being aware of my gut, the utter reverence with which the lecturer I'm listening to is glorifying Heidegger, reading about creation./evolution/faith/atheism debates, making jokes, constantly playing out conversations in my head, peanut butter and jelly, yoghurt, complaining about the misrepresentations of contemporary chinese and china in foreign media, hearing people say they are bible literalists, imitating chinese regional dialects/accents, complaining, worrying about emma being unhappy with me.
Things I'm not tired of: Not working, staying alone all day, talking to emma, hugging and kissing and petting my susan and bakunin, giving them warm water and cleaning out the cat box, trying to clean the house, writing, ziwei-ing, watching bbc shows, almonds, coffee, bathing, getting and receiving correspondence, thinking about my story, thinking of things to do to make emma happy, thinking of things to write.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
GUEST BLOGGER:八酷你猫:我国为何过节要放炮吓死我
床上不安全. 衣柜不安全. 床下面不安全. 现在我只会听到POW POWPOW 我怕国民党或日本回上海了。
大伦说不是战争，不是侵略， 只是中国人的节日。 好像我的中国老乡真恨我们猫。 你想一想， 如果你是猫的话，听那么多爆发，会不会轻松， 会不会快乐？
我想以后我们中国人会换一个办法过节。 不要放炮不要开枪， 不要放核弹。 我们不在 以色列， 不在 阿富汗, 我们要文明一点。
所以节日的时候， 大家要互相舔和抓抓抓！ 互相舔就是大家出门儿，舔另据们。 舔是代表友好。 抓呢？ 抓就是代表机会，抓塑料袋子，可以吃饭， 抓杯子可以掉下里面的水而喝。 我们过节可以做很漂亮的塑料袋子， 上面写“富” “喜” “财“ 这样的字。 到时候， 我们都到外面对另据们扔塑料袋子，然后抓抓抓！
好了我要去抓一抓猫沙。 大伦说要给我换新的猫沙，还没有换。 他一说我就不相信。 他的单词多， 动作少。 我们猫不可怜吗
大伦说不是战争，不是侵略， 只是中国人的节日。 好像我的中国老乡真恨我们猫。 你想一想， 如果你是猫的话，听那么多爆发，会不会轻松， 会不会快乐？
我想以后我们中国人会换一个办法过节。 不要放炮不要开枪， 不要放核弹。 我们不在 以色列， 不在 阿富汗, 我们要文明一点。
所以节日的时候， 大家要互相舔和抓抓抓！ 互相舔就是大家出门儿，舔另据们。 舔是代表友好。 抓呢？ 抓就是代表机会，抓塑料袋子，可以吃饭， 抓杯子可以掉下里面的水而喝。 我们过节可以做很漂亮的塑料袋子， 上面写“富” “喜” “财“ 这样的字。 到时候， 我们都到外面对另据们扔塑料袋子，然后抓抓抓！
好了我要去抓一抓猫沙。 大伦说要给我换新的猫沙，还没有换。 他一说我就不相信。 他的单词多， 动作少。 我们猫不可怜吗
Saturday, February 9, 2008
GUEST BLOGGER:八酷你猫， 中文版
我是 大伦 的猫. 首先要通知大家,我不是跟他一样的很那个的那个的. 我是老百姓. 我也是基督教徒. 我也是爱国人.
在中国, 以前没有宗教科幻书. 我从小很喜欢看书， 但是没有很多适合我宗教的书。 我看了许多的小说， 还没找到一本书会让我心灵更好。
当然， 外文书也很多是谈的基督教。 其实， 我的外文不好国语也不标准。 而且，外国人的故事怎么会跟我的生活有相处的问题？
我想我能看华人基督教故事。
我刚刚看完一本书名字叫 "未世迷踪" 是美国最有名的宗教科幻系列， 第一册和系列是一样的名字
故事讲的是圣经启示录的预言. 我们基督教徒都相信圣经所有预言，但是我们应该小心"未世迷踪"作家帝姆-莱希对预言的理解和解译。
他的想法代表一个当代美国宗派。 世界和历史有不少不同预言解译。 但光看这个系列你只会知道一个五十年之前出来的解译。
帝姆-莱希 是从 还而-临的西拿来这个解译。 还而-临的西主要理论是‘the rapture' 根据这个理论, 未来会有所有真的基督教徒离开这个世界，而到天堂根 耶稣一块儿。 他们消失了我们的世界就开始一段时间叫“the tribulation" 这一段，上帝要做很多灾难， 还有基督的敌人要变成全球的独裁者还有很多困苦的事儿。
那这个rapture 宗派根我们中国基督教有关希的是蒂姆－莱希说这一段时间结束的时，中国的宾军要当耶稣的最大敌人！！！！！
因为有很多人知道这些书是从美国来的， 所以他们会觉得蒂姆－莱希的理论是肯定有道理． 但是，如果你努力学习圣经和基督教的历史， 你不会那么容易被这些人骗了． 圣经历没有rapture这个字儿． 这只是一个美国人 孩儿－临的西的理论， 百分之九十九基督教徒不相信． 相信的人那么少，但他们是很有权威．美国总统里根和小不思总统也相信这个rapture.
所以我们中国基督教猫可以看这些书， 但是不要完全相信它们所有的内容．
新年快乐
八酷你猫
在中国, 以前没有宗教科幻书. 我从小很喜欢看书， 但是没有很多适合我宗教的书。 我看了许多的小说， 还没找到一本书会让我心灵更好。
当然， 外文书也很多是谈的基督教。 其实， 我的外文不好国语也不标准。 而且，外国人的故事怎么会跟我的生活有相处的问题？
我想我能看华人基督教故事。
我刚刚看完一本书名字叫 "未世迷踪" 是美国最有名的宗教科幻系列， 第一册和系列是一样的名字
故事讲的是圣经启示录的预言. 我们基督教徒都相信圣经所有预言，但是我们应该小心"未世迷踪"作家帝姆-莱希对预言的理解和解译。
他的想法代表一个当代美国宗派。 世界和历史有不少不同预言解译。 但光看这个系列你只会知道一个五十年之前出来的解译。
帝姆-莱希 是从 还而-临的西拿来这个解译。 还而-临的西主要理论是‘the rapture' 根据这个理论, 未来会有所有真的基督教徒离开这个世界，而到天堂根 耶稣一块儿。 他们消失了我们的世界就开始一段时间叫“the tribulation" 这一段，上帝要做很多灾难， 还有基督的敌人要变成全球的独裁者还有很多困苦的事儿。
那这个rapture 宗派根我们中国基督教有关希的是蒂姆－莱希说这一段时间结束的时，中国的宾军要当耶稣的最大敌人！！！！！
因为有很多人知道这些书是从美国来的， 所以他们会觉得蒂姆－莱希的理论是肯定有道理． 但是，如果你努力学习圣经和基督教的历史， 你不会那么容易被这些人骗了． 圣经历没有rapture这个字儿． 这只是一个美国人 孩儿－临的西的理论， 百分之九十九基督教徒不相信． 相信的人那么少，但他们是很有权威．美国总统里根和小不思总统也相信这个rapture.
所以我们中国基督教猫可以看这些书， 但是不要完全相信它们所有的内容．
新年快乐
八酷你猫
NON-FICTION: ON CHICKS AND ON THE BBC
Well, I have gone through many kicks over the years, history, literature, neurology, comics, psychology, astrology. And most of these come and go in my mind.
Now, I'm off religion, isn't it? DId you notice the odditiy of that last sentence, i'n' it? Well, that's a sentence structure I've learned from watching British shows, i'n' it? It's not proper English, but proper English is outdated, even in England, i'n' it? The cool thing about that phrase is that it goes with every sort of sentence, i'n' it?
Let's see... I don't know that I can specifically delineate the particular point of departure into BBC land. But it started with me trying to find something fresh at the dvd stand.
Buying dvds at the stand (as opposed to a dvd shop) is not reliable, as all Expats know. Dvd stands cater more to impulse buying and get less people bringing back bad copies. So, a lot of these stands always offer the most popular movie titles. If you ask if its a clear copy, they always say yes, but half of the time, that's a lie. Most of the time, the first editions of pirated dvds are recorded from within the theatre. So you need a reliable retailer to make sure you get a real copy (even though I have had a lot of problems with the real copies being in Russian lately)
Anyways, its much safer to buy Televsion series, I've found.
So after discovering the sociologically fascinating L Word in this manner, i periodically returned to see what other tv treasures I might randomly discover.
Thus, I discovered Sugar Rush. A british show about an adorable little lesbian chick who moves to... Brighton? A resort town in England. There she struggles to find her true lesbian path amid the confusion of the straight world and her obsession with her best friend, Sugar.
Sugar is a black chick who lives on the 'estates' which, in Britain refers to something, somehow, equivalent to our ghettoes or poorer areas. They are often referred to in British rap music.
So this sugar sleeps with all kinds of guys. The crazy thing is, is that she only sleeps with white guys. Not only do you never see her hook up with black guys, but there's no black guys on the show.
Sugar, eventually, gives the lesbian sex a try with... i forgot the main chicks name. Sugar is really possessive and even though she's grossed out by sex with a girl, she becomes jealous after seeing the main chick fall in love with a real lesbian.
While the whole coming out drama is going on, the main chicks family is falling apart. Her brother is described, throughout the whole series, as 'weird'. We don't get any insight as to how, but this is entirely sufficient for a chick show, 'i'n' it?
Her father is kind of a pussy with no chin. But he's really responsible and takes good care of the family.
The mother, in surprising counterpoint, is selfish, irresponsible, and sexually unfulfilled. So she has an affair with a hot young stud and throws the marriage into utter tragedy.
Why did I watch this whole series and mourn it's cancellation, i'n' it? Two things, British People and Chicks.
Even though, these shows are as formulaic and filled with contemporary obligatory roles and themes, it's fascinating to see them in a slightly different cast, that is, for the British market.
Also, the very unreality of this show, and the following few which I'll mention, reflects profound truths about female culture.
Let me take Mistresses as an example. Its about four woman pursuing various affairs, mostly outside their own marriages or inside someone else's.
What you see is that the makers of the program expect woman viewers to respond to constant, socially proscribed, sex.
In one way, it seems as if the traditional womans story of Finding Mr. Right has now been amended to include Fucking Mr. Right.
In another, similary way, it seems that romance novels and soap operas have been elevated a few degrees of respectability.
In Mistresses, the women rarely have sex with the people they should be having it with. There's a lawyer who has a great, attractive loving husband, but instead she's screwing her hot coworker. Then, the woman who is single and involved with a single, nice guy, gives up on having sex with him and breaks off the relationship.
The two other girls are no different. One is always contemplating her affair with her married boss, and the other is screwing the hot son of her dead married lover.
You would be right to ascribe all this to the mere love of conflict on the part of audiences, but the key is not merely that there is conflict, but in the type of conflict.
Another example is Honest, which is not exclusively a chick show, because it also caters strongly to male sexual fantasy. But, for the female main characters, there is little sexual satisfaction coming from normal relationships. The mother has to take care of and provide for the family while her criminal husband is in prison. She's a really tough, strong female role model. But, her husband's in jail and she's got so much on her mind, so how can she be in the mood?
Her two daughters aren't having much satisfaction either. One is a really sharp business minded teenager. The other is a really sexy bimbo. The sharp one has a crush on a guy, but how can he notice her with the hot sister around, i'n' it?
The bimbo sister can't enjoy sex because she can only use it as a tool to manipulate men.
The twin brothers, on on the other hand get to screw hot chicks enjoy it. The dumb one screws his Cantonese Mafia Boss employer's wife, and, i think the super hot daughter.
The smart brother definitely screws the daughter and they both enjoy it.
Now, this daughter and mother are enjoying their sex, but in both cases, it's improper, especially for the mother.
Less so for the daughter. Now here's another point about these British shows i so enjoy, i;n; it?
That is, the white British male still maintains his sexual preeminence.
The wife of the Cantonese Mafia Boss is white, but the daugther is Chinese, so, even though she's single and its okay for her to be having sex, she's a exotic oriental vixen and it is natural that she is ready to get it on with any young white guy.
On Mistresses, the South Asian-looking woman is sleeping with her unattractive boss, then strays to the female side, than tries to rebound with a good looking black guy, but then all you see is her saying "There's your cab, let yourself out."
