¿ǝɹǝɥ sǝʇıɹʍ ǝslǝ oɥʍ

˙ǝsdɐlloɔ oʇ

ʍoɹɹoɯoʇ
ɟo ʎɹoʇsıɥ ǝɥʇ
ɹoɟ ƃuıʇıɐʍ
'ʍolɟ uı lɐɹʇnǝu
'pɹɐʍdn ƃuıʇlǝɯ
—sǝıʞs
ƃuıpǝǝlq ɯoɹɟ
ssǝlɹoloɔ
ƃuɐɥ suıɐʇunoɯ


8 ɹoloɔ ǝɥʇ sı ɥʇɐǝp

Lyrics with infinite meaning (Hopelandic)

In 2002, the band Sigur Ros, with their highly anticipated album "( )" - yes, the album title is *parentheses* - was released. Upon release, all tracks on the album were untitled, though the band later published song names on their website. All of the lyrics on ( ) are sung in Vonlenska, also known as Hopelandic, a constructed language of nonsense syllables which resembles the phonology of the Icelandic language. It has also been said that the listener is supposed to interpret their own meanings of the lyrics, which can then be written in the blank pages in the album booklet.

Here, the line between voice and instrument is blurred almost completely. Listen to the "lyrics" in the song below.

Song 1 from the album.
Untitled:

Foucault, Censorship, and "Patriotism".

Once again, a snippet from Foucault's "The History of Sexuality". I think it fit well into two themes we've recently discussed in class: Censorship and Patriotism.

I hope it doesn't seem out of context, given that most of you are probably not reading the book, but take it for what it is. Either way, I feel that it fits so well into the context of our class right now.

"One has to be completely taken in by this internal ruse of confession in order to attribute a fundamental role to censorship, to taboos regarding speaking and thinking; one has to have an inverted image of power in order to believe that all these voices which have spoken so long in our civilization - repeating the formidable injunction to tell what one is and what one does, what one recollects and what one has forgotten, what one is thinking and what one thinks he is not thinking - are speaking to us of freedom."

From Review of Roy Blount's New Book: NYTimes Book Review

America- Fuck Yeah!

I couldn't help but be reminded from our discussion in class today on patriotism of the 2004 satirical marionette movie Team America. The movie was written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Making a mockery of the patriotism, that I hope we concluded is outrageous and dangerous to society, the film's theme song is so eloquently titled "America, Fuck Yeah!" Which basically states that since we are American we do whatever we want and are proud to do so, but if you are not American, well then, fuck you. Simple, yet accurate. Scary as hell since America so commonly hides hate and nonsensical violence behind the facade of patriotism.

Here is a video with the music, I think the actual scene from the film has been removed because of copyright, but this montage with stills from the movie is still good. I hope you can get a kick out of it.



Also here are the lyrics, enjoy:

America...
America...
America, FUCK YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother fucking day yeah,
America, FUCK YEAH!
Freedom is the only way yeah,
Terrorist your game is through cause now you have to answer to,
America, FUCK YEAH!
So lick my butt, and suck on my balls,
America, FUCK YEAH!
What you going to do when we come for you now,
it's the dream that we all share; it's the hope for tomorrow

FUCK YEAH!

McDonalds, FUCK YEAH!
Wal-Mart, FUCK YEAH!
The Gap, FUCK YEAH!
Baseball, FUCK YEAH!
NFL, FUCK, YEAH!
Rock and roll, FUCK YEAH!
The Internet, FUCK YEAH!
Slavery, FUCK YEAH!

FUCK YEAH!

Starbucks, FUCK YEAH!
Disney world, FUCK YEAH!
Porno, FUCK YEAH!
Valium, FUCK YEAH!
Reeboks, FUCK YEAH!
Fake Tits, FUCK YEAH!
Sushi, FUCK YEAH!
Taco Bell, FUCK YEAH!
Rodeos, FUCK YEAH!
Bed bath and beyond (Fuck yeah, Fuck yeah)

Liberty, FUCK YEAH!
White Slips, FUCK YEAH!
The Alamo, FUCK YEAH!
Band-aids, FUCK YEAH!
Las Vegas, FUCK YEAH!
Christmas, FUCK YEAH!
Immigrants, FUCK YEAH!
Columbine, FUCK YEAH!
Democrats, FUCK YEAH!
Republicans (republicans)
(fuck yeah, fuck yeah)

Zinn on Patriotism

Here is the quote I read today from Howard Zinn on patriotism.

"Patriotism to me means doing what you think your country should be doing. Patriotism means supporting your government when you think it's doing right, opposing your government when you think it's doing wrong. Patriotism to me means really what the Declaration of Independence suggests. And that is that government is an artificial entity....
In other words, the government is not holy; the government is not to be obeyed when the government is wrong. So to me patriotism in its best sense means thinking about the people in the country, the principles for which the country stands for, and it requires opposing the government when the government violates those principles."

