no deal

For as long as I know, the California Faculty Association has bought time from the CSU administration, and used that time to allow faculty to do work for the union. Not any more.

After weeks of delays, we finally got word at Cow State Santa Claus that the chancellor is hereby forbidding campus administrations from allowing this arrangement any more. This is due to one of three possible motives: (1) the administration does not know how much stress and undue pressure CFA activists endure as faculty and union reps, or (2) the administration does not care, or (3) it is the express intent of the administration to stop CFA from being able to defend the contract, or (4) they hope to cause faculty activists grievous harm. I am inclined to believe 3 and 4.

I plan to change my class assignments to reflect the undue pressure that five courses, let alone additional unpaid work on campus for the university, let alone union work. I'm going to give my students less of my time, energy, and effort.

I'm also going to have to give less of my time and energy to faculty rights work, but I'm going to try not to reduce my effort. I haven't even begun to work out details of that.

on not going to Canada

Each of the last several years, my Loveliest and I have gone to a conference at the end of May in Canada. It's part of the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences, held each year, as thousands LC Canadian academics descend upon the same college town.

This year, I am scheduled to give commentaries on two papers, and to co-coordinate a workshop on phenomenology. I shall do none of these, at least, not in person.

We are instead holed up in Holland Ohio, visiting my folks. The reason for this is that my passport expired in February, which fact I did not know until packing my passport the day before our trip.

There followed several hours of searching for information on whether I could enter and exit Canada with an expired passport, what would happen if I couldn't, what options there might be for renewing a passport in 24 hours, and thinking up other options. The official rule seems to be the following: you may enter Canada with an expired passport and a valid driver license, but you cannot re-enter the US.

My pal Dave "Dave" Koukal called the border patrol and talked to an actual human border patrol officer, who said I could re-enter with an expired passport, driver license, and birth certificate. The state department begs to differ.

I considered this briefly. If I was not permitted to re-enter the States, I would likely languish in Canada waiting forthe US consulate to expedite a passport renewal. Expited renewal means two to three weeks. It wasn't worth the risk, not after I spent a night in the hospital following a panic attack.

Thus Plan B: fly to Detroit as planned, spend the evening and night with Dave and Sharon as planned, but then catch a lift to Holland and spend the week here, hanging out.

So far, so good. It was 97 here yesterday, rained this morning, is now 86, and tomorrow it will be 70. Lauren has an infected bug bite or sting. We're going to visit my brother , whose birthday is tomorrow. We're going to walk through the park I frequented as a lad, along an old Erie Canal split called Side Cut, to allow boat traffic into Maumee (my home town).

diagnosis: chest pain

Here's how I ended up spending 24 hours in Emanuel hospital.

Tuesday morning, after Lauren drove off to work the day in Modesto, I started my bike ride to campus, right around 10:15. Going up Del's Lane, I started to notice it was taking more effort than usual, riding into a gusty headwind. By the time I reached the philosophy department, I was sweating heavily and a bit more out of breath than normal (I usually ride at high intensity and velocity, as many on campus can attest).

After maneuvering my bike into my office, I mopped the sweat from my forehead and drank some water, cooling down as usual. I didn't feel right. My heart was still beating fast, and the tightness in my chest seemed worse. I sat, made final minor preparations for my 11 o'clock class, added a couple short paragraphs to something I've been writing, and then headed to class. I had to mop my brow again.

I walked over to my classroom, a hundred yards, if that, from my office, upstairs in the Bizzini building. The stairs were very hard to climb, and I was overheated when I got to my class.

Class was short. I had a spell of lightheadedness about halfway through, but while discussing the whodunnit portion of Aristotle's Ethics and students' term papers due on Thursday, I felt okay.

By the time I returned to my office, I was having trouble catching my breath, and the chest pain was still worse than before. I sat, trying to calm down, trying to let myself cool down, but it seemed like my heart was racing. I decided I needed help. I told our department assistant I was going to the health center, and set off for it.

I was unaware that, for liability reasons, the health center will only see students. I tried to say it was an emergency, and the receptionist referred me to same-day care across from the hospital. I said I couldn't get there, because I rode my bike. Eventually, the doctor on call saw me in an exam room, "as a courtesy," he said, and took vital signs. He did a lot of frowning, and said he thought I should go to ER.

While he called for an ambulance, a nurse took my blood pressure a second time, did some more frowning. The doctor came back in and told the nurse to give me an aspirin and a sublingual nitro tab.

It seemed like this was taking forever. Finally two campus police came in, and asked me, like the doctor had, what was going on, and my basic stats - name, age, etc. Then two firemen came in and did the same thing. They took my bp and asked more questions. Then the ambulance came, and the EMTs asked me the same questions all the others had, hooked me up to a portable EKG and an electronic bp monitor. They didn't frown, but they looked very concerned. I couldn't see the EKG, but when I glanced at the bp monitor, it said 155 over 110 or something like that, with a pulse of 105. I overheard them radio in that the EKG was irregular - I think.

Off to the ER. The EMT placed an IV line, gave me another aspirin, asked me about the nitro tab, declared that the health center's nitro was no longer potent, and so he gave me another.

We reached the ER, where a series of nurses, technicians, and doctors all came and went, asking exactly the same questions, frowning, and so on. At 1, I felt like I could try to call Lauren at work (at her former boss' house, actually), and proceeded to find that I didn't have the number. Eventually I reached Lauren, and she came down.

While she was on her way, a cardiologist arrived, looked at my EKG, and told me I was not going to die of a heart attack, because he was pretty sure it wasn't a heart attack. He wanted me to stay overnight, because, it turns out, to rule out heart attack definitively, you have to have three clean EKGs six hours apart, and three blood draws that test negative for a particular enzyme, also six hours apart. The cardiologist ordered a stress test and echo-sonogram thingy for this morning.

The pain in my chest had waned considerably, especially after Lauren arrived. By the time I was in a room, the pain only felt bad when someone asked me how the pain was.

This morning, after a good 3 hours of sleep, I reported for the stress test. The nurse got me all hooked up, and said she didn't like the bp reading at all: it was 137 over 95 or so. I told her I was anxious, have anxiety and depressive disorder, and that being around anything medical was my major phobia. Yet another doctor arrived. I did ten minutes on the treadmill, reaching 4.2 miles per hour (around my typical walking pace on the jaunt to school), at 14% incline, before I reported I was getting a little tired.

I got off, and within five minutes my bp was 130 over 79. I did not say, "told ya!"

The echo was just an echo.

We waited back in my room for another doctor to free me. I got to eat something. We watched an episode of "30 Rock" on my iPad (it was our "unchallenging, unlikely-to-mention-medical-stuff" choice for entertainment, plus neither of us had seen more than 2 minutes of any episode).

Whatever happened, it was not a heart attack. My official diagnosis is, in fact, "chest pain." I am 99% certain it was the worst panic attack I've ever had, and about 91% certain it was the worst physical experience I've ever had. The echo turned up a slightly dilated aorta they think I should check on yearly. Otherwise, aside from being a basket-case after this academic year, I'm fine.

And now all I have to do is grade 120 term papers, approximately 60 additional short papers, and write two conference paper commentaries, before we head off to Canada on 27 May.

blog post topix - where to start?

This morning the LA Times site offered me this: "State's swelling deficit will bring painful cuts. Where to start?"

This is a story I've had keen interest in, for obvious reasons. I thought, good, analysis, maybe an op-ed. Instead, the post repeats the basics of Jerry Brown's preview of the May revised budget doom, then asks readers to offer their no doubt marvelous ideas for cutting the state budget.

This is the genius of contemporary capitalism in capsule form: paying subscribers are now providing the content they read from the LA Times site. (It's also another brilliant tool for undermining information exchange and giving social approval to the uninformed opinion of what Schütz called "the man in the street.") Eventually, the LA Times won't need to hire reporters, editorial writers, editors, or anybody else but technical support staff!

Interesting concept. So, readers, let me know what topics should be covered in this space in future posts! Increase the chances your post idea will be selected by writing it yourself!

summer reading

The last three years, I've had a great time reading and writing during the summer. I think I've learned a lot, and developed some intuitions into real insights. The way it has worked is that I gather a reading list during the academic year, of anything that comes up related to some glimmer of an idea I have. This year, it hasn't worked out so well, because it has been so exhausting and crappy. But I do have a couple things on the agenda.

Assuming a Body, by Gayle Solomon, a transsexual. The book is about her experiences as understood from the standpoint of philosophical thought about embodiment.

The Transgender Studies Reader.


Transgender Migrations, edited by a colleague on campus, Tristan Cotten, who is cool.

White Coat, Black Hat, a muck-raking book about the business of medicine, which will make me feel sick.

The Body, by Donn Welton. Last summer, I came to the conclusion that the word "the body" is already a fetish, and that even "embodiment" is troublesome. So I have an agenda about this one.

Wanna read some Gramsci, maybe some Fanon.

