Listening in on conversations can be tricky. You have to have the right appearance to slip in close and open your ears (figuratively, of course) to a discussion between people. That is, you have to look like you are doing something besides listening. I favor the playing with the cell phone while sitting/standing nonchalantly tactic. It gets the job done in a spot. At any rate, I overheard several conversations this weekend. It is a thankless task actually, overhearing things and not participating. In a way, it is similar to watching a movie or reading a book. You aren't exactly interacting with those characters either, you are being empathetic. Well, maybe not, which is a topic I hope to discuss more soon.
However, I did give myself plenty of opportunities to listen. I went to a party Saturday night with the majority of the attendees being international students. It's nice to know that penile jokes are funny anywhere in the world. I feel like the Americans and the Iranians could get along if someone made a dick joke during a dialogue--"Oh, that funny to you too, these Americaaaans, they know what's up!" I listened to flirting. I saw people dancing and having fun. I saw intoxicated people, and one girl who was pretty intent about pulling off my socks. There were people from Germany, the Netherlands, England (Liverpool!), Poland, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, India, Brazil, Mexico, Australia--I think I have met someone from damn near every country (well, now that I think about it, that's definitely not true). Even the computer I am typing on was purchased from a guy from Kazakhstan. Honestly, before this year I never thought I would meet somebody from Kazakhstan in my entire life. Now I have met over five. And I have to say, overhearing my Saudi roommate talking to his friends, everyone is the same. We all hold prejudices, we all have superior views of our home towns or countries, but also know its faults intimately so we may never want to go back to live, we all laugh at the same things for the most part--though an interesting thing I picked up on is that the longer people stay in America the more they think South Park is funny. Why that is, I don't know.
International kids are awesome. Saudi Arabia is awesome. I never thought I would say that, but it is. Iran is awesome, Indonesia is awesome, Pakistan is awesome. I have met someone from each of those countries and they have been really cool. I guess I should make a distinction between the people and their governments, but from what I have experienced I have faith that we could work things out if there was more dialogue between average people--not some politician who is grandstanding to get reelected, making referential signals and nonsensical arguments. They are working from a different place than we are, with their faux realist, liberal, constructionist ideas. Bleh! Send Ahmed the street vendor to talk to Cindy the hair stylist and I bet we could figure some of this crap out. Sorry, I am getting distracted, but as long as we are on the dialogue and overhearing people talk, why not?
At work Sunday, I overheard and participated in a conversation discussing the existence of God. I hate that topic. It's only an argument an Atheist or Creationist participants in. Both sides are never going to agree, and so it ends up being a waste of time. No one will ever be able to prove the existence of God because God is an idea. I would make a grand case that ideas are more real than physical objects and can have far longer lifespans as well, but it's pointless--in the long run, you can't confirm anything. Apparently, according to one guy last night, you can't even say 1 + 1 = 2 is a 100% full proof idea. Until you can prove the reality of the physical world you aren't going to make any headway on God. Am I being hypocritical here? There is a distinct possibility. I know these topics may seen disparate, but I don't think they are. In both cases I would argue for the possibility of individualization, or decentralization. Institutions are what led to militant religions and authoritarianism, so screw em both! God and country should be in the people's hands, not Churches and technocrats. Sorry for my rants. I listened in and you got my reactions.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Highly Foolish Origins of Charmander Piracy 101
Here is the poorly drawn layout of my grandparents' house:
Yes, I drew it in class. Yes, it took me all of ten minutes. Yes, I might be making excuses. Yes, I am now saying 'yes' because I have gotten into a repeating sentence format. Yes, ...
At any rate, as was requested, I made a new mnemonic for the 12 brothers who's offspring went onto become the tribes of Israel:
As I walk into Reid hall from a cold winter day, there is a reuben sandwich sitting on the stairs leading to floor two. It looks delicious, steam rising from its buns, meat sweating. I can feel it in my mouth--warm, tender, and cooked to perfection. But when I bend to pick it up, its soaking wet. Some joker has sprayed the simple sandwich with water and made it inedible. Damn him.
I walk up the stairs and am confronted by a Simeon-Oxen (like a half chimp, half bull creature) and an ox made out of denim. Slightly confused, I walk forward, but they are attacked by a lion wearing a Yamaka (Judah the Jewish Lion). As it shreds the levi skin of one of the poor oxen, a zephyr slams into the side of the Business hall. On closer inspection, the zephyr is an air ship with a crew of pirate Charmanders riding donkeys. They are adorable, with cute little pirate hats: "Char, char, charmander!" Blasting the lions and oxen with their cannons as they gallop around on the donkeys; however, a wild Ekans appears named Dan to save the day. Dan is actually a fine English gentleman who happens to be a snake. "Oh hoy hoy, my boys! Why do you attack a gent so?" Egad! Charmanders use trample on Ekans and then breath flames on the poor Ekans' body, leaving only ashes. However, in Charland, ashes are money. Of course this is highly retarded because Charmanders burn everything to ash and this makes Charland's economy hyper-inflated. In fact, this is why they invaded the business building in the first place: their misguided belief that the COB held gold in its basement.
