Saffron Robes

Saw three buddhist monks today eating lunch. In traditional saffron robes and less monk-conventional red polar fleece jackets, they sat with that ethereal inner calm and peaceful demeanor, the kind that you can see, feel even as they slowly drank their hot tea. What calm, you could feel the lack of worry, anxiety was cleared from their air, their aura.

Read an article about book snobbery. It made me laugh to say the least...we all do it. I do at least...I mean it is moderately important...books, music, art, food...those little nuisances.

Serendipity

It's those conversation that just happen, sometimes with a stranger that are the most fruitful and wonderful. Yesterday, I went down to McClures. I knew that they had a book I wanted...Althusser, the philosopher who is as my friend says is "batshitcrazy." I knew I would need to read Althusser for my research and pursuing critical work on the pied noir..my heros. I knew it would be an akward checkout, for the book was titled "Lenin and Philosophy."

I took it to Mr. McClure and he immediatly asked, "What's ya maja." Chemical Engineering..."my man!...what class"...I knew this would happen...I am writing a thesis on the pied noir, Camus, Derrida and I figured I need to read Althusser as well...maybe he won't ask anymore..."What's ya thesis" The position of the outsider, they as french algerian jews in algeria in their youth, off to be educated in paris at the ecole excluding camus, but they still constituted this realm of not belonging, the other embodied and it reflects in their writing..."well have you read Axel's Castle? he says that the writer, the author embodies a position as an outsida, that's why they write"...well I am not aquainted with that work, but I have heard about that and it seems to be a very modern point, or at least a romantic one, that they are in a unique position to "know" but the pied noir were a product to some extent of their social environ and how they took this youth experience and how they took on the french discipline and modified it, made new truths, that what interests me..."well if ya find something, you might have a place in publishing books"...I hope so...

We then discussed Camus as a writer, a journalist and a philosopher vs Satre, the philosophy or anti philosophy of Derrida, the transition of the world from Newtonian deterministic causality to the genetic/ quantum engineering. The phone rang he asked for my name and it ended. Over too soon. That was fun. That is what makes life interesting, those little conversations about the things that matter, that are exciting. I am a dork, yes, but thats what I love, that's my yearning.

Reign Over Me
Love the scooter. Acting was odd, it was serious then it got kind of glib, it just almost didn't work but it worked out.

Breathless
Classic Godard. Extremely existential, but had a lot of true points. I would watch it, just for the experience.

Two Days in Paris
One of my new favourites. I love culture clash, French, francoamerican women and the commentary on American society and the consistent Godard references. It was hilarious. Don't feed the cat foie gras...hah. Definately worth a watch or two.

Annie Hall
Yeah, I watched this with my art class, seen it before but it deserves a place on the list. Woody's character is awesome...and familiar....

End with some quotes from a book I finished this morning. EII by JSF, so poignant, the dialogue so real, but hyper real..but moments of crystal truth.

"Brod's realisation was that the world was not for her...she would never be happy and honest at the same time"

"Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does"

"Why are the painful things always electromagnets"

"I don't know. I was just too afraid. I knew I wasn't supposed to ask, so I didn't"
"Perhaps she was desiring you to ask"

"JEWS HAVE SIX SENSES: Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing...memory."



There are others, but that is all I want to type at this point.

Country Road, Take Me Home

Whenever West Virginia U. performs well in athletics, I am reminded of the two (separate weeks) I was in that armpit of the world. It is also the birthplace of several nicknames.

My high school football coach decided that we needed to run a west coast spread offense and West Virginia's in exactitude. What do we do? We go to football camp up there. The offense only, primarily the offensive linemen and our running backs and quarterback. Now after the long ride up there in a van with my o-line coach and 4 of my teammates, we reached the famous (hah) WVU campus after rounds of music trivia which I beasted them all in. There we met Rich Rod and his minion from hell, Rick Trickett(now with FSU).

