truly progressive hipster (we all want to be progressive, right? Even when we're being un-PC "asshole" hipsters it's as an ironic 'performance' of the failure of progressive politics.) would make a video like that for Eric Prydz's "Call on Me".

I'm not joking. This yuppie-wet dream, with an appropriately 'happy ending', is a perfect evocation of the sexual fantasies of upper-middle-class quasi-urban, quasi-'metro' bro or sorority girl. What it offers is not only a modicum of satisfaction - and I'm sure many a pimply teeny-hipsters has wasted a few tissues over this one - but also a sense of the dissatisfaction of this type of completely eviscerated culture. We don't get this "easily," through the text, as we do with Godard, but rather through a confrontation with our own reaction to it. Why is it satisfying? Why is it unsatisfying? Why is it funny when it really should be depressing? Why don't bangin' 80s aerobics-instructor hoez be all up on my dilz? There are no easy answers to these questions, as there are to those posed by Godard's cinema and Simian Mobile Disco, and it is this difficulty that art can and should be staging.

-Slavoj Zizek