Encounter on the Greyhound

On a return trip from an impromptu visit to Columbus I met a man of Dominican heritage who noticed I was reading Rodolfo Acuña's Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. Turns out he is a kind of peace/radical activist of some sort. He travels around the country speaking on various issues.

But I have to say that talking with him was like brushing against the ideologies of my budding early teen activism beginning with the Columbus chapter of Anti-Racist Action. Not only did he hand my a pamphlet I'm pretty sure I owned when I was thirteen on COINTELPRO and its continuation, but also a copied-so-many-times-the-text-is-illegible Black Panther flier. This man was potentially in his late 30s or 40s, and he presented information to me with an attitude that suggested that his every statement should be revelatory.

I don't want to sound patronizing, but I see myself now at some sort of remove from the realm of the political projected by that well intentioned man. Particularly, because he rattling off these implicitly anti-semitic comments about Jews owning the media, which if you actually look at the data there hasn't been the critical mass of Jewish ownership of media conglomerates since the 1960s (he should think about a frightening Aussie running shit instead and the rise of conglomerate produced media).

I guess I don't want to think about this man's thinking about politics as emerging from a kind of ethical bent and personal practice to be obsolete, but I think my understanding of the ways in which governmentality, imperialism, and capitalism shape the space of the political is radically different from what it was when I was passing out the aged fliers he uses to make his speeches. But moreover the arrangement of players and conflicts have changed necessarily reshaping how we understand the political landscape: certain ethnic and raced conflicts don't take shape in the ways that this era of thinking projects (as in the consistent exploitation of African-Americans by Jews for example, there are and have always been working class Jews).

I guess this was a good reminder for me about the minimal progress I've made to think about the contemporary and the possibilities and limitations of the present.

Harrowing Weeks Since

So these last few weeks have produced absolutely no posts from me and this mostly has to do with some emotionally trying and difficult things going on in my personal life. In order to represent its simultaneously painful and tacky, clichéd quality of this experience I present a scene from Fass Binder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant without subtitles:



Highlights from the last couple weeks include:

1) Talking my advisor down. Was finally able to make the point that there is in fact a "last instance" when it comes to Latino immigration to the United States (for those unfamiliar with Louis Althusser this will make no sense). He intimidates the crap out of me so this was a step in the direction of me becoming his colleague and not merely his student.

2) Discussing academic porno. So in the reading "How To Tame a Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua my students and I encountered the phrase "my mouth is a motherlode." This made me burst into laughter immediately which my students didn't understand. Upon later discussion with other grad. student friends we decided that this would be an amazing title for a gang-bang porno staring Anzaldua. Picture the final money shot scene on her mouth, she a nude older Mexican woman, brown breasts flying, turquoise jewelry splayed everywhere.

3) Encountering this phrase in a work by Americo Paredes, "the American taste for ham plays a big part in border folklore, and now and then one hears the term gringo jamonero" as a derisive term for Americans--ha!

4) Despite a broken bike frame that I've had for almost 6 years, I've started sucking it up and working on a much newer frame I purchased to produce my dream bicycle. With some help from friends identifying appropriate parts, I'm feeling pretty good that it might be done by the end of january.

5) Amanda Blank has a few good tracks:


6) The semester is over almost a week earlier than usual and I only have 7 student papers to grade.

Some Thanks-taking Wishes From William Burroughs.

I miss him...

W. S. Burroughs - thanksgiving prayer -
by Maetthew

Qualifying Exams Update

So about two weeks ago I submitted the second draft of my exam petition/proposal to my advisor for approval. Last time I had made the mistake of sending it to the whole committee before getting his approval and with the breach of protocol he chastened me and decided to wait a month before getting it back to me (beginning of September).

I was sitting on it for awhile in order to complete some reading and get a better sense of the aims and interconnections that might bubble up following said reading. A good friend in the program finally pressured me into revising and submitting another draft. So after a night of mixed drinks and much revising I sent in another version.

It appears that the biggest obstacle to approval is actually my advisor who I respect deeply and consider to be brilliant, but can be a little overly pedantic. The suggestions the other committee members made were minimal and rather rational.

As it stands, however, after my proposal is approved by my whole committee I need to wait at least 12 weeks (putting me at february) until I can take them, which is fine with me because I still have a shitload of reading to complete. That said I am feeling less in limbo and more confident about the process overall with some reading done I feel like I have some ground to stand on. Plus even though my advisor can be a little curmudgeonly he likes me and that also works to my advantage. In particular, he likes it when I make fun of him. One of my committee members, however, is pregnant and will be giving birth right before so I suspect that I will either have to find someone else or have her "skype" in.

Whatever the case I am ready for this process to start drawing to a close. I'm starting to feel ready for dissertation stage now.

