April 23, 2006

Why We fight

I finally went to see a movie last night, it was just so rainy and movie-night-esque.

We started out at this German movie, called Sophie Scholl the Final Days. Which almost immediately revealed itself to be one of those horrible movies I tend to pick when left to my own devices in front of either a marquee or a video shelf.

As the shchmaltzy organ music reached it's cresendo and the young resistance fighters were being tossed into the back of a gestapo van we crept out of one theater and into the next where Why We fight was only into it's first 20 minutes or so.

Disclaimer : I am about to rant in a way that is going to appear blatantly incorrect to many people, and they have every right to say so in the comments but don't call me a self-hater or a Jew-hater. I love my Judaism and I nurture it daily. What I do have a serious problem with is some of the cultural capital built up around the holocaust, which is what my next paragraph is going to address. I am not talking about the legitimate need to preserve survivor stories or the collective memory of the tragedy of the holocaust. I am talking about the movie business, and what I see as the collective tendency towards varnishing the past instead of trying to illuminate our present.

It seems odd to me that there are still movies being made about the heroic actions taken by people during what was arguably one of the most horrrific events in recent history, when it seem obvious to me that we haven't learned a thing about how to prevent such a occurances in the present time, I mean "Never Again" as if.

Sorry I know that is super fucking incorrect but I am speaking as a Jew and as someone who just listened to an odious interview with the mayor of a small town in the West Bank defending his and his townspeople's right to shit all over the idea of Palistinian self-government.

As far as I can tell, based largely on the brilliant logic of Why We Fight, the only thing the Second World War, and the resultant cold war taught anyone, was that it's best to have standing army, and to fund that army madly, and to use imperialism as a means to buy that army whatever it needs to maintain its stature.

And then we watch and make sacharine movies about German school girls who die for their ideals. I mean, what's driving imperialism /global militarism is also ideals, ideals that result in further bloodshed so let's not wax poetic over that, let's really carefully examine why we still have to talk about past wars in order to add a gloss of respectability to the clearly unjust wars being fought in our present day using reprehensible technologies.

Granted there was this movie Why we Fight available next door to Sophie Scholl, but how often does a documentary about the real cost of war get made in comparison to historical fictions about any one of the last centuries wars.

Probably most movies made about war attempt to paint war as a tragic event, not one that ought be repeated, Just like the Sophie Scholl thing did. I guess what upsets me is it seems only possible to excoriate wars after they have happened. After it's too late and nothing can be done except create fictions out of real events.

I suspect it's because the condition of war is such an ingrained part of human culture it doesn't seem like a phenomonon that can be halted through human effort. Maybe it's as if war is irrevocable like torrential rain or a plague. So the only thing to do is to create meaning out of carnage once everything has settled down again, at least in that particular region.

It seems we like our wars to arrive as stories, not as human tragedies, stories that carry morals within them that justify the further condition of war. As my dear friend Ned explained to me, it seems like a tautaology. Fiction about war often carries a justification for the acceptance of the generalized condition of war itself, maybe not that particular war, but the moral order in which war must occur in order to generate the proper circumstance for a demonstration of might, as the single most effective response to evilness or wrong-doing.

During Why We Fight the talking head that most represented the mentality of continued defense funding said; (I am paraphrasing here). "It's not like there are three guys who hold the key to everything and if you got rid of them everything would suddenly be okay. This is just the way things are done now."

That's the part that scared me most. Because he's right. It isn't any single group of people and it can't change based on regimes, it's an entire moral system, and we don't really know how to stop it.

March 13, 2006

I am doing my first real lecture tomorrow in my coms class. (Those poor kids are such sitting ducks for my academic development.)

I am planning to discuss the intersection/history of Virtual Reality, Reality, gaming art and imagination. Or something like that.

Basically I want to compare the development of Virtual reality programming to projects like janet cardiffs the paradise institute.

My notes are here. I hope I don't make a giant mess of things.

March 8, 2006

This looks F--ing cool (See how I didn't swear there).

American Amnesia reading list

It's like the Walmart of anti-globalization scholarship resources. Everythings there's in one convenient location. ( hyuck).

Ok back to work.

January 3, 2006

I have had some of the insomnia action these past few nights.

I think it's due to a combination of high stakes trivial pursuit games, too many corn-chips and seasonal emotion.

While not sleeping, I read The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker an interdisciplinary look at what has been said, and what could be said about human nature. Human nature is a controversial to the point of being verboten topic in that usually conversations about Human Nature have been tied to racism, sexism and all other flavors of xenophobia.

Pinker argues that the counter-argument to a basic human nature - that humans are blank slates upon which the effects of culture, environment and self-will produce individual difference is as open to dogmatic abuse as is the idea that humans have a basic nature as do all other species.

