The Date;

Politics of an Evening between Two Midwesterners

Daniel J. Pool

In a Sedan in the Suburbs: At About 12:30 A.M.
Louis had blue balls. This was not an altogether unknown feeling and yet he still resented
himself every time he experienced it. Meryl didnt say a word. If awkward silence could take
being it would be something not unlike a brick wall thirty feet thick between the driver and
passenger seat.
Well, were here, Louis saidthe words trickling out of his mouth because they were
expected but also because he wanted to check if Meryl was still breathing.
Yeah. She was. Well, uh Night. She pulled on the door handle, it was locked. She
tugged harder like an animal suddenly aware it was in a cage.
*Click*
She opened her door.
Ni-*thunk*-ght Louis tried to say.
Watching her cross the dark lawn in a puff, Louis ran his hand from his forehead to the
back of his head and put the car into D. Pulling away from the dreary under lit suburb, the
man-boy felt like something was probably wrong with how he had handled that. He didnt love
her but he never wanted to hurt her.
Louis is a young adultthat place where it is too mature to call someone a boy or a
teenager but drinks too much to safely be called an adult. Growing up would mean accepting
responsibility for breaking up with Meryl. He is a student. Yet another place where he stands
disjointed from the common stiff. He spends his days sleeping and his nights hunched over a
desk typing out drivel that a professor will be forced to read and give said professor a massive
headache. So it goes.
Meryl is also a girl-woman and a student, only she is an artist. Not only does she separate
herself from the normal society but also from other students. Her hobbies include listening to
unknown bands, discussing Nietzsches atheistic nihilism (a point of great contention between
her and Louis), getting blazed, and until an hour previous being in a one-way relationship with
Louis.
While politics and aesthetics are often thought of as a reserved social science and art for
statesmen, politicians and artists it is actually encountered in everyday life even between
individuals (Badiou 1, 3). Violence, bio-power, encounters of the event, and the exception are all
terms that can be applied to the study of interpersonal relationships as well as governments (6).
To better understand the political interactions of individuals one should study the works of
iek, Agamben, Badiou, Dewey, and Foucault.
In a Sedan in the Suburbs: At About 6:00 P.M.
Louis was dawdling. He drove slowly through the rows of white houses. They all
matched for the most part. Some had trees; others did not, in the front lawns. They were
adequately pleasant. They were reassuring. Finally Louis put his mangled ideas to the back of his
head and drove to Meryls house (her parents) and came to a stop. His stomach made a two-
half-hitch knot in his stomach but not in the way one should when they see their girlfriend. He
had decided, during earlier dawdles, that he would break up with her.
Bio-politics eventually becomes the politics of fear (iek, 40). Poor relationships
become a fear of harassment. Breaking up with someone is difficult but it is of course necessary
at times. This fear of having to do something about a problemto be harassedcan be a fear to
anyone. If it were not then break ups would be just another item on the day planner.
The decision to break off a relationship does not come from moments boredom but
rather from intolerable acts over time given meaning by language (iek, 67). This common
ground in language is however the first great divider of human contact pushing relationships
apart by the very freedom that makes language importanti.e. we have to use imperfect
communication to get ideas across the void of otherness or individualization (66). Boyfriends
probably have wished for a Truth Pill that they could take along with their girlfriend in order to
destroy this boundary between individuals (45), however it is this distance that created the need
for political interaction.
Louis is uncomfortable around Meryl because she creates this fear of otherness that he
cannot be breached with language (iek, 67). His fears of being unable to communicate become
terror as his desire to not be bothered rises (40). Staying in a toxic relationship far past what was
healthy makes Louis and Meryl victims of self-exercised torture (45).
She crossed the too green lawn and pulled at the door handle. A *Click* opened the lock
on the door.
Hey babes, whats up? Meryl asked as she gave him a peck on the cheek.
Hi, not much really. What do you want for dinner? replied Louis.
Oh I dont really care. Whatever you want.
Cool, tacos?
