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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 1738
To everyone completing end-of-semester crap, I just wanted to let you know that I feel your pain (especially if it is for this class). I have a 25 page paper due on Monday. At this point, I have six pages written and a huge pile of books spread out on my bed. I hate my argument and I really don't want to write it, but my professor thinks that what I'm writing about is a brilliant topic, so I'm kind of stuck. I just haven't felt well for the last few days: I'm not eating, not sleeping, and generally irritable. This paper is hanging over my head and I just want it to be done and go away, so I end up being lazy and not working on it, which just makes me feel worse. I hate school. Which is ironic, I suppose ...
Anyway, I'm really glad you guys decided to watch cartoons on Friday. I think it will be a fun way for all of us to end the semester and I'm certainly looking forward to the break.
Edited on 2005-12-03 15:07:12 by EschaTon
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Saturday, December 3, 2005 1504
An odd midday blog from me:
I've gotten my hands on the new Strokes album and I feel dirty saying this, but it's really quite good. As someone who though Room on Fire and Is This It? were both horrible (The Modern Age EP is still one of my favorite albums, though), I'm pleased to say that First Impressions of Earth is surprisingly great. Julian still can't sing and they band is still kind of boring, but they are untalented in more interesting ways. Messy guitar solos, weird keyboard interludes, and lots of screamed vocals make this a surprisingly good album (especially considering the absolutely toxic press it has been getting). It's no Wilderness or Apologies to the Queen Mary, but I like it well enough.
Edited on 2005-11-30 01:15:53 by EschaTon
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Wednesday, November 30, 2005 0109
I've finished writing two of the three papers I have to write this semester. Sadly, the two that will probably be the easiest to write are now done. My paper for my class on queer theory looms large, like a spectre of doom. It's about pornography, the internet, and the suburbs. All three are topics I'm very interested in, and I think I have an interesting way to connect them, but I've never written a paper for an English class that doesn't have a book or a text as a means of production: this paper is about a specific subculture and the textual and visual discourses it produces on the internet. While that is exciting, in theory, in practice, for someone trained to read texts (not cultures (although are those different?)), this is a daunting prospect. My Shakespeare paper, which I presented a part of today in class (and was told that it was brilliant), was surprisingly easy to write (despite being a radical theoretical break from much of the previous work done in the field) because there was a recognized set of discursive pratices to fall back on. Anyway, I don't to talk like an English major anymore, I just generated three pages of stuff with words like "swarming", "polyvocality", and "hegemony". Ugh.
I'm starting to think that people, in class, are not asking questions about the presentations because they know that I usually let class out after they are over. We'll see if I can change any of that tomorrow.
Probably not.
Edited on 2005-11-20 02:35:52 by EschaTon
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Sunday, November 20, 2005 0231
Well heck, USC ruined an otherwise amazing day of football, thereby giving me another reason to absolutely loathe everything associated with the University of Southern California. The worst part might be that the game was so close I had to watch the entire thing to see the outcome and as I have a ton of work to do tomorrow and Monday, I get to do it tired! Stupid Trojans. And who names their team the Trojans, anyway? They lost the war! (and because they were fooled by a wooden horse).
Anyway, other than that ... I watched 7 football games and, except for USC, the just triumphed over the unjust: Auburn over Alabama, Penn State over Michigan State, and, most suprisingly, Georgia Tech over Miami. If GT had played like that the years I was there or at all this year, we would be playing for the ACC title, not VT and FSU. Reggie Bell (who, it should be pointed out, throws more interceptions than TDs most games) had a heck of a game and, well, everyone who had the Canes in the Rose Bowl just looked silly.
Yeah, that's all ... I don't have anything else to say because football is all I did today. Seriously.
Edited on 2005-11-18 09:54:11 by EschaTon
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Friday, November 18, 2005 0949
Things are happening fast, I must say: I finally have a working radiator in my room, for instance. I managed to convince some maintainence people who working in our neighborhood to come in and look at our heater. Two days, later, they think they finally have it working (it turns out we are supposed to be draining water out of the stupid thing ... who knew). Anyway, after class today, I'm going to see "Walk the Line" at Premier Theatre. After that, I am going to see "Good Night and Good Luck" at Premier Theatre. After around 5 hours at the movies, it's off to a poetry reading at the University Club downtown (7 PM for anyone interested). Then its out on the town and a full day of football on Saturday. Sunday, I have to learn everything there is to know about gender and language in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost and make a mountain of photocopies. Monday, I'm teaching class, going to a seminar on Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and "A Manifesto For Cyborgs" by Donna Haraway (finally we get to talk about something good in that class), and packing. Tuesday, I'm "teaching" class and then flying the Hell out of this town. Vacation and Atlanta are so close I can taste them (and finally being able to get good Chinese food ... I can taste that too).
Edited on 2005-11-13 10:50:04 by EschaTon
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Sunday, November 13, 2005 1045
It's strange how sometimes you can suddenly realize you were missing things just by getting them back. I re-downloaded the complete Isis∞ discography the other day and I finally got around to listening to "Oceanic" this morning while reading your evaluation arguments. Such an amazing album ... I love how Isis is able to make metal for people who don't like metal but not suck at the same time. In fact, I know some music critics have argued that Isis is making the most interesting music in all of American metal (I think I might agree with that). Either way, "Oceanic" is brilliant. I'm also glad to have their other albums back, as well. "Panopticon" is one of my favorite records of last year (and not just because its about every English grad student's favorite person, Michel Foucault) and "Celestial" has some great tunes, too.
Edited on 2005-11-09 13:13:46 by EschaTon
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Wednesday, November 9, 2005 1311
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php∞
So that article is about how Sony is using a copyright "protection" system on some of its CDs that does all kinds of scary and dangerous things to your computer. It turns out I have one of these CDs (not on the list, though ... the copy of Hail to the Theif I bought in Europe apparently has this schema on it). This might explain why I had all kinds of weird problems with my old Windows box. Anyway, be careful about what you put in your computers.
Edited on 2005-11-07 15:06:20 by EschaTon
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Monday, November 7, 2005 1500
"One of the major problems with the writing of graduate students and new faculty is that they tend to write designer criticism" - Dr. Patrick Cheney
I was talking to my Shakespeare professor this afternoon when he said that. It's a very interesting evocation of the problems I find in a lot of the people I'm working with. What he means is that a lot of younger English lit gunslingers tend to write Lacanian, Foucaultian, Butlerian (I made that one up) readings of texts without ever attempting to figure out what new knowledges can be produced beyond merely showing how a certain text works within a certain theorist's work. I'm writing a paper about Donna Haraway and Love's Labour's Lost, but now my paper is more about food, communication, and gender within Shakespeare and how Haraway provides a way into talking about these things (yeah, anyway). Just something I was thinking about while typing up notes for a seminar where I am about to go get indoctrinated into doing Foucaultian readings (except I'm so bored with Foucault).
