Absences
Micro-bloging on Twitter has taken some time away from my blog, hopefully I aim to integrate them together so their absence is less felt, or perhaps, I'd should say an absence that builds interaction with the torrent of twitters a day.
Marriage and Abjection
Yesterday, as Olivia Harris funeral was taking place I felt, like I am sure many other anthropologists that knew her, a sense of absence too, a deep sense of absence. Intersected with this thoughts I had Kristeva's introduction to 'Abjection', which I had read the day before, Kristeva's words resounding in a non-melancholic state inside my thoughts (or as part of my thought-stream). I do mean, however, a re-sound inside my thoughts, strange meaning as it may have in English grammar, a vagueness, felt vagueness, a dizzy spell of thoughts as if it were (you have to close your eyes to listen to it, but when you do, you don't want to be there either, it forces your eyes open again) The two moments, the deep sense of absence and the re-sound of words inside my stream of thoughts colliding together. My thoughts ended thinking how Olivia married her life partner as she was approaching her last days making me wonder about 'timing' marriage.
Eloping and Public Witnessing
I have always battled between refusing 'marriage' as way to intercept heteronormativity although I consider 'eloping' as a way to asserting a deep sentimental economy of intimacy with one's partner. I have always thought eloping was best for me, but alas, my partner likes marriage, in the sense of a witnessed union.
When I think of a witnessed union I get a nauseous feel, something that implies a tacit sense of abjection, but it is not the individuals, or the union, but the witnessing group that it is my abject today. I have tried so much to fight it, for my partner's sake at least, and it keeps forcing my eyes open each time I try.
The sense of abjection I recall, however, was not felt in the obituary narrative. It did not have a place there. I am not reading it from there, either. It is only in my own narrative where I read it .
The event, however made me think about my own life, about when I would want to marry if I did, where that maybe there is a moment in life, on those precarious moments of lived life (specially in the precariousness of facing death or departure) in which one's sense of emotional gagging reflex does not matter anymore. And there is a practical side of things of course, inheritance, house, and children.
Maybe I should have titled today's blog: 'Marriage, and all the things in my life that remain postponed'...
Things that remain postponed in my life 2: publications
I did not come today for a long blog and here it is, getting longer...
Self-Archiving
I came here today, to this blog, though, to talk about self-archiving, not a very dis-similar theme in my heart. I plan to self-archive articles, conference papers, accepted papers that the editors never completed in taking it to the press, all those postponed papers in my life...and writing them, the other constant abject feeling in my life.
I wonder if self-archiving, like eloping, is what appeals most to me, right now, in my felt sense of academic precariousness, as opposed to the 'witnessed union', the public humiliation of much academic publishing.
Precarious thinking in public spaces
I think self-archiving makes me think positively about academic writing. Academic publishing, like weddings (as in public witnessed unions) may arrive quite late in my life, and it is right now, a time of precarious thinking.
It has infuse me with new hope for writing, for myself, not for public witnessing or otherwise, just because I want, just like a wedding in a precarious moment of life, for oneself, and for those that love us, because there are practicalities to meet, and because audiences and public witnessing does not matter that much anymore.
My paradox, as it were, is that whilst I think self-archiving may come as a form of compromise between eloping and marriage, whilst becomign marriage of some sorts, I can't still reach that compromise when it comes to actual marriage, a lesson half-learned I guess, one that, I suspect I will have to keep learning time and time over again.
The new Anthropology Journal
I included a tab for sel-archiving in the project list, which now it includes other anthropologists as well, and the possibility of a Journal.
I haven't decided on the final title but it will have the words, anthropology review, dissent, cultural politics and altermodern in some combination.
I hope to set the review to be an open source of anthropology articles, similar to Durham Anthropology Journals or similar to self-archiving, but within the remit of anthropology and theories on dissent and cultural politics in our altermodern age.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Twittering
Today, as I was working on microblogging things to do with my work and anthropology I landed in Twittervision.
I wrote more on this in my other blog here, randomly enough.
As I was completing my blog I felt twittervision should deserve a mention as a genuine Altermodern preposition.
Here it is then, across bloggs, twittervision and visualisations of twitter are anticipated versions of our Altermodernity, anticipated because twittervision is constantly anticipating twitts that belong to a moment pass and not linealy sequenced, they cover the world in a fluid but not deconstructed, per se, ordering. It challenges both boundaries and conceptualisations of how virtualism and virtual relations deepen our perception of social realtions in this new media.
