If Mouse(plural) is Mice, then House(plural) should be Hice.

Studying theory and critically analyzing objects, from academic texts to investigating the significance of spatial arrangement in morning ritual Cheerios eating, marks a strange experience of life. This extends right to the oh-so-sweet relief of short bathroom breaks in between teaching classes.

Walking in and observing possible choices lining the left-hand wall, you're thinking, "what position, arrangement, style and poise when peeing defines me as a person?" If I choose the first stall, I'm an otiose ($20 academic word drop!) conformist, selecting the first available opportunity. The second cubicle could be an option, although it might violate male convention, ensuring that there is always a space, if possible, between adjacent users. Using the third stall would amiably locate me in the center of the stalls, extending no favour to alternate options on the left or right. However, a central location could imply a lack of decisive side-choosing, demonstrating lack of both agency and active decision-making. Although using the cubicle second from the end could associate me as a careful consumer of availability, demonstrating thoughtful evaluation and subsequent dismissal of first-come options, this positions me too close to the fifth stall, perhaps expressing an antisocial and paranoid behaviour towards being near other alphas while peeing. Choosing the fifth stall would be bold, but too obviously elitist; don't want to be a bathroom champagne socialist - all style, no action.

It's surprising how quickly this thought process happens, but doesn't help you make simple decisions. Important to laugh at yourself under these circumstances. Practicality takes a brass-knuckle beating once your brain figures out how to confuse itself with indecision based on textual models of objectivity. Modern theory can work so carefully and not saying anything absolute or definite that almost nothing of consequence gets said at all...much like critically analyzing urinal stalls instead of just getting the job done.

Over the break, I worked diligently at distancing myself from the intricate dementia and responsibilities of being a student/teacher/reader/writer/closet human. And now for something completely the same. Second semester is already feeling a lot like first semester, which felt an awful lot like this: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27794. In the words of Chris Clemens, video game scholar and neo-beatnik, "it happens to everybody but you can't really explain it properly to somebody who doesn't understand". Hmmmm. Hyper-reality has never felt more omnipresent.

Theories on Theory

Studying critical theory is an interesting activity. Theory first of all, is the academic practise of scrutinizing social reality for problems with no intention to solve any of them. If you can expand on the importance of a social abberation, for example that television commercials from the 1960s are indirectly responsible for the psycho-social construction of ADHD, your field of specificity can be such that few others have the background to refute you. And those that do will endeavour to tear your work apart. Knowledge is pain, and the more you know, the more dire life seems to become.

At about the mid-point of an average article there can be the desire to find a lighter and ritualistically burn the words off the page. After all, critical theory further problematizes existing problems, explicating, then again complicating as you go along. However, after musing contemplatively for a few minutes and then daring to read a few more pages, the text often does seem to suggest that there ARE in fact ways to combat living in a metaphysical prison system where you can't make any decisions because they've all been made for you because capitalist mass communication caters directly to advertising and consumption and the profane and evil and Satan, but then doesn't tell you how to do it! Genius! You continue reading the article, assuring yourself that some kind of solution will be introduced by the end, then get there and realize that you've been fooled. There are no solutions, only complex ways to think about the problems using terms that no one really understands. This arguably would seem to be a counter-productive act, theorizing about social strata using language that cannot be understood by the networks it describes. So then you begin thinking of your brain in this difficult way, as more of a 'diachronous hegemony device perpetuating the verisimilitude of autonomous ideological development', at which point your friends tell you to stop talking like an idiot and you realize you've been thinking out loud.

What is the point of learning in this fashion? Why do people like Adorno and Horkheimer insist that there is something fundamentally wrong about uncritically enjoying mass culture? Why is critical (and therefore revealing) investigation such an integral part of academic theorizing, if there doesn't seem to be any noticeable form of practical application? Why are questions important? Essentially, these ideas all suggestively point to the notion of freedom. Whether or not some form of product or standard or legislative practise can be derived from theory doesn't matter as much as the concept of thinking freely and understanding the limitation of cultural networks built upon mythos. Simple pleasures appear to be desirable and amiable on a surface level. However, recognizing the lack of both available choice and liberation involved in these activities describes our participation as, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, a form of mass psychology in league with obedience. But we LIKE watching movies and television and we FEEL GOOD when we buy new clothes! What's wrong with that? The suggestion is that the reductionary position of finding enjoyment in these activities without engaging in them critically relegates people into consumers. Fight Club's Tyler Durdan raises the point of why, as a man in his mid 20s, a person knows what a duvet is, given it that duvets are rarely essential in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word. So what's wrong with being a consumer? I look forward to dinner at restaurants, I like IKEA furniture and I like electronic gizmos with dials and buttons and mystifying blinking lights. As first and foremost a consumer, a person unwittingly buys directly into the system under which they exist. For example, in a mass culture, mass communication revolves around the process of advertising. After the industrial revolution, the ability to create large amounts of goods and employing large amounts of personnel to do so necessitated that mass amounts of people start buying those products. In convincing people what they desire and what feels good through the seduction of advertising and a modified Puritan cultural rationale, people feel good and desire that which indebts them further into their socio-economic system. This extends not only to material objects like clothing and makeup, but also belief systems and personality traits. Tyler Durden explained this significance much more succinctly by suggesting that 'the things you own end up owning you'. Then he started an underground boxing club in order to free men from their cultural bondage (yes, getting beat up by total strangers is totally liberating!), and then later demolished several buildings containing bank records. In a less flashy manner, Adorno and Horkheimer state their opinions on the subject by describing that:

