- Daisy : " In the Seminar V, Lacan speaks about how realism as a doctrine in art frees itself from any superior meaning. One of the ways, the one Maupassant took, is to infuse its descriptions with phallic lust. Thus, he creates a mirror structure that makes us believe in his operation. No ideal meaning, only the phallic one. "
- Dick : " On the reverse, in the subjective experience of the real, it is the veil of the usual meanings of reality that is torn to pieces. "
- Daisy : " William James, the one who invited Freud in the US in 1909, has published a curious experience he went trough. As he tried to write as well as Henry, he gives us a detailed and vivid account of it. A series of books published about him, a new biography, and the publication of his correspondence renew our interest for this figure who was crucial in introducing Freud in English. Here is what he wrote : " Whilst in this state of philosophic pessimism and general depression of spirits about my pospects, I went one evening into a dressing-room in the twilight to procure some article that was there ; when suddenly there fell upon me without anay warning, just as if it came out of the darkness, a horrible fear of my own existence. Simultaneously there arose in my mind the image of an epileptic patient whom I had seen in the asylum. He sat there like a sort of sculptured Egyptian mummy, moving nothing but his black eyes and looking absolutely non-human. There was such a horror of him, and such a perception of my own merely momentary discrepancy from him, taht it was as if something hitherto solid within my breast gave way entirely, and I became a mass of quivering fear. After this the universe was changed for me altogether. " "
- Dick : " This is realism at its reverse. The moment in wich the phallic meaning just flies away. "
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- Daisy : " Perhaps we could add to our debate about realism in the arts the declaration by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Dream Works producer of the new animated epic about Moses : " We have 88 minutes to tell 70 years in the life of Moses. We've edited God, but we have not rewritten him. " The key problem of realism is how to edit reality while giving the idea that you double it. "
- Dick : " In the brilliant preface by Lytton Strachey of " Eminent Victorians ", he states how he tried to edit the Victorian age. " The history of the Victorian Age will never be written : we know too much about it ... The industry of a Ranke would be submerged by it, and the perspicacity of a Gibbon would quail before it. It is not by the direct method of a scrupulous narration that the explorer of the past can hope to depict that singular epoch. If he is wise, he will adopt a subler strategy. He will attack his subject in unexpected places ; he will fall upon the flank, or the rear ; he will shoot a sudden, revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined. " "
- Daisy : " This he did beautifully ! What is strange for the french doxa of biographies being an English language specialty is that he unveiled the scope of his ambition in writing the biography of Victoria saying : " The art of biography seems to have fallen on evil times in England. We have had, it is true, a few masterpieces, but we have never had, like the French, a great biographical tradition ; we have had no Fontenelles and Condorcets, with their incomparable éloges, compresing into a few shining pages the manifold existences of men. " "
- Dick : " The problem is how these authors achieve what Lacan called the illusion of doubling reality. The indication he gave about Maupassant is that this author intertwined his description with the phallic lust so well that the double meaning led us easily to believe in the doubling effect. It would be interesting to find how the others did proceed. "
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- Daisy : " Did you notice that the high profiles these days are about couples ? We had the first lady in Vogue and Newsweek gives us this week a large interview of Nicole Kidman on the occasion of the transfer of her show, an adaptation of Schnitzler's " La Ronde ", from London to Broadway. She is not only a talented actress with body presence, but the happily married wife of Tom Cruise. Modern couples are about this : how do you manage marriage with " La Ronde " ? "
- Dick : " Tom Cruise himself has a concise definition of how he do it : " My first reaction to her was lust. Then I got to know her and it was trust. Lust and trust, that was it. " "
- Daisy : " It does not seems so easy to keep it that way. Like the magazine reports " an intrepid couple they are famous for their feats of skydiving and aerobatics ... Their marriage is a joining of two high-kinetic bloodlines ". He says " in a hammerhead you go up and dive toward the ocean and I'd hear hollering over the headphones ". She adds " Tom gave me a birthday present, kickboxing lessons. The agreement was I couldn't use it on him ". "
- Dick : " In a way, she is a pure product of the Australian brand of athletic humanism. Once the assembly of the orbital station will be open to less specialized talents one can imagine that Nicole and Tom will try to hook up things together way out there. "
- Daisy : " We are so unsure to be tuned in between men and women that we can use any new instruments to search for this re-insurance. We are ready to synchronize and hook up about anything to be sure that things are really going. The misunderstanding between the sexes, that's the one and only fundamental evolutionnary advantage of humankind. Tell it to the Darwinians. "
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- Dick : " Mailer sees lucidly the point Wolfe misses most. Although he has talent to describe the copulation of a prize stallion with a thoroughbred mare " he appears incapable of creating a vital and interesting woman ". "
- Daisy : " We could say that it is the difference between the old realism of Flaubert (Mme Bovary c'est moi !), Zola (Nana) and the new realism. Mailer has a last trait about Wolfe " he is certainly the most gifted best-seller writer to come along since Margaret Mitchell ... she understood how signally perverse is the sense of romance in rich and beautiful women, and Mr Wolfe is not up to that yet ". These are really " the perverse ways of desire " as Lacan said. "
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- Daisy : " I was waiting for the publication of the important study about the history of " Women in Early Modern England ", by Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford. It can be interestingly compared with the works of the school of Michele Perrot in France. Their feminism is not so strident or relativist as other feminist historians are. As Lyndal Roper puts it in the December 4 issue of the TLS : " Crawford and Mendelson argue that women could not simply design their own identities through dress, discourse and outward behaviour as it has been argued Renaissance men could. " They show how women could not do as men did. "
- Dick : " I appreciated specially their rejection " of a simple model of patriarchy often used to interpret the condition of woman in seventeenth-century England ... Patriarchy, as Crawford and Mendelson point out was more a ramshackle assembly of prejudices than a monolithic system designed to ensure the oppression of women. Though this was a society which systematically favoured sons, it was daughters, they suggest, who probably received more affection. Throughout, their emphasis is on women's action ". "
- Daisy : " In this period we see one of the historical arrangements that led Lacan to say that it is not with the categories of power that the action of women can be traced. We witness the importance of women in the traditional order of things. The era starting with the english revolution of 1648 led to " a renewed ideology of order which saw no place for women in politics. Lockean contract theory abolished female political power; and by the end of the seventeenth century, women were no longer viewed as even potential citizens ". "
- Dick : " That's an interesting way to stress the antinomy of women with the order of contract. It starts before the generalization of the work contract. "
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- Daisy : " How could Lacan endorse the Levi-Straussian idea that women have to circulate through the desire of men. "
- Dick : " In the first sense it is a psychoanalytic translation of the anthropological fact that women are the objects exchanged within the kinship system. In that sense they are the most precious object of a given culture. In another sense they are the phallus that is always on the move. "
- Daisy : " Yes, but this circulation has a kind of passivity that will be denounced later on in Lacan. And very soon after stating this, Lacan underlined the immobility of women " out of the law ", in which lies more deeply their power. "
