2/26/03

What is the moment that Scarry is addressing?

Tuche: the happy encounter… how is it that we have access to reality?

Lacan: we bump into the real (mediated by the field of the gaze)…

Scarry: bumping into reality is the body in pain

Chang: Melancholia (not as a pathology) as a mode of subjectivity… The body becomes a ghostly image… How is it possible to concentrate on the body… unhappy encounters replace happy encounters for the racial gaze…

Melancholia (defined by Freud)
1. loss
2. mourn the loss
3. connection to the lost object (something about you gets stuck to the loss)

The lost object is swallowed into you body and into your psyche… it’s inside of you all the time. you’re consumed by this presence… that’s were ghosts come in…

Gordon: makes an epistemological claim about sociology (how does it account for the invisible, for the ghosts)…

ladi-dah. ladi-dah.

The ghost is a metphysical ghost. It’s about vibes. Oh brother.

On ethnographic surrealism… Clifford

A formula for walking.

My hands dashing the wheat from the way,
what falls? What whispers?

What does it say? A snapping back
of stalks pressed too hard.

Question: How do you create the impression of a field without saying ‘field’? Answer: Title the poem “Field” then try to hide yourself in it.

So you’re going through a moment
that steps aside, and tips his straw hat.

Question: How do you dance inside of a dance?
Answer: Don’t move.

She collapses back
in a bed made of letters.

Question: How do you make a bedrock?
Answer: Write home as often as possible.

Bristles whip back when you weave your way through them.

Question: This is a field of broken fists?
Answer: No, We’re going for action. The fist doesn’t matter.

A white star is caught under the tarp.

Question: What burns up and what burns out?
Answer: That’s a stupid question.

The predicate is a pool of words
surrounding a verb. Like a field,
where someone shifts, then disappears in it.