"The most intimate reactions of human beings have become so entirely reified, even to themselves, that the idea of anything peculiar to them survives only in extreme abstraction: personality means hardly more than dazzling white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions. That is the triumph of the culture industry: the compulsive imitation by consumers of cultural commodities which, at the same time, they recognize as false."

Ah yes, here we are, back to being told how hopeless our situation is as we begin reaching for a lighter...but wait! If we're so helpless, why not just submit and roll with it? After all, ignorance is bliss, and I'm definitely in the mood to go drive my inefficient car several measly blocks in order to watch Bruce Willis kick the shit out of everything while enjoying my Coke at an over-priced movie theatre anyways. I know that these desires stem from being a consumer in a particular cultural network, and yet want to engage in them regardless. Arguably, there's a difference between watching films or consuming other products uncritically and with doing so in an analytical fashion, but given that in both cases the system triumphs, this difference might be marginal. Parents often encourage their kids to be happy and think positively about life as an ameliorative psychological practise, while cynicism is rarely toted as having productive outlets. Keep in mind, however, that if you bitch and complain loudly and effectively enough, you could wind up being a pretty successful social theorist.

First day of School!

School is opportunity; a privilege, so they say. There is a hierarchical caste structure of power in play, running from high school, to college, undergrad, Master's work, and for some, the PhD (you know, the one where everyone has to call you "Dr.", even though you can't really do anything).

The entrance process into this illustrious system can be unusual: I will explain how it works. Applicants receive admission and are automatically offered scholarship bonuses and teaching opportunities, which are great, but which will take up all of their time and leave little opportunity for further aquisition of Earth monies (debt, weeeeeeee). Once accepted into the halls of graduate academia, a short seminar is held describing the opportunities that graduates have, hinting suggestively at the fact that the entire educational process, coupled with government funding and essentially the FUTURE OF OUR SOCIO-CULTURAL CLIMATE, rests on the shoulders and brains of all those who decided to attend the seminar (the ones who skipped the seminar clearly must be devoid of such responsibilities). Everyone is excited! So there you are, mashed together, a maw of eager grads raring to plunge head-first into classrooms laden with responsibility, and young students looking forward to the wisdom you are intended to bestow upon them...like sponges tossed into some mighty river...hmmm, and they do seem blithely unaware of your previous status of 'prospective burger-flipper' or 'Halo grand pubah'. The seminar closes with a declaration that graduate school offers something that almost no other experience can provide - the opportunity to completely reinvent oneself. And provided that this is seen as a good thing (although 'Halo grand pubah' sounds devilishly important), this opportunity is one that demands a conscious focus to incorporate.

Attitude-adjusted Priorities

The problem with going anywhere is that you must inevitably return to where you started from. This is almost certainly the case unless you decide to get married there or perhaps become entrenched in business. Maybe you stay for a year, maybe 2, perhaps 5, but reprogramming the mind to exist 'back home' is something that is rarely escapable. Take visas, for example. You get one for about a year and sink comfortably into 12 months of 'les alternative choisirs'. Then ba-blam, you're done all of a sudden, uprooting yourself and folding back into a position of "Arrgghhhh! Real life!". This is slightly different from grade school, where I can remember 'home time' as one of my favourite subjects.

Life's amenities are often presumed to lie in relation to money and power (which for many young(er) people translates into meaning a good job and a desirable mate), but then there are those times when the opportunity to expand provincial horizons trumps even the sturdiest of claims stating otherwise. However, all of such experiences are fleeting; they are time-oriented and subject to the inconsistencies involved in a) getting older and b) growing more responsible towards c) professionalism in a d) climate of social and proprietary discourse. E), we're left wondering what the hell we did with the last 5 years of our life and remark how awkwardly close we are to approaching the age of 30. No time to lose, carpe diem, free your mind...and then reality sneaks up with a clever backfist of 'get a job, pilon'. Clearly, something was lost in the translation between living life as a free agent and becoming an independent and successful citizen.