The last few summers my reading has had a very clear direction. Other than sex and gender, I don't seem to have a direction. And it's a little disturbing to me how little phenomenology is on the agenda.

Maybe that's good. I'm moving outside my intellectual comfort zone, and although that means I will likely have less chance of generating some kind of publishable or conferenceable paper, I could learn more as a result. As I wrote a while back, since I'm among the tenuous-track faculty, projects are less important than ways of life.

the end of semester blues, sorta

It's finally getting close to the end of this wretched semester and academic year. Some nice things happen at the end of a semester, and I've needed nice things lately for reasons I won't go into, to avoid ranting.

One nice thing is last teaching days, and the relief that provides. Another are the rituals of closing shop - clearing out the inbox, filling the recycling bin with obsolete memos and old papers, the final faculty meetings.

Far better are the lovely exchanges of appreciation. It's amazing how much it means to me to hear that my course was significant, helpful, interesting, or inspiring. I'm collecting a few of those already. I have two students this semester in a GE class who have previously taken another GE class with me. I've seen them as first year students and now seniors. They deliberately chose my class to complete their upper division GE requirement, because of their good experience in the lower division course. They've recently let me know that.

I've also received unsolicited, unexpected, and much needed expressions of appreciation from faculty I represent in the California Faculty Association. I do a lot of work for faculty, and I nonetheless get a lot of flak, much of it illogical, about my representation and advocacy.

It's bittersweet. I have regrets, I made mistakes, I have frustrations, but I also have successes, victories, and joys.

(Yep, I had joys this semester. It just hasn't seemed that many in the face of all the negativity.)

Academic Year 2011-2012: A Year That Will Soon Be Flushed Down The Toilet.

several unconnected observations

Last year, CFA bought 6 units of my workload, 3 for being lecturer rep, and 3 for being a faculty rights rep. At the end of the year, I told the others I didn't think I'd earned the units for faulty rights. I've earned them this year. Shit, I've earned them in the last two weeks.

 The Filthadelphia Flyers lost to the New Jersey Devils today, and are out of the NHL playoffs. I'm ecstatic. Schadenfreude is a terrible emotion, but what the hell. BLLLLPBPBHH!!!!

 I upgraded my iMac to Lion, had to update MS Word to the 2011 version, and suddenly my fonts went missing. They just came back. I did nothing to cause this. All I've done with fonts lately is copy my font book to a flash drive to move them into the new MacBook Pro California bought me to perform sedition with. I have concluded that MS products are built on a software platform that would have been subject to capital punishment in 1600's Salem.

 The semester will not die. I have not yet decided whether it is a zombie, a vampire, the devil, a rock, Bermuda grass, or fascism.

random items

I'm reading an article by Lewis Lapham in the May Harper's. Lapham used to be the magazine's formidable editor in chief. Under Lapham, Harper's was icily brilliant almost every issue, in my opinion. I miss his voice and I think the mag has slipped rather a lot since his retirement. His article is on the peculiar American trait of historylessness, which provides the basis for our political discourse's constant doomsaying and constant nostalgia. Hep stuff.

I'm also listening, as I have done a lot lately, to Chopin solo piano works. I have come at last to the conclusion that Frederic Chopin is not allowed in the house. I mean: "Funeral March"? Are you kidding me? (Lauren didn't even bother to point out that he's long dead, this morning. She sort of chuckled.)

Today I am going to attempt to read a "work of philosophy" by a French "collective" active in the 1990s. There's a guest lecture on campus on Wednesday about them. I am deeply suspicious.

I am also going to try to read one of the papers I have to comment on in Canada in June. This one is on the McGurk effect. No, I'm not making that up.

But what I really think I ought to do is get back to writing something about porn.

monsters

I'm reading Merleau-Ponty's essay "Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence." He suggests that a history of painting that seeks to reveal a Reason underlying its history would be a kind of "Hegelian monstrosity." Merleau-Ponty criticizes Hegel's apparent accumulation of the totality of philosophy or of history, and his presumption to say affirmatively what that totality means to say. Hegel, he says, is a museum, in that the works collected there are converted, are perverted, by their juxtaposition and placement within walls, into an inevitable history dictated by a monstrous Reason or Spirit.

Yet later, he seems to suggest that language is such a monster. For instance:

The transparency of spoken language, that fine clarity of word which is only sound and that meaning which is only meaning,... and its would-be power of recapitulating and enclosing a whole process of expression in a single act -- are these not simply the highest point of a tacit and implicit accumulation of the same sort as painting? (Signs, 76)

Later, he tells us that the ambiguity of all literature, of all language really, is the price we pay, "that is, a conquering language which introduces us to unfamiliar perspectives instead of confirming our own" (77). This "conquering language" is also "the presumption to a total accumulation" (81) -- that is, an accumulation of meaning and of words.

It's as though, when we speak, while we simply engage in the act of speaking, at the same time (and indeed, for it to be possible for us to say anything), we are conquered by the tacit language, the presumption of a total accumulation.

The key difference is that, unlike the Hegelian monstrosity, language only pretends to total accumulation, and what makes it obvious that it is only a pretense, is ambiguity. Nonetheless, the tacit language is monstrous, conquers us in our attempts to speak, and aims to accumulate all words and all meaning. We forget this every time we speak, Merleau-Ponty claims, because every time we speak we intend to say exactly what we mean to say.

The tacit language is a silent monster, or else a monstrous silence, lurking beneath "our" language, every time we speak.

performativity, tenure, and administrative power

Reading excerpts of The Postmodern Condition with my class, I was reminded of Lyotard's claim that the drive toward system efficiency has gaps - spots where the efficiency criterion creates inefficiencies. I tend to think of the lack of content in education as one of those efficiency gaps. From the system's standpoint, my job is to generate enrollment. Beyond that, what I actually do in my classes is irrelevant.

So, I might teach a fairly standard curriculum on Professional Ethics or Logic or whatever, or I might spend almost all of class time on radical political thought, leading several of my students to become loud activists against exploitation. Oops! The performativity criterion created the potential for counter-performative discourse.

There's another area where this is happening. Tenure has long been identified as a source of inefficiency. Tenure is a check on the maximization of arbitrary administrative power. Faculty with tenure are supposed to have a right to due process with regard to decisions to terminate them. If this is true, then administrators would have to invest resources in the effort to fire tenured faculty they want fired. An obvious solution to this problem is not to hire tenure-track faculty, and indeed, this is exactly what university administrations have done for 35 or 40 years.

Tenuous-track faculty have no due process rights worth speaking of. Perma-temped faculty are fully commensurable units of managerial power, and hiring them in lieu of tenure-track faculty has the added effect of minimizing the number of tenured faculty who offer any institutionally-protected resistance to that power. From one standpoint, this could also look like an erosion of protection of academic freedom, on the hypothesis that tenure protects academic freedom.

The problem with that interpretation is that, under performativity, tenure does not protect academic freedom at all, since in order for a faculty member to earn tenure, that faculty member must produce according to the standard of performativity. The research areas must be sanctioned by performativity, the teaching and other work the faculty member does must meet efficiency standards, etc. No faculty member has academic freedom.

The perma-temping of university faculty continues apace. But while this is going on, the real performativity standard applied to university "teaching" - generating enrollment - creates the very spaces needed for the subterranean discourses of dissent. This is because, from the system efficiency standpoint, education has no content - or, rather, the content is irrelevant. The faculty in the best position to produce these discourses are the faculty the system considers most efficient as "teachers."

Of course, we're doomed anyway, but the tenuous-track faculty are in a much better position with regard to that, too, since we have never imagined we were anything but doomed, while our unfortunate tenure-track colleagues dangerously misrecognize their own positions and roles, and waste so much of their energies insisting upon academic standards for managerial decisions that can no longer be relevant.

do I work hard?

I frequently use my own career and experience to illustrate issues in my Professional Ethics class. Today, after a discussion of ethical problems in academic publication and conflict of interest, a student approached me and asked about my own record of academic publication. (I have had a handful of run-ins with questionable publication practices, not surprisingly.)

What he asked, in fact, was how he could find the things I've published, so he could read them. I replied that he might not find them all that accessible, since they are, after all, academic publications (which is an ethical issue in its own right), but if he was really interested he could search for them. He mentioned Google. Hmm.*

Anyway, it led me to think about my CV and how up-to-date it might be. I checked it out this evening. There are things missing, and I'm editing it, but what this brief exercise has really made me think about is my record of academic and scholarly achievement, and what it means.

I've presented around 40 papers at academic conferences. Almost all of them have been international conferences of philosophical scholarship or phenomenological investigation. Is that a lot?

I've had several peer-reviewed publications. Only three or four have been peer-reviewed articles in academic philosophy journals. The rest have been in little off-beat publications I thought were cool, like the late, lamented Journal of Mundane Behavior. I guess that's pretty good, considering where I work and what the mission of my university is.

