diamond black hearted boy

Child Abuse, to go along with Syllabus Building

...and its hopeless vicissitudes

 (I love this video)

Endless Spankings

Not Allowed: Hats Festooned with Animal Ears, for Adults

I'll admit it, when it comes to the culture of punk (and its affiliates) I accept and embrace punk terminology that denotes youth exuberance and juvenility, particularly the use of terms like "kids" to refer to others in the scene. I recognize these efforts as attempts to distinguish the punk community as somehow outside the confines of those who are responsible to state and capitalist efforts, a rejection of the public demand that as adults we assume the role of citizen-consumer, etc. At the same time as a generation (punk or not) I think we are not doing ourselves any favors when we consciously wear things that infantilize us. 


There has been a rash of wearing winter hats, over the last few years, with all sorts of animal-like adornment, most popularly hats with some sort of mammalian-ears (cats, fox, etc) that seem to infantilize its wearers. This has been particularly noticeable at various Occupy movements throughout the country, which has struck me the wrong way. Not because I want to use a fashion accessory to critique the underlying seriousness of the protests. I'm not going to do that, because then I might sound like Roger Ebert's (glib) recent post on Occupy Wall Street that suggests his utter lack of understanding of the motivations of these protests, just how out-of-touch he is with the status working and poor America, and just another reason why we don't turn to mediocre film critics for appropriate political vectors (I might be stabbing myself in the back with this last statement). I am clearly someone who supports these movements and sees them as the far-left return to the focus of politics for which I have waited all of these years. Fuck arguments about how we look as indicative of the credibility of our politics. But...


Get it the fuck together youth of America! Being "cute" in the sense of being 4 years-old is not useful, but is embarrassing! YOU ARE NOT A CHARACTER OUT OF A JAPANESE ANIME CARTOON!

Animation of an LSD fueled "No Hitter"

Hearts of Darknessess + Shitface

Movie Trailer for a collaboration between band Hearts of Darknessess and filmmaker Shitface.

This Made My Sunday, I Believe It Previews a New Album for Las Vaderramas?

Obama Seeks More Deportations than His Predecessor

From ImmigrationImpact.com:


"According to the report, Latinos (both native-born and foreign-born) accounted for half (50 percent) of all individuals sent to federal prison during the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2011. Of these 28,468 Latinos, 16,964 (or 60 percent) were sentenced for immigration violations. Non-U.S. citizens (of any ethnicity or race) accounted for just under half (48 percent) of people sent to federal prison. Of these 28,648 non-citizens, 20,303 (or 71 percent) were sentenced for immigration violations. Overall, immigration offenses accounted for one third (33 percent) of all sentences handed down."

"The steroids have gone to your head"

Update: Steven Seagal Sued for Celebrity, Tank "Justice"

From Forbes:
"It turns out, of course, that Seagal was just joining the ranks of reality TV stars, blending the line between reality and television, and the line between entertainment and justice. And now he’s being sued to the tune of $100,000 by Llovera, who is also demanding a written apology from Seagal to his children for killing their puppy"

Judith "Jack" Halberstam and the It Gets Better Project

I attended a lecture by Dr. Judith "Jack" Halberstam entitled "Transgenders in a Global Frame" that described the various ways in which the gendered categories of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual are imposed by the United States, and the West generally, on more localized and more gender ambiguous forms of sexual and gender behavior. Of course, this critique leans toward a kind of anti-imperialist rhetoric that tends to see the colonial or local as subaltern and therefore in some ways more congruent with emancipation. 


At the same time, in Western countries, Halberstam argued, that gender norms, particularly those of women, have been scrambled by models of transgenderism, insofar as 51% of women over 45 in the United States are single, suggesting something fundamentally askew in the production of feminine subjects, ready for state legibility. Instead, Halberstam promoted some notion that gender is a kind of ecology, wherein we might migrate to differential performances of gender and sexual life depending on where we are in life, and how we transform.


