Notes from a cluttered mind
Notes from a cluttered mind
Episode 3: disambiguation is the fascism of meaning
It took me this many years to realize that Jerry Reed and Bo Hopkins are different people who lived different lives and appeared in different movies. In my mind, Bo Hopkins appeared in a host of good ol’ boy movies alongside Burt Reynolds. While Jerry Reed made memorable appearances in Midnight Express, The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, and American Graffiti. Each of them was the other, and both were the same guy. With quite the impressive filmography and musical recording career.
Nope. Memory. It’s a helluva drug.
Just because there’s no other word for “thesaurus” doesn’t mean that “thesaurus” can only mean one thing. If you informed me that you couldn’t hear me because you had water in your right thesaurus, for instance, I might eventually surmise that you were using “thesaurus” to mean “ear.” In this case, were you actually using thesaurus to mean ear, thesaurus means ear; and we can be certain of this because I understood what you intended by the signifier “thesaurus,” which you signified — married the sound form “thesaurus” to a referent, “ear” — and I correctly interpreted as a result.
What this doesn’t mean, though, is that now, forever more, “thesaurus” means “ear” in all other potential contexts — nor that it is likely to mean “ear,” or even that “ear” is one of the host of interpretive possibilities one should routinely consider whenever they encounter “thesaurus” in contexts not involving just such an exchange. Just because “thesaurus” can mean “ear” doesn’t mean that it does or will of necessity. In fact, from a conventional standpoint, unless such a usage becomes widespread and accepted — folded into some specific argot or embraced as slang by the broader culture — you’d be foolish to interpret “thesaurus” as “ear.”
— the point being that any signifier can by attached to any signified in order to mean. Which doesn’t mean that all words mean all other words. Just that the potential always exists — and that this is why a failure to signal your intent is not a failure to mean, but rather a failure to optimize having your meaning understood by some other person.
If Brittany Mahomes and Taylor Swift hug publicly on election day, does Jill Stein automatically become President?
I’ve been watching a lot of Giallo movies over the past week, because as a film buff, a horror fan, and a fan of true crime, I’ve long felt this was a genre I hadn’t yet properly or fairly explored. Nor had I much appreciation for it, if I’m being honest. But I’m starting to come around. Italian films from the 70s have the feel of American B- movies of that same era; there’s a grit to them that pervades the photography, despite at times the oversaturation of color and the use of filters to create an ethereal quality. And for my money, American B-movies from the 70s are infinitely better than nearly everything being put out by major studios today.
It also doesn’t hurt that virtually none of the leads in these films seems particularly obsessed with being clothed. Ever. So. They got that going for them. Which is nice.
The Victus Vibe may be the coolest baseball bat ever made. My son wants it desperately. And I can’t say that I blame him. I mean, imagine hitting a game-winning tank, flipping your bat, staring out at the pitcher, and saying “Aced that exam!” or “Mightier than the sword!” or “Lead poisoning is fatal!” or “The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me; the technical aspects of bookmaking, from type font to binding glue, interest me. The distinction between a thing well done and a thing done ill obtains everywhere —in all circles of Paradise and Inferno!”*
Instant classics of the shit talk genre.
A hotdog is not a sandwich. If anything, it’s a peculiarly hinged taco. Which food culturally appropriated the other is not for me to say.
— Though I am comfortable noting that tacos tend to be far more racist in general — if only because the whitebread bun is entirely incapable of harboring any kind of ethnic or racial animus. That and flavor are simply not in its makeup. Whereas a taco? Can get rather spicy. Just ask any Mexican hooker.
If you’re into baseball, check out the story of Jim Devlin, who over the course of two seasons compiled one of the highest WARs of all time, with over 31 wins above replacement in two seasons, 1876-1877, for a team that won 65 games total. He was Shoeless Joe and Eddie Cicotte before Shoeless Joe and Eddie Cicotte.
That’s it for this week. Please consider becoming a paying subscriber. That and outright patronage, which would require me to wear pantaloons and stockings, are the best ways to support my work. Of the two, I’d much prefer the former.
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