Engaging Modernity 101

Engaging Modernity 101

Let’s start at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start, which for Eliot is his end and for Ashbery is his fading, for Jameson the end began when he wouldn’t stop pontificating on being, for Harvey the beginning and the end circulate around his architectural trends and socio-economic theories that keep him grounded but far from living.

Joke—Three men (yes, no women) walk into a bar. The first man calls himself DJ T.S.; he spins at local, Wednesday night religious gatherings. You might know some of his rhythmic trance beats, one’s called “The Four Qs,” real modern, yah know? He gets real philosophical, “If all time is eternally present, yo! All time is unredeemable, yo! yo! daddy!” or how about the line, “human kind Cannot bear very much reality, so let’s MOVE IT ON!” He’s really known for that last one. DJ T.S. sits at the counter, checking out the lādies, asks for a whiskey.

A second man walks into the bar, named Singular J. He wears all black, and his t-shirt reads, “Ontologize This!” Nobody knows who he is; he just sits by himself for a while, writes in a little journal, and orders a “highly commercialized and overpriced” Guinness. The bartender, named Benjamin, says that Singular J. has an aura about him that seems contrived. The inevitable third man gallivants into the bar, orders a Cosmopolitan, doesn’t give his name, says he’s a doctor who tries to cure that pestering Condition of Postmodernity. After a few Cosmos, this doctor pulls out his Power Point presentation and tries to illustrate the modern and the postmodern with graphs and charts. DJ T.S. is thoroughly bored and wants to groove on some of his own brilliant tunes. He begins to rap over the doctor’s clinical jargon, “Whĭsper of runňing streams, and winter light-ning. The wild thyme ta-time unseen and the wild straw-ber-ry, The laughter in the garden, echohohoed ecstasy Not lost, but Requiring, poinTing to the Agony of death and birth.” The ladies swoon; he pirouettes out the door.

Now, Singular J. is left with the doc. Since the DJ is gone, they can really get down to business. Time is money. Let’s talk fast, the publishers are waiting. Singular J. complains about the doc’s Power Point. He unplugs the computer and tells him that “we very much [need] to continue the project of an ontology of the present, while abandoning the sterile attempts to reinvent a discourse of modernity.