the best new word of 2006

Rarely do I celebrate the advent of new words. They usually have more to do with the hype generated by fifteen-year old pop music fans, or American Idol devotees than anything that has to do with my life. For example, I must have heard the phrase "that's hot" about a quarter-million times before knowing that it had anything to do with Paris Hilton. This doesn't mean I'm old: it just means I'm not stupid.

But I'm for once overjoyed. This is by far the best neologism of 2006 (from Frank Bruni, New York Times Week in Review, "A Buzzsaw of Buzzwords," 12/24):

"And what, on a lighter note, of 'sanctimommy'? It went beyond deft wordplay, vaulting into the realm of social commentary. Self-beatified and eagerly censorious mothers were everywhere, shaming anybody who dared question their noble callings or unimpeachable judgments. This witty tag for them took because they were itching for a takedown."

Takedown indeed. Perhaps my sensitivity to sanctimommies is acute because of my aversion to parentage (see below). But how brilliant: sanctimony + mommy = sanctimommy. Brilliant!

Marx for the holidays

"The process, then, is simply this: The product becomes a commodity, i.e. a mere moment of exchange. The commodity is transformed into exchange value. In order to equate it with itself as an exchange value, it is exchanged for a symbol which represents it as exchange value as such. As such a symbolized exchange value, it can then in turn be exchanged in definite relations for every other commodity."
Marx, Grundrisse, “The Chapter on Money,” 145.

When I read this a couple days ago, I was struck by the passage that Marx italicizes. This is because much of my recent research involves the modification and transformation of time under market forces. I'm engaging now in a genealogy of this story, and it is complicated. Marx said it best in that passage in the CM: "everything that is solid melts into air." All values, all assumptions about the natural world and human nature, all manifestations of power, everything becomes transformed by the market. The only problem: the transformation occurs much earlier than modernity, or rather it begins there. We can see inklings of a concern of the "derealization" of economics and trade as far back as Aristotle. My current work involves the circuit between Aristotle/Augustine/Marx.

But the passage above: the derealization of the product that occurs under commodification means a transformation from something spatial into something temporal. The object becomes a moment. Or to be more specific, it becomes a "moment of exchange."

"0 comments"

For the most part, I enjoy blogging. It keeps me writing. But the idea of a blog is that it's a conversation with other readers. So: if you read, comment. That's all.

xo,
Ringo

Weird holiday post

Went to the big Christmas bash last night. I'm just in town for a few days, and so I caught up with a lot of the old friends and mostly we discussed how the past year went. Consensus seems to be that it was a rough year. "06 sucked" is what a lot of them said. There are reasons for this, which I won't go into. I respect my friends' privacy.

Holidays don't affect me one way or the other, positively or negatively. I'm mostly indifferent to them. But I always read about all kind of bad things happening during this time. People are already desperate I know -- and the market makes them feel even more desperate than they really are -- and it seems that the holiday season just pushes some folks over the edge. I think maybe part of it is the insanely cheerful tone of omnipresent Christmas music, the fake emphasis on themes of brotherhood and caring (in a ridiculously competitive society), not to mention the crass consumerism. With all of these things in your face, it's hard not to feel cynical or even hostile. At least *I* can sympathize with this tendency, but maybe that's just me. :)

more vacation

Some scores from the thrift store:
1. A bunch of old Duran Duran pins. I purchased these for .20 each, and gave them all away to the girls I know here in town. Merry Christmas!
2. LPs: Bobby Fuller, I Fought the Law and Richard Pryor, Black Ben. One dollar each. An old Hank Williams 45: fifty cents. I can't wait to play these when I get home.
3. A cool old western shirt: 1.50.
And so on.

Have engaged in a self-imposed news blackout over vacation, although I am still reading lots. Working my way now through Marx's Grundrisse, which runs to almost 1000 pages. It's not easy going either: it's basically a notebook that Marx wrote in one winter (1857), addressing the structural characteristics and logics of money and capital. To think that he wrote a thousand pages in one season: both inspiring and depressing. What's also amazing is the fact that while he wrote about money he was consistently impoverished: the editor writes about how Marx stayed indoors during the season because he couldn't afford a coat, and how he depended entirely on Engels.

vacation post

Ah yes vacation... Eight hours in the air, and here I am. Back to my former home state to visit friends and family. Some thoughts and observations on traveling...
1. Overheard conversation in the Indianapolis airport: some guy reading Plato, and asking another: "What's the difference between carrying and being carried?" I think this comes from the Meno. Weird: you expect people to talk about sports, the weather, anything but philosophy in the airport.
2. Strange how the mind meditates on danger. When I'm on the ground, I never think about plane crashes. When I'm driving, I rarely think about crashing. But when I fly, I always think about plane crashes: what it would be like, people I've known who have perished in accidents (1), movies etc. etc. Morbid stuff. Remind me to travel with someone else next time.
3. I know that millions of people pass through airports over the holidays, and so it is strange that I almost always run into or see someone I know when I travel. Yesterday was no different. While sitting there in the dread middle seat (15b), I saw a girl I had a fling with several years ago. Awkward moment, but then I realized that I wouldn't say anything because there wasn't much to chat about. It was a long time ago.

disturbing conversation overheard

Went to coffee this morning at my usual spot. Couldn't help but hear a conversation next to me: two evangelicals were debating the merits of Santa Claus-as-tradition and American myth (especially in relation to religious belief and practice). One guy was standing, and pretty much dominating the conversation. At one point: "When I have kids, I'm going to tell them that Santa Claus is like a game we play. When the holidays come around, we're going to play the Santa game." Why did he make this argument? Because, he said, if children are taught that Santa is real and Jesus is real, then becoming disabused of one means becoming disillusioned with the other.

