The only person who will understand this post doesn’t read this website (not that probably anyone does anymore), but I had to put it somewhere, and I suppose that’s what this is for.

For the past few months, I’ve been constructing a mix tape. In the vein of High Fidelity, there are lots of rules involved in the making of a good mix tape; it is, as Rob once said, a “subtle art.” I have my own rules, they are not necessarily Rob’s; that said, one of the most fundamental is that no more than an hour can be spent on the making of a mix. Of course, the other central rule that holds true for every mix is that every rule about mixes must be broken at least once. As such, I decided it was time that this one got broken; I’ve been working on this mix, as I said, for the past couple of months. The format has been pretty simple - I made version 1 according to my own rules, then, after a listen through, changed a few things and dubbed it version 1.1. This process has continued since then; each version gets a few listens before it is changed and becomes a new version.

Last night I changed it again, and at the end of the change titled it *#8220Version 2.0” because a) it was a pretty big change, b) the last version was 1.9, and c) because I’m pretty sure this is the final version.

I won’t explain here why the songs are on the mix, or why they’re in this order, except to say that the mix was made very specifically for someone; that someone, of course, doesn’t read this site and won’t be able to hear it anyway for another few months. So, without further ado:

Version 2.0

1. Mix Tape - Brand New
2. Start a War - The National
3. Anything You Want - Spoon
4. Say it to Me Now (Once Version) - The Frames
5. Headlights Look Like Diamonds - The Arcade Fire
6. The Face - The Moore Brothers
7. If She Wants Me - Belle and Sebastian
8. Us - Regina Spektor
9. Sixteen, Maybe Less - Calexico/Iron and Wine
10. Kill - Jimmy Eat World
11. Take Me to the Riot - Stars
12. Carolina - M. Ward
13. Young and Dumb - The Lucksmiths
14. Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living) - Eels
15. Citrus - The Hold Steady
16. Overdue - The Get Up Kids
17. Somebody That I Used to Know - Elliott Smith
18. Myriad Harbour - The New Pornographers
19. Lonely No More - Magnet
20. If I Am a Stranger - Ryan Adams
21. Motorcycle Drive By - Third Eye Blind

The following questions were posed to me on the class-internal blog for Rhetoric 103B, Aesthetics and Politics, by my professor. I thought both the questions themselves and the answers provided would be interesting, and illuminating as to what my college life is like, so I’ve chosen to reduplicate them here.

First, a bit of exposition. The questions are in response to two texts that we read for the class that amount to a conversation between Marxist artists Ernst Bloch and George Lukács. The question of their sometimes heated debate is Expressionism and other “anti-realist or pseudo-realist” art movements like Surrealism contribute to, or take away from, the Marxist project. Lukács argues that they only ever distract from real conditions, thus being products of conservative reaction that aim to destroy the proletarian struggle for class consciousness, while Bloch argues that they help expose fissures in thought and life under advanced Capitalism and thus help the proletarian struggle by subversively attacking its dominant ideological paradigms. Now, the questions:

Four Yes or No Questions

1. Should art represent reality?
2. Can a work of art fail?
3. Is there such a thing as avant-garde art?
4. Does some art contribute more to progress that others?
(These questions were written and posed by Dale Carrico, my professor, and are not my creation in any way)

---

Now, for my answers.

Four Non-yes-or-no Answers

1. Art should be in communication with reality, be it in direct representation or total discontinuity. That is all that can ever be asked of it. To channel Marx, art seems to do one of two things, with respect to Lukács’ and Bloch’s argument (I tend to side with Bloch, and this explanation should serve to explain): art in the Marxist mode either serves to describe the chains of humanity in a realistic manner, or it serves to expose the imaginary flowers decorating the chains to motivate humanity to see the chains for what they are. [The reference here is to Marx’s criticism of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, in which he famously states that religion is the opium of the masses, meaning that it provides them into a false happiness, putting imaginary flowers on the chains of society. Marx wanted criticism to be that which plucks the imaginary flowers off of those chains, not to make life that much more miserable but to make the chains recognizable for what they are so that society's response would be to break free of the chains and enjoy the flowers of real (Communist) life.] Not all art is in the Marxist mode, of course, but locating art (at least some of it) there seems to be the focal point of their debate. To me there can be no question that in this project, art of both types is communicating with reality, it’s just approaching the problem differently.

