The Only Clown at the Funeral

Thought Experiment 3

2010-03-17T22:35:00.001-07:00

Thought Experiment #3,

Or,

This is the Big One

By Austin “Savagenapkin” Bridges

First Movement: The Memo Line

Yes, boys and girls, here we are at last. The End Times are come. ‘Culmination’ is partially the concept behind this last experiment, but as our thoughts and experiences progress, I can’t help it from being likewise progressive. Where am I right now? Where have I come from and through what terrain have I traversed? I suppose in order to keep going somewhere, I need to know the answers to those questions. Notice I’m not stating a precise destination, because most often the destination is irrelevant. We as humans applaud motion for the sake of motion. Moving forward, moving backward, as long as we’re going somewhere, it seems like everything is fine and dandy. Sometimes we pick up hitchhikers and stowaways as we move, and I decided to take a class about that.

I (and the class as well) went from the initial exploration of parasites and how they function as interruptions like noise, and silent puppet-masters like Toxoplasma Gondii that may or may not be influencing the things we like and what we are drawn to. We (because it’s always a ‘we’ even if it’s only a single person) might have gone a little too far out with the thought that everyone and everything is a parasite, then reeled in a little bit and focused on one specific type of parasite, the Vampire. We examined the Vampire as a sexual being and a compelling outcast that draws people in as much as it seeks people out. We reached the limits of our tolerance with Filth, allowing ourselves to sympathize with a parasite, letting us figure out who the hero and anti-hero is. In what seems like ages ago we looked at how we could do things with words, and discovered the life and opinions of a very intelligent tomcat. We wrote blogs and Waves and Plurks and thought experiments, digging, questioning, affirming, seeking, disproving, complaining, interrupting and babbling. We are here to study, think and to write on the context of Parasites.

So where are we now after these last nine weeks? What has this Tony guy done to us/allowed us to do? This is not the kind of class we can look back and say we memorized all the state capitals. We don’t take any tests for knowledge. There is no way we can simply come up with the wrong answer unless we have no answer at all. That too is also sometimes okay. We challenged the notions of what it is to be the teacher, the student, and even what it means to have ‘attended’ class. Not only with constant participation on Waves and Plurks, but also with two class times that bled into one another and had their own meta-progression. On one occasion half the Tooth Hurty class went outside in the sun to discuss vampires and quite curiously the other half (Tony and Low included) insisted on staying indoors and out of the sun. So, that’s what we’ve accomplished. That was English 203: Writing in Context: Parasites: 2:30: Winter Quarter 2010. Normal methods of understanding and quantifying a classroom experience cannot be employed here. A lot of classes center on the back and forth between teacher and student where work, under rigid guidelines, is constantly being submitted, then corrected and altered for improvement. On this level, progress and therefore a proper use of our time and money, is being made. We are then free to leave Starliner Towers. I’m not really trashing this method, it’s ingrained into me and I find it to be familiar and comforting. The first couple of times when Tony decided not to speak, I wasn’t sure quite how to react.

So yeah, it’s a different kind of class. We get that. I’ve had trouble all quarter trying to derive some kind of Meaning out of this class. I know what we’ve done, but I don’t know quite yet what I’ve gotten from the class in exchange for time, money, etc. Let me immediately accompany that statement with a follow-up: Saying “I don’t quite know yet what I’ve gotten” is not equivalent to “I didn’t get anything”. I don’t know if it’s even possible to “get nothing” from something. I’m going to say no. But this is why we have final cumulative/culminating/progressive/circular/crazypants whatever Thought Experiments to summate our experiences. It’s kind of a shame that we ~~have to~~ feel compelled to quantify an experience, because lord knows we could all benefit from “letting it be” without assigning an inherent worth and value to it. This is not the age we live in, nor will it probably ever be an age we live in. Life is short. Time is money, and we’re always short on both. So if I make this check out to ‘English 203: Parasites’, what goes on the ‘Memo’ line? For one thing, the assigned readings are always eye-opening and beneficial in any context. Reading makes you a better writer. That is something I can grasp onto. Additionally, this was all seriously challenging material. Either it was dense and highly referential to other works (The Vampire Lectures), slow-moving and dry (Tomcat Murr), just plain crazy (The Parasite), or Scottish (Filth). In grappling with literature I think we are much more inclined to make Brechtian disassociations with it (whether the work is doing that intentionally or not) and pull apart how the particular author was able to Do Things with Words. So literature is for me a quantifiable experience. Also I still largely enjoyed those books. The largest portion of the class though is wild, free, intangible thought that is constantly being stimulated and stretched through our discussions and readings and rantings and films. There isn’t necessarily a grand, universal Parasites secret to discover that rewards our experimentation and permanently ferries our thoughts from one bank to the other without losing any oxen. Therefore our thought processes can be cyclical, all over the place, or even completely inert, not changing hardly at all since the quarter began. My thoughts have been superbly stimulated throughout the quarter, and just this fact is worth the price of admission. Like an enthralling game of chess, it doesn’t matter who won or how many pieces were left on the board. Merely the sport of it all, the wild exercise of stimulation or our natural craving for intellectual pressures can be far greater than the high score of a test denoting accomplishment. That’s my memo line- “For the wild exercise of stimulation”. I’ll let the bank people figure that one out.