Guns Guns Guns

Just barely eclipsing the note-worthiness of Anna Nicole Smith's passing, the latest incident gun violence at Virginia Tech has marked some important ideas concerning gun control in the US.

Consider first Cho Seung Hui, an anti-social South Korean man enrolled at Virginia Tech. Noteably, labelling Seung Hui as anti-social and South Korean hints directly at supposed causal relationships between these two unrelated qualities, which is markedly evident in articles concerning the tragedy. Wayne Chiang is another South Korean at Virginia Tech, a man who simply happens to have a passion for firearms. Once the news of the V. Tech shootings appeared on the internet, Chiang received violent, angry and racist messages from users who believed that he was responsible. The burning of religious temples and defacing property owned by ethnic minorities as a result of the 9/11 terror attacks similarly frames this case, as the resulting hate tactics had nothing to do with the incidents described, other than people drastically misinterpreted dark skin as an indication of terrorist intent. In the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, 'outraged' citizens and netizens decided to express their outrage through channelling it towards descriptive labels rather than assessing facts.
Dr. Nikki Giovanni, one of Seung Hui's professors, explained that "there was something mean about this boy. It was the meanness – I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people – it was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak" (Toronto Star, April 18th). Evidently, Virginia Tech's screening process for professors who speak using expressive, coherent dialogue is limited. Giovanni's statement means practically nothing, closely approximating the relevance of Senator John McCain's condolences, who expressed that the 2nd amendment concerning the right to bear arms should continue to exist, but only for responsible, law-abiding citizens. Meanness is hardly a precursor to gun-toting rampages, and even if it was, why would Giovanni explain her thoughts on Seung Hui after the incident? McCain's aggressively vacuous statement undercuts the seriousness of the V. Tech shootings in exchange for some bizarre personal agenda of the political right, centering on the positive attributes of universal gun possession. The quoting of vague, non-specific references does little to enhance any kind of understanding into what exactly transpired or what the original motivation for it may have been.

In the wake of tragic events, those targeted by the media to offer insights or sympathies to victims involved are numerous. The problem though, is that none of these people offer any hint of what can be done to prevent it in future. Most stumble through some unnecessarily gruesome personal details (while salient, incessant reporting of the horrors associated with an incident of massacre helps nothing), or rehearsed commentary, expressing sorrow, disbelief and shame that something like the V. Tech shootings could possibly occur. Keep in mind the American practise of gun control, whereby a minor can order guns on the internet, firearms can be purchased at Walmart, and owning a gun for 'protection' is a constitutional right. Given that school shootings are not something new in America, how could anyone harbour feelings of disbelief? Nothing has changed since the Columbine shootings that might deter this kind of event from happening in the future, save for an increasing level of paranoia propogated by the media. Rarely is it mentioned that in Virginia, anyone over the age of 12 can own a shotgun or a rifle (Globe and Mail, April 18th). Under Senator McCain's penchant for upholding the 2nd amendment, American policy, for the safety of its citizens, should express that instead of buying a gun, buy 2 or maybe 3 guns. That way, you'll be 2-3 times as safe. In retrospect, the 2nd amendment was established in the 18th century in order to legalize the insititution of an American military. This has been drastically taken out of context in recent years, and is completely inapplicable in relation to the Western 21st century world.

If gun control laws remain unrevised and national policy fails to address or in some cases even locate the actual problems concerning why and how school shootings and other similar tragic events occur, it is safe to assert that other similarly horrific scenarios will unfold. And everyone will be just as shocked and appalled and passive as they are concerning the recent incident at Virginia Tech.

Easter (eggs and hunting and such)

Nothing feels better than starting an Easter egg hunt and then ending it by winning. Especially when one's competition are several small children with hands that easily fit into places where yours do not. Devious children operating under the tenets of youth and skill appear to triumph old age and treachery.

I remember being able to consume an absolutely massive quantity of chocolate and candy and highly refined sugars before feeling ill and having to take repose on the couch. Despite the best of intentions, I barely managed to eat 3 units of sugared delight (treacherous organs). Which also means that the minimal sugars ingested failed in their ability to counteract the tryptophan pass-out that massive quantities of turkey incur.

One of the more fun aspects of Easter is not having to cook or buy the food. It's like a magical restaurant where everything you want is free of charge, provided that you show up. It's also really interesting to watch parents start acting like kids as well. Nothing says 'getting back to basics' or 'being a kid' like the resurrection of J.C.

Wooooo, now back to the real world. Essays, work, early mornings, responsibility, ball and chain, death.