On that show, there's another non-anglo-saxon. He looks a little arabic. He's really nice, but he's infertile! And his lawyer wife is the one screwing the tall, square jawed, green eyed Briton.
The other British show I liked was Meadowlands. And in that one there's two non-whites. A black woman and a black guy. But they don't get it on with anyone. The black guy is officially with a white chick, but then we find out that they're undercover and just pretending.
Meadowlands (called Cape Wrath in the UK, i'n' it?) was pretty cool. It was a bit of toned down take on the Twin Peaks feel, with a straightforward mystery plot.
The story was a bunch of people in the Witness Protection program get sent to this mysterious small town in the middle of a vast desert. But the residents don't know anything about where they are.
It turns out that the whole town is actually a social experiment that's being monitored by some secret group.
Anyways, back to the profound truths I've learned from chick shows. I should also include The L Word and Desperate Houswives, because I've seen all seasons of these shows too.
The modern point about woman that is being repeated over and over again is that sex, for woman, is sooo complicated, but that they must be respected fully as sexual beings every bit as men are. You have to be sensitive and deal sensitively with all the sensitive issues in woman's life. And lesbian sex is not just something you can jump into. That is, if you're a male fantasizing about it (which is absurd). On the other hand, if you're on the L Word than it is quire common for straight women to suddenly moisten at the approach of a hot lesbian.
So, it seems that modern woman's television is not so profound after all. Well, in that case, perhaps I need another excuse to keep watching... I guess I'm still just fascinated by women. I would much more eagerly welcome real stories about women. Stories that accurately reflect the way they deal with daily life and important issues in their lives.
But, in absent of that I'll stick what I've got it, i'n' it?
Now, I'm off religion, isn't it? DId you notice the odditiy of that last sentence, i'n' it? Well, that's a sentence structure I've learned from watching British shows, i'n' it? It's not proper English, but proper English is outdated, even in England, i'n' it? The cool thing about that phrase is that it goes with every sort of sentence, i'n' it?
Let's see... I don't know that I can specifically delineate the particular point of departure into BBC land. But it started with me trying to find something fresh at the dvd stand.
Buying dvds at the stand (as opposed to a dvd shop) is not reliable, as all Expats know. Dvd stands cater more to impulse buying and get less people bringing back bad copies. So, a lot of these stands always offer the most popular movie titles. If you ask if its a clear copy, they always say yes, but half of the time, that's a lie. Most of the time, the first editions of pirated dvds are recorded from within the theatre. So you need a reliable retailer to make sure you get a real copy (even though I have had a lot of problems with the real copies being in Russian lately)
Anyways, its much safer to buy Televsion series, I've found.
So after discovering the sociologically fascinating L Word in this manner, i periodically returned to see what other tv treasures I might randomly discover.
Thus, I discovered Sugar Rush. A british show about an adorable little lesbian chick who moves to... Brighton? A resort town in England. There she struggles to find her true lesbian path amid the confusion of the straight world and her obsession with her best friend, Sugar.
Sugar is a black chick who lives on the 'estates' which, in Britain refers to something, somehow, equivalent to our ghettoes or poorer areas. They are often referred to in British rap music.
So this sugar sleeps with all kinds of guys. The crazy thing is, is that she only sleeps with white guys. Not only do you never see her hook up with black guys, but there's no black guys on the show.
Sugar, eventually, gives the lesbian sex a try with... i forgot the main chicks name. Sugar is really possessive and even though she's grossed out by sex with a girl, she becomes jealous after seeing the main chick fall in love with a real lesbian.
While the whole coming out drama is going on, the main chicks family is falling apart. Her brother is described, throughout the whole series, as 'weird'. We don't get any insight as to how, but this is entirely sufficient for a chick show, 'i'n' it?
Her father is kind of a pussy with no chin. But he's really responsible and takes good care of the family.
The mother, in surprising counterpoint, is selfish, irresponsible, and sexually unfulfilled. So she has an affair with a hot young stud and throws the marriage into utter tragedy.
Why did I watch this whole series and mourn it's cancellation, i'n' it? Two things, British People and Chicks.
Even though, these shows are as formulaic and filled with contemporary obligatory roles and themes, it's fascinating to see them in a slightly different cast, that is, for the British market.
Also, the very unreality of this show, and the following few which I'll mention, reflects profound truths about female culture.
Let me take Mistresses as an example. Its about four woman pursuing various affairs, mostly outside their own marriages or inside someone else's.
What you see is that the makers of the program expect woman viewers to respond to constant, socially proscribed, sex.
In one way, it seems as if the traditional womans story of Finding Mr. Right has now been amended to include Fucking Mr. Right.
In another, similary way, it seems that romance novels and soap operas have been elevated a few degrees of respectability.
In Mistresses, the women rarely have sex with the people they should be having it with. There's a lawyer who has a great, attractive loving husband, but instead she's screwing her hot coworker. Then, the woman who is single and involved with a single, nice guy, gives up on having sex with him and breaks off the relationship.
The two other girls are no different. One is always contemplating her affair with her married boss, and the other is screwing the hot son of her dead married lover.
You would be right to ascribe all this to the mere love of conflict on the part of audiences, but the key is not merely that there is conflict, but in the type of conflict.
Another example is Honest, which is not exclusively a chick show, because it also caters strongly to male sexual fantasy. But, for the female main characters, there is little sexual satisfaction coming from normal relationships. The mother has to take care of and provide for the family while her criminal husband is in prison. She's a really tough, strong female role model. But, her husband's in jail and she's got so much on her mind, so how can she be in the mood?
Her two daughters aren't having much satisfaction either. One is a really sharp business minded teenager. The other is a really sexy bimbo. The sharp one has a crush on a guy, but how can he notice her with the hot sister around, i'n' it?
The bimbo sister can't enjoy sex because she can only use it as a tool to manipulate men.
The twin brothers, on on the other hand get to screw hot chicks enjoy it. The dumb one screws his Cantonese Mafia Boss employer's wife, and, i think the super hot daughter.
The smart brother definitely screws the daughter and they both enjoy it.
Now, this daughter and mother are enjoying their sex, but in both cases, it's improper, especially for the mother.
Less so for the daughter. Now here's another point about these British shows i so enjoy, i;n; it?
That is, the white British male still maintains his sexual preeminence.
The wife of the Cantonese Mafia Boss is white, but the daugther is Chinese, so, even though she's single and its okay for her to be having sex, she's a exotic oriental vixen and it is natural that she is ready to get it on with any young white guy.
On Mistresses, the South Asian-looking woman is sleeping with her unattractive boss, then strays to the female side, than tries to rebound with a good looking black guy, but then all you see is her saying "There's your cab, let yourself out."
On that show, there's another non-anglo-saxon. He looks a little arabic. He's really nice, but he's infertile! And his lawyer wife is the one screwing the tall, square jawed, green eyed Briton.
The other British show I liked was Meadowlands. And in that one there's two non-whites. A black woman and a black guy. But they don't get it on with anyone. The black guy is officially with a white chick, but then we find out that they're undercover and just pretending.
Meadowlands (called Cape Wrath in the UK, i'n' it?) was pretty cool. It was a bit of toned down take on the Twin Peaks feel, with a straightforward mystery plot.
The story was a bunch of people in the Witness Protection program get sent to this mysterious small town in the middle of a vast desert. But the residents don't know anything about where they are.
It turns out that the whole town is actually a social experiment that's being monitored by some secret group.
Anyways, back to the profound truths I've learned from chick shows. I should also include The L Word and Desperate Houswives, because I've seen all seasons of these shows too.
The modern point about woman that is being repeated over and over again is that sex, for woman, is sooo complicated, but that they must be respected fully as sexual beings every bit as men are. You have to be sensitive and deal sensitively with all the sensitive issues in woman's life. And lesbian sex is not just something you can jump into. That is, if you're a male fantasizing about it (which is absurd). On the other hand, if you're on the L Word than it is quire common for straight women to suddenly moisten at the approach of a hot lesbian.
So, it seems that modern woman's television is not so profound after all. Well, in that case, perhaps I need another excuse to keep watching... I guess I'm still just fascinated by women. I would much more eagerly welcome real stories about women. Stories that accurately reflect the way they deal with daily life and important issues in their lives.
But, in absent of that I'll stick what I've got it, i'n' it?
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Two things from Facing the Shame.
You know what really deserves talking about? That book I've been reading on Shame-based families. It's called "Facing the Shame" It goes into great analysis of the structure of shame based/dysfunctional families.
two insights I've gotten so far are: The coping mechanism in my family for shame has been what the book refers to as the 'geographic cure' that is, we just get away from each other cause we cant deal with the problems.
You dont know what a revelation that is considering how long I've spent analyzing our family dysfunction.
It's amazing, given that my grandparents on my dads side both fled their families. Grandpa TT left his dirt poor family in Kentucky for the navy and never moved back, instead settling in California. Grandma TT was from Washington and she ran away from her family and married Grandpa TT.
Then, on my moms side Great Gradndpa went from a reservation in Mexico to Chicago, running a bar, and then to socal.
My dads parents retired and moved to Oregon while he stayed in southern California. My mom spent all her adult life trying to escape her mother. Her brothers that didn't escape her, both have had plenty of incarceration and drug abuse experience, as well as an inability to hold down any kind of stable job or life.
The one that did get away from Grandma Ramona (I never call her Grandma, just Ramona) was the youngest, Uncle Mark. He became very successful and stable in his work and life, basically by doing the opposite of everything Ramona did.
Back on my dad's side, there are his four Children that have spread out across the US and now the world. Stephen went from Northern California back to southern and then to New York and Jersey and back, and now he's here in Shanghai.
Cheryl Lives in Oklahoma with her tribe of children. Becky lives the closest to my Dad. He and Hanh live in Norwalk and Becky lives in Anaheim.
Okay, I know this may be tedious, but that's three generations that have used the geographic solution to family problems. I should mention Robbie too, our brother. His dad took off before he was born. Ramona got custody and really messed up him up big time. He's not exactly in the same class as the two Uncles who stayed with Ramona, but that's due, I believe to his wife, who seems to really have taken care of him.
Then, the last part of this is Cheryl's Kids, my nephews. Of the three oldest, Matthew joined the army and got away... to Iraq. Nathan was living with his dad, and then joined the army too and was in korea, but i think he might be back in the states. Michael joined the navy and is now in japan or on a submarine deep below the sea.
Okay, okay, the really real last part is this: Divorce and discarding of partners. My dad, my mom, cheryl and Ramona are/were all pretty bad at intimate relationships. I have also been that way and Stephen's dearth thereof seems to include him in this list.
I have seen so often in me, Stephen and our father a tendency close to eagerness to reject people out of our lives. I've seen Stephen do it with many of his employers, and seem to threaten it with his closest friends Jerry and Justin. I have done it to a few of closest friends, and many 'partners' that I've had. My dad, of course has done it with Stephen, my mother, his own father and countless others.
My mom had this tendency. Both my mom and dad had they're own little catchphrases that I'm sure will stay with Steve and Me forever and ever, whether we are conscious of it or not.
My dad's was "To Hell with him!" and my mom's was "I've washed my hands of you!"
Oh, i have gone over the one hour limit and am now at an hour and a half. GOOD LITTLE BOY YOU ARE MR. TAYLOR!!
The other thing about "Facing Shame" that hit me was a simple paragraph wherein the authors describe addiction as not reducible to a single element and that it was tied in generally as a pat of compulsion. I realized that, it is compulsion, not any mere addiction that I really am afraid to be without. That it is compulsion that I feel desperate and naked without.
Okay, now that ive made it through this task, I will finish up with the novel notes and put the trash away and maybe i really will stay up late and get things done.
I thought today that if I am going to insist on snacking even at eight o clock, than I really ought to just become one of those people who's always doing things
But the thinking of that thought might only be due to my now being in a very proactive mood, as opposed to the do-almost-nothing mindset I've been in for the past two weeks/too long.
My active mood might just be the stars, or me tired of being alone avoiding any one thing I intend to do.
an hours writing on Chinese New Year
I told myself I'm going to write for one hour without stopping. That means i will stop at one thirty am.
I'm listening to book eleven of the left behind series: Armageddon.
