Heteronormativity and Performativity (HetPer)

Werner Herzog on Chickens

2012-02-12T12:58:00.002-05:00

This, well, this you have to see and, most importantly, hear.

I've always been a bigger Herzog fan than I let on. I always privileged Wim Wenders, maybe a revisitation of his work is needed:

Werner Herzog on Chickens from Tom Streithorst on Vimeo.

On Eudaimonia and Coffee

2012-02-09T11:52:00.001-05:00

On the drive back from half a day of snowboarding up North, I stopped to pick up a friend in the city. He informed me the night before that there is a new coffee place worth checking out in the city. Coffee places are like mushrooms after the rain in this city.

So, we go get coffee at this place where the baristas wear these sort of..., eh, why bother. As I keep explaining to my people, this city is where hipsters and scenesters come to retire. Sort of like Portland, but, you know, generally prettier. Sorry, Portlanders. Those of you who've been here sort of already concur.

I still had my slope hat on and my right leg was killing me thanks to a prior fall. Coffee tasted good, though. Apparently, after taking the first sip I had this look on my face that said, I'm so not here right now. I'm so somewhere else.
The other party asked me, "where did you go just now?"
He continues, "you have a look on your face right now that says, 'I'm so not here right now. I'm so somewhere else.'"
I get that look when I'm fully happy for the moment. I wonder why, in moments like that, I look disinterested in the present place and company, but I know that it happens. There's this utter detachment from the present moment. I suppose 'happy' looks different to different people.

I snap back into the present moment. I look around and I see a sea of iPhones and Apple gizmos, Ugg boots, and blah, blah, blah. "Eeek, I had to snap back to this," I think to myself. My friend opened up his messenger bag and he pulled out a book that looked beat up by time.

"Why do some translate 'eudaimonia' as 'happiness'", he asks.
I shrug my shoulders. Not because I don't have an answer. Alas, I sort of did. But because I was getting a bit of a sensorial overload from the new coffee place where the baristas have this 'cool' way of making..... ah, who cares.

"Can't really talk about eudaimonia right this very minute." In a nutshell, the eudaimonists concerned themselves with the maximizing of one's own practical goal to achieving happiness. They might call it happiness, I'm more inclined to calling it evasion of futility. Whichever is more important to one, I suppose. Just an hour ago my telos was staying on the board and not letting the right eye that kept itching bother me too much. "Let's get out of here. I'm worried about getting a ticket. It's been what...?"
"About 10 minutes," he says.
We leave. While driving on a street with too many lights I complain about traffic and then think to resume his initial topic of eudaimonism.
"So, what about them?"
He knew what I was referring to and promptly said,
"I wonder if some translate it as 'happiness' because it puts a stop to artistic pursuit. To go after art means, or should mean, to suffer."
I take a sip of my surprisingly unpretensious coffee and only manage to get two words out before I'm interrupted by a laughter. I say one function word and one content word and then a "HA" ensues.
"The telos...."
Ha, telos, I'm sorry, he says, you have that silly hat on with the two hanging straps and your board is in the backseat and The Killers are playing in your iPod and we're talking about eudaimonia.
I didn't think that the content word 'telos' was that humorous a choice but I suppose in the context we were in, it sort of, kind of was.
We left eudaimonia at that.
This morning as I was straightening my hair, I was thinking of the little exchange and got to thinking about it a bit more. I wondered why I never cared much for it. And then I wondered why I never cared much about Aristotle either. Just because I 'get' them, doesn't mean I ought to care, or even like, them. Philosophy, much like anything else, should serve a practical function, one that is of use to the person to be/get better. Aristotle was so adamant about the importance of philosophy and how it is good for the mind to be consumed by it. It turns out, it's not always so. It's better for the mind to be consumed with the practicality of the pursuit of happiness, however. Sometimes, most times actually, it's better for the mind to wander freely. And that's as close to being happy as some people can hope to get. I suppose this would make me a bit of a eudomonia-enamored person at this present moment. The purpose of life is to practically go after one's own happiness. Or something.

Assorted Links

2012-01-29T03:41:00.003-05:00

1) I managed to catch Last Night this weekend. Someone told me it was akin to Patrick Marber's screenplay of Closer. The real reason why I PVR-ed it however was Guillaume Canet whom I'd never seen in an English-speaking role before and, as a result, was curious to see as I generally enjoy his work. The narrative is predictable but there are interesting achievements of form in this film. Cinematically, it does well, too. While the characters and plot, for the most part, are predictably forgettable, the form and soundtrack beg for some attention.

2) Portlandia stars interview each other.
My favorite episode of the first season had to be the pilot.

3) There is a new study on the familial linkage between neuropsychiatric conditions and intellectual interests. You can read the article in full here. A bit says:

"Students aspiring to technical majors (science/mathematics/engineering) were more likely than other students to report a sibling with an autism spectrum disorder (p = 0.037). Conversely, students interested in the humanities were more likely to report a family member with major depressive disorder (p = 8.8×10−4), bipolar disorder (p = 0.027), or substance abuse problems (p = 1.9×10−6). A combined PREdisposition for Subject MattEr (PRESUME) score based on these disorders was strongly predictive of subject matter interests (p = 9.6×10−8)."

4) Where was the web invented? Well, Al Gore might give one answer. Other sources have other answers. Tip of the hat to Tyler Cowen for the pointer.

A bit says:

"I’ll bet if you asked every French politician where the web was invented not a single one would know this. The Franco-Swiss border runs through the CERN campus and building 31 is literally just a few feet into France. However, there is no explicit border within CERN and the main entrance is in Switzerland, so the situation of which country it was invented in is actually quite a tricky one. The current commemorative plaque, which is outside a row of offices where people other than Tim Berners-Lee worked on the web, is in Switzerland. To add to the confusion, in case Tim thought of the web at home, his home was in France but he temporarily moved to rented accommodation in Switzerland, just around the time the web was developed. So although, strictly speaking, France is the birthplace of the web it would be fair to say that it happened in building 31 at CERN but not in any particular country! How delightfully appropriate for an invention which breaks down physical borders."

Doubt Is the Origin of Wisdom

2012-01-28T13:57:00.004-05:00

Or as Descartes put it in his Meditations on First Philosophy, "Dubium sapientiae initium." The gift of doubt is something evolution rarely gets much public laud for. And doubt makes the most sense when seen in conjunction with others. Consider it in isolation, and little progress will be made.

Companionship is not always a matter of desire. It's, for most, and fundamentally, a matter of need. Of survival, really. We don't refer to it as such in public discourse because it becomes too heavy and who would want to tackle things of seriousness in broad daylight?!

Any discussion of the economics of companionship in the public forum is, at best, pushed to the side and given commercial-length attention. People have no choice when it comes to allying themselves with others. From an evolutionary perspective, there's power in numbers. Survival is found in numbers. Two or more people have a better chance when it comes to outsmarting and or vanquishing a hungry bear than one isolated person. In nuce, the bigger the pack, the better the chances of making it.

Enculturation brought with it more than just better stratagem so that better game could be caught, bigger cavernous spaces in which to prepare said game, draw such activities on the amorphous walls to record the culture of survival, and secure protection from the elements of the physical world. Enculturation brought to life the results of systematic sociality: spawn, a lot of spawn - in case bears and physical elements got to most of them - and a desire to create a narrative of living, one that is historical, that builds on previous accounts and doesn't stop at a dénouement. One that, phoenix-like, gives birth to yet another version of itself ad perpetua.

Survival, or efforts to survive, lead one to a better existence. Efforts to survive give one better tools of coping. I've long maintained this. Some humans are better at living because they're naturally good at surviving. Genetic makeup dictates many of the living choices we all irrespective of one another make. But so does sociality. While the former is devoid of choice, the latter is fully predicated on it.

From a Darwinian perspective, what makes one fitter to survive than others is their ability to decode their surroundings and make decisions that are congruent with nature. Which path to take to encounter the least amount of bears, what time of the year to go hunting, who has the kind of childbearing hips that can sustain the highest frequency of births, who to strike alliances with for the purpose of attaining the most game and the most fruitful childbearing hips, et al.

Descartes noted in his Principia philosophiae, Part I the following: "Ex nihilo nihil fit. Meaning: nothing comes out of nothing. Understanding that plurality counts, counts. A multitude of human resources will never be inconsequential to existence, good existence. It will be indispensable to good living. In sum, we don't choose to align ourselves with others out of fickleness. Most humans do so out of clean calculation. Nothing comes out of nothing. Much comes out of calculated sociality and sustained companionship.

So, next time when dinner is prepared in the kitchen, dry-cleaning is picked up, and one is accompanied to the doctor's office, think of sociality is its purely pragmatic, evolution-informed form: that it is commoditized and not the romanticized entity we're daily told it is. There's always a cui bono - i.e.: 'what's in it for me?' - attached to it. Even a simple peanut butter & jelly sandwich brings expectations with it.

Cogito ergo sum, Descartes? Also, I think, eat, engage physically, and pick up my dry-cleaning at times, therefore I am.

The picture below was taken at the airport on one of my summer trips while waiting to board the plane. The parental time spent made sense: when bored, do yoga publicly.

Egocentrism over Email

2012-01-27T11:51:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading a study published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology about the benefit of factoring in paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation and how without them it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over email.

Email communication is ubiquitous. Businesses rely almost solely on it. Interpersonal relationships can't seem to be without it. However, communication is multi-faceted and without paralinguistic feedback it can be quite lacking.

I had an experience with a work email the other day. As a trained close reader, tone matters to me. I pictured what the writer of the email meant by it if the same content were shared by way of the voice while being physically present. I still didn't quite feel I got to the core of the text.

I was in too tired a state of mind to place a phone call. Instead, I choose to give it a few hours, wrap up some last-minute things, tidy the desk, put things away, and then I compile the text. It was an exercise in economy of speech. And as most such exercises go, they take time.

Afterwards, a number of phone calls ensued for the purpose of getting to a full understanding of the content and what now feels like a waste of 60 minutes of my time. In the end, the original writer of the email concluded, incidentally by way of email, "so glad this is all sorted out. sorry :)" I wanted to email back the following, "it wouldn't have even been born had one of us verbally phrased the same thing." But I didn't. Because I was in no mood to waste yet another hour of my already packed existence.

A bit from the study says:

"Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one’s own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators “hear” a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.

Social judgment is inherently egocentric. When people try to imagine the perspective, thoughts, or feelings of someone else, a growing body of evidence suggests that they use themselves as an
anchor or reference point. Although precisely why this occurs — whether the result of an overlearned and generally valid heuristic, the residual byproduct of an earlier stage of childhood egocentrism, or the inevitable consequence of an effortful cognitive process such as anchoring and adjustment—is a matter of some debate, the fact remains that the assessment of another’s perspectives is influenced, at least in part, by one’s own."

You can read the rest of the study here.

Claims re: the Alpha Male Myth et al.

2012-01-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

I just read the following. The first one is a repudiation of the notion of alpha masculinity and how pop culture notions are utterly in the wrong when faced with fundamental evolutionary biology. An interesting read. A bit of the study says:

"If evolved human dominance behaviors have been decreasing over time, we would expect to see something else evolve to replace it. Because of the evolution of hominin brain size and cognition across the paleolithic, we might expect that whatever trait evolved via sexual selection related to these developments. Indeed, humor and intelligence appear to be more attractive to women than testosterone-related masculinity when it matters most — during female ovulation (Kaufman, et al. 2007)." More here.

Francesco Schettino is a worldwide known name now. The captain who abandoned ship to save himself has become the laughing stock of the reading world. The Guardian's Ian Jack, however, explores what his premature leaving of the ship might entail and how it relates to our collective attitudes about honor. A bit says:

"...[h]is transgression is enormous. The rule that a captain must be the last man (or woman) to leave a ship in difficulties is never written down, but everywhere understood. In the words of a former P&O captain: "At sea, you have a great sense of responsibility for the people who are beneath you – it's moral as well as legal. You need to stay as long as anyone else remains."

In this altruistic sense, the mystique of captaincy has survived into its third century. Sentiment, if not always practicality, will ensure it continues. For who can resist the gallantry of David Hart Dyke staying aboard the tilting hull of HMS Coventry, or Noel Coward and what remains of his crew clinging to their life-raft in In Which We Serve, and Coward commanding, as his destroyer finally goes down: "Three cheers for the ship!" More here.

Having Preferences Means Having Weaknesses.

2012-01-24T11:11:00.002-05:00

Preferences allow us to carve a space for actualization. We cannot self-actualize without a set of personal preferences for they lead to pursuits. Pursuits, of any kind, are fueled by interests and interests or drive as some would say, are indispensable when it comes to accruing any sort of success. However, preferences reside in a space of exclusion. Having them means shutting doors to other things for preferring one particular thing presupposes a presence of preclusion.

I've been thinking a good deal about the role preferences play when pursuing anything. I've thought about the role choice plays in preference pursuing. Deny the self of a preference, and most pursuits become lukewarm. And achievement is rarely to be found in the lukewarm.

Just as I was thinking about the philosophical nuances of preferences, I had a desire to play a good game of chess. Funny that. I hadn't played in a few months. I call the one person in the city who usually gives me a good game of chess. He was surprised at my call as last time we got together for chess I told him that I wasn't all that interested in carrying on with our chess encounters for a while.

I'm the kind that needs time to warm up to something. I usually warm up to an idea, a person, or a general pursuit by thinking and reading about it. So, I start doing something exciting like reading up on chess news. It's exciting to me. Sort of like writing about 12-century egocentric heroes. We all have a kind of cake we like better than others. Choice has little say in preferences. If it did, impulse would play no role whatsoever in human pursuits. Think of the last thing you pursued with systematic interest and explore how big a role impulse played. I'd wager, a good deal. But I digress.

So I get on ChessBase.com to see what's up in the world of chess. While there I come upon an interview with the renowned chess player, Magnus Carlsen. Reading the interview got my juices flowing. I let out a few 'ha'-s and 'good one'-s as I was doing do. A bit from the interview says:

So you can’t call yourself a tactician or a strategist?
-I’d call myself an optimist! In actual fact I don’t have any clear preferences in chess. I do what I think circumstances require of me – I attack, defend or go into the endgame. Having preferences means having weaknesses.

Could you compare your impressions after a win in a subtle endgame or a whirlwind attack? Do they really not differ at all for you?!
-I really don’t know what I like more in chess! Among other things a game can stand out for the feeling you get when it’s over, when you realise you’ve created something truly worthwhile… But something like that happens very, very rarely. In any case, over the whole course of my life – only a few times.

Well, and if you’re just a spectator, which kind of game do you like more?
-I don’t know. I like the struggle in itself.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

I found it quite interesting that Carlsen would comment on what role preferences played in his activity of choice. In my opinion, however, whether it's chess or cheese-making, preferences matter. It's whether one's got a good poker face going in that truly counts when it comes to the end result. We all have preferences. It's how much/little we show them that matters.
And I'm all warmed up now.
I've removed all the specks of dust from my chess set and in about 5 minutes, my bell will ring. And so it does. My friend has a preference for punctuality. And he makes no fuss about obfuscating it. If he's this open when we play, I'm bound to win, aren't I?
We'll see.

Stuff New Yorkers Say

2012-01-20T07:33:00.002-05:00

Steve McQueen's Shame: A Review

2012-01-10T02:03:00.004-05:00

I saw Shame today. I like Michael Fassbender in most the films he's done with one exception: Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

I generally tend to not judge accents as I'm a veritable soup of idiolects myself. However, Fassbender's accent in Inglourious Basterds is the stuff of headaches. But back to the Steve McQueen's Shame.

I like Fassbender's work a good deal. There's a certain gravitas he projects that few actors have the ability to carry. Born in Germany and raised in Ireland, he's a picture of cultural and linguistic diversity which is perhaps the reason why he appears to effortlessly play anything from a New Yorker to an aristocrat a-la-Jane-Eyre, or an X-Men-er.

The premise of Shame is the 'text' of shame and how it is engendered within a Judeo-Christian framework regardless of how far from prescribed religiosity it finds itself. I found the form of the film beautifully mimetic of a religious ritual. One good decision McQueen made is to go for Fassbender. It takes courage to take on certain roles and I most definitely don't see a Brad Pitt or a Clooney doing the same thing. Ok, maybe Colin Farrell or Jared Leto who by the way came to a mind a lot when viewing this film. Think, Requiem for a Dream, perhaps.

Most critics regard the film to be an examination of modern/urban sociality and how much the contemporary person wants to be tethered to others even though a good deal of current life seems to be about heightened individuality and insularity. McQueen's cinematic strength is not content, however. As a matter of fact, it rarely is. One thing he seems to do well, however, is explore the substance of form. The shots are clean, fast but not furious. McQueen's choices made me think of Doug Liman's portraiture styles. The camera rests on the characters just long enough till it gets moving again to the next point in the plot. Incidentally, this is how the film manages to deviate dullness. Aesthetically, this film is rich. Some of the city shots were also reminiscent of Nicolas Winding Refn's film Drive.

The past few years, at least since the actual boom of web 2.0, there seems to be little, if any, change in aesthetics. Incidentally, Vanity Fair's Kurt Andersen has a new article out on the question whether we as a culture are stagnating aesthetically. I thought of it while watching the film, actually. You can read it here.

I suppose it makes sense that form remains the one last frontier that's resisting change as all else around it has been changing mercilessly. Think technology. Hanging on to one thing seems to be the one crutch one needs to cope with the novelty and unpredictability of everything. Or is it? This seems to be the question that Brandon, the main character, tries to answer and eventually reject. Much in life seems to come easily to him. Much but not everything. He seems to bridle all else but basic urges about things he deems utterly trivial in broad daylight and when in the company of full lucidity.

Brandon seems to have it all on the surface. He's well employed, is generally well liked, at least on the surface, and seems to be governed by self-discipline. Only, he doesn't seem to do so as well as he appears.

He appears to want to connect to the world but the world seems to move simply too fast for him. His attachments are flimsy and most of the people he meets are forgettable. There seems to be a crisis of supply and demand when it comes to meaningful human connectivity. Brandon wants the opposite of what he has but the urban survival camp doesn't seem to be capable of providing it. He desperately wants the opposite of what he can get and every time he tries to leave his patterns of living, he falls right back into the known regardless of how much it is mired in dysfunction. Every night he goes after a new pursuit so that the next morning he can go back to all he knows.

Carey Mulligan plays his sister. I have only liked her in one film, An Education. All the other films that have ensued are nothing more than an imitation of her debut film. But then again, it would be hard to compliment a character who needs little support. Fassbender is no Pitt. He needs little support from other characters. A better script would have helped, no doubt.

