Impossible to write, especially a novel, what with all this upheaval and travelling and whatnot. It's all about steadiness and habit, and habits are hard to get into if I'm always running around like this. Eventually things will be Just The Way I Like Them and I will be able to sit still and think and write again. Now I have hundreds of scraps with scribbles on them that say at the top:Idea For Short Story, or Idea for Installation. Or, no rubric at all just: Smeite in tavern meet stranger tell lies.
LINK | 1:38 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I love tidiness. I hate chaos.

As such, I wish I weren't so messy. My mess is maddening! Lauren alerts me to an an article about clutter and why we can't let it go.
LINK | 12:09 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And from my friend Eric comes the hard-boiled cool 16th and Mission, a view outside his office window. 16th and Mission, for those who don't know, is the main drug trafficking corner in San Francisco, and where that pregnant teenage heroin addict used to go to score her smack. Recently the flophouses have had to endure the incursions of yuppies as technology companies set up shop in the neighborhood. When I worked down there, the women in the office used to come in with accounts of how men on the street would stop them and ask, "Are you in the life?" or "Are you selling love?" Crackheads in bathrobes could be seen on their knees, weeping, begging, prostrating themselves before dealers in mirrored sunglasses, while, waiting for the light to change, high-powered Prada-clad V.P.s of Marketing barked orders to underlings on their cell phones. It's quite a corner. Weirdly, as I was listening to the muted police sirens on the site, sirens here in Vancouver dopplered by, completely synchronized, and a dog started ferociously barking.
LINK | 7:23 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I'm beginning to think that the internet is some kind of elaborate digital parasite. I mean, feeding off my life. I sit down to write an email, and six hours later I find out that six hours have gone by.
LINK | 6:24 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Read the piece on synthetic zero about women and washing machines. I, too, fear a life of drudgery, almost more than anything else. More than public speaking, certainly, alleged to be the greatest fear, worse than the fear of death.
LINK | 10:51 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

All you ladies who have admired my necklace, and all you gentleman who are looking for presents, the necklaces are made of chunky vintage beads and are made by my friend Andrea Scher, of Superhero Designs. The necklaces are $56.00 and there are also bracelets and earrings to match. Strangers stop me in the street all the time to ask where I got it: that's my secret source!
LINK | 9:56 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I missed Zizek when he was in town, though my friend Eric reported on the event. Some tidbits about him, for all you theoryheads:

From Paul: a really hilarious article. Read especially his strategies for avoiding students during his scheduled "office hours": Enjoy your Zizek! "Bearded, disheveled, and loud, Zizek looks like central casting's pick for the role of Eastern European Intellectual....With lightning speed , he moves from the decline of British culture ("They took perfectly good tea, added milk, and made it look like filthy dishwater!") to Hollywood ("Brad Pitt's Seven Years in Tibet--a terrible movie!") to the Tibetan legal system ("a process of formalized bribery where opposing parties bid against each other in a ritualized auction--I absolutely love this!"). "

Also: a review of his latest book in the Independent: A radical voice in the philosophical wilderness
LINK | 11:31 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hello virtual friends from Yahoo! Internet Life. (Who Let The Blogs Out?). Welcome.
LINK | 5:16 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bruce sends on some linkage to the Utopia exhibit at the New York Public Library. Which contains the wonderful Chronological Bibilography of Utopias. My utopia would include enough time to read all the books on this list. Which brings to mind an anecdote about the time Thomas Wolfe walked into the New York Public library and gazed wide-eyed at all the volumes shelved there. He shook his fist and yelled, "God damn you, I'll read you all!!"

