Mahatma Gondii

Good evening. Feel free to take a seat. I'm going to talk for a little while.

For tonight's edition of this, the Second of Blog Assignments (is that correct? I feel that there has been some confusion with the amount of blogs happening) I shall detail the things that have happened in my brain since the last correspondence.

And things are happening in my brain.

You will have to excuse me, however, as I'm trying to subdivide thoughts into A) Blog material, and B) Thought Experiment material. I have a dreadful fear of repeating myself and I don't wish to commit this in the near future. I also don't want to go too far into Tomcat Murr tonight because I'm not quite done with it and I want to re-approach it with a cohesive comprehension of the full text. So I'm feeling around in the noggin bucket to see if there are some tasty morsels to expound upon. You know what? Let's just scrape the top of my brain and see what comes off.

I'm really starting to like parasites.

Allow me to back that up. The application of dictionary-defined parasitism has been thrown around liberally this quarter and initially I found this irritating; not everything is a parasite, and making as many claims lessen the significance of 'for-realsies', traditional, creepy-crawly parasites, right?

Nope, your other left. It's opposite. Almost everything is a parasite to something else in one way or the other, and this makes parasitism super-important as a result. Our behaviors as humans, friends, lovers, sign painters, hockey players, porno fluffers, clergy, etc. are often parasitic. Okay, yes, it can be a matter of perception, some see it and others don't, so why bring it up? There's this tricky thing with deconstruction where (and I feel this sometimes happens in class) you can take apart so many pieces you're not left with anything useful. I want to keep some structure to my deconstruction. Anyway, the prevalence of parasitic behavior in this wide, wonderful world of ours means that we are not so different from blood flukes and tapeworms. The way that corporate executive extorted money from all those people (which one, right? There are so many) is a terrible, base, but totally human thing to do. It is just as primal to us as it is to that tape worm. Living is good. We would kinda maybe totally harm other people so that we can keep doing it. Hark! What is this? Perhaps what scares us about those 'creepy crawlies' is not how inhuman they are, but instead frightening because of how much they're like us. Just...tiny and invisible.

I'm going to set that thought down and let it breathe for a while.

I feel like the widened scope of parasitism has freed me up a little so that I can think more freely without having to worry about staying on "the context of parasites". If I do some free-form thinking, like what we do a lot in class, it might just naturally lead back into parasitism, and in new and interesting ways to boot.

Today we talked about Apple’s new iPad and the profound human need for ‘new’ stimuli. If Steve Jobs using a performative utterance in saying something is ‘new’ makes you want to buy it, then that urge is a testament to the pervasive need of the Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Mother Nature certainly had the start of that concept, but will an iPad help you outrun a saber-toothed tiger? Yeah, I’m sure there’s an app for that.

I’ve become incredibly technology dependant. Specifically, computer and internet dependant. I play computer games to relax and put off doing anything resembling productivity. Many games exert such a steely grip on me that I cannot imagine doing any other activity until I have resolved that urge. Maybe I’m gripping to it instead. There is gripping in general, I will say. Of course this is similar to drug addiction in several ways, but don’t we all have something we’re addicted to? I can attest that I do not drink coffee, nor consume caffeine on a regular basis. So technology, video games and facebook are only a means to an end for a craving personality. Can we then conclude perhaps that if we seek out a parasite it no longer becomes a parasite? In “The Intruder”, the point is made that one is not intruding if they are expected and welcomed. But how are we to know what we are legitimately seeking out? If we’re talking about Toxoplasma Gondii, then our decision-making process is partially controlled by the parasite.

To bring it back to our technology cravings, perhaps it’s not human nature one-hundred percent of the time. Steve Jobs is putting “iToxo” parasites in our bodies with slideshow presentations of sleek, well-designed and multi-functional products to modify our desires to suit his needs. Ok, backing up: advertising is so, so Toxoplasma Gondii. That must be why they call them “Mad Men”.

On Interruptions, Part 2

After detailing a whole mess of things in Part 1, I started to wonder where I can go from there. I'm not entirely dismissing the Austin and Derrida readings, I'm just currently not able to confidently apply them to what we are talking about. As I remember Tony saying, we will never be 'done' with those works. Right now I think they're interrupting, as I established in Part Uno. So now that I've spent all my time talking about what we've been interrupted with, I guess I should touch on the intended subject (of course, anything in class or vaguely related to our topics is fair game, even if it's about being interrupted from talking about said fair game. That's also fair game. Allow me to scoop my brains from off the floor and put them back into my head).