The Charmanders frantically search for the gold but are confronted by the Green goddess of the forest, Naphtali, in the shape of a deer--Naphtali is also the goddess of NAFTA and has thus been made rich off the back of American subsidies on corn and wheat at the expense of Mexicans, though she has quite the beautiful tail. Joseph of the fruitful bowels, he wears five pairs of underpants, leaps to the Charmanders' aid, causing some of the Charmanders to flip through the evolution stages and arrive at Charizards. Benjamin, his misunderstood brother, volunteers to defend Naphtali and sends forth the wolf Pokemon, Jolteon. They duke it out and the Charizards win, saving Charland and Mexico forever. The end.
List: in Reid Hall
1. Sopping Wet Reuben on the stairs
2, 3. Monkey (simeon) ox and Levi ox on 2nd floor
4. Judah the Jewish Lion on 2nd floor
5. Zebulon, the zephyr
6. Issachar of the ass-riding Charmander army
7. Dan the Ekans
8. Gad of the trampled exclamation
9. Asher of the rich ashes of Charland
10. Nephtali, the deer of NAFTA and the beautiful tail
11. Joseph of the fruitful bowels
12. Benjamin, the misunderstood free-trade bloc and his Jolteon
Epilogue:
It was the Squirtles who had wetted the sandwich to begin with, as is their calling card. The Squirtles had been waging economic war on Charland since its inception and had formed a plot, using the fire Pokemon's gullibility, to make them attack business-orientated humans in an attempt to escalate their recession. America's Congress had wrongfully believed that Charland's undervalued currency was an attempt at dumping (that is, dumping cheap products into the American market and then raising the price once they had driven out the competition). What Congress had gotten wrong was Charland's national vitality. Charmanders are notoriously stupid. They run naked because they are constantly burning the clothes off themselves. They also reproduce like rabbits but at the same time burn their food supply in a lame attempt to produce currency so they can buy food on the market for a cheaper price. Of course, this is a self-defeating policy, one that was made a national mandate upon the election of Rutherford B. Charmander who went on to be elected for another four terms. At any rate, the Squirtles were thwarted in this case with the help of Fruitful Bowels.
Yes, I drew it in class. Yes, it took me all of ten minutes. Yes, I might be making excuses. Yes, I am now saying 'yes' because I have gotten into a repeating sentence format. Yes, ...
At any rate, as was requested, I made a new mnemonic for the 12 brothers who's offspring went onto become the tribes of Israel:
As I walk into Reid hall from a cold winter day, there is a reuben sandwich sitting on the stairs leading to floor two. It looks delicious, steam rising from its buns, meat sweating. I can feel it in my mouth--warm, tender, and cooked to perfection. But when I bend to pick it up, its soaking wet. Some joker has sprayed the simple sandwich with water and made it inedible. Damn him.
I walk up the stairs and am confronted by a Simeon-Oxen (like a half chimp, half bull creature) and an ox made out of denim. Slightly confused, I walk forward, but they are attacked by a lion wearing a Yamaka (Judah the Jewish Lion). As it shreds the levi skin of one of the poor oxen, a zephyr slams into the side of the Business hall. On closer inspection, the zephyr is an air ship with a crew of pirate Charmanders riding donkeys. They are adorable, with cute little pirate hats: "Char, char, charmander!" Blasting the lions and oxen with their cannons as they gallop around on the donkeys; however, a wild Ekans appears named Dan to save the day. Dan is actually a fine English gentleman who happens to be a snake. "Oh hoy hoy, my boys! Why do you attack a gent so?" Egad! Charmanders use trample on Ekans and then breath flames on the poor Ekans' body, leaving only ashes. However, in Charland, ashes are money. Of course this is highly retarded because Charmanders burn everything to ash and this makes Charland's economy hyper-inflated. In fact, this is why they invaded the business building in the first place: their misguided belief that the COB held gold in its basement.
The Charmanders frantically search for the gold but are confronted by the Green goddess of the forest, Naphtali, in the shape of a deer--Naphtali is also the goddess of NAFTA and has thus been made rich off the back of American subsidies on corn and wheat at the expense of Mexicans, though she has quite the beautiful tail. Joseph of the fruitful bowels, he wears five pairs of underpants, leaps to the Charmanders' aid, causing some of the Charmanders to flip through the evolution stages and arrive at Charizards. Benjamin, his misunderstood brother, volunteers to defend Naphtali and sends forth the wolf Pokemon, Jolteon. They duke it out and the Charizards win, saving Charland and Mexico forever. The end.
