I was Literally not Going to Write This Post Today

If I read/hear the word “literally” used to draw emphasis to a phenomenon, my head is literally going to explode.

Alright, you have probably heard the trite use of the word “literally” endorsed from celebrities and rock stars, to journalists and media moguls; but I think it is time to stand up and reconsider the use of the word literally as a way to emphasis and clarify our reliance on clichés and metaphors.

I wasn’t going to write a post about this topic. In fact, I have been jotting down a list of chapter ideas for a non-fiction book regarding the use of popularly accepted idioms such as “like,” “really,” and so forth in order to, perhaps, start a new blog. I firmly think that these words betray something unique about our experience in this world as it is right now. I think it betrays what Jean-François Lyotard first named the “Postmodern Condition” in which all of our experiences are kept at a relative distance form ourselves—obviously I am oversimplifying for the sake of brevity, but you get the point.

In an earlier post, I analyzed the use of the word “like” as a part of speech that frames actions, happenings, occurrences and experiences in a way that keeps those phenomena at a distance from our own lives. So much so that we must then use hyperbolic words such as “really” and “seriously” to bring that simulated experience (the “like”) closer to us.

Here is an example from my post:

Bill: “What’s up? What did you do today?”
Gill: “Oh, nothing much. We, you know, like, threw the football around a bit. Man, once, Lill threw it really hard and I had to run superfast to, like, just catch it, you know?! That was crazy.”

It comes down to our basic social function in this world: communicating our experiences and lives to another human being. But if we cannot grasp the fundamental description of life experiences that happen to our own person, then we will find a way to make up for that, let’s call it, gap in proximity or happening.

My point of focus today is the word “literally,” and I think it fulfills three social functions:

1. It acknowledges the trite overuse—and universal knowledge of this overuse—of a cliché and amends its overuse by attempting to make the cliché a real occurrence.
2. It removes the abstract object of metaphor (a comparison without using “like” or “as”), and replaces it with a real thing.
3. It makes the experience closer, more alive, more Real, more True.

Okay, I literally just went to The Atlantic Monthly‘s website and scanned four articles for the word “literally”. I found one use of it in the comment section (yes, it aids my point). So, let’s dissect his or her’s little sentence with and without the word “literally”

“So the point is, you literally *cannot* escape at this point”
“So the point is, you *cannot* escape at this point”

The commenter is discussing Google, Facebook and Technologies hold on our lives. Yes, yes, it’s horrible—he types across a wi-fi network. The author’s point is that we cannot escape from technology. So, why is he or she using the word literally? The sentence functions perfectly without it, right? Well, kind of.

The author is using an absolute idea. To his or her absolutist point: you cannot escape technology. Well, but, you probably can. There is no way for this author to account for all cases of occurrences where someone attempted to escape the Internet’s grasp and succeeded. Because, let’s face it, no one has that knowledge. It’s impossible to know. In our postcolonial era, claiming that you have absolute knowledge is a logical fallacy, and this author is aware of that fallacy. So, what the author does is place the word “literally” in front of the fallacy in order to emphasize the absolutism of the word “*cannot*”. The irony is that the use of the word “literally” implies that the author cannot prove this fact, so without the word “literally” the sentence becomes closer to a type of Truth.

Here is my final argument: it is not that the sentence needs the word “literally” to emphasize the absolutism; rather, it is that the reader needs the word “literally” to verify and communicate something unique to our time and space. As far as I’m concerned that intangible thing that the reader needs is capitalized Truth. And Truth over the Internet is very, very, really, super-hard to come by because it is unverifiable. Truth over the Internet is intangible. It is the very thing that we are seeking when we type “How do I…” on Google, but then scan three sources before believing the top result.

Sure, this could be simple cynicism and mistrust of knowledge, but I am not about to write off the social predominance of the word “literally” by news media corporations, pundits, documentary film makers, learned individuals, and average Americans. It cannot be that simple.

