I've decided I'm going to drop English 335 for fall quarter.
When it comes down to it, it really wasn't that hard of a decision and it says a lot to me that it was such an easy decision to make. I don't need the course other than as another elective with Tony, and while I like Tony and I like what he has to offer, I keep returning to this question of what am I really getting out of it?
What benefits do I receive by taking this class? More explorations into postmodernism, poststructuralism and all these other post-philosophies through literature?
English 335. From what I understand of it from talking to Tony, it's part 3 in a series started with Nanotexts. Bookending itself with The Invention of Morel. But if there's one thing I've picked up from classes with Tony, it's that it doesn't end. Sure, you might move on. You might take a break and explore some other realm of thought, but it's circular. Everything returns. Everything crosses back on itself.
It's the natural rhythm of things. For every up, there is a down. They are inseparable.
Doing that independent study project with Tony, I learned some things. I also learned there's a lot that I don't know and have quite a bit to explore. But what I'm getting at is this question of how necessary is Tony to this: as a professor, as a friend, as a mentor, as a resource.
These are baby steps at best, but I think it's time I walked on my own. I have the tools and knowledge at my disposal to try to figure this out on my own. The class would be fun, but really, I'll be "in" it whether I'm there or not. I know half the people signed up (you know who you are) and in fact will be living with one of them next year.
This summer I started an autodidactic project wherein I plan on exploring the nature of messengers, messages and communication through this postmodern lens. It's one of the reasons I froze my Facebook account for the summer. And so far it's been just as engaging and interesting to me as any of the classes I've taken with Tony. I'm asking questions and looking for answers, deconstructing and tearing apart the very words I use to talk about this.
I'm going my own direction with this, and by that I mean that I'm moving forward in these thoughts. I don't know if it's necessarily the "right" direction, but I could ask the same thing of Nanotexts, of Parasites or of Augmented Realities. Because really, the only difference between those courses and this is that we relied on Tony for direction and have been trusting that it's right. It might be. He does have a few years seniority on all of us in this, but so what? Tony himself has said that his cult-leading days are behind him and on the last day of class spring quarter Alex said something to the effect of
"Tony doesn't need followers. He doesn't want them."
Consider this me losing the training wheels. I'll be around. I'll keep exploring and thinking. But I'm striking out on my own. If I think I need help, I know where I can turn, but until such time I'm taking this into my own hands.
Showing posts with label Nanotexts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nanotexts. Show all posts
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Acelessthan3 Revisited (Part One)
I wrote once already about my existence as Acelessthan3 and later revisited this identity when I unveiled that I was thefoolofbubbles as well.
"Creating this identity allowed me to spin narratives on several fronts at the same time, and to produce persona as shareware." Rhythm Science - Paul D. Miller
But now I come to a kind of crossroads wherein it has become obvious that the lines of this identity are blurring. Among the parasites now, I respond to both Ace and Danny equally. My identities are blurring and overlapping and quite frankly, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
"I started DJ-ing as a conceptual art project, but as the Spooky persona took on a life of its own, I came to regard it as a social scripture coding a generative syntax for new languages of creativity." -RS
I started this pseudonym merely as a placeholder internet handle, but as the Ace persona took on a life of its own, I came to regard it as a social existence generative of its own interactions.
I've said before that Ace is not Danny and Danny is not Ace, but I don't think that necessarily holds true anymore. To make a metaphor, can we say that Superman is not Clark Kent? No. There is multiplexity in his existence, like Shrek's onion, there are layers. The layers are separate, but they are all the same onion.
In my third thought experiment, I started with an exposition on facets, but the onion or perhaps a Russian nesting doll make the more appropriate metaphor because it offers the possibility of containment. Unlike a cake, the layers are within each other and in developing these layers and creating that mulitplex relationship of self, we foster a transparency that allows these disparate identities to communicate amongst one another.
In other words, we open the door to the alterity of self.
I speak not about dissociative identity disorder, more commonly called multiple personality disorder or colloquially schizophrenia, but rather the complex and differentiated states of consciousness that in part we engender and develop based on the social and personal interactions and mental associations created as such. When I talk about "my" identity, am I talking about the "me" that is a rower and athlete? Am I talking about "me" the loud, boisterous dancer, constantly smiling and laughing? Or am I the quiet student typing away at his computer in the corner of the classroom?
It cannot be denied that me, "I" encompass all these identities but the cross-cutting influences between them, where they overlap, when someone else crosses that line and glimpses into a layer of what is "me" that they are not used to seeing effects that transparency between one layer and another. You remove one layer to find another underneath and there are an infinite number of layers underneath existing simultaneously on the same metaphorical level in the same metaphorical space.
"Stickers are like infinite multiples, small spots on a landscape that convey a brief message, a pun, an intent." - RS
All these stickers are the same sticker, but not the same physical sticker. The multiple, multiplex identity of a self is similar but in opposite. It is that oft quoted passage from Whitman's Song of Myself "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" Rather than the multitudes of one, they are the multitudes within one.
But in all this self-contradiction, there is chaos. When, in the course of DC comics history it came about that the proliferation of multiple alternate universes created a problem for the continuity of the DC Universe, they had to clean cup, reboot and solve the problem of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
In this plurkiverse where I exist as both Ace and Danny, however, I am also another. I am also thefoolofbubbles, or as has been the case recently, simply theFool.
There's something masturbatory about theFool's existence, something inherently dirty. Which makes sense if he is supposed to represent an id-like extension to balance Ace.
But there is another level here, another riding influence controlling theFool's identity. He has been adopted by others in the plurkiverse. They miss "him" when I as Danny neglect that account for too long.
To maintain it is a drain upon my personal reserves because I am playing a character that is not natural to my identity in the way I have made Ace. What I'm saying is that TheFool is Other and so to create and use him constantly is a fight and in fighting oneself there is only one loser.
And so I come to a Crisis of my own. Worlds are colliding.
"How does one give oneself death [se donner la mort]? How does one give it to oneself in the sense that putting oneself to death means dying while assuming responsibility for one's own death, committing suicide but also sacrificing oneself for another, dying for the other, thus perhaps giving one's life by giving oneself death, accepting the gift of death, such as Socrates, Christ, and others did in so many different ways."
This passage from Derrida's The Gift of Death made me think of nanotext who, admittedly, I hadn't really considered much since his death and replacement with the_author. But in as much as they both represent facets of Tony and his persona as a teacher, the question of death becomes relevant.
Within context of this passage though, there's also a level of control to that life and death. In "assuming responsibility for one's own death" and accepting that gift, you own it. It does not control you
Since I've been trying to read the collected graphic works of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (The Invisible, Swamp Thing, etc), this just reminded me of Sandman as well.
All of Dream's actions throughout the majority of Neil Gaiman's run on the series, pushed him towards this inevitable action of dying at the end of The Kindly Ones. There is no direct line of causality that makes this decision, but it is not merely by chance either, which is why we cannot say it was a decision of Dream's to die so he could be replaced by Daniel. Which is why we cannot say it was a decision of Tony's to kill nanotext so he could be replaced by the_author, or at least not fully. But it was not an accident.
As has become a theme in the classes I've had with Tony, when faced with alterity, we are at first faced with a dichotomy of options. To truly face the Other, we either destroy it (the path that leads to death) or we accept it and integrate it and somehow finding ways to peacefully coincide with that which is not. And there is danger inherent in either option.
It is this dichotomy, this binary nature of dealing with the Other that pushes us to such extremes. We are so ingrained in this binary that in even trying to push our way out of it is to confront and create a new one. To connect to an idea proposed in my GLBT Lit class Fall quarter, it is one of the key problems of identity. In choosing to represent an identity we also deny the other possibilities. To escape the box, to come out of the closet, frees us from a confined set of rules, but also enters us into a new set. You come out of a closet and into a room.
So we escape the binary into another and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to instead shift, to move sideways in such a way that allows us to see what lies between, to see the line connecting the two polarized points. The spectrum is the connection.
So in creating this character of theFool, to express and free those inhibited thoughts, I find myself trapped in another box. Because theFool is not who I consider myself to be. TheFool is not who I want to be. Insofar as I can tell, it is this box of being my own Other that has troubled my mind so much and in part inspired this post.
But where do I find the line connecting him to Ace, or rather to "myself?" I can reject it, suicide theFool's plurk account, I can blindly accept it and let it go as it is now, which would essentially end Ace or I can try to find this elusive middle ground that bridges the gap and narrate a new story, creates a new context by which they can more or less peacefully coexist. I'm out of the closet, into the room, let's try to open a window (though not, I might add, for defenestration).
"Creating this identity allowed me to spin narratives on several fronts at the same time, and to produce persona as shareware." Rhythm Science - Paul D. Miller
But now I come to a kind of crossroads wherein it has become obvious that the lines of this identity are blurring. Among the parasites now, I respond to both Ace and Danny equally. My identities are blurring and overlapping and quite frankly, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
"I started DJ-ing as a conceptual art project, but as the Spooky persona took on a life of its own, I came to regard it as a social scripture coding a generative syntax for new languages of creativity." -RS
I started this pseudonym merely as a placeholder internet handle, but as the Ace persona took on a life of its own, I came to regard it as a social existence generative of its own interactions.
I've said before that Ace is not Danny and Danny is not Ace, but I don't think that necessarily holds true anymore. To make a metaphor, can we say that Superman is not Clark Kent? No. There is multiplexity in his existence, like Shrek's onion, there are layers. The layers are separate, but they are all the same onion.
In my third thought experiment, I started with an exposition on facets, but the onion or perhaps a Russian nesting doll make the more appropriate metaphor because it offers the possibility of containment. Unlike a cake, the layers are within each other and in developing these layers and creating that mulitplex relationship of self, we foster a transparency that allows these disparate identities to communicate amongst one another.
In other words, we open the door to the alterity of self.
I speak not about dissociative identity disorder, more commonly called multiple personality disorder or colloquially schizophrenia, but rather the complex and differentiated states of consciousness that in part we engender and develop based on the social and personal interactions and mental associations created as such. When I talk about "my" identity, am I talking about the "me" that is a rower and athlete? Am I talking about "me" the loud, boisterous dancer, constantly smiling and laughing? Or am I the quiet student typing away at his computer in the corner of the classroom?