List: in Reid Hall
1. Sopping Wet Reuben on the stairs
2, 3. Monkey (simeon) ox and Levi ox on 2nd floor
4. Judah the Jewish Lion on 2nd floor
5. Zebulon, the zephyr
6. Issachar of the ass-riding Charmander army
7. Dan the Ekans
8. Gad of the trampled exclamation
9. Asher of the rich ashes of Charland
10. Nephtali, the deer of NAFTA and the beautiful tail
11. Joseph of the fruitful bowels
12. Benjamin, the misunderstood free-trade bloc and his Jolteon
Epilogue:
It was the Squirtles who had wetted the sandwich to begin with, as is their calling card. The Squirtles had been waging economic war on Charland since its inception and had formed a plot, using the fire Pokemon's gullibility, to make them attack business-orientated humans in an attempt to escalate their recession. America's Congress had wrongfully believed that Charland's undervalued currency was an attempt at dumping (that is, dumping cheap products into the American market and then raising the price once they had driven out the competition). What Congress had gotten wrong was Charland's national vitality. Charmanders are notoriously stupid. They run naked because they are constantly burning the clothes off themselves. They also reproduce like rabbits but at the same time burn their food supply in a lame attempt to produce currency so they can buy food on the market for a cheaper price. Of course, this is a self-defeating policy, one that was made a national mandate upon the election of Rutherford B. Charmander who went on to be elected for another four terms. At any rate, the Squirtles were thwarted in this case with the help of Fruitful Bowels.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The Danger in Categorizing Your Life
I was watching a video on ted.com about choices. Here it is:
Essentially, one of Sheena Iyengar's tenets in selling merchandize is that by categorizing items you can make the customer believe there is a greater selection than there actually is. The example she gives is displaying magazines. By putting them in sections, consumers believe there is a wider choice if there is only 400 as compared to 600 uncategorized magazines. You see, the greater the options presented to us the harder it is to make up our minds. By giving us only 12 choices compared to 24, and then categorizing those 12 choices into three categories, people will feel better off. Why is that and how the hell does this relate to a class on oral tradition? Josh Foer is lectured in "Moonwalking with Einstein" that chunking makes things easier to remember. I have also found this true throughout my life. It's easier to tackle reading assignments if I tell myself I will take a break at page 100, or memorize A through K first. I also chunk poem sections together. For example, in Kubla Khan there is a break between the first five lines, and even when I memorized the presidents' names, I placed Washington through Johnson together, and then Lincoln through Coolidge. When Foer talks about ancient Greek texts and how there were no breaks between words, sentences, or paragraphs, I cringed. I cannot imagine trying to read something with no separation. I have come across text blocks on the internet, and let me to tell you, I get an immediate "too long, not reading" when I see it.
One has to wonder why humans are like this. We feel a natural urge to group things together and cut the universe apart. Kingdoms, Genuses, Species, Centuries, Years, Weeks, Days, Nations, Counties, Cities, some would argue Age, Gender, and Race--these things are all arbitrary yet useful. Visions of wiggling fishes getting caught by nets leaps to mind. In the 20th century, Deleuze (1925-95) and Guattari (1930-92) talked about striated spaces in a criticism of Modernism, and how by separating things too much, we are left at where we began in the first place, meaninglessness. They offer a new rhyzome mentality and a nomadic mindset which I will not get into here--partly because I don't remember it entirely myself. The best image to understand their idea is an empty square. A line is drawn through it, making two rectangles, and then another the opposite direction, and then again and again, until the square has so many lines drawn through it, it's black. This is the threat of Modernism and categorization. I like to think of the blank square as the wholeness of the universe, or the image of the mother, a living, breathing creature. The constant line drawing is the force of Saturn--he is trying to consume the universe and make it a dead thing (IT from a Wrinkle in Time, Voldemort, Palpatine). And the one trying to prevent it is rational wisdom, Apollo, the sun god, shining his light. In previous Sexson classes we have discussed how geometry, structure, identity, and order are the realm of men, Octavian and Theseus, and the wiggly kingdom of overflowing rivers and nature are the home of women, Titania and Cleopatra. Is this our masculine and feminine energies waging war on each other? It is impossible to grasp the universe in all its complexity without ordering it in someway, but there is also the danger of boxing it in so much that we steal the life and wonder from it--I am getting close to Post-Modernism here, which I will avoid.
So what is the point of all this? To be careful. You don't want to be Saturn (time) with his scythe slicing pieces off the cosmos--IT's kingdom with houses lined up and little kids bouncing balls in unison, bleh! You don't want to be a giant of lore eating up living things and literally pooping them out, rendering matter dead and chaotic. You have to be careful how you chunk. This is mostly a warning to myself because I also have a habit of doing this. I love sorting my life into eras or even an episode of a fictional television show called "The Suite Life." I am wretched with my collecting of news stories. If I see a funny image online I steal it and put it in a folder on my computer for later (want to know how many times I have looked at those images once they are collected? not a once). I guess sorting also gives the sorter a false sense of having a grasp on something because he placed it somewhere--of course, this sense of owning is not necessarily true, but it makes the mind feel better. Now that I am constructing mammary palaces, oh wait, memory palaces, I have a whole new way to box things up and make them my own. But in the end, this organizing may be the worst affliction of Western man, his inability to realize the relationship between things once they are boxed. Life and Death aren't seen as opposite signs of the same coin, completing each other. Americans are so obsessed by our fear of death that we fetishize it in our movies, news, and overall culture--and one has to remember that we are controlled by our fears and institutions can use this, religion, governments, corporations. Believe me, Saturn (time) will get you eventually, whether you like it or not (as another Saturn-a-like, Borg-Picard said: 'resistance is futile!'). Or maybe not, if this guy has anything to say about it. Again, this rationality thing--that compassionate sun god.
