| Journal & Weblog | Write to Save Your Life | August 24, 2003 |
|
 |
posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003 Feel Up You poor thing, can't walk Why try to run? You poor thing, can't talk Much more, have fun. Maybe you had a dream, but your dreams aren't real But don't give up, you're feeling up. Feel up here, and not down there, Feelin' up. Feel up, feel up.
Observances I'm walking out of my apartment this morning when I spot a young woman in a white nightgown curbing her garbage halfway down the block, the morning breeze picking up the billowy fabric of her gown and pulling it in every direction across her naked body. As I continue walking to my car, my attention is suddenly transferred to a dapper young man exiting his apartment between me and the woman. He spots her and slows, and I admire the way the clean lines of his suit block off his musculature, imagine his aftershave on the moisture-laden breeze and study the shadows cast on his face by the sunrise. Smirking, I watch as he stops completely to observe the woman down the street, moving my gaze only momentarily to realize she's glancing in my direction as she pauses while walking back to her apartment. She smiles at me and the handsome neighbor turns to look in my direction, a quizzical look on his face. Pulling out of the lot, I think to myself, "Everyday, something different," and then change that to: "No, everyday, the same thing. The same thing that's been happening for ages."
Unacceptable Please sign Governor Dean's petition calling for Senator Santorum's resignation after his divisive comments last week, equating homosexuality with a list of criminal acts including adultery and child molestation. I signed the petition saying: "Expression of uninformed personal bias and opinions that further intolerance are unacceptable from a person in public office." My friend John-Michael wrote: “I expect leaders to promote respect; I also hope for them to regard the gay and lesbian community as human beings. Mr. Santorum's comments are offensive and inappropriate -- they clearly communicate his lack of concern and lack of awareness. I also stand with Howard Dean and call for Senator Santorum to resign. . . . I would challenge the leaders of national proportion to use their office to promote inclusiveness and pluralism.”
Faster, Stronger Rebuilding computers this week and found a few righteous resources for tools and information on optimizing Win XP:
Found Poetry I was recovering some old homework files I'd stored from my junior year in high school and came across an old poem I wrote over seven years ago, along with some commentary: definition And from my required follow-up commentary: "This is a self-conscious poem. The word 'definition,' per se, is '1. The statement of the specific meaning of (a word). 2. The description of the nature of: explanation. 3. The delineation: specification.' Am I able to define the "poetry" using this poem? My feelings towards poetry are illustrated in the choice of words that are defined, beginning with the word "poem"; what better way to find out what a word means, than look it up in the dictionary? Of course, personal opinion is important, but there always will be certain concrete axioms that we can depend on in our world, and word definitions are not only a way of obtaining consensus on them, but can even be perceived as concrete themselves. The second through sixth stanzas are definitions of words that describe reactions to poetry we have discussed using the studied material. Except for consumable poetry, each is represented and can be found within most of the poems. The seventh and ninth stanzas are definitions that illustrate my feelings towards poetry after documenting each of the previous reactions. . . ." I love the systematic approach I took for this assignment — a little bit of would-be foreshadowing into my present occupation — and the attempt I made at sounding artsy and official with abbreviations of "especially" and "usually." Also, the last definition was culled from/inspired by a Tears for Fears song, although I can't remember the exact one. This, along with the swiped dictionary bits, seems to lend a sense of plagiarism similar — but by no means comparable — to Eddan Katz's use of a former framework in Revolution Is Not an AOL Keyword. Mary Hodder, who writes for bIPlog in connection with Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems, has also experimented with what she calls "cross-pollination," or the creation of films and poetry out of previously published images and words. This brings on a whole slew of copyright and fair-use issues, particularly in regards to information available on the internet. Hodder's explanation: About six years ago I started sampling and remixing words, similar to audio sampling, I found on the Internet. This has brought about the most interesting works I’ve made, and I still find things that are several years old exciting. Maybe it’s because it feels like a conversation between me and the other writers, or that I feel inspired by the original purpose and intent of the words before changing them. Perhaps this poem was a way of getting in touch with those "concrete axioms" of society or the writers of which I admire and seek to emulate in my pursuit of boiling experience down to words.
Phrontistery Forthright's Phrontistery: Your one-stop resource for obscure or lost words; essays and opinions on numerical notation, mathematics and archaeology; and other useful resources.
