Castrated Punctles, Too?

As my last post showed, the aching ignorance of bloggers never ceases to amaze me—to wit, a blogger linked to this very blog. Rosamary, aka Webspidie, in a ridiculous blog about Modern Punctal Theory, completely abandons synesthesia in her treatment of these very important typographic marks. Her first post criticizes punctal pedagogy: her alternative—treat them as characters to be made fun of. To be made fun of? Something seems off. These are the most sensuous of the typographic possibilities afforded us. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say these marks are more synesthetic than typographic ones.

Punctuation is, as this blogger noted, punctuated pause. But it is far more. These subtle and elusive marks are visual glyphs! Indeed, they operate primarily thus: they palpate us visually first; and then, synesthetically. An early case of this blogger’s unforgivable offense could perhaps shed some light on this.

This wily blogger tried and failed to understand the space in a particularly synesthetic Cummings poem, titled, aptly, “The Grasshopper.” Take a look at it: a punctal image of a confused unarranged grasshopper becomes a rearranged grasshopper, quite literally. As Rosamary notices, the space is central—she (falsely and ridiculously gendered by this certain blogger, not the poem or by punctal theory itself) rearrangingly becomes grasshopper herself. But the point of this “becoming” is missed altogether: it is a synesthetic-becoming.

At first, the poem proffers an unspeakable grasshopper—it exists as a visual glyph, as unarranged punctuation threatens to obscure meaning. But as space itself becomes a grasshopper simultaneously with Cummings’ punctles, however, we see and hear meaning emerge: the punctles rearrange so as to be spoken. This is a thoroughly synesthetic movement: seeing to speaking, which is to say, visual to hearing. And, through it all, the confused and slighted space can not help but palpate us, can not help but thoroughly drench us in its pathetic plight, an overly-sentimental drama of punctuated pause.

Modern Punctal Theory thus operates: punctuation is not simply punctuated pause—it is at once synesthetic movement and punctuated stillness. Hence, punctuation seems almost too apt for a Derridean (the differential structures behind the effacement of this dichotomy are only too obvious)—and alas, this nihilistic blogger has, um, missed the point entirely? 

How Blogs Castrate Us

Today I would like to talk to you about blogging. It would seem that some bloggers have, um, missed the point entirely.

Blogging is far more than a way to publish writings you couldn’t otherwise have published, more than a shameless capitalistic advertisement to further a career, even more than a way to publish writings anonymously a la Kierkegaard, more even than a public diary. Which is to say, the blogosphere does encompass all these things. But these are merely symptoms of a virulent technological mutation (extension qua Marshall McLuhan) gone awry. Indeed, the blogosphere really is an elaborate holocaust of sensibility, a total abandonment of synesthetic possibility. 

At first, it would seem to parallel reality, and more interestingly, to ground Foucault: the internet is the panopticon par excellence. Think about it: just as our identity in society is molded by the gaze of others, the constant fear of humiliation, so it is with blogs. The total effacement of the expert, of editors, brings with it a bevy of relentless and merciless bloggers waiting to criticize every word you write. And in effect—to shape your identity, to inaugurate your soul. And stranger, blogs, unlike prisons, even unlike society itself, are voluntarily chosen. Do you understand what I just said? People are actually seeking humiliation!

And what, then, becomes of synesthesia? Our attentions, obviously, are directed elsewhere—as if in a prison, quite literally, our behavior transforms before our very eyes, unconsciously. We are castrated so thoroughly, so thoroughly sucked of vitality—we become bile-drenched zombies, utterly abandoning the notion of anything interesting, indeed stripped bare of that synesthesia we so desperately need as we try to war off shame and humiliation. This is no different from the Renaissance: the total effacement of synesthesia, as rampant societal discourse shames us, humiliates us, makes cuckolds of us all.

Do they (that is, us bloggers) really think we can bask in our synesthesia as cuckolds? Can that really be a question at all? It all seems so obvious now: blogs are the root of everything evil in this world, of the recent surge in terrorism, the depression, etc. How can politicians have missed this blindingly obvious fact—blogs are hell bent on castrating us left and right, and we are desiring it, even going so far as to give up our synesthesia voluntarily. For what?