It cannot be denied that me, "I" encompass all these identities but the cross-cutting influences between them, where they overlap, when someone else crosses that line and glimpses into a layer of what is "me" that they are not used to seeing effects that transparency between one layer and another. You remove one layer to find another underneath and there are an infinite number of layers underneath existing simultaneously on the same metaphorical level in the same metaphorical space.
"Stickers are like infinite multiples, small spots on a landscape that convey a brief message, a pun, an intent." - RS
All these stickers are the same sticker, but not the same physical sticker. The multiple, multiplex identity of a self is similar but in opposite. It is that oft quoted passage from Whitman's Song of Myself "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" Rather than the multitudes of one, they are the multitudes within one.
But in all this self-contradiction, there is chaos. When, in the course of DC comics history it came about that the proliferation of multiple alternate universes created a problem for the continuity of the DC Universe, they had to clean cup, reboot and solve the problem of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
In this plurkiverse where I exist as both Ace and Danny, however, I am also another. I am also thefoolofbubbles, or as has been the case recently, simply theFool.
There's something masturbatory about theFool's existence, something inherently dirty. Which makes sense if he is supposed to represent an id-like extension to balance Ace.
But there is another level here, another riding influence controlling theFool's identity. He has been adopted by others in the plurkiverse. They miss "him" when I as Danny neglect that account for too long.
To maintain it is a drain upon my personal reserves because I am playing a character that is not natural to my identity in the way I have made Ace. What I'm saying is that TheFool is Other and so to create and use him constantly is a fight and in fighting oneself there is only one loser.
And so I come to a Crisis of my own. Worlds are colliding.
"How does one give oneself death [se donner la mort]? How does one give it to oneself in the sense that putting oneself to death means dying while assuming responsibility for one's own death, committing suicide but also sacrificing oneself for another, dying for the other, thus perhaps giving one's life by giving oneself death, accepting the gift of death, such as Socrates, Christ, and others did in so many different ways."
This passage from Derrida's The Gift of Death made me think of nanotext who, admittedly, I hadn't really considered much since his death and replacement with the_author. But in as much as they both represent facets of Tony and his persona as a teacher, the question of death becomes relevant.
Within context of this passage though, there's also a level of control to that life and death. In "assuming responsibility for one's own death" and accepting that gift, you own it. It does not control you
Since I've been trying to read the collected graphic works of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (The Invisible, Swamp Thing, etc), this just reminded me of Sandman as well.
All of Dream's actions throughout the majority of Neil Gaiman's run on the series, pushed him towards this inevitable action of dying at the end of The Kindly Ones. There is no direct line of causality that makes this decision, but it is not merely by chance either, which is why we cannot say it was a decision of Dream's to die so he could be replaced by Daniel. Which is why we cannot say it was a decision of Tony's to kill nanotext so he could be replaced by the_author, or at least not fully. But it was not an accident.
As has become a theme in the classes I've had with Tony, when faced with alterity, we are at first faced with a dichotomy of options. To truly face the Other, we either destroy it (the path that leads to death) or we accept it and integrate it and somehow finding ways to peacefully coincide with that which is not. And there is danger inherent in either option.
It is this dichotomy, this binary nature of dealing with the Other that pushes us to such extremes. We are so ingrained in this binary that in even trying to push our way out of it is to confront and create a new one. To connect to an idea proposed in my GLBT Lit class Fall quarter, it is one of the key problems of identity. In choosing to represent an identity we also deny the other possibilities. To escape the box, to come out of the closet, frees us from a confined set of rules, but also enters us into a new set. You come out of a closet and into a room.
So we escape the binary into another and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to instead shift, to move sideways in such a way that allows us to see what lies between, to see the line connecting the two polarized points. The spectrum is the connection.
So in creating this character of theFool, to express and free those inhibited thoughts, I find myself trapped in another box. Because theFool is not who I consider myself to be. TheFool is not who I want to be. Insofar as I can tell, it is this box of being my own Other that has troubled my mind so much and in part inspired this post.
But where do I find the line connecting him to Ace, or rather to "myself?" I can reject it, suicide theFool's plurk account, I can blindly accept it and let it go as it is now, which would essentially end Ace or I can try to find this elusive middle ground that bridges the gap and narrate a new story, creates a new context by which they can more or less peacefully coexist. I'm out of the closet, into the room, let's try to open a window (though not, I might add, for defenestration).
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Widdershin Writings Episode IV: A New Quarter
I've returned from spring break, freshly exhausted from a great start to racing season for crew and have now started classes.
I only technically have two classes, Chem 121 and Anth 365 (Peoples of Latin America), but am working on an independent study project with Tony that has turned into a kind of case study into what I can best describe as the ontological and socio-political effects music has on culture and literature/art. Like any study experience with Tony though, I'm sure there are many levels beyond this that I'll only start to see once I've been working with and analyzing the texts provided for a few weeks.
Which is, to say, expect more than a few posts with postmodern philosophical influences over the next few months.
I like this idea of independent study because it lends itself to that self-taught experience that makes learning far more valuable than your usual class experience. In that I am helping to create this course of study and have an active role in choosing the texts and directions it will go, it becomes a far more personalized curriculum.
Now, I'm not saying everyone should go out and make their own independent study plans with one of their professors, I myself only resorted to this option after realizing a schedule of three classes on top of my athletics, youth mentoring and club activities would not be conducive towards any kind of sane or healthy living for a full quarter.
I've realized too that in choosing this independent study though, I've pushed myself one step closer to becoming Kai. It was after all, her sitting through the second Nanotexts course last year during her own independent study with Tony that we became acquainted. Perhaps this means I'm transitioning to a new role in this hierarchy of the plurk/English environment Tony has introduced us to. Maybe somewhere amongst this group of thirty or so new Parasites is the next Ace.
And so the evolution and perpetuation continues.
I only technically have two classes, Chem 121 and Anth 365 (Peoples of Latin America), but am working on an independent study project with Tony that has turned into a kind of case study into what I can best describe as the ontological and socio-political effects music has on culture and literature/art. Like any study experience with Tony though, I'm sure there are many levels beyond this that I'll only start to see once I've been working with and analyzing the texts provided for a few weeks.
Which is, to say, expect more than a few posts with postmodern philosophical influences over the next few months.
I like this idea of independent study because it lends itself to that self-taught experience that makes learning far more valuable than your usual class experience. In that I am helping to create this course of study and have an active role in choosing the texts and directions it will go, it becomes a far more personalized curriculum.
Now, I'm not saying everyone should go out and make their own independent study plans with one of their professors, I myself only resorted to this option after realizing a schedule of three classes on top of my athletics, youth mentoring and club activities would not be conducive towards any kind of sane or healthy living for a full quarter.
I've realized too that in choosing this independent study though, I've pushed myself one step closer to becoming Kai. It was after all, her sitting through the second Nanotexts course last year during her own independent study with Tony that we became acquainted. Perhaps this means I'm transitioning to a new role in this hierarchy of the plurk/English environment Tony has introduced us to. Maybe somewhere amongst this group of thirty or so new Parasites is the next Ace.
And so the evolution and perpetuation continues.
Friday, February 12, 2010
We have an infestation
My Parasites
I have a few parasites of my own, and for once I'm not talking about the Fool.
These are more vampires upon my time and energy than mental illness.
Anyone remember these:
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jg9oz
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jgbfc
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jg9rw
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jgawg
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jgau0
Or how about that phone call I got from @cephalopod on Wednesday asking me to go to lunch with her so she could physically stay up?
http://www.plurk.com/p/3q8fvd
http://www.plurk.com/p/3q7wbp
I serve my purpose to these people. In the capacity of friendship, feedback generator and bouncing board, etc. I am available because I make myself so, sharing books, time and ideas and what do I get?
I get exactly what I ask for. Which by nature of our relationship, isn't much: the occasional conversation and tea. Did Harker ask much of Dracula? What does the country mouse ask of the city mouse? What did Master Abraham ask of Murr?
As I sit in class now, listening to the conversation about Serres and what we're getting, what we want from the text, I think the question applies here as well. We are the excluded third of Parasite. It's pushing us where we're used to pushing the text, forcing our way in. What are we asking of the text? But also, what is the text asking of us?
I state it here: I'm pushing. I'm asking that you push back.
And that's what I believe the text is doing as well. Pushing us and the only way we can understand it is to push back.
Our Parasites
I take this quote from a blog post made by someone in the Nanotext class I had with Tony last spring.
The post was about a girl, Eli (pronounced like what is perhaps the more familiar spelling of Ellie), who visited the class at the invitation of one of our peers and the reactions the class had to her on plurk afterward.
I bring this up because I see it as being relevant to our Parasites class. Would we have the same kind of reaction? I hope that with all our discussion of the interruption that the answer would be no, but if I recall correctly, even in Nanotexts, we'd just finished a rather lengthy section on alterity and the meaning of the other, the exterior.
In thinking about this though, I'm brought to the question of what is a parasite unto our collective Parasites class? Clearly there are a select few of us in the 2:30 class who are parasites upon Tony's time. We're welcomed by the gracious host that he is, but even still, we encroach on his office hours, essentially owning the class from the inside out as we discuss what is, what was and what is to come: often eying others as an intrusion.
And here, I think the answer is in ourselves. We are our own parasites, interrupting and disturbing the quiet status quo of the class. To relate to another text from Nanotext we are the Ned Slades upon the Hand. We have infiltrated the system and are slowly destroying it from the inside out. This is our education.
A last point on the idea of ideas
I've already posted this as a plurk update, but wanted to reassert and expand upon it in a more cohesive format:
We hear talk of energy and tend to think it is bound within the realm of physics, that it obeys the first law of thermodynamics, but with the energy of ideas -- or rather ideas as a form of energy -- this is wrong. Ideas and technology work together as a kind of perpetual energy machine, generating more energy (ideas) than is input and required in other systems. The teme is self-replicating. It is parasite.
It's a matter of infrastructure. We've built the kind of infrastructure in our technology that allows this growth with minimal maintenance. To send a message to 20 people no longer takes a three hours of writing, 1+ days travel per message, etc. Yes, we've expended that kind of energy in building the technology to allow us to bypass that, but that was a one-off. We do not use that every time we send a message. We're standing on the shoulders of giants.
Once we've sent off enough ideas, the exchange of that being sent versus that being put in to maintain the system becomes uneven. Our investment has more than paid for itself.
If we think of the meme/teme as a unit of the energy of an idea, we see that this growth has the potential to be exponential. A hyperlink, a small underlined blue word can send us to a page full of thousands more words, images and even videos. Or you input 5 words, and it's replicated 20 times with the same amount of energy it took you to put those in.
