thomkennonAug 25, 2023
1/x
We had our final class of team presentations last nite in one of my favorite courses - Social Brand Amplification. It's part of a certificate program and unlike most of my other courses attracts already in-market professionals. This summer's cohort were, each in their own way, some of the most insightfully creative students I have had a chance to work with.
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2/x
One of their project brands was a watch company, and they were richly exploring the meaning and value of "time". I name-checked an old song from my 20-something years - Once In A Lifetime, by the Talking Heads. I got the lyric wrong, so searched this a.m. and surfaced the lines I was looking for -
Aug 25, 2023 at 12:22pmWeb
Show threadthomkennonAug 25, 2023

3/x
"Water dissolving and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Under the water, carry the water
Remove the water from the bottom of the ocean
Water dissolving and water removing..."

Brian Eno, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, Christopher Frantz

Here's the Google-degraded version (they fuck with the TIME of ALL posted videos to avoid copyright/DRM lawyers - but also: fuck DRM and copyright, y'know? ; ) )
-  https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8?si=x3APvh3g_qKYVRC3

Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime (Official Video)

YouTube
Show threadthomkennonAug 25, 2023

4/x
In this morning's pre-dawn mist here at Sandy and mine's cabin by the sea, I was working on a chapter of volume 2 of The Big Leap - An Ethics of Insight (hopeful drop, January 2024) and tugging on a similar insight about "time" - specifically *now-time* as understood by one of the 20th century's greatest insights whisperers, Walter Benjamin.

'Now-time' describes a transcendent present - a suspended flash, a revolutionary rupture in normie time.

Show threadthomkennonAug 25, 2023

5/x
Derrida understood Shakespeare to be getting at something similar when his Hamlet kvetched about the eerie hauntings of radical potential - "The time is out of joint..."

Maybe Eno, Byrne et al were pushing against a similar provocation when they offered the metaphoric pull of water, and the moment - instead of regret - when desire dissolves and breaks free from history's inexorable pull and becomes something regular time could never afford, never support.

Show threadthomkennonAug 25, 2023
6/x
Last night in class, interrogating the insightful work of the three teams of student-consultants, I was rewarded with the hope that this coming cohort of businessers and marketers, entrepreneurs and artists, activists and makers are ready and eager to break free from the deadening edifice of late capitalism my generation has assembled against them.
Show threadthomkennonAug 25, 2023

7/x
My take-away is to keep fucking with normie time, keep poking the bear of neoliberalism, keep unleashing these 20- and 30-somethings to fix all the shit me and my generation of needy strivers selfishly broke.

#BetterCapitalism
#AnEthicsOfInsight
#TheBigLeap