Modernism: where we need to return or what we need to leave behind?

[nomadthethird]

That Brassier book is 70 dollars with shipping. I checked the online database earlier this year and it's not at the library either.

Are there free essays somewhere or something?

 

[nomadthethird]

Just got a book called We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour whom I've been meaning to read for a while now. Won't have time to read it until this weekend but it looks pretty good.

 

[Agent]

"Just got a book called We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour"

i hear that's a good one. the book i'm reading now is worth checking out as well. It's called "Given: One Degree Art, 2 Degrees Crime". Not sure if i mentioned it before. Jean-Michel Rabate is one of the leading Lacanian critics in the world (more regarded in Lacan circles than Zizek, in some cases) and he edits the Journal of Modern Literature. "One Degree" is about the Black Dahlia murder, crime-scene photographs, Duchamp's "Etant donnes", Benjamin, Poe, de Sade, Lautreamont, Stirner, and Man Ray, among other things. Duchamp liked Pop Art and postmodernism in general, apparently. His last work is about tabloid photographs, exploitive media, etc.

The Dadaists were one example of a modernist group that didn't consider themselves "Modern" at all. Duchamp has a quote in the same book to that effect: ie the "modern" state of consciousness isn't limited to moderns - you can see traces of it in tribal art, music, poetry, social patterns, etc.

 

[nomadthethird]

"Just got a book called We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour"

i hear that's a good one. the book i'm reading now is worth looking into as well: "Given: One Degree Art, 2 Degrees Crime" by Jean-Michel Rabate. Not sure if i mentioned it before. Rabate is one of the leading Lacanian critics in the world (more regarded in hardcore Lacan circles than Zizek) and he edits the Journal of Modern Literature. The Dadaists were one example of a modernist group that didn't consider themselves "Modern" at all. The Rabate book is about the Black Dahlia murder, crime-scene photographs, Duchamp's "Etant donnes", Benjamin, Poe, de Sade, Lautreamont, Stirner, and Man Ray among other things. Duchamp liked Pop Art and postmodernism in general, apparently. His last work is about tabloid photographs, exploitive media, etc.

Sounds great... did you see that Brian de Palma Black Dahlia weird noirish movie ?

 

[Agent]

Sounds great... did you see that Brian de Palma Black Dahlia weird noirish movie ?

i haven't seen that actually - i remember the previews, i think josh hartnett and maybe scarlett johansen (sp) are in it. de palma is a great director. ofc i loved Scarface and Carlito's Way. it would be interesting to see how he handles the crime-noir genre.

if i were making the film, it would focus on the connection with the avant-garde artists, and it would bring in a lot of horror-noir elements, a lot of pynchonian conspiracy weirdness, and maybe some science fiction (aliens!!)

george hodel (who probably killed Elisabeth Short, and was tight with Man Ray) was a disturbing psych profile to say the least. he graduated from Cal Tech at 16, worked for many years at the Hollywood venereal/STD clinic, and hosted coke-fueled orgies at his palatial Hollywood estate. Man Ray took nude photographs of his 14 year old daughter. yeah.

btw have you read zizek's book Violence? it was released last year i think. i haven't gotten around to it.

 

[crackerjack]

i haven't seen that actually - i remember the previews, i think josh hartnett and maybe scarlett johansen (sp) are in it. de palma is a great director. ofc i loved Scarface and Carlito's Way. it would be interesting to see how he handles the crime-noir genre.

Agh, I can't speak for the modernist perspective, but from the movie one, that film is fucking minging, easily one of the worst I've seen this decade. Boring, badly acted (it was at this point I realised that, tragically, Scarlett just isn't up to it), suffocatingly shot, poorly scripted and just 99 shades of rubbish.

(Carlito's Way was good tho)

 

[nomadthethird]

Agh, I can't speak for the modernist perspective, but from the movie one, that film is fucking minging, easily one of the worst I've seen this decade. Boring, badly acted (it was at this point I realised that, tragically, Scarlett just isn't up to it), suffocatingly shot, poorly scripted and just 99 shades of rubbish.

I never go to the theater to see movies really but I went to see that and I was so disappointed--were it not for the unintentional hilarity of many scenes I would have left.

Scarlett Johanssen wasn't even the worst part, in my mind... and I realized Scarlett wasn't up to it way back when she was in that Woody Allen film with Jude Law.