Except that.
Pizza?
Nah, I had that for lunch.
Burgers.
Silence answered that.
Louis thought for a moment.
He finally asked, Is there anything you want to eat?
I dont know Is there anything else? I sort of want something nutritional.
Chinese?
How about tacos? Those sound good.
Louis was tired already.
Sounds good, Louis sighed.
At the Apartment (with Tacos): Just About 6:30 P.M.
Opening the front door, Louis went to work turning on lights and kicking off his shoes.
Meryl started to unpack the banquet of taco-y-goodness.
Is it immoral to eat something so greasy? Meryl pondered openly.
I think the morality of tacos is in your frame of reference (Agamben, 27). Are you eating
sparingly or till you burst or just what fills you up? It is like what Foucault wrote about the
Greeks (93), answered Louis.
That was a gross sentence. I think you needed to remove an or and replace it with a
comma, mumbled Meryl.
What? Louis said with lattice hanging out of his maw. Who are you talking to?
Meryl was staring at the ceiling but turned her gaze back to Louis, I mean what were
you saying about Foucault?
Oh right. He had this idea about ethics but combined it with how the Greeks built their
ethics. He talked about over eating.
Why do you do that?
Do what?
Drop a name every time you have to answer a philosophical question. Cant you think
for yourself?
I think for myself! It just helps to have people with PhDs agree with you. Maybe he
had sounded too angry with what she had said or so he thought so he added, Also Thats how
I roll. Ima intellectual gang-star.
The crickets were hearing crickets.
Whatever... What do you want to watch?
Uh I got Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on DVD.
Cool.
Knowledge is often attributed with being power in Saturday morning cartoons but it is
also a form of violence (Badiou 1, 6). Whether it is because Meryl here feels uncertain about
philosophy and threatened with looking ignorant by the ideas of intellectuals or because of the
fear of what that knowledge can do it occupies a place of power she still reacts to the challenge
of knowledges violence (iek, 85). If Meryl felt confident in what she said she would not be
afraid of knowledge (86). This envy for what the other has creates resentment between two (87).
Meryl lashes out as Louis here when her limited knowledge becomes an issue. This
represents a lack of language to communicate across otherness between her and Louis (iek,
66). This occurs when Meryls bare life (zoe) becomes topic of proper living (bios) or rather
when her knowledge comes into question in a general forum (Agamben, 1). It is not the
knowledges fault hereit is a tool that can be used for either peace or war or anything in-
between (3)but rather the guilt that belongs to unknowing in reference to the law (27) or in this
case her boyfriend. The problem here is that Louis by processing this knowledge he creates
violence between himself and Meryl and becomes an exception (38). She fears him because she
is afraid that he will widen the gap of otherness between them and he will become more
powerful than her if she does not strike down his speech (Agamben, 218).
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Pure Multiple of Post-Post-Modernism: At About 7:00ish
P.M.
Louis struggled with where to put his arm. He had never fully learned where one should
put an arm during a movie when sitting on a couch with a girl. If it goes behind the girlfriend
then it is likely to fall asleep or cramp (due to the tall back of said couch), and if it goes in the lap
it usually gets sweaty. He panicked because the movie started and went with behind the back
(Meryl did not seem to mind).
As title Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was scrawled across the television in lightening,
Louis wondered to himself, Is this movie art? It has been made in an artistic way, but is it really
art?
To answer his question he would have to answer another question. What is art? To
answer that he would have to explore what Scott Pilgrim is about.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a four part incarnation of narrative fiction that
encompasses film, literature, television, and video game. Each medium has its own ending and
plot progression yet contains the same cast of characters and major plot theme: a boy fighting for
the right to date the girl of his dreams. Each incarnation involves Scott Pilgrim, a between-jobs
hipster bum, who must defeat the League of Evil Xs in order to be allowed to date Ramona
Flowers, an Amazon courier hipster heartbreaker.
