Sunday, July 14, 2013

on the throne with zizek & zappa




o



ooo

The wife of a colleague asked a question on my behalf to Slavoj Zizek during a conference last week at Birkbeck. As far as I am aware Zizek has never made or published a statement on Zappa & they seem to have certain things in common. It seemed worth asking. 

Apparently Zizek's immediate response was violent & unpublishable for a family audience of this Blog (an expletive related to Zappa's original choice of name for The Mothers). His subsequent remarks were equally hostile - I have to wait to hear the exchange. 

However, the photographs above seem to suggest I'm on to something. So why such hostility? A classic case of repression/ denial? Or is Slavoj more a Captain Beefheart fan?

& let's not ignore the fact that Zappa's trousers are down around his ankles, whereas Zizek's jeans remain firmly in place. Philosophy refuses to bare all? The constipated nature of Western Thought? Material here for a thesis ... 

PS should our correspondent from Frimley be reading, could he confirm that the second photo is indeed Zizek & not him a few years ago? Uncanny ... 


2 comments:

Elephant Zebra said...

You seem to have found a mask and thereby bared an identity, which is, perhaps, much more em-bar-rassing than embarrassing a king on his throne. Your question is probably worthy of a paper--and more than toilet paper at that. Please keep us posted as to where this exposure shows.

Jerky LeBoeuf said...

Very interesting. I think Zizek has a reflexive love of entertainments that are NOT THOUGHT OUT, whereas Zappa was very conscious in the construction of his Project/Object. Perhaps Zizek sees Zappa as "The Competition" and there is some rivalry there.

April Fool?