Jessica Chastain is good in this. Very good. She's another example of an underrated performer often stuck in incoherent filmic choices, think the widely overrated The Help.

In sum, I enjoyed seeing Fassbender and I enjoyed the cinematography of Shame. What I didn't enjoy is McQueen's verbose effort to school the audience on addiction. His effort was, at best, sophomoric. His director of photography, however gets an A. Fassbender gets a solid A- but only because there's only that much he can do given the script.

In Shame, he is close to aces.

This film won't make you want to go back and brush up on your Descartes. Or perhaps Kant. It might just make you want to watch a bit of Kubrick and perhaps get a bit melancholy that he's been gone for a bit over a decade now.

Happiness and Excoriating

2011-12-27T05:58:00.002-05:00

"I've got to tell you something and I know you'll excoriate me," says he as I drive through the rainy streets of the city thinking of ways to improve two things I'm currently struggling with. Driving, like working out, is a good way to clear my head. Another way is going down by the beach, sitting on my favorite bench that's usually unoccupied around 9pm and between 7am-8:30am.

"What makes you think I'll excoriate you?" I say to him as I make a right turn.

"Because I know you. Plus, I know I'm in need of being excoriated." he adds. Usually, I would have interjected one of my usual one-liners known only to those who know my discursive routines. Instead, I say nothing. I'm in too involved a mood. My mind's busy. I say nothing and almost enjoy the silence for a bit.

"I might have something you'll excoriate me about, too", I finally say, "but let me hear yours first."

He proceeds to tell me the details and I ask him if he needs to hear from me the same thing I've told him a number of times in the past. He says he does. He feels like a review. "I feel like a good review," he says. Thus, we review.

I've thought a lot about happiness recently and how it relates to micro and macro sociality. Blame it on the rain, I suppose. It does have a tendency to lead to written fecundity. Writing pours out of me when it rains. Incidentally, I just finished a draft I'm submitting in two weeks. But back to the happiness thing.

Happiness cannot happen without self-examination. This is not some adage I had to think long and hard about. This is what the Western canon has taught me since early childhood. Start way South with Sophocles, move on a bit North to Plautus, pick up a bit of Dante in the neck of Florence, head North and West to Shakespeare, head back South and pick up some Goethe and, while you're at it, swing by France and have a sip of existentialism and what you'll end up gleaning is the following: Happiness cannot happen without self-examination. We cannot know the other, without knowing the self. Nobody can tell us what feels good to us, unless we experience it ourselves. I love the smell of pines. Absolutely, love it. It drives me insane with happiness. I discovered it when I was fourteen, right after learning how to dance with a tall boy with whose family we were vacationing and who was a horribly bad badminton partner. Happiness needs context in order to get registered. It needs a vehicle of narration. Without storytelling ability, it cannot be.

And it most certainly cannot happen without a clear grasp of history, one's own history. There's a better chance to face what's around the corner when you know and understand the corners you've left behind. And living because one can is no answer to existence. While existence might be nothing more than a string of coincidences, what our canon teaches us is that collectively we feel better about our individual and collective experience in life when we view it in connection to something larger than ourselves, like a bigger group of people, or a larger cluster of interests.

One of the first Shakespeare bits I memorized as a teen was a Hamlet soliloqui. I mostly saw Hamlet as a spoiled brat, not that different from other spoiled brats I knew growing up. And yet, I was in love with his eloquence. He was a brat who had a way with language. I've never been able to resist this kind, the kind that has a way with language. And my history will back this up.

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

I always found it curious that while most people responded to the first verses, I was always keener on the "quintessence of dust" part. For some reason, I mostly use this phrase when break into German. I really don't know why. Translating Shakespeare into German is almost as sacreligeous as translating Goethe into English. My German counterparts often say, "Was ist denn mit der Quintessenz?!" Essence is fine enough a word, no? I wanted to say Quintessenz on Saturday. I didn't. I remember the context well. I was simply too tired to use it as using it would invite even more questions as to why my speech is often peppered with uncommon words.

The reason why I always respond to the "quintessence of dust" bit of the soliloqui is because it encapsulates the notion of life and human existence most fundamentally. And yet, it's poetic. It's association with nothingness is poetic. While our entire literary canon suggests than meaning resides in tropes, sometimes it feels better to embrace the simplicity of experience for what it is, a speck in time, a cluster of little somethings, some of which are good and others the stuff of anxiety, which inevitably make up one big trace.

The thing is, happiness is about shared experience. We need canon to live well. We can easily survive without a historical blueprint of existence. Animals do it. But to live and to want to live well, a script is needed, a well written one. One that says that happiness is our duty and that to go after it is somehow lofty a pursuit, noble even. We spend our lives going after goals, hard ones, to reach a level of happiness much of which seems to be rooted in status and accomplishment.

Without connectivity, we have no context, no history and few things taste better to one than being known, resisted, and eventually agreed with. Happiness is having someone who truly knows you and whom you truly know say to you that they've said or done something you'd excoriate them about. Bottom line, they know how you'll react and they know they'll feel better after sharing with you their short narrative. And while you've read their script over and over again you somehow feel good that they feel you know how to read them and, like a forgiving teacher, you'll excoriate them briefly but then you'll write little notes on the margins of their essay and they'll know how to get better and do right by you.

Familiarity gives me comfort because familiarity gives us all comfort. Humans like routine. It's
due to our enculturation. We have no say in the matter. It's like saying we like how water tastes after being deprived of it. Another synonym for familiarity is intimacy and intimacy is harder for some for it resides in the territory of vulnerability where impulse and unhoned instinct doesn't do very well and where damage can easily be dished out. Giving intimacy means getting known and there is no ouvre bigger and more significant than that. C.S. Lewis wrote that we "read to know we are not alone."

Those who say they can do without familiarity have never had the courage to acquire it, they're strangers to it. And one could never rely on someone who refuses familiarity because to refuse it means to refuse a shared history, connectivity. And while contentedness can happen free of context, happiness needs more, at the very least, it needs a semblance of importance. The feeling of sucking on frozen grapes makes some, including me, feel content. Wearing silk panty hose with a form-fitting black dress hand-made in Berlin in the early 90's while wearing high-heeled boots as I meet someone for dinner makes me feel good. I do it when I feel like my inner self needs excoriating so that it can get to feeling better.

The Futility of Suffering and Nietzsche

2011-12-12T11:52:00.001-05:00

Right after I woke up this morning I started reading the new articles on Vanity Fair. I started reading a new piece on aesthetic stagnation first and after getting upbeat at its premise it only seems apropos that I move on to Hitchens.

While reading Hitchens' article entitled Trial of the Will, I got to thinking about things I'd either experienced in life before or read in previous publications. I illustrate. First I got to thinking about David whom I met in grad school. He turned on to Dosteyevsky and Nietzsche around the same time we met so naturally we clicked. I'd run into David at the oddest times. One night, when my grad school significant other and I were driving home from dinner, I saw David walking by himself on the sidewalk. "Slow down. I think that's David" I say. We do just that. I roll down the window and say, "David! It's late. And cold. I mean, not that it matters." I felt my person giving me an eye-rolling but, naturally, I didn't care. What David and Bri time meant was hours upon hours of Lit Crit talk. We would both dive into a literary discussion almost maniacally. We'd start with Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, move on to Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche and in true, 'light' fashion finish with a good chat about existentialism.

Ha. I think to myself, this morning, as my hair is wrapped up in a towel and I find some pleasure out of smelling the body lotion I've been keen on for years. I get on my email and do a keyword on David. I have to say 'hey,' I think to myself. I enter his name and a sea of David words come at me. I open one particular email. The first sentence that jumps out was when he was traveling one summer around Europe and he was telling me about me his peregrinage. He writes, "I suffer regularly which is good for a person, I reckon." Ah, David!

Suffering and learning. Suffering does little for learning. It makes sense that we'd create a whole narrative of learning around it. I mean, it's bound to serve some purpose, right? Actually, the more I think about this, and I've bee thinking about this since early adolescence, the more I'm convinced that it's nothing more than a shallow myth. This is why back in 2004 I readily agreed with Woody Alen and why I easily get on Hitchens' side on the topic today. Granted, I also have much literary and historical context to back this up. Think Nietzsche. People tend to romanticize him and more often than not forget that his twilight years were yet another example of how impervious to learning one is when in deep suffering. Nietzsche's last years were a scene straight out of the third circle of hell.

There's little catharsis in suffering. The only good feeling that it generates is when it reaches its very end. The thought of not having to experience it again produces relief. And relief feels good when tasted after hardship.

I'm amazed at how our brains work. During the time I was in the shower this morning, it managed to give me a nice little essay, equipped with a full bibliography, of my readings and experiences on one topic. I started with David, moved on to Nietzsche, and closed with Woody Allen's Spiegel magazine interview back in 2005. I read it closely then. I also taught it in my German Literature course that Spring. A bit from the article says, and I translate:

"There is nothing really redeeming about tragedy. Tragedy is tragic, and it's so painful that people try to twist it and say "it's terribly hard, but look we've achieved something, we've learned something." This is a weak attempt to find some kind of meaning in tragedy. But there is no meaning. There is no up-side. And suffering does not redeem anything; there is no positive message to learn from it."

What was Nietzsche's phrase again, Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker i.e., "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger"? And how strong exactly was Nietzsche during the last decade of his life? By all accounts he was an etalon of feebleness thanks to his intense physical and mental suffering.

So, what's die Moral der Geschichte? The moral of the story would be, when attempting to grapple with hardship, stay away from Nietzsche and any viable association you might want to make between learning and suffering. Sometimes, stuff needs to be experienced and left alone, wrapped up and hidden in some drawer.

I close with Hitchens' own words on pain. His own experience of sickness and suffering is what fueled his new article on Vanity Fair. He concludes: "I am attracted to the German etymology of the word “stark,” and its relative used by Nietzsche, stärker, which means “stronger.” In Yiddish, to call someone a shtarker is to credit him with being a militant, a tough guy, a hard worker. So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion. It is our common fate. In either case, though, one can dispense with facile maxims that don’t live up to their apparent billing."

What I learned from reading Greek tragedies as a child was that the best thing to do with suffering is to evade. Pretty good reaction, if you ask the adult version of me. Pretty, pretty good.

When in Doubt, Think Dante

2011-12-06T19:12:00.002-05:00

I think about Dante all the time.
All the time.
I especially think of Dante when in times of hardship.
Of course, it helps that since the age of nine I got in the habit of maniacally memorizing verse after verse and, oddly, have yet to forget a single stanza in the terza rima. Dante helps me organize my thoughts. His work helps me get centered and put things in perspective.

As a doctoral student in Germanics, I took a PhD course in Dante's Inferno. I was the only non-Italian PhD candidate in the course. The professor, one of the better known Dantisti in the States, asked me one day, "Brikena, come mai Dante?" i.e.: "Brikena, how come Dante?"

Stutteringly, I said: "Perche, eeee, insomma, perche mi parla...." i.e.: "Because uhm, well, because he talks to me."

Since early childhood, I've most likely spent thousands of hours reading Dante. Easily. Dante never feels like reading. It doesn't feel like work. It's like listening to music. It speaks to me. And unlike much else, it never disappoints. It always gives me something. It doesn't just take. It gives. Therein lies its unfading novelty and attraction. Novelty and attraction can only work well in the confines of giving. Deprive them of it and they'll vanish.

Dante understood that the human experience is marked by universality. He knew that while we might term certain emotions and feelings differently, our experience of the great basics, i.e., love, pain, anger, anxiety, difficulty are fundamentally the same whether one is professor Brunetto Latini who's condemned to inferno for eternity (see Canto XV) or Virgil, the guiding poet, who was unluckily born a few decades 'ahead of his time.'

Feeling good is 'dolce' and feeling badly is not. The dichotomy is clear to all. Dante refers to himself as two separate entities. On the one hand, there's the generally cerebral Dante, il poeta laureato, and on the other hand, there's Dante, l'uomo, the highly emotional man. The man, who faints at the sight of the great emotional pain of Paolo and Francesca in Canto V.

Dante embraces his emotional and cerebral sides fully. In my view, this is what makes me be as Dante-centric as I am. Dante fills a need. A need to self-soothe and inevitably self-ameliorate.

Why Dante, others, other than Prof. Di Tommaso have asked me. Why not Sophocles or Shakespeare? Or Goethe, even. For crying out loud, especially Goethe!

The answer is easy. I've long held that we don't get to choose art. Art chooses us. I believe this. As a matter of fact, I'll venture so much as to say that few things are solely choice-based. Very few. We think we choose but in most situations we are swayed to go one way over another.

Daily, I'm amazed at the multitude of applications that La Commedia lends itself to. And daily I'm tempted to apply it.

Dante spoke to me first on a cerebral level as someone with a doctorate of philosophy. He spoke to me equally strongly on a personal level. My whole life I've had difficulty with displays of emotions. I've always privileged my cerebral side. And unfairly so at times. But the older I get and the more I experience raw life, the more I allow myself to taste the opposite of ease, levity, and happiness, the more I'm drawn to Dante. It's hard, no, impossible, to ignore something that reaches you both on a cerebral and emotional level contemporaneously. Try it. You'll most likely fail.

What's been claiming most of my thoughts recently is the notion of the pursuit of happiness and it tenability. I've long wondered what it is that Dante must have experienced to write in Canto V that there's:
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria (lines 121-123)
There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.

Cerebrally, I've always known this. I've lectured on it plenty. Emotionally, I'm convinced that the only way to get happiness, to truly capture it albeit fleetingly, is to see it in conjunction with pain and memory. Happiness cannot exist in the confines of complacency. It couldn't. It needs the oxygen of immediacy. It can't be without. Happiness can only be when ridden with the anxiety of potential loss.

Being, at times, happy is the hardest task to accomplish. Some are aided by their respective genetic makeup to have a somewhat easier/harder time with happiness. Generally, however, happiness takes much conscious work. If left to chance, the end result will undoubtedly be difficult. The gift of introspection, some call it. This ability that some have to look inward to find answers to the human condition. Introspection is not a gift. Introspection is work, a lot of arduous work. Introspection cannot be given one. It needs to be acquired. One individual at a time.

Steve Jobs' Biography by Walter Isaacson: A Review

2011-10-30T22:26:00.001-04:00

Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs is a good read. No doubt. How could one go wrong with a subject such as Jobs? All the years I've been reading about Steve Jobs, I used to get a kick out of people complaining about his controlling ways, his voracious appetite for work, and his unrelenting quest for excellence. Well, I wouldn't expect new devices like the iPod and the iPad to come to life by a slow, lassez-faire type with no sense of urgency.

Isaacson's biography is not peppered with too many 'genius' references. I'm glad it's not. It's another strong aspect of the book. Isaacson portrays a person who is aware of societal hierarchies and knows that to get any kinds of access, one needs to be in the right place at the right time. The anecdote of young Jobs forcing his parents to sell their house so that they could move to a place they couldn't quite afford just so that he could attend a better school was most compelling. Those who observe that Jobs did things his way and had disregard for established hierarchy seem to be wrong here. Young Jobs understood that everyone needs a good beginning, even one who has the ability to bring us the iPod.

Another griping snippet in the book was Jobs' refusal to have any sort of relationship with his biological father. Birth anxieties seem to have accompanied him his whole life. Isaacson seems to infer that much of drive was informed by the fact that he was given up for adoption. Jobs' personal relationships were well captured in the book. Two other people stand out in this section as well, his sister and his illegitimate daughter. Through it all, Jobs looks like any average person out there. He was accompanied by ontological insecurities and found work a good place to be and maybe hide in.

Those who refer to Jobs as a genius seem to do so decontextually. What is a genius anyway? What standards are we employing here? Are we talking 'Leonardo' genius or 'Einstein' genius? Apropos, since I mention the latter here, what made Einstein interesting from a popular culture point of view is the fact that he was, for some intents and purposes, quite average. He didn't excel scholastically, didn't have big professional ambitions when in the work force, ah, and, most importantly, had a troubled relationship with mathematics. It took many a person to help and inform him.

And just like Isaacson's biography shows, it took a lot to help and inform Steve Jobs. But while Jobs was extremely hard on those who crossed him, he would be harder on those he liked and, as a result, held to a standard they couldn't always keep. What people like Jobs have is tenacity. Skill comes in many forms. There might just be as many ways of being good at something as there are moments in time. What allows one to produce a great product, in the case of Jobs, is his ability to understand that function could never truly shine outside the realm of form. Aesthetics is never inconsequential. This is a sentence I find myself uttering often. Form is not the stuff of levity. Form has heaviness, the heaviness of importance. It's one nugget I am certain of and one I also saw elaborated in this text.

I recommend that you read it. It won't necessarily inspire but then again, should it? Fundamentally, we are all the same whether we're creating things that millions will want to have or not.

Poetry and the iPhone 4s

2011-10-27T00:09:00.000-04:00

I have a knack for poetry.
And poets.
Especially, poets.
I have much respect for people who have an innate ability to produce poetry. Maybe that's why I privilege my poet friends to the degree that I do. I am aware of their skill and I pay homage to it. I was never good at writing it. However, I vouched to get decent at interpreting it.

Today I met a poet.

We met while talking about the iPhone 4s and how it compares to other super phones in the market. The conversation started most business-like. I've been in the technology business for a year now and there has been a shift in my quotidian jargon. I've replaced words like la terza rima, literary tropes, synecdoche, and gender theory with words like multicore, downloading speeds, data, and Android. The latter choice is faster, very 'now', technical and, at times, not very poetry-informed. It's denuded of tropes. It's clean, clinical, and free of literary entanglements.

At times though, my literary scholar self comes out most unexpectedly and, voila, a poet is befriended.

The following conversation took place today between me and the poet:

The poet: "So, what do you make of the Samsung Galaxy S II dominating Europe right now?"
I: "It's good. It speaks well for the Samsung brand but Apple is still king. It's tough to ignore the 'cool' factor of the brand. Especially now. The iPhone 4S is going strong."
He:"The Galaxy S II is a superphone, though."
I: "No doubt. The S II is a superphone, it has a double core, 14.4+ downloading speed, 4.2; screen, 8MP camera. At the same time the iPhone is a super phone to all those who have it and have experience with it."

I continue and this is where the connection takes place.

"You know, the new 4s is poetry."
He:"What do you mean by that?"
I:"It's a beautiful balance of form and content. It has capabilities that I doubt most users will ever come close to making use of and, not insignificantly, it's aesthetically pleasing. It's like a good poem."
He: "Hmm. Funny you say that. I do that. I perform my poetry."
Instead of resuming the conversation like any other 'normal' person, I channel my literary scholar self and say, "structured or free verse?"
He: "Allen Ginsberg. All the way, Ginsberg."
I: "He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy."
He: "Death & Fame." Hmm. Really?"

