Water to Wine

New Song

Mississippi Moon

Even as he stayed true to his own injunction to “return to Freud,” Lacan substantially developed (i.e. extended and updated) Freud’s theory of the psyche—already considered groundbreaking and provoking strong resistance (which to Freud indicated that there was some truth to it) in the “scientific” community. Freud’s theory concerned the psyche, the unconscious, desire—centering as it did on the human subject (though not on the ego). Lacan made even more progress in this field by inserting Freud’s psychoanalysis in the structuralist framework of his time (i.e. Saussure’s)—therein emphasizing the role of language and symbols—while asserting the exception to structure of the unconscious and paying particular attention to the experience of the human subject, who remains an individual within this structure (of language) (hence, Lacan’s designation as a poststructuralist).

The structure of language in which the human finds himself in; (sexual) desire, its prohibition, and (the resulting) sexuality; the nature of the human subject—I would say that these are the same things that the academic subdivision we call the “humanities” is concerned with. Naturally, psychoanalysis as a field that attempts to develop a theory—a way to think—about these things would be relevant to a “humanistic” scholarly undertaking. If, to be more specific, we define literature (an instance of art, a subfield of the humanities) as writing (or the study of writing) that sheds light—shows something “true” (whatever that means)—about the human condition and what it means to be human, then naturally, psychoanalysis would be pertinent to it as well. In what follows, I attempt to demonstrate that connection. I would focus, however, on the case of literature, as I assume from the outset that what is true in it would be equally true (at least in a parallel way) in the case of “the arts” and “the humanities.”

Psychoanalysis in the hand of Lacan emphasized the role of language (the Symbolic generally) in human life. Associated with the father figure in Freud’s Oedipal drama, language is the “world” (the filter, as it were) in which human subjects are inserted as soon as they are born—determining them (what their identity is, what their lives can be), limiting them (they must learn how to speak), prohibiting certain things (they must exist in a linguistic universe, i.e. a world in which one must speak, where language is the main medium of communication/expression). Human subjects, in other words, (must) enter the world of language and adhere to all that that implies—including the limitations of having to express oneself through language and the language’s rules (e.g. the rules of proper speaking). In that way, language is associated with the law, which itself is expressed through language.

The human subject does not have a choice in this. Even before he can speak, words are already assigned to him—as when he is given a name and when his cries (and other expressions) are interpreted/labeled as being a cry for food, for help, etc.—when, in other words, his desires are put in some linguistic form, defining those desires as what the respective words mean. This is the way in which language has autonomy over the subject and the human is a subject of language. This is the way in which language hands down (speaks/writes) the law by which the subject must abide.

That law spoken/written by language, we can say, is the “general law” of existence. Associated with that general law are those social and cultural norms that societies (usually defined by the common language that they share) demand the individual to comply with (or at least have a relation with)—which are also expressed and made known through language. This is the way in which language, the Symbolic, implies both a general law of being and a normative law.

In both cases, something is repressed. As desires are given a name (through the “general law”), since there is a fundamental mismatch between language and (bodily) reality (or the desire that words are supposed to have expressed), a part of those desires are repressed (since they are not recognized and hence have no chance of fulfillment). Normative law, on the other hand, outright privileges certain desires and represses others. In both cases, the theory is that these repressed desires come to inhabit a realm that Freud called the “unconscious.” In Lacan, this itself is structured like a language. For Lacan, what happens in repression is that a part of language (perhaps another word that better designates what the desire is?) sinks under (since not fulfilled), gets deferred, associates with previous repressed elements/words (already there), thus gaining new meaning, which then haunts the subject and may later come out (through slips or in the return of the repressed) unconsciously (since the human subject has forgotten what these elements/words originally meant). Another interpretation is that certain things (esp. concerning desire) are simply incomprehensible, unknowable, inexpressible. They just cannot be fitted into the (Symbolic) structure of language put in place. They are nonetheless no less Real for that. Thus, they remain (as Real)—but not in the Symbolic realm of language, but somewhere else: in the unconscious. The unconscious is thus associated with the Real and desire.

An attentive enthusiast of literature would notice something here. What he is holding on his hand are words, sentences, paragraphs—language—written by someone (a human subject!). The (literary) book in this way presents itself as a very concrete object/phenomenon especially ripe for a “psychoanalytic interpretation” (i.e. the use of the theories of psychoanalysis to shed light on the phenomenon). Especially considering that literature is a work of language written in a “particular” way (definitely more elaborate than everyday discourse; to what extent would depend on the type of literature and where it comes from), it is an object especially appropriate to “test” the theories of psychoanalysis. This is the type of psychoanalytic interpretation that focuses on the relationship between the work of writing/language and (the unconscious and subjectivity of) the author/writer. Since (as is asserted by psychoanalysis itself) language has a definitive effect on people, an equally fruitful reading can be made between the work of literature and its readers (from different times). Moreover, since language’s effects on the human are not only activated upon encountering a work of art/literature but have been there since human inception and are there throughout human existence (with all kinds of implications), a psychoanalytic reading can just be as validly done with the characters (usually human) in the literary text and their relationship to language (the Symbolic) and desire (the Real). Insofar as literature is concerned with and has as its medium language, psychoanalysis—esp. the Lacanian variety—will always prove potent for its reading.

Even as Lacanian psychoanalysis places great emphasis on language, it is not the only “aspect” of human life it focuses on. As already mentioned, equally important (and having a sort of dialectical relationship with language) is desire. In addition, there is also what Lacan calls the Imaginary, or the realm of images. Since language is autonomous—autonomously determines the subject, the subject tries to imitate that act by trying to (consciously) define itself. This the subject does, however, only in an imaginary way, as an illusion. The subject—as a conscious ego—attempts to secure an identity for itself—by way of identifications and projections. This identity, however, as Lacan’s term suggests, is only imaginary. In addition to language and desire, then, Lacan adds the dimension of the image. Words (or linguistic elements generally and their substitution and combination), images, and the Real that they cannot capture (desire according to psychoanalysis; or trauma, depending on who one reads)—what is more basic in human life? It is in this way that Lacan has constructed an “ontology,” a system of what is there. As with all ontologies, this can then be used as a framework to analyze things (i.e. by separating things in terms of their linguistic elements, images, and desires, to figure out how the different components relate). This would work best with human subjects—which, isn’t that what the humanities are all about?

Of these three (linguistic elements, images, desires), in my opinion, desire is the most fundamental (which is why it is the Real) in human life. (Psychoanalysis, I surmise, thinks the same, which is why it can be referred to as the “science” of desire.) As mentioned above, desire has a “dialectical” relation with language. In fact, according to psychoanalysis, desire is constituted by language. Desire, that is to say, is constituted by the very thing that limits it. Desire is constituted by its own prohibition. Before language, desire is just a confused, undifferentiated mass (the Real) (associated with Freud’s concept of polymorphous perversity) that has no delimited/specific objects/targets and ways in which it can be satisfied (related to the state in which the infant cannot yet separate its body from the mother and has as of yet no identity as a “whole” subject). Desire only becomes as such (i.e. becomes recognized and thought of as desire that needs to be fulfilled) once named as such (i.e. designated what it is that the subject is desiring and designated as a desire that desires satiation)—which (as established earlier) (i.e. the naming) inevitably misrepresents, misses, and frustrates it (i.e. desire)—repressing it into the unconscious. Desire is thus constituted, determined, and defined by the very thing that prohibits/represses it. Desire is not only defined by other people (in that they are the ones that interpret what our desires are, esp. when we were still infants, and since, according to Lacan, we get a sense of what our desires are based on what other people desire) but is inevitably frustrated by their (and our) speaking/writing of it (which we—all of us—must do since we exist in the world of language) (the Other as language). It is in this way that desire is lack: it can never be fulfilled and it was nothing to begin with (until the representation of language that prevents it from being fulfilled).