 

[crackerjack]

Scarlett Johanssen wasn't even the worst part, in my mind... and I realized Scarlett wasn't up to it way back when she was in that Woody Allen film with Jude Law.

You went to see a Woody Allen film with Jude Law? Good grief, was it a university project or a hot date?

 

[nomadthethird]

You went to see a Woody Allen film with Jude Law? Good grief, was it a university project or a hot date?

Haha. I really can't remember to be honest.

I do have a knack for picking the absolute worst movies to see, like Cold Mountain, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (both of which I walked out on)...I can't remember what I was thinking then, either.

Sometimes shitty movies are more fun to see than good ones but please for the love of God and yourself do not let yourself be conned into seeing Cold Mountain under any circumstances.

 

[nomadthethird]

 

[nomadthethird]

i haven't seen that actually - i remember the previews, i think josh hartnett and maybe scarlett johansen (sp) are in it. de palma is a great director. ofc i loved Scarface and Carlito's Way. it would be interesting to see how he handles the crime-noir genre.

if i were making the film, it would focus on the connection with the avant-garde artists, and it would bring in a lot of horror-noir elements, a lot of pynchonian conspiracy weirdness, and maybe some science fiction (aliens!!)

george hodel (who probably killed Elisabeth Short, and was tight with Man Ray) was a disturbing psych profile to say the least. he graduated from Cal Tech at 16, worked for many years at the Hollywood venereal/STD clinic, and hosted coke-fueled orgies at his palatial Hollywood estate. Man Ray took nude photographs of his 14 year old daughter. yeah.

btw have you read zizek's book Violence? it was released last year i think. i haven't gotten around to it.

I've read so so many theories about who killed ES, but the most interesting one is Hodel, definitely.

I have read Violence, it's pretty short and readable...I think you'd like it. I was hoping for a Parallax View-length treatise but it focused on the objective/subjective violence distinction and the political effects of this way of thinking about violence (e.g. why is it more forgiveable that someone killed a few hundred Iraqi teenagers, I mean "insurgents", than it is when someone kills a couple of neighbors). The whole "overproximity of the Other"/my neighbor is ok so long as they're not really my neighbor-slash-I-don't-have-to-deal-with-them distinction figures prominently as well.

 

[Agent]

a friend of mine provided some additional notes on the BD murder:

A Glasgow smile- that is the name for when they slit your mouth open ear to ear like with BD. In the UK they would put a credit card in a guy's mouth to hold it open, then kick his balls so he screams and rips his mouth open even more (something to be addressed in my next Ugly World column)

the BD murder sounds like a Mafia job. I think Hodel had an accomplice in the Mafia (and other crime groups - he trafficked drugs at one point) but I can't remember the other guy's name. My guess is that he is the one responsible for the brutal aspects of the murder. Btw if you can find it look up the police transcription of the last words of Dutch Schultz, spoken while he was dying in a bathroom and recorded by a stenographer (something like that) is really interesting, it sounds like gibberish but he reveals all this information about the Mafia. i'm not sure if anyone has deciphered all of it:

(nm, here it is):

Statements made by Arthur (Dutch Schultz) Flegenheimer were taken down by a Newark police stenographer, F. J. Lang. A transcript of all he said follows:

(Schultz noticed newspaper and spoke) - Has it been in any other papers? George, don't make no full moves. What have you done with him? Oh, mama, mama, mama. Oh stop it, stop it; eh, oh, oh. Sure, sure, mama.
Now listen, Phil, fun is fun. Ah please, papa. What happened to the sixteen? Oh, oh, he done it, please. John, please, oh, did you buy the hotel? You promised a million sure. Get out. I wished I knew.
Please make it quick, fast and furious. Please. Fast and furious. Please help me get out; I am getting my wind back, thank God. Please, please, oh please. You will have to please tell him, you got no case.
You get ahead with the dot dash system didn't I speak that time last night. Whose number is that in your pocket book, Phi1 13780. Who was it? Oh- please, please. Reserve decision. Police, police, Henry and Frankie. Oh, oh, dog biscuits and when he is happy he doesn't get happy please, please to do this. Then Henry, Henry, Frankie you didn't even meet me. The glove will fit what I say oh, Kayiyi, oh Kayiyi. Sure who cares when you are through? How do you know this? How do you know this? Well, then oh, Cocoa know thinks he is a grandpa again. He is jumping around. No Hobo and Poboe I think he means the same thing.

