August 31, 2005
Two sides of perversion
While readership for Slavoj Žižek's twisty Lacanian take on The Matrix may be limited his opening paragraph is much more enjoyable than the average academic paper.
Zero-institution
Anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss made an important inference based on stories collected by Paul Radin among the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk), a First Nations tribe. A village was divided into two moieties, exogamous social groups within a community that include more than one clan. Members from each moiety were asked to make a drawing of their village. Rather than drawing a literal, plan drawing of their houses, people drew one of two distinct representations of their village. People from one moiety drew their houses organized into two concentric circles, one closer to the village centre and the other further away. People from the other moiety drew the village as circle with a single line bisecting the community.
How to make sense of these two distinct ways of representing the same community? In his paper "Do dual organizations exist?", Lévi-Strauss argues against the idea that either representation is more true or accurate than the other in comparison with a literal drawing of the village groundplan. He further argues against a cultural relativist position in which both representations would be considered equally true or that truth was dependent on the perspective of the person making the drawing. Rather, the two different stories about the village implied by the two different drawings both rely on a third, shared understanding that is never represented. While neither group agreed with the other's representation of social organization in the village, in fact producing mutually exclusive visions of how the community was organized, both groups agreed that the village community could be represented as a whole. While people disagreed about the structure of their community they shared a more important agreement that these two groups belonged to the same community. Lévi-Strauss describes this shared, unspoken common understanding as a "zero-institution". This is a kind of institution which, unlike an exogomous marriage relationship or traditional clan structure, is so taken for granted that it is generally represented only by inference through the social divisions of which it is composed.
Slavoj Žižek takes up Lévi-Strauss' argument as an illustrative example in a number of his published works (including this Matrix article). He elaborates on the anthropologist's observation by pointing out that where tradition and kinship have been superseded by modernity "the nation" (or I would say more importantly "the state") takes on the role of a zero-institution. "Liberals" and "conservatives" may have opposing, or even mutually exclusive, understandings about social organization but both groups agree they belong to a larger community that binds them together regardless of conflict and difference. In fact, from a structuralist point of view, our taken-for-granted shared community is built from the articulation of these conflicts.
This is all a somewhat roundabout way of pointing out how fundamental are our taken for granted ideas about the reality of those zero-institutions upon which we rely not only to make sense of our communities but as the binding assumptions that such communities exist at all. When fervent anti-globalization demonstrators burn the flag or brain-washed islamist dupes blow themselves to bits on the London Underground they may believe they are fighting the good fight against imperialism, the Devil or the Man. But no matter their political aims they share a belief, indeed they reinforce a belief, in the existence of an unspoken shared community of which their opposition is a part. Were it not for the outward expression of our belief in our taken for granted shared community, be it membership in the Turtle Clan or the ideological appeal of a beer commercial, we would be left with a Hobbesian war of all against all.
From all appearances, it is this latter catastrophe which faces people in much of the Gulf coast region of the United States. I have no idea what the true scope of the challenge faced by individuals, families or communities destroyed by the hurricane and its aftermath. I can only infer from problematical news reports what actions are being taken by the civil power. But to me images of looting are more troublesome than the worst horrors of bodies pulled from the wreckage of a skyscraper or a subway train. The sacrifice of a son in war, the heroism of firefighters or even the tragic mistakes of the police may seem like subjects over which our civilization is fought but they are in fact the arguments from which our civilization is built. What we glimpse in stories of families fleeing for their lives in neighbourhoods lost to barbarism is the spectre of anarchy.
It is time to start shooting looters.
Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page
The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual web search engine.
I hope his mom sees it
Quick-thinking commuter, Thao Nguyen was flashed by a creep on the New York Subway. He escaped but not before she used her camera phone to get a full face photo of the culprit.
August 30, 2005
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Max Haymes discusses hoodoo roots in the lyrics of Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Levee Camp Holler
Sylviane Diouf is right to think her audience will be skeptical at her assertion of the Muslim roots of the blues. While Levee Camp Holler may call to mind the call to prayer it seems to me that one song does not the blues make. If there is a relationship here, it seems rather more likely the call to prayer was influenced by the musical traditions of west Africa than the other way round.
New Orleans Poem
with the ashtray on her stomach,
she watched him
fumble
to put out the cigarette
with only the ember for light
and thought
how too casual a touch
can lead to
burning
Stockfleth's Prayer
By Charles Hobson.
before hanging over the side
in a lightning storm at night
to nail canvas over
a gash in the hull.)
K9
I like Rose. But K9 kicks ass.
Now I need to know how he makes it back from E-Space. With Romana II, please.
TARDIS
The TARDIS, a brief overview.