As mentioned earlier, desire is a very basic human reality, and the framework just given (of prohibition and desire) is how psychoanalysis likes to think about desire. Being the basic thing that it is, desire can thus be found in virtually every aspect of human life (which the humanities studies)—especially in literature which, in attempting to enlighten the human condition, is inevitably going to illustrate, express, and grapple with desire. This is where reading of literary works as the unconscious desire of the author comes from (since, as the claim goes, the said desire could not be expressed in everyday discourse; thus the author/artist expressed it in art, i.e. in the literary text).  More interestingly, however, what character in literature does not desire (in some form or other)? Is not desire the motivation for the character’s actions, what moves the literary text in the first place? (At least this is one way to look at literary texts.) Psychoanalysis provides a framework by which to think the (human) character’s relation with that desire, thus providing one way in which literary texts can be read. More generally, is not desire what determines/structures our relationships with other human beings? If the humanities were to be a true study of the human, it cannot afford to study him/her in the abstract, isolated, alone. One human will necessarily involve another—and in that relationship psychoanalysis’ insights about desire could prove especially illuminating.

Desire’s relationship with language (and the law) is not the only thing that psychoanalysis informs us about desire. Based on the nature of a subject’s (sexual) desire, a sexual identity (masculine or feminine) can be assigned to him/her by psychoanalysis. In a reworking of Freud’s theory of gender, Lacan asserts that only phallic sexuality is representable—but that all humans are intrinsically bisexual (having a masculine and feminine part). Which gender one takes is thus not constrained by any biological factor but is instead determined by one’s relation to the only signifier of desire available: the phallus. A masculine sexuality is one who searches for the object of desire to have the phallus (that he does not have), which inevitably leads (since no one can be the phallus) to repeated disappointment. A feminine sexuality is one who demands of the object of desire to be the phallus, which ultimately leads to idealization and continuous disappointment. In this way, both sexualities are forever searching for the missing phallus—which no one subject can have or fully embody. Depending on where one is positioned in this, he or she is dominantly masculine or feminine (in terms of his or her sexuality, i.e. in matters relating to sexual desire).

This theory of sexuality fits in well with Lacan’s theory of desire as lack (as impossible to be fulfilled and an impossibility to begin with). In thus tying desire with an identity (one of the many which a subject can take (e.g. a class identity, a professional identity, etc.), though the one emphasized by psychoanalysis is the sexual one), psychoanalysis enables a study of the human not in the abstract but with an identity (if psychoanalysis is correct in asserting the primacy of desire) important to any one human subject.
Insofar as literature (and the humanities in general) explores and reflects the human condition and psychoanalysis thinks about what it means to be (a desiring) human (subject in the world of language), then psychoanalysis is indispensable to the former. Psychoanalysis provides a framework by which to understand human phenomena. In that way we can say that yes, psychoanalysis is relevant—important—to the humanities.

Two qualifications must be made of this claim, however. Psychoanalysis does give us a framework by which to think through and understand human phenomena and our studies in the humanities. That does not necessarily mean, however, that those are the frameworks that we want to use all the time. While, as psychoanalysis claims, most of what it zeroes in are fundamental to human existence (e.g. desire, language, frustration, etc.), those may not be the things we want to look at. In reading a work of literature, for example, we may want to look at the author’s life as reflected in the text without paying attention as to whether what he portrayed in the text represents some unconscious desire on his part. We may not care about such desires and are just looking for simple correspondence between an author and his work (say if we were only looking to construct a rough sketch of a person and his work).

Another criticism that can be made of psychoanalysis—in both Freud and Lacan’s versions—is that it is interpersonal (i.e. pays attention to the relationship between people) only in a psychic way, i.e. on the level of desire and sexuality. There may be times when we want to pay attention to other things in the text, such as its historical rootedness and its relationship with the power structures of the society from which it comes. Freud and Lacan’s insights have of course been significant to and influential to such “socially-conscious” analyses of literature and culture—but Freud and Lacan themselves focused solely on the psychic.

Yet even if we accept the psychoanalytic framework to understand literature and the human subject, who is to say that the contents of its theory are valid? Who is to say that the way psychoanalysis portrays and thinks through language, images, and desire, the way it emphasizes prohibition and the law, the way it constructs sexual identities—who is to say that these contents are valid? Who is to say that that is how the human subject lives, that he inhabits that kind of world? Is it true, what psychoanalysis says? More importantly, can we accept them? Why focus on sexual desires? Is the way laid out by psychoanalysis the way we want to be thinking about desire? The fundamental acceptability of psychoanalysis to the humanities (to scrutiny of human undertakings in general) would depend on the acceptability of the assumptions it makes about its contents. Yet this is precisely why certain strands of psychoanalysis (the non-dogmatic strands) pose psychoanalysis as itself a sort of experiment—to be tested with and proven valid or invalid by the very objects on which it is applied (e.g. literature) and the understanding that comes out of it (e.g. the psychoanalytic reading of the text).

We did this in 2005.  There wasn't much fanfare.  More like a party.  The Wayside Riders were there.  Brooks and I did a few tunes that we worked up to start the evening.  We quietly got together at Jake's Toadhouse.  We had played a million places like Jake's.  But only on the road.   Jake's was a celebration that we were all still playing in some form or another.  Some of us in active bands.  Some for a living.  Some writing to write.  Some trying to find their break.  But it feels different this time around.

Before Jake's we hadn't been on stage together in six years.  December 18th, 1999 at The Variety Playhouse.  We played with our old friends who were now called Deep Blue Sun.  We were at a familiar place and we had a familiar mood.  I'll leave that open for interpretation.  We played six months before that and another six months before that was our first reunion.  Three shows in 18 months. Then not again for six years.  Now we're back three years later.  Cobwebs have formed on some of us since 2005.

This time though it's different.

Everyone in the room last weekend knew it.

We're refreshed.  Healthy.  Joyous.  We stepped back in time last weekend to a time we only reminisce about now.

- Steven Fink

Pictures by Sandi Hill

Na początek pójdzie koncert (o rany, znowu w Foobarze włączyła mi się piosenka z nowej płyty New Kids On The Block, chyba muszę ją stamtąd skasować ;> Sentyment to jednak za mało, żeby przetrwać ich piosenki ;]). Koncert w ramach OFF Camery, który odbywał się... w budynku Dworca Głównego. Początkowa owa idea wydawała mi się absurdalna, kiedy jednak zobaczyłam, jak fajnie wszystko urządzili, zmieniłam zdanie. Zwłaszcza pomieszczenie przerobione na klub prezentuje się rewelacyjnie. Powinni to zachować w takim stanie i faktycznie zrobić tam miejsce spotkań ;) Jedynym minusem były płatne toalety ;]

Na pierwszy ogień poszedł Fink. Koncert spóźniony był o godzinę, przysypiałam lekko patrząc na zmieniającą się tablicę odjazdu pociągów. Na tych onirycznych podróżach czas jakoś zleciał i można się było przenieść do sali koncertowej. Sam występ był w porządku. Podobał mi się bardzo optymizm tryskający z artystów, którzy niesamowicie uśmiechnięci przesyłali dźwięki w naszą stronę. Jedyne, czego mi tam brakowało, to krzeseł. O ile zwykle wolę koncerty wysłuchiwać na stojąco i podrygiwać w takt muzyki, o tyle to przedstawienie kojarzyło mi się bardziej z barowymi klimatami, gdzie można sennie posiedzieć przy szklance piwa i skupić się na muzyce, nie na uporczywym bólu kończyn dolnych. Koncert skończył się po północy, po trzech bisach zabawa przeniosła się do sali klubowej.

