Self Analysis

In this good article Slavoj Zizek notes that

"today, the formations of the Unconscious (from dreams to hysterical symptoms) have definitely lost their innocence and are thoroughly reflexivized: the "free associations" of a typical educated analysand consist for the most part of attempts to provide a psychoanalytic explanation of their disturbances, so that one is quite justified in saying that we have not only Jungian, Kleinian, Lacanian... interpretations of the symptoms, but symptoms themselves which are Jungian, Kleinian, Lacanian..., i.e. whose reality involves implicit reference to some psychoanalytic theory."

This is to say that we no longer separate the theories of psychoanalysis from our conscious experience. For example:
'Oh my gawd, that is so Oedipal, she looks just like your mom!'
'My best friend died but I am totally repressing my feelings for it, I'll probably get drunk and cry in a few weeks.'
'I don't know why I clean so compulsively, I'm just neurotic, I guess.'

The silly (yes, silly) thing about this is that psychoanalysis is a technique, and not a science. And, particularly and explicitly, is not a science which can be applied to oneself. It works in the context of the relationship between the analyst and analysand. Oedipal structures are useful, not ontological, in the sense that they do not describe real world relations, but can be used to shift harmful mental patterns.

The strange thing, then, is that we actualize these pseudo-scientific beliefs. Self-conscious insecurity leads us to desire partners who remind us of our parents. You really will not think about your dead friend and then let it all out when you are drunk, but you are, in fact, consciously repressing. Not unconsciously. And your neuroses manifest themselves through the filter of your belief in them.

There is a really strange interaction between the supposed unconscious, which is actually conscious, and the real unconscious. Perhaps then each mirrors the other, and limits the spontaneous interaction between the two.

Obama Ohh

Last night in honor of President Obama's impending victory I attempted to eat a full pizza (a full O of pizza). I managed to eat 5 slices and a chicken sandwich at the Hot Club.

I had no O in my stomach, but I did say 'ohhh' and hold my stomach after finishing the last piece. Close enough.

halloween costume

Been Gone for a while

sorry friends, the internet at my house is gone, and we haven't gone to get it back. and i only write my blog later in the day when i don't have a thing else to do.

Taste in Records

A question I have is, if records are analog captures of sound - what is analog to them? For example, a record is to sound as taste is to what? Or as touch is to what? Artificial flavorings? Sex toys? How about this: a leather or velvet fetish is analogous to the sound a record makes. The leather is the skin just like the record sound is the original sound. So Freud helped with touch inventions. Ha. What about taste?

Get to work, young inventor!

Phonomotor

That of course is Thomas Alvah Edison. Here is the best thing that he didn't invent, even though he could have:

THE PHONOMOTOR
is a curious little instrument, invented by Mr. Edison, in practical reply to a jocular challenge from a friend, who asked him, “Why don’t you invent a machine to talk a hole through a board?” He thought a moment, and replied, “I guess I can?” The practical result is a kind of steam drill or augur, which is rotated at an extremely rapid rate, but can only be set and kept in motion by the human voice.

Good Thing Records

My album just got released today on Good Thing Records. It is called Push the Funk Button (by Rich JC). Let me know if you want a copy. I did the cover artwork.

Good Things Today

Taken to breakfast.
Fish sauce in my cooking for the first time ever (lunch)
Free dinner.


"Faucet water is
particular water's daughter"


Senator Government.

Thank you Jamie

j.e. brandt said...In French, "pret" means to be prepared or ready, so you're blog could have been about pretending to be ready for an ending (WHICH WE ALL HAVE DONE AND ALL WILL DO AGAIN).

The Decision

Here you are, faced with a piece of plastic shrouded in a glorified cardboard envelope. You will never buy the cardboard without the plastic, and you will not buy the plastic without the cardboard. Strangely, you will never use the cardboard for anything, but we are not talking about use. This is a record. It is not its cardboard cover, and not the circle of vinyl inside. There is a price on the cardboard. It will typically range from $0.50 to $50.00. You have no idea where it comes from. No idea. At Joe’s Moldy Oldies in Woonsocket he writes a ‘list price’ on the back of the record. This is often $150-$300. Then, you bring him the record and he shows you the price he has written on the back and asks for $15, which is probably $10 too high. You decline. At the Time Capsule in Cranston all LPs without a price are $3, and some are marked at higher prices. You will never buy the very rare Stevie Wonder album at $8 because you have never seen anything else priced so high there. At another store you would buy it in a second. However, you are more likely to buy a $5 record because (you believe that) the price will ensure the record’s quality. At Luke’s Records in Pawtucket there was a sale every month and everything was half off, and you would pay $7.50 for a $15 record which you could have found at the Time Capsule for $3. It is a complicated game. You pay attention to the ‘price context’ and if you see something that is at a fair price relative to the rest of the prices in the store, and it is something that you want, then you feel good about buying it.

Morways Park

I got back yesterday from canvassing in New Hampshire. "Canvassing". We spent most of our time enjoying ourselves and eating American food.

However, there were 4 or 5 hours during which Caroline and I went to visit Morways Park, which was like a trailer park except the trailers were not trailers at all, but long metal boxes permanently fixed to the ground. Everyone knew what they thought, especially when they knew that they were undecided.

The most interesting part was David Gaskin, who said to us when we asked his name - Gaskin:
If you look it up in a phone book phone...
Look it up in a, no, in a dictionary
in a big dictionary
a comprehensive
a big dictionary
you will see what it means.
[was this a quest he was setting us to?]
It means the bone in a horse's ass.
Right here [leaning forward and patting his large rump]
That's me.

I Couldn't Even Get an Answer (answer)

What did I do last night? Hmm....


Oh yeah! I remember - I ate three pieces of pie with whipped cream, a whole bunch of tiramisu, and a single biscuit. Then I got a gigantic sugar rush and came home and started a blog. Careful, kids, with those sweets.

Title

I like to say pretending because first I wanted to call it pret(ending), but pret doesn't really mean a thing. So I was then going to call it pre(tending) but that didn't really get at the ending part of pretending, or only did in the reverse, because typically tending prevents ending. Which is the point of this little bloggo - to tend my life so that it does not end as I know it, but lives on forver, encased digitally in the shell of a pre-fab blog.

I would also like to note that this blog name is much less emo than my other blog names have been. Or at least less emo than Providence Also Moves, which for the record was taken from a part of a sentence from a book which I cannot remember and had nothing to do with Providence the city where I live, college, or the emo nation.