tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72893033360977249872024-03-05T19:30:49.674-08:00The Hour of the MachineAndy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-55377639688992611212012-03-05T16:01:00.000-08:002012-03-05T16:01:18.585-08:00Werewolves<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHlzPjFheQVsD0_v6k8SKkdoIRsLlw2L2DxzXQT-axLvr1YTT7oFQMM_2CdqSxHh-d6JIYcg6h0ceD9fc1ioij3Wkv2a9djKALkVX5kSiO3FUJ1erK3C1y9ezes5lzMpJTUvtF2SGt7-l7/s1600/Wolf+Gift.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHlzPjFheQVsD0_v6k8SKkdoIRsLlw2L2DxzXQT-axLvr1YTT7oFQMM_2CdqSxHh-d6JIYcg6h0ceD9fc1ioij3Wkv2a9djKALkVX5kSiO3FUJ1erK3C1y9ezes5lzMpJTUvtF2SGt7-l7/s320/Wolf+Gift.jpg" /></a></div><br />
One of the little treats I afforded myself upon securing my tenure track English Assistant Professorship was a day to devour Anne Rice's recent novel, <i>The Wolf Gift</i>. I'd heard Rice on NPR talking about venturing into the werewolf as a new territory for her, and I'd recently been reviewing my reading notes/marginalia in <i>Capital</i>, Volume I, where I had noted all of Marx's monsters, including werewolves. Marx's vampires are much more well known; the werewolves have on occasion been noted, but they to a much less degree, quantitatively and qualitatively with regard to sustained analysis. As it turns out, amongst the few werewolves Marx folds into that particular book is one of Martin Luther's werewolves. And Luther's three werewolves contribute to his vitriolic attack on the pope. <br />
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But, to get back to Rice's novel, one of my favorite elements of <i>The Wolf Gift</i> is the micro-literary history of the werewolf integrated into its narrative. The werewolves are themselves versed in this literary/cultural history and struggle with their own identity in relation to this ideology as it intersects with the material reality of their being. All of our classical monster narratives today cannot but be consumed with the literary/cultural history into and outof which they are inscribed. Yet, Rice's narrative makes this inscription explicit and finely nuanced--in fact, the novel left me wanting to know more from these characters on their self-consciousness of their being-in-monster-trope/tradition. <br />
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The other recommending aspect of Rice's novel is her treatment of liminal struggles. After the wretched 2010 film <i>The Wolf Man</i>, with its ending line: "It is said there is no sin in killing a beast, only in killing a man. But where does one begin and the other end," Rice's complex borders provoke rather than set off a gag reflex. <br />
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I read <i>The Wolf Gift</i> just months after reading Jacques Derrida's 2001-02 lectures <i>The Beast & the Sovereign</i>, much of which is devoted to what he calls a genelycology, and what I'd modify into genelycanthropology, in reference to Rice's novel, which is a little hyperlink of irony, since I always remember that scene in the film Derrida, where he is in his home library and is asked if he's read all the books covering the walls. No, Derrida replies with several Anne Rice vampire novels in his hand and explaining that these were a gift when he was doing lectures on vampirism, and he finally says to the effect, I have only read 4, but I read them VERY WELL.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-18722212414911471162012-02-17T11:12:00.000-08:002012-02-17T11:12:29.491-08:00A Design PurgeOver the weekend of February 3 and 4, I presented a paper at an ACM conference held at Cornell College called "The Past, Present, and Future of the Book." <br />
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One of the serendipitous events was the purgation of something I hardly realized I'd been harboring. Back in 1999, possibly 2000, I bought a copy of Franz Kafka's The Blue Octavo Notebooks. I remember instantly hating it, even though the words on the pages were treasures to me. The feel of the paper, the deep sparseness of print on the pages, the very dimensions of the book: all awful. These are concerns of paper codex books in our hands and before our eyes.<br />
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At the ACM conference, I met a scholar/designer, Brad Coulter at the University of Iowa, who presented his own design work for publishing Kafka's<i> The Trial</i>, inspired by an unusual book from 1968 called <i>The Trial of 6 Designers</i>, which included 6 major designers' approaches to designing Kafka's novel for publication/consumption. A fascinating experiment all on its own.<br />
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Later in the conference we had a nice talk, and I brought up the blue notebooks, and we discovered a common disgust at their design. As a character in Kafka, but a character who makes it out of Kafka, I realize at last that the disgust was not only mine--not an alienation response, but a space for collectivity, or sorts.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-14890871829938025842012-02-16T19:58:00.000-08:002012-02-16T19:58:56.292-08:00PlatonovMy Technology and Ecology in Literature class today worked with selections from Charles Darwin, Samuel Butler, and Richard Dawkins. They did a fantastic job exploring Darwin's metaphors and Butler's eerie proto-<i>The Matrix</i>. A highlight moment was talking these things through with them and then realizing we had a sort of machine consciousness, at least of the variety Butler is talking about (i.e. a governor) right there on the wall, right there inside the room, a conscious machine is calling us and it's right here inside the room with us!<br />
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Tonight, I picked up <i>The Foundation Pit</i> by Platonov for a little dinner-time reading, and felt compelled to post the following passage:<br />