And Ray writes with this gem: 'Samuel R. Delany tells somewhere about going to the old British Museum (aka Library) in the 1960s with Thomas Disch and Disch groaning "Why are we writing more BOOKS!?" '
LINK | 1:55 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In response to my post below about different groups with different needs living harmoniously together, Alwin wrote to me about the book Oath of Fealty by Pournelle and Niven about a "buy-in" closed community, an "arcology" -- a complete city within one building. Today he links to an article in the Sunday Times of London about a 3,700 ft. tower being planned for Shanghai, the "Bionic Tower" built to house 100,000 people, with cinemas and grocery stores and restaurants. Incredible! Insane! What a shadow such a thing would cast. You'd never leave the building. You'd feel like an insect. And you could never open your window. But then again, what a relatively small footprint such a place would have. 30 of these with a footprint of roughly 12,300 acres (a 206 acre footprint for each building, doubled for such things as roads, sewage plants, etc.), housing a population of 3 million, as opposed to the 3 million people now occupying the approximately 5.9 million(!) acres that comprise Maricopa County -- greater Phoenix -- according to Stewart's calculations.

The comments accompanying the article explain that the building is being proposed to address the population problems in China:

"Marco Goldschmied, the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, said the project could herald a much-needed new way of thinking about urban sprawl in China, which is already building the equivalent of 600 cities the size of Bristol. In Shanghai alone 10 new districts are expected to be built over the next five years, each big enough to house 100,000 people. "

It doesn't say what the acreage of these towns will be, but presumably, many many acres.

UPDATE: from this nifty page about superskyscrapers we learn that this building was first proposed in 1996 by some Spanish architects, but was technologically unfeasible. It's not clear why the story was revived: governmental approvals? advances in engineering? lazy journalist recycling old news? phallocrats agitating for more phallotowers?
LINK | 6:46 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

From Jim, via email:

"...they're celebrating the festival of San Jordi (St. George), which means, in Barcelona, books and roses. The books are because April 23rd is the death day of Shakespeare and Cervantes... the roses are just nice, I suppose. Traditionally women give men books and men give women roses, but now everybody gets everything."

I think it's also Shakespeare's birthday. And, also, happy birthday Amanda! and Bess Frelinghuysen, my college roommate (wherever you are) and Nabokov... what a day!
LINK | 3:40 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I remember a brand of adhesive bandage that was advertised as "Ouchless" and that word, "ouchless" has been trotting around my head during this period of mental ouchfulness. Where is this lovely, desirable "ouchless" state? Over-the-Rainbow. The fact is, there is no ouchless state. One must grit one's teeth and suffer through and try not to transmit too much suffering to others as a result of one's own. Suffering is sometimes alleviated by the company of others suffering mood-dives also, since it often seems so particular and isolated (and always so isolating). I suppose one also ought take to heart the efforts of the people who try to cheer one up by taking one on midnight picnics to Treasure Island in one's pajamas and damn well be cheered. How ungrateful, refractory and mad not to be cheered!
LINK | 3:27 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Are you Young, Attractive Verbal, Intelligent, and Successful? You might benefit from Psychotherapy! Why? It's Good to Be a YAVIS:

"In 1966 it was already a cliche that the patients who did best in psychotherapy were those who did not need it. The YAVIS criterion was an inside joke. Young, attractive, vital, intelligent, successful individuals benefit best from psychotherapy. In other words, the patients we work best with are the ones who need us least." (via arts and letters daily)

LINK | 11:47 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As listed in this Dutch book on amphibious architecture that I am reading/looking at the pictures: Amfibisch Wonen : Different living situations are needed for these different types of individuals and groups:

• single persons
• unattached couples
• communes
• minority groups (kosher kitchens, Islamic circulation schemes)
• Elderly (assisted housing)
• Homeworkers (live/work)
• families
• terminal patients (hospices)
• scaredy-cats (gated communities)
• hypermobile world citizens (apartment hotels)

Part of the reason I left New York is because it was one of those cities where the only thing that people talked about was real estate and San Francisco has become that too. See these (funny, surly) thoughts on the San Francisco real estate scene by Mr. Bad. In a recent discussion about "who you would want living in your city" the first thing said was "artists". The artists are always there first, and bring vitality and ideas to a place. But they are the first to be ejected when the money comes in. Or, at least, have to leave when things become too expensive.

