Wow, they must've been awful to bungle that song being that the guitar part is comprised of a simple one-trick pony barre progression, the little deal during the verses, and a two-string solo. A band shouldn't even be doing that song in public anyways, but to butcher it as well should earn them a heckling, no, make that a pelting.

" ^^ see how he refers to himself in the 3rd person? wankery, wankery, wankery"

LOL, ok. But that 3rd person thing is pretty unavoidable at times--and I always just find it funny. I mean, I have a hard time imagining that anyone does that without acknowledging how silly it is. And the first-person plural softens the effect, doesn't it?

Immediately following the Nirvana the band did a cover of Billie Jean. They brought a girl up from the bar to sing but she couldn't remember the words, so the drummer sang it.

Students are increasingly told to substitute the word 'I' for 'one', which is the most stupid idea imaginable. "For this essay one will be looking at..." Daft I call it.

ha. he still comes off as a cunt. problem with the humanities is, when people don't understand something they just nod in agreement rather than demand a rational explanation.

anyway, you didn't manage the ottobar? i warned you that the harbor was an atrocious tourist trap.

next time, visit pigtown

holy shit, that article is worthy of the neighborhood. listen: "From 1980 to 1990 the population increased 3% from 6,503 to 6,705 people, strengthening Pigtown racial and socioeconomic diversity even more." wow! EVEN MORE!

another tourist destination is hampden, home of pecker & the honfest


holy shit,

ps- also, please tell me you ate scrapple

The fact that a place exists called Pigtown has made my day. Sheer brilliance, for which I salute the the state of Maryland.

One is universal. "I" is personal and not applicable to proper writing.

Well, I'm hardly nodding in agreement, just focusing on my own thing. That "philosophy interest group" doesn't represent a mainstream section of music theory anyway and it's a section that I'm not hugely interested in right now. Not that I'm not interested in philosophy, but I have a lot of other things to focus on - soon I'll get around to investigating those ideas, but it would be out of line for me to criticize until I have.

But music theory isn't analogous to lit crit or art history; it's a sub-discipline of musicology that (for better or worse) tends to focus on practical matters (pedagogy, etc.) and analysis/theory (which tends to be obsessed with the "music itself" rather than other outside topics and doesn't have a proper analog in the other arts). So, to get to my point, most theorists don't pay much attention to philosophy (trendy or otherwise) beacuse it isn't in any way central to the discipline as it stands(whether it should be or not is another question). They aren't ignorantly nodding in agreement, they're just attending a different session. In a lot of ways, theorists just do their own thing and form into camps--you can see this in the program.

No, I didn't go to the Ottobar, I was constrained because the meeting hotel was in the inner harbor and driving was an issue. I was also usually in large groups that were just looking for a place to sit down.

I know who John Rahn is -- I was in the same room as him often, but I didn't meet him. I know several people who are on familiar terms with him though I suppose, and he seems like a very nice man. I could theorize about why you're being so hostile, but I won't. I do feel, however, that your constant antipathy towards all academia (not that is doesn't deserve tons of criticism) is annoying. I really have to bail out of this thread now.

academia rules. who else is gonna teach us anything? the drop-outs? LAUGHABLE!

damn, i'm a phd dropout, and while i'm not anti-academic in the strictest sense, i do feel strongly about what academia has become in the hands of the mla and the conference circuit. in this sense i am pro-academia, pro-research, in favor of the advancement of knowlege, and for this reason i am against the coopting of academia by corrupt practices and institutions that DESTROY what is best in academia. people behave like in that scene in "metropolitan' where the guy argues that he has no need to read jane austen because he can read what the critics said about her books. people try to "apply" "theories" to as many "texts" as possible, as if this was the apex of understanding.

i have no qualms with music theory, musicology, etc. i think it's a great thing-- i do have serious problems with the "critical theory" camp, however. they are my mortal enemy. i would have been happy if they did not control my field of studies. i was not ready to compromise my principles in order to get a job, so i quit. the articles that people are forced to publish in order to keep their jobs are so much crap, it is ridiculous. it operates as a form of censorship and groupthink. i'm speaking here of literary critics, not other fields, though the same "toolbox" is "applied" to film, art, and other cultural productions and institutions.

i hope that offers a satisfactory explanation-- please don't take this as a personal attack against you or some other such shit. maybe my sniping is coming across as carpet bombing-- but anyway... feel free to be annoyed. it's a free country, etc.

I have a real love-hate relationship with academia in that, A. it pays my bills and B. It allows me to do things I wouldn't be able to do out there in the 'real' world. I value its existence above almost everything else within society but become increasingly frustrated when I see it being exploited and undermined by careerists. My own interest in figures such as Guattari and Foucault has nothing to do with how their ideas work within a strictly theoretical context, but how they can be used practically. As I said in an earlier post, the problem with that attitude is that the very university departments that hold their work in such high esteem would be terrified to actually apply them to their own structures - for fear of the consequences to their own position.

