Hérogonie
Are You There, Internet? It's Me, Etienne.
books, journaling, philosophy
This morning I skipped my recumbent ride in order to paint a door.
Its white paint was peeling in places; now it's slate grey.
I finished my third read-through of Dave Robinson's and Judy Groves's delightful Introducing Philosophy: A Graphic Guide. I have yet to transcribe all of my notes, but my favourite quote is an apt description of the current state of discourse: "You pay your money and you pick your language game."
I started Simon Crichtley's Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. The title is misleading: as far as I can make it out, it's actually a long essay arguing for more dialogue between the major philosophical traditions. Thirty pages in, I am not convinced this is entirely necessary. Philosophy is a broad church; the human condition presents enough problems to occupy any number of professional thinkers. A shared idiom or method would not necessarily make the task of interpreting the world any easier; the dialogue de sourds provides opportunities for useful misappropriation (or strong misreading, as Bloom puts it). I am moreover skeptical of the significance of the Continental/analytic divide in the age of Cultural Studies. Like it or not, we will have theories, and hermeneutics, of everything.
Favourite quote so far: "Food first, then ethics"—one of Brecht's witticisms.
My colouring books have arrived.
The poster-sized volume is a masterpiece of cultural appropriation (putting deities in the same category as creatures is an egregious misapprehension of polytheism). The smaller book (on tattoo art) also features a great deal of sacred imagery, including a spiffy Mjölnir. Creatively-speaking, colouring offers limited benefits, but I want to diversify my downtime activities to include tasks that don't involve a screen. Until recently, my leisure time was divided between aimless internetting and Baldur's Gate.
I picked blueberries. And cucumbers.
I did (1x30)+(2x25)+(1x20) push ups.
Conjured by Unknown at 10:53 PM
April 2015 Workshops, Conferences, etc.
comics, creative writing, literary theory, magic
Last Saturday, I was invited to give a two-hour Creative Writing workshop to a small group of BCS students; I even prepared a handy handout featuring a variety of writing exercises for the occasion. The contents of the workshop were inspired by Northrop Frye's archetypal criticism, which I tried to make more accessible by avoiding as much of the scholarly jargon as possible. All things considered, I think it went relatively well.
Yesterday I gave a talk at Université de Sherbrooke's fourth annual Conference on Contemporary Religion, in which I used Frye's Anatomy of Criticism to call attention to the reificatory tendencies of structuralist concepts of myth in the works of Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell. I also attended a number of talks, including a fascinating discussion of a study of secular magical objects.
A few days ago, Sacred and Sequential published an interview with Sordid City Blues author Charles S. Snow. I get credited for the interview, an honour which I feel is somewhat undeserved. My contribution to the piece was rather limited to writing the questions: in all honesty, it was Mr. Snow -- and Sacred and Sequential's editor A. David Lewis -- who did most of the work.
Conjured by Unknown at 4:28 PM
Will Christian hipsterpreneurs save capitalism? (The answer may shock you.)
Patheos is a strange, cacophonous place, like a religious equivalent of BuzzFeed. Such circumstances often create fascinating spectacle.
One of Patheos' contributors, the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, recently produced this piece on millenials, culture and capitalism, trying to underline alleged contradictions, seemingly in an effort to reconcile American youth with the Protestant work ethic.
It makes little sense to point out contradictions when considering phenomena that do not lend themselves to anything approaching an unbiased, unified interpretation. The expectation that social movements – let alone generations – are (or should be) ideologically or theologically coherent strikes me as misguided. Our irreducibly complex societal dynamics cannot be appropriately apprehended by such a naïve epistemology. The search for reductive coherence is especially problematic in a technologically-advanced secular context that allows for multiple non-congruent axiologies.
It is certainly not clear to me that there is any meaningful comparison to be drawn between the hipsters' ethos of Bourdieuan cultural capitalism (Christian or otherwise) and the charitable activities of million-dollar corporations. One might even suggest such practices are antithetical.
