the road
From language theory to rock n' roll and back again.
Bakhtin's notion of chronotope (which literally means time-space) is used to describe the "instrinsic connectedness" of temporal and spatial relationships. Somehow, this concept has brought together my fascination with (see also: fear of) time and affinity for road trips in a most unlikely convergence:
"The road is a particularly good place for random encounters. On the road, the spatial and temporal paths of the most varied people - representatives of all social classes, estates, religions, nationalities, ages - intersect at one spatial and temporal point. People who are normally kept separate by social and spatial distance can accidentally meet; any contrast may crop up, the most various fates may collide and interweave with one another. On the road, human lives become more complex and more concrete by the collapse of social distances. The chronotope of the road is both a point of new departures and a place for events to find their denoument. Time, as it were, fuses together with space and flows in it (forming the road); this is the source of the rich metaphorical expansion on the image of the road as a course, the course of life. Varied and multi-leveled are the ways in which the road is turned into a metaphor, but its fundamental pivot is the flow of time."
Place and time. It really simplifies things.
When you finally hear the new RH album, you'll hear me singing:
I don't wanna be here anymore...
The "I" says it all. It's all about me, in that place and time, right there, right then (or, if you prefer the senseless Jesus Jones reference, right here, right now). What I'm really asking is: How can I possibly construct an existential identity within this postmodern social framework?
Perhaps you know what I mean. Maybe. Or not.
Bakhtin's notion of chronotope (which literally means time-space) is used to describe the "instrinsic connectedness" of temporal and spatial relationships. Somehow, this concept has brought together my fascination with (see also: fear of) time and affinity for road trips in a most unlikely convergence:
"The road is a particularly good place for random encounters. On the road, the spatial and temporal paths of the most varied people - representatives of all social classes, estates, religions, nationalities, ages - intersect at one spatial and temporal point. People who are normally kept separate by social and spatial distance can accidentally meet; any contrast may crop up, the most various fates may collide and interweave with one another. On the road, human lives become more complex and more concrete by the collapse of social distances. The chronotope of the road is both a point of new departures and a place for events to find their denoument. Time, as it were, fuses together with space and flows in it (forming the road); this is the source of the rich metaphorical expansion on the image of the road as a course, the course of life. Varied and multi-leveled are the ways in which the road is turned into a metaphor, but its fundamental pivot is the flow of time."
Place and time. It really simplifies things.
When you finally hear the new RH album, you'll hear me singing:
I don't wanna be here anymore...
The "I" says it all. It's all about me, in that place and time, right there, right then (or, if you prefer the senseless Jesus Jones reference, right here, right now). What I'm really asking is: How can I possibly construct an existential identity within this postmodern social framework?
Perhaps you know what I mean. Maybe. Or not.
posted by Pj at 3:18 AM
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