As my friend Serena said a couple days ago, "There used to be this sense that if you didn't fit in anywhere else, you'd come to SF, because anything was acceptable here. Nonconformity was rewarded, even. It was important to stand out in the crowd. SF was the social, cultural and political "edge" of the continent. The last stop on the line. "Give us your bomb-toting environmental activists, your 6 foot tall transvestites, your socially-backward computer geeks, your surly tongue-pierced bisexual teenagers, your deadhead burnouts, your crazy shopping cart ladies, and your unwashed French tourists..."
LINK | 6:05 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

[Flannery] O'Connor understood comedy as the flashy side of tragedy.
LINK | 6:23 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Donate to the Metafilter Scholarship Fund!
LINK | 1:25 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Written in the Park Motel in Tumwater, WA. An unlovable place, with a ferocious cavalcade of 18-wheelers howling by. Here is some art put in merely to relieve puce bleakness, a trite landscape with a single tree and three people in Victorian garb chatting by the side of the road. The Victorian picture's masonite has bellied out slightly and is as yellowed as the sulphur street light. It's been here at least 20 years, if not 40. The pictures are doing nothing to defend themselves against years of total indifference, seem even to be pulling backwards into a remoter realm of inconspicuousness.

I checked the drawers: there is no Bible. I don't know why, but I find this vaguely disconcerting even though I have much science fiction and a Dutch book about amphibious architecture here to entertain me.

On second and closer glance, the landscape over the other bed seems to have garnered some Art Criticism: it's suffered a spit ball splattering. I notice also that both of the paintings have a perfect aspect ratio for Over-A- Double-Bed. I imagine that somewhere there is a warehouse full of Innocuous Motel Art, thin paper landscapes laminated to particle board. Ephemeral art for transient people.
LINK | 12:52 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Yay! new server! and I'm back. I don't think my email address is receiving at caterina.net yet though.
LINK | 7:39 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There is much to learn from encounters with aliens in science fiction novels, as I was musing yesterday. Even the people closest to us seem bizarre and pop psychologists are always postulating difference between the sexes (viz. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.) Paul Russell, one of my professors at Vassar, was always telling me (as I was struggling to figure out what I was trying to write my thesis about) that what was important was not how two things were the same, but how they were different. He said this several times. This always puzzled and confused me, and I think about it all the time. I don't know if I got the nuance of what he was really saying; I'll have to write and ask him. Sameness suggests compatibility, predictability, boredom, safety to me. Difference suggest divisiveness, curiosity, surprise, risk, contrast. Another intriguing idea I was fixated on during that era was liminality -- those threshold states in which one is moving between, say, day and night, Pop Art and Op Art, boy and man.
LINK | 8:50 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Testing
LINK | 6:15 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I am moving caterina.net to another server, so if there's some downtime, it's probably the DNS transferring and propagating. I'm off on a two day drive! If you need me, call my cell phone.
LINK | 2:58 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Reading Science Fiction. As I was finishing the first two chapters of Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree, Jr. I noticed how hard I had to concentrate to understand 1. The names of the characters/planets/places (Tivanel, Ellakil, Giadoc, Tyree) 2. Exactly what kind of creatures these characters were (They live in the winds above the planets, and "herd" their food, which seems inanimate, they mate by what seems like an orgasmic game of Catch) 3. Realign generally understood social mores ("Fathering" is considered the greatest and most prestigious occupation, while women are relegated to "working, exploring, travelling, and the acquisition of knowledge".)

The quintessential scene in Science Fiction is "the meeting with the alien" (Here is a guide for your preliminary attempts to speak with the alien) -- the alien, of course, can be read as a stand-in for "The Other" whether an aggressive and hostile Other, a future friend and ally or object of deference and worship -- but first understanding must be reached, mutual comprehension. Usually food is first, then language, then customs. And the decision is made of how much we seek to change the aliens and how much we allow ourselves to be changed by the aliens.

This made me think of the fate of the much maligned Malinche of Mexico vs. issues of tolerance/ adaptability/ assimilation. I heard a recent argument against the "melting pot" syndrome of the United States -- who would want to live somewhere where everyone is like everyone else? where there are no Chinese, Pakistani, Jewish, Italian, Polish cultures? -- but this "melting" is inevitable. Was it Clifford Geertz who said you can't observe or study a culture without changing it, a la Schrodinger's Cat? Other thoughts related to this: Jared Diamond's article "How to Get Rich" about how small competing groups/nations/companies adopt each other's technologies and evolve much faster than large hierarchical groups/nations/companies.