Coach Trickett was by far the meanest, most foul mouthed, hard-nosed football coach I had ever met. He served two tours in vietnam as a Marine Corps Captain, won several purple hearts and had a Bronze Star. A war hero to say the least. He stood at an impressive 5'6", but he was lean, had the look of a hungry wolf about him. Even more terrifying electric blue eyes, steely in their gaze, he could see into your soul, or so we thought.

Now being from Dutch Fork we have a certain swagger. We know we are good, we know we are smarted than you, we are just better than you. That translated poorly, especially when we were viewed as "southerners," but we could compete. They put our starting o-line in the group personally coached by Trickett. This included all the major prospects..the big guys..the 6'6" Florida mammoth and the two 6'5" 300+lb brothers from Morgantown. Our line was big, but lean, and me, I was a baby in the group, but I could hold my own. Technique had always been my saving grace. I have a quick first step and worked hard to be the best, even when my physical gifts failed me. I knew angles, how to place my hands, I could beat you off the line and could probably block you though I was the smallest one out there. But I made an easy target for Trickett.

When we rotated our second string into the main group, I went down to the other coach with the "normal" kids. Well it seems my replacement had down very poorly and I heart a yell, "Get that fuckin' fuzzy headed kid back up here," bellowed that short angry man...well my coach then responded, "Dewey get up here, now." I ran and was greeted by trickett grabbing a handful of my curly hair and yelling in my face "Fuckin' fuzzy, show him how to run it" I ran it. Fuckin' Fuzzy...a gross departure from my nickname then and now, the only name I seem to respond to, Dewey, bestowed on me by one of favourite coaches when I went into full body cramps but refused to sit out. Now I had fuckin' fuzzy.

Well it didn't stop. Trickett decided that he was going to break me. I always did something wrong, at least in his eyes. I was told that I was a fuckin' piece of shiot. Garbage. That he would stick his foot so far up my ass that I would need to go to the hospital to pull hit out. He slapped me with his hat(the metal part...stang a bit, but never show pain). I didn't allow any of this verbal abuse get to me; I was there to learn. He tore down my technique, told me I was slow, and I just asked, "Tell me what I need to do...Teach me." Well it never stopped, but I learned, got better. The verbal attacks got even more furious. Finally at the end of the week, I shook his hand and told him I couldn't wait till next year, smiling. He later told one of my coaches that he threw everything in his book at me and I didn't break. That hasn't happened before.

I nearly got in a fight with someone up there as well. I roomed with a random West Virginian, I think his name was Ike, not like the president though. His parents brought him sea food everynight. He had a shaved head and weighed nigh over 320lb, but we talked about pick-up trucks at night, something I know a good deal about with my jacked up 85 Toyota. Well, one evening as I was talking to my mom on the phone, the guy next door came in. He heard me tell my mother I loved her. He then proceeded to walk in and said he could "kick my ass." I wasn't in the mood to put up with it. I told him "Go ahead, do it, you want to do it in here or out in the hall" He was probably about 6'2" 220lb, lean, olive complection and also was being recruited to play linebacker at WVU and Maryland. I shouldn't have pressed him. I pressed him. "Lets do this, quick talking" I said. "Are you crazy kid, I am being recruited by here and Maryland, I would destroy you," He yelled. "Let's fuckin' do this then, destroy me, you afraid of me, you talk a lot and don't seem to want to fight, I am being recruited by Miami and OSU so lets just settle this now." It wasn't exactly a lie, more an untruth. I had received academic information from Miami and Ohio State...recruiting is recruiting right? "Man you don't want this, I will destroy" He repeated, realising the growing crowd. "Listen, we do this now, I am coming over there, I am going to hurt you, you won't get back up, you won't play college ball anywhere, you will be a bloody mess when they find you, so quit talking because it is going down now," I responded knwoing that that would probably end his threats. It did, he said, "forget you" and walked out of my room. I was glad. I did not want to fight that kid because he probably could have injured me, but I could have got a few good ones in...but I knew he wouldn't fight...it was just the fact that he picked on me to show how masculine he was, but he was afraid.

