The death of Sherlock Holmes (2012)

"You need me, or you're nothing." (Moriarty)

    It amazes me how Sherlock Holmes is able to tie up the detective narrative so well from end to end. Not only does he play the role of a character sleuth, but also functions as the intersection of the narrative events and, ultimately, their revelatory meaning. In another television series like CSI, it is certainly not science that ends up solving the crime: it is the narrative itself that does. Like any good crime mystery, the whole goal of a detective story is the resolution of the puzzle by the narrative through the simulation of a "suspenseful" process of rationalization.

    In this world, Sherlock Holmes is simply the other name of a super-machine of interpretation. In his eyes, all details converge to reconstitute the narrative of events that take place outside of his perceptional space. It is like having an infinite number of CCTV cameras mounted everywhere in London, recording every minute detail and happening, and binding them all within the logic of the narrative of causes and effects.

    It is only proper that behind it all the narrative must postulate a master mind, an evil genius that generates the crime event in secret designs. The super villain is necessary because s/he verifies or confirms the existence and order of the design, making it fully objective and not the subjective fantasy of the detective. As with all good detective stories following the rules of the genre, nothing is left to chance, to the natural, or to the supernatural (Deus ex machina). A crime is a human designed event, and thus requires the exposition of this secular design, however obscure or exotic it may be.

    In superhero comics like The Batman, the super villain is not allowed simply to shoot down the superhero in cold blood. The best villains must contrive a complicated and often ostentatious machinery to show the whole world that it was they who were the unambiguous cause of the hero's death or downfall. Less talented villains don't have this obsession, and are just happy to credit the gun manufacturer and the statistical meeting of the bullet and the target in the hero's demise. Thus, in any kind of detective story where evil and good characters collide, the great hero or sleuth is always caught up in a criminal world designed by an arch villain.

    As a super-machine of detection, the sleuth becomes the central processing unit of the narrative, weaving people, events and objects into an interpretative journey whose goal is the exposition of the crime. In this scenario, it is only fitting that the detective should be armed with an exceptional talent of interpretation and memory, able to link up seemingly insignificant data into a twisted pattern of design and discovery. Here, innocent objects or remarks are seized up by the hero to become shining links in a chain of criminal revelation. Everything is measured and scrutinized, nothing is left to chance, so that the innocence of words, objects, and events, formerly belonging to a different order of reality, is snatched away to perform a more signifying designation.

    Without the eye of Sherlock Holmes able to oversee even beyond the grave, reality would never have the same exciting narrative journey toward discovery and design. Everything would become chance, or inscrutable and unknowable natural or supernatural design.

Ganick's metaplasms

-Just reposting a part of Peter Ganick's recent March 2, 2014 four-letter metaplasms from http://ex-ex-lit.blogspot.com/ :


fnof nfiw nfwo ofwi nofa ngei sinf nfix vlis vnid nive engi naos neil snna nieo nfue nisk kdsk deks fldo nosd noak ials kirs alks ilki eads glim niek nals innt nisl nlak unde ikls nfie nais alsi ngee gtuu snuf tirt akls fgro lipr ossl nspk slkd ikls sfdd nskl kfsd sdki sfda ipsf aior wirg priw fisl rwip gilk nslk jikl idkf lskr sdkl ilsk jsid nilk snif lfoo llea niei ilsd feof dlks sdlk slkd sdil nlsdi oeuu onur mmis lsid nois lsid oiko nosf sdkl lskf lsfk sklk islk sidl jips pkls sdkf fdsl ikdr fskl lffs sfol lsfi...


-A lot can be said depending on one's declinations, but I myself would stay on the minimum side, which, again, is subject to interpretation. Anyway, just to make it more interesting following the post-language bias of this blog, allow me to cite another post- from Ganick from the same URL on Feb. 24, 2014:

new work.............................................

part fifty-three.

...

densest threefold trepidation ininin taunt relay occasion genetic ursatz eloge standpoint triplicated surmise dgga genie acss enos feint gadfly outring seimp asutt lotto islet jointed discourde oliphant nibblet ansonic edenslauf möebius trandiose tremulous exactitude fremd gego hurdle ampphitheathrre litera slough connive emptor sip zot narrow lacu sitten reconvista mercifuls emptor wave rawhide surplus evaluator non nearly echt tisne als ninet imiatrinbe

ontolocyst gonrrredle anemiac luge aeloinian zettel.

thou noeaso nfeou ngeie alsil nur anoas iititiesa.

geen solfeggisto preamble otherwave collapse.

dictatorial plateau mollify edifice aologirithm.

cadging current mise en scene soluble treadmill oeeans.

iota los empirical flooast mirror caisson tentative.

weigh august sole reptilar congerie sift edam.

mbobilitize emplot feisty garage xmidi crenulate ogre totem juttys foible accurate elliptic vanishing persist lisperado gnossienne eggo itierate sloka veranda mend illbient corrective loathe commonality presume lief gadflower echo tarry moitie avail snowfall return irascible florin acip hiccup thrieadtens efectual moins quatorze eleganza mortising edicts mellow frame callipse vertigo laser battlelflorida introtuctor which rears up.

-The collision between recognizable word and metaplasmic compound appears like the clashing of two opposing armies, but in fact illustrates a core semiotic dynamo, like the one churning way below the Earth's mantle.

p

=Where is the boundary between sign and noise? 

The 3 concepts here (boundary, sign, noise) form

the triangle where fictions are made from.  

