Academia

In contrast to Althusser’s equation of an overarching Symbolic Order with the interests of a specific class or social group or Foucault’s focus on the discursive constitution of the subject by a historically specific discursive formation, both of which eliminate any kind of critical distance between the subject and this overarching order, my view restricts the role of the hegemonic in shaping consciousness and the perception of reality.

The possibility of plenitude (i.e., an unreflective experience of a culturally constructed truth as simply “real”) that the Western notion of the traditional or primitive subject projects onto this traditional other and that is associated with an unreflexive consciousness is what Lacan recognized as the subject’s impossible desire.  I take from Lacan the idea of a subject that may be split by its entry into language, but language of a particular sort – the signifiers of an ideology that are fixed through the process of domination. This subject may be activated by a desire for recognition that passes through a Symbolic Order, constituted out of a linguistic structure of difference.

FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING PRETENTIOUS FUCKING ACADEMIC ASSHOLE. NONE OF WHAT YOU SAY MAKES SENSE. GO FUCK YOURSELF, I HATE YOU! HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT. YOU’RE MAKING THE WORLD A WORSE PLACE! DIE! DIE IN A FUCKING FIRE!!!!!!!!!!

Australier

I got back to Australia a couple of weeks ago, and you know what? Australia is fucking awesome. It is so pleasant here, the streets are clean and quiet, there are nice trees everywhere, there aren’t huge piles of garbage or dogs or naked homeless people or bottomless holes on the side of the road, and I can walk into a supermarket and be greeted with a wider variety of food than the richest king would have had access to a hundred years ago. It’s terribly nice here, it’s so nice, man it’s nice, I like it. There are developed and developing countries, and developing countries are trying to become more like developed countries like Australia, and I can see why, it is very very very pleasant here, like, this is the goal for developing countries, we live in the goal! Sometimes people think I travel a bit because I don’t like Australia or something, but travel makes me like Australia more and more. After I got back from China, I felt very privileged to be in a democracy with free speech and free press, in a way I couldn’t have felt if I hadn’t spent so much time there. And after India, I appreciate the cleanliness, ability to drink tap water, lack of disease, rah rah rah poverty.

If you’re going go overseas just once in your life, in my completely worthless opinion, I think it is way more important to spend time in a developing country among poorness and disease and such than to go to Europe or the USA. If you’ll go overseas twice in your life then sure, hit up Rome, but nothing will contribute to your contentment and appreciation in your own country quite like witnessing excruciating poverty. It’ll make you love your country a lot more than going to France and coming back and bitching about Australia’s alleged dearth of culture and lack of free tertiary education. Like, shit we have it easy in Australia. We bitch about the stupidest things. Some of us do, I mean. One of the reasons I thought it was good to live in the third world as well is that although it often is not fun, with the sickness and dirtiness and the bad water and the cockroaches in all my stuff and the showering from a bucket of cold water full of your roommates’ pubes, the thing is that most people in the world live like that, or in even worse conditions, without the luxury of being able to fly out on a jetplane and enjoy citizenship and employment in a nice country. So even though it often sucks, I feel like I’m getting more in touch with humanity, you know, how the majority of my species lives, I feel like I learn a little more about what it is to be a human.

Anyway, I love Australia. What a great country. Very lucky! That’s all. I leave tomorrow for France, I guess I’ll write about that later. Also, I love all my friends in Australia, they’re very funny and nice.

In transit…

Endless Gringo Paradise

Seeing as nothing much has happened lately (I went to Borivali to get my mobile fixed, but when I got home my charger wouldn’t work so I had to go back to buy a new charger as well! If I’d known the phone and the charger were broken I would have just taken care of them both on the first trip! Hahahahaha!) I thought I would put up this “article” I wrote for a friend’s magazine. I say ” “article” ” because it’s not remotely formal and is basically just a longer blog, but the fact that it was technically work for my friend made me write it nervously and haltingly so it’s kind of bad, this is its unedited form so it’s a little rough, there are a couple of notes in there for the editor but, yeah, this is when I went to Mexico last December. You can see some photos… oh. Facebook doesn’t let me link to albums that aren’t mine. Well, forget it, what you can’t read without pretty pictures? No? You can’t? OK I’ll try to upload some…