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"Voshchev, just as before, did not feel the truth of life, but exhaustion from the heavy ground resigned him to humility--and he simply collected, on rest days, all kinds of petty and unfortunate scraps of nature, as documentary proof of the planless creation of the world, as the facts of the melancholy of each living breath."Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-39336354575302967712012-02-13T07:45:00.000-08:002012-02-13T07:45:17.656-08:00Deconstruction, not Demolition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9LihbU82uOklSntsqAqrFCvB-EMWzJa9C1m2njzuqlIwF9I3E4uI5oyMhqwiCWobxl-gWfjqMgC4xevGBEIMOapFFTScRnNCWCy_xmErne190Onvb4K-og6CB9rlzAn0rUKRwjv-dfVY/s1600/Jacques-Derrida-006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="192" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9LihbU82uOklSntsqAqrFCvB-EMWzJa9C1m2njzuqlIwF9I3E4uI5oyMhqwiCWobxl-gWfjqMgC4xevGBEIMOapFFTScRnNCWCy_xmErne190Onvb4K-og6CB9rlzAn0rUKRwjv-dfVY/s320/Jacques-Derrida-006.jpg" /></a></div>My good friend, <a href="http://www.luther.edu/music/faculty/obrien/">Michael O'Brien</a> sent me <a href="http://decorahnews.com/news-stories/2012/02/1836.html">this link</a> to a local story that brings together critical theory and my personal connections to Decorah, Iowa. <br />
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The story is entitled "Deconstructing 'Deconstruction'." The title hooked me--after all, I'm an English professor with a keen interest in Derrida. I've been methodically working through his The Beast and the Sovereign lecture series this academic year. Then I looked at the photo and knew the story's context. After decades in Decorah, long under the management of my grandfather and then of my uncles, Wapsie Produce has recently closed down and is now being deconstructed. Not demolished, as the article explains, because the deconstruction crews are dismantling the building carefully in order to save reusable materials. <br />
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There is a sadness for me in seeing this architectural manifestation of family history disappear, though I only had one summer of labor experience across the processes of processing capons. Yet, this glimmer of Derridean approach to this gradual event in a public forum is, at least for me, quite a eulogy.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-66452988636676613132012-01-15T16:59:00.000-08:002012-01-15T16:59:26.512-08:00Detective Writer TV Fever-Dream Pitch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0lHPjJgFXU3b2fCkb0RKrdUeuz5YG8k_XozVf5av_A9Ks1nWPvIaQYC5j5HqVqXU2zRtQxv_v38rMIvhyphenhyphen3ClT-14i0M_4kkhiMJKv9ht0KcoF1cZWwTW1fDLr-l5OOsWw3pXbcF_Yrqq/s1600/alans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0lHPjJgFXU3b2fCkb0RKrdUeuz5YG8k_XozVf5av_A9Ks1nWPvIaQYC5j5HqVqXU2zRtQxv_v38rMIvhyphenhyphen3ClT-14i0M_4kkhiMJKv9ht0KcoF1cZWwTW1fDLr-l5OOsWw3pXbcF_Yrqq/s320/alans.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQaYHYQoQa7JF5c4tYfcVGoiWR6oCO8D8FDECkL0xWxEP3L18722y7ci12XvGMzh5bK67Ugs-sazTtU07VrMZMovS9ufVle5Bpi1hViZOB8V6T6n66b778jIIUjdzIvZoLj18pWF09FxTB/s1600/nathan-fillion-castle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="112" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQaYHYQoQa7JF5c4tYfcVGoiWR6oCO8D8FDECkL0xWxEP3L18722y7ci12XvGMzh5bK67Ugs-sazTtU07VrMZMovS9ufVle5Bpi1hViZOB8V6T6n66b778jIIUjdzIvZoLj18pWF09FxTB/s200/nathan-fillion-castle.jpg" /></a></div>Friday was an incredibly long night of fever-disturbed sleep, in which I would get no more than 40 minutes of consecutive rest before waking up to find a new position and adjust the covers. Not a lot to cherish there. But...<br />
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I did have a fever-fed dream of myself putting the finishing touches to a television screenplay (no doubt, inspired by the old Stephen J. Canell Productions closing logo from the 1980s series), and then I was in a studio pitch meeting trying to get tv execs to back my proposed series. The series would kick off with a cross-over episode of <i>Castle</i> (perhaps because on Friday I saw the newest Richard Castle hardcover novel displayed on the New Book shelf at Luther's Preus Library) and <i>Murder, She Wrote</i>, accompanied by an episode hosted by me featuring tv writers and producers and academics/public intellectuals, discussing the history of American detectives. <br />
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My aims were twofold: One was to bring public intellectuals into mainstream American media, and the second seemed like a desire to address the unaddressed lack of episodes of <i>Murder, She Wrote</i> in which Angela Lansbury's J.B. Fletcher was actually working on a novel. I cannot attest to the veracity of this claim. Nor do I have time right now for the complete DVD series to fact-check. <br />
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I guess I'm still nostalgically clinging to a past of network tv as the social, resisting for the most part this cable-facilitated Renaissance of television.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-39495890843840507202012-01-10T18:15:00.000-08:002012-01-10T18:15:37.486-08:00The Sparkly Blue Lodge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyWuwMDDQHpssokNQGraa-I_OszNiguWfA5L-GP-AKNTAQx3esr_zoAs4HvSFWcKHUvBKttF92MKJGancScGrVzsbM5O2SuWJ5bo97jovcZLasvT_pNWdnWbP3whHpZF87ER46vTz-aQfI/s1600/Stevens_20110609_022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="213" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyWuwMDDQHpssokNQGraa-I_OszNiguWfA5L-GP-AKNTAQx3esr_zoAs4HvSFWcKHUvBKttF92MKJGancScGrVzsbM5O2SuWJ5bo97jovcZLasvT_pNWdnWbP3whHpZF87ER46vTz-aQfI/s320/Stevens_20110609_022.jpg" /></a></div>I've got dozens of photographs of Mar T Cafe, some with me in the frame, some without me, but all from the pre-digital-camera days. I was just in Seattle last week for the MLA Conference, and it was one of the few times I've been in the Seattle area and not driven out to Snoqualmie and North Bend to do some Twin Peaksing. Fortunately, I had a night out for sushi with Tim Morton and we geeked out about <i>Twin Peaks</i>. <br />
