I had an Ulmer moment this morning. In my computers and writing class [1], we're using Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention and creating mystories. Part of what Ulmer is trying to get students to do is recognize how certain forces and discourses shape us at the level of both the conscious and unconscious. To this end, he offers a number of different exercises that get students to recognize what Barthes calls the "sting" of the punctum. That is, how an image or sound or text stings the body prior to consciousness - prior to us making sense of it.

This morning, I parked my car next to this car:

There was clearly a sting of some sort. This picture affected me in some way because I took a picture. I snapped a couple of pictures and started walking toward campus. I had the Decemberists Castaways and Cutouts album playing on my ipod, but for some reason that wasn't doing it for me. So I scrolled a bit farther down in the D's and stopped on The Doors. My brother and I recently bought the re-issue of The Doors The Soft Parade album for my Dad (it has some new tracks on it). Dad and I talked recently about how great that album is and how under appreciated it was when it was released.

So, I went to the title track: "The Soft Parade." And, of course, the song begins with Morrison...

When I was back there in seminary school/
There was a person there who put forth the proposition/
That you can petition the lord with prayer/
petition the lord with prayer/
petition the lord with prayer/
You cannot petition the lord with prayer!

I took a picture of the hood of that car because I thought it was bizarre, but also because I thought it was a way for this person to show the whole world how much faith in Jesus they really have. I also thought that this person might be trying to buy their way into heaven (not to mention, buying their way out of a parking or speeding ticket...) But this is petitioning the lord with prayer. It is an attempt to reach God via an economy of exchange (what Bataille would call the restricted economy). It is a way of buying a ticket to the rapture.

However, I didn't pick "The Soft Parade" on my ipod with any of this in mind. I happened to be listening to the Decemberists...The Doors happen to be a few bands down on the list...complete coincidence, right? Maybe. But Ulmer would ask if there wasn't some unconscious (preconscious) force pushing me to click "The Doors" then The Soft Parade then "The Soft Parade."

Affected by this image on the hood of a car, I sought out a way to work out why it stung me.

(I did that with a song, by the way,that employs the mode of composition that Ulmer encourages. "The Soft Parade" employs rock, blues, disco, country, spoken word poetry. It's an early version of the mashup...prefiguring Girl Talk [2].)