Saturday, February 28, 2004
Art is important
. . . if often kind of hard for me to understand. This I realized for the gazillionth time tonight while attending a screening of some really, really indie movies, the kind that want to be called "films" or "pieces" or even, in some cases, "installments." The kind that tips toward the "art" side of the ledger more than the "entertainment" side. The kind that has people wearing cardboard masks and features fractured narratives that don't really seem to come from or go anywhere but do make a statement. The kind that has sex scenes that may or may not be gratuitous, but I can't really tell, because it seems like pretty much the whole movie is gratuitous, if pretty (or ugly, or heart-rending, or drunken, or purple-polka-dotted, or whatever it's meant to be). The kind that could very easily be pretentious, but you meet the artist/filmmaker beforehand and she's genuine, warm, unused to all this attention, not angsty or humorless at all, so you really want to like the movie, so you sit through it, and you actually do get used to it after awhile, and you even start feeling almost amicable toward it, because her work's a lot like her: kind of scattered, but sharp, forcing you to extract meaning, purposefully scratching out ambiguity, always leavened with a wry sense of humor. Still, the kind that makes you motion-sick because of the film quality and the rapid cutting and panning. The kind, in short, that is intended for people who understand the kind of art that's art instead of the kind of art that's circuitry and human physiology and rotary engines, and who don't require Dramamine in order to ride a bike successfully. (Shut up. Or else I'll. . . um. . . vomit on you?)
One of the films was five minutes of a black marker, in extreme close-up, drawing a line on a piece of paper. The title? "One-Liner."
An actual place in one of the other films? Blastic's Beverage Center.
Story told by the filmmaker? "Yeah, I actually had to cut a lot of the scenes we did, because I was doing the camera work, and they'd start doing something, and it would be hilariously funny, and I'd just crack up. (pause) Especially when we'd been drinking a lot of Jack Daniels. (nervous and friendly giggle)"
Something I liked, once I got used to it, was the way she told stories-- more or less in stills cutting back and forth between each other, with almost no dialogue. At first, that was really annoying. Where's my lean, coherent, directional narrative with a neatly-plotted story arc? But then I learned to look at stories the way she was looking at them, as pieces and puzzles where the fullness of the story is revealed only through time, stringing along after your careful study of what-comes-before yields nothing, and it was beautiful. I realized I was irritated at first because I wanted her to tell stories the way we usually tell stories, and she wasn't interested in meeting that expectation. She wanted to tell stories the way we usually live them.
I left with the sense that I should have brought my theoretical physicists along: I can revel in the high-minded, removed from physical, practical necessity, but it's sometimes a rough transition to get there, and I can't always stay, and it might have been nice to have had an interpreter or two to break through to art?-but-what-about-the-people-in-the-world-who-haven't-even-been-vaccinated-for-polio? land. Deep theory is deep theory, whether it's film/video or Stern/Gerlach. NASA and the National Endowment for the Arts are funded for the same reason: to lift us up and celebrate what makes us, in essence, human-- our ability to explore and process and create Big Ideas. That's why I love art instead of sniping at it. If I'm going to go to all the trouble of trying to keep you here on Earth, you had better be elevating humanity in some way, making use of whatever your skills and talents are. If that means putting out literal or figurative fires, great. If that means wrestling with the seven questions (big ones in mathematics. million-dollar prize if you can manage to solve one), great. If that means bagging groceries, great, but keep in mind that you owe me, the same way I owe you, and if we're going to get anywhere, we're going to have to work together.
"If you ask me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you; I came to live out loud."
. . . if often kind of hard for me to understand. This I realized for the gazillionth time tonight while attending a screening of some really, really indie movies, the kind that want to be called "films" or "pieces" or even, in some cases, "installments." The kind that tips toward the "art" side of the ledger more than the "entertainment" side. The kind that has people wearing cardboard masks and features fractured narratives that don't really seem to come from or go anywhere but do make a statement. The kind that has sex scenes that may or may not be gratuitous, but I can't really tell, because it seems like pretty much the whole movie is gratuitous, if pretty (or ugly, or heart-rending, or drunken, or purple-polka-dotted, or whatever it's meant to be). The kind that could very easily be pretentious, but you meet the artist/filmmaker beforehand and she's genuine, warm, unused to all this attention, not angsty or humorless at all, so you really want to like the movie, so you sit through it, and you actually do get used to it after awhile, and you even start feeling almost amicable toward it, because her work's a lot like her: kind of scattered, but sharp, forcing you to extract meaning, purposefully scratching out ambiguity, always leavened with a wry sense of humor. Still, the kind that makes you motion-sick because of the film quality and the rapid cutting and panning. The kind, in short, that is intended for people who understand the kind of art that's art instead of the kind of art that's circuitry and human physiology and rotary engines, and who don't require Dramamine in order to ride a bike successfully. (Shut up. Or else I'll. . . um. . . vomit on you?)
One of the films was five minutes of a black marker, in extreme close-up, drawing a line on a piece of paper. The title? "One-Liner."
An actual place in one of the other films? Blastic's Beverage Center.
Story told by the filmmaker? "Yeah, I actually had to cut a lot of the scenes we did, because I was doing the camera work, and they'd start doing something, and it would be hilariously funny, and I'd just crack up. (pause) Especially when we'd been drinking a lot of Jack Daniels. (nervous and friendly giggle)"
Something I liked, once I got used to it, was the way she told stories-- more or less in stills cutting back and forth between each other, with almost no dialogue. At first, that was really annoying. Where's my lean, coherent, directional narrative with a neatly-plotted story arc? But then I learned to look at stories the way she was looking at them, as pieces and puzzles where the fullness of the story is revealed only through time, stringing along after your careful study of what-comes-before yields nothing, and it was beautiful. I realized I was irritated at first because I wanted her to tell stories the way we usually tell stories, and she wasn't interested in meeting that expectation. She wanted to tell stories the way we usually live them.
I left with the sense that I should have brought my theoretical physicists along: I can revel in the high-minded, removed from physical, practical necessity, but it's sometimes a rough transition to get there, and I can't always stay, and it might have been nice to have had an interpreter or two to break through to art?-but-what-about-the-people-in-the-world-who-haven't-even-been-vaccinated-for-polio? land. Deep theory is deep theory, whether it's film/video or Stern/Gerlach. NASA and the National Endowment for the Arts are funded for the same reason: to lift us up and celebrate what makes us, in essence, human-- our ability to explore and process and create Big Ideas. That's why I love art instead of sniping at it. If I'm going to go to all the trouble of trying to keep you here on Earth, you had better be elevating humanity in some way, making use of whatever your skills and talents are. If that means putting out literal or figurative fires, great. If that means wrestling with the seven questions (big ones in mathematics. million-dollar prize if you can manage to solve one), great. If that means bagging groceries, great, but keep in mind that you owe me, the same way I owe you, and if we're going to get anywhere, we're going to have to work together.
"If you ask me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you; I came to live out loud."
Thursday, February 26, 2004
English-Teacher Bonanza
This is "Lucinda Matlock," by Edgar Lee Masters, from his book Spoon River Anthology. It is intended to give voice to what Matlock would tell us were she not (a) dead and (b) fictional, and Matlock is believed to have been modeled after the author's own grandmother. Spoon River Anthology: because "George Gray," which you were probably forced to read in high school, actually sucks compared to almost the entire rest of the book.
LUCINDA MATLOCK
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.
This is "Lucinda Matlock," by Edgar Lee Masters, from his book Spoon River Anthology. It is intended to give voice to what Matlock would tell us were she not (a) dead and (b) fictional, and Matlock is believed to have been modeled after the author's own grandmother. Spoon River Anthology: because "George Gray," which you were probably forced to read in high school, actually sucks compared to almost the entire rest of the book.
LUCINDA MATLOCK
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Assorted Advice and Observations (oh wait, that's every post)
All right. We'll start with a message for my supernovas, y'all who are bright and intense and likely to flame right on out in a spectacular but ultimately pointless and destructive manner if y'all ain't chill out already:
You are not lazy. You are not stupid. You are not inadequate. You are most certainly not a failure. What you are is the sort of person who wants to do everything, so you try, so you get spread too thin, so you end up feeling flustered and lacking and overwhelmed, so you can't get any of it done right, so you fall behind, so you're spread even thinner, trying to make up for lost time, so you feel even more flustered, etc., lather, rinse, repeat. The words "vicious cycle" mean anything to you? Chill. Focus on one thing at a time. Concentrate on what really matters the most, and let the other stuff drop away. To quote Nike before they went all not-cool-anymore with the "I can" ("I can"? What is this crap? "I can" what? I can walk right away from your shoes and buy better ones for cheaper at K-Mart, is what I can do), just do it. Believe you can get your work done, because you can, because you're intelligent and capable and good at what you do, and then just get it done.
"But I caaaaan't. . ." Yes, you can. Breathe. Focus. Work. It's not easy, but it's a lot easier, long-term, than descending into I-Hate-Myself-Because-I'm-Worthless Land, which is where you will end up if you ain't get a grip already and realize that you are an amazing and beautiful person with gifts and capacities most of us can only dream of. So you did poorly on a test. So you can't catch a girlfriend any more than you can catch a baseball. So you don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life. It's okay. All this "I am a horrible person and I can't take it and I can't handle my life" crap is nothing but selfishness. You're not going to be much help to the rest of us if you're wallowing in the mud pits of I'm Not Good Enough. Knock that off. Climb out, acknowledge that you are good enough (and then some), and make a difference in the world by doing what you do. What you do doesn't have to lead to an immediate conclusion. It doesn't have to be something momentous like building a soup kitchen out of old plywood and fast-food wrappers, then feeding the poor with your tears miraculously transformed into chicken noodle. It doesn't even necessarily have to involve other people, or direct service, or anything other than you, your brain, and a whole bunch of math (or language, if that's your thing). Who you are and what you feel you've accomplished are certainly not independent, but the first doesn't have to be based solely on the second, and besides, what you feel you've accomplished and what you actually have accomplished are not always the same thing.
So jeez. Quit the fake-humble "I am an utter failure," realize already that you are a positive genius at what you do (it's going to feel like lying to yourself, but it's not, and it's the only way I've ever found to get going when I feel useless), and work, work, work, learn, learn, learn, live, live, live like it's going out of style, because it's a challenge, but you're up to it, and you will live an uncommonly passionate and perfect life unlike anyone else's. You have such a ridiculous amount of "potential" (not the V type of potential. The guidance-counselor kind) that you can't afford to let little setbacks hold you back from being the whole and strong and keenly vivid soul you're meant to be.
