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March 1, 2001, 9:39 a.m. || update

I just wanted to cop out again with two new Punk Planet columns up. The first is a collaborative project with Dwayne Dixon, project coordinator for the Literacy Through Photography program at Duke University, about the photography of violence -- of lynching, of war, of the disappeared. The second was "inspired" by the Alcatraz trip Mark and I took in December, and the politics of prison tourism . 

February 27, 2001, 9:00 a.m. || the evidence is everywhere

Hi Mimi--

The latest New Yorker has a multi-page color ad section about travel... here are some quotes:

"Authenticity can be elusive in a world inundated with American pop culture"

"Basically, what you've seen in the last ten years is a movement away from collecting places, and a movement toward collecting cultures"

"Religious festivals permit intimate access to a culture"

"You'd be amazed how far a few dollars goes in South Africa... for information call toll-free 1-877 Mandela"

Honest, I'm not making any of this up. (And I haven't even attempted to describe the visual images.) This reminds me of the time I listened to an ad agency employee recount how the images in a TV commercial had been chosen, focus-grouped, and fine-tuned-- the level of semiotic analysis would have put Barthes to shame. They're way ahead of us, I fear...bell hooks is writing about "eating the Other" but these motherfuckers are printing the goddamn menu.

Anyway if you're interested I can snail mail the New Yorker pages to you. I can also include at no extra charge a box of Dramamine to help you control the inevitable waves of nausea.

--affectionately, jvb

8:20 a.m. || so many bad journalists

Seriously, aren't you supposed to contact me if you're going to quote me at length in an article about queer blogs? (And this isn't even a blog.)

It's not that I mind being called a "brainy woman with too much theory on her tongue for her own good," but are you really so naïve to believe that this journal site represents my reality? That the imagined transparency of the digital interaction renders myself also obvious? This isn't a What I Did Today site. This isn't a This Is The Real Me site. This is occasionally a Trials and Tribulations of Being a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) site, a Writing as a Critical Project site. And sometimes it's just a Pain in the Ass.

Journal sites are crafted, deliberate mediations that are sometimes achingly self-aware while pretending to "honesty." I don't pretend to be "honest," which too often translates into "pointless confessional." I don't use this space for therapy or personal revelation. I'll avoid the Foucault and just say that this is a prosthetic me, one that isn't necessarily self-identical. All my parts are not laid out here. Isn't that just common sense?

PUNK POINTS: Aaron Cometbus scolded me for not doing wider distribution for my zine. (I shrugged and forever branded myself a bad zinester in his eyes, I'm sure.)