Well, we decided to go up there again. He was there; I was there. So it began again. He continued his abuse, verbal and physical..kicks and hits, I asked questions and gave answers. "We have eighteen inch splits(gap between the linemen) because that isthe size of your pecker. SIR." Well, one night old rick came to talk to me. He heard that I was smart, so we started talking about what I was going to do in life, what were my interests. He encouraged me to continue with my research (I had a two year research project going on at that time).

Our nice talk was an intelligence gathering operation. He now had more information to lambast me with. "Fuckin' Dewey (we told him my real nickname this time) I wouldn't walk over anything you built you fuckin' engineer." I was going into civil engineering you dumbass I thought, but I didn't say that. More about these bridges I was apparently going to built that would collapse, but my favourite insult..."I hear they call you the jack-off king of South Carolina" said Trickett, "Yes sir, that's what they call me," I rang back. That caught him off guard. The old man laughed as he repeated my answer...I smirked in my small victory.

Later he proceed to try to box me (as in boxing) he started the throw some jabs at me..I stood there and he told me to play along. I said, "Yes, sir" and began to tack my defensive position. Little did he know that I knew a bit about boxing and had been doing boxing training exercises...I put my hands up and he tried to through a jab hook combo, I ducked and dodged the hook and hank a left jab to a right hook and stopped my fist outside his jaw...he stopped and said thats enough. He knew I would have knocked him out cold. We finally had some measure of understanding for each other. Beneath my cool demeanor, I knew a decent bit. Not as much as he, but I knew when it was time to stand up for myself. It's never personal until someone makes it personal with me. I never lost my temper with him, I was there to learn and he finally figured out that he couldn't effect me with his banter or abuse.

He wished me a good senior year and told me he expected me to do something great, to invent something and never forget about him and all the things I learned. I told him thanks and we shook hands and that was that. I thought about playing ball somewhere and even considered going to West Point (planned on it) until a chance play in the second game of my senior year...the first offensive play..14:52 on the clock and then a body into my knee, I knew something was wrong. It didn't hurt, it just felt wrong, like something was gone. I walked gingerly to the huddle. I got into my stance, but something was wrong, it felt as though my lower leg had slid forward when I got down (well I didn't know it at the time...but it did). I played that play and ran off to the sideline. It was one of my principles to never stop play for any of my injuries...I had played an entire game(and season) with an untreated broken wrist, crawled off the field after a high ankle sprain, but something was odd this time. I got it checked out and I told them what I felt,a long night with lots of ice and an MRI later, my PCL was torn...off, they only see it in serious car accidents. No surgery to fix it.

I rehabbed. It hurt. I only got through it because I knew I could play again, I put up with Trickett, I could conquer anything. We lost in the playoffs on a bad snap the game before I was allowed to come back. Football ended early.'

West Virginia thought me that life doesn't wait on you. You have to take what it gives you. It isn't personal, it's just the way it is. It is cold and hard, but you learn, and eventually you get to a point where you can do what you want, you just have to be ready for it..know it's there, but you can take, no matter what, what is thrown at you, no matter how shitty, how awful, you can pull through it.

Random Thought

Several things--

Book idea.
Young recently graduated engineer joins large engineering firm (naturally). Goes to Iraq with the building/engineering contractors. Rises in the company fast, but soon realises the inequity and false promises of a US restructuring( or entire rebuilding), for the contract work is all foriegn, the Iraqi are forced to stand aside while their country is reshaped, their(kind of) government is paying out billions, but the money flows only to foreign groups (not into the domestic economy). The people are having their lives and culture reshaped as they plunge deeper into to poverty with little political outlets. Our young hero realises this and becomes politically aware. Stay tuned for more. Would ya read it?

On a random midnight drive to Greenville, I saw a place called Beck academy. I think it was a school (or a prison). It was a giant square...made of unplastered brick. It had a central guard tower with some sort of observation deck (panopticon) and any windowless walls were somehow curved. Very much like a fortress of some sort. I wonder if they celebrate Bastille Day?