Second Movement: Interview with the Parasite

In preparation for this thought experiment, I sought out a deeper understanding of the parasite. This search led me to a candid interview with MARK, a tapeworm living inside the gut of a catatonic elderly man. We sat down at a Starbucks and had the following discussion.

AUSTIN: Hello, Mark.

MARK: Good afternoon, Austin. It is afternoon, correct?

A: Hahaha. That’s right Mark. It’s almost two o’clock.

M: Two? I’ve got places to be!

A: Really?

M: I’m just joshing you, man. I’m a tapeworm, remember?

A: Hahahaha Mark, you crack me up. So enough chit-chat, let’s get down to the real interview here.

M: Fire away. I’d love to help you out for your class in any way possible.

A: That’s what I like to hear. Okay, first question should be kind of easy to start us off: What is a parasite?

M: Great question, Austin, and actually more complicated than you might give it credit for. I would say that a parasite, in my defense, is simply a hungry guest. We seek to consume, Austin, and our hunger is never sated.

A: Interesting. Hunger for what, exactly?

M: Take your pick. Just about anything you can be hungry for. If you can think of it, someone or something else has it, and you’re going to take it. We all do it, man. You, me, this dump of a barely-living body I’ve been squatting in does it too. Of course we get the bad press about it because that’s pretty much our only function. We’re not pretty and we can’t create art. Gimme a break here, all I can do is eat. At least I stay so skinny.

A: Michel Serres talks about parasitism as an interruption. You didn’t mention that in your description. Any thoughts?

M: An interruption? I mean, I guess you could say that. But everything is an interruption of something else- sound interrupts quiet and vice versa. Sound interrupts more sound, and then what’s to say is even interrupting anymore? I think that definition gets too messy for my liking. I think it all comes back down to food. As Stephen Sondheim quite wonderfully puts in the musical Sweeney Todd, “The history of the world, my sweet/ is who gets eaten and who gets to eat”!

A: I never knew a parasite could be a passionate fan of musical theatre.

M: I have ears, don’t I?

A: Do you?

M: I’m not actually sure. Next question.

A: Okay. Umm, let’s see… okay, here’s one: Why do you think someone decided to make an English class about parasites?

M: Why parasites? Well, for one, your professor is a genius. Secondly, because one-hit-kill predators get all the attention. Lions, murderers, tyrannosaurus rexes, the obvious threat is so overdone and so boo-ring. Parasites are both personal and foreign, and much scarier and more interesting, am I right?

A: Yes, you’re right.

M: Seriously, what was scarier in Alien, the facehugger or the actual giant creature?

A: The Fac-

M: Of course it’s the goddamn facehugger. We’re an untapped goldmine of equal parts compulsion and revulsion. Oh- I just remembered- thirdly, are you reading Filth?

A: I just finished it a little while ago.

M: You won’t believe this, but guess what? I actually knew the tapeworm in-what’s-his-face, Bill Richardson?

A: Bruce Robertson?