I once saw a video of a lecture given by Lacan at the Sorbonne in the sixties. It was great because he had the guts to apply his ideas to the whole method of his teaching. At one point a student stood up and called Lacan a 'prick' while others trold the student to 'shut the fuck up'. It was evident that Lacan was deliberately putting his own position of authority into question. This is in direct contrast with so many lecturers today, who talk about dissolving 'structures of power' without ever seeming to question their own right to wield it. Lacan, Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, etc are probably turning in their graves at the way in which they're being used so cosily.

I value its existence above almost everything else within society but become increasingly frustrated when I see it being exploited and undermined by careerists.

i don't know how it works in england, but here in the states it's already happened in most parts. fortunately the sciences remain as rigorous as ever-- they have to actually prove their claims.

My own interest in figures such as Guattari and Foucault has nothing to do with how their ideas work within a strictly theoretical context, but how they can be used practically

that is cool-- and yes, some of these people are very interesting writers, worth studying-- but most people read only photocopied excerpts in a hurry and proceed to quote them the next day. that's what i have a problem with.

the very university departments that hold their work in such high esteem would be terrified to actually apply them to their own structures

ha ha ha ha. academic departments function like a fucking council of medieval bishops.

Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, etc are probably turning in their graves at the way in which they're being used so cosily.

and carelessly.

it used to be that theory arose from observation, that it emerged from the object in question after the testing of hypotheses. sure that is the scientific method, but still, it is a reasonable approach study of anything. nowadays though, due to fashion and career pressures, people just take a "theory" and "apply" it to whatever is at hand in order to fulfill the prerequisite number of published articles for advancement.

i don't know if this will make sense to anybody who reads this, but i had some professor of "indigenous culture" tell me once she was going to write a paper about cesar vallejo and indigenism because in the 20s indigenism was "fashionable" and vallejo did had caught on. when i said that this didn't match my knowledge of vallejo's work or biography, nor did i see a correspondence between his work and that of indigenist writers, and asked what poems she was referring to, she couldn't answer and gave me some bullshit distraction about what was going on in the 20s. anyway, it was all balls.

this same person is also a frequent recipient of grants, awards, and fellowships.

disgusting.

I take it you're referring to Karl Popper's 'testability' thesis. This is an interesting issue. I've come to the conclusion that modern humanities is built on the foundations of a holy trinity made up of Hegel, Marx and Freud, in the form of the 'zeitgeist', 'ideology' and the 'unconscious', respectively - all of which attempt to say much the same thing without being able to be validated 'scientifically'. Although I think there are significant problems with Popper's position it does raise the question as to the humanities' function within modern society beyond that of therapeutic self-expression.

I teach in a department filled with people who have become recognised experts in topics they know absolutely nothing about, cleverly disguising their ignorance through a veil of theoretical double-speak.

that does not bode well for your career prospects. they'll vote for "one" (and each other) when it comes time to elect people for posts that pay good money. in any case, enjoy the freedom you can get from wherever you are.

by the way, have you read don de lillo's "white noise"? a brilliant book, thought some of it might come across as a bit dated. the main character however is as current as ever -- a professor of hitler studies who can't read german.

Yes, lol, White Noise is fantastic. The professor of superheroes just about sums things up. It's ages since I read that. Think I might reread it over the weekend. The only thing I don't like about De Lillo is his dialogue, which always comes across as just a series of quotes. A brilliant writer besides that. Mao II is one of my all-time favourite novels.

I really want ot read some Phillip Roth. So many people I know rate him really highly. Have you read him? Any thoughts?

love the title... but is this guy seriously arguing that levi-strauss and deleuze+guattari share a "paradigmatic procedure of polar opposites?" ...beacause, while i dig excessive alliteration as much as the next academic, i'm pretty sure that

a) you could open a history of philosophy textbook to a random page, close your eyes and point, and you'd hit a set of polar opposites...

and secondly, i'm almost certain that rhizomes are the polar opposite of polar oppositions...

What I'd like for Christmas is for someone to explain to me once and for all exactly what a rhizome actually is.

Yeah, White Noise was pretty good. I've been meaning to check out some other Delillo. Any suggestions?

I wrote my final paper in one of my college classes (Contemporary American Literature) about how his kids were the only ones truly aware of what the fuck was REALLY going on and how easily adults are bombarded/influenced by the world and how this effects their actions because of fear about how they will be perceived by others ect.......I think. It's been awhile.