It's an interesting read, not least because he's a great writer, but because his analysis weaves actual science (neuroscience, genetics, biology) with social sciences and culture(linguistics, psychology, anthropology) in a way that seems to free both from their usual ideological/academic contraints. By marrying the objective with cultural relativisms, there is some sort of balance approached.

In my favorite bit so far, Pinker writes that when the corpus callosum( the bridge connecting the two hemispheres) is cut in a human brain, the self is also literally cut in two;

"For example, if an experimenter flashes the command "WALK" to the right hemisphere (by keeping it in the part of the visual field only the right hemisphere can see), the person will comply with the request and begin to walk out of the room. But when asked why he just got up, he will say, in all sincerity," To get a Coke" - rather than '"I don't really know" or "The urge just came over me" or "You've been testing me for years since I had the surgery, and sometimes you get me to do things but I don't know exactly what you asked me to do.""

Pinker goes on to say;

"The spooky part is that we have no reason to think that the baloney generator in the patients left hemisphere is behaving any differently from ours as we make sense of the inclinations emanating from the rest of our brains. the consious mind - the self or soul - is a spin doctor, not the commander in chief."

Frankly I prefer the romantic view, which is that my heart is my prime baloney generator, and for reasons which escape my understanding my brain is incapable of keeping that sorry muscle in line.

But I bet Pinkers right (a Phd in psychology and linguistics from Harvard can't be for nothing right?)

Truly though, I think another thing to research would be the roots of emotion in other body parts, why do hearts contain love, stomachs fear? Why do those two conspire to keep me awake at night with my brain a helpful chorus of groundless worry and even more groundless longing?

Using my thought patterns to study from I realized last night that the difference between a pessimist (me) and an optimist is that when I get into bed at night I don't consider the softness of my blankets or the pleasant sound of my lovely dogs hum-breath of sleep from the pillow on the floor. I think to myself, I wonder how long I will be here before I have to pee again. And from there it's a landslide of negative conjecture. I bet a positive person would crawl into bed and think. I love cozy covers and then carefully review the nicest elements of the day fro later retrieval.

What's interesting is how natural negative thought is to me, how easily I find myself thinking.."Oh look you have insomnia, you won't get anything done tomorrow because you are going to be crazy tired, which probably means you won't get one of your applications in on time, which probably means applying for an MA was a terrible idea anyways, because you clearly haven't the stamina or the real drive you lightweight."

All of that of course is not expressed in words in my heads, it's just a doubletime heartbeat and a stomach-ache and a tightness in my temples.

On the other hand if I try to positive approach; "You finished your taxes today, you played a lovely board game, you ate a good dinner you walked the dog three times.." I have to spell it out in a dialetic. Good self lectures bad self until both selves are exhausted from the struggle and pass out at 4am.

So what do I do Steven Pinker? Is it in my natuer to see the bad in everything? can I stop it?

So heres' the most difficult resolution of all for 2006.

Try to stop being *so* negative, without being self-critical about inherent negativity - because if one looks carefully at that construct (being negitive about my characteristic negativity) I am creating a recursive pattern which would drive anyone crazy.

Pinker also describes one personality matrix as being neurotic/stable. Since I am so clearly a neurootic I take a certain exception to being characterized as the negative in a dialetic. I would prefer that like in Tarot cards every quality has it's negative expression. So, for example a stable person could also become boring or stagnant. A neurotic, if they are careful, take care of themselves and try to avoid too much ruminating obsessive behaviour (unless they are programming or painting in oils), could thrive and be considered analytical, creative or dedicated. All sorts of things but not purely neurotic.

The world was not built by surfers alone.

Maybe I am just being little neurotic here ..

Anyways, okay blog therapy. I feel better I am going to a cafe to piss off the wait staff and work for 6 hours over one cup of coffee.

November 17, 2005

imood

sharing my feelings never felt so stupid.

I was reading Consilience by Edward O Wilson last night, and he was quoting Francis Bacon who I guess was the definition of a renaissance man.

His ideas were forerunners to present day psychology, epistemology and social science. I always just thought of him as the guy who said men should master nature - so I kind of figgered him for a jerk. But this sounds incredibly precient given that it was written about 500 years ago.

Through light shed on the mental process, Bacon wished to reform reasoning across all branches of learning. Beware he said of idols of the mind, The fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall. They are the real distorting prisms of human nature. Among them idols of the tribe assume more order than exists in chaotic nature; those of the imprisoning cave, the idiosyncracies of individual belief and passion; of the marketplace, the power of mere words to induce belief in nonexistant things; and of the theatre, unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstrations. Stay clear of these idols, he urged,observe the world around you as it truly is, and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it; put it into every fibre of your being.

