Tammany Hall Reborn?

Walking around campus on these fine cool days, one cannot help but to notice the uprising on the the library bridge (and now even beyond). What are these on goings? Is it a student's revolt, a rebellion "against the man"? Perhaps a demonstration for the the oppressed, someone's whose rights have been suppressed by those in power? Maybe a demonstration, multi-day for the genocide in Darfur, the war in Iraq, Kenya, North Korea, WTO, NAFTA? No, it's just student elections.

Yes, student elections. The one time of the year when an elite number of people assemble, rallying their political power and buy votes for a position that to most of the student body is strictly ceremonial. Positional power is at the end, name recognition, maybe, but how many believe in the office, or at least the idea of the office. To change the campus, the university from the inside for the better, to continually evolve, or maybe to go reactionary for some.

It is just a byline on the resume, the road to a much greater political future it seems, a stepping stone. And the masses will follow them (for free gifts).

It takes a good bit of political capital to run for an elected office. Almost machine politics if you watch closely. How many candidates, the front runners at least, are members of social organisations, fraternities and sororities. Is this by coincidence. Absolutely not. This is a first step towards building connections and amassing political capital. Notice the size of said social organisations, very large they are. Almost larger than many of the other, loyal, voting social groups. Consolidate the vote of those that vote, the preppy more "social", facebook photoing ("tag me") crowd with positions in the campaign and if no room, multitudes of free gifts. Gifts which of course were paid for with the candidate's (parents'?) money. I wonder how much coupons numbering about 2000ish as a rough guess for an item about $2 per. I don't know, but it wasn't free, but if it was something may be going on there. But regardless, it's free to you right. They gives you a material possession and you assure them your vote...basically a gift for the next year's political future. That's a fair trade. Machine politics, maybe, as long as you vote early and vote often. Isn't it something that they call student governments in Europe "student unions."

Back in the day, these European student unions actually rallied. It was some crazy stuff. They shut down factories, started strikes, brought the government to its knees, and most importantly it was an experiment of breaking social norms and starting direct democracy. A guy who has a pig on a leash doesn't seem to me, this is to me, to be the type to wave a red flag, or even lead anyone. A guy with a pig on a leash tells me, one, I(he) look like a pig( because it is all about face/ name recognition), I(he) like bacon and I(he) am all about the power structure. Is it the people who take the goodies who become the pig on the leash or is it the candidate making himself the spectacle for the unseen order, the pig on the leash. You decide.

Or maybe your fancy is for food. Little freebies. I get you fat if you vote for me. A little treat of cold delicious goodness, all for your political future. I mean something that represents prosperity. A food item a, a refrigerated food item b, and c from a major franchise who brings in a good deal of capital and has highly restrictive franchising rules and regulations for ownership. (Married, 30+, Christian (regular churchgoing)). I mean, that sounds great.

The masses do come out though. More than they do for global warming or peace in the middle east, simply to take part in the grandeur of it all, the real politiks of the campus election.

No Muse Today

Ever get a new deodorant, and get a different smell, a different odor as it were? Is that a rhetorical question?

The purpose of my rhetorical pregunta is that I did, as you witty person may have guessed. I have a strong association with smell for some reason, I'm sure everyone does, but I have a tendency to be able to pick out people, food, drinks, activities based on odor, or my memory of that odor. I smell like a stranger. It is most disconcerting to not smell like yourself. What is even worse, I remember wearing this scent maybe two years ago during the summer, thus it is tainted with my summer job memories, which were not the most pleasant, but interesting/ good learning nonetheless. Nothing is worse than smelling like a stranger and recalling old memories that aren't the most pleasant...so I have been in between times it seems. Good deal of philosophy into this one could be read...It is a moment of existentialism as far as me dissociating from my own being, almost dualism with that respect as well, mind body separation and then of course living in time out of joint. So this is a large moment in history. Or it's not. I do not know, I'm a little lost, not really but for our sake and by our I don't know, yes we will go with yes, what, I don't know. It's the music man, makey makey think think, you me dancing thanks mr glasshouse, those crazy peasants can jam.

Also Leonard Bernstein is the man. Brilliant composer and conductor and he also made Jose Carreras almost cry. It was a good almost though, I mean he knows his stuff so you need to go to rehearsal prepared (and knowing how to count,sense of rhythm and read music), and if you don't he doesn't care who you are, ole LB will let you know that's not the sound he expects nor accepts.

That was free association writing, somewhat, mixed with exciting allusions. I love when the voiceover at the end explains the consequences of a deep movie for those who couldn't already figure out the implications of the words and actions of those on the stage/ film/ screen.

Just One To Make You Laugh

I was alphabetising, or rather re-alphabetising my books. I know it is so structuralist for me, I hate order except in my books and my movies. I don't know why, but I just do these things though I am disorganised in most other aspects of my life, but something funny occurred.