- Dick : " There is another anthropological presentation of the circulation of women. In the New Scientist, a paper by Nell Boyce tells us about some results of the school of Cavalli-Sforza. A team from Harvard, Boston and Stanford, including Luca Cavalli-Sforza have compared the global diffusion of the chromosome Y (transmited by the father) and the mithocondrial ADN (only transmited through the mother). They have noted that the components of the mt ADN is more similar worldwide than the Chromosome Y. The difference is huge, one to eight. This shows that women have travaeled much more than men. It could be the effect of the circulation of women within the kinship system. A specialist of molecular anthropology at Penn State notes states this this way " paradoxally, the patriarcal system led to a feminine empowerment on migratory phenomena ". Others specialists say that It could also be the effect of the migration of an homogeneous population of women embarked in a long travel. "
- Daisy : " That would confirm also the outlaw position of women. Anthropology has it both ways. "
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : " There was the realism of Maupassant, now there is the realism of Tom Wolfe and his new novel. M. John Harrison underlines it's Eros in this week TLS : " This being Tom Wolfe, you are going to get authenticity, you are going to get facts. You are going to get lists of things. You aren't going to be told that the room was air-conditionned, or that it had a window; you are going to be positionned, "here on the thirty-second floor of the Planners-Banc tower, behind a sealed inch-thick thermoplate glass wall, with a ten-ton HVAC system chundering cold air down from the ceiling..." There is something more here than the eroticism of specificity, the eroticism of objects and brands : there is an elation passed from writer to reader ". "
- Dick : " This eroticism of specificity is quite akin to what Lacan pointed out in the Seminar V. " This perpetual alibi that allows for the fact that you never know if it is the flesh of the young girl or the trout which is on the table allows the realistic description as it is called to deal away with any abysmal reference to any meaning or post-meaning whatsoever, poetic or moral or other ... In this effort to stay close to reality enunciating it in the discourse, one only succeed to show what the introduction of discourse adds as disorder, or even perversion, to this reality ". "
- Daisy : " In that sense it is pathetic to see how Tom Wolfe himself misses the point when the phallus comes on the scene. It comes up in the mating of a stalion and a mare on a mythic plantation. " There you have it. People can say whatever they want. They can talk about gay rights - gay rats - or anything else they want... But there... There's the heart of it... That's what it all boils down in the end, the male and the female and that's it ". The only thing that the new realism, or the new journalism shows is precisely that it is not it. It's waiting for the next novel to be named. "
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « How different was the relationship of Joyce and
Victor Hugo
with language. As Jacques-Alain Miller pointed out, Joyce writes in such
a way that "the jouissance is so obvious in his writing as such, that
nobody will think he does it for honour, for money, for women, or simply
for the others. The concept of sublimation is not convenient for what he
did ... Finnegans Wake is not directed to the public in general. It
looks like sublimation, posterity, the public, but there is something
skewed". Compare it with this anecdote about Hugo that Simon Leys
reports in the New York Review of Books, dated december the 17th : "the
servant of the word has truly become its creator and master. Someone
once reproached him for having fabricated a word that did not exist in
the dictionnary : "This is not French !" "Now it is !", Hugo
replied". »
- Dick : « This is really someone who is sure to have found a way to
deal with the Name of the father, as Seminar V speaks about it . He was
sure he knew how to have his Witz recognized and admitted as such by the
others. »
- Daisy : « Simon Leys, who reports this anecdote is someone who likes
to deal with great men (Mao, Napoleon, Confucius). He is now working on
Hugo, continuing its meditations about who great men really are. »
- Dick : « The way Hugo dealt with the Name of the father brought him a
splendid exile. He had "Napoleon Le Petit" as a true enemy. He chose the
reverse of the dialogue Chateaubriand had with Napoleon le Grand. »
- Daisy : « He did not have the narcisism of the lost causes. He was
"causa sui". That's why at the end of his life he could be the closest
to God as a any prophet ever was. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « In this debate about marriage and these new
contracts we
find the same question that keeps appearing throughout our culture.
Does marriage needs new laws, new standards, or a new self-regulation. »
- Dick : » It's specially the case where privacy is concerned. The
tendency in the US is not to use law. Self-regulation is always the
start. Then they are lawsuits and finally the law. »
- Daisy : « In the Internet, it's the same. To protect the privacy
rights of customers, the problem is to know if these rights are
guaranteed « through self-regulation by industries rather than dictated
by the government », as Jeri Clausing, from the New York Times, puts it.
»
- Dick : « Ira Magaziner, the Clinton Aide who launched with the First
Lady the doomed health-care reform plan, is the man behind the laissez
faire approach of the administration. This approach went head-on with
the European one « where self-regulation has been declared incompatible
with a law guaranteeing strong privacy protection for consumers ». There
will be some friction here. On another level, Mr Magaziner « recently
wrapped up an agreement for turning over administration of the
Internet's addressing system which was historically been managed by
government contractors, to a private non-profit corporation - a big step
in Internet self-governance ». »
- Daisy : « I see where you are going. Soon, you will advocate for a
private non-profit corporation to regulate on marriage. This kind of
self-governance of marriage would be the ultimate reduction of marriage
to a contract. There is still a long way to go. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « Who to believe ? Art historians or
sociobiologist ? « While
art historians agree that standards of beauty have changed over time ...
sociobiologists argue that aesthetic judgments are ingrained in human
nature and carried in our genes. »This week issue of « Nature », brings
new findings says the Economist. Douglas Yu, a biologist at Imperial
College, London and Glenn Shepard, an anthropology student at UCLA
challenge the findings of Devendra Singh, psychologist at the University
of Texas who in 1993 found that, whatever the culture, « men preferred a
woman whose waist was 70% as wide as her hips ». This established the
sociobiological ground for the hourglass shape. »
- Dick : « Junger would have been surprised about this new chapter added
to his book. »
- Daisy : « Dr Yu « traveled to a national park in south-eastern Peru,
where he interviewed members of an isolated indigenous population. Dr Yu
found that Matsigenka men preferred heavier body types to lighter ones
and wider waists than the western norm ». The Economist conludes that «
as globalisation works its magic, isolated groups are becoming harder to
find. The great hourglass debate is sadly running out of time ». »
-Dick : « Is it running out of time or finding new ways ? Jane Gross, in
the New York Times, today, gives interesting statistics about cosmetic
surgery in the US. « In all age groups, 700.000 procedures were done
last year, up 70% in four years ... more controversial procedures like
breast augmentation, liposuccion and tummy tucks are gaining popularity
among teenagers. » The new hourglass debate is how young the subject
will be submitted to its effectivity and to the surgeons that « have to
decide what is real, what is imagined, and what is exaggerated ». »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « It's Thanksgiving. Europeans don't have an idea of the
importance of Thanksgiving in the US. It remembers the settlement of the
Mayflower pilgrims who celebrated roasting an animal that did not exist
in the Old World : the Turkey. All this is very freudian, Totemism at
its best. The alliance is proved through a feast that sacrifices an
animal containing the agalma of the New World. »
- Dick : « The ritual repeated today consists in eating a stuffed Turkey
with vegetables including cranberry relish, gravy, sweet potatoes and
wild rice. The pragmatical problem the ritual conveys is about Time :
who cooks it ? Who would have time ? »
- Daisy : « Rituals are anyway always about Time. The crucial factor, of
course, are women. Sharon Walsh, of the Whashington Post, reports that «
in the mid-1960s, Americans spent an average of 2 1/2 hours a day making
dinner, ... Today the average is 15 minutes. In 1965, 39% of women were
in the labor force. Today that figure is 79% ». It does not prevent the
ritual from going on, it just produces the industry of takeaway. In New
York, the kitchen is now called the unwrapping room.
