i hate theory February 26, 2007

I’d like to start off with the fact that I’m sad I no longer get to look at pictures for my theory homework. It was a cruel step back into reality when I picked up this book last night. On that note, I think I hate Althusser.

I went into this with an open mind. How bad could it be? But after the first two paragraphs I was ready to punch someone. How many times can we fit production and produce and productive into a sentence? I’m beginning to hate theorists that decide to use one word to write their works. I feel like I’m back to Bakhtin where I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

I did kind of enjoy the part where he talks about school and education and children. “Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of children are ejected ‘into production’: these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on: and, for better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it falls by the wayside and fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white collar workers, small and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide as well as the ‘intellectuals of the collective labouror’, the agents of exploitation (capitalists, managers), the agents of repression (soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators, etc.) and the professional ideologists…” (1494). He discusses how children are brought up to go to school, but there is a point where they suddenly can break off and begin their own lives that don’t revolve around education. Some continue to learn, while others fill our world’s jobs. If we continue the way we are, the pattern will never be broken.

I really just didn’t like most of what I read. could be that I have theory coming out of my ears from the project this weekend, but I don’t really want to read anymore.

the end. February 21, 2007

I was actually kind of sad to be ending The Watchmen. It was such a change from what we read before, that I’m sad to be done with it. That said…

I was disturbed by how Archimedes killed the “pirate” and his “whore.” Looking at the pictures of the couple as they walked closer to him and his raft, she didn’t appear to be anything but a decent woman. He obviously had issues with the other man, but he says as he’s strangling her, “A buccaneer’s whore deserved no pity.” I just found this to be a bit harsh.

Then it switches back to Rorschach and Dreiberg. I felt really bad for the couple who were trying to get together next to the bomb on the ship. What a way to go. I was actually kind of suprised to find out the Veidt was responsible for everything. I really wasn’t sure who I thought was doing it, but it wasn’t him. I loved the full page pictures of the distruction on Earth. I felt that making them full pages was the best way to show it.

I am still a little shocked that Jon killed Rorschach, but I think I’m coming to terms with it. I really enjoyed this book, and I know this isn’t very well thought out, but I can’t wait to discuss it in class!

Watchmen, Part II February 19, 2007

I loved getting the snow we got last week because it meant no classes. I didn’t like finding out my hermit crab Walter had died though. So, after a really crappy weekend of getting my car inspected, and then having to pay $800 to get it to pass the inspection, I was ready to forget about what’s been going on and actually read this book.

Now that we’re into our second reading of The Watchmen, I have to admit, I kind of really like this book. It’s so completely different than what I’ve read before. I have never read a comic book or a graphic novel, so I’m really enjoying the novelty of it. That being said, this week’s reading was a little intense.

When Dr. Manhattan relives how he came to be what he is today, I was shocked at what they chose to portray. Most of it was very violent. The part where he gets locked in the test chamber was a little intense. I wasn’t expecting to see his body exploding, and then coming back together.

But now I can understand him a little more than before. Although I stand by my earlier statement about how the naked blueness is a little much. I felt that the entire chapter while he’s discussing how he came to where he is at the moment was rather interesting by the way he told it. He constantly went back and forth between past, present, and future terms. While he and Janey are together after the carnival, he says, “It’s 1985. In one hundred minutes, the meteorite shower begins.” (6). It was an interesting way to read the piece, to be switching time frames constantly. At the end of chapter 4, Dr. Manhattan questions whether or not he became what he is due to his father, the fat man, or because it was destined to happen anyway. I thought this was an interesting way to look at it. Does each person choose their own destiny, or is it already planned? Dr. Manhattan can see the future, he knows what will be. Does he choose to keep it the same? Or can he change it to the way he wants it to be? And in that case, if he changes it, hasn’t he already seen it changed?

The entire time I have been reading this book, I have been noticing that words are boldfaced in the different text boxes. To me, boldfacing a word means that it is emphasized more than the words around it.

I also have to say that Rorschach is a really freaky guy. When he shoved the guy into the fridge to get him to talk, I thought he was actually going to leave him in there. I also noticed that he didn’t talk in complete sentences during his entire time in Jacobi’s house. It really annoyed me, but maybe because I’m an English major.

Naked Blue Guys were a little much… February 12, 2007

When I first saw that the book we were starting to read for this week was a graphic novel, I was a little stunned. I have never read one before, and never saw the need to do so, but I actually enjoyed most of what I read. It was a little weird for me at first, mainly because I haven’t read a “picture book” for fun since I was little.

