Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1002010906460.300@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Bones
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 09:07:13 -0500 (EST)
Bones In honor of the American (US) television show, Bones, with its irresolution of psychotic relationships among the main characters. "Not to mention a fine SL video, if I do say so myself."* http://www.alansondheim.org/Bones.mp4 *Is such a statement performative; is the subjunctive always performative? (In the sense of evanescent fading. The performative doesn't lie in the fineness of the video, but in the potential for speech proffered and then withdrawn - or perhaps not withdrawn. The statement itself presences such speech; it's already stated, give status as possibility. But because it is _me_ saying it, then in fact I do say so, but not as declarative, only as subjunctive, as if it might be sight / might have been said. The outcome is never clear (nor is the quality of the video), making such a statement uncanny, ontologically wavering, neither made nor unmade. Perhaps the "if I do say so myself" underlies _every_ utterance, undercuts and withdraws, as if the perceived and heard world were fantasm. And that is the truth, since it is death that may cut, cauterize, deny the _second_ saying, as if "for I do say so myself" - but that is not the case - the case is _if,_ presupposing, without cause or reason, that the utterance might be spoken, might still be spoken, that the speaker is still alive. http://www.alansondheim.org/Bones.mp4