2. Anything can fail. Art just fails more interestingly than many things do. Art only fails politically with respect to its creator's intent, or if it fails to be in communication with reality. Either case is itself a communication with reality, and thus art cannot indeed fail to have an effect; art can only fail in regard to its personal situational intentions.

3. Is there such a thing as non-avant-garde “art”? I scare-quote “art” here because the distinction I’m drawing is between art and non-art. Of course there are things that consider themselves art and are considered art, and these things are certainly something, but if there’s anything crystallizable that I’ve taken from the class thus far, it’s that art is perhaps the avant-garde of politics, in whatever form it chooses to take, be it Communism or Fascism or lifestyle politics or the readiness of Homeland Security to deal with Boston bomb threats (and/or advertising). I just want to make clear that I’m not saying that “art’ is by its character avant-garde, but that being avant-garde is one of the qualifications of art.

4. Probably, but then again, not all art inevitably tries to. Progress is such a fuzzy notion to begin with that the question itself seems to be aimed far away from the crux of the debate. The question seems to be whether or not Expressionism contributes to the progress of bourgeois reaction and the defeat of the proletariat or its awakening, regaining consciousness, and eventual liberation. I don’t want to dwell in subjectivity, but I think the important point has to be made that art, like politics in most cases, pushes against itself as often as it pushes in one direction. Each piece of art progresses its respective movement, but in a teleological sense the only answer we can ever provide to the given question is yes, some art works more towards any one given end than others do. Art does not have a unified end; if it did, almost all of its interest would fade. I think the far more interesting debate is what the end that a given art object or artistic movement conceives itself and strives toward.

This time, the lucky professor is none other than the legendary, quirky, wonderful Daniel Coffeen, my Rhetoric 10 professor. There won’t be as many as there were last time, but these are a bit . . . more. Rather than laughing at the giddy confusion of a woman who spends a little bit too much time thinking about cod, this post often containes some deceptively bright witticisms by the man who best embodies the field of study into which I am plunging. Many are from his introduction to the course, which itself is entitled “Introduction to Logic, Reason, and Argument.” Enjoy.

“Everything’s a freaking argument. . . . Everything. Every freaking thing. A flower plant, your eyelids, this chalkboard . . .”

“The problem with the statement ‘everything is an argument’ is that ‘everything is an argument’ is a valid argument, and so is ‘not everything is an argument’.”

“Formal logic is based on proof. Proof is the end of argument. Rhetoric begins precisely when the question of proof has been rendered moot. Only when proof is moot can rhetoric exist, when proof is an argument itself.”

Rhetoric is this strange beast . . . that helps us negotiate a world where there is no certainty.

“I came out of this program with a Ph. D. and I don’t know anything.”

[On current events, and in response to the previous]“I know we bombed a country in the Middle East, and it seemed rude.”

“A tulip is an argument: this is the way to be. Stand up straight. Bend a little. Be purple.”

“We’ll talk a lot about the argument grass makes.”

[Justifying a grant to fund the continued existence of the Rhetoric department]“Uh, I study the way things . . . go? In the world?”

[Closing his first lecture] “I’m skinny, but I can hold a lot of booze. People are surprised by that.”

“I might have made a good portion of this up; it doesn’t really matter.”

“As the name differs, so likewise does the reality”

“Go home, teach your parents this word [Ecceity, literally ‘this-ness’]. They’ll have you pulled out.”

“That’s our one enemy. The adamant prick”

“Tulips are so, like, groovy. They don’t need to proliferate, they stand alone”

“I urge you to get through an hour without some phatic discourse [pauses and meaningless utterings like “um”].”