I've served on a dozen university and college committees, served on the academic senate for 10 years, and have been a peer reviewer for several conferences, and editor of conference proceedings, a board member of a couple scholarly societies, etc. etc. etc.

It looks like a lot of work, all listed up like that.

--

* The "Hmm" is due in some small part to the fact that, if he actually does look me up, he might find not only this blog, but a reference to my Journal of Mundane Behavior article on the phenomenology of pornography, or some of the other weird things I've published. He might also find some of the terrible things that people have, no doubt, said about me on teh Interwebs.

titles

In a random fit of public service, I present, for the edification of whoever stumbles by, the basic formats for titles of academic publications in the humanities. If you are looking to start, or advance, a career in academia, you would be well advised to adopt one of the following for each and every paper, article, chapter, or book title.

As is well established by this late date, the humanities is our culture's last, best bastion of the defense - nay, the celebration - of diversity. The diversity of your opinion is sure to be well-received and given a fair and honest hearing, provided you adhere strictly to the exceptionless, unavowed, unwritten rules. To help you along, here are the officially accepted title types.

Word, Word, Word
This looks especially good in Times New Roman centered on the 10th line of a cover page. Do not get cute and put this title in a larger font. 12pt TNR has passed the test of time. Besides, no use calling undue attention to yourself. You'll only make yourself look uppity.

Word and Word
Also good, and also translates well to Palatino Linotype.

Adjective Noun
(See also: Adjectival Phrase Noun)

Most commonly used as for books, this title format juxtaposes two different parts of speech for added interest. Handy for incongruous or non-sequitir titles that drive sales up. (Who wouldn't buy a copy of Lithe Feminism? Or Reconstituted Community?)

These title types have spread through academia, predominantly in the US, by way of the insidious influence of so-called Continental philosophy on lit crit and other quasi-disciplines.

Pithy Non-self-explanatory Phrase:
Lengthy, Verbose Explanatory Phrase that Entirely Defeats the Aesthetic Elegance Effects of the Pithy Non-self-explanatory Phrase, or that Even Conflicts with the Basic Thrust of the Preceding Phrase, Such that the Pithiness of the First Phrase is Revealed as a Failed Attempt at Hipness
This tremendously successful title type is particularly prized in cultural studies. A remarkable feature of this title format is that the catchy first phrase need not relate intelligibly to the content of the text. It could probably be chosen entirely at random, so long as it makes it seem like you're going to say something provocative or amusing. You don't actually have to be able to do either! And the long subtitle gives you the opportunity to say what the content really is, or to make an assertion that you will not defend in the text.

the day I stopped being a psychology major

I started my college career as a psych major (or, as I usually like to put it, suffering the delusion that I was going to be a psych major). I was also in the university honors program, which was articulated through departments. A student in the program would take a few general ed courses, but the rest of the honors courses were within the major.

My first honors psych class was called History and Systems of Psychology. The textbook was decent, though heavily biased in favor of behaviorists. The class was taught by a professor nearing retirement, who lectured to us for 48 of the 50 minutes in each session from yellowed notes, punctuated only by his coughing tic. He would then ask if there were any questions. I always had questions, but after the first two or three, he did his best to avoid calling on me.

A handful of times we had what the professor called class discussions, usually of about 20 minutes. But the honors psych students seemed incapable or uninterested in discussing the history or systems of psychology. They would find a relevant item from class notes and repeat it. When I tried to raise critical questions during a class discussion, the professor told me that we weren't there to criticize, but to learn, the history and systems of psychology.

We spent weeks on Wundt, and then two class sessions on psychoanalysis, a "system" of psychology the textbook essentially dismissed as superstitious claptrap that only delayed psychology becoming a genuine science. I had been reading Freud since my sophomore year of high school, and was trying to read Jung, and I found this blanket rejection of Freud ridiculous. Text and professor were eager to move on to the real scientific psychologists, and given loving emphasis were the behaviorists Watson and Skinner. I tried to suggest that the argument legitimating the scientific status of behaviorism was circular, but was told that it's real psychology because it can do things (which psychoanalysis, by extension, cannot) - make people stop smoking, or fight the urge to suck their thumbs in important business meetings.

After the long chapter on Watson, the continued frustration with the honors psych students acting like sheep and with the professor expressly precluding critical discussion, I decided I needed to do something. We were just getting started on Skinner when I made my move.

I drove the 45 minutes across town to my parents' house, and dug out my sister's old scuba fins and snorkel. That morning before class, I stuffed them as well as I could into my backpack (the fins stuck out of the top), and walked from my dorm to the classroom, making sure I would be a couple minutes late. In the hallway, I ran into the only other student in the class who seemed to be interested in discussing the history of psychology (a psych major, who turned out to be kinda crazy), and told her I was going to shake things up. She went inside and found her usual seat.

Meanwhile, I geared up. Shoes off, swim fins on. Mirrored sunglasses. Backpack strapped to my chest. Snorkel.

In this getup, I whisked open the door and flapped across the room to my usual seat, just in front of the crazy psych major, along the windows. As I collapsed into it and got out my textbook, the professor said, suppressing a tremendous rage, "That's alright, no one noticed you coming in."

He went back to his notes and tics, and lectured on Skinner. I paid attention, but managed to glance around the room at all the psych majors, staring straight ahead at the prof, blind to my existence. Halfway through class, in mid-sentence, the professor suddenly addressed me, saying that I was to remain after class to discuss my "idiotic stunt."

I got you, man, I thought. You may be a committed apologist for behaviorism, but you're a lousy behaviorist. You fell for it. You gave me attention, while denying that you were giving it. And as we all know about denial...

He got through about 40 minutes, but then gave up. He couldn't concentrate. The class left, and I stayed behind, and I explained myself. I told him I did what I did to protest the total lack of meaningful discussion in the class, to try to shake up the psych zombies - make that honors psych zombies. I even waited until we got to Skinner, to protest the obvious bias in the book, and to do something that I thought would be poorly explained by behaviorism.

I can't remember what he said. I don't think he punished me, except that he gave me a B for a final grade after all the A work I'd done.

After class, I walked over to the psychology department and met with the department chair. I told him what happened in class - well, some of it. I told him about the zombies' reaction. And I told him I was dropping the major.

I am an advertisement for myself

Every spring I teach a course I designed, called, unwieldly enough, Human Interests and the Power of Information. It is half philosophy of technology, half post-structuralist critique of contemporary media and techno-science, and half political and sociological investigation of everyday life in the siliconized world.

Every spring when I teach it, I have a different emphasis. This year I thought I was going more in the direction of the techno-science and knowledge discourses business, but after reading Baudrillard yesterday to prep for class today, I just had to write some stuff about it. This is part one.

In Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard makes several pronouncements about media, the most provocative of which may be that media implode meaning and the social, and simulate sociality through the constitution of the masses. That is, instead of a social life characterized by exchange, mediated lives take place among an amorphous mass culture. I believe Baudrillard takes many cues from Marshall McLuhan throughout this phase of his work, and this particular claim can be illuminated in reference to McLuhan’s view that advertising homogenizes society (in pursuit of the goal of coordinating and maximizing consumption). A homogenized society is, for Baudrillard, not a society at all, but “the masses,” and the consumption he claims the masses do is not prompted by advertising, it is the consumption of advertising itself.

This latter is obviously true: the “brand benefit” of most consumer products, especially of mass quality, is the brand image itself. It’s what makes Levi’s Levi’s, an iPhone an iPhone. (Apple is the most valuable corporation in the world, and one of the most highly groomed, protected, and prized brands.) How this destroys meaning and the social is less clear, at least at first.

On one level, Baudrillard could be saying something like this. Since what we consume is the advertising, what we spend our social lives on is the exchange of signs “branded” by advertising. Social life among “the masses” as constituted by media, is characterized by an exchange of asyntactic messages, signs that have been branded, and the sameness of all those messages means that they cannot mean anything. None of us has anything to say, except for what our branded, consuming existences provide for us to say, which is to say, the endless repetition of media messages.

Meanwhile, and borrowing a bit from McLuhan again, as well as the history of audience research going back to Lazarsfeld in the 1920s, the brand images and advertisements themselves are adjusted for maximum impact through market research, focus groups, and so forth. There’s a continuous feedback loop from the advertiser to the target of the ads and back to the advertiser.

If one were to look at this without considering the human activity of exchanging signs, where we would be the conduits through which the signs are exchanged, rather than living creatures with the capacity to communicate (an assumption that fits rather well with Baudrillard’s notion of the destruction of meaning and sociality), then the exchange of signs takes place as follows:

Advertisement-Consumer/Conduit-Consumer/Conduit-Advertisement

This suggests that we could characterize the activities of each node in the system of linguistic exchange formed by this circuitry as follows:

Advertising-Advertising-Advertising-Advertising

Meaning - linguistic, narrative meaning - is swallowed up by the ultimate form of media, the form of advertising, which is ubiquitous. Every term in the lexicon has been unhinged from any sort of referential or representational meaning by the reshuffling of the signifier deck by advertising. We can't speak of anything - love, art, truth, iced tea, war - without speaking in the terms of advertising.