My main tasks today have been to compile the notes for my novel, which are written on the backs of old fliers for Shanghai Daily that Emma brought home, the paper packaging for pirated dvds here (consisting of paper slightly firmer than construction paper and having four segments, the front contains the movie cover and the back description and two other movie related panels.), large papers that i hang up on the hall, timelines already hung up on the wall, and pages from my many never-full notebooks.
oh, my other task is studying HSK vocab by writing out sentences for words that i dont know in my intermediate vocab book. Some of them I know but i forget the tone, like 跨,to straddle, the one to crumble and the one to boast. Sometimes I see the pinyin and I realized that I have been using the wrong tone, or that I have been using the characters without knowing the tones. Thats not as bad, because sometimes I just repeat things direct from memory. I'm good at imitating things I hear. But it's still embarrassing to realize I've been saying the name of the place like the science and technology museum the right way, but doing so unconsciously.
One of the innocent but annoyingly repetitive questions I can rely on my Chinese comrades asking me is whether or not studying Chinese hard. Aside from its frustrating recurrence hundreds of time every year, I am annoyed by the implied simplicity and the insincerity of the question.
I don't think any real student of any language should think in such acontextual terms as hard or easy. Like, I Consider Latin really hard because of all the cases, but its also easy in its sentence struecture and vocabulary (because I know so many latin word descendants in Spanish and English)
So people ask me if Chinese is hard, rhetorically, because they want to sympathize and establish a tentative bond between themselves and a foreigner. But I, in my rigorously analytic, everyones bothering me state of mind, explain clearly and briefly that the hard aspect of learning Chinese is really just the reading and writing. The pronunciation is much simpler than English and the grammar is too.
(It's Chinese New Years, so its so fucking loud right now with all the fireworks. I havent been out of the house all day. I cannot hear much of the Left Behind book that just finished and many a car alarm is chiming in unison with the armageddon like explosions 'round my cave.)
The thing about Chinese is that you cant just read through something and store away all the words you dont know for later. Like, I still dont know what 'eorundem' means in Latin. But see, it has letters and I remember it. However. If you see 甚 with a place/land radical next to it, you have to look up it up in the dictionary before you no how its pronounced. You might get lucky by guessing that, since without the radical it's 'shen', therefore with the radical it might be something close, like 'shen' in a different tone, or chen, or zhen. But that's no guarantee.
(I've now reached the point, as many of us do every chinese new year, when the noise from the fireworks is so loud and so persistent that my instincts have overridden my conscious and I'm quite tense and nervous and looking for somewhere to hide from the noise and gundpowder scent seeping in through my closed windows.)
I see now that it is tweve a clock, so thats why there making all that damn noise.
Well, well, well, I saw the movie "the Ten" which is a very fresh comedy cut up into ten stories, one for each commandment. As I watched, I realized I was seeing the generational shift in comedy formalized.
The trend in comedy that started with Airplane and Police Story, and continuing on to the Simpons, MST3K, Kids in the Hall, The Ben stiller Show and South Park is now becoming perhaps more intensified with this younger generation (actually it is my generation)
Imitation of Pop culture in order to mock, along with intricate absurdity is still the paradigm, but the form is changing. As of yet, I haven't worked out the details, but its good to see that it, at least hasnt degenerated.
Anyways, Speaking of the kids in the hall, I recently rewatched the first three seasons and I was amazed at how advanced they were, both in topic and imagination. The sketch telling everyone to "stand in the new style" , the one where Dave foley goes to ask his boss for a raise and his boss says he doesnt deserve it, since Dave wrote this present Sketch which uses such a cliched premise (a guy asking for a raise)... and "Screw you Taxpayer" which talks about how the whole show is payed for by public funds and flaunts their contempt of the public.
(The fireworks quieted for a second, i felt hope stirring.... wait. there not starting back up, at least nearby, just bottle rockets and distant rumbling and alarms. oh shit, there we go, they're back)
I bought some new under wears, or long johns or whatever they're called at the carrefour when me and steve went to thumb plaza to eat at punjabis.
I am curious to see how long I will wear these new p.j.'s long john's before i actually wash the clothing i wore for the last two months, so that i might change clothes yet again.
The day that we saw The Ten, I also purchased and previewed the new Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp, what an insult!
I think Depp was good in twenty one jump street and the one where he played the flaming, alcoholic pirate. But Sweeney Todd is a fucking musical!! If you cannot sing with a deep enough voice than you are not fit for the fucking part!!!!
Why does he have to be so arrogant as to ruin a cool musical just because his pseudo artistic goth buddy Tim Burton is too in love to find someone who suits the fucking role???
Are they supposed to be an item? Any self respecting, successful gay man should know better than to go after a straight guy just because he is hot. That's so trite!
Oh shucky shucks, I'm almost done with the hour!!!! Hurray, Ive actually got something done.
Sadly, I feel not much better for the effort, although perhaps i will be able to concentrate on either of the tasks that I have set for myself. I really 渴望很久to出版my 书 any 书都可以。
its been eighteen years since I wanted to be a writer. And to date I have only published/sold six articles. thats not very good Mr. Taylor. But, We've been over this ground to many times before and so has every other failure and successful person.
I think I will finish my notes for Matthews last post regarding his video game. That will get one of the many put-off-in-favor-of-putting-off-something-else-tasks out of the way.
Well, I have been alone for the past ten or twelve days. Here in the apartment, Emma went back to Shaanxi. I want her to get pictures of the food there 扯面，麻辣炒面，and 凉皮儿. Also I want her to make a video of her grandma, who I really like and feel bad about not seeing this time.
I'm going to seperate this into two posts, i'll cut it off at the beginning of the 'Facing Shame' portion. good night and happy new years and 看春着晚，多发点短信。发财，发财， 不要花财on dorritos and punjabis!!!
I'm listening to book eleven of the left behind series: Armageddon.
My main tasks today have been to compile the notes for my novel, which are written on the backs of old fliers for Shanghai Daily that Emma brought home, the paper packaging for pirated dvds here (consisting of paper slightly firmer than construction paper and having four segments, the front contains the movie cover and the back description and two other movie related panels.), large papers that i hang up on the hall, timelines already hung up on the wall, and pages from my many never-full notebooks.
oh, my other task is studying HSK vocab by writing out sentences for words that i dont know in my intermediate vocab book. Some of them I know but i forget the tone, like 跨,to straddle, the one to crumble and the one to boast. Sometimes I see the pinyin and I realized that I have been using the wrong tone, or that I have been using the characters without knowing the tones. Thats not as bad, because sometimes I just repeat things direct from memory. I'm good at imitating things I hear. But it's still embarrassing to realize I've been saying the name of the place like the science and technology museum the right way, but doing so unconsciously.
One of the innocent but annoyingly repetitive questions I can rely on my Chinese comrades asking me is whether or not studying Chinese hard. Aside from its frustrating recurrence hundreds of time every year, I am annoyed by the implied simplicity and the insincerity of the question.
I don't think any real student of any language should think in such acontextual terms as hard or easy. Like, I Consider Latin really hard because of all the cases, but its also easy in its sentence struecture and vocabulary (because I know so many latin word descendants in Spanish and English)
So people ask me if Chinese is hard, rhetorically, because they want to sympathize and establish a tentative bond between themselves and a foreigner. But I, in my rigorously analytic, everyones bothering me state of mind, explain clearly and briefly that the hard aspect of learning Chinese is really just the reading and writing. The pronunciation is much simpler than English and the grammar is too.
(It's Chinese New Years, so its so fucking loud right now with all the fireworks. I havent been out of the house all day. I cannot hear much of the Left Behind book that just finished and many a car alarm is chiming in unison with the armageddon like explosions 'round my cave.)
The thing about Chinese is that you cant just read through something and store away all the words you dont know for later. Like, I still dont know what 'eorundem' means in Latin. But see, it has letters and I remember it. However. If you see 甚 with a place/land radical next to it, you have to look up it up in the dictionary before you no how its pronounced. You might get lucky by guessing that, since without the radical it's 'shen', therefore with the radical it might be something close, like 'shen' in a different tone, or chen, or zhen. But that's no guarantee.
(I've now reached the point, as many of us do every chinese new year, when the noise from the fireworks is so loud and so persistent that my instincts have overridden my conscious and I'm quite tense and nervous and looking for somewhere to hide from the noise and gundpowder scent seeping in through my closed windows.)
I see now that it is tweve a clock, so thats why there making all that damn noise.
Well, well, well, I saw the movie "the Ten" which is a very fresh comedy cut up into ten stories, one for each commandment. As I watched, I realized I was seeing the generational shift in comedy formalized.
The trend in comedy that started with Airplane and Police Story, and continuing on to the Simpons, MST3K, Kids in the Hall, The Ben stiller Show and South Park is now becoming perhaps more intensified with this younger generation (actually it is my generation)
Imitation of Pop culture in order to mock, along with intricate absurdity is still the paradigm, but the form is changing. As of yet, I haven't worked out the details, but its good to see that it, at least hasnt degenerated.
Anyways, Speaking of the kids in the hall, I recently rewatched the first three seasons and I was amazed at how advanced they were, both in topic and imagination. The sketch telling everyone to "stand in the new style" , the one where Dave foley goes to ask his boss for a raise and his boss says he doesnt deserve it, since Dave wrote this present Sketch which uses such a cliched premise (a guy asking for a raise)... and "Screw you Taxpayer" which talks about how the whole show is payed for by public funds and flaunts their contempt of the public.
(The fireworks quieted for a second, i felt hope stirring.... wait. there not starting back up, at least nearby, just bottle rockets and distant rumbling and alarms. oh shit, there we go, they're back)
I bought some new under wears, or long johns or whatever they're called at the carrefour when me and steve went to thumb plaza to eat at punjabis.
I am curious to see how long I will wear these new p.j.'s long john's before i actually wash the clothing i wore for the last two months, so that i might change clothes yet again.
The day that we saw The Ten, I also purchased and previewed the new Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp, what an insult!
I think Depp was good in twenty one jump street and the one where he played the flaming, alcoholic pirate. But Sweeney Todd is a fucking musical!! If you cannot sing with a deep enough voice than you are not fit for the fucking part!!!!
Why does he have to be so arrogant as to ruin a cool musical just because his pseudo artistic goth buddy Tim Burton is too in love to find someone who suits the fucking role???
Are they supposed to be an item? Any self respecting, successful gay man should know better than to go after a straight guy just because he is hot. That's so trite!
Oh shucky shucks, I'm almost done with the hour!!!! Hurray, Ive actually got something done.
Sadly, I feel not much better for the effort, although perhaps i will be able to concentrate on either of the tasks that I have set for myself. I really 渴望很久to出版my 书 any 书都可以。
its been eighteen years since I wanted to be a writer. And to date I have only published/sold six articles. thats not very good Mr. Taylor. But, We've been over this ground to many times before and so has every other failure and successful person.
I think I will finish my notes for Matthews last post regarding his video game. That will get one of the many put-off-in-favor-of-putting-off-something-else-tasks out of the way.
Well, I have been alone for the past ten or twelve days. Here in the apartment, Emma went back to Shaanxi. I want her to get pictures of the food there 扯面，麻辣炒面，and 凉皮儿. Also I want her to make a video of her grandma, who I really like and feel bad about not seeing this time.
I'm going to seperate this into two posts, i'll cut it off at the beginning of the 'Facing Shame' portion. good night and happy new years and 看春着晚，多发点短信。发财，发财， 不要花财on dorritos and punjabis!!!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Kerouac, long after Schopenhauer
Thanks Mercy for giving me something to write about.
Seeing the beats through modern eyes:
I can see why you would not be hooked by chilling with hobos and having no fixed residence. I didn't read the whole thing, but it looks like guys escaping the waspish middle class culture by disobeying its conventions. I think the lack of dialogue and sentence breaks is probably what made it special back in 57.
In history
before
But i wonder how aware he was of previous bohemian generations? I think Jacques Barzun in Dawn to Decadence makes a great point of how many twentieth century causes, particularly counter culture, free love, drug use as transcendental, and a fascination with eastern religion were taken up in the late 1800's and early 1900's
That time was also the time of great labor unrest, the Red Menace, and the assassination of Mckinley by an avowed anarchist.
Also, whats the difference in style between Kerouac and Ulysses/Finnegans Wake?
I think the beat generation were part of a resurfacing of the counter cultural trend that was probably suppressed through war-induced patriotism and the Great Depression.
But the main elements, that is the bohemian lifestyle, transcendence of conventional reality and disregard for literary conventions were nothing new, but merely a recurring theme throughout western civilization.