From Barthes to Benjamin to Boole to Borges to Derrida to Dostoevsky to Easthope to Foucault to Jameson to Lacan to Morrissey to Nietzsche to Plato to Rimbaud.

I find that funny.

What's In a Name

I have realised, that oddly, I have begun to dissociate myself, my being away from my name. It is odd, I do know, but it seems that Michael is just the name I find on my tests or on my homework or any other official document. It is the repetition of the same name with which i sign letter and emails, thing sent from my being. It is just strange...a series of words, composed of letters seemingly alien from myself. A man is only as good as his name, or is it the other way around. But my name has become something alien to me, a product of the real, not my active thought process. What is in a name as old Juliet implores the sky as ya boi Romeo listens on to this enchanting marvel. What is it, a name is just a name, a label, a classification for the unknown for easy reference, or maybe not. When does a name become an identification, and would that point of soul identification with the name be the moment when the self is completely lost to the language. I do not know. I respond to my nicknames, I respond to my last name, but there is just something so odd about my first. When ever a professor says Michael, it seems to take me some time to realise it is me that they call. I do not know if it is the frequency of the number of those who share my same given name, or it is me beginning to separate from it. I do not know if this makes sense, just a little observation.

Crosston was Mr. G-money at the debate originally titled "Jesus Freaks and Islamofascists," but was later changed to Christan and Muslim Radicalism due to potential backlash from the massive population of Muslims on campus at such an incendiary title. The little talk made, or rather fortified my view of the general ignorance of this prestigious campus' student body. It seems those that have the strongest opinions are the ones who have not read, both the relevant material (ie Postcolonial literature, middle eastern history, history of the us involvement in middle eastern affairs, the Qur'an, modern philosophy especially the ideas on the impact of the 'institution' , but then again thats just me) and studied the area of concern and how their situation affects and is affected by the ongoing conflicts. It seems ignorance is their bliss, alas.

Watched the power hour today. This being Mr. Rodger and Reading Rainbow, much to the dismay of my roomies. I wanted to learn how to grow up and they would teach me, plus it was a blast from the past when everything was so simple, but I watched nonetheless. Aparently you get a chicken for losing your tooth in Africa, write that one down. But what disturbed me most was that Mr Rodgers had a doll, who was black, and when he entered make believe and became "real" at least human size, he danced for the amusement of the white puppets. I do not know if this is intentional, but it was kind of sad. And the Lady came out and yelled at him and made him back into a doll because she did not make-believe. Definitely so racial undertones.

Meine Papiere

I am have a new idea for a fiction book. I am going to begin to post it serially (like Dickens, but not getting paid by the word, and the sherlock holmes stories for that matter as well...the early ones). It should be interesting. It will be on the other blog. More information to come (for those who care).

I would post the beginnings of my non-fiction, but that might be a little too boring, and I may still have a good use for it yet.

It is my hope that my frequent postings do not damage the power of my message or at any point make then seem trite...but that is the danger associated with such frequent postings. But would you rather be Proust or Balzac...hmm maybe a bad example....ah well I can't think of a good one at the moment...but you get the picture. I hope

Also, just a news clipping...the center is not the center it seems yet again. Hah, Huntington.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/us/25cnd-religion.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Aesthetic Experience

I have always felt silly telling people how something makes me feel, or even worse how I feel. I do not know why. It almost seems like we do not have the vocabulary to adequately describe how or even what we ourselves feel, and the words that we do use always seem so trite.

When reading a poem, listening to a song, meeting someone, reading a book, watching a movie--the question always comes up, what did you think. The answer such a question nearly always seems to imply an ethos affected answer. I felt..., it made me feel..., but does that describe the experience or even add to it. I do not think so. It was most assuredly part of the experience, but how does that define it, how can you use that to describe it? I am by no means a robot, so you(the ubiquitous 'you' who reads everything a I write...haha funny I know, but whoever you may be) do not think that. I just struggle with the concept of expression of something so delicate, so tenuous, that seems to hold by a thread to each memory, to each event--that it is impossible to separate how you felt from any memory any experience any event. That by saying how you felt and only how it felt or made you feel that you are somehow degrading the feeling by ripping it away. When I was in drama school (a long, long time ago) they told us to remember our most painful memory, not emotion we all had some painful emotion, think on it hard, then you would cry. Voila, tears.

That's just it. It is all about the memory itself, the emotions tied to it, unable to be separated. There always must be some sort of emotional investment in everything.

Now to end this rant on this fine morning while all my roommates are asleep and I the lone wakeful sit writing and unable to get to my coffee, will leave you with a link to something Carl Sagan did. Yes, Carl Sagan, the brilliant physicist, who wrote books, including Contact, which was later made into a movie starring Jodie Foster and that Texan stoner guy who always seems to take off his shirt...Matthew something.... But he was a brilliant renaissance man, with an interesting view on many a thing, some of which I share with him. That's all for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

News Flash

J.Lo gives birth to twins-Video

Report on msn.com . Kind of funny that they would put a video of that online. Just kidding, but it is funny how people don't know how to use their own language....