- Dick : « It's takeaway plus the nostalgia of what is lost in the
process. Modern rituals always include the nostalgia that they are not
exactly what they should be. In the paper, someone interviewed said : «
The Norman Rockwell picture doesn't exist anymore, but you can re-create
it if you order it. » »
- Daisy : « That is precisely the difference between our rituals and the
others. Rituals were made to get in touch with a lost world, a lost
moment, a lost wholeness. Now, this re-creation always includes a lost
picture.
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « With all this talk about bio-tech replacement of every organ
one maight think of, questions that were fun in Locke are now given a
new start. It was the philosopher Derek Parfit who, some years ago, gave
us a new approach to the mind/body problem. Is the body is all changed,
parts by parts, until when will I suppose to be me ? In yesterday's IHT,
a professor of psychology tries to simplify the matter and calm any
anxieties roaming out there. « Someone else with my DNA would still be
someone else. And if I had liver cells derived from someone else's DNA,
I would still be me. » »
- Dick : « Put that way the problem still lingers. It is easier to
define the Intel than the me inside ! The author justly quote that the
only way is through the ethical responsability. « We are obligated to be
ourselves. » »
- Daisy : « This can lead to interesting paradoxes also. Narcissistic
people are quite useful to study in this perspective. The « Me » crowd
is contrived to be something, but don't have a clue about what it is. In
that sense, I long to see Woody Allen's new film called « Celebrity ».
He knows about these things. »
- Dick : « Richard Schikel, in this week Time Magazine, reports the
declaration of the main woman character at the end of this epic modern «
Vanity Fair ». « I've become the kind of woman I've always hated, but
I'm happier ». And all this transformation took place without organ
replacements ! »
- Daisy : « Save plastic surgery, of course ! »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « Yesterday we spoke about the impact on sperm as a commodity
on the construct of the father and the kinship system. There are a lot
of other bias by which high-tech fertility techniques have a disrupting
effect on these systems. In the same paper we read yesterday, the author
writes that « until recently, the law paid virtually no attention to
wether a man or a woman intended to become a parent in determining legal
responsability. But that has changed with the introduction of surrogate
motherhood, egg donation and other methods ». »
- Dick : « What we feel know is the need for a new form of Solomon's
judgment. This is at stake in the following story « a law professor at
the University of Wisconsin at Madison, cited a California custody fight
involving a woman whose fertilized egg was implanted in a surrogate
mother. In that case, one of the tests created by the court to determine
who should be allowed to keep the baby was which of the two women had
intended to be a mother ». The problem is that the way in which the
judge will implement the test will be less clever than Solomon was. So
the answer won't have the kind of certainty Solomon produced. »
- Daisy : « With the introduction of new considerations of rights or
intentions, the law tries to figure out a new subjective approach about
rights. Let's call these paradoxical rights « negative ». It could
include the right not to become a parent if one did not intend to, or
the right not to live if one did not want to, etc. The legal tangle
produced by these rights that try to find their way in law are quite
obvious. »
- Dick : « Bartleby would have loved it : « I'd rather not. » »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « There is something new on the bio-policy front. We are
heading for a primer in lawsuit history. Barbara Vobejda, from the
Whashington Post, writes today about the story of Ms Smith that became
pregnant from Mr Wallis. « Mr Wallis is making history. He is suing Ms
Smith for becoming pregnant against his will, accusing her of
"intentionally acquiring and misusing" his semen when they had sexual
intercourse. » »
- Dick : « The author points out quite correctly in this a consequence
within the rights of the couple of the high-tech fertility industry. «
The new frontier has altered society's view of sperm, introducing it as
something that can be bought and sold in an everchanging marketplace.
The lawsuit arrives "in this context of banking, donating, selling -
when sperm becomes a commodity" says the sociologist Barbara Rothman. »
»
- Daisy : « The main question is about the father as such. Until now, in
procreation, the will of the mother was decisive. That's why the
difference between the desire of the mother and the name of the father
is such a robust artifact. There is no such thing for a man as « a rignt
not to become a parent ». It allowed for legal systems to determine the
father as a social construct with the same strength that the laws of
nature had. We all remember the Napoleonic Code joke : « The husband of
a woman is always the father of a child conceived in matrimony. » »
- Daisy : « The novelty of this lawsuit is that it is through proprety
rignts of the semen object that the kinship system is questionned. With
such a right « not to become a parent » in the name of private property,
any construct gets very shaky. Anyway, this kind of problems will lead
to another step in the history of the name of the father. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « Il love the way Steve Jobs (of Apple Imac fame !) defines
the difference between Computers and Television. The frontiers are now
blurred by the fact that TV Sets can reach to the Internet. But, Jobs
says and The Economist reports it this week the two boxes have different
roles and therefore different identities : « For one, you switch your
brain on, and for the other, you swich it off ». »
- Dick : « Its a definition not by function but by the « mode de jouir
». It could be generalized as a method. Just list the objects and the
people that you relate with turning on your brain and those you relate
with turning it off. »
- Daisy : « I hope you don't have the macho idea that you relate with
some women turning it off ! »
- Dick : « No ! It crosses the gender line, but one always have to
relate to the feminine side with your brain switched on. It's a kind of
perception of what alienation and separation in Lacan's teaching are
about. With alienation you tune in with the Other, then you find the bar
on the other, and with alienation you drop out, as they said in the old
times. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « There is an interesting debate going on in China around a
new law about divorce. Erik Eckholm, of the New York Times, writes : «
Proposals to make divorce more difficult and to punish adulterers have
stirred a rare and passionate public debate in China ... Women's
advocates have been bitterly split by the proposals, with some calling
them needed protections for women but many younger feminists and
sociologists calling them a regressive move in a ... history of
paternalistic meddling. » »
- Dick : « The fact is that the previous law, in the Communist style,
was very vague, allowing « alienation of affection » as a sufficient
motive. It could be vague, because it had few effectivity. There was no
sufficient housing to allow for divorce. »
- Daisy : « As Kojeve would have said, the introduction of the « rights
of man » in the Chinese tradition implies consequences on the law of
divorce. It's exactly what Miss Chen Xinxin says, interviewed in the
paper « this debate is not simply about the particular issues. It's also
about how to deal with the thousands of years of tradition we have in
China, a tradition of intolerance and lack of respect for individual
freedom ». »
- Dick : « The fact that Women's advocates are « bitterly split » on the
effects of this impact of the « rights of man » shows how reasonable
women are. They don't trust the universal. According to the
particularity of one's context or position, any change in the law can
have positive or negative effects. The « rights of man » exist, « the
Woman » doesn't. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « The american passion for biographies is not that easy to
convey over here. In Europe the biography is usually linked to a dead
