November 2007
The Key to Reserva
Using three pages of a Hitchcock screenplay, Martin Scorcese takes up the project “as Hitchcock.” It’s fairly well done. (Via Daring Fireball.)
The U.S.S.R. is Back (on Clothing Racks)
The New York Times:
Unlike the Americana of Ralph Lauren, with his easeful style informed by the Ivy League, Mr. Simachev’s evocation of motherland style often provocatively incorporates jingoistic elements. In the past four years, he has designed collections inspired by the war in Chechnya, the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Soviet Navy and, this season, Moscow criminal gangs of the 1990s.
If there’s one amazing legacy the Soviets left behind, it was their impeccable taste in fashion.
Update: A similar article appeared on Bloomberg.com yesterday entitled “Stalin Back in Vogue as Putin Endorses History-Book Nostalgia.” (Thanks to Dlaz.)
Ike and Tina’s Nutbush City Limits
Great performance, and what a weird guitar.
Believe it or not…
This is the best example of unintentional self-parody I’ve ever seen. Or as Wonkette states “the best shit ever”:
(Via Wonkette.)
Poetry: Test of the Geneticists
Hmmm… well it’s not the good one I’m working on, but you didn’t pay for it anyway, so this will do for now.
Homosexuality, Ideology and the “Vanishing Mediator” in Contemporary Cinema
In this post I’d like to deal with an interesting topic that’s probably been discussed at great length and in better prose by far more accomplished “intellectuals” than myself: homosexuality in contemporary cinema. But, I think a certain “twist” needs to be added, perhaps even a “double twist.” I’d like to explore the Hegelian notion of the “vanishing mediator,” a concept largely attributed to the highly influential American literary critic Frederic Jameson, as it relates to this topic of homosexuality, and moreover, how “vanishing mediators” come to be seen as either intended or unintended consequences of ideology: to make it more concrete, in the case of the former, an intended critique of ideology and in the latter an “unintended consequence,” to use the parlance of neoliberalism, of a film’s structural flaws due to underlying, unstated ideological propositions. Hence, on the one hand, this motif of the “vanishing mediator” qua homosexuality in contemporary cinema appears to be structurally homologous; indeed, a superficial analysis might perform a kind of reductio ad absurdum, yet, as I’ve just outlined, the themes and messages can be practically the opposite. I’d like to focus primarily on Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen (2006) and Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también (2001), but I’ll also briefly touch on Casablanca (1942).
Read more on Homosexuality, Ideology and the “Vanishing Mediator” in Contemporary Cinema…
Ripley’s Glam
I was doing some “research” on Patricia Highsmith and I came across this ingenious post over at K-Punk, a site that I’ve never been to but have somehow peripherally heard about. It’s essentially a dialectical synthesis between critical theory and Advanced theory, so you can see why I would absolutely urge our visitors to read it.
The Gypsies’ Whorehouse
I just obtained a full copy of Bob Dylan’s Renaldo and Clara so in celebration here is a short clip that I found on YouTube.
I also have a few other things of interest:
The Various Works of Michel Gondry
With the frightening lack of genuine material being generated by American popular culture, these videos helped restore my faith in artistic expression.
Let Forever Be - Chemical Brothers
Around the World - Daft Punk
Sugar Water - Cibo Matto
1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die
The Guardian is in the process of putting up an interesting list of albums. I know I’ve found a few I’m going to look into. Now if only Oink.cd was still around…
Zach’s Ride
Filmed on location in Seattle. Play it loud.
Not The Daily Show, With Some Writers
A short Daily Show-style video written by some of its writers on the WGA strike. John Oliver makes a great appearance. Check it out:
(Via Daring Fireball.)
The Disturbing Sounds of the Turkish March
In typical fashion of hunting down new articles that Zizek is publishing, partly for the purposes of cataloguing them, partly in the hope that anonymous Internet people are reading them, I present you with this new article just recently published in In These Times. It would be pointless to quote since it covers a breadth of topics, including “militaristic pacifism,” Iran, Turkey, the European Union, Beethoven’s Ninth, global capitalism and T.S. Eliot, but suffice it to say that it’s extremely worth reading, perhaps more so than the review of Simon Chritchley’s Infinitely Demanding posted over at the LRB (at least I think so).