Draw Experiencing a vague sense of indifference towards the site recently, even after coding a few new toys to liven up the place. Not sure what it means, but I like it. This past week saw the passing of my third year on the web — along with a few others — and my insouciance is stunning ("I should," I think, "feel something more."). Oh, this draw has happened before. And even before that, with boylog. Cyclical? Orbital, perennial, recurrent, rhythmic, routine, seasonal, serial. Still, there's inspiration out there.
Drive Home Setting in front of us as I slept in the car on the drive home, the sun pushed through the windshield, its light intensified at such an extreme angle through the atmosphere, but I only caught a glimpse of it through one slightly opened eye because Mike, thinking I was asleep, reached over and pulled down the passenger-side visor. The sun bowed gracefully out and let the gesture warm me from the inside out.
If Anything Were to Happen... I drove my dad to the hospital this morning for a minor surgical procedure, and as I drew in the growing dawn from the sloping mountain side that envelops the hospital, he discussed things that would need to be taken care of "if anything were to happen." Cremation is the departure method of choice. Step two is to, at some point, collect my mom's ashes in Oklahoma and bring them to Colorado where they could be placed somewhere together, along with my dad's mom. ("Where's grampa?" "Actually, my mom scattered his ashes in the Atlantic." "Really? Cool." "Not really. I wish she had talked to me about it first." Well, if it was what he wanted... shouldn't you grant him the same right you expect me to grant you?). Pay the bills after that -- there's plenty of insurance -- part goes to the church, part to his sister, part to my step-mom, Derek and I split the remainder. No lengthy stays in this world as a vegetable; pull the plug at a reasonable time. It occured to me that I could do this. And then I realized I'm just like my dad: I can take on anything, I have everything under control. I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel and let my shoulders slide, reminding myself that this was all remote, hypothetical talk and we'd be going home together in a few short hours. When did death become just another part of life? I like the fact that our family has never been afraid to discuss it, confront it, treat it like it is -- just something we deal with.
Spring Cleaning The recent paucity of posts is due in part to preoccupation with a few site updates, including a clean-up of the code and the addition of some new features; the other part is pure laziness. Go forth and find new features! Report any bugs or strange behavior to me. [1]
» The highly anticipated Penis Blog is live.
» Brevity is the soul of wit.
T Minus Maybe this inlaw of a cold, having outstayed its welcome by a good three weeks, has confounded my internal clock, or perhaps I simply haven't adjusted to this year's daylight savings program (outdated and superfluous, no matter how enjoyable the extra hour or so of daylight is), but it's been a week of Tylenol-PM nights and 6-cup-of-coffee mornings, a week of beautifully-sounding, yet nonetheless unfavorable states such as languor and torpor and indolence and inertia, rolling off the tongue like opiated bodies and landing on goosedown pillows to stare, glassy-eyed, at the ceiling, while dishes and clothes and newspapers accumulate on various other resting places around the apartment. I miss the bleach clarity that comes with health and resent being a fair-weather friend to life -- only enjoying or appreciating, with abandon, things that go my way -- but I feel mired in mediocrity and inactivity. Fortunate for me, it's Friday and I have a good two days to relax and reharvest myself. (I can feel the emergence of spring; it's breaking through my bones.)
Servicing Ego Stiflingly appropriate: Genuine service has nothing to do with getting anything – not even with the satisfaction of knowing that we have modified a situation so that it now conforms to our image of how we think it should be. Any time we try to “improve” a situation – to make it over in our own image – we can only do so by imposing our will on it. This does nothing but create a new tension, yet it is what most people have in mind when they talk about helping others. And: Compassionate service helps to alleviate the pain of those who are suffering. But its greater value lies in purifying the minds and hearts of those who render it. The satisfaction and joy you derive from rendering selfless service to someone in need is immense and everlasting. However, there is one danger – feeding your ego by identifying yourself as a generous, compassionate person. This is destructive both to you and to those to whom you render service.
Postprandial Ruminations Following a dinner at Marigold's last night, my father and I revisited some great meals of the past in places like Amsterdam and Germany and Taiwan -- learning first-hand the truth that "Great meals gain in reflection, everything else fades" -- but savoring each as something more than the mere act of consuming or basic sustenance, since each is, as my dad says, an experience, and it occurred to me that dining is intensely intimate, for you can see or touch or smell or hear something but the observed remains separate, detached, and it is only through eating and tasting that we bring something into our bodies, that to eat means to take something and make it a part of yourself, to physically become one with what you are consuming -- and therefore cooking can be likened to the act of creating life (therin lying an oft-made connection between food and sex) -- simultaneously occasioning the cliche'd "you are what you eat," and denouncing our culture of faster food where the act has become transitory, vapid, and discardable, but I rejoice in the fact that every day brings new opportunities for new meals, new experiences; I'm hungry again.