Gdzie koncert dawał Bonobo. Energetyczne dźwięki przesiąknęły powietrze i wypełniły kosmicznymi wibracjami, wprawiającymi w drganie każdą komórkę ciała. Poddanie się rytmowi było kwestią kilku chwil. Niestety jednak moje zaangażowanie w ruch nie miało trwać w nieskończoność. Myśl, że "jutro na ósmą na kampus" wypędziła mnie z wirującego pomieszczenia. Czego teraz trochę żałuję, bo na zajęciach nie działo się nic, co wymagałoby skupienia. Nauczka na przyszłość ;)

I tak skończył się drugi dzień festiwalu. Dzisiaj Pati :)

Tyle o muzyce. Teraz należy przejść do mojej ulubionej dziedziny życia, jaką jest literatura. Wczoraj, jak już wszystkim wiadomo, była premiera "Księgi cmentarnej" Neila Gaimana. Stałam się jej posiadaczką tak szybko, jak to było możliwe, czyli tuż po 9, kiedy to otwarły się drzwi Empiku ;) Tak radosny zakup trzeba było odpowiednio uczcić, dlatego kroki moje skierowałam do Nowej Prowincji, aby zasiąść przy gorącej czekoladzie (tak naprawdę chciałam iść do Cafe Philo na zapiekankę, ale jak zwykle o tak wczesnej porze było jeszcze zamknięte ;d). Po skonsumowaniu czekolady i dwóch rozdziałów książki wróciłam do akademika. I tam, w przeciągu kilku godzin, historia Nika dobiegła końca.

Perypetie żywego chłopca wychowanego na cmentarzu, na życie którego czyha tajemniczy mężczyzna Jack, za którym stoi cała organizacja, są bardzo wciągające. Brakowało mi trochę rozbudowania wątków i jakiejś takiej spójności całej historii. Może potrzebne by było te 10 lat pracy nad książką, jak to było w przypadku Koraliny. Nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że "Księga cmentarna" jest bardzo przyjemnym akcentem, kiedy za oknem szaro i deszczowo. Trochę tylko na końcu się smutno robi ;) A, co mnie jeszcze zaskoczyło, to fakt, że króciutki epizod całej historii rozgrywa się w Krakowie ;) No i cytat, który mnie rozbawił:

"Wymień różne ludy - poleciła panna Lupescu. - Już.
Zastanawiał się chwilkę.
- Żywi - rzekł. - Eee. Umarli. - Umilkł. - Koty? - dodał niepewnie."

Przy okazji podaję link otrzymany od Kamila (dalej dziękuję ;>), który widniał w skasowanym poście, a dzięki któremu można posłuchać samego Neila Gaimana czytającego "Księgę...": http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/10/very-useful-post.html

No i to tyle pisaniny. Trzeba się wybrać w nieprzyjemny świat i znaleźć dla siebie odzienie odpowiednie na tę porę roku, zwane przez niektórych kurtką.

I need you to be the strength of widows and soul survivors. I need you to be as fearless as new mothers and new fathers. I need you to be the hope of hearts who lost true love. I need you to be the might of their first kiss. I need a purpose and I need a reason. I need to know that there is trophy and meaning, to all that we lose and all we fight for, to all our loves and our wars. Keep breathing, keep living, keep searching, keep pushing on, keep bleeding, keep healing, keep fading, keep shining on. This is for the hearts still beating.

I also found out today that acoustic/folk/dub rockers Fink (from the UK) are playing at the Alexander Theatre in Braamfontein next Friday (the 10th of October). They're also hitting Cape Town before or after that date. I am so stoked. Check out all the details on Facebook, here. Hope to see you there, support band: Cabins In The Forest - bonus!

After buying my ticket, I listened to a bit of Fink again and found a lyric, which made a monumental impact on me at this point in time. Ol' Fin managed to sum my feelings up in two lines: “The things that keep us apart, keeps me alive. The thing that keeps me alive, keeps me alone”. It’s from their song “This Is The Thing” off their latest album, “Distance & Time”.

Lastly, and maybe not the greatest idea if you’re trying not to sulk but to cheer up...I've been listening to a lot of Bon Iver lately. I downloaded their 4 song live Daytrotter Session set a couple of months ago. I’ve been listening to “For Emma, Forever Ago”, their beautiful debut for most of this year, but especially "Lump Sum" and “Flume” off the Daytrotter session really hit the spot (when the first chorus of "Flume" kicks in at 1:07). I'm not a huge fan of live performance recordings, but these renditions are just so unworldly. It's not like the album is super produced or "electric", these live acoustic recordings just somehow captured Justin Vernon's voice's raw emotion so much better.

It's moments like these that remind me of the power of music and why my life evolves around it - when I find a lyric, or I hear a song or even just a little part, that makes me feel less alone and more alive...

actionext.com <

Basically, Fink allows you to use Linux type programs (GUIs and command line) native in OS X. I am not going to dive into all the gory detail of what Fink is and is not, I am just going to get it to work. Fink gives you a command line tool to install these programs (much like apt-get for Ubuntu/Debian). Fink Commander is the GUI for Fink.

From my previous journal entry:

Today I have taken the actions to get my Fink installation going. Here are the steps taken so far:

First I had to do a community update of X11 (for Leopard) to fix some bugs Apple will PROBABLY release an official update soon, but I can’t but I can’t wait that long! I updated X11 to version 2.1.1. Goto this website.

Apparently it is MUCH better to install Fink by source. More information can be found here. You can follow the directions in the web page given. There is a little bit of a problem... you will probably have to add the path /sw/bin to your PATH variable at some point. I am not sure if Fink automatically does this or not. You can do so by adding it to .bashrc or .bash profile... I think. I also ran the selfupdate and the update (but of course there is nothing to update).

One should note that Fink is self-containted in the /sw/ directory. If you ever want to remove it and all the programs that were installed via Fink, just delete that directory!

The only commands you will ever need to know:

• fink list NAMEOFSOFTWARE, scans the available packages and lists those that match your query
• fink install NAMEOFSOFTWARE, installs the package
• fink update-all, updates all binary and source packages. You might run into a problem: see this or this
• fink selfupdate, updates the binary or source version of Fink

If you don't want to remember these, install Fink Commander. This is the GUI interface and is pretty good. The only thing it wont do is the update-all. So if you have a lot of "outdated" packages run update-all. This will take FOREVER because you will need to build things from source if you installed Fink from source.

Virtual Packages?

From the Fink website: “packages with names like system-perl are placeholder packages. These do not contain actual files, but merely serve as a mechanism for fink to know about programs that have been installed manually outside of fink.

Starting with the 10.3 distribution, most placeholders aren't even real packages that you can install and remove. Instead, they are "Virtual Packages", package data structures generated by the fink program itself in response to a pre-configured list of manually installed programs. For each virtual package, fink checks for certain files in certain locations, and if they are found, considers that virtual package "installed".”

Hacer de todo sin llegar a ser bueno en nada. Una máxima de por vida para un marginal de las letras que hoy se atreve a saber de cine.