Anyway, I think I had something else I was actually going to talk about. Oh yeah ... PennyArcade∞ today was hilarious, but I have no idea why. I love how "serious" some fantasy and science fiction is, despite dealing with talking lamps and weird stuff like that. I think this may be contributing to why SF is not taken seriously as an academic discipline (despite that we are fast approaching an era of talking lamps and weird stuff like that (like the mutant peacocks on the Simpsons last night ... brilliant)). Anyway, I'm running a fever. I have no idea what I'm talking about. Time to go babble about BIO POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Edited on 2005-11-02 17:40:44 by EschaTon
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Urgh .... BRAAAAINZZZZZZ - Zombie EschaTon
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Urgh .... BRAAAAINZZZZZZ Zombie EschaTon
Edited on 2005-11-02 17:40:21 by EschaTon
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Urgh .... BRAAAAINZZZZZZ Zombie EschaTon
Edited on 2005-11-02 02:14:38 by Squad514
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A rose by any other name… its still just a rose. Next your going to tell me that RUSH∞ fills its music with political statements. - Squad514
Edited on 2005-11-01 16:01:08 by EschaTon
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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 1552
I'm reading the course descriptions of the classes I'm taking next semester and I noticed this rather amazingly wonderful line while reading the description of a class on Afrofuturism next semester: "No prior knowledge of the future is required." Needless to say I'm excited about this class. I was thinking the other day, when someone was blathering on and on about Foucault in one of my seminars, about how bored I am with the past. I think I'm going to stop muttering about science when people ask what I study and just say "futurology" by way of explanation. I couldn't care less about Foucault's apparent mis-reading of the 18th century to formulate the creation of bio-power. I'm more interested about what happens to bio-power if we don't have bodies. I think it's been interesting, though, to observe how future-tinted everything I think about is. While taking a class on Shakespeare, I started to notice that a lot of the historical discourse about the emergence of modernity during Shakespeare's life mimics a lot of the theorizing about singularity. From there, I've arrived at writing about cyborgs in Love's Labour's Lost. For some reason, it feels like an English major saying "I'm sick of reading books" (I've said this more than once), but my realisation that I'm not interested in the past feels like I'm betraying my discipline. Part of me wants to recite the old (and cliched) truism that "those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it," despite the fact that I'm not sure that statement is true anymore. We live in an era, according to Michel Serres, in which the past has come back to haunt us. Through past depletion and exploitation of nature, Serres argues, we have come to exist in a world that is constantly fraught with the threat of annalihation. So, does that mean we need to find some way of breaking with history? Is that why I'm so interested in the future.
Anyway, it doesn't look like anyone is going to come to office hours today. I'm out of here.
Edited on 2005-10-30 23:56:12 by EschaTon
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I watched the "Dawn of the Dead" remake on Friday night. As much as I love the original, I have to say that the remake was significantly better. For one thing, it doesn't look as cheap. For another, and despite what purists say, running zombies are infinitely more scary than lumbering zombies. While the zombies in the original "Dawn" probably represent the inevitable forces of postindustrial consumer capitalism (at least according to Steve Shaviro∞), the running zombies are, in my opinion, an evocation of the sudden violence of terrorism. I don't really want to walk all the way down this road, but the "Dawn" remake is an analogy (and a rather brilliant one) to September 11th. Overall, I have to say I was coming in expecting a badly acted, corny remake of a drop-dead (buh dum bum cha!) classic. What I got, instead, was a staggeringly violent, white knuckle film that captures the spirit of contemporary America. I feel weird saying this, but I think "Dawn of the Dead" may be one of the best movies of the last five years.
Deletions:
I watched the "Dawn of the Dead" remake on Friday night. As much as I love the original, I have to say that the remake was significantly better. For one thing, it doesn't look as cheap. For another, and despite what purests say, running zombies are infinitely more scary than lumbering zombies. While the zombies in the original "Dawn" probably represent the inevitable forces of postindustrial consumer capitalism (at least according to Steve Shaviro∞), the running zombies are, in my opinion, an evocation of the sudden violence of terrorism. I don't really want to walk all the way down this road, but the "Dawn" remake is an analogy (and a rather brilliant one) to September 11th. Overall, I have to say I was coming in expecting a badly acted, corny remake of a drop-dead (buh dum bum cha!) classic. What I got, instead, was a staggeringly violent, white knuckle film that captures the spirit of contemporary America. I feel weird saying this, but I think "Dawn of the Dead" may be one of the best movies of the last five years.
Edited on 2005-10-30 23:54:46 by EschaTon
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No. Everything is a symbol for something else. - EschaTon
Edited on 2005-10-30 21:02:40 by Squad514
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Is there any time that Zombies are just zombies and not a political statement? - Squad514
Edited on 2005-10-30 19:53:23 by MichaelNiffeneggerTestUser
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Hahahaha...Limp Bizkit has always been horrible. One year for Christmas I got the "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water" CD and I was just like, "thanks...not."--MichaelNiffeneggerTestUser
Edited on 2005-10-30 13:56:19 by EschaTon
No differences.
Edited on 2005-10-30 13:56:06 by EschaTon
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http://pilsch.com/img/dawn.jpg∞
Edited on 2005-10-30 13:06:12 by EschaTon
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Sunday, October 30, 2005 1257
I watched the "Dawn of the Dead" remake on Friday night. As much as I love the original, I have to say that the remake was significantly better. For one thing, it doesn't look as cheap. For another, and despite what purests say, running zombies are infinitely more scary than lumbering zombies. While the zombies in the original "Dawn" probably represent the inevitable forces of postindustrial consumer capitalism (at least according to Steve Shaviro∞), the running zombies are, in my opinion, an evocation of the sudden violence of terrorism. I don't really want to walk all the way down this road, but the "Dawn" remake is an analogy (and a rather brilliant one) to September 11th. Overall, I have to say I was coming in expecting a badly acted, corny remake of a drop-dead (buh dum bum cha!) classic. What I got, instead, was a staggeringly violent, white knuckle film that captures the spirit of contemporary America. I feel weird saying this, but I think "Dawn of the Dead" may be one of the best movies of the last five years.
Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2005-10-26 01:39:50 by EschaTon []
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Wednesday, October 26, 2005 0136
I just heard the new Limp Bizkit song ... it's actually, seriously a hybrid cover of both "Long Way Home" by Motley Crue and "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve. When I say that this is the worst piece of music ever recorded I am totally not kidding. I try to picture, in my mind's eye, a world where this song might have some positive good as I listen to it, and all I see is a giant boot crushing puppies. There, I said it, this song is the aural equivalent of killing puppies. I ... wow ... I'm at least trying to remember a day when Limp Bizkit was at least a stoopid, embarrasing fake-metal band ... this ... it's a piano ballad ... but not in the "Novemeber Rain"-this could be cool if it didn't suck vein. It just sucks. Oh man ... I feel so very dirty.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 2334
I'm watching back episodes of "Threshold" that I time-shifted from the internet. It's pretty excellent. At least in terms of things I'm interested in. The show itself is badly written, acted, and filmed. That said, it's basically David Cronenberg-lite. Peoples' heads implode, eyes get gouged, and bodies get mutilated. There doesn't seem to be so much horror and revulsion, yet, but I have my fingers crossed. Also, there is yet to be any anality. That said ... awesome. Anyway, it's all about aliens using audio signals to reprogram human DNA and colonization through means other than invasion. Fun fun.
Sunday, October 16, 2005 0030
Wow. That game really sucked. While I think we will probably fall like a rock in the rankings, no one can fault Penn State for what happened. I think that is what is so upsetting about the game. To lose because of stupid luck after playing your heart out is just the most awful way to lose. After that game, we turned the teevee to USC/Notre Dame. That game was so upsetting I don't even want to talk about it. All in all, it was a pretty dismal day.
