2005/09/30

Sick, I mean, Unwell

Dammit, dammit dammit. What the fuck I am so sick right now with like a fever and nose/throat thing and fucking shit I could not sleep at all last night. Fuck! This is what I get for living around a University, piece of shit, I always get hella sick in the fall now. Fucking FUCK YOU student assholes.

Also, just this morning I saw a kid of about 19 tender years who had a mock jersey t-shirt on that had the number 1 and said "Flava Flav."Click me to discover hidden easter egg!


This kid was so white he could'nt've picked Flava Flav out from a lineup of quintuplet japanese schoolgirls. I wanted to stab. Him.


Which means he was no hipster but what they call a poser. Hey: if you're gonna have nutty junk on your shirt, at least make it halfway plausible nutty junk. Like huge capitals of "He No Here!" or something. Do I gotta spell everything out for you? Understand the shit you're getting into. Be like me:

bitch
You are Flava Flav. "I've been a musician, a
songwriter, and I've been a singer but people
didn't know that. The only thing people know
about is 'Yeah BOYYYYYYYYYEEE!' 'Ha ha cold
medina,' '911 is a joke,' 'I'm lamping, I'm
lamping.' That's all people know about. 'Public
Enemy number one.' That's my ID."


Are you Flava Flav?
brought to you by Quizilla

2005/09/29

Small world

Aparently the Universe, in a fit of pique, decided to make my world just one quearter inch smaller on the outside by letting me find out who my new upstairs neighbor is. (Also, not that he visits here, constant reader, Sorry I suck so much as a neighbor that I did not find out who you are for six weeks after moving in, I will invite you over for drinks or something someday, promise.)

On a tangentially related note, I've been keeping a .txt file on random thoughts about "What love is" and thinking about how the people I know and/or love know everyone else I know and/or love with many fewer degrees of separation than they relate to, say, Kevin Bacon. My favorite recent entry, hot off the medulla:
Love: is a schizophrenic break coupled with panic reaction and priapism.
But then I have about thirty more, give or take... Love: quenches the thirst it creates. And so on.

Plus: would you like me to tell you a story? It's really quite, um, awful.

2005/09/28

The return of the Tag

Thanks to all you B-Girls for a hellafun Wed. night too.

2005/09/27

Thar She Don't Blow!

Oh Shit! Photography takes human knowledge one step closer to completion.

[update] Amusing: learn about eripsa's dream scenario (scroll down a bit).

names

too lazy to give you shit today. find out your mystical spyrit name.

2005/09/26

Best. Action. Cinema. Of. All. Time.

Snakes On A Muthafuckin' Plane!
From Collider:
Beaks: One of those films that you’re working on right now is... well, it’s called "Pacific Air 121"—

Jackson: Snakes on a Plane, man!

Beaks: Exactly.

Jackson: We’re totally changing that back. That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.

Beaks: Snakes on a Plane! That’s everything!

Jackson: You either want to see that, or you don’t.

2005/09/25

Weather Report

A heavy raincloud will souse the region and keep all hearty soulds indoors, studying grim texts and stern tomes.

2005/09/24

What is intention?

The word 'intention'--not to be confused with 'intension'--and its associated "notion" is at the center of a number of confusions among contemporary philosophers. I am writing to address some issues raised in discussion and not necessarily to come to a solution or answer particular literature.

I take it that we have a common-sense notion of intention, and that this notion, like many in the quotidian repetoire, is many-faceted, complex, sometimes vague, sometimes ambiguous, and thoroughly dim to parsing. I say dim because it is not, I think, either opaque or "basic" (whatever that might mean). I want only to pick a thread or two from that web of concepts.

One supposes that a natural occasion on which to say of someone X that they intended to A is when, upon looking at the action performed, we can concoct a story that will give X a reason to A. We can do here without a lengthy exposition of what counts as a reason. Let us suppose that what falls under the concept is anything one could be described as wanting to bring about, or some past event(s) that give us an intuitive understanding of a motivation. We shall exclude all of those possibilities that leave such a connection unintelligible. This has the happy effect of excluding the insane from necessarily being held accountable for their reasons in action (nowadays a commonplace notion, though an issue not to be discussed further here); it alsol allows us to elide the issue of motivation, which is not itself the topic under discussion here. Philosophical accounts of that (the discussion of Hume's supposedly "hydraulic" theory) are supposed to be part of the explanatory structure that is, essentially, an ontologic discovery of the nature of the events we attribute to the will.

