Virtue Trap, being full of professorial-types, generates lots of words. Here are some of them....

 

PRACTICE

Guys,

Having played a double (really a triple) and now getting ready for a conference (as well as Arne being unavailable) I'd like to cancel this Tuesday's practice. With a month off we can
afford a bit of a break.

Rock on,
Dan

Steve Hamelman wrote:

k

 

From: "Scott Pleasant"

Subject: Re: No Practice?

So, Steve is down to one letter responses now? Having
so thoroughly deconstructed language and its
(non-existent?) relationship to thought and ideas, he
now feels that he can do almost completely without the
written word? His "k" signifier itself is full of
interpretive gaps, as in:

* Why the small letter "k" and not the capital? What
conventions and expectations is he foregrounding
and/or undercutting with the miniscule in this case?

* Is this in fact the "k" of OK, or is it another "k,"
as in perhaps "killer idea, dude"?

* And if it is the "k" of OK, what does OK mean
anyway? Historically, what are its origins. We all
accept that there can be no transhistorical meanings,
so does which version of the origin of OK does this
particular "k" as to be read in. Is it, for example,
the OK of the "Old Kinderhook" myth?

* Given no tone of voice and/or facial
expressions--since we are not present at the moment of
the realization of this particular "k," what are the
possibilites for irony, sarcasm, etc? Is this "OK," as
in the petulance or obstinance of a child being told
to eat his broccoli? Is it the ironic OK accompanied
by a wink and an OK hand gesture to indicate that some
members of the band will indeed practice but without
the knowledge of the others? Or is this the eager and
expectant OK of an undergraduate who has just been
asked if the class would like to postpone the next
quiz? Of the multivalent possibilities inherent in
"k," even if we asser that this must be the "k" of OK,
which meaning is carried by this signifier? Can we
know? Can were ever know if we are not present at the
moment this "k" bomb is detonated? Can we even know
then?

There are so many possilities. Each gap leads us to a
new gap. The potential for carrying meaning in this
"k" is both infinite and infinitely small. This "k"
leads inevitably to its own unreadability, as does all
language.

And so therefore I must conclude that we will not
practice today because even if we said we were, the
gaps in the text could mean (probably do mean) that we
are not. And even if we were, a word like "band" can
never be adequately defined and therefore the concept
of "band" cannot be said to exist, and therefore the
band doesn't exist, even though it has always existed
and must always exist. And therefore, when we aren't
practicing, we must be practicing because every idea
carries its negative. When we aren't practicing, we
must also be practicing, even though we don't exist
and aren't there and even though there is no "there"
to be at at any given time, whatever time may be.

--Plez

 

FROM: "Dan Ennis"

Subject: Re: No Practice?

You and your f**cking poststructural maladies. If you would simply embrace enlightenment ideology you'd see that "k" always already has a transhistorical meaning, and that meaning can be fixed, for all time, transcendent and whole.

"k" means yes.

--Dan

From: "Steve Hamelman"
Subject: and as iggy famously sang, I want to be your dog

as founder (I named it!!) of VIRTUE TRAP, I hereby give all members of said band of roving musicians permission to ignore dan ennis's recent corrective missive to scott pleasant, gentle scott pleasant. dan ennis, a bostonian, still believes that the enlightenment built a city there but actually the puritans did that (and it wasn't much of a city; I know, I had to live there while studying for a doctorate in one of its soi disant "hub towns") and the puritans, much like the deconstructionists, believed in only one thing .... TEXT. as derrida wrote, eel nee ya de or text (i.e. there's nothing outside the text, i.e., all there is is text), and so that's close enough for me. it's the puritans' problem if they happened to equivocate and equivalate and equobulate TEXT with GOD. we all know god is dog spelled backwards.

sh