So, I ask you to aid me in my quest for Truth, and let’s reconsider our use of the word “literally” before we speak or write. Hmmmm, I didn’t even discuss the use of metaphor vs. literally, but that’s for a different post.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

(Edited: To add to my point, I found this a few minutes ago by one of my favorite writers, Derek Thompson: “That other websites don’t do this, or (less likely, but possibly) literally cannot afford to pay writers anything is unfortunate, but it is much more complex than gross exploitation”. Sheesh. “Literally” is literally everywhere!)

In an iPhone Darkly

It is the darkness of night and the soft glow
Of a screen that force me to realize this is it.

When my brain stem ceases to send messages,
Then I am gone.
I will no longer recognize color,
Light, sound.
So bring on the colors,
The lights,
The sounds.

From the leaf-strewn gutters,
The windows of second floor apartments,
The loud fire escapes,
The black iron balconies.
God, just push them on me.

A wave of fight or flight moments
Of intensities so hovering in their greatness,
So buzzing in their touch,
So bursting in their nobility.

I can feel it.
None of that is organized.

The organized moments give way to these desolate hours
When we finally understood this is it
And balk at our limitations.
My knee.
My wrist.
My shoulder.
Without them I cannot walk.
With them I cannot fly.

Literary Lessons: What I learned from the axe-wielding murderer, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov

In a recent post, I reviewed Graham Green’s The End of the Affair, which I added to my list of “profoundly impacting novels“. A commenter on this post, one Peter Galen Massey, remarked my inclination toward rather, uhm, “unstable” characters. One such character is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel, Crime and Punishment. This got me thinking—navel gazing, of course, of which I am want to do while whistling away at work—and my thoughts lingered first on why am I attracted to these more reckless characters? and, furthermore, what does this reveal about my own character?

Once I came to the conclusion that I don’t revere Raskolnikov for his axe-wielding abilities, I set out to undertake an explanation as to why nearly every other year I come back to such a large and engrossing novel, such as Crime and Punishment. But to explain this phenomenon, I have to quickly summarize C & P. Alright, here it goes.

The novel is a reverse crime novel, i.e. we know who dunnit. In fact, we are privy to the murderer’s thoughts and actions both before and after the deed is done. There are six parts of the novel, and the first part is the murder. The rest is how Raskolnikov atones for this murder. Along the way there are some amazingly beautiful characters (including the Marmeladov family—who were actually the basis for the original novel of C & P, entitled The Drunkards—, Raskolnikov’s buddy Dmitri Razumikhin, and Porfiry Petrovich, to name just a few). Raskolnikov is a poor law student, and happens to follow a bit of Nihlism that is popping up around St. Petersburg at the time—Russian Nihlism, German Nihlism‘s uglier, angrier, and drunker sibling. Raskolnikov murders a pawn broker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom he has convinced himself, after hearing a conversation in a bar, is worthless and that the world would be better without her in it.

The first portion is Rodya not only plotting the murder, but convincing himself that it is okay. Now, here’s where the book becomes something more than just a run-of-the-mill, mystery-thriller-dime-store-novel stuff. CSI does this stuff to death, right? (excuse the pun): someone is murdered, and they have to find not only the killer, but his/her motive as well. Well, here’s the deal with Dostoevsky: we get to actually watch and imagine Rodya justifying murder—an act no normal individual can reasonably justify. Yes, murders are everywhere. Go ahead, turn on CNN, I’ll wait… but being inside the thoughts of someone who is convincing himself that murder is permissible is absolutely insane. It is raw, ugly existentialism.

So, what I learned from Raskolnikov is that one must justify ones actions to two sets of peoples. First there is yourself. You simply must justify yourself each and every day you exist. And most of you, and me, have a preexisting justification for our daily lives. For example, why we eat bacon, why we wear jeans, why we take 10 minute showers, etc. The next set of peoples are the society in which you live. There are laws, both subtle and pronounced, for which each of is responsible for the sake of a peaceful existence. Such as, Thou shalt not steal, murder, worship false idols, and stopping at red lights, paying taxes for wars we protest, pirating music, etc. The weird (and beautiful) part is that both of these conditional clauses are dependent upon environment. In example, let’s say, in Germany, jaywalking is a huge no-no, but it is mostly enforced by social conditions. Whereas in New York, jaywalking is a part of the environment and one can and will justify their right to jaywalk with the proverbial, “Hey! I’m walkin’ here!” This response would not fly in Deutschland.

