Seduction-Memory-Writing

Reminder: memory is collective.

Just what is different about face-to-face and online interaction? A posting to the Humanist Discussion List asked: How is this situation no different than what Plato worried about, and how is it different?

I could repeat the synapse view of the relations between computer-mediated to in-person communication: sparks jump the gaps between the social and electronic networks. Instead I want to raise a consideration of a triplet-at-play in our reading tradition stemming from Plato where writing stands in for technology. We have three elements at play: seduction, memory, writing.

Memory mediates between the other two and serves as the ground for adjudication. It is with memory that we judge the fitness of the writing and the goodness of the seduction. The question as to whether writing damages memory is often the starting point of discussions. This is in effect a move that lands us in media res — right smack in the middle of a narrative of decline. Trying to keep the seduction-memory-writing triad in mind as a circuit problematizes any narrative be it of triumphant technology or social decadence.

Seduction seems to be perennially under theorized. I would suggest that there is an art to being seduced as much as there is to seducing (being a good guest as much as being a good host). Plato via Socrates puts a premium on seduction as a means of education, if I recall correctly.

And so for day 2323
23.04.2013

Invasion of the Peacemakers

"wants" is on its first appearance a verb, on its subsequent appearance a possible noun indicating a plurality of desires until enjambement forces it back to singular verb status — still an echo resides of wanting to end wants — a tendency to être comblé

anyone with
sense wants
madness to end wants
Canada to invade the
United States of
the Americas
bring us to our knees
dissolve our military
imprison our leaders
distribute our wealth
insist we live in peace

"The Nerve of Honey Must Prevail"
CAConrad
Ecodeviance: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness

Note the fictional state - the United States of the Americas - not to be confused with the United States of America. More play on singularity.

And so for day 2285
16.03.2013

Wanting Pell Mell

J.D. McClatchy
Division of Spoils
"Tea with the Local Saint"

The pull of desire is nicely captured in this anaphora.

I wanted to feel the stalk rise and the blade fall.
I wanted my life's arithmetic glazed and fired.
I wanted the hush, the wingstroke, the shudder.

Despite the repetition there is something jagged in these lines, like life itself.

And so for day 2261
20.02.2013

Desperate Economy: Design Survival Desire

William Mills The Meaning of Coyotes "Oklahoma, As You Break to Beauty" not distinguishing the dancer and the dance but widening the circle of perception to perfect the embrace of pointer and pointed. These are the last two stanzas.

There on the snowy plain
Our pointer, stiffened to the world,
Sculpted by desire,
Becomes the geometry of desperate economy.

There with the world's energy arcing
Between pointer and pointed,
I watch the birds break to beauty.
The design of survival is desire.

It seems as if geometry is positioned against design. The punctuation and the repetition of desire (in both bird and dog) bring into relief the final line and sentence. It seems pronounced upon the whole scene including in its compass the observation of the poetic voice upon the arcing energy. Desire becomes immensely complicated.

And so for day 1496
17.01.2011

Violin Lust

Joseph Curtin. "Stradivari's Varnish: A Memoir" in Brick 74 (Winter 2004) enumerates a number of reactions

The sheer physical beauty of a great Italian violin excites all sorts of desires in all kinds of people. Violinists want to play them, museums to lock them in climate-controlled display cases, dealers to sell them for fabulous sums, collectors to acquire them for undisclosed sums, and violin makers to build copies that will fool all the above.

And the hero of this story is the fool-maker.

And so for day 735
17.12.2008

Florilegium

Some of the epigraphs to various sections from H.L. Hix Chromatic

Spinoza (Ethics)
Desire is the very nature or essence of every single individual.

Wittgenstein (Remarks on Colour)
How must we look at this problem in order for it to become solvable?

Bach (The Well-Tempered Clavier)
For the use and practice of young musicians who desire.

I love the way the theme of desire and individuality makes its resurgence.

And so for day 662
05.10.2008