historical icon or a living politician. We have biographies of all sorts
of characters. At least it shows a wider range of transference. »
- Dick : « Including the negative side of it. A good biography must be
unauthorised. Beyond the balanced aspects of a personnality, the
transference has to do with what the icon stands for. »
- Daisy : « The biographies about feminists icons of modern women's
movement are quite interesting in that aspect. This week, Newsweek
reports on Daniel Horowitz's book about « Betty Friedan and the making
of "the feminine mystique" ». Her 1963 book « The Feminine Mystique »
sparked the movement. She portrayed herself as a sleeping housewife and
mother who discovers « a strange discrepancy between the reality of our
lives as women and the image to which we were trying to conform ». What
she forgot to tell was that this discovery came after a first carreer in
the 40's and 50's as a brilliant, energetic reporter for union
newspapers, wholly engaged in the leftist politics of the time. She
downplayed this probably not to be « redbaited ». »
- Dick : « The issue is taking a new meaning in our context. The problem
is not : to be red or not. The problem is : could a "plain and simple"
housewife awake this way ? She had to be a fighting and working woman
first. The tradition of women revolt did not stop, even if she had to
reinvent itself as an ideology free movement. »
- Daisy : « Lacan immediately saw the interest of Friedan's approach. In
64 he says "la psychologie s'enrôla à rappeler que la femme ne
s'accomplit qu'à travers les idéaux du sexe (Cf. Betty Friedan sur la
vague de "mystique féminine" dirigée...). »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « If there is a discourse that wants to convey the idea of
multiplicity, it is the advertising business. They always insist on that
special jouissance. Thanks to ads you can pick up your own choice. »
- Dick : « That's why the new advertising coup by Times magazine shocks
by its paradoxicality. The fact is that « The first issue of Time in the
new year will be titled "The future of medecine" ; there is only one
advertiser : Pfister Inc, the third largest pharmaceutical advertiser in
the country, after Glaxo-Wellcome PLC and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. »
Alex Kuczynski from the New York Times reports that the new editor of
Newsweek said that it « blurs the line between editorial and advertising
priorities ». »
- Daisy : « It's obvious, but it misses the point. The problem there is
not the truth. This is a rhetorical device : repetition of the same in
place of showing the different. In it, unveils itself the anatomy of the
phenomena that the fetichism of merchandise made possible and the
advertising industry spread. Whatever the multiplicity it is always the
stubborn sameness of that jouissance we are trying to buy. Women know
more than men how to play on this. »
- Dick : « We'll need another term along with the « fetichism of
merchandise ». That goes for men. For women, you have the « shop till
you drop » syndrome, but it's macho stuff. It only points out the
radicality of what's at stake. »
- Daisy : « In the kleptomaniac woman you've got more truth. She becomes
oblivious of her ego. She just fades away, indicating the place of the
desire of the Other. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « Did you hear the last release of John Lennon's unpreviously
published items, the « Anthology » made by Yoko Ono ? »
- Dick : « No, but I will. It is very interesting to compare the fate of
the work and image of Elvis Presleys and John Lennons. Allan Kozin, from
the New York Times, does it in a paper published today by the IHT. He
writes : « This ... is an object lesson in the building, polishing, and
maintenance of the myth ... Many pop-stars fare less well. Since the
death of Elvis Presley in 1977, RCA has reissued his recordings by the
boxful ... but he left no legacy of self-defining interviews, and with
no one seeing to his posthumous image, he has become an amorphous image
». »
- Daisy : « The logic of it seems right. A « cultural icon » is a place
of projection. So many things are projected there that the image get
blurred. Any cultural icon is subject to the logic of the imaginary, a
logic of dispersion.
-Dick : « One begins to be a « spokesman of a generation » through
talent and misunderstanding. Here we have two levels of functionning of
meaning: misunderstanding on one end, amorphism on the other. Yoko
Ono's fight is to keep this at two poles. We'll see for how long. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « The family value issue is changing shape. First, there is
the debate about mothers at home or at work. According to one's choice a
lots of statistics are produced to show that's better for the kids. Then
there is the father debate. In what exactly fatherhood consists of ? Can
it be defined in terms of child care or in terms of working outside ?
The two debates mix in the new one taking place about the definition of
the family. As Melanie Phillips puts it in the TLS dated 13th November,
« In « Lost Fathers : The politics of fatherlessness in America »,
Robert L. Griswold defines the battle lines. In one camp are those who
think marriage and fatherhood are essential to socialize men... In the
other are those who believe that marriage is a patriarchal conspiracy
against women, that gender differences are an oppressive social
construct and that family life should be reconstituted around
egalitarianism and androgyny. » Melanie Phillips is a successfull
psychologist who advocates for women to have the choice to stay at home
and not going to work. She stresses that « although two-thirds of
mothers now work outside the home, one-third of those don't want to but
are forced to do so through economic circumstances ». »
- Dick : « If you put this side by side with the PACS thing in France,
It shows that marriage and the family are becoming objects of political
science worldwide. Even in Japan. In the Courrier International N° 417
quotes the Nihon Keizai Shimbun commenting about women's work « while
the discussion was beforehand centered on women's way of living, the
problem pointed out by Ss Susuki and Miyadai is not the necesity or not
of women's work but the damage done by overprotective mothers ». »
- Daisy : « Maybe that could be a definition of the father function.
Neither in terms of egalitarianism nor in terms of androgyny. In terms
of being a good enough symptom for the mother, to avoid overprotection.
That's the compass not to get lost. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
Daisy:Did you know that we are having a new crime going round? That's what
Anthony Clare writes in the TLS «Stalking is a crime of the 1990s. It
entered public conscousness with the harassment and subsequent murder of an
actress, Rebecca Shaeffer, by an obsessed fan in 1989. Within a few years,
there was a tenfold increase in media coverage of stalking. The decade is
not yet over, and such has been the proliferation of cases, particularly
those affecting the rich and famous, that anti-stalking statues, enacted
first in California in 1990, have spread throughout the United States, in
what has been described as a «torrent of legislation». Laws directed at
criminalizing stalking have since been introduced in Australia, Canada, and,
more recently the United Kingdom.».
Dick. In what sense is it really new? Persecution was always there!
Daisy. Never say ever! Persecution, paranoia and erotomania were already
there but there were not a crime, they were symptoms of an illness or the
illness itself. This new crime is a displacement that goes with the
difficulty of proving the insanity within the new body of legistation taken
in the 80s. Public action can only be taken on the account of a commited
crime. Thus, it had to be specified that intruding relentlessly , issuing
threats until the point of terror, initiating spurious legal actions , was
a crime.
Dick. Persecution had not only a new opportunity within the legal loop that
followed the liberalization of the insanity laws . It also has new
technological means. The high-tec here is not only used by police, it is
used by stalkers.
Daisy. You also got to add the desirability of privacy. The more people want
it protected to the utmost, the more intrusion is unbearable. Privacy was
a correlate of the rights of man, but now the desire for privacy is included
in the segregative process of Culture.
