Holes

Come Saturday...

I had plans for this morning, this Saturday morning. I’ve been blogging a major intellectual project these last couple of months, one on cultural evolution, one of my core interests. I figured I’d top it off this morning.

All I had to do was write an introduction, PDF the whole thing, upload the PDF, and post the introduction to New Savanna (with a link, of course, to the PDF). I’d made some notes last night and adjusted the outline for the introduction. I knew what I was going to do.

All I had to do was wake up and execute the plan.

Which I didn’t do. Didn’t feel like it.

Why not?

It’s Saturday.

So it goes. And so it has gone on several recent Saturdays. Each time I had plans to do some (hard) intellectual writing. Each time, Saturday dawns, and I don’t feel like writing.

What is it about Saturday?

Habit I guess, long years of weekend habits.

I was raised in a world where the seven-day week consists of five work days and the weekend. That’s just how it is in this modern post-WWII America. When you’re a kid you go to school during the week while Dad goes to work.

That’s how it was when I was a kid. These days, of course, Mom works too. During the summers, of course, there’s no school, But Mom and Dad still go to work. And the morning and afternoon TV programs are different on the weekend every weekend.

And that difference just gets worn into the rhythms of your brain. At least that’s what I think.

Yo Mama! Interpretation and Pattern Matching

There was a time when interpretation was the most vexed issue in literary criticism: What do texts mean? How do we figure them out? Is there only one valid interpretation, or many? As far as I can tell the debates have largely subsided without having been resolved. For better or worse, critics simply go about the business of offering interpretations without debating whether or not, or how, it is proper to do so.

I have little desire to reopen those discussions. Rather, I want to suggest that the relationship between a text and its interpretation is one of pattern congruence. A pattern in the source text matches one in the interpretive text and so the latter is said to interpret the former. But one could run it the other way, using the literary text to interpret some other text, or set of events. That’s what I want to do in this post.

Rather than using a literary text, let’s use this simple cartoon by Nina Paley:

Paley titled the strip “Timing.” When I published it here a couple of days ago I gave it a different title “Mubarak to Egyptions.” That is, I gave it an interpretive title. Or, if you will, I asserted that Paley’s cartoon is a useful way of interpreting certain recent events and statements.

What I had in mind, of course, was Mubarak’s assertion that, while he was tired and ready to step down, he feared that Egypt would descend into chaos if abdicated his responsibilities as leader. So I am interpreting Mimi – the creature who falls and crashes – as Egypt. Mubarak therefore must be Eunice, the one who helpfully stretches her hands out and offers to catch. But, alas, is too late.

Leaks R Us

I’ve been doing some more thinking about WikiLeaks. Nothing rigorous or systematic. I’m afraid if I attempted that I’d only be drawn deeper into incomprehension about this Brave New World in which we live. I know, I've been reading, for the past 50 years or more pundits have been proclaiming a brave new world, one built on tech and computers and communications. Did they foresee that one day we’d all get offers of big bucks from Nigerians writing a new brand of English? Or digital viruses crawling the net and bringing it down?

Or WikiLeaks?

Of course, it’s not about Assange, or even his close associates. I'm sure that the Secret Council of Rulers, Oligarchs, Hegemons, Fat Cats, and Big Cheeses would like to believe it's all and only just One Charismatic Aussie. If that were true, then stopping the leaks would be a simple matter of figuring out just the right legal strategy. That strategy would allow local authorities to act on Interpol’s DefCon Red and pack Assange off to Sweden.

And so they put his picture on the front of Forbes. Forbes “Capitalist Tool” Magazine. It's Him, there He is. The Evil Demiurge. I wonder what old man Forbes would have thought, he with the Harleys and leathers and his crew of jolly bikers?

But hey, Forbes got the interview, so they get to draw the page-views, newsstand sales, and subscriptions. And those get them the revenue. I wonder if they’ve gotten a Wall Street quant to work out a model that gives them the trade-offs between putting Assange the White Hair out there to draw traffic and solidifying his status as Knight of Transparency in the 21st Century?

Remember the scene in Spartacus when all the slaves raised their arms and proclaimed “I am Spartacus”? How’s that going to work out when Assange is put on trial for whatever they can pin on him? Rape is serious, more serious than the tax evasion that got Al Capone. But how’s that trial going to play when there are a million Assanges in cyberspace, each itching to spill the dirt on some company or government agency?

I am Assange!

I am Assange!

I am Assange!

I am Assange!

. . . . . . .  

*uc* *or *ores*

So, a few of us have been discussing costumes, sexual politics, and environmentalism in Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and my old nemesis from The Valve, Rich Puchalsky mentioned a NSFW site called Fuck for Forest, which he characterized as “an eco-sex-activism site.” And that it is.

Here’s the explanatory copy on the front page:

Fuckforforest is a non-profit organization. The project is run by openly sexual people, who use their sexuality and love to direct attention to and collect money for the earth`s threatened nature.

If you like our idea and want to support nature and FFF, please become a member. Enter the members area and get access to thousands of photos and videos of erotic activists, showing you real idealism! Also visit our web shop and read more about us on the info pages.

Want to be a activist for our cause? Please contact FFF! Do not hide love, share love! If you have self-made photos or videos, Push this link to share with nature!

I’ve spent a bit of time looking around, and it’s pretty interesting. Lots of throbbing drums, animal calls, naked people out doors, tattoos and piercings, and, of course, sex. It ain’t your grandfathers universe, that’s for sure, nor your grandmothers.

My basic impression is that these are clever people with a sense of humor and a sense of mission. May the force be with them.