At the start of the film, Scott is discussing his new girlfriend Knives, a seventeen year old
Chinese Catholic Schoolgirl, with his best friends/band mates. They ridicule him for being too
old for her since he is twenty-two. Despite their warning he dates her.
While dating Knives, Scott begins to have dreams of a wild haired woman. He slowly
grows distant from Knives while wrapped up in his dreams. That is until he actually meets the
girl of his from his dreams; then he completely forgets about Knives (though she does not forget
him) and begins chasing Ramona. They share a snowy date and fall for one another.
This puts into motion the League of Evil Xs; seven of Ramonas Xs who Scott must
fight in hand-to-hand combat. Their sole purpose is to ensure that if they cannot have Ramona
then no one can. Each successive kung-fu battle tests the fledgling couples devotion to each
other.
The story is told through fast cuts, cartoons, captions, special effects, and every video
game reference possible in an hour and a half. The actors at times serve as just a backdrop to
layer special effects onto of. This heavy use of special effects however has the effect of not only
accepting the comic book roots of the film but actually making it resemble a moving version of
the comic.
Whats with this movie? said Louis.
What you dont like it? replied Meryl in the sort of tone a snake makes before striking
something cute and fluffy and eating it.
Recoiling, No, I love it. But like, what is with these Xs? I mean they cant all have her.
Are fighting Scott just to make Ramona unhappy?
Sated with his passivity, Yeah. Its like a metaphor for how the past comes back to haunt
you. Maybe its, like, each X is a stage of Freuds psychosexual stages that they have to fight.
Louis sighed, But he watched as demon hipster chicks shot fireballs at Michael Cera,
I think people use Freud too often. I mean he never was really justified by scientific research.
Meryl scoffed, Why then do the great contemporary philosophers swear by him then,
like Lacan?
Avoiding eye contact Louis said, Maybe because Lacan didnt have to provide evidence
in a lab, just logic on paper.
Louis suddenly thought maybe he should retract his arm. He bite down on the foot he had
wedged into his mouth and thought, Lets go for broke.
Alright so this is what I think makes Scott Pilgrim vs. the World great: Art, Louis said.
Meryl wore a face that said, What?
Okay, so check it. Art is the exceptional presentation of the pure multiple as
experience of cognitive play, Louis stated.
Meryls What-Face became words, What? What is a pure multiple and exceptional
presentation? I mean the cognitive play part makes sense I guess, but who supports your idea?
Louis thought about it. The protagonists were making out. Then he got itso he said, I
can explain what I think art is, but no one thinker really says what I thinkso here is the Louis
Theory of Aesthetics. To better understand how art is this exceptional presentation of the pure
multiple as experience of cognitive play, one must study and burrow from the works of
Agamben, Dewey, and Badiou.
This ought to be good. Meryl paused the DVD on the horrified face of Scott Pilgrim
and on the screen Louis could see his own face reflected.
Louis breathed deep and started, Alright so
Art is a paradox, like the sovereign in a political system, because it is both inside and
outside of the law (Agamben, 15). The film contained on a DVD is just data but the DVD itself
is a commodity. Thus the film is an exception to judiciary because of its electronic structure but
included by virtue of its commodity value.
But information has a concrete value. Netflix instant play can be given a solid value
based on bandwidth use. Meryl stated looking pleased.
Louis tried to get his mental train back on the tracks, Well yes, um, but you see the film
is an exception from reality once it is burned onto a disc (Agamben, 25). It is like Agamben said,
The exception is what cannot be included in the whole of which it is a member and cannot be a
member of the whole in which it is always already included (25). You see this DVD is always
already included in the Whole of Scott Pilgrim DVDs but it is not altered by who watches it. The
information stays the same.
I guess that makes sense, but then what is a directors cut then?
A directors cut is an alteration to the experience of a movie but it is then a separate
Whole that is similar to it. An art piece is something that is unaffected by outside powers.
Meryl smirked, So what about other art forums? If I run up to the Mona Lisa and cut it
in half I have been an outside power and I sure as hell affected it.