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ENDLESS GRINGO PARADISE

It took three days for it to happen, but when I finally heard a live mariachi band playing the Mexican Hat Dance in a dusty café somewhere between Puebla and Oaxaca, I breathed a great sigh of relief and knew I was in Mexico. Because if travelling isn’t about trying to justify pre-conceived stereotypes you held of the country, then I don’t know what I do it for. I may be getting ahead of myself: Hi, I’m the author. During the most recent Mexican “winter” I traipsed to Central America for a tour that would take me to the most interesting areas of Central and Southern Mexico (I would have gone to Northern Mexico, but everyone had crossed the border to be maids in LA! Wakka wakka! Haha, good one, Jay). As anyone will say about any country in the first paragraph, the country is diverse. During my stay I toddled from mammoth Mexico City to the towering Teotihuacan pyramids, from peaceful Puebla the also-describable-with-alliterated-adjectives Playa del Carmen (uglily translatable into English as “Carmen’s Beach”). Come with me now!

I first landed in Mexico City (my bags arrived two days later – thanks, Mexicana airlines), home to almost twenty million people and considered the biggest city by population in the Western hemisphere. Having lived in Shanghai, another unfathomably large city, I expected more of the same: towering skyscraper jungles, the street vendors, dilapidated everything and a smattering of extreme poverty. What I found reinforced the fact that you should never expect anything when travelling; the city throbbed with tradition (read: Catholicism), uniquely New World culture and, though I’m far from knowledgeable on the subject, beautiful architecture – I could have strolled forevernevernever. I recommend the lovely Palace of Fine Arts if you’re a Frida Kahlo fan. Or like, a fine arts fan.

My hotel was located in Zócalo (on Cinco de Mayo Avenue no less), a hundred metres from the main square (Plaza de la Constitución) of the historical centre of Mexico City, looked over by the towering Metropolitan Cathedral, the oldest and largest cathedral in the Americas. Around ninety percent of Mexicans are Catholic, and as my tour guide, Sergio, proudly informed me; Mexico used to be 99.9% Catholic.. until freedom of religion was introduced, he added with a shrug.

I met with an old friend for lunch, and as I ate cheese covered cheese enchiladas (with cheese) in Sanborn’s, a traditional Mexican restaurant off of the plaza, Raul described Mexico’s vibrant political climate. “Never go to the police for anything,. Every single policeman is corrupt. If your family member gets kidnapped, the police are involved, so you must go to your embassy.” This attitude isn’t unique in Mexico, and the more I asked around the more it appeared to be common knowledge that Mexico’s infamous kidnappings, like that of a 14-year-old last August by uniformed members of Mexico’s own Federal Agency of Investigations (the ransom was paid but the boy was killed, which is common), usually involve corruption in the police or the FAI. Mexico’s kidnapping rate is at its highest ever and apparently Mexicans are three times more likely to kill their hostages than their neighbouring Colombia, whose hilarious tourism commercials that play in Mexico focus on the fact that everybody thinks Colombia is a cocaine-fuelled abduction jamboree. (Tourism campaign slogan: “Colombia – the only risk is wanting to stay.” As a decapitated corpse?) Raul informed me the increasingly powerful Mexican mafia, the unemployment/underemployment levels and slow economy is due in part to The Recession (capitalised for dramatic effect), from which Mexico is far from immune, particularly due to its strong business relationship with the United States. Sad face :’( But I wouldn’t want to steer anybody away from Mexico. We’ll say the kidnappings give the place “colour.” Plus, what a story you’d be able to tell!

Raul took me to the alleged best restaurant in town (called “Jaso,” 88 Newton, Col. Chapultepec Morales, Polanco. I recommend the lychee martinis.), we got filmed in a reality TV show among the glitterati there and ate elaborate meals stacked in stacks, and we parted ways. The next morning, lychee liquor oozing from my pores, I visited Teotihuacan, alternately translated as “birthplace of the gods” or “place of those who have the road of the gods,” a terrific ancient city of pyramids and temples outside Mexico City brought to life by the Nintendo 64 game Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

Teotihuacan

The ethnicity of the ancient city is subject to some debate: the inhabitants might have been Mayan, Otomi, Mixtec, Nahua or they could have all lived there together under a rainbow of precolonial peace. From Aztec to Zapotec, Mexico has been home to many many sexy civilizations and they’ve all left their mark on the country’s face – I saw so many pyramids during my trip (none of which approach the size of the Egyptian ones, if you were wondering) that I was seeing triangles. Or, something funnier. Christmas trees?