We see it here in that video we watched in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
A simple search of a few key words brings us thousands (and even thousands upon thousands) of search results, of ideas. And I've said it before and I'll say it again; ideas are dangerous. Ideas are parasitic in their ability to control you. This whole update represents the small seed of Tony sitting next to me in class on Wednesday and mentioning the word energy. Like clicking an internal hyperlink in my mind, we take one simple word and expand it.
I have a few parasites of my own, and for once I'm not talking about the Fool.
These are more vampires upon my time and energy than mental illness.
Anyone remember these:
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jg9oz
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jgbfc
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jg9rw
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jgawg
http://www.plurk.com/p/3jgau0
Or how about that phone call I got from @cephalopod on Wednesday asking me to go to lunch with her so she could physically stay up?
http://www.plurk.com/p/3q8fvd
http://www.plurk.com/p/3q7wbp
I serve my purpose to these people. In the capacity of friendship, feedback generator and bouncing board, etc. I am available because I make myself so, sharing books, time and ideas and what do I get?
I get exactly what I ask for. Which by nature of our relationship, isn't much: the occasional conversation and tea. Did Harker ask much of Dracula? What does the country mouse ask of the city mouse? What did Master Abraham ask of Murr?
As I sit in class now, listening to the conversation about Serres and what we're getting, what we want from the text, I think the question applies here as well. We are the excluded third of Parasite. It's pushing us where we're used to pushing the text, forcing our way in. What are we asking of the text? But also, what is the text asking of us?
I state it here: I'm pushing. I'm asking that you push back.
And that's what I believe the text is doing as well. Pushing us and the only way we can understand it is to push back.
Our Parasites
"If we're going to compare the class to a sort of organism, why not go with the metaphor of an immune response. Sure, it may have been rude of Eli to interrupt and not be completely in terms with the way the class is run, but I personally found her input stimulating.
If you completely isolate a biological system, say our class, and then randomly introduce foreign bodies, you kind of have to expect a certain level of chaos to accompany that introduction. Exactly like what happens when those little black critters get in through the little boy's nose (mouth? I don't remember). [Referring to a video we'd watched]
My point here is that I don't think Eli served so much as an invader as she did a vaccine. You can't expect the incoming bodies to follow the same routine and must adapt accordingly until they are gone. "
I take this quote from a blog post made by someone in the Nanotext class I had with Tony last spring.
The post was about a girl, Eli (pronounced like what is perhaps the more familiar spelling of Ellie), who visited the class at the invitation of one of our peers and the reactions the class had to her on plurk afterward.
I bring this up because I see it as being relevant to our Parasites class. Would we have the same kind of reaction? I hope that with all our discussion of the interruption that the answer would be no, but if I recall correctly, even in Nanotexts, we'd just finished a rather lengthy section on alterity and the meaning of the other, the exterior.
In thinking about this though, I'm brought to the question of what is a parasite unto our collective Parasites class? Clearly there are a select few of us in the 2:30 class who are parasites upon Tony's time. We're welcomed by the gracious host that he is, but even still, we encroach on his office hours, essentially owning the class from the inside out as we discuss what is, what was and what is to come: often eying others as an intrusion.
And here, I think the answer is in ourselves. We are our own parasites, interrupting and disturbing the quiet status quo of the class. To relate to another text from Nanotext we are the Ned Slades upon the Hand. We have infiltrated the system and are slowly destroying it from the inside out. This is our education.
A last point on the idea of ideas
I've already posted this as a plurk update, but wanted to reassert and expand upon it in a more cohesive format:
We hear talk of energy and tend to think it is bound within the realm of physics, that it obeys the first law of thermodynamics, but with the energy of ideas -- or rather ideas as a form of energy -- this is wrong. Ideas and technology work together as a kind of perpetual energy machine, generating more energy (ideas) than is input and required in other systems. The teme is self-replicating. It is parasite.
It's a matter of infrastructure. We've built the kind of infrastructure in our technology that allows this growth with minimal maintenance. To send a message to 20 people no longer takes a three hours of writing, 1+ days travel per message, etc. Yes, we've expended that kind of energy in building the technology to allow us to bypass that, but that was a one-off. We do not use that every time we send a message. We're standing on the shoulders of giants.
Once we've sent off enough ideas, the exchange of that being sent versus that being put in to maintain the system becomes uneven. Our investment has more than paid for itself.
If we think of the meme/teme as a unit of the energy of an idea, we see that this growth has the potential to be exponential. A hyperlink, a small underlined blue word can send us to a page full of thousands more words, images and even videos. Or you input 5 words, and it's replicated 20 times with the same amount of energy it took you to put those in.
We see it here in that video we watched in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
A simple search of a few key words brings us thousands (and even thousands upon thousands) of search results, of ideas. And I've said it before and I'll say it again; ideas are dangerous. Ideas are parasitic in their ability to control you. This whole update represents the small seed of Tony sitting next to me in class on Wednesday and mentioning the word energy. Like clicking an internal hyperlink in my mind, we take one simple word and expand it.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Autodidactism
The best way I could describe any class I've had with Tony Prichard would be to call it encouraged autodidactism. You get the most out of it if you use the class not as an end, but as a starting point.
Autodidact, from the Greek meaning self-taught.
After watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox last week, I plurked about Tony's methods and was promptly asked if I was a TA. I was quick to correct Halfdome and say that I wasn't, but I can fully understand where he could get that idea. Whether I mean to or not, I have a way of stating my opinions with a kind of force that comes across as either knowledgeable or arrogant depending on whether or not I actually know what I'm talking about.
I'm an autodidact of patterns and connections. Gestault -- whom I've brought up previously -- would be my chosen school of psychology. I observe. I watch. I see. I listen. There will always be a part of my consciousness paying attention and squirreling information away for future comparison.
You say 2. They say 2. I can usually figure out together you're making 4.
Now that I'm actually thinking about it, this probably explains why I love film noir so much, but I digress.
Parasites, much like it's predecessor, Nanotexts, and I'm sure the majority of the other English classes Tony has taught where a majority of the course work takes place outside of the formal classroom setting, lends itself especially well to the autodidactic.
http://www.plurk.com/p/3mr7ne
Assignments like our blog posts and thought experiments with rather loosely defined prompts offer themselves towards the kind of self-induced exploration of ideas that most traditional midterm-and-research-paper English classes fail at providing for.
@nanotext mentioned the idea of multiplex consciousness in an offhand plurk back in December while I was enrolled in the GLBT Literature course. It was an example of his thoughts of the moment, that fleeting experience of multiplicity as many windows opened not only through into this digital world of plurk and wave and blogs, but also into the mind. Nanotext has multiplex consciousness.
Like one of those thought parasites, this small idea infected me and remained nearby, a postulation on the sense of identity tickling me as the Fool developed.
So when we came to our thought experiment, it seemed only natural that my exploration would be into multiplexity and how it relates to this parasite of the mind. Some of the best reading I've done for this class has not come from the assigned texts, but the supplementary books I have found within Tony's library and online and drawing the lines that I saw connecting them.
But at the same time, there exists a danger in this. Distraction and interruption. Diversion. It's a fickle balancing act between staying focused at the task -- in this case readings -- at hand and those supplementary articles that we devour alongside them.
I can tell already you see where I'm going with this. The word is on your lips. With all his talk of eating and shared tables, Serres has trained you well in identifying these parasites.
Autodidact, from the Greek meaning self-taught.
After watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox last week, I plurked about Tony's methods and was promptly asked if I was a TA. I was quick to correct Halfdome and say that I wasn't, but I can fully understand where he could get that idea. Whether I mean to or not, I have a way of stating my opinions with a kind of force that comes across as either knowledgeable or arrogant depending on whether or not I actually know what I'm talking about.
I'm an autodidact of patterns and connections. Gestault -- whom I've brought up previously -- would be my chosen school of psychology. I observe. I watch. I see. I listen. There will always be a part of my consciousness paying attention and squirreling information away for future comparison.
You say 2. They say 2. I can usually figure out together you're making 4.
Now that I'm actually thinking about it, this probably explains why I love film noir so much, but I digress.
Parasites, much like it's predecessor, Nanotexts, and I'm sure the majority of the other English classes Tony has taught where a majority of the course work takes place outside of the formal classroom setting, lends itself especially well to the autodidactic.
http://www.plurk.com/p/3mr7ne
Assignments like our blog posts and thought experiments with rather loosely defined prompts offer themselves towards the kind of self-induced exploration of ideas that most traditional midterm-and-research-paper English classes fail at providing for.
@nanotext mentioned the idea of multiplex consciousness in an offhand plurk back in December while I was enrolled in the GLBT Literature course. It was an example of his thoughts of the moment, that fleeting experience of multiplicity as many windows opened not only through into this digital world of plurk and wave and blogs, but also into the mind. Nanotext has multiplex consciousness.
Like one of those thought parasites, this small idea infected me and remained nearby, a postulation on the sense of identity tickling me as the Fool developed.
So when we came to our thought experiment, it seemed only natural that my exploration would be into multiplexity and how it relates to this parasite of the mind. Some of the best reading I've done for this class has not come from the assigned texts, but the supplementary books I have found within Tony's library and online and drawing the lines that I saw connecting them.
But at the same time, there exists a danger in this. Distraction and interruption. Diversion. It's a fickle balancing act between staying focused at the task -- in this case readings -- at hand and those supplementary articles that we devour alongside them.
I can tell already you see where I'm going with this. The word is on your lips. With all his talk of eating and shared tables, Serres has trained you well in identifying these parasites.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Twilight: An Addiction, or Why I Will Never Read That Series
So I've been reading this book, Crack Wars by Avital Ronell that Tony --
Nanotext? Professor Prichard? The lines of formality have been so blurred that I don't really know how to refer to him anymore. I mean, I'm working on a collaborative novel with him and a bunch of other people, and as such have been to his house and met his wife and daughter but am still going to be in a classroom setting with him as the "authority" figure next quarter in Parasites. Quite frankly I see him more as a friend and mentor than as a teacher. But I'm getting off topic.
that Tony gave me to read a little over a month back. It's been slow going, mostly because I've only opened it sporadically when I wasn't running back and forth from one activity to another or studying for my actual classes. It's all about literature and addiction, and addiction as a parasitic entity. A drug, or rather something you can be addicted to, does not necessitate the use of chemicals, it is more complex than a chemical reaction, but can be anything that sustains the interplay between want, need, choice, freedom: drawing toward but never quite crossing the line in that suicidal euphoric rush of death.