Practically everyone who reads Baudrillard claims he's being hyperbolic on these points. I'm not so sure. If language is the foundation of meaning, and if language is irrevocably and always already altered by advertising, then the basic concept we each have of love, art, etc., and the basic ways we utter love, art, etc., are in advertising language. (It's important to keep in mind Baudrillard's insistence that it's the form of advertising, not what we take to be advertising, that matters.) Advertising speaks to us about who we are (constituted consumers), and gives us the terms to address one another as who we are (constituted consumers).

Thus, the "catastrophe of meaning" which leaves the masses in a state of "stupor," of "fascination."

Not content with that, Baudrillard drops a mention of computer language into this analysis, claiming that it will liquidate advertising and displace it. (The book was published in French in 1981.) What I want to do is see what a Baudrillardian interpretation of contemporary silicon technology would look like. Now that we have mobile bodies targeted by and targeting everything at once, in what sense is advertising obsolescent?

the end of the world - Santorumaggedon

As we have seen, the Republican Presidential Nomination campaign is all about which candidate will win the hearts, minds, and votes of those who believe that the United States is a nation founded on the Book of Revelation, the Christian document called the Constitution, capitalism, and guns. If they are right, the most apocalyptically-inclined candidate should win, and not only that, but that nomination should bring down upon us a hell-storm.

(Nota bene: The Republican convention is in August, the eighth month. It cannot be a coincidence that in Chapter 8 of Revelations, the seventh seal is broken. Yeah, no kidding!)

There can be no doubt that the most fervently evangelizing of the candidates is Rick Santorum, so it is clear that the closer he comes to the nomination, the closer we all come to the Final Judgment, the Ultimate Ultimate Fighting Championship of The Lord, the Last, Really, Really, Last Call of the End of All Times, as expounded upon in clear and concise detail in Revelation and other books and signs.

At present, Mitt ("OMG President Mittens!") Romney has 454 delegates; Rick Santorum has 217, Newt Gingrich has 107, and Ron Paul has 47. That means, as you are no doubt aware, that we are a mere 927 delegates away from Santorumageddon.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name was written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
  - Revelation 2:17

Should Rick Santorum overcometh Mitt Romney, clearly that would mean that the GOP had been given a white stone, since, as anyone can see, Santorum is white, and probably made of some kind of stone, and that new name will be written upon him: Republican Nominee. And lo, the reign of Santorum will be upon us all.

Book it. Either when Romney concedes, as he eventually must, because he's a loser nobody likes, not even the Republican Party establishment, or when Santorum wins the nomination at the Republican Convention in August, that'll be lights out.

the end of the world - 6 March

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
 --Revelation 6:3

Super Tuesday is always regarded as Apocalyptic, especially by the non-incumbent party, so it's appropriate to interpret the day, in terms of both its political and doom implications, from that standpoint. What we need to interpret is this text regarding the "second seal" and the "second beast."

There can be no doubt that these refer, this year, to the Republican nomination campaign. That is to say, the Republican Party positions itself as the party of God, Christianity, Righteousness, and the End of Days. (Exhibit A: The Republican Party has declared itself, for more than 30 years, to be the Party of God, Faith, Divine Dispensation, Morality, etc.) The "second seal" and the "second beast" must, therefore, refer to GOP Presidential candidates.

There can be only two, at this point: Mitt (aka "Mittens," aka NOT the Massachusetts native son) Romney, and Rick (don't even get me started) Santorum. Since Santorum still trails Romney, we must conclude that Santorum is "the second beast," right? So any win by Santorum during Super Tuesday is obviously another step closer to Armageddon, right?

This is getting so confusing. I wish the Republicans would work this out, so those of us trying to provide instructive guidance about the end of the world could have something like the truth to work with.

dinner

Tonight I made some food.

I cut two chicken breasts in half, pounded them flat, seasoned them, and added a slice of prosciutto and thin slices of fontina to them.

I dredged the chicken breasts in flour, sautéed them, and stuck them in a warm oven while I made a pan sauce with white wine, lemon juice, triple sec, sautéed mushrooms, and demi-glace. Later, I added tarragon and parsley to that.

Meanwhile, I was cooking Swiss chard...

and potatoes with diced prosciutto and shallot.

The final result looked a little like this:

Meanwhile, Valentine gave me this look:

(fierce)

academic freedom, academic repression, academic license

I'm in a faculty reading group this semester, reading an anthology called Academic Repression. A recurring theme in the book's chapters, each written by an aggrieved (or repressed) academic, is a recounting of the various ways that the academic establishment systematically rules out certain discourses - namely, progressive, critical discourses.

Several authors note that the tenure process is used to eliminate probationary faculty who dare to challenge the status quo, either in academia or in US culture or foreign policy. They express horror, I would call it, at the profoundly conservative leanings of the academic elite and the ham-fisted interventions of boards of trustees, government officials, and so on. Tenure, it seems, is granted only to those who obey the rules, follow the script, don't make noise, and behave themselves.

My reaction, chapter after chapter, is, "have you been involved in US academia at all, in the last 30 years? Did you not notice this before you became an assistant professor?"

I'm not suggesting there isn't systematic repression, because there certainly is. Notably, those complaining of it are generally from more elite, research-oriented institutions, where research doesn't matter, it's the determination in the last instance of a person's worth. Period. What this means is that research-intensive institutions have more of a vested interest in, and do more to discipline, the work of their faculty. After all, they are more dependent on reputation, large quantities of research dollars and foundation grants, then smaller, less elite, teaching institutions.

Again, I want to ask these authors, "did you know anything about this institution before accepting a position there? Like, where the money was coming from?"

They complain of a lack of academic freedom. I have little doubt that they are correct. I just think it's strange, and either naïve or disingenuous, to expect it in those institutions.

In contrast to elite research institutions whose hierarchy systematically preclude academic freedom, at teaching institutions, there also isn't academic freedom, but for entirely different reasons. Continuous, deliberate underfunding of public, comprehensive teaching universities limits the scope of academic discussion, and the desperation of junior faculty at these institutions to save their jobs leads them to quiescent compliance with any requirement - stated or implied - for tenure.

I am inclined to say there is no academic freedom in colleges or universities in the United States. This statement might lead a reader to the legitimate question: why am I not about to be fired, and why am I not afraid to say things like this?

The answer is that, although I don't have any more academic freedom than anyone else, what I have is a form of academic license. Simply put: I don't matter to the academic establishment, the power elite, the board of trustees, or anyone else. Nobody is paying me any attention. Nobody knows what I do in my classes except for the students in them, and the few students who care about what I do in my classes are overwhelmingly favorable to the material and ideas I expose them to, and the rest don't pay attention, either.

I could never get away with this if I was at a research institution. I'd have to toe the line. I'd have to publish, or perish, which means I would have to produce large bulks of the scholarly drivel that all the other academic philosophers in high-powered philosophy departments in the US have to produce (and produce all too happily). Ahh, but if I succeeded in that enterprise, I'd have tenure!

I don't think I'm being cynical. The authors in Academic Repression testify to this, ad nauseam. Let's say I'm glad I'm not one of them.

depression is stupid - part 6

Normally, I'm a very energetic person. I teach, write, play guitar, cook, walk, ride a bicycle, and perform most other activities with tremendous intensity and vigor. I even sit and read ferociously.

When depressed, I lose almost all of my power. This is not only a terrible obstruction to getting things done, but it's a cruel insult to my sense of self. I am nothing if not intense, so if I'm not intense, it follows that I'm nothing. Logic aside, that's how it feels.

I shall first illustrate by way of music. My guitar playing is a little off, because I never really learned the things most guitar players learn, so what I do is based on a very vivid sense of alienation from music, actually. I play the guitar very much in the same vein that Ionesco wrote plays, if you dig that (and maybe three people will).

It's been impossible to play the guitar lately. I can't catch hold of the weird relationship I have to music that drives me to play and to write songs - the compulsion to make this thing do something it's not inclined to do. But there's nothing there. I hold the guitar in my hands, and I don't know what to do with it.

Cooking has been the same. I have a smattering of French and a bit of Northern Italian, and what I love to do is walk into the kitchen, decide on some fairly arbitrary course of action, and make madcap gorgeous food happen. Pork loin stuffed with fennel in a sauce Robert? Solid! How about improvising on prawns poached in court bouillon and served with a sauce of the reduced stock and cream, with chives? Okey-dokey. Whip that up.

Lately? Nix. I made black bean chili Thursday. It was the most creative I've been in the kitchen in months.

I think my definitive characteristic is ferocious, iconoclastically-bent invention. While depressed? Bupkis.