August 29, 2005
Voodoo doll
New Orleans based, Poppy Z. Brite had decided to weather the hurricane by preference to abandoning twenty-eight critters and a house full of junk food. It was only motherly intervention that convinced her to bug out. This voodoo doll, or at least its proceeds, might have come in handy.
Hurricane prayer
A prayer for the hurricane season.
Young in New Orleans
By Charles Bukowski.
and at night walking the streets for
hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was
The Ballad of the Crescent City
From Harper's Weekly, June 14, 1862.
Dwells the haughty Creole matron with her daughters and her slaves:
Round her throng the rebel knighthood, fierce of word and proud of crest,
Slightly redolent of julep, cocktail, cobbler, and the rest
Of those miscellaneous tipples that the Southern heart impel
To the mighty threats of prowess whose dread (?) fruits we know so well.
St. Charles & Napoleon
This New Orleans webcam at the corner of St. Charles & Napoleon was still functioning at the time I write this (EST 6:19 a.m.) (via Instapundit).
Hurricane names
People have been naming hurricanes for some time. Given the choice, I would much rather be swamped by Hurricane Hotlips.
August 27, 2005
Burlesque
Former S Club 7 member, Rachel Stevens posed for some slightly racey photos for Arena Magazine (warning: churlish remarks!) and, presumably after being prompted by someone's corset and garters mental association, said she would like to work with Marilyn Manson.
Well the cad was reportedly quite dismissive of the idea. But given the difference between the two artists one is forced to observe the choice between listening to an edgy, controversial act or listening to mass-produced, commodified pop music like Marilyn Manson. Just don't get him started on Harry Potter. What was that about Dita Von Teese again?
Balloon Bowl
Once you have seen someone skateboard through balloons to that satisfying popping sound you have to wonder why nobody thought of doing it before.
Wang Xingwei
I enjoy the unsettling quality of these paintings by Wang Xingwei. "Death of a Panda" and "Untitled (Penguin)" have a special creepiness (possibly nsfw due to art).
More Wang Xingwei here. I particularly like "X-Ray".
Hinterland University
Anyone teaching in the United States need only look north to understand what a true Hinterland University looks like. And anyone who can buy an "a beautiful old Italianate with 10-foot ceilings on the National Historic Register" on an adjunct's salary is obviously married to someone doing something better paid.
August 26, 2005
Agent Smith
The Flea School for Wayward Expats continues a series in rhetoric and oratory. Today's speaker is Agent Smith offering a disturbing insight into the logic of the Death Eaters both foreign and domestic. Though he does have a perverse charm. As James Lileks observed, "The director wants us to fear him – but who wouldn’t want to knock back some cold ones with Agent Smith?"
Haunted airplane
Chosun Ilbo reports some chilling tales from a haunted airplane.
Living doll
Steve Erhardt has transformed himself into a "living Ken doll" and thus achieved another step toward our somewhat alarming shared transhuman future. Though I cannot fathom the point of bicep implants. Not likely to prevent anyone from kicking sand in your face at the beach. Via the divine SondraK whose post has comments better than anything I could come up with.
London Zoo
The London Zoo is reportedly to include humans in an exhibit "to highlight the spread of man as a plague species." Ace of Base HQ comments.
The problem with the London Zoo is that apparently their biologists do not understand they themselves are animals. But that would not be their real point: humans who are not clever enough to agree with their enlightented views are the plague animals.
The problem with The Matrix, while a fun movie, is the problem with a ruinous strain of gnostic belief systems, a fundamental hatred of all human life (the linked article takes a more specific view). Agent Smith is only repeating what any Earth Firster is proud to call a political philosophy.
The Stone Age of instant messaging
Being anti-instant messaging in the first place, I am not certain what to make of Ken Fisher's review of the Google Talk beta.
I will have a better idea what I think of the product once I have tried to get my mic to work with Google Talk's VOIP capability. My feeling is the product and its competitors are only going to hook people like me once different IM systems are capable of talking to each other.
August 25, 2005
Love for Nana
PS2 have understood their target market well. Instead of playing one of the two punk girls from the popular Cookie magazine comic Nana, you get to play their neighbour. Or rather, you do if you are in Japan where this gem is going to be marketed.
But you actually don't play as these two. The game puts you in control of a person who lives next to the two Nanas, in room 707. The purpose of the game is two fold. You get to experience the storyline featured between volumes 5 and 8 of the original comic, meeting up with characters like Len, Takumi and, of course, your two next door neighbors. In addition, you also get to experience life in Tokyo, making a schedule, taking on part time jobs, buying clothes and furniture and setting up your own room.
The Love for Nana live adaptation tribute film may be available thanks to the byways of "the internet". Mainichi Daily News is on the case with crucial film details.
When asked about the part of the movie where Nakashima kisses Miyazaki to cheer her up, "We didn't find that uncomfortable. We were fine about it," the actresses answered in unison after looking at each other.
