chicken dance

Music: Marconi Union: Distance Last night I had dinner with my neighbors, all of whom are wonderfully Left (and identify with neither of our political parties). Two of the folks gathered were my new neighbors immediately next door, a happy couple from Canada (and one by way of Germany), who just moved in last week. "I heard you are a teacher at UT," said the pregnant wife. "What do you teach?" Oh dear, I thought, here we go. Might as well have fun with it. "I teach about popular culture, usually how to be critical of popular culture." Everyone smiled, I felt a non-verbal push for elaboration. "So, right now I’m teaching a class on religion and popular culture, and we're looking at narratives, namely, spiritualism, demonic possession, apocalypse, and alien abduction." I then related how we were currently reading and discussing Whitley Strieber's Communion. The new neighbor-wife looked incredulous: "So, what do students who take your class get a degree in? Occult studies?" she teased. "No, communication studies or cultural studies," I said. "I'm sure his classes are electives," added her husband. "Thank god," she replied with a characteristically, no-nonsense sense of relief.

Last week, on a vanity google-spree, I discovered a website that plagiarizes large hunks of my book; presumably the site is an explanation of the appeal of The DaVinci Code. I emailed the webmaster, Christine Wong, and asked that either my ideas be credited (although they are so misappropriated and misconstrued I'm not sure how this would do less damage . . . maybe the theft is best left?) or that the webpage should simply be removed. She replied incredulously:

From: christine wong Subject: Re: Plagiarism To: slewfoot@mail.utexas.edu

Never heard of "_Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy_ published last summer with the University of Alabama Press"

Pls provide evidence for your claims.

Sincerely, C.Wong

So I replied:

To detail the every specific instance of intellectual theft would be cumbersome--especially at the level of argument. The webpage borrows liberally from the whole of my book. However, there are a number of naked, almost verbatim lifts. For example, your webpage says:

"We can now understand modern Theosophy's esoteric language, as a rhetorical process of invention. As occult poetics - esoteric language has a number of functions for the occultist or mystic. It has an epistemological function for the true believer; because the terms in question are odd or strange, their ambiguity helps to preserve the notion that what they denote may actually be beyond signification, and thus assertions about it are "true." Esoteric language reassures readers of their faith on the basis of possibility and is the inevitable outworking of a contradictory confrontation with the limits of language that can be aptly described as a rhetorical antimony."

My book says:

" . . . I have suggested that we can understand Blavatsky's rhetoric, particularly her esoteric language, as reflecting a process of invention particular to occultism. As the most conspicuous part of this rhetorical process--that is, occult poetics--esoteric language has a number of functions for the occultist or mystic . . . . First and foremost, esoteric language has an epistemological function for the true believer. Because the terms in question are odd or strange, their ambiguity helps to preserve the notion that what they denote may actually be beyond signification, and thus assertions about it are 'true.' In this respect, esoteric language reassures readers of their faith . . . " [and it continues; pp. 76-78].

Her reply?

From: christine wong Subject: Re: Library To: slewfoot@mail.utexas.edu

Not [I have never heard of your book] before you mentioned it. If you can locate a library in Singapore with a copy and cite the call nr., I‚ll be glad to go and look at it.

Last night I watched Penn Jillett and Paul Povenza's The Aristocrats, which I thought I would love. I did laugh uncontrollably in many moments, but in general found the explanation of how humor works not only lacking, but annoying. It felt at times like a smug, MENSA-produced series of winks. Like the American Mensa come-on from one of their webpages:

We actually get your jokes: a guy walked into a bar with a lizard sitting on his shoulder. He said to the bartender, "A double whiskey for me and," pointing to the lizard, " a half-pint of Guinness for Tiny here." "Why do you call him Tiny?" asked the bartender. "Obviously," the man answered, "because he's my newt." [in very small print below the joke] If you laughed (or winced) on your first read-through, you belong to Mensa! If you noted that a newt is actually an amphibian and not a lizard, you really should consider joining today!

The last small print bit, there was too much of that in The Aristocrats.

How does that Morrissey song go? "Such a sensitive boy . . . ."