Empty Signifiers is being retired. I'm not going to post much of anything here anymore, but it won't be disappearing anytime soon. The only planned updates I can think of will be the conclusion to the apocalypticism entry, but I can't guarantee a date on when that might occur.
Evolution is a nonteleological process. It has no "end," no directive. It is simply a description of a process that occurs, and that process is that the organisms best adapted to a particular environment will enjoy the greatest chance of survival in that same environment. It is easy to discursively address this process with falsely teleological terms, though, and discussions that attempt to explain evolution often make this mistake.
(Part one of this series dealt with the nature of apocalypticism and its ability to create an insular culture. Part two concerned the investiture of otherness into the primary culture.)
Adherents to the apocalyptic tradition have now, in pluralist societies, two powers not well known to secondary cultures: freedoms of religion and association. By removing the social structures so effective in oppressing the minority culture, the primary has disarmed one of the major reasons for continued loyalty to the apocalyptic secondary identity (and the infrastructure that surrounds it). If there are no codified methods of oppression, then the methods and metaphors of apocalypticism lose relevance as critical techniques.
Continue reading "Apocalypticism as social control (III)." »
The long-delayed third segment of my articles on apocalypticism as social control looks like it will be delayed further--I am moving halfway across the country, and these next two weeks are full and hectic. I have completed half the apocalypticism article, and I have yet to arrive at my major area of interest, so don't worry, there will be more.
Brewing on the back-burner is the next series I will undertake, which I have tentatively titled "The Armory of Ardor: Sex and Semiotics," an examination of the symbols, codes, and communication of American sexuality over the past few decades. I am very much interested in the interplay of power in language, and the notion of the illicit and the taboo aggregates power and control around itself.
I will post as I can, and thanks for reading!
(Part one of this series dealt with the nature of apocalypticism and its ability to create an insular secondary culture.)
A population can be insular without necessarily demonizing cultures peripheral (or, as insular derives from the Latin for island, external) to itself. Insularity is, in the case of the oppressed secondary culture experiencing apocalypticism, cautious self-identification only with those who share cultural competencies. It is a survival mechanism in a time where political subversion or the appearance of subversion brings drastic consequences.
One of the more enduring myths we tell ourselves as participants in American culture is the quintessential deception of the "American Dream": that no matter who you are, or how dispirited you have become, it is possible to achieve anything simply by working hard enough.
There are two problems with the myth of the American Dream. The first is the simplest: It isn't true.
There is a spot-on analysis of the political conservative movement over in Design Observer, in a guest column by Rick Perlstein. He suggests that at the heart of the conservative movement, its primary code and self-identification, is the narrative of persecution. The conservatives define themselves as being "hemmed in" on all sides, and this is the underlying cause for the unified front the conservatives present.
Perlstein has beaten me to the punch when it comes to a dissection of the primary narrative of conservatism, as I have been struggling to articulate what I have been observing on the national stage. The recent legislation against stem cells, the production of the "culture of death" terminology, the movement against equality for homosexuals all seem rooted in the solidarity of Christian conservatives and evangelicals. Perlstein does not neglect the intertwined trajectories of modern conservatives (perhaps they call themselves "neoconservatives" these days) and the fundamentalist Christian movement, but I do not believe he goes far enough in attributing the narrative of persecution to the nature of evangelicism.
The heart of the evangelical and conservative Christian cultures is apocalypticism. Despite disagreement and attempts at disambiguation, apocalypticism is primarily a critical technique employed by sociopolitical commentators that shrouds its analysis and subversion in the language of the eschaton (the "end times").
Popped into my head during work today, and in light of anything more substantive, I'll post this. Feel free to finish it out in the comments with your own terminal couplet.
"When your better days are dead and gone
You learn to sing sadder songs."
I’ve been experiencing sharp pain in my wrists and fingers that recently crawled to my elbows in both arms. Equipped now with hard splints for my wrists, I finally have a modicum of relief. But as much typing as I do at work—both at the 9 to 5 and for my own entrepreneurial ventures—it leaves me little room to write the kind of articles I enjoy writing for empty signifiers.
