Derida, Chomsky and Foucault at the Superbowl

 

We are in the Allegiant stadium in LasVegas for the Superbowl LVIII

Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers are on the field. It's after the national anthem sung by Reba McEntire, and Brock Purday, the Captain and quarterback, is about to call the toss.

The three philosophers are sitting in the Premium Lounge on the side of the Chiefs.

M. Foucault: Sorry guys, but this brings back great memories of when I did LSD in the desert. The Super Bowl in Las Vegas, what a trip!

N. Chompsky: Michel, we know you're a sucker for institutions. What difference is there between the power of a prison and the Super Bowl?

J. Derida: Both of you need a little "différence".  Put off that immediate Super Bowl blasting experience. Just because millions are watching, cheerleaders are high-kicking, and Tay-Tay is in the stands -back from her Japan concert- please gentlemen, keep your mental faculties.

N. Chompsky: Jacques, you're so anti-French I could kiss you. Everything is "post" with you: post-structuralist, postcultural, postscience. What the fuck, Jacques, "postfuckingfootball"? We are here now and the game is about to start!

M. Foucault: You may be right Noel, but take a look from an archeological perspective: the nobel Aztecs played  a pole climbing event that included greasing the pole to make it more difficult. The losing team was either sacrifices or imprisoned. Now that's excitement. *

N. Chompsky: Indeed, you are a fan of prison and the vector of power they represent

M. Foucault : -and the power of the word!

N. Chompsky: and the power of the word. But listen to Jacques: are we not imprisoned by cheerleaders, advertising, adversarial hype, and Tay Tay?

J. Derida: Hey guys, did you see? Purdy won the toss. San Francisco is kicking off.

M. Foucault: Jacques, where did u put the LSD?

*In the 60s Foucault published "Les Mots et les Choses", which explored how football banter through history, was the basis of truth in scientific discourse.

The Graduate

 It is that interminable desire to ascend

Always hoping it's around the bend

Graduating, "Please graduate" cries

The falcon as it descends

And yet

The story goes

Bernard didn't graduate and

Was the better man for it

Whether taken by sadness or buffoonery

This Bernard Hermitte didn't complain  about

Not monikering new names for its trove of new ideas 

This Graduate graduated from a natural shell by

Sheltering in the broken socket of a light bulb!

Despite itself it  has a earned a justifiable diploma of biodiversity

Through a sustainable climate adaptation scheme

And has been awarded

By a mindful institution of mindfulness

A Graduate Diploma

On the Big day Bernard didn't show

Up for the Ceremony, 

Academics awaited to applaud its  genius

That between us may be linked to its reproductive 

Genus

Ascending or descending meant little 

Or nothing and

Bernard didn't feel the alienation of a Hermit

Retrofitting  in a broken light bulb was fine and comfy

He joked to himself

What if uncanny Pierrot

Got the Diploma?

                                           

                                                    Salvador Dali "L'amour de Pierrot"

Electronic Highway Signs Written by Great Authors

William Shakespeare: "Hail to a straight driver, hail to thee."

James Joyce: Keep your SUV jigging ajog, hoppy on route on tires ye memory.   

Pierre Boulle (Bridge over River Kwai)  "Approaching draw bridge, don't drawl."

Noam Chompsky: "Think you're smart? Elevated highway over 3 miles."

Maxwell House: "Too much coffee on the expressway? Slow down!"

Junot Diaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)

"Foursome, quartet, four-way stop!"

"AC/DC: Highway hypnosis? Time for Medical Diagnosis."

Billy Colins "Potholes filled with potential."

ChatGPT

Rudyard Kipling: "Watch your ears, Elephant crossing!"

"Fyodor Dostoevsky: "Don't be contrite, it's your right of way."

John Milton's Lost Highway: "Assuage rode rage: it's time to come of age."

Socrates: "Thou should drive to live, not live to drive."

Stephane Gould  "Speed bump good for centipede!"

William Butler Yeats: "Calculating, detonating, tailgating"

JG Ballard  "Traffic congestion ahead: brake or be brain dead."