In Lieu I hit the gym on Monday night for the first time in weeks and it felt good, but little did I know that the effort would be hitting me back with a good bout of bronchitis. Therefore, not feeling all that inspired to write at the moment. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite recordings by David Cross: Also, be sure to stop in and wish him a happy birthday.
Dean's List This month's Art & Understanding Magazine cover story features an inteview with Democratic presidential hopeful, Howard Dean, on the topic of AIDS and healthcare. Dean has the most lucid, straightforward and simple plan I've seen for guaranteeing everyone the option of healthcare coverage -- as currently practiced in his former constituency, Vermont -- and plans to fund the program by repealing Bush's tax cuts and balancing the national budget. Regarding the increasing HIV diagnoses in the US: "The African countries that are really serious in trying to deal with AIDS are really so far ahead of Americans in terms of public education. We really need to be much more frank in a national discussion about sexuality because that's how AIDS is principally spread." Dean is not afraid of frank discussion, imploring gay men -- particularly the younger generation -- to remember or acknowledge how terrible the AIDS epidemic was and open up public discussion on infection prevention and sexuality. He struck me as sounding almost overly idealistic but his resume speaks volumes of his experience and success:
To say the least, I'm excited to see how far Dean's campaign takes him. During my short, few years of political involvment, I've never experienced the sort of excitement and resonance I feel reading his stances on important issues, particularly education and gun laws ("If you say "gun control" in Vermont, Tennessee or Colorado, people think it means taking away their hunting rifle. If you say "gun control" in New York City or Los Angeles, people are relieved at the prospect of having Uzis or illegal handguns taken off the streets. I think Vermont ought to be able to have a different set of laws than California."). While I'd had a rather deflating experience working for a few candidates last November, I'm looking forward to the possibility of joining a few inspiring people and taking up the cause this election.
Sex in the City Dave and I took Veronica to Sing Sing for her birthday, a dueling piano bar in Lodo that turned out to be quite a bit better than either of us was anticipating. Nonetheless, straight bar as it is, the air was thick with smoke and that awkward hetero vibe. The music program centered primarily around the differences between the sexes -- "song battles" between the women and men, stereotypical straight arguments (Men: "Suck my dick!", Women: "I can't find it!") -- and, while boisterous and fun, it had me thinking more about sexism's role in humor than the countless, dildo-wielding bachelorettes being brought on stage, one after the other. Advertising has always taken advantage of our affinity for sexual differences, particularly on male-oriented TV channels such as ESPN (in part, driven by a desire to increase their female audience). I saw part of a Mercedes commercial today in which a man is being pursued by an armada of air and land vehicles that eventually succumb to the Mercedes' apparent superior speed. No sooner is he alone on the open highway than a woman pulls up in a similar car and speeds on ahead of him. Score one for women. A second commercial revealed shots of women in a variety of uniforms and activities -- kickboxing, guitar-strumming, fire-fighting, cow-wrangling -- ending with three men holding up bottles of beer in a toast: here's to women. However, the commercials struck me less as a true appreciation for the female sex and more as a display of male pride and property: look at our women doing manly things. In a business ethics class I took recently we learned that one should praise in public and criticize in private. However, there are exceptions, such as when praising in public would bring attention to a previous failure ("Congratulations on conquering your meth addiction"). With political correctness becoming more of a habit than an intentional sensitivity, it seems entirely possible that we are overcompensating for millennia of sexism by "praising publicly" women and female equality, an act that simply makes the history of inequality even more obvious. It is understandable that to gain acceptance, a certain level of empathy -- or at least sympathy -- is required of the oppressive group. What better way to do that than to show how women like the same things that men do? Much of the feminist movement has been aimed at earning women equality, but equality doesn't mean similarity. This has been a similar problem in the gay community as activists fight for equal rights by demanding gay marriage. Besides the obvious government backing including joint taxes, implied medical and property rights, etc., it seems rather superfluous for the gay community to tap into this heterosexual institution simply for the sake of equality. More later. Mike's home!