But today I woke up, sat down and really started to get into it.
That is until I came across an annotation posing the question, "Who are we when we write? drug dealers? pharmacists? output's quality depends on your skill." This of course made me laugh as I thought of the author of the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyer. For her blatantly terrible books with their anti-feminist images (stalker vampire, possessive werewolf, weakling heroine) to seduce so many readers, many of whom are educated, respectable feminists, she can't be a writer. All the good authors are terribly difficult to read at times and yet are still considered undeniably good despite and because of any criticism they may receive. Meyer on the other hand is merely addictive.
I went to a panel the other week where her works were described as a relationship. You become involved with the books much in the same way you became involved with that stupid 15-year-old boy/girl who broke your heart back in middle school. But such a relationship isn't really a relationship. It's an addiction. There is an interplay (my I like using that word) of power dynamics in which you seek to appease and acquire that which you want.
So in a sense, she's a drug dealer, peddling to the masses of capitalist America. She isn't wholly to blame, her agent and her publishing company and the movies all play a big role in that as well, but as a writer, she's nothing more than a pusher for her romanticized, impossible, idealized, fantasy world. I cannot support that. There is so much more richness to be found in the reality I perceive around me, I don't want to waste my time. If I'm going for escapism, I'm going to take a little more fun without such unhealthy undertones. Give me fairy tales where at least you can learn from the darkness you encounter.
Nanotext? Professor Prichard? The lines of formality have been so blurred that I don't really know how to refer to him anymore. I mean, I'm working on a collaborative novel with him and a bunch of other people, and as such have been to his house and met his wife and daughter but am still going to be in a classroom setting with him as the "authority" figure next quarter in Parasites. Quite frankly I see him more as a friend and mentor than as a teacher. But I'm getting off topic.that Tony gave me to read a little over a month back. It's been slow going, mostly because I've only opened it sporadically when I wasn't running back and forth from one activity to another or studying for my actual classes. It's all about literature and addiction, and addiction as a parasitic entity. A drug, or rather something you can be addicted to, does not necessitate the use of chemicals, it is more complex than a chemical reaction, but can be anything that sustains the interplay between want, need, choice, freedom: drawing toward but never quite crossing the line in that suicidal euphoric rush of death.
But today I woke up, sat down and really started to get into it.
That is until I came across an annotation posing the question, "Who are we when we write? drug dealers? pharmacists? output's quality depends on your skill." This of course made me laugh as I thought of the author of the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyer. For her blatantly terrible books with their anti-feminist images (stalker vampire, possessive werewolf, weakling heroine) to seduce so many readers, many of whom are educated, respectable feminists, she can't be a writer. All the good authors are terribly difficult to read at times and yet are still considered undeniably good despite and because of any criticism they may receive. Meyer on the other hand is merely addictive.
I went to a panel the other week where her works were described as a relationship. You become involved with the books much in the same way you became involved with that stupid 15-year-old boy/girl who broke your heart back in middle school. But such a relationship isn't really a relationship. It's an addiction. There is an interplay (my I like using that word) of power dynamics in which you seek to appease and acquire that which you want.
So in a sense, she's a drug dealer, peddling to the masses of capitalist America. She isn't wholly to blame, her agent and her publishing company and the movies all play a big role in that as well, but as a writer, she's nothing more than a pusher for her romanticized, impossible, idealized, fantasy world. I cannot support that. There is so much more richness to be found in the reality I perceive around me, I don't want to waste my time. If I'm going for escapism, I'm going to take a little more fun without such unhealthy undertones. Give me fairy tales where at least you can learn from the darkness you encounter.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
It's time to get writing
As part of a NaNoWriMo group project organized by and with people I had class with last quarter, I'm claiming a write-in weekend. After breakfast on Saturday I am barricading myself in my room until Sunday afternoon (dinner excepting and Nerf Wars that night to blow off steam). I will not be answering my phone. I will be inactive on Facebook. I probably won't even shower (which is fine since I won't be going anywhere).
If I ignore you or tell you no, I can't come out and play, I'm sorry, but you've now been warned. If you care to see what's taking up my time, I will direct you to the finished product at the end of the month.
Hope you all can understand, I love you and will catch you on the Sunday side of things.
If I ignore you or tell you no, I can't come out and play, I'm sorry, but you've now been warned. If you care to see what's taking up my time, I will direct you to the finished product at the end of the month.
Hope you all can understand, I love you and will catch you on the Sunday side of things.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
What I've learned from college:
- I am a teacher's favorite student because I'm personable and intelligent with good comprehension and retention of ideas, but because of this I never learned good study habits in high school and so am unwilling or unmotivated to apply myself to the course work unless it suits my mood.
- College students never really grew up:
- Sit at the front of the room on exams days. You'll get the exam that much quicker than your peers, and sometimes half a minute makes a big difference.
- The more unorthodox the name of an English class, the more likely it is to be engaging and maybe even fun. Compare Nanotexts to Intro to American Literature. You know exactly what you're getting yourself into in the latter, but the first one just might surprise you.
- You know a class has real world applications when you start noticing it in your everyday life , and analyzing movies the way you analyzed books does not count.
- You can learn anything on the internet.
- Your pet will miss you as much if not more than you miss the rest of your family.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Reflections
Yeah, the video is more than a little corny to start a blog post with, but I haven't exactly made this blog into your standard everyday collection of words.
Blogging as a tool is used two dimensionally when it so clearly has many layers beyond that. The words are usually the most important part, but form and format are essential as well. A blog without the occasional picture or video or hyperlink is nothing more than an online diary.
It frustrates me because it's not visually stimulating, which means people won't find it interesting, which means people are even less likely to read it than they already are. Maybe it would help if I explain that I come from a background in newspaper layout design, so readability is highly important to me unless you are purposefully trying to manipulate your reader's perceptions.
Despite having particular blogs in mind as I write this, I don't mean to sound disparaging or arrogant, I want reading your blog to be an enjoyable experience not just for me, but for all your potential readers.
A couple days after my book group created our Queen City Jazz Cut-up blog, I went back and found a giant mass of text with one picture at the top. It was literally at least a couple thousand words in a single block of text. So I went through with creative intent and separated it into manageable sized chunks so I wouldn't feel overwhelmed trying to read it.But right, I started this trying to reflect on my blogging experience of the last few months. It's been an exploration of both form and function, guided loosely by the readings but mostly as an exploration of what I can do with the medium. I've enjoyed it as an opportunity to look at the creative aspects of blogging.
I like writing and having interesting things to say, but I feel like finding information to go along with that writing is just as important, just like Plurk wouldn't be the same if you couldn't include YouTube videos and pictures. Since this is my personal blog appropriated for use in Nanotexts, I think this will be the last post to feature the Nanotexts tag, but I will definitely keep writing.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Man vs. Beast vs. Robot Overlords
Okay, so this little bugger is nowhere near being any kind of robot overlord, and his companion is by no means a beast, but you have to admit that at the base level, they're a lot more similar than we like to admit.They react to the stimuli we give them, feeding off it and gaining pleasure from the experience. Of course, one you feed electronic streams of data, the other food, but regardless they'll take whatever you have to give.
But when you throw in the possibilities opened up by sci-fi, of course things get quite a bit more complicated. What if that fluffy bunny weren't just some ball of hair, but a miniature body guard a la Little Worker from Ribofunk? And don't forget Dolly the cloned sheep. Remember Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager? The thing all of these have in common is their status in the twilight. They straddle that area between what is, what was, and what could be. In that way, science fiction is very much like fantasy where magic and mystery and the hidden worlds of the Faeries hide in the betweens.
But where fantasy expects you to believe and accept, our texts have forced us to question where the dividing line is. Is a chicken born without feathers through no natural means still a chicken? Is a machine with all the cognitive ability of any given human and probably beyond that of many any less of a person?
There is no tidy easy answer to what separates either from humanity. But what separates them from each other? When I read Josh's blog for the cut-up I made in my earlier post, I noticed he brought up the point of how we as humans purposefully "other" technology.
We "other" technology and machines as something different than ourselves because they are controlled and stuck in a rhythm without escape. We are different correct? ... Everything is reality. There is no escaping it. Doesn't this also mean there is no escaping the rhythm of our lives? Are we not controlled by social constructs and a hierarchy? We have been programmed socially to think and act certain ways. The fact that we create "others" prove this. We don't like rogue machines. Everyone must follow the rules and the laws of our mechanics. We create the "other" in order to maintain routines and control. This makes us machines. Even escaping the social aspect, we cannot escape our biological aspects. We must breathe, eat, sleep and go to the bathroom. We are as vulnerable as machines. Unplug a machine and it turns off. Go a while without breathing and you die. Although machines can be plugged back in, so I guess we're weak machines.
He was talking about reality and alterity, but I think that applies here as well. We as humans have an easier time associating and personifying animals than we do machines, because they're like us. They eat, sleep, poop and have cute little faces just like we do. But if in our own way, we are biological machines, that should mean animals are so much more like machines because like machines, animals aren't necessarily cognizant in the same way we think humans are. It came up repeatedly in Ribofunk with the splices, mostly as a civil matter, that they weren't being treated equally. But the problem with that thinking is that they aren't being created equally to begin with. Like machines they have fabricated lives. Each one was made for whatever specific purpose the humans in charge had in mind.
And it is this that will forever separate humanity from animals and machines in our minds and allow us to group them together in this amorphous category of other. It's a god complex because we're still the ones in control. Makes me shudder for the day when either the animals or machines (or both) stand up and tell us enough is enough.
Micro, Nano, Small: or some musings on the divine
Let's for a moment start with the basics.
This is a letter D.
Short of magnifying down to the point where all we can see is the constituent lines, this is the smallest building block of shareable thought we have at our disposal. But notice how there's so much more in this particular D than simply a letter. Made as a decoration for my room next year by my friends, this D represents and reflects different aspects of my personality. This is looking at the world from the perspective of the small.
One of the first things we did this quarter was watch this short clip of Sesame Street and explore how something tiny and simple can in effect be something far greater.
What is the image above? It's a little blurry, but even from those few lines, you should be able to tell that it's probably a key.