Expect a few new articles after I’ve recuperated.
Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns is a film that is reverent to its source almost to a fault. From its incorporation of Marlon Brando’s performance as Superman’s Kryptonian father to Lex Luthor’s entire evil scheme, we are not seeing a sequel in the Superman franchise so much as Superman 1.5, the film Singer wished the first movie had been.
While revisions and remakes are in vogue, and some are ultimately the best expressions of their characters and storylines (see Batman Begins, for even though I love Tim Burton’s original, Nolan’s film is the Batman that was always meant to be), there is a slight feeling of the unnecessary hanging around Superman’s neck. Though I haven’t seen the original films, even I, an ignorant outsider to its cinematic history, left the theater thinking, “That was good… but it didn’t really seem new.”
Of course most of the thematic expressions are ultimately the same as in earlier Superman films and source material, but what we have with this movie that we did not get with earlier work is a polish to a mirror shine. Christopher Reeve’s wire-work cannot possibly compare to the lifelike CGI illusion we see flying, diving, and crashing to earth from space. No technology from the 1970s could have given us the puzzlingly creepy impression of a bullet striking Superman’s impenetrable eye.
What I’m not qualified to comment upon is whether Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane is in any sense better or reminiscent of Margot Kidder’s performance in the original Superman, but with that qualifier, I’ll bet that Kidder had to have been better. Bosworth is lifeless and unconvincing. Though her child (yes, we’re supposed to believe Bosworth has an attachment to perpetually sticky child her fiancé drags along) doesn’t fall into the too-precious-by-half movie child cliché, he does come pretty close.
The Superman played by Brandon Routh is more golem than Moses; instead of a charismatic leader we have an indestructible servant, silent and solemn, sacrificing for a world that readily embraces his absence (Lane has even received a Pulitzer for the article “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”). Though we are battered by the notion that such seflessness is an act of leadership, this Superman rarely speaks, rarely gives any context to his action other than to stand as a beacon of simple opposition. He is an immovable object, a force of nature, not a figurehead or a messiah.
I’m somewhat surprised by the negative tone I have struck here in this review—I did enjoy the film, and it’s nice to see Superman get a modernized treatment. But with the quality of Singer’s prior work, it’s upsetting to see him settle for a mere updating, rather than a true revitalization.
Naruto is, like many anime, based on a popular Japanese manga. It currently airs on Cartoon Network, marketed to children, rather than its late-night big brother Adult Swim.
Unlike any of its American counterparts—the utterly noxious cultural misconception Xiaolin Showdown chief among its thematic rivals—the subtext beneath Naruto’s glossily animated surface and big, expressive eyes is a story about the corrosive effects of child abuse.
This is a show about the abused, about how the traumas visited upon us in childhood build our worlds in bruises and blood.
Continue reading "Naruto: The corrosive effects of child abuse." »
Monday, July 3rd, found me at La Zona Rosa, a club in downtown Austin, where in the hundred-degree heat I waited to listen to the clever, dark work of Brand New. A band from the Jersey shore, their most recent album was Deja Entendu, which found their sharp lyrics married to Smiths-inflected guitar work and harder, harsher riffs, without relying on the new punk formula of their first record, Your Favorite Weapon.
The first track off Deja was the first song they played--more an atmospheric dabbling than a true song. "Tautou" drifts in on gentle guitar and a crash of cymbal, with Jesse Lacey's keen voice whispering "I'm sinking like a stone in the sea / I'm burning like a bridge for your body," and this couplet is repeated, first at a whisper, then a keening wail, as the lights pulsed. The crowd, mostly people younger than I, threatened to overwhelm the low vocals with their insistent yelling. As "Tautou" faded out into distortion, the band members waved, and a new guitar line broke out.
I've listened to Deja more than a few times, and know each of its songs--instrumentation and lyrics--like well-worn paths in the back yard, comfortable to tread, welcoming your presence. This guitar line was reminiscent of several but specifically none, and as such I can only presume it's off their upcoming record, which (if the t-shirts are accurate) called Fight Off Your Demons. It was darker, its verses sung tensely, building, only to erupt into screams and shouts.