He looks happy to have outed someone. Someone like him. Someone of his ilk.

...
At this point we know we're not about to go back and talk about Wired articles on super phones or Steve Jobs' passing, the Apple brand, or superphones.

He: "So, who's yours? Favorite, I mean."
I: "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita...."
He: "Dante."

Needless to say, we will speak again. Meeting poets with a knack for technology doesn't happen often. Most of my poet friends are not technofiles. Or infected by neophilia, for that matter.

My new friend says he reads his own poetry at a cafe nearby.

In a businesslike fashion, I open up my iPhone, tap on the calendar app, ask for the name of the cafe, click on the GPS and calculate the distance from work. Beautiful. It's only 2.4 miles South.

18304

2011-10-03T00:32:00.000-04:00

This is the number of messages I have in my Gmail account. Of course, I delete. I do. Daily. But I've always led a highly verbal life. As a result, I get to get an email form Google Help Desk letting me know that my "web mail quota has exceeded the set quota which is 3GB. [I am] currently running on 3.9 GB."Forgive me Google for I have exceeded the quota. I've dared go past the permitted parameters. What now? Will I be marginalized to the outskirts of the emailing world? Is there such a thing as an email Inferno or something? Which circle will I end up in?The email did get me to thinking about my writing habits and my usually verbal life, however. For years I've been giving/receiving a whole lot of words. And words add up. 3.9 GB is a lot of words. I take a few minutes to look at some folders. Some are too passe. Especially at 2:15 AM they feel passe. I delete a few folders. And still, not a dent. I need to get a good course of action. I need to put my words on a high-protein, low-carb diet.I wake up on account of a bad dream. I open up my email to get my mind off of the disturbing images of the dream. Why was that scary behemoth of a dog chasing me like that?! I mean, I even fed it and everything. I gave it my Starbucks muffin. What gives, dog? But, I better stop talking about the dream and get back to the google chastisement. I have to face the bottomless well that is my highly verbal life and start editing much like I edit my closets. It's easy for me to edit clothing. I only own a very few items of clothing that are older than one year. The reasons are simple. I'm hard on what I wear. In no time I'll manage to ruin the sturdiest and best-made sartorial contributions any closet would love to have. Why is it to hard with words, though? In my academic career, most of my lectures and writing were about concise speech and how difficult it is to master it. As a matter of fact, for all the courses and syllabi I've developed so far, I have an assignment I called: "capture." Often, especially in literary theory courses, I'd accompany it with another one I called "James Joyce auf Deutsch." i.e., "James Joyce in German," i.e., writing a-la-James-Joyce. So, for the latter, the students would be encouraged to just keep on writing and let the words flow as naturally and freely as they could, one association at a time. And in a matter of days, the next assignment would be a one-page 'capture' intended to make them think carefully about every content word chosen. Many of the comments I would put on most papers would say, "How could you say more with less? - Economy of speech: employ it more often."It's time I heed my own advice.I've always been in love with economy of speech. Some people tend to love difficult things. And I've always loved a good speech economy. The kind that's managed right. Once in a blue moon I encounter it and, when I do, I delight in it like a diabetic at a gelateria who's been allowed to go nuts on ice cream for one blessed day.And, here I am. Looking at the number 18304. Wondering how I could have accumulated a Tower of Babel in such a short time, with much deleting and all. I start to delete a few. But then my eyes get heavy. Surely, this can be done later. I put the computer aside, turn to the left side, close my eyes, and hope I don't get tormented by the awful nightmare that woke me up in the first place and sent me to my email.

The Cars' New Brilliant Album: A Review

2011-08-11T00:28:00.002-04:00

I've been on a bit of a break from music.
...

Shocking, I know.

However, one truth of mine is that I can easily let go of stuff that doesn't keep me interested. I tend to look at this trait as a big positive. Others might disagree. If something is not qualitative, I'll give it some attention out of fundamental politeness and general respect for the genre. However, my academic quarter is just that: a brief interval of artistic etiquette.
But maybe other things have been at play in my recent nonchalant attitude vis-a-vis music. Be that as it may, after five weeks of no active music listening, (sacre bleu, I know!), I'm back.

After feeling no inspiration while scrolling down the thousands and thousands of track titles in my library, I thought I'd gain some distance between my muse, music, and my quotidianity. Instead, in my long drives and writing intervals, I'd listen to Marc Maron's brilliant podcast, WTF with Marc Maron. And, since I have long been a lover of stand-up comedy since seeing live acts back East, listening to Marc Maron interview comics has been most gripping and informative.

But, I'm not one to be without music for long. While my love of novelty might be too strong to resist, my long-term commitment to music is indisputable. And in the end, it always wins. I always pick it.

Enter The Cars.

Their new album, Move Like This, is the stuff of true skill. It's brilliant, very now, oozing experience-forged skill, and just very sexy. Hot. Very hot! In a time in music where prefab tracks and auto-tune seem to call the shots and true talent is obfuscated by way of cheaply manufactured aesthetics, coming across actual quality feels so refreshing. I had been parched and tonight I feel sated. Tracks like "Hits Me," "It's Only" and "Keep On Knocking" have a kind of masterful pace that make one wonder how such melodic perfection could be produced. So good. Great guitar, incomparable synthesizer, unparalleled vocals and just general 'cool' are what The Cars' new album is all about.

Every track is infused with a sense of history and contemporaneity which I've always thought hard to pull off. You listen to a track like "Take Another Look" and you know that feeling both melancholy and levity is a genuine possibility in the realm of good music. When a band tries to tip the hat to times past, it runs the risk of sounding dated. When it tries to be as 'now' as it can, it runs the risk of being slapped with accusations of affectation. However, The Cars do it just right. The listener is transported to times past while being firmly aware of what it means to be contemporary.

You don't make good art by accident. You make good art by study and constant practice. It took the Cards a couple of decades to put forth a new album but, holy crap, they've produced a hell of an album. So, sorry Marc Maron, I'll have to retire your podcast for a bit. Well, I've listened to every episode by now anyway and I'll re-visit your stuff in a little while. I'll be courting The Cars now. And I invite you all to do the same. You will love this.

Sitting between Two Redheaded People

2011-08-09T00:35:00.003-04:00

I received some major news a few weeks ago. You know how it feels when everything around you unexpectedly goes in slow motion and you're almost capable of doing a play-by-play analysis of what's getting shown to you? Yeah, kind of, sort of like that.

Afterwards, I go to my car, sit, and put my hands around the steering wheel as if I’m driving somewhere. Only, the key is not in ignition and I have no music or a podcast episode from WTF with Marc Maron coming out of the iPod. Fifteen minutes into it - even though I'm told it's fifteen minutes. It felt more like 15 seconds to me - I hear, “uhm, so, are we going somewhere or should we see if we can get pizza delivered in the parking lot?”

Funny. I know.

For some odd reason, my mind took me to my first semester as a freshman in college. I haven't really thought about that time since going through it. As a general rule, I tend to experience, file, and move on to the next thing. Anyway. I had a brutal schedule then. One that I had hand-picked myself. Naturally. The thing is, I have a knack for picking difficult scenarios and subsequently sticking with them and bringing them to fruition. It's a chronic condition, I guess. Some people spend their lives averting challenges, others welcome them with an unexplained and unrequired bravado. Color me the latter. Whoopty doo!

So, when most students would take between 12 to 15 credits, I would alternate between 18 to 22 credits. Most unnecessarily, by the way. I just wanted to see if I could push myself to a new limit and if I could still hold on to my full-ride scholarship while castigating myself with an impossible schedule. I know. Let it go. It’s my thing.

To illustrate my point, here’s my schedule as a first semester freshman.
English Writing: 8:00AM-8:50AM (apropos, I am categorically not a morning person.)
Basketball: 9:00AM-9:50AM
Religion: 10:00AM-10:50AM
Biology: 11:00AM-11:50AM
And, after a six-hour break:
Math: 6PM.

Chances are, if I would go at it again, I’d most likely pick some hard scenario like this again. And since I didn't do all that shabbily the first time around, I'd dare make it even more challenging. I wish I were joking. At times, I wished I was one of those people who were happy being a 12-credit type of person. I could never pull that off, however. A certain gene pool and predisposition coupled with certain acquired behaviors proves to be incurable more often than not. Bottom line, some people take the easy or easier way out while others like detours or harder trails. It doesn’t mean that one camp is better and/or smarter than the other. It’s just diversity. I used to think, foolishly proudly, that the harder way was somehow more respectable. Turns out that's not true at all. Being happy with ease and a general lack of ambition is something I wish I could do. I bet life would be a total breeze. I doubt I'd lose track of time, holding on to my steering wheel while the ignition key is still on my lap if I were into 'easy.' Alas, I'm not.

But back to the schedule. I know I'll make the point eventually. The hardest thing about it (i.e., the schedule) was going from Basketball to Religion. I played basketball like I was a 6.2’ dude. And I’m a foot shorter than that. I played so hard all I wanted to do afterwards was take a long shower and do the unthinkable: take a nap. Instead, I’d gather my stuff and try to clean up as I ran even harder from the gym to the Humanities building where the Religion course took place. I was always panic-stricken when going to Religion. Ok, the real reason had to do with the seating chart, yes there was a seating chart for that class. The professor thought he could remember our faces better if we sat in the same place every day. Oh, there were close to 100 students in that auditorium, by the way. Insane man, I know.

In Religion, I was sitting in the middle of one of the back rows. That's the seat you get for being one of the last ones to walk in as you pull a Carl Lewis from gym class. I was smack dab in the middle. I tend to remember few details from people and events if I’m not too struck by either aesthetics and/or intelligence. Nothing much struck me in that class other than the fact that there were two redheads in there, a boy and a girl, and for some reason they were sitting respectively to my left and right. Yup, I was sitting between two bona fide redheads, a boy and a girl. I couldn’t get over the fact how enthralling I found their hair and their galaxy of freckles. They could have been related. They weren’t.

What occupied my mind then was the fear that I would continue to perspire as the professor taught about the historical context behind Leviticus. I couldn’t wait to go home and shower. Hard. Few things make me freak out. Not showering twice a day is one of them. I know. It’s my thing. Let it go. In Religion, I somehow felt some version of piety as I “suffered” in my tight but cushy seat while pursuing my education in the private university where people were more polite than those in Pleasantville and perfect strangers would say “hello” and “how are you?” to you. Ad nauseam.

For some odd reason, after my news, I felt exactly how I felt when sitting in Religion as I freaked out at the prospect of more sweat coming out of me as I had played with a kind of vigor I generally reserve for the airport as I'm always running to my gates trying to make my connections. I recognized the feeling immediately. I scratched my head metaphorically and literally. I wondered why I had to scratch my head and made a quick mental note re: changing shampoos. Then, metaphorically, I scratched my head again and wondered why, of all the thoughts my brain would have strung together, it decided to pick one that took me back to my freshman year.

In sum, I often wonder why I have such loyal tolerance for quotidianity and all its menial routines and overall uninterestingness. And every time I wonder about its strong presence, I am reminded of the function it plays. It's a bringer of stability and overall sanity. I like control. Control, for odd reasons, gets a bad rap. However, control is nothing to sneer at. It comes too naturally to some and very challengingly to others. While I have a naturally hyper nature which at times makes concentration difficult, thanks to learned control and discipline, much can get accomplished.

It's hard to get stuff done well when you are pulled in so many directions all of which beg for your attention. So, amid the frustration of nature, desire for focus needs to kick in. And it does. It says, I want to do a task at a time and I want to do them well. So, controlling one's nature is indispensable when it comes to accomplishment and productivity.
It turns out, it's also indispensable when it comes to dealing with a kind of novelty that puts well-tested quotidianity on its head and tells it to go spin.

And there you are, metaphorically sitting between two redheaded people, hoping your sweat won't get noticed.

How Does One Know One?

2011-07-19T00:03:00.001-04:00

Last night, I luxuriated by way of time and language. I rarely find myself in a ménage of this sort. It's usually one or the other but not both. Well, what can I say. I'm in a splurging mood lately and there's nothing I can do about it.

I had the opportunity to take some quiet/unscheduled time lately. After that, however, big questions were born and what better way to discuss them then by talking with those who share your modus vivendi? So, last night one of my closest friends asked me the following, "Na, du, wie kennt man Einen?" Translated: "So, you, how does one get to know one?"

I don't have the answer to it. "I don't have the answer to it," I said. Come to think of it, i don't even wish to have the answer to it. The beauty of getting to know one lies in the process. That is the stuff of poetry. One of the lines that has stuck with me from all the literature I have ever read, - and that is a whole lot -, comes from Botho Strauss' play in two acts Die Fremdenfuehrerin i.e., The Tour Guide. In it, the main character says: "Ein zweiter Mensch erweckt neue Erwartungen" i.e., "A second person awakens new expectations."

Without expectations there can be no drive to renew one's self, to morph into something better, hopefully more developed. Without expectations there can be no passion, no drama, no, well, life. Expectations set things in motions and humans are meant to be in motion. Agito ergo sum, after all. We do/move, therefore, we are.

Back to my friend's question. I told him I didn't have any special insight. I think I added something like, "man kennt einen, wenn man sich selbst kennt. Oder nicht. Was weiss ich denn..." "One knows one when one knows one's self. Or not. What do I know..." After saying it I felt some measure of melancholy. Knowing one's self is tough. It is, in my view, one of the hardest pursuits. Those who think they know themselves well usually fail miserable at recognizing basic truths about them. Self-knowledge is nigh impossible. Which means, a knowledge of the other, actual knowledge of the other, is nigh impossible as well. It's not the knowing of one's self and the selves of the others that is important but rather the inclination to engage in a process of self-knowledge and knowledge of the other.

Knowing others is fundamentally predicated upon knowing one's self and one's 'self' i.e., our 'selves' are not like books standing on the shelf where they can be picked up at any time divorced from time and particular circumstance. Identity is not petrified, like the written word. It shifts, morphs into new things, progresses and regresses. It moves. To get it, to get to the core of one's 'self' one needs to consider any and all variables. And this, well, this is nigh impossible to do. However, it is in this very impossibility where beauty can be found. Not the kind of beauty that fades but rather the beauty about which one is compelled to give a damn. True substance.

Knowledge of the self and the self of the other changes as a result of circumstance as well.

I illustrate:

I used to hate pizza. As in "ewe, blah, double ewe, can't eat that crap"-type of thing. I have my ideas as to what informed my general disgust for this particular food. I reckon it has something to do with a period in my life when I didn't particularly care for Italian cuisine generally and pizza/pasta particularly. I like pizza now, though. Matter of fact, I just had it for dinner tonight. Coupled with hot chocolate. And cherries. Yeah. Yum! Put that in your pipe, Wolfgang Puck, and smoke it. I know why I'm cool with pizza now. I know why I'm cool with pizza in the company of hot chocolate and cherries. Given the same presentation a while back, I would have sneered, mocked, and resisted the urge to part ways with whatever dwelled in my stomach. But that's then and this is now.

Hard things beg for attention. Not-so-hard things are largely forgettable and I happen to think not worth one's consideration most of the time. There's bound to be a hierarchy of difficulty. After all, we're not all meant to be into John Donne. Some are into that kind of hermetic brilliance. Others, on the other hand, do just find with Harry Potter. There's something for everyone.

I have a knack for hard things. It's one of the few things I have come to truly get about my nature. What can I do about it? Nothing. I can embrace it and go with it. Sooner is always better than later. Resisting it would be like the day my friends and I were swimming in the river and I had the brilliant idea to try going against the current because, of course, the Napoleon inside me, thought s/he could just do it. Long story short, I ended up on the other shore, lost my left Havaiana and ruined my favorite swimsuit when wrestling with an unfortunate looking tree branch. I have yet to find a better suit. But I digress. The point is, we are who/how we are. At the core, we are who we are. We do not change. This sounds too much like a cliché. I can't be the first to have phrased it this way. Wait, it's making me think of someone. Duh, Charles Dickens and his Great Expectations. Still, though, it has value even though I get zero points for originality. I happen to concur with the point and that adds value to it. How's this for healthy self-esteem?!

So, after talking about sociality, my friend and I segued into an analysis of sociality. I made the point that an understanding of sociality can only be had when one truly invests in solitude. And investing in solitude is tough. Especially if one's inclination has little natural space for it.

I've gotten to be a bit more decent at alone time. I'd give myself a solid 6/10 as an adult. The reason why is quite simple. It's called learned behavior and focused practice. Gregariousness has always come easily to me. Others would most likely give me a 9/10. I would give myself a solid 8. But, just like it is the case with other traits that one comes equipped with genetically, I tend to often privilege things and traits that are not as easy. I don't know why this is. It's a trait I've long resigned myself to. If all roads lead to Rome, I tend to usually take the longer, more difficult one. I illustrate as a tip of the hat to my Italy-residing people. It's kind of like getting to Rome from Milan by driving your car - at least a stress-fueled 8-hour-period of your life marked by noise, odd lane-changing habits, and traffic that comes out of Dante's third circle of Hell - as opposed to flying from Fiumicino to Malpensa (a mere hour). In case I need to explain, I'd, most likely and almost unequivocally, prefer the former. Why? I don't know. We are who we are. We don't change.

So, how does one get to know one as per my friend's question? One stops being a coward and starts to get to know one's self as one truly is at dawn and not as one thinks one is at dusk. Dusk, albeit a favorite time for many, is a tricky little rascal. Dusk is like wine. It veils things. It doesn't let one see things in an unfettered and untarnished fashion. Nothing can reveal all freckles, blemishes, and corporeal changes the way dawn can. And in that space of time is where the others might be known too. At least to some degree and in some measure. Nothing and no one can be known fully. And in this very lack of omniscience lies the beauty of being human and foible.

I Couldn't Like Emerson More

2011-07-16T21:19:00.001-04:00

I've never had much respect for books I can read in one day. I don't know why that is. Wait, I do know why that it is. My high-frequency books are Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Botho Strauss' Die Fremdenfuehrerin. They're all complicated works that need careful attention and much consideration. If you can figure something out too quickly, then maybe you shouldn't have bothered with it all in the first place.

Right.

Having stated this, check out this jewel of a thought from Emerson regarding Jane Austen's work. Man, I love this guy! Boom, this is how you write about Jane Austen.

"I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched & narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer in both the stories I have read, “Persuasion”, and “Pride & Prejudice”, is marriageableness; all that interests any character introduced is still this one, has he or she money to marry with, & conditions conforming? ‘Tis “the nympholepsy of a fond despair”, say rather, of an English boarding-house. Suicide is more respectable."

