Dreams

I tend to have dreams of me discussing/ working out theories and ideas with people. These dreams have included:

Paul Dirac---worked out his delta function completely on my own

Jacques Lacan--talked about freudian theory/ the autre etc...oddly enough I often view things in a strongly Lacanian light...

The Foer Brothers--all of them...read How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin, and after the dream I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and then Everything is Illuminated...and some articles by Josh...odd

Alain Badiou--I was reading his book, Being and Event...and well I dreamed about meeting him and we discussed his set theory...the matheme vs poem etc...very interesting.

Oh and then i had a dream that I bought a book by Paul Celan and some other unnamed poet from a mafioso sumo wrestler-esque book shoppe owner....

Here Fishy, Fishy

So Dr. Stnaley Fish really doesn't like Continental Philosophy. Sad for him. He really doesn't like Derrida. That is a crime. This is someone who reads Derrida for fun...kicks and giggles. So I responded. He somewhat tried to address my points in his recent blog. They were:

As Derrida said, you can never escape the epoch which
 you can outline.
It seems you outline both deconstruction in America
and the enlightenment,
thus we are forever linked to both. Both “agendas”(your word) tied to our 
speech and our writing.

Perhaps this is just another example of the
Resistance to Theory which
de Man spoke of 40 years ago (what progress we have made).
This is a blatant
refusal to read the text. Despite your own unique brand of
Barthes meets Close readings,
you refuse to read the text
(which intrinsically has a
beautiful multiplicity). The construction of a
web blog on a virtual newspaper site,
if one were to read its text, would show how the flow of
information is changing as well as
offer commentary on the “give it to me now”
aspect of the modern reader.

In other words, the message of
deconstruction still hold true. 
Deconstruction itself confirms
 the hyperpolitcality of texts and affirms
our place within the
“singular of experience.”
I guess you don’t want to keep the “secret.”

— Posted by MD


Our dependence on structure seems to
be the common resistance to Deconstruction.
Deconstruction does not allow itself to “draw a box”
around it. 

Another point, Derrida
 himself questioned the Yale School of Deconstruction,
so perhaps our ideas of
 deconstruction(as it evolved in
the stone halls of
American institutions) should be questioned.
After this, maybe deconstruction
proper to Derrida and the French school should
be investigated.

— Posted by MD



Mr Fish is a critic, the gamut of
the deconstructions are theorists.
There is a large difference beyond
semantics here. Critics read to determine
aesthetic value. Theorist read for
 the play for the operations behind the work.
Fish is a critic.

If you read deconstructionist
(how I loath the word, for it in itself is empty)
 works,
you will realise how science
is actually embedded. As
Baudrillard says, we are in
 a genetic age.
Electrons must spin up
and down at once, photons can be two places at once,
current investigations into
string theory and a unified
TOE. How does this conflict with theories 
about language and readings of text.
We have begun to see not everything
exists in terms of artificial absolutes.
 Read Wittgenstein(an engineer), 
Read Godel(especially his Incompleteness)
and Seth Lloyd’s Programming the
Universe. Modern theory seems
to be moving together
in ways we wish not precisely because
lines are beginning to blur and assault the structures
which we use to define ourselves.

— Posted by MD

Funny to think I got a respected public intellectual figure to respond to me...

The Godfather

Went to my friend's cousin's oyster roast over the weekend. This said cousin is marrying into the publishing dynasty, McGraw Hill. Well, I had to go see the scion of a controller of knowledge. He rolls up in a gold Cadillac, immediately 4 huge, black, umbrellas open and shield the opening door from the rain. He emerges to be seated in his wheelchair. He is rolled, posse in tow, to the table. Dressed in a hunter green suit and cashmere sweater, dapper to the extreme. He meets the family, gives them his blessing with his hands in a pope-esque fashion and eats his pre shucked oysters. Interesting.

Coupled with being the only non-family member with no relation or friendships with the groom or bride, I was the awkward friend who ate a load of oysters and piped in with random comments. Interesting, the Connecticut people did not know how to shuck oysters and thus refrained. Perhaps it was their $750 designer jeans, silk sports coats or maybe it was those $300-500 shoes that they didn't want to injure...I do not know, but more oysters for us.

The reason I hate Faulkner is this...his stories are the stories of my family. I respect his works, his writing style, his mastery, but I hate the stories. My family is deep south decadence, falling deeper as the pages of history are turned. Mayflower to now. Ask about this, I'll write more(actualy a great story).