I could say that insofar as sophistication is understood to supersede conventional notions of capital/profit in the millenial ethic of consumerism, millenial ideology/theology does not actually redeem capitalism – certainly not integrally, at any rate. I could say that, but I would prefer not to express myself one way or another on the subject; doing so would mean venturing into the rarefied realm of sheer speculation. Judgments derived from unstructured observation and second-hand data are too much like foregone conclusions; I believe our intuitions regarding social reality deserve to be subjected to much more rigorous empirical testing.
Conjured by Unknown at 10:41 AM
How Catholic is "Marvel's Daredevil"?
comics, reviews, television
In her review for Patheos, Kate O'Hare writes:
I've seen five episodes, and Murdock, played by British actor Charlie Cox, has gone to Confession once, in the pilot — granted, he's seeking absolution in advance, and he's told that's not how it works — and then there's the above quip about Catholicism, from a later episode. But, other than that, faith doesn't seem to be a big topic of conversation.
I concur that Catholicism is mostly there for flavour in the first few episodes.
Religion and religious narratives eventually become the show's foremost source of moral clarity, the standard according to which the main characters (Murdock and Fisk) make sense of their actions. Father Lantom has a number of encounters with Murdock, and his religiosity comes accross as the lifelike expression of a complex, living faith that has successfully undergone the harsh test of experience. Fisk delivers a thought-provoking monologue on prayer; in the final episode he has a striking moment of lucidity in which he quotes the parable of the good Samaritan at some length.
All things considered, I thought it was refreshing to see a show in which religion is not short-hand for inflexible or naïve dogmaticism. I was impressed with the way death had deeply-felt impacts on character development and plot; I find television writing does not usually dedicate much time to the theme of mourning.
Conjured by Unknown at 7:57 AM
"You see a Hulk, you run."
comics, reviews
Overwhelmed by academic commitments and an overabundance of television (besides other distractions) I have had to put off reviewing the comics I have read over the past two weeks. I endeavour to correct this situation with this post. The following is a review of Soule, Pulido and Wimberly's She-Hulk (volume 1: Law and Disorder), Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky's Sex Criminals (volume 2: Two Worlds, One Cop) and Jonathan Hickman's Pax Romana. The title of this review is uttered by Herman Schultz (the Shocker) in She-Hulk #5:
"Lady, all I know about you is that you're tough as hell. Guys like me, we got a list of people like you. Like a rating system. You got your Daredevils, your Iron Fists – those guys, you fight. Maybe you get lucky, or maybe you're actually good enough to beat 'em. Now, any Hulk – lady, dude, red, green, purple – you see a Hulk, you run."
Soule is exceedingly adept at weaving together character exposition and fast-paced narrative: consequently, the latest adventures of Jennifer Walters (aka She-Hulk) should prove enjoyable to just about any human-like creature with a functional heart and brain. Soule's plot is precipitated by an unfair performance review after which Walters leaves her law firm to fend off on her own. Serendipitously, Holly Harrow, the widow of a small-time supervillain, seeks compensation for use of her deceased husband's technology by a Stark Industries subsidiary. After using her Avengers connection to settle out of court, Walters uses her payment from the case to start her own practice. Strange cases have a way of finding her – strange cases and bizarre people, including the sardonic paralegal Angie Huang.
The first four issues of She-Hulk are illustrated in Pulido's vibrant pop-art style; Wimberly's art in issues 5 and 6 has a different, more psychedelic energy which suits the narrative direction, though the transition is indeed jarring.
Diversity score:
♀♀♀♀: Soule's She-Hulk features a variety of different relationship styles. Walters' practice is located in DUMBO, in a building for superpowered professionals owned and managed by Xavier Institute alumna Sharon King. For a secondary character, Sharon King is singularly fleshed-out; her interactions with Walters, though warm, give some idea of the potentially fraught relationship between landlady and tenant. Walters' connection to Wildcat is similarly multi-faceted – simultaneously professional and amicable. Paralegal Angie Huang's quiet but zealous devotion to her employer is fascinating.
0: This comic is not explicitly LGBTQA-inclusive
πππ: The mystery that is Angie Huang and Hei Hei the mystical monkey is one of the driving forces behind She-Hulk's plot. Idea Hive, Sharon King's building, is home to an extremely diverse group of tenants. Doctor Kevin Trench (Nightwatch) also makes an appearance.