Resistance is Surrender
Slavoj Zizek, writing for the London Review of Books:
The lesson here is that the truly subversive thing is not to insist on ‘infinite’ demands we know those in power cannot fulfil. Since they know that we know it, such an ‘infinitely demanding’ attitude presents no problem for those in power: ‘So wonderful that, with your critical demands, you remind us what kind of world we would all like to live in. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where we have to make do with what is possible.’ The thing to do is, on the contrary, to bombard those in power with strategically well-selected, precise, finite demands, which can’t be met with the same excuse.
A good thing to keep in mind, considering that failure is an option. Also read Jodi Dean’s analysis for a decent breakdown of the argument.
(Via The Weblog.)
Failure Is an Option
Hey, I’m in the paper. This article talks about Rachael Brown’s art project– theoretically she’s a staff writer, but there’s little evidence of that. Anyway, congratulations all around.
Indeed, the students brim with enthusiasm, contributing their diverse skills: Mark Cullen, a 20-year-old guitarist, will compose songs based on local failures — all anonymously written by Break Even customers. (The model failure on display came from a teacher, whose student claimed in writing to be a “perfectoinist”). The failures are being kept a secret until Cullen performs the songs this Friday night (Nov. 9).
While most of that is correct, there are two slight issues I would raise with it: 1. I turned 21 today. 2. I’m not much of a guitarist. I would’ve preferred songwriter (although to be fair i’m not much of a songwriter either, but I’m fairly certain I’m not going to satisfy anyone looking for guitar artistry.)
Also, there will be a bigger performance on the 16th, when several local acts will be performing songs based on the personal failures that were submitted.
For Your Consideration: 70’s British Blues
The Faces - Stay With Me
Led Zeppelin - Black Dog
The Rolling Stones - Tumblin’ Dice
David Bowie - Moonage Daydream
Rory Gallagher (Taste)- Gambling Blues
John Lennon (Plastic Ono Band) - New York City
Writer’s Strike Breakdown
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report:
Both shows air on Viacom’s Comedy Central cable channel and would likely be replaced by reruns for a period if a strike happened. But the company does not expect much of its other television programming to be affected. - (Via MSNBC.)
The Pirate Bay Sponsors Rock Band
TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay is featuring the Swedish glam rock band “Lamont” on their frontpage. Unlike the major record labels, Lamont recognizes the power of filesharing and they give away their album for free. Not without success, over 100,000 people downloaded their album in less than 24 hours, numbers that other artists can only dream of.
Advanced.
Musharraf Declares Emergency Rule
Gen. Pervez Musharraf:
WHEREAS a situation has thus arisen where the Government of the country cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution and as the Constitution provides no solution for this situation, there is no way out except through emergent and extraordinary measures;
Is it not the case, however, that this very action, with its emphasis on restoring law and order and “balance” qua balance of powers, in fact serves to radically undermine it by exposing within it the law’s own inherent deadlock? Law qua law, which is “ex-timate” to itself, acted out by the object-instrument of state authority and retroactively justified on the basis of “subjects supposed to believe” (in this case, in the constitution, modernity, etc.), rather illustrates the very lack of belief among those upon whom belief has been a priori conferred-displaced. In that sense, in a kind of Hegelian direct coincidence of the opposites, this action shows law as unlawful, as its pure opposite. By the same token, the so-called “war on terror” can be read in a similar way: the very act of fighting terror by means that can be most certainly evoked and defined as terror par excellence, results in the promotion and exponentiation of the very activity that it seeks to destroy.
The more interesting principle or perhaps idea to be drawn from this conclusion, however, is not the simple obvious one: that law must only serve itself as long as it doesn’t exceed itself, transgressing into a territory outside the bounds of its symbolic space (what one would call “unlawful”), but instead that law, as a concept and in application, is inherently unlawful, i.e., that it relies upon an initial wound, or cut, of the unlawful, in order to justify itself as legitimate. Perhaps that’s why “founding violences” of states are so prevalent and mysterious in all of their noumenal Real status.
Lacanian Ink, Issue 30
…is out.
Ron Paul Secures The Crucial Neo-Nazi Vote
StormFront:
Do patriotic White Americans finally have a candidate they can vote for without fear of being sold out again?
It appears they do! Finally a candidate that White America can agree on, without selling us down river to those damn, dirty Mexicans and their “chalupas” and “piñatas.” Learn all about the Jewish conspiracy, protecting European values and — not intending to be overly caustic — the greatness of the German Reich, over at White Civil Rights.
Go Ron Paul!