Emerson Goodness

2011-06-15T23:37:00.000-04:00

Was just reminded why I'm keen on Emerson. The following comes from his Notebooks (1841).
Tip of the hat to Tyler for the pointer.

"We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over & actually read a volume of 4 or 500 pages. Even the great books. “Come,” say they, “we will give you the key to the world” — Each poet each philosopher says this, & we expect to go like a thunderbolt to the centre, but the thunder is a superficial phenomenon, makes a skin-deep cut, and so does the Sage — whether Confucius, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates; striking at right angles to the globe his force is instantly diffused laterally & enters not. The wedge turns out to be a rocket. I have found this to be the case with every book I have read & yet I take up a new writer with a sort of pulse beat of expectation.

Identity Shmidentity

2011-06-15T02:11:00.003-04:00

Every time I hear Polonius’s statement from Hamlet: Act 1 Scene 3 quoted, i.e.: “To thine own self be true” I unequivocally frown as a way of saying 'say what?!', without actually saying it. I do so because Polonius is usually quoted decontextually. Polonius, let’s be real, was pretty much an officious, sort-of hysterical, well, ok, imbecile. In nuce, he was a follower, at best, who lacked the ability to think for himself. Polonius was, metaphorically speaking, a little man, one who never saw his daughter, the much deeper Ophelia - who must have certainly taken after her mother - for what and who she was: cerebral, observing, and analytical.

But back to the often decontextually quoted “to thine own self be true” which, apropos, came up in a conversation I was a part of this evening with a couple of people. I did produce a "say what?!" by way of the face but that might have been because I didn't have dinner till later. Anyway.

Back to the topic at hand, i.e., identity. We can’t be the same in every situation and with everyone. Judith Butler generally maintains that we tend to ‘perform’ the many versions of ourselves situationally. The sum of our performances of identy(ies) make up our very social make-up. Granted, her identity notions as found in her seminal work Gender Trouble (1990) mostly applies to Gender Theory but the concept could still be applied more broadly.

I tend to think that a number of core traits are with us all the time. However, other things are added and subtracted. Certain traits get exacerbated and others get nigh muted depending on the context, time frame, and the influences we are exposed to. And, everyone is around influences. Nobody is immune to them. What was the adage again? Ah, yes, no man is an island. Right. No person is an island.

I had a thought tonight about another conversation I had with my best friend the other day. Every time we talk he inserts one of his usual, ‘Seriously, that would have been your idea of hell,’ or ‘that’s when you would have adios-ed the conversation.’ By way of context and making a point here, my best friend and I met as freshmen in college when taking a Linguistics course. We were both bored out of our minds in it. One day, the professor asked me an Italian-related question, I answered it and then after class he came to me speaking in flawless Italian. His mother is Swiss Italian, hence the proficiency.

In Phaedrus, Plato’s Socrates states that philosophy is: meletē thanatou. The phrase simply means — a diligent/educated practice of death. However what Plato means here, among other things, is that one of the ‘performances’ of philosophy is to helps humans better deal with their basic humanity. By extension, I would submit that philosophy/education or knowledge/information exist primarly to help us come to terms with the many versions of our fundamental humanity and why/how they actualize themselves they way they do.

My parents always say the following when we see one another during family events and vacations: “you’re the same you used to be.” And unequivocally I retort: “Who else would I be?!” Change, however, happens. It is bound to happen. And what counts is not what garrulous Polonius said i.e., “to thine own self be true,” but rather how the self can handle the many variables it encounters daily. The goal eventually is to stay afloat and not drown. The goal, as Plato’s Socrates points out in Phaedrus is to cope with mortality as well as one can. What else is there of more import, really? And if a version of self is not doing the job well enough, it can and should get laid off. There needs to be more where that, it, came from after all.

I’ve never been able to understand why anyone would take advice about life from Polonius of all people. It’s sort of like a priest going to Bill Maher with a Gospel of John question.

Thinking Bits

2011-06-13T01:09:00.001-04:00

There's a folder in one of the iPhoto libraries that reads 'Bri Thinking Photos.' I opened to look at it today and I saw one that matched the diurnal mood. This one.

I usually use music and my writing as a way of keeping track of experiences and quotidianity be it memorable or forgettable. Luckily, there are the photos too.

There’s no better way to get a good snapshot of one’s existence that when faced with an expected unknown. What I find interesting about existence is just how clearly one can see certain things in situations that are primarily defined by certain events/experiences. It’s like having bionic vision for a spell and getting to the core truth of things quickly albeit for a little while.

I thought again today how much easier it would be if my medium of choice could be in the realm of movement. I live for movement and yet my mode of expression is writing. I need to be sedentary to do it and yet the best ideas I get come to me when I’m out and about, generally moving quickly, getting lost in some thought while getting to the next thing on the list.

“Where is she?”
“Out & about. Off to think or sth.”

I saw this on the iChat window the other morning. It made me chuckle. Mostly because it’s true.

My people get that. My concept of inferno, personal inferno, is utter lack of movement. Well, that and having to be in it in the company of disingenuity. Force me to be in a state of inactivity and I’ll start bargaining right away to get out of it. I’ll agree with Mephistopheles before he has a chance to reveal the terms of the pact. I’d be willing to recite whatever to get out of it. I guess that’s why I tolerate yoga. Even though I’m confined to the space of a mat, I’m to move while on it.

I had my wayfarer’s on today as I was returning home from a day away. To my right, I could see the quiet Pacific and the sun that was reflecting on it. My hair looked much blonder than it usually does indoors when not touched by the sun. I liked it. The iPod was playing some random track from either Lilly Allen or Kate Bush or, some such singer, they sound all the same to me. It didn’t matter what the iPod was playing which is testament to the actual value of the unique feeling the little moment in time contained.

It was the sort of feeling that tends to get generated when forced to be in the present fully. The feeling that corroborated your already researched and tested sense of self-reliance and why it matters. It always matters. Having faith in one’s self is key. All we have is that, really. Granted, relying on the ones who love you daily helps. But, let’s call things what they are. The reason, the main reason, why those who are big investors in self-reliance are loved well and consistently is because of their investments in self-reliance.

Words were uttered but they mostly served as instrumental soundtrack like an Ennio Mrricone album. They were placid but I have no idea what they were about. I suppose if it's important, I'll hear it again. Thing is, at times nothing should interfere with the poetic beauty of silence. Even music would be like adding salt & pepper to an Eric Ripert dish at La Bernardine.

Oh, Larry!

2011-06-06T23:56:00.001-04:00

Larry does New York. Man, I cannot wait for this.

Why I Approve of Game of Thrones

2011-06-01T01:26:00.004-04:00

One of the reasons why I like Game of Thrones is that it is almost wholly divorced of preconceived notions of right and wrong as informed by Judeo-Christianity. It's a testament to human nature and how it functions when under all sorts of pressure be they political, familial, filial, and military in nature.

I like Game of Thrones because the truly good characters really know who they are and what they are all about. And the truly well-developed characters ooze much comfort in that knowledge. I like that a whole lot. As a viewer, I do like it a whole lot. As a scholar, I respect it.

Game of Thrones lives in the gray. It thrives in the gray. It doesn't seem to get hung up on definitions that supposedly reside in utterly black and/or utterly white poles. Life is messy, life is gray for the most part, and in the gray is where it, life, happens, in all of its gore and glory.

I have two favorite characters in this superbly executed series: Arya Stark - and by association Ned Stark - and Tyrion Lannister. Arya is the 'tomboy' daughter of Lord Stark. Lord Stark, Ned as he is called, has a strong core. He knows what he's about and he's comfortable with his core values. Ned claims to be a simple fighting man but he is far from 'simple.' First, he is a noble and few things spell 'simple' when nobility is involved, especially in pre-medieval Europe.

Ned is politically astute, a man of principle but also a man of reason. Ned has a number of children with Lady Catelyn, the most gripping of which is Arya. Arya despises sewing and typical activities of ladies. She couldn't care less for traditionally female roles and feels the most alive when playing outside with boys or learning how to use the sword. Lord Stark, sees Arya's nature and potential from the very beginning and in a kindness-informed fashion arranges for a sward-fighting tutor for her. She should be allowed to do what she chooses. And this is yet another reason to see him as a likable hero. Naturally, such tolerance is not ahistorical as examples of sword-loving females abound in pre-Christian myths. A quick example comes to mind, Brunhild from the Land of Ice as seen in the Song of the Nibelungs.

Another character I am absolutely taken by is Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion is marked as 'different.' As he puts is, he might as well be a bastard child as his father seems to reserve much resentment for him on account of him being the reason for his mother's premature death (she died at childbirth.) In addition, his 'mark' refers to him suffering from dwarfism. He is derogatorily referred to as the 'imp.' As he tells Jon Snow who is too young to use his own mark - i.e., that of being a bastard son to Ned Stark - to self-protect. Tyrion says to Jon with regards to his situation: “Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you.” Words of wisdmon, Jon Snow. I'd take heed.

Tyrion's wisdom does not come purely out of suffering and experiential knowledge, however. Although, sadness seems to be inherent to him he also has an uncanny ability to read people well and fully. He reads voraciously, is highly learned, and, as a result, had access to all sorts of information and feedback which he is very quick to retrieve and use when he needs to.

Tyrion knows he is not loved. He knows this and he fully accepts it. See, acceptance is key here. Acceptance is what makes his truly great. He operates in reality and not in some idealism-tainted world where warm and fuzzy feelings abound. But he also knows his worth, or rather the worth of his family. "A Lannister always pays his debt", he is often heard saying. And that they do. Not only he, apparently, but all Lannisters. Tyrion is born into a wealthy family but of all of them he is the only one who has a shred of reality-informed kindness in him. The lack of kindness he's been exposed to his whole life as a result of his unfortunate condition is what seems to fuel his unique modus vivendi.

He uses his so-called vices and hedonism as a way of self-shielding. He knows he can rely on two things for survival: his father's coins and his own wisdom/talent for survival. He is rarely seen scheming and alliance-forging. He only tries to rely on others when his immediate life is in danger or when he's about to bestow an act of kindness on fellow 'marked' characters, like the newly paralized Bram, son of Lord Stark.

In sum, I like Game of Thrones for a number of reasons. I'm keen on it as a medievalist, no doubt. However, the reason why I am taken by it is that it portrays human nature for how it is: circumstance-informed, mostly denuded of idealism when reality is not forced into the shadows of the margins, and last but so definitely not least, self-mythologizing. Most exquisitely so.

And Then It Was about Change

2011-05-23T00:56:00.004-04:00

"Let's talk about change," says the friend I went to grad school with.
The question came out of the blue which was not necessarily a big surprise to me. I'm told I'm rather decent at dealing with 'out-of-the-blue' statements/questions as I do dish them out quite easily, so reacting to them does not usually require much effort.

We started talking about new music, the Beastie Boys' new release, how some bands have to be seen live to be truly appreciated, ah, and why the creative class tends to cluster in certain areas as opposed to others. Then, all of a sudden, the conversation turned all change-y and philosophical.

I don't usually know what to make of 'change' questions. I seem to participate in a whole lot of discussions that deal with change, though. The answer I provide tends to follow the same tune for the most part i.e., change happens, so you do it. There's no way around it. Sometimes, when I feel jovial and generally at ease, I even get grammatical on one. The example I bring up is the German auxiliary verb 'sein' i.e., 'to be.' I didn't do so on my friend today as, well, he's fully privy to all sorts of verbal behavior. He's seen and done 'em all. In a nutshell, we're trained in the same thing so I'd be preaching to the choir. But, to complete a point, and for the sake of elucidating the idea in this platform, the verb 'to be' in German is happily married to change, and more specifically, change of state. One cannot form the perfect tense of change-signifying verbs were it not for this verb. It's that important a player. So, in German, one says 'I am fallen asleep' instead of 'I have fallen asleep', or 'I am gone' as opposed to 'I have gone' and, most greatly, 'they are died' i.e., 'they have died' and so forth. Right, you get the gist.

'Now' is all we have and if now is pregnant with change then you friggin' handle it. Idealizing the past and projecting too optimistically onto the future does not help anyone. Well, not if having a good grasp on reality is a priority and I tend to see it as one. I don't know, it seems to work out better this way for me and mine. But, I guess, that's how I happen to roll.

Clichéd, I know, but all we have is the present and living hard in it is the only way to do justice to it. I find, I'm keen on adverbs. They modify so well. See, 'well' - adverb. They're ubiquitous. "You're keen on adverbs" says my friend to me as well. Ha, funny, coming from one adverb lover to another. But I digress. I don't know why I'm keen on adverbs, though. I reckon it has something to do with my literary conditioning. We can't necessarily escape our respective upbringing fully. Especially if it's literarily fecund. This, I do believe. I actually know it to be thus. We are what we read or what our parents read when they had us, even. Ah, hold on. Let me backtrack. If the latter part of that statement were true, I'd be in trouble. I'd rather believe in the former, I think. We are what we read. Ok, that I can do. That I know how to deal with. But back to the adverb. The main function of 'now' is to attract one's attention to what truly matters, i.e. the moment at hand or - as I'm told I say often - contemporaneity. And therein lies my enamorment with it.

I'm often rendered wordless however, not philosophically necessarily but rather experientially as I don't share many of my interlocutors' belief that change is hard. I have a moderately good relationship with change. It wasn't always like that, however. It truly is an acquired reaction. One thing I find useful when dealing with utter novelty is to fuse it with already familiar and comfort-informed things. This is why I always bring familiar playlists, Curb, Wonder Boys, and workout outfits. Armed with familiarity and comfort, no change is too hard to conquer.

In nuce, it's not change that's hard but rather constancy. It's difficult (actually, I mean to write impossible but I'm in too sunny a disposition, I guess) to keep pace with constancy. Its gruesome at times and it requires constant work to keep. Change provides a bit of a breather, a chance to view things from another perspective and point of view. If it weren't for change, the processing of ideas and any life experience would be hard to accomplish.

Hair Is Rarely Inconsequential

2011-05-09T01:09:00.000-04:00

I like my hair stylist. Unlike other stylists I've had in other parts of North America, he is somewhat introspective and talks sparingly. I like that. Plus, he is quick and fantastically accurate with his free hand cutting or 'precision cuts', as he refers to them. Guy knows how to measure length with his eye. In a mere 30 minutes he can produce a perfectly executed cut and he never makes you wait. A 2:00pm appointment means exactly that and at 2:30 you're free to resume your day. A man after my own heart.

Today, as he was educating me on the merits of a well-cut bob and why it's a good choice for certain face shapes, he noted that he finds it curious that I tend to answer his questions with questions.
I got a kick out of his observation as, well, he was right.
"What do you mean?" I added cheekily.

As he was working on his precision cut, I got to thinking more about his observation. The act of question acting is not just directly related to information gathering. Quite often, we ask for the purpose of evading additional questions we might be asked which we might be uncomfortable discussing or simply unwilling to entertain. Question-asking as a way of addressing a received question creates a space of comfort, a space in which attention can be shifted to other targets. I suppose that's why we have idioms like, "well, I asked you first." The idiom is not necessarily an infantile evasion as there's some etiquette-informed truth to it. Hierarchy matters in language and s/he who asks first needs to have first pick.

Certain spaces create better arenas of information gathering than others. Hair salons are one such space. I wondered why that was so today and I came to the same conclusion I've come to in the past. Aesthetic topics serve a litany of functions, a couple of which are the bringing forth of distractions and creating a venue in which to discuss substance. Aesthetics, as it benefits the self, helps lower one's guard and it ends up making one feel more at ease, more approachable linguistically.

And might even dare to answer a question in anything but the interrogative.
"So, how do you like your place?"
Instead of pulling an oldie but a goodie, "Yeah, yours is a short walk from here, right? The city smells great in the Spring, eh?"
I simply said, "I like it when I'm in it which is not a whole lot of the time." I wanted to add, "What about you?" You like yours"..., but I didn't.
I suppose, it's okay to answer certain questions when asked first whether one's getting a precision haircut or not.

Why Being Busy Matters

2011-05-05T02:20:00.004-04:00

When I say 'hello' on the phone sometimes, the other end of the phone asks me, "you sound busy. You busy? Your hello says 'busy'."
"I only said hello! You gleaned all that from two syllables?!" And then we break into some Abott and Costello routine.

Here's an odd confession.
I can't skip things that are on my schedule/calendar. I've tried a number of times but when I do I get attacked by royal pangs of guilt. 'Bad, Bri, bad. You skipped out on yoga or picking up dry-cleaning, or replying to so-and-so-'s email.'

If the tasks are not on the calendar, I can skip them but if they are, I can't not keep them.
This is the reason why I wouldn't sluff as a teenager.
My classmates would always ask in disbelief: "Why don't you want to go to a party instead of 19th century English poetry?"
"Because my schedule says I'm in class from 8-2, you know what I mean? Then, it's MTV after class. And then I've got ping-pong. And then Inspector Morse is on at 8 (Man, I used to LOVE Morse!). So, no, can't skip."

I laugh now when I am reminded of this seemingly odd behavior. I laugh but I still 'get' what my teenage version meant by "well, it's in my schedule to do this, so, yeah, I've got to do it."

Ok, consider this rather insipid illustration by Hugh Grant's character in About a Boy. This was the only minute in the film worth my time and interest. I turned off my attention after that. I get Hugh Grant's discussion of 'units of time'. It somehow makes perfect sense to me.

Sticking to a schedule helps many process information. Answers are often hidden between tasks. Panacea is to be found between tasks. Being busy keeps one in motion and being in a state of moving keeps one interested and in that very process interesting. Aren't most things about the latter, anyway?

It matters being busy. It matters because busy-ness brings a level of perspective that one cannot have when having too much time to mull things over.
My academic background has made me especially aware of this. Doing a close reading of half a 13-th century poem for a year can eventually test one's patience and one's relationship with time. I get general anxiety when I have much time on my hand to do one specific thing. The thing becomes less daunting, hence handleable, when done in the company of other things. The phrase that gets used by those in my life is, "you look like you're in your head again." I know what that phrase stands for. It stands for restlesness or rather fear of restlessness.

I got to thinking abou what we were doing this time last year on my drive back from work tonight. And this time last year I got a call from the phone operators of Real Time with Bill Maher informing me that we had won some complimentary tickets to a live taping of the HBO show at their studio on Fairfax Ave. in Los Angeles. Since we were heading to LA that weekend, the phone call could not have been timelier.