The Nano level, 10^-9, It can all be taken as an aesthetic metaphor of the comparative nature that size gives us. Looking at the world around us, what are we
experiencing but a giant Mandelbrot Set? I noticed this when we watched that Powers of 10 video on the first or second day of class. What's the difference between an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom versus moons around a planet versus planets around a star versus stars around a galaxy's core when you ignore factors like size? They're circles on an elliptical path around larger circles.
To me, that's an argument for Intelligent Design, especially if you think of it as being planned so that it'll all unfold this way on its own. Because the way I look at manipulation of events and people, a truly successful manipulator will never be seen, will never be heard and no one will even know that someone was in control to begin with. Everything will happen according to plan, and it will happen naturally.
I'm atheist with an outlook on life full of Buddhist influences, but if whatever God that is out there is Α and Ω, then they must also be one and all, big and small. To be omniscient and omnipresent, you must not merely experience the singularity, you must be and embody the singularity. By this then, the Big Bang theory doesn't disprove the existence of god, because the way I look at it, god was the Big Bang.
The elephant may be able to lift hundreds of pounds, but the ant can lift 20 times its own body weight just as effortlessly. (Another random fact I found while looking that up that made me think about the superorganism: An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells. A human brain has 10,000 million so a colony of 40,000 ants has collectively the same size brain as a human.) Whichever is more impressive is just a matter of perspective, and ultimately, that's what the small does.
This is a letter D.
Short of magnifying down to the point where all we can see is the constituent lines, this is the smallest building block of shareable thought we have at our disposal. But notice how there's so much more in this particular D than simply a letter. Made as a decoration for my room next year by my friends, this D represents and reflects different aspects of my personality. This is looking at the world from the perspective of the small.
One of the first things we did this quarter was watch this short clip of Sesame Street and explore how something tiny and simple can in effect be something far greater.
What is the image above? It's a little blurry, but even from those few lines, you should be able to tell that it's probably a key.
The Nano level, 10^-9, It can all be taken as an aesthetic metaphor of the comparative nature that size gives us. Looking at the world around us, what are we
experiencing but a giant Mandelbrot Set? I noticed this when we watched that Powers of 10 video on the first or second day of class. What's the difference between an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom versus moons around a planet versus planets around a star versus stars around a galaxy's core when you ignore factors like size? They're circles on an elliptical path around larger circles. To me, that's an argument for Intelligent Design, especially if you think of it as being planned so that it'll all unfold this way on its own. Because the way I look at manipulation of events and people, a truly successful manipulator will never be seen, will never be heard and no one will even know that someone was in control to begin with. Everything will happen according to plan, and it will happen naturally.
I'm atheist with an outlook on life full of Buddhist influences, but if whatever God that is out there is Α and Ω, then they must also be one and all, big and small. To be omniscient and omnipresent, you must not merely experience the singularity, you must be and embody the singularity. By this then, the Big Bang theory doesn't disprove the existence of god, because the way I look at it, god was the Big Bang.
The elephant may be able to lift hundreds of pounds, but the ant can lift 20 times its own body weight just as effortlessly. (Another random fact I found while looking that up that made me think about the superorganism: An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells. A human brain has 10,000 million so a colony of 40,000 ants has collectively the same size brain as a human.) Whichever is more impressive is just a matter of perspective, and ultimately, that's what the small does.
Cutting-up Josh
I'm going to try and spare you the gab with this one and simply say that I read a blog of one of my peers and this is my response to it. I'm using his words to comment on how I think we agree and differ on different aspects of what we've covered this quarter.
Discounting food, this was about 5 hours of work sifting through about 23 printed pages of blog posts, cutting them up into bite-sized chunks and taping them down in such a way as to make even semi-coherent thoughts. And in doing so, I find I admire Burroughs so much more for his work in The Ticket that Exploded.
The seemingly random it in the top right corner is supposed to go in that little space towards the end of the twenty-second line where it say "it is invented __ could be." I just forgot to move it before I scanned the image.
And if a picture is worth 1000 words, I'm pretty sure this one is worth double that, though I didn't take the time to actually count.
Discounting food, this was about 5 hours of work sifting through about 23 printed pages of blog posts, cutting them up into bite-sized chunks and taping them down in such a way as to make even semi-coherent thoughts. And in doing so, I find I admire Burroughs so much more for his work in The Ticket that Exploded.
The seemingly random it in the top right corner is supposed to go in that little space towards the end of the twenty-second line where it say "it is invented __ could be." I just forgot to move it before I scanned the image.
And if a picture is worth 1000 words, I'm pretty sure this one is worth double that, though I didn't take the time to actually count.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Were The World Mine
My thoughts on Were the World Mine
In case you can't read my handwriting:
Yesterday, when Josh from my English class posted links on Plurk and Facebook about Were the World Mine, I decided I had to see it. There are few enough quality films with openly gay protagonists that actually have a relevant, interesting plot. I liked it to say the very least, but less so for the basic storyline so much as the interruption of Status Q the actions of Timothy cause.
Based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, Timothy quite literally takes on the role of Robin Goodfellow, creating a mixed up world where the lines of love are redrawn according to his whim. In that respect, the story of the film is very much based off the story of the play the characters in the film are participating in.
Puck has always been known as a character of chaos and trickery. And we are but mortals subject to the will of those above us, so when we suddenly find ourselves in that position, of having that power, we become the anti-person.
Timothy makes the star rugby player fall in love with him, but in doing so alienates and aggravates his community.
Movies like this make me sad. Yes, there was a happy ending, but it comes across as contrived to me. I always wince at the smiles and the kiss at the end. It's unrealistic and creates an illusion of possibility. There are no magical love flowers in real life.
A sunflower in a cornfield
On some level, I've always been uncomfortable interacting with other gay men. By and large I think it has to do with intimidation. Most of the queer community is far more open to new and different things than the rest of our heteronormative society.
I'm all for that, and have even been told that I'm open with myself and sharing who I am more so than most. But I'm not used to being surrounded with it. So it's a stark and scary difference when I cross that threshold.
I've been pretty isolated from what we call the gay community, mostly because I've lived a pretty sheltered, suburban life in general. And I think the fact that having never experienced the queer community combined with never having experienced any kind of hardship for my sexuality puts me in a limbo of sorts. I'm dancing in that greygoo (not Grace) between the alternatives. I don't mind this. I don't usually think about it actually. But so much of what defines the queer community is that solidarity. They (We?) are united because we aren't the same as "normal" society, and we're treated differently for it. I have a hard time identifying with that.
I'm hopelessly oblivious to homophobia in part because of my personality. Stress and negative emotions don't last for very long. I'm too much the optimist to both notice and care when insults are thrown my way. There was this one time in high school where I was wearing my ocean shirt, and as some jock-type and his girlfriend walked past me in the hallway, the guy said "Nice puppets, fag." The first thing to go through my mind was that they weren't puppets. They were Beanie Babies. People laugh at that story because I'm offended at probably the least offensive part of what that guy said, but that's truly how I think.
And in this way, I'm not really all that unique, but I think without meaning to I defy Status Q because of it. I don't follow what is expected. I revel in observing controlled chaos, not for the chaos' sake but for the reactions people have. Puck, Loki, Eros, Mercury, Anansi: so often they're tricksters causing mischief and mayhem, but usually only as it serves their purposes. It's not madness for the sake of madness but a message or a show of power.
There is always something to be learned in the patterns that show up among the seemingly random.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A blog post via:
ishy29: http://www.plurk.com/p/ya8ff
Tuchiya Ayame: http://www.plurk.com/p/y98fp
kylel: http://www.plurk.com/p/y8qrc
DTz: http://www.plurk.com/p/y7lbb
starrag: http://www.plurk.com/p/yb3ur
wriver: http://www.plurk.com/p/x55rl
Plurk as a medium for communication is both a blessing and a curse, for in it there is the blessing of anonymity and the ability to communicate without the necessity of spoken words, but with anonymity comes the potential for the loss of self.
In each book we've read in Nanotexts, at some point or another, the question of identity has come up.
Casares. The fugitive is faced with the idea that everything he has done, everything he has created for Faustine, before Morel and the other mysterious inhabitants of the island, the recordings of Morel's invention. When they appear and disappear, he knows not if they are real or hallucinations caused by the island. Plurk records us, captures the moments of our lives online in a static timeline. Up up down down left right left right B A enter and soon we find ourselves dancing around each other.
What are our thoughts if words are but a disease? Part of how we define ourselves is by our minds. Burroughs. How much of who we are is ourselves, and how much is what we plurk? How easily do we identify ourselves through the medium of people lurking? Plurk further cuts up our conversations, breaking them down into bite sized components, micro blogs of information.
For many of us, I think our plurk identity has become as separate as a parapersonality, and for some, it's even spawned more. Our mind, our lucidity and thought have and can separate from our body via plurk. Plurk extends our thoughts, allows us to compile and compress data into 140 characters or less. A picture is worth 1000 words, but a link can be worth tenfold that. Plurk is the closest yet we've been able to achieve the metanovel of Postsingularity.
But as with any new technology, Plurk suffers its drawbacks. We are limited by words and what we can find. It's a two dimensional tool. For as much quality, thought provoking information that is shared, 5 more pieces of irrelevancy are to be found, but that's simply the nature of the superorganism. As with the regular organism, so much of the parts must spend themselves maintaining a status quo in order for the greater experiences to come about. Big Pig is the beezies and the orphidnet. The Queen City is the hive and the people in the city. The Hand is its agents and enemies as one. So then, our timelines are both the individual plurks, and the conversations as well as the greater trends those messages follow.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Tired
I have half a blog post written in my head/on paper, but it's getting kind of really late for me, and I don't think I'm awake enough to coherently do justice to the ideas like I wish to, so instead of working on that post here, I'm posting this short message explaining why I don't have anything of substance in this space just yet.
Be warned though, I'm working on it and want to take my time to do this right. Just like I commented on Low's blog, I tend to lose myself in my typing. Which probably explains the vaguely stream-of-thought-style randomness that makes up most of my widdershin writings. I want to try and focus myself a little bit more here so that you, readers, whomever you may be, can hopefully take more out of this.
So thank you for your patience, and goodnight.
Be warned though, I'm working on it and want to take my time to do this right. Just like I commented on Low's blog, I tend to lose myself in my typing. Which probably explains the vaguely stream-of-thought-style randomness that makes up most of my widdershin writings. I want to try and focus myself a little bit more here so that you, readers, whomever you may be, can hopefully take more out of this.