Quote of the Day

This is by far, the best quote I have heard (and most, shall we say, insightful/ indicative of the class).

"Let's leave it there. I'm right, see ya later."-Dr. Morrissey

On things

I like writing blogs. Why? Bloging is the ability to write in the hopes that others will read it. Not that someone will understand it, just read it, allow others to see something about you, or at least share and see your views, your thoughts, which are after all among the most important things.

The moon was shimmery copper, we have cast our shadow upon it. Darkened it with our presence, but it fights back. The brilliant subdued reds and oranges, the shimmer mixed with bright white framed by blackness. We cast a long shadow, but it is in such a shadow that beauty shines throw like a candle behind a stained glass window. No better picture could be asked. It is important to stop and wonder at the small things.

Why do not people admire and love opera. Some say it is an acquired taste. Well, maybe. You do need to acquire a taste for a great deal of things, especially the refining of the palate. Ask yourself if you would drink (or eat) something of the things you consume now if you had but one taste of them and had to decide. Tosca is coming to Clemson. Hooray for the arts. This is the best season for the arts in Clemson, I must say, sub-par NSO performance and Tosca presented by a real Italian Theatre Troupe, amazing, exciting, excitable.

To opera. I have listened to opera for a long while. I do not know what initially attracted me to it, or it to me. I always have found the vocals to be powerful, some element, some graininess that just felt real. You knew exactly what they were feeling and singing, it mimicked life, but in a surreal sense, a kind of time slowed down (not Wagner here, he is good, but give me Puccini or Verdi and even Bizet any day). Opera is a surreal expression of those emotions that define us. The music can only add, the soundtrack to life, coupled with lyrics, if they can even be called that, which are pure poetry. Love is a rebellious bird (Carmen). Can something be better said, or even better sung. I love it. I shall end with my favourite scene from Puccini's La Boheme...Rudolpho looks for a candle and asks Mimi for one, she drops her key and the light goes out, they search for it, their hands meet in the darkness and thus they sing.

RUD. (holding Mimi's hand, with emotion)
Your tiny hand is frozen,
Let me warm it into life;
Our search is useless,
In darkness all is hidden,
'Ere long the light of the moon shall aid us,
Yes, in the moonlight our search let us resume.
One moment, pretty maiden,
While I tell you in a trice,
Who I am, what I do,
And how I live. Shall I?

(Mimi is silent.)

I am, I am a poet!
What's my employment? Writing.
Is that a living? Hardly.
I've wit though wealth be wanting,
Ladies of rank and fashion
All inspire me with passion;
In dreams and fond illusions,
Or castles in the air,
Richer is none on earth than I.

Bright eyes as yours, believe me,
Steal my priceless jewels,
In fancy's store-house cherished,
Your roguish eyes have robbed me,
Of all my dreams bereft me,
Dreams that are fair, yet fleeting.
Fled are my truant fancies,
Regrets I do not cherish,
For now life's rosy morn is breaking,
Now golden love is waking.
Now that I've told my story,
Pray tell me yours, too;
Tell me frankly, who are you?
Say, will you tell?

MIMI. (_after some hesitation_)
They call me Mimi
But my name is Lucia;
My story is a short one--
Fine satin stuffs or silk
I deftly embroider;
I am content and happy;
The rose and lily I make for pastime.
These flowers give me pleasure
As in magical accents
They speak to me of love,
Of beauteous springtime.
Of fancies and of visions bright they tell me,
Such as poets, and only poets, know.
Do you hear me?

Pegs

Ever notice that when you are in kindergarten or before then really, there is alway a particular game. The idea of placing a shape in its correct hole. Well, after reading Foucault's little diddy on how algebra teaches equality, but it is geometry that teaches proportions and inequalities, in congruences in shapes....what does such a toy represent. Well, I guess it is a method of shaping the unconscious, that particular things just do not go together, things are different. But this sort of development is necessary, shape, colour recognition, but what about the equality factor. Well not all things perfectly complement each other. Just tossing it out there. Just thunkin'....

Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.
-Rimbaud

Something Personal? or One that Counts

I never could understand how "personal" to get with blogs. It is free internet domain, anyone, virtually all beyond my control can read it, judge me, comment and such. As Nietzsche said "One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood." Foucault would say this is a product of some power dynamic that is internalised, the need to be watched and seen, the structure it gives to my person, the power from discipline, but is it? Maybe.