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I experienced two doppelgangerish sentiments while in Seattle. First, this particular trip was an inverted reenactment of one week back in 2005 when my wife, Min, was getting her M.Ed. at Western Washington University. We drove together down to Seattle so she could attend the NAFSA international education conference at the same Washington State Convention Center where I was doing the MLA. On 2 of those days, I dropped her off early in the morning and then drove east to the former Mar T, now Twede's, in North Bend to have coffee and cherry pie before hiking up Little Si one day and a ways up Big Si on the other. The Little Si morning I was perked with coffee, which was excellent, because the fog was so thick I couldn't see where I was stepping even low on the mountain trail. By the time I got to the top, I was hiking with my hands out in front of me--it was, uncannily, laugh laugh, just like the scene Freud describes in "The Uncanny." On the way down, the fog was breaking up a bit and I began to notice the orangepink salmon berries just ripe and just off the trail. I picked a bagful--one must always carry bags when hiking in the PNW for such instances--and Min quite appreciated them later on the drive north to Bellingham. By the time I did these trips, I'd probably been to Snoqualmie and North Bend and most of the nearby filming sights many times--I recall the first time ever going there in 1992 and geeking out with a group of Japanese tourists who were also PeakFreeks. It was striking to be near yet outside the televisiogeography on those particular trips.<br />
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The second doubling, and I suppose there must be two of them, was that last week in Seattle I got to reflecting on my reactions to the transition of the Mar T Cafe, which was the Double R Diner on the show, to Twede's. The Mar T, when I visited in 1992 and before it burned down, looked so much like the Double R. Dark faux wood paneling, the juke box, the floor tiling...And the pies were still being baked by the woman who baked pie after pie for Lynch and crew. Like a real-life DVD extra, going to the Mar T felt like a little extension, a little extra time inside, of Twin Peaks and thereby of <i>Twin Peaks</i>. Twede's, on the other hand, has retained some production photos and memorabilia on the wall near the restrooms. Otherwise, the booths are in a new configuration and they are royal blue with outrageous sparkly flecks of gold, like a blue bowling call circa 1983. Stuffed Tweety birds hang from the ceiling. They still have pie and coffee, but the vibe is gone. Or is it? It was thinking and talking about <i>Twin Peaks</i> with Tim that got me thinking about potential aesthetic appreciation of Twede's as a disturbing plastic blue tint that resonates with the shift from the warm brown woody tones of the tv series to the cold tones of <i>Fire Walk with Me</i>. Perhaps the blue of Twede's need not be a melancholy color focused on loss but a canted coloring away from nostalgia and into potentialities.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-28641872745824842702011-12-11T11:34:00.000-08:002011-12-11T11:34:35.116-08:00Cogs lately, 10: Entartete Kunst edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio0j0qqLuARDmwYdAAqXs95rvtJ1EOtEYPgZrD4TleFlWNKMIlTLYzPBM6gxk2yVytie8FuxjX0xLF7dAd0jQjP-vSeC37eH5It37EBLng9UpREjeXMhpgbEvSRVXUll50qx-PBWmwM9-b/s1600/cogs+intaglio+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio0j0qqLuARDmwYdAAqXs95rvtJ1EOtEYPgZrD4TleFlWNKMIlTLYzPBM6gxk2yVytie8FuxjX0xLF7dAd0jQjP-vSeC37eH5It37EBLng9UpREjeXMhpgbEvSRVXUll50qx-PBWmwM9-b/s320/cogs+intaglio+2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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Two days after splintering my radius, I was unexpectedly back on the Luther campus, warming up in the Union before walking over to the regular Shakespeare sonnet event and then to teach on Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Unexpectedly there because I anticipated having surgery that day, but my wrist-area was still too swollen.<br />
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With the pain-management medication taking the edge off, I walked into the Union gallery to check out the latest student exhibition: Entartete Kunst by Cassandra Bormann. Among the first of this intaglio collection was a piece called “Martin Bormann Diptych.” The right panel is a man in a fedora from the neck up; the left panel is a perplexing conglomeration of cogwheels inside a black haze of ink so clotted thick it seems I can smell its seductive, toxic perfume.<br />
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As the collection continues, there are other pieces featuring similar assemblages of cogwheels, without humans. All titled “Untitled.” As if the cogwheels exceed or perhaps elude the verbal. <br />
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In addition to this repression of the verbal element, what fascinates me in these images is the dreamlike disorganization of the cogwheel machines. Does disgust at the Nazis manifest in a desire to represent them as mechanical (constructivist) rational state apparatus, but as an imperfect, flawed machine? If so, does this critical representation hold onto a desire for, perhaps fetishization of, efficient, good machines? Similar to the way our laughter at a Rube Goldberg cartoon actually reinforces an appreciation of efficient machines—we don’t laugh at the embranglement of machines and human beings so much as at any human beings who sufficiently miss the point of the machine to invent the wonky contraptions illustrated by Goldberg.<br />
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Bormann’s intaglio collection is quite an outstanding work.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-59182638175059807902011-11-18T08:17:00.000-08:002011-11-18T08:17:20.404-08:00Koyaanisqatsi of the Will<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGFqg9Yw-74MxMOXyYrVOorlYpeDaipk6qcjgcsaTCj4SrPIUX1-E7emyo0z2t_Bts0njYSga7ZnYib0VYd97XLuSn1jSnJYL08e0kDgrgYlv0662BHRb22DvPHqtwT78mdIHEyawBzQf/s1600/A-Clockwork-Orange-1971.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGFqg9Yw-74MxMOXyYrVOorlYpeDaipk6qcjgcsaTCj4SrPIUX1-E7emyo0z2t_Bts0njYSga7ZnYib0VYd97XLuSn1jSnJYL08e0kDgrgYlv0662BHRb22DvPHqtwT78mdIHEyawBzQf/s320/A-Clockwork-Orange-1971.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I'm just now in the midst of screening <i>Koyaanisqatsi</i> for my friend, the ethno-musicologist's class at Luther. It's a long time since I've seen it on a big screen and with a great sound system. During the opening """Nature""" part, I felt very similar to when I watch Leni Riefenstahl's <i>Triumph of the Will</i>. As if I am receiving a pre-battle pep-talk piped directly to parts of the mind, bypassing the symbolic realm of language. When the film shifts to the obviously very bad bad bad awful horrible machines and people and cities, I got so bored, I opened up this blog post. The ideology of bad machine, people, and cities is not compelling like the opening segments. <br />