Taking on the Discipline

Ever read management books(the real one not the CU ones)? Notice how often (they shift in paradigms) rely heavily on former texts of note, most of which about government. From Machiavelli, to Sun Tzu to now Tao, Montesquieu....but a new wave is sweeping the world, a new style of management, with the idea of empowerment, with just in time, lean manufacturing, Kaizen.

Kaizen, wikipedia it folks(yes I made wikipedia verb, oxford will soon follow). The idea is empowerment of the people. Less management, directly, no real supervisors, the teams of people working on a machine or in a given area are each given a specific job, a "spoke," safety quality machine etc. No one person above the group. More interestingly still, personal performance is tracked and displayed to ever one, so everyone knows how they fit into the puzzle and can see when a coworker is slacking. This is in a nutshell and not fully developed but, Kaizen relates to Foucault.

The institution is was is being fortified int the system. The omnipresent supervisor is replaced by the unknown and invisible upper management who see the production numbers. At the same time all the other employees know their production numbers. This generates in theory competition, but at the same time alienation from the group, for now they are competing within a group for the invisible eye in the sky. As institutions do, alienation and loneliness become omnipresent. The group mentality it thus destroyed really, by both the real time competition as well as the specialisation into spokes. Think about it. I will speak more on this later.

--¿Update?

I know no one reads this. It has, instead, become a stress release. I have returned to reality. A reality of sorts at least...college is not reality, it is a hypereality in reality. Our coocon. Nice.

To the Movies

No Country for Old Men
Makes me want to read the book. The monologues of Javier and Tommy Lee are golden. Definately came from the book. Good intense, then drops off, but it doesn't really. It ends as it should. Direction was interesting, but decent.

Atonement.
Hooray for Keira. She is blossoming into a serious actress and isn't just the eyecandy of the pirates of the carribean aka sexy disney. Her voice is so amazing, simply for lack of better words, the texture is stunningly pulchritudinous. Jimmy Mack did well as well. The story is beautiful, yet it makes my heart hurt. I wonder, is writing atonement, or is it punishment. The living write the stories. Must read the book.

Enchanted
Good to see the industry can make fun of themselves.

I am Legend
So, I hate zombies. I do not know, maybe it was all the vodoo I was around when I was a maybe, but zombies, no me gusta...until I thought about what the Fresh Prince said about the infected. BP 200/200 Pulse 200, VOX 300x normal....I am no biologist, but at these levels, the heart would destruct, cellular respiration would literally be burning up the body, literaly, the body runs on a combustion of sorts and and at those levels of oxygen consumption oh my. And if their core body temperature is at 105F, normal brain function, including the limbic system would be severaly impaired if not destroyed. With this in mind, the infected would die at alarming rates and are not capable of any inteligent and maybe little conscious thought at all. That's all.

This week

I am taking a break from being and just living. This means of course, minimal internet. Thank goodness. But before this break, I must update for my loyal readers (haha, I chuckle).

It is so nice to have Beatles songs so tastefully redone, unlike that giant bastardiser of Beatles, Target. I am speaking of Across the Universe of course. Odd movie, but enjoyable. Soundtrack is grand. Story made me laugh with all te lyrics used as dialogue, and the Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix faux characters as well as the cultural references. Love it though.

I want to live in a shitty (for lack of better words) apartment in the Village (if any still exist, thanks yuppies). Be a starving writer. The Village always reminds me of the O Henry story that was read to me in like 4th grade, the one where the fella said he would die once the last ivy leaf fell and then the painter next door painted a beautiful, lifelike replica on the brick so that the old man lived past winter into the spring. Something like that. That picture comes to mind.

August Rush is garbage. Touched my heart, but no way a kid would learn music theory in like 5 minutes. He singled handedly learned the system of signs, etc, if he didn't use notes, I could have believed it, but once he started writing sixtenth notes, etc with staccatos/ legatos, slurs, etc all the musics notation, western music notation it got super unbelievable. His talent was also genetic, which is a very, aryan point of view maybe...? Cute movie though.