Seeing a live episode of Real Time was not just fun. It was another great example of how indispensable being busy is to me. Getting to the studio in time was nigh heroic. If you've ever driven in Los Angeles, you don't have to think too hard why. Los Angeles traffic is the stuff nightmares are made of. Our day this time last year consisted of a lot of activities and we made the taping of the show in the nick of time. I like it when I make it to things in the nick of time. I don't like to wait. Waiting sucks. Waiting makes me clench my teeth, move restlessly, and get aggravated at the thought that time, my time is being wasted.

Being busy matters because it gives many of us the impression that we count, that we are important. And the impression of being something, more often than not, has more weight than actual substance. Impressions are the stuff actual encouragement is made out of and encouragement is rarely inconsequential. Being busy reinforces a pattern of movement/motion and it is at the core of being dynamic, with a pulse, alive.

Man from Earth: A Review

2011-05-03T23:50:00.000-04:00

I've watched a plethora of films the past few months that I wouldn't necessarily Netflix on my own. One of the more gripping titles is Man from Earth (2007) the premise of which is not one I would have found intriguing before. Good thing I am allowing myself to be influenced these days, well, up to a certain point at least.
This film moved me.
What makes it particularly exquisite is the way it plays out in the setting of academia to which open-mindedness and acceptance of ideas is supposedly endemic.

It's hard to reveal fundamental truths to people. We often say we want to know these said truths but, when it comes down to it, we're happier believing untruths. Untruths are easier to process than, say, "Hi, I'm a caveman. I'm 14000 years old, I used to hang with Buddha and Jesus even though now I'm a college prof." or "you don't want to know how much I have in retirement funds" (the latter is my contribution to the script).

The caveman, appropriately named, John Oldman, informs his university colleagues over a farewell party that every 10 years or so, when people start to notice he does't age, he moves on. One thing the rest of the people around him have in common is the fact that they are not impervious to the effects of time. That rascal has its grips on everyone. Everyone but John, that is. Moving on is noble. Moving on is what courage is made out of. Moving, which is very much an epithet for life, his life, is what John knows best.

My favorite part in the film has to be when Art tells John that what he has revealed to his colleagues, i.e., that he's about 14000 years old, simply offends common sense. To Art's point, John says: "So does Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, that's the way nature works." Yes, nature doesn't care about politesse and norms and keeping up with etiquette and blah, blah, blah.

What this film tackles best is not just evolutionary biology or mythologized culture. What it does most dexterously is raise the question of question raising when it comes to knowledge and artificial cognition. Academia, generally speaking, is one arena in which critical thought and question asking should be not only ubiquitous, they should be the lingua franca. And questioning the status quo is not just an acceptable way to combat boredom, it is the way to add to systematized knowledge.

Shortsightedness, alas, is not a foreigner in academic circles. Quite often it reigns supreme. Who truly believes John's 'truth' anyway? Ok, Sandy perhaps, but she's majorly biased as she is in love with John so who's to take her motivations seriously, anyway? I won't reveal the ending of the film as, well, some people don't share my lack of belief in plot. The ending, however, plays quite well with the westernized notion of love/attachment and our belief that we matter and time somehow applies to everyone else but us. We will live forever, of course.

Do watch this. I cannot believe that I didn't know of this when it first came out but am glad I got schooled.

Adele, Exhibit, and Things that are 'OMG' good

2011-05-03T00:26:00.001-04:00

You know how sometimes something you see/read/sense speaks to you so much that it almost overpowers all of your senses?
I was overpowered this weekend.
A few times, actually.
Intense, I know.
The first time started a few days ago while listening to Adele's track "Set Fire to the Rain" from her excellent album 21.
In my, at times, (I'm sorry to admit) über-arrogant fashion, I told a friend that I wasn't interested in listening to her. What miopia, I know. At least I came around, though.
I love this track so much that it almost makes me taste any and every existential thought/feeling I have had since I can remember. And that voice, that voice. I don't just love it the way I tend to love new music that speaks to me. New music that speaks to me gets a tad old after the 100th time of repeated play. This one is still capturing my interest. Who knew I'd become this kind of person?! Leave it to Adele, I suppose. There's a first for everything.

In short, this track is a perfect interval of 4 minutes and 3 seconds where all else stops and all that exists is the song, my very bad, raspy, and loud voice singing along at the top of my lungs with my windows rolled down as I drive along the freeway South-to-North and then again North-to-South.

I have been listening to this track since Thursday. I was listening to it down South as well on the way to an art exhibit. There I was, in a brown dress, beige pumps, and burgundy clutch, holding a really skinny glass and apparently moving my head as if I was seeing Adele perform the song live.

"What's with the head?"
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"You know, it's Mozart, for crying out loud. You're like, you know, you're, rocking to it."
Cheekily I added, "well, you can totally rock to 'confutatis, maledictis, flammis acribus addictis, flammis acribus, addictis". We should play some Requiem. Yeah, a bit of Requiem will brighten up the atmosphere here.
"Seriously, what's with the rocking?"
"Don't know. I guess I have "Set Fire to the Rain" in my head. I LOVE that track. It's OMG good, you know?'
"OMG good? Seriously?"

And it was about then that my eye fell on the most beautiful color portait I have ever seen. Ever. I couldn't take a picture as, well, it was an exhibit opening. I ordered the print, however. It was a portrait of the saddest, most beautiful face I have ever laid eyes on. At that point, I could feel Adele fading away. It became all about the beautiful, sad face at that point. Art substituting art. I suppose it's how it goes. What is the saying again? There's nothing new under the sun, only someone new? And at the point in time, time stopped as I gazed upon a beautiful portrait and I felt a sense of visitation a-la-Henry-James from anything and anyone worth visiting.

Existential Star Wars

2011-05-02T02:05:00.002-04:00

Tip of the hat to Tyler for the pointer. This is wicked good!

Happy or Interested?

2011-04-26T02:56:00.001-04:00

“Are you happy?” – asks the interlocutor as my eyes are feasting on a sea of green, tilled land, and vineyards. My mind is elsewhere but my eyes are enjoying the scenery at hand.
“What do you mean by happy?” - I ask as I’m leisurely drinking the Venti Passion Tea Lemonade we picked up about 20 miles down the road.
I then added that for some reason I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of existential questions of this nature this year. Come to think of it, I'm amused by the versatility of answers depending on who asks and when.

We left the ‘happy talk’ at that as dinner was being served and I don’t generally find smoked salmon to be the most suitable choice for existential talk. Smoked salmon says: ‘light, fleeting, easy-but-forgettable fun.’ Beef, on the other hand, would have been a different story. I could have picked beef bourguignon, but I didn't. The interlocutor did. Maybe that's why he asked the question. Beef tends to beg for a different kind of substance and I lacked the inclination needed to process it. I had the salmon, instead. On the drive back I got to thinking about “are-you-happy?”-type questions.

To me, ‘happy’, has always spelled presence of movement, productive change, you know, the opposite of boredom. Agito ergo sum. I believe that. It's got all the buy-in a phrase could ever have. A lack of motion would be a lack of comfort, i.e., a lack of happiness. Some are comfortable moving others feel better in a sedentary fashion. I always felt at home in the company of the former. Ironically, quite often I’m on the receiving end of such movement-obliterating statements as: “just stay put for a minute. Don’t move for a bit. Let’s just stay here a while, isn’t this nice?” Statements of this nature make me feel the opposite of 'satisfied'. They make me feel restless.

Instead of asking, “are you happy?”, one needs perhaps to consider: “are you interested?” Interestedness spells motion, change, problem-solving, eventfulness, you know, things of interest. Without new problems to solve and new avenues to explore, what use is this thing, anyway?

"Ask me the question again", I ask.
“Are you happy?”
“I’m interested much of the time. It could be different but it’s not. Interestedness might lead to more promising changes. So, ja, I’m interested, I guess. Don’t you just love Julian Casablancas’ voice, by the way?”
“The Strokes are cool, yup. So, when was the last time you were this, you know, interested?”
Without thinking much at all and almost in an automaton-like fashion, I say: May 1, 2009.
“Why May 1, 2009?”
“I don’t know. I just was. It was the night I saw Franz Ferdinand in concert. Alex Kapranos, the lead singer, had some beautiful, red patent leather shoes on and I had a smaller number of worries on my mind than usual that particular night. I wanted those shoes. I didn’t want for much those days with the exception of those red shoes.”

I remember the day with such clarity not because I have a good memory (very often I don't) but because I’m a music lover. I journal my life by way of music. My love for and interest in music is unchanging regardless of all else. I can look at the thousands of tracks I have on the iPod and I can unequivocally say what the tracks represents, memory-wise. I even have a playlist that says ‘interested/happy.’ It’s the one playlist that gets edited religiously. I play it daily and with loyalty in the car. But I digress again. I guess that's what things we love tend to do to us. They force us to digress and make everything be about them. Right. I digress.

We have another 150 miles to cover and I reckon existential topics are as good a choice as any when it comes to filling time when covering distance.

I generally don't ask a lot of questions. I prefer to divine answers without being inquisitive. This time, I ask the same question, however. What else is there to do, anyway? It's a long, long drive.

“So, are you happy? People usually ask existential questions when they’re trying to sort stuff out themselves first.”

“I’m happy when I want for nothing. You know, the usual Spiel.”

I feel my forehead wrinkling. To me, not wanting for anything is equal to not having much to live for. Not wanting for anything makes me anxious. It's got to be something I need to want, be it red shoes or whatever. I say, “I’d have a hard time with that, you know, the not-wanting-for-anything thing. I’d feel unable to move and, uhm….” And I got interrupted.
“…yes, I know, the movement thing. It’s just that a lack of movement, even for a short spell, is what happy would mean to me.”

And there’s that.

Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer” came on my ‘interested/happy’ playlist.

“I want to make you move
Because you’re standing still.”

I chuckle.

"Ha. Do I know or do I know my music, dude? And I don't really like much else from Finger Eleven. Good song."

I continue to smile, look outside the window and try to journal the experience by way of the song and playlist: Finger Eleven, short trip, sunny, 62F, red Toms shoes, vineyards. Done.

Happiness is hard to discuss because it's so often subject-dependent. Frequently, I find, those who need to know the degree of your happiness are those who indirectly want to know how much they're perhaps responsible for said thing. The question isn't just a generic one, i.e., "are you, generally speaking, in a happy state?" It's usually of a tendetious nature. Are you happy here? Happy doing this and that? Happy with me?

Are you happy?
I'm interested. Nonchalance is hard to stomach. The times I feel nonchalant are the times I feel I try extra hard to change things up. Nonchalance breeds a lack of fecundity and creativity. And I could never pull the latter off very well. To paraphrase Patrick O'Henry, give me interestedness or give me, well, you know, whatever. Who cares. It's all about the former, anyway.

And, I suppose, eating ice cream while driving might just be as close to 'happy' as one should get. Tolerable quotidianity is no easy feat, I've found. Take it, while you can, ice cream and all.

Do You Like the Piece?

2011-04-24T07:06:00.002-04:00

It's been a week since I was surrounded by a whole lot of art. I wrote a bit about it on the flight back but then stopped thinking about it all together once I landed as my daily life took the driver's seat. However, I was reminded of the experience last night while quickly discussing art reception with a sort-of-new friend.

The sentence that stood out from the exchange was: "The artist should be able to take it. Criticism, that is."
Artists, de natura, are social commentators and social commentary is bound to attract multiple forms and kinds of criticism/reaction, otherwise it’s not effective. In another life and at a different time, I’d be inclined to fully agree with this. About a week ago, however, I didn’t. Artists perform other functions in life as well, one of them being entertainment that is not necessarily didactic in nature. I realize that the following statement might be a tad scandalous but art has as much value when it doesn't inspire a desire to change and 'teach' as when it does.

It can get tiresome to be taught all the time. Life lessons and art lessons and lesson this and lesson that. Oy weh! That’s too much. Sometimes people just want to be entertained and therein lies the value of the arts. I mean, escapism is not an easy feat. Feeding people's escapist tendencies is, more often than not, a huge service. Huge. Sometimes, after all, all the audience member wants is the chance to escape for a short spell and if the artist can provide an arena for escapism then, voila, mission accomplished.

"So, what do you make of it?" asks the tall, dark-haired painter.
"It's making me sleepy," I say.
I don't think he likes my words. To an insomniac, however, things that have a soporific effect are usually a very good thing. To the artist, apparently, not so much.

“Yes, it’s perhaps hard to, uhm, ‘understand it,’” he says at which point I really want to make some jokey comment about condescension but I’m too tired, jet-lagged, and generally uninterested in the exchange.

I look around for my party. I want to go to dinner and my eyes are wicked tired. Plus, my glasses were forgotten on the bed and my eyes are itching. “Friggin’ dessert”, I think to myself. Can't see worth a lick. Grh!

“So, you don’t like it then, I take it?” Asks the artist one more time.
In a fashion that seemed to ooze a bit of antagonism, I say: “Honestly, I tend to talk about life when seeing a piece of art that speaks to me and I tend to talk about art when doing life. I suppose I’ll end up talking about this piece a few days from now as I discuss bike routes in my neck of the woods, you know?"
“I don’t follow,” says he.

What I meant was I like to discuss the arts without appointments. But this piece is not making me think of anything in particular or make any sort of connections to things. I feel no need to speak as I look at it and that, to me, speaks well of the piece itself. If one leads a highly verbal life generally, feeling no compulsion to speak is a welcome change. The artist doesn't seem to like silence, however. The expectation seems to be that, when at a venue, one needs to 'discuss the work.' 'Why is silence always getting a bad rap?' I think to myself. Hmm.

I could have talked about my desire to be silent but I have no desire/drive to do so. Plus, it’s so hot there. My body’s having a hard time adjusting. You see, it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest and I’m still a bit weirded out by the fact that I’m wearing a tank top, flip-flops, and shorts in the dessert while just a few hours prior I had boots and a raincoat on.

I don’t really do postmodern art all that much. Not even modern. Picasso, for instance, tends to make me nervous. By nature, I tend to be into Caravaggio. Even El Greco is okay. Just because I seem to get something, doesn't mean that I'm into it. I mean I get Judd Apatow.
De gustibus non est disputandum, after all. You can't choose what you like after all. Alas, it chooses you first.

“But you do Modern Theory though, right?” asks the artist in what I’m interpreting was a mild form of shock.
“I do,” I say, “but I’m not married to it. The whole thing is quite non-committal, you know? I’m kind of having fun with it now even though we were quite serious at some point a while back.”

I then tell him in an effort to finish the exchange kindly, "I like that I want to be silent as I look at it. In this regard alone, your work delivers. C'est tout."

I could have provided more context but I didn’t. I tend to be polite, very polite, after I've eaten. Pre-dinner, however, every zinger my brain has access to will want to come out and play. I was looking forward to some Southwestern cuisine as I was only in town for a day. And that somehow trumped all else. My brain’s simple that way. I’m in too truthful a mood when I’m hungry. And if I haven’t masticated anything for hours, the answer I’ll provide to any question will be the rawest, least processed, hence, truest.

Arthur: A Review and Comment on Class

2011-04-13T11:24:00.004-04:00

After making my friend watch El Orfanato with me the other night, I thought it fitting to suggest that we watch something lighter the next night. Incidentally, I wanted to review El Orfanato but I'm still a bit too spooked to even write a paragraph on it. All I can say at this point is that it is brilliantly written and equally brilliantly played and realized. Man, was it chilling! Whew!

So, I wanted to see the new cinematic version of Arthur because I've always found the premise of the film to be of interest. Arthur comes from a privileged background. He has all the material things he can ever want but he does not have any familial warmth and/or social attachments of actual value.

I expected more from Peter Baynham and Steve Gordon, the writers of Arthur. Alas, I got much less than I thought I would. For the most part, watching Arthur was, simply put, uncomfortable. We had to stay till the end, however, because well, dinner was not till two hours later and the movie theater was as a good a place to wait as any, I suppose. Plus, we needed something to discuss over dinner and a bad movie can come in handy sometimes. Food somehow tastes better when commenting on artistic inferiority.

Arthur's only redeeming quality was Russell Brand which, since he is Arthur, should have helped ease the pain a bit. Alas, it didn't. No performer is good enough to sustain an inferior work. There's no cure for a less-than-mediocre script, whether Russell Brand does a hunky-dory job or not.

And won't a director out there please cast Greta Gerwig right? Few actors have her kind of range and it's, unfortunately, not being shown well and/or sufficiently. As Naomi, Gerwig was less likable than even Liza Minelli in the original Arthur. That's how badly cast I thought she was. I mean, doesn't Woody Allen have any upcoming projects he could cast her in? But I digress.

What's fundamentally wrong with this film is its cheap portrayal of the notion of class privilege. Arthur stands to inherit a billion dollar fortune. He is told he'll face a life without it if he doesn't comply with the family's wishes and marry someone else with access to wealth (who, incidentally, represents the nouveau riche).

Arthur is not keen on leading a life without access to excess. After all, it's all he knows even though he seems to abhor much of it. The film could have dug in deeper and explored the concept of upward mobility and what potentially informs it. It could have shown better and more clearly the social ramifications of privilege and how it informs self-marginalization and a lack of need to want to grow and stretch. Unfortunately, all the film does is show what cash flow looks like by way of showcasing all sorts of toys and uber-expensive distractions.

What this film does best is reduce the so-called rich and privileged to a kind of cliché that would make even Dickens blush. People with access to wealth are just overall unlikable and bitter much like Great Expectations' Miss Havisham. Common folk, or 'normal people', as the film attempts to portray by way of Naomi and her posse, are endowed with clear sight. They see things for how/what they are and they do life with reserved pride and inspired by moderation, and, most importantly dignity. It is precisely this kind of reduction that I find revolting. Not having things is equated with virtue. Having things stands for vice in all of its forms and shapes. Come again?!

An adult discussion of class is needed in society. Class differences do exist. Quite clearly they do. So, why aren't they discussed more and in greater detail in an effort to understand what informs the very fabric of our society? Arthur could have done some of it. Instead, it falls flat. It resorts to a cheap parody of class and all we're given are carbohydrates that make us tired and dizzy afterwards. Arthur's shenanigans, even though Brand is almost adorable in them, are not enough to even mildly entertain one. After all of that sugar intake, I was in the market for some protein. And, thankfully, dinner provided a much better finish for the day.

The film could have shown the complexities of what it means to have access to wealth when living in the most culturally relevant metropolis of the world, i.e., New York City. People of Arthur's ilk are depicted as impossible to understand because apparently by virtue of their monetary privilege and wealth they are totally denuded of every ounce of humanity i.e., relatablity.

And, of course, Naomi, who represents the opposite of money and social status is somehow the best appreciator of things quintessentially New York. She truly gets Central Park. She gets art. She feels things that privileged, rich morons never could because, naturally, privilege gives one nothing more than the equivalent to a massive lobotomy.