Today, I can say, I was fascinated by this globe that spinned into languages and texts and emotions, comments, perceptions, fleetingly and seemingly capable of constructing mediated, relational, and 'social' encounters. Less transient than it seems, the virtual conversation remains sustained for hours and engaged in a political transformation of their own positions, both personal and located.
I wrote more on this in my other blog here, randomly enough.
As I was completing my blog I felt twittervision should deserve a mention as a genuine Altermodern preposition.
Here it is then, across bloggs, twittervision and visualisations of twitter are anticipated versions of our Altermodernity, anticipated because twittervision is constantly anticipating twitts that belong to a moment pass and not linealy sequenced, they cover the world in a fluid but not deconstructed, per se, ordering. It challenges both boundaries and conceptualisations of how virtualism and virtual relations deepen our perception of social realtions in this new media.
Today, I can say, I was fascinated by this globe that spinned into languages and texts and emotions, comments, perceptions, fleetingly and seemingly capable of constructing mediated, relational, and 'social' encounters. Less transient than it seems, the virtual conversation remains sustained for hours and engaged in a political transformation of their own positions, both personal and located.
TwitterVision
Today, as I was twittering my usual at work, twittering for the Institute and then twiterring for the Anthropologies twitter I saw twittervision and I love it.
http://twittervision.com/
What I like about it is its capacity for visualising the geographical, visual and textual information all at once. All of a sudden I was transported to Japan, with some Japanese students bing full after his meal, to a mexican guy who just woke up and was celebrating the day, and here and there all the twits, about all sorts of things, all across a landscape of notes, people replying each other, othere microbloggin like myself, a pregnant congratulations, links to students, seeking for articles, some celebrating 9am meetings...., Canada, Japan, Bankog, Mexico, Isle of Wright, Israel, all dotting the landscape, a new fro Tehran, Cairo, Chicago, Croatia
I also like the possibility of translating through, of course, Japanese, Spanish, English, Portugutese, and then those you can't translate but have the same sense of fast, short, twitts. I wonder if birds also have foreign language, and hear twits in languages they can't understand but they can hear, like I read and hear these twits...
The potential of twitting for understanding virtuality is more important than msg, texting and emails, the fleetingness of it is quite compelling, and like all twitting events you can not always catch them all, all that is not said admist the twitting of sounds online. I hope it will remain language centered, where people write in their mother tongues or whatevet tongue they use to communicate rather than a generic 'English', it makes the exchange far richer and equally compelling, her it is from Scotland, from an IPhone in Germany, from Taunton, from Rome, from Ontario. I do, of course, think the map is still white and centered on defined nation states...
brasil, paris, and then 25 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago, 17 minutes ago, 26 minutes ago, time also gets suspended in twittervision, providing a more intense sesne of virtuality that is not anchored in lineal concepts, including time.
Someon in India is telling me to be careful who to follow, someone in Australia is bugged, and socimen on Iceland is broacasting radio, in Japan someone calling home, in Sao Paulo commenting on football, I can't read Norweigian, in Cincinati they are listening music, and then other places, candyland, somewhere in detroit, japanese from Germany, Quatar is watchin him, Barneley on colours, Phoenix saving the wold, Brail commentin on a video, Luxembour on prime life, they are faster than my typing and the tweets keep coming up...
The Map has also a 3D view that makes the sphere go round, not defined by nation states but by the actual tweet definition of their locality, and it shows the globe in times line, I can see where it is light and dark, and its rotation along its different axis, so far it rotates in quite a linear way horizontally rather than north to south, it is so compelling....
One of the immediate thoughts that cross my mind is how the twit representation and movement of the earth challenges some of our current representations of virtuality and assigns locality and temporarlity in a simultaneous way than let's say, second life can not quite do yet, although it would be intersting to see second life movement represented like this too.