History
aftter
Two good things I can ascribe to their lineage: One is the poetry or lyrics of Saul Williams. Although he is in the genre of spoken word, I have downloaded three of his albums and they are fucking brilliant.
The other is a renewed emphasis on the illusory nature of conventional social reality. The transcendence of ego and the importance of the infinite/god.
One bad thing that the beat movement inseminated was the lineage of anti-convention which , via the hippies and post-modern bullshit led to the complete and utter lack of any criteria with which young people might be able to evaluate the assemblage of language into something having the properties of good and/or bad. That is to say, my self indulgent bullshit is just as good as yours.
Remember in the Nineties how all those lower class black and white guests on Jerry Springer (or equivalent) would say "You cain't judge me!" and in the r&b songs they would say they "There's only one judge, yo, and that's God."???????
One ugly thing they played a causal role in was the glorification of substance abuse. (I forogot to mention that Rimbaud abandoned poetic form and civilization, in favor of drugs, several decades earlier and proclaimed the universal primacy of love before becoming a nihilist.) I recognize that drugs/alcohol really do help one to escape from their current state of mind. But there is no connection between talent and alcohol. Being a pathetic junkie or drunk who happens to be gifted, doesn't excuse one's destructive behavior.
I do believe that weed and hallucinogenics really do open your mind in the sense that they alter your perception, so that you might not forever be a slave to the features of awareness that dominate you merely through their persistence.
But it disgusts me how many times I've seen these movies about artists/junkies or lushes wherein nobody ever points out that there addiction is not the tragedy of a great artist, but the common tragedy of any 'average' person unable to escape their destructive behavior, like a child molester or someone who beats their wife and kids.
Wait, I forgot blacks, blacks, blacks!
How and the fuck can you listen to those beats without talking about how much of their style comes from black people? Syncopated diction, love of Jazz, unconventional, wild lifestyles, drugs and living on the edge. Dude, that's white kids looking at the black side of town. That's black people through white eyes. Think about how they would have seen them in the forties and fifties: No work ethic, no place in society, love to sing and dance, fond of getting their smoke and drink on, sexually amoral. Jack Kerouac mentions this relation in "The early history of Bop"
So, I don't want to sound down on old Jack, but if I was there around 1960 or so, I'd say "I think you're doing good work in showing another way to live and write, but, don't bullshit yourself, there's still a long way to go. You say there's no world, the infinite is love and all that. Go for it. But, if you want to escape some new shit, escape your own bullshit. Escape the pretenses that you've been keeping inside of you. Escape your addictions. You say there's no real, we're all insane,but your self-destruction is real. The pain and fragmentation around you is real. There's still a long way to go to freedom, so don't stop."
As I write this, I'm listening to various readings by Kerouac. Not bad..
Seeing the beats through modern eyes:
I can see why you would not be hooked by chilling with hobos and having no fixed residence. I didn't read the whole thing, but it looks like guys escaping the waspish middle class culture by disobeying its conventions. I think the lack of dialogue and sentence breaks is probably what made it special back in 57.
In history
before
But i wonder how aware he was of previous bohemian generations? I think Jacques Barzun in Dawn to Decadence makes a great point of how many twentieth century causes, particularly counter culture, free love, drug use as transcendental, and a fascination with eastern religion were taken up in the late 1800's and early 1900's
That time was also the time of great labor unrest, the Red Menace, and the assassination of Mckinley by an avowed anarchist.
Also, whats the difference in style between Kerouac and Ulysses/Finnegans Wake?
I think the beat generation were part of a resurfacing of the counter cultural trend that was probably suppressed through war-induced patriotism and the Great Depression.
But the main elements, that is the bohemian lifestyle, transcendence of conventional reality and disregard for literary conventions were nothing new, but merely a recurring theme throughout western civilization.
History
aftter
Two good things I can ascribe to their lineage: One is the poetry or lyrics of Saul Williams. Although he is in the genre of spoken word, I have downloaded three of his albums and they are fucking brilliant.
The other is a renewed emphasis on the illusory nature of conventional social reality. The transcendence of ego and the importance of the infinite/god.
One bad thing that the beat movement inseminated was the lineage of anti-convention which , via the hippies and post-modern bullshit led to the complete and utter lack of any criteria with which young people might be able to evaluate the assemblage of language into something having the properties of good and/or bad. That is to say, my self indulgent bullshit is just as good as yours.
Remember in the Nineties how all those lower class black and white guests on Jerry Springer (or equivalent) would say "You cain't judge me!" and in the r&b songs they would say they "There's only one judge, yo, and that's God."???????
One ugly thing they played a causal role in was the glorification of substance abuse. (I forogot to mention that Rimbaud abandoned poetic form and civilization, in favor of drugs, several decades earlier and proclaimed the universal primacy of love before becoming a nihilist.) I recognize that drugs/alcohol really do help one to escape from their current state of mind. But there is no connection between talent and alcohol. Being a pathetic junkie or drunk who happens to be gifted, doesn't excuse one's destructive behavior.
I do believe that weed and hallucinogenics really do open your mind in the sense that they alter your perception, so that you might not forever be a slave to the features of awareness that dominate you merely through their persistence.
But it disgusts me how many times I've seen these movies about artists/junkies or lushes wherein nobody ever points out that there addiction is not the tragedy of a great artist, but the common tragedy of any 'average' person unable to escape their destructive behavior, like a child molester or someone who beats their wife and kids.
Wait, I forgot blacks, blacks, blacks!
How and the fuck can you listen to those beats without talking about how much of their style comes from black people? Syncopated diction, love of Jazz, unconventional, wild lifestyles, drugs and living on the edge. Dude, that's white kids looking at the black side of town. That's black people through white eyes. Think about how they would have seen them in the forties and fifties: No work ethic, no place in society, love to sing and dance, fond of getting their smoke and drink on, sexually amoral. Jack Kerouac mentions this relation in "The early history of Bop"
So, I don't want to sound down on old Jack, but if I was there around 1960 or so, I'd say "I think you're doing good work in showing another way to live and write, but, don't bullshit yourself, there's still a long way to go. You say there's no world, the infinite is love and all that. Go for it. But, if you want to escape some new shit, escape your own bullshit. Escape the pretenses that you've been keeping inside of you. Escape your addictions. You say there's no real, we're all insane,but your self-destruction is real. The pain and fragmentation around you is real. There's still a long way to go to freedom, so don't stop."
As I write this, I'm listening to various readings by Kerouac. Not bad..
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Fiction大论's冒险的很journey pt.4 pg. 23
(darrens perilous journey: a choose my own adventure story. screw that trip, play it safe and investigate the submarine pg. 23)
You know what fool, when it comes down to it, I have had just about enough of this mysterious danger for one day, alright!?
Looking at the old merlyn guy, I was totally all like, ch, you know, this is just your basic case of information overload! Im going on brain freeze right now.
Merlyn, through his magic, majestic, knack for intuition, guessed all that was in my heart then, in but a single glance. He was all "You know what they say about pigeons and unicorns, right?" He gave a scholarly and hearty chuckle.
"What do they say?" I asked trepidaciously, fearing a big getting moded coming on.
He twirled his sword around and inserted it smoothly into the soft warmth of his scabber. "They say," he said teasingly, lifting the sword out of its scabber and pushing it back in unconsciously. "When the unicorn tires of this life, it is such a tragedy, but when a pigeon feels that even being the early bird is far too much to even jest, it doesnt even seem like a problem."
Aww double shnap! That was not very lol, yo! I cocked my head an raised my eyebrow, all hard and stuff. Was this guy calling me some kind of pigeon? Aww, fooey, i thought. Let his mockery come. I could bear it after all. I simply turned the cheek on him and went about spelunking this submerged vessel.
Instead of taking the bait of his demeaning commentary, i was just like, "Have fun at the Underwater Kingdom, hope you dont get jacked, dick."
He chuckled wistfully, stroking his beard and tugging at his wise gray hair with his other hand. He walked toward the hatch and opened it. Over my head, i looked up to see above me was a huge room, made of marble and china. Whoa! these guys must have been into to serious dough alright.
But, not wanting to be seduced by the temptation, i forced my eyes to tear themselves from the amazing vista above.
He climbed out and closed the hatch behind him. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and got down to checking out what was really going on around here! There was two doors behind me. I went into the second one and saw a hallway with a bunch of other doors. I went down to the third door and opened it.
I was utterly amazed and stunned at the vision before me. This must be the magic room, i thought. For inside of the room, it was all cluttered up messily with wondrous enchanting objects, suggestive of magic and the times of yore!
On the table in the middle of the room could be seen human skulls with jeweled necklaces snaking in and out of them. Hanging from the walls were black capes, and velvet ones too. Above the capes I could make out witches hats.
But, once again, fate just wouldnt let me chill. A huge rocking motion shook the boat and a loud boom made a huge sound.
We were under attack. I made my back down the hall. A guy with a black and white striped shirt and a red bandanna over his brow, stumbled out and fell down dead right in front of my own eyes, for all the world to see.
As soon as I got back to the main control room, i realized what had to be done. The shots had been called, and now I had to put my nuts on the line. I shook my head wanly, how quickly things change in a persons life!
Calling on my expert navigation skills that i had garnished from my experience, i quickly scanned the control panels, noting the function of every switch with cutthroat accuracy. Then, i saw the weapons panel. Alright, these guys wanna play dirty, then lets get it on to the break of dawn, bitch. I pressed a button on the weapons panel entitled "Tomahawk Cruisers" Lets just see what this can do about it.
There was a great sound of explosion, like the thing that attacked me was blowing up. Then i heard a beeping urgently coming from the communication panel and flicked the switch. "Mayday, mayday, Hey Merlyn, i know we just tried to take you guys prisoner, but you gotta just go ahead and let bygones and bygones, for the sake of our lives." My face grinned sadistically, grimacing in the cruel evil that i was gonna do.
You know what fool, when it comes down to it, I have had just about enough of this mysterious danger for one day, alright!?
Looking at the old merlyn guy, I was totally all like, ch, you know, this is just your basic case of information overload! Im going on brain freeze right now.
Merlyn, through his magic, majestic, knack for intuition, guessed all that was in my heart then, in but a single glance. He was all "You know what they say about pigeons and unicorns, right?" He gave a scholarly and hearty chuckle.
"What do they say?" I asked trepidaciously, fearing a big getting moded coming on.
He twirled his sword around and inserted it smoothly into the soft warmth of his scabber. "They say," he said teasingly, lifting the sword out of its scabber and pushing it back in unconsciously. "When the unicorn tires of this life, it is such a tragedy, but when a pigeon feels that even being the early bird is far too much to even jest, it doesnt even seem like a problem."
Aww double shnap! That was not very lol, yo! I cocked my head an raised my eyebrow, all hard and stuff. Was this guy calling me some kind of pigeon? Aww, fooey, i thought. Let his mockery come. I could bear it after all. I simply turned the cheek on him and went about spelunking this submerged vessel.
Instead of taking the bait of his demeaning commentary, i was just like, "Have fun at the Underwater Kingdom, hope you dont get jacked, dick."
He chuckled wistfully, stroking his beard and tugging at his wise gray hair with his other hand. He walked toward the hatch and opened it. Over my head, i looked up to see above me was a huge room, made of marble and china. Whoa! these guys must have been into to serious dough alright.
But, not wanting to be seduced by the temptation, i forced my eyes to tear themselves from the amazing vista above.
He climbed out and closed the hatch behind him. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and got down to checking out what was really going on around here! There was two doors behind me. I went into the second one and saw a hallway with a bunch of other doors. I went down to the third door and opened it.
I was utterly amazed and stunned at the vision before me. This must be the magic room, i thought. For inside of the room, it was all cluttered up messily with wondrous enchanting objects, suggestive of magic and the times of yore!
On the table in the middle of the room could be seen human skulls with jeweled necklaces snaking in and out of them. Hanging from the walls were black capes, and velvet ones too. Above the capes I could make out witches hats.
But, once again, fate just wouldnt let me chill. A huge rocking motion shook the boat and a loud boom made a huge sound.
We were under attack. I made my back down the hall. A guy with a black and white striped shirt and a red bandanna over his brow, stumbled out and fell down dead right in front of my own eyes, for all the world to see.
As soon as I got back to the main control room, i realized what had to be done. The shots had been called, and now I had to put my nuts on the line. I shook my head wanly, how quickly things change in a persons life!