What is unique about Raskolnikov is that he overcame the most important person who kept telling him no: himself. Once he overcame that… well, that’s only the first part.

The rest of the novel is whether this “overcoming of self” is justifiable within societal norms, laws, and customs. Spoiler alert: it’s not. Rodya confesses in a populated square in the middle of St. Petersburg after an interesting scene where Sonya Marmeladov reads the story of Lazarus to him. And another scene where he confesses to the police, but they don’t believe him! (Ugh, that is a tough one to read). It should be no surprise that Christianity is impetus for Raskolnikov’s confession. It is personal guilt that eventually overcomes him, and guilt is the driving force behind Roman Catholicism, not to mention Christianity as a whole. Suffering is purposeful and personal for Raskolnikov. But atonement is not only personal, it is societal—which is why his confession is performed in a public square. Raskolnikov has overcome personal guilt to become this übermensch, or so at least he thinks (what is ultimately played out in C & P, is that the übermensch is an impossibility, if not a strict rarity, because of civilized norms).

The point is that all of this, all of this life, needs justification. It needs, nay requires, a reason. Not just breaking the law, but adhering to it as well. And it is not only oneself that one must reason into submission, it is also you and everyone reading this blog. And everyone driving on the road. And everyone on the subway staring into their new iPhone 5s. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to explain to people that each of us justifies our lives and actions in some way, shape, or form. Most people do NOT want to hear that their actions are conditional responses based upon profound and unfathomably numerous cultural signals and cues. Most people want to hear that each and every time they do something, it is a result of a choice. A rational choice plucked from the blooming flower of infallible logic. But that was Dostoevsky’s point! He thought that man was irrational! Such was the basis for existentialism. In fact, Notes from the Underground, Dostoevsky’s 1864 novella, is a philosophical response in favor of irrationality against Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s 1863 novel, What is to be Done?

I read Crime and Punishment and understand millionaires. I understand their wanting more. I understand crooked criminals. I understand the bribers and the bribed. I understand the takers and the givers, the makers and the destroyers. Because each and every one of them has justified their existence and their actions. Whether it be purchasing sliced bread or a new bed, each and every single one of us justifies our actions so that we can sleep at night—with full stomachs and on soft sheets.

I hope that I am not misunderstood in this post. And I hope that we can all learn something “good” from Raskolnikov. What we should learn is that we are all here for one another. No one exists alone. Not even Raskolnikov, not even the übermensch, not even the genius or the tyrant, the hero or the villain, the thief or the prosecutor. We are all responsible for the well being of one another. So, thank you for my well being, dear readers. I am truly thankful for yours.

The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There have been two novels I have read over the past decade that have significantly impacted my life. The first was Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s Crime and Punishment, and the second was Jack Kerouac‘s On the Road. These two novels affected me more than many of the people I have met in my life because they, in the case of Dostoevsky, illuminated a grand and immeasurable philosophical quandary, or, in the case of Kerouac, identified a lasting inspiration within me. Now, I add Graham Greene‘s The End of the Affair to that list of profoundly impacting novels.

And for now, a ‘why’ is in order.

I was searching for this novel. And, perhaps, I’d like to think, it was searching for me. In that regard, I was looking for something to solve a mystery in my life; to, perhaps, better explain my feelings than I was able. And I drew it near me. To be clear: I was searching for a way to explain the end of a personal affair. I was searching for a work of art to explain an emotion that I could not yet apprehend due to broken ties across an ocean, and this novel did more than explain. It inspired.

The opening lines took me by surprise: “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead” (7). This line expresses a notion that I had been considering for some time, after I decidedly picked up Friedrich Nietzsche and read his words: “There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena”. Greene echoes this in literary form, and thus begins a much more writerly text than I first supposed.