Take that smileys.

The L word tonight yippee! Last week Jenny the annoying humiliated herself in a brutal ww2 survivor schtick (and truly, it was a schtick). I think she imagined herself to be some sort of homo Anne Frank.. gaahhh I hate that girl, someone should poke her big brown eyes out.

September 26, 2005

At the conference this week-end one audience member asked me about how blogs could be considered tools for witnessing. And I really liked her use of the word witnessing and myself and the other two panelists answered the question in two ways. Me, by saying that I thought blogs were excellent cultural artifacts of witnessing, citing the blogs being written about Katrina as an example.

The other two panelists talked about witnessing as comments etc.. a form of validation. That they felt their writing gained in value based on the comments recieved.

Then the questioner, (whos name by the way is Devora Neumark) re-iterated and added depth to what she asked, and said ( I am paraphrasing here).

"But because you have this semi-anonymous space to reflect, it's like the connection between you as writer and the witness isn't complete. You can perhaps say things on a blog that you wouldn't be able to sustain in a normal conversation - or face to face."

Which is something that fascinates me about what I am doing here, and what I started doing two years ago writing a blog, but also it's the problem I am coming up against more and more in this venue.

This blog is at once too genuine, without the mediation of time or solitude in which one edits or practises or refines a piece of self into a work of art.

But, having said that, it's also not genuine enough because it doesn't require a whole lotta courage. I am reminded of that scene in I Heart Huckabees, in which Jude Law has his personality undone and stares at his palm repeating; "How am I not myself?" over and over again.

That's not a question I am ever going to answer in this venue, because anyone who knows me, knows what I don't write about here, and anyone who doesn't is only going to know what I publish and that's a simple and easy to maintain distinction. But it's not being honest - not for me anyways.

All this is a giant lead-in to a potential blogging hiatus. I need to work on some stuff that is about something other than what popped into my head half an hour ago and absolutely requires instant expression.

So I am going to limit myself to posing once a week at most, and see what happens, (left that typo there on purpose).

Oh yeah and just before I close up shop here is some poetry found on an island in Crete and tranlsated into english.
It's from an excellent book called The Genius of Language (exploding referents!%&$ check out that link it's from a magazine called 'identity theory.com - a literary website sort of..' which looks awesome cool. There's an interview with Carrie Brownstein of Sleater Kinnie on the index - okay I am completely unraveling here - get back on topic mir, crete, poetry truth- natch)

So these poems were tranlated by Nicholas Papandreou, I don't know who they are by originally;

Others shrivel up from the times, the wars and years
but me, I shrivel up with the pains and fears.

The wind beats my clothes and the sun eats my knives
and a small little love eats up my insides

That's what I wanna do people - okay maybe not poetry but I wanna do some thing as good as; 'a small little love eats up my insides'.

see ya.

September 22, 2005

I just got this from the tagline of Jakob Wrens blog

With me, irony is not a gesture of condescension but a form of struggle.

- Robert Musil

Ha, yes. that's why I am not a writer yet, because I have spent years trying to explain that to people, and never finding the words.

August 6, 2005

I went to Neds last night, and waxed poetic about how taking the bus through the western United States was the worst idea I have ever had.

"There were these employees with obvious mental blocks and steel -toed boots marching around the terminals shouting 'This is not a playground! This is a greyhound terminal'. I had to go through a checkpoint to take a piss.."

"The bus driver had no teeth and when he spoke through the intercom he sounded like he had just huffed a pint of valium - 'If the...re..are...uh... little ones...with.. you..on theis... bus..please...uh....control...your...little..ones...uh... this..is a circus.. not..this..is...not.. a circus..' I think he put the bus on auto-pilot and slept from Portland to Eugene I swear!"

Colin replied; "That's because of the greyhound strikes. They busted the union so all those workers are just scabs, they make about half that of the workers for the Canadian branch."

So I looked it up and he's totally right.

I have this theory about collectivist action and the United states of America. I think collective activities are frowned upon in much more insidious ways over there, then they are here.

For example, at the video blogging conference Steve Rhodes made the point that media distro grups had been around for a long time, citing Paper Tiger Television and The Indymedia Collective(s) as examples.

One of the panelists responded. "But those groups all have agendas, to belong you have to agree to their collective politics." (More or less, I am re-phrasing). The general intention, I believe, was to imply that by joining these groups, one gave up ones individual political voice, that is vouchsafed in a video blog or an account at ourmedia.

I don't actually agree with that position for a number of reasons, the first one being an old argument called "divide and conquer". The culture of american indvidualism, as positive as it may be for the development of an entrepreneurial and independant spirit. Has as it's corollary, a deep and IMHO rather destructive suspicion for collectivist actions.