We are rather concerned with what constitutes intention--is it an act, a property, etc.?--and the conditions under which something may be intentional. I take it that, on the sense under discussion, the things that may count as intentional are actions. I will leave the notion of action itself somewhat vague, with the following outline: actions are discrete events--regions of space-time--in which a process appears to be initiated by an entity such as a plant, animal, spirit, robot, etc.; and where such appearance is due to our inability under ordinary circumstances to construct any sort of detailed picture of the causal story we must admit can be told about what came immediately prior to the event. Reasons, then, take part in a sort of causal story, but not a physicalistic one, as in the above outline.

Now as to the idea that we are able to "concoct a story," as was said earlier, about a reason for an action. If this is to be a condition for an action's being intentional, then we must find out what sort of story is the one we "have in mind." A Kantian might propose the following. The story we are referring to amounts to the construction of a hypothetical imperative under which a reason and an act are tied together. So, in order to obtain B (which we stipulate X already takes as a reason; do not be distracted yet) X does A. The imperative allows us to attribute a willing of the means (A) to the end (B) to X, and intention must then amount to just having a reason.

A follower of Wittgenstein and Anscombe might propose this alternative. We must be able, in theory only, to elicit from the agent a response to the question "why did you do A?" other than (i) "I didn't mean to do that" or (ii) "I didn't realize what I was doing." "No reason" is an acceptable answer on this view; X may say that she "meant to do A" or the like, or even "I don't know" (think of an adolescent), without providing any answer to do with an antecedent desire, want, aim, or reason. (For neither proposal does this imply we should supply one, by fiat, from the subconscious; that would lead us to difficulties with circularity worse than the ones already skirted above.)

The major difficulty between these views (ignoring for now such things as the larger implications of phrasing things in the language of Kant's Groundwork) is whether an action may be said to be intentional when, all concoctions aside, X refuses to admit, let alone enunciate, an antecedent reason. And I see no reason why we must a priori define intentional actions as ones undertaken for reasons. As since I have already appealed to ordinary intuitions in order to get the discussion's topic in view, it would be foolhardy to appeal to them in order to solve the present trouble.

I do not want to attempt here to adjudicate between various theories of action in terms of Anscombe's "descriptions" account, though I must admit that I am attracted to it as an account of what is said to be intentional under normal usage. However I think that the present space is not the appropriate place to take up that fight, as what we are concerned withnow, action, already includes that argument while still being identical with the class of things that may be "intentional."

Let us try another tack. Consider the possibility that thinking is active. That is, adding two and two (and coming up with a result) is an act on my part, even if I do not articulate any particular thoughts having to do with or relating to my doing so other than the adding itself. (Perhaps one's thoughts wander, and then one thinks "2+2=5 is wrong" and immediately afterward "2+2=4" and then "Orwell had some interesting things to day about language." I am supposing these are discrete thoughts, but even if some theory puts the lie to it the example of the solo thought is, I think, solid enough to stand signage toward the discussion here.) Leaving what thoughts are to intuition, I still assert that each thought is an act. Not all thoughts, however, are intentional. Thus the literary "thoughts unbidden" and the song that is stuck in one's head amount to malfunctions like muscle spasms or perhaps involuntary muscle movements--they can be controlled, but onl by the engagement of the will. That is, only when the apparatus of the mind that does these processes is used intentionally.

Unfortunately now we have only moved the difficulty. This attempt to cash out intention in terms of some feature of mental processes had the advantage of deciding decisively for the Kantians. It has the drawback of leaving the notion of intention to be subsumed under a metaphysical account of the will, and that will be a source of contention even more difficult to navigate than the present discussion has been.

I do not have any conclusions to offer after this admittedly unsatisfying survey of the landscape. I would point to a pair of thoughts that may prove fruitful. The first is the suggestion that intention is an empty concept applied post hoc to events because of our natural mechanism of creating a narrative--our personal history and identity. Taken seriously, intention is just what we attribute to agents in virtue of their making intelligible actions in the world. Compare that to the Humean account of the natural laws as making intelligible the patterns of impressions we receive. The second thought is that it is unsatisfactory to appeal to willing or the like in order to have an acceptable account of intention. After all, what was the aim of the above discussion but to explicate the concept in some small respect--and how quickly that turned into an ontological snipe hunt! One wonders how it is possible to stay within the realm of ordinary usage without resorting to the actions of the soul, as perhaps Davidson would allow us to do, and how Descartes would insist we do--for these things merely explain intention's being part of our world and not its nature.

2005/09/23

Bowling

Hey so I guess you've heard a this fuckin' bowling thing, right. Probly the only place in the universe they don't have it is like Singapore. Anyway so I did this last night and let me tell you it's about the easiest damn thing there is. I mean, all you have to do is roll this ball & hit some sticks. like reverse baseball or something. And you people do this for fun? please. I bowled--that's the word, right? not rolled--whatever I scored 211 my first game. No worries you hairless pre-pubescent looking butt lickers. I laugh at thee. THEE!