I agree. This is the last time I'll talk about it because it depresses me too much. But really that game had so many "what ifs" i can't stand it. Plus to add insult, no, rather injury to injury, Derrick Williams broke his arm and is out for the season. OHH! Plus there was also ND's loss, you are right, it was ruff. -ElwoodBlues
Friday, October 14, 2005 0136
Since tomorrow is a vacation day, I decided not to worry too much about doing lots of work. Instead, I started playing around with a programming language called Processing∞. It's a pretty sweet Java derived language that allows the easy creation of pretty sophisticated things∞. Anyway, one of the examples∞ I was messing around with implemented Conway's Game of Life∞. One thing that is neat about the Processing code is that its easy to experiment with variables and settings. I started changing the one rule of Conway's (that a node stays on if and only if it has three neighbors) and discovered that if you set the number below three, the system remains chaotic. If you set the number above three, the system collapses within one or two turns. It reminded me of the fact that Earth is within something like a 2000 km band were life is capable of existing within a solar system. Anyway, interesting stuff to think about.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005 0022
One of my housemates and I were discussing my previous blog post while sitting on our porch today. We then got into a discussion of how English graduate students enjoy things on a totally different level than people not trained in critical analysis. It reminded me of the episode of the Simpons (which everything comes back to, ultimately) where the teachers go on strike and they get people from the community to teach. The science guy (whose name I can't remember at the moment) is attempting to diagram the force relationships of a simple child's toy. When one of the preschoolers he is teaching asks to play with the toy, he responds with something along the lines of "No! You can't! You won't appreciate it on as many levels as I do!" Sometimes, I feel like that when I watch teevee or go to a movie. The other day, for instance, I mentioned how Edward Said's doctrine of Orientalism popped up in an episode of the X-Files. A friend of mine commented that the cover of the Third Season of Six Feet Under was an allusion to some early English book called the Book of Martyrs and how she made a huge deal out of it in Blockbuster and ended up getting a lot of confused looks from the staff and other customers. It's really amazing when you have these moments of self-actualization were you can clearly see how much your education has changed (and continues to change) your basic outlook on life. This afternoon on the porch, I really wanted to try and remember what my teevee viewing was like in my pre-critical days. I remember them as being vaguely happier. I wonder, now, is this the origin of nostalgia? Do we long for a time when we enjoyed the world around us from a position of less understanding? Further, does that mean that understanding (and knowledge) is the seat of unhappiness?
Ignorance is Bliss. -ElwoodBlues
Monday, October 10, 2005 2349
I was watching MTV today (because work is overrated) and I think I may have figured out why the Terrorists hate us. If you ever want to understand why, sometimes, it seems like the entire rest of the world hates Americans, I would suggest you watch "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV. The season finale aired at 10:30 tonight (but I imagine it will be rerun ad nauseum (quite literally)) in the next few months. Anyway, "My Super Sweet 16" is this brilliant "reality" teevee show were they find the richest, most self absorbed, 15 year-old girls possible and follow them around as they plan their 16th birthday party (and say things like "this party cost more than my parents' wedding, but I'm totally worth it" and "I just don't see why people would ever want to spend less than $500 on a purse."). The thing that I find confounding about this show is I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to it. While it's easy to say that the show is trying to reveal how vacuous the rich are, its also glorifying their lifestyle. At the same time, it can't be simple wish fulfillment, becasue the girls are made out to be horrible human beings. I think the lesson, perhaps, to be drawn from "My Super Sweet 16" is a kind of wish fulfillment: "if you had this much money, you could be this big of a bitch and everyone would still love you." Which makes me sick. I've tried to get away from the Marxism of my youth, but there are times when I really do think that, maybe, we should be killing the rich. Now is one of those times.
I agreeee! The girls on that show are so self-absorbed it's rediculous. And they are always so mean to their parents, who ironically enough, are funding their million dollar soiree. Also, I love the way "no one is ever going to top" each of their parties and somehow they don't even know most of their guests. They may actually be worse then the girls on Laguna Beach, if that's possible -Mike Jones
I've never been much of a Marxist, but I completely agree. After watching this show, all of these rich people need to die.--MichaelNiffeneggerTestUser
I absolutely agree. All the girls on that show are spoiled, self-absorbed brats. Most people with money act similarly, but that doesn't mean all of them are like that or they all raise their kids that way... TV only portrays the stereotypical stuck-up ones. Killing them all off is a little harsh. --StarBurst
Makes me sick really. Like I want to see these idiots on tv anyway and bragging about crap I'll never have! On some of these shows they talk about how hard "it" is and tough "it" is. What is "it" because I know they don't mean their life? I do think that probably some of them need to be shot (I hate to use the word all though) LOL SheElff
I just have to say that if you are turning on MTV, one has to expect to see stupid self- absorbed human beings. I mean that is all that MTV really is. I hate MTV. I mean ever since the start of their existence, they have done everything in their power to destroy music. - ElwoodBlues
Monday, October 10, 2005 1259
I have a weak-spot for obsessive boxed sets of media. I almost broke down and dropped 300 on Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Lives and Worlds of Charley Patton not so much out of my love for delta blues (I don't love the style THAT much) but more because it was 1) packaged in a handmade wooden box 2) contained a hardback book 3) contained every track Patton recorded plus a whole host of sides by people he was most likely friends with. All in all, it was a brilliantly thorough evaluation of one of the true greats of American music. That said, I wanted it because it was big and crazy. It was like The Bear Family Label's Complete Hank Williams (which is every note (included outtakes) the man ever laid to tape) in its almost monomaniacal drive to be complete. The same thing almost led to my purchasing the Criterion edition of Brazil even though I hate the movie.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I did indulge my obsession for obsession on Saturday. Anchor Bay, last year, released a boxed set called Dawn of the Dead: Ultimate Edition. It contained the three different cuts of the film plus a DVD of extras. I love Dawn of the Dead, but I have this thing (some might call it a phobia) about zombies. Zombie movies scare me in ways that few things do. 28 Days Later scared me so bad that I had violent nightmares (like the kind where you wake up screaming) for a month. It's not anything about the movies, themselves, that scarred me (because Dawn is really a gory comedy, when you get right down to it), but there's something about the idea of zombies that terrifies me at my core. ANYWAY. I had thought about buying the Ultimate Edition of Dawn for quite some time. DVD Planet was having a 45% off sale on Anchor Bay discs last week and I discovered that the set was out of print. When I walked into Best Buy on Saturday and discovered a copy still in stock (because they didn't get a shipment of The Fly: Special Edition (bastards)), I knew I had to have it.
I just watched the European edition of Dawn of the Dead that was cut by Dario Argento (!!!) and I have to say I'm thoroughly satisifed with my purchase. It's nice to own something this thorough and be able to hold it. Anyway, time to go to sleep. Hopefully no zombie nightmares.
Sunday, October 9, 2005 0140
So, yeah, the game was pretty awesome. It's nice to go to a school that can actually win for a change. Anyway, I had a rather crazy morning. Last night, before I went to bed, one of my housemate's mentioned that his brother and his brother-in-law were coming in to town for the game. Fine. No worries. We've had a house-load of guests before (our house is 3 bedrooms/1 bathroom (so two guests gets kind of crowded)). Anyway, I wake up around 10:30 this morning and walk out of my room to go to the bathroom and get some coffee. There's this girl in the hall. Now, one of my housemates is a homosexual and the other is married ... so I know neither of them brought this girl home. She then says "hi there! where's your bathroom." Being confused, I point towards the bathroom and dash back inside my room (figuring that, if needs be, I can better defend myself in my room (or go out the window, climb down the porch, and escape)). ANYWAY, about ten minutes later, my door gets forced open and this frat-dude walks into my room. I say:
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Hey man! Where's Rob Baker?"
"I don't know who that is. What are you doing in my house?"