The original trailer from the 1981 Dudley Moore version is here:

Going to the Theater and a Visitation a-la-Brecht

2011-04-11T05:47:00.003-04:00

This weekend I went to the theater.

I was asked to see George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer. I'm usually not much of a Shaw fan and it makes sense why. In life, there's Brecht people and Shaw people.

It was the first time in a while that I was going to the theater as I'm finicky about play productions. Again, I'm into Brecht, so who can blame me? I wrote a satire-informed thing on him a while back, well ok, 'thing' is maybe not the word for it. Let's call it what it is, a study that took a year to write.

Something happens to art appreciation when much concentrated time is spent on one single topic. It becomes nigh impossible to be a passive appreciator of it, the art at hand. Plays are good and dandy. Brecht plays, on the other hand, are a homework assignment. They demand a kind of presence that needs to be not only informed but also reactive. Verfremdungseffekt. Alienation effect. Man, the former used to swim in my mouth so often.

So, after spending a boatload of time with Brecht's 'Verfremdungseffekt' it stands to reason that my subsequent theater experiences would be a bit different. Just a tad.

During intermission I'm asked how I like it.

Confession. I have a hard time with direct questions with the verb 'like' in them. I feel discomfort, resentment even, when I'm asked them as it feels like I have to commit to the interlocutor for a good number of minutes after I'm asked the question. And I'm finicky about time when I'm at an art venue.

I don't know, at times, how to answer these open-ended questions especially when I know I have a very limited amount of time and I have much to say. Instead, I get tongue-tied, purse my lips, feel my eyes moving about quickly as if they're trying to locate words, and say a generic, yes-punctuated: "Yes, interesting. Yes'

Then I'm asked what I make of the director's interpretation of Shaw's play. I don't know what to say specifically at this point. Where's economy of speech when you friggin' need it?! There's much I could say but I feel like saying nothing. I'd rather talk about the audience's sartorial choices instead. To be polite and in an effort to buy some time till the second part resumes, I do what makes me feel comfortable and in my element. I talk about music.
"What about that new Death Cab for Cutie album, Codes and Keys? It's coming at such a good time as I think I've been listening to The Limousines and The Strokes a bit much lately. I've been craving Ben Gibbard's voice."
And what do you know, the lights grow dim and intermission is over. Phew.

As the play resumes, and George Bernard Shaw's commentary on sociality, assumed social contractual obligations, and gender penetrantes my mind and I find myself getting into some kind of head space that's making me feel detached from everyone and everything. Alienated is perhaps a more suitable word. 'Now, I'm getting into this', I think to myself. Yes. My good pal Brecht is coming to the rescue. You can never take Brecht out of one, I suppose.

While I think that I could perhaps go to the theater like everyone else and occupy myself with such things as what pumps to wear with my dress and whether a clutch is better than a purse, I know that in actuality I'm more bound to be one of those individuals who after the experience will want to pay a visit to Brecht and bust open a Mother Courage or a Caucasian Chalk Circle later at home while HBO's Mildred Pierce plays in the background and rain is serving as the soundtrack de nuit.

Jon Stewart's Farewell to Glenn Beck and Colbert's Friday

2011-04-09T23:59:00.004-04:00

1) Glenn Beck is leaving Fox News? Oh, the inhumanity!
Who is he blaming this time, Soros and Santa Clause?
Here's Jon Stewart's awesome bit on it. Watch it here.

Tip of the hat to my good pal, Vipul for making me aware of this:

Assorted Links

2011-03-28T09:48:00.001-04:00

One of my guilty pleasures on the internet is perusing the Sartorialist site. I've always been keen on the semiotics of fashion and few contemporary sites do justice to it the way this one does. I absolutely love this photograph as it shows a kind of 'body harmony' that is simply too poetic not to be lavished with attention.

The Strokes' new album Angles is a must-have. For those of you who crave new music these days, run to iTunes and get this puppy. Man, I had missed them. Some favorite tracks: "Taken for a Fool," "Two Kinds of Happiness," and "Gratisfaction." Read Spin's sort-of-ok-review here.

I quite enjoyed this. This is how the year 2000 looked in the imagination of Germans in the year 1900.

The Well-Being and Happiness Index in the US. A bit says: "In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert notes that there are three great decisions in life that affect your happiness: “Where to live, what to do, and with whom to do it.” The second two have been examined in great depth; the third, up until now, not so much."
More here.

What Photos Teach

2011-03-25T07:08:00.000-04:00

My relationship with photos is now the most clinical it's ever been. I rarely say 'regular' stuff now like, "where was this taken?," "Who's this in it?," "Where were you when this was taken?" I've lost interest in asking information-finding questions of this nature. And it's fine. I reckon we all graduate to that next level, at some point. I learn a lot of the business of photography on a daily basis. I've come to appreciate how difficult a medium it is and how hard its practitioners have to work for their work to reach as a final point as it needs to before showing.

I tend to say more and more things like, "the chiaro/scurro conflict is strong in this one" or "I'm not sure about the sepia tones in this one," and so forth.

Last night I apparently was in a mood. In my usual way I contradicted the statement by resorting to an oldie but goodie, "No, I'm not! What?!"
"You look like you're in a mood. Like here. He-he-he."

And then I smiled. Because I was shown a photograph of mine that was taken when I was three. I don't know which box it was taken out of but I reckon it was a box.

Apparently, I was mad at something that day. I was playing outside but my parents summoned me for family photos which, of course, I resented. Who wants to experience an interrupted game? Not me, that's for sure. When my play time is messed with, I throw fits. I threw a fit. For family photos, one does one thing as a rule of thumb: One smiles.
Yes, ok, consider this picture.
The quality is not good as it was not scanned right but I wanted to highlight the facial features. One can't hide emotion from the camera.
"Smile, sweetie, smile for the camera," Say the parents.
Apparently, I said, "No! Don't feel like it."
"Smile just for a second."
"No."
"Smile and you'll get gelato."
"No!!"
Ok, insert something akin to, "just take the friggin' picture." And it was taken. The face I picked for the picture corresponded with the emotion I was feeling: I was ticked off that I was taken away from the playground.

And I wasn't in a mood anymore. All because of being shown a picture of me when I was three, being in a mood over being removed from the playground against my will. Funny how a photograph can contain so much.

On Memory and “Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”

2011-03-25T06:24:00.001-04:00

If you're into taking pictures as a way of documenting your life, you're not alone. Others do just that. If you're lucky to have people in your life who are photo-philes and who particularly like to take images of you, be thankful to them. They're helping document your own history.

Peculiarity is a basic to remembrance. This is the premise of Joshua Foer's new book Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything which, by the way, is worthy of all the praise it's getting from the literati.

As the author points out: "Once upon a time people invested in their memories, they cultivated them. They studiously furnished their minds. They remembered. Today, of course, we've got books, and computers and smart phones to hold our memories for us. We've outsourced our memories to external devices. The result is that we no longer trust our memories."

I need time to remember stuff, the stuff that happens daily. I suppose I've said the following more than a few times as it's quoted back to me in a way that mirrors my usual syntax.
"How was your day?"
"Haven't had time to stare at the ceiling to remember it yet."

I tend to do that, stare at the ceiling. I got to thinking this morning when the habit started and it was back in childhood when I'd wake up at the crack of dawn and the only thing I could do was stare at my ceiling and wait till it was semi-okay for me to leave the room and go bug someone like a sibling who loved to sleep in.

As an adult, I find ceiling-staring time most helpful when it comes to filing my to-do lists, interpret the experiences I'm having in the week, make sense of what I'm reading, and so forth. Ceiling-staring time is also quiet time. I like the quiet of early mornings as it primarily helps me file my current memories and make sense of existence.

Foer's book channels that which most people are, de naturae, programmed to get: sexuality. One of the main points of the book is quite simple: that which helps improve one's mnemonic skills is our basic sensual drive. Few things are better to use when it comes to maximizing one's memory than resorting to erotic memories.

I get this. I often write about the deep effect music has on me and how I use it to journal my life experience. Some use pictures, others music, a few more words. The point is, regardless of which medium one employs, creativity serves primarily a memory-recording function. And if you'd like to read more on the topic while being thoroughly entertained as well as revisit your own sensual history, do give this book a chance. Man, is it ever well written!

Sense of Belonging and Spot of Sun

2011-03-24T00:51:00.001-04:00

I took time off today. Fully off. I usually work on something else when I'm off. Today, however, I promised a day in the park and a day in the park was had. On bikes. It was sunny, warm, and pretty in the city. And especially so in the park.

I took my Havaianas off, yes, flip-flops, folks - gotta love Spring season! - lied down on the grass, put my shades on, closed my eyes, turned phones and speech off, fully off, and let the sun caress my skin. Apparently, I fell asleep in a matter of minutes and even snored. And I am not a napping kind. A snoring kind, yes, but I'm not bothered by that, because, naturally, I'm too asleep to notice. However, I despise sleep during the day. Always have. Today however, sleep was most welcome. I suppose I can blame my euphoria on the effect of the Spring sun. In the evening I asked if I looked 'tan' because, of course, a twelve-minute nap under the March sun would have the power to tan me. The answer was "Nah, you look the same as last night. Rested, though." "Ok", I say. "I'll take 'rested' any day."

As I was enjoying the sun outside with my eyes closed jut before I fell asleep I got to thinking about what it means to feel a sense of belonging. The night before over miso soup and sushi, I had a long conversation with a new friend of mine about that very topic. He asked me how I defined a 'sense of belonging.' I said, I defined it contextually. And, naturally, it varied. I can feel a sense of belonging when standing next to a stranger in line at Starbucks over in Memphis the way I frequently feel it when with the person I get best and gets me the best. I feel it at 5am when I stare at my bedroom ceiling for my routine 'thinking time' or when I'm riding my bike to the park chewing my favorite gum listening to what in certain company I refer to as 'crap light pop'.

After my sun therapy session today, I call him up and say, "you know that sense of belonging thing you asked me about last night? I got some more on Beach Ave. today. Come and meet up. There might be some left for you too." When you feel something good you should share it with those who're searching for it as well, no?

When most bring up questions of happiness definitions, I usually say, that I don't know much about that but I know a whole lot about defining moments of levity and contentedness. I could comment on that, sure.

Happiness is impossible to define. What contributes to this impossibility is the basic fact that it is highly subjective. The idea of happiness that person A has, could be my very idea of the third circle of inferno. Defining moments of bearable weight (i.e. levity) - I do find levity to be a bit of a schlep at times, actually, but that's another thought - is much easier. Moments can be confined to a certain space in time and they're doable linguistically. I might look at the same place on Beach Ave next time I'm out there and I might shower it with the kind of indifference I reserve for other things. Today, however, that is a place where I feel I belong.

And after the pleasantness of a small amount of time, I had to revert back to my usual patterns and suggest that we pay our respects to our Mecca, aka the Howard Schultz' church of Green Tea Lattes and Caramel Macchiatos.

Concert, Trip, and Promises

2011-03-18T05:59:00.001-04:00

My legs hurt.
It’s what happens when you’re in a concert venue and you’re trying to see the performers on stage. When the performers look like Kings of Leon’s Caleb, there’s good reason to stand on your tippy toes.
I'm a sucker for aesthetics, what can I say.
I’m only 5.2 and while certain things come with ease to people my height, I do suffer from 'height-envy'. I have it. That’s what I like about wearing heels. Or being with someone tall. Opposites, especially when it comes height, work well together. Especially when in concert venues. Height, I find, ads years to a relationship. When in doubt, go to a concert where you need some shielding from a rowdy crowd. Concerts make me feel safe the way a child feels safe when held by a parent. It's an odd mix of pleasure, safety, and comfort that, come to think of it, I don't feel in other settings. I have clarity of thought when in concerts. The majority of my most important decisions have been made while in concerts. The 'pleasure, safety, and comfort' mix added to a good dose of music is the right recipe for good decision-making.

I’m tired. Haven’t slept much. Had a stressful morning before getting on a plane to see the show and to make matters worse I have something awful stuck in my head.
Disney’s “It’s a Small World After All.” What?!
How does that work, brain, really!
I mean, I’m all pumped up to hear a live rendering of "The End" and can’t wait to feel the bass in the track and all my brain can do for me is gift me with a Disney crap song?! Eh?!

The first and last time I heard this disease of a song was in 1995 which was the year of my first [and last] visit to Disneyland. I remember feeling distinct loathing for the song. I mean, it makes sense. I was still doing Nirvana in ’95.

On the flight back home I wonder why, of all the thousands of tracks I could be thinking about, I'm stuck thinking of a track I would never be caught listing to by my own volition. Then I'm told, 'Well, what about your "La Donna e Mobile?"' I mean, granted, it's Verdi but a few years ago I was so ticked off at it I tried to starve myself of Verdi for a while just so that it would leave my system.

However, Disney track or not, live shows make me happy. Not just smile-because-I-can't-control-my-facial-muscles happy. 'Proper' happy. 'Craving nothing' happy. The kind of happy that restores a sense of hope that makes me want to promise all sorts of things to my person. And then on the flight back home, I'll be metaphorically kicking myself in the back as I watch an episode of Curb and think of how I'll manage to keep to my word.
Hm.
Then, all of a sudden, I'm told: "Don't worry, you won't have to deliver on A, B, or C. I know it was the music talking." Phew! I'm a chronic promise keeper so being relieved of a promise feels as good as ..., yeah, pretty darn good.

I reference music a lot and I do so because it informs every facet of life. In a way, I sort of, kind of resent its hold on me. I resent holds of all kinds and music is no exception even though it gives me much pleasure. Pleasure, is a tricky rascal, however. It keeps you hooked, like a good promise often does, and it often underdeliveres as with time you keep wanting more and more of it. Much like music. Only music rarely underdelivers. Well, unless it's Disney's "It's a Small World After All." And then you're, you know, ....

Losing at Chess on a Sunday Does Not Qualify as Losing

2011-03-14T06:32:00.001-04:00

I’ve been losing at chess recently. I’ve been playing Sunday nights. I try not to add anything to my Sundays which, for the most part, reflect a kind of quiet dolce far niente. I try to keep their status quo with the kind of hawkish diligence I reserve for concert ticket-booking. That's pretty hawkish.

However, I’ve added chess to Sunday nights.

The funny part about this is my performance. It’s currently leaving much to be desired.
I keep losing.
Every single time. Well, almost. I tied once. As a general rule, I tend to think that tying is as good as losing therefore I should be taking these losses rather hard.
Yeah, well, I’m not.

When I lose I usually utter something akin to ‘crap!’, move my lips about as if they’re the ones responsible for me losing, and I lose interest in whatever else follows that’s already in my schedule. Well, till something else of interest comes my way and distracts me. It always ends up being about distractions after all.

In all honesty, I’m kind of, sort of enjoying losing. Almost as much as I enjoy the rest of my Sunday. I’m trying to understand why that is. I try to examine unusual reactions as they usually say something of substance. The one thing that comes to mind seems to relate to my ‘Sunday effect’. You see, I doubt I’d lose this badly if I played on a Monday. My opponent would stand no chance on a Monday, I’m thinking. It’s tough to beat me on a Monday.

On a Sunday, however, I espouse a kind of pace that’s almost foreign to my hyperactive nature. I become a kind of ‘zen’ I tend to mock when I see it in others. I don’t care about my Saturday and Monday version. I care about nothing but the present moment. On a Sunday, it’s all about being loyal to the dolce far niente. And I don’t care that I’m losing at a game I used to play competitively. Or that I’m losing to someone new who’s experiencing a version of me that’s more zen-looking than Deepak Chopra. It’s so not about what I play, who[m] I play, and what my stats are. Not on a Sunday, it’s not.

Complaint Filing Cabinet

2011-03-14T06:21:00.000-04:00

After a non sequitur-punctuated chat I had with someone the other day, I got to thinking about my grad school days and, more specifically, a friend with whom I once did a road trip from the Midwest to the West. I like road trips. I do a bunch of them. America is great for road trips. I'll reiterate a cliché here and concur with the following: the best way to get to know someone is to travel with them. Yes, Mark Twain, you're right.

I tend to think about this particular grad school friend when Pedro Almodovar films are playing and, especially, when I'm told by others that I pay no attention to conversation when music is playing. I hear the latter with the same frequency, it seems, I listen to music. And it's definitely true.

Quite often, this particular friend tells me that I'm not as present as I could be and that there's always something else of more consequence that attracts my attention and gets in the way. Like music. Or other friends. Or the fact that it never seems to be enough and I always need to have a third option present. And I always say something akin to, 'well, aren't options good?' In an effort to explain further I add, 'it's a thing all who know me can easily identify and learn to accept with time. It's my chronic condition. You know, like asthma.'

More brands/versions of the same thing help you appreciate and get to the core of the thing better. I wish it were socially acceptable to give someone a resume-type document that highlights your propensities. Then, they'll know right away what you're mostly about and I won't have to write the same paragraph in here every time music and people are mentioned together in the same sentence.

-I pay attention most of the time unless music is playing. Then, you need to be okay taking a back seat. It's not personal. It's music.
-I like to say someone/something/somewhere a lot regardless of whether you know me for an hour or a decade. Let it go. It won't change. It's how I roll.

The same grad school friend, who's very introspective and intensely quiet, wrote to me a beautiful text, a few sentences in which say:

"Now that I've sent you two venting emails, I wonder what you're going to think. I don’t expect anything. I don't expect you to explain anything. You cannot relate to my loneliness because you are gifted with enormous charisma and an outgoing nature. But you can empathize with my feelings of isolation. It's just nice to be able to vent to someone who's not going to try to fix it for me."

This is how my brain processes things. Person A has a problem/issue. They come to me and tell me about it. My first reaction is to file it: shareable info as opposed to vault-able. Then, I try to understand the issue and provide ideas how to potentially fix it. It takes me back to a childhood memory again.
"Bri, you didn't pick me first at dodgeball. It hurt my feelings that you didn't. I mean, why wouldn't you? I'm your best friend."
I didn't pick him first because, while he was my best friend, he was not the best dodgeball-er. And I like winning.

However, the next time little Bri plays dodgeball, she makes a mental note and she picks her friend first. Why? Because he has a personal problem with not being picked first so it stands to reason that he be picked first the next time. It's called problem solving. Plus, I spent most of my days with him (propinquity effect) and I've never been one to want to be around grouchiness. I couldn't possibly watch cartoons with a grouch, could I?