Raymi and Paris
I wonder if Raymi's dream looked anything like this Paris Hilton ad. Maybe there was a German voice-over and a delivery guy she failed to mention.
Armand Van Helden: Hear my name
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance (caution: spanking!). And watch My my my again. You know you want to.
Gothic Victorian Cocktail Bar
Flea Mansions will have one of these installed just as soon as that massive blog revenue starts rolling in.
Hello, Francesca
Hot goth women, including Shim Hye-JinJung from Acacia and Jung Ryeo-Won of Chakra K-pop fame, a luckless otaku type and a gay vampire. Korean television is kicking Canadian tv ass. Now, see, I would give rubies for a subtitled version of Hello, Francesca to be broadcast in this country. But is Canada's commitment to the cultural mosaic going to allow that? I think not.
However, a group of vampires takes the wrong ship and happens to come to Korea. On board, they run into a timid and unlucky man Doo-il. One of the vampires bites him by mistake and he becomes one of them. They promise Doo-il that they will return him into a human on the day when their leader comes to find them. He doesn't have any other choice but to live with them. They are disguised as a family of five and start new lives in Seoul. Can they really go back to their country safely when their leader comes to find them?
Comment fisking
I have not written anything about Cindy Sheehan and I do not aim to. For those who want a good dust up I suggest a post over at Gay Orbit. I think Michael is on to a blogosphere first: comment fisking! An idea whose time has come ("Clicky the linky!").
Update: Dean's World has more on the travails of hosting comments (via INDC Journal).
Update: Scrappleface offers commentary by way of an imagined response to Casey Sheehan's mother.
In a sense he died so that people like you, who passionately oppose government policies, can freely express that opposition. As you camp in Crawford, you should take off your shoes, for you stand on holy ground. This land was bought with the blood of men like your son.
Get-hits-quick
Iowahawk offers tips for starting bloggers (via Ace of Base HQ).
Al-Tajdeed Radio
William Joyce was tried and hanged, not deported. And at least he had the common sense to broadcast from Berlin. Imagine if Lord Haw-Haw had been calling for Nazi victory from a radio station based in London. These days he would probably qualify for a grant.
August 24, 2005
G Pumidius Dipilus fuit hic
I am pleased to find that, despite two-thousand years and the invention of cable television, plenty of this graffiti from Roman Pompeii is not remotely worksafe.
Kelsey Museum
This Kelsey Museum site should come in handy for all your protective magic needs. Don't miss the Babylonian demon bowl display! Some aggressive magic might also prove useful if your demon bowl is on the blink.
Junichiro Koizumi
Visions of a skeletal metal foot crushing a human skull may not keep you up at night. But then you are probably not the Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi. Though as robot attacks go, Tmsuk's effort is a bit lame.
The Yancy Street Memo
Spare a thought for Victor Von Doom, PhD, deposed president and spiritual leader of the Latverian people.
On The Line
Locked out CBC denizens have produced an on-line magazine. For what it is worth, I do not cross picket lines and reserve most of my hostility toward the Corporation* for its management. But seriously folks, as a former CUPE 3903 member I am telling you gratis that you are going to have to up your rhetorical game. If you plan to win this one, "Lockout stills CBC's Inuktitut voice" is not going to do the business.
In related news, Adrienne Arsenault can stick her solipsistic little note up her nose.
Because your labour dispute is even remotely comparable to the situation in Gaza. Or that Canadians can be anything but the wiser for want of Arsenault's skewed intervention in the matter. Talk about a "heartbreaking situation".
*So, like, if a corporation is a legal person then could the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation be a clinical psychopath? Yeah. Think about that one. High time for a paper-thin polemical documentary on the subject. I could get a grant or something. Just remember I get a creative producer credit.
August 23, 2005
Odd Einar Dørum
Norwegian Minister of Justice and Police, Odd Einar Dørum is getting into the spirit of things by attending a Tolkien parade. In costume. As a hobbit.
Atom Egoyan
Director, Atom Egoyan blames "the very conservative climate in America" for the likely reception of his latest effort, Where the Truth Lies. His concern is that an NC-17 rating would limit its box-office. Though I do wonder whether he imagines a film with "some tough violence, nudity, lesbian encounters and drug-taking" and "a sex scene involving stars Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon and the film's female lead, 29-year-old Rachel Blanchard" would have merited a PG rating under the Clinton administration. Apparently, the critical difficulty is the number of "Bacon thrusts"*.
*The Flea... soon to be number one on Google for "bacon thrusts"!
Lajos Polgar
Former senior Arrow Cross party official, Lajos Polgar is not helping his defense against accusations of war crimes. A fascinating aspect of the mind of such people is an apparent failure to understand the implication of their own clearly stated beliefs.
