Difference and Repetition I

I've been struggling with a text by Gilles Deleuze over the last week or so. It's Difference and Repetition and reading Deleuze is probably the quickest way to demonstrate to one's own lack of intellectual finesse. Anyway, in order to extract what I can from the book, I've decided to do a series of posts that "opens up" the text via quotations, questions and "workings out" of the ideas presented in Difference and Repetition.

I'm glad (or perhaps I should be embarassed) to say that I've hung around Deleuzean thought for quite long while. It's been at least ten years since I first started reading Anti-Oedipus. I know that sounds silly but there are difficulties in his thought that I think forces (or seduces?) the reader back to him. Also, there is that vast referentiality that is involved such that to understand a single concept more precisely, one has to reader three or four OTHER people that Deleuze refers to in a single breath. I don't have a background in academic philosophy (though much may be imbibed because one is literate) so there bound to be philosophical catch-phrases that are thick with meaning that I'll miss. Part of the difficulty as well!

Perhaps the most well-known contribution of Delueze (and his later collaborator, Felix Guatarri) is rhizomic 'structure'. In an attempt to dismantle top-down / bottom-up hierarchies and systems of thought, organization and being, they propose a counter structure, that of the rhizome. They oppose this to the more traditional 'aboreal' (tree-like) structures, which schematize from the root the the crown, and that dominate most spheres of knowledge. Instead, they posit a multiplicity of centers and a dense networks of relation and force that emerge out of these different networks. Obviously, they've been credited as prophets of sorts for the wonderful world of the internet, which seems to be the human endeavor that resembles the rhizomic most closely.

Difference and Repetition is an early work (and one of Deleuze's PhD theses) and Deleuze's project involves thinking how we might think "difference" in-itself. I guess the starting point has to do with the way we usually quickly gloss over the idea of "difference". We normally think of differences as the identifiable features that are manifest between two or more objects. But this isn't good enough for Deleuze who thinks that this makes difference a mere adjunct to "identity", merely a conceptual, representational idea.

In effect, Deleuze's project ends up as a crazy meditation on the dominance of "representation" in Western philosophy. He attempts to dismantle the tyranny of the "original-copy" relationship that is the basis of transcendental thought by demonstrating that difference can be "affirmative". He does this because he thinks that while difference has been invoked by a great many philosophers in the Western tradition, they have merely been, well, dancing with shadows. Taking on "difference" in 1968 would have been significant because of the growing disenchantment with structuralism and emergence of now well-enshrined dogma that semiotic phenomena merely operate through a network of arbitrary difference. Deleuze isn't content with the revolutionary insights and freedoms that "arbitrary" affords: he wants "difference".

From the Preface:

"We tend to subordinate difference to identity in order to think it (from the point of view of the concept or the subject: for example, specific difference presupposes an identical concept in the form of a genus). We also have a tendency to subordinate it to resemblance (from the point of view of perception), to opposition (from the point of view of predicates) and to analogy (from the point of view of judgement). In other words, we do not think difference in itself. With Aristotle, Philosophy was able to provide itself with an organic representation of difference, with Leibnitz and Hegel an orgiastic representation: it has not, for all that, reached difference itself."

Spicing the Grail

My annotations on Jack Spicer's poem, The Holy Grail, are back on-line. I decided to just put everything on a google.page since I was having such bad luck with free hosting services.

The pages are best viewed with Firefox or Netscape. They don't work too well with IE and not at all with Safari. Apparently 27% of Internet users use Firefox, so that ain't too bad!

http://spicingthegrail.googlepages.com/Jack.htm

Give me some Moore

One of the things that I've been reading quite fervently is the comics of Alan Moore. While my attention was first drawn to The Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen several years ago, a chance conversation with a real comics freak (yooo hooo Andrew, how's Nottingham?) keyed me on to explore some of his other stuff.

Thus far, I've managed to read From Hell, which I definitely need to re-visit because I rushed through it while I was in back home. It's extremely learned and well-researched, and because it's filled with an amazingly arcane references to Free Masonry, it's almost like a comic book version of Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.

I also managed to read the Swamp Thing run that was the first major thing that Alan Moore did for DC and which sort of introduced him to America. His meditations on Nature, metaphysics and the fragility of human relations through, a comic about a glorified plant, is pretty amazing. I managed to get my hands on a collected DC Universe stories of Alan Moore, which features some amazing Superman and Batman tales as well. In that, he has short quirky stories, just two to three pages long, which are really original pieces of story telling.