This is madness.

One flaw in logic is obvious: if kids are taught from an early age that Santa Claus is a game, then (oh no!) what's going to prevent them from thinking that Jesus is a "game" as well? We play the one game to get presents at Christmas, and we play the other game to get into heaven when we die. Wittgenstein would have loved all this game-playing! And even a child could follow these ramifications.

There's part of me that just feels disgusted with the reduction of religion to a system of costs and benefits. Perhaps this is the ultimate result of the logic of the Reformation: the foregrounding of the individual's soul, the emphasis on inner discernment and "faith," Locke's idea of religion as a "salvation society" which looks just like his social contract but which refers to heaven rather than earth. I want no part of this kind of "religion."

Jandek (again)

The "J" on my hand? For Jandek of course. Post-show at Radio Radio.

Jandek

Wow -- so I'm one of maybe a thousand people who have seen Jandek play live. He came to Indy last night. Indy! of all places -- hardly a center of music weirdos (even Bloomington would be better). But what weirdos there are were all present last night: nearly everybody I saw plays or played in some indie rock band locally. And my buddy Mike, well he plays in a band and he talked me into buying a ticket and going to the show even after I had cold feet. But hell it was worth it.

Jandek had a backup band of jazz musicians, and thus I realized that his music is no worse or weirder than Ayler or other ESP stuff. It's about the same. Made me want to see more jazz shows in fact -- stuff like Ornette though, who as far as I know never comes through here.

But for those of you who are going to read this and rush out to buy a Jandek record, be forewarned: he comes across live much better than he does on disk. At least that's what I think.

ps: this is *not* a picture from last night's show. We weren't allowed to take snaps (thanks to "eternal summer kitten" for the pic:http://flickr.com/photos/11871727@N00/132442498/)

An anagram a day...

After a long tough day, an ANAGRAM or two.

Ringo's boring:
BORN GOING SIR ("I was born going, sir")
BROS IGNORING (the bros were ignoring my blog)

Where's that girl?
WEALTHS RIGHTER (for the bourgeois girlfriend)

Civilization is dying
SOCIALIZING DIVINITY (huh?)

I "heart" hurt (Thanks John K)
URETHRA HIT (oucch!!!!)

I won't smile
ELITISM NOW
MEOW INSTIL

Still more anagrams!

Bobby Pollard -- PROBABLY BOLD
Tobin Sprout -- ROBOTS INPUT (I don't like this one, even if it's funny. Sprout is great.)
Pabst Blue Ribbon -- PUBERTAL BOBBINS
Pat Smick Rocks -- CRACKPOTS SKIM (his record collection).

Thanks again to the wordsmith.org anagram generator!

more ANAGRAMS!

Thanks (and thanks again) to wordsmith.org anagram generator.

Ringo is luv:
LIVING SOUR
RIVING SOUL
VIRGIN SOUL
LINGO VIRUS (my OED obsession)
GIRL VINOUS
VIGOURS NIL (indeed my work suffers)
LOG IN VIRUS
RUG VIOLINS (this sounds vaguely obscene)

Ringo's blog:
BORING SLOG (ouch!)
BRING LOGOS (to the fashion party)
OBLONG RIGS (this sounds like a guided by voices song)
BONGO GIRLS
GOB GIRLS ON (hey hey gob girls!)
GOB GIRLS NO (gob girls only want to say no!)
BROIL GONGS (mmmm... broiled gong)
LOB GRINGOS (over the border)
SLOB GRINGO (yes that gringo is a slob!)
SNOB GIRL GO (indeed -- I couldn't have said it better)
ROB GOSLING (sounds like the lead singer of an emo band)

ANAGRAM madness!

Wow do I love anagrams. And do I love rock and roll. Put them together, and you get....rock and roll anagrams (Thanks to thisdayinmusic.com):

Kate Bush - Shut Beak
Mariah Carey - A creamy hair
Michael Jackson - Manacle his Jock
Whitney Houston - Shut it now, honey!
Tori Amos - I'm a torso.
Bruce Springsteen - Bursting Presence
Thom Yorke - OK To Rhyme

And the winner is....:
Britney Spears - Best PR In Years

No wait, this one's better:
Eric Clapton - Narcoleptic

Brrrr....

So winter finally got here. No snow yet, but wow it's cold. I'm taking pictures out my window while driving. Full moon tonight, and cold sky.

LPs and CDs

I don't like cds. But I like this one.

Seriously -- the cd was supposed to be an improvement on the lp, and ironically everything "advantageous" about it has problems. It's smaller, and more portable, but it's undeniably ugly: the little plastic cases are chintzy and the artwork ends up being small. It just feels cheap and mass-produced. Of course we know that cds skip, and the noise they make when they skip is much more jarring and grating than the repetitive scratch of a skipping record. I will burn cds for my friends (sorry Nick -- yours is coming), but I will not buy them.

But I love this cd. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless. My favorite scene in Lost in Translation is when Bob and Charlotte are driving home in the cab after karaoke. "Sometimes" plays in the background.

The only thing I don't like about the movie is it makes me feel wistful afterwards. Charlotte reminds me of somebody I once knew. But I guess that's the point.