Date:         Mon, 11 Sep 95 14:44:58 EDT
From: CJ Stivale <CSTIVAL-AT-CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU>
Subject:      Responses



Greetings, d-and-g-ers,

For the last few days, since reading Karen Houle's posts, then
Karen Okana's delightful evocation of our dancing together at the
Trent conference in '92, I've been mulling over how I might
'respond' with something in the least bit pertinent. So this
morning, I found a sheaf of exchanges that I'd printed out from the
list, between d.e.stanley, paul bains (big wave to ya, mate), and
steve (ditto), and I guess I'd like to take a shot a pulling a few
things together. First, to Paul, speaking for me, I failed to
respond to your Ruyer query due to pre- and then beginning fall
semester busy-ness, but I've re-read what you wrote, and hope to
peruse Ruyer. A lot of what you noted for us looks quite interesting
and I've never (had occasion to) follow-up on the reference D&G make
to Ruyer.

I note what d.e.stanley said about Deleuze's thoughts about
intellectuals and conferences -- the latter annoying the shit out of
him, the former "can't just go somewhere, they have to go somewhere
to talk about something" -- and I relate this back to Karen O's
evocation of our dancing on the porch overlooking the little river
outside Peterborough, Ont. She captures well what was a "magic"
moment, but it was so for me for additional reasons, that relate to
the conference as "event".... Our dancing occurred at lunchtime on
the third day of the conference, a Sunday, and we were therefore
heading into the final afternoon of a very exhilarating conference.
But there was also quite a tense atmosphere, I recall, from a number
of sources that I won't attempt to enumerate (lack of memory being
the main culprit here). I do recall, though, the distinct domination
of heavy philosophical theorizing, terminology delineation, and I
felt a bit, well, embarrassed, out of place, without this "culture"
(to use the word the d.e.stanley), attempting to present something
that I call, following a discussion with Jean-Clet Martin, an
"conceptual animation" via Cajun dance/music spaces.

Thus, rather exceptionally in this atmosphere, I found myself in a
conversation with two conferees, a couple, who said they were going
to visit Louisiana and wanted some pointers for dancing when they
got there. So we stepped out onto the porch (here again, memory
lapses: did we make our own music, as it were, i.e. find a two-step
beat somewhere in our heads, or was there a tape recorder there,
into which I slipped a cassette of Cajun music that I just happened
to be packing?) and I was then able to show them both, first Karen,
then her partner, some steps. It was wonderful, especially since the
video I'd planned to show along with my talk the evening before did
not work (my fault, it turns out, but who knew in advance?), so no
"dancing" was even represented, much less done, and this was a
chance to move differently. But we also were able to create our own
little territory, in fact, deterritorializing, however briefly and
in an isolated manner, the ponderous ruminations of the conference
"event".

This brings me back to Karen Houle's objection to insisting on the
striated territory of the Cajun dance floor. Reading the quote the
d.e.stanley provide us from MP (598; ATP 479) --"...smooth space is
directional rather than dimension or metric. Smooth space is filled
by events or haecceities, far more than by formed and perceived
things. It is a space of affects, more than of properties..." -- I
am aware that the striated and the smooth can conjoin and overlap,
depending on the plane on which one deploys the analysis. Indeed,
like the drum-becomings that Grayson Cooke described on 9/2, the
nomadism can be home grown and nurtured, even or especially on a
dance floor with all of its striations.

CJ Stivale

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