TYG-Lyotard & Habermas-To Infinity, and Beyond!

Infinity.

If an infinite number of monkeys type on an infinite number of typewriters (remember typewriters?) for an infinite length of time, then, sooner or later (I'd bank on much, much, later...) one of them will type a word-for-word copy of _War and Peace_.

I feel like one of the monkeys.

But I'm in good company: Lyotard, Habermas, and the rest of these educated, erudite, possibly even well-meaning academicians seem to be paid by the word, with a substantial bonus for “multi-syllabic literary utterances” (that's thirteen, Ka-ching$$$).

There may be a teensy-weensy bit of this week's reading that I can make sense of, but, then again, maybe not:

* Lyotard's comment on PoMo Art that "this realism of the 'anything goes' is in fact that of money; in the absence of aesthetic criteria, it remains possible and useful to assess the value of the works of art according to the profits they yield" (42) speaks to the spreading uber-kapitalism, the Wal-Mart-ization of the world, in which the only benchmark is what something sells for; hence, the lousiest NBA player on the court is probably worth more than all these Postmodernistic literary critics combined, and could likely be understood by a great many more people, as well.
* Further, "Taste [. . .] testifies that between the capacity to concieve and the capacity to present an object corresponding to the concept, an undetermined agreement, without rules [. . .], may be experienced as pleasure" (43) -- duh. Isn't this sex? Maybe I missed something...
Actually, it seems to address more types of communication than just physical touching; having someone read something I wrote and, without my explaining or elaborating on it, tell me something that indicates they "get it" gives me pleasure -- and I imagine artists using media other than words feel similarly.
* Lest we leave out Habermas, look at his thoughts on "bourgeois art." It's "two expectations [. . .] from its audiences" are that participants should "become expert[s]" and behave as "competent consumer[s]" (106). We are a nation of bourseois art lovers! How many of us can quote from our favorite television shows and either avidly re-watch the best episodes, courtesy of Tivo, et. al, or purchase entire seasons on DVD? Seinfeld, Buffy, Survivor, American Idol, and all the rest become immediate (and occasionally lasting -- "yada, yada, yada") parts of our lexicon and, consequently, our world.

Well, that’s 397 words.

Enough. I want a banana.