tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post3463821946582564751..comments2023-09-29T02:49:02.989-07:00Comments on An Emphatic Umph: My Speech to the Graduates, v2Daniel Coffeenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-74670975730184004672009-01-13T20:43:00.000-08:002009-01-13T20:43:00.000-08:00Re: Burroughs...I for one do care about the man vi...Re: Burroughs...<BR/><BR/>I for one do care about the man vis a vis the text, as well as vice versa (hey, I am not called "V" for nothing). Well, maybe "care" is a strong word, but for me provenance matters. I don't, as Daniel does, see "glory" in the "death of the author and the birth of language." For me, the author's experience infuses the language, tints it if not fills it with its distinct species of gravitas, gives the articulate an unarticulated dimension that can make the difference between a compelling read and unwilling/unwitting participation in someone else's masturbatory exercise. <BR/><BR/>In that light, I draw on the elements in Burroughs work and life that delight/intrigue/compel/repel me and have them talk to each other, inform each other, spin synergies of great delight, intrigue, etc. When dealing with Burroughs in particular, I in fact can't distinguish meaningfully between life and art because (brilliantly and tragically) he lived so artfully.Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13632514764471339300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-59643701207054847142009-01-13T20:00:00.000-08:002009-01-13T20:00:00.000-08:00So many points:(1) Work as pleasure: Conflating w...So many points:<BR/><BR/>(1) Work as pleasure: Conflating work with pleasure may be a capitalist strategy but it needn't be. In Thailand, it operates the other way: work is not worth doing UNLESS it is fun (much to the chronic annoyance of the resident expatriate community). Work must conform to fun's demands, not vice versa.<BR/><BR/>(2) Noble savage/happy hobo: Isn't it a sense of entitlement that condemns as surrender, co-optation, or what-have-you any life that falls short of the particular brand of joyous participation that you are implicitly advocating? Even Burroughs needed a trust fund, and it's false if not dangerous (physically and morally) to imbue an off-the-grid lifestyle with pure romance: either you are doing the grueling work of farming, hunting, etc., you are sponsored a la Burroughs (in which case you are enjoying second-order the fruits of someone else's co-optation), or you are dumpster diving with its attendant risk of disease. There's an unarticulated, and I believe suspect, Rousseau-meets-the-trust-fund spirit animating these musings (I know, I know, you don't have a trust fund, but you get the idea).<BR/><BR/>(3) Triumph of the individual: Read "Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs" by John Bowe, et al. A compelling series of 2-5 page interviews with everyone from the UPS guy to a Hollywood film producer to a man who makes a fortune literally cleaning up the mess of suicides and murders. What emerges is that ecstatic engagement is in fact inevitable, that there is no job so numbing -- not even seasonal hedge-trimming -- that per se squelches humanity. Engagement is a matter of orientation, not situation.<BR/><BR/>I'll save my thoughts on Burroughs for another post.Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13632514764471339300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-59522072302755594502008-08-15T00:42:00.000-07:002008-08-15T00:42:00.000-07:00Thanks for writing this post. It was wonderfully ...Thanks for writing this post. It was wonderfully real -- a refreshing change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-41775197676637422112008-07-07T08:08:00.000-07:002008-07-07T08:08:00.000-07:00I'm no expert, but I wonder if you are both fallin...I'm no expert, but I wonder if you are both falling into the same trap: you may both be too caught up with Burroughs the man. Reducing Burroughs the man/writer does not equate with reducing THE texts. I could easily put forth the argument that Burroughs' was so fucked up on drugs and guilt that his actions can't be portrayed as deliberate acts as they have been in the above post, but what does that say about the texts?Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00515881180137058087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-62633679171348149082008-06-18T20:06:00.000-07:002008-06-18T20:06:00.000-07:00History Shmistory. I have to say: to reduce Burro...History Shmistory. I have to say: to reduce Burroughs to some product of bourgeois angst is, well, kinda condescending. Here is a man who delved so fully into his medium and reinvented it from within; a man who lived so thoroughly; a man who wrestled life and death and everything in between and it all comes across in every exquisite sentence. To dismiss this man's thinking as the product of such a banal vision of history makes me rather uncomfortable. <BR/><BR/>And so I will give his texts the respect they ask for with their downright lit up, dead pan, vaudevillian glimmering beauty and brilliance. Yes, thank you.Daniel Coffeenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-4205021845516876302008-06-12T07:39:00.000-07:002008-06-12T07:39:00.000-07:00To above:Why place Burroughs in historical context...To above:<BR/><BR/>Why place Burroughs in historical context? Why would anyone want to put a ball and chain on any text? For me the mark of great writing is its very ability to float through space and time - resisting the gravitational forces of academia or any other body that would try to ground it. If anything Burroughs writing sucks us into it, rather than the other way around. Besides, if I read Burroughs historically it would mean I'd have to like his "cutups". I'd have to appreciate them as part of a historical movement. The truth is, I don't like his cutups because they literally tire me out - I don't need to look into the past as a way to make sense of them.Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00515881180137058087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-79816849389218902632008-06-11T17:52:00.000-07:002008-06-11T17:52:00.000-07:00I will be literal minded and unphilosophical and s...I will be literal minded and unphilosophical and suggest that Burroughs views on our species and language as virus were at least partially shaped by the thoroughly rotten childhood and difficult adulthood that he experienced. For one thing, he was gay at a time when being gay was considered to be both insane and criminal. He may have had more insight and poetry than the average drug addict, but I still think that a lot of the paranoia and anger in his writing is a reflection of himself rather than humanity as a whole. I am not saying you can't learn something from his writings, but I think you have to place his writings in the context of history.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-35481984314995162772008-05-30T18:44:00.000-07:002008-05-30T18:44:00.000-07:00These are harrowing times indeed.These are harrowing times indeed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-38373454729080756512008-05-29T18:30:00.000-07:002008-05-29T18:30:00.000-07:00And, graduates, let's not forget Theodore Kaczynsk...And, graduates, let's not forget Theodore Kaczynski. A brilliant mathematician who said "fuck academia and while you're at it fuck your computers" and walked out on a promising career at UC Berkeley to live the simple life in a small cabin he built on his own. <BR/><BR/>On second thought, perhaps he's not the best example.Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00515881180137058087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-44305501610764714582008-05-26T22:27:00.000-07:002008-05-26T22:27:00.000-07:00I echo çb, dc: rk wants more. I LOL'd a lot.I echo çb, dc: rk wants more. I LOL'd a lot.Ryland Walker Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-40594986898177740002008-05-23T01:59:00.000-07:002008-05-23T01:59:00.000-07:00please dC -- 12 volumes on the pleasures the gradu...please dC -- 12 volumes on the pleasures the graduate can feel. I love the train of thought, indulge your indulgences.Cuyler Ballengerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10345050055866923835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-46425765229803095172008-05-21T16:47:00.000-07:002008-05-21T16:47:00.000-07:00What I want to suggest is, to borrow a friend's ph...What I want to suggest is, to borrow a friend's phrase, that regime change is not the answer: we need species change. <BR/><BR/>Our heads are too big! We come out to early! We are a mutation gone horribly awry. <BR/><BR/>I don't think the rich understand pleasure any better than the rest of us. The rich consume; they don't enjoy. Enjoyment is a lost art, to so-called liberals and conservatives alike.<BR/><BR/>I finally understand Burroughs.Daniel Coffeenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-83796802678850961902008-05-20T19:32:00.000-07:002008-05-20T19:32:00.000-07:00Oh come on Dan. Surely as a history major you kno...Oh come on Dan. Surely as a history major you know that the workweek for factory workers during the Gilded Age was 12 hour days, six days a week. Corporate America was somewhat tamed by Roosevelt's New Deal, but has slowly been regaining its grip on American workers ever since. In other words, the struggle between those who control the means of production and those who actually produce is a central theme in American history and is not new to the 21st century. In that way, this could be a very exciting time to live as well as a very difficult one, as it does seem that a majority of Americans are waking up to the brutality of our current leadership. I have kids, so I must think of it this way - otherwise I can't find the energy to slug back my Starbucks and tell them that they really do have adulthood to look forward to. I can also tell you that no woman in her right mind would want to raise nine children in a trailer or settle down with somebody constantly running from the law. A man may find pleasure in that, but a woman raising kids is going to find this is most likely not. I agree that our current insane American lifestyle is unsustainable, but I don't think that the solution is to adopt an anti-government and defiantly individualistic lifestyle. The reality for the kids in families this far out of the mainstream here is unpleasurable and sometimes even dangerous. The European way of life over which you seem to salivate is sustained largely by a solid government-based social safety net, healthy workers unions and an infrastructure that supports mass transit. I think that these are reasonable, worthy goals for this country, and ones that may be largely attainable. It would bring mutual pleasure- male and female, as well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com