Q. (from Sergeant Conlon) - Who shot you?

A.- The boss himself.

Q.- He did?

A.- Yes, I don't know.

Q.- What did he shoot you for?

A.- I showed him boss; did you hear him meet me? An appointment. Appeal stuck. All right, mother.

Q.- Was it the boss shot you?

A.- Who shot me? No one.

Q.- We will help you.

A.- Will you help me up? O.K. I won't be such a big creep. Oh, mama. I can't go through with it, please. Oh, and then he clips me; come on. Cut that out, we don't owe a nickel; hold it; instead, hold it against him; I am a pretty good pretzler -Winifred- Department of Justice. I even got it from the department. Sir, please stop it. Say listen the last night!

(Statement by Sergeant Conlon) - Don't holler.

A.- I don't want to holler.

Q.- What did they shoot you for?

A.- I don't know, sir. Honestly I don't. I don't even know who was with me, honestly. I was in the toilet and when I reached the -the boy came at me.

Q.- The big fellow gave it to you?

A.- Yes, he gave it to me.

Q.- Do you know who this big fellow was?

A.- No. If he wanted to break the ring no, please I get a month. They did it. Come on. (A name, not clear) cut me off and says you are not to be the beneficiary of this will. Is that right? I will be checked and double-checked and please pull for me. Will you pull? How many good ones and how many bad ones? Please I had nothing with him he was a cowboy in one of the seven days a week fight. No business; no hangout; no friends; nothing; just what you pick up and what you need. I don't know who shot me. Don't put anyone near this check~ you might have -please do it for me. Let me get up. heh? In the olden days they waited and they waited. Please give me a shot. It is from the factory. Sure, that is a bad. Well, oh good ahead that happens for trying. I don't want harmony. I want harmony. Oh, mamma, mamma! Who give it to him? Who give it to him? Let me in the district -fire-factory that he was nowhere near. It smoldered No, no. There are only ten of us and there ten million fighting somewhere of you, so get your onions up and we will throw up the truce flag. Oh, please let me up. Please shift me. Police are here. Communistic...strike...baloney...honestly this is a habit I get; sometimes I give it and sometimes I don't. Oh, I am all in. That settles it. Are you sure? Please let me get in and eat. Let him harass himself to you and then bother you. Please don't ask me to go there. I don't want to. I still don't want him in the path. It is no use to stage a riot. The sidewalk was in trouble and the bears were in trouble and I broke it up. Please put me in that room. Please keep him in control. My gilt edged stuff and those dirty rats have tuned in. Please mother, don't tear, don't rip; that is something that shouldn't be spoken about. Please get me up, my friends. Please, look out. The shooting is a bit wild, and that kind of shooting saved a man's life. No payrolls. No wells. No coupons. That would be entirely out. Pardon me, I forgot I am plaintiff and not defendant. Look out. Look out for him. Please. He owed me money; he owes everyone money. Why can't he just pullout and give me control? Please, mother, you pick me up now. Please, you know me. No. Don't you scare me. My friends and I think I do a better job. Police are looking for you allover. Be instrumental in letting us know. They are English-men and they are a type I don't know who is best, they or us. Oh, sir, get the doll a roofing. You can play jacks and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it. I take all events into consideration. No. No. And it is no. It is confused and its says no. A boy has never wept nor dashed a thousand kim. Did you hear me?

Q. (By Detective) - Who shot you?

A.- I don't know.

Q.- How many shots were fired?

A.- I don't know.

Q.- How many?

A.- Two thousand. Come one, get some money in that treasury. We need it. Come on, please get it. I can't tell you to. That is not what you have in the book. Oh, please warden. What am I going to do for money? Please put me up on my feet at once. You are a hard boiled man. Did you hear me? I would hear it, the Circuit Court would hear it, and the Supreme Court might hear it. If that ain't the pay-off. Please crack down on the Chinaman's friends and Hitler's commander. I am sore and I am going up and I am going to give you honey if I can. Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.

Q. (By Detective) - What did the big fellow shoot you for?

A.- Him? John? Over a million, five million dollars.

Q.- You want to get well, don't you?