Essentially, one of Sheena Iyengar's tenets in selling merchandize is that by categorizing items you can make the customer believe there is a greater selection than there actually is. The example she gives is displaying magazines. By putting them in sections, consumers believe there is a wider choice if there is only 400 as compared to 600 uncategorized magazines. You see, the greater the options presented to us the harder it is to make up our minds. By giving us only 12 choices compared to 24, and then categorizing those 12 choices into three categories, people will feel better off. Why is that and how the hell does this relate to a class on oral tradition? Josh Foer is lectured in "Moonwalking with Einstein" that chunking makes things easier to remember. I have also found this true throughout my life. It's easier to tackle reading assignments if I tell myself I will take a break at page 100, or memorize A through K first. I also chunk poem sections together. For example, in Kubla Khan there is a break between the first five lines, and even when I memorized the presidents' names, I placed Washington through Johnson together, and then Lincoln through Coolidge. When Foer talks about ancient Greek texts and how there were no breaks between words, sentences, or paragraphs, I cringed. I cannot imagine trying to read something with no separation. I have come across text blocks on the internet, and let me to tell you, I get an immediate "too long, not reading" when I see it.
One has to wonder why humans are like this. We feel a natural urge to group things together and cut the universe apart. Kingdoms, Genuses, Species, Centuries, Years, Weeks, Days, Nations, Counties, Cities, some would argue Age, Gender, and Race--these things are all arbitrary yet useful. Visions of wiggling fishes getting caught by nets leaps to mind. In the 20th century, Deleuze (1925-95) and Guattari (1930-92) talked about striated spaces in a criticism of Modernism, and how by separating things too much, we are left at where we began in the first place, meaninglessness. They offer a new rhyzome mentality and a nomadic mindset which I will not get into here--partly because I don't remember it entirely myself. The best image to understand their idea is an empty square. A line is drawn through it, making two rectangles, and then another the opposite direction, and then again and again, until the square has so many lines drawn through it, it's black. This is the threat of Modernism and categorization. I like to think of the blank square as the wholeness of the universe, or the image of the mother, a living, breathing creature. The constant line drawing is the force of Saturn--he is trying to consume the universe and make it a dead thing (IT from a Wrinkle in Time, Voldemort, Palpatine). And the one trying to prevent it is rational wisdom, Apollo, the sun god, shining his light. In previous Sexson classes we have discussed how geometry, structure, identity, and order are the realm of men, Octavian and Theseus, and the wiggly kingdom of overflowing rivers and nature are the home of women, Titania and Cleopatra. Is this our masculine and feminine energies waging war on each other? It is impossible to grasp the universe in all its complexity without ordering it in someway, but there is also the danger of boxing it in so much that we steal the life and wonder from it--I am getting close to Post-Modernism here, which I will avoid.
So what is the point of all this? To be careful. You don't want to be Saturn (time) with his scythe slicing pieces off the cosmos--IT's kingdom with houses lined up and little kids bouncing balls in unison, bleh! You don't want to be a giant of lore eating up living things and literally pooping them out, rendering matter dead and chaotic. You have to be careful how you chunk. This is mostly a warning to myself because I also have a habit of doing this. I love sorting my life into eras or even an episode of a fictional television show called "The Suite Life." I am wretched with my collecting of news stories. If I see a funny image online I steal it and put it in a folder on my computer for later (want to know how many times I have looked at those images once they are collected? not a once). I guess sorting also gives the sorter a false sense of having a grasp on something because he placed it somewhere--of course, this sense of owning is not necessarily true, but it makes the mind feel better. Now that I am constructing mammary palaces, oh wait, memory palaces, I have a whole new way to box things up and make them my own. But in the end, this organizing may be the worst affliction of Western man, his inability to realize the relationship between things once they are boxed. Life and Death aren't seen as opposite signs of the same coin, completing each other. Americans are so obsessed by our fear of death that we fetishize it in our movies, news, and overall culture--and one has to remember that we are controlled by our fears and institutions can use this, religion, governments, corporations. Believe me, Saturn (time) will get you eventually, whether you like it or not (as another Saturn-a-like, Borg-Picard said: 'resistance is futile!'). Or maybe not, if this guy has anything to say about it. Again, this rationality thing--that compassionate sun god.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Room
I realize, looking around my room and trying to construct a memory palace, that I have years of them built up already. Everything in this room has a memory attached to it. Each book that sits in my bookcase recalls a certain time in my life when I read it. "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman was last summer, when my mind was active with both magic and terrible stress. "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov was the summer before that, both new and strange. Many were specifically for classes and are thus tied with the professors who taught out of them. My bookcase alone, with its anthologies of Romantics, Literary Theorists, and 18th and 19th century American authors, with that tome of a Shakespeare anthology, with its cheesy pulp fiction and graphic novels ranging from Batman to Fables to Star Wars to X-Men to Zombies, looms heavy in my imagination. Even the wooden shelves which hold them up is an artifact from my childhood room in Billings, in the house I grew up in.
And the rest of the room is the same way--my dead dog's ashes sit in a clay urn; The leatherman my grandpa gave me for my 21st birthday; The pipe one of my friends bought me when I was feeling low--and the tobacco I still haven't smoked. There is a small laughing Buddha, made from a red material that I purchased from the jewelry store downtown. I remember that I bought a similar turtle, laying on top of pile of coins, for my ex at the same time--I even recall how much it had cost me: $1. On my bedside table there is a lamp, and placed around that lamp's shade is a lei which was used to celebrate my great grandmother's 94th birthday party, a party which would prove to be her last. I am still in possession of a Gideon's Bible those smiling-face-people give to any walker on the mall one day of the year. There are things placed around my room that I would do better letting go of, but I can't. They are too me at this point. This room is an extension of my mind--and the longer you live in some place, the more that place resembles how you think, how you act, the things done, said, the love, the hate, it's all reflected inside your most personal space.