“Your hair is brown, true or false. Rhetoric is the hippest major, true or false. Coffeen is full of shit, true or false. These things are verifiable, right?”

“I did my laundry today . . . that’s a sentence that should never leave somebody’s mouth [speaking of its banality, not of the virtues of cleanliness].”

“What’s at stake is whether you’re afraid of life or you enjoy it. That’s rhetoric.”

“There is something about being in a frat that means you have to like bad music.”

[On professionalism, his lack of it, and the reasons for professors’ dislike of him at an art academy] “I mean I can be an asshole, but these guys are all assholes, so if it’s on that grounds, then we’re all kind of equal.”

“An MD has never told me one fucking thing that I didn’t already know. But I can’t write my own prescriptions, so I have to go see these idiots.”

“Do you know what I’m talking about? Wait until you’re older and start to die.”

“I have always wanted to start this thinktank called ‘the society of individuals.’ [laughter]. It isn’t funny. But I guess you’re laughing and that’s the point.”

“Multilogical? Polylogial, that sounds less grotesque.”

“Socrates is the Gene Kelley of philosophy.”

“The book [Plato’s Phaedrus] says by the end . . . that all writing is play, it is never serious. You’re reading the fucking thing! I don’t understand how the history of the world missed the irony, but it did. . . . This is not subtle, he’s hitting you over the head with it. ”

“Is the Socratic legacy that all young handsome men should love old poor men?”

And so concludes volume 2. Comment, if you dare.

And in particular, a note to graduate students in the history department at U.C. Berkeley.

Grading a paper because it is not written in a style that you enjoy reading in your spare time is not, repeat NOT, a legitimate grading method.

Constructive comments include things like “Your link here to the text is a bit weak” or “You might want to develop on this idea more.”

Ignorant, waste-of-ink comments include things like “this language is a little bureaucratic,” “wordy phrase,” and my particular favorite “this is a super-long sentence.”

It is actually unhelpful to grade a student’s paper by making wholly incorrect statements such as that you do not have to indent on the right as well as the left when making a block quote.

Finally, good argumentative writing builds upon the points made before it, and so words like “thus” help lead the reader (unless she doesn’t understand argumentative writing) and you should not suggest that the writer take them out; words and phrases like “in addition” detract significantly from a paper by making it seem as if the point that follows is tangential and in addition to the actual argument.

This is college. I’m not a history major, and you know for a fact that I passed high school with some degree of writing competency. You also know for a fact because we’ve discussed it several times that I am a Rhetoric major and understand how to make an argument. If I’m using bureaucratic language, it’s intentional. If I make a sentence long, it’s because I had a lot to say about an idea that was relevant, and I assumed that someone who had a college degree (in the humanities, no less) could follow an idea for more than eight words; apparently I was wrong. This is not a writing class, you are not a writing teacher, and I am majoring in, essentially, argument. I’m not saying that I know how to structure an argumentative paper better than you (although I’m certainly thinking it, thanks to your ignorance of how a BLOCK QUOTE is formatted), but please at least apply common sense to your grading practices. And if you’re not sure of something, look it up.

The only examples listed above that did not come back in red on a history paper I just received back today are the helpful ones about textual relevance; in fact, my paper had little to no comment on these subjects, those which are actually relevant to history. My point is that making pedantic, stylistic comments that betray your ignorance of the craft of writing do not help anyone, and applying them to a grade is downright wrong. Take College Writing R1A next semester, please, I strongly reccomend it. They’ll get you all sorted out on that formatting question.

This isn’t going to follow any format. Of course, I guess that’s cliche now, but whatever. I would like to take this opportunity to declare my victory over mookee in our contest of posts for the month of June - I won, notably, with one post to his zero. I find this particularly interesting since he instigated the challenge. My post may have been lacking, self-serving, and a little inane, but it was better than his non-post. Okay, gloating over.

I didn’t have much in mind with this other than that annoying compulsion I occasionally get to type, and so this is in fact more rambling than I usually try to allow myself. That said, rambling can be fun, and the wonderful thing about webpages is that delightful little red “x” in the top right corner allows you to tell me where I can stick it if this bores you. That aside, here we are.