The Nietzsche quote was on a postcard on my first "rebirth" into writing, the purchase of a pocket notebook. My first foray into writing occurred after a series of painful events. I remember the day explicitly. I just thought, this is never going to end. An "out of stepness" just seemed omnipresent, and perhaps, mayhaps the only way to deal with this was to write. I will admit, I was not the best writer, but I had read good writers, I knew what it should sound like. So I wrote. I still have the journal, the leather bound one. The first 100 pages are torn out now. They are in an envelope I have since hidden. It always seems the painful memories always seem to have the capacity to hurt you, and maybe you hurt others because of them. When are things meant to be shared, if ever at all? Do somethings just need to be written and burned, but then they are a memory, something that gets eroded by time, but need we remember all things? That is a story unto itself.

Right now, I would love to sit down and just read something, fiction, to write in my journal, to stare at the stars, their vastness compared to my smallness. The triviality of all things before this cosmic gaze, but there never seems to be that kind of time. We are always driven forward, or at least I feel such. I feel as though I am guilty of some crime against society by stealing away time to write this silly blog. All my books are nonfiction, philosophy the lot, the only fiction I have here, with me, is Brother's Karaz and anthologies of Borges and Rimbaud. The latter you need to read the philosophy books to gain insight, but there is something about Borges that captivates my soul. Perhaps it is his same longings, the wandering dark streets of Buenos Aires, to the strange sueños of the night. I do not know. French may be the language of love but spanish is the language of passion. It has a cadence, where french glides a tender touch, spanish grabs your hand and forces you to dance. The rhythms of flamenco play with the tip of your tongue, but at the same time something sublimely curious. Tainted with a bit of common profoundness in the diction. French is elegant, suave, smooth, filled with four different words for sex and writing, but spanish lives, it has a beating heart, pulsing with each moment. I digress.

So, why am I an engineer? That always seems to be a question whenever I reveal my little secret, my major. I am an engineer because I was cursed with a good teacher...and I showed some profiency in it. I can do it. I won awards with research projects, I can think. However, it is the nonlinear thinking that makes me special not to sound trite. It is tough. I like to think, genuine, I like to talk to people, especially people who I find intriguing. I get bored very fast, but when I find someone intriguing it is like Christmas come early. Conversation in general is so bland, but every once and a while, you get it, that quintessential it. A pleasant conversation, for the mind is so fickle, is such a godsend, but yet so tenuous, in fact it is defined, created by this dynamic between two minds, this tension generates the pleasure of the conversation, two parallel lives running together for a moment. So few and far between. If I could have but more conversations like that, or just one. Digression again.

I am an engineer because I have never made a decision. I picked it because it was the hardest, most technical degree I could find, especially Chemical Engineering. I did not know what to do so I just grabbed in the dark. If I could do it all over, maybe physics and philosophy from Oxford would be a good bet. But, that is another time. I still do not know what I want. I would like to see the world, for what it is, it is a big place you know. I want to read more, write more, influence others, go to more concerts. That isn't a job though. I do not think I would mind just owning a bookstore, that sells music (LPs) and coffee. The (material) things I love. That would be almost ideal. I wouldn't have to live a grandiose lifestyle, which isn't want I want. I want a freedom, not a run free in the wild, or never tie me down freedom, but a particular freedom of the soul, if there is such a thing. To breathe free. And to write a book wouldn't be bad. My only fear in life, sadly yes I do have one fear, is that I will not live up to my potential. It both drives and torments me. My adviser told me, this is in my major, "Try to make it with whatever bit of your soul you can hold onto." I initially thought, there is no way he is serious. But, he was. I feel like I am losing my self, or at least a part of it in there, but thats why I have the liberal arts. The arts that make men free, quite literally, they are there to allow me to think, to learn to think, to think about thinking. I understand why that Basque-Irish Argentinian hopped on la Poderosa...

So what is it that life holds? For me, for you, for everyone? I do not know. It doesn't bother me to say that anymore. I live for the day, not dead poets society-esque but more the great philosopher LSE graduate's words, "you can't always get what you want, but you find some times you always get what you need." So I just will continue on, living, learning, exploring the world around. Looking for those glorious conversations, mind mingling, writing, drawing. All those enterprises which expand our horizons as persons. While I breathe I hope says my state's great motto. I just, must, will, can no nothing other than search for what makes life the most fantastic voyage it is. Alethia.

A Brush With Death (Daily?)

I realise, I am writing a great deal in these last two days, maybe three, I do not know, who counts anyway...but something of interest that may require little cerebrality(my neologism of the day...). In the past three days I have almost died or been injured maybe four times. One day a CAT bus pulled out in front of me on my bike and I almost got smeared. Then that same day, an F150 about headed on me. Then this morning a car whipped around from a blind spot and did not stop at a stop sign and nearly killed me, but I stopped and due to this sudden change in velocity, flipped the bike and my body, which always a great way to start a morning. Finally, I hope, a Ford Taurus about rammed me when it didn't stop for a stop sign while I was on the way to my last class of the day. I think I am going to start carrying around an airhorn.