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All of which gets me thinking yet again of the book chapter I recently resubmitted called "Ecocinema and Ideology: Do Ecocritics Dream of a Clockwork Green?" <br />
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A chapter I open with the following epigraph:<br />
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‘What exactly is it, sir, that you’re going to do?’<br />
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‘Oh,’ said Dr Branom, his cold stetho going all down my back, ‘it’s quite simple, really. We just show you some films.’<br />
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‘Films?’ I said. I could hardly believe my ookos, brothers, as you may well understand. ‘You mean,’ I said, ‘it will be just like going to the pictures?’<br />
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‘They’ll be special films,’ said Dr Branom. ‘Very special films.’<br />
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---A Clockwork OrangeAndy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-17091115784431244362011-11-09T11:53:00.000-08:002011-11-09T11:53:53.846-08:00Second-hand fantasies on offer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4QhTjZZnwvUfTFQoqcQCuhdAqlD63XCBXy004V8LG1HgnKMU_ziP141IEEOtcqNJzrUf2pizA3B0Dn0ZzWVkXl1Y1eRdsiO_1sou2WdXzAc_59SjHZ7RSuoE0egg7PPHvOL84Md0cdVm3/s1600/used+dream+catcher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4QhTjZZnwvUfTFQoqcQCuhdAqlD63XCBXy004V8LG1HgnKMU_ziP141IEEOtcqNJzrUf2pizA3B0Dn0ZzWVkXl1Y1eRdsiO_1sou2WdXzAc_59SjHZ7RSuoE0egg7PPHvOL84Md0cdVm3/s320/used+dream+catcher.jpg" /></a></div>I'd have some serious reservations about taking a used dream-catcher left out in the recycling area. Do I really want the residues of dream-desire fantasies of someone else? Especially the variety so dark that the previous owner used this dream-catcher as a prophylactic against them? It would feel like buying intimate apparel at the Goodwill.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-78441425329698698172011-11-03T11:51:00.000-07:002011-11-03T11:51:01.165-07:00Beginnings: the sky<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmzB-Bsgxv8Jvt0Y0IWS5JwmuRhyphenhyphenmzCF1tqglHHMyFp49UGN2tu9yQREvE_F3E6zbubrNMr0HcJ7L8GeN1abgQOjp5leqZqaXBUM8-3hyw_IlAE69eexwtjOyMOZ_HKBNVVlv44WEnHZ8e/s1600/Edward-Said--3-L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="233" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmzB-Bsgxv8Jvt0Y0IWS5JwmuRhyphenhyphenmzCF1tqglHHMyFp49UGN2tu9yQREvE_F3E6zbubrNMr0HcJ7L8GeN1abgQOjp5leqZqaXBUM8-3hyw_IlAE69eexwtjOyMOZ_HKBNVVlv44WEnHZ8e/s320/Edward-Said--3-L.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Yesterday was Edward Said's birthday, and I was thinking about how much I admire his first book, <i>Beginnings</i>. I consistently take my own obsession with the opening frames of a text into the classroom.<br />
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Today I'm just cracking open Rebecca Harding Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills" to review it for next week's American Lit to 1860 class. And I was instantly struck by its opening, particularly in relation to the beginning of William Gibson's <i>Neuromancer</i>.<br />
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Davis: "A cloudy day: do you know what that is in a town of iron-works? The sky sank down before dawn, muddy, flat, immovable."<br />
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Gibson: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."<br />
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Double terrible ambiance!Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-21297118130563441952011-11-03T10:00:00.001-07:002011-11-03T10:00:26.151-07:00Chack-a Chack-a Thoreau!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5uzgIX6benld5IGbkVer52yrnVntiFJkTm1TSLsDQ8XJRVdKBzMeuOQHZ3wZoK3uN0R-k4bnUPiQlAOoSyfKL1ouAgjKbucUhh9Rdpl3bptJXPOz6PJaSa69xJjt_hi1VgR2WOnJ0sc/s1600/cograil04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="226" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5uzgIX6benld5IGbkVer52yrnVntiFJkTm1TSLsDQ8XJRVdKBzMeuOQHZ3wZoK3uN0R-k4bnUPiQlAOoSyfKL1ouAgjKbucUhh9Rdpl3bptJXPOz6PJaSa69xJjt_hi1VgR2WOnJ0sc/s320/cograil04.jpg" /></a></div>Hanging out with my 10-month old daughter Sofia and other little kids lately in play-rich environments like parks, I have been struck by the prevalence of trains as an object of deep fascination for them. Noticing that primed me to attend even more to the trains and railroads of the select chapters of Walden that I've been re-reading and reviewing for this week's American Lit to 1860 classes. What keeps Thoreau so fresh for me is the polycoding of his machines, including trains, and the difficulty in reading whether this is part of his sprawling metaphoricity and openness to diversity of thought or whether it is the mechanical unconscious that no one escapes since the 19th century. <br />
<br />
For example, the railroad runs in most of Chapter 2 "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" as an object signifying a culture of haste and complexity in compounding the things and duties of our lives. "If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us."<br />
<br />
But, hold on, Thoreau, because as you wrap up the chapter, your most pointed prescription of living deliberately gets articulated in railroad metaphor: "Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails."<br />