George Orwell: "Accident! Rubbernecking,  French pecking: more bottlenecking."

David Attenborough: Hear coughing or frothing? Wildlife crossing!

The Coded Wordgame Cracked

She had

A baguette 

With an extenuating dentelle

Elle, not HE or Lui

That rhymes with Hell

Luigi stood for 54 degrees Fahrenheit in

1887

An electronic ring in French 

Made for prisoners

The Donut Shop meant

Wind gusts up to 20 mph

Sprinkles blowing through the hole

"Leafage" expresses the dew point 

Pushed down by atmospheric

Pressure to knead and knead the dough

Rhymes with Bordeaux

A Station

A Bank

 In 1891 the Sinai 

Recorded "Carwash" 

Standing for Murky Water

(Though car washes didn't appear until 1914)

Hence:

Bagatelle- Luigi -Donut - Leafage- Carwash 

Means: "Put the prisoner in a 54 degree cell carrying an ankle bracelet and holding a donut with sprinkles blowing through it with 20mph gusts that was kneaded and kneaded with some or consequential delay and where a bank near the station of Bordeaux failed to wire money to the Sinai for irrigational purposes.

Doughnuts in the Wilderness by Erwin Darwin Jr.

 

Doughnuts in the Wilderness

July 17, 1912

Erwin Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandson is exploring the dark corners of Zimbabwe, in search of the Elusive doughnut. He is using his grandfather's binoculars and is wearing his grandmothers hand-knitted socks, which he loves despite the fact they are itchy around the toes. 

The raindrops approached with great speed and violence rendering

Leaves, branches sodden

A patch of moss made the sound of a sponge whilst a wild boar 

Stepped into it. 

A waft of all purpose flour permeated the air -or perhaps it was a pâte a choux?

The temperature with the opaque clouds shuttering the light

Struggled to climb above 6 degrees Celsius and Erwin's thick flannel pants and argyle 

Sweater with horned buttons failed to keep him warm.

Suddenly a White  rhinoceros ran through a small meadow.

Seemingly annoyed by a playful Mylothris  Agathina, it  swiped at it with its horn

Losing one of 3 doughnuts it was carrying in the process.  The Rhino turned towards Erwin Darwin

-Perhaps picking up the scent of a human-  and ran off.

Erwin was aghast: It was most likely a batch of glazed donuts but one could not rule out 

Jelly donuts as they have been sighted as far as the Serengeti.

For some long minutes Erwin lay frozen in his observation post contemplating.

He recollected Charles Darwin had written in "The Origin of Species" page 172,

"I can see no good reason to doubt that these so called "doughnuts", through thousands of generations, have evolved from their original square and glazed form, in my best judgement, not inure to jelly stuffing. I humbly question their standard of good taste, as their roundness may have a sexual, marked effect, rather than a good bite."          

 Galapagos , March 13, 1835

For many years Erwin thought that Charles was referring to a hybrid cross-species reproduction, but he could never understand what species this might be.

A strong shiver brought Erwin back to his senses, he got up and ran to the meadow to examine the doughnut and that evening, while sailing on the Bloodhound, he wrote:

"It was clearly a jelly doughnut, and I had never seen one with such a rounded hole in all my travels.

It had a few scratch marks from the Rhino's horn, and it possibly had belonged to a Baker's dozen.       A drop of jelly had trickled out from its thin skin. Its roundness was sublime. No crumbs.                            

45cm in diameter and 10 cm thick. It is possible I have found the missing link. Sitting next to this 

doughnut, breathing the fresh air, feeling at one in the wilderness, I have never felt such joy. "

Erwin Darwin, lake Tanganyika, July 17, 1912

45cm in diameter and 10 cm thick. It is possible I have found the missing link. Sitting next to this 

doughnut, breathing the fresh air, feeling at one in the wilderness, I have never felt such joy. "

Erwin Darwin, lake Tanganyika, July 17, 1912

As we know, Erwin Darwin's foundational study, "Doughnuts, Holes and Survival" was never finished. His Ship, the Bloodhound, sank in the middle of the night. Only one crew member survived who saved some of Erwin's notes. One page entitled, "Dunking" was blank. This unpublished manuscript was written 35 years before the first Dunkin Donuts opened in Quincy Massachusetts.

