Rasa Theory

The aesthetic tradition of Rasa Theory seems to resonate throughout Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy despite no clear affinity between Ray and rasa per se. Our understanding of rasa stems from Bharata’s Natyasastra written in 3^rd century AD. Literally translated as ‘sap’, ‘essence’ or ‘taste’- in the aesthetic context ‘rasa’ can come to be thought of as the mood, or sentiment of a particular work.

Unlike Baudrillard’s suggestion that representation is a barrier to the experience of reality; rasa sets out that the artist and audience are able to grasp a kind of universal ‘poetic emotion’ when brought together appropriately. While rasa theory seems to be aware that a work of art blocks the immediate experience of an event, it posits that the truths of a given text lay in the subjective experience of the text, rather than in the text itself.

Constantines – Working Full Time

…And That’s Why You Do Not Add Stockwell Day to Facebook

Public safety minister launches investigation into Facebook postings

CBC investigation first revealed questionable online conduct

Last Updated: Tuesday, October 2, 2007 | 6:52 PM ET

On Monday, CBC News revealed that recruits in the training program of the Canada Border Services Agency had posted photographs of themselves drinking while in uniform, called Prime Minister Harper a serial killer, and referred to French Canadians as “f—ing bastards,” all on the website Facebook.

…

On Tuesday afternoon, Day’s office issued the following statement: “I was very concerned after watching media reports on allegations of improper conduct and hateful language from employees and recruits of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

“I immediately directed my officials to look into these allegations and take appropriate disciplinary action where warranted. Canada’s New Government has zero tolerance for such hateful language and inappropriate behaviour, it is simply not acceptable,” Day’s statement said.

Apparently these fresh-faced wannabe bureaucrats-in-training are to be taught a lesson by Big Daddy Day. Is it cynical of me to suggest that this is a case of electioneering? Certainly Stockwell Day has made enough gaffs in his past to fill a (face)book of his own; we are after all talking about a man who once held a photo op that saw him ride in triumphantly on a jet ski for some reason that I can no longer recall. In the end that type of thing seems to be the punch line to a joke that starts with his neo-con views on homosexuality and abortion. I digress…

(Don’t) Stop Resisting: The Pleas(e) of Andrew Meyer

COPS – the television show that documents the activities of law enforcement officers – is now in its 20^th season. As a child, I was a fan until around adolescence when I began to question authority and my notions of justice. I lost interest in the show. I began to think of COPS as valourizing the most visible apparatus of the state while reinforcing stereotypes about the socio-economically disadvantaged in the US.

COPS is at its best when the suspects are unaware of their rights, or in no frame of mind to make use of them… not talking and demanding a lawyer makes for poor entertainment.

In the season premiere, the first case takes place at what appears to be a routine traffic stop. The footage is grainier than what we are accustomed to. A black man hops out of his car and unloads an entire clip on the police and runs away. An officer has been shot. The COPS film crew is on the scene quickly. The suspect’s whereabouts are gained from a be-mulleted bystander and with the aid of the K9 unit, he is apprehended in what we may assume to be minutes. The camera cuts away and the suspect now has bandages covering his entire back. The missing time in COPS is often the most interesting to speculate on. In this instance, it is almost implied that the COPS enacted some form of vigilante justice, and engaged in some masochistic delight in the dog’s ravaging of the suspect. These are the spaces in which we can come to truly see COPS – to understand what is authorized – both by the COPS on duty, but more importantly by the viewer.

The violence is censored, but just barely. Like a parent fast-forwarding though a “kissing scene” in a movie, the viewer is keenly aware of what has happened, how to fill in the spaces. Whether we think that these blank spaces are filled with what “he/she had coming” or “inappropriate use of force” or something else – what is at stake in the end is a question about what entertains us.

So why all the fuss about Andrew “Don’t tase me, bro” Meyer? The Colbert Report’s take on the scene was telling; of the multiple cameras that filmed the incident, none of them intervened, but were able within minutes to post the footage on YouTube. One way or another the viewer in the act of witnessing gets to act out their fantasy (complete with money shot): either shutting up the loudmouth liberal or becoming a martyr of a new generation. In the end, did not everyone get what they wanted?