So thank you for your patience, and goodnight.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
myRoommate :: my Profile
This is my profile on the Western dating (err, I mean roommate finding) service: myRoommate.
I should probably start this out by saying that I'm already part of a suite in ***** (I'm in room ***) with two other guys, Dan and Kellen. They're a pair of pretty chill physics/computer science majors, though one is a little OCD and values cleanliness (Kellen). Since I'm the odd one out, I'm looking to find a roommate so I don't get stuck with some random dude.
It's also worth noting that one of my closest friends here at Western, Dani, is Kellen's girlfriend so if you room with me, you will see A LOT of her and her roommate Grace. We're a pretty tight bunch, but the majority of us are laughably outgoing and friendly (especially me and Dani), so please don't feel intimidated at all.
At heart, I'm a writer, a scribbler, a slave to pen on paper. When I can't sleep, it's because I have too many thoughts in my head and I have to put them down on paper. I'm queer as a sunflower in a cornfield and hope no one will hold it against me because there's too much hate in the world already. Study habits? Those pretty much come and go as they please because I was lucky enough in high school to be smart enough to not need them... and my freshmen year has proven that wasn't a good thing.
Until I open up to people, I tend to be fairly quiet, but give me a week and that goes out the door. I'm not a fiery personality by any means, and I pride myself in keeping my cool. If I'm quiet, all it means is that I'm thinking. It's kind of a zen thing, though I'm undeclared on the religious front. All that's important to me there is that I have faith. Don't know what in, but that's not the point.
I should warn you that I'm one of those people you hate who's all chipper and awake in the morning (without the aid of stimulants). But I try to keep quiet until everybody else is up, y'know, as a courtesy thing.
Since getting to Western this past Winter, I've found a passion for dancing, most notably through the school's salsa group (Ritmo Latino Dance forever!) and am probably the person least likely to be found just straight up walking anywhere.
I don't do MySpace, so here's my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=*********
And look, I wrote a book for my profile. :)
I probably give away more information than is strictly necessary for something like this, but I also believe personally that in searching for and choosing someone you will be living with for however many months that a certain level of transparency is necessary. Why hold back if at some point you're going to have to cross that line of comfort anyways?
But who is this person written about so extensively above? It's me certainly, but at the same time, it's not me. It's a Golem representation of who I am under certain circumstances. It's yet another doppelganger of this internet creation. Were they to come to life, I think this monster would suffer a sense of forever being incomplete, and only by encompassing and existing in my place, and truly becoming me could they find that existence which is missing. And if I were to die some time in the near future, it would be all that's left of me.
Lewis Carroll had the right idea when he wrote Through The Looking-Glass. The mirror is a window into another world populated by a distinct kind of otherness that is both us and not us, where everything can be what it is and what it is not. Left is right, and everything is as familiar as it is not. But where his work takes on the realm of fancy and fantasy, the nanotexts we've been reading explore the possibility of this double world actually being a part of our world instead of a world apart.
In The Invention of Morel, the inventor, Morel, created a machine that essentially captured the reality of what happened on the island. Everything the fugitive saw of the people was but a recording of events that had happened in the past. And much like some of the beliefs about photography, they thought that in capturing themselves this way their souls as well were being captured. In this case, the alterity and the double are in the reproduction, in the creation of what was into a what isn't but seems like it is.
Ribofunk applies this doubling to the idea of genetics. When one Peter Rabbit runs away to join the underground resistance, you simply go and buy another one from the funky farm. He's exactly the same, and this time you know to program him with a little more loyalty, a little more obedience. But again, the reproduction of the double leaves you with something both more and less than the original.
Much like how in the Matrix, every passerby is a potential Agent Smith, in the Filth, every innocent bystander is a potential agent of the Hand. Greg Feely put it rather eloquently at the end of Chapter 11 when he said, "Parapersonas all of you. Don't you get it? There are places like this all over; the Hand can turn anyone into an officer, any time it has to." Here, the idea of double is less in the physical aspect as it is in the mental realm. Spartacus Hughes is the perfect example in that while he is killed twice throughout the duration of the Filth, he comes back in a new form, in a new body, the "human disease." In this case, the double is a reciprocal reproduction of those in the other sections. Rather than the body reproduced and the mental state different, it is the other way around.
In this digital age, we leave footprints and paper-trails every time we log on, every time we visit a website. I recently Google searched my most common username, Acelessthan3, and all of the 550 results were either me or a page that was in some way referencing me. Nanotext even showed up in the search results for mentioning my plurk account in one of his blog posts.
Everything we do is recorded and captured and cached. And I wonder: if we were to put enough of ourselves online, how much could we be recreated after we're gone? If we take each post and cached bit of information about ourselves: all the little profile pages, sordid postings and funny videos, like some giant, hodgepodge, jig-saw puzzle of self, and put them together in a brain program of sorts, would we ever be able to create a double close enough to mirror who we really are?
In Postsingularity, the nants essentially digitize the entire world as they slowly convert it to GreyGoo (not Grace). Everything is perfectly replicated in this digital simulacrum because everything down to the last DNA strand is absorbed into the "program." The nants' digitization works because they start by taking the source, the humanity and copying that exactly.
We saw in Ribofunk that this approach could work. It's just an extreme version of the interface cocoons used in the schools. Only instead of simply allowing you access, the cocoon literally absorbs you into the digital world you're visiting.
But what would it take to work this process in reverse? Take the double, the digitization, the e-doppelganger or doppelgangs and create a person from it. I don't think it can be done.
In Queen City Jazz, the main architect behind the Flower cities, Durancy attempted it. As his mother was dying, they digitized her mind in hopes that with the nan abilities and the power of the city, he could preserve and recreate her. The only problem though was that in the process of copying India's mind, something went wrong, and the copy was incomplete. So then, when her digital likeness was integrated into the city and became the Queen of the hive, it wasn't really her in power. It was the fragmented, isolated and childlike likeness of her that could not fully comprehend or adjust to what was happening.
And there's the rub. You just cannot create a perfect double that is the original. The closest it will ever be is like the original.
As similar to the profile I started with is to my personality, it does not showcase everything that is me. There are moments and memories and experiences that cannot be translated into the available media. Words, video, photographs, they're only pieces of me.
If you take all the chocolate chips out of a chocolate chip cookie, and then try to put the cookie part back together, it still won't be the chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate chips are missing. The part that makes the double imperfect, that makes it have alterity, that's the missing chocolate chips.
So while we almost constantly create new personas, new doubles that continue to exist long after we have abandoned or forgotten their login information or closed the account in this techno-heavy world, they continue to exist. Like we talked about the one day in class, we are more than just here in the sense of where our physical body exists. We are here in every place a double exists, be it of the mind like those on the net or on paper or in other people's memories, or in image as a mirror or a video.
I should probably start this out by saying that I'm already part of a suite in ***** (I'm in room ***) with two other guys, Dan and Kellen. They're a pair of pretty chill physics/computer science majors, though one is a little OCD and values cleanliness (Kellen). Since I'm the odd one out, I'm looking to find a roommate so I don't get stuck with some random dude.
It's also worth noting that one of my closest friends here at Western, Dani, is Kellen's girlfriend so if you room with me, you will see A LOT of her and her roommate Grace. We're a pretty tight bunch, but the majority of us are laughably outgoing and friendly (especially me and Dani), so please don't feel intimidated at all.
At heart, I'm a writer, a scribbler, a slave to pen on paper. When I can't sleep, it's because I have too many thoughts in my head and I have to put them down on paper. I'm queer as a sunflower in a cornfield and hope no one will hold it against me because there's too much hate in the world already. Study habits? Those pretty much come and go as they please because I was lucky enough in high school to be smart enough to not need them... and my freshmen year has proven that wasn't a good thing.
Until I open up to people, I tend to be fairly quiet, but give me a week and that goes out the door. I'm not a fiery personality by any means, and I pride myself in keeping my cool. If I'm quiet, all it means is that I'm thinking. It's kind of a zen thing, though I'm undeclared on the religious front. All that's important to me there is that I have faith. Don't know what in, but that's not the point.
I should warn you that I'm one of those people you hate who's all chipper and awake in the morning (without the aid of stimulants). But I try to keep quiet until everybody else is up, y'know, as a courtesy thing.
Since getting to Western this past Winter, I've found a passion for dancing, most notably through the school's salsa group (Ritmo Latino Dance forever!) and am probably the person least likely to be found just straight up walking anywhere.
I don't do MySpace, so here's my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=*********
And look, I wrote a book for my profile. :)
I probably give away more information than is strictly necessary for something like this, but I also believe personally that in searching for and choosing someone you will be living with for however many months that a certain level of transparency is necessary. Why hold back if at some point you're going to have to cross that line of comfort anyways?
But who is this person written about so extensively above? It's me certainly, but at the same time, it's not me. It's a Golem representation of who I am under certain circumstances. It's yet another doppelganger of this internet creation. Were they to come to life, I think this monster would suffer a sense of forever being incomplete, and only by encompassing and existing in my place, and truly becoming me could they find that existence which is missing. And if I were to die some time in the near future, it would be all that's left of me.
Lewis Carroll had the right idea when he wrote Through The Looking-Glass. The mirror is a window into another world populated by a distinct kind of otherness that is both us and not us, where everything can be what it is and what it is not. Left is right, and everything is as familiar as it is not. But where his work takes on the realm of fancy and fantasy, the nanotexts we've been reading explore the possibility of this double world actually being a part of our world instead of a world apart.
In The Invention of Morel, the inventor, Morel, created a machine that essentially captured the reality of what happened on the island. Everything the fugitive saw of the people was but a recording of events that had happened in the past. And much like some of the beliefs about photography, they thought that in capturing themselves this way their souls as well were being captured. In this case, the alterity and the double are in the reproduction, in the creation of what was into a what isn't but seems like it is.
Ribofunk applies this doubling to the idea of genetics. When one Peter Rabbit runs away to join the underground resistance, you simply go and buy another one from the funky farm. He's exactly the same, and this time you know to program him with a little more loyalty, a little more obedience. But again, the reproduction of the double leaves you with something both more and less than the original.
