Jill Stauffer

Who are you?

Jill Stauffer, h2so4 editor

What is your tie to h2so4?

I tie it together.

What is funny?

Evany Thomas.

What is not funny?

Norm MacDonald.

What book should I read?

I've been told that I like boring books.

Why do you (on occasion) work for no money?

"To know how to question means to know how to wait, even a whole lifetime. but an age which regards as real only what goes fast and can be clutched with both hands looks on question-asking as 'remote from reality' and as something that does not pay, or whose benefits cannot be numbered. but the essential is not number; the essential is the right time, i.e., the right moment, and the right perseverance." --Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics

No one is right about everything, but Heidegger was right about this.

What is your favorite movie? Or would you prefer to call it a "film"?

The Limey, by Steven Soderbergh, or Simple Men, by Hal Hartley. I call them movies. Runners up: Singin' in the Rain, Three Kings, Down by Law, The Philadelphia Story, Magnolia.

What is your favorite quote from Evany Thomas:

Of an evening when I commented on her foxiness, she said to me, "oh stop.... and then start again!"

What is your favorite quote from elsewhere:

"Love is not wisdom, but it knows it is not." --Philippe Nonet

or: "I brought cake." --anyone, upon entering my home.

What piece of writing has most influenced your life?

Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, by Emmanuel Levinas.

When I was 20, it would have been (strangely): Gyn/Ecology: the Metaethics of Radical Feminism, by Mary Daly.

What person has most changed your life ("famous" or non-)?

Either Emmanuel Levinas, or Halliday Dresser, or Heidi Pollock.

So tell me, what would a person be surprised to find out about you?

I have been watching All My Children (on and off) for twenty years.

What band would you have play at your next party (yes, historically open)?

David Bowie, circa 1972.

Does not the war perpetuate that which it is called to make disappear, and consecrate war and its virile virtues in good conscience?

"A relaxation of virility without cowardice is needed for the little cruelty our hands repudiate." [question and "answer" stolen from Emmanuel Levinas]

To what are you addicted? what is addiction?

Pepsi (perhaps regretably) and philosophy (perhaps regretably). If you become a monster when it is denied you, you are addicted.

Do you, too, love Abraham Lincoln? why? why not?

Yes, because he knew that freedom is not prior to everything else "by nature," as the declaration of independence might assert, but that rather "freedom" as an important conception must continually be aimed at and reevaluated so that it reflects the time in which we live.

How does the cameraman compare with the painter?

Time [question stolen from Walter Benjamin]

Authentic being-one's-self takes the definite form of an existentiell modification of the "they"; and this modification must be defined existentially. What does this modification imply, and what are the ontological conditions for its possibility?

Reading this right now, I want nothing more than to stop reading this. [question stolen from Martin Heidegger]

Is everything popular a debasement of what it would otherwise be? Are we really looking for a salvation or meaning that only a few can access, with difficulty?

one ought not to require the language of philosophy from everyone; but there is nothing wrong with hoping people will devote themselves to a worthy struggle. (there is also the question of taste.) or, as my dear friend kamran rastegar once said: after some music performances, you expect the musicians to say, "thank you for listening"; after others, "thank you for your patience."

Anything you would like to add?

I only seem to know what I am doing.