Louis refuted her without a thought, But true art in my theory is an experience; a
memory that you hold onto. Also in this day and age there are so many pictures of famous
paintings like the Mona Lisa that I doubt it would really hurt the paintings effect on later
observers.
Hmmmm, I guess.
Now, like I was saying
Art is an exception also by how it is free from judgments guilt, or licit and illicit
determination, and instead only appeals to the pure force of law in reference to something else
(Agamben, 27). A painting cannot be moral or immoral but can be when in reference to who has
the painting. The same for Scott Pilgrim, the film is not moral or immoral but we as the
observers can make those distinctions on ourselves for watching it.
What about watching Caligula?
Well Wait Yes. The data on a DVD of Caligula, the dotes of color on the screen
and the bytes of sound are not moral or immoral but put them together along with our 21st
century Western morals we see Caligula as bad but Scott Pilgrim as good. It is a matter of
reference (Agamben, 27)which art is free of. Being is indifferent to Truth (Badiou 2, xii).
It is like Agambens idea of zoe and bios, bare life and politics (7). Art is created by the
bios/politics realm. That is to say that an artist creates art in concurrence with their culture. The
art work attempts to make a connection between or help explore the duality of spirit between
body and soul (151) by appealing to our zoe. Our bodies arent a happy or unhappy accident
that relates us to the implacable world. So art is an expression of relating our collective bios to
our personal zoe, to our lives.
Meryl thought this over. Then pursed her lips and said, Alright, art is exceptional but
what is this presentation of the pure multiple?
Louis replied, Well its like this
This one guy, Badiou, sees art as a legible truth (Badiou 2, 8). Complicatedly put that
means art is anything that we can understand and is a finite being that conveys a meaning
(Badiou 1, 525). Simply put art conveys a meaning to us that we can interpret as an amount of
information.
Badiou goes on to say that art has both immanence and singularity. Immanence is being a
rigorously coextensive with the truth that it generates or internal truth (Badiou 2, 9).
Singularity means that art is well singular or unique. Each piece of art stands alone as its own
thing exhibiting its own truth in the form of semblance. Art is presented in reality but it is not
representedart can be in any situation but it is not included in it (Badiou 1, 522).
So wait.
Waiting.
So this goes back to what you were saying earlier? Art is isolated from the events
outside of the finished product?
Exactly.
What about this truth concept though? If Truth is generated by art is it internal? Cause
then Badiou would disagree with Agamben. It goes back to what you were saying about Caligula
not being morally charged until we watch it. Right?
Louis had to think about that one.
Nothey agree. The Truth is only the semblance of a form of truth (erroneous or
accurate not withstanding). It looks like a truth but I think any meaning we attribute in an art
piece is just thatattributed So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah
So art is imminent and singular (Badiou 2, 9). It has truth but it is what we give it. So
next it is something we experience. He puts it like this (reaching convenetly into his school bag
and drawing out his copy of the Handbook of Inaesthetics):
What are educates us for is therefore nothing apart from its own existence. The only
question is that of encountering this existence, that is, of thinking through a form of thought
(Badiou 2, 9).
Or that we experience art when we encounter it in reality. So I see a painting or Scott
Pilgrim and I encounter its ideas and I think about what thoughts it was created with. So I see
Scott fighting evil and I will think about how good and evil fight each other.
Badiou goes on to talk about how theater is high form of art because it engages art,
poetry, music, and dance all together (2, 72). He also praises it for allowing the interplay of
audience and the actors on the stage (73). In fact the audience completes the idea (74),
however when he writes on cinema itself he calls it the great impurifier (88) or debaser. He
also talks about how it is too perfect since it can be edited to be so (or digitally enhanced) but a
piece of literature has to stand by itself. It doesnt really fit with the other chapters as far I can
understand since it is just like a theater play that can be played again.
