הפרקטיקה של ציטוט היומיום: הציטוט כמעשה פוליטי בשירים של להקת הבילויים

This article offers a political theory of the practice of quotation, through a reading of (and listening to) the songs of the Israeli rock band HaBiluim. It examines HaBiluim's practice of quotation as part of a transgressive tradition explored by authors whose works straddle aesthetics, politics and the study of everyday life. Chief among these is Michel de Certeau's theory of everyday life and his reformulation of production vs. consumption and reading vs. writing. Quotation emerges as a way of “making do” and of “dwelling,” in this case, within Hebrew culture: HaBiluim's poetics consists of constant referencing of Israeli everyday culture and canonical texts, paired with effects of comedy and irony. Meaning thus emerges out of the discrepancy between the familiarity of Hebrew culture and the songs' blatant artifice, which is in turn bestowed upon elements of the everyday, making them the object of a critical gaze. In this way, HaBiluim are able to push the boundaries of what is “quotable,” treating everyday life as text, while reifying canonical texts as “things” available for desacralized, practical use. As such, the author argues, the practice of quotation is intimately related to the rhetoric of allegory, as described in the works of Benjamin. He explores the relationship between quotation, the everyday and allegory by describing HaBiluim's poetic mechanism, which he names “the practice of quoting everyday life.”