La Vie en Rose. Marion, you deserved the Oscar. Excellent, words do not meet that performance, nor could they ever. Stupendous. I feel like sending her an email. Edith had a sucky life. Living on the streets, growing up in the brothel, then the circus, then the streets again. Love of her life dies coming to see you....they did leave out the whole WWII years...where she was a fighter in the Resistance. She had gumption. She could sing. I have been listening to Edith for years...ever since saving private ryan came out, and her voice is so real; it is tinged with such tired, yet vibrant emotion and now I know from where it comes, her life.

Sideways is always brilliant. Partly because I am Miles (kind of).

11 books to read this break. I think I can do it, in between dirtbikes, motorcycle rides, homerun derby and playing catch. Excellent.

Have a fantabulous day.

An Ode to the Interesting Minds

I find myself most interested in people that I see as different, or operating outside the bounds of normal society, or maybe operating inside the bounds of society with some level of hesitance. The people who realise on some level the structure of their world and exist eccentrically. Out of center, literally. It is because these people both simultaneously realise their world, though they might realise themselves, but they still understand that their place is not in it. I know this is kind of esoteric writing, but it is something that ex-sists.

I get bored easily. There is no getting around that fact. I also have a bad habit of not being able to turn off my analysis of things. Even when I am doing something that requires little thought, I must think. I watch TV and look for patterns, motifs etc. I appreciate all the qualities, but I want to know why. That is my favourite question, why? It is all a search for knowledge. It is a realisation that in the self, there is no some unlimited source of knowledge, intellect maybe, but for knowledge you must go out. Meet new people, and it is from these interaction that you actually learn things, that you talk about the things that matter and unfortunately these are the things which never get conversation. I believe, though I may be wrong, that Socrates said that he studied people because that's where all knowledge came from. Interesting idea isn't it? Echoes the sentiments that we have about language, or at least I do..as well as history, as a chain of shifting relationships and it is from this shifting relationships that we gain meaning. With this idea is the same with people. In our shifting relationships we learn something. Each in ourselves meaning little if anything, but it is when we are tossed in a relationships, a chain, we gain meaning. I know this sounds so odd and I apologize.

Word Xing

Finally got my hands on a crossword in an attempt to relieve the stress of compounding exams, one of which I feel I did poorly. Not that you care, but it is difficult to derive equations when the equation goes to zero...it is tough. Crossword was greta though...I seem to have lost my touch a little, I went from a NY Times crossword taking about 25min to taking off and on an hour, which is horrible, but I finished it with two mistakes (I figured them out, but I had to rewrite, thus a mistake).

Now to the question of the day. Is it human that we seek to identify and even emulate something which we admire? I see myself as a combination of Joyce's Stephen Dedalus and Austen's Darcy--simply based on the personality types and similar emotions and ideas about particular things in life. Do I base my life around these people. No not at all, however I do use them to anticipate actions and reactions. That is one of the great things about literature, that we can use it as a kind of test run of events. We can liken situations to plots, instances in a story and predict the outcomes. This isn't always true of course, but literature is a medium for seeing everything really, you just must look past the fiction and realise that fiction is a medium to understanding the world.

But to people emulate people who they admire. I would answer yes. My heroes are Camus, Richard Feynman, and Patton, if I were to have any. Camus because he was a genius, a rebel and lived what he philosophised. Feynman because he was a free spirited brilliant physicist who could explain nearly anything complex into something anyone could understand coupled with his free style and affinity for everything outside of his job, a lover of life they say. Patton because he too was intelligent, but he didn't sacrifice his principles for anyone and knew what it took. My life is most certainly not modeled after theirs. I am my own person, a product of what came before me, maybe, but I must make choices myself and my history will be different than theirs simply because I have knowledge of what they did. The past is piling up behind me and pushing me forward.



Quote of the Day:

As a young man, Mr. Derrida confessed, he hoped to become a professional soccer player. And he admitted to being an inveterate viewer of television, watching everything from news to soap operas. "I am critical of what I'm watching," said Mr. Derrida with mock pride. "I deconstruct all the time."

Stealing Time

Engineering is eating my soul alive; it wouldn't have it any other way. That's all I got to say about that. In general then, nothing is new, it seems to always do that anyway.