He talks about it being a plus-one art form since it is always every art form plus-one
since it can include anything (Badiou 2, 86). He also criticizes film for being able to be liked too
much (88). I think however that those are superficial reasons to be hating on film. No one ever
says, Hey orchestra, can you play a little out of tuneI am enjoying you too much. Also you
are impruifing me by your imperfect arrangement. You call this Bach? A twenty piece chamber
orchestra cant Bach! Am I right?
Louis was standing on the coffee table proclaiming his insults to the fictitious chamber
orchestra.
Meryl glanced at her watch and said, If I say yes will you get to your last point so we
can finish the movie.
Dismounting Louis answered, Right. Sorry. So where was I? Oh yeah So:
The next point actually also comes from Badiou. He has this idea about the pure multiple.
He states that the multiple is experiencing reality (Badiou 1, 25). Like we dont just eat
breakfastwe ingest food on earth in a house or cafeteria with people or without peoplebut
we never experience just one singular action at a time. The pure multiple then is the multiple in-
itself (28). Basically we never experience one thing at a time (29).
So example we are watching this movie but we are also sitting together, the house is a
little chilly, and I am sipping a soda but all of that is external to the film. I can pick the film out
as something to experience but it is a singular portion of a total experience. Art then is the
presentation of a singular [watching the film] (24) but it forces us to experience the pure multiple
in how we think about that presentation, which is easy in film because we can see all the
elements of a multiple confined to a screen.
Alright, so this guy John Dewey talks about art as an experience (Dewey, 3). His idea is
that we are constantly experiencing reality while carrying out the process of living (35). So in his
thinking everything we ever do is an experience and it is vital to life (36). A piece of art then has
two qualities: a product and work (162). One half is the physical being of the art and the second
is how we experiencelike what we came up with Badiou and Agamben. The last thing about
art is that it is just information until we interpret it (106). So Scott Pilgrim is just information but
when I experience and think about what is happening I am appreciating it as art.
So that is the cognitive play portion of your thesis?
Right, it is not enough that we just experience art but we actively play with the ideas.
Which is where cognitive theory comes in.
Meryl looked back to the flashing lights on the screen. She looked at Ramona. She
scrunched her eyebrows and then asked, So this is art just because we say it is? Like Post
Modernism?
I would say because it forces us to say so, a post-post-modernism if you will. If we just
said it was art it would not be an important experiencewe would not play with the concept the
same way. To be art we have to recognize it as art but not in an active fashion. I mean if I put a
urinal on a pedestal and call it art it can become art but it becomes art because we start to treat it
differently.
I mean we could apply Hegels Dialetic to the mix or Adorinos ideas on television to this
theory but in the end art is still (in simplest form) an experience. We can use as many fancy
words we want but in the end it comes down to how we think about art and how we play with
ideas.
I guess. What about the story? Does that affect how we play with the presentation of the
pure multiple?
Well it can but in this case the story is secondary. It occurs but it is the blaring garage
music, the cartoons intermixed with the film, and the fast cuts not the story. Story-wise it is just a
boy fighting seven kung-fu opponents for a girl. Nothing new since every kung-fu movie ever.
The difference is in the presentation. The visual effects, the comedy, the music, the difference is
the presentation.
Right So can we finish the damn movie now?
Uh yeah sure.
As the credits crawled up the screen Louis checked the time on his phone
The Use of Pleasure in Control of Exception: About 8:33 P.M.
So, would you like to retire to the bedroom? Meryl said rubbing Louiss leg.
I uh, you know we really havent just talked in a while. Want to take a walk and talk?
Meryl stood and walked toward the bedroom.
Not really, I just feel like laying down, she answered.
She disappeared into the darkened room. Out of the shadows a t-shirt and bra landed in
the hall and a hand motioned for him to join. He froze for a moment unable to decide between
pleasure and what the right thing to do was. He couldnt in his right mind enjoy himself just to
break up with her.
