Jessica Bailiff: Feels Like Home Hence Jack's carelessness during the night of the billowing cloud. Hence Orest's foolish quest to sit among poisonous snakes. Is there a connection between humankind's increased bravado and advances in technology? Murray points out that technology is a double-edged sword: it infected Jack, but could also save him. DeLillo addresses the problems of modern America from a fresh perspective, removing the generic humanist self-righteousness that often accompanies such discussions, and looking at all these problems from a lighter—yet still more poignant—perspective. (Seeking Quiet in the White Noise, May 1999)

Girl Talk: Night Ripper Bakhtin's description of Dostoevsky's narrative style refers back to the synchronic quality of Dostoevsky's narration and worldview, which defies the concepts of genealogy and history that Foucault also dismantled. "… in Dostoevsky's thinking as a whole, there are no genetic or causal categories," Bakhtin writes. Dostoevsky's bifurcation also creates a plane of simultaneously extant elements that defy the monologic storytelling so prevalent in his day. (The Heteroglot Novel, February 1997)

Herbert: Scale The power-through-marginalization argument might be the best conduit through which one can hope to grasp Foucault's relation of theory to power. The sexual contentions that developed during the nineteenth century are not necessarily polarized relationships, as they might first appear. Foucault's description here is Derridian in its deconstructionist rejection of binary oppositions. (The Repressive Hypothesis, January 1997)

The Hold Steady: Boys & Girls In America In this role, the super-ego is awarded the title of "conscience," and a sort hierarchy is established—the super-ego renders aggression upon the ego in an attempt forestall the aggression that the ego threatens to render upon the outside world. But this hierarchy exits in a virtual feedback loop of sorts: the external world which is at risk of being visited by the wrath of the ego is civilization—the same world which drives the ego to such ends and which has thrust the guilt system upon the ego. (Freud's Internalized Paradox, January 1996)

Loose Fur: Born Again In The USA Nietzsche's characterization of sainthood—as a role or attitude rather than an identity—also proves useful in discerning his feelings about Jesus Christ. As Nietzsche sees it, Jesus is not as guilty of delusion as the religion he founded. Jesus was simply seeking to promulgate an ideal, and chose to proclaim himself the son of God. In Nietzsche's estimation, this was a savvy move and a valuable step in Jesus' supposed will to power. Furthermore, Jesus may have actually believed himself to be the son of God; such delusions were not uncommon in his time. (The Pathology of Saints and Sinners: Nietzsche's Attack on Christianity, June 1998)

The Pernice Brothers: Live A Little The detached point-of-view in The Sun Also Rises is partly a result of Hemingway's writing style. His short simple sentences do not readily lend themselves to biases. But Henry James' complex style tends to foster an overtone of evaluation and is perfect for The American, a novel where every character is constantly making judgments about themselves and others. On a larger societal scale, World War I has also helped bring a slightly more realistic perspective to the European middle class. The obsolete and superficial aristocratic social divisions of The American aren't nearly as prevalent in The Sun Also Rises. (The Literature Of Expatriation, November 1996)

Scissor Sisters: Ta-Dah In Axiom 1, Eve Sedgewick notes the classification and generalization of the human race into relatively few categories—into "inconceivably coarse axes of categorization"—and laments the general disregard for individual differences (22). But at the other extreme, she later concedes, deconstruction as "the science of différ(e/a)nce"—in its embrace, celebration, and hyperdriven invocation of difference and uncertainty—runs the risk of extending itself beyond its means and thus paralyzing any faculty to effectively make sense of actual real-world differences. Sedgewick feels this is a postmodern affliction in general (23). She demarcates our sexual particularities in much the same way that Foucault observes endless distinctions within the realm of silence. (Sedgewick's Epistemology of the Closet, February 1997)

The Secret Machines: Ten Silver Drops These six stanzas are highly reminiscent of the bulk of "The Waste Land"—shot through with futility and the ensuing lamentation over the endless cycle of fertility and sterility, to which, it seems, no teleological culmination can be ascribed. And so the speaker's quests for an "end" which begin nearly all of Part II's stanzas seem to go unanswered, except when he answers them himself: "There is no end, but addition: the trailing/consequence of further days and hours." This piling up of time to no perceivable end informs the futile activities described within these six stanzas, and consists of two major elements: unrelieved burdens and relentless forces. (The Structure of Time and Memory in Eliot's Dry Salvages, November 1997)

Spank Rock: YoYoYoYoYo So what happens when Derrida wields the pharmakon against the heretofore sacrosanct ideas of the classical philosophers? Derrida agrees with Plato to the extent that writing often confuses, plays with, and renders ambiguous ideas that could supposedly be transmitted clearly through speech. But rather than condemning these characteristics, Derrida embraces them and celebrates writing's anarchistic nature, since deconstruction is primarily concerned with just this sort of play, this turning of "the word on its strange and invisible pivot" (97). This refutation of Platonic distinction will of course culminate in Derrida's assertion on pages 117-119 that Plato is no different from the sophists—the very group from which he tries so hard to distinguish himself. (Plato’s Pharmakon: Grounds For Play, March 1997)

TV On The Radio: Return To Cookie Mountain Ma classe de français a beaucoup de personnes differentes. Il y a grandes et petites personnes; jenues et vieux personnes. Il y a beaucoup de musiciens. Par exemple, je suis un percussionist, et il y a chanteurs et pianistes aussi. Il y a athlètes, comme Christophe, qui joue basket-ball. Main il n'est pas une stéréotype—un "jock"—il est sympathique et intelligent. La classe est grande mais nous avons une professeur formidable et nous nous amusons touts les jours. (Ma classe de français, November 1995)