M: Yeah, that’s the guy. I knew his tapeworm. Name was Brian. Crazy Scottish little bugger. Sorry about how they both ended up, though. I take that back. It’s actually a pretty dignified death for a tapeworm. I probably won’t go out that well. I’ll probably just die in a nursing home toilet somewhere. Anyway, we met at a party when my host went to Scotland. Those were the days, when he used to TAKE ME PLACES AND DO NICE THINGS! *Sigh*. Whatever, I’m cool. Hosts, right? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

A: Here’s a question I was really hoping you could answer.

M: I hope I can answer it too.

A: Do you know any Toxoplasma Gondii, and can you tell me if they control human brains?

M: Yes and unfortunately hell yes. The Toxo’s I know are total jerkwads, but they know how to mess with your head. And it ain’t just Toxoplasma in your gut, noodle, and anywhere else. We are legion, my friend. You know that show Jersey Shore? Mind-controlling parasites are the reason that show is on the air. But infected or not, you guys all love watching it, that’s what I can’t figure out.

A: We live in a weird world, what can I say. One more question, Mark.

M: Please.

A: Team Edward or Team Jacob?

M: Are you serious right now? Totally Edward. Gotta back up my bloodsuckers.

A: It’s been a delight, Mark, thank you for all your help.

M: Eat well, Austin.

A: You too, Mark.

Third Movement: My Own Best Friends

So that little excursion was pretty fun. As you might have guessed, I did not actually conduct an interview with Mark the tapeworm. In reality, Mark was busy and unavailable to meet. But it reminded me why we like doppelgangers and fracturing our psyche. As Mark, I was able to write from a different perspective and my thoughts and discoveries were able to change as a result. We like to write consistently most of the time, because that’s what we’ve been trained to do. It’s uniform, and our one voice keeps us going on a set path. We have many voices in our heads, though, and it’s liberating as a writer to break out of the single voice. It’s still us no matter what, but the ideas fall out slightly differently. I was able to play a version of myself and yet another, surprising myself all the way through. Mark said that “parasites are both personal and foreign” and I think that really represents our relationship with our hungry guests. It’s both the Self and the Other, a truly dangerous combination. What does that mean? What can I pull out of all that? The notion that we are never alone. We are always joined by voices, worms, words, organisms, advertising slogans, interruptions, and all sorts of hungry guests at our table. As a writer, as one studying English and looking for something more to derive from this wild exercise of stimulation, ~~I think~~ I know it’s that I’m never alone with me. If I get writer’s block, any of the rest of me would love to have a stab at it.

Eat well, my hungry guests.

El Blogo

2010-03-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

And out of the chaos came order. Or, in this case, more chaos. Chaos is good though, it makes me oddly happy and allows me to feel purposeful. I just finished weeks and weeks of awful, busy, also incredibly fun and rewarding hell in the form of Reefer Madness the Musical. We had a great run and I made a lot of friends. I'm also dealing with significant point losses in all of my classes as a result. My second thought experiment was hammered out fairly roughly in between runs of the show last week. I got a D+ on my last German test. I get A's and B's on German tests. I almost fell asleep during an ESCI 101 test last week. I got a 35 out of 55 on it. I've lost days of sleep and I'm more fatigued then I've even been before. This is without question the busiest nine weeks of my life. And I have also had a great time. In the last couple of days since ending our run, namely Monday through today, I've had a lot of free time. Well, of course it could be and has been spent on homework, but I mean relatively, I have a whole asston of free time. I bought Assassin's Creed 2 for the PC and have been clocking serious hours into that. Am I happier? No, not really. Now this isn't like some rant about life and happiness, or at least I don't intend for it to be, but rather about interruptions, the spice of life.