The possibility for also identifying faces of the twitters, or their icons transforms this journey through the world into a mythology of elements, all fleeting but equally powerful in defining interrelations among images. I wonder how much the different twits are identifying with the social and spatial concepts represented in twittervision an in their capacity to microblog thier realities, a sharedness of textualisation and iconography in motion. It deserves to be in my Altermodern blog too!!
http://twittervision.com/
What I like about it is its capacity for visualising the geographical, visual and textual information all at once. All of a sudden I was transported to Japan, with some Japanese students bing full after his meal, to a mexican guy who just woke up and was celebrating the day, and here and there all the twits, about all sorts of things, all across a landscape of notes, people replying each other, othere microbloggin like myself, a pregnant congratulations, links to students, seeking for articles, some celebrating 9am meetings...., Canada, Japan, Bankog, Mexico, Isle of Wright, Israel, all dotting the landscape, a new fro Tehran, Cairo, Chicago, Croatia
I also like the possibility of translating through, of course, Japanese, Spanish, English, Portugutese, and then those you can't translate but have the same sense of fast, short, twitts. I wonder if birds also have foreign language, and hear twits in languages they can't understand but they can hear, like I read and hear these twits...
The potential of twitting for understanding virtuality is more important than msg, texting and emails, the fleetingness of it is quite compelling, and like all twitting events you can not always catch them all, all that is not said admist the twitting of sounds online. I hope it will remain language centered, where people write in their mother tongues or whatevet tongue they use to communicate rather than a generic 'English', it makes the exchange far richer and equally compelling, her it is from Scotland, from an IPhone in Germany, from Taunton, from Rome, from Ontario. I do, of course, think the map is still white and centered on defined nation states...
brasil, paris, and then 25 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago, 17 minutes ago, 26 minutes ago, time also gets suspended in twittervision, providing a more intense sesne of virtuality that is not anchored in lineal concepts, including time.
Someon in India is telling me to be careful who to follow, someone in Australia is bugged, and socimen on Iceland is broacasting radio, in Japan someone calling home, in Sao Paulo commenting on football, I can't read Norweigian, in Cincinati they are listening music, and then other places, candyland, somewhere in detroit, japanese from Germany, Quatar is watchin him, Barneley on colours, Phoenix saving the wold, Brail commentin on a video, Luxembour on prime life, they are faster than my typing and the tweets keep coming up...
The Map has also a 3D view that makes the sphere go round, not defined by nation states but by the actual tweet definition of their locality, and it shows the globe in times line, I can see where it is light and dark, and its rotation along its different axis, so far it rotates in quite a linear way horizontally rather than north to south, it is so compelling....
One of the immediate thoughts that cross my mind is how the twit representation and movement of the earth challenges some of our current representations of virtuality and assigns locality and temporarlity in a simultaneous way than let's say, second life can not quite do yet, although it would be intersting to see second life movement represented like this too.
The possibility for also identifying faces of the twitters, or their icons transforms this journey through the world into a mythology of elements, all fleeting but equally powerful in defining interrelations among images. I wonder how much the different twits are identifying with the social and spatial concepts represented in twittervision an in their capacity to microblog thier realities, a sharedness of textualisation and iconography in motion. It deserves to be in my Altermodern blog too!!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Japanese Financial Crisis
I have been reading several articles on the impact of the financial crisis in Japan.
http://www.economicshelp.org/2008/10/japanese-financial-crisis.html
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/BG1530.cfm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94876656
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090308x1.html
Lookig at the last, and most recent article of these it makes me think that:
I experienced the 1995 crisis during fieldwork and somehow, some of the accounts, specially accounts narrated from an 'economic' point of view do not always make sense.
The one that I enjoyed and struggled with was the most recent one on accountability and acknowledgment of 'responsability', civil or otherwise. There are lots of many good things in the article, it is a shame that the concluding paragraph contains a slight misconception. More anthropology (specially economic anthropology of exchange and production) could be used to address some of these issues.
On crises management: had it been a crisis management, and had it been managed as a crisis-management it would have had disastrous consequences..and it did.
How to get there in Japan:
Try getting to some address you have never been to in Japan. At the point you get lost ask people, those who kindly will not walk away because they know in advance they probably don't know the answer to the question you are going to make, will look at you with embarrasment. Most likely, they will not know the place where you are going. "Not knowing" is never an excuse, you get always giving directions anyway, trhuthful attempts to 'take you there'. Obviously, if you follow the polite directions you always get to the wrong place. It will be very difficult for people to tell you they don't know it, they can 'risk' telling you about it because it is nto a risk, in the 'western' sense of the word (see Mary Douglas on Risk in Japan). You will end up lost, in the wrong place. Way to go around? Don't go asking strangers, don't bother them in their busy lives, you should know better than to do that...so my friends responded to me. In Japan the person who is sending you to the address you are going will make you a map, a map you can then give to a taxi driver, whom otherwise would be equally lost. I collected so many maps in Japan, I treasure them, small maps written in a piece of paper, in corners of a magazine, in a napkin, ways to navigate...