I’ve been getting asked a lot recently if I’m “out of the closet” about my Marxism yet. The official answer is no. But I guess, by addressing any of this, I’m coming out. I hesitate only because I haven’ exactly devoted years of study to his work or that of his contemporaries. All I know is that it makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than any other philosophy, western or otherwise, that I’ve ever read. Every time I read something in praise of something other than of Marxism, or especially in praise of free-market Capitalism, open-minded as I can muster, I find myself disgusted. It doesn’t matter how gracious, or cautious, or even apologetic it is - and it doesn’t matter if it’s in defense of freedom, or personal liberty, or any of the other benefits guaranteed without question by cutthroat markets and dog-eat-dog mentalities. Let me say right out that I’m not a Communist, not in the terms of Lenin or Stalin or any of the Russians. Russian Communism was a perversion of the worst kind, and to call it Socialism or Communism is and insult and a dangerous lie. It is not the only possible outcome of a socialist world, nor is it the inevitable end of Marx’s failed utopia.

Maybe having everything state-run doesn’t make perfect sense, and putting all the power in the hands of one person certainly isn't Socialism, despite that being its only successful manifestation in our world. But taking away from the always-already exploitative manner of private ownership, putting the successes of the workers directly in their hands, and not allowing for an even passive aristocracy does make sense. Moving away from a system where millions upon millions are making barely enough to maintain hope, away from a system where anything economic called “trickle-down” doesn’t see the light of day, moving away from a system where exploitation, micromanagement, and competition are integral parts of success, that makes sense. At least to me. This is where I agree with Marxism. It’s not perfect, and I’ll agree that it would be pretty hard to maintain total equality without a little bit of authoritarianism -- which is not what I’m advocating, not in the slightest. I am as much an enemy of governmental paternalism and totalitarianism as I am of Capitalism. But there has to be something better. The greatest economic reform our country has seen, FDR's New Deal, was labelled Socialism by its critics. Shouldn’t this be telling us something? Ending a depression, renewing American faith in the system, and putting millions back on their feet was done by moving the Capitalism of the early 1900s more towards Socialism. Does anyone see any connections here?

That’s all I have for now. If anyone wants to discuss, debate, etc., you can always comment. Or, if you’d like a slightly more private venue, don’t hesistate to e-mail. slewisk@gmail.com. Right now, I’m way too angered by stupidity to write more.

Sorry for the lateness of the post. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject.

Today’s post is a generalized observation, synthesized from arguments and thoughts based on Philosophy 2 last semester, and Rhetoric 20 this semester. The post itself is going to sound ridiculous, as it is a cure-all for the arguments of philosophy and critical theory, and as such is inherently flawed, too general, and the like. Nonetheless, I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is some truth to it.

Modern arguments in critical theory (something I know quite a bit more about than philosophy) are based on the synthesis and analysis of, primarily, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as their disciples and followers. Despite that, critical theory bases itself on a series of written absolutes, each as resolutely sure of itself as the theory it claims to disprove. The idea of a synthesis is never truly breached; rather one is used to argue against another, or a theory derived from two or three of them is taken as a new blanket truth, apparently disposing the old. This is an over-simplification, but it is not altogether wrong; critical theory, as a discipline, is a series of arguments.

The problem comes with the fact that for one reason or another, these arguments, themselves oversimplifications, are almost always proven either wrong or incomplete. And, it seems to me, in both philosophy and critical theory, it is because they are uncompromising.

One of the main critiques of Marx is that his prediction of a worldwide revolution which would destroy the capitalist system and end modes of exploitation has not come about, and instead capitalism has continued to spread. The two main responses are *#8220Just wait, it’s coming,” and “Marx may have been right about a lot of stuff, but he sure was an idiot in that respect.” Marxists and post-Marxists, themselves not strictly following Marx's words but their own ideology which has become known as Marxism, either abandon Marx's prediction or assume that it just needs longer to come to fruition. Nearly unseen is the theory that Marx's analysis was correct but incomplete.