Carbirds and mirrors

Ford Falcon Carbird

Carbirds are known to warm up their engines in the morning. If a opossum or rodent is trying to get under the hood of a nearby Carbird in the parking lot, its loud horn will go off, chasing it away and also protecting others parked nearby. But when the opossum approaches the Carbird closely, it  will remain silent to avoid detection. 

Recently, a group of scientists wanted to investigate weather Carbirds recognise their own reflections. They placed a mirror and drew a round pink circle around the eye of the catbird. 

(Earlier experiments proved that Carbirds recognise their motor's noise: this was proven by sticking a potato into the exhaust pipe, which made them innocuous to any approaching danger.)

When a Carbird was placed in a room with another Carbird and an opossum approached, it sounded off its horn. But when it was in the room alone with a mirror, looking at its reflection, it stayed silent, presumably because it recognised itself even with a pink circle around its eye.

The research is critical as we hope to learn how humans may also warn other humans of oncoming danger. In a number of recent shootings, for example, humans seem attracted to guns rather than being repelled by them. In addition, it is likely that we don't recognise ourselves as being in danger, and more studies are needed to see whether, at the sight of our own reflections, we are able to discern a real danger and or a danger for our neighbours.

For those owning a Carbird, Beneton and Dolce Gabana recently joined forces to create an effective Critter Spray, especially for older Carbirds from 1955 to 80. 

 

The Forced Kiss. A dialogue between 3 WWI poets.

 

Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen are in a wooded park in Sussex, sitting at a picnic table.

RG: Ever since Luis Rubiales kissed Jenni Hermoso I can't sleep a wink!

SS: My dear Robert, what's happening to you? You're lugubrious.

RG: It wasn't a Kiss in the Garden of Eden, even though a slithery snake was most likely behind it. It was a Kiss out of WWI trenches, a Kiss that shook the clouds, that made lips turn to frost and then to fire, do you get what I mean?

WO: By, by right you are Robert! Had Rubiales first washed his feet before approaching the 23 World Cup Squad, I might have felt an iota of veneration towards his hopity hopity overzealous, oversexed expression  of joy. You know he closely hugged four players before getting to Hermoso?

SS: Who cares about veneration? You know, for me the Kiss is the steel barrel. More kisses, less rust. Rubiales is just keeping his lips from getting rusty.

RG: You blundering corny head of a mop stick! Go vacuum your pool of impurities and then get back to me. 

SS: Hermoso is being a sycophant you fool.  She wants it all. The Gold Medal, the fame, the star appeal.

WO: I need to un-cling my lips from this discussion. Is Rubiales an Adam or Satan? Is Hermoso Eve or a She-Devil? 

SS: She's Barbie gone devil, ha, ha!

RG: Your insensitivity is climbing out of the trenches faster than a parasite worm crawls up my intestines.

SS: You might as well chop off a lump of your intestines, Robert, you have seen the Kiss of Death, and Hermoso was part of it.

WO: Are you sure Siegfried? Did you not see how Rubiales cleverly picked up his legs after the kiss?

SS: What are you talking about? That was Hermoso who picked him up!

WO: That's what he intended the World to think. What really happened is that he lifted his legs...

RG: Making it look like Hermoso lifted him. The scum.

SS: I grant you it's an interesting hypothesis, yet hard to prove. I still think the Kiss was fair.

RG: "Alls fair in Love and War." I don't buy it. Next thing you'll say is the Ancient Mariner killed the Albatross out of love. Hermoso, like her name, is a beauty that Rubiales could not resist. He used his position to grab her with both hands and kiss her like a potato. 

WO: A potato? You mean like an eggplant?

RG: A potato. At that moment Satan roiled with envy.

SS: (A pretty girls walks by and Siegfried catcalls.) Yo, meow, meow, bitch, what's up?

RG: Siegfried, are you on fentanyl again?

WO: His lips have rusted from un-kissing.