I’m sharing a cigarette in the Jester coffee bar
on Market Street in 1968 with a girl who sometimes kisses me
with David Bowie’s version of a song by Jacques Brel
on the jukebox and trying to explain what the French
philosopher Ranciere meant by the term sensible
which is impossible because Bowie didn’t release the song
until much later by which time Ranciere had broken decisively
with Althusser and the other structuralists
and turned his attention to aesthetics. Before I’ve finished
the girl’s fiancé will come into the coffee bar
and we’ll go into an alleyway behind Market Street
where he’ll batter me quite quickly for sometimes kissing her.
Ranciere was referring to what was apprehended by the senses
and not something which was practical or utilitarian
but that’s the problem with translations and dating music.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that Ranciere
began to focus on aesthetics, by which time
the girl who sometimes kissed me
was married to man who had battered me.
In order for Ranciere’s ideas to work
there must be an audience predisposed to listening.
Steven Taylor
.