What I mean by writerly (a term used by Roland Barthes)is that Greene is not providing mere entertainment. One can feel his working of the novel’s breadth before him. The fact that the narrator injects musings on his daily writing habits and his nagging inability to bring to life a character or two, inform the reader that he or she is reading a book by an author. Also these notions hint to the reader that these characters may or may not be fictional, and that there is a thin line dividing the realm of fiction and fact when one relies on one’s “chosen” memories and “moral” interpretations. A writerly text seeks to elucidate this discrepancy. Writerly is Literature for writers, with writers in mind who want to demystify the artifice that is superficial entertainment. Writerly announces that this is Literature, this is a story you are reading, I am an author and a narrator, which is one reason why I often found this text so inspiring.

All stories are constructed to help us get through the day. To help us live. To help us wake up and go to work. To help us get through an emotion. This is the inevitable notion forever stimulating Art and Literature. Great Art is supposed to be cathartic. It is supposed to help you construct a social understanding when the your limited social world cannot aid you. There was no person, no friend, no relative, to empathize with me at the end of my affair (I use the term purposefully, even though there was no love triangle). What Art does is it gives you time to ruminate on a moment. Art provides a space for you to take the time to construct your personal empathetic understanding, when all life wants you to do is shut up and move on. Wake up. Get over it. Although, inevitably, it helps you do just that.

I can’t imagine this review does Greene’s novel justice. Inevitably, I waxed philosophical during my review and omitted much of the content of the novel, which is what initially forged my personal connection to it. Well, such is life. It is a novel I will be reading again soon with a pencil by my side to underline passages and quotations. And, so I hope it is one that I will revisit and possibly review again. After all, the most justice I think I can do for this novel is to mimic it, and with that, secure it the highest compliment of all.

The Croatian Communion of Cookies and Coffee

They smuggled cookies everywhere, like children sneaking JuJuBees into a movie theater within the lining of their jackets.

During my last visit, her parents brought a package of cookies to a mountain top cafe where we opened them quietly while the Fraulein was in the kitchen watching for our Café au laits and macchiatos. The restaurant provided cookies. They were individually wrapped, laying leisurely on the saucer, and shaped like spoons to better scoop our cappuccino foam, but it was so impersonal. So individual. Those German wafers were held singularly in captivity, annexed from the true communal nature of their existence. And so they stayed that way throughout our respite.

Maybe it was a survival strategy, or perhaps it was culture, but those cookies that the cafe provided always found their way into her and her mother’s stylish Croatian purses. They were rescued refugees, just like their now owners, and deserved a good home with friends and family to support their struggle for freedom.

Later on, I would recognize those mountain top wafers looking comfortable, yet a bit apprehensive, on the porcelain plate that came out of the fridge during our coffee conversations. Now, finally out of their plastic coffins, they were free to live with their fellow cookie, joyously preoccupied with idle conversation and gossip, exempt of the existential knowledge of their basic function: to be eaten.

I never quite grasped eating cookies and coffee after climbing a mountain. I thirsted for water, Powerade, Gatorade, something that would aid me in my climb, something that Michael Jordan endorsed. Something that promised the replenishment of my electrolytes. So I sat at the cafe sweltering in the tight mountain air, that much closer to the sun, sipping coffee and lightly snacking on the orange chocolate wafers that supposedly bridged the language gap between all of us.

Because of all this, now I crave sugary confections with my coffee. I search through the empty spaces of cupboards. I peer in pantries. I open the fridge, hoping that a cookie has miraculously appeared during my absence.

Cupboard, pantry, fridge. Cupboard, pantry fridge.

Sometimes I vary the routine, but it still yields the same result. The very definition of insanity. It didn’t used to be this way. I took my coffee with cream. No sugar. Half & Half. Breve. But I stayed far away from sugary morsels that usually accompanied coffee to the tables of bourgeois homes.

At her parent’s home—after the soup, salad, and meat course, each course with its own set of dishes and silverware—we had coffee.

Small, white porcelain cups with gold etching encircling the rim would escape the small dishwasher along with their matching saucer, but for only a moment to be used and immediately shoved back in once the discussion dried up. They were the unfortunate ones that barely saw the light of day.

As for the lucky ones, first there was the shiny, metal cream dispenser that sat in the fridge perpetually full, as though magic had replenished it. The only sign of use a slight drip languidly trailing down its spout, or the surfacing and eventual receding of condensation as it was lifted from its natural home within the chilled refrigerator and out into the open Swabian June air.

