White Noise

I found an interesting hypertext on White Noise. Here's the <a href="http://www.theobvious.com/noise/toc.html"> link </a> if you're interested.

Too weird not to post...

A gentleman by the name of Jerry Joseph fronts a band called the Jackmormons, and he wrote a song obviously influenced by Mr. McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian. The lyrics follow:

Bears that Dance and Bears that Don't

Lyrics by Jerry Joseph

Here at the bar he's sitting alone

Making a list of why he's cool

But nobody asks so he sticks to his own

Untill he falls right off his stool

He's never been confidant with strangers

I doubt he'll find his courage now

Well maybe he will and maybe he won't

There's bears that dance and bears that don't


Here on the beach she sits by herself

Wishing that you were with her now

But she's learned to run and stay out of reach

Hoping that make it up somehow

You never been honest with each other

I doubt you'll find your courage now

Well maybe you will and maybe you won't

There's bears that dance and bears that don't


All your life

You been riding

Along your blood meridian

And like the judge

And the ladies dancing

We devour up our friends


We travel the world keep to our own

everyone stares into their drinks

And beautiful girls and men on their own

and nobodys saying what they think

I've never been brave enough to ask them

I doubt I'll find my courage now

Maybe I will and maybe I won't

There's bears that dance and bears that don't

I've never been brave enough to ask you

I doubt I'll find my courage now

Maybe I will and maybe I won't

Maybe you will and maybe you won't

Maybe we will and maybe we won't

There's bears that dance and bears that don't

Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition

This is a text I've read for a class on composition theory; however, it's also got some interesting analysis of where postmodern theory is in general. Lester Faigley offers a great historographic review of postmodernity.

Faigley's introduction includes the following excerpt from a 1988 Rolling Stone interview with Don DeLillo: "the interviewer, Anthony DeCurtis asked: 'There's something of an apocalyptic feel about your books, an intimation that our world is moving toward greater randomness and dissolution, or maybe even cataclysm. Do you see this process as irreversible?' DeLillo answered: ' This is the shape my books take because this is the reality I see. This reality has become part of all of our lives over the past 25 years. I don't know how we can deny it.' DeLillo's date for the beginning of our current era of randomness and dissolution is 1963, the year of John F. Kennedy's assassination that is the subject of DeLillo's novel, _Libra_. DeLillo says that 'what's been missing over these past 25 years is a sense of a manageable reality... We seem much more aware of elements like randomness and ambiguity and chaos since then.'"

In case you were wondering. have survived!

I am recovering from my surgery. I will most likely get a short story out of it... there is nothing more Postmodern than the modern day hospital experience... they even put a temporary tattoo on my side that said "this side, yes!" to remind the doctor which side he was supposed to be working on. Yes. Great fun. Ok back to bed for me.

The Trick is to Keep Reading...Janice Galloway Discussion

As promised:

Here are some things to keep in mind for our discussion on Tuesday night of Janice Galloway:

Janice Galloway is part of the ?Scottish Renaissance? of writers in the 1980?s and 1990?s.  Other authors include James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, and Irvine Welsh.  The last ?renaissance? for Scottish literature was in the Middle Ages.  In 1603 Scotland became a part of the British crown through the Act of Union which brought James the VII of Scotland, I of England, to the throne.  His mother was Mary, Queen of Scots.  Scotland is considered, by many, to be the most ?continental? (European) of all the nations that compromise the UK, having particular ties the France through Mary Queen of Scots.  Scots are fiercely nationalistic.  They have a language called ?Scots.?  In 2003, Scotland, in essence, was emancipated from England and for the first time in 400 years was able to have its own parliament.  Scotland was one of the first, if not the first, countries to be colonized by England.

  I have also included a few discussion questions, just to think about:

1. How is this different, or similar to other things that you have read by British authors?


2. In light of last weeks discussion (Sozaboy as postmodern) and the information provided above, how can, or can, Galloway be dealt with as a postmodern writer?  Keep in mind that Scotland was ruled by England for 400 years.


3. What story did you like best?  Why?


4. What do you make of the structure of ?Scenes from the Life No.23: Paternal Advice??


5. How is the ?body? represented in all of these short stories (particularly ?Into the Roots? and ?The Meat?)?


6. What do you think of the use of dialect?

More Digitized Documents

I feel like I'm part of some big conspiracy.

Djebar:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/djebar.pdf

Galloway:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/galloway.pdf

Winterson:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/winterson.pdf

Gordon

potty mouth

The most hilarious lowbrow humor I've read in a long time.

Preserves

If one looks at preserves and other canned objects at the State Fair, is that PoMo?

Postmodern Essay Generator

We all owe this one to Nancy:

Postmodern Essay Generator

Borges and I

Hey all,

Here's a link to the Borges story that we referenced in class Tuesday that was not in our reading:

Borges and I: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/BorgesandI.pdf

My fav pomo story

Hey all,

I thought I'd post my favorite pomo short story to the blog, since it's available online. It's called

"This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself"

For the Faint of Heart

Saturday night and I'm hanging out on the pomo blog...I suppose that makes me either an incurable geek or an anxiety-ridden grad student...Be that as it may, I really wanted to call on (or, in support group lingo, reach out to) other uncreative people who want to talk, exchange thoughts, or just vent about the Creative Paper (yep, that's a capital C for me.) My ideas have been variegated enough to include conspiracy theories involving jam, late-night calls coinciding at an answering service, and a board game that requires participants to go to jail and read "Crab Nebula."

Any thoughts?

Electronic Documents, again

Here are some links to the readings outside Dr. Orr's door:

Barthes: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/BarthesWorktoText.pdf

Nabokov: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/NabokovSigns.pdf

Borges: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/BorgesLabyrinths.pdf

Cortazar: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~gmsulliv/Cortazar.pdf

woefully remiss in the posting, the posting

It's blog update time, so I thought I'd say how much I enjoyed the discussion tonight on Didion - fruitful and fraught with tension.  (Mmmm... I could eat words up.)

And I wanted to show everyone the glory that is Joan Didion, in her younger days:



Isn't she gorgeous?  And a writer of gorgeous prose.

It's all too much for a Tuesday night, so I wish you all the best.

How an allusion is possible

I'm not a big blogger, but I wanted to show my solidarity and THANK GORDON for the digital version of our reading. THANK YOU, GORDON!!!! I guess I should include some thoughtful content here, too. Dr. Orr asks how an allusion is possible:

When reading this allusion-thick stuff (I am thinking more Pynchon than Didion), I realize 1)how fun and rewarding allusion is 2) how potentially alienating allusion is because of 3) how much allusion depends upon the reader.  I like the work allusion makes me do. I like writers who assume I read. Other people don't like it at all...

Also, I think that with the internet and the possibility of hypertext, allusion is possible in a new, reader-passive, less alienating (but more text-intrusive) way.  I imagine novels full of blue, underlined text.  When we read Balzac, we complain "he spent 4 pages describing one room!" Maybe one day we'll read something and say "It took me a day to finish a page because of all the hyper-allusions (or allusive links, or something...)" I imagine that kind of writing irritating the heck out of me.  But then, I do it anyway on my own--I stop and search things...