I'm going to start a blog for mom. She already provides great content.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Stuart, Florida
Independence is at a stopping point, here in Central Florida. You really don’t realize how big a state it is, till you start making your way down the ICW [editor: Inland Coastal Waterway goes down most of the East Coast]. This is a planned stop, as we have free dockage at our generous friend’s dock. It is also a good boating town and premier fishing area, thus many marine supply stores. The Wagner’s are here, also provisioning and planning to jump off and do a fast run to Georgetown as soon as Paloma clears out & seas die down. As we re-charge ourselves, we plan to visit many friends in this area before heading down to Ft. Lauderdale for a while.
More friends there, and final provisioning.
This past week, listening to election results at an anchorage in northeast FL, then making our slow way south while the world, the country, and Florida (!) get accustomed to the idea of a non-white President, and a very different administration, has been quite momentous. Emails and phone calls and text msgs were flying between Independence & friends & family. Wow, what a difference 4 years makes. (and 8 years ago, when Lisa called us in Palm Beach County & wondered what the hell was going on down here, & why didn’t we straighten them out?)
We attended the Stuart air show yesterday, and were treated to an impressive display from sky-writing to wing-walking to formation flying to very fast and very loud air force jets, all amongst a family-style carnival atmosphere with heavy recruiting & promotion going on at many booths. Our tax dollars at work. They are just completing the final run for today right above Independence, with the “Missing Man” formation. I will post some photos to picasaweb soon.
Busy in Stuart,
Sue & Paul
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
How To Become Conservative
- Get "prowled". This is where they walk down the street and open any unlocked cars, taking what they see.
- Get vandalized.
- Get threatened.
- Invite your friends over for a delicious and eccentric burrito feast. Drink some wine and tell some stories. Move upstairs to dance and play the drums and keyboard. Have a thief walk into your home and steal your housemate's livelihood and, perhaps, the most valuable object he owns - a laptop.
About two hours ago, while we were dancing around upstairs, an entity of some sort, a person, probably a man, probably unhappy, walked into our downstairs room and took my housemate's MacBook.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Self-help
Here are some songs I've discovered while being unemployed:
Here are a few I've re-discovered.
- 2080 - Yeasayer
- Bela Lugosi's Dead - Nouvelle Vague (cover)
- Fools - The Dodos
- Parchman Farm - Mose Allison
Here are a few I've re-discovered.
- Keep Fallin' - Hot Chip
- One Hundred Days - Mark Lanegan
- Dead Sound - The Raveonettes
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Where I walk.
I pass my garden as I walk towards my town - Olympia, WA. I can't wait for corn.
Some parts of downtown are less pretty than others.
The waterfront.
I am obsessed with the beautiful line of alleyways that shoots straight between the two main streets of downtown - State and Fourth.
Some of the alleys have amazing graffiti.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Soon to be unemployed, our hero finds himself in the paradoxical situation of being equal parts thrilled by the infinite (if not limitless) opportunities and terrified by the paralyzing possibilities of poverty.
Many of the possible futures he envisions involve a web, the internet. In the ever increasing speed of the age, the dream of "making money from the internet" seems quaint. But he will do it.
Odds stacked against him,Tiny Now braces himself...inhales through his nose...contemplates, for one last second, the hypnotic motion of the alders and firs as the warm but steady breeze blows around his small house,...and begins to brainstorm.
Many of the possible futures he envisions involve a web, the internet. In the ever increasing speed of the age, the dream of "making money from the internet" seems quaint. But he will do it.
Odds stacked against him,Tiny Now braces himself...inhales through his nose...contemplates, for one last second, the hypnotic motion of the alders and firs as the warm but steady breeze blows around his small house,...and begins to brainstorm.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
I know little of my world.
Another thing I know nothing about, and Time's caption doesn't help: some protestors in Seoul, against the import of American beef. Is it about Americans, cows, mad cows, or animal rights?
My ideal blog would be me posing questions like the above, and gathering answers from a more articulate audience.
My boat is a symbol of my independence as well as my roots. But it has got to go. Anyone in the Olympia area who wants a boat that will outlast mankind, check out this beautiful girl...woman...boat,
http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/boa/713106599.html
 |
| Bristol 22 |
http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/boa/713106599.html
Friday, May 9, 2008
It's Gettin' Kinda Hectic
It is so permanent here,
like when you're dead you are dead.