Despite the critical and popular enthusiasm surrounding it, I was not... turned on... by Sex Criminals' first volume. Though I was certainly able to appreciate Fraction and Zdarsky's energetic style of graphic storytelling, the way in which the creators flout sexual taboo did nothing to impress me. Fortunately for mature readers everywhere, the plot thickens in Sex Criminals' second volume – the introduction of more complex themes (such as the ambiguous relationship between physical intimacy and emotional attachment or the partners' mutual responsibility for their mental health) makes for more substantial fare. Far from detracting from the book's humour, the added seriousness tends to complement it by contrast.
♀♀♀♀: Suzie Dickson makes up with a friend with whom she had something of a falling out during the first volume.
0: This particular volume of Sex Criminals is not explicitly LGBTQA-inclusive. The previous one made a passing allusion to youthful same-sex experiments.
ππ: Sex Criminals vol.2 features a secondary character of African descent and a vaguely middle-eastern villain; other than that, it is all very white.
A conceptually-dense formalist experiment in Alternate History, Pax Romana's narrative is driven almost entirely by its heavy-handed prose. The book does not function at all like a customary graphic novel: it dispenses with sequential art altogether, unravelling the plot through a series of still-frames crowded by speech bubbles, excerpts from fictional history books, and conversation transcripts – most of it turgid, pseudo-Hegelian nonsense. The entire narrative rests on two assumptions: 1) that the highest echelons of church hierarchy are necessarily the most conservative, seeking the preservation of the institution at any cost, and 2) that the rulers of ancient Rome could find it in their episteme to embrace with eagerness the methods and values of a technologically-superior invader. Both assumptions are likely to strike the literate reader as misapprehensions, and whereas some might be willing to suspend disbelief in order to take part in Hickman's experiment, I personally could not derive much enjoyment from such a cynical view of human potential. Though Pax Romana's technologically-accelerated civilisational project has colonized both the moon and Mars by 1421, we are to regard the outcome of the whole process as a dystopia insofar as imperialist autocracy remains the dominant political and religious paradigm.
As the thought-experiment of a singular creator, Pax Romana is a work of considerable complexity. Complexity, unfortunately, does not mean nuance, and on the whole Hickman's revision of history is as mean-spirited as it is implausible.
♀♀: Though the series spans hundreds of years, it manages to feature only two female characters – only one of whom has any impact on the plot.
0: This comic is not LGBTQA-inclusive.
πππ: One of the four artisans of the Pax Romana is of African descent; there are also vague references to a break-away African civilisation.
Idiot Box Pull List – Week Of March 15th, 2015
reviews, television
Beware the ides of March! With the addition of iZombie and the return of The Flash and Arrow after a two-week hiatus, this was an extremely busy week in the world of comics-derived television.
The Walking Dead S5 E14 – Spend
On closer inspection, it looks as though there may be some worms eating away at the shiny apple that is Alexandria...
Summary: Darryl and Aaron leave on a recruitment mission. Abraham is rewarded for his extraordinary leadership at the construction site. Rick investigates the sabotage of Jessie's owl sculpture. On a mission to find components for Alexandria's failing power-grid, Aiden's lack of judgment costs him his life; Nicholas' lack of judgment, compounded with cowardice, causes Noah's gruesome demise. Father Gabriel has a crisis of faith in both God and humanity. While attempting to strike a friendship with Carol, Sam reveals troubling information about his family life.
Notable line: "Mother d**k." Cornered by the decaying legions, Abraham finds comfort in poetry.
Memorable moments: Eugene, who had previously made a great show of his cowardice, rises to the occasion and saves lives.
♀♀♀♀: Francine's introduction could serve as a study in the art of establishing a character in very few lines. Deanna Monroe is still a major player in Alexandria.
RRR: Tara makes adorable quips at Noah when he voices baseless insinuations about her innocent questions.