I don't know if any of it's true, but I think it is, and ultimately, I don't think it matters. I think what matters is finding a way to be who you're intended to be, who you really need to be, and as far as I'm concerned, "fake it till you make it" is a perfectly valid method to get there. So please try to feel strong, and you will be strong, and the happiness will follow. Or I'm wrong, and you can hit me if you want. (I'm reminded of the TV show Designing Women, in the episode where Anthony starts his carpentry/remodeling business, and gets cards printed up: "Anthony's Carpentry and Remodeling. For a free quote or to schedule repairs, call 555-4751. 'If it's not right, I'll eat a bug.' " "Really! I'll eat a bug!")
See, if I'm Catholic, and it's Lent, and you're feeling guiltier than I am, that should tell you something, and it's hopefully not that I am a very bad person who is incapable of remorse.
In other news: E-mail is really cool. Headings in my Inbox this afternoon:
1. Welcome to the "Ugrads" Mailing List! [I've been on it for a year and a half, but thank you!]
2. Allies for Diversity Needs You [to party like it's 1999, I'm sure!]
3. South Asian Character Conversion [the writing-system kind of character, not the middot kind]
4. Meeting Reminder for Environmental Student Orgs [this would be much cooler if "orgs" stood not for "organizations" but for "organs"]
5. (CSSHN) The Passion of the Christ [which, by the way, I'm not going to write about, because it's not that big of a deal. The reason I'm not going to go see it is not because it might be anti-Semitic, but because it just doesn't look like that great of a movie. Plus it's Lent, and I've got more pressing things to do than spend two hours taking in unmitigated violence and brutalism, and I don't really feel a need to get involved in the politics and endless yammering about the culture war! and controversy! and What This Says About Society! blah blah blah.]
6. Re: Turkish Turkeys, and Possibly a Healthy Vegetable Dish [explains itself, doesn't it]
7. An Introduction to Unix the Way I Like It [uh huh uh huh]
and 8. University at Buffalo B-SURE Program Application.
Now all I need is for someone to send me something totally incongruous. Body part enlargement, anyone?
All right. We'll start with a message for my supernovas, y'all who are bright and intense and likely to flame right on out in a spectacular but ultimately pointless and destructive manner if y'all ain't chill out already:
You are not lazy. You are not stupid. You are not inadequate. You are most certainly not a failure. What you are is the sort of person who wants to do everything, so you try, so you get spread too thin, so you end up feeling flustered and lacking and overwhelmed, so you can't get any of it done right, so you fall behind, so you're spread even thinner, trying to make up for lost time, so you feel even more flustered, etc., lather, rinse, repeat. The words "vicious cycle" mean anything to you? Chill. Focus on one thing at a time. Concentrate on what really matters the most, and let the other stuff drop away. To quote Nike before they went all not-cool-anymore with the "I can" ("I can"? What is this crap? "I can" what? I can walk right away from your shoes and buy better ones for cheaper at K-Mart, is what I can do), just do it. Believe you can get your work done, because you can, because you're intelligent and capable and good at what you do, and then just get it done.
"But I caaaaan't. . ." Yes, you can. Breathe. Focus. Work. It's not easy, but it's a lot easier, long-term, than descending into I-Hate-Myself-Because-I'm-Worthless Land, which is where you will end up if you ain't get a grip already and realize that you are an amazing and beautiful person with gifts and capacities most of us can only dream of. So you did poorly on a test. So you can't catch a girlfriend any more than you can catch a baseball. So you don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life. It's okay. All this "I am a horrible person and I can't take it and I can't handle my life" crap is nothing but selfishness. You're not going to be much help to the rest of us if you're wallowing in the mud pits of I'm Not Good Enough. Knock that off. Climb out, acknowledge that you are good enough (and then some), and make a difference in the world by doing what you do. What you do doesn't have to lead to an immediate conclusion. It doesn't have to be something momentous like building a soup kitchen out of old plywood and fast-food wrappers, then feeding the poor with your tears miraculously transformed into chicken noodle. It doesn't even necessarily have to involve other people, or direct service, or anything other than you, your brain, and a whole bunch of math (or language, if that's your thing). Who you are and what you feel you've accomplished are certainly not independent, but the first doesn't have to be based solely on the second, and besides, what you feel you've accomplished and what you actually have accomplished are not always the same thing.
So jeez. Quit the fake-humble "I am an utter failure," realize already that you are a positive genius at what you do (it's going to feel like lying to yourself, but it's not, and it's the only way I've ever found to get going when I feel useless), and work, work, work, learn, learn, learn, live, live, live like it's going out of style, because it's a challenge, but you're up to it, and you will live an uncommonly passionate and perfect life unlike anyone else's. You have such a ridiculous amount of "potential" (not the V type of potential. The guidance-counselor kind) that you can't afford to let little setbacks hold you back from being the whole and strong and keenly vivid soul you're meant to be.
I don't know if any of it's true, but I think it is, and ultimately, I don't think it matters. I think what matters is finding a way to be who you're intended to be, who you really need to be, and as far as I'm concerned, "fake it till you make it" is a perfectly valid method to get there. So please try to feel strong, and you will be strong, and the happiness will follow. Or I'm wrong, and you can hit me if you want. (I'm reminded of the TV show Designing Women, in the episode where Anthony starts his carpentry/remodeling business, and gets cards printed up: "Anthony's Carpentry and Remodeling. For a free quote or to schedule repairs, call 555-4751. 'If it's not right, I'll eat a bug.' " "Really! I'll eat a bug!")
See, if I'm Catholic, and it's Lent, and you're feeling guiltier than I am, that should tell you something, and it's hopefully not that I am a very bad person who is incapable of remorse.
In other news: E-mail is really cool. Headings in my Inbox this afternoon:
1. Welcome to the "Ugrads" Mailing List! [I've been on it for a year and a half, but thank you!]
2. Allies for Diversity Needs You [to party like it's 1999, I'm sure!]
3. South Asian Character Conversion [the writing-system kind of character, not the middot kind]
4. Meeting Reminder for Environmental Student Orgs [this would be much cooler if "orgs" stood not for "organizations" but for "organs"]
5. (CSSHN) The Passion of the Christ [which, by the way, I'm not going to write about, because it's not that big of a deal. The reason I'm not going to go see it is not because it might be anti-Semitic, but because it just doesn't look like that great of a movie. Plus it's Lent, and I've got more pressing things to do than spend two hours taking in unmitigated violence and brutalism, and I don't really feel a need to get involved in the politics and endless yammering about the culture war! and controversy! and What This Says About Society! blah blah blah.]
6. Re: Turkish Turkeys, and Possibly a Healthy Vegetable Dish [explains itself, doesn't it]
7. An Introduction to Unix the Way I Like It [uh huh uh huh]
and 8. University at Buffalo B-SURE Program Application.
Now all I need is for someone to send me something totally incongruous. Body part enlargement, anyone?
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
PC-- Personal Computer or Political (in)Correctness?
Yesterday, Shayna and I were in the library. There was a sign on one of the computers:
THIS PC IS NOT WORKING AT THIS TIME. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
There was a comment, sketched in pencil:
"It's on welfare."
Shayna got out her own pencil:
"It wasn't earning a living wage."
Hee!
Yesterday, Shayna and I were in the library. There was a sign on one of the computers:
THIS PC IS NOT WORKING AT THIS TIME. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
There was a comment, sketched in pencil:
"It's on welfare."
Shayna got out her own pencil:
"It wasn't earning a living wage."
Hee!
With appreciation for my drummers (whoops. "Percussionists")
GLUE
FLUE
FLOE
FLOW
FLAW
FLAM
FOAM
FORM
GLUE
FLUE
FLOE
FLOW
FLAW
FLAM
FOAM
FORM
Monday, February 23, 2004
Lists seem to be the theme (plus an update on four-letter words)
Last time, I wrote two large, long lists in sentence form, strung together with commas and semicolons and other punctuation devices that I hope did the good Mrs. G.C. credit. (It's ridiculous how much more nervous you get about writing when you realize that your former English teacher could very well be reading every word, dot and dash.)
This time, I plan to make it a little more elementary: Two Funny Things People Said Today (bonus points for anyone who can infer context!)
1. "Muthaf*ing x-ray diode. I'll send an electric potential V=ass-kicking down your length, ho. Current this."
2. Sign on door: "This is the Famous Physics Lab, where the data flows like water." Ridiculously cynical comment: "Cheap, cohesive, and possibly fatally tainted."
Also, Shayna says that it's very difficult to turn FORM into GLUE. I haven't had much time to play with it, but seems like it would be pretty hard to turn anything into GLUE, even an unfortunate HORSE (five letters, not four). Anybody got any further insights?
Last time, I wrote two large, long lists in sentence form, strung together with commas and semicolons and other punctuation devices that I hope did the good Mrs. G.C. credit. (It's ridiculous how much more nervous you get about writing when you realize that your former English teacher could very well be reading every word, dot and dash.)
This time, I plan to make it a little more elementary: Two Funny Things People Said Today (bonus points for anyone who can infer context!)
1. "Muthaf*ing x-ray diode. I'll send an electric potential V=ass-kicking down your length, ho. Current this."
2. Sign on door: "This is the Famous Physics Lab, where the data flows like water." Ridiculously cynical comment: "Cheap, cohesive, and possibly fatally tainted."
Also, Shayna says that it's very difficult to turn FORM into GLUE. I haven't had much time to play with it, but seems like it would be pretty hard to turn anything into GLUE, even an unfortunate HORSE (five letters, not four). Anybody got any further insights?
Sunday, February 22, 2004
(Kick Yo') Ash Wednesday
Lent starts this week. Please expect very little from me, as I'll be expecting quite a lot. . .
Lent starts this week. Please expect very little from me, as I'll be expecting quite a lot. . .
(insert profound title here)
By this point, just about everyone probably knows about the whole 31-hours-with-no-sleep,-38-on-half-an-hour thing. I dimly remember most of you telling me to go take a nap, some in nicer ways than others (Shayna, single-handedly responsible for the half-hour: "Why don't you just go to sleep now? Physics? Well, go to sleep anyway, and I'll wake you up." Ceceley, mid-physics-lecture, after listening to me mumbling quasi-coherently about integrals: "You are so sleepy. Just go to sleep." Dmiv: "You're not listening, are you. You should go get some sleep, because this is important, and I don't want to waste my time explaining it twice."). For those of you who don't, I was swept up in a variety of circumstances beyond my control and ended up going 31 hours without any sleep whatsoever (doesn't sound so bad until you realize that I usually don't go too much more than 17 or 18 hours), followed by another 7 hours running on fumes from the half-hour of sleep I caught in the library.
This sucked and was hard, especially since two of the hours, near the end of the thirty-one hour stretch, were spent attending the funeral of an eighteen-year-old senior in high school who lettered in football, was a black belt in tae kwon do, volunteered at two hospitals, was a counselor at a Catholic summer camp, and took his own life.