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Is Thoreau at play in this last bit? Is he exemplifying how we might take his own prescription, but only in the form of railroad-style efficiency-think? I'm not sure, and I always read his ledger pages in Chapter 1 this way too: do we take them at surface value, after all he uses them as evidence to warrant his claim of being the most economically successful farmer in Concord; or, do we read this as a sly indictment of those who would read him and still desire this sort of statistical no-waste ideology?<br />
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This is why I am buying a copy of <i>The Brave Little Toaster</i> for Sofia!Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-79549609267672263822011-11-01T15:58:00.000-07:002011-11-01T15:58:15.915-07:00Thoreauly Theoretical<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4YId0tzRRjLi-DsKhHzgIJ3krbJ-DobNqlG-fVgvjMApGfoPdAB9tEewnOs7585gGMpJ4fQXLO5Rt3D9W7bBMutoiFBzM8o7gObOq9T5Std9YTB-jtPm23p8LQ6BgihBTpngiL4VON7d6/s1600/thoreau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="317" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4YId0tzRRjLi-DsKhHzgIJ3krbJ-DobNqlG-fVgvjMApGfoPdAB9tEewnOs7585gGMpJ4fQXLO5Rt3D9W7bBMutoiFBzM8o7gObOq9T5Std9YTB-jtPm23p8LQ6BgihBTpngiL4VON7d6/s320/thoreau.jpg" /></a></div><br />
In Monday's American Literature to 1860 class, we worked with Emerson's <i>Nature</i> and "The American Scholar." Tomorrow we are reading chapters from Thoreau's <i>Walden</i>. Reviewing this text is one of the great pleasures of teaching an early American survey because Thoreau seems fresh every time I crack open his pages.<br />
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Here's the gem that caught my eye during last night's review:<br />
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"With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the drift-wood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more. <b>I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections</b>; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another."<br />
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Not only does Thoreau put his finger precisely on the eco-acupressure point of doubled points of view all in one as constitutive of "Nature," but he strikingly articulates the self as a scene of weird multiplicity. It reads like a D & G scene to use Thoreau's diction.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-21522761564741893492011-11-01T15:01:00.001-07:002011-11-01T15:01:53.444-07:00Used rubbers in front of Preus Library<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielA_b4iuZzrMMnLRqjuDlg2rHPDT1xOcI0f0OvFZCuQXm21hCC_6uUx1wtBopsgbGrzQPNt6AHOM4I-9F7oUz0kMmQEsrlbALH-DmUbEne5e1AhnfzcGyT5P9Dwjz6qaOxMn4378lHQcM/s1600/used+rubbers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="265" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielA_b4iuZzrMMnLRqjuDlg2rHPDT1xOcI0f0OvFZCuQXm21hCC_6uUx1wtBopsgbGrzQPNt6AHOM4I-9F7oUz0kMmQEsrlbALH-DmUbEne5e1AhnfzcGyT5P9Dwjz6qaOxMn4378lHQcM/s320/used+rubbers.jpg" /></a></div>Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-42390395644414569382011-11-01T13:22:00.000-07:002011-11-01T13:22:15.447-07:00Lettermanian Coggery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggI9wiEryVndCwz297J6rtqa79M182Iud8i-Ed6EwM5zjwtxlFcHrH9vhZdjX4H8DaaDydXdHLlEzgkEXNbm1NAAlx0I48nqkzOIC8Fzw3I-_wNlEDQhTcFH1xtHTZ3WmqteqvtfjG2bqt/s1600/Letterman+cogs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="243" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggI9wiEryVndCwz297J6rtqa79M182Iud8i-Ed6EwM5zjwtxlFcHrH9vhZdjX4H8DaaDydXdHLlEzgkEXNbm1NAAlx0I48nqkzOIC8Fzw3I-_wNlEDQhTcFH1xtHTZ3WmqteqvtfjG2bqt/s320/Letterman+cogs.jpg" /></a></div>Next to the Thanksgiving pie-trances that connect David Letterman to his mother, my favorite Lettermanian bit is the annual Halloween costume sketch. The first one out this year was a double whammy for me: Her name is Sofia (same as my daughter) and she's covered in moving cogwheels.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-35069633335609069492011-10-31T18:20:00.000-07:002011-10-31T18:20:34.515-07:00Mom's Kitsch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7Yk2QwLWD58FCxgHkE4dKSNfcTGSBrLfCvhKXhQ5RLgd_Lg_5Z7FkAhUwApaCi4jLUY0fvsSz4sNbEQ04WmXwTQA4RqkoWLKQD7pum5k4yf3__uNM8b_wluZWSbnsM2hYrqNI9u6jwA-/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="178" width="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7Yk2QwLWD58FCxgHkE4dKSNfcTGSBrLfCvhKXhQ5RLgd_Lg_5Z7FkAhUwApaCi4jLUY0fvsSz4sNbEQ04WmXwTQA4RqkoWLKQD7pum5k4yf3__uNM8b_wluZWSbnsM2hYrqNI9u6jwA-/s320/images.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCq7OyZL7rgJcdh8iMseDLtEalPwUZaQqZU6yhs6zNVzG6p3XMhO39tZ53NkvIVhGJpITLtaehg2CgoAFbuuRm138nnXQDRaJZ1j9R_A1FLyBsXiHO63kiH3XGiYzB1wi3Hn5rv_mqLIVB/s1600/Hummel+Keeping+Time.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCq7OyZL7rgJcdh8iMseDLtEalPwUZaQqZU6yhs6zNVzG6p3XMhO39tZ53NkvIVhGJpITLtaehg2CgoAFbuuRm138nnXQDRaJZ1j9R_A1FLyBsXiHO63kiH3XGiYzB1wi3Hn5rv_mqLIVB/s320/Hummel+Keeping+Time.JPG" /></a></div>Twice in recent days I've had the uncanny experience of seeing my Mom's kitsch objects playing significant roles in television programs.<br />
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Watching the episode "Remedial Chaos Theory" of <i>Community</i>, a Norwegian troll doll is Pierce's vengeance "gift" to Troy. I am pretty certain this is exactly the same wooden troll figure we used to have on our fireplace mantel.<br />
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Then, a trailer for the new program <i>Grimm</i> comes on, and a woman stoops to pick up the "Keeping Time" Hummel figurine from a path in the woods, and suddenly she's whisked away by a beast of some sort.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-2533279151625923662011-10-31T13:45:00.000-07:002011-10-31T13:45:00.290-07:00Emerson State of Mind, Cont'd<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyqvxMDgWL4A4xTeGP28KEIrTzpddtoQzw-F9fqM1-XI7UMhct1y8JQsaAt1kb4gjWR6a5xwCX_bH8KppcZ2uwFb6YmDuIAWH3o3oyg4rE1gR9fQ-lwAjpeN4uaq96xgaWoP5dA0MdR1b/s1600/cranch_eyeball.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyqvxMDgWL4A4xTeGP28KEIrTzpddtoQzw-F9fqM1-XI7UMhct1y8JQsaAt1kb4gjWR6a5xwCX_bH8KppcZ2uwFb6YmDuIAWH3o3oyg4rE1gR9fQ-lwAjpeN4uaq96xgaWoP5dA0MdR1b/s320/cranch_eyeball.gif" /></a></div>Today's American Lit to 1860 class was one of those days seared into the memory, especially for use when things go pear-shaped.<br />