I am using this metaphor for understanding the economic crisis, why Japan navigate it with some beliefs and not others, yes, in simplified way, that is, because understanding the crisis as a whole is far too complex in formal economic terms [I am not interested in the kind of reductions of complexity that formal economic narratives will make of this period, I am interested on how the people find they way around though].
**********************************************************************
About social responsability 'from a social point of view' says a voice in the article: these kinds of acknowledgements also happen in 'western' contexts, and sometimes it also fails in 'Japanese' contexts as the article brings out well.
Claiming that Japanese are more 'in tune' with the 'social point of view' of things is something ethnographers and people that study contemporary Japan should be cautious about. Whilst it is not always the case, some of these expressions are a kind of 'nihonjinron' and a kind of accentuating of exclusive cultural uniqueness.
**************************************************************88
Apologising is common in every-day life in Japan, as it is to thank and to appreciate other people's feelings. It is also common, when driving on motorways, that these social prerrogatives are rarely met. People do not apologise for overtaking, and certainly hit-&-crash are common and underly a significative problem with the theme of the article about where to locate 'accountability' for 'failure', 'mistakes', and largely conceptualised 'inauspicious' occurences.
It is also the case that the corporate instances of 'us-family' and taking care of employees through their life time, a topic in the literature in 1980s and early 1990s, is not longer the case. Corporations, business, firms are and will become ruthless about firing and reducing 'kinship-like' kind of social dependency from employees.
**********************************************************
The conclusion, although I understand the point is making, is not a complete picture of judicial system in Japan, it is the easiest to understand though.
During fieldwork I was involved in several cases that involved the judicial system. In all of these cases there was no settlement outside court and the courts overtuned claims very easily. Companies can buy settlements, not in the sense of an out-of-court (there are plenty of out-of-court settlements, not denying this) settlement, but in the fact that those cases that are run through courts and set precedents are those that are often won by companies rather than individuals. It is better for an individual, if allowed to, to settle out of court because in court, he or she will rarely win the case. When in court, the cases I have experienced, it is very difficult for small groups and individuals to have access to the kinds of information and resolution strategies that would enable them to win such cases. It does not mean they will resolve them out of court either. It may happen but it may not always be possible for individuals to reach that far.
For the ordinary Japanese person courts and legal procedures, and most functions of governmentality is felt very removed from the self. If there was something that all my informants, time after time would comment is how "distant" individuals were from politics, how innacessible to navigate the space between individual concerns and policy making.
****************************************************************
I wished more analyis would worry with Douglas' article on Risk (Risk and Blame) in Japan. In the absence of 'risk' the two key concepts in Japan, 'abunai' (danger) and 'anzen' (safe) correlate many positions of social responsability.
I have recalled this story many times, so just once more. During one of my fieldwork periods in Japan I happened to pucture one of my car's tyre. I was a student with little money, no income, no job, only doing research with magre savings, no grant either. I couldn't afford buying a spare tyre. I went about without one for few days. As I told my friends it create a near abhorrent feeling in them. I was 'abunai', it was soo dangerous! It wasn't for me, I was taking a risk. I wasn't taking a risk for my informants, I was just playing with danger, big time. In the absence of a calculation of risk, from my point of view, I learned a valuable lesson about how accountability is formed. One must ensure that one does not enter situations of 'abunai' as conceptually defined within the Japanese society and context. For some people, abunai is (pre-)treated with doing the correct actions of seeking auspicious protection, from car talismans, blessings, visits to temples, and donations of gifts.
***********************************************************
I remember a lesson from the crisis. Regardless of the crisis Japanese people trusted cash, if cash circulated, if you had cash in your 'pockets' you were pre-empting and avoiding symbolic dangers to do with money and exchange. It sank like a ship, the Japanese financial core, not only because of interelated globalised conditions, but also because it was a symbolic danger that could not be averted despite the fact that symbolically, all had been done to avert it. My informants believed it could not happen, even after the experience of the 1995 bubble, finances would not enter an 'abunai' situation...