Calling on my expert navigation skills that i had garnished from my experience, i quickly scanned the control panels, noting the function of every switch with cutthroat accuracy. Then, i saw the weapons panel. Alright, these guys wanna play dirty, then lets get it on to the break of dawn, bitch. I pressed a button on the weapons panel entitled "Tomahawk Cruisers" Lets just see what this can do about it.
There was a great sound of explosion, like the thing that attacked me was blowing up. Then i heard a beeping urgently coming from the communication panel and flicked the switch. "Mayday, mayday, Hey Merlyn, i know we just tried to take you guys prisoner, but you gotta just go ahead and let bygones and bygones, for the sake of our lives." My face grinned sadistically, grimacing in the cruel evil that i was gonna do.
"Damn fool" I exacerbated. "Looks like you just got your just desserts!"
Then I just all like hit the button. Suddenly, there was a noisy booming akin to explosion. I just thought like shit I gotta get outta here before this really hits the roof.
I surreptitiously looked around for the exit hatch. Then I stopped. Maybe I didn't have to bust out with the evacuation procedure quite so fast. After all, how enemies could the ole guy have after all?
Then I chuckled in a realization of humour. I was just chickening out on this! I just didn't want to go out and get ragged on by those racist Atlanteans.
Aww shucks, I been grudging this on my shoulders for far too long, time to be a man and face the sounds of music like a real man do. After all, hadn't I just proved my martial prowess by demonstrating such merciless destruction that I visited on my eneym, and just in the Nick a tie too!
I ardently climbed the ladder and pushed with arduous strength. Guess those curls and and reps paid off.
When I climbed up on out of the sub and took a gander at the spectacular scene that lay before me, I was amazed at its wondrous appearance, which was glorious in nature.
In front of me was a huge, super huge room, it looked I was inside a crystal ball, but one made from real crystal, or amethyst. It was the most beautiful side I had ever seen. I was fascinated.
But then another question pertinently occupied my old noggin. Just where in fact had old Merly got to. As i stepped off the submarine and onto the wool carpet of the crystal amethyst room, I saw before me two paths. One led to a group of stairs going up real high. The other led to a pair of doors. In front of the stairs was a sign that read אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט . Similarly, a sign in front of the double doors read Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon. Hmm... I pondered curiously.
Seemed like the signs were trying to tell me the two dissimilar paths were nothing more than two sides of the same choice-coin.
Well, since the first one was the tried and true Yiddish saying that a language is just a dialect with an army behind or what not, and the second was Welsh for 'A nation without language is a nation without a heart.
Well, well, well. Looks like they trying to flip the script on me. I came here looking for Merlyn, but now i gotta use a bit of the old fashioned
Well they had flipped it on me, and I wanted to flip it back onto them. Cause at that point in my adventure, I just completely lost the plot.
I didn't what to do, it was as if I had just been totally pwnd.
All I wanted to do was to get this hagriographing done and get my boat. To do that of course, I would have to find out King Arthur's hamartia.
Screw it I said, all of a sudden not caring which of the paths I chose. I walked to the double doors and kicked them open.
Then, suddenly, without any forewarning, I was shocked at the sight before me.
It was nothing less than an old school round table Knight grub fest. It was like all these Knight dudes in medieval armor grubbing on chicken and raw potatoes like they used to back in the way back when. I was all like what?!?
I saw Merlyn instantly and could see right away that the big guy sitting next to one that was all cut and swole up had to be none other than the badass fool that I was fonna hagriaphy.
So, I didn't even sweat, because of my expert skills and how I had proved my mettle by blowing up that other sub just now before i came here.
I just walked up to Merlyn and tapped him on the shoulder. He was so impressed that by my daring boldness that he didn't even rag on me for interrupting the meal.
King Arthur chuckled sagely and stook his giant macho hand out to shake hands with me.
I gave a firm shake, and even he was all strong, I could see him flinch a tiny bit because I put all my qi into that shake.
"So, my fair liege, you seem to be in need of a hagriographer. " I stoutly declared.
"Well, it doth seem to be the case that I beith in need of some ornate skill, be thee worthy of mine request?" He boldly inquired.
Suddenly, I looked around me to see in fact that the large throng of Knights gathered 'round the table were straight up mad dogging me.
Them one of them asked "Young Sire, be thee of the mongoloid race, or be thee of the negroid race? "
Another one of them asked "Me thinks ye be a Mohommedan!"
Then all of them stood up. Even the mighty and wise Merlyn was intimated and didn't say "jack."
So, they had found out. Of course I wasn't no arab, but then on the other hand, nor was I a Christian. How would they respond to my proud embracing of my mother's Jewish heritage. Should I deny my faith and spit on thousands of years of history? Or should I bravely and defiantly make my stand, regardless of if it ruined my chances of getting my mitts on that dope boat?
P.234 I tell them I'm a heeb.
P.324 I lie and betray my God
P.44 Run like a mutha yo!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
FICTION: 大论's冒险的很journey pt.3 pg. 17
(Darrens perilous journery part 3 a choose my own adventure joint)go with him because he's all merlyn looking p. 17
So I was just all like: Que Sarah, do it to it! The voices on the megaphone loudly called out for us to halt and cease are activities, but, the beneficial opportunity to get my hands on this killer babe of a boat was just to irresistible that i couldn't refuse.
The medieval guy with the beard and the owl on his shoulder could ascertain a certain assenting facial expression so he just lifted his majestic hand into the air and waved me for me to follow him.
Whoa! Seems like the merlyn man really was a force to be reckoned with, giving his knack for intuition of peoples feelings without them even saying shit, damn!
So, not even knowing where I had been mysteriously kidnapped to, except for it was a boat. (and what a boat it was!) I could do nothing but follow my abductor out of the cabin room and out onto the top part of the boat. I didnt see the guys who were yelling with the megaphones, so i guessed they had to be on the back of the ship. So when I saw the ocean and no boats, it seemed my detective skills were not so rusty after all.
Then, all my expectations were overturned as the guy produced from his pocket a remote control in his hand. He held it and pressed the red button.
From out of the depths of the ocean AKA blue lagoon, came bubbling up a shiny black submarine.
He pushed me in the back to get onto it so i got onto the submarine. He got on too and opened the hatch and we went inside. As soon as he closed the hatch, he exhaled heavily and breathed a sigh of relief. As for myself, personally, i couldnt even sigh, because i was so worked up into a sweat over the aforementioned excitement.
Finally, I calmed down enough to talk. "So, oh wise one. Whom is it I shalt be hagriographing? "
He shook his head negatingly, but i pressed on further, "What?! Hey! I think I have a right to know."
The old fool just shook his grey and shaggy head again, as if dispelling the sayings of a novice. Well, I wasn't about to be taken for some novice, after all, I had my own street creds to be reckoned with.
He then turned away from me with the keys to the sub, he keyed the ignition and gunned the subs engines. Then he shifted down and we descended abscondingly into the fathoms of the deep.
"Take the wax out of your ears and show a little respect moan cap n' tone" I barked harshly. At last, the guy payed attention to me with earnest concentration showing gravely on his lined face.
He looked at me seriously and uttered: "Since you're so anxious to know just who,
I Shall give thee an opurunity to guess the name of the one thou art to hagriahpy. Here this riddle, thee: Whot hath man fewe in the eie but more in the ere? That gret in the heved, is fewe in the bred? For man yhernes rimes forto here, yet men yernen iestes for to here."
Having said all of this, and being finished he withdrew a sword out of a scabber on his belt. The sword flashed brilliantly in the lights reflection. He beemed at its gleeming luminescence patiently.
"Pshaw!" I exclaimed. Who was this guy think he was fooling with? Like I can do all old school too, when i want to be. Obviously, his so called riddle was nothing but a pun on word plays that could be deduced for the answer at a moments notice.
"Dig on this," I told him. "First part: getting hair on your eye is a bigger problem than the hair in your ear, so the answer to that is Hair Trouble. Second, Hair on the head is not troublesome, as much as hair on your bread, so boom. Second part: Hair trouble. The last thing, you said, men want to hear rhymes. So, "here" and "ere" are "hear" and "ear" but in the olden tongue of yesteryear they soundeth much akin to rhyming with "hair."
He stroked his greying beard, and began to interject, but he before he even could, i just continued on all smoothly: "Furthermore, since you are quoting from the revered Cursor Mundi in its southern and northern versions, and therefore, the obvious trick is that you want me to find the word that rhymes with "trouble", since there's no rhyming word in your riddle itself. If I remember correctly the rhyming word from the text of the Cursor Mundi, the accurate word that rhymes is "abul", or maybe "tabul" as in the round table! I knew it! "
Suddenly it dawned me just why this guy was so convincingly medieval looking in dress and appearance and such. After all, it turned out that this guy was indeed a merlyn kind of magician like i had suspected! Kudos to me! So, it looked like I was going to be hagriaphying none other than the legendary King Arthur himself, and that was for damn sure.
Or was I, a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind tugged at my doubt strings. But before i could seek my hard earned clarification, things got all haywire on me.
From the other rooms in the big submarine, a voice unexpectedly called from afar: "Ahoy, all ye on the starboard plank, ships arrived! "
Merlyn, still stroking his beard and admiringly gazing at the sword which he held, said unto me: "Young liege of the realm, dont get all excited just yet. At least not until i tell you of my lords' hamartia. Besides, it seems like you guessed enough for now. We just arrived at the Underwater Kingdom, i gotta stop and get some stuff. If you want, you can tag a long with me, but I have to in fact warn you, they dont like black guys there. "
Aww damn, what a dis! I'm not even black, but people also misrepresent me because of my jewish and korean ancestry! But, then what if the denizens of the Underwater Kingdom didn't even give a hoot and just judged me based on my supposed racial features.
But, shoot, pass up a chance to check out this foreign and exotic local which i never could have conceived before the miraculous events of today?
go with him to check out the Underwater Kingdom pg. 64
screw that trip, play it safe and investigate the submarine pg. 23
this is getting out of control, Im gonna jack this sub and head for safety pg. 89
So I was just all like: Que Sarah, do it to it! The voices on the megaphone loudly called out for us to halt and cease are activities, but, the beneficial opportunity to get my hands on this killer babe of a boat was just to irresistible that i couldn't refuse.
The medieval guy with the beard and the owl on his shoulder could ascertain a certain assenting facial expression so he just lifted his majestic hand into the air and waved me for me to follow him.
Whoa! Seems like the merlyn man really was a force to be reckoned with, giving his knack for intuition of peoples feelings without them even saying shit, damn!
So, not even knowing where I had been mysteriously kidnapped to, except for it was a boat. (and what a boat it was!) I could do nothing but follow my abductor out of the cabin room and out onto the top part of the boat. I didnt see the guys who were yelling with the megaphones, so i guessed they had to be on the back of the ship. So when I saw the ocean and no boats, it seemed my detective skills were not so rusty after all.
Then, all my expectations were overturned as the guy produced from his pocket a remote control in his hand. He held it and pressed the red button.
From out of the depths of the ocean AKA blue lagoon, came bubbling up a shiny black submarine.
He pushed me in the back to get onto it so i got onto the submarine. He got on too and opened the hatch and we went inside. As soon as he closed the hatch, he exhaled heavily and breathed a sigh of relief. As for myself, personally, i couldnt even sigh, because i was so worked up into a sweat over the aforementioned excitement.
Finally, I calmed down enough to talk. "So, oh wise one. Whom is it I shalt be hagriographing? "
He shook his head negatingly, but i pressed on further, "What?! Hey! I think I have a right to know."
The old fool just shook his grey and shaggy head again, as if dispelling the sayings of a novice. Well, I wasn't about to be taken for some novice, after all, I had my own street creds to be reckoned with.
He then turned away from me with the keys to the sub, he keyed the ignition and gunned the subs engines. Then he shifted down and we descended abscondingly into the fathoms of the deep.
"Take the wax out of your ears and show a little respect moan cap n' tone" I barked harshly. At last, the guy payed attention to me with earnest concentration showing gravely on his lined face.
He looked at me seriously and uttered: "Since you're so anxious to know just who,
I Shall give thee an opurunity to guess the name of the one thou art to hagriahpy. Here this riddle, thee: Whot hath man fewe in the eie but more in the ere? That gret in the heved, is fewe in the bred? For man yhernes rimes forto here, yet men yernen iestes for to here."