Welsh's Filth imagines a scenario where the tapeworm is more of a hero than the actual main character. I've been in a scenario where work is often more fulfilling than play. Work is the parasite of free time, or is free time a parasite of work? Is work actually our default position and free time the interruption? Who is doing all the god-damned interrupting around here? Either way, I've been interrupted a lot lately. Work and free time must therefore be as crucial and symbiotic with one another as any other parasitic relationship. I don't believe there are levels of parasitic benefit and loss. Every parasitic relationship must inherently be exactly the same, if we are to use the umbrella term 'parasitic'. Work and play cannot exist without the other, and if we translate that to the wondrous workings of the human body, 'we' certainly wouldn't exist without a whole lot of others who are hitching rides and digesting our food and telling us to like cats. The lack of a sliding scale means every host and parasite pairing is just as gravely serious and comically trivial. We're all eating at the same table, whatever the food might happen to be. Blood, skin, candy, time... mmm. Candy time. Anyway, work makes me happy and also crazy and keeps me from other work which I'd work on if I had more free time. Hmmm. I think this is the part where the fickle walls of philosophical thought begin to crumble because I guess I've arrived at the old "there is no such thing as free time, everything is just a different kind of work, continuously interrupting itself until we die" kind of thing. That's simply grand. So once again, how do we bring that back to our friendly neighborhood tapeworms, toxoplasma gondii and blood flukes? Well, that means the notion of self is a lie perpetuated by the brain to make sense of the random mishmash of organisms and parasites that make up the human body. It's Hote-Hote in here: there are no such things as parasites because there are no such things as hosts. Life is pretty balanced, and to give certain constructs an absolute hierarchy or implied roles is a defiance of the great "impalpable greyness" of it all.

Wow, this is not where I planned to end up at all.

Um, stay classy? And, uh, everything is wrong?

I need to get some sleep. Time to go to work.

Thought Experiment 2

2010-03-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Alternate Title: A Way That the Star Wars Prequels Could Have Been Better

At the end of my last thought experiment, I was left with the discovery that I needed to eventually find a thesis, but it’ll take me entire papers to reach it. I find that extremely interesting because it’s the exact opposite way I’ve learned to write papers all throughout high school. First you find a thesis, then you write a couple pages about how right you are. Of course, by the end of those papers I’ve reached a completely different level of understanding; the mind needs time to work though something, winding and wending its way through dead ends and false starts until it finds the cheese. It’s a different task entirely to start with cheese and backtrack. Often you’re just stuck in a maze with rotting cheese. Having said all that, let’s completely forget about it. I’m not going to pick off from my last experiment because I don’t remember what I was talking about and I don’t really want to open the file and read through all of that shit. I got things to do. Instead, I have a rough goal. I want to find something by the end of this paper. I only have no idea what it will be. I’ll find my questions by starting with answers. Answers, the easiest of things mankind can provide, will mostly stem from thoughts of the vampiric. That has been a popular topic in class and culture, as well as personal interest. To instantaneously narrate my own process of discovery, that last statement was an answer, leading me to a basic question that I feel can never be sufficiently answered in any capacity of human effort:

Why?

In this case, the mighty “Why” pertains to the popularity of vampirism and its culture. This isn’t a final question, this is just something to get my feet wet. Or maybe I’ll run with it all the way through. Who knows? Let’s take a look.

The closest source of information on this topic is myself. I like vampires. I think the reason I like them is that I enjoy the literary and narrative concept of corruption. Seeing a character degrade and deteriorate is incredibly compelling. The most resonating moment of corruption that instantly comes to mind is that of Prince Arthas Menethil from the game Warcraft III. Arthas is a righteous young prince when, in the name of defending his own kingdom, takes up the cursed sword Frostmourne to gain incredible power. He is instantly corrupted and twisted by Frostmourne, and kills his father, King Menethil, and his benevolent mentor, Uther the Lightbringer. I will provide a clip.