Things were already looking up when I came into the classroom and several students were already talking up how much Emerson had energized them. <br />
Then I started us out with a condensed lecture on Transcendentalism, in particular its origins tied to debates over Locke and Kant. <br />
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But then I just sat down and opened the discussion to whichever currents formed around the pushes and pulls of what caught students' attention. And this class always has excellent questions!<br />
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They wanted to talk about Emerson in relation to metaphysics, his notion of Nature and how humans are integrated into it, and a passage that reads, "The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality."<br />
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That last one especially launched us into a great discussion about attitudes towards "being in nature." Together, we imagined what Emerson would say if we took him on a class field trip to REI. Considering if he is suggesting that when you treat "nature" directly as a commodity, it becomes commodity, unreality. Emerson's a slippery one--sometimes I think he looks like a libertarian narcissist and then all of a sudden he looks like he's an ecological thinker of the highest order, but only when read against the grain of his usual eco-characterizations by the myriad of plastic stuff with his quotes embossed upon them. <br />
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We talked about Aldo Leopold's injunction to "think like a mountain," and how Emerson never gives this sort of injunction because it is in his philosophical paradigm absurd. Empathy is not the point for Emerson, not because of narcissism, but because of its patent impossibility--it's disrespect for other material. <br />
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I hope the same fires burn as we get into <i>Walden</i> the rest of this week!Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-13205753661794324632011-10-29T13:18:00.000-07:002011-10-29T13:18:22.860-07:00The Matter with Mao<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCZLc30ovOivrPBrwHenrhGDYikKdowY1ALjzBne58J70xSsYdauiq_M7kDICp5ZAinn2Rp_BrQ3ehJT9S2LD9xfeEla9NTTZ8s_WWx5hi52wlu2H90xRKEC6mze5KMeZ3ilWV64mnYEo/s1600/mao.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="285" width="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCZLc30ovOivrPBrwHenrhGDYikKdowY1ALjzBne58J70xSsYdauiq_M7kDICp5ZAinn2Rp_BrQ3ehJT9S2LD9xfeEla9NTTZ8s_WWx5hi52wlu2H90xRKEC6mze5KMeZ3ilWV64mnYEo/s320/mao.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Within the last 7 days there were 3 Mao matters in my life:<br />
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1st. Just before flying to California, I finished reading Chan Koonchung's amazing novel, <i>The Fat Years</i>, now available in English translation in the UK (and therefore in the US via Amazon.com) and in the US in January. One of the characters makes a remark of Chinese-style self-criticism as encouragement: "Just think what Mao had done by age 30..." While the character who utters this sentiment is being mocked, I find it a powerful statement on revolution and on attitudes to self-criticism. After all, I worked this novel into my hectic life because I felt compelled to read a contemporary Chinese fiction that was NOT simply an indictment of the Cultural Revolution. The deplorable impact on intellectuals of the Cultural Revolution is undeniable and inexcusable in itself. Yet, this narrative vector seems to take all precedence, neglecting the impact of Mao on millions of people whom he and the Party liberated from feudalism. That is not nothing. That is a matter too.<br />
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2nd. "The United States cannot annihilate the Chinese nation with its small stack of atom bombs. Even if the U.S. atom bombs were so powerful that, when dropped on China, they would make a hole right through the earth, or even blow it up, that would hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, though it might be a major event for the solar system." Just imagine Mao's philosophy of matter and nation underlying this statement. His notion of materialism and being were a challenge not to the American "way of life" but to the fundamental notions of matter, objects, and being that must remain for the capital machine to stand and to run.<br />
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3rd. In Davis, I played all day every day with my 10-month old daughter, Sofia. In our bedroom, one of the only objects my wife, Min, has from her childhood home, and they barely had any object to begin with, is a porcelain disk with a painting on one side of Mao in a straw peasant hat and on the other side a sample of his calligraphy. When I carry Sofia around, one of her favorite places to explore is the bookshelf, and Mao sits on this shelf. No less than a dozen times during just a few days did she point at Mao's smiling face. This little girl only sees a smiling, friendly face, at least for now.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-7521936784996061362011-10-29T12:53:00.000-07:002011-10-29T12:53:08.246-07:00Emerson State of Mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQlmq4IWs2ap5ElawIRgHgN9DT0fZkfeOOVM09Ilutvb_B-BVFjUrVM3Et-BL28FdSyVlji0pCQLoNfvgmzIVeKaANT80nrvyOvcH9jSNE_532u5faCvunP5Jz1Iy3dwxHSVVyG5yIBSJ/s1600/tea+talk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQlmq4IWs2ap5ElawIRgHgN9DT0fZkfeOOVM09Ilutvb_B-BVFjUrVM3Et-BL28FdSyVlji0pCQLoNfvgmzIVeKaANT80nrvyOvcH9jSNE_532u5faCvunP5Jz1Iy3dwxHSVVyG5yIBSJ/s320/tea+talk.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I'm preparing for my Monday class on Ralph Waldo Emerson, re-reading for the howmanyteenth time <i>Nature</i>. In a fashion that Emerson himself prescribes, I realize that the text contains endless possibilities according to what I as reader bring into the journey. [bracketed for now a tendril of thought on Emerson's infinity in the finite juxtaposed with the Borges story "The Library of Babel"]<br />