The other fortunate son was the cookie plate. It was white with blue, sometimes maroon, etching that showed a distant farmhouse of what may have been a Croatian or Bosnian countryside. It looked breakable. As though one more cookie heaved on its lightness would bring it down with a smash on the table. But it never did.

The chilled plate contained at the very least three variations of sweets, which, like the cream, were replenished through either magic or a craft of secrecy that no guest would, could or should ever puncture for the very lack of decency that knowing might betray. These cookies never failed to appear whenever or wherever coffee was served.

And we endlessly drank coffee. The coffee-stained, glass pot in their kitchen was kept warm throughout the morning, but one never drank coffee alone. It had other functions than fuel for individual achievements. It prodded discussions. It cajoled tears and remembrances. It told our futures.

Like the day before I flew home from Stuttgart airport to Minneapolis, I was the last one to empty the coffee pot at 9pm at night. Her mother smiled at me a smile that squished her eyes and tightened her lips, and then she said in a broken English mixture of Croatian, Bosnian and German accents that now it will be my turn to host.

A flood of images and lingering questions corrupted me: how will I get these people to Minnesota? Where will they stay? How will our families communicate? My mother is infamous for her passive aggressive nervousness and judgmental facial expressions, and her mother’s overbearing nature crams the air with an anxious eagerness that bemoans the fortunes and struggles of two piqued immigrant refugee daughters who no longer need her; and not one son, nor the promise of a grandson, to delightfully and thanklessly devour her food or drink her drink.

That favor, and slight responsibility, fell upon me. And drink I did:

One shot of home-made plum Slavonian vodka before eating.

“Živjeli. Prost. Cheers.”

One glass seltzer water during dinner.

One more shot of home-made plum vodka before the main course.

“Živjeli. Prost. Cheers.”

One cup of coffee. Cream. No sugar. With cookies and cakes for dessert.

One German bier with her father after the table is cleared, with salted snacks emerging from cupboards.

“Živjeli. Prost. Cheers.”

One more German bier, if her father was feeling talkative.

“Živjeli. Prost. Cheers.”

I have been spoiled by the attentiveness of a mother whose only heterosexual daughter has brought home a boyfriend from across the Atlantic Ocean. The first boyfriend they have had the pleasure of hosting and being introduced to in over a decade. The pressure was grand. It was bulky. Fat, yet dexterous.

It tied our tongues. It spoke up in between the silences or the lost moments of translation. It coughed when I nodded in agreement to a word or phrase I did not understand. And it eventually wore her and her parents out.

They would have liked my coffee. I make it four cups at a time in a metal, double-lined coffee press. I ground it one pound at a time and kept it in an airtight container. I would have had snacks ready. Confections of the American breed. Oreos, perhaps. Sugar cubes for her and her father.

I could imagine hearing the dismissal of apologies for mismatched coffee mugs while I poured. A lingering disapproval as I offered cream from the Land O’ Lakes container. The subtle noise the plastic flap the Oreo cookie wrapping made each time we wanted one would be like a siren warning us that something isn’t quite right. Something is mismatched. One of these things is not like the other.

But that moment never arrived.

So, now I’ll continue my search for cookies, and pour myself another cup of coffee while I write about a distant land and a distant way of life. A life without the constant hum of American television, or the hopelessly forlorn pride of single parents, or an inharmonious collection of dishes that betray an utter unpreparedness for guests, or the clenched beauty of traditions that are to be cherished and passed on with force against reluctance.

I’ll pour myself another cup of coffee, and consider what I’ve gained and what I have lost.

I’ll pour myself another cup of coffee, and ruminate on how my past informs my future.

But first, just to make sure there are no cookies, I’ll check the pantry again.

A Collision of Inspiration from the Telly

I have had this note in my iPhone since August 5th, and it is the right time to go on about it.

It was a Monday, and I had the afternoon off. I had finished class that morning, my workout in the afternoon, and I was correcting assignments before my next job while a television program called “Last of the Summer Wine” was softly playing in the background—wonderful show, by the way. And, yes, I feel like an old man admitting to my liking of this show, but I have a small inclination toward British comedies.