Dick. So were are having here a new signifying cluster. A displacement from
illness to crime, a new subjective demand voiced socially, new technologies,
a moving definition of rights. You were right. We have a new crime going
round, not only from an empirical point of view.
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
Daisy. So, we are having a second biography of Alfred Kinsey in a one year
span. Do you remember the Kinsey report and the debate it stirred about the
frequency of homosexuals in the American male population? Last year we
learned by James H. Jones how Kinsey got his data. How he was homosexual, a
masochist, a wife-swapper! This year,we have a less sensational biography.
Elaine Showalter, the author of «hystoria», reviews Jonathan
Gathorne-Hardy's new book in the TLS dated October 30 th. She writes «The
Jones biography remains definitive... but Gathorne-Hardy does bring a
literary and artistic sensibility to his subject that usefully supplements
Jone's scientific one...For him, Kinsey is a pioneer of modernism along
with Lawrence, Henry Miller and Picasso, and a philosopher of sexuality,
along with Foucault».
Dick. What a company!So far as I know, neither Lawrence, Miller or Picasso
had such a lurid sex life! It's true that Foucault seems more of a
comparison. But Foucault's sexual biography has still to be written. The
success of Kinsey's biographies announces that it is probably already
scheduled.The interest for names in sex is still running high.
Daisy. And what about women? The fascination for kinky sex lives seems to
fade away. On the willowy type, it seems enough to show a permanent longing
for love through a list of men, Diana like! The iron-lady type is now
Hillary. «Give 'em Hillary» says Time Magazine. She has nerves of steel
allright, but she is much more civilized than Thatcher was.I like the
detail that Debra Rosenberg gives us in Newsweek, dated November 16 «On
election night, Hillary invited girlfriends to the White House theater to
see "Beloved"... Both Clintons savored their victory, but celebrated apart».
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
OUR PICA-PICA, by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « Let's forget about that wedding in Arizona. Why not getting
married in France ? »
- Dick : « Would you settle for one of those new marriage contracts that
are being discussed in the house of representatives under the bizarre name
of PACS ? It could even be more New Age. »
- Daisy : « I thought they were about same-sex marriages ? »
- Dick : « They were intended that way but it was hard to swallow as such.
Now they are open to any two persons that are living together on a steady
basis and want to be entitled to a certain number of rights. There is a lot
of flack around these PACS exchanged between left and right. Within party
limits, things are not that clear either. It's hot stuff to handle. »
- Daisy : « They come under discussion here just at the time in which in
last U.S. elections, the only positive results for religious conservatives
was « the resounding passage of statewide initiatives banning gay marriages
in Hawaii and Alask »», as Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times puts it. »
- Dick : » This proves that marriage is becoming an object of political
science. »
- Daisy : « In its recently published Seminar, Lacan underlined the fact
that the adjective « familial » did not get into use until 1881, a time in
which the family became and object of political science. These new kind of
contracts, same sex unions or not, are nothing but an adjectivation of
marriage. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « One of these days, we'll have to talk seriously about our
wedding. »
- Dick : « Why not Arizona ? In today's IHT, in the American Topics column,
we read that « the quick and easy wedding ceremonies performed in
spectacular open-air settings there have made the artists'colony and New Age
retreat a top wedding destination in the United States ». »
- Daisy : « That's one thing Heidegger did not get. Not only execs,
academics, and scientists do travel but also lovers. Going from one
spectacular place to another. Here they wed, there they divorce ! That's the
Carte du Tendre we have got. »
- Dick : « Yes ! But what he foresaw is that, like everybody, these couples
are in searh of a clearing (lichtung) in what all this means. We read in
Brian Knowlton's short paper on this that : « One popular minister leads
couples up sloping terra cotta-colored rocks to a clearing that offers a
panoramic view of sky-high rock formations. » In your Carte du Tendre,
please underline the clearings. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « I'd like to go for the week end in Venice and see the
exhibition at the Ca' Rezzonico « Il mondo di Giacomo Casanova : Un
Veneziano in Europa, 1725-1798 ». »
- Dick : « Really ! Are you so interested in the myth. Lacan was right, Don
Juan is a feminine fantasy. »
- Daisy : « Fantasies are one thing, symptoms another. Flying is a problem
in more than one meaning. Did you hear about « Sky rage » ? In his Frequent
Traveler column in the IHT, Roger Collis reports that « Sky rage - unruly,
disruptive behavior of passengers on board aircraft - is reaching unheard-of
levels. In 1994, the US governments received reports of 260 incidents. In
1997 that number had increased to 930... Cathay Pacific estimates that
incidents have risen by 400 percent since 1995 ». Companies want to regulate
and take a tough stand on the matter. »
- Dick : « The Big Stick approach ! They also should consider that « it's
increasingly more difficult to get to the airport, through the airport, and
get on the planes flights are more crowded, plus you give people free
alcohol and don't allow them to smoke » like the legal director of The IATA
in Geneva points out. What interests me is that we are having with the
coinage of this expression of « flight rage » the birth of a symptom on the
pattern of « road rage ». »
- Daisy : « Oh yes ! There is this big debate over the inclusion of « road
rage » in the symptoms recognized as a psychiatric illness and included in
the DSM in its next version. Whenever a bio-political problem, always build
a clinical category. The chain between the definition of the symptom and its
social use is quite short. That the way « atheoretical » clinical inventions
are done. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy : « Did you read « Freud
2000 », edited by Anthnoy Elliott, and
published recently at Oxford:Polity ? »
- Dick : « I haven't but there is a critical piece in the TLS, 30th october
issue, by a sociologist, quite hostile to the Freudian orientation, Andrew
Scull, that gives a good distorted idea of the book. He writes : « It turns
out, however, that even among a carefully pre-screened group os
sympathizers, a united front cannot be found... we encounter, an early and
a late Freud, a Lacanian Freud, a modernist Freud, apostmodernist Freud, a
humanist Freud, and an anti-humanist Freud, a scientific Freud and an
anti-scientific, heuristic Freud, even, Lord help us, a feminist Freud... »
At least the first qualification of Freud that comes trough is a Lacanian
Freud ! »
- Daisy : « Always basically the same kind of conservative, hard nosed
science criticism in the TLS. »
- Dick : « Something you'll like is that even the enemies of psychoanalysys
must acknowledge the role of women in keeping the flame within the academic
world. There are the feminists and the litterary theorists. Who could have
imagined, a half century ago, that these disciplines would become the core
territories for an embattled Freudian entreprise ?»
- Daisy : « What strikes me is that in the anglo-saxon world it becomes
everyday clearer that the freudian unconscious is structured like a
language. And within the academic world this has consequences. The
corollary is that these academic authors get lost in the labyrinth, not
having an idea of what the jouissance as real « means ». »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Dick : « What did you say about verification ? »
- Daisy : « It's the « 50th anniversary of one of the main tools of
scientific medecine : the modern clinical trial ». So says the Economist
this week. It worked so well that « some doctors are trying to extend
clinical trial to aereas outside pharmaceuticals ». To assess such
things as arthroscopic surgery- treating damaged knees through "keyhole"
incisions or the role of profesional psychotherapy in improving the
physical health of patients who have a heart attack and are depressed.