I'vce just finished several issues of his Tom Strong series and Promethea. With these comics, Moore toys with comics conventions and more generally, the boundaries between fiction, the imagination and the Real.

There is a series of six videos from a BBC programme on YouTube which profiles Alan Moore and they're quite interesting. The best moment in the videos happens when he actually shows his extremely detailed (and indulgent) "script" for the illustrators (this is in the 4th video) and when he explains why he wants to dissociate himself from the film adaptations of his work (video 5). And here they are:

Part 1	Part 2
Part 3	Part 4
Part 5	Part 6

Strange Fictions

Apart from watching quite a few of the Star Wars movies (after I caught the "Revenge of the Sith" on TV), I haven't been watching much else owing to the fact that I'm burdened with memorizing the strange inflections of Old English and exploring the even stranger comics of Alan Moore (hmmm I might just write an entry about that ...).

Anyway, one thing that I finally watched (yes, I'm always several years behind), was "O Brother Where Art Thou?" This was promising because of the supposed inspiration from Homer's Odyssey. I didn't find that many parallels, either between the protagonist or the plot (some people who obviously know both works much better than I do have found extensive links) but I was pleased that the soundtrack was so brilliant. It's really one of those films (like Almost Famous) where the music becomes a character in the mix. Of course, in "Brother", music is crucial to the protagonists because they end up making a hit record that (they don't know about as they continue their scoundralling -- which is a nice comment on the way the workings of the media has shifted so tremendously, and I suppose a backward glance on the idea that Homeric performance and transmission may have been aural in nature ...) but the rest of the film is bouyed up by music that I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I enjoy (my common justification for liking "old time gospel and country blues": "it may not sound interesting but it's really fun to play").

Of course, writing this entry reminds me that I have watched something else: a little Spike Lee film on the IFC called "Bamboozled". It's a satirical look at big networks and an attempt to re-work "African-American" steroetypes. It was a pretty strange experience (with so many layers of irony that it became quite difficult to locate some ground beneath your feet -- whatever happend to that U2 song/Rushdie book anyway ...) The film stars Damon Wayans as a VERY middle class (read "white") black television executive who decides to mock his network (and his boss, who's a white guy who thinks he's "into black culture") by scripting an extremely offensive variety show: based on the black-face minstral shows of the 20s and 30s (see DVD cover left). Of course, things get out of hand and the show becomes a hit, with tragic consequences for all involved. Jada Pinkett-Smith is excellent in this, as Wayans' assistant!

When the Deal Goes Down

I'd like to think Bobby Dylan and I go back a long way. After all, I first got to know him in a real low-point of his career. I've still got it some where -- a cassette tape of 1990's "Under the Red Sky"-- probably Dylan's worst outing. Why I didn't just give up on him and put more effort studying for the 'O' levels, had a lot to do with a handsome copy of his complete lyrics that the National Library had in its Reference section. Reading through it, I couldn't imagine how he'd even recorded that horrible 1990 album.

Of course I quickly got acquainted with the rest of his earlier and much earlier work and he's been a constant companion ever since. Anyway, I came across this video from his new album "Modern Times". It's a pretty listenable ballad that manages to turn quite a mundane line: "When the Deal Does Down" into a rather lyrical refrain. One of the central features of Dylan's work, the "choric" nature of that last line to each verse. Anyway, here's the video, drenched in nostalgia (the man's 65!) with references to his roots (born in Minnesota) and influences ("Bound for Glory"). It's all about Scarlet Johansson with Dylan's haunting voice back there somewhere. Some of the video was supposedly shot at Coney Island on the Cyclone(though this footage doesn't make it to the video, she's there at the amusements and the beach) and opens with a shot of the Statue of Liberty!





"We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down"

The Power of Gmail

Ever wondered what your email was really about? In this world of words, we write lots of email but how often do we stop and wonder about what we're really saying in that sea of language. Now you never have to worry about not REALLY knowing what you were writing about. Because GMAIL, tells you, through their wonderful ads.

For instance, thought that you were conversing with a friend about school? Not really, you were really revealing your deep-seated desire for violence. You really want to KUNG-FU someone to death:



Thought that you were seriously concerned about a friend's love life and were really offering a listening ear so that your friend's love-lorn woes could receive some kind of emotional catharsis? How wrong you were. All you were really interested in was helping them find somebody else and making sure that they started producing babies in the process:


Thought you were engaged in a high-falutin' academic discourse about an intellectual topic most obscure in nature? Not a chance. You were really looking for the quickest way to avoid having to write that thesis yourself:

Shamelessly Advertising

Here's a shameless advertisement.

