the incindiary is always momentary
1 Comments Published by ginny on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 10:41 AM.
I'm on fire, man, I'm on fire!
It's that time of the morning, where I'm massively sanguine (and sanguinary) about my writing. Two point eight cups of coffee and two point seven five hours of writing into the day, and it all feels like it's coming together. Not just this piece, but everything -- the larger piece that is to follow, the dissertation, the project of rescusitating close reading, even perhaps shadowy actual social uses of the tinest fraction of what I spend my day doing. (No, keep that thougth away, the thought of social usefulness. It only sabotages.)
I'm at that moment where every word seems to call back, to imply a set of associations related to the topic at hand, to be, in short, an in-joke, a proprietary pun. I wrote this series of sentences:
and was immidiately so pleased with myself, because look! bleeding (as in bleeding statues, bleeding bodies, menstrual bleeding, bleed-over; idle-IDOL, as in image-->idol-->speaking statue, speaking picture [mem. reference Philip Sidney again! not in this presentation but in the longer paper]-->the idol is NOT idle!; conjuring! which is my keyword for what happens when someone, something gets represented on stage. It's not just figured forth, it's not just played, it's not just reproduced, it's CONJURED. It comes from Rosalind's epilogue to As You Like It: "I am not
furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not / become me: my way is to conjure you." [emphasis mine.] There's something very special that happens in artistic representation, a special kind of violence to experience, to lived reality, a special kind of violence to language. And that's conjureing.
And then, and then, Apple popped up wanting to install an update for Quicktime and I let it, and then I saw that it had added, without my asking, a Quicktime icon to the taskbar. I didn't want a Quicktime icon on my taskbar. I like to keep my taskbar clean. And I thought about how Windows itself is always doing shit like that, and I got irritated, and I said aloud, "Man, why do operating systems always gotta be so INTRUSIVE!" And then I was delighted because, operating systems! Intrusive! It's just what Judith Butler is talking about! And I'm talking about Judith Butler right now! And how we think our "operating system," the system by which we operate in the world (and, for a theorist like Butler, that system is language)is incapable of obtruding, we think it's simply background, ground-ground, where we live. And that's true. But it is also directly intrusive, every day, every moment, because not only do we work it, it works us! Shapes us! Constant both-ways shaping going on! We're always both being constructed by and wresting constructive powers from language and from social use of language (which are the same thing).
See? It's all coming together. On fire.
Of course, I will lose all this in a matter of hours. (Which is why I should stop being all manic here and actually be manic with the text of Antony and Cleopatra which for some reason I have been avoiding for weeks now.) And when I come to write the longer paper I will once again despair totally of knowing what I mean to say at all, and I will look back at this entry and find it as incomprehensible as you are probably finding it now. But for right now, for this moment I am (ironically, self-mockingly) on fire.
It's that time of the morning, where I'm massively sanguine (and sanguinary) about my writing. Two point eight cups of coffee and two point seven five hours of writing into the day, and it all feels like it's coming together. Not just this piece, but everything -- the larger piece that is to follow, the dissertation, the project of rescusitating close reading, even perhaps shadowy actual social uses of the tinest fraction of what I spend my day doing. (No, keep that thougth away, the thought of social usefulness. It only sabotages.)
I'm at that moment where every word seems to call back, to imply a set of associations related to the topic at hand, to be, in short, an in-joke, a proprietary pun. I wrote this series of sentences:
I'm not using the word "bleed" idly, either. I want to conjure up the bodily (and the violent) connotations
and was immidiately so pleased with myself, because look! bleeding (as in bleeding statues, bleeding bodies, menstrual bleeding, bleed-over; idle-IDOL, as in image-->idol-->speaking statue, speaking picture [mem. reference Philip Sidney again! not in this presentation but in the longer paper]-->the idol is NOT idle!; conjuring! which is my keyword for what happens when someone, something gets represented on stage. It's not just figured forth, it's not just played, it's not just reproduced, it's CONJURED. It comes from Rosalind's epilogue to As You Like It: "I am not
furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not / become me: my way is to conjure you." [emphasis mine.] There's something very special that happens in artistic representation, a special kind of violence to experience, to lived reality, a special kind of violence to language. And that's conjureing.
And then, and then, Apple popped up wanting to install an update for Quicktime and I let it, and then I saw that it had added, without my asking, a Quicktime icon to the taskbar. I didn't want a Quicktime icon on my taskbar. I like to keep my taskbar clean. And I thought about how Windows itself is always doing shit like that, and I got irritated, and I said aloud, "Man, why do operating systems always gotta be so INTRUSIVE!" And then I was delighted because, operating systems! Intrusive! It's just what Judith Butler is talking about! And I'm talking about Judith Butler right now! And how we think our "operating system," the system by which we operate in the world (and, for a theorist like Butler, that system is language)is incapable of obtruding, we think it's simply background, ground-ground, where we live. And that's true. But it is also directly intrusive, every day, every moment, because not only do we work it, it works us! Shapes us! Constant both-ways shaping going on! We're always both being constructed by and wresting constructive powers from language and from social use of language (which are the same thing).
See? It's all coming together. On fire.
Of course, I will lose all this in a matter of hours. (Which is why I should stop being all manic here and actually be manic with the text of Antony and Cleopatra which for some reason I have been avoiding for weeks now.) And when I come to write the longer paper I will once again despair totally of knowing what I mean to say at all, and I will look back at this entry and find it as incomprehensible as you are probably finding it now. But for right now, for this moment I am (ironically, self-mockingly) on fire.
Your creative state must be a side effect of oatmeal consumption!