Aphanisis - Rendering the Fading Subject "Thinkable"

Read me later

Noli me Loquitur

Speak not of my beauty,
behind my mask you've never seen

Speak not of my loving heart,
behind it's beats you've never been

Speak not of my truthful mind,
you know not of the darkest lies

Speak not of my emerald eyes
you've never seen their deepest cries...

-Seravane

A life w/o desire is like a body w/o organs.

Cwoud Sourcing Reawity

CHORUS. Virgins, who pour forth the rains, let us move toward Attica, the rich country of Pallas, the home of the brave; let us visit the dear land of Cecrops, where the secret rites are celebrated, where the mysterious sanctuary flies open to the initiate…. What victims are offered there to the deities of heaven! What glorious temples! What statues! What holy prayers to the rulers of Olympus! At every season nothing but sacred festivals, garlanded victims, are to be seen. Then Spring brings round again the joyous feasts of Dionysus, the harmonious contests of the choruses and the serious melodies of the flute.

STREPSIADES. By Zeus! Tell me, Socrates, I pray you, who are these women, whose language is so solemn; can they be demigoddesses?

SOCRATES. Not at all. They are the Clouds of heaven, great goddesses for the lazy; to them we owe all, thoughts, speeches, trickery, roguery, boasting, lies, sagacity.

STREPSIADES. Ah! that was why, as I listened to them, my mind spread out its wings; it burns to babble about trifles, to maintain worthless arguments, to voice its petty reasons, to contradict, to tease some opponent. But are they not going to show themselves? I should like to see them, were it possible.

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STREPSIADES. Tell me then why, if these really are the Clouds, they so very much resemble mortals. This is not their usual form.

- Aristophanes, "The Clouds"

Ready When You Are, Sgt. Penbry

J.S. Bach, "Aria da Capo"

The Applied Arts of Otherness

Angels can not be seduced at all or quickly.
Pull him into the entryway,
stick your tongue in his mouth and reach
under his robe, til he gets wet; put
his face to the wall, lift his robe
and fuck him. If he stares in anguish
then hold him tightly and let him come two times;
otherwise, by the end, he'll be in shock.
Admonish him so he sways his butt;
let him know he's free to grab your balls.
Tell him he can fall without fear
while he is hanging between earth and heaven -
but don't look him in the face while you are fucking him
and, for heaven's sake, don't crush his wings.

-Bertolt Brecht, "Über die Verführung von Engeln"

Discomfort from the Persistence of the "Other's" Desires

Modern Prodigals

I love being responsible for my OWN enjoyment/joissance! Woo-hoo! Only... it's not my own???

A joke that Freud tells in Jokes And Their Relation To The Unconscious illustrates well the point that Lacan is making about how desire differs from both demand (what you ask for) and need (what you cannot do without). The joke goes:

“An impoverished individual borrowed 25 florins from a prosperous acquaintance, with many asseverations of his necessitous circumstances. The very same day his benefactor met him again in a restaurant with a plate of salmon mayonnaise in front of him. The benefactor reproached him: “What? You borrow money from me and then order yourself salmon mayonnaise? Is that what you’ve used my money for?” “I don’t understand you”, replied the object of the attack; “if I haven’t any money I can’t eat salmon mayonnaise, and if I have some money I mustn’t eat salmon mayonnaise. Well, then, when am I to eat salmon mayonnaise?” (SE VIII, 49-50).

Commenting on this joke in Seminar V, Lacan says:

“[The joke shows]… the relationship between the signifier and desire, and the fact that desire has profoundly changed its accent, has been subverted, has been made ambiguous, by its passage through the paths of the signifier. Let us be clear what that means. It is always in the name of a certain register that makes the Other intervene beyond the one making the demand, that any satisfaction is accorded, and precisely this profoundly perverts the system of demand and of the response to demand. “Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick….” I do not need to remind you of the seven or eight or nine works of mercy. It is striking enough in their very expression, that in clothing the naked, one could say that if the demand were something that should be directly sustained in its fullness, why not clothe the naked man or woman at Christian Dior’s?…The same goes for feeding the hungry. Why not let them get drunk?” (Seminar V, 04.12.057., p.6).

To paraphrase Lacan’s point, the joke shows that desire is like a ‘perverted’ form of need by the very process of expressing that need in the form of a demand. The young benefactor obviously needs food, but his hunger can obviously be satisfied by something less than the most expensive and elaborate meals. So we find desire in what ‘pushes beyond’ need in the very expression of a demand.

Le Provencal

pro·vin·cial (pr-vnshl)
adj.
1. Of or relating to a province.
2. Of or characteristic of people from the provinces; not fashionable or sophisticated: "Well-educated professional women ... made me feel uncomfortably provincial" (J.R. Salamanca).
3. Limited in perspective; narrow and self-centered.
n.
1. A native or inhabitant of the provinces.
2. A person who has provincial ideas or habits.

Escape the Provinces! Seek to live a fuller and more sophisticated life, NOW! ;)