Been noticing images like the one you see here a lot lately, in trains and stations. It’s a new campaign by a Tobacco company, JT. The ads do look nice, quite design friendly (see some more in this latest Click Opera entry). Robert was inspired to write a new essay.
Category: Advertisements • Design
i love those japan tobacco adss. not no smoking. but smoke politly.
at one time i went out of my way to collect stickers and posters of the different ads. my favorite is the one that references “cowboys in old movies”.
That Robert fellow badly needs an editor. Or just spell check.
Probably whipping them out too fast. I have the same problem, I don’t spend enough time re-reading what I post.
Ouch, Momus. To be fair, we should remember that Robert is working in one of his three (or four?) non-native languages.
Whoops. Nevermind. Got Robert mixed up with another frequent guest here (Patrick).
I am a fount of disinformation.
yes, that is right. i’m working in one of my three non-native languages.
Just to get things right… I’m French-Canadian and my 1.5 non-native languages are English and Japanese.
Robert’s an Athenian. But not an Aristotelian.
so, does the sign mean it’s a good thing to put buts in the drain, or a bad thing? :?
well, the sewer rats sure look surprised!
Hahahaha…
i’ve recently been accused of being both an Athenian, but not an Aristotelian. well, i’m neither.
i said it once before, i’ll say it once again…
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2004/03/damned-if-you-do.html
i was born in a town called sasser (pop. 3000). but that doesn’t make me a Saussurian either…
As in Sasser, Georgia?
yeah, know of it?
whoops, and i should have said that the pop. was 300, not 3000.
Nope. Just wondering.
Tokyo seems about as far as possible (in many senses) that one could get from a place like Sasser.
‘i’ve recently been accused of being both an Athenian, but not an Aristotelian. well, i’m neither.’
Momus syntax auto check running… chhrrr… rule is both/and, either/neither, being x/but not y… ‘being both x but not y’ illogical… chhrrr… unless the speaker is schizophrenic and both of him are Athenians, but neither Aristotelians… Rhetoric module now quitting due to fatal code exception in line 540327… please consult Pythagoras on the geometry of triangular relationships with self…
Here is the soundless Ron definition check: Schizophrenia is not, as it is commonly misunderstood to be, multiple personality disorder. That is a separate disorder under most mental illness classifications. The symptoms of schizophrenia are generally “grouped under the umbrella term psychosis and typically include delusions, hallucinations, and thought disorder. Negative symptoms may include inappropriate or lack of emotion, poverty of speech, and lack of motivation.”
“The term schizophrenia comes from the Greek words ????? (schizo, split or divide) and ?????? (phrenos, mind) and is best translated as ’shattered mind’.”
The divide is not between multiple personalities, but between the individual and reality:
“With the name ’schizophrenia’ Bleuler intended the name to capture the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception, however it is commonly misunderstood to mean that affected persons have a ’split personality’ (something akin to the character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Schizophrenia is commonly, although incorrectly, confused with multiple personality disorder (now called ‘dissociative identity disorder’). Although people diagnosed with schizophrenia may ‘hear voices’ and may experience the voices as distinct personalities, schizophrenia does not involve a person changing between distinct multiple personalities. The confusion perhaps arises in part due to the meaning of Blueler’s term ’schizophrenia’ (literaly ’split mind’). Interestingly, the first known misuse of this word schizophrenia to mean ’split personality’ (in the Jekyll and Hyde sense) was in an article by the poet T. S. Eliot in 1933″
So you’re in good company.
Chhrrr… also… ‘Well, I’m neither.’ What does it mean to be ‘neither Athenian nor not an Aristotelian’? You’re neither this nor not that? This grammar is neither here nor not there… quitting…
Forgot to include my reference:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Schizophrenia
hunh??? yeah, but fuck all that grammar and spelling stuff. like my mom used to say, if you don’t have anything de-constructive to say, don’t say anything at all…
oh, and for ron…yeah, tko and sasser are kind of light years from each other, but there are some commonalities…
Robert, if it’s my comments that are puzzling you, I was simply noting the misuse of schizophrenic in the previous entry: “unless the speaker is schizophrenic and both of him are Athenians, but neither Aristotelians”.
