Still as true.

“As revolutionaries you are hysterics who demand a new master.

You will get one.”

-Jacques Lacan to the students in 1968

(as quoted in Zizek’s “The capitalist “truth” of the 1968 revolt”)

A Trail of Scents

It is fascinating how evocative the most neglected of senses can be. As I was walking my dog today I realized how, because of her acute sense of smell, she lives in an entirely different world. The bark of a tree, a patch of grass, a brick on a wall: for her these are all places that come alive with a gallery of scents that we will never know. Furthermore, they are inhabited by ghosts of the dogs or people or things that left their invisible mark behind. If certain associations of smells and memory have become almost commonplaces in our culture (the proverbial Proustian madeleine, for example), I suspect that the canine experience takes it one step further: smells are disembodied incarnations of the past; they are, for them, very tangible instantiations of what is, for us, no longer there. And, physically, microscopically, they may be closer to the truth, as odors indeed represent volatilized chemical compounds which variously stimulate the nerve endings inside our noses. It becomes clear that there is, all around us, a world that we cannot perceive. And yet, the purely subjective experience of smell can also be one of the most pleasant and gratifying for us. Over the years I have developed a particular fondness for some odors. They are now part of my sensorial cartography. They guide me through the invisible labrynths of olfactory remembrance: coffee, baked cookies, oriental rugs, brand new car, grey oil, the strange, perplexing smell of something burning that Mexico City has during Fall and Winter and, my personal favorite, rain-soaked dirt.

blb.

In Awe

To quote the venerable Bono, “I can’t believe the news today…Oh I can’t close my eyes and”, well, you know the rest. I was ready to go to bed, but couldn’t help but sharing with you what can only be described as bewildering news:

Notimex
El Gráfico
Ciudad de México Miércoles 08 de octubre de 2008

Confirma Daniel Bisogno romance con Andrea Escalona

[...]

Bisogno, consideró que la joven, hija de la productora de televisión Magda Rodríguez, “también está enamorada de mí, me dice cosas muy lindas”. Incluso, confesó que de cariño le dice: “chaparrito, mi amor, palomita acaramelada, terroncito de azúcar, mi gaznatito de merengue“.

(Highlighting and double highlighting are mine -seriously, “gaznatito de merengue”? For fuck’s sake!)

Now, we have knowledge that in recent days, precipitated by the Sub-Prime Crisis and the tumbling of the U.S. Economy, the order of things, so to speak, has been constantly altered in unpredictable ways. Is it possible that this here is only one of the myriad unforeseen and potentially devastating consequences we are about to face? There is not telling where this might end up. I don’t want to sound like a doomsday sayer, but this is not normal, it is just…too much. Yeats’s verses come to mind after being shocked by these news: “The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

Mere anarchy, I tell you!

Good night, and good luck. The End is near.

.blb

Definition of a Cold

Microbiae, on the other hand, are vastly (and unjustly) ignored.

Ben Franklin - Definition of a Cold

Statement of Purpose

PEOPLE ARE OVERRATED.

Bombing Accuracy

what is this sinister urge? this great evil, where does it come from?

When Robert Oppenheimer realized what he had done, he knew there was no going back:

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”

There is hunger of memory. To look back and read the book of atrocity that is our history (the atrocity exhibition that is them, and us) is no different than to look out the window, or look in the mirror. There is no clean place, no hallowed ground. Wherever we are, wherever we may be or go or breathe or live, a beautiful white light of destruction will follow us, crimson creeks will flood the land, a cloud of smoke of a thousand hues: a reminder of our swift and airy future. Such is our legacy, and no matter how we try to mask it, our nature, our nurture betray us to no end.

Some days I just want to calmly exit this building on fire. Then, I think of Lillian Hellman, who in a moment of wisdom did say:

“Cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.”

and then I can sit down and calmly watch:

and turn my silent scream into something else.

-i have seen the future.it is murder-

The Gift of (Imaginary) Disease

It should be obvious enough that I am not talking about cancer. Or any other documented pathology for that matter. What I constantly dream of, imagine -try to will into being- is a tailored idea of disease that suits my daily needs. As I have previously stated, I am fond of staying at home, inside the comfort and protection of a cocoon that isolates me from the savagery of the outside world.

Well, is there any better excuse to stay at home than sickness? Aside from pregnancy, it is perhaps the only justifiable situation in which one could stay indoors for extended periods of time without being frowned upon. And since Arnold has been the only male child-bearer so far, well, disease is the only option left for me. I have a friend who just recovered from a month long bout of hepatitis. He watched gargantuan amounts of TV, but his liver is in the process of healing and will be for most of the next year. So there goes the Chilean red we offered him tonight. That, of course, is no good for me either.

