At 10:12 AM -0800 1/31/02, Philip Sherburne wrote:
Nobody actually *reads* the stuff... well, that's not true, but many, many,
many who namedrop don't. Just as many who cite Cage have never
heard/studied/engaged with his music, or read his own theories.
Actually I must tell a story - all too true - along this line. Once
many years ago I was in a club in SF and found myself discussing
theory with someone then quite active in the dance music "scene"
here. I mentioned that I was fond of Derrida and found his
techniques quite useful, at which point the other told me that my
deconstructionist was strictly for "UC Berkeley wankers" and that the
only people worth reading were Deleuze and Guattari. I laughed, but
noticing the Michel Foucault (by whom I had been reading much around
that time) preface to a copy of "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia" in a bookstore weeks later, I finally bought this item
long on my reading list and started into its messy frustrating
brilliance. Later I found the same anti-Derridean at the same club
and mentioned that I had begun "Anti-Oedipus" and was enjoying it;
his response: "you are READING it? No-one actually READS that
book!" I was incredulous, and upon further questioning I discovered
that this travelling D&G salesman had only read an essay or two,
having been quite put off by the thicker tomes. One of the great
ironies in the pretension suddenly associated with the namedropping
of these two theorists is that they seemed at pains to "remove the
cork" (to steal from Eco) of pompously puffed and fluffed
philosphical entrenchments, scat-singing in the high church of
polysyllabics and happily sticking Kick Me signs on the butts of the
eminences. Pass the post-its...
np - Coldharbourstores "More than the Other"
ps - From an offshoot of a label whose early tributes to D&G were
quite heartfelt - and back in the micro way - I have been quite
enjoying Hanno Yoshihiro's "April Remixes" lately...
--
Joshua Maremont / Thermal - mailto:thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Boxman Studies Label - http://www.boxmanstudies.com/