Even Before I Am Capable of Pronouncing the Words

"Simply as a result of having defined myself in relation to some man as his son, and of my having defined him as my father, something happens which, however intangible it may appear to be, weighs just as heavily as the carnal procreation, which unites us. And, practically speaking, within the human order, it weighs even more heavily. Because, even before I am capable of pronouncing the words father and son, and even if he is gaga and can no longer pronounce these words, the entire human system around us already defines us, with all the impending consequences that that brings with it, as father and son." 1

Image: http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/personal-space-invaders-the-top-science-and-tech-privacy-threats-of-2007/ (accessed: 1 April 2008).

1 Jacques Lacan, trans., John Forrester, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 1: Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953–1954 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991), 156.

- CB

The Peony Flower and the Cherry Blossom

I have seen the story told on a still day the two blooms took notice of their vicinity and approximation. “How very much like the sun we are,” said the Peony. “White as the pure dawn that hints over the line of the earth, when all colors become one, before dissolving over the firmament.” The Cherry Blossom thought and nodded in approval and hastened to say, “Ours is the fleeting flourish. As we share this moment of revel, there will also be the waltz of the crane, the graceful tremble of it’s wings against the wood grained air, climbing for…” the Blossom paused. The Blossom began again, “…This is the way of the long drum, the slow drone of the flute coupled with swift soft strand plucks. As the wind blows we will wilt.” All things having been spoken, the Flower fell at once to meet the stone path of the road. The sound was as the lion roars. Not long after, the Blossom found itself caught in the protracted wind, found as the crane, drawn onto the séances that exist in the elapse of time.

The beauty swirled around your blond hair
Like spring snow.

Image: http://ilovemilkandcookies.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html (accessed: 27 September 2007)

-Dru Parrish

Twilight & Rockets

Autumn glows of daylight illuminate the barrel vault sky stitching a red orange bloom to the visible atmosphere. It fashions the canopy backdrop for a bending sea of iron Goliaths splintering the surface of man to search for grandeurs greater and higher than their wanton comprehension. I cannot but help how the flights of my boyhood delights are now paraded in front of me, as though they were mine, my own carnival, personal and private and for my disclosure alone. We have new methods now, old ideas revitalized in newer models of industry filling the heavens of earth with the dame’s violet, seeking to scatter confines to the winds as they power themselves upward with the volatile science of gasoline, binding my corporeal to follow the mental into to a masses of carbon-fire dreams.

Image: http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth213/Leonardo_garrard.html (accessed: 29 June 2007)

- Dru Parrish

Wiggle Room

It isn't a surprise that political campaigns thrive on spectacle. Where you're from, what you've done, and your stance on issues alienate people; talking too much about any of these leave a candidate open to an attack which could take the rest of the campaign to recover from. Only sensationalism has the ability to bring people together without the danger of a counter-attack. Something tells me that's why we're seeing more of it earlier.

With the actual election still more than a year away, there is not much incentive for candidates to do too much in the way of policy. An attack could come from the opposition or from a colleague, and all attacks made in a primary race are used by the opposition later on if they think a weakness was discovered. But how does one create hype without substance? Hillary Clinton gives a perfect example with her latest campaign ad.

There isn't much right now that is more popular than The Sopranos, and the more popular the better since people will automatically identify with it. Her ad spoofs the ending scene of the television show, changing the plot instead to revolve around the choice of her campaign song. In a stroke of brilliance, Ms. Clinton is able to get people talking, and the foundation of their talk, if they can get past the association between the show they like and the candidate they are supposed to like, will be the song. People will be wondering now. What is that song? Will it really be Smashmouth? They'll go to the website or ask their friends. They'll look at other candidates and judge their songs in comparison to Ms. Clinton's. A whole month of herself in the spotlight, wreathed in spectacle, surrounded by cultural references loaded with charm.