That's right, it's easy for me, just like biting through a skull or digging out troublesome lice I am naturally talented and you uncoordinated fucks are left in the grass smelling... my ass. (I am LOLing except not because it is pretty fuckin' stupid to say "El oh el.") Anyway I'm also kinda drunk on some Jack and couple pretty much challenge Randy Savage to 6 rounds of bare-knuckle about now.

2005/09/22

Hornswoggled

I don't even really know what this word means, but there it is. It's not boondoggled or mind boggled but maybe swindled would do? The focus on the word here is just a sign that I'm feeling playful. Playful is not an emotion you ought to "grow out of." It is nearly that thing the French supposedly call joie de vivre and the British call "cocaine binge."

What could this feeling be described as... I would say "lightness." I am happy to focus on the unsignificant and the insubstantial for a few seconds, hours, or days. That is what it's all about. Having fun, using imagination. Pretend you are 6 again, and the world shifts from solid reality to technicolor irreality and the fatasies that simmer in the back of your mind leap out singing and dancing.

Playful.

2005/09/21

september

a month i love to love to hate
cimmeron and cinnamon, chimaera
a wind the other day blew down
my glass-eyed eyes
(staring into nothing as i walked)
stung by raindrops

how are brown crusts in the street?
whirling in a tiny dust-devil figure
--two exchange students surprised
coal hair and cream arms flying up--
and the cloudy sky brings a chill
november's breath

a flight, neither curt geese nor chatty ducks
but still streaming southward
hearts in winter homes, warmed
as you will mine
under a drift of maple leaves

2005/09/20

In the house.


cl-martini
Originally uploaded by X3-R0.
Yeah so fizhburn asked me to come aboard and that's what I'm doing. Word up.

2005/09/19

Invisible Ninjas!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.





...






:D

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Sept. 19! Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

2005/09/18

Finally finished.

So time consuming. So much satisfying procrastination. Beginning.

* I am proficient in the use of many types firearms and combat weapons. (I use my nunchucks for ninja and wolverine hunting, for instance.)
* I like the way women look in stylized men's suits. (I assume you mean like Kate Moss, right?)
* I don't like it when people are unpleased or seem unpleased with me. (But then, who does.)
* I have been described as a dreamer or likely to have my head up in the clouds.
* I have played strip poker with someone else before.
* I have had emotional problems for which I have sought professional help.
* I believe in ghosts and the paranormal. (Although sometimes.... cf. my comment about paranoia.)
* I can't stand being alone.
* I have at least one obsession at any given time. (Dozens. Hundreds!)
* I weigh myself, pee/poo, and then weigh myself again.
* I consistently spend way too much money on obsessions-of-the-moment. (Nope, mine are long-lasting.)
* I'm a judgmental asshole.
* I'm a HUGE drama-queen.
* I have traveled on more than one continent. (Next summer, maybe of all maybes.)
* I sometimes wish my father would just disappear. (Just the opposite.)
* I need people to tell me I'm good at something in order to feel that I am.
* I am a Libertarian. (Hell no, or at least, not an Internet Libertarian; you people are batshit insane and can't argue worth a rat crap.)
* I could speak more than one language. (Used to know Francais, used to know a very little Espanol.)
* I can fall asleep even if the whole room is as noisy as it can be. (Not unless I've been up for 48+ hours.)
* I would rather read than watch TV.
* I like reading fact more than fiction. (Who can choose?)
* I have pulled an all-nighter on an assignment I was given a month to do. (Just a month? Please.)
* I have no piercings.
* I have spent the night in a train station or other public place. (I assume train yard counts.)
* I have been so upset over my physical gender that I cried.
* I once spent Christmas completely alone because there was a miscommunication on which parent was supposed to have me that night. (Damn.)
* I've been married and am now divorced. (Feels like it, but the legal deal was never sealed.)
* There have been times when I have wondered "Why was I born?" and may/may not have cried over it. (Not.)
* I like most animals better than most people. (Most animals are insects.)
* I own a collection of retro games consoles. (Only a lonely old SuperNintendo.)
* The thought of physical exercise makes me shiver.
* I have hit someone with a dead fish.
* I have written/read erotic stories.
* I am compulsively honest. (Only at the worst possible time(s).)
* I was born with a congenital birth defect that has never been repaired. (It's called I'm smart and I know it=arrogance.)
* I have danced topless in front of dozens of complete strangers. And not been ashamed. (But again, I have no breasts to speak of.)
* I have purchased baby clothes. (Cf. the diaper thing.)
* I have done a pump-n-run. (Though the place was closed at the time and had left their pump on so they had like $4.00 in gas charged when they got back the next morning or whatever.)
* I have visited every state on the East Coast. (Another ongoing obsession--to visit all the states. About 40 so far.)
* I am afraid of gators but not sharks
* I have visible scars from a physical confrontation. (Not with clothes on.)
* I have followed a band on tour
* I am obsessed with gals.