So many hurdles it feels like One,
that I have draped myself over,
Verge of getting up, this pastoral scene looked different when it was Antietam,
or when they built these mounds.
The flood was not a myth but a continuing reality, the waves of earth mounded by extinct cultures, rolling over our psyche like invisible tsunamis.
The terrible fog in mountains the terrible cumulus slow like Plath's mushroom fists. Rolls over us.
Scurrying, our entire life sometimes, as when the sun went down in time lapse and the men on the shore did not watch, for they had no nets to tend, or earth to turn.
Imagine that, them not looking up from their nets, silver with fish, silver with salmon. Unheard of, I think. Not looking up at the slow, slow dance.
Rolls over us, the soft insistent pulse of the dead before us, the ancient dead, the long slow dead, a wave crashing like earthworms on callused eardrums, a soft murmur of agony of a dead outnumbered by the living, dead men outnumbered by dead animals and the living men. Dead animals outnumbering living animals. Dead passenger pigeons, fluttering about our soundtracks, unheard.
Imagine that this week not once...
They did not look up from their hands, they did not look up from each other, the living, they did not look up at the dead blowing slowly over the setting sun, breathing its breath on the damp grass, stirring itself out of the soil, opening its warm guts to the soil, the dead and the never living circle in arabesque grooves, between the roots, and in the water, the dead gurgle, asking us to slow,
asking us to sleep.
like when you're dead you are dead.
So many hurdles it feels like One,
that I have draped myself over,
Verge of getting up, this pastoral scene looked different when it was Antietam,
or when they built these mounds.
The flood was not a myth but a continuing reality, the waves of earth mounded by extinct cultures, rolling over our psyche like invisible tsunamis.
The terrible fog in mountains the terrible cumulus slow like Plath's mushroom fists. Rolls over us.
Scurrying, our entire life sometimes, as when the sun went down in time lapse and the men on the shore did not watch, for they had no nets to tend, or earth to turn.
Imagine that, them not looking up from their nets, silver with fish, silver with salmon. Unheard of, I think. Not looking up at the slow, slow dance.
Rolls over us, the soft insistent pulse of the dead before us, the ancient dead, the long slow dead, a wave crashing like earthworms on callused eardrums, a soft murmur of agony of a dead outnumbered by the living, dead men outnumbered by dead animals and the living men. Dead animals outnumbering living animals. Dead passenger pigeons, fluttering about our soundtracks, unheard.
Imagine that this week not once...
They did not look up from their hands, they did not look up from each other, the living, they did not look up at the dead blowing slowly over the setting sun, breathing its breath on the damp grass, stirring itself out of the soil, opening its warm guts to the soil, the dead and the never living circle in arabesque grooves, between the roots, and in the water, the dead gurgle, asking us to slow,
asking us to sleep.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Complaint
Part One
The fucking lawnmower, with blades as dull as the handle of a butterknife, stalls unless advanced at such an infintesimal velocity that time itself seems to reverse, sucking one's throbbing eardrums into an abyss of a sound that was never meant to happen, the lawn, much less the lawnmower is an unnatural thing, a sick vestige of richman envy, just like Versaille, every single Joe Whiteguy has got this wasteful status symbol, and even when one shakes it off or let's go of that branding iron of a "safety bar" that causes the engine to stop, one notices that the cut on the finger, which was a result of starting the infernal machine the previous day, now appears to be infected and hurts like hell, it doesn't help that the saftey bar digs right into the cut, even after shaking that off and straightening one's back to look at what one hasn't been looking at while pushing through the tall grass or removing fetid chunks of pulverised grass and upstart blackberry vines, which drive infectious juices into the finger cut, straightening up and stretching the back, one thinks, "I always forget to 'lift from the knees'...stupid saying, my knees hurt too, fuck," and despite the lengthening shadows that one loves to watch, and the brilliant water reflecting the well proportioned cloud cover (the blue sky spots like mange on the sheepdog of the universe), one only thinks, "I should be enjoying this," but hears that fucking your-an-adult-now voice and the grass ain't gonna stop growing, despite the property itself, that one is only mowing because it is a requirement of the lease, despite the cheap rent, even after the attractive neighbor came by, or perhaps in spite of, because she shortly was joined by her friend and they walked down the hill and into the adjacent lot that acts as a kind of public space, because it is a shorcut from the neighborhood up the hill, now they are sitting in the short grass, which probably doesn't grow because it is sitting on barely living soil clinging to a pile of fill, that our town's founders piled on the rich salmon breeding waters that used