I miss crossword puzzles. I haven't done one in nearly a month, well, I did do one a while back...but that was under the most auspicious of occasions, so I refuse to count it. Crosswords keep me sane. I requires both logic, analysis, logical analysis...kidding, but it requires you to find the pattern and couple it with your mastery of the language--run through all the possibilities, a great mental flex. I enjoy them. Sitting. Black pen in hand. Gel ink please, but ballpoint will do. Brow furrowed as the hand writes wildly. Love it.

Now the interesting thing. De Man is not a marxist reader, far from it...but no one asked me. I wrote it in my book. Pah on you. But that's not the point (if there is ever a point). Points are so violent, and they choose sides.

I am tired of ignorance. People with their post-victorian/ Hemingway notions on the societal archetypes. Men can't demonstrate emotion, women are frail and must be taken care of. I mean ohcome on guys. Empower yourself...to each man his own conscience. However, it seems that no one wants everyone to have his voice. It is not their decision. Sorry this got rambling very fast, it happens.

For some reason in engineering today, instead of paying attention, I started to think about 3rd grade. How you would get "sticks" if you were good. They were little laminated stripes of construction paper. I won the first time around, but I never won anymore. I received, for my goodness, this neat-o elmer's glue...it was blue and sparkly. I don't know why I thought about it, but it sure did generate classes and regulate behaviour in the class. Very hierarchical. No one asked me though. These things just pop into your head at times. It must be the lost hour.

And Mr Gov....what kind of "service" could you be getting for ~$5000...I mean I know nothing about prostitution, but I am very certain that is fairly steep for the services rendered which normally end in one thing..unless it is like Pretty Woman. I wonder what the costs are for running a business like that...that nightwalker must have some high ceilings.

"No caffe latte? And you call yourselves a bookstore!"-from the New Yorker, my source of witty cartoons

Only Because The Sun Is Still Up

and I am taking a break from all things important...well they are really unimportant in the long run but they only seem important due to our undue pressure on doing well in school. When does your homework really matter anyway. Critical thinking is much more important.

Is it not amazing that they took an hour from us last night. The ubiquitous "they"...I guess it's the government. I don't know how they did it, but I awake and find that I sleep a very long time, but I didn't feel like I did. Very strange. and then the sun is still up, here it is 7:10 and the sun is still in the sky. It is amazing. Only in America can they make the sun stay up in the sky simply because they want it to.

Eggers is a cool dude. Still has the edge of neocolonialism about him, but I can deal with that. Even the best natured people are the product of a violate racial history. For example one person with whom I ate dinner said "look at the demographics, they are 60/40, that is ghetto," to which I responded, well the free and reduced lunch is the only number that shows shifting economics in the area which is a more telling social barometer, and then another person said that they hate free and reduced lunch. That took me aback. I then went on to tell the story of my elementary school where a good deal of the kids were bused in from housing projects and got two square meals a day simply because they were free. They were also some of my best friends. The most telling thing, I couldn't get one guy an invitation to my birthday party because he didn't have a phone (before commercial cellphones, he didn't have a land line). But, demographics make an area ghetto somehow. It doesn't matter about the economic situation, no, no. Rich people of different races make things ghetto. Okay, whatever.

Eggers though, funny guy. He would like the flock of seagulls haircut if you asked him...and trust me, someone asked.

Monkey Suits

It is hard to take any college age kid in a suit/ dressed up seriously. Why, you might wonder? Partly, the unpressed/ semi-wrinkled look of everything they where. The crooked tie. I mean everyone needs to know how to tie the four major knots, double windsor for the young guys. It gives you a great fat knot. Next, all should learn how to iron. Get that nice sharp crease in the pants. Wear dress shoes. Not boatshoes. I find it most useful to have a pair of nice leather(sorry PETA) dress shoes that I am comfortable and shine easily, but hve enough scuffs to give them an edge of character.

How can bow ties be so bastardised. Did you know that bow ties developed from the cravat in eastern europe etc. I forget the story exactly, but they, bow ties became popular in spain with the superclass and waiters and barbers. Interesting no? Part of the allure of the bow tie is its innate individuality. The individuality lies in tying of the knot. That always falls on deaf (not deft) hands here.