A few of us have started a blog where we write about / analyze Singaporean politics or current affairs. I suppose this is just like the thousands of blogs that do the same. However, I maintain that the project is still important and worth everyone's while. For the following reasons:

1. The production of political discourse is for everyone. So getting into the act, no matter how late in the play, is crucial in any kind of formation of political sensibilty.

2. The typical Singaporean political blog is marked out by its cult appeal. We, on the other hand, intend to keep this blog circulating within an intimate community (ie amongst people that we already know). Yes, so to all three of you who are regular readers of this blog, welcome to that intimate community.

3. We welcome contributions. Just email me if you think you have something to write about. At the moment, there are four of us who are supposed to be regular writers (of course only two of us have posted ... ) but hey! that's the nature of spur of the moment projects, ain't it? There is almost no editorial policy (I probably will only correct very bad grammar ... but of course ...)

Anyway, here it is : http://meetthepeoplesession.blogspot.com/

Mr. Lagat

A few days ago, I came across this rather quirky bit of news in the pages of TODAY. It deals with the various trials of Benjamin Lagat, who is a Kenyan runner. The article dealt with how a "middle echelon" runner such as himself has to strategically choose his races (and therefore run the Sheares' Bridge Run) to give himself a chance of winning. He also sells maize back home in Kenya to supplement his income.

It struck a chord because despite all the attention given to the amazing exploits of Singaporeans staking a claim at being successful in every field of human endeavor (not that there is anything wrong with this, of course), there are even more of us in the middle and lower echelons, just trying to get by.

Of course, the other exciting thing about the article is that it was written by a long-lost friend!

Back Just in Time

On a whim I just went to check out the Lincoln Center list of free events for what remains of the summer ... and ... I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Sonny Rollins is playing (for FREE!) this Sunday!

A (Sort of) Homecoming

So, what has it been like to have left New York for about three weeks -- the longest that I've been away from "home" to go back to the Motherland, for three weeks -- the shortest I've been back home -- (unless you don't consider Pulau Tekong as part of the Motherland ... even then, can go home on weekends ...) ?

1. I actually watched the National Day Parade and listened to the younger Lee make his national day rally address. Once again, I irritated my mother with snide remarks in response to just about everything he said.

1a. I tried to read the Straits Times everyday but realized that my threshold for nationalistic bull-shit has been lowered. Better go and train harder.

2. I had a wonderful time meeting up with people and finding out that while time stands still for a lot of us, the energies of youth more than make up for this for many others.

2a. I learnt that young mothers are difficult to hang out with. One ends up doing things VERY slowly, having no conversation or suffering the embarrassment of having your friends shout across a cafe ... "I count to three ah ... One ... Two ... don't make mummy count to three ah ..."

3. I got extremely "distracted", helping my father work on elements of his new book series. Some of the results of that distraction, included silly songs, are found here: http://dr.friendly.books.googlepages.com/home

3a. I rejoiced with my brother-in-law on learning that he had actually completed his reservist cycle.

3b. I was shocked to learn how skinny my sister is. I guess looking after children takes the meat off the bones. I did my best to put food on her plate while I was home.

4. I realized that while I enjoy Singaporean food a lot, I can live without it. In fact, I should generally live with less food, my weight being a source of constant attention during this trip home.

4a. I think people like to talk about your weight when they don't really have much to say. I was, to various people: a: "Wah Ni Pang Leh! She 14 weeks pregnant also not as fat as you!" b: "Ah, Mr. Lim, I see you're getting fatter ..." c: "Did you lose weight ? " d: "No change lah, no change, you look the same ..." Of course, these responses allowed me to gauge who was being (a) polite, (b) honest or (c) a liar. Then again, it could well be that some people just can't gauge these things properly (myself included!)

5. I managed to get into the "Swamp Thing" episodes that Allan Moore did, as well as rush through "From Hell". Singapore's National Library ws pretty good about this. Having forgotten the efficient mechanization of almost everything in Singapore, I actually "suakuly" asked the counter if they could check my books in so that I could borrow new books immediately. The lady, of course, gave me the "What Kind of Sua Ku are You?" look, and told me to use the book drop.

5a. I watched only ONE film. And was sadly disappointed by "Dead Man's Chest". The entire thing seemed to be merely a set-up for a third part. I was extremely sleepy as well, so I ended up dozing off intermittently ...

5b. Despite being a very ugly building from the outside, the "new" central library was pretty cool. Nice Auditorium and sky-bridges too.