Re: Evil, Onward Ho...

Thinking no longer requires humans, or words.  Only digits.  This is the true advent of the post-human.  Not cybernetic beings, but beings who don't require humans at all. 

Young Artists Rise!

Youth with creative drive and determination keep me hopeful for our future. 

 

And who would've thought earbuds would become a piece of jewelry?

A Scientific Literary Criticism?

Blasphemy in the Temple of Literature?  Or a way out the dead end the critical theorist have put us in?  In death there may be rebirth...

On Lawrence, Freedom and the Family

Though I'm not sure I agree with this guy's analysis, it brings back fond memories of reading Lawrence as an undergraduate.

 

 

Hammering Away

One damn cool song by Steve Earle.

Vicodin...

Vicodin, vicodin for another outta work autoworker worried 'bout benefits...

Torturer in Chief

I remember talking to a friend a few years ago, before the Abu Goebells stuff had even blown up, telling him about the torture in the name of freedumb and suckurity our proud USA was employing.  "No, not really," he said, so naively incredulous.  Our own president authorize that?

 

Yes, really. 

 

Murakami: Master of the Business of Art

Sordid Warhol of the East or Sage of the New Age of Mega-Commodification? 

 

Key Murakami idea to contemplate here:  "You cannot create an art piece unless you know how to make and sell it."  Novel way of thinking of 'creativity'.  Not only making it, but marketing it.  Seeing and spawning 'original' paths to get it in consumer's hands, on their minds, on their credit cards...

 

Is there a relationship between the "superflat" non-hierarchical art world that Murakami espouses, and the "world is flat" global capitalism of Thomas Friedman? 

On Whitman and the Religious Impulse

I remember hiking mountains in the Northwest and chanting Whitman poems aloud by the side of some lake, the surrounding cedars and firs and mountainside like a great natural amphitheater--the lake, seen from above, seemingly a wide eye open to the universe.  And Walt Whitman and I its voice.  Or rather, giving voice to all its voluptuous citizenry.  This essay speaks to one of the converted.

 

Even though, years later, when I visited Whitman's home on a trip through Camden, I got a parking ticket. 

Fish on French Filosophy

I normally can't stand Stanley Fish, but here he has proved refreshingly elucudating on all that fancy French theory we on this side of the Atlantic like to get so up in arms about.

 

 

One-Handed Reading

Well well well...  I once asked a creative writing teacher about the market for ham-handed erotica--Penthouse Forum type stuff stretched (no pun intended) to novel length--and he, bless his gay soul--TOTALLY MISLED ME!!!  He said that the video market had done away with it.  Why read it when you could so easily download it, watch it in high definition.  But apparently he was wrong.  As this brief interview with one Edward Lear has made me realize.  That's it.  The lecherous and lewd scenarios that constantly are suggested to me by the guttersnipes of my imagination--I'm going to put those to use.  Onward, ho! 

 

 

Hi Tech Hotties Go Down On Another Democrat

For those who know Detroit--this happened on exit 69--Big Beaver.  High rise hotels, hi tech gratifications...  And a speeding ticket to go.

10,000 Hours To Take Off

Brooks the social observer/book reviewer cites a provocative factoid:  "It's commonly said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master any craft — three hours of practice every day for 10 years."  Hmm.  Conscience check:  where have I spent my 10,000 hours, my ten years?...

Steinbeck?

It's always sobering to read a great writer's life work snipingly dismissed by an Almighty Critic, Lord of the Canon.  This, to remind all young aspirants to Parnassus what fate shall befall them should they fail to conform to the party lines of the academic criticism industry, the self-appointed guardians of all that is good and enduring in Literature.  Steinbeck knew how to tell a story, that's all I know. 

Human Trafficking

I guess people will debate about the reality of anything, including modern day human slavery, aka, sex trafficking. 

Decline of Suburbia-- hooray!

Enlightening article not just about the decline of suburbs, but the rebirth of cities. 

Bipolar Economy, Bear Stearns Massacre Blues

Our economy, it turns out, is bipolar.  Boom and bust, faith and doubt, sweet zeal and tortured skepticism.  Nonetheless, the deal-maker architects--the bankers-- in the belly (or should we say brain?) of the beast don't want any regulations.  Governmental interference would limit their highs. 

 

Oh but the lows.  Yes, they want some help then.  Money pumped in from the Fed like a quick prescription of Vicodiin or Oxycontin.  Yes, they love Uncle Sam then.  Could someone please do a quick revision of Bob Dylan's "Talkin Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" as "Talkin Bear Stearns Picnic Massacre Blues"? 

 

Can we end this twisted joyride of denial?  Bipolar economy, heal thyself!  Get some antidepressants--some regulations--that is.  A nice little cocktail of pills, taken twice daily.  Yes, you will no longer see those delirious highs.  Stockroom running boys might not sweat so profusely.  But we will not all be out of a job and at the mercy of your mood when you hit those lows.  Smooth the peaks, even the valleys. 

 

Get to a shrink (oh, we're shrinking all right--all of our portfolios...)  Get a prescription--a fix.  Then to CVS.  Quick.

 

 

Another sell-out takes the pulpit

Actually, what I see here is not a tale of hard-working Schmo sticks w/it and after a few hard knocks makes it big. Rather it is your typical:  idealistic type decides he needs money and goes commercial, flaunting the tribulations of the marketplace (oh woe!) as some kind of gleaming professional wisdom.  Yeah, that is probably the American Way.  We figure if the Buddha really was so wise, he would have to sell a book w/seven laws based on his teachings--sure millions...

 

 

Brooks spits on Spitzer

David Brooks at his best  (Who could know better than he the perils and pitfalls the upwardly mobile and self-grandiose?)

Mischaracterized Earthies

Like most free market religionists, this guy has a beef with environmentalists because at times they actually question the workings of the market... (E.g., when the market appears to be helping the globe on its way to shitsville.) The market religionist, you see, devout worshipper of Mammon that he is, can't stand the thought that anything be put above the pure workings of his deity.