Louis took great note of the bra. It was black and it filled him with what he would name a
need but more likely a desire. He thought about what a predicament sexuality is:
The problem of sexuality is not in what is talked about in ones culture but rather what is
not talked about (Foucault, 39). It is the duty of a woman to refuse the advances of a man. It
shows strength and the power of feminism but it is considered terrible to refuse the advances of a
woman. Loving someone is a struggle against ones own desires. To indulge in the flesh makes a
man or woman weaken in their soul or so Christian thought goes (41).
The greatest problem of sex for the Greeks is the accessibility to excess (Foucault, 45).
This has not changed in the last 2000+ years of civilization. For Plato to write about excess in
Ancient Greece and be a problem for Louis now must mean that man in general has struggled
with excess.
Hey you, stop playing around. Come in here.
Louis was suddenly reminded of something about sirens from the Odysseymaybe it
was all the talk of Greece. He would have to just tie himself to a mast to survive this
He stood and joined her. Closing the door behind himself he climbed into bed next to her.
He started to take his position against her, but found that he couldnt. He scrunched onto the
edge of the bed away from her.
Meryl strained to see Louis beside her, Whats wrong dear?
Listen I cant do this. I cant have sex with you. All we ever do is have sex but we never
discuss THIS. What are we doing?
Meryl stiffened and pushed further toward the wall trying to stifle the chokes in her throat
and the tears in her eyes under the comforter.
You hate me! she cried out.
No I dont. I really do love you; its just that I hate how we ignore anything that goes
wrong between us. I feel like I dont know you, he attempted to explain.
Is there someone else? Are you cheating on me? I knew it (Zizek, 53)!
No its not like that (Zizek, 53).
Louis swallowed but his throat was suddenly cracked leather. Meryls eyes caught a glint
of light from the blue street lights outside. She looked like one of those sad Jazz Era paintings.
He finally found enough salvia to swallow and said, Its just lately I dont think we have
anything in common. We talk about art theory but when was the last time we really just hung out
and not just had sex?
She sniffled and choked.
Come on, we fight, we insult each other, and we we are just oil and water. We dont
mix, Louis realized he wasnt tearing up or even breathing hard. This was the most calm he had
been in a long time. Listen
No, you listen. I love you, and and You cant dump me!
Why? If I am not happy and I am not really getting anything out of this
Youre not getting anything out of this?! Am I nothing?
Louis pushed that foot in his mouth up to the tonsils and grimace trying to pull it out.
He tried, No, not like that I mean emotionally, mentally, and I dont know
Spiritually. I feel like you should be my partner if this is going to be forever not just that one girl
I have sex with. Look its like this:
We share in this masturbatory function and become a collective out of our individual
selves but all we are doing is fulfilling an animalistic pleasure (Zizek, 31). It gives us a sense of
belonging in a cold cyber world but we are just pleasuring ourselves (34). We should be striving
to share experience (30) but in this case we reducing ourselves to a kind of sacred man
(Agamben, 15). When we perform this ritual we reduce ourselves to animals humping just cause
we can. By displacing the judicial demands that separate us from what is allowed and what is not
we create this place where we need each other to support our sexual exception (23). We become
each others sovereign and jailor (27). By committing extra marital sex we set ourselves apart
from being just good friends and create a space of exception between each other where only our
laws apply (25).
It is like we have created a concentration camp for each other and our cycle of sex keeps
us in that cycle where our sexual exception has become the law (Agamben, 38). We both a
violence by wanting sex from one another but create justice with the arbitrary laws of our
relationship (31). Our collective created from our individual parts (our shared masturbation) are
the walls that keep us together (Zizek, 31).
So I am Just That One Girl? I dont mean anything to you outside of sex?
Thats not true. You are one of my best friends Its just that just that I dont think I
can be the man you need me to be.
Meryls makeup ran in black rivers down her cheeks, Why do we have to break up?
Louis thought about what to say then continued, Because our lives (zoe) have become a
form of politics (bios) we will come into conflict given time (Agamben, 1Zizek, 141). We will
grow to hate each other and our differences.
Isnt that just a part of life, just a kind of violence?