Having said all of this, and being finished he withdrew a sword out of a scabber on his belt. The sword flashed brilliantly in the lights reflection. He beemed at its gleeming luminescence patiently.
"Pshaw!" I exclaimed. Who was this guy think he was fooling with? Like I can do all old school too, when i want to be. Obviously, his so called riddle was nothing but a pun on word plays that could be deduced for the answer at a moments notice.
"Dig on this," I told him. "First part: getting hair on your eye is a bigger problem than the hair in your ear, so the answer to that is Hair Trouble. Second, Hair on the head is not troublesome, as much as hair on your bread, so boom. Second part: Hair trouble. The last thing, you said, men want to hear rhymes. So, "here" and "ere" are "hear" and "ear" but in the olden tongue of yesteryear they soundeth much akin to rhyming with "hair."
He stroked his greying beard, and began to interject, but he before he even could, i just continued on all smoothly: "Furthermore, since you are quoting from the revered Cursor Mundi in its southern and northern versions, and therefore, the obvious trick is that you want me to find the word that rhymes with "trouble", since there's no rhyming word in your riddle itself. If I remember correctly the rhyming word from the text of the Cursor Mundi, the accurate word that rhymes is "abul", or maybe "tabul" as in the round table! I knew it! "
Suddenly it dawned me just why this guy was so convincingly medieval looking in dress and appearance and such. After all, it turned out that this guy was indeed a merlyn kind of magician like i had suspected! Kudos to me! So, it looked like I was going to be hagriaphying none other than the legendary King Arthur himself, and that was for damn sure.
Or was I, a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind tugged at my doubt strings. But before i could seek my hard earned clarification, things got all haywire on me.
From the other rooms in the big submarine, a voice unexpectedly called from afar: "Ahoy, all ye on the starboard plank, ships arrived! "
Merlyn, still stroking his beard and admiringly gazing at the sword which he held, said unto me: "Young liege of the realm, dont get all excited just yet. At least not until i tell you of my lords' hamartia. Besides, it seems like you guessed enough for now. We just arrived at the Underwater Kingdom, i gotta stop and get some stuff. If you want, you can tag a long with me, but I have to in fact warn you, they dont like black guys there. "
Aww damn, what a dis! I'm not even black, but people also misrepresent me because of my jewish and korean ancestry! But, then what if the denizens of the Underwater Kingdom didn't even give a hoot and just judged me based on my supposed racial features.
But, shoot, pass up a chance to check out this foreign and exotic local which i never could have conceived before the miraculous events of today?
go with him to check out the Underwater Kingdom pg. 64
screw that trip, play it safe and investigate the submarine pg. 23
this is getting out of control, Im gonna jack this sub and head for safety pg. 89
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Perspectivalism. a new word i dont like, but find useful
After being interested in Foucault for several years, because of his relation to Nietzche and anarchism, I'm finally seeing how his ideas pertain to my own interests. I've begun reading the Order of Things, which seeks to reconstitute commonly grouped together bodies of knowledge (science, econ, history) according to previously unknown, underlying epistemologies/meta-perspectives.
He seeks to examine the arbitrariness of conventional classifications such as biology&chemistry, Economics&Math. Breaking from all the obscure and reverent jargon of contemporary philosophy, we might say that what Foucault wants to do is show the genealogical grouping of sciences and humanities, thereby clarifying their actual status in history and taking away their seeming 'objective' and certain character. His conclusion is that the notion of man which philosophy and the sciences have grappled with is a recent invention, and, therefore, merely one phase that will go away some day. So that there will be an end to 'man' (or the concept as we know understand it.)
Taken out of the proud obscurantism of modern academia, we might see this endeavor as analogous to the 'deconstruction' of christian dogmas that have become commonplace over the last century. Instead of thinking of the books of the Christian bible as related by a continuous, and internally consistent theology, we find that the writers of various books had different theological views, and that the decision to include the books in the bible were made by still other individuals. Recently I read Misquoting Jesus, which shows the impossibility of stating that the modern version, the King James translation of the new testament, is a reliable account of the apostles and paul or that it is an intact revelation from god.
In reading The Order of Things, the payoff for me, is the experience of a totally different way of looking at familiar structures, undermining their seeming obviousness. It is an almost tactile sensation, like I can feel things breaking away and reshaping.
I guess this is something similar to what Foucault experienced in encountering a passage from Borges' regarding an imagined Chinese encyclopedia featuring an utterly absurd and contradictory taxonomy.
Inherent in the conception of said encyclopedia is that, in Alien China, why wouldn't we find classifications, or organizations of knowledge that seemed inconceivable and attacked our intellectual comfort, or the very solidity of our comprehension. Another example that comes to mind is Xerxes scourging of the Hellespont as reported by Herodotus (What kind of world view makes you whip the water to punish it?)
I want to note that Borges and Herodotus were exoticizing the orientals, and the actual unity of human nature is displayed in the Persians and Chinese' willingness to return the favor.
On the other hand, even the imagined alien perspectives of those savage and inscrutable orientals can serve to expand consciousness. The very conceiving of a perspective contrary to our own expands are minds, to the extent that we fully experience the 'reality' of such a perspective.
Studying logic and philosophy in my late teens and early twenties helped me to see the common patterns of theories in general. So, if I get stuck on the details of a book on science (I often do,) I can get the feel of where the writer is going and what conclusions he wants to bring me to. If i get lost in the numbers of an economic debate (I always do,) I can still get the general premises by looking at the apparently opposed arguments.
Philosophy helped me to expand my consciousness out over many general structures of human thinking, both prescriptive and analytic. After going from my default religious understanding to the broad patterns of philosophy, I was then able to fill in a lot of other gaps in between, such as what it meant to believe something, the classifications of belief I had gone through, the classifications of beliefs that I encountered, the many typical ways people argue for things, and the simple notion of knowledge structure and hierarchy.
In contrast, I have struggled with basic neuroscience for years now mostly because of my need to integrate things into systems with human meanings. Or to see parts of a system as features in a systemic process. But all the sections of the brain, different kinds of neurons, electrical gradiances, and neurotransmitters have to be memorized as mere elements of the brain, without a big scheme to place everything in, like with cars or science. The general function of these elements in the manifestation of mind (neural correlates of consciousness) have not been worked out in any complete way.
Another example contrary to the pattern of learning discussed above is my eternal battle with math. Every time I start to grasp principles, definitions, or formulas, i am undone instantly by the arithmetic.
Studying languages has been much more conducive to my need to for learning by systemic foreignness and systemic consistency. In learning Chinese, by immersion and repetition, has caused me to recall the bits of Vietnamese and Spanish that I learned in the States but never used. Also, it has helped me to start learning bits of other languages and some notions in subjects in linguistics. In regards to English, it has given me a much better perspective on word usage, dialectical variation, and slang.
I first heard this horribly awkward phrase last week in a lecture series called Great Minds of the West, 2nd edition。
The particular lecture was on Nietzsche. Nietzsche has generally been referred to as advocating perspectivism. But this guy was saying perspectivalism as in pur-spec-tie -valism. How come i read so much Nietzsche and never saw that word? Walter Kaufmann never used it that i can recall. But maybe I've forgotten. Anyways if everyone else gets past the awkwardness of the word, than I'm down too.
He seeks to examine the arbitrariness of conventional classifications such as biology&chemistry, Economics&Math. Breaking from all the obscure and reverent jargon of contemporary philosophy, we might say that what Foucault wants to do is show the genealogical grouping of sciences and humanities, thereby clarifying their actual status in history and taking away their seeming 'objective' and certain character. His conclusion is that the notion of man which philosophy and the sciences have grappled with is a recent invention, and, therefore, merely one phase that will go away some day. So that there will be an end to 'man' (or the concept as we know understand it.)
Taken out of the proud obscurantism of modern academia, we might see this endeavor as analogous to the 'deconstruction' of christian dogmas that have become commonplace over the last century. Instead of thinking of the books of the Christian bible as related by a continuous, and internally consistent theology, we find that the writers of various books had different theological views, and that the decision to include the books in the bible were made by still other individuals. Recently I read Misquoting Jesus, which shows the impossibility of stating that the modern version, the King James translation of the new testament, is a reliable account of the apostles and paul or that it is an intact revelation from god.
In reading The Order of Things, the payoff for me, is the experience of a totally different way of looking at familiar structures, undermining their seeming obviousness. It is an almost tactile sensation, like I can feel things breaking away and reshaping.
I guess this is something similar to what Foucault experienced in encountering a passage from Borges' regarding an imagined Chinese encyclopedia featuring an utterly absurd and contradictory taxonomy.
Inherent in the conception of said encyclopedia is that, in Alien China, why wouldn't we find classifications, or organizations of knowledge that seemed inconceivable and attacked our intellectual comfort, or the very solidity of our comprehension. Another example that comes to mind is Xerxes scourging of the Hellespont as reported by Herodotus (What kind of world view makes you whip the water to punish it?)
I want to note that Borges and Herodotus were exoticizing the orientals, and the actual unity of human nature is displayed in the Persians and Chinese' willingness to return the favor.
On the other hand, even the imagined alien perspectives of those savage and inscrutable orientals can serve to expand consciousness. The very conceiving of a perspective contrary to our own expands are minds, to the extent that we fully experience the 'reality' of such a perspective.
Studying logic and philosophy in my late teens and early twenties helped me to see the common patterns of theories in general. So, if I get stuck on the details of a book on science (I often do,) I can get the feel of where the writer is going and what conclusions he wants to bring me to. If i get lost in the numbers of an economic debate (I always do,) I can still get the general premises by looking at the apparently opposed arguments.
Philosophy helped me to expand my consciousness out over many general structures of human thinking, both prescriptive and analytic. After going from my default religious understanding to the broad patterns of philosophy, I was then able to fill in a lot of other gaps in between, such as what it meant to believe something, the classifications of belief I had gone through, the classifications of beliefs that I encountered, the many typical ways people argue for things, and the simple notion of knowledge structure and hierarchy.
In contrast, I have struggled with basic neuroscience for years now mostly because of my need to integrate things into systems with human meanings. Or to see parts of a system as features in a systemic process. But all the sections of the brain, different kinds of neurons, electrical gradiances, and neurotransmitters have to be memorized as mere elements of the brain, without a big scheme to place everything in, like with cars or science. The general function of these elements in the manifestation of mind (neural correlates of consciousness) have not been worked out in any complete way.
Another example contrary to the pattern of learning discussed above is my eternal battle with math. Every time I start to grasp principles, definitions, or formulas, i am undone instantly by the arithmetic.
Studying languages has been much more conducive to my need to for learning by systemic foreignness and systemic consistency. In learning Chinese, by immersion and repetition, has caused me to recall the bits of Vietnamese and Spanish that I learned in the States but never used. Also, it has helped me to start learning bits of other languages and some notions in subjects in linguistics. In regards to English, it has given me a much better perspective on word usage, dialectical variation, and slang.
I first heard this horribly awkward phrase last week in a lecture series called Great Minds of the West, 2nd edition。
The particular lecture was on Nietzsche. Nietzsche has generally been referred to as advocating perspectivism. But this guy was saying perspectivalism as in pur-spec-tie -valism. How come i read so much Nietzsche and never saw that word? Walter Kaufmann never used it that i can recall. But maybe I've forgotten. Anyways if everyone else gets past the awkwardness of the word, than I'm down too.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
NON-FICTION: What so many still ignore about ayn rand
The false dichotomy of (Christ I hate to even have to mention it again! ) selfishness vs. altruism was neatly dealt with quite a while ago, by Ayn Rand, among others. I recently started thinking about Objectivism again and checked out whats being written about her in the news. I found that, as in the past, her idea of rational self-interest is related as advocacy of mere self-interest or selfishness, a super race, as opposition to charity, as advocacy of greed.
A recent NY Times articles starts with this description:
For years, Rand’s message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled “do-gooders,” who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed.
Here we see a successful attempt to leave the reader with a conclusion by pointing around its edges. The implication is that she or her ideas were opposed to doing "work in the service of others.", since that's what her attackers believed. The key in this statement is the meaning of serivce. "Service of duty" is different than "Customer service" or "Serving your fellow man"
It would not be as rhetorically effective to clarify that she was not opposed to doing things for other people or dedicating your energy to the benefit of other people, rather, she was merely opposed to being forced to do so against ones will, and the notion that this was moral.