TITULO ORIGINAL	Barton Fink
GENERO	Suspense
PAIS	Reino Unido - Estados Unidos
DURACION	116 Minutos
AÑO	1991
DIRECTOR:	Joel Coen - Ethan Coen
GUION	Joel Coen - Ethan Coen
INTERPRETES	John Goodman, John Turturro, Judy Davis y Steve Buscemi

Esta es la vida de Barton Fink. Un dramaturgo neoyorquino que lleva al teatro la realidad callejera en lugar de la de reyes y burgueses. Una de las creaciones de Barton recibe una estupenda crítica y Hollywood se interesa por él. Sube (aparentemente) un escalón y desembarca en la meca del cine con su vieja maquina de escribir. Ahora es guionista de cine y de él se esperan grandes (malas) historias que engrosen el elenco de la serie b. Pero el Sr. Fink es gran escritor y aplicar formulas cinematográficas estandarizadas está por debajo de su capacidad creativa. Está hundido, conoce por dentro la metasociedad de hollywood y sabe que no encaja en ella. Solo un vendedor de seguros que se hospeda en su mismo hotel, consigue ganarse su confianza y aprecio. Barton conoce el amor, la amistad forzosa y la crueldad con la que trata la vida a los que, desde fuera, parecen exitosos y felices. Desea no haber dejado N.Y nunca y la doble vida de su único amigo de L.A termina por sobrepasar la capacidad asimilatoria de su introvertida y frágil personalidad. Es una buena película. Tiene el apellido Cohen repartido por sus créditos y tan solo las mentes curiosas se verán atacadas por las demasiadas cosas sin explicación que se quedan colgando en la trama. ¿Donde está Chet cuando las cosas se ponen feas?

This is the lovely Lola... at the beginning of her journey to meet Leonard Cohen......

Lola met Leonard Cohen 38 years ago at the Isle of Wight festival... she has been waiting all this time to meet him again. She failed to blag it backstage at Glastonbury. With a little pain and persistance we help Lola backstage and get the only autograph with Leonard Cohen.... all coming soon... ONLY on www.ohdearyme.com so please be patient and check back soon. We will also have interviews with Mr Scruff, Esau Mwamwaya, Radioclit and Mo Laudi, John Shuttleworth, Fink, footage of The Mighty Boosh... .This is the lovely Lola... at the beginning of her journey to meet Leonard Cohen......

Na nun hab ich auch mal wieder was zu sagen/schreiben.

Zur Zeit krieg ich so ziemlich alle meine bevorzugten Programme aus der Linux/Unix Welt unter Fink auf meinem MacBook zum laufen...

Hab mir sogar wine für mein MacBook kompiliert... und es läuft SUPER. Ich finde den uTorrent Client so geil (der zieht wie SAU)  und den hab ich mir jetzt über wine (das ich mir über Fink installiert habe) auf MacOSX 10.5.3 eingerichtet. Ein bischen wakelig das ganze aber naja. Es läuft.

Warum so kompliziert? Kenn jemand einen Torrentclient der so schnell ist wie uTorrent und keine Installationsorgien braucht wie zb. Azureus?

Gruss

It's the 1st thing you see when you walk into my apartment.

I combined 2 of my favorite colors <purple & teal> and covered the entire thing in glitter mod podge..

The body and antenna of the butterfly is covered with little

black micro beads that I attached one by one...

I know...I'm a freak...it's actually therapeutic

I created these 3 posters for Typography & Page Layout. We were given the task of creating an upcoming local event. I chose to create some posters advertising the classic albums live tribute band that comes to Hard Rock Live each month. The upcoming concerts include tributes to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album, Boston, and Led Zeppelin II. Classic albums live is a group of studio musicians that perform these albums note for note, cut for cut. I used the original album covers as the main focus of the event posters and used the type to display the who, what, where info about the concert.

This is a logo I created. I think I am going to use it to brand myself.

I eventually want to go into print design so the color matrix design

in background with the CMYK colors fits. The name Fink Ink Designs is the

name I want to use. Instead of inc. I want to use the spelling INK...

once again for print as well as my love of scrapbooking and paper crafts

Inspired by the legions of angst-ridden teens and pre-teens that flock to their cafes every afternoon, Starbucks is releasing an indie themed compilation titled Have You Heard?.

That means no more avant garde jazz or Nora Jones to go with my frappuccino...and sadness.

Check out the track list after the jump as well as the answer to my awesome joke:

How many indie kids does it take to screw in a light bulb?

"Skinny Love" - Bon Iver (2008 Jagjaguwar) For Emma, Forever Ago

1 She & Him – Why Do You Let...
2 Goldfrapp – A&E
3 Grand Archives – Miniature Birds
4 The Rosewood Thieves – Honey...
5 Sera Cahoone – Baker Lake
6 Bon Iver – Skinny Love
7 Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
8 Over The Rhine – Nothing Is Innocent
9 Thao – Bag Of Hammers
10 Nada Surf – Beautiful Beat
11 Ryan Lindsey - Put Your Trust In Ross
12 Kate Tucker – Faster Than Cars Drive
13 Eagle Seagull – I'm Sorry...
14 Liam Finn – Second Chance
15 Bettye LaVette – You Don't Know...
16 Fink – This Is The Thing

(via The Music Slut)

answer to joke: it's an obscure number, you've probably never heard of it.

The Fink project wants to bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to Darwin and Mac OS X. We modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X ("port" it) and make it available for download as a coherent distribution. Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management. You can choose whether you want to download precompiled binary packages or build everything from source.

Although I had fink working well on my previous iMac, it has been refusing to work for a while now on a range of new computers. It just fails to make a connection.I had 2 hypotheses- (1) the Univesity have introduced some unseen security that prevents it from connecting (they don't like ftp) or (2) I had messed up some setting.

Something I saw in fink FAQ this week rang some alarm bells and made me go back to check my settings.

Issuing a fink configure command allows you to change lots of settings including proxies. I knew that I would have to go through proxies for both http and ftp. It turns out that my ftp proxy was not prefixed by ftp:// -instead only the address was given. I suppose I had assumed it would fill this in since an ftp address MUST begin ftp:// but no. Actually the fink instructions at this point give an example address beginning http:// which should also be ignored.

Stupid really in retrospect, I should have spotted this earlier. Anyway this solved the problem.

Auf einen Abend voller kubanischer und lateinamerikanischer Stimmung im Volksheim Grafenbach freuten sich die Organisatoren des BuK Grafenbach.

Nach einem Schnupper Salsa Kurs wird die Band "La Banda" mit Sambaklängen einen Einblick in die Musik von Brasilien geben. "Dadurch können wir die Inhalte unserer Tanzworkshops wunderbar mit einem Event der Superlative verbinden", so die Vorsitzende Dr. Claudia Schiftner.

Die bekannte Formation "De Donde Son" wird dann Salsa, Rumba, Son und viele andere kubanische Rhythmen live zum Besten geben. Aber damit noch lange nicht genug, nach den beiden live Gigs werden die beiden DJ´s Toro und Lobito die Tanzfläche bis in den Morgen füllen. Neben der musikalischen Unterhaltung werden Caipirinha, Mojito, Cuba Libre und viele andere Cocktails serviert.

Bild: Die Organisatoren Martina und Dietmar Fink, Kulturprofi Harald Brawenec und BuK-Vorsitzende Dr. Claudia Schiftner vertrieben mit einer feurigen Fiesta Cubana am 15. September alle grauen Herbstgedanken.

Cannot find free Volume!!

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use TrueType fonts please install a version of FreeType greater than
or equal to 2.0.5.
http://www.freetype.org
Wine cannot find the FreeType font library.  To enable Wine to
use TrueType fonts please install a version of FreeType greater than
or equal to 2.0.5.
http://www.freetype.org
fixme:clusapi:GetNodeClusterState ((null),0x32ecec,0) stub!
Wine cannot find the FreeType font library.  To enable Wine to
use TrueType fonts please install a version of FreeType greater than
or equal to 2.0.5.
http://www.freetype.org
fixme:msvcrt:__lconv_init  stub
‡Œ>†Ä

fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x110000 0 0x458b00 4
Wine cannot find the FreeType font library.  To enable Wine to
use TrueType fonts please install a version of FreeType greater than
or equal to 2.0.5.
http://www.freetype.org
fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x5a0000 0 0x458b00 4
fixme:listview:LISTVIEW_SetColumnOrderArray iCount 16 lpiArray 0x32f0b0
fixme:listview:LISTVIEW_SetColumnOrderArray iCount 7 lpiArray 0x32ea90
fixme:keyboard:UnregisterHotKey (0x20026,1): stub
fixme:heap:RtlCompactHeap (0x5a0000, 0x0) stub
Wine cannot find the FreeType font library.  To enable Wine to
use TrueType fonts please install a version of FreeType greater than
or equal to 2.0.5.
http://www.freetype.org
fixme:clusapi:GetNodeClusterState ((null),0x32ecec,0) stub

Dabei is ja vieles Frei und nicht "BESETZT"!!