to be here, and now one feels like one is putting on a lawnmowing show, except it is a clown show, because this lawnmower is just not cutting it, and one is too annoyed to notice the pun, or perhaps too self-conscious or indulgent with vain fantasies of being admired, in fact, one notices, quite ridiculous fantasies, because the characteristics for which one would like to be admired are completely absent, but instead, one is being lusted after because of one skill, that of lawnmowing, and this divergence of thought reminds one of the days multitude of attractions, and how one was so lustful for them, in spring clothes, on bikes, and meeting each other in the campus square, just like these neighbors, except they met in one's yard, and are now possibly annoyed by the lawnmower, which has been started and stalled several times since they have been trying to enjoy the otherwise pastoral scene, "and besides," one thinks, "you are old," way too old for them, and one's back begins to hurt, even after letting that foray into self-depreciation fade into a more even-headed perspective, one thinks again about age, and although the bartender said the year's have treated you well, one is left with the harsh edge of doubt that one is not behaving as an adult should, that even though one has decided to do many adult things, is usually on time, makes enough money to pay one's bills, sooner or later, which reminds one of a $900 dollar dental bill and student loans coming due at the end of the year, even with the garden that one has been maintaining and the full time plus the part time job (the reason why the grass is so long, although it also had to do with the trip to Phoenix, where the family reunion drained one of emotional energy, in a good way, but left one susceptible to the harsh apocalyptic and sometimes incessant thoughts about man as a parasite on the earth, teeming across the desert in pods of strip malls and adobe colored homes in an infinite progression of cul-de-sacs, unrecognizable from each other, which one's uncle described as the background of a Hanna Barbara cartoon, unconsciously likening all the people living there to Shaggy and Scooby and the gang, chased by monsters, who are just crooks in masks, who, in this metaphor, are each and every one of us who has two nickels to rub together, fleeing past a background that repeats and repeats, and of course there were the terrible conversations with the parents about one's drinking, and the earlier one with the cousins and siblings, that took place after they had all been drinking, and the whole sanctity of getting drunk with loved ones is tainted, because perhaps one shouldn't be drinking at all, in fact, it occurs to one, the promise one's mother elicited to stop for two weeks is going well, it is over one week already) still doesn't relieve the guilty feeling that one is not living up to the standards that one has set for oneself, although, one realizes, the standards aren't necessarily written down anywhere, are in continual flux and revision, even if perhaps one has engaged in a vigorous course of self-improvement on some fronts, one has let other fronts crumble and recede, this whole drinking thing a perfect example, the increased productivity has created a hectic edge to life, and awareness sometimes hurts, like too much sun, even when all these things recede into one's consciousness, replaced by the music from one's ipod, and the breeze coming off East Bay, the lawn is still only one tenth mowed...
The fucking lawnmower, with blades as dull as the handle of a butterknife, stalls unless advanced at such an infintesimal velocity that time itself seems to reverse, sucking one's throbbing eardrums into an abyss of a sound that was never meant to happen, the lawn, much less the lawnmower is an unnatural thing, a sick vestige of richman envy, just like Versaille, every single Joe Whiteguy has got this wasteful status symbol, and even when one shakes it off or let's go of that branding iron of a "safety bar" that causes the engine to stop, one notices that the cut on the finger, which was a result of starting the infernal machine the previous day, now appears to be infected and hurts like hell, it doesn't help that the saftey bar digs right into the cut, even after shaking that off and straightening one's back to look at what one hasn't been looking at while pushing through the tall grass or removing fetid chunks of pulverised grass and upstart blackberry vines, which drive infectious juices into the finger cut, straightening up and stretching the back, one thinks, "I always forget to 'lift from the knees'...stupid saying, my knees hurt too, fuck," and despite the lengthening shadows that one loves to watch, and the brilliant water reflecting the well proportioned cloud cover (the blue sky spots like mange on the sheepdog of the universe), one only thinks, "I should be enjoying this," but hears that fucking your-an-adult-now voice and the grass ain't gonna stop growing, despite the property itself, that one is only mowing because it is a requirement of the lease, despite the cheap rent, even after the attractive neighbor came by, or perhaps in spite of, because she shortly was joined by her friend and they walked down the hill and into the adjacent lot that acts as a kind of public space, because it is a shorcut