swahili hip-hop and sheep

Yes, I've officially lost track of what numbered day it is.

This afternoon, during our (increasingly longer) break, I passed Paul Miller, Sylvere and Victor chatting. I overhear Paul discussing his new theories of hybridities, including Swahili hip hop. Opposite this conversation, a shepherd clambered up and through his field to rescue a baby lamb, bleating desperately, caught in a fence. As the shepherd climbed, the whole flock followed. I’m struck by the reflection, literal and metaphorical.

We are like these sheep, dutifully tracking our leaders through this craggy intellectual territory; and yet we are entirely different, detached from the material, the concrete, wandering through our minds, our language, our constructions. Doing in-depth intellectual work in the midst of this bucolic setting delights me — inevitably, at the moments of the deepest theoretical quagmires, the sheep bleat. Loudly. Or go charging down the hill (I can see them through the open classroom door). Particularly in relief against Baudrillard’s world of simulations/simulacrums, complete with discussion of the Lascaux caves, this intrusion, this insistence of “nature” itself offers challenges and complications to theory.

Later, we discuss the bubble child. I laugh (on the inside) while I blow my nose yet again. I may love nature, but I sure as hell am allergic to most of it. That bubble doesn’t seem like so bad of an idea some days...









Paul Miller presented at night, showing some of his work in relation to the culture of tagging (graffiti), of borrowing, mixing, remixing, and creating. He gave us all different CDs and encouraged us to play.

Oh, almost forgot… Class with Sylvere ended with one of the best anecdotes every. I’ll give you the joke version:

Jean Baudrillard, his wife, their common girlfriend, and Sylvere Lotringer walk into a strip joint on 42nd St…

Man do I love academics...