I wish I had something profound to say about it. I wish I could pull it all together: the surrealism of those first few moments when the bell started chiming, its dull thud slamming into the overflowing organ prelude music, and the pallbearers brought him, step by step, into the church, and the priest's voice cracking as he said the first lines of the service; the waver-quaver of even my voice sounding out the first hymn, and the high-school choir above us in the loft singing strong, though they must have been breaking; the teacher standing in the back with me, all of us crowded in, standing-room only, and the two of us by our tears telling each other it was okay to cry; the ache in my knees and my legs from kneeling on the bare hardwood floor before Communion, the lift in my soul from the teacher next to me, who'd never been in a Catholic church before, stammering out a too-late, too-loud "And-also-with-you!" to my "Peace be with you"-- he'd come for Sean, and Sean alone; the altar servers, young men with candlesticks and crosses and albs and a sudden sense of their own mortality, who filed back to stand in the niche near us and who sang "On Eagle's Wings" with passion until I broke down, hearing them singing him home, and three of them lost their voices to the tide of their tears.
I wish I could put all that together, assemble it, assimilate it, take some deeper lesson. I wish I could fit it like a second nature into the rest of my life, with the girls on the bus who waved at me as I left, with the linguistics and physics and freedom, with the simple fact of coat and books and backpack and paper and people and leaky pens that makes up so much of me. Hell, I wish I could make something out of that, the everyday, the mundane, the comforting, but I can't.
It comes in pieces: Dmiv, with his caution and his quietness, very carefully drawing for me a picture of a rotary motor; Shayna laughing, drawing "Leslie phrases" and commenting on "tidbits of Tallerman"-- "Oh, crap. I just relativized a clause. Hold on"; Aaron playing with glitter and glue, comically intense; PJ squawking at me ("QWAAAAPqwaapqwapQWAAAPQW--") so I'd let him get the door for me; my favorite's features sharpened, drawn in angles, awash in intensities of thought, only softness suggested at the still curve of one forgotten hand; the light just before sundown, warm and cold at the same time in ferocious pink; the tang and crisp of the air soothing the skin, the breeze making me sure I breathe, the trees reaching out, in fractal untoldness, through the coldness; the drift of leaves along the sidewalk too obvious and painful a parallel to my time here; the overwhelming feeling that there's nothing on Earth quite so important or so infuriating as the thaumaturgy of time, which slips, drips, chips away for us, from us, at us. If I could reconcile the pieces-- if I could place the picture--
What would happen then?
But it's futile, still, and so I stumble to a halt, and blink in the strangeness of new light, and only stop to smell the roses as they're rising, risen up, sizing up the wonders of our world. I cannot know. Therefore let me live.
That's what it all comes down to, in the end. I could build myself a podium, and stand up on it, and lecture all the long, long day away, and moralize, soliloquize, tell what I know and why, but ultimately, what would it mean? Nothing. It doesn't stay. What stays is what is real, what I do, what I live, what I love. That's why I can't pull all these pieces together: they're meant to be fragmented and free-floating, a sign not of some greater symptom but of the simple beauty of moments. If I can't enjoy fifteen minutes with a friend, how can I possibly take Heaven? If I can't spend a day without worrying it into some overarching pattern, what will I do with the rest of Eternity? I won't pretend there's neither rhyme nor reason to this lovely haze, but surely not every one of our days should be troubled with the need to make it BIG. I think it's enough sometimes, when you've pushed so hard for so long that you're getting nowhere, to step back and sit back and simmer down, and relax for half a moment before struggling off again renewed. I think this is the message our bodies send us when we're too far removed from the animal necessities of vision, and I think we're all wise to listen to exhaustion.
And believe me, the sixteen hours spent conked out at home were sweet, sweet, sweet.
By this point, just about everyone probably knows about the whole 31-hours-with-no-sleep,-38-on-half-an-hour thing. I dimly remember most of you telling me to go take a nap, some in nicer ways than others (Shayna, single-handedly responsible for the half-hour: "Why don't you just go to sleep now? Physics? Well, go to sleep anyway, and I'll wake you up." Ceceley, mid-physics-lecture, after listening to me mumbling quasi-coherently about integrals: "You are so sleepy. Just go to sleep." Dmiv: "You're not listening, are you. You should go get some sleep, because this is important, and I don't want to waste my time explaining it twice."). For those of you who don't, I was swept up in a variety of circumstances beyond my control and ended up going 31 hours without any sleep whatsoever (doesn't sound so bad until you realize that I usually don't go too much more than 17 or 18 hours), followed by another 7 hours running on fumes from the half-hour of sleep I caught in the library.
This sucked and was hard, especially since two of the hours, near the end of the thirty-one hour stretch, were spent attending the funeral of an eighteen-year-old senior in high school who lettered in football, was a black belt in tae kwon do, volunteered at two hospitals, was a counselor at a Catholic summer camp, and took his own life.
I wish I had something profound to say about it. I wish I could pull it all together: the surrealism of those first few moments when the bell started chiming, its dull thud slamming into the overflowing organ prelude music, and the pallbearers brought him, step by step, into the church, and the priest's voice cracking as he said the first lines of the service; the waver-quaver of even my voice sounding out the first hymn, and the high-school choir above us in the loft singing strong, though they must have been breaking; the teacher standing in the back with me, all of us crowded in, standing-room only, and the two of us by our tears telling each other it was okay to cry; the ache in my knees and my legs from kneeling on the bare hardwood floor before Communion, the lift in my soul from the teacher next to me, who'd never been in a Catholic church before, stammering out a too-late, too-loud "And-also-with-you!" to my "Peace be with you"-- he'd come for Sean, and Sean alone; the altar servers, young men with candlesticks and crosses and albs and a sudden sense of their own mortality, who filed back to stand in the niche near us and who sang "On Eagle's Wings" with passion until I broke down, hearing them singing him home, and three of them lost their voices to the tide of their tears.
I wish I could put all that together, assemble it, assimilate it, take some deeper lesson. I wish I could fit it like a second nature into the rest of my life, with the girls on the bus who waved at me as I left, with the linguistics and physics and freedom, with the simple fact of coat and books and backpack and paper and people and leaky pens that makes up so much of me. Hell, I wish I could make something out of that, the everyday, the mundane, the comforting, but I can't.
It comes in pieces: Dmiv, with his caution and his quietness, very carefully drawing for me a picture of a rotary motor; Shayna laughing, drawing "Leslie phrases" and commenting on "tidbits of Tallerman"-- "Oh, crap. I just relativized a clause. Hold on"; Aaron playing with glitter and glue, comically intense; PJ squawking at me ("QWAAAAPqwaapqwapQWAAAPQW--") so I'd let him get the door for me; my favorite's features sharpened, drawn in angles, awash in intensities of thought, only softness suggested at the still curve of one forgotten hand; the light just before sundown, warm and cold at the same time in ferocious pink; the tang and crisp of the air soothing the skin, the breeze making me sure I breathe, the trees reaching out, in fractal untoldness, through the coldness; the drift of leaves along the sidewalk too obvious and painful a parallel to my time here; the overwhelming feeling that there's nothing on Earth quite so important or so infuriating as the thaumaturgy of time, which slips, drips, chips away for us, from us, at us. If I could reconcile the pieces-- if I could place the picture--
What would happen then?
But it's futile, still, and so I stumble to a halt, and blink in the strangeness of new light, and only stop to smell the roses as they're rising, risen up, sizing up the wonders of our world. I cannot know. Therefore let me live.
That's what it all comes down to, in the end. I could build myself a podium, and stand up on it, and lecture all the long, long day away, and moralize, soliloquize, tell what I know and why, but ultimately, what would it mean? Nothing. It doesn't stay. What stays is what is real, what I do, what I live, what I love. That's why I can't pull all these pieces together: they're meant to be fragmented and free-floating, a sign not of some greater symptom but of the simple beauty of moments. If I can't enjoy fifteen minutes with a friend, how can I possibly take Heaven? If I can't spend a day without worrying it into some overarching pattern, what will I do with the rest of Eternity? I won't pretend there's neither rhyme nor reason to this lovely haze, but surely not every one of our days should be troubled with the need to make it BIG. I think it's enough sometimes, when you've pushed so hard for so long that you're getting nowhere, to step back and sit back and simmer down, and relax for half a moment before struggling off again renewed. I think this is the message our bodies send us when we're too far removed from the animal necessities of vision, and I think we're all wise to listen to exhaustion.
And believe me, the sixteen hours spent conked out at home were sweet, sweet, sweet.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Is "frap" a word? Because if it's not, it should be.
Yesterday, PJ informed me that it is possible, solely by changing one letter at a time to form valid words, to change any four-letter word in English into any other four-letter word in English. We immediately tested this with DAMN (hey, when you say "four-letter words". . .) and ROLL, because we were both curious and hungry.
DAMN
DAME
DOME
DOLE
ROLE
ROLL
Doable!
Can y'all think of any that aren't? Write me if you can, and I'll have something to mess around with in between HoA and psych.
Yesterday, PJ informed me that it is possible, solely by changing one letter at a time to form valid words, to change any four-letter word in English into any other four-letter word in English. We immediately tested this with DAMN (hey, when you say "four-letter words". . .) and ROLL, because we were both curious and hungry.
DAMN
DAME
DOME
DOLE
ROLE
ROLL
Doable!
Can y'all think of any that aren't? Write me if you can, and I'll have something to mess around with in between HoA and psych.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
How to Deal With Resistors/EMFs in Circuits, courtesy J. Link
Physics midterm tomorrow, physics midterm review tonight. Guess, from the following excerpt, which is more fun.
LINK: How many variables did we have in that other problem?
CLASS: Three!
LINK: So how many equations did we need?
CLASS: Three!
LINK: So how many variables do we have in this equation?
CLASS: (silence)
LINK: A shitload! So how many equations do we need?
CLASS (beginning to catch on): A shitload?
LINK: That's right. A shitload.
CLASS giggles happily.
JAMES: You've got such a bad mouth.
LINK: Your mama wasn't complaining last night.
JAMES: My mother is a paragon of womanly virtue.
LINK looks bewildered, chews on a few responses, then gives up.
LINK: So. Um. EMFs.
CLASS, proudly: Shitloads of EMFs.
LINK: That's right. Vir and piv, right?
(review session continues)
Physics midterm tomorrow, physics midterm review tonight. Guess, from the following excerpt, which is more fun.
LINK: How many variables did we have in that other problem?
CLASS: Three!
LINK: So how many equations did we need?
CLASS: Three!
LINK: So how many variables do we have in this equation?
CLASS: (silence)
LINK: A shitload! So how many equations do we need?
CLASS (beginning to catch on): A shitload?
LINK: That's right. A shitload.
CLASS giggles happily.
JAMES: You've got such a bad mouth.
LINK: Your mama wasn't complaining last night.
JAMES: My mother is a paragon of womanly virtue.
LINK looks bewildered, chews on a few responses, then gives up.
LINK: So. Um. EMFs.
CLASS, proudly: Shitloads of EMFs.
LINK: That's right. Vir and piv, right?
(review session continues)
The Perils of Hypercorrection, courtesy J. Garner:
Octopuses or octopodes. Never octopi.