from the neighborhood up the hill, now they are sitting in the short grass, which probably doesn't grow because it is sitting on barely living soil clinging to a pile of fill, that our town's founders piled on the rich salmon breeding waters that used to be here, and now one feels like one is putting on a lawnmowing show, except it is a clown show, because this lawnmower is just not cutting it, and one is too annoyed to notice the pun, or perhaps too self-conscious or indulgent with vain fantasies of being admired, in fact, one notices, quite ridiculous fantasies, because the characteristics for which one would like to be admired are completely absent, but instead, one is being lusted after because of one skill, that of lawnmowing, and this divergence of thought reminds one of the days multitude of attractions, and how one was so lustful for them, in spring clothes, on bikes, and meeting each other in the campus square, just like these neighbors, except they met in one's yard, and are now possibly annoyed by the lawnmower, which has been started and stalled several times since they have been trying to enjoy the otherwise pastoral scene, "and besides," one thinks, "you are old," way too old for them, and one's back begins to hurt, even after letting that foray into self-depreciation fade into a more even-headed perspective, one thinks again about age, and although the bartender said the year's have treated you well, one is left with the harsh edge of doubt that one is not behaving as an adult should, that even though one has decided to do many adult things, is usually on time, makes enough money to pay one's bills, sooner or later, which reminds one of a $900 dollar dental bill and student loans coming due at the end of the year, even with the garden that one has been maintaining and the full time plus the part time job (the reason why the grass is so long, although it also had to do with the trip to Phoenix, where the family reunion drained one of emotional energy, in a good way, but left one susceptible to the harsh apocalyptic and sometimes incessant thoughts about man as a parasite on the earth, teeming across the desert in pods of strip malls and adobe colored homes in an infinite progression of cul-de-sacs, unrecognizable from each other, which one's uncle described as the background of a Hanna Barbara cartoon, unconsciously likening all the people living there to Shaggy and Scooby and the gang, chased by monsters, who are just crooks in masks, who, in this metaphor, are each and every one of us who has two nickels to rub together, fleeing past a background that repeats and repeats, and of course there were the terrible conversations with the parents about one's drinking, and the earlier one with the cousins and siblings, that took place after they had all been drinking, and the whole sanctity of getting drunk with loved ones is tainted, because perhaps one shouldn't be drinking at all, in fact, it occurs to one, the promise one's mother elicited to stop for two weeks is going well, it is over one week already) still doesn't relieve the guilty feeling that one is not living up to the standards that one has set for oneself, although, one realizes, the standards aren't necessarily written down anywhere, are in continual flux and revision, even if perhaps one has engaged in a vigorous course of self-improvement on some fronts, one has let other fronts crumble and recede, this whole drinking thing a perfect example, the increased productivity has created a hectic edge to life, and awareness sometimes hurts, like too much sun, even when all these things recede into one's consciousness, replaced by the music from one's ipod, and the breeze coming off East Bay, the lawn is still only one tenth mowed...
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Music Conundrum
I haven't posted for a while for many reasons, but the most significant obstacle has been music. Too much of it. My love for music is so great that I did not want to do it injustice by writing cliche or misleading things about it.
But that is a bullshit reason to not do it. So, here it is: my first music post.
I made a mix for my friend that I am calling Thirds because it is supposed to be, vaguely, one third danceable, one third rocking, and one third heartfelt or melancholy.
And it goes a little something like this:
Anyway, I just read their, or should I say, his, myspace blurb, and it seems that there is a collaboration in the works with another great band from Arizona - French Quarter. I think we should all keep our ears tilted that way because I've been wearing out the French Quarter CD.
One more band to drop in your ears, because the aforementioned bands remind me of the first Olympia band I fell in love with: Kickball
But that is a bullshit reason to not do it. So, here it is: my first music post.
I made a mix for my friend that I am calling Thirds because it is supposed to be, vaguely, one third danceable, one third rocking, and one third heartfelt or melancholy.
And it goes a little something like this:
- A.C. Newman - Miracle Drug
- Curtis Mayfield - Do Do Wap Is Strong In Here
- GB feat Steve Spacek - Simply So (SA-RA Vocal Remix)
- Hot Chip - Keep Fallin'
- MC Paul Barman - Vulture Shark Skulpture Park
- Les Savy Fav - Patty Lee
- Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do?