There are dificulties in this extension. A good one in the psychotherapy
trial is that they fear that « the quality of treatment in the trial may
far exceed what is likely to be available outside it ».»
- Dick : « Do they say something about the placebo effect ? In another
paper, Sandra Blakeslee in the IHT reports that they are building some
funny experiments to prove the effect. « At Tulane University in New
Orleans, Dr. Eileen Palace is using a placebo to restore sexual arousal
in women who say they are nonorgasmic. the experimenter plays a trick on
the women by sending, within 30 seconds, a false feedback signal that
their vaginal blood flow has increased. Almost immediately they then
become genuinely aroused ». »
- Daisy : « Always speaking of women ! Men are in fact more
predictibles, including in the placebo effect. The funniest part is that
cognitivism explains the thing by the fact that « the world is full of
ambiguity... so people evolved a mechanism to anticipate what is going
to occur ». Marvelous! Specially if you think of the worst ambiguity in
the world : the « equivoque » in the Other. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Now that we've been once more to Giverny said Daisy, « we
have to go
and visit the « Monet in the 20th Century » exhibition at the Museum of
Fine Arts, in Boston. Since it runs until December we will have time to
drop by during our Christmas Holidays ».
- Dick answered : « Monet, he's one of us. Robert L. Herbert in the New
York Review of Books notes that Monet's late work have been adopted by
American critics and writers « well before Cézanne was ». Since 1894,
they thought that Monet was « an empirical painter of the natural
landscape... who loves nature, not history ». In 1957, in the St louis
exhibition dedicated to him, the americanization was confirmed « the
optical qualities of Impressionism which appeared so antithetical to
abstract painting twenty years ago, are integral to the abstract
painting of the forties and fifties ». In 1960, he had his first New
York show, centered on the succesive versions of particular subject. «
Indeed, Seitz's presentation did much to endorse the very concept of
series in contemporary American art » ».
- Daisy went on : « To keep flowing, the americanization of Monet has
now to win the heart of gender-bent critics who have adopted Manet and
Degas but have rejected him, on the basis of his bourgeois taste.
Herbert, in his paper, thinks it can be done through the exhibition in
Boston designed by Barbara Schapiro who stresses the sensuality of
colors. »
- Daisy concluded : « To be adopted, you've got now to be part of both
worlds. The masculine and the feminine side of gender definition. Monet,
he's one of us. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Dick and Daisy were in the train, back from Giverny where
they went
for the week-end. Daisy was reading the paper by Rosemary Dinnage on
Doris Lessing's « Walking in the shade : Volume Two of My Autobiography,
1949-1962 », published in the New York Review of Books, dated November
19.
She remarcks to Dick : « Lessing is for the english speaking world their
Marguerite Duras. She came from southern Rhodesia the way Marguerite
came from Indochina. Both were outsiders. Both left Communism never
having been hard believers. Both had a kind of mystic streak. Both where
clever and lucky at building a carreer. Both had a « I will not » at the
center of their story. Both had a terrible relationship with their
mother. Both were heralds of feminism without being reduced to feminist
writers. »
Dick answered : « It's a great idea. It could be possible to put
together Duras « maladie du refus » and Lessing's declaration that «
Life for intelligent women, at this particular moment, is impossible ».
»
Daisy, encouraged, went on : « I like the way R. Dinnage summarizes The
Golden Notebook, the novel that received such a large acclaim : « She
herself says that the theme of the book was above all that
compartmentalization is disaster (the chief character keeps a number of
notebooks on different subjects, and symbolically unites them into one
Golden Notebook). » It is as if she could drag her kind of Dissociative
Identity Disorder to the level of a definition of feminity. She
precisely showed how women can do without a unifying x that says no to
F(x). They themselves did the refusal and the only unity is their
litterature. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- It's Halloween ! Daisy is getting ready to go to a lavish
party, as so
many Baby Boomers do these times. She likes specially the costumes for
adults based on the characters in the movie « The Mask of Zorro ». Maybe
it's for the mask, may be it's for the mexican charm of the outfait.
Watching her, Dick comments that according to Brian Knowlton, in the
IHT, quoting the « Boston Globe », one adult out of five will dress up
for the occasion.
- Daisy adds : « Everybody wants to live his life like a carnival
nowadays. It's the « semblant » reduced to the mask. »
- Dick, putting his mask on, goes on : « Did you hear this, dear. It
rings like the ultimate Halloween news this year. It comes from the «
Baltimore Sun » and the same source as before. A teen-ager « accused her
classmate, who claims to be a practising witch, of putting a hex on
her... School officials later laid the incident to a misunderstanding.
The episode appeared to have been exacerbated by students doubts about
the girl and her mother. The mother, a transexual, was originally the
girl's father. » »
- Wow ! gasped joyfully Daisy. « It really is not the symbolic treatment
of the semblant. Shall we call this a treatment by the real. Anyway it's
sure Halloween ! »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- Daisy is specially ennoyed by the fuss made by author Judith Harris
and her book « The Nurture Assumption : Why Children Turn
Out the Way
They Do ». After being commented upon in the TLS, The New York Review of
Books, now she is interviewed in the Whashington Post. Her thesis is
quite simple : parents counts for nothing in the upbringing of children,
peers do count.
On reading the interview in this morning's IHT, Daisy turned
to Dick : «
The prima facie meaning of this is that it's just a way of
dealing with
the guilt of angst-ridden parents. You're not guilty because you're not
responsible. In another way it just confirms the present
state of
affairs in patriarcalism. »
Dick approved but added : « Only a self-taught mother could deliver that
kind of stuff with sufficient credibility. It's not the
Nature-Nurture
debate, it's just a vow. She claims that one can get rid safely of men
as fathers. Peers will do the trick for mothers. Let's bet it
won't do.
»
Dick and Daisy had a toast on that.
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- In the november the 2nd issue of "Newsweek
magazine", Kenneth L.
Woodward wrote : « Clinton's troubled personal life bear a distinctive
Baptist stamp. Like most Baptists, Clinton was taught that because he
had been born again, his salvation is ensured. Sinning-even
repeatedly
would not bar his soul from heaven. As explains the Rev. James Dunn, «
We do good, not in order to be saved, but because we have been saved...
Baptists have no creeds. The only Baptist creed is « Ain't nobody but
Jesus goin' to tell me what to believe... Baptist could work out their
personal rules. Many of his coreligionists believe the
president spoke
Baptist truth when he testified that he did not have sex with Monica
Lewinsky. »
On reading this piece, Dick turned to Daisy : « Don't you think this had
to be said earlier. Our european friends have a lot of
trouble
understanding the distinct treatments of guilt in America. We
don't have
the same churches in the States and over here. We cannot escape a legal
dispute to define guilt on sex matters. It's always more
difficult with
people who have already been saved. The big catastrophe has already
happened. It's like with women and castration. It's done. »
Daisy quipped back : « I'm not impressed by that line. Yes ! women are
saved from guilt by castration-threat. At least, it leaves them open to
the really interesting dispute. The problem is not to define guilt, the
problem is to define sex beyond its legal definition. That's
what women
are talking about. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- The serious Economist wrote in its October 24th issue about
the
impossibility of self-tickling and a study by Sarah Blakemore and her
colleagues of the University College London (UCL). The study, done with
a magnetic-resonance-imaging machine, will be published in
November's
"Nature Neuroscience".