I have to begin with the fact that I really didn’t like Rorschach at all. He seemed like such a pompous asshole to me. Who walks into a bar and then breaks the fingers of a man just to see if anyone knows who killed someone? I can kind of understand how he is upset that the world has taken a morally inept path, but to be so bitter about it? It doesn’t make much sense to me. I’d also have to say that turning the page and seeing a giant blue, naked man was pretty disturbing to me. I’m still not used to these pictures.

I was a little confused as to why Rorschach was the only superhero of the group that was still active in his search for justice? Everyone else seems to want to forget what has happened in the past, yet he visits all of them and makes them remember. Some, like Laurie, are bitter about the past, others just don’t seem to care. I’m really interested to see who plays a part in the death of the comedian, and whether or not some of the former superheroes return to what they were.

I Love Parodies and Jameson February 7, 2007

Okay, so maybe I don’t truly love Jameson, but as far as the authors we’ve studied go, he ranks at the top of my list.

 

When I first began reading Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism and Consumer Society, I wanted to make sure I at least knew what the topic was supposed to be about. So I went online and looked up postmodernism. After doing this, I felt I was at least on the right track.

 

Jameson states that “This list would seem to make two things clear at once: first, most of the postmodernisms mentioned above emerge as specific reactions against the established forms of high modernism, against this or that dominant high modernism which conquered the university, the museum, the art gallery network, and the foundations.” (1961) To me, he was saying how there will always be a modernism that accompanies a time period, and there will always be a postmodernism that follows it. To one generation, the art and literature may seem racy and shocking. To the next, it is old and everything the newer generation is fighting against.

 

“The second feature of this list of postmodernisms is the effacement in it of some key boundaries or separations, most notably the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture.” (1961) He discusses how the newer generations don’t treat the boundaries between high culture and popular culture like their predecessors did. Instead, the newer postmodernists try to blend the higher culture with the pop culture in order for more people to be able to access it. His main example is the practice of theory, and how today it is becoming more common place which is a “manifestation of postmodernism.”

 

 

Jameson then moves on Pastiche and Parody. He says, “Both pastiche and parody involve the imitation or, better still, the mimicry of other styles and particularly of the mannerisms and stylistic twitches of other styles.” (1962) He feels that today’s literature has become an easy target for parody, while past authors were not so easily copied. Parody isn’t just found in literature, it’s found in all art forms. My personal favorite would be the show Saturday Night Live. This show is widely known for taking political situations and making parodies of them. One of my favorite parodies would be when Will Farrell played President George W. Bush.

Pastiche is defined by dictionary.com as “A dramatic, literary, or musical piece openly imitating the previous works of other artists, often with satirical intent.” Parody is “A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.” To me, the pastiche is not considered to be as humorous as a parody is. Will Farrell’s parody of President Bush takes the cake if you ask me.

 

To me, this piece of reading was the easiest for me to understand out of everything we’ve read so far this semester. I honestly felt intelligent after I was done because I wasn’t sitting here going, what the hell are centers or rhizomes? I think the discussion about Jameson will be easier to have during class tomorrow than the conversations we’ve had so far. Hooray for not being dumb!!!

 

Derrida and his wonderful centers February 5, 2007

Okay, I wasn’t going to watch the Super Bowl because my beloved Patriots lost to those stupid Colts two weeks ago. I wanted the Bears to crush Peyton Manning and make him hurt. I started reading this piece of work by Jacques Derrida and decided that watching Manning run the poor Bears all over the field would be better.

 

I think it took me about 15 minutes to read the first page and a half because quite frankly, it felt like I was going in circles. Derrida says, “The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), the totality has its center elsewhere. The center is not the center.” Excuse me, but, WHAT? I honestly felt like I wanted to punch the man. Unfortunately he’s dead, so no such luck.

 

He constantly talks about the center, and then how nothing has a center. To me, this made absolutely no sense. He talked about how there was a rupture. “…before the rupture I spoke of, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of center for center, as a linked chain of determinations of the center. Successively, and in regulated fashion, the center receives different forms or names.” (916) To me, this seems to be focusing on the different genres that literature holds. I could be completely off base here, but I feel like Derrida is trying to say that literature is the center, and the various genres are the links that bind it together. However, within each genre, there is a new center. Therefore, the center has a center that surrounds it. Please let me know if I’m way off base here.

 

In short, I have to agree with Keva and say that I’d rather read Bakhtin than read Derrida again. And that’s saying a lot.

 

PS – I hate the Colts. GO PATS!