Depression is stupid. It makes my music and food stupid, too.

depression is stupid - part 5

I've mentioned my therapist several times in this space. I've had a few therapy experiences. When I was a kid, my family was in group therapy. Even prior to that, I saw the psychological counselor at my grade school a few times, during my first depressive episode, I think. In high school, I was somehow referred to an awful psychologist who had a fixed theory about adolescent development, and insisted I fit the profile he was interested in. He was worse than useless, and may have written a series of fantastically successful and terribly damaging books based on his pet theory. I saw a therapist back at UNC-Charlotte, who was excellent the first few times I saw him, but then suddenly had a revelation about his work and, like that awful jerk I saw in high school, started making everyone fit his pet theory.

I saw a student psychotherapist at Duquesne a couple times. I liked the idea of it, because Duquesne is one of very few psych PhD programs in the US that adopt a phenomenological/existentialist approach. I'm not sure how helpful that experience was to me, primarily because it was only about three sessions. She decided not to continue our sessions, and, to be candid, I think it was because we were both very attracted to one another.

Years later, here in California, miserably depressed, I called the mental health hotline that I have access to through our insurance, and they hooked me up with my therapist in Modesto. They gave me two or three names and phone numbers, and I had to call them. She was the first one I reached.

By that point, I was pretty jaded about psychotherapy. I knew I didn't want someone operating out of what is basically a behaviorist model (like the guy at UNCC, and, really, the jerk in high school). I had doubts about psychoanalysis (still do). So, in our first contact, I asked my would-be therapist about her methodology. She was taken aback. She was also a little amused at my arrogance - a theme that would repeat throughout our relationship.

In retrospect, she was deeply committed to cognitive therapy. I gotta say, cognitive therapy is stupid.

The thing is, depressives have distorted pictures of reality. We think in terms of doom, all-or-nothing options, and we repeat to ourselves messages that damage us. For instance, in a really good bout of depression, I tell myself, about 4 dozen times a day, that I'm a terrible, worthless person.

The gist of cognitive therapy is to counteract those distortions by deliberately introducing a different set of messages. My therapist had me do this by actually writing myself notes of affirmation. Whenever I heard that negative message in my head, I was supposed to pull a piece of paper out of a pocket and read it: "You're a caring person" or "You're a good teacher" or "You're kind" - crap like that.

And it is crap. It's indescribably stupid. Think about this scenario. You're miserable. You're at work, and you're fighting against crying for no reason at all. You have to go be in front of other people in a few moments, and you believe you will fail. You think you're a fraud. So, what you do is, you reach into your pocket, and there's a folded piece of paper in there that says something inane like "You do things that make the world a better place." That's supposed to make you think differently about the situation, turn off the negative messages, and give you the fortitude to go do what needs doing.

This is what's stupid about cognitive therapy, from my experience: it works.

Since cognitive therapy is that stupid, it must be the case that either I'm that stupid, or depression is that stupid. Wait, let me read this folded piece of paper. It says "You're a smart person." Obviously, then, depression is stupid.

depression is stupid - part 4

In November of 2010, after a brief spate of depression in October, I decided to do something crazy, just for kicks: I participated in National Novel Writing Month. The aim of this is to encourage the creative spirit, I'd say. Participants attempt to write a novel of at least 50,000 words during November, starting from scratch.

I just jumped into it. I wrote a ridiculous book: the autobiography of a character I'd invented 20-some years ago called Biff Nurfurplerberger, who is a pop music singer-songwriter. The autobiography was written by two authors, Biff and Simon Ratmason, both of whom are unreliable narrators. Several chapters, and many depictions of events, flat out contradict what is stated elsewhere. Silliness abounding. (It's called Cake, and that link sends you to the Amazon page for it.)

It was the sort of satire I've been writing since I was 10. I pulled out every trick in my book. In one chapter, maybe my favorite, Biff (I think it's Biff - it's sometimes unclear whether the text is Biff's or Simon's) describes his role in the Beatles, and his feelings about the break-up of the band. Another chapter, the existence of which is denied by the foreword to the reader (which is pretty clearly not written by either Biff or Simon, but unsigned), is about the worship of cats. I stole the text from the Catechism. (Do you get it?!?!)

It was a blast. I cackled - yes, cackled! - while writing it. I finished the 70,000 word opus in 30 days (I crossed 50k on the 15th), and never looked back. The result was exactly what I wanted it to be, and I don't think there are more than a couple dozen words I would want back. Seriously.

In 2011, I decided to try again. This time, I had a serious novel in mind. Again, it was satire, but a dark one. It was to be a slightly futuristic, dystopian novel about a world run by one corporation, where repairing anything is illegal. The corporation has a division called Quality Assurance that makes certain that products break, by having what they call Warranty Workers break into people's homes and damage their appliances.

There was absolutely no way I could complete this project, like I did Cake. The story was too complex, involving too many characters' arcs. The world I was creating had to take more time to invent. I struggled, but I got through my 50,000 words.

And I hate it. I regard it as a complete failure. To write this book - which I still think would be an excellent book - I'd need to start over again.

My expectation for myself was that I would write around 60, 70 thousand words of the same clean, shiny prose as I had for Cake. That was impossible. Cake relied on about 30 years of developing a satiric, silly voice, a flair for absurdity and cognitive dissonance. This new contraption had to be seriously written, had to be funny (in that dark way - almost the way Kafka or Beckett are funny), had to carry the story, and had to be consistent.

This really, really, can't happen with a story as complex as I had in mind.

I approached the project with an all-or-nothing attitude, which is, of course, another characteristic mental attitude of depression: if I am not totally successful, I am a total failure. (Note also that the depressive does not give himself/herself credit for any past successes.) Since I could not succeed in those terms, I counted myself a failure, and I got nothing positive from NaNoWriMo. I can't even bring myself to share the book with anyone but my Loveliest, even just to ask how to start it over again.

Setting yourself up to fail is one more way that depression is stupid.

depression is stupid - part 3

Among my most annoying depressive symptoms is my struggle with self-worth. On any given day, I really don't have any.

One day, my therapist asked me about my self-worth. I forget the exact wording of her question, but the gist of it was to ask what the basis of my feelings of self-worth were. I couldn't really answer her at first.

Then I said I thought I was good at certain things, like teaching and cooking. I said I was intelligent and articulate. She interrupted me, and said that intelligence isn't something that you do for yourself or create for yourself, and being good at something, although you do in large measure create that for yourself, isn't intrinsic to you. She restated her question: why do you regard yourself as having worth as a person.

At this point, I got kind of frustrated, and argued, not in so many words, that my worth as a person was contingent upon my doing good or being worth a damn in the world. She responded that those were measures of others' esteem, not my own self-worth.

I still struggle with this, on two levels - practical and theoretical. (I suppose Aristotle would approve.)

Practically, having a tenuous sense of self-worth means that I'm dependent on a daily basis on others responding to me as though they value me, in order to feel good about myself. Most people who attempt to be entertaining feel this way, I believe. The vast majority of stand-up comics do, for sure: they need people to laugh with them, to assure themselves that people aren't laughing at them. The upshot of this is that bad days make me feel like I'm a bad person, not a person who had a bad day.

Theoretically, I still don't understand the concept of self-worth very well. The other day it occurred to me to distinguish self-worth from self-esteem. Self-esteem looks to me like a fairly vacuous self-boosterism, and I'm not sure what it's supposed to achieve. Do people who believe that they're always doing such good work do better work as a result? Self-worth is more a matter of having dignity and respect for oneself, and regarding oneself as worthy (sorry for the circularity; Aristotle would approve). But to my therapist's question of its basis, I'm still perplexed. I guess she had in mind something like "because I'm me, because all humans ought to have self-worth," but I'm not sure I buy that. (Too Kantian? Maybe if there was an eschatological explanation of self-worth, I'd find it more plausible.)

In any event, the problem of self-worth is yet another reason that depression is stupid.

depression is stupid - part 2

A common symptom of depression is usually called something like loss of capacity to enjoy pleasurable activities. For instance, over the last few months, I have had less enjoyment from playing the guitar, from listening to music, and even from cooking.

The irony is that these are activities that I engage in not only because I enjoy them for their own sakes, but because they are calming, soothing, even meditative. They relieve stress.

Instead, I've felt like it was worthless for me to play the guitar (because I'll never be a great guitarist), and I haven't been listening much to music (because I can't ever figure out what I want to hear), and I have felt like my cooking was in a rut (because I haven't been patient or exploratory). The distorted perception related to my depressive outlook discounts the value of the activities that generally do, and generally should, make me happy, and so the prospect of them is sometimes overwhelming.

For several years, I found an hour every day to play the guitar (guitars, I suppose), but lately I practically force myself to play, sometimes just out of guilt that I own them and they just sit there taking up space. As one might well imagine, playing an instrument with that motivation is not all that enjoyable. It also doesn't lead to the best performances, which reinforces my perception that I'm so lousy at playing that it's not worth it.

My Loveliest will say that I play beautifully, that she loves to hear me play, and that what should matter is that I play because it feels good to play. This is a difficult message to understand, because I can't think about it in terms of what it does for me. Instead, I feel stressed.