It is, but it ends when one country obliterates the other (Zizek, 141). We would have to
share our cultureour shared individualismbut we would lose something as we do. We would
privatize our lives (Zizek, 142). We would make ourselves something for the other and in the
process lose what we loved about each other. No I wont let our exception of pleasure change
who I am.
So instead of confront our problems your big plan is to do nothing?
Exactly. By rejecting our need for the exception we create through pleasure we would
be revoking the power and excess we have given into (Zizek, 216). On the bright-side I told you
I planned to do nothing The most violent thing I could have done would have been nothing at
all (217). Just lay in my bed refusing to answer your calls I did something to break our Nomos
(Agamben, 31).
I wish you hadnt.
He pulled back the sheets and climbed onto his roll-y desk chair. She choked and cried.
Take me home, she moaned.
On the Way to and Back from the Suburbs: About Whenever that Was
Philosophy predicatively tells us that we should accept the event, distance ourselves from
power and trust in our decisions (Badiou 1, 9). As Louis drove Meryl back to section one he
wondered if this had any truth value to it at all. However choice is thrust on us whether we act or
not. True life is not in the written letters of philosophy but elsewhere. Philosophy lives on the
page or in the mind but in reality it is just ideas. Like Badiou says in Polemics, Any
philosophical rapport with a situation will thus involve staging an impossible relation; it is like a
story we are told.
If the human creature is like a political body then a bad relationship is like disjunctive
synthesis of two nihilisms (Badiou 1, 31). Through the actions of Meryl and Louis they
facilitate their collective sexual exception by committing emotional crimes against one another.
They are nihilistic in that they are looking for a meaningful relationship in a void or
meaningless sexual acts. In their coupling they attempt to synthesis this disjunctive relationship,
but in the end it is meaningless.

Of Talking Tacos: Just Around 1:00 A.M.
Louis closed the front door. He dragged himself to his room and got into his pajamas.
Staring at his bed he didnt want to sit, sleep or stand so he knocked his head on the door frame.
He tried to understand how he could be both relieved and self-loathing.
Hey kid-o, dont feel so bad, said an unfamiliar voice.
What? Whos here?
Im in the living room chump.
Louis felt every emotion that tells one to run. His hair prickled on his scalp so hard his
head hurt. He, answered, Cool, Ill be right there bud. He searched for a blunt object in
the dark. The he could come up with was toy light saber.
With slow tedious steps he inched into the hall. He scanned the dim living room but no
one was there.
Where are you?
Right here, answered the voice from in front of the couch. No, here! Over here, on the
coffee table.
Louis edged farther into the living room and there on the table was
Hi, Im Andy. Im an anthropomorphic taco.
It was a taco, this much is true. Louis had forgotten to put the last of the Mexican cuisine.
Now it had a face and was named Andy; not to mention talking to him.
Louis looked deeply into his greasy eyes then said, So are you here to get revenge for
me eating your family?
Andy giggled in an unsettling sort of way, Oh hecks no. Dude Im a taco. I just sort of
have to accept that I am at the very bottom of any and all food chains. Its my role in life to be
eaten.
Okay. Am I dead?
Hope not, because then I would be too.
Am I dreaming?
Probably.
Thats good. Why are you here? Why did you come here? Better yet how did you come
to be a Youre a taco! How are you talking?
Andy rolled his eyes, Youre asking fast food the answers to life. Im as confused as you
are about all of this.
Louis collapsed his light saber and took a seat on the couch facing the taco. After
considering his words he finally broke the silence, So this is pretty absurd right?
Youre telling me. Then again we are at least self-aware of the absurdity which is ironic
right? Ironic that we are ironic?
Its so post-postmodern.
Took the words right out of my lattice.
Louis looked longingly at the taco and asked, Have you been cognate all night?
Oh yeah.
So what do you think of what happened between me and Meryl?
Meryl and I
Dont push your luck on not getting eaten buddy.