Pop Tautologies

So I've come to the conclusion that a significant amount of popular music orients its hooks around tautologies, which is to say phrases or expressions in which the same thing is said twice in different words. To speak formally tautologies represent circular logic. When we say things like "I am what I am" we are engaging in a tautological thinking, and a bad cliché.

Pop music often depends on tautologies to produce it's hooks, or perhaps to fill in lyrical lapses that are nonetheless demanded by the music. So for example the Journey track, "Anyway You Want It," the chorus proceeds as:

"Anyway you want it that's the way you need it. Anyway you want it"



(this isn't strictly a tautology because "need" and "want" are easily differentiated synonyms, that might have somewhat dissonant meanings, but the speakers seems to be equating them to some degree.)

Similarly Smashing Pumpkins have a lyric in their song "Disarm" where the chorus involves the lyric:

"What I choose is my choice."



(ostensibly, this statement is meant to indicate that the speaker's choice is one that is resolute or belongs only to him or is made in a context free of limitation or constraint).

So what's my point? I'm not really sure. I wonder to what degree pop music beyond depending on tautologies and clichés to make its products more consumable is somehow pointing to certain understandings of time, the eternal present of capitalist society as observed by Fredric James? Or , perhaps its just that pop depends on simple truths, never endeavors to do more than that? Or that the form of pop music demands certain kinds of concision that limits the degree of explication?

On a related note are certain ambiguous quasi-tautological statements present in pop music that tend to index something outside the circular logic, often because they depend on colloquialisms and clichés. So my favorite example is the chorus for the track "Mama Said" by the Shirelles.

"Mama said, 'There'll be days like this. There'll be days like this,' My Mama said."



Now instead of being a strict tautology this statement seems to be a repetition of the same statement with the "mama said" portion reversed. Nevertheless, it seems like the "days like this" portion seems to be simultaneously gesturing to two different forms of time: "days like this" are either today, recognizable as frustrating, disheartening, difficult, etc., and yet also an earlier instance when the mother gave the advice in the first place, perhaps instantiating the first "days like this" for the singer. But it is precisely the "days like this"'s ambiguity that makes it eternal somehow, that "days like this" are always extant, always repeated. In singing the statement twice the singer not only repeats its significance but repeats the two senses of time. In a way she seems to be not only talking about time, but also some sort of overall cultural recognition of forms of time and experience. "Days like this" are homogenous and instantly recognizable, named by their redundancy.

I have no idea what to make out of all of this, but I think about it too often so I thought it might be blog worthy. Thoughts?

New INVASION video

They released an album in October of this year, still sweet.

INVASION - Spells of Deception from Marek Steven on Vimeo.

March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education

On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC
Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting
brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and
organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education ?
Pre K-12, Adult Education, CC, CSU and UC ? to "decide on a statewide action plan
capable of winning this struggle, which will define the future of public education
in this state, particularly for the working class and communities of color."

After hours of open collective discussion, the conference democratically voted, as
its principal decision, to call for a statewide Strike and Day of Action on March 4,
2010. The conference decided that all schools, unions and organizations are free to
choose their specific demands and tactics ? such as strikes, walkouts, march to
Sacramento, rallies, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. ? for March 4, as well
as the duration of such actions.

We refuse to let those in power continue to pit us against each other. If we unite,
we have the power to shut down business-as-usual and to force those in power to
grant our demands. Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in
turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services.

We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations across
the state to endorse this call and massively mobilize and organize for the Strike
and Day of Action on March 4.

Let's make this an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs,
fee hikes, and educational segregation in California.

To endorse this call and to receive more information, please contact
march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com and consult www.savecapubliceducation.org

Spring Statewide Conference
The next Statewide Conference was called for Spring 2010 and will be held in
Southern California. We hope that the upcoming Conference can move forward in
democratically deciding on unifying demands, as well as build for the statewide
actions on March 4. The exact location and date are TBA and will be sent out ASAP!

Demands
Throughout the day of the October 24 Conference, individuals and organizations had
the opportunity to raise the demands they felt were most crucial to this struggle.
All written and spoken demands are compiled in the document ?Demands 10/24/2009?
attached to the original email. We hope that the upcoming Spring Conference can move
forward in democratically deciding on unifying demands for the statewide actions on
March 4!

Coordinating Committee
A volunteer coordinating committee met after the conference. To join the
Coordinating Committee listserve ? oct24coord@lists.berkeley.edu ? please contact
oct24list@gmail.com if you would like to be added to the email list.

We encourage other individuals and activists to join the coordinating committee. It
is open to all!

The next in person coordinating committee meetings will be on November 7th at 1pm.
NorCal Location: San Jose State; SoCal Location: TBA by participants from the
region. Details will be sent out ASAP!