A.- Yes.

Q.- Then lie quiet.

A.- Yes, I will lie quiet.

Q.- John shot and we will take care of John.

A.- That is what caused the trouble. Look out. Please let me up. If you do this, you can go on and jump right here in the lake. I know who they are. They are French people. All right. Look out, look out. Oh, my memory is gone. A work relief police. Who gets it? I don't know and I don't want to know, but look out. It can be traced. He changed for the worse. Please look out; my fortunes have changed and come back and went back since that. It was desperate. I am wobbly. You ain't got nothing on him but you got it on his helper.

Q. (By detective ) - Control yourself.

A.- But I am dying.

(Statemnt by detective) - No, you are not.

A.- Come on, mama. All right, dear, you have to get it.

At this point, Schultz's wife, Frances, was brought to his bedside. She spoke.

(Statement by Mrs. Schultz) - This is Frances.

Schultz began to talk again, saying:

Then pull me out. I am half crazy. They won't let me get up. They dyed my shoes. Open those shoes. Give me something. I am so sick. Give me some water, the only thing that I want. Open this up and break it so I can touch you. Danny, please get me in the car.

At this point Mrs. Schultz left the room.

(Sergeant Conlon questioned Schultz again) - Who shot you?

A.- I don't know. I didn't even get a look. I don't know who can have done it. Anybody. Kindly take my shoes off. (He was told that they were off.) No. There is a handcuff on them. The Baron says these things. I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers. It isn't worth a nickel to two guys like you or me but to a collector it is worth a fortune. It is priceless. I am going to turn it over to... Turn you back to me, please Henry. I am so sick now. The police are getting many complaints. Look out. I want that G-note. Look out for Jimmy Valentine for he is an old pal of mine. Come on, come on, Jim. Ok, ok, I am all through. Can't do another thing. Look out mamma, look out for her. You can't beat him. Police, mamma, Helen, mother, please take me out. I will settle the indictment. Come on, open the soap duckets. The chimney sweeps. Talk to the sword. Shut up, you got a big mouth! Please help me up, Henry. Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone.

the Glasgow smile sounds like a Colombian necktie, only more brutal when you factor in the contents of the BD's stomach, the hacked up (eventually bisected) body and all that. Hodel was a Stirnerite, like Duchamp. He read a lot of de Sade. Duchamp couldn't have been involved, but Rabate kind of speculates that Man Ray was, and that he was trying to impress Duchamp with his work of art. He idolized Duchamp.

 

[UFO over easy]

I never go to the theater to see movies really but I went to see that and I was so disappointed--were it not for the unintentional hilarity of many scenes I would have left.

Scarlett Johanssen wasn't even the worst part, in my mind... and I realized Scarlett wasn't up to it way back when she was in that Woody Allen film with Jude Law.

do you mean matchpoint? i saw that. dont think jude law was in it but that guy Jonathan Rhys Meyers was......

 

[nomadthethird]

do you mean matchpoint? i saw that. dont think jude law was in it but that guy Jonathan Rhys Meyers was......

You're right, it was so long ago now...thankfully...

 

[nomadthethird]

a friend of mine provided some additional notes on the BD murder:



the BD murder sounds like a Mafia job. I think Hodel had an accomplice in the Mafia (and other crime groups - he trafficked drugs at one point) but I can't remember the other guy's name. My guess is that he is the one responsible for the brutal aspects of the murder. Btw if you can find it look up the police transcription of the last words of Dutch Schultz, spoken while he was dying in a bathroom and recorded by a stenographer (something like that) is really interesting, it sounds like gibberish but he reveals all this information about the Mafia. i'm not sure if anyone has deciphered all of it:

(nm, here it is):

The names sound important--like "Winifred" is obviously someone who gets paid off within the Department of Justice.

It almost sounds too "crazy" to be true, like someone pretending to be crazy, like Vinny Vincenz.

 

[nomadthethird]

"Just got a book called We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour"

i hear that's a good one.

It's very good, I highly recommend it. It's a little like a companion piece to Lyotard's Postmodern Condition...pretty incisive on the problems we have with "hybrids", and explaining things without explaining them away...

I think I might write something for your journal based on it and maybe some de Certeau (which I will have to re-read)...I just got Psyche: Inventions of the Other which has a really good essay in it called "The Retrait of Metaphor" that reminded me of the earlier Lacan discussion.