He closes the door. At this point, I figure a roving band of fraternity brothers has decided to party at our house for the weekend. Anyway, my other housemate walks in at this point and says:
"Did some guy just walk into your room?"
"Yeah, it kind of freaked me out."
"Well, it was pretty weird for me ... I sleep naked."
Then we both go downstairs ... to discover that there are eight people in our house, four of whom I've never seen before. It would seem that my housemate's brother-in-law had some extra friends who stayed at our house last night. Now, think about the implications of eight people staying in a very small duplex. Basically, someone slept on the couch, two more people sleeped on the floor (and I mean, literally), and, apparently, two of these people slept in someone's car. Yeah ... anyway, we aren't sure if these people are sleeping here again tonight, but, either way, it was definitely an interesting way to start one's morning.
Nothing like starting the day off with a bang. - Veritas
I had 10 guests staying in my three bed/two bath apartment. It was complete chaos. I feel your pain! -TrinFuff
Friday, October 7, 2005 1354
Ever feel like you're missing something? The new 65daysofstatic album materialized (quite on its own) on my computer but moments ago. It's good, I suppose, but, I don't know, people on the internet have just been nuts about this band. Frankly, I don't get it. I mean, sure, it's glitch and post-rock ... but who cares? Were these two genres that really needed to be blended? And is making post-rock even a valid pursuit now that Explosions in the Sky have set the high water mark for the genre? I was listening to Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever and it really is an exciting, amazing listen (Explosions in the Sky are even better live). As most post-rock is mentioned as being "boring" or "noodling" (esp. Tortoise ... god), I think it's great that someone was finally able to figure out how to make an album that combined the moody atmospherics of a band like Set Fire to Flames with the guitar-heroics of a band like Led Zeppelin. 65daysofstatic just offers a pale imitation of this. While the music is "exciting" (in that it is loud and fast and full of drum machines), it isn't particularly emotional. I realize "emotion" is a bad category for valuation but that's the only thing I can come up with for why I like bands like Explosions in the Sky or M83 so much more than the dudes in 65daysofstatic (even though all three are really working within the same sonic framework). Either way, I feel like I'm being left out of the party by not liking this band, as a lot of people that I know and respect think its amazing.
Tuesday, October 4, 2005 1537
Wow ... I presented two papers in my Shakespeare seminar today and, suddenly, the overwhelming sickness I've been feeling since Sunday is just gone. I tell you stress is an amazingly powerful thing. I always remember how people would talk and talk when I was getting oriented to college about how "managing" stress is of the utmost importance to being a college student. There's not a lot to do to "manage" a fear that makes you so worried you can't eat. A friend of mine, half jokingly, referred to the fact that he lost 15 pounds his first year of college as the "stress diet." It's true, of course. Stress is something that is amazingly powerful and is one of the hardest things to deal with as a college student (if not the hardest). It's especially hard to deal with because new college students are away from home (often for the first time). Last night, I definitely was curled up in a little ball on my bed wishing I was at home and that my mom could tell me that everything is going to be all right. While I'm sure that makes me sound like an incredible wuss, I think it just indicates how powerful stress can be. It was completely debilitating. My paper was full of typos this morning because, last night, I just couldn't look at it anymore. It was really weird. Oh well, it's over ... FOR NOW (which is the BEST part of college (it's never over)).
I'm not about to make a very interesting or intellegent comment if that is what anyone was expecting, but yeah "stress sucks" in all forms. When I was younger and didn't have much to stress about and used to see all of these wonder drugs for people who suffered from stress I used to think the world was insane. After all why couldn't people just go on with life one day at a time? However opinions have changed since then :) not that I am on any wonder drugs, considering all the crazy side effects that are listed on these commercials, who would ever take them? SheElff
I certainly liked teevee a lot more before drug ads that told me that "rectal bleeding" is a possible side effect of some skin care pill. Just what I wanted to know during dinner! - EschaTon
Monday, October 3, 2005 0100
I just finished my 8-10 page paper on Richard III (it's 9 pages). I'm not completely happy with the work, but I am extremely happy to be done with Richard III, sort of. We have, for the last four weeks, been reading the first tetralogy for my seminar on Shakespeare. The first tetralogy is all three parts of Henry VI and Richard III. It details the rise to power of the Tudor dynasty. The problem with reading the first tetralogy is that the 1st part of Henry VI is utterly awful (the main thing I've learned this semester is that Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays I'd never heard of (it would seem for a reason)) and, except for the parts with Jack Cade, the 2nd part isn't much better. The third part of Henry VI gets good once Richard of Glouscester decides to defy God and his deformed body. From then, until the conclusion of Richard III, the tetralogy is amazing. It was weird ... drawing nine pages out of myself on the subject of Richard's actions while king of England was a rather difficult task, but I feel like I have so much more to say. Richard is such an oddly compelling character (and I think he is strangely apropos to the mixed up times in which we live). In short, I'm sorry that we aren't going to be able to do more with the play, but I'm glad that reading it means we can move on from the first cycle of history plays (to Love's Labors Lost, which is slightly better, I suppose). Reading this set of plays, I feel like I've really gained something, but it was a surprisingly grueling task.
Sunday, October 2, 2005 2055
So, what a weekend. The PSU game was awesome. A History of Violence was also awesome (although the friend I went with hated it (she's wrong)). I even wrote two papers for presentation on Tuesday (the part of my brain that thinks about Shakespeare may be completely fried, at this point). In addition, I also finished grading all the definitional arguments (now that the GD wiki works again). Anyway, (and appropriate to this entry), I was going to talk for a second about the way in which I write my blog posts (I am, of course, referring to these guys):
Due to a series of late-night emails I sent to the English Dept. mailing list that were (like this blog) appropriately parentheses laden, there has been some discussion about the styllistic implications of deploying multiple parenthetical statements. Further, being an English graduate student (esp. one who reads much Theory (which, I've now learned, is actually read "capital T theory")), I've decided to come up with a term for my writing style and a provisional definition of that term.
I'm calling the style of writing "the parenthetical" (which is rather obvious, I suppose (but whatever)). To deploy the parenthetical is to evoke the postmodern model of consciousness in which we are all but the vessel for a multitude of distinct voices. In using the parenthetical, the author gives textual form to this internal dialogue. In other words, to write the parenthetical is to engage in debate with oneself (I think this is not the same thing as prolepsis).
So, anyway, I hope that was appropriately weird. The thing that I've been thinking about (and blogging about somewhere away from the prying eyes of students) is that the parenthetical has firmly reshaped the way in which I think (at least my internal monologue (I'm not going to talk about the bit about internal monologue in "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" (even though it is one of my fav. bits in that film))). Then I begin to wonder if I always thought this way and my textual discourse has just begun to mirror it. Either way, I experimented with placing the parenthetical digressions that seem to plague my blogging into footnotes, but its just not the same (can you tell I've been reading through the last few years of my other blog?). Anyway, I don't know, it's just one of those things that I thought was a little strange only to find an entire community of writers stand up and declare it very strange (I'm still not convinced of the goodness of that response). Also, I've been interested to see other people experimenting with the parenthetical (both here and on the English dept. mailing list).
Either way, I didn't have anything of real interest to discuss so I decided to post about a great big nothing that I've been thinking about recently.
Friday, September 30, 2005 1715
Serenity∞ is an extremely awesome film. I just got home from a matinee screening and I highly recommend the movie. Although, as someone who's seen the tv series its based on (Firefly) three times, I'm not sure how well it would play for people who aren't even aware of the tv program. Either way, its one of the better SF films released ... ever. Right up there with Alien, Blade Runner, Star Wars, and Empire Strikes Back (which are all films that Serenity borrows from). Anyway, now I have to find the time, this week, to write an eight to ten page paper on Richard III AND see A History of Violence∞ and Grizzly Man∞. Everything happens at once, lordy.