How I manage my bedroom also reflects how I live my life. You see, I will let the clothes on the floor, the feathers from my leaking comforter, the change which falls out of my pockets, collect until I can't stand it anymore and I go on a mass cleaning spree. My mind is a similar way. I let emotions build and build until I have a mental volcano and all the debris shoots out of me like a caldera and people get hurt. But, I am not ashamed of this, I have decided. I am proud that I am like this. Some people float through life not caring about anything, not getting attached to anything, not hoarding the memories (and yes, I am a memory hoarder, I realize that now), and they are psychopaths. And I can tell you one thing, I am not a psychopath. I really do care about people, even when I don't want to. In the end, I would have everybody succeed and live a happy life. Of course, I have instant reactions where I want someone to suffer, but this is temporary, and I rarely hold long-lasting grudges. I am not sure if that is evident from my room or not, but one thing is--I have a very eclectic taste. Graphic novels, Shakespeare, finance, economics, conspiracy theories, crappy Nickelodeon shows that I wished I liked ironically, actions figures, mythology, candy, soda, I am really a bubble gum person when it comes down to it. I like happy colors and sublime showcases with a lot of activity. And I also love how things relate. A single building doesn't interest me too much, but when you put it in a skyline it fascinates me. I think it's also why I love to look at my collected books. They just look good next to each other.
When a Geologist observes earth, he can point out the different layers and eras. My room is sort of like that too, though more chaotic and hard to identify which "era" each individual object came from. I suppose that would be a goal of an anthropologist or sociologist or psychologist, who knows? I find a lot of that nonsense anyway. But to see space as a mythological arena, where stories are told through each hill, rock, tree--the exterior reflecting the interior--is a powerful image. Carl Jung talked about the collective unconscious and how society shares a set of mythological images it uses to relate ideas. These are symbols--every item in your room is a symbol for something greater, something in your mind. My dog's ashes are a symbol for a lost friend, or a lost time. Each book is its own particular idea--a bit more complex. The radio next to my bed, the text books, the iPod, all useful because they are in my sphere of influence but symbols as well, but especially things which hold no functional purpose, a picture, a souvenir, it's all nostalgic, or possibly symbolic. Nostalgia, of course, is something that has plagued mankind from the beginning. The ancients knew they were losing contact with the divine--and we see this in many mythological stories across the world, Noah's Ark, Atlantis, Great floods, tales of the fall into the profane. Post-Colonial theory also deals with this concept--we project images of magic and mystery onto a decidedly unmagical and demystified world. Today, we have fantasy and science fiction because there is no where else to go. We are trapped.
One has to wonder, then, if the way we interact with the world is not somewhat dictated by the environment we are in. We tend to think man controls the environment and that we place our images on it, but what if it's the other way around? What if we were actually a reflection of the environment's will? We come from this earth, are we not bits of earth that are walking around? Anyway, if we are influenced by our environment, and some clearly believe this with things like feng shui, then perhaps we should fill our rooms with happy things like plants and nice memories, not dark ones which remind us of the loss we have felt in the past. Hell, even in the marketing class I took they talked about a store's atmosphere influencing how customers shopped--pop music, tans and whites, people tend to turn right when they walk in a store. I have also heard that being in a larger room makes our minds expand to fill it and we think bigger thoughts. Who knows? I just know I may need to clean soon.
And the rest of the room is the same way--my dead dog's ashes sit in a clay urn; The leatherman my grandpa gave me for my 21st birthday; The pipe one of my friends bought me when I was feeling low--and the tobacco I still haven't smoked. There is a small laughing Buddha, made from a red material that I purchased from the jewelry store downtown. I remember that I bought a similar turtle, laying on top of pile of coins, for my ex at the same time--I even recall how much it had cost me: $1. On my bedside table there is a lamp, and placed around that lamp's shade is a lei which was used to celebrate my great grandmother's 94th birthday party, a party which would prove to be her last. I am still in possession of a Gideon's Bible those smiling-face-people give to any walker on the mall one day of the year. There are things placed around my room that I would do better letting go of, but I can't. They are too me at this point. This room is an extension of my mind--and the longer you live in some place, the more that place resembles how you think, how you act, the things done, said, the love, the hate, it's all reflected inside your most personal space.