Octopuses or octopodes. Never octopi.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Philosophy 250 Haiku (if P, therefore pain)
In the time-honored words of the graffiti on a desk in Hopkins Hall:
MY love
for Lauren
has grown
emensly
In the time-honored words of the graffiti on a desk in Hopkins Hall:
MY love
for Lauren
has grown
emensly
Monday, February 16, 2004
I slept, and dreamt that life was beauty. . .
I have been thinking lately about what responsibility is, and what we owe each other and ourselves, and I have come to exactly one very vague conclusion. So y'all had best be helping me out on this one.
All I can tell is that we owe it to each other to be the best possible version of ourselves. I don't know exactly what constitutes "best possible," and I don't know how we know for ourselves what that is at the time, and I don't know how much of anything is just a product of our own views of ourselves and the larger world, and I don't know if "best possible" in practicality is necessarily synonymous with potential "best possible," and really I'm not sure how a person goes about mending his or her character anyway, because I know that I for one have been trying for years, and I'm still a tremendously jealous and greedy and angry and prideful and sinful and selfish vanity of flesh. Which sounds like it would make a much better movie than it actually would. (Imagined Scene #1: Gratuitous violence, followed by gratuitous sex, followed by more gratuitous violence, followed by more gratuitous sex, followed by [switch it up a little!] gratuitous cursing. Real Scene #1: Schu does physics homework. Violence [in the form of erasing] occurs when she belatedly realizes that she was supposed to use the integral, not the equation for the point charge.) But hey. A person's got to treasure his or her boringness.
Today we cooked up hot dogs and mac 'n' cheese and what was termed a "Mexican Medley," and we made sandwiches and wiped counters and tried not to think too hard about the contents of the aforementioned "medley," which was very tasty, if very possibly comprised of black beans, condensed soup, rice, eye of newt, tongue of dog, and the motherboard from Pastor's malfunctioning computer. The young'uns showed their age by laughing at my jokes, and I showed mine by trying to do all the dishes by hand, and fifteen turkey and cheese sandwiches with mayo got made, along with twelve ham and cheese with mayo, three ham and cheese with mustard, one turkey and cheese with mustard, one ham with mustard, and one turkey with mustard. Aaron teased Susan about her mayo-spreading technique, and we all piped in with wise old words from Alyssa and Angelique: "No spreading before the wedding." The earnest, honest Julie was my bag lady extraordinaire, and we had to attack the packages to get to the meat in there, and I've never been so happy to see a knife in my life. I thought back to Oguz wielding a meat cleaver to cut some plain Saran, and I love kitchen guys and girls who go straight to the destructo stuff and leave me with the pans. I stirred the Mexican Medley and tried to ignore the diodes flashing, and I ducked out of the way when Aaron started slashing up the cake we made, and we sat around before our customers arrived and conducted a candy-jar raid to decorate the cake. We tried to teach the girls how to play the Wa game, but then customers came, and we had work to do.
It surprises me sometimes that people know what they want and what to ask for, but I guess it's just because my navel-gazing's made me kind of poor in diagnostic tools. We were breaking all the rules I'd ever learned in my old workplace: no hair nets, less hand-wash, and plenty standing bets on who could empty his or her pan. I came in close second even with my bland m. and c., and Kenny tried to rub it in and ask us for his fee, but we were wise to that: it was decided his prize was to do the dishes. A thousand wishes (flying faster than the seconds) made us turn to count our blessings, and from what I can tell, most folks who say they ain't got enough is messing with you.
I didn't realize until today how much I miss a job I never really liked when I had it. I was a dishwasher for a few years back when I was in high school, and my hands seem to remember the water and the harshness of the heat and foam, and it's ridiculous, but I've missed the way your hands turn red and stay red for hours, days, weeks, months, soft-boiled like the congealed eggs you're scraping off somebody's plate, cobbled over with calluses that mimic the uneven line of plates, their ceramic uncertainties. I miss what I used to touch, from the smooth uneven of plates to the curve of slippery bowls to the vacuum-creating slide of cups, even though I certainly don't miss who I was back when I touched them. I won't romanticize: my hands bled every night before they toughened up, and I've got scars from knives to this day, and it was vicious hot back there, especially in the summer, and I got paid minimum wage, and some of the guys were creeps, and I left there the nanosecond a better opportunity came along, but there's still something elemental about it. Your entire life while you're there is taking dirty things and making them clean.
I think sometimes that that relates back to what our responsibility is: we have to take what's broken and fix it, whether others or objects or ourselves. We have to absorb tragedy and frustration and allow it to touch but not change us too much: if a sponge can do it, who are you to think you can't? We have to wash and scour and sweat in the heat of our kitchen souls until every bit of us is clean, even if it rubs us raw, so we can clean up our neighborhoods and playgrounds and schools and societies until we can leave things better than we found them, even if we are worn down and wasted and injured in the effort. Why? Because that's what we do. That's the only reason to show up every day. The work is worth it, even when the coworkers and the treatment aren't and the money sure as hell isn't. Because we know what's waiting after our job's done, and it's satisfaction and suffering in equal parts, and when we go home, we know we've earned our sleep, or come as close as we ever could.
Lent starts in a day and a week. All ye who have questioned "Remember when Schu used to be funny?", despair.
Everybody else, more soft-core philosophy ahead.
I have been thinking lately about what responsibility is, and what we owe each other and ourselves, and I have come to exactly one very vague conclusion. So y'all had best be helping me out on this one.
All I can tell is that we owe it to each other to be the best possible version of ourselves. I don't know exactly what constitutes "best possible," and I don't know how we know for ourselves what that is at the time, and I don't know how much of anything is just a product of our own views of ourselves and the larger world, and I don't know if "best possible" in practicality is necessarily synonymous with potential "best possible," and really I'm not sure how a person goes about mending his or her character anyway, because I know that I for one have been trying for years, and I'm still a tremendously jealous and greedy and angry and prideful and sinful and selfish vanity of flesh. Which sounds like it would make a much better movie than it actually would. (Imagined Scene #1: Gratuitous violence, followed by gratuitous sex, followed by more gratuitous violence, followed by more gratuitous sex, followed by [switch it up a little!] gratuitous cursing. Real Scene #1: Schu does physics homework. Violence [in the form of erasing] occurs when she belatedly realizes that she was supposed to use the integral, not the equation for the point charge.) But hey. A person's got to treasure his or her boringness.
Today we cooked up hot dogs and mac 'n' cheese and what was termed a "Mexican Medley," and we made sandwiches and wiped counters and tried not to think too hard about the contents of the aforementioned "medley," which was very tasty, if very possibly comprised of black beans, condensed soup, rice, eye of newt, tongue of dog, and the motherboard from Pastor's malfunctioning computer. The young'uns showed their age by laughing at my jokes, and I showed mine by trying to do all the dishes by hand, and fifteen turkey and cheese sandwiches with mayo got made, along with twelve ham and cheese with mayo, three ham and cheese with mustard, one turkey and cheese with mustard, one ham with mustard, and one turkey with mustard. Aaron teased Susan about her mayo-spreading technique, and we all piped in with wise old words from Alyssa and Angelique: "No spreading before the wedding." The earnest, honest Julie was my bag lady extraordinaire, and we had to attack the packages to get to the meat in there, and I've never been so happy to see a knife in my life. I thought back to Oguz wielding a meat cleaver to cut some plain Saran, and I love kitchen guys and girls who go straight to the destructo stuff and leave me with the pans. I stirred the Mexican Medley and tried to ignore the diodes flashing, and I ducked out of the way when Aaron started slashing up the cake we made, and we sat around before our customers arrived and conducted a candy-jar raid to decorate the cake. We tried to teach the girls how to play the Wa game, but then customers came, and we had work to do.
It surprises me sometimes that people know what they want and what to ask for, but I guess it's just because my navel-gazing's made me kind of poor in diagnostic tools. We were breaking all the rules I'd ever learned in my old workplace: no hair nets, less hand-wash, and plenty standing bets on who could empty his or her pan. I came in close second even with my bland m. and c., and Kenny tried to rub it in and ask us for his fee, but we were wise to that: it was decided his prize was to do the dishes. A thousand wishes (flying faster than the seconds) made us turn to count our blessings, and from what I can tell, most folks who say they ain't got enough is messing with you.
I didn't realize until today how much I miss a job I never really liked when I had it. I was a dishwasher for a few years back when I was in high school, and my hands seem to remember the water and the harshness of the heat and foam, and it's ridiculous, but I've missed the way your hands turn red and stay red for hours, days, weeks, months, soft-boiled like the congealed eggs you're scraping off somebody's plate, cobbled over with calluses that mimic the uneven line of plates, their ceramic uncertainties. I miss what I used to touch, from the smooth uneven of plates to the curve of slippery bowls to the vacuum-creating slide of cups, even though I certainly don't miss who I was back when I touched them. I won't romanticize: my hands bled every night before they toughened up, and I've got scars from knives to this day, and it was vicious hot back there, especially in the summer, and I got paid minimum wage, and some of the guys were creeps, and I left there the nanosecond a better opportunity came along, but there's still something elemental about it. Your entire life while you're there is taking dirty things and making them clean.
I think sometimes that that relates back to what our responsibility is: we have to take what's broken and fix it, whether others or objects or ourselves. We have to absorb tragedy and frustration and allow it to touch but not change us too much: if a sponge can do it, who are you to think you can't? We have to wash and scour and sweat in the heat of our kitchen souls until every bit of us is clean, even if it rubs us raw, so we can clean up our neighborhoods and playgrounds and schools and societies until we can leave things better than we found them, even if we are worn down and wasted and injured in the effort. Why? Because that's what we do. That's the only reason to show up every day. The work is worth it, even when the coworkers and the treatment aren't and the money sure as hell isn't. Because we know what's waiting after our job's done, and it's satisfaction and suffering in equal parts, and when we go home, we know we've earned our sleep, or come as close as we ever could.
Lent starts in a day and a week. All ye who have questioned "Remember when Schu used to be funny?", despair.
Everybody else, more soft-core philosophy ahead.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
PRAISE HYMN: Praise Him
I'm skipping meals, I'm skipping class,
I'm skipping down the block, and that
is the most amazing part of all of this.
I thought that I'd be sad forever,
but now you hold me close and never again
will I despair. You'll always be there.
When reason fails and rhyme is false,
still you're my prayer and you're my pulse:
wake me up again, so I can sing your praise.
Through all the length of days
your goodness never falters--
let us lay our gifts upon your altars,
pass the collection plate and fill it up with souls.
The seasons rumble and roll;
our lives are but a single breath.
We thrill to life and we fade to death
be our memory, our sweetness, and our light.
I see you in dark and bright,
in every inch of time and space,
in every single human face,
in chemistry, biology, phonology, psychology,
in muons and in gluons and in quarks--
Oh L-rd! Oh L-rd!