Und Volumes hät ich 2i!!

Danke

"Benim işim bir nevi sondaj,

...içimden bir şeyler çıkarmak.

Samimi bir şeyler.

Bir şey diyeyim mi,

insan aklı,

...bu bölgenin hiçbir haritası yok.

Keşfetmek acı verici olabilir."

8½'tan sonra "Writer's Block" temasında şansım açıldı sanırım. Bugün de daha önce adını bile duymadığım bir Coen kardeşler filmini, Barton Fink'i izledim. 8½ kadar etkileyici, belki modern sinemanın verdiği imkanlardan dolayı daha etkileyici bir film. 8½'ta nasıl bir film çekeceğine karar veremeyen Guido bu filmde adeta yazması gereken senaryoyu bir türlü kafasında oluşturamayan Barton Fink'e dönüşmüş.

Barton Fink (John Turturro'nun mükemmel oyunculuğunda hayat bulan) Broadway'de bir oyun yazarı. Film çok beğenilen son tiyatro oyunundan sonrasında başlıyor. Eleştirmenler, yapımcılar sıradan insanları anlattığı duygusal tarzına bayılıyor; onu Broadway'in yeni ilahı ilan ediyorlar. Bu başarının ardından ünlü bir yapım şirketi, Capitol Studios, onu Hollywood'da film senaryoları yazması için zor da olsa ikna ediyor. Sıradan insanlar hakkında yazdığı için onlardan kopmak istemeyen bir entelektüel Fink. Onlar hakkında derinlemesine yazdığını ve herşeyi bildiğini düşünse de Los Angeles'ta kaldığı otelde yan odasından hayatına giren Charlie herşeyi değiştiriyor. 

Barton: Buna yeni tiyatro deme, gerçek tiyatro de. Bizim tiyatromuz de.

Charlie: Bu konudaki hassasiyetini anlayabiliyorum.

Barton: Kendimi çok yüceltmek istemem. Fakat niye kendimizi orada görmeyelim? 5. Bastrop Kontu ve Leydi Higginbottom kimin umurunda, ya da Nigel Grinch-Gibbons'ı kimin öldürdüğü?

Charlie: Şimdiden sıkıldım.

Barton: Kesinlikle.

Yeni patronu Lipnick'in (ki bu karakter MGM'in patronu Louis B. Mayer'den ilham alınarak yaratılmıştır.) de övgüyle ayaklarını öpecek kadar saygı duyduğu bir yazardır artık ve bir güreş filmi yazması gerekmektedir. İzbe bir otele yerleşir fakat bir türlü yazmaya başlayamaz. Otel odasının duvarındaki kumsaldaki kız tablosuna dalıp deniz sesine bırakmaktadır kendisini. Bu bunalımı aşmak için filmin yapımcısı Ben Geisler (filmde beni en çok güldüren karakter.) başka yazarlarla konuşup tavsiye almasını tavsiye eder. Barton da "tuvalette" rastladığı ve eskiden beri romanlarını takdir ettiği W.P. "Bill" Mayhew'dan (ki, benim ki-lerim bitmez, kendisi de William Faulkner'dır adeta, onun gibi iyi romanlar yazmış ve sonrasında Hollywood için başarısız işler yapmıştır.) yardım ister. Güzel sayılabilecek metresi Audrey de ilgisini çeker üstüne üstlük. Sonrasında aslında Mayhew'ın kitaplarının en iyilerini Audrey'in yazdığını öğrenecektir. Fink iyice bunalıma girdiği bir anda Audrey'i arar ve gelmesini ister. Otelde writer's block durumunu aşması için Fink'e biraz yardım edecektir (!). Fakat ertesi sabah Fink yanında yatan Audrey'i kanlar içinde bulur. Neşeli komşusu Charlie (ki John Goodman rolünde döktürmektedir.) cesedi yoketmesinde yardım eder ve birkaç günlüğüne New York'a gitmesi gerekir. Filmin bu noktasında olan hiçbir şey tam olarak çözüme kavuşmuyor. Audrey'in neden öldüğü ve Charlie'nin Barton'a emanet bıraktığı kutuda ne olduğu tamamen izleyicinin "the life of mind"ına bırakılmış durumda. 

Filmin görebildiğimiz çözümleme kısmında ise Barton bir hışımla bitirdiği ve en iyi eserim dediği senaryosunu Lipnick'e beğendiremiyor. Charlie'nin aslında bir deli katil olduğunu, dedektifler tarafından arandığını öğreniyor. Son sahnede Barton elinde Charlie'nin emaneti olan kutusuyla kumsalda umutsuzca yürürken, karşıdan gelen mayolu kız dikkatini çekiyor. 

- Are you in pictures?

Kızın ufuklara bakışında otel duvarındaki tabloyu görüyor Barton Fink ve film bize bıraktığı sorularla ve cevaplarla burada bitiyor. 

[The psychoanalytic couch; An Associated Press photo by Bob Wands]

[Continues "Another Bar"]

As a preliminary formulation, Fink sums up the process by which the subject is “alienat[ed] by and in the Other [as language]” and then “separate[d] from the [m]Other [as desire]” through the prohibition of the fOther (as law (i.e. prohibitive/symbolizing/socializing language)) as castration—the castration of the subject (72). On the (psycho)analytic couch (as analysand), this subject is, in Fink’s description, “limited in his or abilities, incapable of deciding between different courses of action, subjected to the whims of the Other, at the mercy of his or her friends, lovers, institutional setting, cultural-religious upbringing, and so on” (72).

In Symbolic terms (i.e. in its relationship with the Symbolic order), this castrated subject, Fink explains,

is the subject that is represented. The castrated subject is always presenting itself to the Other, looking to win attention and recognition from the Other, and the more it presents itself, the more inescapably castrated it becomes as it is represented by and in the Other. The castrated subject is the barred subject, the subject under the bar: it is a product of every attempt and intent to signify to the Other. This “subject is constituted by the message” [. . .] received by the subject in an inverted form from the Other (73).

The Other, that is, as both language and desire.

As explained earlier, the psychoanalyst estimates that “the encounter with the Other’s desire constitutes a traumatic experience of pleasure/pain or jouissance [for the subject, what] Freud describe[d] as a sexual über, a sexual overload” (63). Lacan takes up where Freud left off to argue that “the subject com[es] to be as a defense against [this] traumatic experience” (63). Briefly, this happens as the Other’s desire becomes the o object—with which, through fantasy, the subject’s relationship with the Other (thanks to the psychoanalyst) changes. The subject learns to deal with what was at first incommensurate, intimidating, and overwhelming (the Other as language and the Other as desire)—by signifying it (giving it a name, and then a signifier), socializing it—from which (i.e. from the Other) the subject takes a rem(a)inder—the o object—that the subject then takes responsibility as his/her own. In this way, fantasy precipitates a (whole) subject, allowing the (castrated) subject, as Fink puts it, to achieve “a kind of being” (73).

The (whole) subject so constituted, however, as established earlier, is but a fantasy—one whose fantastical nature manifests in (the various kinds of) neuroses (according to the subject’s specific relationship with the o object). This is because the (neurotic) subject, in Lacan’s unremitting account (as read by Fink), “fad[es . . .] in his or her fantasy as the object-cause steals the limelight. [The o object] comes to the fore and is cast in the leading role in fantasy, the subject being eclipsed or overshadowed thereby” (73). The o object thus gets to take control—is unbounded by the subject—manifesting neuroses (of which there is a varied selection), betraying the subject(’s subjectivity) as a fantasy.