Another lesson from studying gift exchange, when dealing with inauspicious conditions and if ('pre-emptive strikes' through ritual action can not be put into place, if it is too late) one starts looking for scapegoats. Scapegoating is common to many societies dealing with inauspicious chains of exchange, it is a specific polititical situation. It is a way to manage how to remove specific inauspicious instances that kinship networks (fictional kinship included)can not resolve from within and specific political management of inauspicious accumulative exchange between groups.
will return to the other articles later....
http://www.economicshelp.org/2008/10/japanese-financial-crisis.html
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/BG1530.cfm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94876656
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090308x1.html
Lookig at the last, and most recent article of these it makes me think that:
I experienced the 1995 crisis during fieldwork and somehow, some of the accounts, specially accounts narrated from an 'economic' point of view do not always make sense.
The one that I enjoyed and struggled with was the most recent one on accountability and acknowledgment of 'responsability', civil or otherwise. There are lots of many good things in the article, it is a shame that the concluding paragraph contains a slight misconception. More anthropology (specially economic anthropology of exchange and production) could be used to address some of these issues.
On crises management: had it been a crisis management, and had it been managed as a crisis-management it would have had disastrous consequences..and it did.
How to get there in Japan:
Try getting to some address you have never been to in Japan. At the point you get lost ask people, those who kindly will not walk away because they know in advance they probably don't know the answer to the question you are going to make, will look at you with embarrasment. Most likely, they will not know the place where you are going. "Not knowing" is never an excuse, you get always giving directions anyway, trhuthful attempts to 'take you there'. Obviously, if you follow the polite directions you always get to the wrong place. It will be very difficult for people to tell you they don't know it, they can 'risk' telling you about it because it is nto a risk, in the 'western' sense of the word (see Mary Douglas on Risk in Japan). You will end up lost, in the wrong place. Way to go around? Don't go asking strangers, don't bother them in their busy lives, you should know better than to do that...so my friends responded to me. In Japan the person who is sending you to the address you are going will make you a map, a map you can then give to a taxi driver, whom otherwise would be equally lost. I collected so many maps in Japan, I treasure them, small maps written in a piece of paper, in corners of a magazine, in a napkin, ways to navigate...
I am using this metaphor for understanding the economic crisis, why Japan navigate it with some beliefs and not others, yes, in simplified way, that is, because understanding the crisis as a whole is far too complex in formal economic terms [I am not interested in the kind of reductions of complexity that formal economic narratives will make of this period, I am interested on how the people find they way around though].
**********************************************************************
About social responsability 'from a social point of view' says a voice in the article: these kinds of acknowledgements also happen in 'western' contexts, and sometimes it also fails in 'Japanese' contexts as the article brings out well.
Claiming that Japanese are more 'in tune' with the 'social point of view' of things is something ethnographers and people that study contemporary Japan should be cautious about. Whilst it is not always the case, some of these expressions are a kind of 'nihonjinron' and a kind of accentuating of exclusive cultural uniqueness.
**************************************************************88
Apologising is common in every-day life in Japan, as it is to thank and to appreciate other people's feelings. It is also common, when driving on motorways, that these social prerrogatives are rarely met. People do not apologise for overtaking, and certainly hit-&-crash are common and underly a significative problem with the theme of the article about where to locate 'accountability' for 'failure', 'mistakes', and largely conceptualised 'inauspicious' occurences.
It is also the case that the corporate instances of 'us-family' and taking care of employees through their life time, a topic in the literature in 1980s and early 1990s, is not longer the case. Corporations, business, firms are and will become ruthless about firing and reducing 'kinship-like' kind of social dependency from employees.
**********************************************************
The conclusion, although I understand the point is making, is not a complete picture of judicial system in Japan, it is the easiest to understand though.
During fieldwork I was involved in several cases that involved the judicial system. In all of these cases there was no settlement outside court and the courts overtuned claims very easily. Companies can buy settlements, not in the sense of an out-of-court (there are plenty of out-of-court settlements, not denying this) settlement, but in the fact that those cases that are run through courts and set precedents are those that are often won by companies rather than individuals. It is better for an individual, if allowed to, to settle out of court because in court, he or she will rarely win the case. When in court, the cases I have experienced, it is very difficult for small groups and individuals to have access to the kinds of information and resolution strategies that would enable them to win such cases. It does not mean they will resolve them out of court either. It may happen but it may not always be possible for individuals to reach that far.