I illustrate again. From adulthood:
"I am feeling so frustrated about my art work and how no gallery has called. And it's taken years to build the portfolio and still nothing. I keep taking all these photographs and I keep experimenting with all these media and still. Arrrggghhh! Why does this keep happening to me, why can't I catch a break, why....."
Ok, I hear language like this and I unequivocally think and then say something akin to:
"It's ok. Rejection happens. Use it to your advantage. Look harder. Let's see here. How about trying places a, b, and, b. I'll take time off, we can work on a strategy together. Let's line something up for this or that day, ok? If you do this and I do that, I'm sure we'll get more results. How does that sound?"
"But I feel like this, this, and that."

I have a hard time with the rest of a conversation like this. Because I don't get it. I get the need to verbalize frustration but it stands to reason that solutions are bound to follow, right? Why vent without a solution in mind?

I had a similar conversation with a few friends of mine this week independently of one another. One of them was sick when we were road tripping together North to South and I remember getting irked at them for not going along without complaining. I mean, what could I do? I went to the store and bought some Advil and OJ. They got some rest. It's not cancer. It's just a casual little cold.

But all the friend wanted to do was vent and feel heard. I don't get that but I get that it happens and I struggle with it. Because I can't relate to it. I feel this and that. It irritates me because it doesn't beg for solutions and answers.

Complaining should be done with purpose otherwise it's a waste of time.
A favorite phrase says: "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." That's the beauty of struggles and crises. They teach you how to cope with reality and how to find practical solutions for problems. We all have them. Problems. Some of us solve them faster and with less language than others, however.

Having a hard time at times in life can be such a beautifully instructing opportunity. Doing life the same way day in, day out, doesn't give one much of a chance to stretch, does it? You've got to mix it up. Isn't this all a struggle to dodge boredom, after all?

Ice, Ice, Baby!

2011-03-05T13:13:00.002-05:00

I took this picture last night. I don't know how to explain what it's like to experience such different weather patterns in a mere 40-mile range. I call my house and say, "Yeah, so it's snowing heavily here. I'll be a while." The answer I get back is, "Snow?!" As if they're saying, "Yeah, right!" I understand though. It's only raining in the city and it's about 8 degrees warmer. As a matter of fact, when I do make it home, I agree to walk to the restaurant and all I'm wearing is a light jacket. I can't believe I experience such differences in a matter of one hour.

I'm going 20 miles per hour when, lo and behold, I see a white car sitting horizontally on the freeway blocking both incoming and outgoing traffic. I hit my breaks ever so gently and I still find myself swerving. Ice, ice, baby!
The ice is merciless.

I come really close to making contact with the horizontal car but, thankfully, I don't. I stop in the nick of time.
Sigh....

And then I think I need to take a picture.
People come out of cars and push the horizontal car out of the way. I drive another few miles and then, boom, the snow vanishes.

Dorothy, we're SO not in Kansas anymore!

How to Blog Better

2011-03-05T11:52:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, made a video about how to blog better.
I like.

Age Matters: Why Being the Youngest Lingers

2011-03-03T10:08:00.001-05:00

Los Angeles, May 2010

My friend Lira (featured above, off of Santa Monica pier) mentions Gen X references in various conversations. Every time she does I think to myself, 'what the heck does she mean? Gen, what, the what?' My friend's cool. Timeless cool. There is a difference between cool and timeless cool. A lot of things I encounter are just cool. How a person smells to me currently is cool. Black nail polish against a kashmir sweater is cool now. A certain scent from a certain body wash is particularly cool now but I wonder for how long, and Jared Leto is cool. No doubt about that. And then there's Dante cool, Larry David cool, classic aesthetics cool, true friends cool, uhm, Mac cool, you know, proper cool.

I met Lira my first day in school. There we were. Both 14 and in a different environment. She was standing against a white wall, wearing pink shoes and tapping against the white wall, obsessively touching her hair and chewing her gum in an almost choreographed fashion. She became a favorite instantly. I mean, duh! On top of that, she liked Guns 'n Roses and Metallica and we were the only ones that gave a good damn about rock 'n roll and saw it for the thing of substance that it is: proper cool.

To me, Lira in connection to me exists outside of time. We're the same age, give or take a few months, we like a lot of the same stuff and time is always inconsequential when we relate. So, when she brings up time references I'm at a loss. What do you mean, there's younger people than us out there. So, what? We're just as with-it as they are. I mean, really, we've seen more, traveled more, been at more shows, and had more life than them. I mean, not to be too competitive, but come on! Yes, they're younger than us but only but a small number of years. We've only just embarked on a new decade, really. Count the years in one hand, that's hardly being removed from a whole generation, isn't it?

Being a word person, I tend to have some kind of reaction to most phrases I'm aware of. I know that I get irked when people resort to folk etymology and back formation and say things like, kitty-corner as opposed to cater-corner (I mean, try saying the latter, you'll get a good eye-rolling!) or "he must have saw, she must have went." You'll be happy you're not me. You're not I, to be accurate. You and I are both nominative, but who cares? (me, [I] for starters, but let's move on.)

I hear some say, "in our generation, people in my generation, we...." Wait, I think to myself, are they precluding me?! How dare you preclude me! "In your generation, you don't care about this and that, or your generation does things this way and that way?" I'm, what, 4 years older than you?
Or, sorry, yes, I'm antediluvian! I'm six years older than you. I couldn't possibly understand the existential dilemmas of Snookie and The Situation.
Mannaggia la miseria!

A few months ago, when we were about to see Bill Maher's Real Time live at the CBS sutdios on Fairfax Ave in Los Angeles and I was frantically trying to find a parking place so that we would not be late to get to the studio I distinctly remember getting mad at time. For moving so quickly. Or maybe I was mad at L.A.'s impossible traffic. Or both. Why does time have to move so fast?!

And then we're in the studio, siting in the second row. Dude, there's Salman Rushdie right there. And Sarah Silverman. There's Maher, a few steps away from us. Wait, how can it be over just now?! Didn't we just get here? Has it been an hour already?

I feel the way I feel after the first date with my person of choice. I'm acutely aware of time and I don't want it to move the way it tends to move in Bri-landia. I take in every single detail, the fabric of the shirt, the way the hair looks, the scent, the way the hands move when a photograph is being explained, and so forth. I want it to slow down so that I can remember it, a snapshot at a time. But then again I don't want to give the impression that I want to linger as I tend to take pride in the fact that I can always leave. Most expeditiously.

I didn't want the show to end. I wanted us to stay on longer. But we couldn't. We had to go, grab some Italian food, reminisce about what it meant to be in our 20's and I couldn't help but feel weird. I mean, dude, our 20's just happened. Good heavens, some of my clichéd indie outfits were purchased when I was in my 20's. I was just in my 20's. Being in the early 30's isn't so bad. I mean, think, we can travel more. We can say, "Yeah, let's meet up me in L.A., we'll go see Maher and then hang for a day. Or four."

I've given this some thought over the past few months. Thing is, I seem to have always had a rather particular relationship with time. I'm acutely aware of it on a small scale. Apparently, one of my high frequency phrases at home says, "I know what __AM/PM feels like." I do. I know what every minute of the day feels like. I have a clear relationship with time on this basic level. However, I do get rather confused, actually, I deeply resent, phrases like, 'it's a young person's thing, or old person's thing, or generation this and that thing.' What about, it's a human thing? Leave time out of it, people.
I think I know why I'm a bit testy about time.
I'm the youngest of three. My siblings are closer in age. I'm years behind. My whole life I was the late addition. I took time to come. And when I did come, my state kept being one of constant hurrying. And then my language contains phrases like, 'I was in haste when,' 'I seem to have fallen out of time,' 'Time's doing a number on me,' and on and on.

Being the youngest meant having the kinds of freedoms and access that the older siblings didn't get to have. I always did my thing and everything I wanted. When I wanted. Being the youngest also came wrapped up in a rather unique fabric of 'allowability' and accountability.

I don't know if it's my genetic makeup that primarily feeds my accountability. Some think it is. Maybe it is, maybe it is isn't. My allowability, however, i.e., allowing myself to jump, take any freedom I want to take, and experience things my own way and on my own terms (often without terms at all, I am told) is what renders my existence interesting to me. This, this 'allowability' thing, is what I find is utterly age-free. And it is utterly non-negotiable.

So, I wonder why I get so annoyed by phrases like, 'it's a young/old people thing. Our generation does this, you see?
Being the youngest of three and always being referred to as 'the young one' does play a role here. I've often factored age in my self-identity so I don't see why it should matter to me now.

I am proud of a few things I've accomplished at a younger age.
I was able to learn to function well when I was sent away to school at the age of 14. I did well in the new environment. I mastered it intellectually and socially. Then I was sent away to college. In an entirely different continent, which as luck would have it, also happened to be the one geography that ever spoke to me on a fundamentally honest level. I could just be in it.
Then, the achievements came.
Here I was.
28. With a doctorate. Dr. Ribaj, this and Dr. Ribaj, that.
And Dr. Ribaj took her and hers to rock shows with the same gusto she took them to see Verdi's Aida. She skipped while walking the way she would when roaming on a rocky beach.
Age does not matter.
I don't know why it bothers me. I mean, what does one mean when one says, "it's a generation thing, you see?"
No, I don't see. What, you get things better because in six years you'll be my age and I'll be embarking on a new decade all together? I mean, what? I move fast, faster than many more often than often, I've lived in different continents, I take active steps in 'changing it up,' I go from the business world to the academic world and back to the business world with the same effortless I go from Kings of Leon to Beethoven. I know 23-year-olds who are older than a 60-year-old and 60-year-olds that are, to quote a fellow 34-year-old, "hella cool!"
So, no, it's not a generation thing, it's a human thing.

Maybe being the youngest comes with a sense of entitlement.
I want attention but I demand anonymity and yet I've never not drawn attention to myself. Ever. In every setting. Whether I'm lecturing on Greek aesthetics and why Alexander was keen on Hephaestion or discussing the merits of The Killers 2004 album Hot Fuss. There's always going to be someone who will react positively to the words. And I'll always hear at home, "well, that's what you get for being "interesting." Because, of course, being interesting, it turns out, is more of liability (or maybe responsibility?) than anything. And it seems to an age-free one at that. Well, at least I have that. I'll have that.

So, no, age means nothing. I can relate to a 25-year-old the way I can relate to my best friend, a 34-year-old because I know what it means to me when it's 8:04AM and 9:07PM. I know exactly what time feels like, whether it's dawn or dusk. I get it. It doesn't do much to me. Yes, I started college when Nirvana was dominating the airwaves and I graduated when all the THE bands made it big, you know, The Hives, The Strokes, The Bravery, etc.

In sum, all the 'gen' talk is making me rather tired. And it's now 6:45AM and I know what that means to me. It means shower and hair straightening and driving up north and hoping that I don't get a ticket for wearing my seat belt underneath my arm as opposed to over the shoulder. But I digress.

Portland: Riches of a City

2011-02-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

I'm about to board the plane to head to Portland.
I just had a realization this morning about a new show on IFC called Portlandia. A friend made me aware of it a few weeks ago and since then I've been counting the days to see/discuss it in person with another favorite person in one of my favorite cities, Portland, OR.

I'm about to approach my gate when the following thought hits me: "Wait, that's Carrie Brownstein! She's in Portlandia" Wonder why I didn't become aware of it when I first saw the clip. Hmm. Brownstein developed the show with Fred Armisen. Duh! I absolutely love Brownstein. She gets music! And she most certainly gets the West, the Pacific kind. How did I not make the connection earlier?! It's funny that I'm able to do so only as I'm on the way to the very city the show portrays.

I scratch my head trying to think of when it was that I read her inspired piece on the 'soundtrack of a city'. "I wish I could do a search on my blog right about now..." I think to myself as my hands are frantically searching for my wallet in my bag as I'm about to board. I can't believe I'm such a forgetful klutz, always looking for things as I schlep myself from point A to point B. Sigh....

Relief!
I find my wallet. I stand before my gate, go to my blog site on the iPhone, do a search on 'Carrie Brownstein', pull up a reaction I wrote to her reaction piece to music, put some Magnetic Fields on, and start re-reading a piece dated December 20, 2007. I was feeling similarly to now back then. My Februaries tend to resemble other Februaries, not Decembers. Not this time around, however. I wonder why.

I read some of the comments on that 2007 piece and a note by my friend and musician Liam, rings especially true. Liam, a fellow Portland lover who also lives in another Western city, gets things similarly. I was transported to a chat we had when sitting under some tree, sipping some hipster java in the Western city where he currently resides and I used to call my own as we discussed sociality, independence of spirit, life and, of course, music. We see some things fundamentally the same way because we see music's impact on life fundamentally the same way. Again, all roads lead to music.

...
I'm told I usually quote past experiences only when about to embark on new experiences. I reckon, I am told the truth. There's no real reason to revisit the past, as far as I'm concerned, unless it helps shed some light on the present.

Experiencing, as Henry James puts it, a 'sense of visitation' is inevitable when in the presence of strange familiarity. That's exactly what the city does to me. It makes me feel strangely at home even though I always saw it as a great place in which to knock off my boots and fall off the grid for a few hours and nothing more.

I'm about to consume a rather large amount of art in it this weekend. I'll be seeing the new exhibit at the Portland Art Museum (PAM) with my best friend then we'll head over to 12th Ave. and Glisan St. and have some fantastic crème brûlée.
Twice.
Once is never enough.
I'm not a foodie, but, by Jove, when crème brûlée is done right, it needs to linger in your mouth, slowly as your mind revisits any and every great memory worth revisiting, and your taste buds are about to reach the full purpose of their creation.
Yuuuuuum!
Twice!!

....
I'm having a hard time deciding what to watch during the flight.
Odd, because when on flights that last between 1-3 hours, I usually opt for the following bundle:
1) Entourage, usually episode 7 of season 5, "Gotta Look Up to Look Down."
2) Curb Your Enthusiasm's episode "The Therapists."
and
3) The last 15 minutes of Steve Martin's Shopgirl.

Then the pilot will inform us that we're about to land and my ear buds will take leave of the laptop and will latch themselves on to the iPhone as I go to my contacts, hit the phone icon, and utter: "oy, I'm here!"

In a matter of minutes we'll be heading to Powell's, order some java, exchange some proper 'hellos', talk about the exact same things we have been talking about in the not-so-distant past, comment on new hairstyles, eyeware, travels, why Lucky's makes the best-fitting boot cut pants, and consequently tackle something of actual substance like HBO programming, new writing, when we'll be brunching the next day, and whether we should have others join us as we see the new exhibit at the PAM called Riches of a City.

I'm not keen on having a crowd when looking at some art but then again, Warhol kind of, sort of begs for some crowd attention, right? It's not like Caravaggio who begs for solitary admiration, after all. Warhol's work is meant to be discussed by more than just two people. It's only apropos, after all, that an attention seeker be given just that, attention. And the more unusual the bunch, the better. But then again I'm not in a Warhol frame of mind these days. Last February I was. A whole lot. Then again this February is nothing like the last one. It's not flat here anymore. My new geography has curves. And the ocean.

I have yet to say 'no' to a Portland trip. I remember my first experience in the city rather vividly. It was eight years ago and I was on the PSU campus marveling at the dewy flowers on the immaculately kept side gardens. The air felt crisp and I couldn't sense any worries at all. I remember skipping while walking and the reason I provided for such an activity was quite simple, 'I skip because I'm digging it here, 'k?'

This is how I define space. If it makes me feel at ease so much so that I can skip with no worry in sight then the space is good. If there is no possibility of skipping, then the space won't get to have me. Simple as that. After that first trip, the place kept calling me and one thing's certain, I'm completely powerless to siren-type callings. I can't say 'no' to it. I can't even say 'no' to a dreadfully boring 6-hour drive through the Nevada dessert, let alone ignore the possibility of scoring some class A crème brûlée. They truly rarely make it that good elsewhere.

I kept going back to Portland every few months for years. It also happens to be the place where my best friend hails from and currently lives. Another reason to make this a place of high interest and high frequency. And yet, I'd never live in such a place. Some places are meant to be visited and taken in small bites like a perfectly made crème brûlée.

Separate Togetherness Takes Much Conditioning

2011-02-20T11:25:00.001-05:00

"Why do you have to go?"
"Because I'd like to be alone for a bit."
"Why? What will you do?"
"I'm just going to the beach. I'll sit on a bench. I'll look at the ocean for a while. I'll first grab some Starbucks on the way there. I'll drink it there. Then I'll be back."
"Why can't I come and be alone with you?"
"You want to, uhm, be alone with me as I sit on the bench, say nothing, with the sole intention to look at the ocean as I ascertain the milk temperature in my Macchiato?"
"I won't say anything. You won't even know I'm there."
"Uhm. I mean. Ok."

I tend to fail to understand why one is constantly offered sociality when one specifically wants its other sibling: solitude. "Well, why can't I come along and have solitude with you?" Because solitude comes from 'solo', i.e., alone, hence.... I've struggled with this. I struggle with this. Thing is, I can enjoy solitude with a few others, too. The number is quite emaciated, however. My best friend and I can read together and not talk for hours at a time. We have this 'separate togetherness' thing down to a science. Other friends of ours crack jokes regarding our use of public space. We could be at Starbucks reading a few chapters of a book or writing a half chapter of one, share a table, order the exact same drink, and not talk during the entire time as if we are perfect strangers. But then when the laptop is put away, it's like the rest of the world does not exist and it's socialization on steroids.

You can only have "separate togetherness" with the truly strong at heart and secure, however. It takes ontological security to feel safe in silence. Chatter can be comforting to many. Silence, on the other hand, takes guts. Another thing that silence needs to have in order to be is true intimacy. Actual intimacy, be it familial, social, romantic, et al., is an active ingredient of good silence.

Whenever I want to work something out in my mind, I'm, for some reason, transported back to a childhood memory involving a Mediterranean beach. I suppose that time and place is where the core of my personality took roots. Or something. I'd never really gotten why my mind always takes me to a beach from my past when I'm having my daily breaks of 'quiet reflection.' Till now, I mean.

Thing is, I've been on other beaches since. In different continents. With many different people. Some more appealing than others. Some more intelligent than others. What sets this particular beach apart, however, is the fact that my memory involves nobody else but me.
And I'm a social-ista.
People are always around me. I'm rarely solo unless I make a concentrated effort to be. I'm simply stating something here. Being solo is something I greatly love. And crave. Deeply. Always have. And yet, being solo has always been a state of being that's under constant threat of colonization. The funny thing is that I've never had a compulsion to colonize anyone. Ever. I've simply never had the need. I guess, as in much else, we are conditioned to privilege certain positions over others.

Now, the memory looks like this:
I'm wearing a white shirt and my favorite summer shorts. My mother dressed me well. Always. (And I always managed to put holes in my clothes in a matter of days by playing rough on the playground but this is somehow removed from how I remember this particular childhood snippet.)