« Dr Blakemore reckons that when people try to tickle themselves, the
cerebellum compares its predictions with the stimulus received. Since
the two are in accord, the cerebellum weakens the sensation,
short
circuiting the tickle. When tickled by someone else, however, the
stimulus does not coincide with the cerebellum's calculations, so the
sensation is not suppressed. »
- Dick says : « This study adds to the numerous studies, mainly done by
ladies about humanizing the primates and the big monkeys, learning them
how to speak, count etc during years and ages. This time the ladies
study the self tickle and the limits of auto-eroticism. They will stay
the master of the game ! »
- Daisy answers : « Yes, but
there are at least two groups of women.
One that want to measure up things and be the standard. Another that
want to be the living thing that keeps surprizing things. It
clearly
shows to guys like you that women are not-all. In case you should forget
it ! »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Dick and Daisy
- In its scientific cronic, Erica Goode, International Herald
tribune,
Monday, October 26, wrote : « One in every eight Americans meet the
diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder at some point in their
lives, making it the third most common psychiatric condition. More women
suffer from social phobia than men, studies show, though men are more
likely to seek treatment, perhaps because society deems extreme shyness
in men less acceptable than in women. »
- Daisy immediately commented : « Why don't they go a little further and
add that men have more intimate phobias than women. Men should seek
treatment also for their phobia of women, and their inability to speak
to them. »
- Dick, approvingly added : « Maybe these social phobias cause the
spreading of mobile phones. With these things, you can be at the same
time there and not there. Always linked with the Other. It's excellent
for the treatment of social phobias. Mobile phones are even better than
a dopamine increase. »
To stop thinking
- « Suite à la citation sur la psychologie des investisseurs américains,
je me suis rappelé avoir noté avant l'été la citation suivante trouvée
sur Internet : "Investors are comfortable that nothing can go wrong,
which could mean that Wall Street is faced with a situation where the
bull market has endured for so long that people have stopped thinking.
(11 mai 1998)" »— Nicolas Rose
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
Risk and mess
- On financial executives : « When things are going well, these guys
always take the credit, Mr. Minow said. When they’re going wrong, it’s
always El Niño or their astrological charts. » « Institutions have
incorrectly assessed risk. If they had done their due diligence, a lot
of this mess would not have happened », said Henry Kaufman, in "IHT",
Otc. 23, p. 15.
- Cookie says : « On the one hand, the Other of knowledge does not
always exist, that is why there exists the impredictable. On the other
hand, small (a) exists, that is why you may always blame somebody. »
- Cookie says also : « Mr X may have incorrectly assessed risk. But you
have incorrectly assessed the risk — assessement — capability of Mr X.
So, better blame la Niña (Monica) ! »
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by Cookie(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
by Cookie(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
« Not long ago in Minesota, Dorothy Zauhar’s brother gave a
kidney to
her fiancé. It was a gift of love. But when the fiancé turned around and
married a nurse in the kidney transplant unit, the brother and sister
sued. » Ellen Goodman, "IHT", Otc. 20, p. 9.
- Cookie says : « Oedipean transference to a nurse as a
mother-substitute. Sue the hospital ! Male nurses needed ! »
- Cookie says also : « The fiancé married the nurse because the brother
loved the sister too much. Narcissitic transference ! Now the sister
will give her kidney to the transplant unit, to be like her brother. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
A letter to Cookie on Speed and bumps
« For the already longed Cookie Book of Traffic Signs :
After a sudden shake of the car one reads : "You have just crossed a
road bump." Feeling fooled by the Other, the passenger dreams of
psychoanalysis as what may teach him, at least, how to read
"nachtraglich" road signs. » — Ram Avraham Mandil.
PS - Even unsafe at any speed, dear Cookie, please fasten your seat
belt, says Mom.
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
Taboos and tangles
- « Political correctness isn’t just about America’s unspeakable words.
It takes taboos to tangle, and taboos tend to be local. In formal
Japanese, no one is blind, bald, fat or ugly. And while a tall man in a
group is "the tall one", a short man is "the fourth from the left". »
Donald G. Mc Neil Jr., "IHT", Frid., Oct. 16, p. 28.
- Cookie says : « An analyst is always the fourth from the left ! »
- Cookie says also : « It takes language to tangle, and language to
disentangle. That is what analysis is all about. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
Standards and rules
- « "Legal directives" can take either of two forms : clear-cut rules
("drive no faster than 65 MPH") or flexible standards ("drive safely for
existing highway conditions"). A preference for constitutional standards
over rules, will tend to favor political moderation. » Kathleen M.
Sullivan on the Supreme Court, "Behind the Crimson Curtain" in "The N.
Y. Review of Books", Oct. 8, p. 16
- Cookie says : « As a matter of fact, the IPA Standards are rules,
Lacanians have standards in the above sense of the word. »
- Cookie says also : « Rules are dictated by the complete Other ;
standards prevail where the Other doesn’t exist ; Cookie is unsafe at
any speed. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
- « The advantage of a modern, complex, fluid, society
is that small frogs
in large ponds can move to smaller ponds in which they will loom larger. »
Francis Fukuyama on "What if women ran the world ? ", "Foreign
Affairs",
Sept.-Oct. 98.
- Cookie says : « Pond-strategy is smarter than ox-strategy ! »
- Cookie says also : « Where history ends, ponds'era begins. »
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
1. - Stones and screams
- « We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the screaming teenage pubescent
girls. » Keith Richards, on the secret of the Rolling Stones’success, in
"Time", Oct. 19, Int. ed., p. 15.
- Cookie says : « Nobody would be here on Earth but for screaming and
gigling girls ! »
- Cookie says also : « Pubescent girls don’t just scream anymore, they
fuck as grown-ups ! »
2. - Everybody’s friend
- « Fontenelle was once asked how it came about that he had so many
friends and no enemies : "Par ces deux axiomes", he replied, "tout est
possible, et tout le monde a raison". », Lichtenberg, aphorism 76 from
Notebook J (1789-93), ed. Penguin.
- Cookie says : « Wouldn’t
those axioms be useful to Mr Jam, who seems
prone to think everything is impossible and everybody errs, including
himself ? »
- Cookie says also : «
Fontenelle had no idea of psychoanalysis. It
helps. »
[Mr Jam thanks Ms Cookie for her kind advice ; he considers Fontenelle’s
quip to be a variation on the Jesuits’motto, "Everything to everybody" ;
the question is : is it saintly or satanic ?]
- Cookie has the last word : « Never mind, as long as it is works ! »
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
1. - Not twice in the same river
- « Prodi : no faró il bis ! », title of "La Reppublica", Sun., Oct. 11.