One of the problems that is about to be solved in the James Tiptree, Jr. book is: if the Tyrean souls of the Tyrean people are put into alien bodies living on alien planets, can the Fathers still raise "Tyrean" children? Funny, and related, is that James Tiptree, Jr. is the nom de plume of Alice Sheldon, a fact that she didn't divulge until she was forcefully outed after much He or She speculation on the part of science fiction authors and experts. I'm getting back to it now, after this cup of tea...
LINK | 8:27 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Saunas. Saunas are an amazing cure for the aches of fibromyalgia. I just discovered this today at the local Vancouver YMCA. I am going to try to go as often as I can.
LINK | 7:12 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thinking about the Past

Certain moments will never change nor stop being--
My mother's face all smiles, all wrinkles soon;
The rock wall building, built, collapsed then, fallen;
Our upright loosening downward slowly out of tune--
All fixed into place now, all rhyming with each other.
That red-haired girl with wide mouth-Eleanor--
Forgotten thirty years-her freckled shoulders, hands.
The breast of Mary Something, freed from a white swimsuit,
Damp, sandy, warm; or Margery's, a small, caught bird-
Darkness they rise from, darkness they sink back toward.
And Kenny in wartime whites, crisp, cocky,
Time a bow bent with his certain failure.
Dusks, dawns; waves; the ends of songs .

-- by Donald Justice
LINK | 10:41 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even worse than Bejeweled is this Atomica thing on the MSN site. I'm not going to link to it this time; you'll have to find it yourself.
LINK | 11:37 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sarah Walsworth? Where are you?
LINK | 10:55 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Notes to self:

• Add to books page: The Dark-Light Years, Brian Aldiss; Ubik, PK Dick; Seaside, by Some Guy, The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg;
• Must talk to: Tim, Serena, Sasha, Eric, Leanne, Scott, Emily.
• TAXES. What to do? What to do?
• Don't Panic.
• Finish Big John and Genius Without a Penis and Lady Plastic Surgeon.
• Booties from Signe to Mignon and Hannah. Walkie-talkies to Jouke.
• Deal with 401k annoyances.

There are some really phenomenal entries on the5k this year -- my random sampling saw a 10-fold improvement on last year's (which are also online, so you can compare!)
LINK | 10:47 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Incredible front page misspelling today on The New York Times on the Web: Plane Crew Granted More Privelages. SNOOTS everywhere are positively appalled! -- They fixed it as of now, 10am. Phew!
LINK | 9:02 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bar none, my favorite living situation of all my various living situations (living with my family in the suburbs, living alone in a big city, having roommates in the suburbs or the city, etc.) was living in the dormitories at boarding school and at college, where I was surrounded by lots of different kinds of people at all hours of the day and night, and yet had a private room to which I could retire, and hide out if I didn't want to see any one. Essentially, there was always someone around, usually doing an interesting thing, since it was after all college, and people were there to think and learn.

Being a nocturnal person, there were usually only 1-2 other people up at 4 o'clock in the morning, one of whom was a woman from Missouri -- let's call her Jackie -- who had bleached blonde hair and black eyebrows and a late 70's red Firebird with the bird insignia painted on the hood and an amplifier where the muffler should have been. In this combination rattletrap-muscle car, fortified with Southern Comfort, Jackie and I would roar down to what I seem to remember as the "Red Lion Diner" in Northampton, slouched down by the railroad tracks and built from a bona fide rail car. I think they were the only local 24-hr place. The tables were always strewn with dishes holding congealed bacon grease and flies, and the 350-lb. short-order cook/waiter and his 75-lb. mother/busybody would scream at you if you tried to rearrange them so you had somewhere to put your elbows. Order taking was accomplished with much scowling, and I often found myself apologizing for being such a terrible inconvenience when they so obviously had better things to do. The food was greasy and awful, but you didn't come for the food, you came for the abuse. We went there once wearing togas, for a reason which escapes me now, togas fabricated from floral sheets, I might add. We were snorted at contemptuously.