I do not know if I have hit me written on my forehead, or maybe just a death wish. I do not know, but I am either really lucky or the laws of averages is going to catch up with me. I mean almost a year ago, this time,I had my little accident. You remember, the one where I started to hydroplane, got it under control then got hit, spun around and nearly got head on-ed by the blue volvo semi, and then the 911 operator told me to be careful because there were several accidents reported around me... I just hope none of that Final Destination stuff starts to happen, just kidding, but not really, none of that please.

Addendum: Several Hours Later

Went out, against my better judgment again today, or rather, this evening. I thought, well if I put my little blinker on, I'll be fine, it will increase my visibility. Well it did, BUT I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and my handlebar clipped the side of a rail, flinging me forward flat onto my back, the bike on top of me. After I gathered myself and that cool hardness that you feel after you hit your head begins to turn into a headache, I realised I lost my glasses. I found them after some little rescue, and out of no where, a girl runs up and asks if I am okay. I assure her I am, but she doesn't seem to believe me. Eventually she realises I am asking her to go about her own business and leave me to mine in such a most embarassing scene. She does and as she walks away and I ride off, I laugh. You just must laugh. The only thing you can do in such a time. God is a comedian playing to a crowd to afraid to laugh as Mr V always said, and I had to laugh because I wrote about my events, and then it is my own actions that end to my crash. It is just pure comedy...maybe there is someone in that all seeing, tower watching, and hopefully he is watching this spectacle...

To be a complete dork

I know, I know. I started a writing and now I can't stop. Really, the frequency of these posts are due to the fact that I used up all the paper in my little notebooks (I reserve the big one for my philosophical musings and research and lists of lines of poetry and or phrase i like, and the other one which I intend to use for a biography, ambitious, yes I know), but my precious little notebook is out and I knew if I bought another one I would write in it and thus distract myself from work, the work which I must at some point complete because word on the street is, school is important. A shocker, I know.

After drinking two pots of coffee (roughly), with hands shaking and an inability to write anything more, a feeling of irresolution is still so very near I smell it's odious breathe. But, we will see. If there is something of which I am always unsure it is my writing. I do not know why exactly, as we can never really know ourselves. But perhaps that is it. My writing is a mirror into my soul and we, humankind never really wishes to know ourselves because we have fully self realised, where do we go? There is a camus quote I believe that slides in nicely here, but it slips my mind..it must be the caffeine buzz. Paul Erdos, the mathematician used to stay up late at night and worked out his most famous theories, often fueled by coffee binges, as he said, "a mathematician is a machine that takes coffee and produces theorms" or something like that...

I do not think that I have ever not heard my desk clock flip over to 12 at night. It always makes this odd sound...a ping, but lower frequency. I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is...maybe a popping from the rapid shift in power to light up the different individual segments, I don't know...I probably aught to ask someone and find out why.

There is something so utterly calming about the night. Everything is at rest, a time for quiet reflection, not to sound romantic, but only at night, in theory, is everything winding down which leaves a perfect scene for the finer things, those activities that seem so delicate and just don't, shall we say flourish in the yellow light of day--activities such as reading (a particular kind of book though, there are books that must be read with the sunshine on your face, but they are different from night books, which offer something different to the soul). But those books are great. The night is for blankets too and just that little bit of cold, that doesn't make you cold, but you know it's there..the potential generates a tension with the environment. Maybe thats it, the night generates tension, for it is dark, not light, you can barely see, just enough, you know something is behind that darkness, just not exactly what. In the night the temperature drops. It is all about creating dramatic tension, it gives way to the creative process nicely...I ramble. The music takes on different meaning too, if that is possible, but it is all about the enviornment. The night allows for the mingling of fear( the dark, the unknown in life, insecurities and worries) and the philosophical and creative side of mankind (think of fireside story telling).

Then sunrise in all its beauty, beat Mr. Shortz's little creation of the day, play a quick game of set and then off to the world of the intellectual, far removed from the tension of the night.

This is rambling and I apologize, this is what happens when I don't have a new notebook....

Quotes of the Last Week-ish-ness-ly

I read about "How to Blog" and apparently I need to find a niche and write clearly and grammatically correct, etc unless it is my style, or so they, with they being google, tell me. So, I will search for my niche, or let them find me, whichever comes first. They also said to create easily accessible titles, but that bores me. Also, the quotes are a sprinkling from this semester and some from last.

Back in the day, and well currently, I use my little journal/ notebooks (gender inflections on those two words describing the same thing), partly for my observations/ feelings/ inventions but also the quotes, that either I find funny or catch me off guard. By taking them out of context, they for the most part, only get funnier...therefore I think a blog is an excellent way to celebrate these most profound witticisms--and laugh, the goal of course.