So, the quick joke between two characters began thus:

“Do you realize how long people are buried?”

With a witty rejoinder that followed:

“The same way as short people, I imagine.” [insert artificial laughter]

The question was initially promoted with a philosophical air, but fell short where it landed in the ears of the bourgeois—who usually have little to do with philosophy. Well, it brought me to a halt.

So much so that I turned off that glowing-radioactive-entertainment-box and stared off into the distance—which, if you have not done, you should on a regular basis. That question was a very profound moment that collided tremendously with a bit of self-reevaluation that has recently surfaced in my life. Namely that once I die, I am dead forever.

Now, yes, I know, “put it on a friggin’ t-shirt and shut up”. But it isn’t about life. It isn’t about living in the moment and this Carpe Diem or YOLO stuff. It was immense. It was just so profoundly quiet and immense. Perhaps because it was the day before my birthday. Perhaps it was because an important person just stepped altogether out of my life. I just don’t know.

Things haven’t really changed. I haven’t jumped out of a plane, or driven my car really fast, but something has clicked. By now, you might have surmised that I am an atheist. Go ahead, I’ll give you some time to recollect all the subtle (and not so subtle) stereotypes you can muster. Okay. I’ll proceed. I would describe myself, since announcing and embracing the whole atheism thing many years ago, as a navel-gazing atheist. I’m not one to argue or fight or push my interpretations of life onto others. No. I will wholly share my opinion if asked, but if you find God in a phone booth, a flower petal, or the death and life of a loved one, that’s cool. Just don’t treat me like I have some incurable (or curable) deficiency or disease.

But here’s where things alter a bit. And it’s with that day: August 5th, and all the collisions that came with it. I don’t care anymore. And I don’t know what that precisely means yet. But it feels earthy. And it feels bigger than I can grasp. And that is profoundly frustrating.

This might sound like I’m asking for support or help through a difficult period of my life, but I’m not, and yet I am. I’ll briefly explain in metaphor, lest this late-night post get too blustery:

I want something different. I want something to start. I want a push, a pull, an overflowing, a deluge, an effrontery, a chain-reaction, and I want to be beautifully ready for it. I want to embrace it. I want to be pulled under. I want to fight hard because I must. I want to sing loud because I can. I want money: to play with, to give, to have, to love, to flourish, to work for me, to buy gifts for others, to put in a paper cup of a blind man, to fill my pant pockets, to fly to India for Holi. I want knowledge to knock me over with its weight. I want friends who call and demand attention. I want my burdens to feel like gifts.

And I can only do this with the knowledge that some day I will die. And when I get off this planet, it will still spin: people will still swear, eat, f*ck, burp, run, bite their fingernails, cough loudly during a film, wake up hungover, ignore those near them for a phone call, survive terrible diseases, orgasm alone, yell “surprise!” in unison, hug their children in public, and cry from laughter.

The cool part is that all this is happening right now…

The Bird and The Conclusion: Finishing my Daughter’s Story

As is often my want on this blog, I will tell a story about parenting. My daughter is six years old and she’s pretty goofy—which is fine by me. But there is something she seems to take quite seriously: telling the Truth—with a capital “T”.

Last weekend, my daughter and I were walking home from a trip to the local park and she noticed a robin hopping around the soccer field. I identified the bird, and she started telling a story. The story began in this way:

“One time, when I was at Nana’s (her maternal grandmother), mommy opened up the door and a bird flew in. ‘Cause there’s a nest there.”

“And…” I said, in wanting of the rest of the story.

(No response)

“So, who caught it?” I asked.

“I don’t remember” she says as she follows the white grass along the soccer border.

“Well, make it up,” I added emphatically.

“But, I don’t remember!”

“Well, you have to have a conclusion. You can’t leave me guessing. You have to leave the story with the reader.”

“Okay. Mommy caught it! And Nana! And Booboo (her maternal grandfather)! And Laura (her aunt)! But that’s not what really happened,” she makes sure to add.

“Yeah, but it’s a way better story. And it has an ending.”