The performative panic in Meyer’s pleas(e) seem to reflect the status of the ‘left’s’ attempts at engagement. Protester, security and witness are all caught in the witnessing of the act before/as it happens. Responses can only register at equally symbolic levels, and for those with little time or money to pay attention to such things, most would-be leftists seem content to continue worrying about how to afford things like sending their kids to college and retirement. What incentive is there to involving oneself in a drama in which the injustice has to be asked for and can only be asked/bought from a position of privilege to begin with?

Pather Panchali

Upon release, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali received enormous praise; at the Cannes film festival it won the award for “Best Human Document”[1]. It appeared as something new to many of the people who viewed it as well as being a testament to what could be accomplished on film with little money and a singular vision. In the years that followed its release, Ray’s work has been pointed to as the beginning of “New Cinema” in India – a movement which sought to shift the focus away from the motifs that had dominated films produced in India hitherto: myth, song and dance, etc, and towards the presentation of reality as it appeared. Heavily influenced by the Italian neo-realist style, Ray believed that film could be most powerful when it was used to represent some form of human truth. Ray’s Pather Panchali therefore can come to be viewed as an important moment for critical reflection; both on the film and the context in which it and the characters exist, and the context and position or space from which Ray creates.

Floating One Out

A pool is a concrete hole in the ground. When you put water in it, it prevents any from permeating the earth on which it sits. I feel as though I’ve been filling a pool a cup at a time, contemplating the pool, its construction – its very poolness as it presents itself to me. At the same time I see others filling their pools with ever increasing efficiency, with buckets and some even with hoses. It is easy to be envious of the comfort that one derives from the oceanic feeling of a filled pool – but one is always left to wonder whether the ocean with all its dangers and irregularities, its lack of clarity and its depth – can ever be remembered in the pool. If then, the ocean is not in the pool – how absurd would it be to place the pool in the ocean?

Meme

Via Love and Terrorism

- Grab the nearest book.
- Open the book to page 123.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
- Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

“With Freud as postman, posting the modern entails indicating the return address, assuring that the communication may be returned to sender, that all chickens coming home to roost are carrier pigeons. ” (from The Purloined Punch Line by Jerry Aline Flieger, 1991, Johns Hopkins)

Rolling Up the Sleeves

It seems logical, at least to me,  for some form of justification to appear at the beginning. I cannot make any bones about it, I lack the mental dexterity to hide in corners and evade cutting to what it is I think I might want to say. Perhaps this is why until now I’ve left the blogging to what I’ve viewed as the professionals – ‘why clog up the internet with more noise than is useful?’ I would think – but I’ve recently found that while I seem able to play with fanciful ideas, I lack the ability to efficiently articulate them into the printed word. So, indeed this effort will be a shameless attempt on my part to rectify this situation, and if in the process I completely bungle and blaspheme certain theories and theorists, I will, for now, have to leave that to my future self to worry about.

For the time being I am here to learn; I don’t come here as a blank slate, and indeed I expect this to be as much a process of unlearning as it is one of filling the old noodle with things. Blogging seems to offer something more than simply journalizing; certainly, there is something required to bother publishing some portion of one’s life online at no cost and expecting, hoping or fearing that others might want to take the time out of their day to pay attention to it. I’m not exactly sure what that is; I had thought that in my case this would surely be an act of total vanity; and certainly, vanity seems to be a prerequisite at least at some level, but what drives me is a need to improve – and the only way I see how is to at least put something forward – whatever that might be – and hope for an/some interlocutor(s).

To me – it is the gesture that matters; I am opening myself to critique and preparing for a dose of medicine that I may not like the taste of. So, please, if you see my metaphorical head approaching a brick wall at dangerous speeds repeatedly – give me the old ‘heads up!’ – it will be much appreciated.