For the ordinary Japanese person courts and legal procedures, and most functions of governmentality is felt very removed from the self. If there was something that all my informants, time after time would comment is how "distant" individuals were from politics, how innacessible to navigate the space between individual concerns and policy making.
****************************************************************
I wished more analyis would worry with Douglas' article on Risk (Risk and Blame) in Japan. In the absence of 'risk' the two key concepts in Japan, 'abunai' (danger) and 'anzen' (safe) correlate many positions of social responsability.
I have recalled this story many times, so just once more. During one of my fieldwork periods in Japan I happened to pucture one of my car's tyre. I was a student with little money, no income, no job, only doing research with magre savings, no grant either. I couldn't afford buying a spare tyre. I went about without one for few days. As I told my friends it create a near abhorrent feeling in them. I was 'abunai', it was soo dangerous! It wasn't for me, I was taking a risk. I wasn't taking a risk for my informants, I was just playing with danger, big time. In the absence of a calculation of risk, from my point of view, I learned a valuable lesson about how accountability is formed. One must ensure that one does not enter situations of 'abunai' as conceptually defined within the Japanese society and context. For some people, abunai is (pre-)treated with doing the correct actions of seeking auspicious protection, from car talismans, blessings, visits to temples, and donations of gifts.
***********************************************************
I remember a lesson from the crisis. Regardless of the crisis Japanese people trusted cash, if cash circulated, if you had cash in your 'pockets' you were pre-empting and avoiding symbolic dangers to do with money and exchange. It sank like a ship, the Japanese financial core, not only because of interelated globalised conditions, but also because it was a symbolic danger that could not be averted despite the fact that symbolically, all had been done to avert it. My informants believed it could not happen, even after the experience of the 1995 bubble, finances would not enter an 'abunai' situation...
Another lesson from studying gift exchange, when dealing with inauspicious conditions and if ('pre-emptive strikes' through ritual action can not be put into place, if it is too late) one starts looking for scapegoats. Scapegoating is common to many societies dealing with inauspicious chains of exchange, it is a specific polititical situation. It is a way to manage how to remove specific inauspicious instances that kinship networks (fictional kinship included)can not resolve from within and specific political management of inauspicious accumulative exchange between groups.
will return to the other articles later....
Monday, 9 March 2009
the WatchMen
Yesterday it was my sister's birthday, also women's day. Because I love my sister I wanted to do something that would get me closer to her. We live in different countries, so it was a matter of a re-inforcing the closeness by doing something that if we did together we would both enjoy.
So, I went to the movies to see 'Watchmen'. It had to be 'Watchmen' and nothing else because that is something that fundamentally I wish to share with my sister on her birthday, her love of cartoons, comics, manga,...
You know Sis, I liked the watchmen. I liked the fact it had been impossible to film for two decades, involving two failed attempts of different production companies, more than six directors also failed to bring it through the screen. The complex, deep, thick, violent, hopeful tale of the watchmen.
There is a group of films I like, some 70s films that end up with the question of 'man' facing 'his' own destiny, and 'society' being challenged or challenging such 'man': mostly are sci-fi, but not all, good examples of the kind of 'questioning' on human values are Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, those desolate endings...but there are many more...
Watchmen returned some of that flavour back for me with that particular ending. This time, however, the message was autmost powerful in the opposite direction, in Planet of the Apes, singularly, that desperate man is left contemplating the dessolation of his present past and future; here in Watchmen that 'man' (complex in its interpreative meanings of his non-face, destitute, incarcerated, abject) has sacrified himself, and when all it is lost, it is his diary that speaks to us, word and voice, it is that diary that opens up all possibilities for a future, for a position of no-compromising.
Flawed, compromised characters abund in the film, but it is filmed beautifully and it does capture so much of the original comic book, and so much of a radical understanding of the world..so hard to film...amazing choice of soundtrack.
I liked many more other things about the film...but for me, I thought of my sister as I watched it, I thought of the many cartoons we have read together, the ones I have read because she has left them for me to read, piles of cartoons everywhere in the house, and what it meant for both of us....and the watchmen and watchwomen...