Anyhow, what I was getting at was that I normally wouldn't be found drunk on Kentucky bourbon in a toga on the wrong side of the railroad tracks eating grits with one of the most foul-mouthed women I'd ever known, who'd clearly been beaten about the head a few too many times with the Bible Belt (and often took off to parts unknown with Red Lion indigents who were possibly drug dealers, winos or tramps) UNLESS I had been in such a place that allowed for such random encounters to occur, for I was a mealy-mouthed and prissy little prep-school girl, and very dainty and nice with clean fingernails and the Junior League looming ominously in my future.

I have been reading a book called The Great Good Place, a non-academic and colloquial book by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, about places where such random encounters take place: bars and cafes and hairdressers and bookstores, and how few of these places remain in the U.S. after the growth of the suburbs, the death of the small town and that towering ambition that has so downgraded "hanging out." Oldenburg asserts that these places are the loci of true community, the places where democracy really happens, where all those lost things like "association" and "belonging" used to occur, where people from all different walks of life would congregate, and shoot the shit, and pass time.

As I was reading the book, I started thinking about sitcoms, and how they always include places like this, places that in reality don't quite exist. I'm thinking of that coffee shop on Seinfeld, Cheers itself, the bookshop where Ellen supposedly worked -- places where people would randomly encounter one another, that were full of "characters," where one went not necessarily to drink or eat or buy but to catch up on the local gossip, reaffirm one's place in a community, gripe about one's significant other, and then leave. I never associated the lack of "personality" with the lack of a "personality forum" -- but when I think about the places where people now go to "hang out" -- places such as malls and the like, there is no place for personality to flourish. I mean, I've written here about the people I met hanging out at the Scuba Doo Dive Shop in Mountain Home, Arkansas, but not about anyone I met at the Sony Metreon, which certainly has places to hang out, but they are so distinctly unhangoutable no one hangs out there. You know exactly what I mean.

My friends and I often attempt to rectify the lack of a "Great Good Place" by having regularly scheduled Sunday brunches or Thursday night poker games or Tuesday Night Dinners or Monthly Ladies Nights, but where this falls short, according to Oldenburg, is that you can't guarantee that you're going to be feeling sociable on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday, when you are, there is no place that you can just "drop in" where "everybody knows your name" and is glad you came. Even in San Francisco, so conveniently divvied up into little mini-villages, you can't count on your friends being at a particular coffee shop at any given time of the day, even if you know dozens and dozens of people. And so on. So have a look into this volume. It's a good book.

UPDATE: Bruce writes that yes, it is the Red Lion Diner. Or it was. Here's the inside and the owner. It's been all scrubbed up and nicefied. Doesn't that look like a nice place to hang out?
LINK | 3:02 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Please read this: Stewart's summary of an interesting article appearing in this month's Atlantic Monthly about overachieving kids and why they admire authority and embrace the status quo.
LINK | 12:00 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Here's a little more about James Turrell's Roden Crater project in the New York Times: James Turrell's Lifelong Dream of Desert Light. He's been planning and pitching and working on this project since 1974. It's in Flagstaff, not too far from Sedona, and maybe 2 hours from Phoenix. I may be visiting Arizona soon, and hope to stop by, hopefully visiting Arcosanti along the way.
LINK | 6:12 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

From this month's Artforum: p 48. Adam Phillips, the British psychologist argues that the word we is "an exaggeration of the word I. We is the wished-for I, the I as a gang, the I as somebody else as well." Phillips has apparently written a bunch of other interesting books on the unexamined life, such as On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored.
LINK | 3:00 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have this Latin textbook that was my Uncle's, copyright 1948 and on the front page is this nifty inscription in that supercorrect 50's handwriting that was full of moral rectitude:

To steal this book in fear of shame
For in it is the owner's name
And when you die the Lord will say
"Where is the book you stole that day?"
And when you say "I do not know"
The Lord will say "Just step below!"
LINK | 12:09 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

