{"id":1114,"date":"2025-05-09T05:03:36","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T05:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jevelin10.local\/?post_type=fw-portfolio&p=1114"},"modified":"2026-04-20T22:38:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:38:50","slug":"ideas-lacan-and-bootes-waugh","status":"publish","type":"fw-portfolio","link":"https:\/\/birdandocean.com\/studio\/project\/ideas-lacan-and-bootes-waugh\/","title":{"rendered":"Idea: Lacan and Bootes-Waugh"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_section][vc_row overflow=”default” css=”.vc_custom_1753342516311{margin-bottom: 70px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1753342384982{margin-bottom: 70px !important;}” el_class=”text_my_black”]Image by GUST, Gustavo Lopez Chaves<\/a>. Click to view the full image.\n\nCheck out is YouTube channel. Here are more samples of his work<\/a>. [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”” el_class=”.text_black_indent”]

Idea: Lacan and Bootes-Waugh<\/h1>\n

Some thoughts about Lacan and BW<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bootes-Waugh struggles. With language and with other issues. He plays the parkour of language in his own way, with a style that he’s developed to help him navigate life and his own personality quirks. I wonder if Lacan can help me understand it more deeply.<\/p>\n


Why Lacan:<\/p>\n

His ideas capture a usage of language that’s so ubiquitous but often unnoticed. The use of language to create meaning-structures that position the speaker in a way that’s psychologically (even psycho-biologically) gratifying.<\/p>\n

\n\nMeaning-structures: a set of inter-related words and definitions in which the speaker can jump, slip, slide, make a stance, slip away from contradictions and paradoxes etc. Imagine one of those elaborate playground structures for children, the kind that look like a pirate ship or a castle. They’re not really castles and pirate ships. They’re really structures for children to play on, with ladders and slides and all sorts of little ways to have fun, strike postures, challenge the world from the helm of a ship or from the battlements of a castle.<\/p>\n

That’s what language is often, especially language used in social situations. Maybe even more so language used in social media. Ostensible meaning is secondary, or tertiary, or irrelevant. Ostensible meaning is often merely the pirate ship for clambering upon and striking a powerful posture. The structure and how you can play on it, that’s what’s important.<\/p>\n

Once when I worked at Shenzhen University, an American man, around 35 years old, walked past me on campus and without warning or context said: “Nice pink bag you have there.” He continued walking, didn’t stop to explain. It took me a while to understand what he was on about. I was carrying a load of DVD movies (this was back in the day) in a canvas shopping bag that had a design based on an anime movie. The color pink was a prominent element in the design. I guess that pink, to this 35 year old man, signified “gay”. And if a man is carrying a “gay” bag, then another man can make a comment like: “Nice pink bag you have there.” What is this use of language? What is this use of language in which a 35 year old man speaks like a 15 year old boy? I think the playground metaphor helps explain it, or at least describe it. The fellow leapt up onto the pirate ship helm and let loose a cannonade at me! A strange (the word “sickly” comes to mind) thing to do, but somehow gratifying to him.<\/p>\n

\n\nPsycho-biological: But it’s not just a question of striking postures on the children’s playground gear. It’s also about staying safe. And it’s not only emotional or psychological safety, but material survival. The price of failure could be your job, your ability to feed yourself and your children. To speak in the required way, to do the language parkour in the way that is accepted, understood, relatable, it’s a skill – vital for survival – that some people have naturalized, and others find as difficult as real parkour.<\/p>\n

Bootes-Waugh’s strategy is to bend language in odd ways that he can accept and use. He plays on the pirates ships as if they were something else entirely, tree-houses or fire engines. He treats language “wrongly” but well, which makes people around him feel sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes delighted.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/div>","protected":false},"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","fw-portfolio-category":[30],"fw-portfolio-tag":[],"class_list":["post-1114","fw-portfolio","type-fw-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","fw-portfolio-category-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nIdea: Lacan and Bootes-Waugh - Bird and Ocean<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/birdandocean.com\/studio\/project\/ideas-lacan-and-bootes-waugh\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idea: Lacan and Bootes-Waugh - Bird and Ocean\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[vc_section][vc_row overflow=”default” css=”.vc_custom_1753342516311{margin-bottom: 70px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1753342384982{margin-bottom: 70px !important;}” el_class=”text_my_black”]Image by GUST, Gustavo Lopez Chaves. 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