ππππ: Glen and Noah make an excellent team until Nicholas ruins everything.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 E13 – One of Us
Summary: Cal recruits "gifted" individuals to wage war on S.H.I.E.L.D., breaks into an underground containment facility to release a person whose voice can induce catatonia. Agent May brings in her former husband, Dr. Andrew Garner, to work on Skye's psychological profile for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s index; Skye struggles to control her powers. Agent MacKenzie holds Hunter captive for a time and, having little choice, has Mockingbird make the arrangements to bring him in to "the real S.H.I.E.L.D." Cal and his band of misfits lure S.H.I.E.L.D. onto a football field. Gideon the teleporter intervenes.
Memorable moments: Dr. Garner and Agent May's relationship is one of the main foci of this week's episode. Many of the agents are eager to discuss it, though perhaps none so much as Skye: "Did you guys have actual conversations?" she asks Dr. Garner. "You know, like pillow talk – or was it just pillow stern looks?"
♀♀♀♀: Agent May and Mockingbird are given ample opportunity to demonstrate their physical strength and mental fortitude. Mockinbird and Agent Simmons have a heart-to-heart about Fitz which reveals considerable emotional depth. Simmons' complex relationship with the recently-mutated Skye becomes somewhat less coldly professional.
0: This episode is not explicitly LGBTQA-inclusive.
ππππ: Agent May and Dr. Garner are indubitably the stars of this week's episode. Agent May's fight with strongman Francis Noche is intelligently choreographed to showcase their unique fighting styles.
The Flash S1 E15 – Out of Time
It is a very strange magic trick where all the cards are placed upon the table before the tablecloth is whisked away.
Summary: In a flashback sequence, we witness the apparent aerial demise of Mark Mardon, the canonical Weather Wizard. One year later, Barry, Iris, Linda and Eddie are having an awkward double-date at the bowling alley. Mark Mardon appears at the morgue to torture the coroner for the identity of the detective who shot his brother. While running at superspeed to the morgue, the Flash catches a strange glimpse of... himself. The Weather Wizard attacks the CCPD precinct; he fires a lightning at Joe, but Captain David Singh pushes him out of harm's way, sustaining considerable damage to himself in the process. Using a device created by Cisco, the Flash stops the Weather Wizard, but lets him escape in order to take Captain Singh to the hospital. Veteran journalist Mason shares his suspicions regarding Dr. Wells with Iris; Iris shares those suspicions with Kate and Cisco; Cisco investigates and discovers a red herring in the containment field. Dr. Wells walks in on the Cisco sleuthing and vibrates his hand through his heart. The Weather Wizard captures Joe, ties him on a barge in the waterfront, and summons a tidal wave to destroy Central City. While running to create a wind barrier to deflect the tsunami, Barry slips through time, winding back at the beginning of the episode.
Notable line: "Being his fiancé makes him family, doctor." Detective Joe West, LGBTQA ally.
♀♀♀: While it is permitted to depict women who have internalized misogyny (i.e.: Lynda talking to Iris about "the typical weird crap that women do to each other"), it would be refreshing to see women have more positive interactions. On the bright side: Kate plays an active role in Cisco's investigation.
RRR: Captain Singh is unambiguously depicted as a hero and his fiancé has verisimilar conversation with Barry.
ππππ: Iris and Joe's father-daughter relationship is entirely believable. Both Cisco and Captain Singh play important roles in this week's plots.
iZombie S1 E1 – Pilot
I have not yet read iZombie; I am given to understand the television adaptation is only very loosely based on the comic.
I was afraid the writers would overuse zombism as a metaphor for the post-modern crisis of meaning. Thankfully, such apprehension was unjustified; it is simply not that kind of show. The new CW series is funny, which is not to say that it cannot also pull some serious heart-strings. My fan senses were tingling throughout the pilot; Liv's sarcasm is reminiscent of Daria's, and her zombie powers borrow some of the most interesting elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse and Chew.
Summary: Before her accidental, second-hand exposure to the zombifying drug utopium at a boat party gone tragically wrong, Liv Moore had her life under control – a promising career in medicine, a gorgeous fiancé. Five months after the incident, she is coaxing through unlife, working at the morgue under motormouth Dr. Chakrabarthi, avoiding physical and emotional connection out of fear of being found a zombie. After discovering she can access the memories of the brains she eats, she plays a decisive role in Detective Clive Babineaux's investigation of a call girl's murder, thereby finding a new zest for life.