- The Black Angels - Black Grease
- Nouvelle Vague - Heart Of Glass
- Grizzly Bear - Colorado
- Fionn Regan - Hey Rabbit
- Fionn Regan - Snowy Atlas Mountain - .mp3
- Joan As Police Woman - The Ride
- Lambchop - Is A Woman
- Bjorn Torske - Dub Vendors
- Stevie Wonder - Masterblaster
- Beirut - Nantes
- Of Montreal - We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling
Tonight I went downtown (Oly, WA) and was treated to a cultural tour unlike any I have embarked on in quite a while. The highlight had to be the show on tagged up school bus from Tuscon, AZ, driven by Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout.
The guy in the face paint is Mr. Free.
I wasn't as excited about Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout as I was about Mad River Glen.
I recommend the songs "Cross Ventilation" and "Sticks Stones". Imagine them playing on a school bus with no seats, only amps, a crappy couch, and an ashtray, parked out in front of the local gay bar.
The guy in the face paint is Mr. Free.
I wasn't as excited about Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout as I was about Mad River Glen.
I recommend the songs "Cross Ventilation" and "Sticks Stones". Imagine them playing on a school bus with no seats, only amps, a crappy couch, and an ashtray, parked out in front of the local gay bar.
Anyway, I just read their, or should I say, his, myspace blurb, and it seems that there is a collaboration in the works with another great band from Arizona - French Quarter. I think we should all keep our ears tilted that way because I've been wearing out the French Quarter CD.
One more band to drop in your ears, because the aforementioned bands remind me of the first Olympia band I fell in love with: Kickball
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Tutoring Conference Proposal
I work at a Writing Center as a tutor. Here is my workshop proposal the Pacific Northwest Writing Centers Association.
St(Fun P)art Here:
Non-Linear Organizational Techniques
Writing is linear, thinking is not. We leap from idea to idea when we are doing our best thinking and it is our best thinking that we should be writing about. Traditional methods of organizing do not nourish the naturally radiant thought process. The "Roman numeral" outline does not encourage a holistic understanding of a writing topic. Non-linear and whole brain approaches to organizing, like mind-mapping, unlock the strictures that cause writers stress and encourages them to make connections that would not otherwise be apparent. At the same time, a mind map can make clear the inherent structures in a complex of ideas and allow writers to understand where they are going with a piece of writing, what the main ideas are, what are the constituent parts of an idea, and how ideas and parts of ideas interrelate.
Every reasonably adept tutor can recognize disorganization and suggest how to reorder an already written piece, but how do you teach the skill of organizing? In this workshop, we will work from the assumption that the fundamental unit of organization is association, the association of parts of a subject with the whole and with each other.
The workshop will be 10% presentation, 90% participation, and 100% cheesy...I mean, FUN!
An initial collaborative exercise will illustrate to workshop participants the infinite capacity of association and the basics of mind-mapping. I will relate my experience using the techniques of mind mapping in tutoring sessions, particularly at the pre-drafting/brainstorming stages. The workshop will focus on eliciting ideas and connections between ideas by using visual thinking and non-linear organizational schemes. We will discuss the advantages of non-linear, whole brain, organizational techniques over traditional Roman numeral outlines. Finally we will discuss how we can grow a non-linear outline into an orderly paper...just like these three paragraphs grew out of this:
Sunday, February 24, 2008
What the hell is Globalization?
The two big ideas that seem to be connected most closely with the word globalization are almost opposite in terms of morality. The first, and, in my circles, most common big idea is the capitalist exploitation of the majority of the world's non-white people and their land by the minority of whites. This exploitation seems often to wear the clothes of the more moral connotation of globalization - the great equalizer. Globalization, according to this view, is making the world flat, bringing wealth to the poor, cell phones and internet, factory jobs and Coca-Cola. Of course, most intelligent people I know realize that the philanthropic motives that greedy corporate PR campaigns profess are bullshit, but this does not mean that globalization is all bad. There are benefits to interconnectivity, even if the West seems to invade native cultures like a virus, we can still offer impoverished societies ideas and resources to inoculate themselves against the chaos of growth.
