I’ll be working an office job I think, as a temp. Hopefully, if things work out. My other option so far is a gig as a janitor at a sports stadium, second shift. I’m not keen on that one at ALL, nor am I keen on job hunting as my last experiences at that were so bad for some time. I’m also going to cook a lot and start going to the gym again. I may get a new tattoo if the funds work out. And I plan to work on more language stuff.
More importantly, though, what am I going to READ?!
I hereby commit to reading Being and Time, both volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and Of Grammatology. All of that is stuff that frankly irritates me. After reading it, I’ll be able to say why.
I’m open to suggestions of works to swap in place of these, but only if they’re similarly irritating and similarly widely(ish) read.
Beyond that, E.P. Thompson. CLR James. Dave Roediger. Any other suggestions?
Despite the (obviously myriad) reasons why you shouldn’t, I’d opt for the janitorial gig over the office - janitors get to READ a lot more!
Oh, yeah, and you should definitely read Bourdieu’s “Distinction” if you want to make a true summer of irritation.
Comment by John — May 9, 2007 @ 8:28 pm
hi John,
If it was that kind of janitor gig I’d jump at the chance. This is different. It’s more like post-sporting event clean up crew - big crews of folk, a ton to get done, supervisors hassling you to work faster etc. A friend of mine works there, it doesn’t sound like a read-on-the-clock job. There’s a drycleaning place near my house, a kid in there is always playing guitar when no one’s in the place, that’s the kind of job for me. Parking lot attendant, that might be okay too. Bourdieu, eh? I think I might need lists (what tasks are not enhanced by lists? let’s list them…!) of irritating and non-irritating books, so I can rotate them.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — May 9, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
With the advent of the internet a lot of office workers get to read a lot more than they used to, if they are that way inclined.
Comment by Mike Beggs — May 9, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Yeah, I did that the last time I had an office job. I also did a lot of translation, sometimes 2 or 4 hours a day.
Comment by Nate — May 10, 2007 @ 3:35 am
hey, wow, my last post vanished! internet shock, content disappears
i’d recomend Massumi’s ‘A users guide to capitalism and schizophrenia’ - its a really interesting take on D&G. it explores three of their key concepts: um, monstrasity, habit, and something else i can’t think of off the top of my head. That said i think D&G are really good - some of my favorite ‘post-marxist’ writings by communists (well, G was a commie anyway). I guess that comes from my take on value, and how they seem to try to get ‘behind’ it to explore the broader social ‘powers’ they are ignored by a labour theory of value.. but that could just be me….
Comment by nic — May 11, 2007 @ 9:45 am
Nate–
Don’t bother with Of Grammatology. It’s a pain in the hole and the edition I read, with the Spivak foreword, was riddled with typos. Honestly: I have never read a book so poorly edited, if it was edited at all.
CLR James’s Beyond a Boundary is top stuff and may even encourage you to have a look at cricket. I managed to get hold of a bunch of his Johnson-Forrest Tendency booklets last year, which are also worth checking out.
Enjoy your summer.
Comment by John — May 11, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
btw, I thought Distinction was a fascinating and genuinely insightful work. It is very dated now, but it still offers lots of food for thought and beats much of what passes for cultural analysis today, imho.
Comment by John — May 11, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
Thanks John, I’ll check that out. Nic, I accidentally deleted your comment. I got a short burst of spam. Your comment was preserved in my email box, though. It said:
“heya nate,
yeh, office life sucks, especially low level stuff… you could try paralegal stuff or reprographics? both mean you get to walk around at least and can just listen to podcasts from against the grain while you work…
re: D&G - actually i found them really usefull. IMHO definitely some of the best anti-cap writing around still. I’d alost be tempted to start with massumi’s ‘users guide to capitalism and schizophrenia’ though. its a great book, puts some of the themes in a good perspective… derrida.. while i like some of his stuff i really dont have a lot of time for him. if you’re looking for ‘language’ stuff, id go wittgenstien’s later works…
un beso
nic”
It’s funny you mention Wittgenstein. I’m about 1/2way thru “On Certainty” which is really fun. It’s a nice change of pace from most of what else I end up reading.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — May 11, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
man i’ve tried to read being and time like 4 summers in a row. soooo hard. fucking heidegger. he has some shorter later essays that are somewhat easier. it doesn’t help that being in time was an unfinished work he wrote to get a phd to get tenure
Comment by todd — May 12, 2007 @ 4:01 am
Wittgenstein is mostly dreck. And the little madman realized it himself. Like the PI. WL’s all over the place–he seems behaviorist one section; idealist the next; then linguist. etc. The TLP, while not without a few important concepts and axioms, nauseates: most of the Vienna Circle thought so. Read some of Witt’s Poker for some insight into his psychosis. However stuffy and pompous a Popper or Russell were, they come off as the victors in that little spat (Witt. came at Popper with a fire-iron–and it wasn’t the first time he had threatened a professor, apparently).
Heidegger on the other hand: Spitze! Who cares about it being hyper-conceptual and obscure, or being true or not: Vati par-tayed with nazis, so he can’t be all bad.
Comment by Perezoso — May 14, 2007 @ 6:06 pm
I haven’t read enough Wittgenstein to say either way. I like some of his remarks about world-views and foundational axioms as distinct from the things they help us assess. At the very least the edition of On Certainty I have has the German and the English on facing pages and the text is made up of short enough phrases that it’ll help my German. I’m predisposed to dislike Heidegger on two counts, I find his terminology opaque and I really loathe nazis, but he’s widely read enough that I’d like to read him in order to be able to assess those conversations better. I know Rorty takes Heidegger seriously and while I think Rorty’s got his problems I think he’s a pretty good reader of philosophy.
What’s the TLP? And any suggestion for my reading list?
Comment by Nate — May 14, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
TLP: Tractatus-Philosophical-Logicus. OR the Tractatus. Written when LW was still associated with the analytical school. LW follows Frege fairly closely (even in regards to the platonic status of logical form), though his symbolism is different (and a bit more challenging). Hoever he does seem to suggest a nominalist view of language which I think is interesting, and mostly correct. But compared to someone like Carnap LW was a bit of a dilletante. Carnap doesn’t phuck around: however reductionist his writing seems, his arguments are carefully presented; and I believew his grounding in physics prevents him from falling into abstractions and BS theorizing.
I am mostly jesting in regards to Heidegger. The jargon is bad enough; worse are the greeks filtered through a Kierkegaardian gloom. However there are hints of that sort of Hegelian “process philosophy” which on occasion seems moderately interesting, though of course mostly unverifiable.
Comment by Perezoso — May 14, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
Me spectacles are not on. Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus, then. It’s good for a laugh.
Comment by Perezoso — May 14, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll add that one to the list then.
I have to say, I’m jealous that without your specs you can still type. Last time I got new glasses I couldn’t even see the first great big “E.” The nurse was like “what’s that?” and I was like “well, I know it’s an E but I can’t actually see it.” She then did some test where she stood out of my vision holding up some number of fingers and slowly walked toward me until I could make some kind of guess as to the quantity. Maybe I have occasional anti-realist leanings because I’m so near-sighted — the idea of an ontologically blurry world speaks to my experience.
Comment by Nate — May 14, 2007 @ 7:19 pm