I am not sure why, maybe it still comes form the time when even tupperware parties were considered hotbeds for un-american activities.

I think individualism, is itself a political doctrine. One that is just as powerful as the belief that membership in a group actually guarantees the individual more rights and privelages than they would have if they were out there duking it out with other un-aligned individuals. (Did I just try to define socialism? - you tell me)

Which brings me back to the Greyhound. As I considered my experience in the light of union-busting et al. It occurred to me that maybe even movement in the USA is coloured by the individuals privalege.

A greyhound bus is a collective people mover, and if the culture as a whole views collectives as the secret domain of reprobates, communists and radicals, then no wonder by reputation and design (terminals like boot-camps) the bus has turned into a hotbed of criminal activity.

I asked Jen from Ting-Ting whether she had taken the bus ever ( she's an american), and she replied, "Are you kidding?! Everyone has a car!"

The car fits the American psyche. You take it when you want, where you want, without having to fit your life into someone elses schedule. It's a shining example of ones individual "drive".

Of course there is an economic metaphor that needs to be picked up on. Since a car is an individual vehicle, it is more expensive than a bus ticket, so it is directly related to ones wealth, or success as a citizen. The bus because it's cheap becomes synonymous with failure, and also with entrapment. Because it's not "safe" to take the bus, the implicit message is, if you can't afford a car, better stay where you are. Which means poeple without the means to travel american style should stick to their own kind, and in their own neighbourhoods.

Notably, all the greyhound terminals I saw stateside were in crummy run-down buildings. Even if the neighbourhood itself looked fine, the bus terminal looked like a 'poor" kind of place.

I think, based on the Greyhound timeline that the demise of the bus-line in the USA is more a result of the rise of car-culture, than the machinations of an insidious political agenda, (or at least not a conscious insidious political agenda) but it certainly encapsulates, the problematic relationship between groups and individual power perfectly don't you think?

August 4, 2005

"Vanquished by nature, we became masters of technique."

- Aristotle

Following Blogher I spent two amazing days in SF. The first day I went to the botanical garden. I needed to unwind and get away from things that speak, and I needed to use up a disposable camera purchased in Montreal. Luckily plants don't laugh at me for using retrograde technology.

Here are some of my pictures.

I am doing reasearch on the meanings of gardens for a personal project and at a bookstore in the mission I found a big heavy book that I had to lug home in my knapsack called "the idea of the garden."

The book is surpassing my expectations. There is one quote in particular about vernacular garden design (here called found object gardens) that stands as a great cross-over metaphor for what I believe to be the inherent social value of blogging and the semantic web.

Shepard concludes that the creator of a garden of found objects engages selectively with a real but inexplicable world rather than retreating into abstractions. It is this conclusion that posits the most serious challenge to how the world is assembled by professionals today.

Shepard implies that the landscape orders contained in the mind, heart or daily patterns of even the simplest person are more complex realities than the formal geometries employed by professional garden designers. To touch the soul through design today requires the appropriation of the power contained in those profound personal orders."

Isn't my blog a lot like my garden?

I find things that interest me, or move me, or that are at some level meaningful to my vision of the world, and I collect them in a loose framework (the bed) that is temporal (the calendar), and also hass an obvious personal epistemology through the category structures that I use. In my delicious tags, which I would view as my nursery or a collection so other peoples seedlings, I use tags to create a taxonomical structure and organize the ideas, before I actually go out there and start planting (writing).

Then I go and look at other peoples gardens and that's when the whole idea of cross-pollination/ hybridity comes in. How open am I to the ideas and memes that other people send my way? What kinds of things grow in my blog inspired by the idea gardens of my friends.

The web certainly isn't wild nature untamed, but as a structure it is beginning to resemble a natural process given shape and meaning through a collective will to order and make sense of the materials of the universe in personal and profound ways. Kind of like a garden don't cha know.

I spent a while imagining what Flickr would be like if it were an actual garden. everyone would be able to shift the beds and the plants and the very architecture of the garden themselves. The garden would be both a public space but contain private formations of meaning and aesthetic. Picture people alone or in groups, standing in a landscape that shifts beneath them and reforms every time someone utters a new word or leaves another flower in the ground.

I have story to tell about my day at the gardens, but it is about my mothers death, and it is long and it is personal, and if you want to read it, (I would love you to read it) you will have to read the whole post. The section on theory is done. Now it's all about my feelings.

July 25, 2005

I think my friends 12 year old step-daughter still likes me, despite the Pump up the Volume debacle last night.

We might go to value village today and look for hoodies together. Right now she is doing *all the dishes*. (I feel bad for her you know, I used to have to do all the dishes and it sucked. Okay I never did, but nevertheless my heart is moved nevertheless.) She is listening to lud punk music...