Perhaps it is some failure to connect with the prospect of leaving the college world and actually doing work for the rest of my life. This malcontent is simply a loathing of having to take a job one day and leave the giant social experiment that is college. However, my question then becomes, how is it that others see these most insincere looking fellows in their monkey suits?

Funny story:

Ran out of shaving cream this morning. None in the apt. Being the engineer I am, I decided it was best to explode the can by poking a hole in it and then collecting the residue from the bottle. Oh, it worked. It must be brought to light that due to the rapid pressure drop inside of the can the foam expanded rapidly and was not the most comfortable for shaving to say the least. But it worked. Use it if you dare. I dared.

Just a venture into Randomness

I am stealing time away from my rewriting of an essay which I don't like, but the topic is so binding, I really rewrite. My thesis works but my form is old fashioned and of the french of the 1970s, or so the word is. But the word is not that.

I write because I am inspired by the flash monsoon that suddenly shook all of clemtown, well for five minutes, but it was glorious. The thunder quaked the earth. Lightening illuminated the heavens, the earth felt like it was going to crack open. But it didn't. It wasn't quite that dramatic, but oh how I do love departures from the norm.

As a quick aside, ever wonder how blogs or pages on social networking sites are going to play into coming elections of our generation. Say in 10 years maybe, when the first of our generation, generation y they call it, I dunno, but the former facebook pages and blogs of political contenders will be useful tools in elections in the future. Image if you had drunk pictures of Hillary, or a high Obama, or a completely shit faced McCain raising hell. Very powerful weapon to say the least. And even greater still, views on mundane issues and maybe in political issues, uncensored. Yes, we do read senior thesis and such, but remember they are heavily censored by those that wrote them realising the potential for publication. This stuff, in this domain is often never intended for publication, only meant to be read on occasion by friends or acquaintances. Think about it.

This is the one that will get me in trouble in the future. Economics control most facets of life. Think about economic terrorism. The US/ West inundating the middle east with starbucks and mcdonalds. Economic capitalism. Notice how the the rise and fall of the "free market" affects policy decisions. Look at the southern cone. They fought wars, years of oppression and suffering due to economic issues of foreign debt carried over from regime changes. Everything has become about material possessions and the ever more transcient dollar bill(or Euro now I guess...). Trading blocks, NAFTA, IMF, World Bank, WTO, all this transnational enterprises can make and break most of the smaller developing governments...who oddly are never allowed to move into anything outside of exporting material good or sources of cheap labour. Think about it. More to follow.

Hemmingway wrote story in 6 words. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Thats is brief.

Preface

My preface to mi libro is posted on the other blog...I would appreciate feedback from all...

Just Because I Don't Know How To Write

I have been reading and learning that perhaps writing is not my medium of choice. See below. I write like those that I read, those that I read are translated from french, sometimes german. I read a good deal of philosophy as well. I haven't picked up a fiction that wasn't translated from Russian or German or French for nearly a year, I think...don't hold me to that though. The current "for pleasure" books which I am reading are both nonfiction works on economics. Yes, I am a super dork. You got me (but I do ride dirt bikes, so hah machismo that) My writing i plagued with large prepositional phrases, my favourite part of speech I think. I am not journalistic in writing by any means. I like stream of consciousness with somewhat flowery language filled with visual imagery, the way I think. Mumbling, stumbling, rambling with a hint of brilliance or insanity either one works....closes enough to genius I think(hope?).

I thought I had some talent for it, writing that is. I can never seem to let loose though, when faced with an assignment. I think, maybe due to some level of insecurity on my own part, I must throw all the details of my knowledge out to reader. To toss out the buzz words with the buzz issues. I adopt the language of the age, the terms the vocab as they might say, and certainly do not talk about these issues in concise terms. Part of it is my need since high school to demonstrate the capacity of my knowledge when challenged. With a background in science, you also feel compelled to toss out all the fundamentals, because you have must demonstrate the level and depth of your research to destroy someone who challenges you. It doesn't quite work like that in real writing. Real writing here, because there is something so worthwhile in writing, something deeper, something that can strike the soul and can stimulate debate or at least conversation/ thought, the principle aim of anything worth reading. It is all about making the reader ask the questions that matter of themselves. It is all about the questions, and the attempt, the essay, to answer them.