So, the activities in life that I enjoy, that, in a manner of speaking, I need to enjoy, are not relieving stress, but causing it, because I am depressed, in large part because of stress.

Ergo, depression is stupid.

depression is stupid - part 1

I'm going to see my doctor tomorrow. This evening while vacuuming I was thinking about the cognitive therapy I had before, and how it helped me identify bad mental habits that reinforced depression - in particular the "I'm fraudulent," "I'm not worth shit," and "I'm doomed" parts.

One thing that I need in order to feel happy is social and political involvement. Getting involved in the Society for Phenomenology and Media back in 1999, and getting involved in CFA in 2002, helped me through two dark periods. In particular, CFA activism consistently restored my sense of genuine meaning, purpose, and my own value to the world.

Being in on the politics on campus helped me to understand what was going on, to see my own troubles in a context that showed I wasn't being judged on my merits, but according to a distorted, managerialist, authoritarian model of control that is experienced by the majority of faculty in the US. Learning about our working conditions from my CFA colleagues, and from the contingent faculty movement, was empowering and gave me hope.

A couple years ago, my depression and anxiety symptoms started to return, triggered in part by the last few horrible years of administrative malfeasance, hypocrisy, and greed, and in large part by the resultant increase in my job insecurity. At the same time, I became even more involved in activism, more involved in resisting the autocratic management in whatever way possible.

Much of that effort has seemed to fail, from my perspective. The autocrats remain, they hire more autocrats to carry out their bidding, and they gleefully spend education budgets on union-busting and on consultants whom they hire to figure out how to get rid of more faculty and staff. The stress I'm experiencing from all this is ridiculously high.

Thus, I have a dilemma. I have relied on this range of deep involvements in my institution and in the faculty labor movement for creating meaning and purpose in my life. Besides which, the person I am just can't sit by - I'm simply a born dissenter. On the other hand, the stress is definitely a factor in my depression and anxiety. If I reduce or eliminate those involvements, I will increase the anxiety I feel for not being involved, taking some control over my fate. If I continue, I will maintain or increase the stress that contributes to my anxiety.

My therapist would ask something at this point like, "Is it realistic to think you can control your fate, either way?" Or, "Is that the only way you can control your fate?" One or two of my friends would likely tell me to give up on the union and campus politics. While I get that, I also feel conflicted. Even just last week, a CFA meeting followed the next day by a committee meeting (on college dean evaluation) lifted me from a point where I wasn't sure I could continue going to work. Then on Tuesday of this week, a discussion in academic senate weakened my hope and resolve.

So my conclusion for now isn't that I should or shouldn't stay so deeply involved with things. It's simpler: depression is stupid.

the end of the world - and why it still seems to be going

I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
 --Revelation, 2:13-14

My loyal readers may have been having some difficulty squaring their experiences with my explanation that the world had ended last week. That's understandable, and, to be candid, I've had some difficulty, myself.

First of all, let me make it as clear as I can that it's a good idea to continue to pay your bills and your rent, even if the world has ended. I have no information that settles once and for all the question of whether debts transfer beyond the Apocalypse. Given our recent experience of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, I'm guessing "yes." Word to the wise.

Second, as I suppose goes without saying, I cannot accept any liability for your failing to pay said bills during the last week.

Moreover, those experiences are very hard to understand in light of today's text, which includes tomorrow's text, since it's about to be Valentine's Day. It's a challenging text, since it does not specifically denote doom, but instead, more of a snit, over behavior that's normally given severe condemnation -- eating sacrificial animals and having hot sex. From my perspective, both eating animals and hot sex are au courant this time of year, so I am sure that's what's referred to. (I think the idea in that last line has something to do with rabbis trying to stop us from eating sacrificial animals and having hot sex. I'm not sure.)

But to what end? And how does this explain how we've had to go to work for almost a whole week now, after the apparent end of everything?

These are challenging times. Dark times. My loyal readers will know that, despite all the portents, we must push forward. After all, tomorrow isn't another day.

the end of the world - 7 February

Some things are abundantly clear, in this world. It is clear, for instance, that the fate of the world is tied to the fate of former senator Rick Santorum. We know this to be true because he tells us so.

In an earlier post, I noted the close connection between Santorum's candidacy for the Republican Presidential Nomination, Newt Gingrich's relationship to truth and falsity, and the ultimate end of everything. Gingrich proposed that the South Carolina primary would be "armageddon" for Santorum, and on that basis, I suggested the possibility that Santorum's defeat in South Carolina would herald the end times.

No such luck.

I have since become more clear in my understanding of Newt Gingrich's relationship to the truth. When he said South Carolina would be "armageddon" for Santorum, he had to be uttering falsehood, because he's Newt Gingrich.

Upon further reflection, it's clear that Gingrich provided us the clue we needed to understand these signs. Since Newt cannot tell the truth, his invocation of "armageddon" in South Carolina, on the grounds that Santorum would lose big (as he did), clearly indicates that the true sign of the final end of all ends will be a Santorum victory.

To sum up: Everything Newt Gingrich says is false. Therefore, when he proclaimed that armageddon would follow Rick Santorum's terrible defeat in the South Carolina primary, the truth of that statement was, really, that armageddon would be presaged by Santorum electoral victories. Since Santorum won in the three non-binding, non-elector-selecting primaries and caucuses Tuesday, it's obvious that those elections indicated the end of the world.

Obviously, this means that any work you've done since then will be unpaid. Sorry.

the end of the world - ?

February 2 is Groundhog Day. It's not Groundhog Day, which is a filthy, depraved, disgusting so-called motion picture that was filmed in Clarion, Pennsylvania, not Punxsutawney, since Punxsy is kinda crappy, actually, compared to Clarion. Groundhog Day, the day, not the movie, is an enduring tradition involving drunkenness and rodent exploitation, like most traditions.

What does this have to do with the end of the world, you ask?

As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
Song of Solomon 2:2

We must interpret carefully this perplexing text on Groundhog Day. As always, reading it in the context of Revelation is helpful.

I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Revelation 2:2

You see? It's odd, until you probe a little deeper.

The lily, thorns, love, and daughters part has a pretty direct meaning, as I'm sure is clear. It's about boinking, and spring, which is, of course, the season of boinking. Groundhog Day is the day that Punxsutawney Phil interprets the omens only he can, in order to determine when spring will arrive. Hence the relevance of the season of boinking line from Song of Solomon.

The verse from Revelation is the pickle. To whom is this addressed? That is, who is "thy"? What are "thy labor" and "thy patience"?

Let's be clear about this: Punxsutawney Phil is an innocent groundhog, who is ceremoniously yanked from a tree trunk at the ass-crack of dawn in godforsaken Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on the second of February in the midst of a couple thousand college students in the tenth hour of a drunken binge, hoisted aloft by twerps in top hats, and then stuffed back in the tree. If anybody labors patiently, it's Punxsutawney Phil.


Cuuuuute.

Plus, think of the labor he is thus required to perform: he looks for his shadow, among this mayhem (sometimes empty bottles are thrown), and, I can tell you from having seen the spectacle, he's very, very afraid! He can't bear them evil drunken hooligans. (I have always been concerned about Phil's little ears. The crowds are terribly loud.) It is therefore obvious that the "thy" referred to in Revelation is Punxsutawney Phil.

What this tells us is that Phil will tell us whether the end of days (read: the season of boinking) will be delayed six weeks. As a result, I must hold in abeyance my further information about that date and the circumstances of the final and ultimate end of all ends. For now, it's all in Phil's hands paws.

the end of the world - not 31 January 2012

Pundits are proclaiming today's Florida Republican Primary to be the most significant yet. The Republican Party establishment have evidently come to their collective senses and realized that OMFG NEWT F***ING GINGRICH IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT?! Consequently, they've poured buckets of money into Mitt Romney.

(Not literally, I suppose.)

Of course, the real significance of this is: Rick Santorum's campaign will begin its inexorable and pitiable descent from madness to obscurity, obscurity to boutique, boutique to dropsical, and finally, dropsical to dead. (That's the usual course of these things.) Despite this, I can safely say that the world will not end today.

There is also no 31st verse of the first chapter of Revelations, and although Chapter Two, Verse One of Ezekiel provides some intriguing hints of what could come up later, obviously that couldn't apply to our situation today, since it's January 31 (i.e., 1:31), not February 1 (i.e., 2:1).

So enjoy your day. My enjoyment of my day will begin with an optometrist appointment. I would make a joke here about going to "see" my optometrist, and it would be hilarious, but I don't have the heart. Depression is a terrible thing, and, as a tip for everyone, optometrists are not qualified to treat depression.

(By the way, it's also impossible for the world to end on the day you go to see your optometrist. This does not apply if your eye doctor is actually an opthamologist.)

tenuous

This morning, I'm thinking about my depression and anxiety in relation to my perma-temped job.