None of these claims are particularly revolutionary, and none I particularly took issue with. The notion of  gender as ecology makes a great deal of sense particularly with regard to the constant extension of human life in time might suggest a temporal evolution of sexuality and gender identity.


I questioned "Jack" with regard to "imposition" of gender/sex norms as being completely uniform, insofar as groups in Uganda fighting the execution ban have attempted to "take refuge" in LGBT set of identities at least to appeal for international aid against the law. Halberstam reminded me that it was U.S. pastors who helped initiated or at least fostered this law in Uganda in the first place, something I was already aware. But here is the problem with that argument:


On the one hand the state imposes a sexuality on its subjects and this is done with the aid and abeyance, perhaps initiative, of an imperialist/missionary element from the United States. Somehow LGBT groups in the West are responsible or complicit with this process in Uganda because they insist on identification with their categories and cause in order for those suffering under the threat of the new legislation and massive social intolerance to receive succor or aid, and they thus quash the fragile ecologies of gender/sexual life in these other nations. But at the same time, were this law to have passed, as soon as the subjects were to have emerged, i.e. identified themselves, power could do nothing productive with them, but to kill them (which at least for Foucault, the floating influence behind her argument, would be a rather unproductive use of power). LGBT groups operating within a liberal imperialist tradition are therefore retroactively to blame for these deaths which do not really mobilize more bodies ready for governance, or biopolitical regulation, but only death.


Halberstam closed her talk with a discussion of Dan Savage's "It Gets Better Project" that made some rather scattershot and I would say fucked up claims. She suggested that "It Get's Better" is a project that is comensurate with a cultural of neoliberalism, that insists on a generalized faith in the "future," as in market futures will generate profit and social equity if we only have faith in them. This was a claim that garnered at least my tacit assent, but then Halberstam seemed to indicate that somehow the rash of finally publicized suicides (queer teens are 75% more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual teens) by imputedly gay teens were not a socially significant phenomenon because the suicides were just boys. 


This last comment pissed me off to a significant degree, for obvious reasons, in large part due to the fact that outwardly perceived gay men, tend to be the object of public scorn and violence more often than lesbian women in the United States. Her suggestion to my mind seemed like a sort of knee-jerk reaction of a former 1970s radical feminist attitude that treats all men as pristine representatives of the patriarchy. At time, I will admit I thought there was something somewhat cute for me in the "It Gets Better Project," a reaching out across queer generations in a way that queer life in the U.S. tends to prohibit or make untenable.


Later in the year, Dan Savage came to town to discuss this project and basically give a live version of his column "Savage Love," a largely sexual and relationship advice column with national attention. And although I loathed and found completely disagreeable some of Halberstam's grisly conclusions, I have to say that her argument that Savage's project was commensure with neoliberal culture held. 

Savage continually made light of people who responded to the "It Gets Better" project with suggestions that "It Gets Worse" or "It Doesn't Get Better," by indicating that all of these videos to some degree affirm his message despite their interpretations to the contrary with your typical B.A. educated, dismissive certitude. In one response to a student question, Savage actually attempted to depoliticize the work of attempts to reach out. This student asked something to the effect of, "But shouldn't we also be saying that, what you are experiencing is discrimination, this is wrong. And it is part of a system of injustice." Dan, insisted that in the aim of safeguarding said queer child from harm we shouldn't be making such statements, or ask them to. It was in that moment that my lukewarm support for Savage's vision of thethe project was washed away and I found myself agreeing with that single claim made by Halberstam that Savage's work is in fact commensurate with the culture neoliberalism. If we depoliticize the struggle, by excising claims to justice and against oppression what we get is sentimentality and the weak claim that "everything will turn out right in the end." The ways in which the GLBT establishment attempts to depoliticize and make bipartisan what are concrete claims for liberation and against discrimination cut in precisely the same way as the way Savage wants to circumscribe the meaning of his project. So extending Halberstam's logic here is much more useful, than in the tortured logic she proposed above, that LGBT groups were somehow retroactively responsible for Ugandan violence against non-heteronormative peoples. 