More interesting stuff sent in by some nice person whose email I can't find: a joke form not known, as far as I know, to English speakers: Contrepèterie.
LINK | 10:01 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

An entire article about the Person from Porlock I'm talking about all the time.
LINK | 9:59 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Caterina.net is so undependable lately. I'm sorry. I can't even see it myself. My friend Jeffrey has been its generous host since its inception, and since I thought only my three dweeby friends would be looking at it, it didn't seem worth putting on a commercial server. Maybe I should shell out the $5.00 a month for hosting? Redesign? Be more interesting?
LINK | 9:50 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In a kind of getting-rid-of-things mode, I've been listening to CDs I haven't listened to in a while to try to determine whether or not to keep them, and have happened upon this gem: Curtis Mayfield: Give Get Take and Have. This is some lovely sweet soul.

Things I'm on the fence about:

• The Raincoats. Should I love this band just because Kurt Cobain did? I don't know. I tried.
• Wire I know I should like this one if I am to have any indie cred. But I don't. What to do? I am a transparent fraud.
• Scritti Politti Cupid and Psyche 85 I know I shouldn't like this one, but I do. Almost scrapped it because it was such an embarrassing inclusion, but hell, what can you do? This, Culture Club and the Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits are going nowhere. I'll just turn them sideways so no one can read the titles. Should I admit that I secretly adore Wilson Phillips? ... Nah.
• All these Smashing Pumpkins albums. Developed a total aversion. Not sure I even liked them to begin with.
• Large stack of undistinguishable techno It was a simple category error. Oops. Happens to everyone.

Still to be listened to: Modest Mouse, The Grifters, Durutti Column and some real obscurities.

Interestingly, like the linguistic communities described in the David Foster Wallace grammar article mentioned below, there are music communities with very strict rules, like ska communities where one must punctuate certain intervals in certain Desmond Dekker songs with certain style of "Oi" while pogoing in a porkpie hat and suspenders (probably only referred to as "braces" as far as I know) and extreme prohibitions against, say, Deadheads enjoying Nirvana or punks enjoying Madonna. These music communities are rigorously policed by their members, and the least whiff of deviance from the norm is called out on the carpet, weighed, judged, and the group's dogma as sedulously enforced as the requirements for membership at The Knickerbocker Club in New York or The Mormon Church.
LINK | 6:03 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have always loved this engraving by Durer: St. Jerome in his Cell, 1514 Not such a good version, looking for a better one.
LINK | 4:01 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

David writes about the CEO money and the Peter Singer thing I posted yesterday:

I am making every effort not to apologize for advocating capitalism; but in truth, I dislike the selfish, base human desires that fuel America's success. However, we cannot assuage our collective guilt by robbing one to help another. We can't even help by giving everything we own away. After looking over the data at http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/0401_sbn_sub_table_1.pdf, I did a bit of math. The result might be of interest. If we confiscated the fortunes of the executives listed in the NY Times and redistributed the wealth among the even only poorest 20% of the planet (1 billion people). Each person would receive about $150. Of course, all the money would then be gone, forever. The companies that drive our economy and make those people rich in the first place would suffer as would their employees and stockholders. The middle class is a much better source of wealth because there are more of us. Instead of taking money from CEOs, try confiscating $150,000 from the 3/5ths that comprise the center of our own working class. That's me, that's you, that's the cost of that house we all want to have, the amount of our dreams. This this money we could offer a thousand times as much aid (about $1350 each), but this is still insufficient. Any such "giving of fish" is a one time shot. Working America loses a lifetime of equity and the poor of the world gain what? a year? two? then what? With the riches of America gone we can all sleep better, but we'd sleep in concrete block apartments eating rice like most of the rest of the world. The problem of poverty isn't that some are rich. We aren't "hording" money. Money is created out of thin air with by the economic forces at work in our country. If those same economic forces could be applied to other countries, they would see the same benefits. America's own path to economic greatest was a painful one. Life in America in New York city at the turn of the century was a squalid, oppressive horror. But in that horror a few million people worked themselves to death for the good of their children and America was built. The billions elsewhere on this planet may have to do the same. The best we can do is to help them, though no one was there to help us. The first genuinely constructive step is the ending of regional conflicts that prevent development of a global economic infrastructure. How do we stop those who hate eachother (Israelis/ Palestinians, Catholic Irish/ Protestant British, Indian Hindu/ Islamic Pakistani, Tribal groups in Africa, Christian Serbs/ Islamic Bosnians) from destroying anything that gets built? Some of these groups hate with a passion fermented for millennia. We can't fool ourselves and think we can end the conflict with a treaty, but we can be sure that we will achieve nothing if we don't reduce the damage these conflicts cause. War is the enemy, a destroyer of wealth on a scale like nothing else. In fairness I will say, sometimes it's right to help someone, even if that help is futile. I can appreciate moral imperatives and I don't consider them unworthy pursuits. There's something about the human spirit which is beautiful in it's ability to be self-sacrificing. However, such ideals are for individuals, not nations. If we want a permanent solution to poverty (to the point that the planet can support), we must work to end destructive conflicts and establish the infrastructure that is required to allow prosperity to flower. We are vanguards of a new world that may be some hundred years away. But there are no short cuts, no way to avoid the stages between the planet's current ills and the future successes. Until that success comes, we will feel guilty and the world will envy us. David Dickens Academic Computing Support Manager Pepperdine School of Law Library

