Tag Archives: Culture

Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias

By reckon | Published: January 25, 2009

The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Thus it is that the theater brings onto the rectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places that are foreign to one another; thus it is that the cinema is a very odd rectangular room, at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of a three-dimensional space, but perhaps the oldest example of these heterotopias that take the form of contradictory sites is the garden.

Posted in Anthropology, Language, Philosophy, Politics, Science | Also tagged foucault, heterotopias, History, Technology, Word | 3 Comments

Synchronistic Linguistics in the Matrix

By reckon | Published: December 30, 2008

As I write this on the night of April 25th, 1999, a film called The Matrix is number one at the box office. Though by no means a perfect science fiction movie, it still manages to pack one hell of a wallop. I'd hardly put it on the same scale as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Brazil, or even Blade Runner, but at the same time I don't believe the flaws in the film represent a weakness on the part of the Wachowski Brothers' writing talents. I believe the film is designed to disseminate a subversive message through the filter of popular culture. As Marshall McLuhan said, "Anything that's popular is a rear-view image." The Matrix is not about the future, it's about the past.

Posted in Anthropology, Art, Featured, Film, Language, Philosophy, Poetry, Science, Technology | Also tagged Bob Dobbs, Burroughs, communications, linguistics, Marshall McLuhan, matrix, media, movies, Word | 7 Comments

Most novels make most poets cringe

By reckon | Published: September 22, 2008

It is ironic that Laird, also a novelist, has set up the strawman of television (and, oddly radio, that most literate of mediums) to pose as the enemy of poetry in our age, when, in fact, it is clear that is is the novel that has done the most damage to poetry’s reputation. It is [...]

Posted in Asides, Poetry | Also tagged media, television, tv, writing |

Cultural preservation, team sports, and the usual skinny

By reckon | Published: August 3, 2008

The anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed that in the 1930s, when she was busy remaking the idea of culture, the notion of cultural diversity was to be found only in the ‘vocabulary of a small and technical group of professional anthropologists’. Today, everyone and everything seems to have its own culture. From anorexia to zydeco, [...]

Posted in Anthropology, Asides, History, Language, Politics | Also tagged multiculturalism, perception |