(That’s an early review from a commenter over on IMPOSE).
I posted a transcript of a Slavoj Zizek talk last night at the endangered St. Mark’s Bookshop. The talk is as meaty as a Zizek rant can get in an hour. Topics covered include a theoretical discussion of melancholy, mourning and prohibition, and how they apply to the Occupy Wall Street protests as well to the state of the left and modernity, in general; the problematic relationship between democracy and globalization, and how the protests and Anne Applebaum fit into this; the obscene pact of Zionism; the true 99%; a new multi-centric world where countries like India, China and South Korea are buying tracts of land from countries that can barely feed themselves; and lots more.
Filmmaker Astra Taylor, whose debut was the documentary Zizek!, has been touring with her latest, Examined Life, which has brought her back to New York as limited screenings resumed yesterday at Symphony Space. You really can’t go wrong when you’ve brought together a fresh selection of eight contemporary philosophers to devote a high density 10-minute segment to each one; but in addition to that, the personalities have been curated with careful thought to whose idea bounces off whose, and effective cinematic decisions have been deployed, the prominent one being the attempt to take philosophy out on the streets and put it in motion, so that it feels like the ideas are awakening in a social space (the park, 5th avenue, the lake, the airport, etc), instead of being presented to us in the form of stationary talking heads positioned in some well-lit room.
I will avoid paraphrasing Zizek wherever possible, since there’s no way that won’t involve butchering of words, so I resort, inevitably, to a somewhat trashier retelling, which begins with one of my favorite feminist columnists, Katha Pollit, seated right in front of me–only I realized much later that it was she, and that she was married to Steven Lukes, who was there to promote his “Big Ideas / Small Books” title Moral Relativism, as was Slavoj Zizek to promote his “Big Ideas / Small Books” title Violence.
If you’re in the mood to judge, Slavoj Zizek can be cut and diced in a million ways, like why the hell would he get his hands dirty in corporate advertising while waving a big, red, bleeding Communist flag, though I actually find this mingling of boundaries pretty sweet. And though you may or may not agree with the stuff that comes out of the mouth of this vociferous modern-day philosopher from Slovenia, he sure as hell is fascinating, and in that arena he’s got very little competition, especially from his peers. In short, the world is a better place when a man with a brain on fire decides to devote a documentary to the theme, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema.
hooves on the turf is a mostly-music blog based out of brooklyn. i can be reached at hoovesontheturf [at] gmail [dot] com - please send me your lovely music as an attached mp3 or an mp3 link. if i like what you send, i'll be sure to ask for more.
Aqua: Love TEEN. Man they can sing. Cool. Different.
Suraj Joshee: Sarahana, Loved the video. You captured the simple raw essence of the music and band really really...