I went to Puebla, a state of Mexico known for containing the principal city of colonial Mexico (also called Puebla) and for its elegant 17^th and 18^th century architecture and ceramics. My ability to judge good architecture and/or ceramics begins and ends with a thumbs-up and a slow nod (see photo above), but the place was beautiful, fountains and archways and all that noise. *does a thumbs up, nods slowly* While there, we visited the site of a great battle between the Spaniards and the Aztecs, and directly opposite the battlefield we could see who had won: on top of the ancient Great Pyramid of Cholula, on the site of a destroyed Aztec temple, a bright orange church (The Church of Our Lady of the Remedies) sat there, gloating. We’re familiar with the story, right: foreign power invades, lays waste to everything resembling native culture and religion and converts or kills the savages (Futurama’s Professor Farnsworth’s battle cry of “Get them! Get them some love!” seems appropriate). Interestingly, several times during the tour I was shown churches built on top of ruined pyramids by the invading Spaniards, and it’s hard to think of a better literal representation of the history of Mexico than a destroyed pyramid with a church built on top. In Puebla at least, Quetzalcoatl got his revenge: the Church of Our Lady of the Remedies has been destroyed three times so far by earthquakes. Today, Mexico and Catholicism could be considered synonymous, but the country’s loveably subversive streak surfaced after leaving the church when I noticed the cover of the Mexican Playboy at a magazine stall, featuring no less than a nude woman resembling the Virgin Mary standing in a church with the Spanish headline, “We love you, Mary!” – a land of contradictions, indeed. Of course, I had to purchase it. For the articles. (Footnote: For the record, Playboy’s American headquarters apologised for the cover, Mexican Playboy didn’t.)

After a six hour bus ride, during which I was lucky enough to watch a Spanish version of Hilary Duff’s Material Girls, I arrived in Oaxaca (pronounced: “wa-HA-ka”), another lovely colonial town famous for its markets, architecture and cuisine. While I unfortunately didn’t see any Mexicans snoozing in ponchos and sombreros, I can say that the food in Mexico is as stereotypical as you can imagine – every menu I saw was packed with a variety of enchiladas, burritos, nachos, tacos and fajitas (pronouncing this word phonetically brought me endless delight and childish titters). Actual Mexican food, particularly those bought at busy market stalls and street vendors, contains flavours and an authenticity impossible to find in Australia, particularly given the lack of Hispanics our melting pot so sorely needs. Mexico is, of course, a spicy food lover’s heaven; the country has almost two hundred types of chillis, each with their own heat level and function, and any dish I ate wasn’t really considered complete without a splash of the ubiquitous neon-green habanero sauce. If you’re seeking something different to burritos and tacos, fret not: for a protein boost, chapulines – grasshoppers toasted in garlic, lemon juice and sal de gusano (chilli salt containing caterpillars) - are available in many areas, though Oaxaca is best known for it. As a vegetarian who would happily fumigate a bug infestation, I wasn’t quite sure where I was supposed to stand on insect-eating, but I thought it would be worth a story if I ate one. Not surprisingly, it was crunchy and spicy, though oddly creamy. Better than the fried spiders in Cambodia.

After spending the night out in a fantastically grimy and lively bar (Café Centrale, Hidalgo 302) where they oddly played Russian folk songs and made perfect mojitos, I left Oaxaca. On the way out, we visited nearby Monte Alban, an ancient Zapotec city. Though smaller than Teotihuacan and sans pyramids, it was green and very well kept, and quite beautiful despite its ruined state. The way the city was laid out made it a treat to stroll around, a good portion of it was open courtyard, and the views from the top of the buildings enabled me to see a good amount of the surrounding Oaxacan valley.