This clip, and specifically the scene with the flower pedals and the bells has resonated with me for years as a work of literary brilliance. I can’t provide a complete answer as to why, but part of it at least stems from that hollowness, the emptiness. He crushes the flower pedal--a rejection of the living world, he’s above it (or below it-either way it makes him special). Such is the allure of power, and coolness. Many (myself included) would see that scene and think that Prince Arthas is a badass. An evil badass. The cool dude in black. Darth Vader is the same way. In fact, I wish that we could’ve gotten this same superb corruption story of Prince Arthas from Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels. Arthas didn’t whine and throw a lot of shit-fit tantrums. We were on the same level with Arthas all the way until he made a few wrong decisions. We’re just as capable of making some bad choices. We’re just as tempted to be cool and to make a few Faustian Bargains in our lives. How often do we ‘sell our souls’? We get boob jobs and botox to look younger for longer, and all we have to do is trade away a little part of ourselves. Sounds kind of like vampirism to me. How many of us are tempted to trade away our souls to live forever, stay beautiful, and maintain power over the ignorant masses? How many of us these days would trade away their bodies to live on the planet Pandora with the Na’vi? Vampires may be frightening to us for the covert sexual thrall they could command over us (something’s often scarier when you can’t see it), but we think they’re cool because we have a lust for power (and blood). ‘Coolness’ is of course only a recent redefinition of class and caste systems. Someone wealthy and powerful, like say a Count, Prince, or Dark Lord of the Sith all look good in black. The allure of the badass, the anti-hero, or the vampire is that of wish-fulfillment: those characters must inherently be us to begin with, but corruption changes and distorts us. Physical distortion or discoloration is often a crucial part of it. Vampires are pale, Prince Arthas’ hair turned white, the Emperor from Star Wars is wrinkly and pale. As you can see, beauty doesn’t often result from it, but power is sexy (or you have the power to seem sexy), and we try to ignore or don’t see the ugly bits. Even Botox and boob jobs have extremely ugly procedures. Robert Pattinson’s Edward may have the ladies aflutter, but he doesn’t look so hot when he’s draining a rat carcass for its blood. I’m getting a little off-track here because I mentioned ‘wish-fulfillment’ and I wanted to address that. We all sometimes want to punch somebody, and these characters get to do that. Han Solo shoots Greedo first. They (and by proxy ‘we’) get to be unforgiving, cold, irresponsible, and irresistible. The most recent trend of “good” vampires seems to be about making the vampire into more of a romantic (in all definitions of the word) figure than an identifiable anti-hero. While vampires have always been about lust (for blood, power, sex, all three are the same) but now that lust has been curbed, domesticated, and straightened out. To make a few (potentially unfair and over-generalized) gender-based assumptions, the idea of the tamed, domesticated vampire is a female fantasy. Women have tamed the ‘wild man’ with his instincts and urges, to be monogamous and loyal, smolderingly attractive, and they stay young forever so they’ll never grow old and fat, nor will they ever die before the woman and leave them alone. The vampire remains powerful and tortured, with the ability to help the woman physically, yet be helped by the woman emotionally. He’s just about the perfect partner. A wild, feral vampire doesn’t quite have the same allure. Gender and vampires have a lot to do with each other. Having just spoken on the male castration of the ‘good’ vampire, many have stated that the Twilight novels are degrading to women’s rights and quite unashamedly promote Mormon values like abstinence and traditional gender roles. Having not read the books, I’m tentatively inclined to agree with them. They were still written by a woman, and I think it’s completely possible that both elements exist together.

Well, that was quite interesting, wasn’t it? That’s where I am now. These were my thoughts.

Writer's Blo(g)ck

2010-02-17T23:28:00.000-08:00

So here I am once again for another blog, feeling like I haven't had enough Parasites classes since last week to generate any new ideas. I've been sick since Friday and my energy is depleted in all departments. My mind and body have also fallen prey to what I like to call 'Post-Midterm Apathy Syndrome' whereas an individual simply cannot maintain the same level of enthusiasm he or she once maintained in the halcyon days of the quarter. All of these things are by no means an excuse, simply a context within which I will attempt to do my duty of communicating thought this evening. The understood fodder for discussion outside of general classroom discussion and provocation (which as I mentioned before, I feel I have not had enough of due to missing class last Wednesday and not having it on Monday) is that book we've been reading, Michel Serres' The Parasite. The sheer difficulty of the book (I stopped myself from almost calling it a novel) has honestly just about stifled my interest in making parasitical philosophical discussions. I will explain that. I have no doubt as to the intellectual prowess of Michel Serres, and I'm sure it was way better in French, but I couldn't stand The Parasite as a digestible reading. Because the theories, while often interesting, are so all over the place and convoluted, I feel like there's very little left that I can say about parasites. Serres is an intellectual juggernaut and he wrote 300 pages all about parasites and he covers quite a lot of ground. It's hard for me to feel qualified to enter the discussion. I know that's totally not true and I have a valid opinion yadda yadda yadda, but I'm nevertheless stymied. My hatred and fear of repeating what's already been said reminds me that ignorance is sometimes bliss. So maybe I'm right, and Serres has said quite a lot about parasites and therefore I think I should let that discussion cool on the windowsill. Hmm. Now that I'm thinking of pie, I'm going to run with a pie metaphor.