"After the war all the leaders were hanged, but there was not one among them who was guilty, really," Mr Polgar told The Australian. "At that time, you could not do anything because everybody was in the hands of the Jews. They just hanged them. Completely, completely innocent people."
Perhaps someone can explain to me how this man managed to claim sanctuary from justice in Australia for all these years. And why we civilized peoples should shy from hanging him now for the sole reason he has got away with it so long.
August 22, 2005
And the high heels would not trouble me in the slightest
Oh for pity's sake. I have sent smoke signals. I have stood on the shed and waved my arms about the place making ham-fisted attempts at semaphore. I have tried astral projection. And none of it. None of it has communicated my intentions toward Nicole Kidman. Perhaps posting to the blog will do the trick.
Since her divorce from Tom, who is now engaged to 26-year-old Katie Holmes, Nicole has been linked to a string of men, including rock star Lenny Kravitz, rapper Q-Tip and film producer Steve Bing. Currently single, Nicole has since admitted she is ready for love again and wants the man of her dreams to search her out. She said recently: "For the person meant to come and find me, I would say, 'Come and find me soon.'"
Wedding belle
Kylie Minogue is to marry Olivier Martinez next year. The Flea congratulates the happy couple and expresses profound relief at the good news of Kylie's continued recovery.
The pair decided to get hitched after Kylie was told by doctors she will make a full recovery and, despite intense cancer treatment, would still be able to have children.
Loser auction
Look, while I am reasonably certain a charity auction for the First Amendment Project is a good idea, I cannot imagine bidding for a chance to have my name appear in a novel. Why not just write my own novel and name everyone in it? This bloggy world we live in should have eliminated such pathetic scrambles to be "immortalized" as a bit player buried in someone else's work. That said, I would still give rubies for a cameo on Stargate: Atlantis. That's different. That's television.
Otaku
The high otaku content of the Flea may make me a hottie in Japan. Sadly, the effect seems to be lost on Canadians (via Ace of Spades SQ).
August 20, 2005
Ladytron: Playgirl
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance with the most awesome woman in the world. I don't know how corporate the site I am linking to might be so don't want to be a bandwidth bandit. So please proceed to Video Vision for the wonder that is Ladytron.
Girls of Comic-Con
So how about these guys here... you like these comic nerds? And more excellent questions (warning: Canadian content).
Saturn's rings
Saturn's rings have their own atmosphere. Who knew? It is said to resemble that of Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede.
Rent-a-cow
Asahi Shimbun
poetic rent-a-cow scheme
haikuist network.
Cow's innocent stare
calls to mind my favourite
bacon cheeseburger.
Mini Bet On Soldier
This first person shooter may proove cathartic for people who like enjoy shooting people on a weekend away from the office.
Ashford v. Thornton
The BBC seems to think the case of Ashford v. Thornton is remarkable mainly for its establishing the principle of double-jeopardy. I think it more remarkable for putting a finish to trial by combat. While in this instance it appears to have allowed a man guilty of an horrendous crime to go free it still somehow seems a pity to have done away with the practice.
Shazia Mirza
Shazia Mirza offers useful perspective on the merits of not dying a virgin. What should just be a joke is, in these interesting times, also an act of bravery (via the Jawa Report).
August 19, 2005
Monstrous visions
Visitors to Toronto from now through September 28 can stop by the Japan Foundation in scenic Yorkville for an exhibition of Japanese movie posters. "Monstrous Visions: Horror and Destruction in Japanese Films" offers a roomful of Godzilla posters collected alongside more contemporary offerings such as Battle Royale and Hellevator which I need to make time to see (hat tip to the Neighbour of the Flea).
Huckapoo: Crash the Party
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance as part of some terrifying tween brand loyalty rite.
Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy, Australia looks like an excellent bolt-hole once the Flea has to flee Annexia. Nice opals.
Trackbacks again...
My trackbacks have been wonky for some time now. It looks as though blogs receive my outgoing trackback pings but the Flea does not register incoming pings. If anyone could tell where to look under the hood it would great if I could get the engine running properly again.
Advertisers boned by the CBC
Canadians, yearning for public broadcasting and finding only the CBC, struggle on as the management riot reaches a sordid fifth day. Defying all logic, doubling the public's ration of Coronation Street and substituting CBC news gruel for BBC news great has somehow contrived to reduce audience numbers. Mandarins at the space fortress reply by throwing a bone to increasingly fidgety ad-buyers.
Still, most observers think any gains by other networks would be marginal, because the CBC represents such a small percentage of television ad revenue.
As Sun Tzu observed, best not to let media buyers remember their ad dollars are limited to the tax-payer subsidized "public" broadcaster or "private" broadcasters sheltered by regulations ostensibly meant to safe-guard state culture. The mandate of heaven smiles upon British and American reruns but for how long in a nation bereft of Wendy Mesley?