It can be found in its entirety here: Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky rare joint interview.

I highly recommend checking out the article, which can also be listened to.

As the Web site states:

In a Democracy Now! special from Boston, two of the city’s leading dissidents, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, sit down for a rare joint interview. Noam Chomsky began teaching linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge over 50 years ago. He is the author of dozens of books on linguistics and U.S. foreign policy. Howard Zinn is one of the country’s most widely read historians. His classic work “A People’s History of the United States” has sold over 1.5 million copies and it has altered how many teach the nation’s history. Chomsky and Zinn discuss Vietnam, activism, history, Israel-Palestine, and Iraq, which Chomsky calls “one of the worst catastrophes in military and political history.”

Degenerate Art

Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely.

Degenerate Art was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in the Haus der Kunst in Munich which opened on July 19, 1937, consisting ofmodernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria.

While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were narrowly traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of jazz influence; films and plays were censored.

[for the rest of this article, see http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Degenerate_art

Even Hitler had a Girlfriend

Here is an interesting song i came across oddly after the lecture/video today. Its called "Even Hitler had a Girlfriend" by, Mr. T Experience. It kind of sounds like an EFY song.

I still haven't found a girlfriend though I've tried a lot so can you help me please it's tougher than I thought. The odds are pretty good but the goods are pretty odd still at this point I'd take anything you've got. You see this all the time nice girls in love with jerks what could they be thinking tell me how it works. If I've got some problems well I wouldn't be the first but the ones I have in mind are even worse and even Hitler had a girlfriend who he could always call who'd always be there for him in spite of all his faults. He was the worst guy ever reviled and despised even Hitler had a girlfriend so why can't I? life is full of contradictions hard to understand and for every happy woman there's a lonely man. Nixon had his puppy Charles Manson had his clan but God forbid that I get a girlfriend. Even Hitler had a girlfriend who he could call his own to sweeten days of bitterness and feeling all alone. I'm not as bad as Hitler but it doesn't mean a thing since they'd rather be with Hitler more than me I don't see why they'd rather be with Hitler more than me.

Joe Scarborough says "Fuck you" on air

I'm calling this one a victory for obscenity. Bonus amusing follow-up story here:

The "N" WORD! today in class i was reminded of this scene in White Chicks. sorry to anyone who, like me, was unfortunate enough to spend money to see this movie, but this part is good. For those of you that don't see it, the synopsis is two black detectives played by the wayan brothers who have to go undercover as white girls in order to break a case. It's actually very interesting how the characters react to the word nigger

Wish you were here.

Here's the video I mentioned in class, In it Lynda is sent to a psychiatrist concerning her behaviour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh6TmevAE3Y

Let Us Have Madness

Let us have madness openly.
O men Of my generation.
Let us follow
The footsteps of this slaughtered age:
See it trail across Time's dim land
Into the closed house of eternity
With the noise that dying has,
With the face that dead things wear--
nor ever say
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love,
Transforming day's evil darkness;
but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,
and within the head
A rotting bog of lean huge graves.

Kenneth Patchen

How Strong is Language?

How strong is the value of language concerning when THE PROTECTION OF A DEFINITION OF A WORD becomes more important that EQUAL HUMAN LIFE?

You win. Language must be stronger than god if the definition of a word is worth discriminating against and hurting millions.

I've never been more unimpressed and impressed at the same time.

I've just realized the deeper meaning of INSANE. Pinch me when it's over.

Lenny Bruce

I think this is the bit that Alex wanted to play in class.

A Word About Silence from Foucault

This is an excerpt from Foucault's book "The History of Sexuality: An Introduction Volume 1".

Silence itself - the things one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers - is less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said, with them and in relation to them within over-all strategies. There is no binary division to be made between what one says and what one does not say; we must try to determine the different ways of not saying such things, how those who can and those who cannot speak of them are distributed, which type of discourse is authorized, or which form of discretion is required in either case. There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.

I added the bold. This paragraph is worth contemplating for a while. I know I have been doing so.

Fourteen poems, in translation, by Celan

Translations, by John Felstiner, published in "Janus Head":

http://www.janushead.org/10-1/Celan.pdf

obscenity

Must It Always Be About Sex?

Adam Liptak

New York Times

Sundan, November 2

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court specializes in law, not lexicography. But it will soon have to consider the meaning of that most versatile of four-letter words.

Enlarge This Image

Wesley Bedrosian

The Oxford English Dictionary’s three core entries on the word — noun, verb and interjection — are about six times as long as this article. That doesn’t count about 30 derivations and compounds, all colorful and many recent. The nimble word, the dictionary tells us, can help express that a person is incompetent; that another is not be meddled with; that a situation has been botched; that one does not have the slightest clue; and, in a recent addition, that someone has enough money to be able to quit an unpleasant job.

You know the word I mean.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/weekinreview/02liptak.html?ref=weekinreview