1 March 2009: "The Yoko OnAlt"

This post is about entropy. "Kinda worried about ‘aging’ and not looking ‘youthful’ and ‘relevant’ n e more," Carles admits, contemplating an ambivalent pop-culture icon, Yoko Ono, who at once regarded as both an arriviste and a longstanding member of the avant-garde. Contemplating his own relevance in terms of Ono's is of course an ironic strategy, because Ono's significance to culture has always remained indeterminate. She had been instrumental in dismantling one of the most significant groups in 20th-century popular music and led efforts to trivialize the attempts of celebrities to leverage their fame for political causes. Her own artistic output defies easy appreciation but rarely pays off considered contemplation. Her continued relevance is more a matter of her ambiguity as a cultural force rather than a testament to any of her positive achievements.

Carles seems to want to generalize from her particular notoriety to make a comment about ambiguous identity in general, and the ways in which our efforts to fix it only serve to make it more forgettable. At the conclusion of the post, he reveals his formula for this conundrum: "I want so badly to believe that there is truth that ______ is real." Not only is ontological status uncertain, but so is the epistemological status; the entities whose being is questioned can't even be named -- there is no sure way of knowing what to call anything without devolving into question-begging nominalism. So the momentum of experience leads to an ever-accelerating decay in subjectivity; we age, and the blandishments of consumerism cannot salve the leakage from our self-concepts: As Carles jokes, grimly, "Kinda worried about ‘aging’ and not looking ‘youthful’ and ‘relevant’ n e more. Might have to buy some Proactiv, or a different anti-aging cream."

With entropic identity comes the problematic of recognition: "I just feel like only another artist could ‘get’ me, or maybe another blggr." In order to achieve recognition for one's own singularity, one must encounter the Other who is also perfectly unique in the same way. This apparent impossibility prompts existential crisis that the casual racial stereotyping (AZN) that Carles indulges in for effect can do nothing to allay. There is no safety from atomization in nationalistic or racial stereotypes. We are still doomed to encryption in the airless, solipsistic tombs of selfhood.