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“People can’t distinguish, it seems, between describing dissent and being dissent.” Celia Farber, journalist for Harper’s, in an article about the link between HIV and AIDS, which she reports is questioned by some.
I’ve no clue about that debate, but I do know that publicly voicing concerns about possible disagreements is punishable. How to pursue a line of critique without succumbing to personally-directed aggression is the challenge. I’ve actually managed some humor this time around, trying to enact Burke’s comic frame instead of the tragic one. We did it in Stephen’s class some time back, when Shannon presented on defamiliarization. In particular I’ll repeat the quote on perception; it uses vision as a metaphor:
“Humans, too, are victims of selective blindness. We often fail to see things around us because they are too familiar and seem to convey no new information, or because we are focusing our attention elsewhere. We don’t know nearly enough about attention though it’s a vital survival function. Visual attention seems to be a pair of processes. The first, the process of focusing on a stimulus or idea, has received a lot of research. The other equally important process involves concurrent decisions about which stimuli to ignore. Let me emphasize that. Visual attention is always partly, and often largely, selective blindness to other stimuli considered to be irrelevant at the moment” (from How a Poet Sees).
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I mentioned reading Derrida (slowly); his subject is Nietzsche (slower still). “…do we hear, do we understand each other already with another ear?” (1985:35).
Derrida is discussing the inversion of Nietzsche into Naziism, in which “what passes elsewhere for the ’same’ utterance says exactly the opposite and corresponds instead to the inverse, to the reactive inversion of the very thing it mimes” (30). He goes on to discuss how language is always “the double of the other”, that “the one can always be the other” (32).
So, I wonder, with what “ear” have I been heard by colleagues in the CGSA? If it was the opposite, the double, the other of what I meant, then I’d have to flip the Bahktinian schematic around the other way. In other words, from my peers vantage point, *I* operate as “the centrifugal force” pushing us apart while they reflect back to me the centripetal forces they perceive pulling us together. This might be one reason why translation has been so arduous – coming from different ‘centers’, as it were?
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Note to self: when most confident, be most wary of unrecognized assumptions.
I did think, going into the Communication Graduate Student Association meeting yesterday, that the handouts were practically self-explanatory. I had distributed the first handout the day before in order to jog people’s memories of the brainstorming session in December. I covered it very fast (time limit) and moved into the second handout, which I also covered quickly.
I was then pulled under by the discursive currents with the very first comment. I do not remember who spoke, or what was said, except that I was instantly fighting for my life. I felt desperate and appeared as such, speaking with increased volume, intense diction, and sweeping generalizations. My attempt to pull (to bind centripetal forces in a formal procedure) and others’ (centrifugal) countering pushes thickened the borderzone where “a group” is constituted. I was sucked deep into the maelstrom.
It took a while for me to re-establish the kind of balance necessary to float, to be relaxed enough to trust that my head was going to stay above water.
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We celebrated a friend’s new job last night. It will be very interesting to watch the future unfold!
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We were again a more subdued group of rapscallions last night at La Guarida, taking in Johnny Cash and June Carter’s story via the Oscar-nominated Walk the Line. Did we like it? I’d say the general mood was, ‘it was ok’, but perhaps that’s just my take? Not being familiar with Cash’s music, I was introduced to him and his music at the same time. Talk about moody! His affinity with the criminals in Folsom Prison was a bit disconcerting – not because of his recognition of their humanity, but because he seemed to enjoy a vicarious violence through association. Not that he came across as a particularly gentle guy…
La Guarida’s head honcho took a significant risk leaving seven of us untended in his lair. No doubt he was relieved to find his easel still standing. Celebration was in the air as someone passed her comps!!!! I wouldn’t say anyone was eager to leave afterwards, although when it became common knowledge that the witching hour had been passed there was a concerted effort at departure.
Next week…a comedy?
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That was the birthday boy, trailing his balloon parrot down the bowling lane. It was an eventful night, with two personal all-time highs: Anuj, spinning 147, and Zeynep with a 122. Lava had a turkey and he and Luscious both had four baggers. Lava actually rolled five strikes in a row (there was a game break) and had an 8 frame streak with 7 strikes and 1 spare. (Ok. I admit it. I was impressed.)
Someone(s) contributed quite actively to this week’s notes, editing, drawing, revising, and altering the codes to obscure their originally intended meaning. The uncertainty this inspired occurred simultaneously with the recounting of an earthquake dream resulting in sleepwalking. “We have earthquakes all the time in my country – ‘Get out of the house!‘” Don’s need to publish a paper continues to trump blog-updating. They don’t make cup sizes large enough for 9 pounders. (Welcome to my world.)
Bowling continued, per usual. “It’s my hair,” when things didn’t go quite as one planned. “Be humble,” when you get a strike (as if!) When trouble begins to loom (not that it would, not with us), “I don’t speak the language.” There were a few fingerpuppet associations. I was the monkey, in desperate need of advice from the parrot. The elephant whipped our butts in game one but moaned that I’d scored higher than him in later games (not new!) There was the frog that roared, the goose/swan that wanted to be a duck, the panda (or was it polar?) bear, gopher, and lion (chosen for being of the feline persuasion).
The lion was selected by the birthday boy, affectionately known as poonte, who may have been a tad bit overoiled for the evening’s serious competition. I mean, come on! Luscious actually catapulted Lava right through the air onto his back! This was after Lava had tossed a 10-lb bowling ball at me and before he nearly knocked the b’day boy over and the two practically wound up in a wrestling match. [Note: bowling is a non-contact sport.]
Any gender confusion at the bowling alley was left there when we moved to the Iron Horse for salsa. I received a number of good lessons and a showing-up by the birthday boy himself in terms of knee-dexterity. I had a serious problem bowling straight tonight, but I was a good foil for dancing. I mean, how much trouble could a guy get into if he was dancing with me?
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This “most important movie for women to see in 2005″ was too intense for light banter throughout. Although a few flip comments did float out into the darkened living room at La Guarida, for the most part we were a quiet and attentive audience. Banter was intense before and after . . .
Prior to the screening, Consuela Bananahammock was asked, “Do you want a piece of my bottom?” – apparently because she didn’t appreciate the coconut on top of the homemade carrot cake. A late arrival, after getting a synopsis of what had happened so far, thought he’d “seen the end of this before” and was promptly informed how such could not be possible. One of our hosts spent most of the time out of the room on the phone. He did inquire as to the media effect of this particular film at this particular time – is it attempting “to do” something? I almost wondered if there was a subtext: sexual harassment is so DOA? Don’t we wish. 
I speculated about the number of social justice-themed movies up for one kind of Oscar or another. Now, I wonder, this may or may not be a direct effect of the type of movies selected – many of which (so I’m told) are smaller production affairs than the typical Hollywood glitz.
# of rapscallions in attendance? Nine.
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It was some kind of bowling night. Not only did we have to wait forever to get a lane, but only two (2) people broke into triple digits! Well, unless you count Anuj, a.k.a. Robin Hood, who bowled a perfect 100 in his last game.
For some reason, tonight was the night I finally remembered to take the informed consent forms. Since we weren’t bowling (!), everyone had plenty of time to dispute my intentions. LB did his level best to dissuade folks from giving permission of any kind…I don’t know if the fact that most everyone did sign a form means I have a higher trust factor than he does? 
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