-07/2013

                                      

p    r        o       t  e    r     m   i  a   b l     e    n d      e      a    r       k          e   n     i         g  n  i  t        r   o s  p     e     c  u   r       s u       r         r    e            v e     r            s i     m  i            l

V    a     g   r  i        s    m     a n     t  r       c     h a      n    c    e l       l     a  t      t i        c   r a         c           y

c   a       m     o u f      l  i    m    i       n i      a  t     u r      a   l      g     a  l   a        c       i         d  i   t t    h e r a      m  b i       g         t    y

o   n        e         i    r       o       m    b i     l     i         c  i      r  c    u    m  l    e  t     t     r        o    a     m  i  n        d       l e         s         o          u  n               d     e       r           s   t          a       t

q      u  e       s      s     e n       t   i    m            e         n     t            e   l         l        e t         c   e     e r   a  d   i     i   a          t                e n           d   i      n

c        e   r        t           e     r       r    e        s     t         i   m              a   t         e  r   i    a          l e  a      t     o      g          e  s         t       a   r          t              f   i     a c       t       i     v           a  c          c   i     n  a    e  s           c      a         p          e            l   a        t           i        s  u        e        d             e         s  c       r   

f   a          n        t     i            s        t        i          m      u     l            t         e    r    i     g  e       n     e      t   h      n       g        r                 p       h         e             n           o         m     e       s     n      o       m       e     a       s    l     i     t        e      r     e  c          i     l            s     e  

r   u        m         a    g      n      o        s     i      m             e     r        i   z       o t      o         p          i  c            t       o      r        e    n   t      r    e     m               o      d        e       l     i    n       k     a              t   h            a    r        t     e            s    a    n        a   b    b     o    l       i           m       p   l          c             y

o         p    o     s  i         t      u         a   l   i            z           a    r       d  u          a      l    g         a           t     o    r       m     u    l      a          t      i            c     r        o   m   o            s  a          p  e      n          d            u   r            a      n       c           s     h       p              e    n   

E   l        e    c         n  t      r        p    e        l           a    n          t   h    e        r     a        p      i         e    c     d    e        r  e   s           e     l          u   s   o   n      s      c         r      i         b         o         n        p          p    r  

(2012)

Practical jokes

I recall practical jokes, like those made up scenes on the streets. There is laughter about them. Why so? What produces this meaning-event?

The joke is a sounding board, a test of sorts, that foregrounds the elements of meaning in their social, linguistic, semiotic, moral, and ethical dimensions. The encounter plays out the elements, the set-up, wherein the boundaries of meaning--ethical, social, or linguistic--are remapped.

This is the exact moment of their incarnation, in this very space where they seem to be questioned: the practical joke. It recreates the meanings of actions and events as a pure theater of signs.

Since the practical joke foregrounds an economy of meaning that plays out well only by the revelation of the absence of the basis of that meaning (Ah! I mistook it for real! Or: Ah, I over-reacted!), it takes the ground off the polarized signs that have been produced and leaves them fluttering in mid-air.

That is, the signs produce an effect in us, but do not go beyond that to affirm anything metaphysical or absolutely real ontologically or epistemologically.

The laughter is both the recognition of this semantic economy and its limits. Here, laughter is a reactive mechanism in the face of a grave semiotic malfunction. In short, laughter is the dissipation of a solipsistic act, the after-taste of sign-effects that disappear into thin air.

Take a "Madonna & Child" example. In the park, a "mom" makes her "baby" in a walker smoke a cigarette. This alarms the people around them. Two basic norms are being violated. First, a "good" mother won't give something harmful to her baby. Second, there is a certain social or legal age requirement for smokers.

A knowledge of the harmful substances known to be present in cigarettes adds another semantic or scientific dimension. The fact that the mother smokes beside her baby in a park already creates an additional social and ethical faux pas.

All these elements are being played out in a game of deception. It provokes all the expected look of shock, disapproval, and reprimand from bystanders or passersby. Of course, they discover later on that there is no baby, so the whole scenario instantly falls apart.

The whole act has generated reactions that turned out to have no real basis. It was an act of meaning without substance.

This is the version of "semiotic contract" today, a whole series of practical jokes. We are taken on a ride by all sorts of signs, and we all go through the motions.

Meaning via the mise en scène of oppositional markers: Norm vs. Violation; Good vs. Evil; Right vs. Wrong; Permitted vs. Prohibited; Real vs. Unreal. The joke is in the discovery of the absence of any basis for this ethico-semantic event.

But all the signs have been deployed, just for laughs.

***P.S. My imaginary map is less moral philosophy than post-literate and post-semiotic tactics. This is what the blog has been all along.

     What I find interesting in the practical joke is that it recreates the meanings of actions and events as a pure theater of signs. That is, this is where significations arise as they collide, intersect, as a field of differences (bad vs, good, allowed vs. prohibited, etc.).

     Post-literate "texts" are few steps further. Since the joke foregrounds an economy of meaning that plays out well only by the revelation of the absence of the basis of that meaning (Ah! I mistook it for real!), it takes the ground off the signs that have been produced and leaves them fluttering in mid-air.

     That is, the signs produce an effect in us, but do not go beyond that to affirm anything metaphysical or absolutely real ontologically or epistemologically.

     (In other types of comic events, like children's cartoons, the humor often arises from a world drawn into a topsy-turvy state: the order of things falling apart, blowing up, not working well; also mistaken identities, misinterpretations, words making unintended meanings, etc.).

     Here, laughter is a psycho-reactive mechanism in the face of a grave semiotic malfunction. In short, laughter is the dissipation of a solipsistic act, the after-taste of sign-effects that disappear into thin air.

     From that dissipation comes post-literate "writing," You can foreground this through style effects to say that the semiotic or semantic whole is lost, or unknown, and so you become reluctant to treat sign-effects to form a local or global system (sentence, line, oeuvre, story, etc.).