Mixed review 4-6-12 (POWER&ART)

The Mixed review is a record of my daily readings. I hope it provides a resource for your own projects and projections into the intricacies of our world.

The first Item on the menu is: THE SUBJECT OF ART by Alain Badiou.

As near as I can tell this essay is a call for non-self destructive body modification art.

One thing I noticed is that Badiou's argument seems to hinge on the judicial power of the art world.

Maybe that power deserves a critique as well??

Check it out! See what you think for yourself: http://www.lacan.com/symptom6_articles/badiou.html

The second Item on the menu is: The Funambulist by Léopold Lambert

Named after the hero of Nietzsche's Zarathoustra the funambulist is a iconoclastic yet strait forward blog about architecture and philosophy. This is among the very few  philosophy blogs that I've managed to find wealth a shit. It's really good! Edward Ershbock if you’re reading this then I'm telling you that you are going to love this blog! It's got everything; literary criticism, architecture, philosophy, theology, comprehensive critique of Deleuze and other post-structuralist. This is the goods!!

http://thefunambulist.net/category/philosophy/deleuze/

The third Item on the menu is: Allen Ginsberg's Naropa lectures.

If you’re a fan of the beats then I don't have to say another word!

That’s right a grab bag of teachings by the guru himself, it's hard to believe but its true there

all here!!!: http://archive.org/search.php?query=allen%20ginsberg

The Fourth Item on the menu tonight is: Iggy Pop Interview with music by Mogwai (incredibly moving!!!)

What is Punk? A "word" "a term based on contempt!"

These are powerful words. hard to ignore.

eerie and articulate.

Also I think it's interesting to view this in light of Alain Badiou's call for a the "new subjective paradigm."

Here's another striking interview with Iggy Pop Enjoy!

And finally a sock mocking ol'' Popa. Don't yu love our generation at last we got one up on the old punk farts!

Thank You every one! and untell next time                     godzspeed you black emperor!

Mixed review 3-28-12

I'm going to start posting my nightly readings and a few words of opinion on their contents.


Money and money Reforms by Christ Jelset
This little booklet is a Marxian history of money from the times of barter through the early days of mercantilism on into our current credit system. It is clear concise and to the point with real numbers and a few dates.

Tonight I read the chapters entitled, Government Regulation of Money, and An adequate supply of Money,

The chapter "Government Regulation of money" traces the development of governmental rule concerning the value of coins from the setting of standard waits of value, through the discovery that wait need not correspond to the inscribed value, and re-minting prices, to the governmental changing of wait requirements.

When it was discovered that coins that had been worn to a degree that their inscribed wait no longer corresponded with their actual wait it was then that governments realized that they could control the difference between wait requirement and inscribed value through the rule of law.

At this point in my reading it seems that the writer is unaware of the U.S. current fiat money system when he says "(about non backed currency) This too has had its trial in practical application, but with less success. Governments in distress, as e. g., when wars are carried on, have resorted to paper issues of currency when gold was no longer available as backing. Such practices have automatically raised prices and, if the practice were carried far enough, values represented have disappeared altogether as in Germany following World War I." The writer goes on to identify debtor's as likely to support inflationary printing of money on account that the new money could be used to pay off their debts. (oh! I looked in front of the booklet and now see that it's copyright was 1947 that’s 24 years before Nixon took the U.S. of the Gold standard, so that explains the writers unawareness of current monetary policy.)

Also as a point of personal interjection
While it seems to be true that an increase in money supply could benefit doubters if they manage to use it to pay off their debt, on the other hand the new money would lose buying power in other regards, and if the debtor defaults in spite of the increase in money supply their compounding debt would then increase by the reverse of the value los of the debt plus penalty fees.

The chapter "An adequate Supply of money" presents the labor theory of value in relation to exchange between commodities, the velocity of use in relation to value, the medium of exchange vs. means of payment, the distribution of money, the inequity of the labor market, and the question of who should control monetary policy.

All the topics covered in this chapter are interesting but I'm only going to pick one for the sack of brevity.
The theme of inequity in the labor market is definitely a defining one for Marx. The writer clams that the labor market came about because hand produced "goods" couldn’t compete with "mass production" so workers unable to sell their products at a market price had to sell the labor instead. The writer calms that in regards to the exiting  of money for labor compared to the exchange of goods that "The one is an exchange of equivalents between social equals. The latter, too, is an exchange of equivalents but between unequal’s." What the writer means is that the laborer is at a saver disadvantage because if the commodity market is unable to support the labor the labor will be laid off, this means that the laborer is made secant to the commodity market.

The writer then clams that most monetary reforms have been instigated by those "most successful in business" and presides to expound on these monetary reforms in the following chapters the first in the series being Paper Currency. (I like how the writer puts quotations around "sound" when referring to Paper money as "sound" money reform.)

There where other things I read tonight but I ran out of time tiping this up, In the future I think I'll make the commets shorter.

If history perceived its organs... The body of memory

"The facts which our senses present to us are socially performed in two ways: through the historical character of the object perceived and through the historical character of the perceiving organ. Both are not simply natural; they are shaped by human activity, and yet the individual perceives himself as receptive and passive in the act of perception.^"

I found these words on the frankfurd school Wikipedia page. They originally came from the fingers of frankfurt school theorist Max Horkheimer. This truly is a remarkable paragraph, it presents to us two ways that the facts are socially performed. First facts are preformed as the historical character of objects perceived and second their preformed as the historical character of perceiving organs. Both objects and perceiving organs have history. Wait!!?! Perceiving organs have history... Is there really a history of eyes, ears, mouths, noses?

Well yes. Of cures! And, in a sense all history is the history of these organs because there would be no history with out the recording of events preserved through these organs, but what is special about the history of perceiving organs if all history is the history of perceiving organs? I suppose that the history of the perceiving organs would differ from other history in that it would stress the changes made in the perceiving organs over time, where as other histories would stress events as they pass over time. But what changes have been made to the perceiving organs? Well! the first thing that comes to mind is evolutionary changes, but I think that there also must be other changes to the perception organs that are not properly speaking evolutionary changes. These changes would be like the way eyes adjust to light.

The "perceiving organs" are shaped by "human activity." There is a history of perceiving organs and that history is history it’s self. How do we access this history of the perceiving organs? Through the artifacts and documents perceiving organs that is art. Art; poetry, architecture, painting, music, and all other forms of history are in actuality the artifacts and past events of the perceiving orgens.

Horkheimer’s paragraph here also identifies the history of the perception of objects and perceiving organs as natural, and that these histories shaped by human action are also shapers of human action. We humans shape our perceiving organs (squinting at the sun) and our perceiving organs are shaped by the objects of the world(pupils dilated).

Imagine a history of perceiving organs. Imagine a civilization who saw their history as the history of their perceiving organs! Max Horkheimer, lets rewrite the history books with sights and smells.

I think of Lacan

One thing we know about Jacques Lacan 
is that he has a mirror in his house, and he thinks in
front of it.


He thinks through the mirror into an
imaginary order where he rescues himself from the 
captivity of his own image.