I hav ebeen reading a lot of the New Yorker since I arrived. there is a great set of articles on climate change. By elizabthe colbert;

The Climate of Man 1
The Climate of Man 2

and;

The Climate of Man 3

I have only read the 3rd one so far. they are making me feel even more like I should go and do this sustainable MBA, except I am not so keen to leave montreal...

in fact these articles make me think of the time I went to see the day after tomorrow, (I think that's what it was called) that movie about the evils of global warmng the where the bad guy is - the weather. Except for real the bad guy isn't teh weather, it's really the United States and their self-serving envirenmental politics.

July 20, 2005

I am considering a major life change and I am not sure how to put it into an entry. It's like one of those moments where if the blog and I were a couple, or if you my readers and I were considered to be having some sort of "relationship", I would be prefacing this entry with a statement like;

"Honey, we need to talk"

Don't worry we’re not breaking up. Neither I and theflink nor you(plural) and I. But I want to talk about an idea I have been thinking about and I don't know how or where to start.

Basically (always a good starting word), I enrolled in a new program of study last year, and haven't really loved it, at all. In fact it's kinda been like a hot poker in my eye, with the exception of a couple of good assignments and one good professor. I have kept my gpa up in everything but the math course (which is a whole other story) but I am not so sure I want to continue. The program was to be my entry into the exciting field of arts administration. Now I can't decide if it’s the program that is having a bad effect on my ambition, or if I just don't really want to be an arts administrator anymore, having taken some distance from my work in arts organizations over the past year. Whatever the case, I am not at all stoked about pursuing the program and obtaining my diploma.

So I have spent the year mulling over my options. A few months ago I came to the staggering conclusion that I think I have mined the webdev pile for all it's worth in my life, and don’t necessarily want to be a career geek either. That came while reclining on a chair and watching a gorgeous sunset, avoiding work. Once I had made the call, it became a lot easier to continue my work, because I knew I wouldn't be doing it forever. But since my plan was to do the diploma and either go into project management for on-line fine arts organizations, or start a youth media arts centre, I started this summer feeling a little up the existential crisis creek without a paddle.

Then about a month ago, under I have no idea what impetus, it occurred to me that what I really could do, and probably enjoy doing, is a masters degree in sustainable business practices. Again, don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you. I mean, I could give you vague stories about wading in mud with my dad and brother in the Sunnybrook ravine 16 years ago, or I could tell you stories about Tentboy one of my earlier beaus who convinced me to throw out all my furniture in favor of a deskset and bedstead made out of orange crates, but that wouldn't really do the historical foundations of this idea justice.

June 3, 2005

The Talmud and the Internet

To read later when I am not really really busy.

Question: why does montreal insist on being freezing cold for months and then in two days turns into a sauna. I love it..what a crazy town.

I wish this computer were attached to a pontoon and was superwaterproof and wifi enabled, than I could float around in the local pool and work....

May 31, 2005

I was doing a little drive by on the current events tip today. Which basically means on my way to an appointment, I saw a courier reading a newspaper box and shaking her head, and decided to take a peek myself. Thisis what I read;

Homolka 'unrepentant' 'Arrogant' killer dyes and cuts hair before release, say former inmates

I have subsequently read the rest of the article.

It's weird because Homolka wants to move to a neighbourhood about 20 minutes from mine, and my actual first impulse was fear. Which is ridiculous for so many reasons I don't even want to go into here. I mean frankly the woman is in more danger than she presents to others, based on the tenor of the news media surrounding her release.

This article wasn't the first time I have thought of the Homolka issue, its just the first time I have wanted to mention it in this forum.

We have this culture of punishment/justice(if thats what you want to call it) that doesn't create a framework for the act of forgiveness.

Many people would argue that what Ms. Homolka did is unforgiveable, and I am inclined to agree wth them. However, we have created a system in which people who do unforgiveable things can be released to take their place in society, which basically means we have no choice but to forgive them, because if we don't it creates a toxic atmosphere and makes their re-integration completely impossible. I mean, that's why so many felons re-enter the system, once you have it on your record you don't get a second chance.

Because the justice system f__ed up large on this one (Homolkas plea bargain), we have to let Karla out, and its not going to help anyone making her life impossible.

It's like the media is goading her into proving their fears true so we can lock her up again, proving all sorts of nasty brutish lessons such as;

- Change is impossible

- People should not be forgiven

- If you say someone is going to screw up enough times, they will eventually prove you right.

Worse yet, none of these lessons are true. However, the way justice is carried out on this continent and the way criminals are protaryed in the media perpetuates them.