We just watched Serres create a cherry pie from scratch and then bake it. We've been discussing cherry pie all quarter, and Serres is really good at it. I don't really want to bake another cherry pie right now. What would be the point, anyway? First I need to let Serres' pie cool, and then eat it and critique the taste, method, and ingredients. Or maybe reading the book was eating the pie and now I'm full. I think I've lost the metaphor.

The point is, I'm processing the dense, dense thicket of information in The Parasite the best I can for the time given. I would have loved to have a week to digest every chapter and re-read it and really try to understand what Serres is trying to communicate. Unfortunately I wasn't so good at that. I have absolutely picked up a greater understanding of parasites, the ways in which they operate and where they hang out after school. There's just so much to unpack. Usually a good place to start with literary analysis is with the plot structure and character arcs. With Serres, the lack of a narrative structure is confounding. However, it still has a deliberate linear structure. There has to be a reason why one chapter went before another and why it's broken up into parts. This is still difficult to discuss. It's hard to talk about the text as a whole because there's very little consistency. Only a few things carry over intact from one chapter to the next. It's clear to me that I need a different language or algorithm or something to pick apart an extensive philosophical text. It's not like anything I've read before. We're gonna need a bigger boat.

Cuteness

2010-02-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

I spoke to the class last week about cuteness. Attractiveness. The arrangement of features that somehow resonate with a code in our brain that causes us to like something. We want to take it home and let it in. Or, since we're watching vampire movies, "invite it in". A bad parasite appears repulsive therefore creating barriers and mental resistance from the host. This means they have to get messy or sneaky and force their way in. But the body is still opposed to it. Toxoplasma Gondii is not a bad parasite. By the way, I'm talking about 'bad' and 'good' relative to their jobs, not the black and white moral sense of good and bad. I'm not really prepared to discuss that tonight. Anyhow, Toxoplasma Gondii can theoretically make you like cats. This proves to be very successful for them, as it gives Toxo a way in. I like to think that a parasite is not as much "eating beside" but instead "eating inside". Good parasites make us come to them. What's a greater display of power than playing it cool and letting everyone else do your work for you? I don't even need to mention that vampires, attractiveness and parasitism go together quite often. A certain sparkle-eyed Forks resident is only the latest and certainly not the last of attractive parasites. The Femme Fatale, and whatever the male version of that is (ladykiller?) are age old tropes we've had in our culture for years. Homer used it in The Odyssey, seen here updated by the Cohen's 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

Why is it so popular to be double-crossed and swindled by some pretty looker? Because it's so effective. We seek it out. We're drawn to it. Blood flukes are about as successful as the XFL compared to the attractive parasite.

I'm wrestling now. There is wrestling being done.

Because I'm in that space again where I don't know if I've sidestepped the concept or not. Is it still a parasite if we let it in? Where is that distinction? Where is the difference between making a choice on our own will and being affected as to invite the vampire in? The sirens lure, but one must still bite the hook. Of course, we don't think there's going to be a hook where we seek out a juicy treat. So yeah, that's still parasitism in my book. I feel like deception is a fundamental element of my parasitism Litmus test. If we knew fully well what we were getting into and still sought it out, then there has to be something we gain from this relationship. Suddenly, the scale tips towards mutualism. Twilight's Bella Swan seems fairly aware of all the quirks of dating Casper the Friendly Vampire, so I'm crossing that off the list. The Horror of Dracula has a lot more unsuspecting victims. Not to mention females who are utterly powerless to do anything whatsoever. It's really refreshing to see something today (or ten years ago, to be more accurate) like Buffy the Vampire Slayer after something like that Dracula film. Ok, I might or might not have the entirety of the Buffy series on DVD. I might or might not be a big fan of that show. Who knows? It's a mystery. I'll never tell. Side note: "I'll Never Tell" is also the name of a song on the Buffy musical episode in season 6. I um, don't know how I got that information.

Mahatma Gondii

2010-01-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-19T15:15:00.001-08:00

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

2010-01-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

Honka Honka

2010-01-11T23:14:00.000-08:00

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