Last Class
Wanted to respond to the last class today ...
I was dismayed at the joking suggestion of "kicking Sirc in the nuts."
This, of course, was something a joke, and it was greeted by everyone in class as a joke.
I didn't find it funny, and I feel the call to say so.
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Also, I wanted to note that there was no discussion Sirc's stuff in any detail here.
Why, I wonder?
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The sense of consensus is easy to achieve in a classroom.
It's harder once the discussion comes down to details in of a reading or writing.
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I don't know ...
It sounds like I am bagging, but in other ways I'm cool ... whatever ...
This, after all, is probably my last *required* academic course.
What I am saying here is just a little spasm, a left over twitch jolt from being conditioned by the institution to "make my voice heard" when I disagree ... (Yes, I know that when all is said and undone that the sense of "voice" is difficult ...cuz it's wilderness all the way down ...)
Sheesh, it almost sounds like an "argument," but I don't think it is. I'm just saying that I think Sirc's stuff is cool, and that my body wasn't moved to laughter when the idea of "kicking him in the nuts" was suggested ...
But now--can I say this?--I am starting to laugh a writing "kicking him in the nuts" again, and so ... okay, it's funny.
Heck, maybe this wasn't even what was said, after all ...
Geez, come to think of it, maybe it's just a word that's getting me ...
What is that word?
Nuts.
Ya, that must be what it is ...
Nuts
It's a word that, everybody'll agree, is a lot of
Stun
6 Comments:
Geoff,
I too am a growing fan of Sirc, although I didn't take objection to the (?) joke. The comment was a symbolic manifestation of a certain frustration that I think Sirc's work inspires.
Many might compare an initial reading of Sirc's material as a kick in the groin. Or a wake-up call. The commonplace cliches become interchangable.
So although it might not be in good humor, a stooges approach might not be the worst way to discuss intellectual confrontation.
3:10 PM
And of course, I didn't actually kick Sirc in the nuts, either literally or in diorama form. Added to which, I wonder if Sirc would take offense to that kind of clearly non-serious playfulness from a lowly grad student. I had a chance to speak to Sirc when he visited last semester, and both in person and from what I could glean about his classes, he didn't seem like the type to take offense at the ridiculous; he didn't and doesn't seem to be the type to demand decorum and obedience—indeed, he seems to advocate much the converse. His work is often a kind of metaphorical kick to the nuts of various institutions. What else would we call the punk aesthetic he advocates? He guises it as the rhetoric of the middle finger. Is a kick to the groin too too base and vulgar? Would Sirc consider only Sirc-approved rebellion acceptable? I don't believe so. I think he would be pleased to see heroes get the groin shot they richly deserve, even if one of those heroes is him.
I, for one, find Sirc interesting because I disagree with a lot of what he says, and yet he and it are impossible to discount. The only good is interest, and the only evil is disinterest. The kick to the nuts isn't a dismissal; it is an engagement. Abandonment, lack of discussion, ignoring: that is true dismissal—not struggling with and reacting against.
Consider Sirc's own "Never Mind the Tagmemics." In it he discusses David Bartholomae's keeping of a student's paper for 18 years in a desk drawer even though it repeatedly quite literally said "f*ck you." Bartholomae held onto the paper literally and figuratively, like a splinter in his mind. This is Sirc's own example. If I have taken it and done as he has taught, I feel he would approve my doing so.
4:44 PM
Sure, libidinal frustrations that are un/just frustrate-SHUNS ...
Why else read? Why else write?
I certainly got the sense of that in terms of banishing Sirc to the corner.
All I am saying is that it seemed a lot of lip service was paid to Sirc ("we're all fans") at the same time he's being played as something of a Dunce or Stooge.
nYUK, nYUK, nYUK
Still, 'a wake-up call' and 'a shot in the balls' as interchangeable?
Sure, whatever ... It's the way dude's talk ... Ya, I get it ...
Must sound strange for me taking a stand (in the corner) over a bunch of "symbolic manifestation," huh?
I mean, here I am symbolically putting myself in a corner with another dude!
Protecting his package!!!
Protecting his box!!!
Why, this isn't the way dude's are supposed to talk about other dudes!
Dude's are not supposed to be duds; potency is un/just what is important after all!
Whatever. This isn't about an "intellectual confrontation." I am simply communicating something that struck me that wasn't symbolic or metaphorical at all ...
What struck me was the collective laughter.
And, what else can you do? You can't help laughter?
I am not helping anything here by saying that I didn't find it funny.
I mean how un-funny is all this?
I mean, talk about stooge!
Why, I may even sound nuts.
Ya, I am not a "growing fan" for Sirc, I am NUTS about him!!
Ah, well! Go ahead. Kick away! I know we're only joking here! I know this is all a symbolic manifestation! I know it's all purely intellectual!
I know that people deep down inside really like Sirc's work and we're just frustrated that he doesn't come clean on what he means precisely by "cool."
Who knew cool could get so hot, huh?
5:16 PM
Ah, well, there is some question as to whether Sirc would be down with getting kicked in the nuts by a "lowly grad student," I guess.
I can't imagine posing this "symbolic manifestation" of dis/engagement of his work in quite this way.
It would be interesting to see how he might respond to the sense of POTATOES suggested in the first post.
Might be interesting to email him and find out.
My students had some good interactions with him over email this semester, and so I know he's personable and open to discussion.
I guess that's why I was taken aback ...
I don't think he sees himself as a "hero" who needs his "come uppin's" ...
Sirc doesn't set himself up as a hero ... so why the roast? I disagree that he "richly deserves" such a sense of a blow.
Not sure if you've come across Cynthia Haynes's essay, but hers in one of the few works out there that gives Sirc his dues at all.
He's an easy target. Why knock it as though it were some kind of huge monument?
Anyway, I don't think he would approve or encourage this particular line, though I could be wrong ...
I'll leave it to you to ask, though.
Next time I with him we'll probably pick up on a jazz theme that he's into. Come to find out, he would have much rather been listening to that then watching Bush get re-elected when he was in town last semester.
5:27 PM
Geoff,
I think you misinterpreted a few of my comments:
1. I do not think I am just playig lip service to Sirc's work. My work with digital archiving, visual argument, and multimedia writing draws upon several of his ideas.
2. I did not call Sirc a stooge.
8:38 PM
Marcc,
Never thought you thought of Sirc as a Stooge (--unless, of course, it's the Stooges, unless it's the Detroit punk band that made waves with MC5--)
Curious about what you mean by "drawing upon several of [Sirc's] ideas" in terms of your other projects ... We never got to talk about such "applications" (and subsequent comPLIcations of such apPLIcations in earlier bloggings ...)
(These "pli'ss" are playful French "folds.")
Neat that these blogs have finally become a cite for ... whatever.
Intellectual confrontation would prove tiresome, of course.
I could do this ... for a long time.
Intellectual confrontation bores me ...
(I tried to say this across Deleuze before, but perhaps such in/citations bore others ... )
I don't know.
All I can say is ... wow, folks are finally saying stuff ...
Maybe this whole idea of a groin kick is better than I originally thought ...
I stand corrected!
I should stand in the corner more often!
Hope I didn't misinterpret too much.
Say about about those several ideas that you draw on and those ideas that you do not ... or might yet ... or don't plan to ... or whatever ...
10:42 PM
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