I don’t mean to singlehandedly fix critical theory nor do I mean to propose a solution to the Marx question; I merely use it as a convenient example. Even when one attempts to synthesize Marx and Freud, or Freud and Nietzsche, or so on, it is often to say that they were in fact arguing for the same thing in different circumstances; for example, again borrowing largely from Marx, the statement “Ideology has no history” is sometimes compared to and combined with Freud’s idea that the unconscious is eternal.

This is an incomplete analysis of an incomplete problem, and I’m well aware of its flaws. That aside, it is worth mentioning and discussing, as it plagues cricital theory and (what I’ve seen of) philosophy.

Every semester there’s a teacher that, inadvertently or no, says some hilarious things. Well, I plan to bring you that every semester, including this one. This year’s winner is my The Ocean World professor, and here are some of the things she has to say:

“This is not supply and demand. This is, like, duh.”
“That’s how capitalism works. You have to go forth and multiply.”
“First I have to explain my personal obsession with cod.”
“An entire culture is at stake here” (use of Cod in fish and chips)
“Cape Cod? Massachusetts? Same cod.”
“Oh look, an acronym.”
“So they came to the government and said [knocks on wood] . . .landshark”
“I love this fish. God, it’s just so cute.”
“It got re-named to change its identity. It’s a fish incognito.”
“Norway didn’t surprise me”
“The US because we’re greedy”
“They eat Purina fish chow”
“And speaking of chicken, what else is fishmeal used for? [The class answers]. That’s right! Chicken!”
“I just pictured a cartoon thought bubble above each of your heads with a different fish in it”
“’Fish is an important source of protein,’ it says in my notes”
“They could be completely wrong, but they’re instructive”
“That will make you happy, which is not my objective”
“My stories usually have a point – not always”
“If you want to be an ocean geek . . .”
“paleoichthyology . . . I made that up, but I think it’s real discipline”
“Oops . . .my cannery burned down. Gotta collect the insurance and move to South America”
“If you really have nothing else to do in life you can go farm seaweed . . . it’s actually pretty benign”
“I don’t really have anything to say about mollusks”
“Kill the bears, they eat too many fish”
“Let’s see if I can make you love the law of the sea”
“Kidnapping of fish . . . fishnapping”
“Does my aura look funny to you?”
“Is anyone else an Aries?”
“Someone told me that my moon was in retrograde, so I felt better cause it wasn’t my fault”
“There were no women back then, it was the sixties.”
“Why would the law of the sea hurt my knee?”
“I’m usually over [in that part of the classroom], I’m just visiting over here. . . . hey.”
“Channel surfing is an important part of my life.”
“I need a 3D chalkboard, if that’s possible.”
“ . . . and I said it was the end of my conspiracy theories”
“We conquered the Spratly Islands from the fish!”
“You can solve it by arbitration, you can have a tribunal, you can have a war, you can arm wrestle . . . usually it’s one of those first two”
“I want to make sure you have enough confusion in your mind about international law . . . it’s important to be confused.”
“Does that make sense? Not really? Good, it’s not supposed to.”
“Globalization. I don’t know what it is, but it’s happening now.”
“Go someplace safe and don’t move and watch container ships come into the bay”
“ ’Register your ship here and we’ll give you a secret bank account!’ I think that’s really considerate”
“Cod . . . don’t forget the cod”
“If I get 5 hours of sleep I can’t function. 6 or 4. It’s gotta be an even number.”
“First thing, if you want to be a pirate, you can’t get seasick.”
“At least [pirates] are still using machetes.”
“I feel like someone from Sherlock Holmes . . . or CSI . . . I love CSI . . . they’re like . . . ’evidence’”
“This is the marine equivalent of Lojack . . . Oh, I get it! It’s the opposite of hijack!”
“Can you repel up?”
“The captain is supposed to go down with the ship, so he should be turning these things off.”
“Wouldn’t that be a bummer? You hijack a ship, and it’s empty”
“They just take it . . . borrow . . . redistribute”
“Knowledge can be a pollutant”
“Aim your wrath at me!”
“I put that in the reader just cause I liked the title”
“I won’t lecture, you don’t take lecture notes. How about that?”
“I keep hoping [my notes] will magically appear. It’s kind of funny, I don’t know what I’ll say.” [She finds them] “They’re really small.”
(On hating Julia Roberts) “I’ve heard things . . .”
(On Benjamin Bratt) “He’s perfect”
“How many PCBs can you put in the water without causing an Erin Brockovich incident?”
“A worldwide turn to the right . . . [realizing] That’s your right. This is my right.”
“Thatcher . . . Reagan . . . World Bank . . .bad hair . . . The 80’s were a lost decade”
“I think the secret to the plot of the show is Ch. 13 in your textbook”
“Pause for station identification” [Drinks water] “Ok.”
“Take only pictures, leave only footprints . . . and careful where you leave those footprints.”
“We’re gonna play acronym jeopardy”
“Yeah, this is not useful, nevermind”
“This is not an erasable marker . . . oh well [draws] . . . I’ve sacrificed this overhead to make a point.”
“Well, one of the things wrong with it is you get conflicts”
“Fish aren’t always easy to predict”
“This is why it’s important to have all your t’s dotted and your i’s crossed . .. wait.”
“I didn’t know whether to write a Ph. D. dissertation or a trashy airport novel.”
“[closes door] I don’t want anyone else to hear this”
“Slideshows are fun because you just sit in the dark and do nothing”
“Fishing hurts fish.”
“What happens when you put rich yachts next to poor fishermen? Redistribution!”
“And then they came up with a logo, which is always a good idea”
“They noticed that the animal thriving most in the marine reserve was the aquatic tourist.”