Forgiveness isn't condoning someones choices for one thing. In part, I believesthat Homolkas lack of repentance could be tied up in the fact that no-one has truly forgiven her, so she feels justified in sticking her transgressiveness back in our faces. If someone were to truly offer her some kind of absolution, and try to forgive her. She would probably go mental and actually start to understand the true measure of her guilt.

I can't really explain the process because I am no theologian, but that's the basic notion of all sorts of forgiveness rituals. One cannot actually begin to repent in themselves until they have been forgiven by their comunity, and if we can't forgive Karla what does she owe us except more of the same?

What part of Cappolli did I just eat precisely?

Okay this is probably tacky, but I wanted to write something funny too...

So a couple of nights ago, I had this terrible indigestion from a cappoli chicken burger, which was like a shnitzel frisbee covered in Kimchee made from boston lettuce and which hurt me in more ways than I can stand to remember.

And I was lying on my sofa trying to get over it because it hurt too much to try to sleep, and I was mentally composing an elegy to the chicken frisbee which involved a long story about being on a kibbutz near beersheba in Israel, and going to the market and buying oily blocks of hash and hash pipes and on the way back to the kibbutz we passed the head cook carrying several large baskets full of live sqwuaking (how in gods name do you spell sqwuaking?) chickens.

Later that evening, having made a significant dent in our hash collections. My friends and I sat down for dinner in the mess hall of the kibbutz and were greeted by steaming plates of roughly prepared chicken schnitzels, many with feathers still poking from their breadcrumb wrappings..

I think one of the skolnik twins might have puked into her new naots.

aaah isreal land of milk, honey, and recently deceased feathered schnitzels.

Anyways, (look I digressed aren't I sneaky?)

While on the sofa, and clutching my stomach. I thought to myself. This thing has hit me harder than puberty.

So that's it; "hit me harder than puberty." I never have to search for another pithy simile ever again, and neither do you my dear readers.

We can all use it. "Dude those 18 tequila shots last night, hit me harder than puberty"

My third divorce hit me harder than puberty, but you shoulda seen what it did to the kids.

etc... don't thank me, just never make me eat a capolli burger again.

It's true great brilliance is tempered in the fire of even greater suffering..(or whatever)

hyuck.

April 13, 2005

I have insomnia. or an ulcer, the jury is still out on which. I know every night my stomach feels weird, and I can't sleep. My normally zaftig frame is wittling down again. I am beginning to look like a New Yorker instead of a lazy Montrealer.

Anyways, that's not important except if anyone has any suggestions for sure-fire sleep aids (and yes I have tried all the usual suspects) fire away.

Three things today:

1/ I have decided that if my life-plan were mapped out in one of those handy little path-goal diagrams, or more specifically, as a train track heading irrevocably towards some sort of final destination which is the realization of my deepest ambitions. Then my actual journey upon said path would look like this;

The lavender is key. It represents my life as actually lived, versus my life as imagined during bath-time conversations where I pretend I am being interviewed by Ray-Gun magazine..I often worry (see above comment about ulcer) that the fact that my ex-roomate has published two books already, and my best friend is the mother of a beautiful 3 old, points to a certain lack of direction in my own development and maturation.

Last night, while coaching myself through hour 2 of insomnia, I decided that obviously my direction is actually a squiggle. A squiggle that follows an Alice in Wonderland kind of logic. I get distracted by white rabbits and other oddities and sometimes I end up fallng into rabbit holes, and it takes a while to figure everything out again.

My favorite distractions so far; joining a Lesbian rock band for 6 months, and developing this gargantuan addiction to blogging. The least favorite; (obviously) mom dying, and my first un-requited love experience.

So there. All you self-directed steady-on type people, I refuse to be intimidated by your incredible accomplishments anymore.

****

2/ Eric called me from The University Of The Streets cafe and asked me to make a poster for their next event;

"Miriam, Eric here, I was wondering if you had the time to make me a poster that says "The End of Capitalism - What Next?" by friday afternoon, at the latest.

I called him back and said; "Eric, Miriam here, I'm happy do it.. but I want my money up front."

****

3/ I was talking to my friend on the phone, who was waiting for about three important phone calls and was feeling kind of stressed out. I asked;

"what are you doing to cope?"

"I am organizing my trail mix."

"How are you doing that?"

"I am taking out all the raisins, and removing those little red skins from the peanuts - they stick to my tongue."

"Sorry can you repeat that. I need to put it in on the hard drive for further reference."

"Why did your voice just go so funny?"

"It's a mixture of fear and pity."

"You know, raisins are disgusting, and it's really not that time consuming to get the red bits off the peanuts."

"No, no, I understand the impetus. You're crazy."

"Yes well, as my grammy says; take it from the source."

