Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 08:16:14 -0800
Subject: Re: presentation, representation


Arturo Cherbowski wrote:
> 
> God Damn. . .being away from these posts for about two weeks at times I
> felt/had the illusion that I missed them. . . their banter serving at
> least as a form of entertainment which despite their sometimes affected
> tone of relevance and gravity, of importance as radiant flashes of
> superior intellects bantering and contesting over the surfaces of
> significant terrains and not merely just more of the same old tidbits
> characteristic of academic production (meant here in the most pejorative
> sense. . . for example as the endless trash offered by presses like
> Routledge under the label of cultural studies, theory or criticism),
> could really be no more than banal  diversions and distractions even and
> especially in the eyes of their probably bored, underpaid and overworked
> authors. . . but what do I find upon returning. . . a basically accurate
> but thoroughly didactic summary of some Kantian themes followed by
> replies such as these:
> 
> > In other words the artist may have found visual
> > devices which express what needs, wants, to be expressed.
> 
> Come on. . . it is not even funny. . .not even ridiculous. . .what the
> hell is this ?  Talk about differends. . . is this kind of claptrap
> supposed to evoke some kind of emotive reaction in its addresees ?  Am I
> supposed to feel hope in the face of such sickeningly naive, romantic,
> heroic dribble ?  The kind of reaction that its author hope will inspire
> me in the direction of the ethical ? towards being a better person and
> towards living a better life ?  Shit. . . I do shed a tear here, but I
> shed it because I cannot stop laughing at this and ridiculing it. . . no
> wonder academics have such bad reputations. . . get on with it people. .
> . wake up and smell the smell of dollars and blood. . . want to have
> some relevance ?  want to be serious ?  Stop writing this kind of thing
> and instead pick up a gun, bash in a skull or something. . .
> 
> ARTURO
-AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-

Arturo, 

Thanks for your words.  You do have an artistic flair. Do you
participate
in visual or audio arts?  Perhaps you are an accomplished stylist who
paints, designs clothing, makes movies, creates in media other than
words, does gourmet cooking, invents perfumes, belongs to militias,
plays soldier in the woods, lobbies for the NRA.   Blood and guns
indeed. Maybe you build bombs in the wilderness, invent conspiracy
theories. Nahhhhh.....Couldn't be the guy who came on the Lyotard list 
to discuss Lyotard works; must be an alias, a denizen of netizen or
worse.

Regards,
Hugh