18th
9.18.08 -- La Chinoise
Dear Stella,
The excitement when I decided to watch every film from Godard’s New Wave period. The satisfaction when I checked another one off the list. And now, the sad humor of wanting to not watch any more. The joy of disappointing myself, and how that can feel empowering at the same time.
I’ve let myself down, intentionally, with enthusiasm.
So I think about the Situationists, who I think about a lot lately. At a time when I easily lose focus, lose momentum, feign enthusiasm, reading situationist literature excites me, incites me, feels dangerous to read still now, 40 years later. Like the first time I heard Fugazi, the first time I introduced myself as a white person, the first time I read Hélène. Reading the Situationists is a series of firsts, over and over, new and again new.
They defined themselves with vigor, and what I think about lately is this:
Since the ultimate criterion of the modern revolutionary organization is its totalness, such an organization is ultimately a critique of politics. It must explicitly aim to dissolve itself as a separate organization at its moment of victory.
Victory is a disappearance. Everywhere the revolution, but nowhere the revolutionaries.
And now, me, having learned enough from Godard for the time being, I’m comfortable with this, happy to fall short. The failure of failure. For now. For a minute more.
I think that synchronicity always exists, that at all times in my life there are surreal moments of collaboration between disparate activities, but I am not always receptive to these synchronicities. It is at times of my greatest health and attention that I have the capacity to notice them, while other times—when I am bored or frustrated or weak or focused inward—they are there, but I cannot think to see them.
And here, lately, reading the Situationists, watching Godard, reading the Situationist account of the May 1968 student uprising, watching La Chinoise and its critique of summer revolutionaries, reading the Situationist critique of Godard, mostly a critique of the lack of critiques of Godard, cinema’s golden calf. I appreciate their zeal for battle.
Even while at the same time still young in my study, still learning so much from Godard, still so uncertain in general. And then the characters in La Chinoise, how I recognized myself in them. Because I romanticize revolution, and I am not a proletariat. If given a choice between study and practice, which would I choose? I’m stuck in my head most days, you know this. And hour after hour I talk about action, talk about work and movement, and sit by myself reading without plan or purpose, without output.
Maybe my saving grace is that I know this, that at least I can see the struggle.
I’m talking about what I’ve been talking about for years: my favoring of theory over practice, intellect and not body, the talk without the walk.
And where would I be in this personal battle without Deleuze, without the rhizome reminding me to stop thinking in binaries, to stop simplifying beyond use. I know there is more than theory vs. practice. I am bigger than that.
But still, some days I’m stunned to realized how many hours straight I’ve sat in this chair, while the world rages on
Stella, I know I’m blessed to be in a position where this is a complaint. I don’t take my situation for granted. But I do take it for serious.
And Jeanne would tell me that that’s the real problem. Too serious, now, all over again.
Today was a good day, a productive day. I know that I’m happiest when I work. Here’s to remembering that. Here’s to taking myself just serious enough to value my own happiness. Here’s to work.
Xoxo,
David.
P.S. “Our language aims first of all at practice that tears apart the world, beginning with tearing apart the veils that cloak it.” That’s Khayati, from the SI, clearly. I’m working to take it off, I’m beginning to see how it’s done. With time.