You have been and you will be and you are.
I'm skipping meals, I'm skipping class,
I'm skipping down the block, and that
is the most amazing part of all of this.
I thought that I'd be sad forever,
but now you hold me close and never again
will I despair. You'll always be there.
When reason fails and rhyme is false,
still you're my prayer and you're my pulse:
wake me up again, so I can sing your praise.
Through all the length of days
your goodness never falters--
let us lay our gifts upon your altars,
pass the collection plate and fill it up with souls.
The seasons rumble and roll;
our lives are but a single breath.
We thrill to life and we fade to death
be our memory, our sweetness, and our light.
I see you in dark and bright,
in every inch of time and space,
in every single human face,
in chemistry, biology, phonology, psychology,
in muons and in gluons and in quarks--
Oh L-rd! Oh L-rd!
You have been and you will be and you are.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Conceptions of more than one kind
Dizzying and lovely two-hour conversation about space and place and abstract made real: my brain is bent, twisting sideways. Cynical me says it's just from trying to decipher intellectobabble, but the rest says read! read! read critical geography and David Harvey and Lefevre and what absences say. Y'all, I am starting to realize that somebody's got to write the books I read, and they more often than not are real people who like to talk, and they aren't always snotty about it.
Conceived space, perceived space, lived space, and in all of it, the mind. Don't waste time. What's obvious and why? And what do opposites have to do with that definition? And how does it apply in your neighborhood, and how do you know, and why might it be that way? Lions and tigers and friction of distance, oh my.
I hear this is some people's normal, but for me, it's public drunkenness, and come on, folks, I'm underage. Hmmm. Wonder if frat boys and girls would be likely to discuss hierophany if they found out it's cheaper than kegs.
Anyway, it's library time, as well as "Love Your Library Month" (also Black History Month, but we won't get into that-- all the other eleven are White History Months (?) (!)) . Hope y'all have an intoxicating day, and that you can manage it substance-free.
Dizzying and lovely two-hour conversation about space and place and abstract made real: my brain is bent, twisting sideways. Cynical me says it's just from trying to decipher intellectobabble, but the rest says read! read! read critical geography and David Harvey and Lefevre and what absences say. Y'all, I am starting to realize that somebody's got to write the books I read, and they more often than not are real people who like to talk, and they aren't always snotty about it.
Conceived space, perceived space, lived space, and in all of it, the mind. Don't waste time. What's obvious and why? And what do opposites have to do with that definition? And how does it apply in your neighborhood, and how do you know, and why might it be that way? Lions and tigers and friction of distance, oh my.
I hear this is some people's normal, but for me, it's public drunkenness, and come on, folks, I'm underage. Hmmm. Wonder if frat boys and girls would be likely to discuss hierophany if they found out it's cheaper than kegs.
Anyway, it's library time, as well as "Love Your Library Month" (also Black History Month, but we won't get into that-- all the other eleven are White History Months (?) (!)) . Hope y'all have an intoxicating day, and that you can manage it substance-free.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
N*ers and F*gs
Very interesting, very emotional discussion at Allies tonight, about words and their power. My impression is that it's all about naming. Names are very important: they're definition, they're ownership, they're control. When you name something, you give yourself power to define it, in a way; you tell it what it is, and so when I call people "okie," it's assumed that I mean it in a fond way, because I'm naming myself, and so I'm saying "Okies are people like me." When the guy down the block uses it, on the other hand, he's naming all the people who have treated him poorly and gotten ahead of him in life and been looked at as superior (even when they're not) by the people who have power just because they're white and he's black, and that's who he's naming, with all his frustration and anger and worn-in bitter, when he calls me or Kenny or Doug the same thing. He's saying "Okies are people who have power they don't even know about, who look down on me and keep me under and make me struggle for everything I get, and they're amoral, spineless, hurtful, useless waste." That's who he's telling us we are, and that's why we're stung by his words and not by our own. It's only the form that's the same. We're using different words. And how many different words there are. . . whites above my social class talking about "crackers" or "white trash" (the charmingly-phrased "whiskey-tango," after the military code) are doing the same thing, naming me with what they "know" about working-class whites, and even when they're joking or talking about someone else, they're telling me who I am in their eyes, and they don't seem to want to realize it, or what effect it has on me regardless of their intent.
Which is not to say that y'all should start tiptoing around me-- I just chose to use my own race because I think the topic of epithets referring to white people is much less acrimonious than, for example, the n*er and f*g of the title, and besides, I can write cracka cracka cracka all over the place CRACKA, because that's my comfort zone, but my body won't even let me say "n*er." Damn my liberal upbringing, huh (cracka)?
More later if time permits-- ling project is calling my name in vowel-harmonilicious terms.
Good night, Susan, and I love you, and Andrew is really sorry.
Very interesting, very emotional discussion at Allies tonight, about words and their power. My impression is that it's all about naming. Names are very important: they're definition, they're ownership, they're control. When you name something, you give yourself power to define it, in a way; you tell it what it is, and so when I call people "okie," it's assumed that I mean it in a fond way, because I'm naming myself, and so I'm saying "Okies are people like me." When the guy down the block uses it, on the other hand, he's naming all the people who have treated him poorly and gotten ahead of him in life and been looked at as superior (even when they're not) by the people who have power just because they're white and he's black, and that's who he's naming, with all his frustration and anger and worn-in bitter, when he calls me or Kenny or Doug the same thing. He's saying "Okies are people who have power they don't even know about, who look down on me and keep me under and make me struggle for everything I get, and they're amoral, spineless, hurtful, useless waste." That's who he's telling us we are, and that's why we're stung by his words and not by our own. It's only the form that's the same. We're using different words. And how many different words there are. . . whites above my social class talking about "crackers" or "white trash" (the charmingly-phrased "whiskey-tango," after the military code) are doing the same thing, naming me with what they "know" about working-class whites, and even when they're joking or talking about someone else, they're telling me who I am in their eyes, and they don't seem to want to realize it, or what effect it has on me regardless of their intent.
Which is not to say that y'all should start tiptoing around me-- I just chose to use my own race because I think the topic of epithets referring to white people is much less acrimonious than, for example, the n*er and f*g of the title, and besides, I can write cracka cracka cracka all over the place CRACKA, because that's my comfort zone, but my body won't even let me say "n*er." Damn my liberal upbringing, huh (cracka)?
More later if time permits-- ling project is calling my name in vowel-harmonilicious terms.
Good night, Susan, and I love you, and Andrew is really sorry.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
"Mama, I want to be a cryptic genius when I grow up. . ."
"Two boys arrived yesterday with a pebble they said was the head of a dog until I pointed out that it was really a typewriter."
- Pablo Picasso
"Two boys arrived yesterday with a pebble they said was the head of a dog until I pointed out that it was really a typewriter."
- Pablo Picasso
Monday, February 09, 2004
Speaker's Last Name: Astoundingly Appropriate, or Just Astounding?
Just when you think it's safe to start discussing composition, line and color. . .
"Quasi-Institutionalism and Artistic Value: A Halfway House," a talk due to be given this Wednesday by Henry Pratt to the Philosophy Club:
I begin by connecting the attempt to analyze artistic value to the
twentieth-century debate about classificatory definitions of art.
After rejecting views that characterize artistic value and art in terms
of formal or referential properties alone, I consider Graves'
institutionalist approach. I find his view susceptible to Wollheim's
objections to institutionalist analyses of art. I argue that the
institutionalist must, in response, both muster resources from a
perspective external to the artworld and at some point defer to the
explanatory power of art criticism. Institutionalism can then be
combined with Beardsley's dispositionalist insights, resulting in a
quasi-institutionalism about artistic value.
Just when you think it's safe to start discussing composition, line and color. . .
"Quasi-Institutionalism and Artistic Value: A Halfway House," a talk due to be given this Wednesday by Henry Pratt to the Philosophy Club:
I begin by connecting the attempt to analyze artistic value to the
twentieth-century debate about classificatory definitions of art.
After rejecting views that characterize artistic value and art in terms
of formal or referential properties alone, I consider Graves'
institutionalist approach. I find his view susceptible to Wollheim's
objections to institutionalist analyses of art. I argue that the
institutionalist must, in response, both muster resources from a
perspective external to the artworld and at some point defer to the
explanatory power of art criticism. Institutionalism can then be
combined with Beardsley's dispositionalist insights, resulting in a
quasi-institutionalism about artistic value.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Not a single new idea in the world
There's an art museum in my hometown, and it is very nice but rather small, at least by my history-of-art professor's exacting standards. His assessment came as a surprise to me, since I have from an early age thought exactly the opposite, but I think my original impression probably has more to do with the timing of lunch on field trips than with the actual size or collection of the museum itself, so maybe he's right. Either way, there's paintings, there's glass, and there's paranoia that I'll accidentally knock something over, so it's a party and a half, except without the food, drinks, sledding, loud conversation, cardplaying, funny-hat making, and ballpoint pens. (Yes, pens are banned from the museum. If you have a pen, you should check it with Sheryl at the front desk. Actually, you should go check something with Sheryl at the front desk, even if you don't have any museum contraband, because Sheryl at the front desk is bored out of her mind, because Sheryl at the front desk has few duties but to answer the phone and to work the little clicker thing that keeps track of how many people come to visit the museum on Sundays. Besides, she can tell you some stories about her ex-husband. . .)
So I've decided that I like (1) Impressionism, at least until it starts verging on the abstract, (2) the Old Masters, (3) photography, (4) Elijah Pierce's woodcarvings, (5) Robert Henri and his posse, (6) some of the Ashcan School paintings, and (7) some of the glass.
I don't like (1) Cubism, because I'm not smart enough to understand it, (2) abstract art, for the same reason, and (3) the enormous barrel on a rope, because seriously, folks, it's a barrel on a rope, and it's taking up a whole room, and nobody seems to get anything out of it. Nobody goes to the museum thinking "Sweet! Now I get to look at an enormous barrel on a rope! I've been waiting my whole life for this!" Nobody leaves the museum thinking "Man, I am so glad I saw that enormous barrel on a rope! I don't know what I'd do without some barrel in my life!" People walk in through one door, head for the other door, and mostly just hope the rope doesn't break, because they haven't watched Indiana Jones in a while, and they don't want to get squished.
Sheryl opines at this point that maybe the barrel on a rope is meant to confuse the audience. Well, it sure does manage that. No argument here. Then again, Sheryl likes Mark Rothko a good deal more than can possibly be healthy, so I might have to take issue after all. We'll duke it out next week. Go start your betting pools now, and favor Sheryl, 'cause Schu's going to be spending most of the day writing a four-page paper on art, and while Sheryl's swinging, Schu'll be ducking and declaring paintings to be "grand, austere, and ascetic, almost apocalyptic in their reductiveness." Hope I can at least make y'all some money while I'm getting pounded into the ground.
