On summer & travel (I): Nomad camels vs cosmo trendies

We are in August, so what a better time to discuss topics related to holidays, traveling etc. Here is the first of the series.  The clip is a melodic song by Camel called “stationary traveller”. Sunday tripper stuff. What do you expect?

On swans, spuds and ducks

Before reading the text pay attention no so much to Lacan’s theatrics but the last bit of the speech below: “to seek meaning through language is impossible” he says, more or less. 

Basque ethnic rhino goes Superlambananas too

I had planed to post something “on swans, spuds and ducks” but we’ll leave it for another time, hopefully next week. The thing is I have gone Superlambananas too and quickly put a miniclip together which I feel like I have to show you. Here it is. If you read below you may refrain from watching it so click first and, if anything, give up on the reading.

Ugly ogres: beware of beautiful voices talking on your behalf

We keep on with Jonathan Swift who in this piece is shortcircuited with Shrek 2. Find also a very short clip where Richard Rorty gives his opinion on the topic of Truth.

Slaughtered piglets and legless spiders

On this one I have short-circuited anti-racist activist Darcus Howe with Jonathan Swift, the  writer of Gulliver’s Travels although I deal with the also famous text A modest proposal instead.

No monkey business: a letter to fathers

I’ll try to go a bit light for July and August. Here is a clip (aita means father in Basque) explaining how everything ends (beers with friends, politics…) once the reality of family life settles in.  Then below, a kind of letter to fathers (to be)……

Un chien andalou & the alien bitches

We follow last week’s clip by Zizek on reality as 1/ stupid reality, 2/ external appearance and 3/ the appearance of the spectral,  phantasmatic Real. In the clip below, the results of the opinion poll are far from imaginary: that’s the kind of ‘reality’, we silly Basque ethnic cows, have to put up with. In the aftermath of the Madrid bombings a politician said that they are all terrorists, whether they put a beret or a turbant on and why not? since almost 80% of the population seems to believe so. Everything goes! So, out of the blue, here is another story, neboulous and ghosty.

Why elephants do not scape

In the near future, the Basque independent state will obviously need good, efficient MI5 style secret services to protect its citizens in the name of national security, but also the best hospitals and healthcare possible. Enjoy this great short story by Aritz Gorrotxategi that I translated from Basque sometime ago. The clip is one I have found of Zizek telling “a few words about reality” in French. 

Fight moth fight

Here I follow Slavoj Zizek (and Mao Tse-Tung). Read it carefully. It may seem heavy-going and complicated but it is crystal-clear:

Postmo mongrels

It is not just that all this ‘ethnic’ thing does get to me, really; it is also that then, we still must play the multicultural postmo game to be somehow trendy and ’right on’. No way! Check the clip. Ok: terrific fusion food but not my cup of tea. American kids in traditional Basque rustic cloths together with a pinch of authentic black radical Jamaican reggae salt is definitely not good grazing.