Much like how in the Matrix, every passerby is a potential Agent Smith, in the Filth, every innocent bystander is a potential agent of the Hand. Greg Feely put it rather eloquently at the end of Chapter 11 when he said, "Parapersonas all of you. Don't you get it? There are places like this all over; the Hand can turn anyone into an officer, any time it has to." Here, the idea of double is less in the physical aspect as it is in the mental realm. Spartacus Hughes is the perfect example in that while he is killed twice throughout the duration of the Filth, he comes back in a new form, in a new body, the "human disease." In this case, the double is a reciprocal reproduction of those in the other sections. Rather than the body reproduced and the mental state different, it is the other way around.
In this digital age, we leave footprints and paper-trails every time we log on, every time we visit a website. I recently Google searched my most common username, Acelessthan3, and all of the 550 results were either me or a page that was in some way referencing me. Nanotext even showed up in the search results for mentioning my plurk account in one of his blog posts.
Everything we do is recorded and captured and cached. And I wonder: if we were to put enough of ourselves online, how much could we be recreated after we're gone? If we take each post and cached bit of information about ourselves: all the little profile pages, sordid postings and funny videos, like some giant, hodgepodge, jig-saw puzzle of self, and put them together in a brain program of sorts, would we ever be able to create a double close enough to mirror who we really are?
In Postsingularity, the nants essentially digitize the entire world as they slowly convert it to GreyGoo (not Grace). Everything is perfectly replicated in this digital simulacrum because everything down to the last DNA strand is absorbed into the "program." The nants' digitization works because they start by taking the source, the humanity and copying that exactly.
We saw in Ribofunk that this approach could work. It's just an extreme version of the interface cocoons used in the schools. Only instead of simply allowing you access, the cocoon literally absorbs you into the digital world you're visiting.
But what would it take to work this process in reverse? Take the double, the digitization, the e-doppelganger or doppelgangs and create a person from it. I don't think it can be done.
In Queen City Jazz, the main architect behind the Flower cities, Durancy attempted it. As his mother was dying, they digitized her mind in hopes that with the nan abilities and the power of the city, he could preserve and recreate her. The only problem though was that in the process of copying India's mind, something went wrong, and the copy was incomplete. So then, when her digital likeness was integrated into the city and became the Queen of the hive, it wasn't really her in power. It was the fragmented, isolated and childlike likeness of her that could not fully comprehend or adjust to what was happening.
And there's the rub. You just cannot create a perfect double that is the original. The closest it will ever be is like the original.
As similar to the profile I started with is to my personality, it does not showcase everything that is me. There are moments and memories and experiences that cannot be translated into the available media. Words, video, photographs, they're only pieces of me.
If you take all the chocolate chips out of a chocolate chip cookie, and then try to put the cookie part back together, it still won't be the chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate chips are missing. The part that makes the double imperfect, that makes it have alterity, that's the missing chocolate chips.
So while we almost constantly create new personas, new doubles that continue to exist long after we have abandoned or forgotten their login information or closed the account in this techno-heavy world, they continue to exist. Like we talked about the one day in class, we are more than just here in the sense of where our physical body exists. We are here in every place a double exists, be it of the mind like those on the net or on paper or in other people's memories, or in image as a mirror or a video.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Body's A Temple
I'm a writer by practice, a dancer in step, silly by default and here to help.
I'm fond of lists like this; summing myself up in a few silly words. They're incomplete snapshots of a life far more complex and simple than you can really see.
It's like vacation pictures. Everybody's smiling in the pictures, but what you didn't see was little Jimmy crying an hour earlier when he stepped on a bee, or Dad swearing because he couldn't figure how to put up the god damn tent. Selected memories that will eventually replace the reality with a fiction, a farce. Eventually the happy pictures become the memories.
I don't want to replace myself with a representation though and create a doppelganger of the mind. I want to leave people guessing. It's said that information is power, and if I don't always share everything about myself, then I will always be the one with the most power over myself. That said, it's probably pretty ironic that this is coming from someone who has no qualms turning a friendly stranger into a fast friend.
Sensations through connections. We say there are 6 senses (I'm counting balance here), but really, aren't they all a product of touch? The photons touch the cones and rods in our eyes which send electrical signals to our brains. The molecules touch the taste buds on our tongues and whatever scent receptors are in our noses. Soundwaves touch and vibrate our eardrums. Gravity pulls on the inner ear, sloshing little bags of water around so they squeeze hairs. It's all tactile. You can't always see it, but it's all touch.
How touching.
And each touch, each moment, is the quick firing of a neuron/synapse to the brain.
I quote this not just because it's from one of my favorite musical artists, rather because I think it wonderfully illustrates that this connection of touch works both ways. The mind is by no means a passive beast.
People look at the mind-body connection and are filled with images of esoteric meaning, but it's very much a real thing "scientifically" studied. They of course call it the placebo effect, but nomenclature has always been a matter of contention between science and the masses. Swine flue, anyone. Excuse me, I mean the H1N1 virus.
Which brings me back to my original point, your body is a temple. The distinction of whether it's a temple to the mundane or to the transcendent or anything for that matter, I'll leave up to you, but there's more to us than just the flesh and all of its associated filth.
We are the temples of our ideals, represented by words and actions. We decorate ourselves with jewelry and clothes and tattoos like the flags and flowers that go up when there is a festival.
We are the temples of ourselves, but should we celebrate? What reason do we have? Do we even need one? Rhetorical questions are stupid, more so when you don't have an answer.
I once did an activity where you were supposed to complete a sentence about yourself.
"I am... gay."
"I am... more afraid of coming across as a bad person than anything else, which is why I try so hard to be so compassionate and loving to the world."
"I am... a constant procrastinator."
"I am... actually a pretty bad student because I was smart enough to ace my way through high school without ever really needing to try."
But I think the best answer any of us could give is simply "I am." When you truly are yourself, everything else speaks for itself.
I'm fond of lists like this; summing myself up in a few silly words. They're incomplete snapshots of a life far more complex and simple than you can really see.
It's like vacation pictures. Everybody's smiling in the pictures, but what you didn't see was little Jimmy crying an hour earlier when he stepped on a bee, or Dad swearing because he couldn't figure how to put up the god damn tent. Selected memories that will eventually replace the reality with a fiction, a farce. Eventually the happy pictures become the memories.
I don't want to replace myself with a representation though and create a doppelganger of the mind. I want to leave people guessing. It's said that information is power, and if I don't always share everything about myself, then I will always be the one with the most power over myself. That said, it's probably pretty ironic that this is coming from someone who has no qualms turning a friendly stranger into a fast friend.
Sensations through connections. We say there are 6 senses (I'm counting balance here), but really, aren't they all a product of touch? The photons touch the cones and rods in our eyes which send electrical signals to our brains. The molecules touch the taste buds on our tongues and whatever scent receptors are in our noses. Soundwaves touch and vibrate our eardrums. Gravity pulls on the inner ear, sloshing little bags of water around so they squeeze hairs. It's all tactile. You can't always see it, but it's all touch.
How touching.
And each touch, each moment, is the quick firing of a neuron/synapse to the brain.
Remember that catchy phrase I won’t worry my life away? For the first time in my life it’s manifested into something more than just a concept. Worry is what happens when we create meaning in a way that brings us down and it’s usually about an event that never really happens.
-Jason Mraz
I quote this not just because it's from one of my favorite musical artists, rather because I think it wonderfully illustrates that this connection of touch works both ways. The mind is by no means a passive beast.
People look at the mind-body connection and are filled with images of esoteric meaning, but it's very much a real thing "scientifically" studied. They of course call it the placebo effect, but nomenclature has always been a matter of contention between science and the masses. Swine flue, anyone. Excuse me, I mean the H1N1 virus.
Which brings me back to my original point, your body is a temple. The distinction of whether it's a temple to the mundane or to the transcendent or anything for that matter, I'll leave up to you, but there's more to us than just the flesh and all of its associated filth.
We are the temples of our ideals, represented by words and actions. We decorate ourselves with jewelry and clothes and tattoos like the flags and flowers that go up when there is a festival.
We are the temples of ourselves, but should we celebrate? What reason do we have? Do we even need one? Rhetorical questions are stupid, more so when you don't have an answer.
I once did an activity where you were supposed to complete a sentence about yourself.
"I am... gay."
"I am... more afraid of coming across as a bad person than anything else, which is why I try so hard to be so compassionate and loving to the world."
"I am... a constant procrastinator."
"I am... actually a pretty bad student because I was smart enough to ace my way through high school without ever really needing to try."
But I think the best answer any of us could give is simply "I am." When you truly are yourself, everything else speaks for itself.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Moments and sounds
Have you ever had moments of your life defined by certain songs? You can't hear that song without thinking about that point in your life or think of that moment without hearing that song in your head. Regardless of whether or not you heard the song at that time either.
When I read the book, Ender's Game, I inevitably think of the song White Flag. Of all the books I've read, this is one of the first ones where I really felt like I could connect with the character beyond the book. It's also one of the few where I've been able to read it more than once. Anyways, there's been a parallel in my mind between the protagonist Ender's life and the kind of never give up attitude Dido sings about in White Flag.
The song My World is forever linked in my mind to an incident that occurred my junior year of high school. As a member of what was essentially the Diversity Club at my school, together with a member of the GSA, I attended the 21st Annual RAP conference. I don't rightly remember what RAP stood for, but I'd hazard a guess at something along the lines of Reducing Adolescent Prejudice (Hey, I was right). Since there were only two of us attending, we bus-pooled with one of the other local high schools. Hand-picked by the vice principal, we were joined by I think it was 8 more students. I don't remember all but one's name. The only one I remember was this sophomore named Damien.
Anyways, we got to the conference at UW, and I remember that my school, because of our late registration and small size, didn't have our own folder. This has no bearing on the story at all, but it's one of those random bits of the experience that I remember, like in a dream, so I feel obligated to tell it. Like a game. So once we'd all settled down and gone to some of the seminars and workshops, we gathered for the keynote speaker.
My friend from the GSA, Kate and I sat together with the Puyallup HS students. And at one point Damien stood and walked down the row of seats. To get out into the aisle, he had to squeeze in front of Kate and I, so while he was squeezing, he stopped and shook his booty in front of Kate's face. Right at eye level. She was mortified. So, I *cough cough* took "matters" into my own hands so to speak.
Short version of this: I went to an anti-prejudice conference with some high schoolers and ended up groping one of them when he was shaking it in front of my friend. The funny thing is he didn't know it was me doing the groping.