I am in my 13th year of teaching at Cow State Santa Claus as a temporary faculty member. I do not have the opportunity for tenure, and have very reasonable assurance that I will never have that opportunity. While the support for humanities education collapses, and while 75% of college faculty nationwide are similarly positioned, my PhD gets staler and staler, and I become more and more un-hirable as a starting assistant professor.

Among tenuous-track faculty (my gag name for those of us in perma-temped positions), CSU "lecturers" enjoy probably the best working conditions, wages, and benefits of anyone. What that does not do anything to resolve is the humiliation we're constantly subject to, and, for me, the added humiliation and despair over my status.

For instance, it is very hard to believe I am really worthy of a tenure-track job, despite having a longer and stronger publication record than several of my tenured colleagues. Psychologically, this is due to my position at the university being one in which I am constantly given that message on a daily basis.

I always worry. I am always concerned that this academic year could be my last, and that, given the landscape of faculty work opportunities, the last of my career. I have a very strong feeling of being temporary, of not being at home, of not being able to have a home, and of having nothing between me and the catastrophic loss of my employment, career, and what I am often rueful to regard as my life's calling.

What struck me particularly about this this morning is how difficult it is for me to sit down and read a book. I'm best at it around 9-10 am, sitting quietly in my work room at home in a blue armchair from Ikea (grad student furniture). But there's always something else I feel I should be doing, something that I have to do in order to try to save, or resurrect, my career. I cannot just sit there and read, not when tomorrow the university could begin disciplinary proceedings against me over a trumped-up charge, and nothing can stop them, because I don't have tenure.

(That's not a paranoid thought, by the way. I've seen it happen several times to temporary faculty, and as a faculty rights rep, I've had no way to do anything about it.)

the end of the world - apparently not 25 January 2012

Okay, I'll admit it, my last post about the end times was motivated entirely by self-interest, namely, my self-interest in having the Spring semester somehow not happen. I didn't have any good backing for that assertion. Sorry. (Say it like a Canadian! "Sore-ry!")

(Ooooh, I smell a meme! "Say it like a Canadian!")

Now that I think about it, my selfish desire to have the world end in order to avoid having to go to school today was incredibly short-sighted. Follow me here: if the world had ended, and I didn't have to go to school today, it would also have been the case that I, too, would have ended, since my existence more or less depends on the world's existence. What was I thinking?!

Clearly, no one should want the world to end, unless that person was more or less assured of some avenue of escape from personal demise concomitant with the world's. Plus, if you think about it, wanting the world to end entails wanting lots of people to stop existing, as well, and there's something slightly rude about that. In fact, this whole "end of the world" business is a lot trickier, ethically speaking, than I thought. Some people are really attached to the world, and their friends and pets. Holy crap! I'm really attached to my friends and my pets! Sorry, guys! ("Sore-ry, guys!")

On the other hand, if the world were to actually, really, officially end - like really end, not just kind of turn crappier - not only would my friends and pets end, but so would I. So I wouldn't continue to exist, only in a world where my friends and pets would not exist. No. I would stop existing, too. That should make the notion more bearable, right? The end of the world wouldn't be just the end of my friends and pets ("Sore-ry!"), but my own end as well, and so I wouldn't have to deal with the pain and loss.

That's nice, eh? ("Eh?")

the end of the world - 25 January, 2012

In the days following a predicted date of the end of the world, one is often asked to explain how it is that one mistakenly made such a prediction. This is understandable, and I for one certainly promote critical thinking by all of my followers, but these questions are, in truth, out of order.

First of all, the notion that once the date passes, a prediction is proved "wrong," is so simplistic that it's false.

Last week, I was able to discern that the world would end after the South Carolina Republican Primary, that is, following the "armageddon" of Rick Santorum's campaign, predicted by Newt Gingrich. As I explained, it is physically impossible for truth and Newt Gingrich to co-exist in this universe, and so, if he had spoken the truth about Santorum's demise, our own would follow.

Now that Gingrich has been declared the winner in South Carolina, and Santorum in Iowa, we know that Gingrich's claim was not true. Thus, we and our universe continue to exist. Somewhere, on a little watery planet light-years away, emerging extremely alien life crawling through primeval slime is unspeakably grateful, whereas we continue to bitch.

Anyway, my point is that my so-called prediction was not "wrong," since the events of Saturday followed precisely the course that I had explained. QED. [Original text: "QED, mutherfucker!" - Ed.]

Second, this whole business of calling for accountability for "wrong" predictions fundamentally mistakes what this is all about. Visionaries like myself (if I do say so) are not "predicting," like cheap side-show palm readers or tarot charlatans. We are engaged in an interpretation of the signs that the world and our holy texts present to us, an interpretation of world events in their ultimate significance, and in their ultimate days.

Third, I'm not very good at math. Specifically, algebra. And believe me, there's a lot of algebra involved in interpreting the signs and holy texts. Parsing Revelation requires quadratic equations.

Fourth, it's rude.

I am prepared, today, to announce that the world will meet its final and ultimate doom on Wednesday, the 25th of January, 2012. Classes at Cow State Santa Claus are scheduled to begin on Thursday, 26 January, but obviously, I won't be able to make it.

the end of the world - 21 January 2012

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

                              - Revelations 21:1

Saturday, the 21st of January - 21/01/2012 - is very likely to be the end of the world.

No, it's not because Saturday is the sabbath of the chosen people. And it's not because Jon Huntsman dropped out of the Republican Presidential race.

It's because of Rick Santorum.

Now, before anyone gets any crazy ideas about Santorum, his sanctity, or his electability (especially not his electability, cuz, you know, Santorum). In fact, it's not really because of anything Rick Santorum has done or failed to do. It's not because of his pandering to the bigot vote, and it's not because of his adherence to a very weird theology. And I am not saying that Rick Santorum is the antichrist.

To understand the truth, sometimes you have to look beyond the facts. This is one of those times. Facts cannot help us to understand or to know how and why it is that, of all people, Newt Gingrich has discovered the truth.

This will be difficult to comprehend, so let me take it a little slow.

Cosmologists have speculated about the origin and the state of the universe as we presently experience it. Current thinking seems to coalesce around the notion that the reason this universe is here is that, of all possible universes, no incompossible universes can co-exist in the same space-time. That is, this is the universe we live in, because this is the universe that makes it possible for us to live in it. We can't know of the existence of other universes, which are equally possible to our own, if not compossible with it, because to know of their possibility, we'd have to leave this one, and when we did, we'd stop existing, too.

The gist is, there cannot be two co-existing incompossible universes.

So, let's distinguish two different universes. We'll call the first universe Our Universe, and we'll call the second universe Shit-Crazy Universe, just to keep them distinct.

In Our Universe, there is a guy named Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich is a politician in the worst possible sense of the term. I mean to say, it is not possible for Newt Gingrich to utter the truth. When I say it's not possible, I mean, Newt Gingrich and anything approaching the truth cannot co-exist in Our Universe. It is a fundamental law of nature.

Yet, Newt Gingrich has told the truth about the Saturday primary, to wit, that it will be armageddon for Rick Santorum. Despite this, Newt Gingrich apparently continues to exist.

Now, once Saturday's primary concludes, once Rick Santorum is soundly defeated, should Newt Gingrich continue to exist, it must be the case, following this fundamental law of nature, that Our Universe will be destroyed, and the Shit-Crazy Universe will replace it. Armageddon for Rick Santorum will thus be armageddon for us all ... except for Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich: destroyer of universes.

Book it. Just before the drop of the puck in the NY Islanders - Carolina Hurricanes NHL game at 7:08 EST.

the end of the world - NOT Friday, 13 January

As many readers are likely aware, the world did not end in the first intermission of the Winnipeg Jets - San Jose Sharks NHL game last night. I apologize if this led to any inconvenience, but to be frank, the world actually ending would be far more inconvenient than being prepared for a predicted end of the world that was not forthcoming.

I have discovered two minor errors in my previous prediction, and am currently working on revisions to my methodology to account for these errors and assure you, my followers, of much greater accuracy in future clarification of the end times.

First of all, despite the evidence to the contrary, it turns out the Winnipeg Jets have nothing to do with the end of the world. The return of NHL hockey to the Manitoba capital after the previous Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996 would no doubt appear to be a major harbinger. This could still prove to be true, but I am confident that whatever it is a harbinger of is not, in fact, the apocalypse.

Of course, the game between the Jets and the Sharks therefore had no major implications for the ultimate cataclysm, only a little impact on the NHL season, and indeed, there were fewer jazz dance snap fights in the game than I was expecting. Far fewer. The omens and portents are subtle, and interpreting them correctly subtler still. I think, in this instance, I may have been just a little too subtle.

More updates to come, as new revelations - better make that epiphanies - come to me. Suffice it to say that the world will not end today, Friday the 13th of January. That kind of superstitious claptrap has no business in the understanding of the end of days.

the end of the world - Thursday, 12 January

Obviously, if you're reading this, the world did not end on Tuesday, the New Hampshire primary victory of Mitt Romney notwithstanding, and notwithstanding his call to restore Murrka's moral core.

