Happy Acts

In his classic How To Act With Words, J.L.Austin effectively brought about the idea that words (and by extension - other symbolic actions) can change things in the world - they are "performative". In his analysis, he used several categories of his own design. 

Claiming they cannot be considered true or false, Austin proposes to divide speech acts into happy and unhappy ones (the terms seem to have been later substituted (?) by effective, successful or fortunate). The happy ones would be those which achieve the goal of changing reality. The unhappy ones - those which, although they have been constructed correctly, did not achieve this goal (e.g. someone promises something but does not intend to keep his promise).

Austin could have named his categories Alfa and Beta. Instead, he gave them emotionally charged descriptions. As in: insanely charged. You could say this is just British pragmatism, which has a thing for being playful. But this is a text about the performativity of words. A far-going analysis of the effectiveness of language. Why would the term happy appear in such a context? Is Austin making fun of us, engaging us in value judgements, which, being the decent participants of performativity we are, won't be able to leave? Maybe he implies that even the description of communication requires emotion and engagement. Conventions couldn't possibly be innocent. Accepting them is always burning hot, irrational, un-conscious.
One other thing - calling an act happy is anthropomorphizing it. More precisely - it is claiming that acts have an agency. 
You know, when artists talk about works as if they were people: What does the work need? What does it ask of me? 

Even when we act alone, the act - also the artistic act - doesn't allow for solitude. The more of an act it becomes (does every action get to be an act?), the more it challenges us, burdening us with its agency.

And if we want it to perform, it better be happy.

Clemens Behr  Revisited Series

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Black Butler

Plot: Just a stone's throw away from London lies the manor house of the illustrious Phantomhive earldom and its young master, Ciel Phantomhive. On the night of Ciel Phantomhive's tenth birthday, a fire engulfed his manor. The boy was missing for a month before returning with a mysterious black clad butler, Sebastian. The servant is actually a demon that had entered into a contract with Ciel, promising the boy to help him achieve revenge on the arsonists in exchange for his soul. Sebastian Michaelis, an exceptionally loyal butler, is ever at Ciel's side, ready to carry out his young master's wishes. As the Queen's guard dog and standing at the top of the British underworld, the young boy must face many difficulties along the way. Black Butler is set in the Victorian era, and carries with it the typical eloquence of its time.

Review: Black Butler is just one of those animes that deserves to be rewatched. I just love Ciel he's so cute. 5 stars are need for this anime. I think I like season 2 the best. 

Tsuritama

Plot:The setting is Shonan, Enoshima. A town where the nostalgic and the fresh coexist. All his life, high school student Yuki has never had a friend of his own, because he's freakishly inept at communicating with others. Haru, a self-proclaimed alien from outer space, is trying to get him to go fishing. Natsuki is a local boy born and raised in Enoshima, who always seems to be annoyed by whatever's going on around him. Akira is a mysterious Indian boy who watches over them all, while maintaining a cautious distance. These four angst-filled teenagers meet and go fishing; and their tiny island takes center stage in an epic story... This is where it all starts - their SF (= Seishun Fishing) story!

Review: Tsuritama is a great anime it deserves 4 out of 5 stars. At first even through I read the plot I still couldn't get what it was about but when I watch the first two episode I'm like its just a fishing anime but when i watch some more I'm like OMG this isn't just a fishing anime it awesome. The characters are also great.