A)In comic book news (yes, I am going to do this). I have decided to lift my moratorium on Superman comics. I have had a gut instinct that I would not be a big fan of the farm boy from Krypton. I think this is because I have always been a Batman kid and admired the Dark Knight's reliance on detection, brains, and billions of dollars to get the job done as opposed to Superman who just had the misfortune of being blown off of his own planet to another one where the sun was a different color. Ironically it is like a man with self-made millions vs the old money. Or something like that. Anywho, I have decided to dip my toe into A Superman for All Seasons:
It looks good. We shall see how I feel about the Man Of Steel when I am done with this. I still like how Frank Miller always lets Batman beat the shit of Superman though... In other comicbook news I now own issues 3-12 of the original Watchmen run from the 80's. I actually got a great deal on them. But enough of this dorkdom...B)My living situation. Well I am sitting in my new kitchen and I have just poured myself a stiff supper over ice with a splash of soda water and as I sup I am sitting at my new breakfast bar. This is a curious sensation because this will probably be the nicest house I will ever live in. It is suburban, clean, freshly painted with french drains (whatever the hell those are). I live here with a good old college friend who is a male. This means to my neighbors that we are gay together and must romp around in bannana hamocks and listen to Ricky Martin. To be two grown men living together in this neighrborhood (as far as my town is concerned) is a clear admission of liking dudes. This is a poster the neighbors have made announcing our presence:
My hope is to bring a bit of flair to the neighborhood. I am sure that we will be one of a very few houses on the street with an Obama yard sign. We will also probably be the only house with two recycling bins to take care of the massive quantity of beer cans and bottles we burn through in a week. But hey, at least we recycle. I also intend to make a clear statement to my neighbors how I feel about living in manicured neighborhoods by being that guy who drinks fourties on his front steps and waves at people. Those of you who know me also know that I am just this kind of dude. This gesture will not so much be a gesture as something I like to do. I am not trying to buck any trends here and thumb my nose at the retirees next door. I am just gonna be myself. Aesthetic-Nietzschean-Self-Creation and all of that silliness. But at the end of the day living in nicer places is probably one of the more pleasurable aspects of growing older. Hell, even E. finally moved on up to the west side and C moved in with R out in the up and coming hip part of BK. We all get a shot at the grand life I suppose.C) This being said brings me to my next point. The city... I do miss it.
D)Philosophy/Work/Mental Illness/Deafness... So I cannot remember whether or not I have discussed my current employment situation here yet so I will now and then go off on a few points that I have thought about because of it... Most of this stems from thoughts from my notebook over the past few weeks..
D.1) If you have never played kickball with deaf people you should. Or any sport for that matter. To remove being able to hear commands or warnings or advice from a team sport demonstrates not only how important but also how useless verbal communication can be at times.
D.2) American Sign Language is just that a language. It is not english translated into symbols it is the signified expressed through hand motions as a signifier. It skips the necessity of attaching itself to a word that attaches itself to a meaning. This is fascinating because this means you o not have a translator you have an interpreter. You do not translate one word into another you interpret a movement that refers to an idea of a thing and then find the word in english that refers to that idea. I know this is a pretty rudimentary explanation but it points to a few things. It is a language whose "speakers" do not actually have a written set of rules dictating proper usage. Any rules in a book would themselves have been made into a written language which is simply is not. It is also interesting to learn a language that is unwritten at this stage in one's life. Most second or first language are learned in infacy when one is not cognitive of the act of language aquisition or later in life through memorization and work books. Immersion is seldomly used by anyone. But my current situation has dropped me in it like a private first class being dropped in the shit in North Vietnam in '68: I have no clue what the hell I am doing. But I am learning. I am learning the language games. I am learning and be corrected. There is not necessarily an antecedent logic to this lanuage but only being able to navigate a world correctly with it. This is probably true for far more than sign language.
D.3.)"The ontology/ethics of having a sign interpreter." Sounds like the title of a paper one would give at an undergraduate philosophy conference but it is a thought provoking issue for me. I was issued John on my first day. He is my interpreter. He is an appendage for me, a finger, my ear and voice, my eyes to see a world that is all about seeing. He is almost a faculty of my being. What I say he "says." What the kids "say" he says. He is everpresent but the thing is that both myself and the deaf person are supposed to act like he is not there. This an ethical thing. I do not look at him and I speak to the deaf person even though he has no clue what it is that I am doing. This signifies that there are just TWO people having a conversation. But it goes further. The interpreter is ethically bound to attempt to say exactly what I say verbatim. A child might ask me the time and he will "voice" this question to me but he is not to answer it even if he has a watch on and could save time by simply by answering the question. I would probably ask John the time, he would tell me, I would look at the child and say "It is 2:15." It may seem like work but it is there to ensure the candid nature of conversation and communication. The normal rules do not apply here. At the end of the day it is an odd thing when one thinks about it. There are two people having a conversation, yet there are three people taking up an ethical situation. I neeed to think about this more.
E) Mental Illness. I have now dealt with the truly disturbed in a therapuetic situation. To think like a schizophrenic is nothing to strive for. It is something that cannot be duplicated for the sake of philosophical day trips. It is the indisrciminate destruction of the subject by the subject themselves. Deleuze and Guattarri were clearly deranged... Or stupid... Or both...
F)My thesis and philosophy: I have decided that I am still going to write a thesis. I doubt at this point I will ever submit it for review at the NSSR but hey it always feels good to be doing it for yourself right. I have not only decided but committed myself to writing around 50 pages on philosophy and democracy and talk about experience in their as well. Mostly how the two former necessarily flow and rely on the latter for ground and grounding but that in a minute. I will use Dewey, Popper, The Closing of the American Mind, Rorty, and god knows what else in this mission but I want to copy and paste something from E's blog that got my mind finally working today (I find that the thoughts of my friends do more for my thinking than any book I have ever read). I will need this as cornerstone for whatever else comes. More Whitman than Dewey but pointing the way regardless:
I think that is enough for one night or at least for the moment. I have a bottle of white on ice. We shall see what comes from that as the evening wanes.
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