Posts have been and will be sparse for the past few/coming few weeks, but I have a perfectly valid excuse (although it is just that, an excuse).

Barestage’s production of eight plays from David Ives' All in the Timing opens this Friday, November 11, and closes Sunday, Nov. 20. I am in the show “Mere Mortals,” the closing piece of the performance.

It’s funny, it’s cheap, and best of all it’s completely student-run . . . there’s no expertise anywhere near this thing.

If you’re interested, will be in or near Berkeley while the show is coming, and want more information, you know how to reach me. And if on the off chance that you don’t know how to reach me, leave a comment and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.

It’s everyone’s least favorite part of the semester. Midterms have been returned, but finals still seem far away, and motivation has hit an all-time low. Everyone is in one of two states; they’re overconfident because they aced their midterms and have stopped going to class, or they’re beginning to research fast-food jobs and the like because they’ve failed all of their midterms and are panicked about the gaping hole where 25% of their grade is supposed to be.

One of the fundamental flaws with the semester system that Cal uses is that it leaves this time, where half of the student body is panicked but helpless, and the other half is apathetic and overconfident. It’s probably worse from a freshman’s point of view, because (at least I hope) some of the upperclassmen have figured it out. The teachers acknowledge it; the students, with a certain tone of resentful irony, accept it; there’s not really much to do, because for a while it doesn’t seem like there’s good motivation to go to class - no assignments due, no impending tests, no class-defining lectures.

This is not to say that the quarter system is better; a spread out period of apprehension in the middle of a fifteen-week learning experience can certainly outweigh nine weeks of constant stress. But when the other shoe falls in late November and we all realize that our finals are in a few weeks, we’ll be collectively cursing the system as it stands.

What the world needs is a twelve-week option; there’s breathing room, but not really enough. It’s not a subway at rush hour, but it’s not wide open plains either. I’m sure that this has occured to someone else . . . so why aren’t we using it? Perhaps sometime soon it will be implemented; knowing the way these things go, probably not. For now, we’ll learn to deal, we’ll panic, we’ll lose sleep, and then we’ll move on.

They’re over. Finally. I don’t know how I did yet; I’m not entirely sure I want to know. The point is, celebration time. Who’s got ideas?