Nonetheless, Lacan asserts that there is “a being beyond neurosis” (with which Fink assents) (73). Rejecting both “the false being of the ego and the elusive being provided in fantasy [. . .] as lacking, [. . . unable] to take the subject beyond neurosis,” Lacan/Fink argues for the need to go beyond fantasy (which, as it turns out, amounts to but a temporary (re)solution) (73). This can be accomplished through the process that Fink calls “the further separation known as traversing fantasy” (my emphasis), the sacrifice of castration.

Fink elaborates:

Castration must be sacrificed, given up, or surrendered if subjectification of the cause is to occur. The subject must renounce his or her more or less comfortable, complacently miserable position as subjected by the Other—as castrated—in order to take the Other’s desire as cause upon him or herself. The traversing of fantasy thus involves a going beyond of castration and a utopian movement beyond neurosis. The castrated subject is thus a subject who has not subjectified the Other’s desire and who remains plagued by, and yet obtains a “secondary gain” from, his or her symptomatic submission to the Other (72-3).

The traversing of fantasy, in other words, amounts to complete separation (No more Other-inflicted-yet-self-tolerated submissive misery!) from the Other.

Fink describes this process in terms of Freud’s wo Es war, soll Ich werden. In his words:

This reconfiguration of fantasy implies a number of different things: the construction in the course of analysis of a new “fundamental fantasy” (the latter being that which underlies an analysand’s various individual fantasies and constitutes the subject’s most profound relation to the Other’s desire); [. . . a movement towards the subject of the unconscious, the unconscious I]; and a “crossing over” of positions within the fundamental fantasy whereby the divided subject assumes the place of the cause, in other words, subjectifies the traumatic cause of his or her own advent as subject, coming to be in that place where the Other’s desire—a foreign, alien desire—had been (62).

The traversing of fantasy involves the subject’s assumption of a new position with respect to the Other as language and the Other as desire. A move is made to invest or inhabit that which brought him or her into existence as split subject, to become that which caused him or her. There were it—the Other’s discourse, ridden with the Other’s desire—was, the subject is able to say “I.” Not “It happened to me,” or “They did this to me,” or “Fate had it in store for me,” but “I was,” “I did,” “I saw,” “I cried out.” [. . .] The foreign cause, that Other desire that brought one into the world, is [thus] internalized, in a sense, taken responsibility for, assumed [. . .], subjectified, made “one’s own.” (62).

More precisely, what this operation involves, claims Fink, is “increasing ‘signifierization’—a turning into signifiers of the Other’s desire” (65). The Other’s desire, in other words, (thanks to the psychoanalyst) turned into yet more signifiers—(thanks to the psychoanalyst) progressively. (More and more of) Desire, that is, turned into (more and more) language. The entrance of (more and more of) the (Real) Other’s desire into the Symbolic (the Other as language). The Other (as desire), as it were, coerced/transformed/subsumed into—represented by—the Other (as language).

There is a difference, however, with previous similar attempts/steps. If previously, it was the Other that the subject confronted, this time—in traversing fantasy—what is reconfigured is the subject’s relation to something similarly fantastical, namely, the o object—which brings forth, at least as Lacan claims, a different result. Fink explains:

Insofar as the subject finds, in this further separation, a new position in relation to [the o object] ([the rem(a)inder of] the Other’s desire), the Other’s desire is no longer simply named, as it was through the action of the paternal metaphor. When the cause is subjectified, the Other’s desire is simultaneously fully brought into the movement of signifiers, and it is at that point [. . .] that the subject finally gains access to the signifier of the Other’s desire, S(Barred O) (65) (my emphases).

This transformation from the name into the signifier, as established earlier, is necessary. As Fink recounts, in the process of separation, “the Other’s desire had simply been named, [. . . a name] that [i]s fixed, static, and thinglike in its unchanging effect, rigid in its limited power of designation” (65). This—the “rigid connection subsist[ing] between the Other’s desire and a name of the father”—keeps the subject “unable to act” (65). It is only when the Other’s desire, Fink continues, “is signifierized [as the phallus, the psychoanalytic signifier for/of desire] that a power can be discerned beyond the [Other’s desire symbolized in the rigid name], a legitimacy or authority that is not embodied in the [Other’s desire] alone but subsists in the [S]ymbolic order beyond [the Other’s desire]” (65). Thereby separation is accomplished in fantasy.

The process, however, Lacan continues, is not complete, until the subject is able to specify in the signifying chain (of which the Other’s desire, thanks to separation, is now part) which signifier exactly it is: i.e. which one is S(Barred O). This the subject is able to perform through further separation—i.e. the traversing of fantasy—with which, paradoxically, the subject extricates him/herself from the Symbolic order as well (hence it indeed completes separation, is a complete separation). The subject thus separates from both the Other (as desire) and the Other (as language). Thus the subject (having taken responsibility for the Other’s desire), Lacan claims, is able to act. Thus the subject is subjectified.

In Fink’s words:

The name of the Other’s desire must be set into motion—from the mother’s partner, to teacher, to school, to police officer, to civil law, to religion, to moral law, and so on—and give way before the signifier of the Other’s desire if subjectification is to take place, that is, if the subject is to become the Other’s desire, leaving the signifier to its own devices. In that sense, traversing fantasy entails a separation from language itself, a separation of the subject—who will have become the cause—from his or her own discourse about his or her problem with the Other’s desire, inability to deal with the lack detected in the Other, lack of success in maintaining the right distance from and relation to the Other, and so on (66).

To put all this in ((post)structural) linguistic terms, the traversing of fantasy (that not only precipitates but subjectifies the subject) requires—amounts to—what Fink calls the dialectization of the (blocking) master signifier. Briefly, in this process the subject—being him/herself a signifier to/for another signifier—becomes a link between different signifiers (each signifying different drives (as opposed to desire)), connecting them, making possible/capable their signification/expression. Thus they overcome the block of the master signifier (which is what leads to fixation (with the Other), hence causing symptoms in the subject), allowing the subject to take responsibility for desire (the signified drive/s) as his/her own. A meaning for the (previously blocking/fixating) master signifier is created, the link between the master signifier and its meaning (which is another signifier) coming to be the position that the subject occupies (74-8). Thus a position for the subject is constituted. The subject is constituted. Thus “the subject,” in Fink’s summation, “appears in the process of clearing an obstacle out of an impasse, thereby creating an outlet. The subject is, in a sense, [as in the beginning, i.e. as a barred S] the splitting of that obstacle into two separate parts,” creating meaning (79).

This subjectification (or any subjective involvement), however, Fink notes, takes place only after the fact. For Lacan, the subject’s emergence/appearance is situated in some future imperfect time. The subject, as Fink paraphrases, “is always either about to arrive—is on the verge of arriving—or will have already arrived by some later moment in time,” “there [thus] being an implicit ‘if, and, or but’” in his/her arrival (63). Subjectification can therefore only be phrased in the future imperfect tense: “The subject was to arrive later,” both in the sense of “Later, the subject arrived,” and “The subject would have arrived later.”

Thus the emergence of the subject is left uncertain, “his or her ever-so-fleeting existence remain[ing] in suspense or abeyance” while at the same time suggesting that s/he would have arrived in some future time without specifying exactly when (63-4). Thus, as Fink says, “There seems to be no way of really determining whether the subject has been or not” (64).

This uncertainty, however, implies something else: a second event that follows subjectification—its twin event, as it were—without which subjectification remains indeterminable. To use the trauma (as leftover from the Real) analogy, what was initially trauma arrives or becomes a factor later for the subject’s emergence: without the subject’s emergence, the trauma wouldn’t have been considered as such; correlatively, without the trauma, there would have been no subjectification (64).