The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper (hello, word count).

From the fraction of the book I have read, I can't predict how things will change in the coming pages, but right now I don't think the interruptions of Kreisler's story are parasitic at all. They are certainly interruptions, but seem to be nothing but sheer benefit to understanding our dapper Tomcat. Kreisler's pages define additional fragments of Murr's world which makes the entire piece work as a single story. This is a symbiotic relationship, not parasitic. If you look at Tomcat Murr as John Hurt's character in "Alien", then the Alien Johannes Kreisler is secretly building and developing within. However, it doesn't take away from any of the narrative Murr has already written. Kreisler doesn't erupt from the belly and kill or injure the host. After the Kreisler pieces, Murr's text is completed where last left off.

So it's less of this:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Craziest F#?king Thing I've Ever Heard - Tongue-Eating Parasite
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

And more like this:

So that Kreisler is hitching a ride on Murr's underbelly, where he will help Murr by eating his ticks (who are actual parasites!)

That's all I've been pondering as of late.

Youtube Poem

I did a Youtube Poem a couple days ago on Plurk, but I guess it should to be up here as well.

http://www.plurk.com/p/3ecktf

Again and Again

I See You

In My Place

In the Waiting Line

Move Bitch

Still

The Dress Looks Nice on You

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off.

On Interruptions, Part 1

So I've been thinking for quite a while about how to summate a few frustrations I've been feeling about the class, which led me to a moment of clarity. I hesitate to say 'understanding', because 'understanding' is something of a pejorative term in the context of our class. 'Context', however, brings me to the center of my metafictional mindfuck.

I am but a simple man. In life I seek little else than the ability to make silly jokes and get paid for said ability. I don't tend to philosophize merely for the sake of philosophizing. Frankly, I find it a largely pointless endeavor. If one continues to answer a question with another question, at some point I'd think one would need to start making statements. I'm not talking about J.L. Austin statements either, but I will most assuredly get to my name doppelgaenger in due time. I like to look back at the big picture (i.e. "Parasites") and feel like everything I'm doing should naturally feed into that context. If I must speculate about something that I feel is unrelated to the "P" word, I start to wonder what the point of everything is.

Now, I realize we can start taking my statements here and turn them into big meta-questions, like "what is the point of everything?" but I don't feel like you can go anywhere with those questions right now. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make. I think it's great that we're challenging the binaries of what a class is supposed to be, and it's opening my mind as to what a classroom environment can and doesn't have to be, but at the same time, water without a cup is just water all over the table. Our restrictions can become a great way to channel our highly capable resources of thought.

So those were my initial thoughts, my initial resistance to the open formula. Entering the class felt like playing the game of Mao: Nobody tells you the rules and everyone else seems to know how to play. So I felt slightly embittered. Additionally so when I attempted to read J.L. Austin and Derrida. I hungered for purpose in these readings. Where are the Parasites? When will performative utterances become a metaphor for Blood Flukes? I saw no connection as I understood (and I'm using that word deliberately) and I would not try to make a square peg fit in a round hole. Austin (which is also my name, make of that what you will) provides interesting thoughts on the power of words in what I guess is "Linguistic Philosophy". It's powerful for all writers to realize, well, "how to do things with words". I don't even know how to start on Derrida. I'm sure it's great. But again, where are the Parasites? In the words of Tom, "Let me have it!"

And I got it.

As Tony says, this class is about interruptions. This class is about parasitism. It's about the Other that disrupts loudly (see "Alien" or "Shivers") or secretly embeds itself within your Context (your life, your body, the title of your English 203 class) and takes that context away, little by little. J.L. Austin and Derrida are parasites from the topic of Parasitism. As I said before, it's a Metafictional Mindfuck. Uh oh! And yet, this was an "Oh yes!" for me. It is a way for me justify the context of the context of the- well, somewhere in there it makes sense to me now. We're enacting our own purpose. It's brilliant. Parasitism is everywhere. It's an interesting thing to talk about. It's also both incredibly broad and debilitatingly narrow. Now I just have to see how far back or close up we're focusing.

I'll leave you with this:

Pagliacci Ain't Got Shit on This

Honka Honka

Greetings, intrepid readers. My other posts might approach something like "expounding" in their nature, but this is merely a welcome mat for an eventual house, built entirely out of Georgia font and pretentiousness. So put on your ironic squeaky shoes and join The Only Clown at the Funeral for a text-based adventure you'll cherish for the rest of your natural lives.

Cheers,

Austin