Now, we could have a whole week of dialogue arguing over the definition of “deconstruction,” now that you’ve gone and dropped that word on this page.
‘fuck all that grammar and spelling stuff’
But you’re trying to communicate, right? If your attitude is ‘fuck syntax’, it’s also ‘fuck the reader’. Let me quote a sentence plucked almost at random from your blog:
‘The crux of it all is that this is actually an expansive rather than a reductive behavior, since have added the Swiss army knife-life ‘not spending money to aquire cool’ option to the previous toolbelt of cool that previously exclusively ‘spending money to aquire cool’ tools.’
Now, you seem to have managed to omit both the subject AND the verb from this sentence. You’ve also made a clumsy adjectival compound of ten words, and clumsily repeated the word ‘previous’. Far from sidelining grammar, you’re foregrounding it. You’re forcing everyone to struggle through your tangled prose rather than consider your argument. The best way to ignore grammar is to get it right and make it clear.
(And I clumsily repeated the word ‘clumsy’ in that comment. Deliberate mistake, ahem! Just keeping you on your toes…)
thanks for taking an interest! have been officially kept on my toes. (only question is, why did you wait so long?)
1. needs an editor. spell check.
2. whipping them out too fast.
3. mental?
4. working in one of his three (or four?) non-native languages.
5. grammar, to fuck or not to fuck.
6. keep on toes.
7. good morning, nick!
I care about this stuff because:
1. I love language and I prize clarity.
2. I may be the only person who reads your blog and tries to make sense of what you’re saying.
3. I’ve recommended you to a real magazine as a real writer, so I have some personal investment.
well isn’t it a great sign of academic prowess when your prose style becomes absolutely incomprehensible? i mean i’m sure pierre bourdieu doesn’t use verbs or subjects ALL the time, do he?
clarity is for the middle-brow!
wait a sec buddy! are you calling me a real writer? them:s fightin: words!
but the fact that you do read my blog (i:m sure you aren:t the ONLY one) and tries to make sense of what you’re saying gladdens me. same goes for me and your blog too. see, all we DO need is love, nick!
Pierre Bourdieu is a MASTER of clarity and never left out any verbs or subjects. Jacques Lacan, on the other hand…
By the way, Marxy, I also recommended you to an ‘edgy style mag’ as a potential music reviews editor.
these comments remind me of the question: how do you make a piece of music (no lyrics) about boredom, do you just make a boring piece of music?
either way, i think i like his writing better unedited and raw, i’m afraid it would be completely impermeable and oblique if it were parsed down to clear subjects and objects.
Are you saying that if it made sense it wouldn’t make sense?
in rob’s case, yes.
i actually enjoy trying to work my way through his stuff. if i hadn’t had so many conversations with him over the years about the topics he writes about, i might feel differntly about his writing though.
maybe rob should have a disclaimer on his page: if you want to understand my essays, you must come have coffee with me beforehand. it’s kind of like the way 3D movies just don’t make sense without the special eyeglasses.
What I’m trying to say is, I think Robert’s writing, and probably his music too, function more as a form of incitement or provocation rather than explication or exposition. So, in that sense, if they were clear and rational, then they wouldn’t make sense to me because it would no longer be music or writing by Robert.
This is all getting very “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?”
Momus, thank you for your recommendation to the “edgy style mag.” I can’t be sure that you have figured out that I am the same guy you met years ago while I worked in a certain downtown clinton st. magazine’s storefront.
Reading Bourdieu, I get this sense that it’s culturally accepted to write like that in French - it is the nation of rococo.
I had no idea you were that guy, Marxy! Well, well. You probably already know the people I recommended you to, then.
comments like this…
‘I think Robert’s writing, and probably his music too, function more as a form of incitement or provocation rather than explication or exposition. So, in that sense, if they were clear and rational, then they wouldn’t make sense to me because it would no longer be music or writing by Robert.’
lead me to make comments like this…
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2004/08/something-old-something-new.html
there is a lot of “oh, you’re THAT guy” this week on jean’s blog. i need to stop changing my pen-name in order to obfuscate my identity.
momus, when will you be back in Tokyo-to?
Not until my Tokyo show, September 11th.
Just a heads-up to the fact that this discussion is being continued here.