So, I went to the movies to see 'Watchmen'. It had to be 'Watchmen' and nothing else because that is something that fundamentally I wish to share with my sister on her birthday, her love of cartoons, comics, manga,...
You know Sis, I liked the watchmen. I liked the fact it had been impossible to film for two decades, involving two failed attempts of different production companies, more than six directors also failed to bring it through the screen. The complex, deep, thick, violent, hopeful tale of the watchmen.
There is a group of films I like, some 70s films that end up with the question of 'man' facing 'his' own destiny, and 'society' being challenged or challenging such 'man': mostly are sci-fi, but not all, good examples of the kind of 'questioning' on human values are Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, those desolate endings...but there are many more...
Watchmen returned some of that flavour back for me with that particular ending. This time, however, the message was autmost powerful in the opposite direction, in Planet of the Apes, singularly, that desperate man is left contemplating the dessolation of his present past and future; here in Watchmen that 'man' (complex in its interpreative meanings of his non-face, destitute, incarcerated, abject) has sacrified himself, and when all it is lost, it is his diary that speaks to us, word and voice, it is that diary that opens up all possibilities for a future, for a position of no-compromising.
Flawed, compromised characters abund in the film, but it is filmed beautifully and it does capture so much of the original comic book, and so much of a radical understanding of the world..so hard to film...amazing choice of soundtrack.
I liked many more other things about the film...but for me, I thought of my sister as I watched it, I thought of the many cartoons we have read together, the ones I have read because she has left them for me to read, piles of cartoons everywhere in the house, and what it meant for both of us....and the watchmen and watchwomen...
Brave New World
Twitting is having an effect on my blogging. I never used bloging to build up segments of posts until now. My twitter is not very personal either, it is reflexive, it talks about things closed to my heart, but it is not describing of what 'I am doing now' but what I think is happening within Anthropology that I feel close to my heart. I use Facebook for the 'I am doing now'.
I feel slightly dispossed with blogs and twitts and other projects that do not reflect the 'I am doing now' kind of thing...maybe I should...
It must be said that opening Facebook and updating the 'I am doing now' it is like doing a bit of yoga. It forces me to think about the 'now', about 'doing', and about what gets actually broadcasted from that 'now' and 'doing'. As liberating as it is, it also works well as a self-monitoring device of our reflexive instances.
Blogging...Another issue for me is of course, editing. Once I have written something, no matter how careful I was it always needs editing and re-editing. I was just reading a previous blog and I ended up tired, tired of thinking how long it would take me to edit it to a point of happiness.
Twitting in this sense is a relief. I love twitpics too.
I am using these for my next conference update, wednesday this week. I will twitt the event and twitpic from the conference itself.
Anna's G1 is a beauty...wish I could upgrade my new mobile 'now' to an Android G1. It would facilitate twitting. Well, up to a point.
My favourite application of the Android G1 is the steamy glass, oh, what a fantastic app.
So, I have decided that I will make use of this blog in a slightly different way than my other ones...
Angels is...
Angels is looking for the accent in her name À,
Àngels is...
Àngels is having a lunch break and updating her Blog.
I feel slightly dispossed with blogs and twitts and other projects that do not reflect the 'I am doing now' kind of thing...maybe I should...
It must be said that opening Facebook and updating the 'I am doing now' it is like doing a bit of yoga. It forces me to think about the 'now', about 'doing', and about what gets actually broadcasted from that 'now' and 'doing'. As liberating as it is, it also works well as a self-monitoring device of our reflexive instances.
Blogging...Another issue for me is of course, editing. Once I have written something, no matter how careful I was it always needs editing and re-editing. I was just reading a previous blog and I ended up tired, tired of thinking how long it would take me to edit it to a point of happiness.
Twitting in this sense is a relief. I love twitpics too.
I am using these for my next conference update, wednesday this week. I will twitt the event and twitpic from the conference itself.
Anna's G1 is a beauty...wish I could upgrade my new mobile 'now' to an Android G1. It would facilitate twitting. Well, up to a point.
My favourite application of the Android G1 is the steamy glass, oh, what a fantastic app.
So, I have decided that I will make use of this blog in a slightly different way than my other ones...
Angels is...
Angels is looking for the accent in her name À,
Àngels is...
Àngels is having a lunch break and updating her Blog.
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