 

[Agent]

burroughs wrote a book/screenplay based on the police transcript - he uses the cut up technique to give the words new meanings, and rearranges/embellishes it with surreal narratives. That's why i posted it here - i think this is one of the first modernist "found poems" - it is comparable to Joyce, Beckett, Tzara, or Apollinaire in some respects. also it anticipates postmodernism (violence, madness, transparency, crime, tabloid journalism, etc etc). I can't think of any other examples of modernism fused with organized crime or the mafia excpt maybe James Ellroy.

 

[Agent]

It's very good, I highly recommend it. It's a little like a companion piece to Lyotard's Postmodern Condition...pretty incisive on the problems we have with "hybrids", and explaining things without explaining them away...

I think I might write something for your journal based on it and maybe some de Certeau (which I will have to re-read)...I just got Psyche: Inventions of the Other which has a really good essay in it called "The Retrait of Metaphor" that reminded me of the earlier Lacan discussion.

excellent i just started reading de certeau. i'll scan Seminar 23 (Le Sinthome) when i get access to a school computer.

 

[Agent]

I think I might write something for your journal based on it and maybe some de Certeau (which I will have to re-read)...I just got Psyche: Inventions of the Other which has a really good essay in it called "The Retrait of Metaphor" that reminded me of the earlier Lacan discussion.

a couple days ago a friend/colleague submitted an essay for the journal called "A New Form of Art for the 21st Century," which is about "crime scene-as-art," and focuses on "posers": serial killers who pose their victims in weird/artistic ways for the crime scene photographs (or forensic evidence). I haven't read Psyche but it sounds excellent. One of the Surrealist journals published Duchamp's notes to Given: 1 degree waterfall. I'm looking for them to do an analysis, or to recreate/re-imagine the crime scene. i think that's the point of shows like CSI and Law and Order: to see the crime taking place in our mind's eye. It's all about the 'ob-scene' and the censored object:

In 1943, Duchamp rented a studio on the top floor of a building located at 210 West 14th Street in New York City. While everyone believed that Duchamp had given up "art," he was secretly constructing this tableau, begun in 1946, which was not completed until 1966. The full title of the piece (in English) is: Given: 1 The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas. It consists of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs gathered by Duchamp on his walks in the park, leather stretched over a metal armature of a female form, glass, linoleum, an electric motor, etc. Duchamp prepared a "Manual of Instructions" in a 4-ring binder which explains and illustrates the process of assembling/disassembling the piece. (See Duchamp, Marcel. Manual of Instructions for Étant Donnés: 1º La Chute D'eau 2º Le Gaz D'éclairage..., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987). It was not revealed to the public until July of 1969, (several months after Duchamp's death), when it was permanently installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. No photographs of the interior of the piece or of the notebook of instructions were allowed to be published by the museum for at least 15 years.
The viewer of the piece first steps onto a mat in front of the door, which activates the lights, motor, etc., and then peers through two "peepholes" to view the construction behind the door. The voyeur strains, unsuccessfully, to see the "face" of the eerily realistic nude female form which lies supine on a bed of twigs, illuminated gas lamp in hand. In the distance, a sparkling waterfall shimmers, backlit by a flickering light, part of a realistically rendered landscape painting on glass.

 

[nomadthethird]

a couple days ago a friend/colleague submitted an essay for the journal called "A New Form of Art for the 21st Century," which is about "crime scene-as-art," and focuses on "posers": serial killers who pose their victims in weird/artistic ways for the crime scene photographs (or forensic evidence). I haven't read Psyche but it sounds excellent. One of the Surrealist journals published Duchamp's notes to Given: 1 degree waterfall. I'm looking for them to do an analysis, or to recreate/re-imagine the crime scene. i think that's the point of shows like CSI and Law and Order: to see the crime taking place in our mind's eye. It's all about the 'ob-scene' and the censored object:

This sounds fantastic.

I've thought a lot about the current preoccupation with forensics but I'd never really thought about it in terms of the censored object.

I was thinking about challenging Latour's "we have never been modern" thesis with an analysis of modernity as a set of economic relations, where the twin mothers of modernism are industrialization and urbanism, using a metaphor of de Certeau's (the "city") or maybe Virilio's "vision machine"...