Number one I had a dream my fingernails were painted last night...like one of those emo rock stars, it was odd, I think it made me wake up...

To the Quotes (in no particular order)

"Erase Jesus" Kevin N

"Nothing's wrong" Dr Spede

" In opera the boy and girl fall in love and then they have to sing about it. That doesn't happen in real life" Dr Spede

"You know what happened in the '60s? The Beatles, drugs...." Dr Speed

"Fuck Isaac Newton" Nicky
"Yeah, he just got lucky" Crosby

"Is there any incentive in dressing up... make you feel like you have a real job?- Drew (on professors' attire)

"Speaking of tits..." Jessica V

"Wikipedia is another good reference" Dr. Kitchens (basing my degree on wikipedia?)

"We tried to hang our previous professor" Guy in my ChE class to Ogale

"If you remove the penis before ejaculation, you won't get pregnant"- Chad reading the sex mythes in The Tiger
"That shit ain't true, who told you that?" Guy in ChE class

"I don't see that on my handout" Guy in ChE
"If you will just refer to your handout..." Dr Ogale

"I guess I'll just have to wait for my monthly visit" Bryson

"It is stupid and profound, but profound nonetheless" Fivos

"The main problem with humans is death" Fivos

"Let's just say it refers to the one with protrusion below the midriff" Dr Morrissey

"He just spoke in tongues" Anthony

"I guess it is fun to get the foreigner drunk" Fivos

"but little did they know, I had already served two years in the Greek military" Fivos

"They gave me coors lite which tastes like pee" Fivos

"Lots of noises really scare me right now" Fivos

"I try to minimize the bull crap" Fivos

"I heard they call him the 'academic ninja'" Girl in my History class on Morrissey

"Let me erase my shame" Fivos

"'Plane is too hard, it is two syllables" Fivos

"Good, I have time for more bullshit" Fivos

For The Sake of Convenience

Something I wrote a while back...appeared in the Tiger, wahoo (but they changed my wording and the title and that made me mad because the title is everything)

What has the world become? I myself sit in front of my laptop with my noise canceling headphones and wireless keyboard, listening to my mp3(or .acc) sounds files, my cell phone in front of me, but why is it that I feel so uncomfortable, like I am lying in a blanket that just is not large enough, a piercing draft sending me shivering, alone.

We live in the impersonal age of technology. Yes we live easier lives, life expectancy is far better than many one hundred years ago would ever have imaged, but with all great inventions and advancements there are certainly trade offs. Not everything can evolve for the better. Communication was increased greatly. The best friend of teenage girls, college students and moms are cell phones. Those little plastic magic carpets that can send our voice wherever we need it go. We stay in touch, but do we? Music is freely traded online, in compressed little files, your mp3s, your mp4s, acc, oggs, and whatever new way to compress music into a tighter package comes along. But what is the cost of all this? Computers, and the email make communication lighting fast, you can stay in touch with many people through email or even make new contacts through facebook. But what does that mean?

Yes convenience is an excellent thing. I am lazy by nature and I like for my life to be made easier by a neat little gadget, but I give up something. Walking around campus it is near impossible to find more than 10 people without an iPod or talking on a cell phone. Cell phones though great at keeping in touch, finding someone we wish to talk to, have deafened our ears to a true one on one conversation. We exchange voices, but are they our voices, can you smell my breathe, feels the vibrations emitted by my, my vocal chords, the way my eyebrows raise when you say something I find interesting, the way my eyes soften when I look into your face? Nah. You just get the essence of my voice, coded into an electric symbol, broadcaster to a satellite, send back to earth to another tower which send it to your little plastic chip that translates that message into vibrations which will be replicated by a little magnetic. That is what you get on the cell phone, a message, a signal, you do not talk to me, speak to me. Your little iPod with 60 gigabytes of “music,” several days worth of song, is nice yes, but at what cost. Music is a feeling, music is an expression of those things, ideas, feelings, that escape expression as Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” A neat electronic package called an mp3 is just a recording, a picture of something great. The mp3 cuts out a great deal of that which is music, so much is lost in digital, passion, love, hate anger, depression manifest itself in the music, the oh so sweet music which makes life worth living, that can never be captured by a series of 1s and 0s. The warm tenor serenading or the insane guitar solo, or the essence of free jazz is not found in a neat little bundle of 1s and 0s, it is found in life, in living

We live in a world where everything is a millisecond away, where we live for 79 years, where with a couple of clicks we can make millions on the stock market from the comfort of our own home, where we can call anyone in the world as we walk to history lecture, where on that walk I can listen to an entire concert on my iPod. Our minds are dulled by such convenience. Gone are the days when calling on someone was actually going to his house in order to talk, face to face. Gone are the days when a letter was handwritten, signed and sealed and sent in the mail. Where concerts were the only way to hear music—where you could see the musician pouring his heart and soul into his art, the vibrations all around your body, or we made our own music, or we gathered around and listened to a vinyl with that familiar hiss and pop, or a hi fi recording, its richness nearly captured by a warm tube amp. Just listen to nature all around you, a walk just to see and hear what is all around you, leaving your world of electronic behind you. To feel the rain on your face, its sweet taste, to feel alive, not worrying about the electronic in your bag. No, we have transformers and ear buds, and razors and chocolates and email and screen names and user IDs.