This is just a long intro to a few pieces of media that I have come across lately. Most of them reinforce the depressing reality that us rich folk (...face it, if you're an American with a computer, you are rich. Rich, rich, rich.), are living on the backs of the rest of the world. But some of these pieces offer some optimism and maybe even a hint at what the hell we are supposed to do about the mess we are complicit in making.
The Story of Stuff is a lecture by a smart and eloquent woman named Annie Leonard accompanied by some cute black and white animations. It explains how our production and consumption patterns work. Some dreary, and some uplifting highlights, the toxicity of today's breast milk, the concept of "externalized costs", and a list of things you can do to move the planet another way.
Less practical, except insofar as having a clearer concept of what the world of people looks like is practical, is the website Gapminder.org.
Last night, I fell asleep listening to an article from a 2005 issue of The New Yorker about a character by the name of Jeffrey Sachs, who has been popping up everywhere. He is an economist who espouses the optimistic view that we can eradicate poverty in our lifetime. He also loves capitalism and has been criticized for introducing harmful economic practices to developing nations, and changing his tune when he began to see some of these negative consequences. (I downloaded the article from a promising website called AssistiveMedia.)
He is mentioned as well in an episode of one of my favorite radio programs, Open Source with Christopher Lydon. Julia Buxton is the only guest and she brilliantly analyzes the fallacy of "free-market cures for Latin economies." In 2006, they did a show with Jeffrey Sachs as a guest. I haven't listened to that one yet.
There is an amazing article that appeared in Vanity Fair. It is about "feral zones" in developing countries, in particular it examines the amazing power and organization of Brazil's largest prison gang, the Primero Comando da Capital (PCC).
Homo Faber
This is just a long intro to a few pieces of media that I have come across lately. Most of them reinforce the depressing reality that us rich folk (...face it, if you're an American with a computer, you are rich. Rich, rich, rich.), are living on the backs of the rest of the world. But some of these pieces offer some optimism and maybe even a hint at what the hell we are supposed to do about the mess we are complicit in making.
The Story of Stuff is a lecture by a smart and eloquent woman named Annie Leonard accompanied by some cute black and white animations. It explains how our production and consumption patterns work. Some dreary, and some uplifting highlights, the toxicity of today's breast milk, the concept of "externalized costs", and a list of things you can do to move the planet another way.
Less practical, except insofar as having a clearer concept of what the world of people looks like is practical, is the website Gapminder.org.
"Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels."...or some fucking amazing graphs that animate and illustrate global trends like, population, mortality rates, internet use per capita, or birth rate. The thing that got me hooked was this lecture by Hans Roslings, titled optimistically, "The seemingly impossible is possible." He uses graphs of UN statistics to breakdown a lot of misconceptions about the so -called "third world."
Last night, I fell asleep listening to an article from a 2005 issue of The New Yorker about a character by the name of Jeffrey Sachs, who has been popping up everywhere. He is an economist who espouses the optimistic view that we can eradicate poverty in our lifetime. He also loves capitalism and has been criticized for introducing harmful economic practices to developing nations, and changing his tune when he began to see some of these negative consequences. (I downloaded the article from a promising website called AssistiveMedia.)
He is mentioned as well in an episode of one of my favorite radio programs, Open Source with Christopher Lydon. Julia Buxton is the only guest and she brilliantly analyzes the fallacy of "free-market cures for Latin economies." In 2006, they did a show with Jeffrey Sachs as a guest. I haven't listened to that one yet.
There is an amazing article that appeared in Vanity Fair. It is about "feral zones" in developing countries, in particular it examines the amazing power and organization of Brazil's largest prison gang, the Primero Comando da Capital (PCC).
Homo Faber
What was Hannah Arendt talking about again? Speaking of Hannah Arendt...and again.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Why?
Why start a blog?
First, the short answers: To unload. It is fun. So my friends can see how I am doing.
Things get lost. My memory is especially untrustworthy, and no matter how many times I hear someone say that "it's all still up there" in my head, I do not become more hopeful. Thick tracts of my experience are lost to the vagaries of recall. Memory is not a file cabinet of snap shots. It is a pile of sketches, mildewing in the attics of houses, scattered on the streets of a dark city. Recall is a compass without a map. I think senior year is north a few blocks...
Hence, the first reason for "unloading." Otherwise, memories will never get out of the dark city in my head.