LINK | 4:47 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My friend Serena's work will be showing at CLAMPART in New York from April 2 through May 24. She does beautiful, moody photography. This particular series consists of extreme closeups of plants and flowers. The opening is this Thursday, April 5 from 7-9pm.
LINK | 10:51 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Money money money.(.pdf) A very obscene lot of it, more than you and I, or most entire nations will ever see. Now, what if?
LINK | 10:45 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Yay! I got my hands on a copy of Issue 2 of Cabinet Magazine, my new favorite magazine. There are some ooo-that's-cool things in there, like an article about the Scopitone, an early video jukebox, and Hobo Nickels and the like. And an interesting article about Western Capitalism and Western Buddhism by Slavoj Zizek, which I will write about later, since I had some ideas about it as related to some thoughts I had about Native Americans.

There was this great footnoote at the end of the article, about one of my favorite ideas, not-remembered-lately, of jouissance:

"Envy is ultimately the envy of the Other's jouissance. My affluent business-oriented colleagues always marvel at how much more I put into theory and, comparatively, how little I earn; although their marvel is usually expressed in the terms of aggressive scorn ("How stupid you are to deal with theory!"), what obviously lurks behind is envy: the idea that, since I am not doing it for money (or power) and since they do not understand the reason I am doing it, there must be some strange jouissance, some satisfaction in theory accessible only to me and out of reach to them."

I'd go even further and say that people are rarely satisfied with thinly-veiled-envy; they often attempt to dismiss, subvert or otherwise arrest other people's jouissance, usually under the guise of "knowing what is better for them" or thinking themselves more "practical-minded" or in a sincere effort to avert trouble on the other person's behalf. And that it is very hard to hold on to jouissance at all, in the face of deep cultural anti-jouissance forces. It's hard to develop a cuticle against your nay-sayers, and defy them in what they probably perceive as a rebellious/ headstrong/ idiotic fashion, because they're usually your friends and family and co-workers, and people in a position of authority over you -- bosses and teachers and guidance counsellors. And, inevitably, you're not going to have anything to show for yourself after your years-long jouissance pursuit, except maybe some bruised knuckles, rent past due and a stupid grin. What your jouissance does is reveal the hollowness and futility of what are (potentially) their own pursuits: money, power, security, sex, prestige and the like. Which is why jouissance-impedance is so important to them, and they advise you instead to take the low road where you won't chafe their quiet desperation with the big kerfuffle of your joy.
LINK | 3:15 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Only the Poet disdeining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect into another nature: in making things either better then nature bringeth foorth, or quite a new, formes such as never were in nature: as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chymeras, Furies, and such like; so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely raunging within the Zodiack of his owne wit. " -- Sir Philip Sidney The Defense of Poetry, 1595.
LINK | 2:54 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .