Lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living

Curse you, Richard Dawkins

I had intended to return to a more regular blogging schedule with one or more tremendously scholarly posts about silent films. Obviously, the problem there is that I then don’t write anything at all until I’ve got time to discuss the finer details of Hegel’s relationship to Buster Keaton. So, thanks to Rachel for tagging me with a so-called “meme,” a blog-related obligation which can obviously not be passed up.

5 books:

  1. Karl Marx, Capital (predictable, but it really is great)
  2. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason
  3. Michel Foucault, The Will To Knowledge (just re-read this recently, it’s an almost perfect book: a startling central idea, beautifully written, with Foucault’s extraordinarily precise, dispassionate style).
  4. Aristotle, The Nicomahean Ethics
  5. John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up

5 songs (conveniently already listed for a not-yet-made post):

  1. Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
  2. Girls Aloud, “The Show”
  3. Dubstar, “Stars (Motiv8 Mix)”
  4. White Town, “Your Woman”
  5. Tatu, “All the Things She Said”

5 addictions:

I don’t think I believe in the concept of addiction, at least, not as distinguished from all other human behaviour. Doesn’t it depend on a spurious mind/body distinction (sometimes sublimated into an equally spurious conscious/unconscious distinction)? As if the mind was usually free and insulated from the physical world, with addictions somehow improperly subordinating the mind to the body.

5 famous people:

  1. Britney Spears (again, obvious)
  2. Walter Benjamin (I don’t know if he’s famous enough to count, but I think he would have enjoyed being a celebrity if he had gotten the chance).
  3. Paris Hilton (Ian Penman recently wrote about the underlying misogyny in a lot of criticism of Paris Hilton ; I think one could also add that the dislike of Hilton simply for being rich is an example of the same anti-structural impulse that leads right-wingers to blame poor people for being poor)
  4. Hala Gorani (at some point, I may post something about why I find American news anchors so mezmerizing).
  5. Yulia Volkova/Lena Katina (one can’t have one without the other).

In other Richard Dawkins news, Terry Eagleton’s review of Dawkins new book prompted this fatuous letter from A. C. Grayling (scroll down). I wonder, actually: was there ever a public “intellectual” stupider than A. C. Grayling? It’s difficult to imagine.

Related

Banksy sells out

Well, at least, I hope he’s being paid for his viral marketing of the Paris Hilton album. If he actually thinks this is some kind of incisive guerilla art action, that’s even more depressing.

FOR THE UNCON­DITIONAL DEFENSE OF PARIS HILTON AGAINST ANTI­SEMITIC WITCH­HUNTS

The pious outrage Thursday over heiress Paris Hilton’s “early release” from jail in Los Angeles, accusations of “special treatment” and the vindictive demands that she receive “justice,” i.e., punishment, have nothing healthy or progressive about them. Excellent article about Paris Hilton on the World Socialist Website. While k-punk’s criticisms of the musical defense of Paris […]

Saw something on Wikipedia just now

Paris Hilton has reached the attention of the Indian film industry. She has been invited to play Nobel Peace prize recipient Mother Theresa in a film partly written by Pope John Paul II. The film will include the talents of other notables of her stature such as Pandit Ravi Shankar. Pope Benedict XVI is expected […]