In terms of Roth, I've only read The Human Stain which had a pretty interesting concept.

....sorry, wasn't trying to be snide with that image.... just posting the literal definition while i deleted all the semiotics and general goofiness from this deleuze quote.... it took a while....



The rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers. ... We get the distinct feeling that we will convince no one unless we enumerate certain approximate characteristics of the rhizome. ...

1 and 2. Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be. This is very different from the tree or root, which plots a point, fixes an order. ...

3. Principle of multiplicity: ... Multiplicities are rhizomatic, and expose arborescent pseudomultiplicities for what they are. ... There are no points or positions in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree, or root. There are only lines. ... The point is that a rhizome or multiplicity never allows itself to be overcoded, never has available a supplementary dimension over and above its number of lines, that is, over and above the multiplicity of numbers attached to those lines. ...

4. Principle of asignfying rupture: ... A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines. You can never get rid of ants because they form an animal rhizome that can rebound time and again after most of it has been destroyed. ...

5 and 6. Principle of cartography and decalcomania: a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure. ...

yes but

WHAT IS IT?





what i'll venture to say without using the term as a part of the definition is that a rhizome is an epistemological model meant to supersede the discrete objects of aristotelian logic (and newtonian mechanics?) by which we ordinarily operate. in a way it's sort of an heraclitean model.

in other words, look at the world as this shit in constant flux where instead of objects you have temporary "blocks" that are forming/reforming/reconnecting from all kinds of directions & flowing out of/into others. then give it a pompous french name & write obscurely about it.

alternatively you could read this wankery:

http://www.ensemble.va.com.au/enslog.../smn_lct08.htm

where the fucka writes:
Yet as Baudrillard states in Simulation and Simulacra it is "the cartographer's mad project of the ideal coextensivity of map and territory," (Baudrillard, 1994, p.2) with all of my intention as a transdisciplanary "cartographer."

see this is what i hate; that idea of the map & the territory is from a story by borges. but borges is so much more fun-- and you can understand him! but read that and tell me-- at the end, do you know wtf is the rhizome? la la lala.

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Rhizome is. You have to see it for yourself.



....actually the simplest explanation i can think of is


rhizome = decentralized network.

see? a whole book? for that?

--
ha ha ha ha ok
don't take me (too) seriously
im just pestering you here

book? pshaw.

when the paperback edition weighs 3 pounds and has a 230 page user guide sold separately... it is a tome, my friend. a tome.

well it's 2 if you count the anti-oedipus

gross.

no i mean, i want to read them. some day. when i need to do penance for something.

damn, white noise is all of his i've read. i came across a baseball book but im not really into that so i was turned off, perhaps stupidly so.

i'm gonna check out mao II as demonrail said.

from philip roth, i own portnoy's complaint but it has always bored me. maybe it was great in the 70s, i dont know. i can't try again. maybe i will.

however, a story-- one day i was hanging out @ the local bookstore (in dc) and i started reading "the dying animal". i was completely engrossed in it but i could only read 1/2 because i had to go. didnt buy it as it had only come out in hardcover and it was something like 26 bucks that i didnt have at the time. anyway, i need to read that, i did enjoy it, philip roth in the antechamber of death, obsessed with old age and the big crunch creeping up on him. i say check it out.

the concept of a noise bomb is pretty avant garde. i don't know exactly how it would work or where i heard about it, though. i can't think of a device that could emit so many decibels that it would actually serve as a functional, destructive bomb without self destructing.

Thanks for the rhizome outlines. I do believe that a massive part of the problem is translation, given that Deleuze, like Barthes, Derrida and Lacan, is a literary stylist as much as he is a philosopher or 'theorist'. Indeed, part of the problem with the way in which such figures are absorbed into the academy is that they're taken so literally, when it's their overall attitude that is the really interesting thing about them. It's not what they say but the way that they say it. - which, ultimately, is exactly what they are saying.

no academic these days has time to read and digest a book that would take months to read. but everyone must look as if they had actually done it.

anyway,

WHAT IS A RHIZOME?

an excuse to babble and free-associate in one's analysis :D

as if for example yesterday a cow had died in india and little children threw flowers at its corpse

vagina dentata

i do stare at the computer screen and am reminded of wittgenstein: and i was looking for this quote by him which goes something like "death is there where the eyes [something] in a blue sky", but i didn't find it, but i didn't find it. i found this instead:

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language



stupid tv.

holy shit. i have become rhizomatic. no. i'm just joking.

avant-garde = some next level shit.

you sound like you're being cryptoed.

all ok?

i guess you haven't realized that the two of us are a trifecta of baller.

i hear bro rape. and a threesome.

Avant-garde has something to do with hypens, italics and quotation marks

"Does it - really?"