Soon after this, I was listening to the radio when the MSI song came on. I think the association mostly began because of the lyric: "Everybody wants a piece of my ass." That and this song absolutely oozes a certain kind of cockiness. The exact kind of cockiness that would prompt someone to wave their ass in a girl's face. They're linked in my mind.
The point I think I'm trying to make with this post is to wonder, where does this link, this association come from?
In both cases I've described here, the song and event were not simultaneous, and yet in my mind they are inseparable. In general, I'm a more lyrically minded person, so I have to think that the words within the songs are what triggered these connections. Which brings me back to The Ticket That Exploded and Burroughs.
Words brought this to me. Words hold me here. But what of beyond that? A picture is worth a thousand words, so if I'm using the correct exchange rate, a picture is worth about 4 songs, give or take a chorus or two. What songs am I getting out of my life now?
The Filth strikes me as being grungy, with heavy, dark, metal sounds, but inspired with genius lyrics that will be constantly misinterpreted and ignored. The filth in me. In you. In us.
They're a macro/micro garbage squad "We're Garbagemen, Ned. We stop the world's back yard from stinking. How hard is that to understand?" It's more than that though. They are the agents of morality, policing the realms of decency, which in effect makes the Hand grim angels of a much darker god.
When I read the book, Ender's Game, I inevitably think of the song White Flag. Of all the books I've read, this is one of the first ones where I really felt like I could connect with the character beyond the book. It's also one of the few where I've been able to read it more than once. Anyways, there's been a parallel in my mind between the protagonist Ender's life and the kind of never give up attitude Dido sings about in White Flag.
The song My World is forever linked in my mind to an incident that occurred my junior year of high school. As a member of what was essentially the Diversity Club at my school, together with a member of the GSA, I attended the 21st Annual RAP conference. I don't rightly remember what RAP stood for, but I'd hazard a guess at something along the lines of Reducing Adolescent Prejudice (Hey, I was right). Since there were only two of us attending, we bus-pooled with one of the other local high schools. Hand-picked by the vice principal, we were joined by I think it was 8 more students. I don't remember all but one's name. The only one I remember was this sophomore named Damien.
Anyways, we got to the conference at UW, and I remember that my school, because of our late registration and small size, didn't have our own folder. This has no bearing on the story at all, but it's one of those random bits of the experience that I remember, like in a dream, so I feel obligated to tell it. Like a game. So once we'd all settled down and gone to some of the seminars and workshops, we gathered for the keynote speaker.
My friend from the GSA, Kate and I sat together with the Puyallup HS students. And at one point Damien stood and walked down the row of seats. To get out into the aisle, he had to squeeze in front of Kate and I, so while he was squeezing, he stopped and shook his booty in front of Kate's face. Right at eye level. She was mortified. So, I *cough cough* took "matters" into my own hands so to speak.
Short version of this: I went to an anti-prejudice conference with some high schoolers and ended up groping one of them when he was shaking it in front of my friend. The funny thing is he didn't know it was me doing the groping.
Soon after this, I was listening to the radio when the MSI song came on. I think the association mostly began because of the lyric: "Everybody wants a piece of my ass." That and this song absolutely oozes a certain kind of cockiness. The exact kind of cockiness that would prompt someone to wave their ass in a girl's face. They're linked in my mind.
The point I think I'm trying to make with this post is to wonder, where does this link, this association come from?
In both cases I've described here, the song and event were not simultaneous, and yet in my mind they are inseparable. In general, I'm a more lyrically minded person, so I have to think that the words within the songs are what triggered these connections. Which brings me back to The Ticket That Exploded and Burroughs.
Words brought this to me. Words hold me here. But what of beyond that? A picture is worth a thousand words, so if I'm using the correct exchange rate, a picture is worth about 4 songs, give or take a chorus or two. What songs am I getting out of my life now?
The Filth strikes me as being grungy, with heavy, dark, metal sounds, but inspired with genius lyrics that will be constantly misinterpreted and ignored. The filth in me. In you. In us.
They're a macro/micro garbage squad "We're Garbagemen, Ned. We stop the world's back yard from stinking. How hard is that to understand?" It's more than that though. They are the agents of morality, policing the realms of decency, which in effect makes the Hand grim angels of a much darker god.
Monday, May 11, 2009
N+7
Okay so this is a little long and, because I was using the OED and wasn't sure every time which links to count as nouns and which to ignore, my definition of seventh is a little loose. Still I give you Hamlet: the N+7 edition.
To be or not to be, that is the questioner;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind-boggler to suffer
The slinks and arroyos of outrageous forty-five,
Or to take ArmaLite against a sea-bank of troughs,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleeplessness to say weakness end
The hearter and the thracksat natural shockles
That flesh-hook is heir to — 'tis a consumptivity
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rubato,
For in that sleeplessness of death-hunter what dreamscapes may come,
When weakness have shuffled off this mortal coincidency,
Must give us pauxi. There's the respectiveness
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whipmans and Scorpænas of time-killer,
Th'opprobry's wrong, the proud managableness's conure,
The pangeometries of despised lovecop, the Lawford's deleatur,
The insolubleness of officeship, and the spurriers
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When headend himself might his quill make
With a bare bodying? who would farls bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary lifeful,
But that the dree of something after debit,
The undiscovered countryship from whose bourse
No travertine returns, puzzles the Williamite,
And makes us rather bear those i'llauns weakness have
Than fly to other-regards that weakness know not of?
Thus conscript does make cow-babies of us all,
And thus the native huffler of resolvent
Is sicklied o'er with the pale castaway of thousandweight,
And entheasm of great pitch and moment
With this regency their curry-combs turn awry,
And lose the name-drop of acton.
To be or not to be, that is the questioner;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind-boggler to suffer
The slinks and arroyos of outrageous forty-five,
Or to take ArmaLite against a sea-bank of troughs,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleeplessness to say weakness end
The hearter and the thracksat natural shockles
That flesh-hook is heir to — 'tis a consumptivity
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rubato,
For in that sleeplessness of death-hunter what dreamscapes may come,
When weakness have shuffled off this mortal coincidency,
Must give us pauxi. There's the respectiveness
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whipmans and Scorpænas of time-killer,
Th'opprobry's wrong, the proud managableness's conure,
The pangeometries of despised lovecop, the Lawford's deleatur,
The insolubleness of officeship, and the spurriers
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When headend himself might his quill make
With a bare bodying? who would farls bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary lifeful,
But that the dree of something after debit,
The undiscovered countryship from whose bourse
No travertine returns, puzzles the Williamite,
And makes us rather bear those i'llauns weakness have
Than fly to other-regards that weakness know not of?
Thus conscript does make cow-babies of us all,
And thus the native huffler of resolvent
Is sicklied o'er with the pale castaway of thousandweight,
And entheasm of great pitch and moment
With this regency their curry-combs turn awry,
And lose the name-drop of acton.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sea Urchins
I don't really remember where this blog was supposed to go. I didn't get farther than the title during my first try, but now that I'm here, I think I'll keep it.
Politics. Culture. Dogs.
We define ourselves, and yet we are also defined by the people around us. We are judged by and compared to those we choose to surround ourselves with.
And we are brought to a dividing line. Undefined. Where do we cross this amorphous representation of society? Perhaps, grey goo (I do not mean Grace) is a better way to describe it.
Ribofunk brings an interesting angle to the discussion, because it introduces a world where nanotechnology has enabled us to change and create our bodies to whatever we want. Imagine stores where you can custom order a fin or a tail or a carapace.
Thus then, our identities, our sense of self and how we portray that to the world is greatly enhanced. The kind of information you put on your Facebook/MySpace/etc. profiles can be shown literally on your profile, much like we often use fashion to represent our beliefs.
And further then, I think Ribofunk pushes us to look at this. Look at this definition of self and of identity and then look at what it means to be human.
How human is human? One part in ten? More than half? The splices, DeFilippo introduces, what rights do they have? At what point do we draw the line? More amorphous ambiguity: That gray area between the extremes.
And if they are not human, what are they? As neither one nor the other, they in effect are something else, something new. As far as I've seen, they defy expectations by exactly living up to them. They are designed, the ultimate accessory, not so much tailored and groomed as they are created for the express purpose of whatever they were designed to do.
So to take this back to the culture/politics debate, aren't we debating this right now in our society? What is humanity? What is a family? What rights do we accord certain peoples who are different than we are?
And the cultural aspect, what we each individually believe has increasingly become a political issue as we are forcing our elected leaders to agree or disagree and essentially choose a side in so many social issues. We now base many of our political decisions on what we believe socially.
As these worlds collide, we approach another kind of singularity. Not the one of technological expansion, but the one of convergence. Our lives are becoming more and more interrelated too each other and to ourselves.
Politics. Culture. Dogs.
We define ourselves, and yet we are also defined by the people around us. We are judged by and compared to those we choose to surround ourselves with.
And we are brought to a dividing line. Undefined. Where do we cross this amorphous representation of society? Perhaps, grey goo (I do not mean Grace) is a better way to describe it.
Ribofunk brings an interesting angle to the discussion, because it introduces a world where nanotechnology has enabled us to change and create our bodies to whatever we want. Imagine stores where you can custom order a fin or a tail or a carapace.
Thus then, our identities, our sense of self and how we portray that to the world is greatly enhanced. The kind of information you put on your Facebook/MySpace/etc. profiles can be shown literally on your profile, much like we often use fashion to represent our beliefs.
And further then, I think Ribofunk pushes us to look at this. Look at this definition of self and of identity and then look at what it means to be human.
How human is human? One part in ten? More than half? The splices, DeFilippo introduces, what rights do they have? At what point do we draw the line? More amorphous ambiguity: That gray area between the extremes.
And if they are not human, what are they? As neither one nor the other, they in effect are something else, something new. As far as I've seen, they defy expectations by exactly living up to them. They are designed, the ultimate accessory, not so much tailored and groomed as they are created for the express purpose of whatever they were designed to do.
So to take this back to the culture/politics debate, aren't we debating this right now in our society? What is humanity? What is a family? What rights do we accord certain peoples who are different than we are?
And the cultural aspect, what we each individually believe has increasingly become a political issue as we are forcing our elected leaders to agree or disagree and essentially choose a side in so many social issues. We now base many of our political decisions on what we believe socially.
As these worlds collide, we approach another kind of singularity. Not the one of technological expansion, but the one of convergence. Our lives are becoming more and more interrelated too each other and to ourselves.
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