Anyway, the main problem in my calculations had to do with what happened at 18:21 of the second period of the Winnipeg Jets-Boston Bruins game. Nothing happened at 18:21 of the Winnipeg Jets-Boston Bruins game.

I am now in a better position to understand the prophecy entrusted to me regarding the End Times. I recognize that the pattern involves not Babylon/Boston, and certainly not the relationship between that game and the New Hampshire Republican primary. That would be silly.

It does, however, involve the Jets. I am now prepared to revise my earlier prediction, and want to let all of my followers know that the world will end this coming Thursday, during the NHL game between the Winnipeg Jets and the San Jose Sharks. This is made clear in part by the relevant text from West Side Story. As you know, a significant event in the story is a street fight between rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks.

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

When you're a Jet,
If the spit hits the fan,
You got brothers around,
You're a family man!

You're never alone,
You're never disconnected!
You're home with your own:
When company's expected,
You're well protected!

Then you are set
With a capital J,
Which you'll never forget
Till they cart you away.
When you're a Jet,
You stay a Jet!

The fight takes place, in the old film version of the show, by way of modern dance and jazzy finger-snapping. No doubt, there will be a lot of that in the game Thursday night.

But the clincher here, what really tells us the full story and gives us certainty that this is the true moment of the climactic end of the world, is Mitt Romney's New Hampshire primary victory speech today, in which he promised not only to unseat Barack Obama, but to restore Murrka's moral core.

When I first saw this speech on CNN, I said, "What the hell is Mitt Romney talking about? Get that hypocritical bitch cow corporate whore off my TV screen, before I shoot it again!" On further reflection, it's obvious. West Side Story was written by the notoriously gay Leonard Bernstein, who was not only gay, but also incredibly gay. Nothing could be more anti-Murrkan than being a gay gay gay frickin' gay frickin' Jewish gay Jew, like Bernstein. Bernstein was probably also a Commie pinko red gay frickin red gay gay red pinko East Coast intellectual effete gay effete Jew.

This can't possibly be a coincidence. Romney wins in New Hampshire. The Jets play the Sharks. West Side Story. Leonard "Super Gay Pinko Gay Jewish Gay Commie Jew" Bernstein.

Puck drops around 8:38 EST in the 'Peg. Armageddon in the first intermission.

the end of the world - Tuesday, 10 January

And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

Revelations 18:21

New Hampshire - the Granite State, named for that stone of which many millstones have been made over the centuries - is, of course, a border state to Massachusetts, wherein lies Boston. Many tax evaders live in New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts, and commute down to Boston for lucrative jobs. Boston, being a large East Coast city, is therefore comparable to Babylon.

On Saturday, the Boston Bruins, 2011 Stanley Cup champions, lost to fellow Cup finalist Vancouver Canucks in a bloody, violent NHL game. The Bruins' next game is Tuesday, which is coincidentally the date of the New Hampshire Primary. Boston will play the Winnipeg Jets, and the puck will drop approximately 7:08 PM EST. The polls close at 8:00 PM EST, which is likely to be around the start of the second period.

The Great Millstone - the Granite State's GOP presidential primary election - falls on the same day as the Boston - that is, the Babylon - Bruins play in their very next game after the tremendous outburst of violence in Saturday's game. Thus with the millstone, and violence, Babylon will be no more.

Book it. With 18:21 left in the second period of the Boston-Winnipeg game, the world will end.

solid, air, etc.

My National Novel Writing Month project began with a simple premise. What if major corporations decided that planned obsolescence wasn't aggressive enough a strategy for provoking consumer purchases of new goods. What if, instead, they had teams of people who broke into our houses, broke our stuff, and made it look like normal wear and tear?

I wrote a brief scene of this last summer sometime, and then it turned into this novel.

And then the novel turned from being a goofy little satire on consumerism, into a black comedy about corporate capitalism. It's become a Kafkaesque satire, which is to say, it's funny in the way that things are funny when your choices are laughing or doom. It's the kind of funny people will appreciate who also appreciate the humor of these lines from the Communist Manifesto:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

I know! And that's Karl Marx, not Groucho!

mood, typography, cognitive therapy

Mood's been uneven. The Christmas trip down to LA was good. The Penguins keep winning.

I'm knee-deep in a gorgeous book, The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst (an acclaimed Canadian poet as well as a typography nut). It's not quite a textbook, and not quite a treatise, on the art of typography. The book follows its own stated axioms, and does so beautifully. Even the paper is beautiful.

Consequently, I'm dreaming up ways to re-format all the documents I used in classes. I'm being playful and ridiculous with the Professional Ethics syllabus, for instance.

One dilemma I already know I have regards the use of ligatures. In a lot of typefaces, they are very nearly obligatory. But since I provide documents online as well as well as in hard copy, I need fonts that are good screen fonts, and ligatures are not very clear on a screen. This is a good problem to have, because it keeps me off the streets and out of my head.

a little help from my friends

Thanks, everyone.

Elizabeth, whom I believe I know through the kind auspices of Sharon and Dave's famous annual cocktail party, suggested a connection between depression, fear, and capitalism. I'm not super hip to Marxist analyses of the phenomenon we call depression, and with regard to myself, a psychiatric account makes so much sense it's hard for me to see past it. I mean, I was first depressed when I was 9. No kidding.

Yes, even 9 year olds raised in capitalist society experience its contradictions. I think what I mean is that the obvious effects of capitalist economics on my life have grown a lot stronger and more direct since then.

I have no doubt that this recent bout has something to do with the constant assault of the people pushing the corporate/privatized/Friedmanized university (and society). "Torture" may be a gross exaggeration of their way of treating people, but otherwise, their behavior is captured awfully well by Naomi Klein's thesis in The Shock Doctrine (as many in CFA have pointed out). The creation and exploitation of crisis, and the constant application of techniques to undermine my ability to understand the reality of my situation, play very well into my own psychiatric condition. After all, one of our administrators did research on fear as a marketing tool.

(By the way, in my National Novel Writing Month project this year, the Marketing Division of the Corporation is not only the investigative wing, but also arranges torture - i.e., "focus groups" - but also assassinations, in an effort to thwart the underground movement of people who repair things rather than throw them out and buy new ones.)

Lauren was pointing out just the other day how our society trains everyone to imagine that their economic fates are their own doing, and how this ideology really helps the corporate capitalist elite seem to be meritorious, despite their being constantly rewarded for failing. To a certain extent, I fall into that too, blaming myself for my failures in academia, when that's largely discredited by a more objective analysis - say, just pointing out that 75% of faculty that we can count in the US are non-tenure-track faculty.

(Another random aside: I feel like I know and have known a suspiciously large number of people named Elizabeth or Leigh, or versions thereof.)

2011 can't end fast enough

This has been, all told, a terrible and painful year for me.

Nothing in particular has happened, not among what we might call the objective facts of my life.

Seven years ago, due almost entirely to Lauren's being wonderful and lovely, I was able to make the biggest leap of faith I ever had. I turned my life around, and became happy, deeply happy, for the first time. The demonic rage in my mind was subdued, and I had a chance to like myself.

I did not know at the time, and no doubt would have denied it, that that rage would return. I have spent almost all of 2011 caught up in it. It is a rage directed at myself - a constantly undermining, constantly terrifying anger and hatred. Not usually aloud, but in my head, I am almost always screaming at myself.

Not a nice thought crosses my mind, that is not shouted down by this yelling snarling beast. It hates what I do, it accuses me every instant of fraud, of dissembling by every thing I say or do, or even think. It will not permit me to believe in myself, in my perceptions, and therefore will not let me believe in the reality of my everyday life. Every pleasure and joy are shredded by this monster inside me.

It has been eating me alive all year. I am so sad, and so ashamed, that the only way I can think of to do something about it is to confess my agony and fear on this stupid blog. I haven't even been able to tell Lauren, because I'm ashamed to have ruined her good work and been so careless with her love.

I'm sorry, my friends, for disturbing you with this - I assume it is disturbing. It must be a bit shocking to imagine that as I smile and joke with you, or coolly reply to a comment, or even entertain or delight you with silliness or insight, that I am ruining the experience for myself, and when we depart, I spend all the energy I can muster destroying the event and re-interpreting it as a horrible lie. It is a continual oppression.

I don't get to have an easy answer for this. I don't think therapy or anti-depressants ever freed me from it. I don't believe in god. I can't. It's often hard for me to believe in anything, because I am constantly telling myself that I don't believe what I say and think. So it's very hard to make any kind of effort to change this.

A few weeks ago I woke up full of this rage, just a terrible cursing of everything about me, and I started to cry, and then stopped myself. I told myself I was being an idiot. And I said to myself, aloud, without meaning to, "Please stop hurting me."

I can't take any more hurt from me. I am going to try to stop it. The only thing I can figure to do, now that I've told all of you about it, is ask Lauren to help me, again. I guess that's a new year's resolution.