Tee Vee

Kenneth MacKendrick kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Mon Oct 1 19:05:18 PDT 2001


At 02:39 PM 10/1/01 -0700, you wrote:


> > "Wanna see me comb my hair really fast? Hee, haa, ho! Yeah."
> > cynosure... encore!
> > ken
> >
>----------------
>
>While I am sure I would subscribe to the cartoon channel, if I had cable,
>well,
>see, that's problem. I don't have cable. So will you haute culture daemons
>please explain. Unlike Wojtek, I have no principles. I am just too cheap..

Fair enough. It's worth the investment, I guess, I mean... if you happen to enjoy nothing more than wasting your time away watching things... go bye. I'm hooked on reality TV, but I find myself longing for a plot.


>So, Ken where have you been hiding? And how about Jameson on WTC? I was just
>thinking of trying to put together something on the architecture of terrorism
>using Phillip Johnson's Crystal Cathedral, following suggestions from Tom
>Walker's speculations on the idea that WTC was designed by the same architect
>who did the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex---whose demolishing in '72 was
>supposed to harken forth the post-modern era. So from P-I to WTC, an
>historical
>parenthesis for empire and capital.
>Chuck Grimes

Me been finishing a dissertation. Rough draft done, submitted. Very tired. Odd thing though, I can't stop working... it's like I've been hypnotized by productivity... the less work I have to do, the more I write / read... I'm knee deep in communicative action and jouissance...drool...,,, - working on the job apps now, esp. post-doc research... (everything is crossed). But there is this thing about formal pragmatics... I just.... (stop).

Maybe defend thesis in December, perhaps January or Feb... no matter, got job(s) to occupy time. After 911, I read Mark Juergensmeyer's Terrorism in the Mind of God. Good thing too, he was quoted in the Toronto Star on Saturday. I haven't been following much... all this is too concrete for me, I prefer the abstract, 'this is not my beautiful jouissance!' It seems to me that more thinking out to be done with regards to religion and violence, so I've been longing for Rene Girard as a place to start. I'm all awash in Zizek and Habermas right now, so I doubt that I can contribute anything meaningful to the Crystal Cathedral connection, other than recommending that everyone see Angel Heart (Louis Cipher). I did fool around with Empire for a bit, but after 50 pages I got fed up with it, something sloppy this way comes. Habemas dismissed in two sentences? Beyond accommodation. I can't wait to read the new Kant biography, ditto for Spinoza. I dunno, I've been around... I think I've been camping out in the desert of the Real.

ken



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