Anyway, I spent a considerable amount of time in the Old Masters room today, because one of the paintings I'm writing about is in there. It's framed near the exact center of the west wall, and it's surrounded by other paintings, and a bust of a long-dead cardinal (the human kind) rests on a pedestal to the right of it. So I'm staring at the pictured Mr. Bolland in his fancy frame, taking note of such things as his "rich burgundy attire" and the "realistic lighting scheme" and "the traditional pyramidal composition of the piece," when this guy comes up and kind of glances at the cardinal bust.
Speaking of which, that's going to be the name of my second-born child. "Cardinal Bust." Hee. "Cardinal Bust."
The guy glances at the bust, and then he half turns away, and then he steps back a little and looks again, and then he shakes his head, and then he wanders off with a semi-bemused look. I take very little note of him, so little that I actually forget about his double-take until I surface from taking notes about Mr. Bolland's paint (evenly applied, with tight brushwork, heavily varnished) to find another guy, his eyeballs about three inches from the cardinal's, looking for all the world like he's trying to stare down this very clearly stone-hewn object.
He leans to the side a little. He leans to the other side a little. If he were looking at a live woman like this, I'd be tempted to nudge him and advise he just kiss her already.
Man is very, very interested in something about the cardinal, and he is very, very serious about it. He leans a little the first way again. I try to keep from giggling. I am mostly successful. He leans the other way again. He backs up a step or two, squinting. I make note of the fact that Mr. Bolland is surrounded by symbols of his wealth and power. He (the guy, not Mr. Bolland, although it would be better the other way) breaks out in an enormous grin and strides off. I give in to the giggling momentarily after he's out of the room. Man sure showed that inanimate chunk of marble. Ah, well. We all enjoy art in our own way, right? Maybe he was just getting that close in order to admire the chiseling. Maybe he's just so astounded that he wants to soak in every detail. Maybe he's never seen a bust before. Maybe he thinks it looks like his grandmother. What do I know? I shouldn't laugh at him.
Thusly resolved, I get up to examine Mr. Bolland in more minute detail. I make it exactly as far as the bust and stop dead. Look at the cardinal's pupils. Holy cow. I cannot be seeing this. What? I take a quick glance around the room. No one's paying attention. I lean in a little closer, doing some squinting of my own. Jeez, I'm not hallucinating. It really is like that.
I head back to the bench, sit down, and elbow the girl sitting next to me. She's in my history of art class ("HoA," as we've dubbed it, pronounced as it's written), and she needs to confirm my observations. "Hey. Come look at this. No, seriously. Come look at this." She puts aside her notes on Mr. Bolland (I catch the phrase "illustrative of many Neoclassicist mores"), and comes to look at the cardinal. "What, Rachel?"
"Look at his pupils," I hiss.
Glance. Stare. Squint.
"Are you seeing it?" I enquire urgently.
"Oh my G-d," she replies blasphemously, tilting her head to the side. "Do you see that too?"
"See what?" I ask, not wanting to influence her perceptions.
She grins, amazed. "They look like. . . smiley faces."
"Yes!" I exclaim, catching myself just in time not to yell. "They're smiley faces! What is up with that?"
She's an art history major. "Beats me. Vandalism? Drugs? The Holy Spirit?"
After I quit laughing at those three incongruously-grouped nouns, I decide to go on a quest (1) to find someone who will know and (2) to wring the answer out of that person, even if it takes a ballpoint pen. She elects to stay and continue taking notes on Mr. Bolland, and so I head off alone, stopping by the desk to pique Sheryl's curiosity as I go.
About fifteen minutes and three dead ends later, the sage Elizabeth from downstairs good-humoredly troops up three flights with me, mystified herself. "I hope it's not vandalism," she mentions, echoing a third of Heather's sentiments. The moment of truth arrives as she claps first eyes on it. . .
. . . and busts out laughing.
"What? What is it?" I query, but she just chuckles at me.
Turns out that this was actually one of the prevailing standards of the time (AD 1500s). Sculptors, for whatever reason, didn't feel it was effective just to outline the pupil's shape, so they would generally either chisel out concavity or leave the eyes blank. Some artists, however, would outline part of the pupil, then chip out other little bits to suggest the remaining shape.
"Y'know, I've looked at this bust a million times, and I've never seen that before, and they totally did not have smiley faces back then," Elizabeth confided, "but now, I really see what you're talking about. That looks just like a smiley face. Especially in that right eye! Look at that! It could have come right off a hippie button! It's got to be. . ." and on and on.
To which I say, once more, with feeling, that there is not a single new idea in the world.
There's an art museum in my hometown, and it is very nice but rather small, at least by my history-of-art professor's exacting standards. His assessment came as a surprise to me, since I have from an early age thought exactly the opposite, but I think my original impression probably has more to do with the timing of lunch on field trips than with the actual size or collection of the museum itself, so maybe he's right. Either way, there's paintings, there's glass, and there's paranoia that I'll accidentally knock something over, so it's a party and a half, except without the food, drinks, sledding, loud conversation, cardplaying, funny-hat making, and ballpoint pens. (Yes, pens are banned from the museum. If you have a pen, you should check it with Sheryl at the front desk. Actually, you should go check something with Sheryl at the front desk, even if you don't have any museum contraband, because Sheryl at the front desk is bored out of her mind, because Sheryl at the front desk has few duties but to answer the phone and to work the little clicker thing that keeps track of how many people come to visit the museum on Sundays. Besides, she can tell you some stories about her ex-husband. . .)
So I've decided that I like (1) Impressionism, at least until it starts verging on the abstract, (2) the Old Masters, (3) photography, (4) Elijah Pierce's woodcarvings, (5) Robert Henri and his posse, (6) some of the Ashcan School paintings, and (7) some of the glass.
I don't like (1) Cubism, because I'm not smart enough to understand it, (2) abstract art, for the same reason, and (3) the enormous barrel on a rope, because seriously, folks, it's a barrel on a rope, and it's taking up a whole room, and nobody seems to get anything out of it. Nobody goes to the museum thinking "Sweet! Now I get to look at an enormous barrel on a rope! I've been waiting my whole life for this!" Nobody leaves the museum thinking "Man, I am so glad I saw that enormous barrel on a rope! I don't know what I'd do without some barrel in my life!" People walk in through one door, head for the other door, and mostly just hope the rope doesn't break, because they haven't watched Indiana Jones in a while, and they don't want to get squished.
Sheryl opines at this point that maybe the barrel on a rope is meant to confuse the audience. Well, it sure does manage that. No argument here. Then again, Sheryl likes Mark Rothko a good deal more than can possibly be healthy, so I might have to take issue after all. We'll duke it out next week. Go start your betting pools now, and favor Sheryl, 'cause Schu's going to be spending most of the day writing a four-page paper on art, and while Sheryl's swinging, Schu'll be ducking and declaring paintings to be "grand, austere, and ascetic, almost apocalyptic in their reductiveness." Hope I can at least make y'all some money while I'm getting pounded into the ground.
Anyway, I spent a considerable amount of time in the Old Masters room today, because one of the paintings I'm writing about is in there. It's framed near the exact center of the west wall, and it's surrounded by other paintings, and a bust of a long-dead cardinal (the human kind) rests on a pedestal to the right of it. So I'm staring at the pictured Mr. Bolland in his fancy frame, taking note of such things as his "rich burgundy attire" and the "realistic lighting scheme" and "the traditional pyramidal composition of the piece," when this guy comes up and kind of glances at the cardinal bust.
Speaking of which, that's going to be the name of my second-born child. "Cardinal Bust." Hee. "Cardinal Bust."
The guy glances at the bust, and then he half turns away, and then he steps back a little and looks again, and then he shakes his head, and then he wanders off with a semi-bemused look. I take very little note of him, so little that I actually forget about his double-take until I surface from taking notes about Mr. Bolland's paint (evenly applied, with tight brushwork, heavily varnished) to find another guy, his eyeballs about three inches from the cardinal's, looking for all the world like he's trying to stare down this very clearly stone-hewn object.
He leans to the side a little. He leans to the other side a little. If he were looking at a live woman like this, I'd be tempted to nudge him and advise he just kiss her already.
Man is very, very interested in something about the cardinal, and he is very, very serious about it. He leans a little the first way again. I try to keep from giggling. I am mostly successful. He leans the other way again. He backs up a step or two, squinting. I make note of the fact that Mr. Bolland is surrounded by symbols of his wealth and power. He (the guy, not Mr. Bolland, although it would be better the other way) breaks out in an enormous grin and strides off. I give in to the giggling momentarily after he's out of the room. Man sure showed that inanimate chunk of marble. Ah, well. We all enjoy art in our own way, right? Maybe he was just getting that close in order to admire the chiseling. Maybe he's just so astounded that he wants to soak in every detail. Maybe he's never seen a bust before. Maybe he thinks it looks like his grandmother. What do I know? I shouldn't laugh at him.
Thusly resolved, I get up to examine Mr. Bolland in more minute detail. I make it exactly as far as the bust and stop dead. Look at the cardinal's pupils. Holy cow. I cannot be seeing this. What? I take a quick glance around the room. No one's paying attention. I lean in a little closer, doing some squinting of my own. Jeez, I'm not hallucinating. It really is like that.
I head back to the bench, sit down, and elbow the girl sitting next to me. She's in my history of art class ("HoA," as we've dubbed it, pronounced as it's written), and she needs to confirm my observations. "Hey. Come look at this. No, seriously. Come look at this." She puts aside her notes on Mr. Bolland (I catch the phrase "illustrative of many Neoclassicist mores"), and comes to look at the cardinal. "What, Rachel?"
"Look at his pupils," I hiss.
Glance. Stare. Squint.
"Are you seeing it?" I enquire urgently.
"Oh my G-d," she replies blasphemously, tilting her head to the side. "Do you see that too?"
"See what?" I ask, not wanting to influence her perceptions.
She grins, amazed. "They look like. . . smiley faces."
"Yes!" I exclaim, catching myself just in time not to yell. "They're smiley faces! What is up with that?"
She's an art history major. "Beats me. Vandalism? Drugs? The Holy Spirit?"
After I quit laughing at those three incongruously-grouped nouns, I decide to go on a quest (1) to find someone who will know and (2) to wring the answer out of that person, even if it takes a ballpoint pen. She elects to stay and continue taking notes on Mr. Bolland, and so I head off alone, stopping by the desk to pique Sheryl's curiosity as I go.
About fifteen minutes and three dead ends later, the sage Elizabeth from downstairs good-humoredly troops up three flights with me, mystified herself. "I hope it's not vandalism," she mentions, echoing a third of Heather's sentiments. The moment of truth arrives as she claps first eyes on it. . .
. . . and busts out laughing.
"What? What is it?" I query, but she just chuckles at me.