How to Radicalize Graduate Students:

From Academe's July-August Issue:

Take these simple steps to intimidate, alienate, and agitate your own flock of graduate students.

By Heather Steffen

As the recession, budget cuts, endowment losses, and Republican governors gut university funding, campuses across the country have become host to occupations, union actions, and demonstrations.

Except for yours. When you gaze out on the quad, all that greets you is a file of book-bagged undergraduates nose deep in text messages, a few graduate students hauling books and lab equipment, and that weird squirrel with the crooked tail. What’s wrong with your corner of the ivory tower? Why aren’t your students marching shoulder to shoulder with the others? You included a three-week unit on Marxist criticism in your fall syllabus and proudly display your Obama ’08 poster, and last month you tacked a strip of Jorge Cham’s comic critique of academia over the photocopier, but your graduate students stubbornly look only to their reading, teaching, and the lab.

If this sounds like your campus, it’s time for a change. The steps below offer simple ways to rile up and radicalize your university’s graduate student population. Why target graduate students? Because they live and work at the crux of the university: when they’re not bothering you, these people are teaching undergraduates, giving conference papers, and living lives entwined with the community. Radicalize them and your university’s troubles will be broadcast where it counts—the classroom, the hotel bar, the statehouse. (And you can be assured, doctoral students will protest with abandon, having already demonstrated an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation by considering academic employment in the first place.)

But before we get to the steps you need to take, one caveat administrator: the things that radicalize are the same things that enervate. Your graduate students, appearances to the contrary, are intelligent adults with adult responsibilities and concerns. Those Chuck Taylor sneakers carry them home at the end of the day to support partners, care for children, feed pets, and call aging parents. Pressures and duties of that magnitude, on top of the commitments they’ve made to your university, are what make each turn of the screw worth two. But if you push too far, you’ll exhaust your most capable rabble-rousers and wind up with nothing but a bunch of broken-spirited, careerist brownnosers in your program.

On the upside, they’ll probably improve your program ranking, but walk this tightrope carefully. If you follow these six steps and keep a sharp eye out for signs of the tipping point between insurrection and burnout, your campus, too, can ring with the tones of disaffection, discontent, and incipient democracy.

Step 1. Build on graduate students’ existing strength: worrying. Depending on your region and Carnegie classification, you may be well on your way to creating a culture of anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt among your graduate students, and lord knows they arrive with plenty of that already on hand. But no matter how competitive and intimidating your campus is, the first step to fostering a vibrant radical population of graduate students is getting their hearts beating faster. These three tactics are sure to give any grad student’s pulse a jump-start:

A. Evaluation Assassination. When you evaluate a graduate student’s work, do you treat it like that of a future colleague, engaging with its ideas and style as if you were reading a friend’s article draft? If so, you’ll need to relearn your approach to grading. every seminar paper and dissertation chapter represents an opportunity to shake a graduate student to the very core. An offhand “This is not doctoral-level work” will more than suffice in most cases. (Nota bene: The probability of a demand for rationale decreases in inverse proportion to the time between submission and return of work.)

B. The Draft-and-Switch. Prospectus, research performance evaluation, thesis overview, dissertation: the merest whisper of any of these words makes graduate students curse having lapsed (“It was only one slice!”) on that irritable bowel syndrome diet. The draft-and-switch takes advantage of their inevitable prostration before the task of defining an academic identity. Advisers, perk up your ears.

A prospectus draft hits your inbox. Open that sucker up and give it a skim—does the lit review or the original research get more airtime? Whichever it is, fire off a response within hours apprising your student that she’s failed to incorporate the other. Include a list of at least six monographs against which the student has not adequately positioned herself, and request a total rewrite within three months.