Take this as a call to action: abandon the blogosphere. And question. Question identity, and question society. Always.

Demand your synesthesia. 

The Music Event: On Mozart

Let us assume that synesthesia is any involuntary crossing of the senses.

In some sense, then, all music goes beyond the mere ear, all music a kind of synesthetic caress. Think about it: as you listen you are always already seeing, feeling, smelling—you perceive a network of sense, each sense perception an affective force continually working over your body, your mind, your emotions, all inaugurating intricate networks in and of themselves! But sensory affect does not move according to a single chain of action; rather, the meetings of these various networks fold sense into complex configurations, configurations that bleed into other senses.

Listen to Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony. This indeed proffers sense-networks meeting emotion-mind-networks with an affective force to be reckoned with, a magnum opus of sense.

The work itself operates as an intricate musical network: at first, a traditional classical symphony, its thematic development, as musicologist Lajos Zeke showed us in his classes on the symphony, becomes a five-part counterpoint. A classical-baroque architecture interacting in impossible modes of movement, collisions and speeds, pure intensities, fluxes and flows—as Kierkegaard would say, this is the musical erotic, the ultimate sensual experience.

Indeed, this symphony choreographs our bodies (and perceptions) in new and unfamiliar ways each and every listening. Seeing and feeling, for instance, while listening to Mozart, is not the same as seeing while listening to, say, The Beatles. What changes? Affect, that is to say, music doesn’t just go in your ears—it works over your emotional state. And as your emotions drift, perception drifts; every sense thus is inflecting every other sense, always. The role of emotion, then, takes on a greater significance: where before it was passive, it now plays an active role in shaping sensory experience.

It seems, then, that synesthesia, by token of the way emotional networks meet sensory networks, is intimately intertwined with emotion; and hearing—inseparable from emotion, from some affect—, to some degree, is experienced synesthetically. But it is not just hearing: every sense exhibits synesthetic tendencies; our perception, from the womb, is synesthetic. Think about that—we are all synesthetes.

The Seeing Event

Is seeing separate from touching, or hearing from tasting? And what about seeing seeing? Or to hear hearing, taste tasting, smell smelling, feel feeling? Despite these possibilities—and yet, precisely in and of the possible—it seems seeing, and seeing alone, is privileged. Why, and what space can such occupy? Let’s try to, um, see.

Look at the person next to you and into her eyes. What do you see? It’s not just her eyes. You see her seeing you. And stranger, you see her eyes seeing you seeing her. Eyes, then, perform multiply: they are at once seer and seen, at once consuming the world just as they are playing the world back. But, alas, seeing is not alone—touching inaugurates a similar experience. Try touching her: a carnal intertwining at once a touching and feeling, at once changing the world and changed by it.

Now turn away from her and look at a work of art, a portrait if you will. You may see two eyes peering out at you, but they are not seeing you per se: paintings and photographs and film, then, remove you from your space. Or not so much remove you as enfold you into their visual fabric with an alien posture and gait, a thoroughly foreign mode of seeing. What is this seeing of seeing? It is an alien seeing, and it is because seeing alone is framed, is closed and bounded, that seeing can be alien, that seeing can see seeing. That is to say, you can see another person seeing and see through another person’s very seeing as if it were your own.

But just as in The Matrix, when Neo opens his eyes for the first time, he is blinded by the light, learning to see seeing hurts, it blinds till you emerge a whole new seer. To persevere, to finally open your eyes, however, explodes the world. Representational art becomes the norm, a mere replication of your familiar world. But so-called non-representational art, abstract art: ah, here we have the inauguration of whole new modes of seeing, whole new worlds to explore, to sense and create and become with.

May I say, though? The notion of privileging sight above the other senses, still, seems odd. Perhaps it is a symptom of language? Perhaps, just as we can see seeing, we can see sounds, see palpably, even see palatably? But I wonder, what about synesthesia? Can we see synesthesia itself? What would such an undertaking entail? Such will be the focus of this blog: to explore this strange space, and perhaps look at a film or three, analyze acid-induced synesthesia, and occasionally just wonder at the beauty of such a multiply single sensation.