Writer's Block

Okay, so now I am using this as an excuse to continue to write, though I know not what about, simply I am having difficulty writing an essay. I seem to have the greatest difficulty writing something which is required of me. I do not know if this makes sense, but I will continue to explain, just to keep my mind in the writing aura. Analysis is such a difficult thing for me to do on call, partly because I see so many a thing simultaneously, that it is in my leisure I work out the details and begin to form a solid picture, but as of the moment I am stumped. I am blocked. It is due primarily to the fact that forced writing is as a rule always bad.

Back in the day, when I had to write a paper on something, anything really... I would do it at night, when the muses come out, it always seems they like the dark best, drink a couple of glasses of wine and put on my Romantic Adagios CD (which is brilliant by the way Beethoven, Khachaturian, Mozart, Faure, Mahler, Barber, Satie, among autres) . Keeping in mind that it is the middle of the afternoon that strikes out condition one, and again keeping in mind it is in the middle of the afternoon that strikes out condition two, so I am left with condition three, and believe you me that the musica is a playing.

My difficulty may be rooted in the manner in which I write. Completely ad lib, literally as you please. I am not good at structuring things, I despise it actually, I enjoy the spontaneity of it, the free flow stream of consciousness aspect of just sitting down and writing. It works in history, I have made only one B in writing anything on history, but this is not the careful recitation of facts and events tied together with some common aim. No, no. Writing for English, in English, is something more delicate, more careful.

In "Finding Forrester" don't think just write, it will come to you says the Sean Connery character (JD Salinger based), but he didn't write a paper for this guy.... So, I just sit and I write as I always do, though I started afresh a couple of times, that in itself may help to structure my mind, but still it is difficult. Perhaps it is because of the disconnect between the self and the written work. This issue with this hypothesis is that I connect with the work, well relatively.

So I continue to trudge along.

So this should have come first...

Normally when you start a new experiment, or write a paper or whatever, something novel...you write your goals, your methods, explain them in order that the reader may have insight into the mind of the creator(if that is even necessary, see below) and so that they may have a methodology to read the work.

To begin-the Title.

Word Truncheon, what does it mean you ask, sound familiar say you? Well, it comes from the idea of the power of the word. A truncheon is a club, often associated with a royal guard or something of that sort. As a club, it was used to beat people. That should go without saying. So then one can easily see how Word (the letter , the word, the symbol, the symbolic order etc, also see Lacan again, for language structures the subconscious) and Truncheon, royal club, symbol of power. Thus the power of the word, and here we have a reversal of roles etc because words are common to all so think about it, read into it all you like, because it's there. A good deal of play in it.

Yes, I did use V for Vendetta for the title, funny of you to ask. "Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth." says V, so here we have a reversal, using the word as a truncheon. And read into the ties to the movie as much as you would like. I was actually born on Guy Fawkes Day, funny how that happens.

So that is from where the title comes. I do not end sentences with prepositions, so my sentences may appear to sound awkward for this very purpose. As Winston Churchill said, "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something of which I will not put." Point taken Winston. I refer to philosophers and historical events and characters by their first names and make jokes about them. Look for it. I like analogies and extended metaphors, thus make sure to read for that. Nothing is what it seems, the center is never ever the center. I write, virtually, like I talk. Mumbling, grammatically erratic and sometimes incoherent with a trace ( I hope) of brilliance. I like some elements of slang, just to spice things up. Wizard. I have been told I am too logical and boring to read, so I am doing my damnest to remedy(to some avail I hope) this. I don't proofread either, oops.

That's all for now.

On Meaning

I have never understood many a thing. I have often thought that I understood everything that comes across my mind, that enters my thoughts, that is processed and filed in my memory, as a picture, as a often do, a smell, which often is associated with people and food, a color with music, a series of mathematic operands that result in some enunciation or derivation of a "truth" or at least an immutable property--but I never realised how much information is available in the most common of things that goes unnoticed.