I was struck by this realization: not what we are all telling stories (I mention that a lot on this blog!), but that I want her to tell me a good story. And I want her to be able to tell a good story. In less colloquial terms: I want her to be an orator, an interesting person, someone who understands the essence of an action and its affect; and that’s a story.

That is how we sell ourselves. That is how we wake up in the morning. That is what gets us to bed at night. What story are we telling? How are we telling it? Can we sleep because of it? Or does it keep us awake all night? Is it the one where the guy gets the girl? Is it the one where they are happy? or sad? Is it the one where the girl becomes famous? the guy fights crime? Which one? How are you justifying your life? your decisions? your thoughts?

No matter what it all begins with a single step. And then another. And then another. And then you look back, often way in the distance, and if you are lucky and someone is listening to you, then you have the privilege of saying: “One time, way back there, this happened…”

Thanks everyone for being that person listening.

“Society Must Be Defended,” by Michel Foucault

Lectures at the College de France, 1975-76: Society Must Be Defended by Michel Foucault

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Michel Foucault’s “Lectures” series is a collection of lectures given at the College De France from 1971 to 1984. They have been recently translated and published, but for whom, that I am not quite sure.

I absolutely loved reading this particular lecture series, “Society Must Be Defended”. The major themes Foucault discusses are Race and War, and their causal relations. As an American reader, my initial interpretation of the word Race hinges on the historically motivated US interpretation: skin color. But Foucault, and most of Europe, consider Race in a different, albeit for more accurate, way. They consider Race in the terms of what I would describe as nationality. So, Race, then, is not skin color, but regional origin, national origin, etc. I have had lengthy discussions upon this cultural distinction with friends from Europe, and it has proven true each time.

Now, this fits very well into what Foucault describes as War. War is antagonism. War is power relations. War is struggle. And ultimately, War is racist. It is racist in the sense of power and subjugation, not in the Malcolm X / US / Huey Newton race war between Whites and Blacks, but in the sense of one subspecies of man establishing dominance over another subspecies of man. Foucault takes for a precondition, man-as-species. Or in Literary Theory terms: Universal Humanism. But Universal Humanism is an ideal, and it is not a reality. Beyond Humanism is man-as-species, man-as-political-body, etc. What amazing phenomenon has occurred beyond the eighteenth century is namely the classification and hierarchialization of War. But before Foucault can get to that, he must confront Clausewitz’ famous dictum: “war is the continuation of politics by other means”.

Foucault first challenges this statement by reversing it and arguing that politics is the continuation of war by other means. I will summarize this, most likely in an inaccurate manner, by stating that Foucault ultimately argues that politics hold the population in a state of perpetual war. I think of Virginia Woolf‘s essay Three Guineas, in which she criticizes the pomp and celebration of the aftermath of War, and these ritualistic measures to keep the public employed at war, while not actually, physically, being in a war. Something along the lines of the Military Industrial Complex discussion.

He then goes on to discuss and dissect how it came to be that War became the means to understanding History. Who are the major individuals who wrote History? When did it become a State functioning separation and domination of one race over another? For this, Foucault takes on Hobbes and the function of War within the building of modern France, Germany, and England.

This is all far too large a subject to cover in this little review. So, I will end it by arguing that this book is not for everyone. In fact, I don’t think I may ever read it again. Reading Foucault is a special thing. His knowledge is not meant for this man sitting at a desk, wanting a paycheck, desirous of life, love, and such. It’s meant for someone distinct. Someone devoted. It’s meant for a time and place that no longer exists for me outside Academia.

I apologize for this late realization. But it is the direct reason it took me months to finish this collection. The terms “normalization” and “biopower” are absolutely essential to any theoretical argument I undertake, but they are so few and far between outside of those halls of Academia that Foucault’s relevancy is waning for me. Still, I do not hesitate in giving it five stars. So, enjoy at your leisure, but beware: the ideas and theories contained herein may cause alienation.

My read shelf:

Daisy Miller, by Henry James

Daisy Miller by Henry James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Flirting is a purely American custom; it doesn’t exist here” (69).