Stated that way, her opposition to "service of others" is not at all shocking. Then why don't people just say Ayn Rand believed that everyone should follow their selfish interest as determined by rational thinking? I think, part of it, is the general peer-approved dismissal of certain individuals or ideas that most people engage in to varying degrees, but its also a sense that Rand, or her ideas, are bad anyways, so to resort to inaccurate description of those beliefs is justified; because she's one of the bad guys(or she's shamefully masquerading as a real intellectual/philosopher.)
In regards to including the primacy of reason in Rand's philosophy when mentioning her morality, the Conservative Voice comes closer: They use the term "rational", but only in reference to their “Rational Christian Response to Ayn Rand." Avoiding the use of her own descriptions they offer a somewhat agile (in terms of organization) refutation of her morality.
There is a difference between selfness and selfishness. The first involves proper Biblical love and care for oneself as God intends. The latter is based on ego and pride. Christianity is not against legitimate self-interest. We are created in God's image so, of course, God would want us to love ourselves as well as to love others.
Of course, then, God would want us to love others against our own interest, except that if we do what he says, we are supposed to get to go to Heaven- according to most Christians - so then it is in our interest to follow God's plan of salvation. Furthermore, God only dislikes illegitimate self-interest, and since that magic word is readily understood by all humans, instantaneously and without need of contemplation, then who would oppose Christian morality on the grounds of self-interest. Oh, I see, they might oppose Jesus's doctrine of self interest, yeah, but only if they believed in .....
illegitimate self-interest. But why would Rand do that? "Illegitimate" means its wrong!
Obviously its good etiquette to utilize clarifying clauses when employing synonyms of "right" and "wrong," this prevents one from sounding like a proponent of Orthodoxy over Heresy. Even better would be to replace such terms with words that relay the content of your evaluation or standards for judging what you are discussing.
For example, Rand's consistent emphasis of rational individualism and rational morality communicate that she holds morality to be subject to thinking and decisions of humans. These statements do not relate the content of her notions of rationality, but they do allow anyone and everyone to understand that she was not an advocate of 'just doing whatever or you want;' a phrase often repeated by heavy hearted, responsible moralists, who are offended at the idea that being good could have anything to do with selfishness. Instead, they know very well that loving our neighbors and doing whats right by our fellow man is naught but altruism.
Anyways, its been about half a century since Rands ideas (Objectivism) first started spreading. And, to this day, there is still the same tendency to dismiss her by using statements of her beliefs which are not at all accurate.
But I'm so negative that I didn't mention that other articles i read (all mentioning Rand as related to Greenspan) were pretty neutral: A Cameo for the Maestro? and
I am not an Objectivist and find their overall system stifling, but I am annoyed by the lack of clarity and simple honesty that so often has dominated in the assertions of Rand's opponents. If we are clear enough on our opponents errors, we should be able to state their beliefs in their own words, without fear that our audience will be persuaded to their side. I am passionately opposed to many ideas, such as property rights, the state, capitalism, hierarchy, heroism, etc. But I hope I am beyond the need to hide beyond slander and misrepresentations of those beliefs.
A recent NY Times articles starts with this description:
For years, Rand’s message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled “do-gooders,” who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed.
Here we see a successful attempt to leave the reader with a conclusion by pointing around its edges. The implication is that she or her ideas were opposed to doing "work in the service of others.", since that's what her attackers believed. The key in this statement is the meaning of serivce. "Service of duty" is different than "Customer service" or "Serving your fellow man"
It would not be as rhetorically effective to clarify that she was not opposed to doing things for other people or dedicating your energy to the benefit of other people, rather, she was merely opposed to being forced to do so against ones will, and the notion that this was moral.
Stated that way, her opposition to "service of others" is not at all shocking. Then why don't people just say Ayn Rand believed that everyone should follow their selfish interest as determined by rational thinking? I think, part of it, is the general peer-approved dismissal of certain individuals or ideas that most people engage in to varying degrees, but its also a sense that Rand, or her ideas, are bad anyways, so to resort to inaccurate description of those beliefs is justified; because she's one of the bad guys(or she's shamefully masquerading as a real intellectual/philosopher.)
In regards to including the primacy of reason in Rand's philosophy when mentioning her morality, the Conservative Voice comes closer: They use the term "rational", but only in reference to their “Rational Christian Response to Ayn Rand." Avoiding the use of her own descriptions they offer a somewhat agile (in terms of organization) refutation of her morality.
There is a difference between selfness and selfishness. The first involves proper Biblical love and care for oneself as God intends. The latter is based on ego and pride. Christianity is not against legitimate self-interest. We are created in God's image so, of course, God would want us to love ourselves as well as to love others.
Of course, then, God would want us to love others against our own interest, except that if we do what he says, we are supposed to get to go to Heaven- according to most Christians - so then it is in our interest to follow God's plan of salvation. Furthermore, God only dislikes illegitimate self-interest, and since that magic word is readily understood by all humans, instantaneously and without need of contemplation, then who would oppose Christian morality on the grounds of self-interest. Oh, I see, they might oppose Jesus's doctrine of self interest, yeah, but only if they believed in .....
illegitimate self-interest. But why would Rand do that? "Illegitimate" means its wrong!
Obviously its good etiquette to utilize clarifying clauses when employing synonyms of "right" and "wrong," this prevents one from sounding like a proponent of Orthodoxy over Heresy. Even better would be to replace such terms with words that relay the content of your evaluation or standards for judging what you are discussing.
For example, Rand's consistent emphasis of rational individualism and rational morality communicate that she holds morality to be subject to thinking and decisions of humans. These statements do not relate the content of her notions of rationality, but they do allow anyone and everyone to understand that she was not an advocate of 'just doing whatever or you want;' a phrase often repeated by heavy hearted, responsible moralists, who are offended at the idea that being good could have anything to do with selfishness. Instead, they know very well that loving our neighbors and doing whats right by our fellow man is naught but altruism.
Anyways, its been about half a century since Rands ideas (Objectivism) first started spreading. And, to this day, there is still the same tendency to dismiss her by using statements of her beliefs which are not at all accurate.
But I'm so negative that I didn't mention that other articles i read (all mentioning Rand as related to Greenspan) were pretty neutral: A Cameo for the Maestro? and
A cryptic look back, and a shot for Bush
I am not an Objectivist and find their overall system stifling, but I am annoyed by the lack of clarity and simple honesty that so often has dominated in the assertions of Rand's opponents. If we are clear enough on our opponents errors, we should be able to state their beliefs in their own words, without fear that our audience will be persuaded to their side. I am passionately opposed to many ideas, such as property rights, the state, capitalism, hierarchy, heroism, etc. But I hope I am beyond the need to hide beyond slander and misrepresentations of those beliefs.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
NON-FICTION: Dream: Openly Bejing backed US candidate
Dreamt that i was on some plane/cruise (it was opposed to be a plane i think, but it had staircases, internet terminals, etc. i saw the daily show and [sam b] pissed off john stewart by deviating from the script in some way.)
Anyways, a bunch of us were watching the news, there was an ethnic chinese guy running for office, he was accused of being totally backed by beijing, and he said on the news show: Yeah, Im so and so, Im backed by Beijing and Im going to win [the office]. Then they interivewed regular people to see their opinion and one woman said " i was listening to limbaugh today and ...." another lad referred to him as Beijing [billy].
It makes sense, even if he's of foreing birth. Schwarzenegger's attempts to change the constitution to let him be pres, could lead to the usual acceptance/apathy by the general populace and media, wherein the media anounces "a new era in politics" and people debate it on their political shows (quarantines for action) . So without any of us deciding to accept it, it becomes a new part of us, like the Dept for Homeland Security.
After it becomes part of our reality, then the adapting strategists of the red motherland realize how much more you can get done when you are brazen about the objectionable things you do in the modern media world. They will have plenty of examples of their own disastrous secrecy and the combination of lies and brazenness used by US politicians (and the rest of the countries.)
They will kick off this campaign including the tactic of being open about beijing [billy's] backing. He's a young guy, probably raised in the US or equivalent, maybe he was even born in the US.
Anyways, they realize they want to install this guy in office to increase their influence, but they know that everyone is just gonna use the fact that he's supported by beijing to discredit. So, they decide just put that upfront and it will lose its power.
The one implication of my dream that disturbs me is that Mr. LImbaugh will still be on the air by the time Beijing is clever enough to use brazenness in its support of US politicians.
Anyways, a bunch of us were watching the news, there was an ethnic chinese guy running for office, he was accused of being totally backed by beijing, and he said on the news show: Yeah, Im so and so, Im backed by Beijing and Im going to win [the office]. Then they interivewed regular people to see their opinion and one woman said " i was listening to limbaugh today and ...." another lad referred to him as Beijing [billy].
It makes sense, even if he's of foreing birth. Schwarzenegger's attempts to change the constitution to let him be pres, could lead to the usual acceptance/apathy by the general populace and media, wherein the media anounces "a new era in politics" and people debate it on their political shows (quarantines for action) . So without any of us deciding to accept it, it becomes a new part of us, like the Dept for Homeland Security.
After it becomes part of our reality, then the adapting strategists of the red motherland realize how much more you can get done when you are brazen about the objectionable things you do in the modern media world. They will have plenty of examples of their own disastrous secrecy and the combination of lies and brazenness used by US politicians (and the rest of the countries.)
They will kick off this campaign including the tactic of being open about beijing [billy's] backing. He's a young guy, probably raised in the US or equivalent, maybe he was even born in the US.
Anyways, they realize they want to install this guy in office to increase their influence, but they know that everyone is just gonna use the fact that he's supported by beijing to discredit. So, they decide just put that upfront and it will lose its power.
The one implication of my dream that disturbs me is that Mr. LImbaugh will still be on the air by the time Beijing is clever enough to use brazenness in its support of US politicians.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
NONFICTION: don delillo and astrology
I've read three or four Delillo Novels. The first one was Underworld. I was so in love with his wording and scope, that I thought he must be the greatest American novelist. (I still kind of think that.) But when i began to read criticism of Delillo, I began to understand what he was popular for: Post-modern cynicism critiqueblablalbla. I was ashamed. How could such a powerful talent be degraded down to the cliches of modern literature? Critique of technology and capitalist blabla bla. Who isnt?
Finally, after underworld and mao II, i read white noise. It was my least favorite. Aside from the ironic, but not quite laughable humor, and his usual descriptive genius, the novel just exaggerated modernity to the point of absurdity in order to demonstrate the absurdity of modernity.
So, why does such a grand ability waste itself on lopsided criticism and comparing himelf to a terrorist?
I think part of it is because he is a Scorpio. Scorpio's are great at emotionally intense criticism. They are also good at detail.
In Underworld, the scene where the guy is going over the dessert and seeing all the planes makes me think that delillo must love this image too. His fascination with Americana (i havent read that one) obviously suggests more than a criticism. He is in love with his idea of the past.
Anyways, I've written the last two posts instead of working on the novel, so back to work.
My point about delillo is just that his greatness is in his diction and description not in the accidental coincidence of his negativity and the trite condemnation of modernity that predominates Real Literature.
P.S. I really love Delillo. He's a fucking genius.
Finally, after underworld and mao II, i read white noise. It was my least favorite. Aside from the ironic, but not quite laughable humor, and his usual descriptive genius, the novel just exaggerated modernity to the point of absurdity in order to demonstrate the absurdity of modernity.
So, why does such a grand ability waste itself on lopsided criticism and comparing himelf to a terrorist?
I think part of it is because he is a Scorpio. Scorpio's are great at emotionally intense criticism. They are also good at detail.
In Underworld, the scene where the guy is going over the dessert and seeing all the planes makes me think that delillo must love this image too. His fascination with Americana (i havent read that one) obviously suggests more than a criticism. He is in love with his idea of the past.
Anyways, I've written the last two posts instead of working on the novel, so back to work.
My point about delillo is just that his greatness is in his diction and description not in the accidental coincidence of his negativity and the trite condemnation of modernity that predominates Real Literature.
P.S. I really love Delillo. He's a fucking genius.
POEM: Subjugation Withdrawal
My tyrants are dying.
And already I've realized
The mistake spread through
all our moves.
We partied, bringing down their statues
Thinking the concrete was an obstacle
To our freedom
Non-concrete
They linger around,
Serving as comfort
For the new world's hesitation
Weakness stored up,
by their stoppering feet
Unleashed as explosions,
Crushing insights
The paradise they stepped on
Is suddenly no closer
All the nights spent talking
With them
Only weaken the struggle
Slogans and forts,
in fragility, equal
to theirs
All dissolved
by the security of an ungripped shoulder
or an open cell
And already I've realized
The mistake spread through
all our moves.