The Sky From First Person City life has always held a certain appeal, but despite a tendency among mountain boys to move toward coastal metropoles (exhibit A) and my own alluring adventures (exhibit B, C), I can't bring myself to leave the sky behind. The city sky is glimpsed between blinders of skyscrapers or through smog, between spider webs of street car wire or the urine glow of sodium-vapor street lamps; however, it lacks the encompassment experienced upon leaving through the east doors of my office, the stomach-dropping release felt upon entering a blue-graded canvas of planetary proportions, the evaporation of breath and trouble into the void that leaves you bleach clean and empty, ready for a refill of life. The substitutes of therapy and alcohol that city-dwellers have found for this atmospheric salve only seem to sweep the dust under the carpet. Nevertheless, every time I return to one city or another, the bustle of people and and thrill of activity gently nudge barbed hooks ever-so-slightly deeper and tug my affections ever-so-further away from my blue-eyed, blew-wide sky country home, and I admit those urban substitutes begin to look pretty palatable. So, tonight, I'm taking my friends up on their invitation to the nearest city for a night under the canopy of metal and stone, leaving behind the night sky full of stars and replacing them with the stars of street lamps and strobe-lit faces. Living in the city is like living underwater; one must find a way to replace the open air that has been abandoned or obscured in pursuit of convenience and company, or I'd certainly think one might just slowly suffocate. If you live in the city, what are your subsitutions?
Listen. Now.  I wasn't looking for a hookup last night. In fact, I wasn't even feeling remotely romantic. Then again, romance didn't play a huge role in my thought process upon a completely accidental discovery of Terry Farley's nite:life 4, an album that's been out for a while now (2001), but quite possibly the best to-date mix of late-night, deep house tracks from the likes of Danny Tenaglia and Peace Division. This is what music would sound like if it had a 9" cock and fucked you for 63 minutes, non-stop. I had it on repeat last night for four hours. And I need a glass-a wat-ah.
Metaphor Museum T. E. Hulme proclaimed that "Prose is a museum where all the old weapons of poetry are kept." It's interesting that many everday adjectives stem from a metaphor of some sort. Take, for instance words that describe someone who is intelligent:
Notice how the two groups of words compare intelligence with light and the edge of a knife (including clever, which comes from the Old English cleave and cleaver). As a way of explaining the abstract in concrete terms, metaphors have grown worn and dull with use, entering everyday conversation and becoming independent descriptors of the very concepts they attempt to convey, each shedding its skin as it becomes larger and more prolific. It is little surprise then that our present-day warehouse of metaphoric adjectives stores familiar things that surround us in our daily lives, such as light and knives and body parts and food. Echoing Hulme: Language is fossil poetry which is constantly being worked over for uses of speech. Our commonest words are worn-out metaphors.
Surrounded, Not Surrendered Mike's grandfather passed away the day before yesterday. One minute he'd been working on a late night crossword puzzle with the wife, the next, flat on the table. If you're gonna go, that's the way to do it -- a quiet evening with someone you love, no warning, five letter word, "... Becomes [Meryl Streep]," but it doesn't matter because the mortal coil of crosswords and war and just living has been unshuffled. Yes, that's the way to go. So Mike left this morning to fly out for the funeral tomorrow, and it already feels strange being the one left to hold the home front when I'd been the one departing for faraway places the past four weeks (but ain't it true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, if not completely obsessive?). Additionally, my brother has been sick, prompting a worried phone call from dad last night. I kept imagining Derek passing suddenly from a mystery illness sometime in the night, none of his family near, and I made frantic calls to both him and mom to check in and ensure that death was indeed too busy in Virginia or Iraq to make a Colorado house call. He called this morning to reassure me that he was alive and revived. I still felt compelled, however, to drop everything and drive up to check in on him. Life would deflate, the oxygen of meaning and value escaping through the rift that would remain after he... I was forced to endure that thought for a while, as Mike prepared for his trip and the war raged and death seemed to surround everything. But I am not afraid of death, especially not my own death. I'm simply afraid of life in the permanent absence of those I love, an absence that eschews fondness.