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Unbracketed, now, I was reading the passage, "Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, dreams, beasts, sex." Emerson's list of things at the outermost frontiers of the human imaginative abilities to construct a grand unifying theory is a striking catalogue of psycho-analysis to come. Given my recent Derrida jag--<i>The Beast and the Sovereign</i> as well as a re-reading of "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," I am intrigued by Emerson's assemblage of language, animals, and dreams. For Emerson, the center of this assemblage is its very assembler: the human. He makes these powerful mysteries, but always mysteries to the human, perhaps even mysteries for the human--these are the things here to give us pleasure, particularly by signifying that within the human that transcends all of these things. <br />
<br />
But what also catches my attention is the omission in Emerson's list of the machine, especially given his persistent, consistent attention to the machine in much of his writing. For Emerson the machine was totally under control, if at times misused. Not that many years later, Marx would posit the machine as one of the great mysteries, or at least the material instantiation symptomatic of the mystery of capital, in particular of industrial capitalist production. <br />
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Animals, dreams, language, and machines.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-12149251208849907492011-10-28T17:33:00.000-07:002011-10-28T17:33:04.396-07:00Cogs lately, 9: Scorsese Edition<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hR-kP-olcpM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
Jude Law, children, and machines: there's an A.I. vibe about Hugo...but even more than that, this film is a cog-riddled steampunk story with Borat!Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-66430630391888318562011-10-28T17:25:00.000-07:002011-10-28T17:25:46.386-07:00Cogs lately, 8: Criminal Minds Edition<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H7O-q7tAfWc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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I was just in Davis with my family over the fall break and Min and I put on the television one night. Having never watched, and never even felt a twinge of interest in watching, an episode of <i>Criminal Minds</i>, I was still pulled into their latest promo ad. Peppered throughout from the very opening are myriad cogwheels, though at times from their small size and the juxtaposition with scenes of apparent torture, it can be difficult to determine if they are cogwheels or saw blades on the screen. Only the final image of a human face outline populated by numerous cogwheels turning determines in favor of the cog. These visual cog codings of a criminal mind, and of minds in general, is provocative. The show feeds on the contemporary fantasy of total social control--total social security, a fantasy that is predominantly cyber-tech in terms of actual surveillance and manipulation. And yet, the underlying logic of human subjectivity as fully accountable/predictable within statistical probability mapping of psychic profiles is imaged as a cogwheel machine. The brain is not depicted as a computer but as a set of tightly assembled cogwheels turning upon and by themselves apparently. The image is like the one Leibniz uses in <i>The Monadology</i>, yet Leibniz was focused on what existed but could not be found in the brain-cogs-machine while this show's promo image implies that all is there and that we must have the people with the good machines apply their mental engines to stopping the mental engines of the bad machines...Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-33437658678510134432011-10-20T12:09:00.000-07:002011-10-20T12:09:20.206-07:00how much paper do you save annually?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglDeXmP8R90-aHsRwvwq3lNsms7a2FgLmGK1uhmR4j1H4VUyrasbUVuR7JDOBTHU5ZT1LGur1rKMZL3GhHOWNrMTOOrZ5zTlirB3rqahBvjO3YdiXVWUYUgqVXc7QJFgmpY338Dtqm9Px7/s1600/eco+sticker+paper+dispenser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="200" width="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglDeXmP8R90-aHsRwvwq3lNsms7a2FgLmGK1uhmR4j1H4VUyrasbUVuR7JDOBTHU5ZT1LGur1rKMZL3GhHOWNrMTOOrZ5zTlirB3rqahBvjO3YdiXVWUYUgqVXc7QJFgmpY338Dtqm9Px7/s200/eco+sticker+paper+dispenser.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_plPuAeB76i5xejDL3mfWtv5Ixnoc_VinOnyB_tx8yKcIrAd0X9HUmOz2sSc04REc44rBGFlCBokDQYx8D8N8LMbS5ebgfhqa6u4qK_ItCvDd7CtEB8x2mhYKCZe9DgrmHaCuD9zIcT-s/s1600/eco+sticker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_plPuAeB76i5xejDL3mfWtv5Ixnoc_VinOnyB_tx8yKcIrAd0X9HUmOz2sSc04REc44rBGFlCBokDQYx8D8N8LMbS5ebgfhqa6u4qK_ItCvDd7CtEB8x2mhYKCZe9DgrmHaCuD9zIcT-s/s320/eco+sticker.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Way to go, sticker! You should get a sticker for your efforts!!Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-70666630455683916132011-10-19T13:17:00.000-07:002011-10-19T13:17:23.517-07:002 Open Apologies: Drive-texting and "Local"CoffeeRoasting1st. To the woman driving the minivan away from Nisse Preschool. You were right to give me that death glare and for 2 reasons. First, I took my right of way despite the fact that I was bicycling, which is just eco-hipster presumptuous of me, and, second, because you were clearly sending an emergency text whilst pulling into heavy oncoming traffic--I mean, clearly, because otherwise only a criminally negligent parent would be texting with an infant in the car under those circumstances.<br />
