is free expression actually powerful? at all?
article over at reason about art, and whether the supposed power that it has, which proponents claim needs protection, and opponents claim is dangerous, is real or an over dramatic figment.
the sleeper awakens?
or the philosophical verisimilitude of a man named gurdjieff, a man, who incidentally, until today, i’d never heard of. evidently he was a philosopher of sorts, or perhaps a mystic. depends on your point of view i guess. he was a russian who traveled widely in asia, attempting to find clues to the answers of the big questions. why are we here? is there a God? what is love? what is life? what is death? in any case he seems to have come upon a somewhat unique philosophy, one that not only anticipated quite a few science fiction plots, but also much of quantum physics. it attempts to synthesize western scientific rationality with eastern philosophy and he called it the fourth way. i have no intention of attempting to sum up the man or his beliefs. luckily john shirley, one of the early practitioners of cyberpunk, has done it for me. here is a short but interesting piece about gurdjieff. philosopher or crank? up to you. (thanks to weblogsky for pointing me there)
recreational brain scanning
slate article offering a sort of consumer guide to brain scanning on the cheap. includes biofeedback, neurofeedback, cortisol tracking, and fMRI. fun for the whole family!
the zompist
i have no idea what a zompist might be, and all the better. perhaps zompists and nonists have something in common. anyhow, i clicked a metafilter link titled the zompist phrasebook this morning. it was funny. so, as i often do, i checked out the homepage to see exactly who served me this morsel.
what i found was not a pretty site, but a whole slew of interesting stuff none the less. some of my favorites:
1) they thought you’d say this which is a bunch of seriously unlikely phrases from real phrasebooks. funny.
2) the last century, what the heck was that. an editorial beginning “if an intellectual from 1900 could be bodily transported to the end of the millennium, top-hat, monocle, and all, he would explode in puzzlement.” about early 20th century intellectual suppositions and ideals not panning out as expected. very interesting piece. touches on so many subjects i wont even attempt a list.
3) facts from my bookshelf. just what it sounds like.
4) english as she is spoken vs. bablefish. a phrase by phrase comparison of the famously awful translations of a 1800’s portuguese translator and the artificial intelligence of bablefish.
others include the numbers 1-10 in over 4000 languages, is science killing science fiction? (which struck me as decidedly nonist), the excuse-o-mat, the new pseudo-science of memes, the language construction kit, and even a portal to an imaginary world called verduria. there is a lot of interesting stuff. categories include comics, linguistics, culture, language construction, science, science fiction, editorials, and diversions.
most impressively it’s all done by one guy, a fella named mark rosenfelder. some might say he must have too much time on his hands. some evidently have. his answer to this, in his faq, is simply that he has no children and does not watch television. strangely, no one ever bothered to ask him what a zompist is. anyhow, bravo mark. good stuff.
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the origins of american animation
amazing collection of short movies from the early 1900’s, showcasing some of the earliest known american animation. some really fantastic stuff.
artifacts of the future
the first science fiction museum and hall of fame is due to open it’s doors in a little over a month in seattle washington. its a great idea, and the list of advisors is really pretty impressive, assuming they are actually doing some advising. all that’s left to see is how it gets executed.
best case scenario it is an enveloping, sophisticated love letter to all things futurist; allowing you to walk through alternate worlds and possible futures, feeling first hand the scope and otherness great science fiction can invoke. letting you explore the ideas and managing to highlight unexpected contrasts and comparisons between the many different visions. worst case scenario, it is the hard rock cafe with ray guns and security guards dressed like robbie the robot. it really could go either way. impossible to tell until the doors open.
reading the list of exhibits makes it sound potentially best case scenario. reading the artifact highlights, however, sends the pendulum in the other direction for me. i guess it’s the museum part of the title which opens possibilities in my mind while the hall of fame part makes me nervous. i mean i can’t imagine shlepping all the way to seattle just to see a first edition assimov book and kirk’s captain chair.
the web site offers a section of concept art which has peaked my interest a bit. some fun stuff. but again, concept drawings do not necessarily a successful project make. most sci-fi movies are ample proof of that.
the museum is co-founded by paul allen who also co-founded microsoft, an association i’ll try not to hold against him. that tie would seem to insure that there will be plenty of money to help bring the place to life. which is a fact that can’t be understated. there is nothing worse than a dingy, yellowing, shoddy monument to the human spirit of exploration, as anyone who has visited the smithsonian national air and space museum can attest to. it was one of the most depressing places i think i have ever been. it was such a disappointment, to see all that amazing history in such a poorly thought out, poorly kept, poorly lit, poorly funded place. it was a graveyard for decommissioned vessels with a few poster-board and foam “exhibits” laid on top to dress up the bodies. very sad. i think we can safely assume this museum of fictional space exploration will be much better funded and it’s artifacts from fictional missions will be more lovingly cared for. sigh.
i know plenty of people are of the opinion that the museum can’t possibly do any of the material it seeks to celebrate justice. that by and large fiberglass set pieces and molded latex mannequins can not compete with the places and characters you’ve envisioned in your imagination, no matter how many randomly blinking lights and darting animitronic eyes are peppered throughout. and that’s true enough. but in my opinion this place does not need to faithfully recreate anything to be successful. it just needs to treat its subject matter with affection and respect. if so, i might actually make the trip to check it out.
in any case, there a few oldish articles out there on the subject which might interest you.
wired:// paying homage to science fiction, seattle weekly: future cred, huston chronicle: count down, seattle pi: rocket scientist, and, well, conen o’brien chimes in too. the end.