We partied, bringing down their statues
Thinking the concrete was an obstacle
To our freedom
Non-concrete
They linger around,
Serving as comfort
For the new world's hesitation
Weakness stored up,
by their stoppering feet
Unleashed as explosions,
Crushing insights
The paradise they stepped on
Is suddenly no closer
All the nights spent talking
With them
Only weaken the struggle
Slogans and forts,
in fragility, equal
to theirs
All dissolved
by the security of an ungripped shoulder
or an open cell
Friday, July 6, 2007
FICTION仓颉的乱博克 part 2
我买不到机票，所以我们就腾云驾雾. That 句话 is 什么意思？因为我那么久以前a long time ago了发明the 字， 所以， I 因此忘了许多的普通话的idioms. 我只会知道：如果我遇到四个字，而那四个字中， 有两个不认识的， 就是个成语。 当我发明字的时我没有发现五千后,会有so many 让我糊涂的成语. 其实,中国小孩儿, 都知道很多的, 所以我没面孔when i email my step-children.
anyways, 我和黄帝到了我江苏rolex工厂, 我们惊讶的看工厂里, 一个人也没! where did 他们去?
我们一点儿也不理解. 但是我们见到了一个奇怪的东西, 在工厂的地板, 有很多血液和transformers 玩具!
我们 were all like 这是什么来的呀!!!
在墙壁上, 看了话写的:嘿小妹子, 你胸部咋会那么大? 我在大连路, 方便方便着, 就看了你那么Fashion的衣服, 也看到了你那么性感的身材, 让我记不清我太太的名字. 你喝两瓶屋里箱, 就会喜欢我.
上海没有陌生人, 所以你上下车不要那么客气!
======
more later.
anyways, 我和黄帝到了我江苏rolex工厂, 我们惊讶的看工厂里, 一个人也没! where did 他们去?
我们一点儿也不理解. 但是我们见到了一个奇怪的东西, 在工厂的地板, 有很多血液和transformers 玩具!
我们 were all like 这是什么来的呀!!!
在墙壁上, 看了话写的:嘿小妹子, 你胸部咋会那么大? 我在大连路, 方便方便着, 就看了你那么Fashion的衣服, 也看到了你那么性感的身材, 让我记不清我太太的名字. 你喝两瓶屋里箱, 就会喜欢我.
上海没有陌生人, 所以你上下车不要那么客气!
======
more later.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
NONFICTION building up the froth of appreciation.
I was just listening to a lecture on Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 几号？ i forgot which number. The lecturer described the author's 'insertion of himself into the text' as putting himself into the 'very warp and weave of the story' something like that.
It reminded me of an idea I had a couple years ago, that is, the way in which people take the object of their affection, such as music, movies, or literature, and talk them around in the head so much that a top layer of froth is churned up, which is then regarded as insight, instead of foam.
In fact this ever novel insertion of the author into his own text is nothing more than a step in a progressive series of experimenting and tricks with the novel. Structural novelties that allow the novelist to feel as if he is doing something new.
Further, i completely empathize with Vonneguts portrayal of himself in that novel.
Its just, how do you differentiate between your capacity to manipulate words for the enchantment and entertainment of yourself, and your capacity to whip yourself up in a froth of ecstasy for the beauty and deep down deep meaning of your own words?
That is, how does the bullshiter not busllshit himself about how great his own bullshit is?
It reminded me of an idea I had a couple years ago, that is, the way in which people take the object of their affection, such as music, movies, or literature, and talk them around in the head so much that a top layer of froth is churned up, which is then regarded as insight, instead of foam.
In fact this ever novel insertion of the author into his own text is nothing more than a step in a progressive series of experimenting and tricks with the novel. Structural novelties that allow the novelist to feel as if he is doing something new.
Further, i completely empathize with Vonneguts portrayal of himself in that novel.
Its just, how do you differentiate between your capacity to manipulate words for the enchantment and entertainment of yourself, and your capacity to whip yourself up in a froth of ecstasy for the beauty and deep down deep meaning of your own words?
That is, how does the bullshiter not busllshit himself about how great his own bullshit is?
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
FICTION 仓颉的乱博克 1
大家好。 我是那个发明汉字的guy. The 原因why I am 博克ing 现在 is that I'm 太懒to do my 应该做的任务！ 我需要把那个黄山article 写完，but, 你看， I'm even too lazy to 查看我写的字是对部对。 比如说, 刚刚 I 忘了 which 玩is for fun and which is for finished.
但是, my 故事我要给你听是a long time ago. 在我跟黄帝住在seattle 的时, 我发现一个知识分子的生活没有咖啡和雨, 就不会有想象和诚实的冥想. So, I didn't want to leave. But, you know how 帝's get! They always 认为 "Im a 帝! Of course people will obey me!" But, I 一直跟他说． 嘿！我本人是写你的历史！所以只有我会彻底了解你！ 你的后代怎会知道你的肠胃那么爱生产又臭又怪的化学武器!!! 有几次那个洋鬼子FBI 来看看我们是不是恐怖分子， 是因为我们另据经常闻到你的屁股吹吹得香味儿！
Anyways, my point is that I didnt want to leave Seattle. I invented all the 字， so I think I've fulfilled my obligation to humanity.
But, In all fareness to the 帝， his reason for going back to Communist China was a good one. His fake Rolex factory was under threat of being closed. This was at the time when knockoff rolex's were very rare, so it was a big financial gain that was at stake!
More later.
但是, my 故事我要给你听是a long time ago. 在我跟黄帝住在seattle 的时, 我发现一个知识分子的生活没有咖啡和雨, 就不会有想象和诚实的冥想. So, I didn't want to leave. But, you know how 帝's get! They always 认为 "Im a 帝! Of course people will obey me!" But, I 一直跟他说． 嘿！我本人是写你的历史！所以只有我会彻底了解你！ 你的后代怎会知道你的肠胃那么爱生产又臭又怪的化学武器!!! 有几次那个洋鬼子FBI 来看看我们是不是恐怖分子， 是因为我们另据经常闻到你的屁股吹吹得香味儿！
Anyways, my point is that I didnt want to leave Seattle. I invented all the 字， so I think I've fulfilled my obligation to humanity.
But, In all fareness to the 帝， his reason for going back to Communist China was a good one. His fake Rolex factory was under threat of being closed. This was at the time when knockoff rolex's were very rare, so it was a big financial gain that was at stake!
More later.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
NONFICTION Wriggling Under Sleep and Sleep paralysis
I began composing this blog while struggling to wake up out of sleep paralysis. I forgot it was sleep paralysis, and only recognized it as this familiar state which I had visited before.
As i woke up, moaned desperately, and drifted through various illusions of wakefulness, i thought "What is this state really?"
The various false wakes had included many scenes with people i know, and seemed like they couldnt take place in the present. But maybe it would happen in the future. So, maybe this trembling, fear stricken state of in-between conscious, trying to break through the thin transparent film of sleep into wakefulness- maybe it was really the mind/body trying to break through into another time, another reality.
I am regularly struck by such thoughts. I also regularly experience 'deja vu' or visions.
The prevalent view of deja vu is that they are actually just differences in sensory intake speed, so that some sensory data bypasses the short term memory, goes straight to the long term memory and then gets fed back to you as a memory, so thus you are experiencing new data and remembering that same data.
But my visions have become more than deja vu. They are quite clearly associations that make no sense in my present context and vanish quickly, leaving only what i can conscious repeat to myself, thus inputting into my memory.
So, I cant quite explain this in terms of that deja vu model, but the discrepancy between data intake and processing being a causal factor does seem to make sense.
Because these visions seem more common when i have alot of caffeine in me, when i have an empty stomach and i start to get jumpy, or when i havent gotten any sleep.
An example of one of these visions is:
The other day i was teaching a corporate class. We were having class in the main training room. Previously, the tables at which the students sat, had been arranged in a set of four. So that at each table three to four students sat.
That day, the seats had been changed so that they were all joined side by side, like a straight 'u'. The new arrangement triggered a vision, where I was seeing this arrangement like a memory.
The trick is that this deja vu was just the catalyst, the rest of the experience was a series of associations.
One of these associations was something like 'the woman is evil' and 'i need to tell stephen'.
These two thoughts- i cannot say they are truly part of a novel experience, because they are likely to have been influenced by my state of mind at the time.
The thought of and evil woman seemed connected to the woman who was in charge of training at that company. The thought of warning stephen fits into a general pattern of worrying about him all the time.
But there was one novel thought. It was "el nunca vences" but the 'vences' was pronounced with a hard 'c'
The question I have is: Where does this come from? How can my brain produce such fascinating data?
It is not enough to say that the experience is erroneous, although this is often the main concern.
Some people just want to right this sort of phenomena off as brain mistakes. But they are not merely mistakes, they are novel and bizarre occurrences.
If my brain mistakes the name of one of my students, that is understandable and the elements of the mistake are mostly obvious.
But when my brain is suddenly seized by thoughts and feelings that seem to come from nowhere. And that provide names that dont exist, words that dont exist, I think this is important.
Whether or not my visions have any real use, they represent the conscious mind being seized in a state where utterly novel phenomena are produced.
Now that i think of it, it is rather like an inverted dream.
Whereas the bits of conscious and on-the-periphery-of-conscious data are rearranged in the subconscious during dreams,
My visions seem like subconscious data rearranged in my conscious actively experiencing mind.
As i woke up, moaned desperately, and drifted through various illusions of wakefulness, i thought "What is this state really?"
The various false wakes had included many scenes with people i know, and seemed like they couldnt take place in the present. But maybe it would happen in the future. So, maybe this trembling, fear stricken state of in-between conscious, trying to break through the thin transparent film of sleep into wakefulness- maybe it was really the mind/body trying to break through into another time, another reality.
I am regularly struck by such thoughts. I also regularly experience 'deja vu' or visions.
The prevalent view of deja vu is that they are actually just differences in sensory intake speed, so that some sensory data bypasses the short term memory, goes straight to the long term memory and then gets fed back to you as a memory, so thus you are experiencing new data and remembering that same data.
But my visions have become more than deja vu. They are quite clearly associations that make no sense in my present context and vanish quickly, leaving only what i can conscious repeat to myself, thus inputting into my memory.
So, I cant quite explain this in terms of that deja vu model, but the discrepancy between data intake and processing being a causal factor does seem to make sense.
Because these visions seem more common when i have alot of caffeine in me, when i have an empty stomach and i start to get jumpy, or when i havent gotten any sleep.
An example of one of these visions is:
The other day i was teaching a corporate class. We were having class in the main training room. Previously, the tables at which the students sat, had been arranged in a set of four. So that at each table three to four students sat.
That day, the seats had been changed so that they were all joined side by side, like a straight 'u'. The new arrangement triggered a vision, where I was seeing this arrangement like a memory.
The trick is that this deja vu was just the catalyst, the rest of the experience was a series of associations.
One of these associations was something like 'the woman is evil' and 'i need to tell stephen'.
These two thoughts- i cannot say they are truly part of a novel experience, because they are likely to have been influenced by my state of mind at the time.
The thought of and evil woman seemed connected to the woman who was in charge of training at that company. The thought of warning stephen fits into a general pattern of worrying about him all the time.
But there was one novel thought. It was "el nunca vences" but the 'vences' was pronounced with a hard 'c'
The question I have is: Where does this come from? How can my brain produce such fascinating data?
It is not enough to say that the experience is erroneous, although this is often the main concern.
Some people just want to right this sort of phenomena off as brain mistakes. But they are not merely mistakes, they are novel and bizarre occurrences.
If my brain mistakes the name of one of my students, that is understandable and the elements of the mistake are mostly obvious.
But when my brain is suddenly seized by thoughts and feelings that seem to come from nowhere. And that provide names that dont exist, words that dont exist, I think this is important.
Whether or not my visions have any real use, they represent the conscious mind being seized in a state where utterly novel phenomena are produced.
Now that i think of it, it is rather like an inverted dream.
Whereas the bits of conscious and on-the-periphery-of-conscious data are rearranged in the subconscious during dreams,
My visions seem like subconscious data rearranged in my conscious actively experiencing mind.
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