Right now, though, I'm going to take a nap. I've been up late everynight this week trying to get this stupid wiki back working.
Sunday, September 25, 2005 1931
Today was one of those days. I was wearing my pajamas up until about an hour ago. Despite the lazy air of wearing one's jammies until almost 7 PM, I actually was extremely productive (and intend to be productive on into the night). While I did watch the first quarter of the Eagles game, I also read an essay I will be presenting for my Shakespeare seminar, graded 8 papers for class, and prepared some for tomorrow's lecture. Overall, this has been much more productive than I usually am on a weekend. I still have another two acts of Henry VI, pt. 3 to read and a one page paper to write on the play, but the night is young.
Anyway, as it's getting on towards the end of the year (or, at least, three quarters done), I was thinking about my favorite albums so far this year (I am a perpetual list maker). I don't think I can pick a favorite record, yet, but if I were to enumerate a few of my favorites, so far, they would be:
- Orthrelm, OV
- Animal Collective, Feels
- Black Dice, Broken Ear Record
- Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah!, Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah!
- The Wilderness, The Wilderness
- Sigur Ros, Takk
- David Banner, Certified
- Bloc Party, Silent Alarm
- Four Tet, Everything Ecstatic
- Wolf Parade, With Apologies For the Queen Mary
I don't really know what such a list accomplishes, but it is good to go back over the list of stuff I've heard this year and collect memories that happened while I was listening to them.
Saturday, September 24, 2005 1942
I completely struck out regarding football today. The local ABC affliate opted to show Notre Dame v. Washington instead of VT/GT (which was just as well; 51-7. Virginia Tech is the real deal this year, it would seem). Then, said same ABC affliate decided not to show USC/Oregon and is showing ... Jeopardy! instead. Oh well, one of my housemates is an Iowa grad and he had an equally bad day (and he actually got to watch his team get demolished). Nonetheless, I just wish it were possible to get the games I want to watch on TV (I don't even mind watching them when the networks want me to watch them).
It bothers me that I have to pay-per-view in order to get services like this. Why is it that much harder to offer me a choice? Say, instead of turning the teevee on, expecting USC/Oregon, and finding Jeopardy!, I could get a menu asking me if I want to watch:
- USC/Oregon
- Jeopardy!
- Whatever other game was on at that moment (I think it was Mississippi State vs. Tennessee)
Also, what's up with the Big Ten this season? My housemate and I were discussing it and it's like Bizarro World: Penn State's undefeated (which is awesome), as is Indiana and Michigan State, while Michigan lost to Notre Dame (and Wisconsin) and Ohio State had a sputtering start to their season (honestly, though, with Vanderbilt having one of the best records in the SEC and Baylor being undefeated, this is shaping up to be one weird season).
Yeah, I was pissed that I didn't get to see the USC game. Imean if someone is picking them to be the national champions this season why we not getting to see them in one of their only challenges of the regular season?
-ElwoodBlues
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 1500
While we are on the topic of movies, I just saw the Aeon Flux trailer∞ online. *sigh*. As soon as I heard they were making a movie of Aeon Flux and that Peter Chung wasn't going to be involved, I knew the film was going to be awful, but, still, it gets the bile rising in my mouth just watching the trailer. Based on the trailer, it looks like they almost got it right. Of course, I'm not sure how Aeon Flux (the longest episode of which was something like 15 minutes long) could possibly work as a feature film. The whole point of the series was not the standard science fiction trope of world-building, but to use the future (and an unstable future, at that (what I mean is that Aeon Flux, the TV series, was never set in a stable world. Instead, the rules would change from ep to ep)) to make interesting or strange visual puns (I especially like the episode in the elevator (that doesn't have any dialogue)). They seem to have picked up on Aeon's nihilism and I really hope that she dies at some point in the film (because, in the series, she kept getting cloned), but it still looks like an action film (and, especially, a lot like Equilibrium (which was a truly amazing film (and I have a feeling that it will end up influencing a lot of other movies)). I'm used to Hollywood remaking or reinterpreting old and loved cultural institutions, but I think the whole point with Aeon Flux was that the series defied commodification. The only plus side I see to the movie is that, hopefully, the series will be issued on DVD.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 1351
Serenity opens a week from Friday! My housemate and I have already decided that it's not a question of "when are we going?" but a question of "how many times are we going?" We are definitely planning to go to the matinee as soon as class is over on Friday (I thought about cancelling class that day (but would probably lose my job if I did)). We will probably also go again during the weekend. I'm very excited about this, because Firefly was genius and, tragically, got lost in the vacuum that is Fox. Anyway, its time to start dusting off my Chinese cursing and get ready for the best space-western ever put on film to return.
Class trip to see Serentity that day? - SetAbominae
Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1613
This weekend is the start of conference play for most teams (including our own). While I'm sure the Penn State/Northwestern game is going to be interesting, I have to say that my interests are going to be elsewhere. Specifically, I'm interested in seeing the clash between the two potential best teams in the new ACC (Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech). I'm hoping my Tech can pull it off, but Virginia Tech is frighteningly good (as usual) this season. Also, the GT quarterback has viral meningitus. The other "start of conference play" game that I'm really excited about is USC and Oregon. Namely, I want to see what USC does against a team that runs the spread option(and runs it well, apparently). I'm also interested to see if Oregon can make my season and keep USC out of the Rose Bowl. While USC is a great team, the fact that they have "won" two national championships without actually playing the best team in that given season is a real crime. Honestly, the Pac 10 is so full of teams that rely on pretty-boy offensive flair without defensive substance (I mean, look what happened to Cal when they encountered the middling (by Big 12 standards) defense of Texas Tech (I really enjoyed watching that game)), that, basically, USC, a team that is as good on defense as they are on offense, can skate into the national title game on the good graces of the Pac 10 apologists in the media without actually facing any team of substance. And then, being given the national title in 2003 and getting to play a choking Oklahoma in 2004, USC has never faced a real test. LSU or Auburn would have summarily destroyed USC in either year (especially Auburn, last year). So, as much as I can't stand any team in the Pac 10 and as much as I hate their repulsive uniforms, I will be rooting for the Ducks this weekend, because, ultimately, someone needs to stop USC. Otherwise, we may be in the position of finding out that this two-time, defending national champ wasn't all it was cracked up to be when it faces its first real football team in the Rose Bowl (because I'm pretty sure Texas is going to be there, this year, and Texas is damn good).
Monday, September 19, 2005 1245
On the way back from class, I had what I can only describe as an "iPod moment." I was listening to "You're a Woman and I'm a Machine" by the Death From Above 1979 (which I'd never heard in its entirity before (and, whoa, what a record). The album, for me, has always been great, but I usually stop listening after "Romantic Rights" (I had the same relationship with "Remain In Light." I would always get stuck on "Once In a Lifetime" (which is genius). Finally, I realized that the second side is actually the stronger of the two (back in old LP days, music came on vinyl records that had two sides)) and the last song, "Sexy Results," came on. Anyway, it's groovetastic (if that's a word). Where most of the DFA1979's album is amazingly tight guitar skronk and drums (that only brushes funk), "Sexy Results" has a bongo break and large amounts of keyboards. So, I'm standing at the corner of Park and Allen, waiting to cross the street, when I suddenly realize that I am, in fact, dancing. I felt as though I was in an iPod ad.
