I Have Moved to Substack

The King’s Speech: On Zizek’s Speech Impediment

First, I would like to point out that in no way am I offering any sort of diagnosis of Slavoj Zizek’s speech impediment. This article/essay is a simple exercise in perception, and yes, a Zizekian analysis. What do we get when we apply Zizek’s theories to Zizek himself? The answer may or may not be surprising, depending on whether you are a Zizek follower or an anti-Zizek propagandist. In an analysis of The King’s Speech, Zizek points out that the king’s stuttering makes the king self-conscious and in a way embarrassed. As a divine ruler, the king of England should be a confident authority figure perfectly capable of assuming the role of the head of state. Delivering messages to the masses through oratory on the radio is just one of the ways that the king’s authority is projected to the public and if the people hear that in the voice of the king is a slight imperfection, this may be read as a fault that might preclude the king fr...

Art City in Name Only

To some this blog post might be a little too confrontational or controversial, especially if you are a resident of Asheville, like I am, and you hold on to some very unfounded ideas of what this city represents to artists, like I am, and you believe that that this city has carved itself a very nice and comfortable niche in the national artist community, which I wholeheartedly dispute. But since probably nobody pays attention or reads this blog anyway, I think that might as well justify my discontent with the situation present at this particular time, and that is the disconnect between the now almost mythological arts scene and the reality, which for the most of us is rather grim and not getting better. Before I delve even deeper into this problem, let me qualify a few things in hopes that I might shed a light on what I am actually talking about in reference to “arts” and silence the possible criticism that may or may not be coming my way. By arts, I mean a subject and form of makin...

Tulsi Gabbard? No thanks!

Why is the US so in love with its military? Following the first Democratic debate, the name Tulsi Gabbard became the most searched keyword on Google. Why? The first obvious answer is that she is new, doesn’t appear to be in the pockets of some elite corporation, yet, and did really well rebuffing her opponents’ ridiculous claims about Afghanistan, the Taliban and 9/11. She was also smart or savvy enough to appear on Joe Rogan a few weeks ago, garnering millions of views.. So why is it that despite all this attention she also appears to have no answers to the issues of class, income inequality, the wealth gap, student debt and the massive credit debt, among other pressing mainstream issues like the environment, race and gender issues, and so on. Her answer seem to be a rather flat, ‘I’m military, I know what it’s like to be in the military, protracted wars are silly, send everybody home.’ Granted, the trillions the US spends on proxy wars...

The Gutter Art Critic

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