Rustle in the Bush

It’s been probably more than 2 weeks since I last put anything on here, but I’ve been busy. Said goodbye to the sister for a while and was under the influence during the writing of the last one. Thank Vishnu for editing! There was some stuff there, and I decided to chase the humor aspect around with a project for school. I’m only attending community college at the moment so I decided to write a 10, and then 20 page paper on what im titling

Immanence in the American Tradition: Mark Twain

This goal is to take a look at immanent structures as they present themselves in writing. I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was that Deleuze was hinting at in the Superiority of Anglo-American essay, but now that I’m understanding lines-of-flight and how they manifest themselves in literature it makes sense. I didn’t start to put it together until the Poe essay on the composition of literature. It was the inward space that I couldn’t define. That sense of lack that extended beyond space. Wait a minute… that’s Spinoza! That’s immanence. There’s a ton of good stuff in there with Poe, and it is exactly what finds its way into Twain and into Kafka, who I’ve decided to probe a little more. Maybe it’s just the Frenchness of D+G that draws them far more toward Kafka. I would imagine that Twain embodies the ‘gay science’. He’s the writer par excellance, the experiencer, and the nomad. Need proof? His assistant begged him to read Nietzsche and told her he didn’t give a shit! Despite the pleads of inspiration and the vital connections dear to both! The sense of pure wit, the polemical ability, and the poet’s eye!! What else do you need?! Anyway… Deleuze fws American Lit. 

I suppose then, that I now have to add the Kafka book to the list. I didn’t even get a chance to finish reading the William James lectures that I wanted to. Great stuff in there for epistemology, methinks. It does tons for perspective, but the cognitive behaviorist stuff is disconcerting. I don’t even know how to engage with mainstream psychology, I should probably take a class of that and stats when I get to Uni. But I feel like nomenclature like “territories” and “lines-of-flight” can certainly get what a cursory understanding  of them would them called ‘hippy dippy’. They could tend to lead to a free will kind of association (Even though it doesn’t play out or function like that by definition) . It’s bringing me back to the human anthropology thing. Steigler will have to be pushed back indefinitely, methinks. But probably this summer; I need more Kant and more Foucault before I get to that point. My cultural anthropology class is gonna be cool, we’re gonna read Levi-Strauss, and possibly Bateson. Maybe I can find a way to insert Clastes into a semester essay or something, 

Finally got Anti-Oedipus too, gotta read the Shreber case before I can swallow that pill. The Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour show was great for the Wolf Man, so I’ll check this out and read it. Lacan too. Too damn much to read, here’s the list as of now. 

Current Reading:

Anti-Oedipus (Long long slow reading, maybe one subsection every couple days)

The Sword and the Chrysanthemum, Ruth Benedict – Maybe a chapter every 1-2 days for assignments

Mark Twain Short Stories – A bunch, the Dog One is hilarious, so is Adam and Eve’s diary (Funny, its similar to Spinoza: Practical Philosophy Adam example)

Laughter – Bergson

Jokes and the Relation to the Unconscious – Freud

Bunch of short essays on stuff like Nietzsche’s Theory of Humor, Immanence in Literature

Reading starting next week:

4 Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis – Lacan

Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature – D+G