Thus, in his/her uncertain arrival/emergence at some future imperfect time accompanied by a twin event (the trauma or alienation) that prevents that very process (i.e. the subject’s emergence), the subject, in a sense, remains barred. A barred subject until the end, after all. This uncertainty/indeterminability, Lacan argues, is precisely what renders indeterminable (i.e. not calculable in advance) the time necessary for psychoanalysis to bring subjectification about (hence the time-variable sessions) (65).

Fink sums up the psychoanalytic subject (according to Lacan):

One is the subject of a particular fate, a fate one has not chosen but which, however random or accidental it may seem at the outset, one must nevertheless subjectify; one must, in Freud’s view, become its subject. Primal repression is, in a sense, the roll of the dice at the beginning of one’s universe that creates a split and sets the structure in motion. An individual has to come to grips with that random toss—that particular configuration of his or her parent’s [or, more generally, others’] desire—and somehow become its subject. “Wo Es war, soll Ich werden.” I must come to be where foreign forces—the Other as language and the Other as desire—once dominated. I must subjectify that otherness. [. . .] The I is not already in the unconscious. It may be everywhere presupposed there, but it has to be made to appear. It may always already be there, in some sense, but the essential clinical task is to make it appear there where it was (68) (my emphasis).

What psychoanalysis—in the play of the Other (as language) and the Other (as desire)—i.e. in all the symbolization/socialization/sublimation/substitution/metaphorization/signifierization/dialectization/separation that precipitates/constitutes/subjectifies (from the o object) (via fantasy, then later via “fundamental” fantasy) the (originally alienated but no-longer-castrated?) subject (Symbolized as a rem(a)inder from the Real) (barred, however, until the end)—claims (by virtue of primal repression) it must, claims (thanks to paid time-variable sessions) it does.

Bibliography:
Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

[The father arrives in The Exorcist]

[Continues "Beyond the Bar"]

Central to the psychoanalytic schema is that which thwarts/frustrates/disillusions the alignment/overlapping/matching/filling of the two lacks/desires (by two subjects, e.g. the mOther and the child), what Lacan calls the paternal function—the father in Freud’s Oedipus—which is associated with the primordial signifier, i.e. that which signals the subject’s entrance into language, the Symbolic order. (Hence the rough equivalence given to the (functions of the) Symbolic and the father, language and the law, symbolization and prohibition, by interpreters such as Alexandre Leupin.)

Fink elaborates on the paternal function / primordial signifier:

The “primordial” signifier is instated through the operation of what Lacan calls the paternal metaphor or paternal function. If we hypothesize an initial child-mother unity (as a logical, i.e. structural, moment, if not a temporal one), the father, in a Western nuclear family, typically acts in such a way as to disrupt that unity, intervening therein as a third term—often perceived [by the child mostly] as foreign and even undesirable. The child, as yet a sort of undifferentiated bundle of sensations [before the advent of the mirror stage], lacking in sensory-motor coordination and all sense of self, is not yet distinguishable from its mother [or, more broadly, the caretaker (whoever s/he happens to be)], taking the mother’s body as a simply extension of its own, being in a kind of “direct, unmediated contact” with it. And the mother may be inclined to devote virtually all of her attention to the child, anticipate its every need, and make herself 100 percent accessible and available to the child. In such a situation, the father or some other member of the household, or some other interest of the mother’s, can serve a very specific function: that of annulling the mother-child unity, creating an essential space or gap between mother and child (55-6).

Thus to the interplay of the subject and the Other (as desire) a third term is introduced: the nom du père or the name-of-the-father (in the 1950s Lacan), implying both the father and the name (i.e. language), formalized in its function (thus not tied to biological factors, i.e. not necessitating that it be the literal father, or any father at all) (56). This third term is tantamount to the Symbolic cutting into the Real (transforming it into social reality (roughly, the imaginary)) (56). In the specific context that Fink describes, “the name that serves the paternal function bars and transforms the [R]eal, undifferentiated, mother-child unity, [. . . barring] the child’s easy access to pleasurable contact with its mother, requiring it to pursue pleasure through avenues more acceptable to the father figure and/or mOther (insofar as it is only by her granting of importance to the father that the father can serve that paternal function)” (56).

The paternal function, in other words, signals the socialization (which is related to but different from sublimation) associated with Freud’s reality principle, “which does not so much negate the aims of the pleasure principle as channel them into socially designated pathways” (56). The paternal function—with the father as “agent”—as the socialization of polymorphous desire—which, again (always associated with language, the Symbolic) “leads to the assimilation or instating of a name [. . .] that neutralizes the Other’s [Real] desire” (i.e. the Symbolic cutting into the Real) (56). This is the basic meaning in Lacan of the prohibition (later also referred to as castration), i.e. of the father (as a position/function) saying no, i.e. of non du père (the No!-of-the-father).

The (introduction of the) third term is not inherently good or bad. As Fink points out, it serves (as its name suggests) a function: namely, language / the father “protects the child from a potentially dangerous dyadic situation,” what can be interpreted as some kind of implosion/collapse (or at least exclusivity) between the mOther and the child—or, more broadly, the implosion/explosion of desire as Real (i.e. unadapted to the social) (57). Specifically, the person of the father (or, more broadly, an object of the Other’s desire (other than the child/subject)) substitutes (in the form of a name, i.e. through language) for—stands in for, mediates (represents?), transforms, makes commensurate—the mOther’s (Real) desire, thus avoiding/precluding the (exclusive, unrealistic, impossible) dyad (57). The father, in other words, through his name, “serves [. . . as a] protective paternal function by naming the mOther’s desire” (57). The name, of course, is not just any signifier. It is, in Fink’s terminology, a “primordial signifier,” i.e. one that rigidly—“always and inflexibly”—“designates the same thing”: in this case, the father (or, more broadly, the object of desire of the Other—other, that is, than the subject) (57).

This primordial signifier, Fink argues, must become “a full-fledged signifier” in order to fully—adequately, sufficiently—stand in for the mOther’s desire. In Fink’s words, “it must become part and parcel of the dialectical movement of signifiers, that is, become displaceable, occupying a signifying position that can be filled with a series of different signifiers over time” (57). The primordial signifier, in other words, has to become part of the (differential) signifying chain (that constitutes language, the Symbolic order). It is in this step proper that the name of the father becomes “more generally the signifier of the Other’s desire,” which in the later (1960s) Lacan becomes referred to as the phallus—symbol of the mOther’s desire (i.e. its object (where it is directed)) itself (i.e. as (like the subject as missing, as potential) an empty placeholder in search of an object) (57). Both the Other’s desire and the object of (the Other’s) desire are thus symbolized by the phallus (as signifier). (This is consistent with Lacan’s assertion of the subject (which, it must be pointed out, the Other also is) as the signifier (representing itself) to/for another signifier.)

The (primordial) name-of-the-father and the (full-fledged) phallus thus symbolize “the signifier that comes to signify (to wit, replace, symbolize or neutralize) the Other’s desire,” what Lacan symbolizes with S(barred A) (with A referring to Autre, French for Other; hence also translatable (as Leupin prefers) into S(barred O)), read by Fink both as “the signifier of the lack in the Other” and (“as lack and desire are coextensive”) “the signifier of the Other’s desire” (58).

Fink summarizes the function of this signifier:

[S(barred O)] is [. . .] a signifier which plays a very precise role: it symbolizes the mOther’s desire, transforming it into signifiers. By doing so, it creates a rift in the mother-child unity and allows the child a space in which to breathe easy, a space of its own. It is through language that a child can attempt to mediate the Other’s desire, keeping it at bay and symbolizing it ever more completely (58).