Image: http://www.nssk.no/2005/Bergen-05.html (accessed: 21 June 2007)

- Vincent Saint-Simon

Things Put In Their Proper Places

Now-that-I-think-about-it: I don’t know (these hand-me-down hands performing [as in an actor on a stage] operations [as in (if I knew how) to operate heavy machinery] of [or, let’s say, upon the fabric of] the everyday on yet another of Father’s Days) how much longer I can take this. I wish (actually... would you like) to compare Oedipal complexes(?) and that you were here with me now, friend. I’d tell you all about how just a few weeks ago I asked my father (now retired) to read (out-loud [so I could record his voice]) Marx for the very first time—"Chapter 6: The Sale and Purchase of Labour-Power." We could listen together (I like how you laugh). I’d tell you all about how I used to find him in the dark at the kitchen table before work "meditatin’" over scars that stretched to the tips of his stiff fingers—rotating (as in returning from war) everyday upon waking. Out of politeness I’d ask you about your father. Together we’d nod and smile, drink our coffee, and close our eyes slowly—worlds apart. As I'd imagine (as I do now) I never gave a thought to how the grass was always cut like it was in the backyard.

Image: http://keystonepallet.com/ (accessed: 17 June 2007)

- CB

Does the Puppet Ever Become a Real Boy?

"The continuation of an article on Page D5 of Wednesday's Sports section about legal problems that University of Florida football players have faced this year incorrectly included a player who did not face such problems. Gators kicker Jonathan Phillips has not faced any legal issues."1

"An obituary on Monday about the philosopher Richard Rorty misidentified the source of the quotation, “There is no basis for deciding what counts as knowledge and truth other than what one’s peers will let one get away with in the open exchange of claims, counterclaims and reasons.” It was from Charles Guignon and David R. Hiley in the introduction to the book “Richard Rorty,” which they edited; it was not from Mr. Rorty."2

"A spokesperson for the London Police Force did not tell the Star that it appears that a female police inspector was the shooter in a murder-suicide in London, Ont., as reported in a June 8 article. London police are continuing to investigate the incident to determine the sequence of events leading to the deaths."3

"Test scores: An article in Section A on June 6 about rising test scores and the No Child Left Behind law incorrectly attributed the following statement: "These gains fall well short of the law's goal of getting all students performing at grade level or better by 2014." This analysis was the reporter's, not that of researchers from the Center on Education Policy."4

"In a June 4 story and a Sept. 28, 2005, story about members of Congress indicted since 1980, The Associated Press incorrectly identified the grand jury that indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, D-Texas, in 1993 and early 1994. She was indicted by a Travis County, Texas, grand jury, not a federal grand jury. The same error was included in a Sept. 28, 2005, story slugged BC-DeLay Indictment-Glance."5

Image: http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/Mass%20Wasting/RockAvalancheDiagramFallS.GIF (accessed: 16 June 2007)
1http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-corrections,0,501484.htmlstory (accessed: 16 June 2007)
2http://www.nytimes.com/ref/pageoneplus/corrections.html (accessed: 16 June 2007)
3http://www.thestar.com/Corrections/article/223480 (accessed: 16 June 2007)
4http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/corrections/?track=leftnav-corrections (accessed: 16 June 2007)
5http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1153AP_Congressman_Probe_Glance_CORRECTIVE.html (accessed: 16 June 2007)

- Vincent Saint-Simon

Those Parts Forgotten

It was atop a CTA platform, (I was late, like Spring was) as I waited for a train, that the city disappeared. Forever, in every direction, there was only the the sun and the invariable landscape of the Midwest. The same sun, that a lifetime ago tanned an American arm, faded its tattoo, and triggered a pair of squinting eyes—in Con Thien, in Da Nang, in Phu Bia—today, triggers a squint in my own eyes.

What’s it called when dead skin cells, like words, quietly fall from our bodies to become the dust on top of things—plastic bags caught in trees, all the spit on sidewalks? When my father opens his mouth to speak, like most people his age, it seems as if it's always the same stories that come out from it, like a life composed as if by reoccurrence. Such reoccurrence, or over-determination (as in dream analysis), such stories time and again, when seen through their negative, should always gesture towards the unspoken, the forgotten, the repressed. For it's only in the silent times between stories that you can hear it: the cry in the negative. And, further still, perhaps it's only through such repetition of the story and the negatives that rest between each telling that one can pay homage to a life that’s lived those parts forgotten and give voice to the trauma of the everyday, of the quotidian—a trauma that muffles the cry of, clings to, and conceals each of our official lives.

Image: http://plts.luthersem.edu/cli/crosscultural/CCMissionexp/pictures_china.asp?pf=y (accessed: 21 April 2007)

- CB