La Zona Rosa is a small venue, walls around asphalt, and as such the acoustics left something to be desired, so I cannot say for certain if what I heard was really the literal content of the songs. But that chorus, that exploding guitar work, that crashing drums, the fluttering liquid bass, they were met with a throat-ripping wordless scream. A full-blooded furious scream that chilled the bone. Standing in a crowd of a thousand people watching the kaleidoscopic frenzy and the shattering lights onstage I felt the hairs on my arms stand on edge.
While Deja found more of its tracks played than their prior record, Brand New played their ode to teenage romance, "Soco Amaretto Lime," to the following cheers of the adolescent crowd. Having left high school and college behind me, the pathos and blatant youthful escapism were lost on me. The acoustic guitar graced Lacey's voice as the rest of the band left the stage.
But as with any concert, this was the false start before the encore, where the more violent, more insistent songs of their catalog came out to feed off the manic energy near midnight. It was here that the cognitive disconnect between the content of the songs and their audience was most readily apparent. "Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis," despite its non-sequitur title, is a story of a sexual predator, enticing and devouring the women in his path. The strumming guitar and the hushed vocals conjure the impression of quiet shadows and cold bedrooms, furtive encounters in the dark, strangers in the night trying to find what the empty winter sun cannot show them.
You laugh at every word, trying hard to be cute / I almost feel sorry for what I'm gonna do / And your hair smells of smoke / Who will cast the first stone? / You can sin or spend the night all alone.
The story of "Maradona" is that of an aggressive, deceitful male, of the posturing of these one-night stands, the futility of a meaningful encounter. Far from the male victimized by the loss of his virginity in "Sic Transit Gloria (Glory Fades)," the narrator of this song has found the most satisfying way of fulfilling his needs: Taking it from these girls, cultivating the impression of sensitivity, leaving behind him an abattoir bedroom of sweaty bodies and crying eyes.
You're using all your looks that you've thrown from the start / If you let me have my way, I swear I'll tear you apart / Cause it's all you can be / You're a drunk and you're scared / It's ladies night, all the girls drink for free
The girls in the audience, none older than 20, they cheered and they shouted, they screamed out the lines with Lacey, celebrating the story of their own exploitation. I listened, and waited for the coda's crashing noise, astounded by the song's warm reception.
I will lie awake, lie for fun / And fake the way I hold you / You'll fall for every empty word I say
The bitterness and the cynical aggression permeated their next song, "Seventy Times 7," a punkier, musically less ingenious concoction than most of their other work. But where the riffs fail to invent, the lyrics and their poison more than make up. "So have another drink and drive yourself home / I hope there's ice on all the roads / You can think of me when you forget your seatbelt / And again when your head goes through the windshield."
Appropriately their last song was "Play Crack the Sky," an extended metaphor of love as a ship sunk in the cold Atlantic, the narrator calling out "I am the one who haunts your dreams / Of mountains sunk below the sea / I spoke the words but never / Gave a thought to what they all could mean." Describing the end, eyes closed, Lacey lets the house lights die around him and with a wave and a thank-you left the stage.
Their live presence is strong, but there are still the hints of production work cleaning up their rougher edges on their albums. While a perfectly manicured appearance would no doubt seem stale and robotic, the intricate harmonies and the precise instrumentation is one of their strongest suits in their recorded work (excepting the freshman Weapon, which relies mostly on lyrical jabs to counteract its reliance on genre convention). But the vitality of the live scene is an unparalelled outlet, and theirs is a show not to be missed.
I have been working pretty diligently this week on creating my own template for Movable Type--this default (very blue) template is okay, but the typography and the colors are not what I would like. In the interest of carving out a space that's more my own, as well as helping ease readability, I've spent my time nose down in CSS and XHTML files. I'm also finding that Movable Type has a ridiculous amount of crap piled into those transitional XHTML files... Originally I'm sure the aim was to provide as much flexibility as possible by adding classes and ID tags to nearly every element, but the redundancy is astonishing.
So keep your eyes out for a new Empty Signifiers coming soon!