How I manage my bedroom also reflects how I live my life. You see, I will let the clothes on the floor, the feathers from my leaking comforter, the change which falls out of my pockets, collect until I can't stand it anymore and I go on a mass cleaning spree. My mind is a similar way. I let emotions build and build until I have a mental volcano and all the debris shoots out of me like a caldera and people get hurt. But, I am not ashamed of this, I have decided. I am proud that I am like this. Some people float through life not caring about anything, not getting attached to anything, not hoarding the memories (and yes, I am a memory hoarder, I realize that now), and they are psychopaths. And I can tell you one thing, I am not a psychopath. I really do care about people, even when I don't want to. In the end, I would have everybody succeed and live a happy life. Of course, I have instant reactions where I want someone to suffer, but this is temporary, and I rarely hold long-lasting grudges. I am not sure if that is evident from my room or not, but one thing is--I have a very eclectic taste. Graphic novels, Shakespeare, finance, economics, conspiracy theories, crappy Nickelodeon shows that I wished I liked ironically, actions figures, mythology, candy, soda, I am really a bubble gum person when it comes down to it. I like happy colors and sublime showcases with a lot of activity. And I also love how things relate. A single building doesn't interest me too much, but when you put it in a skyline it fascinates me. I think it's also why I love to look at my collected books. They just look good next to each other.
When a Geologist observes earth, he can point out the different layers and eras. My room is sort of like that too, though more chaotic and hard to identify which "era" each individual object came from. I suppose that would be a goal of an anthropologist or sociologist or psychologist, who knows? I find a lot of that nonsense anyway. But to see space as a mythological arena, where stories are told through each hill, rock, tree--the exterior reflecting the interior--is a powerful image. Carl Jung talked about the collective unconscious and how society shares a set of mythological images it uses to relate ideas. These are symbols--every item in your room is a symbol for something greater, something in your mind. My dog's ashes are a symbol for a lost friend, or a lost time. Each book is its own particular idea--a bit more complex. The radio next to my bed, the text books, the iPod, all useful because they are in my sphere of influence but symbols as well, but especially things which hold no functional purpose, a picture, a souvenir, it's all nostalgic, or possibly symbolic. Nostalgia, of course, is something that has plagued mankind from the beginning. The ancients knew they were losing contact with the divine--and we see this in many mythological stories across the world, Noah's Ark, Atlantis, Great floods, tales of the fall into the profane. Post-Colonial theory also deals with this concept--we project images of magic and mystery onto a decidedly unmagical and demystified world. Today, we have fantasy and science fiction because there is no where else to go. We are trapped.
One has to wonder, then, if the way we interact with the world is not somewhat dictated by the environment we are in. We tend to think man controls the environment and that we place our images on it, but what if it's the other way around? What if we were actually a reflection of the environment's will? We come from this earth, are we not bits of earth that are walking around? Anyway, if we are influenced by our environment, and some clearly believe this with things like feng shui, then perhaps we should fill our rooms with happy things like plants and nice memories, not dark ones which remind us of the loss we have felt in the past. Hell, even in the marketing class I took they talked about a store's atmosphere influencing how customers shopped--pop music, tans and whites, people tend to turn right when they walk in a store. I have also heard that being in a larger room makes our minds expand to fill it and we think bigger thoughts. Who knows? I just know I may need to clean soon.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Worlds within Worlds
As I mentioned in my first blog, this summer I was quite engaged with a book titled "The Secret History of the World" by Mark Booth. In this nonfiction work, the author traces the timeline of the earth backwards--the universe was not created before the mind, but the mind before the universe. One could argue that each galaxy, planet, rock, bird, poopy, and human are aspects of some sort of grand cosmic mind that none of us could really understand. You could also argue that this mind created humans so it could look at itself--strange, very strange. At any rate, Mark Booth takes this concept on, tracing through Genesis (another retelling of the great battle of Saturn on the Mother, and the rescue of the Mother by the sun god Apollo), through Atlantis and Noah's Ark (man is slowly losing his connection with the cosmic minds, the gods, his third eye is sealing up--and yes, my first thought on seeing Frances Yates' book was the third eye on the man's forehead). The history of the world, according to the Booth, is the history of the mind because there would be no world if there wasn't someone to observe it. Therefore, to link this with the class, you can remember a universe in your mind, because the universe is literally inside your mind. Worlds within worlds within worlds within worlds. You probably have whole civilizations in the atoms that make up your brain--and I mean actual civilizations with people and buildings and performing monkeys.
Mark Booth's book also talks about Giordano Bruno but claims that he was burned in 1600 "for insisting that the solar system is heliocentric" (447). Perhaps, in the future, I can use the solar system as a memory palace as well. Each planet is a particular vibration in my mind--seven spheres that one must travel through before he reaches the great cosmic mind. And luckily that means I commune with the Muse of astronomy, Urania. Speaking of the muses, one of my favorite stories dealing with them is in the Sandman comics. Sandman, Morpheus, the God of Dreams, takes Calliope as his wife and produces a son, Orpheus (yes Neil Gaiman retells that story too, brilliantly I might add); however, they later divorce because of Morpheus' stolid personality. In Modern times, Calliope is captured and repeatedly raped by writers who go on to produce amazing works of art. She is passed down from one great master to the next until she arrives with her last captor. Of course this story is some sort of metaphor for writing--how you have to sell your soul to make something beautiful (rape something beautiful, disturbing). Morpheus shows up, freeing his ex-wife (he waits for so long because he holds a grudge). The man who had trapped her goes insane trying to write down the amazing ideas before they go out in his head forever--eventually writing with his own bloody fingertips on any surface he can find. What sort of self-destructive aspect of yourself do you have to commune with so you can write? Are you raping a figurative Calliope in your mind? A terrifying idea. I would prefer to believe that I am dancing with her, but I suppose it depends on what sort of mood I am in when I am writing. If I was Edgar Allen Poe, I would probably being playing legos with her, but if I was some sort of sublime artist who got into a furied passion to conjure up something, I guess that may be different. We have all done bad things to Calliope in our own way.