Turns out that this was actually one of the prevailing standards of the time (AD 1500s). Sculptors, for whatever reason, didn't feel it was effective just to outline the pupil's shape, so they would generally either chisel out concavity or leave the eyes blank. Some artists, however, would outline part of the pupil, then chip out other little bits to suggest the remaining shape.
"Y'know, I've looked at this bust a million times, and I've never seen that before, and they totally did not have smiley faces back then," Elizabeth confided, "but now, I really see what you're talking about. That looks just like a smiley face. Especially in that right eye! Look at that! It could have come right off a hippie button! It's got to be. . ." and on and on.
To which I say, once more, with feeling, that there is not a single new idea in the world.
Friday, February 06, 2004
My first-born child will be named Elder Futhark
So yesterday was a meeting of the LMU undergraduate linguistics club, which I will call Underlings because that is its name. Said meeting consisted mostly of four of us (ranks eventually swelled to eight or nine) standing around in a classroom building eating pizza and playing with a computer Whitney discovered we could use. I don't know when she had time to figure that out, in between (a) class, (b) class, (c) more class, (d) yet more class, and (e) trying to figure out (i) how much of what kind of pizza to order, (ii) whether or not she'd be the only one eating the vegan pizza, and (iii) how best to navigate streets turned into canals by precipitation without drainage, but she managed, nay triumphed, and so we played around with that for an hour and a half and discussed Winnie the Pooh and learned that Ted's last name means either "wise tranquility" or "cheap," depending.
So. If you're the kind of nerd who read the title of this post and immediately exclaimed "Runes? I love runes!", you will likely derive great pleasure from this website:
http://www.omniglot.com/
Betamaze is so pretty.
So yesterday was a meeting of the LMU undergraduate linguistics club, which I will call Underlings because that is its name. Said meeting consisted mostly of four of us (ranks eventually swelled to eight or nine) standing around in a classroom building eating pizza and playing with a computer Whitney discovered we could use. I don't know when she had time to figure that out, in between (a) class, (b) class, (c) more class, (d) yet more class, and (e) trying to figure out (i) how much of what kind of pizza to order, (ii) whether or not she'd be the only one eating the vegan pizza, and (iii) how best to navigate streets turned into canals by precipitation without drainage, but she managed, nay triumphed, and so we played around with that for an hour and a half and discussed Winnie the Pooh and learned that Ted's last name means either "wise tranquility" or "cheap," depending.
So. If you're the kind of nerd who read the title of this post and immediately exclaimed "Runes? I love runes!", you will likely derive great pleasure from this website:
http://www.omniglot.com/
Betamaze is so pretty.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
If ESPN shows chess tournaments and the Scripps-Howard spelling bee, why don't they show Extreme Ironing?
Check it out and see if you're not asking the same question.
Check it out and see if you're not asking the same question.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Why can't we all just get along (sentence and together attempt to resolve it into some set of quasi-meaningful constituents)?
So I was reading my buddy's blog the other day and was directed here, to an article about. . . well, about a lot of things, but mostly about terrorism, and about Islam, and about Israel. If I am a closed system comprised of a water-filled kettle sitting on the front burner of a functional range, this article is the work involved in cranking that front burner way, way up. The first time I read it, it just made me mad, which was probably at least part of the author's goal. Upon examining it more closely, though, I found that my annoyance tends to drain away as I begin to understand the surrounding whole picture better. In the end, I think it yields enough to merit a set of observations here.
The first thing I notice now is the incredible amount of anger and frustration expressed in the article, and how it is reflected both in the arguments and in the tone of the piece. I think my initial, ill-considered angry response was a very visceral mirroring of the author's own emotion. Something about Newton 3. . . I think that the aforementioned anger and frustration come from a very good place in the author's heart, a place that wants the world to be orderly, peaceful, and loving. I do believe that he wants all the horrific suffering in the Middle East to end, and I think he's right in saying that we must first eradicate the deeply twisted mentality that leads individuals to commit such disordered, destructive, and fundamentally wrong acts as suicide bombings.
However, I think his justified frustration has driven him to harsh generalizations and oversimplified tunnel thinking that are maybe not quite so justified. Of course he has reason to be upset. Of course he has some reasons to believe nasty things about Islam, although I disagree that he has no recourse but to subscribe to anti-Islam opinions. The problem is that he's absolutely right, and he's absolutely not following his own prescription.
The following illustrative example comes directly from the third paragraph (source is "We Are Not Related," by Jack Engelhard, of course):
"Apparently, my words offended a certain "faith"-based and "peace-loving" website. (Amazing how nasty some do-gooders get when you demur.)"
I would encourage you all to read this quote in context, in case I'm just misperceiving something, but at this point, with no offense intended to anyone, I honestly wondered whether this was an actual article or a parody of an article. The author does not seem aware of the parallels between him and those he treats with such venom.
I say this not to set up some nonsense along the lines of "there is no absolute morality," because I find that argument to be unconvincing and ultimately false. I mention this phenomenon in order to advance my argument that there is absolute morality, and the author's error lies in his commitment to picking and choosing the parts of it he likes. Of course the irrational hatred and vicious terrorism of some Muslims is beneath reprehensible. It verges on evil, from what I can tell. But what else does absolute morality tell us? It tells us that G-d alone can judge, and that when we try to take over his role, declaring that we are capable of doing His job in judging humankind, we commit a grievous sin.
Once again, this is not to say that we cannot establish a set moral code by which to live, dividing actions into the generally good and the generally evil. Of course we can, and of course we should. I only claim that a person's soul benefits far more from his living his own life in virtue than it does from his attempts to prove that he is virtuous and others are not. I hesitate to quote the New Testament, as my goal is neither to proselytize nor to suggest that part of Mr. Engelhard's problem is that he hasn't "accepted J-sus Christ as his personal L-rd and Saviour," but there's a passage (John 21) that I as a Catholic Christian find illuminating. The basic summary: J-sus is talking to Peter and the other apostles. They want to know what's going to happen to the one of them who betrays J-sus, but He keeps brushing them off. His message throughout the chapter is that if they love Him, they should act as His love in the world instead of wasting time speculating about "where" other people are "going" after death. (quotes because neither Hell nor Heaven is a place, according to Catholic theology. Both are states of the soul: eternally cut off from G-d and eternally close to G-d, respectively.)
The author rightly condemns the idea of "sliding-scale" morality. What he doesn't seem to examine is what really makes it wrong. My opinion is that the flaw in "no absolutes" philosophy is that it is a vast oversimplification. I think it's easiest for us to go all out and say either "There is an absolute moral code, it pertains to everything, and I know exactly what it is!" or "There is no absolute moral code, and I can't judge anything, so I'm just going to drift around now," because that tells us directly and clearly how to live our lives. The truth is more complicated. It requires us to think about our decisions, and weigh negative and positive consequences, and struggle to follow what's right. It requires us to be unhappy some of the time, and confused some of the time, and conflicted a lot of the time. I think the truth is harder to deal with than either oversimplification, and I think that's why so many people so often choose not to.
It seems to me that the author cops out of the true argument by oversimplifying the world to "us" and "them," where "they" do not even count as human and "we" are good people just trying to get by. I should note, in all fairness, that I have never been to Israel, and I am sure I have not witnessed even half the horror the author has. I cannot say for sure that I would not agree with him if I did, and I will not pretend that I have the experience that would make my arguments more convincing. Accordingly, if I am wrong, rude, patronizing, or unrealistic in any of my viewpoints, I hope you will kindly help me increase in understanding.
And now, as time and space both grow short, I will leave you with my best wishes for your future growth and happiness.
So I was reading my buddy's blog the other day and was directed here, to an article about. . . well, about a lot of things, but mostly about terrorism, and about Islam, and about Israel. If I am a closed system comprised of a water-filled kettle sitting on the front burner of a functional range, this article is the work involved in cranking that front burner way, way up. The first time I read it, it just made me mad, which was probably at least part of the author's goal. Upon examining it more closely, though, I found that my annoyance tends to drain away as I begin to understand the surrounding whole picture better. In the end, I think it yields enough to merit a set of observations here.
The first thing I notice now is the incredible amount of anger and frustration expressed in the article, and how it is reflected both in the arguments and in the tone of the piece. I think my initial, ill-considered angry response was a very visceral mirroring of the author's own emotion. Something about Newton 3. . . I think that the aforementioned anger and frustration come from a very good place in the author's heart, a place that wants the world to be orderly, peaceful, and loving. I do believe that he wants all the horrific suffering in the Middle East to end, and I think he's right in saying that we must first eradicate the deeply twisted mentality that leads individuals to commit such disordered, destructive, and fundamentally wrong acts as suicide bombings.
However, I think his justified frustration has driven him to harsh generalizations and oversimplified tunnel thinking that are maybe not quite so justified. Of course he has reason to be upset. Of course he has some reasons to believe nasty things about Islam, although I disagree that he has no recourse but to subscribe to anti-Islam opinions. The problem is that he's absolutely right, and he's absolutely not following his own prescription.
The following illustrative example comes directly from the third paragraph (source is "We Are Not Related," by Jack Engelhard, of course):
"Apparently, my words offended a certain "faith"-based and "peace-loving" website. (Amazing how nasty some do-gooders get when you demur.)"
I would encourage you all to read this quote in context, in case I'm just misperceiving something, but at this point, with no offense intended to anyone, I honestly wondered whether this was an actual article or a parody of an article. The author does not seem aware of the parallels between him and those he treats with such venom.
I say this not to set up some nonsense along the lines of "there is no absolute morality," because I find that argument to be unconvincing and ultimately false. I mention this phenomenon in order to advance my argument that there is absolute morality, and the author's error lies in his commitment to picking and choosing the parts of it he likes. Of course the irrational hatred and vicious terrorism of some Muslims is beneath reprehensible. It verges on evil, from what I can tell. But what else does absolute morality tell us? It tells us that G-d alone can judge, and that when we try to take over his role, declaring that we are capable of doing His job in judging humankind, we commit a grievous sin.
Once again, this is not to say that we cannot establish a set moral code by which to live, dividing actions into the generally good and the generally evil. Of course we can, and of course we should. I only claim that a person's soul benefits far more from his living his own life in virtue than it does from his attempts to prove that he is virtuous and others are not. I hesitate to quote the New Testament, as my goal is neither to proselytize nor to suggest that part of Mr. Engelhard's problem is that he hasn't "accepted J-sus Christ as his personal L-rd and Saviour," but there's a passage (John 21) that I as a Catholic Christian find illuminating. The basic summary: J-sus is talking to Peter and the other apostles. They want to know what's going to happen to the one of them who betrays J-sus, but He keeps brushing them off. His message throughout the chapter is that if they love Him, they should act as His love in the world instead of wasting time speculating about "where" other people are "going" after death. (quotes because neither Hell nor Heaven is a place, according to Catholic theology. Both are states of the soul: eternally cut off from G-d and eternally close to G-d, respectively.)