March 1, 2005

So I have to keep this short because the paper - which is like hells albatross around my neck at this point - is still not finished.

But I was out for drinks with Ned last night, and as usual the talk turned to human beings and the ways we damage/provoke/inspire/help and otherwise fuck with each in the course of our daily search for love and affirmation.

And I was thinking about how I have recently joined the gym, and it is clear that I am the only girl there that doesn't shave.

So ned andd I are talking intimacy and sharing. Mostly about how much nicer it would be if people could avoid dumping all over their loved ones, but that becoming intimate with a person can become a negotiation of vunerability or keeping your own shit together or something. Ie; it's impossible not to turn someone into an emotional crash-pad but we should all be trying just a little bit harder to take some time and really think about whether we want the people we end up loving the hardest to have to share in what makes us fucked up a lot of the time. As Ned said; "Call me next time - I can take it."

So back to the gym. People these days boys included, spend a lot of time making their bodies look Gattica-esque. And by that I mean minimizing or somehow erasing imperfections. Picking plucking and otherwise eradicating the tiny blips on our surfaces that make us human beings.

Now the general theory about the pursuit of physical perfection relates to narcisism and aesthetics. We all want to look beauiful because we have no souls and all that matters is that when we go out eveyone thinks we are hot.

I have decided that's all wrong. Aesthetic perfection is a defensive manouveur to avoid the vulnerability of physical intimacy. Having a good looking body which is hairless, zit-less, and wihout cellulite is comparable to the art of small talk. By masking physical imperfection we can safely be in intimate situations without actually having to become vulnerable about what makes us individuals.

It's a way of not " dumping" on someone, but in a non-verbal form.

February 19, 2005

This is from a new journal I just found called Kuro5hin: technology and cultre from the trenches. I don't really know what that means but it sure sounds exciting.

Heres the article about how with the rise of distribution channels for independantly produced image based media works, normative standards of beauty might get a kick in the can (if you will). I think that's a pretty interesting idea.

The article refers to podcasting and vlogging as tools that will impact the production and consumption of media etc...

here I will chop out a good bit;

These new production and distribution paradigms will have a dramatic effect on many aspects of American culture (especially water cooler office chat, which is another story), but will have a particularly obvious impact on body image, which has in the past found itself influenced mainly by supermodels, hunk actors, and Charlie's Angels; viewing this "hit" content has falsely inflated perceptions of what is considered an appropriate standard for beauty.

In other news, tonight I am going to see science fiction author Nalo Hopkinson read at Concordia University.

December 1, 2004

I have added a category ideas, because I was tired of calling my ideas 'whatever else" it wasn't giving them enough credit. also I think it hurts their cause (the ideas I mean although, also perhaps my own)

Also I want t make some puns about Entry 101 but won't. It literally is though. When I install textpattern I want the entries numbered right on the page it will do my collectors heart good to see that.

I am having an argument with someone very dear to my heart who claims that this is not an academic blog...

Not sure how I feel about that.

I am realizing during this second trip back to the hallowed halls that i am not a "good" student.. I am lot of other things, argumentative, loud, lazy, perceptive. Not good.

Mostly, I obsess over things that interest me, and disregard the things that fill me with ennui. Worse yet. I have tons of counterwill ( so much so in fact that I wish this blog were called counterwill - it sounds so facist yet at the same time rebellious...).

For example if someone says it would be a good idea to work hard on my marketing presentation over the week-end because business students are notoriously daffy about powerpoint...Well then the obvious course of action is to get stoned after the pixies concert friday night and spend all day saturday ineffectually moving furniture and feeling my seratonin do a nose-dive.

Academics = love/hate. I think I always wanted to be that kid the professors pulled aside for "extra talks" and to recommend certain books. You know, the one they would look at and say "she's going to be an excellent doctoral candidate et all".

The problem with western culture is that there are so few other places to be smart.

Lets use the bare facts of the flink itself to decide whether this blog is academic or simply a large scale diversionary tactic. lets not forget I invented the word procrastibation which is no mean feat either.

I was looking at my stats today and it appears that the majority of my readers/friends are visiting the site on Fridays at around 1:00pm

Now we all know what that means, the Flink is a serious diversionary tactic. It helps people get over the last 4 hours of the last day of the working week... When all they really want to do is hit the happy hours and talk about the pixies concert they just went to...

And you know what the Flink is PROUD to be a place where people come to slack off.

Hands off academics, this is intelligence (or something like intelligence) in the service of absolutely nothing..(thats the counterwill for you folks.. right there.)

Keep slacking people, read the Flink over your club sandwiches, maybe make some slacky litle comments.. the week-end is just around the corner.