Mark Booth's book also talks about Giordano Bruno but claims that he was burned in 1600 "for insisting that the solar system is heliocentric" (447). Perhaps, in the future, I can use the solar system as a memory palace as well. Each planet is a particular vibration in my mind--seven spheres that one must travel through before he reaches the great cosmic mind. And luckily that means I commune with the Muse of astronomy, Urania. Speaking of the muses, one of my favorite stories dealing with them is in the Sandman comics. Sandman, Morpheus, the God of Dreams, takes Calliope as his wife and produces a son, Orpheus (yes Neil Gaiman retells that story too, brilliantly I might add); however, they later divorce because of Morpheus' stolid personality. In Modern times, Calliope is captured and repeatedly raped by writers who go on to produce amazing works of art. She is passed down from one great master to the next until she arrives with her last captor. Of course this story is some sort of metaphor for writing--how you have to sell your soul to make something beautiful (rape something beautiful, disturbing). Morpheus shows up, freeing his ex-wife (he waits for so long because he holds a grudge). The man who had trapped her goes insane trying to write down the amazing ideas before they go out in his head forever--eventually writing with his own bloody fingertips on any surface he can find. What sort of self-destructive aspect of yourself do you have to commune with so you can write? Are you raping a figurative Calliope in your mind? A terrifying idea. I would prefer to believe that I am dancing with her, but I suppose it depends on what sort of mood I am in when I am writing. If I was Edgar Allen Poe, I would probably being playing legos with her, but if I was some sort of sublime artist who got into a furied passion to conjure up something, I guess that may be different. We have all done bad things to Calliope in our own way.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Mnemonics of SOPA and PIPA
I have been finding "Moonwalking with Einstein" to be incredibly interesting. I went out of my way to learn the 'mind palace' thing and tried to get the list in my head that Edgar tried to make the author learn. My images are crass though and cannot be shared in polite company. Seriously, some of them are disgusting and embarrassing. Let's just say 3 elk sausages, skin colored cat suit and even Paul Newman film got pretty risque. Before class I was going to make a 'palace' for the muses, but then I discovered Wikipedia was down because of SOPA, and I got pissed and decided to incorporate Wikipedia with Clio somehow. Well, I'll try. Let's start at my grandparents house. Calliope is in the driveway fighting off a giant beaver with a meat cleaver until a wild kamikaze grizzly bear tackles the water creature and explodes himself. Calliope stands up, covered in sweat and muck, and grabs my hand. You have seen nothing yet, friend, she says. The 9 muses have taken over your grandparents' house. I run up the stairs and run into Clio, who tries to tell me what happened. She is covered in ancient texts and Wikipedia articles. Euterpe is at the door. She is singing Hakuna Matata and dressed as Pumba from Lion King--what a twerp, I think, Eutwirpe.
The first thing I see upon entering the front door is tragedy--I just realized that this may have actually become a tragic story at this point. I see Ronald McDonald dead. Melpomene stands over him in a sad clown suit and Terpsichore stands off to the side playing the duh-da-da-duh-I'm-loving-it song on her Lyre and dancing--she is playing a stupid score, a twerpiscore. Erato, well, I can come with some truly gross things for that one so maybe I'll keep it to myself. Less to say that she is atop the kitchen table as I run to the backdoor. Polyhymnia is actually in the kitchen singing Ava Maria as I notice the house is on fire. A comet had fallen in the backyard, causing the surrounding wild life to mutate. The comet is from Uranus and Urania is juggling alien monkey skulls in her hands. Finally Thalia comes out from the backyard. It was all a joke--a comedy all along. I forgot it was my birthday today and this was an elaborate set up by my friends and family. Anyway, that's my story to remember. I am still having a hard time recalling Melpomene's name and how to pronounce Terpichore, but for the most part they are there.
I was talking to a Turkish student the other day. Strangely enough when I asked him where he was from he said Adana, where they invented the Kabob. I don't know how accurate this is, but it reminded me of mnemonics because he was trying to give me a way to reference it in the future. It's like when Foer mentions in his book that remembering someone's last name is Baker is way harder than remembering they are a baker. Now when ever I think of Adana, Turkey, I will think of Kabobs. Likewise, if someone asks me where I am from I will now say: I am from Billings, where a guy got ran over by a speeding car and exploded. It actually sort of happened near where I live. I know SOPA is a big thing today and I can't help but think that name was used for a reason. SOPA is an acronym for Stop Online Piracy, but when you put it as SOPA, it sounds clean and happy. Soap is soft, feels nice, and makes me smell not stinky. And PIPA. Makes me think of Easter and candy. Though I hate peeps, still makes me smile. marshmallows, pink and light blue, eggs, little baby chicks--PIPA (Protect IP Act). awwwwwwwwwwwwww. Now I want it to be Easter.
and one more thing: Simonides=Simon Says?