The next stop was San Cristóbal, my personal favourite of the trip, and I’ll tell you why: San Juan Chamula. San Juan Chamula is a town near San Cristóbal which I don’t even know how to begin describing. During the long-term blitzkrieg of Catholicism in Mexico there were, here and there, some areas where instead of binning their millennia-old local religions, and against the orders of the Vatican, the locals assimilated Christianity into their traditional belief systems to create Mayan-Catholic hybrids. San Juan Chamula is an amazing example, the few churches, while somewhat ordinary from the exterior, are internally closer to temples, the floor covered in a thick layer of pine boughs and locals murmuring prayers on their knees while purefying the area around their candles with soft drink. It was fascinating. Apparently they used to use checha, a traditional sugary drink, in their religious ceremonies, but in the later half of the 20th century a religious authority who franchised Coca Cola managed to replace the standard religious liquid with soda. Today Coke, Pepsi, 7up and others (apparently brand fidelity is not particularly important to Jesus) is used everywhere, and Coke brand plastic chairs are used to sit on in the temple. I’d heard of manipulation for capital gain before, but this was something else.

Also the priests used magic mushrooms, peyote, datura and other drugs I hadn’t heard of, and alcohol (pox, made from sugar cane and corn) is readily consumed by men, women and children in the church to liberate the spirit and allow them to speak (slur) frankly to God. Personally, I’d be worried about ending the service making out with a statue of Guadalupe, but I’m a slutty drunk.

San Cristóbal was great. Also, I saw Mayan boob at the markets. Bodacious, brah! <crushes beer can on forehead>.

We proceeded to see ruins, ruins and more ruins in Palenque, Uxmal and Chichen Itza, and while they were all awesome, I’m clearly no wordsmith and there’s only so much I know about architecture and history and so many different ways to say “I saw some ruins, they were sweet.”

Palenque, I think.

 

So let’s skip to the final destination: Playa Del Carmen. About an hour’s bus ride from Cancún (SPRING BREAAAAAAK), I spent the last week of the trip chilling out in Playa del Carmen, and if you want to see a whole lot of sexagenarians with skin like sad leather and nine-year-olds wearing dreadful “Yes, ladies, I *AM* Your Type” t-shirts, I’d recommend hitting the beach. That said, for the middle of winter, the beaches were terrific, the sun was hot, the sand was granular and the water wet. What more could you want from a definition of a beach? While trolling the beaches and trying vainly to flex my abs under the weeks of travel-fat I met Tony, a rotund, hook nosed 32-year-old businessman, who after sharing a cigarette with me decided to take me out on the town. In <insert nicer word for tacky> tourist towns like Playa del Carmen and Cancún, the nightlife is usually <insert meaner word for tacky>, and after spending a night barhopping with Tony, I can say the worst of them would be the bar chain “Senor Frog’s”, decorated with dozens of those hilarious signs with slogans like “One tequila two tequila three tequila floor!” LOL! “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m drunk – alcoholics go to meetings!” LOL!!1 “Alcoholics – someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do!” LOLOLOL!!!1!!11one one one..

Over a two foot tall daiquiri, Tony discussed his work, and salsa music. He sold shawls, he explained, in Oaxaca and Tabasco (yea, the origin of the chilli ambrosia), and even though he doesn’t target tourists, his business was still hurting from the recession. “The money in Mexico is just less,” he lamented, and like many he was unsure of the future of his business. “I also like salsa music,” he added. I cheered him up by getting him plastered and attempting to sing “La Bamba.” Having lived in France and watched an inordinate amount of porn featuring Mexican housemaids, I was at that point able to bluff my way through most conversations in Spanish, but that song is just impossible. Afterward, while trying to haggle over taxi fare, which I assumed you can do in all non-white (read: heathen) countries, I got thrown out and had to walk half the way home. Note to reader – prices are not always negotiable. After a few more days of hedonism, I chugged half a bottle of my morning tequila, boarded a plane for Los Angeles, and bid Mexico “adios.” (That’s what they say there, right?)

And so the trip came to a close. Mexico is one coolass place: the sugar white sand, the cuervo soaked nightclubs, the political dissent; it’s a vivacious and exciting country. It’s just underdeveloped enough to make you feel better than your friends who went to Europe, and just developed enough that you can still enjoy your morning venti cinnamon dolce frappuccino at Starbucks. What’s not to like? ¡Salud!

Are we in India yet?

"Are we in India yet?" "No." "Are we in India yet?" "No." "Are we in India yet?" "No. Wait... now we are."