If you aren't bored yet there is a tangent coming about design and creativity.. its just for those of you who care about either of those subjects, the slackers should just check out the new strongbad "virus" it's hilarious...

November 11, 2004

Introducing footnotes.. borrowed from numerous authors such as JD Salinger, Martin Amis, et al... Now my tangents getting truly tangential elesewhere than the front page.

Sorry if there are a lot of typos in this post my hands are freezing(1)

I was in the horrifying/depressing marketing for non-profits class last night and the professor showed a video called "marketing ethics." (Are warning bells going off in your head? They should be.)

I don't want to go into the whole video. (Produced during that sad part of the early nineties when clothing was still 80's but the blockbuster video superstore already existed or something.) Suffice to say the basic premise was that marketing is a sophisticated and complex practise and ethics were "complicated"
so could you really blame marketers for making the occasional error in judgement.

Of course not.

Given this immense complexity, the video offered "thumbnail" ethical guidelines we marketers should try (note the use of the word try here) to follow as we navigated the tricky shoals of free market capitalism.

1/"follow the golden rule 'do unto others et al..' " now I know this casts a shadow of doubt on practises like sweatshops, but let's not forget these are just guidelines.

Maybe Saint Paul or whoever got it wrong. The rule is in fact, just a "guidleine." ie: "Do unto other as you would have them do unto you," unless you are in Malaysia in which case the rule becomes : "Do unto the malaysian as another malaysian would do unto them.." Which is the justification the prof gave me for outsourcing production to countries where there are fewer labour laws. Apparently that is still following the golden rule because the rule (guideline?) only applies to ones fellow americans, Malaysians, etc..

Maybe the golden rule is just too hard to follow..(2)

2/ "Consider whether your decison could result in legal action or even incarceration."

And I thought all this time that Jail was merely the result of a moral thought process gone awry. Apparently I was wrong, jail is in fact a moral justification in and of itself. So really if there were no prisons we would all be out robbing, pillaging and chopping each others heads off. Phewf, thank god for the ethical choice called - staying out of jail.

and finally the real golden rule of marketing;

3/ "The televison test: Would I be comfortable talking
about my decision on TV?"

(moment of silence)

Here is a hastily assembled list of current and popular prime time offerings on network television. Desperate Housewives, Fear Factor, You're having a Baby. Cops, Judge Judy,Dr. Phil. Evidently there isn't much we are not willing to do on TV. In some States executions are televised, so essentially, both birth and death are appropriate TV fare.

I would suggest that since this video was made about 10 years ago, perhaps the rule needs to be adjusted to take into account various network specialties. ie: Would I be willing to do this on Fox? On the Life Network? On the shopping channel? This gives one a better sense of what kind of moral imperative we are after. If you're making a FOX - scale decision, you can probably afford to eat live bugs, sniff spray paint and sell your granny for a box of cigars. If you are going NBC, the bar is a little higher, leave your granny out of the equation.

Interestingly enough LG (for 'Life's Good' don't ya know) is now selling a refrigerator with a television (LCD screen) embedded in the door (3)( for pictures/commentary view footnotes)Which supports this idea that television is the moral centre of the universe. Why use your community when you have reality tv shows like "marry a millionaire" showing you what is or is not appropriate in terms of the social contract.

Okay I have to visit my screenless refrigeration unit to make supper for myself and someone else, this is just getting depressing anyways. Check back later for ethical thumbnail #4.

June 21, 2004

Okay, call me a bit of a survivalist but I spend maybe too much time wondering what will hapen to me when the world inevitably becomes an anarchic hell-pit à la Mad max, you know any day now, when the environment or a nuclear meltdown destroys us and all our wonderful infrastructure.

And I forget exactly how or why, but it came up during a phone converstaion with mike that perhaps squirrels, and the harvesting/ training/ development of .. could be my meal ticket when montreal gets it's rude awakening..

That's right everyone else'll be out scrambling, trying to beg buy borrow or steal food shelter clothing you name it, and I'll be hanging out with my squirrel elite squad, drinking some fresh and tasty squirrel milk, jetting about on my 500 squirrel-power skidoo.

May 31, 2004

so here I am reading all about amphetadesk, and it finally dawns on me that

#1 - blogging is possibly more damaging to my productivity than any desktop messaging client could ever be.

#2 - I am falling for this whole, get more information than everyone and publicize it trap.

#3 - somehow this idea that I need to set something up to read the news that I don't have time to read and then report back to me ties into a couple of post- 20th century problems to do with the speed and the relative importance of information, which ties into information and the capability of getting your hands on information as currency.

It makes me uncomfortable I might have to stop doing this, I never want to feel like my smarts are meant for public consumption/ tied into an exercise in aquisition.

ps: I know what movie we are going to see.