Anyway, that got me thinking about my relationship with my iPod. I certainly listen to albums (or songs (in the case of my Shuffle)) and comment, internally, on their iPod-ness. For example, the new Sigur Ros album is brilliant, but, except for "Glósóli," the album isn't really iPod material. The DFA1979 is very iPod-worthy (with three songs on my Shuffle). Similarly, the Scissor Sisters are very iPod-worthy but not the new Deerhoof, even though I "like" all four albums (at one point, I used to classify records as "home", "car", and "iPod" based on my desire to listen to them in those locations). I wonder if my desire for music to place on my iPod is set based on some preference I have or if it is, instead, drawn from the type of music played in iPod ads. Do I choose songs to put on my iPod because I like them or because I think that if I listen to DFA1979 or The Von Bondies or Daft Punk on my iPod, I will somehow be better looking and more stylish, like the terminal hipsters in Apple's iPod ads? Then, I wonder if all of my music preferences are because of this desire to feel and be recognized as hip. That's the realization that will really blow your mind.
So, but yeah, I put on DFA1979 when I got home and I like the album less on my home stereo and the new Deerhoof more, even though, on the iPod, I can't stand to listen to Deerhoof (it doesn't have enough beats and isn't as "in your face"). I just have to wonder, is this because I actually like DFA1979 better (and just don't want to admit it) or because "Romantic Rights" would play better in an iPod teevee ad?
Ugh ... anyway, I need to go buy groceries.
Sunday, September 18, 2005 2326
I suppose its cliched to say, but the Pixies really were an amazing band (oh wait, they reunited) ... are an amazing band (although, I haven't seen the reunited Pixies, so I'll just let that slide). I've dug out my copies of Doolittle and Surfer Rosa and I really think that both of those albums are amongst the best ever recorded, by anyone. Although, I wonder, would I even be able to compare the Pixies to something like Exile on Main Street or Revolver? Forget trying to debate the comparative merits of different musical genres, merely coming up with a consistent lexicon for speaking about rock music is almost impossible. I think it's a question of history. Are the Pixies better than the Rolling Stones or do they just sound fresher because I was alive when Doolittle was recorded? Does that even matter? I listen to Surfer Rosa and Sticky Fingers and they sound nothing alike, although I imagine copious amounts of sex and drugs were involved in the production of both albums. How is it even possible to make lists where people pick the 100 best albums ever (picking, oh i don't know, the best albums of the 1970s is even problematic (is Blue Oyster Cult better than This Heat, even though both bands probably had no idea the other existed?))? Further (and I'm talking about this list∞), how do albums like Kind of Blue (which is modal jazz (and damn great)) even pop in a discussion in the 100 greatest albums of rock & roll? Anyway, whatever, the Pixies and the Rolling Stones are both awesome (and both Doolittle and Exile on Main Street would be on my top 100 albums list).
I have to agree, though all of the albums I saw on there were great, haow can anyone go about saying anyone album is better than another. And by the way Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is amazing (I realize I'm probably the only 18 year-old who'll say that but what ever) In the song So What it almost sounds as if it has words playing with it. Anyway if they forget about Darkside of The Moon I'll be pissed - ElwoodBlues
Sunday, September 18, 2005 2159
The whole lost time thing happened again ... oh well. It ended up being 1:30 last night a lot later than it should have been. Oh well. This is a post about football:
I watched Tennessee vs. Florida last night (despite the fact that, of course, the Big Ten is the best conference in football). Anyway, the game left something to be desired. While it wasn't the titanic clash I had hoped for (or, as it might have been under, say, Steve Spurrier), Florida definitely looked good and Tennessee definitely looked bad. Tennessee is fast rising on my list of overranked teams (along with Cal, Notre Dame, and Michigan). Every year, at the beginning of the season, commentators fall over themselves to talk about how this will be the year that Phillip Fulmer wins a national title. I think people need to wake up and smell the fact that there will never be another Peyton Manning at Tennessee and that he was the only reason the team ever was able to challenge the other, better, teams in the SEC for dominance.
Also, it was interesting to see how well the spread option didn't work in the SEC. I know that it is trendy as heck to run spread offenses at this moment (I mean, EVERYONE is doing it). While I would pick Urban Meyer as the undisputed king of the spread, I think the thing people will hopefully see at Florida is that the spread offense doesn't run in a conference that actually plays defense (so, basically, the SEC and the Big 12 South (at least the part of the Big 12 South that is Texas and (normally) Oklahoma)). The number of times Chris Leak ended up chewing turf makes me wonder if it really is possible to make an offense without backs run in a culture that views 300 pound defensive players as the norm. Frankly, as excited as I was about seeing what Urban Meyer could do in the SEC, I think my suspicions about spread offenses were confirmed on Saturday.
I remember, last year, when Memphis was playing (and losing badly to) Cinncinnati (who were runnning the spread). One of the announcers remarked that the Memphis defense was blitzing three or more men every single down, even though the couldn't get to the quarterback. The announcer went on to remark that if Memphis had bigger players on their side of the line, they would have been slaughtering the Bearcats. Which isn't quite what happened to Florida yesterday (thanks to the ineptitude of Phillip Fulmer (just pick a stinking quarterback!!)), but I can see how their spread offense would have collapsed against someone like UGA's David Pollack. Either way, I think we are beginning to see that the spread offense (which just looks unnatural) doesn't have much of a future in the larger conferences (and I mean larger in both the metaphoric and physical sense). Despite that, I'm still interested to see what happens to Florida for the rest of the season.
I agree, the Big Ten is the best conference in college football by far...and there will never be another Peyton Manning at Tennessee, or at any other school for that matter comment by MichaelNiffeneggerTestUser
I agree about Tennessee. Every year I along with the rest of the country expect big things and every year we are let down. Mainly because they never have one guy who is there clear QB. But the spread offense can work it just needs the proper athletes. It also needs to occasionaly have elements of power football. But i believe it can work. Also when you're talking strong conferences don't forget the new ACC (which was formed by stealing the best parts of the old Big East) -ElwoodBlues
Saturday, September 17, 2005 0100
So, before I get in to talking about what I was planning on posting, I'm trying to figure out how it's 1 AM? Some friends came over for dinner and then we went down town for a drink (this all started at around 8:30). I came home and watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and, somehow, it's 1 AM. Weird. Anyway, some times I really worry that when I lose time like this, I've been abducted by aliens or something (I also worry that I have black outs and turn into Brad Pitt and start "underground boxing clubs"). ANYWAY, it was really strange to look at the clock for this entry's date and realize that it was tomorrow, all of a sudden.
After class today, I bought a laptop. It was something I've been meaning to do for quite some time, but the technology problems I alluded to in class today involved larges chunks of my computer's motherboard dying (ethernet and firewire). While I could probably figure the problem out, I've been having lots and lots of problems with my old computer lately (it runs linux, bless its heart, and it really shouldn't (long story, involving a discussion of open source network drivers)), so I decided that the time to buy a new computer was now. Anyway, I have a new 15" Apple Powerbook sitting on my desk. I'm quite excited. The thing I find odd, though, is that as Apple is having a "buy a computer, get a free iPod Mini" deal, at the moment, I also have a new iPod. Already owning a smaller iPod Shuffle, I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with my new Mini, but I like having it.