My outfit looks pristine even though I'm getting on the rocks of this particular Mediterranean beach inspecting anything from odd-looking shells to random sticks.
The sun is scorching hot. It's around 3PM. Everyone is having their afternoon nap. Everyone but me as, of course, insomniacs are not just miraculously made in adulthood. It takes practice to be a true insomniac and if you want to debate me on this don't even freaking try. You'll lose. Trust.

Back to the memory.

I'm on a hot, summer beach. I am missing nobody and nothing. I think about the last chess game I had with my Dad and how he check-mated me just as I was thinking of moving my rook so that I could check mate him (odd, the particular details the mind can recall!) and I feel my smirk showing up on my face. I say something akin to 'crap!' I squint as I have no shades on, examine the shape of a funny-looking shell, and continue thinking about everything and nothing, feeling absolutely fine with my existence.

I'm relating to the rocks, the loud clashing of the big ocean waves, and the piercing cricket sounds. I'm not interested in playing with my new beach friends nor do I seek them out. Come to think of it, I never sought them out. They just happened. Sort of the way they just happen now when I'm minding my own business, thinking about the next chapter of the new book, rocking to some new indie band, wondering what the next chapter of existence will bring with it and how much or little it will resemble my immediate past and current life.

Then I start walking on the edges of the rocky beach thinking of how great it feels to be surrounded by the elements and how annoyed I'd be if my new beach friend, Landi, whom I liked ok, decided to show up all of a sudden and invite me to play soccer with him. 'That'd suck.' I think. But I'll still go and play because I know I can always re-visit the feeling of blissful solitude later. I play along as playing along always happens to me. I'm there. And it occurs. And when I'm in it, I want to win it.

Ha. It's no different from adulthood, I think this morning at 4:30AM when I wake up. The only thing I hear is a very slight non-vexing snore but it doesn't bother me. It sort of resembles a Kings of Leon song. It's still quiet, though. Silencio.

I decide to get to a solitary place so that my typing won't wake up the sleeping. My mind takes me to the rocky beach on the Mediterranean where I swam so hard that my parents would be on the verge of a nervous breakdown as I'd refuse to come out of the water for hours and hours at a time till my bottom lip would virtually go black. The beach where I met the cool new friends who were decent at dodge ball and to whom I promised I'd keep in touch but, of course, once back in the city, never did. The beach where I'd listen to Hit Parade tracks and feel so good about my "coolness factor," how in-the-know I was about so much, and how flipping much it rocked that my brother dug my music sense. The beach where so much looked so good and was so aesthetically pleasing and I took some pride in the fact that I could be there.

The beach where being alone made sense the most. Life felt not only doable but good. I meshed with the elements, the rocks on the beach, the funny-looking shells, the random sticks, the piercing crickets and all. The beach, where being in the company of my self offered some kind of relief that I seemed to show I had when on the playground generally winning at dodge ball, hugging my friends, and laughing it up with my kind.

So, the realization that came to me this morning at 4:30AM is rather clear to me now. I am still and unequivocally the same creature I was on that hot, dry Mediterranean beach. People. Life. Love. Interestingness. Challenges. Chess losses. Sociality. All of these things happen almost exactly the same way they happened when I was a child with a keen penchant for music who loved exploring things solo when everyone else was indulging in a little afternoon nap.

Sociality is doable, even enjoyable, only when I give in to my natural urge to explore things on my own and my own terms, uninfluenced by dodge ball rules, ice cream cone distractions, rooks and knights, and Landi, the boy on the beach with the new, shiny soccer ball who's always keen on grabbing me from the rock so that I can play soccer with him instead.
What a veritable Virgil!

My Encounter with the Terrifying Sublime

2011-02-18T09:56:00.001-05:00

Well, it was bound to happen to me, too. I had to cross paths with the terrifying sublime. And I did. Tonight, between 8:46PM and 1:03AM. The terrifying sublime came in the form of an ice storm on the highway.

I don’t usually make it a habit to inform the internets that/when I get scared. Or that anything really has too huge an impact on my personal Weltanschauung. Tonight, however, I experienced what Kant might have meant by the experience of the ‘terrifying sublime’.

I’ve always had a bit of a hard time when faced with the question to define the ‘terrifying sublime.’ It's not that I lack some experiential knowledge of it because I most certainly don't. It's that I can do a much better job interpreting it cognitively. It feels easier and somewhat safer. I also find it easier to interpret what my inner circle means by their own definition.

What I like about true and honest sociality is that, at the core, it’s about self-exploration and a better knowing of the self. I found this to be true as a child when interacting with my childhood pal, Alexander, and sharing with each other that sweet little nothing every little 7-year-old would love to hear on the playground: “Bri, you’ll always be my number 1 pick for the dodge ball team.” And then he pulled my pig tails, stuck his tongue out, and said, ‘whoever runs to your house first, gets to buy ice cream for both.’ I don’t think I’ve had better ice cream since, by the way. Victory always tastes sweeter. Whoever doesn’t agree must know very well what it means to always come in second. But that’s another post. I digress which, incidentally, is a most dexterous way to avoid having to deal with definitions of the ‘terrifying sublime.’

Back to my account. I left work around 8:35pm and started driving South in the direction of my house which is in the city. The work is not. The work is about an hour drive to the North. I don’t mind driving too terribly as I get to do most of my better thinking when behind the wheel listening to my self-selected playlists, and seeing how the Pacific looks in the company of capricious mountains. The way I describe my drive to my people is the following: “My eyes get made love to when I’m driving North.” I wonder why I’m tired after the drive but it truly is a pleasant, placid feeling after spending about an hour on the freeway looking at the sporadic islands and the meeting points of the ocean and mountains. It's a good tired. Sated tired.

So, tonight, while listening to the Arcade Fire’s track “Neighborhood #1 “Tunnels””, I started decelerating as traffic got awfully slow. A man in uniform started asking drivers to roll down their windows so he could share some info. He comes to me and says: ‘Due to severe weather, some cars ended up on a ditch. Yeah. So, the towing trucks are trying to get them out of there so that we can open the road. It’ll be about a half hour.’

Crap. I’ll sit here till 9:15pm. I’m tired. I want some tea. And a bath. And some more tea. Then I want to watch Shopgirl and maybe have a chat about absolutely nothing of consequence.

I keep listening to the Arcade Fire. My phone rings again. My house wants to know if I’m anywhere near home. I say, ‘yeah, not likely. I have not moved an inch since 9:12pm.
“Are you serious? You haven’t eaten since 4:14pm. It’s now 10:30pm.” Food is the last thing on my mind. And time is right after it.

The same uniform-wearing man comes to my window and informs me that they have detected a few more cars in a topsy-turvy situation in the freeway. Yikes. I like the phrase ‘topsy-turvy’ but no in the highway sense. He says it’ll be another half hour. Which of course means, it’ll be close to 1.5 hours.

I’m getting restless. I’m tired. I just want to go home and talk very little about things of little consequence so that I can finally unwind and go to bed. Instead, I’m stuck in the car, the Arcade Fire is playing, and my mind wanders to Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen) and his definition of the ‘terrifying sublime’. Then my mind revisits conversations I have had with people regarding definitions of the Kantian ‘terrifying sublime.’ My best friend defines it as waking up next to a person who has all the features of one’s love but smells like a stranger. Another one defines it as driving through Kansas. Poor Kansas! I wonder if it knows that it’s someone’s definition of the ‘terrifying.’

My definition would be something like, ‘Getting stuck under much snow while on thick ice. Listening to the Arcade Fire’s Funeral while the brain is exhausted, sensing no way out when looking at the watch. Stop. Kein Ausweg! You’re stuck on a one-lane freeway, sandwiched in-between two vehicles.’

Then I see myself let out a ‘hmm’ by way of a smile. I guess smiling is one of those involuntary reactions the brain has concocted as a way of dealing with unknown variables, hazardous weather conditions, sensorial overloads, and general feelings of confusion. And, wait, I choose to listen to the Arcade Fire’s album Funeral when processing all of this stuff?! What, does masochism need to be defined in real life, too. So, then I turn to another playlist. I pick Death Cab for Cutie instead. Because, of course, when you want things to start looking up you always go for Ben Gibbard’s voice.

Assorted Links

2011-01-30T00:48:00.003-05:00

1) The Neuroscience of Music. Gripping article. A bit says: "Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas. The stories it tells are all subtlety and subtext. And yet, even though music says little, it still manages to touch us deep, to tickle some universal nerves. When listening to our favorite songs, our body betrays all the symptoms of emotional arousal. The pupils in our eyes dilate, our pulse and blood pressure rise, the electrical conductance of our skin is lowered, and the cerebellum, a brain region associated with bodily movement, becomes strangely active." You can read the rest here.

2) Napoleon Dynamite, your ligers are real, apparently! Read here.

3) When scientists drink on the job, discoveries are made, apparently.... This is good! Read here.

4)My first reaction upon reading this was what, what?!' The name of the product is Crown Jewels: Condoms of Distinction. The new product was inspired by Prince Williams & Kate's upcoming nuptials. A bit says: "Combining the strength of a Prince with the yielding sensitivity of a Princess-to-be, Crown Jewels condoms promise a royal union of pleasure. Truly a King amongst Condoms."

No, I'm not joking. Read more here. Tip of the hat to Tyler Cowan for the pointer.

Lost in Translation and Nostalgia

2011-01-05T00:11:00.001-05:00

I'm into George Orwell these days. I don't know why I want to revisit 1984. I guess it has something to do with the fact that I was reminded of a smart student I used to have who used to wear a black t-shirt with '1984' on it. I remember wanting to smirk every time he made comments. My word! He was so original and so wise. And every time I had to work so hard to resist my usual reply, 'How does one get to think like you? You're brilliant, brilliant.' Instead, every single time and without fail, I would simply and much professorially say 'hmm, interesting point. Thanks.'

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm proving myself right yet again when it comes to my often too tedious a point that good sociality can only occur when surrounded by those who share a number of cultural references. To feel gotten we need to expand our circles regardless of how great we think they are. But back to the black t-shirt boy.

Other classmates would ask him whether '1984' was his year of birth and annoyingly he would say 'NO!' thus, in a way sort of leave it at that. I remember wanting to divorce myself from objectivity for a quick second to interject some kind of answer about the contextual meeting of his t-shirt. Luckily, in hindsight, I didn't. It's best to just observe a few things and let them happen while resisting the urge to 'improve.' Some things are meant to be left untouched and/or unedited.

I'm watching Lost in Translation tonight as I do the other favorite activities of the evening. As much as evening sociality comes with its perks, my favorite part of the day is that space at night when all I can hear is the sound of my own thoughts mixed with whatever indie rick band I'm playing in the other room(s).

I often revisit Lost in Translation as it's filled with a number of important texts in my own existence. When it first came out, I remember resisting watching it. One of my grad school friends, a fellow nerd with a strong sense of high fashion, kept insisting that I watch it. However, I kept saying, 'Yeah, let's not.' I don't know why I resorted to that kind of puerile response but I guess we're bound to revert to childhood patterns regardless of how smart and informed we think we may become. However, after my friend relented, I did watch Lost in Translation. I didn't just like it. I felt gotten while watching it. Having lived in different countries much of my life, I felt I got the essence of the film.

Granted, my experience doesn't mirror that of the characters' as I've never lived in Tokyo. What I still have in common with the film is the way it captures the poetry of sadness that disconnectedness brings with it. There's no way to capture disconnectedness by words. I truly believe that you can only capture it via a commonality of experience.

Lost in Translation used to be the kind of film I would watch as a way of curing my insomnia. It would relax me, sort of like Wonder Boys and Tootsie can. This time however, I can sense quite a bit of creative fecundity while listening to traces of music from the other room, taking in the dialog of the film, and thinking what the heck transpired during the day today.

I don't know why I keep going back to my usual things. It's always Dante, Lost in Translation, J. M. Coetzee, or Schnitzler. And yet, my fascination with novelty does not get weaker by time. On the contrary, the older I get, the more I crave for more of it. I suppose it's a way to combat repetitive patterns. Repetition, is a double-edged sword, after all. It not only leads to expertise and enhanced ability but also boredom. And the latter is the one thing that manages to scare me almost as much as Inferno 5.

And yet Lost in Translation could never bore me. It, much like the beginning of a great connection and human story, gets better and more appealing with time. Every time I watch it, it brings me back to 2004, the year of the beginning of my actual self-actualization. And how could such a text ever become inconsequential?! Not anytime soon. At least not till nostalgia and immediate memory still have some clout. And they do. A whole lot if it.

2010: A Year in Review

2011-01-02T22:52:00.000-05:00

What a year this was!
I like to review the end of the year by looking at the pictures on my iPhoto that I took during it. Even though my natural pace is a fast one, reviewing the photos made me go: 'Whoa, Nelly!, that's a lot of year, Bri!'
Last January, I remember reviewing 2009 the way it looked in music. You can revisit that piece here. Incidentally, that piece is also the one that attracted the largest number of traffic to date.

This time around I decided to go through it in picture. Most of this year up to late Summer, I was in Ohio, writing away, teaching courses in my area of expertise, and presenting at academic conferences. I got another article published, gave presentations on a few campuses, and, last but not least, managed to score some tickets to the Real Time with Bill Maher show out in Los Angeles.
Seeing Maher live was as much fun as presenting my latest article on 500 Days of Summer and how I see it as an example of suburbia's almost innate ability to whip most things into submission including punk art. But I see that I've now embarked on a non sequitur and this is not that kind of post.
Summer time had me traveling out West, the land that I love, then back East, the land that holds many of my special people and loved ones, and eventually out West again. This time to live and work in it.

I got to learn how to milk a cow, feed a calf, take a picture with an American Idol out by Rodeo Dr. in Los Angeles, and what else, ah and of course, I went to a bunch of concerts but that is not necessarily report-worthy again as it already got a good chunk of my attention here as well as in my quotidianity. This is not a post about music, neither.

So, what was the theme of this year? Well, the theme would be a soup of light and heavy. Sort of like 'light pop sauteed in substance'. Lightness and severity need to get mixed up, after all.
And the one picture that would do justice to this last paragraph as well as the year in general would be the one featured here taken in May in Los Angeles with me and Casey James, the singer of American Idol fame. No, I don't watch American Idol. Yes, it's the perfect visual of a year where light and heavy coexisted almost too beautifully.

Happy 2011, everyone! What better wish can I have other than to take it as it comes and do the best you can with it....

Gaga-fied?

2010-10-29T22:55:00.003-04:00

I've been living in the Pacific Northwest now since Summer. I've always maintained that the pace of the Northwest is much in tune with my own pace. What makes the Pacific Northwest particularly gripping is, and there's no other non-trivial to say this, music. I love the music scene from this neck of the woods. I especially love the text of music here. Music just feels different here. I illustrate. While driving South, Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" pops up on my iPod. I don't know how Gaga managed to creep into my playlist. It's a mystery. It's as much a mystery as Gwen Stefani's Love. Angel. Music. Baby. I don't know how it got on my iPod but it did. I took a glimpse of my Dad in the back seat and he was clearly digging Gaga. In shock, I turned around and said, 'wait, you like this?' He says "I do. It's catchy. Yeah, don't change it. Let it play"
Deep down I'm thinking, "dude, my Dad's into Gaga?!" But then she kind of sort of grows on me. Maybe it's because those around me are sort of inclined to like her. No, I'm not going all the way Gaga. Can't see it happening anytime soon. I've got too much new music to explore around here.

What's gripping about music is that it allows you to reconsider where you stand vis-a-vis your tastes and what the world has to offer. Music makes one more adaptable, even flexible. I'm not saying I'm morphing into a Gaga fan anytime soon. What I'm saying is that music, like few other things out there, has the power to make one revisit choices and attitudes.

Heteronormativity and Performativity (HetPer)

Werner Herzog on Chickens

On Eudaimonia and Coffee

Assorted Links

Doubt Is the Origin of Wisdom

Egocentrism over Email

Claims re: the Alpha Male Myth et al.

Having Preferences Means Having Weaknesses.

Stuff New Yorkers Say

Steve McQueen's Shame: A Review

Happiness and Excoriating

The Futility of Suffering and Nietzsche

When in Doubt, Think Dante

Steve Jobs' Biography by Walter Isaacson: A Review

Poetry and the iPhone 4s

18304

The Cars' New Brilliant Album: A Review

Sitting between Two Redheaded People

How Does One Know One?

I Couldn't Like Emerson More

Emerson Goodness

Identity Shmidentity

Thinking Bits

Oh, Larry!

Why I Approve of Game of Thrones

And Then It Was about Change

Hair Is Rarely Inconsequential

Why Being Busy Matters

Man from Earth: A Review

Adele, Exhibit, and Things that are 'OMG' good

Existential Star Wars

Happy or Interested?

Do You Like the Piece?

Arthur: A Review and Comment on Class

Going to the Theater and a Visitation a-la-Brecht

Jon Stewart's Farewell to Glenn Beck and Colbert's Friday

Assorted Links

What Photos Teach

On Memory and “Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”

Sense of Belonging and Spot of Sun

Concert, Trip, and Promises

Losing at Chess on a Sunday Does Not Qualify as Losing

Complaint Filing Cabinet

Ice, Ice, Baby!

How to Blog Better

Age Matters: Why Being the Youngest Lingers

Portland: Riches of a City

Separate Togetherness Takes Much Conditioning

My Encounter with the Terrifying Sublime

Assorted Links

Lost in Translation and Nostalgia

2010: A Year in Review

Gaga-fied?

Hmm. You Want a PhD in the Humanities?

Kings of Leon: Come Around Sundown - A Review

iPhones, Rock, Jamming on the Subway, and Atomic Tom

The World According to San Francisco

Podcast: What is Beauty?

Podcast: My Analysis of HBO's Bored to Death

Podcast: The United States of Tara

Full Text of My Newly Published Article

I don't expect we'll get the cure to cancer over a person's Facebook update

Brandon Flowers' New Album "Flamingo": A Review

New Article Published on Journal of Media Practice

On Intimacy and Master & Commander

Heartache Comes in Many Bike Forms, So Does Happiness

Brandon Flowers' New Music: A Comment

A Review of the Film "Tenure"

Why I Like Don Draper

Have You Read "Sein und Zeit?"

Assorted Links

I Made Out with a Tree and I Liked It

Why Happiness Matters and What Cold Sores Teach One

Try the Opposite of Your Natural Pace: You Might Like What You See

Tilda Swinton's Film "I Am Love": A Review

Eyewear Matters

Tilda Swinton

Assorted Links

Distracting Beauty? Remarks on Aesthetics

Film List from '04