Revision in hand, warm up your reply button, because you’re about to drop a bomb: the document must again be completely recast, and you are concerned about the project’s viability: “This reads like a review essay; what is your argument?” Before closing, recall to the student’s mind that her standing in the program depends upon swift approval by multiple entities and reveal that you are not at this juncture certain of her ability to meet the deadline. Will the student think she’s lost her mind? Will she spend the next two hours combing through her e-mail for your previous comments? Yes, all the while shaking like a leaf. Give yourself a pat on the back, open a celebratory diet coke, and wait for draft three.

C. The HPT Meeting. Around the Pentagon, HPT stands for “high-payoff target,” and that’s exactly what you’re aiming for, so use this tactic sparingly. Here, HPT is a mnemonic you can use to plan meetings with overconfident graduate students.

A few days after a friendly interaction (drinks at a reception, a chat in the hall about good news on the publishing front, or some similar light conversation), casually request a meeting with your student to check up on his progress. Be sure to say something personal in the e-mail to maximize the sense of informality (“I was glad to hear that your cat’s surgery was successful!”).

Meeting set, the HPT agenda proceeds as follows: (1) Humiliate the student immediately by asking an exam-style question tangential to his area of knowledge. After he stumbles through an answer, inform him that he is devastatingly wrong (for proper affect management, imagine he’s just farted audibly while speaking). As he tilts toward the abyss of his self- doubt, (2) patronizingly offer an olive branch to help him out—a task useful to your own research that also happens to be the only thing capable of saving him from his overwhelming wrongness. You’ll either get a domesticated free research assistant or he’ll resist, declaring that that is not what his project is about at all. If the latter occurs, (3) bring out the threats: “It will be very hard for your thesis to gain my approval if this is not accounted for.” As fear enters your student’s eyes, open the door, extend your best wishes to the cat, and tell him you’ll look forward to seeing how his work progresses. If you’re not naturally coldhearted, the HPT meeting might shake you up a little, but keep in mind that as you’re sipping your evening pinot, your student might be getting in touch with his inner Wobbly at the bar down the street.

Step 2. Practice nepotism and lack of transparency in policy and decision making. Experienced administrators will roll their eyes at this one: “I already do that. I wasn’t promoted because of my sterling teaching record, you know.” But for the sake of faculty readers new to the managerial rim of the labor divide (that’s you, Ohioans), a few words on nepotism and obfuscation are in order.

Nepotism in regard to graduate students is easy, and chances are you’re already better at it than you think. Have you ever invited a couple of friends to present on a panel because writing a call for proposals would take too long or given the nod to a mediocre job candidate whose thesis happens to be signed by your college roommate? Congratulations, you’re half-way there! Now just turn the same principles to the assignment of plum classes and jobs to your favorite graduate students.

When they start to notice the repetitions in the course catalog, it’s time to shut the window on your decision-making process. Remember that graduate students are heavily invested in meritocratic and democratic ideals, so if they see perks accruing where they aren’t deserved and program requirements becoming a moving target, they’re going to want to nose out the culprit. By keeping the decision-making process tightly under wraps, you’ll not only increase its efficiency but also help your graduate students hone their investigative research and networking skills while they close read the handbook and compare notes with their comrades in other departments. Suppression of information is the agar in the petri dish of revolt, after all.

Step 3. Raise tuition and fees. Graduate students don’t pay tuition, do they? But why not? Take a look at your department’s budget sheet—how many of your hard-earned FTEs are wasted reimbursing the university for graduate credit hours? No one’s even teaching those classes, what with the pack of dinosaur ABDs you’ve got hanging around. A refresher on accounting and some well-timed hints about counterbalancing the athletic director’s fall spending spree will not only unify students across the two cultures, it might even get your name on the CFO’s go-to list next time a spot opens up in administration. To preview the results you can get from this one simple tip, look no further than California and Illinois, where just the threat of tuition increase spurred months of strikes, insurgent dance parties, and the authoring of manifesto upon manifesto.