Alright alright, I dont know. Its like your contradictory exceptions of being. The little
taco floated to the couch and landed next to Louis saying, also there was the problem of your
household management/moderation.
Louis thought long and hard about the issues the taco discussed. Rubbing his chin he
realized that his relationship with Meryl was in fact toxic but more importantly that by
moderating his actions he had taken a sort moral high ground. If he had stayed in their
relationship he would have ended up hurting the both of them. Like two countries that need to
separate their affairs in order to grow strong independently.
Andy sighed and said, Its like what Zizek discusses in Violence, that the best way for
two neighboring countries to get along is to get out of each others way (59). We fear intruders
getting in the way of our lives (58) and fear this otherness they bring with them (40). We
traditionally strive to be with those who are our brothers, specifically All men are brothers but
those who are not our brothers are not men (54)for ease just consider that for men and women.
Reality is violence (Zizek, 67). Whether it is by language, symbolism, or eating chicken
McNuggets (or tacos) violence is how we exist. Yeah sometimes it sucksbut between you and
if it didnt sometimes suck I wouldnt enjoy the parts that are fun. Take me, I was crafted to be
devoured and yet I have also been given thought. This leads one to consider a world in which I
exist is one of divine violence (183); a place where a god would create an individual for the sole
purpose of being devoured.
Louis rubbed Andys shell, I guess my problems seem so dumb next to your impending
devouring.
Andy seemed comforted, But you cannot let my troublesmy experiencescloud how
your reality. To say its okay that I hurt someone because worse happens to other people is just
a form of fetishist disavowal (Zizek, 53). That is to say that you just pass off your actions but
simultaneously pass of every bad thing other people have done (54). So you have to be careful
not to not embrace your reality/being/experience.
Louis broke in, But why cant I make judgments of my realitythis fetishist disavowal.
Its my reality damn it.
True but you share your realityyour beingwith everyone. You see there is no
singular (Badiou 2, 31). You can count something as a singular object and yet it is a part of a
larger reality (25). We can count a tree as a single tree and yet it is a part of the dirt it is rooted
in, the air it releases, the light it reflects onto youwe are all really all one big BEING (34). So
that is to say anything we do has effect on everything else.
Like chaos theory?
Yes and no. We affect the world around us but like a drop of bleach in a mop bucket we
are just one drop in a bucket of experience. We are dilute in a stream of pure being. Living is a
social eventsomething that is incredible but completely localized to our being (Badiou 2,
173).
Alright so it was good Meryl and I broke up, it is important to not disavowal my
fetishism, and living is a social event of beingbut how should I go on. It just seems like
anything I do I will be messing up.
How so? pondered the taco.
I just seems like anything I do I will be hurting reality.
Its not that you are hurting reality it is rather that you are creating chaos inside the
system. Your being (Badiou 2, 27) becomes an exception to reality (Agamben, 25 but as a
singular observation (Dewey, 35). You are a singular observer to beingwhich makes you an
exception to yourself insofar as you are separate from the pure multiple. So this to sayyou
affect reality but not hurt it. We take risks everyday when we leave our wrappers, explained
Andy.
Beds?
Whatever.
Long after Andy had started to feel consumed by awkward silence he asked, So yeah I
guess I will just go climb into the fridge before I start molding. Night.
Yeah, night.
Fin.

Works Cited: At About the Time You Get Done Reading (Ironic Right?)
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel H. Roazen.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Badiou 1, Alain, and Steven Corcoran. Polemics. London: Verso, 2006.
Badiou 2, Alain. Being and Event. Trans. Oliver Feltham. London: Continuum, 2005.
Badiou 3, Alain. Handbook of Inaesthetics. Trans. Alberto Toscano. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP,
2005.
Foucault, Michel. The Use of Pleasure. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1990.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Dir. Edgar Wright. By Bryan Lee O'Malley. Perf. Michael Cera,
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong. 2010. DVD.
Zizek, Slavoj. Violence. New York: Picador, 2008.