I have written three things of note. An essay on football, the sport I played, that forged lifetime friendships and destroyed my body, a eulogy for a coach and a good man and an essay on how technology is ruling our lives and dehumanising us. Well, they got published, but whatever. I write poetry. Why? Just because. It sucks, or so I think, but how much is ever meant to read, dunno.

But, still I write. Why? Again with all these damn questions. I write because I must. Simply put, it is something I must do. It isn't a choice really. I have the bug. It has grabbed a hold of my soul (r maybe something else) and won't let go. If someone reads it, thank goodness and bless your soul, if not, I know I wrote it and thats all I need. The act and the product.

And just because I am writing and I want to say this. I was watching TV, yes, something I rarely get a chance to do, and I was flicking through the channels or was I flipping, no matter, but I saw on one of the sports channels something about hooter's girls. They were doing swim suite shots and interviews etc. And my first thought was, would it not be terrible to take that girl out to dinner. Yes she is pretty, I guess, but not really. She is so fake looking, so made up, so commercial. Put some shrink wrap on her and she would be a barbie doll. Why would you do that, make yourself a spectacle to the masses, just a body with a pretty face. There is no depth. Call me what you may, but I need, must be able to talk about things with someone. You know the things that matter, like books, music, movies, ideas, dreams, aspirations. You notice when they do interviews, they never ask those poor girls "What do you think?" . It is always, what's your favourite sport, sexual position, favourite part on the opposite sex's body. Why not just objectify yourself further. I don't know, thats just me.

I recall something I read once, Jane Austen in her brilliantly poignant insight into human relations...a comment made to Elizabeth Bennett by my boi Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy..."it is the liveliness of your mind." Aptly put my dear sir. That's what it is about, hands down the liveliness of the mind, not skin deep beauty(play Temptations song here...), give me that over any hooters girl. It really is more worthwhile/ important to be able to talk about the things that matter to see the world to experience it all with open minds and hearts and clear sight, to be able to discuss, to see, to write, two individuals moving together in the same direction. Not saying beauty is a bad thing, no no. Beauty is a good thing, but a face alone is worthless, its that thing behind the face that is most amazing and perplexing, fascinating and truly beautiful. I don't want to get into the idea of puzzle pieces or fluid ideas of relationships, of which I prefer or believe in the latter. It more about the "they hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,/Through Eden took their solitary way." says Mr. Milton. Nothing to add to that. That is it. Is it unattainable. I hope not, I hope not.

A Dream

A short one is this. Last night I had an odd dream, odd because it was one of those with real people who I have never met. I have had dreams with Paul Dirac talking about his Delta Function, Lacan speaking with me about psychoanalysis and now one with the Foer brothers. Yes, those triple prodigies entered my dreams. Partly because I am reading a book by Franklin and then read The New Republic, then talked about how all three of the Foers were successful, then I got a recommendation to read The New Republic...so obviously they were in my thoughts do to this string of odd coincidental events.

To the dream. I met Franklin, and I told him I was amazed at how all of them became successful in their own right in different fields all connected by writing. Then he said something I do not recall, then I asked him about writing and he started to give me book ideas, and tips on writing. Then the other brothers appeared and gave me more tips. Upon waking I thought about writing what they told me down, but it was 4:30AM and I definitely did not feel like turning on the light in the night to write. So the knowledge may have been wasted, but it was issued from my subconscious, so I think I can find it eventually.

Morrissey quote of the day-->
"Translations of French prose are probably not the best models for English writers"

Yo- "Hmm, well I don't think I have read anything outside of continental philosophy and translations of modern French stories and novels for the past 4 years"

"Yeah, I hear ya, work on it"