Reflexivity

Anecdotes:

We saw a strange movie the other night. I was wildly amused: although bored at times and put off by some of the surrealism, I recognized much that is familiar in Synecdoche, NY. By “familiar,” I do not mean flattering, but I have to admit that I could see myself, my logic, and some of my life experience reflected in the mangle of enactments and re-enactments. The funniest part, however, was the company with whom I saw the film – I knew they were suffering through on my account and I love them for it.

Another day:

“You like to fight,” she said, and continued: “I don’t.”

Not really, I thought about the first. I know, about the second.


“I’m a magnet for conflict,” I told some friends later in the day. “Do you really think so?” they asked. I do. It’s the concept of valence; whether I want to be or not, my attention is drawn to tension. The more others try to get by, pass, or otherwise slide around it, the larger it looms in my consciousness. What, I begin to wonder, is so bad or terrible or fearful or otherwise so undesirable that someone would prefer to ignore it?

Sometimes I feel trapped, as I watch others “read” me, attributing their meanings to what I say, to what I’m doing. I understand that they perceive me making things worse, yet I only say the things that I say because I perceive it as a contribution along a path to resolution.

“You have a balanced head,” the photographer said.

“People pick out only one part,” he said, “but the overall, the whole, is balanced.” I never saw this man before, he knows nothing about me and didn’t ask. But I felt seen. “Artists,” a friend later scoffed, teasing me about how easily I was seduced, “they know just what to say to get what they want!” Maybe. It was quite an experience, though, in the moment, before and after listening to four piano pieces that sorted, scattered, and then re-organized my consciousness.

The concert began with Sonate in sol groot by Franz Schubert (opus 78, D894, 1826), played by Charlotte Otte. The familiar enough romantic classicism enabled my thinking to settle, slowly sorting and separating the intertwined threads of a book review, a job application, an upcoming presentation, the beginnings of the dissertation, and a chapter for an unrelated publication… so many ideas to be placed, positioned in counterpart and harmony, composed to produce a whole…

Then came Schonberg. The dodecaphony destroyed my ability to conceptualize, not that I had been thinking in any concentrated or focused way before, its just that I had been aware of thoughts and now there were none! Jasper Vanpaemel’s rendition of the Cinq pieces pour piano (opus 23, 1923) wrenched me out of myself. Next he played Etude nr 4 (1999) by Pascal Dusapin: the minimalism allowed the neurons in my brain to resume firing in a more-or-less normal manner. Finally, during the last piece, Variationen uber Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (1862) by Franz Liszt, my mind felt whole again, recomposed.

egg sightings and guerilla gardening

• Sacred comedy offers its own rich twist on these, the lingering last days. What was I doing with my head on the ground, nestled among last fall’s composting leaves and this spring’s still fresh green shoots?!
• Did I actually hit the right note (!), “consecrating the tonality” of Do, Re, Me as I learned about the socialized difference between 7 and 12 tone scales?
• How bad/boring is The Sound of Music? (”It’s 50 years old!” Ah, the troubles of teaching (some) young people today – they want to absorb videos passively rather than actually think!)

no conclusions
Interactions with different individuals, across generations, nationalities, and contexts … yet similar themes (or at least references) emerge. I find myself betwixt and between, too aware or completely clueless. Sometimes, paradoxically, both at the same time.

Thanks to all who teach me, reflecting back the many parts of myself.
It isn’t all – or only – narcissim!

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Language is a force.
Language names, and by naming, it calls into being. This is how social reality is constructed and maintained. I think it is an effect of quantum mechanics, but smarter minds than mine are needed to make the connections in a compelling scientific manner.
Last fall I wrote a post on some dynamics of dialogue and discourse, in which I engaged with ideas of a discursive psychologist, Michel Billig.

The core of the argument laid out by Michael Billig (in the articles from Discourse and Society 2008, Vol. 19, Issue 6) is that we who think in terms of critical discourse analysis (CDA) need to be acutely aware of our own uses of language, lest we repeat some of the very elements of language use that we critique in others. Billig’s concern is with social scientific language in general; he selects CDA for heuristic and practical purposes: “It should be a major issue for analysts who stress the pivotal role of language in the reproduction of ideology, inequality and power” (p. 784).

In particular, Billig goes after the academic/theoretical use of nominalization, which is a shorthand way of condensing a particular dynamical concept (something with a lot of parts) into a single term. Debate over costs and benefits of using nominalization seem to swing on the temporal grounding of interlocutors. I’m thinking at the mundane level as well as at level of ideological reproduction. For instance, does saying something about (i.e., naming) tensions in a friendship necessarily make them worse or can it provide a means to shift footings? At the precise moment of making the utterance, there may be a spike in bad feelings – all that tension concentrated and released in the acts of speaking and hearing. But I think that it is what comes next (at least, so I hope) that becomes determinative for the subsequent unfolding. When nominalization is at play, Billig argues there is a tendency to depersonalize behavior or action such that individual contributions to whatever unfolds are lost to perception. So the pattern of tensions enacted when one or another party to the tension actually says something directly about the presence or evidence of tension becomes bigger than the minute social interactions that compose it. The pattern itself becomes “the thing”, and individuals are simply swept up in it, all agency erased.
The question is, when things are not going the way one wishes, what next? I watched an interesting video on the synthesis of happiness this morning (20 minutes long) which argues that if we assume irretrievability, then we enhance our capacity to choose happiness. I’m wondering if this basic precept – that’s what done is done and can’t be changed – could guide many other choices, including the ways we respond when we find ourselves seemingly trapped in a discourse that we don’t necessarily want. I believe it is the element of acknowledgment that I am finding most attractive. Perhaps my general communicative strategy is to reduce uncertainty (see What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous) in order to make choices clear.
Perhaps.

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A year ago, I marked a confluence of transitions. How many times, I continue to wonder, can one bounce back from failure? I also consider, if failure (however conceived) has lead me here . . .

I am full of reflections and anticipations.

So what if the museum is closed on Tuesday? (Familiar.) I think I’m gonna have to order “The Lives of Einstein.”
I got enough of a buzz from the outdoor displays. Auguste de la Rive’s ideas about the Aurora Borealis, for instance, were half correct: they do result from a combination of magnetism (strongest at the earth’s poles) and electricity. He was only wrong about the origins of the involved electricity – not terrestrial, but from the larger cosmos. Marc-Auguste Pictet was involved in negotiations concerning the establishment of the prime meridian, and Jean-Robert Chovet (unlike yours truly) was known for his diplomatic skill and (similar to yours truly) believed “more weight should be given to lay people in the management of the Academy” (emphasis added, and – in addition to esteemed institutions of higher learning, many domains could be substituted in place of the organizational forebear of the University of Geneva). (Time, by the way, to read Descartes: Discourse on the Method. And do you think it is remotely possible for a person to function like a gnomon?)
As it turned out, I did not travel by water taxi across the lake to the Jardin Anglais to see the flower clock or the Musee de l’Horlogerie (which may or may not have been open). I did, however, wander through the Jardin Botanique spying all manner of flower, plant, and tree, not to mention several varieties of parrot, swans, geese, flamingos, and ducks, including some fantastically-plumaged Mandarin Ducks and Indian Peafowl. For spice, there were also Hermann’s Tortoises and Fallow Deer.
In case there was any danger of not living up to full nerdist credentials, I spent several hours writing (a book review, hopefully coming soon), during which I fielded delightful communiques from dearest friends and family. Whatever shadows thought to threaten the day were readily banished and I’ve just got the feeling that the coming second year after the cutting will proceed in more-or-less similar fashion as this one just passed.
At any rate, here’s hoping!

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