Monday, July 14, 2008

officially down, but actually pretty high

This blog is still officially down while I still officially draft my dissertation. Last week, my dissertation committee played musical chairs. (Officially, there is a new committee chair and a new member, who I'll officially meet this week. Oh, and my new chair is a blogger, but shhh, no one's supposed to know, even though she got me into blogging herself, once upon a time, unofficially of course.) This week, I'm happier.

So this post is not official. I'm officially not reading anyone else's blogs either. So don't read this blog or this post.

You'll just overhear that I had absolutely my happiest day ever yesterday, spending time with my best friend and her children (who are my son and two daughters) laughing and enjoying our differences around an unnecessarily drawn out meal together followed by sno cones in the Texas heat. Damn heat! Stupid dissertation. They all call it, "the thing."

You'll just listen in on me confessing that I think Iyov's post on the need for multiple voices in translation is one of the best statements I've eavesdropped in on in a long time. And he's labeled it post 1, so I'm going back unofficially.

You'll find me reading and pasting in for my dissertating stuff from Krista Ratcliffe, whose stuff is sponsoring my friend Jason's dissertation. Here's the quotation he sent me from her unofficially:

Defining rhetorical listening as a trope of interpretive invention not only emphasizes the discursive nature of rhetorical listening but also plays with the etymology of the term trope as “a turning.”

For rhetorical listening turns hearing (a reception process) into invention (a production process), thus complicating the reception/production opposition and inviting rhetorical listening into the time-honored tradition of rhetorical invention.

Second, rhetorical listening turns the realm of hearing into a larger space, one encompassing all discursive forms, not just oral ones.

Third, rhetorical listening turns intent back on the listener, focusing on listening with intent to hear troubled identifications, instead of listening for intent of an author.

Fourth, rhetorical listening turns the meaning of the text into something larger than itself, certainly larger than the intent of the speaker/writer, in that rhetorical listening locates a text as part of larger cultural logics.

And fifth, rhetorical listening turns rhetoric's traditional focus on the desires of the speaker/writer into a harmonics and/or dissonance of the desires of both the speaker/writer and the listener.

[dear eavesdropper, guess what book that's from, and what page? If this were an official post, we might talk to each other. I might say something like "rhetorical listening is feminist rhetorical translating," and you might laugh or try to argue. Then, I'd say the same thing with a Texas twang, then a British air, then you'd see that the official names need translation, and we'd both laugh, all of us. I'm officially off some where else writing, drafting shittily, as if I've overheard Ann Lamott's voices well enough. Well, enough then.]

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Blessings on you

μακάριοι
οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ οἱ βλέποντες ἃ βλέπετε

λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν
ὅτι πολλοὶ προφῆται καὶ βασιλεῖς
ἠθέλησαν ἰδεῖν ἃ ὑμεῖς βλέπετε
καὶ οὐκ εἶδαν
καὶ ἀκοῦσαι ἃ ἀκούετε
καὶ οὐκ ἤκουσαν

I read the above this morning and thought of Janet Porter and her son David Ker. A translation:

Blessings on you:
for your eyeing, for your watching what you’ve watched.

Here’s a statement of mine to you:
Many interpreters of god(s) and many rulers of humans
wished to see what you’ve watched
but haven’t seen it
to hear what you’ve heard
but haven’t heard it.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Cyber-Psalm 40

My wife and I ate lunch today with friends who are very close friends of David Ker's. They told us that his mom, Janet Porter, passed away and that he's in transit to the States. You blogger friends of Dave's will know that too. Our condolences to him and his family. (He, my favorite blogger, and some of my other blogger friends advised me well a few days ago to give blogging a rest so as to get after my dissertation. Stupid dissertation.)

Anyway, here's David's post, Cyber-Psalm 40, from yesterday (and other things he's said about his mom recently).

Gone.
Mom is gone.
Such silence now.
After so much laughter.

Left.
Still here.
Wondering and wishing.
Now only to remember.

Joy.
Heavenly laughter.
Not to linger in pain.
So why am I crying?

Life.
Without you.
Living like you loved life.
Loving the Savior who saved you.