The process in which the name-of-the-father, the phallus—S(barred O)—is able to do this is referred to by Fink (following Lacan) as the process of substitution or metaphor, where the fOther(‘s name) substitutes for the mOther(‘s desire) (58). Thus, even as earlier the Other (as desire) substituted for the Other (as language), subsequently and correspondingly the Other (as language) substitutes for the Other (as desire). This is no mere play, however. As in the earlier substitution, it serves a function/purpose. Lacan’s argument is that this process of substitution/metaphorization results into the advent/emergence of the Lacanian subject as such, the precipitation of the barred S (58). In Fink’s words:

The result of this substitution or metaphor is the advent of the subject as such, the subject as no longer just a potentiality, a mere place-holder in the [S]ymbolic, waiting to be filled out, but a desiring subject. [. . .] Graphically speaking, separation leads to the subject’s expulsion from the Other, in which he or she was still nothing but a place-holder. Simplistically described, this can be associated with Freud’s view of the outcome of the Oedipus complex (at least for boys), whereby the father’s castration threats—“Stay away from Mom or else!”—eventually bring about a breaking away of the child from the mother (58).

At the same time, the Other’s desire—as it is signified by S(barred O), the name-of-the-father, the phallus—“takes on a new role: that of object a” (a to symbolize autre, i.e. other with a small o) or, following Leupin’s translation, o object. This transformation (from Other’s desire to o object) signals for Lacan (as interpreted by Fink) the beginnings of the (determination of the) subject’s own desire. At this stage, “the Other’s desire [functioning as o object] begins to function as the cause of the [subject’s] desire” (59).

Fink reviews the mechanism and nature of desire in order to explain this:

Th[e] cause [of the subject’s desire] is, on the one hand, the Other’s desire (based on lack) for the subject—and here we encounter the other meaning of Lacan’s dictum “Le désir de l’homme, c’est le désir de l’Autre,” which [. . . this time can be translated into] “Man’s desire is for the Other to desire him” or “Man desires the Other’s desire for him.” [The subject’s] desire’s cause can take the form of someone’s voice or of a look someone gives him. But its cause also originates in that part of the mOther’s desire which seems to have nothing to do with him, which takes her away from him (physically or otherwise), leading her to give her precious attention to others (59).

Fink is saying, in other words, that desire (for Lacan) is induced by two things. First, by the desire of the Other (functioning as the Other’s desire)—in the sense of the desire that the Other has (for someone else, including but not limited to the subject) and the (subject’s) desire for the Other. This is the way in which the (m)Other’s “very desirousness [. . . is what the subject] finds desirable”—with desirousness referring to both the desire that the mOther’s has (i.e. the Other’s desirousness)—which (desire being mobile, bouncing, as it were, from one mirror to another) inspires in those who see/detect/experience it (i.e. detect that the Other desires (them)) further desire— and the desire that the subject (being one of those who detect it) harbors for the Other (because s/he is desirous/desirable) (59). Second, by the fact that this desire is frustrated/unfulfillable/impossible (in the sense that the desire of the subject and of the Other (as in the mother-child example) will never coincide/overlap) (59). By its very nature, desire creates a rift (comparable to the breach/breakout of/by the unconscious subject)—which, paradoxically enough, induces/creates desire.

This nature of the Other’s desire “leads to the advent of [the o object],” is in fact why/how the o object emerges—which in turn is essential to, plays an important role in, the precipitation/constitution of the (whole) subject (59). Fink explains:

[The o object] can be understood here as the remainder produced when that hypothetical unity [or the coincidence/fulfillability between the two desires] breaks down, as a last trace of that unity, a last reminder thereof. By cleaving to that rem(a)inder, the split subject, though expulsed from the Other, can sustain the illusion of wholeness: by clinging to [the o object], the subject is able to ignore his or her division. That is precisely what Lacan means by fantasy, [. . . i.e.] the divided subject[‘s . . .] relation to [the o object]. It is in the subject’s complex relation to [the o object, a relation that Lacan describes] as one of envelopment-development-conjunction-disjunction, that [the subject] achieves a phantasmatic sense of wholeness, completeness, fulfillment, and well-being (59-60) (my emphases).

Even as it constitutes the subject as whole, like the ego (from the mirror image), this (whole) subject is but a fantasy, a (fantastical) subject—a phantasm—that the psychoanalyst needs to help the subject to get beyond. Fantasy (in shedding light on the subject’s position in relation to the Other (as desire)) thus proves key to the psychoanalyst’s task. Fink continues:

[Fantasy is] the way [the subject] would like to be positioned with respect to the Other’s desire. [The o object,] as it enters into [the subject’s] fantasies, is an instrument or plaything with which subjects do as they like, manipulating it as it pleases them, orchestrating things in the fantasy scenario in such a way as to derive a maximum of excitement therefrom. Given, however, that the subject casts the Other’s desire in the role most exciting to the subject, that pleasure may turn to disgust and even to horror, there being no guarantee that what is most exciting to the subject is also most pleasurable. That excitement, whether correlated with a conscious feeling of pleasure or pain, is what the French call jouissance [roughly: orgasm . . .] This pleasure—this excitation due to sex, seeing, and/or violence, whether positively or negatively viewed by conscience, whether considered innocently pleasurable or disgustingly repulsive—is termed jouissance, and that is what the subject orchestrates for him or herself in fantasy (60).

In this way, jouissance, Fink explains, serves as “the substitute for the lost ‘mother-child unity,” constituting sublimation proper (60). More generally, we can say that jouissance (as a fantasy) substitutes for (and/or covers over) the noncoincidence/non-overlap/frustration/unfulfillment/impossibility—the non-rapport—inherent in desire (between two subjects, e.g. the mOther and the child). Fink relates this subject-level phenomenon to Lacan’s ontology by making it parallel to what happens to the Real upon its entrance into the Symbolic. In Fink’s words:

We can imagine a kind of jouissance before the letter, before the institution of the [S]ymbolic order—corresponding to an unmediated relation between mother and child, a [R]eal connection between them [that supposedly would have been possible before the realization of desire’s non-rapport, i.e. possible mythically (not in the least because the subject is always already in the Symbolic)]—which gives way before the signifier, being cancelled out by the operation of the paternal function. Some modicum or portion of that [R]eal connection is refound in fantasy (a jouissance after the letter), in the subject’s relation to the leftover or byproduct of symbolization: [the o object] ([. . . which is what] precipitates out a subject [as whole]) (60).

This then leads to the subject’s sense of being. Fink continues:

This second-order jouissance takes the place of the former “wholeness” or “completeness,” and fantasy—which stages this second-order jouissance—takes the subject beyond his or her nothingness, his or her mere existence as a marker at the level of alienation, and supplies a sense of being. It is thus only through fantasy, made possible by separation, that the subject can procure him or herself some modicum of what Lacan calls “being.” While existence is granted only through the [S]ymbolic order (the alienated subject being assigned a place therein), being is supplied only by cleaving to the [R]eal (60-1).

By thus recovering a rem(a)inder of the Other’s desire, the subject takes something from the Other and “sustain[s] him or herself in being, as a being of desire, a desiring being.” Fink concludes:

[The o object] is the subject’s complement, a phantasmatic partner that ever arouses the subject’s desire. Separation results in the splitting of the subject into ego and unconscious, and in a corresponding splitting of the Other into lacking Other [barred O] and [o object]. [. . .] Something of the Other (the Other’s desire in this account) that the subject considers his or her own, essential to his or her existence, is ripped away from the Other and retained by the now divided subject in fantasy (61).

Thus the subject completes the process of separation—separates (by taking a rem(a)inder) from the Other—constituting itself as a subject—who, however, retaining (from the Other) only a rem(a)inder, keeps desiring, desires—is constituted as a being of desire, a desiring being, a being that keeps to desire . . .