Step 4. Pay them below the living wage. Choosing to starve your students might sound distasteful, but if they’re getting PhDs in late-thirteenth-century barley farming or the morphology of south Bolivian musk gnats, they must come from well-to-do backgrounds, right? These pampered savants need a reason to identify with the working man, and there’s no better way to foster identification than to make sure they’re standing behind him in the Shop ’n Save checkout line instead of flipping through a Dwell at Whole Foods. It might make them less entertaining dinner companions, but the gains in class consciousness will more than compensate for any lack of fluency in microgreens and manchego.

Step 5. Cut centers, programs, and departments. Even—if you’re as daring as the Minnesotans were—dissolve the graduate school. For maximum impact, go for the arts and humanities first. Donors and corporate partners are unlikely to register the loss, and students on the softer side of campus are already steeped in leftist theory, jealous of their profs’ glory days in the sixties and convinced of the need to enlighten the masses, so they’ll take the dissolution particularly hard. (And when was the last time you saw video of stomatology students getting arrested for failure to disperse?)

Step 6. Keep that tenured head buried in the sand. Are flyers about a graduate student union showing up on the bulletin board across the hall? Did the administration just announce that graduate tuition and fees are going up? Who cares? You’ve already got fifty-two hours of research, peer reviewing, committee work, and lecturing to do every week, so going to bat for your grad students is the last thing on your to-do list, and you should let them know that—loud and clear. If a wild-eyed graduate student idealist asks you to talk to your faculty senate or to advocate for the union, blink confusedly, mumble something that intelligibly includes the word “busy,” and remember to keep your office lights dimmed next time you come in for a meeting. Knowing they’re on their own encourages graduate student self-reliance and solidarity with organizations that really can help them out.

Follow these six easy steps, and pretty soon your campus could join the lucky ones already garnering the attention of police and Fox news anchors. Then you can sit back and let your grad students and the exasperated public take it from there. As one effectively and efficiently radicalized student at the University at Albany put it last January, “A lot of people who are supposed to be protecting us aren’t doing that. So unless we turn a little wolfish on them, they’ll just eat the sheep.”

I've determined why it is I don't like Eminem...

I said as much on a car trip with my friend S, where we admitted to our mutual dislike of him.



I've decided that his voice reminds me of my mother's if it was auto-tuned a few octaves lower.

"What is your definition of art?"

Stolen from Hennessey Youngman:

Art is the druid's circle. It's the holy of holies, it's the cave on Degobah. It's the heirophant's lessons that no one really cares about. It's Osiris being cut into shreds and his son's quest to reassemble him. It's the garbage can that Mookie threw through the window of Sal's pizzeria. It's suffering and sacrifice for no reward, its being 6 deep in a tiny club bathroom in order to conduct business. It's accepting new questions and being okay with finding no answers. It's severed relationships, relationships of convenience because at the end of the day another body feels good in bed and who doesn't want to fuck? Art is disappointing your family yet being respected by strangers. It's distrusting the past, yet constantly consulting it like the Oracle at Delphi. Art is Revolution and Revolution's co-opting by Power, it's adventure, just because, it's the banal, it's the profane, it's the high, it's the low, it's the expensive, it's the cheap, it's breakthrough and stagnation, it's mystic truth and a New York Post Headline. Art is a lot of shit.

Content is Queen

“Content is Queen” is a video art series by Sergio Albiac of generative portraits that reflects on the foundations of democracy against the resilient nature of structures of power. At the same time, is a paradoxical dialogue and strange marriage between the banal and utterly majestic: to create the series, the most popular (in a truly democratic sense) internet videos of a given moment are used as the input of a generative process that “paints” with action the image of a contemporary Queen.

Content is Queen from Sergio Albiac on Vimeo.

I gave up drinking for a 4th month stint once...

...just to prove to myself that I could do it. I have to say the experience was refreshing, and sobering in the best of ways. It helped me reconsider my priorities, and how those corrolated with my behavior. But I noticed a strange craving for ice-cream creeping up in me those 4 months that hasn't completely gone away. This video represents that new and disturbing craving:

The Classic Stance of Feminine Seduction

From Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).

Lesbic Jams on a Rainy Day

Shaving ambivalence

Boots, No Words