You, Who Make Worlds Collide An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday discussed cognitive processing differences between people of Asian and Western descent ("Asian" indicating those from Japan, China and Korea, and "Western"-ers being from Europe, the British commonwealth, and North America). Scientists have observed that Westerners tend to group things by category and focus on specifics, while Asians see relationships between objects and process entire situations, "the big picture" (e.g. Pick two that go together: monkey, panda, banana -- the Japanese man chooses the monkey and banana (monkeys eat bananas), whereas the Brit, the monkey and panda (both animals)). I've observed this at my office, the IT field being a great laboratory for this kind of experiment since the majority of employees are either of Asian (Chinese, Japanese, or Indian) or Western lineage, and the differences in the way people approach one another can spur many awkward situations. For instance, as I rounded the corner to enter the lavatory, the handle twisted rudely from my grip and the door swung inwards to reveal, standing in similar surprised stance, a late-40's-ish Chinese co-worker who immediately bowed with a nod of the head and proceeded to pull the door open for me to enter. Two possibilities were immediately processed:
And so I stood there for a moment while I considered these possibilities, on one hand coming across as brazenly American, refusing to let this man play to his conscience and upbringing, subsequently indicating an expectation that he should think of himself first, "please, exit," or possibly an impatience on my part as I demand that he get out of my way; but on the other hand, there was always the possibility of committing a Type I error by assuming he was following an inbred etiquette, when in fact he was merely feigning the polite gesture while knowing that the perfectly logical maneuver would be to evacuate the room in order for me to enter. I dug deep into the recesses of my mind for, after all, I am equal parts Chinese and German so it somehow seemed appropriate that I'd know the proper action to take in such a problematic situation. Meanwhile, he'd smiled and nodded again. Would a split-second wait to allow him the decision be rudely construed? I thanked him and entered. The article described how international business relations can be improved by considering and even balancing the two methods as seen in business transactions of previously-occupied Hong Kong. However, as I have recently experienced, it is entirely possible that any such attempt may result in a reaction similar to a matter/anti-matter collision, causing a Leidenfrost layer to form and forcing them apart again, grinding all cognition to a halt. Monkey and panda? Or monkey and banana? You can only pick two, after all. It is also entirely possible that I think too much. But I'm going to go with the matter/anti-matter conclusion on this one for now.
Seriously, Folks... April Foolery aside, we'd gone to Cho Revolution on Friday night at the Paramount for Dave's birthday, which was very funny and up-to-date -- we were relieved to see her perform some new material after the relentless Notorious C.H.O. -- and a few skits really extended her reputation as a master of physical comedy, particularly the imitation of an old-world Asian woman on an airplane criticizing the attendant for the inaccuracy of the Asian Chicken Salad. Dead-on. And then of course she ended with the usual inspirational solicitation to be yourself, fight for your rights and keep on keepin' on, which I sort of appreciated even though it was a pretty drastic divergence from the "Oh my God, I shit my pants" routine and the political criticisms -- "Bush can't even correctly say 'nuclear'" -- but worked on the whole "Don't take shit from anyone and don't take yourself so seriously" level. So, I've been thinking a lot about this idea lately, you know, trying not to take myself or anyone else so seriously, and it's pretty hard when you've been educated as an engineer and you program computer code for a living. Yet, I love the order and logic. It's been a rock for me the past few weeks, being able to spend my days in the quiet flourescent-lit office and type, think through a problem from beginning to solution, fit everything into its variable space and let elegant code take care of itself. Computers are man's attempt at ordering a chaotic world where solutions require international consensus, bank on the uncertainty of quantum mechanics and scoff at Boole. Andy Lamey wrote about prescriptivism, or "language bullies," at The National Post yesterday, reminding me much of Margaret Cho's statement regarding our oh-so-articulate president and also of myself, having had a long-standing rule dictating the refusal to read websites, of which the authors refuse to use -- or, at the very least, refuse to attempt -- correct punctuation, grammar and spelling. Sure, that can come across as a little elitist. However, I'd always thought that if I'm taking the time to make my thoughts readable and publicly available, by God, everyone else ought to hold himself to the same standard and make a similar effort. Now, here I am thinking that I've been a little too strict -- with myself and others -- meanwhile enjoying the seriousness and orderliness of my work, and it's only considering this that the source of my rigidity makes sense. After all, computers require absolute uniformity and correctness of their users. Computer commands must be exact or the machine will not understand you. Effort is required to eliminate the habitual, "non-standard" English of everyday conversation and think in structured, systematic, syntactically correct modules. Protocols -- whether social or linguistic or computational -- are developed for this very reason. Our world is too small and humankind is wont to deviation -- perhaps inherently so -- and therefore it seems that a certain degree of seriousness ought to be expected for an appropriate level of communication. I mean, just look at where miscommunication has gotten our current administration. Take, for example, the recently misunderstood disagreements of the international community. Perhaps a worldwide language protocol ought to be initiated; protocols for dry humor, sarcastic satire, dead seriousness, empathy and sympathy. Did I mention that this gray shirt of yours makes me look fucking hot?
Axis of Ego The ego is nothing but memory, a set of definitions which are limiting. You strongly believe in these patterns you have yourself brought about and you mechanically repeat them. It is only habit that maintains them, makes them seem permanent. Let them go once and for all.
|
|
|
| Top |
|
Copyright © 1999-2003, Chrisonomicon |