- Cookie says : « How laudable not wanting to be the comedian of one’s
own ideal as Nietzsche said ! »
- Cookie says also : « Let us wait until tomorrow ! Temporal truth-value
is not to be mixed up with eternal one. Catholics know better ! »
2. - Biological origin of love
- Dear Cookie, concerning Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson’s book on
evolutionnary psychology called Unto Others, The Evolution and
Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, Harvard University Press, 1998,
Richard Lewontin, professor of biology at Harvard wrote in "The New York
Review", n° 16, October 12, 1998 :
« In their view evolution occurs at many levels of causation, from the
gene to the population. There is natural selection of genes, of
individuals, and of whole groups, and all of these are going on in the
evolution of altruism. In psychology they accept the existence of
egoistic, hedonistic, and irreducibly altruistic motivations for
apparently altruistic behavior. (...) I share their pluralism, but, of
course, that may really be because it makes me feel good. »
- Cookie could say : « Evolutionnary biology will end by proving the
existence of the other. A new step will have to come. They will have to
prove that at the same time there is an irreductible altruistic
motivation between the sexes and that it is always flawed. We will have
then an idea of how the Other came into existence. Only then could
Cookie feel good. » - Éric Laurent
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
- « The movie has ascended from iconology to theology. »
Christine
Brinck on making a novel from "Casablanca", IHT, fri., Oct. 9, p. 11.
- Cookie says : « Bogart is as fit a saint as Padre Pio. Whisky leaves
stigmates too ! »
- Cookie says also : « Papacy is theology turned iconology ! From
Casablanca to Papablanco ! »
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
1. - Us, idiots
- « En passant plus de temps sur le Net, les gens délaissent les liens
sociaux "forts", issus des rencontres sociales et amicales, au profit
des liens "fragiles" du domaine virtuel. Et c’est ce qui les conduirait
à se sentir plus isolés. » Scott Rosenberg, "Salon Magazine" (San
Francisco), concerning the supposed "depressive effect" of Internet, in
"Courrier international", 8 octobre, p. 41.
- Cookie says : « That’s why you need a "surplus-smile"
("plus-de-rire")
on Internet. Cookie provides it. »
- Cookie says also : « Is Internet auto-erotic ? Is Internet for idiots
? The problem is human beings are all idiots, if you follow Lacan. »
2. - Opacities of Transparency
- « Dear Cookie, Have you seen that the two therapists of Monica
Lewinsky have been interviewed by Kenneth Starr. The sentence that I
like best in Frank rich's paper about that in the "IHT" today is : "One
of the therapists, Irene Kassorla, specifically asked, however, that the
details of her interview not be made public - a doomed, almost poignant
request in our Salem of 1998. Both her interview and that of the other
therapist became part of the latest Judiciary Committee document dump
last friday. »
Cookie could say : « Salem today is the will for transparency. Taking
that as a slogan, Gorbatchev only accepted the folly of the times. No
more S1, no more S(A/). It is only the ideal of pure circulation of
communication. That reaps havoc. » - Éric Laurent
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
- "That "all major book awards ... are awarded on the
basis of a loopy
political correctness and a culture of self-congratulation" may be an
exaggeration, but not by much." Jonathan Yardley in the"IHT", Wed.,
Oct. 7, p. 9.
- Cookie says : "Loopy political correctness is the basis of any social
group ; every culture includes its own self-congratulation."
- Cookie says also : "Must Cookie award the Cookie Prize for
Sentences?"
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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1. - Capitalism
- "johnson is on a one-columnist campaign, and this, literally - in the
exact meaning of that word - is the start of it : a campaign against
capital letters." Johnson in "The Economist", Oct. 3rd-9th, p. 113.
- Cookie says : "How would you explain Lacan’s
"grand Autre" if you
didn’t have capital letters anymore ?"
- Cookie says also : ""The Economist" is smarter
on capital letters than
on capital markets !"
2. - God is no gentleman
- "Despite Mr de Bernières’s gentle demeanour, the bookseller regards
him as "scurrilous and irreverent" in his depiction of God as a
"frivolous trickster"." In "The Economist", same issue, p. 111,
concerning an introduction to the Book of Job.
- Cookie says : "God’s a frivolous trickster ?
Can’t say better ! Who
needs a bookseller ?"
- Cookie says also : "Mr Louis de Bernières’novels are
highly -
recommended reading by this reviewer and J.A. Miller."
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
- "À quelques mois du triomphe, pourtant, tout se détraque. Et, bien
sûr, comme dans le haut Moyen Age européen, ce grand empire mal arrimé
sur des sociétés trop faibles et trop segmentées s’est écroulé
instantanément avec le fracas d’une illusion philosophique qui meurt."
Alexandre Adler on the african "Empire" of Mandela and Museveni, in
"Courrier international", published today in Paris.
- Cookie says : "That’s the way the cookie crumbled !"
- Cookie says also : "Keep reading Kipling !"
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
- "Norman Podhoretz wrote an essay about how advancing age, coupled with
the reading demands of being a magazine editor, made it harder and
harder for him to read for pleasure." Richard Cohen in "The Washington
Post" on line, Sun. Oct. 4.
- Cookie says : "Being a 25-years-old-maid and not being an editor,
Cookie reads for pleasure - she enjoys making fun of old magazine
editors and pundits. "
- Cookie says also : "The "jouissance" of the signifyer looks like a
growing problem for oldish professionals of the "matière signifiante". A
Viagra for the Editor, please ! That would be good for Gertrude, too !"
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
- "Ideas may matter, but organization matters more." Karen Tumulty,
about the congressional campaign in Oregon - Time magazine, Oct. 5, Int.
ed., p. 37.
- Cookie says : "Just like Heidegger said !"
- Cookie says also : "The hidden motto of contemporary ideology."
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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OUR PICA-PICA
by Cookie
"Boredom kills. Germany voted not so much for Gerhard Schröder as
against the man who would be king forever." Josef Joffe in IHT, Sept.
29, p. 10.
- Cookie says : "Modern political power (or powerlessness) : entertain
or perish !"
- Cookie says also : "Psychoanalysis is no entertainment. Psychoanalysis
is serious. And only series are serious, says Lacan."
(encore un peu? Pica-Pica précédent)
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OUR PICA-PICA by Cookie
1
- "La legge è uguale per tutti." This sentence, wich appears in every
italian courtroom, is heard in a dream by a female hysterical subject,
who is elaborating her masculine identification (Today).
- Cookie says : "Anatomy is no destiny, anatomy is unfair, is unlawful.
We need affirmative action, that is to say : Verleugnung."
- Cookie says also : "There is no justice in Law."
2
- "Le principe de précaution veut qu’un décideur ne se lance dans une
politique que s’il est certain qu’elle ne comporte absolument aucun
risque environnemental ou sanitaire." - Le Monde, sam.-dim. 26-27 sept.
1998.
- Cookie says : "If God had abided by the french "principe de
précaution", She would not have created the Universe. So what with
protecting the environment ? There would be no environment."
- Cookie says also : "This principle means : Don’t do it. Bye, bye,
Jerry Rubin."
(il n'y a plus de pica-pica)