Restarting from Page #1 (first post in a series of posts today and tomorow)

ok, I promised to "get the ball rolling" on threads related to section3 of chapter1, where our in-person discussion abruptly ended. After the confusion that is unavoidable following a novice discussion of this text I found it nearly impossible to put together something concrete and put the ball rolling in a productive direction. Therefore, I took a couple of days off and then hit the reset button, starting from page one and working forward with all of your comments and posts and with a few new openings I had about the text itself (this is an extraordinarily time-lapsed text for me), mainly the depth of the semiotic argument it contains. In fact, as I post now, I can't imagine getting anywhere with this piece without a basic understanding of semiotics: sign, signifier, signified, idex, and icon—at least. This is pretty easy to catch up on, and I'd be happy to discuss my understanding of this stuff at our next meeting.

The metaphor of the machines is a difficult one, no doubt. Everybody has displayed a desperation to define them, and to understand them and their aspects. Of course, D&G don't allow you this at first, and force you to make some concrete findings based on very tacit understandings, unfolding as you go. What we all need to realize is that the text-as-literature is inviting this experience for a reason: our learning process mirrors the process so delicately and microscopically narrated in the body of the text. You stand so firmly on the understanding of premise, only to have it fall out from under you, back in the brambles of the tacit and sloppily assumed. This is also the story of the Body without Organs, with time running; identities gain and lose their footing, and "disjunctions are the form that the genealogy of desire assumes" (more on this quote later, however, for now note the use of the word "assume"). I'd like to conclude this first post by saying that it is true: machines are everywhere and everything. But, equally true: they are nothing. It is impossible to say exactly what they are. Try it...you are immediately in the process of abstracting, and grasping for another metaphor. Ah, the lovely experience of reading Anti-Oedipus—the text working for its own cause on another plane.

text = production of production
experience of the text = the regime of the Body without Organs
(implicit and explicit respectively)

I'll proceed by irony—forcing an organization of the body of Anti-Oedipus here in the blog. I'll post a new thread for each subsection of Chapter 1. I'm giving special attention to just supplying my understanding of the essential oils of each section. You should feel free to get angry about them and post questions.