The first thing I see upon entering the front door is tragedy--I just realized that this may have actually become a tragic story at this point. I see Ronald McDonald dead. Melpomene stands over him in a sad clown suit and Terpsichore stands off to the side playing the duh-da-da-duh-I'm-loving-it song on her Lyre and dancing--she is playing a stupid score, a twerpiscore. Erato, well, I can come with some truly gross things for that one so maybe I'll keep it to myself. Less to say that she is atop the kitchen table as I run to the backdoor. Polyhymnia is actually in the kitchen singing Ava Maria as I notice the house is on fire. A comet had fallen in the backyard, causing the surrounding wild life to mutate. The comet is from Uranus and Urania is juggling alien monkey skulls in her hands. Finally Thalia comes out from the backyard. It was all a joke--a comedy all along. I forgot it was my birthday today and this was an elaborate set up by my friends and family. Anyway, that's my story to remember. I am still having a hard time recalling Melpomene's name and how to pronounce Terpichore, but for the most part they are there.
I was talking to a Turkish student the other day. Strangely enough when I asked him where he was from he said Adana, where they invented the Kabob. I don't know how accurate this is, but it reminded me of mnemonics because he was trying to give me a way to reference it in the future. It's like when Foer mentions in his book that remembering someone's last name is Baker is way harder than remembering they are a baker. Now when ever I think of Adana, Turkey, I will think of Kabobs. Likewise, if someone asks me where I am from I will now say: I am from Billings, where a guy got ran over by a speeding car and exploded. It actually sort of happened near where I live. I know SOPA is a big thing today and I can't help but think that name was used for a reason. SOPA is an acronym for Stop Online Piracy, but when you put it as SOPA, it sounds clean and happy. Soap is soft, feels nice, and makes me smell not stinky. And PIPA. Makes me think of Easter and candy. Though I hate peeps, still makes me smile. marshmallows, pink and light blue, eggs, little baby chicks--PIPA (Protect IP Act). awwwwwwwwwwwwww. Now I want it to be Easter.
and one more thing: Simonides=Simon Says?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Bad Business
It's nice to be back. Not just to another Sexson class, which is always a pleasure, but to the English Department in general. Last semester was all finance. I learned about derivatives, stocks, bonds, money market funds, beta, duration, leases, and lephews. That was a bad joke, but dammit if an English major can't make it! It might take me awhile to get back in the blogging groove having been away from writing for so long (like 6 months, painful). At the very least, I must admit the concept of the nine muses greatly intrigues me. During high school, one of my history teachers was adamant that her entire class learn every single president's name. She accomplished this by teaching us the president song. Basically you list off every Harding, Coolidge, and Polk in a happy-go-lucky sing-song. To this day I still have the first two verses memorized (Washington through Coolidge) and I never actually bothered to learn the third verse. I mean, come on, who doesn't know Hoover through Obama? What Dr. Sexson said about the word 'music' coming from 'Muses' reminded me of the commander and chief roll call. I remembered their names through music.
On a tangential note, I do find Eroto the most interesting of the Muses. I guess you could say Colerage might have been communing with lovely Eroto when he wrote about his pleasure dome. What is a pleasure dome? I like to think it is a place you go to get a back massage and and maybe a mud bath. It certainly cannot mean anything more than that. My mind is pure in that regard. In Sexson's Shakespeare class we talked about something called a mind baby. This thought percolated in my mind and gave birth to a bunch of new fetuses--mind babies don't stop with one, they keep on going until they infect everything. You see, I read a book call "The Secret History of the World" by Mark Booth where the author actually talks about this very concept. To the ancients, the mind was more real than the physical world. Thus their thoughts were not their own, but thoughts of the gods. The Olympians were real, and they talked to you directly every single day of your life. Zeus was a distant sky god of authority, telling you to behave. Aphrodite whispered lustful nothings in your head. Dionysus may have told you to just let go. Artists, you could say, also had meaningful communication with the sublime muses, and since the ancients' thoughts were more real than the physical world, some could gain life of their own. Yes, thoughts could become alive--mind babies. South Park's trilogy "Imaginationland" actually did a pretty good representation of this. Anyway, these were some opening ideas. See everyone in class tomorrow.
On a tangential note, I do find Eroto the most interesting of the Muses. I guess you could say Colerage might have been communing with lovely Eroto when he wrote about his pleasure dome. What is a pleasure dome? I like to think it is a place you go to get a back massage and and maybe a mud bath. It certainly cannot mean anything more than that. My mind is pure in that regard. In Sexson's Shakespeare class we talked about something called a mind baby. This thought percolated in my mind and gave birth to a bunch of new fetuses--mind babies don't stop with one, they keep on going until they infect everything. You see, I read a book call "The Secret History of the World" by Mark Booth where the author actually talks about this very concept. To the ancients, the mind was more real than the physical world. Thus their thoughts were not their own, but thoughts of the gods. The Olympians were real, and they talked to you directly every single day of your life. Zeus was a distant sky god of authority, telling you to behave. Aphrodite whispered lustful nothings in your head. Dionysus may have told you to just let go. Artists, you could say, also had meaningful communication with the sublime muses, and since the ancients' thoughts were more real than the physical world, some could gain life of their own. Yes, thoughts could become alive--mind babies. South Park's trilogy "Imaginationland" actually did a pretty good representation of this. Anyway, these were some opening ideas. See everyone in class tomorrow.
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