I thoroughly enjoyed Henry James’ novella. My previous exposure to James’ work was through The Bostonians, another text that I enjoyed, and I was not at all hesitant to pick up this quick read from my gf’s bookshelf.

I won’t summarize the length of the story, but will remark that it concerns a rich, American family traveling through Switzerland and Italy—sans Father, which should, psychoanalytically, speak for the uncouth behavior of the protagonist, Miss Daisy Miller. What I most enjoyed were the brief witticisms used by James to depict Miss Miller, and, thus, this uniquely American behavior of flirtation and childish, light of air quality of person. While Daisy often refers to the narrator, Mr. Winterbourne, as “stiff,” he is, up until the end, mystified by Daisy’ and while regarding her as “uncultured” he is absolutely fascinated by her ‘devil-may-care’ attitude. It is for Mr. Winterbourne her very, to borrow the phrase, The Unbearable Lightness of Being that makes her so attractive.

As an American who frequents month long visits to Germany, and is in a relationship with a European, I can understand this relation quite well. It still rings true today, albeit often in far more vulgar behavior, that Americans are, well, “childish” (in a positive light) and “uncultured” (in a negative light). And, from this American’s perspective, the adjective “stiff” used by Daisy Miller could not more resemble the truth when regarding the European standard of behavior (68). (No offense to all those good, up-standing Europeans eating  with their tines down; or those hearty Germans organizing party games in order to coerce socialization out of their fellow “stiff” citizens.)

This little novella also spoke to the romance of Rome. After having lived in Rome for some six months, albeit over ten years ago, the propensity for Italian men to both attract and relentlessly court American girls has survived these 100 years. In other words, the myth of Giovanelli and Miss Daisy Miller is still alive for the American girl studying abroad. I recall many a fond night sitting on the Spanish Steps watching helpless, young, blonde American girls attract flocks of Italian men & boys—but it is unfair to pronounce them helpless, no?

So, yes, as you might have guessed, I sympathize with Miss Miller’s behavior—even her obstinate hold upon her cultural norms. And I think the greatest revelation of her and many—although they may not want to admit it—American characters & personages is contained in the following exclamation: “‘That’s all I want — a little fuss!’ and the young girl began to laugh again” (38).
My read shelf:

Halt Your Enthusiasm!

I am here in Germany visiting my gf, and I happen to be here when the city of Mainz is celebrating their annual Johannisnacht festival. Last night was the final night, and it was celebrated in style with a 15-minute firework display, which my gf and I watched from Theodor-Heuss Bridge that links Wiesbaden and Mainz.

On the first night of the festival, Friday night, my gf and I walked to the city center where the festivities were held and ate a bit of food and had a beer or two. That was the night I learned my first lesson in Germany enthusiasm: Wait until the song, event, phenomenon, is completely finished before celebrating. I am quiet serious. That Friday night we enjoyed a few songs from an all too impressive Black Sabbath cover band playing at one end of the festivities. Being a Sabbath fan from my teenage years, I sang along and cheered whenever I was struck with excitement. And for this, I received some good ol’ fashion German upbraiding: the stare! First, yes, I was the only one clapping… of which my gf informed me I was, um, premature in my celebration (soooo American, she says). And then I got a stare. The stare from an older German gentleman whose fun I was apparently ruining. Lesson learned.

Three night later and I am about to test my new found knowledge at the final celebratory night. It was tough. It was tough for this red-blooded “didn’t-know-how-American-he-was-until-fireworks-came-out” guy NOT to “oooh,” “aaah,” and cheer every time some pretty colors burst over the Rhine. So, I was quiet. I stood and listened to some sparsely hasty, yet hushed, German excitement over the larger fireworks. But for the most part, the collection of citizens in the photos below didn’t make as sound during the whole fiery procession.

Only one dared to make a sound. As an acute cluster of fireworks dissipated, one promisingly remarkable firework shot forth into the sky. As the dormant firework traveled upwards, I heard from a man on my right as the rocket shot high, a barely audible remark; a lovely admission of the pretense of excitement echoed in the most German way possible. A small, yet significant, word was uttered in an almost official tone: “Jawohl…”.

Jawohl. You’re damn right, “Jawohl”.