The second reason, perhaps the more important one, is to commune with you, my reader. I do not know who you are, but I will assume you are a friend. Even if the only reader is my future self, there is something of an element of communion there. Paradoxically, the idea of no one is somehow similar to the idea of everyone. Dear readers, you are everyone.
There is another paradox here. This telling, so ego heavy: today I looked at myself in the mirror and was so glad at what I saw...The exploration of how I feel about things, about what I did all day, about what I think is pretty, what bands I like, is an indulgence. Yet, it seems like such a grounding effort, a labor even, that satisfies some moral requirement. Strike down on this digital tombstone an epitaph, thousands of lines long...
Then there is a more selfless reason for blogging. I want to share the beautiful things that fly at me each day, so fast and fleeting...how, somehow, a song is perfect. Right now, for example, Paul Simon appears on shuffle and I am reminded of how long music has gone on and it was only a second ago when my cousins and I danced to my mother's copy of Graceland and in a few more seconds my post-apocalyptic grand nephew will listen to it again. The song that triggered this digression, by the way, is "Obvious Child" from The Rhythm of the Saints.
Then there are other things I want to share, that are not beautiful, bad shit that happens. I work as a lobbyist for public college students in Washington state. I work as a writing tutor at Evergreen college as well. My growing awareness of political realities is a constant source of rumination for me. The big question, the great problem, for me, is how do I act politically. Even inaction has political repercussions, so I would like to be as intentional as possible. Acting politically does not just mean participating in my caucus or writing a letter to my legislator, it infiltrates every action of my life, and yours. I am beginning to ramble about this. I have few answers. As a reason for blogging, a big question is a good one.
Life seems to move faster than ever. Events of significance pile up each day by the hundreds.
In this blog, I hope, I will preserve, uncover, share, and solidify the significance that I float through each day: the beautiful things, the problems, the ways of seeing, asking, answering, hearing and rocking out.
First, the short answers: To unload. It is fun. So my friends can see how I am doing.
Things get lost. My memory is especially untrustworthy, and no matter how many times I hear someone say that "it's all still up there" in my head, I do not become more hopeful. Thick tracts of my experience are lost to the vagaries of recall. Memory is not a file cabinet of snap shots. It is a pile of sketches, mildewing in the attics of houses, scattered on the streets of a dark city. Recall is a compass without a map. I think senior year is north a few blocks...
Hence, the first reason for "unloading." Otherwise, memories will never get out of the dark city in my head.
The second reason, perhaps the more important one, is to commune with you, my reader. I do not know who you are, but I will assume you are a friend. Even if the only reader is my future self, there is something of an element of communion there. Paradoxically, the idea of no one is somehow similar to the idea of everyone. Dear readers, you are everyone.
There is another paradox here. This telling, so ego heavy: today I looked at myself in the mirror and was so glad at what I saw...The exploration of how I feel about things, about what I did all day, about what I think is pretty, what bands I like, is an indulgence. Yet, it seems like such a grounding effort, a labor even, that satisfies some moral requirement. Strike down on this digital tombstone an epitaph, thousands of lines long...
Then there is a more selfless reason for blogging. I want to share the beautiful things that fly at me each day, so fast and fleeting...how, somehow, a song is perfect. Right now, for example, Paul Simon appears on shuffle and I am reminded of how long music has gone on and it was only a second ago when my cousins and I danced to my mother's copy of Graceland and in a few more seconds my post-apocalyptic grand nephew will listen to it again. The song that triggered this digression, by the way, is "Obvious Child" from The Rhythm of the Saints.
Then there are other things I want to share, that are not beautiful, bad shit that happens. I work as a lobbyist for public college students in Washington state. I work as a writing tutor at Evergreen college as well. My growing awareness of political realities is a constant source of rumination for me. The big question, the great problem, for me, is how do I act politically. Even inaction has political repercussions, so I would like to be as intentional as possible. Acting politically does not just mean participating in my caucus or writing a letter to my legislator, it infiltrates every action of my life, and yours. I am beginning to ramble about this. I have few answers. As a reason for blogging, a big question is a good one.
Life seems to move faster than ever. Events of significance pile up each day by the hundreds.
In this blog, I hope, I will preserve, uncover, share, and solidify the significance that I float through each day: the beautiful things, the problems, the ways of seeing, asking, answering, hearing and rocking out.
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