Kiwi kulcha. Cartography. History. Herstory. Dams. Ordinary Days Beyond Kaitaia. Coal. Rotowaro. Rodney Redmond. Poetics. Musket pa. Five wicket bags. Limestone Country. Allen Curnow. Owen Gager. Huntly. Kahikatea. Te Kooti. The Clean. Base and superstructure. Earthquake Weather. Dune lakes. Epistemology. Middens. Marx. Te Aroha. Time Travel. Te Kopuru.
SO DRIVE SLOWLY. YOU'LL NEED TO. THE MAP SAYS THE ROAD ENDS THERE. NOT TRUE.
Thing is, the sign on the right doesn't say 'Don't drink here', it says 'No drinking here'. That's a different kettle of fish, isn't it? It's not enough to be somewhere else, and hence not drinking in the carpark - one must be in the carpark, 'twenty four hours', 'day and night', *actively* not drinking. 'No drinking' - that's an activity, like not looking. Right?
Or is it the case that the sign is an advertisement, that it is saying that the activity of 'No drinking' takes place here, day and night, and that one come and observe, or even - if I'm not going too far - join in the activity of 'no drinking'?
Yes - there is an explicit command there - on the wall to BE THERE - NOT drinking (or at least NOT consuming) alcohol - 24 HOURS A DAY.
This is rather a dire and draconian injunction and is typical of working class pubs.
Useless because most people there wouldn't be able to read it. Or pissing against the pub wall, or entering or exiting the pub or their cars, drunk or other, they would not bother to read it.
But most of these fascist injunctions are directed at people who cannot understand them - or wont bother to read them - so that if they violate them - they have no excuse - as ignorance is no excuse - nor should it be.
The guiltiest are those uncountable millions who DO understand this injunction - have never and probably will NEVER read it - but have chosen for whatever obscure and illicit reasons - NOT to be there NOT consuming alcohol - these are indeed worthy of Dante's innermost rings of Hell and all its cold or burning torments.
Pretty bourgeois.
ReplyDeletehasn't anyone got anything better to say than everything is "bourgeois"! it seems to be the standard comment on this blog!
ReplyDeletethat's coz its bourgeois
ReplyDeleteThing is, the sign on the right doesn't say 'Don't drink here', it says 'No drinking here'. That's a different kettle of fish, isn't it? It's not enough to be somewhere else, and hence not drinking in the carpark - one must be in the carpark, 'twenty four hours', 'day and night', *actively* not drinking. 'No drinking' - that's an activity, like not looking. Right?
ReplyDeleteOr is it the case that the sign is an advertisement, that it is saying that the activity of 'No drinking' takes place here, day and night, and that one come and observe, or even - if I'm not going too far - join in the activity of 'no drinking'?
ReplyDeletethe secret is surely
ReplyDeletein
th
dialectic
be
tween
th
two
signs
- David Mitchell, 'Horses'
'the sign on the right doesn't say 'Don't drink here', it says 'No drinking here'
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it deosn't say either.
Although I suppose you could carry on about how not consuming liquor was an activity if you really wanted to...
JK
Yes - there is an explicit command there - on the wall to BE THERE - NOT drinking (or at least NOT consuming) alcohol - 24 HOURS A DAY.
ReplyDeleteThis is rather a dire and draconian injunction and is typical of working class pubs.
Useless because most people there wouldn't be able to read it. Or pissing against the pub wall, or entering or exiting the pub or their cars, drunk or other, they would not bother to read it.
But most of these fascist injunctions are directed at people who cannot understand them - or wont bother to read them - so that if they violate them - they have no excuse - as ignorance is no excuse - nor should it be.
The guiltiest are those uncountable millions who DO understand this injunction - have never and probably will NEVER read it - but have chosen for whatever obscure and illicit reasons - NOT to be there NOT consuming alcohol - these are indeed worthy of Dante's innermost rings of Hell and all its cold or burning torments.
monkeys eat nuts, but only marxists eat the leaves. Keith.
ReplyDelete