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2nd. To the Co-Op employee whose smile turned upside down upon overhearing my review of Kickapoo coffee when asked by a fellow customer. I was buying Egyptian Licorice Tea. My review: "Well, if you don't care about quality of beans, roast, aroma, or flavor, it's actually still pretty ho-hum. I mean it has 'poo' in the name, so the caliber is unsurprising, and I guess there's merit in them being up front on that score." As an ex-barista who now practices detournement against the very corporate bean dealers who trained him, I cannot lie just because it's a "local" roaster. <br />
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The "Buy Local" fascist tone is too eerily reminiscent at times of the discourse of partnership, etc, with which Starbucks inducted those of us who learned to make a proper cappuccino with them.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-45801987294759611882011-10-19T09:06:00.000-07:002011-10-19T09:06:15.039-07:00neuromancing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWcx1nLrnlEhANTXktZJ1FOVxIdVHfKy9uYdtWJIy5x78zAU8gtigPxdnumgvlEj7536-5zxC3-AVdaoFcRVjgyCvzTTXIW9vv6LsIv9D_Z_uy5pqaYv5olhB6qvb9wNd_zuY0m-aBKMY/s1600/nest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWcx1nLrnlEhANTXktZJ1FOVxIdVHfKy9uYdtWJIy5x78zAU8gtigPxdnumgvlEj7536-5zxC3-AVdaoFcRVjgyCvzTTXIW9vv6LsIv9D_Z_uy5pqaYv5olhB6qvb9wNd_zuY0m-aBKMY/s320/nest.jpg" /></a></div>Ironically, when I switched to the digital zoom capability, the image blurred too much to make out the micro-scale Tessier-Ashpool corporate logo near the nest opening.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-23887527497672178042011-10-19T07:53:00.000-07:002011-10-19T07:53:41.239-07:003 distracting linesSomewhat like John Ballantyne, I keep seeing lines and they are distracting me. Unlike, Ballantyne, the lines I see are not on tablecloths or the landscape. Rather, they are lines from two Woody Allen movies and an episode of <i>Bored to Death</i>. I put these lines out here to clear my mind of them.<br />
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"Tradition is just the illusion of permanence."<br />
<i>Deconstructing Harry</i><br />
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"There's only one kind of love that lasts--unrequited love. It stays with you forever."<br />
<i>Shadows and Fog</i><br />
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“You know, I never thought I’d be in a graveyard in a spa robe talking to a beautiful transvestite in the moonlight.”<br />
<i>Bored to Death</i>, "Escape from the Castle"<br />
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As I drink mate on this 40-degree morning and write out these quotes, I see in their constellation lines of connection: lines of transience; lines of transformation; lines of friendship; lines of romance. <br />
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The latter two lines in particular align humor and warm romance constructed by people who determine to face the world as unfeeling and totally contingent. In freeing themselves from a dependence upon transcendence, the characters can delight in the unexpected, even if they also must endure the discomfort of life's vicissitudes. <br />
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I am particularly fond of <i>Bored to Death</i> because what at first appeared to be a show trading on hip Brooklyn, turned out to be narratives featuring strong (yes, often to the point of absurdity) social bonds between friends and stirring dialogue when characters are confronted with their own mortality and how love works in their lives.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289303336097724987.post-59238617068936301102011-10-17T16:06:00.000-07:002011-10-17T16:06:59.061-07:00Cogs lately, 7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOjkLqF3h4iRJ4O0q-CVrLtxICy0PHWeJjA_Iy1yL9NibCzzlcjC8h09dEoep58h7zMVARWTXelv2u4Euu305JQr_C1UYpn66_FtJigc1CWoEZoHdUQZR7jxATw11QK0yPB6uXtaSvT6m/s1600/modern+family+cogs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOjkLqF3h4iRJ4O0q-CVrLtxICy0PHWeJjA_Iy1yL9NibCzzlcjC8h09dEoep58h7zMVARWTXelv2u4Euu305JQr_C1UYpn66_FtJigc1CWoEZoHdUQZR7jxATw11QK0yPB6uXtaSvT6m/s320/modern+family+cogs.jpg" /></a></div>So, last Wednesday night I was watching <i>Modern Family</i> on television. Min and I have watched a number of this show's episodes because the actress playing Lily looks a lot like our daughter, Chofi. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCizGnE51wd8tpIHsyFfHevmWDqN4eICVJ8pmEf4de5zIZL3sb1UMFNFlHlXvRbI90VanxLmS9T50q1JFXPdNMwXDNrwK6s-dSK5ZipHOP0wP80IJYYtOSS-2ZBZpRjxTkkUVfhP8_646/s1600/chofi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCizGnE51wd8tpIHsyFfHevmWDqN4eICVJ8pmEf4de5zIZL3sb1UMFNFlHlXvRbI90VanxLmS9T50q1JFXPdNMwXDNrwK6s-dSK5ZipHOP0wP80IJYYtOSS-2ZBZpRjxTkkUVfhP8_646/s320/chofi.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO3ZMoN8zkowV1AYmjYgqEokxkff6tFMlgh-C49kgItuIJWinz4YRSHMf-ka6QswJggp-L3wmz8Kc3lG604H9SG9lanCVpfejOzOBtNaERfM1m4MY0Ta97SnVm2Jk-DDRAhnKW9XZSMzVe/s1600/lily.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="180" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO3ZMoN8zkowV1AYmjYgqEokxkff6tFMlgh-C49kgItuIJWinz4YRSHMf-ka6QswJggp-L3wmz8Kc3lG604H9SG9lanCVpfejOzOBtNaERfM1m4MY0Ta97SnVm2Jk-DDRAhnKW9XZSMzVe/s320/lily.jpg" /></a></div><br />
At least the original actress playing Lily did. Apparently this new season there's a new actress (Is this a television show standard, or an isolated suggestion that Asians look so much alike no one would notice?). Whoa, hold on a minute, it turns out that they are interchangeable, at least to the extent that Lily was formerly played by two identical twin actresses! [As a sidenote, I know from a number of Chinese friends who've come to study and work in the U.S. that interchangeability is an issue, but an issue that some turn to benefit in terms of buying one membership to Costco and everyone using the same ID without ever encountering a hassle.]<br />
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All of which is a way to circulate back to the initial pic of this blog: I was watching <i>Modern Family</i> and there in the background as decor objects in the office of a ruthless up-and-coming real estate development mogul were cogwheels. Peripheral but signifying, cogwheels.Andy Hagemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12750234908633063222noreply@blogger.com0