Notable line: "Liv, you ate the girl's temporal lobe. Going to the police with her potential murder is the least you can do." Dr. Chakrabarthi's enthusiasm is the perfect counter-point to Liv's cynicism.
♀♀♀♀: Liv has a number of verisimilar exchanges with female friends and relatives.
0: This episode is not explicitly LGBTQA-inclusive
ππππ: Clive Babineaux and Dr. Chakrabarthi's work relationship is like something out of The Office.
Arrow S3 E16 – The Offer
The long-awaited answer to the previous episode's question.
Summary: "The tale to be told begins thus." Imitating his namesake's temptations of Christ, Ra's al Ghul promises Oliver great power, taking him for a grand tour of his operation – including the legendary Lazarus pit – before releasing Diggle and Merlyn as a show of good faith. Upon their return to Starling, Thea resists the temptation to slit her murderous father's throat. Back at the Arrow cave, Nyssa reacts favourably to Thea's confession. Oliver, Roy and Laurel are not entirely successful at preventing the robbery of a shipment of industrial-grade diamonds. After dropping off gift-wrapped miscreants at the SCPD precinct, Captain Lance tells the Arrow "some variation of go to Hell" for having failed to inform him of Sarah's death. After Murmur and his band of trigger-happy thugs shower the SCPD with diamond-tipped bullets, team Arrow and Nyssa al Ghul swoop in to save the day; the minions who get away later get a fateful visit from Ra's. In the flashback sequences, Oliver has a run-in with a revenant while attempting to reunite Akio with Tatsu and Maseo.
Notable line: "I did not defy death just to become an instrument of it." It seems Oliver's mind was made at the start of the episode: I wonder whether the subsequent tergiversation was absolutely necessary.
Memorable moment: Roy has some very comical lines; it is refreshing to see his character expand beyond the tragic range.
♀♀♀♀: Nyssa, Thea and Laurel all have meaningful exchanges. Felicity explicitly emphasizes that she is defined by the causes in which she believes, not only the relationships in which she chooses to involve herself.
RRR: Nyssa gets a fair bit of screen time; her feelings towards Sarah motivate many of her decisions.
πππ: Diggle and Akio play a significant part in this week's plots.
Powers S1 E4 – Devil in a Garbage Bag
Summary: Successive interventions on Wolf's brain have induced faster regeneration, and so the superpowered menace breaks out of his lobotomy-induced coma. A select few members of the Powers Division are sent in an attempt to contain him. A fair few are eaten alive, possibly as a punishment for a lifetime of cussing every five seconds.
♀♀♀♀: This week's episode is a soft "pass" as far as the Bechdel test is concerned; Retro-Girl speaks to her secretary, addressing her as Eva. Other women (Deena, Calista, Chaos Chick) also play arguably significant roles.
0: Were we to get any sort of confirmation that Royale and Simons are in fact "a thing," this episode would be LGBTQA-inclusive.
πππ: Though Deena Pilgrim is still something of a sidekick, she does demonstrate a certain degree of agency. There is at least one other person of colour on the task force to neutralize Wolf.
Legitimate questions
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Other People's Words
Cassandra's Tears
The Third-Floor Bedroom - I. It all began when someone left the window open, not that that person was necessarily to blame. But the weather had been fine for the first time in mon...
Positively Pensive
I was crafting a Facebook post when I realized I already have a forum for more complex thoughts. - I have had two poems on my mind. I first thought seriously about poetry in Richard Adams' class at Marianopolis College in what I think was the winter an...
Daily Lesson
On Working - *"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."* *-Vaclav Havel*
Off the Hook Astronomy
PANTS MONSTER!!! - Gosh I've knit a lot of things for babies over the years! I count 26 projects recorded on Ravelry, and I think there are probably a few that I never got ar...
Sproutless | Living Green Has Never Been So Easy
There was a band
Powerful Others
Who is the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him? Hint: it's the fool.
All contents on this website, unless otherwise specified, are creations of Etienne Domingue. All original contents are free to use under the stipulations of the Creative Commons.
Tous les contenus de ce site, à moins d'avis contraire, son des créations d'Etienne Domingue et sont mis à disposition selon les stipulations des Creative Commons.
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