The very things that binds us, offer in return the most poignantly piercing gaze into our very souls. Words, sentences, speech, the very thing that is truly our own(our here referring to humanity) created of ourselves for ourselves, which in light of many shapes our very person, our desires. We live in a tyranny of signs. This order, each with its set of rules and regulations, common vocabulary with the necessary ambiguity, the multiplicity of meanings tied so wonderfully together a a symphony of voices, each with a part saying the same thing in a different way, the ambiguity always present, a little play, a little flex in the system. However, as with any system, even a seemingly chaotic one, the results can be predicted with some measure, mimicking a miniature, or perhaps even grander, use of the chaos theory. A singular being point with the ends slightly predictable, not exactly but they can be understood, at least to some extend. But as Derrida would argue we cannot understand completely anything, but we can understand when we are wrong. As he always seems to do, he wrote more on the subject, see one of his books, hah.

But is it not ironic, or rather a demonstration or the power of words, that those who grasp language, who understand the laws that govern communication (and desire, see Lacan) often assume the position of leader in a society. Not it is important to also say that these people may not be genius, for a study performed states that if one's IQ is 30 pts above someone else's, then they have a breakdown in communication. It happens. Digression is most enjoyable. But to continue on the topic, if there is one, the most successful leaders in terms of guiding people, of manipulation often have the art of rhetoric down to a tee. They understand how we think, what objects desires stroke our heart's burning furnace and how these fires can be maintained, controlled through verbiage. Thus it seems the victor always knows what to say, how to make us feel, through language. This is not a new concept by any means, and the theory has been there for a great while. Alcibiades with his speech to invade Syracusa, brilliant speech clouded the judgment of many rational learned men, but rational men do not act in a set manner. Rationality is often the root of erratic behaviour. Irrationality is predictable. Nicias, you tried, bud. So words can stroke a fire that leads to a war, words can make people fear, words can make people experience joy, words can make people give up liberties for some preconceived notion of desire (see Lacan). Words, words, words. Words shape our mind, our language or being, and understanding the system is power, is control over those who do not ex-sist, or those who too do not understand their own other.

Tehn, there is another caveat. Words in the form of conversation, in the form of letters(of which words are composed, but here we will limit the multiplicity and say, the "post"[no wonder Derrida giggled when he wrote]), instant messages, text messages, any form of communication using our human language, the language of the other. Now setting aside the "desires are not our own" concept, let us investigate what this exactly means. Language, communication involves divulging one's internal thought process, beyond what the words in themselves mean, beyond what the text implies, or maybe it is what the text implies, but it still remains that the communication, especially text, allows for one, the reader to investigate the discourse of the other in another. These forms of written communication, so precious, because they provide the deepest insight into the person who wrote them. The writer of the letter doesn't matter, to the meaning of the letter perhaps, but the intention, the decision that was made or what not made to write doesn't affect the reading of the letter per say, its existence is a given, but the text proves a medium, mediates the thoughts, the unconscious discourse of the other through to the reader, right before his/her eyes. It is all there. The text in itself, the unconscious discourse of the other of the other who wrote. Thus by communicating, by writing you can never not betray yourself. Your inner thoughts must and do manifest themselves in some way based on the structure of the unconscious which is the structure of language. So each symbol, each character is a betrayle of something deeper. A constant Freudian slip. Communication would be impossible without it.

Play is then essentially. Play is the ambiguity the multiplicity of words, not reading for one singular unified truth, but almost more for the metaphor that is the metaphor. It is a way of reading that is constant in itself for language needs play, the constant flipping of the center defined by the structure. Imagine if one looked for a singular unified meaning in flirting. It would be odd and almost improper, that is not to say that there isn't a singular unified meaning, but the search for that meaning must be coupled with the play of the language, the metaphor, the words not standing for themselves but as a series of signifiers that gives a multiplicity of meanings, especially based on the pneumatic element of flirtation. Thus play, in all of its forms is crucial, it is the infinite plane in the finite realm of language. For as Wittgenstein says, and I paraphrase for it has been a while, that my language is my world. Thus what exists in the real can be described by the structure the system of language, but it is the play that gives it infinite possibilities, in the system of language itself. But it is exactly this element of play that allows one to view into the structure of the text, into the structure created (text here) by some author and see how the play of the discourse of the other works itself out (literally) of the author's mind on to the paper/pad/cellphone screen/code.

Thus how to write a blog. I do not know really. It is not a journal by any means, and did you know that journal can get expensive man, I mean for real. My favourite ones are ~$10 per, with each lasting approximately 2-3 months depending on mood, thus my collection is massive both in terms of "real value" and in real, "real value," thus a blog is an attempt to share thoughts, though highly censored, or at least with an audience in mind, not just my mind sitting in the theatre. So, how to write, is a fundamental question, but it should prove to be interesting, and if you read this far down the page, you will soon realise that it is impossible to ever completely phase out your internal discourse from your communication. Perhaps it is some need to communicate some deep rooted feeling or emotion and that act makes us human, or perhaps it is the tyranny of signs which has such great a control that we cannot write without betraying our discourse, but it is worth the risk.