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visiting the digital village
found the audio archive page for a radio show called the digital villiage. it’s a tech show concerned mostly with tech’s effects on society. the archive has discussions with many interesting folks. laurence lessig, bruce sterling, neil stephenson among many others.
supermodels are people too
they get jet lag. they feel insecure sometimes. they crap, when a months worth of frisee and edamame add up to an ounce. they get sad. they even get lonely, just like you. or so the blogger responsible for these super model personal ads likes to imagine.
unbearable lengths of time
time passes, as it has long been observed to do. the quality of that passage varies wildly. achingly slow, with each wedge of the clock face growing imperceptably like a stalactite, or painfully fast, with clock faces forgotten in a mess of blurred dots and double digits. groan, grumble, curse the sun, no matter as the days pass, as fingers twitch toward your poor prostate, as hopes for silver hair counterbalance the dread of none. the one and only certifiable quality of time remains true, that there is too little of it for you.
what is this all about? well mainly that i feel regret at never posting here at philology. truth be told it is the reason i started this site in the first place, to guilt/pride myself into writing more, but, alas, as the dates clearly show, i have not been successful. it’s been an unbearable length of time. inexcusable for a young webmaster! ah well. by way of explanation, or if you prefer, excuse, let me invoke the irrefutable: life is hard. yes, that’s right. life is hard. been so busy doing every other god damned thing i have not managed to find the time to do this one. to write. to let off steam. to blather and bemoan. to cuss and cringe and cut to the heart of it. sure i can post links over at zeitgeist, but to just loosen the tongue and speak? to play? to type without a net? too much effort my adorable friends and enemies. too much a task to take on without time. kna mean?
so. the days, the days and all their… nah.
so, the night. the night, the dark and… nope. not even close.
so… the babies! the babies who stole my friends are cute but can’t yet speak, so who knows what their demands are? they have deliberate names, sweated over, and faces left up to chance (or God if you’re into that kind of kinky shit.) they are the pride of their bearers. genes set in motion like dice. i imagine them wriggling in their cribs. gummy and round faced with wispy hair. crying out in the night. napping like naked seal pups in the day. this was the year they began the onslaught. i mean, it’s never so much as slowed really, but this time, it’s personal. i think of their wild eyes. i read once the world to a newborn is like a perpetual acid trip; those new senses shivering and flailing about. i think of their wild eyes, wide, looking up, those of their parents, alternately awed and knowing, looking down. i think of their voices. their crazy language. i think of those soft little fists that will some day come down hard on their parent’s hearts. ha ha. yeah. time has changed now in those homes.
what is this all about? well, like i said, it’s about making time. it’s about new borns and getting old. it’s about bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. little brains expanding by the second to make room for saccharine song lyrics. old brains, exploding cells with every beer and epiphany, leaving less and less room. oedipal anxieties and bottle schedules or your dreams of being a living giant, choose young father! as i well know from those happy faces it’s no choice at all. it’s about the evening as much as the day.
so, this evening the television is cold and quiet, though the day was warm. this machine i sit at hums as diligently as ever, but tonight i just wanted to dip my toe back in philology and say hello. so there you go. hope tonight finds you well, whether there is diaper in your hand or a whiskey. or both. good times.
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strange science
came across this site called strange science which illuminates the path to knowledge by cataloging a whole slew of science’s many mistakes, specifically in the field of biology and paleontology. interesting and heartwarming to any nonist. of particular interest is their so called goof gallery which offers many images of the creatures science got wrong. take a gander.
tips for the burgeoning misanthrope
or the anti-social primer. includes beginner, intermediate, and advanced tutorials. go prime yourself.
art (or irony, commercialism, and crib notes)
found this deceptively titled article at the guardian called death of the gallery. the piece really has little to do with the mutation of gallery space, and more to do with fine art’s frenetic attempts to distance itself from the “low” culture of “dirty commerce” it increasingly draws from, mainly through irony which is too thin and paragraphs of explanation which are too thick. i found it a gratifying read if for nothing else than the last lines, which sum up nicely one of my own pet peeves. “perhaps the growing reliance on curatorial exposition serves as a safety rail of sorts, there to stop us falling into the hole where the art should be, but isn’t.” bravo.
dissecting the colossus
five new books are out right now debating the old question of american power, are we or are we not an empire? if so what is the character and logic of the colossus? this article tries to sum up some of the prevailing views. interesting read.
the panoramic equinox
found a new section at the geo-image project which is pretty fantastic. evidently on march 20th 170 photographers in 39 countries shot quicktime VR panoramas to celebrate the equinox. they are all posted by region here. i have to say there are some of the best VR’s i’ve ever seen here. many beautiful far off places to see though as usual, in projects like this, there are far too few entries from africa and the middle east, which is a shame since they would be infinitely more interesting than many of the american entries. check them out. (p.s. new paltz is even tucked away on the list for any of you hudson valley readers.)
word and picture in a media age
well, i never would have expected to be posting anything by camille paglia, but, well, this is the nonist after all, so i’ll not let my deep snooze inducing attempt to read sexual personae in college keep me from my appointed rounds. here is an essay titled the magic of images which explores some negative consequences of a student culture inseparable from the pop culture which surrounds it…. or something like that. takes a meandering route through baroque art, prehistoric painting, iconoclasm, and the pre-columbian skull. pretty good read.
zen gardens
all of us metropolitan folks can REALLY use some peace, quiet, and stillness. with that in mind try and stifle your stream of urban bile long enough to look longingly at these japanese zen gardens. there is a small recreation of a zen garden in the MET which is as close as i have ever gotten to one of these magnificent places. check out the short quicktime movies for each site for a better sense of them. breath deeply and enjoy.
more mind control
no, not in the orwellian sense, we’re talking the real deal. in the vein of this october post evidently the fda has approved human trials for tiny implants to be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. “If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act - merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send.” how long before this is the technology used for our t.v. remotes? wild.