I've (along with a lot of other people in America) been thinking about design lately. Specifically, I've been wondering about how well designed objects seem to take on the properties of sexualized fetish objects. The number of people, for instance, who've asked to hold my Razr, now that I carry it, is quite high. And they always seem to carress it and notice how smooth the coating is. It's almost kind of disturbing. The same goes for my new laptop and both my iPods. I'm not really sure what I think about that, but it almost seems like there's something perverse, now, about our technological objects. You know? What do you guys think? Is it true that the only remaining function we have to economical distinguish oursevles (as a nation) is our ability to design sexually charged objects (and this isn't my argument, there was an article in Newsweek not long ago about how our nation is becoming a culture of design, as we move our technological innovations and manufacturing base to Asia)?
Either way, my new laptop is awesome (and luxuriously curvy).
Anyway, I'm really glad we decided not to continue the reading quizes. I was really not looking forward to giving them, but as "everyone" else was doing it, I thought I ought to (yes, I would jump off a bridge if everyone else was doing it). I think the blogs are a fun thing to give people practice writing first (and a source of opinion and discussion second). It's one of the things I hated about being an undergradute was that my professors always seemed to be able to take the fun out of things that I was enjoying. I'm really glad that I don't have to do that anymore.
Of course, that said, the majority of you guys didn't do the reading on the syllabus and that really isn't cool. Those links are to things that I find cool and want to talk about in class, so it really makes all of our lives a lot easier if we can come prepared ready to shoot the shit, as it were. Anyway, that's that about that, I suppose.
Thursday, September 15, 2005 0322
The first order of internet business (and it's serious business∞, I assure you) was to acquire a copy of the leaked, new Lightning Bolt album (Hyper Magic Mountain). Now, let me just say, that I've done my time as a Lightning Bolt fan (heck, I drove to Kentucky, once, to see them (play spot the teacher in that picture)∞). The first time I saw them, in Atlanta on the Wonderful Rainbow tour, was amazing. The second time I saw them ... was so, so. I thought it was because it was two years later and I had grown up (apparently, based on the Kentucky show, to lesbian-themed free-noise (but we won't go there)), but I just dug up my copy of Wonderful Rainbow while making ringtones for my phone and realized that it is an amazing record. Sadly, Hyper Magic Mountain is not an amazing album. Where Rainbow delighted in building tension through repitition and lightning fast (buh dum bum cha) group dynamics, this is a more sedate affair (by LB standards). It's mostly just pummeling (that said, no one pummels a listener like Lightning Bolt (and "2 Morro Morro Land" is a heck of a track)). It's nice to know that I'm not getting old, but it's sad to see the most amazing live band to ever play music release a really weak album.
Thursday, September 15, 2005 0231
Finally, at long last, I have internet. There are about a million things I need to do that don't involve posting on here, so I'm off (once again) to the internet.
(sorry, but the last month has been the longest in a decade that I've been without high speed internet access. it's like having an itch that you can never scratch (to quote Blade Runner)).
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 1600
Sometimes, I feel as though I spend all of my time worrying about weighty matters of unbelievable intellectual obtuseness, like "Shakespearan Authorship" or "Deconstruction". I've been feeling drained, after classes, lately, as though I have sprained my intellect or something of that sort. Despite these concerns, though, it always seems to be the mundane, physical actions that ultimately get to college students: I was up until 1 AM this morning doing my laundry.
Basically, we don't have a laundry at our house (it's a very short walk to campus and the rent's cheap). Normally, I would go to a laundromat to do my clothes, but an opportunity presented itself that enabled access to a laundry for free. The only time I was able to take advantage of this one-time-only deal was at 8 o'clock last night. Working against me (further) was the lack of a proper dryer. Instead, the appliance that proported to be a dryer was, in fact, one of those Earth-friendly units that, ultimately, could be referred to as a "slightly-less-wettener" (if that were an at all proper word). By God, though, my last load of laundry was going to be a dry one, and after 1.5 hours in the dryer, I had my dry clothes (the towels are, however, currently stretched out on various objects of furniture, as I don't really want them to mildew).
It wasn't a total wash, as I was able to drink beer and watch the Falcons-Eagles game (cable and beer are two things I've been lacking since the start of the semester). So, despite being drained, at the moment, things are starting to look up. I have to read a bunch of Freud tonight, but, either way, I know it's going to be an early evening for me. Hopefully I'll have something a little more intellectual to say on here (after the sprain heals).
Sunday, September 11, 2005 2253
Well, there won't be any chicken in class on Monday, but it was definitely yummy. Anyway, I don't want this to be a post about chicken...
I think I may have made a social blunder at dinner last night with my housemate's parents. I know that his father is a liberal-baiting Republican, and I know it is all in good fun, but when he said "I think senator Santorum is absolutely right to suggest that people who ignore evacuation orders during natural disasters should be thrown in jail," something snapped. The story goes like this: I have grandparents. They live in Gulfport, MS∞ and are 88 years old. My grandmother is deaf and getting senile and my grandfather had a hip replacement last year. Now that you have the background, I think you can understand why I responded to this man (who was buying me dinner) with: "So, should the police have thrown my 88 year old grandparents in jail?" Anyway, there was a rather long and uncomfortable silence at the dinner table. Then we talked about Iowa getting shellaced (which is indicitive of why I don't bet on football).
It bothered me, though, what he said. I understand that it's easy to reduce people to images on teevee and numbers (it's really the only way to live in the world, I think), but that wasn't what bothered me, so much. I'm very sick of hearing about the "liberal"/"conservative" binary in this country. I know that it is fashionable, but I think it's tearing this country apart. When word got out that my parents voted Kerry (my mom is a long time southern Democrat and my father just doesn't agree with George W. Bush (he loved Reagen)), their friends stopped calling. It's silly that we have all been manipulated into these easy binaries and marketed this stupid hatred (this swings both ways, my "lefty-liberal" colleagues drive me nuts sometimes).
To indicate the dangers of binaries (which is what we are talking about tomorrow (which was totally not the reason I posted this story)), let me tell you a story about breaking them down (or "deconstructing" them). Anyway, I was a teaching assistant for an introductory software engineering class at Georgia Tech∞ as an undergradute. One day, one of my students asked me what I planned to do after graduation:
"Well, I'm going to be a graduate student in English Literature."
He smiled and (thinking it clever) responded: "Ahhh ... so you are planning on joining the liberal academic bias?"
I sighed and said: "Well, no, actually. As someone who advocates the violent dissolution of all but the most limited of governments, I think I may fall outside of your narrow definition of 'liberal'."
His brain pretty much, visibly, turned off at that point. He got up and walked out of my office without saying another word.
(For the record, I don't actually advocate the violent dissolution of government (technically, i don't advocate anything political)).
Saturday, September 10, 2005 1509
The English Department's start-of-the-year picnic was last night. One of the nice functions of staying until the event's bitter end was that I got to "borrow" an entire tray of barbecued chicken (which is now sitting in my fridge). I was walking around the party, as it was breaking up, talking to some of my colleagues about David Lynch's masterful "Blue Velvet" (which none of them had seen *gasp*) and eating barbecue chicken from this tray. After using a chicken breast bone to emphasize a point, someone suggested that I should bring my tray of chicken to class and use it as a prop while lecturing. I just may yet do that. Either way, it was a fun evening and the fact that our kitchen is now full of cupcakes, cookies, and (of course) chicken is just icing on the cake (buh dum bum cha).
I think I had something more important to talk about, but I really should have written it down. Oh well. Also, I have a cable modem in the house, so we will (hopefully) have internet in the house on Monday.
Victory.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005 1353
Anyway, so there was quite an out-of-character digression into Marxism in my last post. I guess that still happens a lot (I was a Marxist for a number of years, mostly because it infuriated my father). Nonetheless, it does poke up more than once and a while.
I'm living, this year, in a house with a fellow English grad student who has something on the order of 300 or so DVDs. Which doesn't really sound like a lot, until you realize that a lot of those are TV-on-DVD. TV-on-DVD might be, in my mind, the greatest concept EVER. I love not having to watch commercials (which is why I use Bit Torrent∞ to download most TV I watch (although I don't think I can be favorable towards bit torrent as the Penn State IT usage policy has some frighteningly Draconian statement about using P2P (something like they can cut off your right hand or something equally silly))). ANYWAY, TV-on-DVD is great. Shows I would never have watched are now available to me. I watched all four seasons of CSI this summer and realized that it is great. Currently, I'm watching the first season of House. I love being able to watch TV at my own pace (which is usually around four to five episodes a day) and being able to pause the show and do something else for a while. I'm eagerly awaiting the day that people realize that TV-on-DVD is a valid art-form and TV shows start getting released direct to DVD as they already do in Japan.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005 2227
I wanted to respond to something on CarpeDiemBlog. While I agree that people are morally justified in stealing food from grocery stores in times of need, like a flood, why does it take a natural disaster to justify such expenditure? I suppose that the argument of spoilage is a pretty sound one, but I question the logic of it being "proper" (in whatever way you wish to define that word) to deny food to a starving man simply because he cannot pay for it, regardless of a natural disaster. By that I mean, the portion of the American populace who live below the poverty line throughout the country, all the time (and not just when FEMA forgets to get food or water to 15,000 people living in the New Orleans Convention Center (and don't get me started on my reasons for why I think FEMA "forgot")) are denied food simply because 1) it "belongs" to someone else and 2) They don't have enough "money" to exchange for the food they need to continue living. I suppose we could take the stiff-upper-lip, Scrooge approach (Scrooge being from Dickens and not the one from "Duck Tales") and claim that we are working to decrease the "surplus population." Suddenly, we are faced with the fundamental crisis of Judeo-Christian, Western capitalism: the very concept of the free-market economy disagrees with Christian morality (that said, I think it is possible, on a limited scale, to do both). So, sure, it is horrible to see people looting food on the television. It's also laudable to think that, perhaps, they are justified. The question I would like you guys to consider is this: do you think denying food to someone, simply because they lack the proper currency to trade for it, is, in anyway morally justified? (Also, is "money" a justifiable (or even good) measure of someone's economic worth? I mean, since the removal of the gold standard, our money isn't even worth anything, in the concrete sense)
Monday, September 05, 2005 1957
As much as I was partially excited my own growing extelligence in the previous post, I have spent today walking around State College, lugging my various electronic devices and it reminds me of the greatest barrier to mobile computing: batteries. I would be willing to say that at least 75% of the weight I carry is invested in powering my devices. It's one of the major problems facing the widespread adaptation of various post-human technologies and most computer scientists never even thought about it. Battery technology has not kept pace with the rest of the mobile computing world and its kind of sad, especially considering my level of lower back pain at the moment. Oh well! I have a bottle of aspirin waiting for me at home.
Sunday, September 04, 2005 2159
I went to see "The Constant Gardener" today with some of my friends from the English Department. It wasn't anything amazing, but I walked away with a very different impression of the film than everyone else. While they were all talking about how the film depressed them, in a "lefty-liberal sense," I was really interested in the representations of memory in the film (I think the film's usage of DV as a metaphor for memory is nearly on par with the Polaroids in Memento (which was an awful, awful film)). Anyway, it got my wondering about prosthetic memory, or "extelligence" as some people have started calling it (I was thinking about talking about storytelling and its relation to the film (and turning this whole blog-post into a commentary on why you guys' narrative papers are so important)).
Anyway, now that I have a working cellular telephone, I carry around more computer storage than is allotted for Penn State student email accounts. We get 500 megs with our @psu.edu webmail accounts. I have, at most times, in my pockets, a 512 MB iPod Shuffle, a 256 MB USB 1.1 Jump Drive (it's kind of a long story why I have both), a ballpoint pen, a notepad, and a Motorolla V3 Razr Blck (is Motorolla too good for vowels or something?). Anyway, I was thinking about how a lot of these technologies are starting to replace my internal ability to remember things (and trying to remember if it's bad that this is happening). I keep phone numbers and appointments on the phone (as well as play video games (I'm also thinking about using it for internet access for the laptop I'm planning on buying). I keep notes, a list of possible blog topics (which I highly suggest), homework assignments, class notes, and other general ephemera in the notepad. The iPod has about 90 minutes of music for walking around and filling up those boring times (like when I'm typing this in my office (because I don't have internet access at home (which is horrible))). I also transport course readings, programs (SSH, SCP, Firefox, Sunbird, VIM), and homework assignments around on the Jump Drive. All in all, I'm getting to where I don't have to keep much of anything internally anymore (except peoples' names (which I wish I had a computer for)). All in all, though, I'm not sure this transition to extelligence is necessarily a bad thing. I may have trouble remembering things in the classical sense, but, at the same time, not remembering is no longer a problem. Ahh to be post-human.
Anyway, I have flashing IM windows to answer and reading to do at home, so I must be on my way.
Friday, August 26, 2005 1122
This is my first blog entry for the year; hopefully this whole project will work. One of the problems I've always found with my blogging (because, honestly, I was doing it back before it was "cool" (I am that indie)) is that I never really have anything to discuss. Partly a product of a chronic lack of self-esteem (eg. "Why would anyone read about my life?") and part a doubting of my audience (eg. "Why would anyone care about my interests?"). I think these are the two fundamental flaws in the blogging medium (or, perhaps, barriers to entering the blogsphere). That said, however, I would suggest that you try to find a happy-medium to writing about yr life and writing about yr interests. If push comes to shove (as it often seems to in college), you can always sort through some news and respond to current events (blogs are mostly the collective rantings of the internet anyway (and, like assholes, everyone seems to have opinions)). Not only will you be able to complete yr required assignments for yr class, but you may actually learn something about what is going on in the world (gasp).
I would like to talk, I think, a little more about gathering information to write about on the class blogsphere. One of the beautiful things of the internet is the ability to do what media theorists refer to as "narrow casting," which is, in the technology industry, the ability of, say, cable television to distribute lots of small quantas of information (in the case of cable teevee, these are called "channels") over a shared line (yr coaxial cable). In media theory, narrow casting is the ability of a magazine (or a webzine (or a blog)) to target a very specific audience directly while still being able to have a supportive audience-community (this can be seen, in, say, Barnes & Noble, by looking at all the different subculture magazines (bass fishers, bass guitarists, etc.)). So, what I mean is, if you have a specific set of interests, there is a content distributor on the internet providing up-to-the-minute headlines for your consumption. The trick is hunting these providers down.
For my interests (science fiction, computers (specifically open source and macintosh), and independent/experimental music), my major sources of consumable news-information are SlashDot∞, Boing Boing∞ (although, everyone should at least take a look at Boing Boing. it's awesome), Mac Rumors∞, Fake Jazz∞, and Pitchfork∞. One thing I would suggest to you, if you are searching for things to write about on yr blog (if you have the same existential problems that I have, for instance), is to begin searching, say, Google (the most important internet application ever (other than the original Napster)) for blogs and newswires that distribute content that suits yr interests. Basically, what I mean is branch out from CNN∞ for getting yr news.
To quote Ghost In the Shell∞, "The net is vast and infinite∞." Enjoy.
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