The author rightly condemns the idea of "sliding-scale" morality. What he doesn't seem to examine is what really makes it wrong. My opinion is that the flaw in "no absolutes" philosophy is that it is a vast oversimplification. I think it's easiest for us to go all out and say either "There is an absolute moral code, it pertains to everything, and I know exactly what it is!" or "There is no absolute moral code, and I can't judge anything, so I'm just going to drift around now," because that tells us directly and clearly how to live our lives. The truth is more complicated. It requires us to think about our decisions, and weigh negative and positive consequences, and struggle to follow what's right. It requires us to be unhappy some of the time, and confused some of the time, and conflicted a lot of the time. I think the truth is harder to deal with than either oversimplification, and I think that's why so many people so often choose not to.
It seems to me that the author cops out of the true argument by oversimplifying the world to "us" and "them," where "they" do not even count as human and "we" are good people just trying to get by. I should note, in all fairness, that I have never been to Israel, and I am sure I have not witnessed even half the horror the author has. I cannot say for sure that I would not agree with him if I did, and I will not pretend that I have the experience that would make my arguments more convincing. Accordingly, if I am wrong, rude, patronizing, or unrealistic in any of my viewpoints, I hope you will kindly help me increase in understanding.
And now, as time and space both grow short, I will leave you with my best wishes for your future growth and happiness.
Baby, you can't spell "geek" without EE.
Mmm. Capacitance.
C = q / [[absolute value] [of [delta V]]].
delta V = Vfinal - Vinitial = negative [the integral [from plus to minus] of [[vector e-field] dotted with [vector ds]]].
phi = closed-surface integral of [[[e-field [vector]] [dotted [with [dA [vector]]]]] = enclosed charge / the permittivity constant, even when ling is creeping in. You know, when Bill Clinton was issuing his famous line "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is," he was only doing what ling majors since time immemorial have been banging their heads on desks over.
[_S[_NP ling majors][_VP have been banging [_NP their heads] [_PP on [_NP desks]][_PP since [_NP time immemorial]]
Mmm. Capacitance.
C = q / [[absolute value] [of [delta V]]].
delta V = Vfinal - Vinitial = negative [the integral [from plus to minus] of [[vector e-field] dotted with [vector ds]]].
phi = closed-surface integral of [[[e-field [vector]] [dotted [with [dA [vector]]]]] = enclosed charge / the permittivity constant, even when ling is creeping in. You know, when Bill Clinton was issuing his famous line "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is," he was only doing what ling majors since time immemorial have been banging their heads on desks over.
[_S[_NP ling majors][_VP have been banging [_NP their heads] [_PP on [_NP desks]][_PP since [_NP time immemorial]]
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Doing the College Thing (Doo Lang Doo Lang)
Back when I was in high school, and intermittently since, I was, and occasionally continue to be, the founder, president, secretary, treasurer, committee chair (man, the word "committee" has a lot of double letters in it), co-ordinator, comic relief, key grip, best boy, stunt double, security guard, and center fielder for the fictional-factual University Students: Users and Cronies Club, or USUCC, as we like to be called. I was, and occasionally still am, very firmly of the opinion that 4-year colleges exist primarily for the purpose of conferring prestige on those too weak and stupid to learn things by reading books and thinking for themselves.
I said to myself, "Now why should I pay anyone money for the sole purpose of directing and limiting my studies? Why would people waste time with spending the whole day attending classes and gaining no useful skills when they could be working by day and learning as much as they wanted to of whatever they wanted to at any pace they wanted to by night?" I looked around me (well, uptown of me), saw the students at my friendly neighborhood LMU, and thought, "Moreover, why on Earth would any society waste its time, effort, and priceless resources like highly accomplished academicians on children like these who have barely finished puberty, don't know what life is, and seem mostly occupied with spinning out their own lttle dramas and destroying their livers? Even if we accept the premise that 'education' is a valuable form for an individual's learning to take, post-high-school, why hand off that precious and much-desired resource to those individuals arguably least likely to profit from it?"
And then my high-school guidance counselor, who kept me from dropping out and earning my GED; who poked me in the side impatiently and persistently until I finally gave up and found a way to give my life purpose; who told me at rock bottom that she couldn't do anything for me, that I was absolutely free and absolutely responsible to make my own choices, and that they'd damn well better be good ones; saw me a year and a half later and convinced me of the value of higher education with a single sentence: "If you don't go to college, I will tell Rosie, and Rosie will fire you and not take you back until you've got your bachelor's at least."
So while I may have begun my positive contemplation of university education under pain of losing my job, I've since come around to the general idea of it, sometimes because of and sometimes despite my classmates. Once in a while, though, some unexpected event will come up like an unusually friendly stranger on the street, nodding and winking, and summarize, without over-thinking, why I stay, and why I do belong here, regardless of how overwhelming my contrary opinion sometimes is.
I went up to the third floor of SEL today, about an hour and a half before my physics class started, because I had homework to finish. It was jampacked as usual, and so I got to do some nomadic wandering in search of a temporary home: wander, wander, wander, walk, walk, walk-- wait. This aisle's blocked. What's that guy doing, anyway? Hmmm. A fairly short young man sits cross-legged on the floor, unaware of me, his coat crumpled carelessly beside him as he reads, with equal stillness, some treatise on thermodynamics and kinetic theory. Okay. Well, I moved on around, diverted, and found a place at a table, and sat down, and finished the homework and read the newspaper and left for physics, glancing back at the still-stationary man.
I just got back from an hour of physics.
He hasn't moved.
And that is why this is worth it.
Back when I was in high school, and intermittently since, I was, and occasionally continue to be, the founder, president, secretary, treasurer, committee chair (man, the word "committee" has a lot of double letters in it), co-ordinator, comic relief, key grip, best boy, stunt double, security guard, and center fielder for the fictional-factual University Students: Users and Cronies Club, or USUCC, as we like to be called. I was, and occasionally still am, very firmly of the opinion that 4-year colleges exist primarily for the purpose of conferring prestige on those too weak and stupid to learn things by reading books and thinking for themselves.
I said to myself, "Now why should I pay anyone money for the sole purpose of directing and limiting my studies? Why would people waste time with spending the whole day attending classes and gaining no useful skills when they could be working by day and learning as much as they wanted to of whatever they wanted to at any pace they wanted to by night?" I looked around me (well, uptown of me), saw the students at my friendly neighborhood LMU, and thought, "Moreover, why on Earth would any society waste its time, effort, and priceless resources like highly accomplished academicians on children like these who have barely finished puberty, don't know what life is, and seem mostly occupied with spinning out their own lttle dramas and destroying their livers? Even if we accept the premise that 'education' is a valuable form for an individual's learning to take, post-high-school, why hand off that precious and much-desired resource to those individuals arguably least likely to profit from it?"
And then my high-school guidance counselor, who kept me from dropping out and earning my GED; who poked me in the side impatiently and persistently until I finally gave up and found a way to give my life purpose; who told me at rock bottom that she couldn't do anything for me, that I was absolutely free and absolutely responsible to make my own choices, and that they'd damn well better be good ones; saw me a year and a half later and convinced me of the value of higher education with a single sentence: "If you don't go to college, I will tell Rosie, and Rosie will fire you and not take you back until you've got your bachelor's at least."
So while I may have begun my positive contemplation of university education under pain of losing my job, I've since come around to the general idea of it, sometimes because of and sometimes despite my classmates. Once in a while, though, some unexpected event will come up like an unusually friendly stranger on the street, nodding and winking, and summarize, without over-thinking, why I stay, and why I do belong here, regardless of how overwhelming my contrary opinion sometimes is.
I went up to the third floor of SEL today, about an hour and a half before my physics class started, because I had homework to finish. It was jampacked as usual, and so I got to do some nomadic wandering in search of a temporary home: wander, wander, wander, walk, walk, walk-- wait. This aisle's blocked. What's that guy doing, anyway? Hmmm. A fairly short young man sits cross-legged on the floor, unaware of me, his coat crumpled carelessly beside him as he reads, with equal stillness, some treatise on thermodynamics and kinetic theory. Okay. Well, I moved on around, diverted, and found a place at a table, and sat down, and finished the homework and read the newspaper and left for physics, glancing back at the still-stationary man.
I just got back from an hour of physics.
He hasn't moved.
And that is why this is worth it.
Oops.
Yeah, I managed to turn on the Korean-language feature of the keyboard input mid-post yesterday. Hope y'all enjoyed it. Completion of the thought will be postponed indefinitely. In the meantime, there's more on a different topic, for those from home who think I'd be a much better firefighter/paramedic than perpetual student (for the next ten years, anyway). This is, of course, presented with the understanding that they're probably right.
Yeah, I managed to turn on the Korean-language feature of the keyboard input mid-post yesterday. Hope y'all enjoyed it. Completion of the thought will be postponed indefinitely. In the meantime, there's more on a different topic, for those from home who think I'd be a much better firefighter/paramedic than perpetual student (for the next ten years, anyway). This is, of course, presented with the understanding that they're probably right.
Monday, February 02, 2004
Reluctance, Conductance, and Absolutely Nothing about Janet Jackson's Breast. No, Really. Nothing about Janet Jackson's Breast.
Before this whole thing gets started, I think we just have to take a moment to recognize Drunken Brian, who won almost five dollars betting on a team he hates and was consequently not inconsolable after his beloved Panthers' loss yesterday. "Now I can go buy enough beer to drink until I can't even remember who won! Well, maybe not that much. But still!"
NoLack and I spent most of the hallowed day (no, not Sunday, fool. The day of the Super Bowl) contemplating vowel shifts and ways to make noun forms, which was something I would rather stereotypically not expect from anyone who is ㅁmeterology / theater 애ㅕㅠㅣㄷ ㅡ머ㅐㄱ 뭉 ㅐㅗ ㅡ무, ㄱ두 ㅏ됴ㅐㅠㅁㄱㅇㄴ ㅡ마ㅑㅜㅎ ㅏㅐㄱㄷ무 촘ㄱㅁㅊㅅㄷㄱㄴ ㅁㅎ먀ㅜ.
Before this whole thing gets started, I think we just have to take a moment to recognize Drunken Brian, who won almost five dollars betting on a team he hates and was consequently not inconsolable after his beloved Panthers' loss yesterday. "Now I can go buy enough beer to drink until I can't even remember who won! Well, maybe not that much. But still!"
NoLack and I spent most of the hallowed day (no, not Sunday, fool. The day of the Super Bowl) contemplating vowel shifts and ways to make noun forms, which was something I would rather stereotypically not expect from anyone who is ㅁmeterology / theater 애ㅕㅠㅣㄷ ㅡ머ㅐㄱ 뭉 ㅐㅗ ㅡ무, ㄱ두 ㅏ됴ㅐㅠㅁㄱㅇㄴ ㅡ마ㅑㅜㅎ ㅏㅐㄱㄷ무 촘ㄱㅁㅊㅅㄷㄱㄴ ㅁㅎ먀ㅜ.