My ideal illness would be one where I could stay in bed indefinitely -or until I finished a long term project, like reading all my library, or watching every single episode of The Simpsons in order-; one which affected my health only marginally, but just enough to make me lose the right amount of weight. It would be a disease that had a horrible sounding name -like Toxoplasmosis- that would scare all my family and make them bring me gifts like it was Christmas. It would, however, have none of the nasty side effects of a real illness like pain and puke and bladder and sphincter loss of control. It is such a Romantic idea that I have fallen in love with it for quite a while. And it seems to have worked for some people, too. I still wonder how so many people in the nineteenth century could just walk out of their normal lives to a ‘retreat’ in the mountains or the woods to ‘heal’ for extended periods of time. I bet Kafka had a blast being sick. And Roland Barthes. I’m certain he wouldn’t be who he is now if he hadn’t battled tuberculosis during his youth (the piles of books he must’ve read!) -and of course, if that laundry van had stopped on time, but that’s quite another, sadder, story.

Indeed, sickness is like a parenthesis from real life; like an anticipated, sometimes lighter version of death. Remember how when you’re alive everyone complains about you constantly and you just have to die so they can all remember how good you really were? Well, that’s why Intelligent Design gave us diseases -so we can enjoy the love and care of our families without having to die for real. The tragedy is that a lot of diseases (not Toxoplasmosis, as far as I’m aware, and as ugly as it sounds) can actually kill you. However, this is not the kind of disease I’m interested in. Remember how our existences are basically configured as narratives we construe everyday and constantly update to ourselves through imagination? Well, why could we not include in that narration imaginary diseases which responded to our deepest desires, and would just give us a break from the trudge of daily life? However, now that I think about it, I don’t recall having read anything that explicitly forbids us to do so.

Cheers (and get well soon -or not).

.blb

The spatialization of thought

Surveying the lay of the land. In a literal sense. But, how exactly does one talk about space? It would seem odd that thoughts flow more naturally when dealing with abstract concepts, ideas without a physical incarnation. But when trying to write about that which places us where we are, that surrounds us and allows us to do what we do -circulate-, I come to an impasse. I cannot properly think/write about space without arriving to tautological conclusions or blatantly obvious statements. I guess this is a process of re-adhering my mind to the physicality of the world around me, de terrenalizarlo, pues. It is interesting how something as elusive as thought has a different modes of transportation, depending on the subject matter, the focus, the point of view. Right now I’m trying to shift from air to land. I’ll just have to steer right to make sure it’s no rough landing.

.blb

Un Robinson en el apartamento

Siempre me han gustado los días fríos y lluviosos. Son una perfecta excusa para quedarse en casa, disfrutar las bondades que ofrece la protección del hogar. En principio es el contraste entre el interior y el exterior lo que me lleva a disfrutar tanto de un día de lluvia. Cuando uno está adentro, taza de café en mano, mirando la pantalla encendida o el libro abierto, el constante tap tap de las gotas de lluvia funciona como un elemento calmante que envuelve todo en una atmósfera estática y atemporal. Como si la cortina de agua efectivamente aislara del resto del mundo al refugio personal. Realza los sentidos (un chocolate caliente, pizza recalentada, tal vez, o un buen té verde) y con ellos, la sensación de estar vivo. Estar a salvo de la lluvia, envuelto en una cápsula de supervivencia que protege de las fuerzas elementales. A veces pienso en el agradable y doloroso confort del Eternauta y sus amigos, atrapados en la casa mientras una nevada mortal acaba con el resto de la humanidad. Y ellos, suertudos y malditos, tienen la oportunidad de seguir viviendo la cotidianeidad dentro de sus cuatro paredes…rodeados de absoluto silencio.

.blb

Crustacean meditations

(Postmodern Postmortem)

Not a lot I can say about death, except, ironically, that it has always been a particularly suitable occasion to sum the life of, as they say, the loved one. In this particular case, I wish to share with you a bit of what the recently departed David Foster Wallace was about.

I was always impressed by the seemingly erratic, entropic-yet-rigorous/meticulous nature of his thought and work. He was one of those authors who open new doors into languague, inaugurate possibilities never before imagined. Perhaps it is because he understood the chaotic nature of life and language better than most of us, but there is a sensation in his work that one is facing a reshaping of reality as we know it -one that contains a palpable element of anarchy, but in the end is deeply, strangely harmonic in its clarity.

It is a pity he had to leave so early, but then again, his death makes perfect sense in the repeatedly self-lacerating story that was his life. In any case, here are a couple of mementos of him. Remember, enjoy, and remember, consider the lobster.

1.

NYT Obit. via Mai:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html

2.

3.

Here, one of the most interesting essays I’ve read. Ever.