2005/09/17

More Listy List

Man, this thing goes on for about ever. Beginning. [Parentheticals added post hoc.]

* I enjoy some country music.
* I would die for my best friends. (Although they probably would not believe this.)
* I'm obsessive, and often a perfectionist. (Paralyzingly so, sometimes.)
* I have used my sexuality to advance my career. (I'm male though, so this is like the best of all worlds.)
* Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.
* I have dated a close friend's ex. (Making a move on and dating are not the same...)
* I am happy at this moment. (Not just exactly now as I type this, no, I'm kind of meh.)
* I'm obsessed with guys. (But cf. tomorrow's post.)
* Democrat. (But they're to my political right.)
* Conservative Republican.
* I am punk rockish.
* I go for older guys/girls, not younger. (My desires have somehow achieved approximate confluence with my actual age.)
* I study for tests most of the time. (I no longer take tests... but I used to.)
* I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I've ever met.
* I can work on a car. (Also in, behind, or to the left of one.)
* I love my job. (More of a love/hate thing.)
* I am comfortable with who I am right now. (If only I knew exactly who that was.)
* I have more than just my ears pierced. (My ears are not pierced.)
* I walk barefoot wherever I can. (Whenever though.)
* I have jumped off a bridge.
* I love sea turtles.
* I spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup.
* I plan on achieving a major goal/dream. (I also plan on performing a major task.)
* I am proficient on a musical instrument.
* I hate office jobs. (They are so eeeeeeeasy.)
* I went to college out of state.
* I am adopted.
* I am a pyro.
* I have thrown up from crying too much.
* I have been intentionally hurt by people that I loved.
* I fall for the worst people and have been hurt every time. (Define 'worst'; define 'every time'.)
* I adore bright colors.
* I usually like covers better than originals.
* I hate chain theme restaurants like Applebees and TGIFridays. (But I love their greasy food :( )
* I can pick up things with my toes. (including tennis balls on occasion, much to the amazement of my yoga class)
* I can't whistle.
* I have ridden/owned a horse.
* I still have every journal I've ever written in.
* I talk in my sleep.
* I've often thought that I was born in the wrong century. (Not often...)
* I try to forget things by drowning them out with loads of distractions. (Yes, yes, and more yes.)
* I wear a toe ring.
* I have a tattoo. (Currently $aving for a second. )
* I can't stand at LEAST one person that I work with.
* I am a caffeine junkie. (This morning while brewing a pot I sang a song that I made up on the spot, called I love you, Coffee, more than life itself, and I put myself in the protective shelter of your hand, O Coffee, for you blackness and delicious caffination will save me from the perils of this life, to the aproximate tune of Voulez-Vous Couche Avec Moi? and in the vocal style of Al Green.)
* I am completely tree-huggy spiritual, and I'm not ashamed at all.
* If I knew I would get away with it, I would commit at least one murder. (Sorry to disappoint at least one reader.)
* I cosplayed or know what cosplaying is. (I'm on the internet, right?)
* I have been to over 15 conventions.
* I will collect anything, and the more nonsensical, the better.
* I enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner.
* I'm an artist. (But not primarily.)
* I am ambidexterous.
* I sleep with so many stuffed animals, I can hardly fit on my bed.
* If it weren't for having to see other people naked, I'd live in a nudist colony. (Cf. personal insecurity. In my house I am so nude.)
* I have terrible teeth.
* I hate my toes.
* I did this Meme even though I wasn't tagged by the person who took it before me. (Nyaah.)
* I have more friends on the internet than in real life.
* I have lived in either three different states or countries.
* I am extremely flexible. (Seriously, stretching out is such a chore.)
* I love hugs more than kisses. (How could you choose?)
* I want to own my own business.
* I smoke. (Quitting! Quitting!)
* I spend way too much time on the computer than on anything else. (I can tell by your fine grammar.)
* Nobody has ever said I'm normal. (The bastards.)
* Sad movies, games, fics and the like can cause a trickle of tear every now and then. (I would not admit such information if such information I were divulging... to have. I'm going to have to ask you to leave.)

2005/09/16

Fuck you friday set aside this friday.

So this is one of those listy things going around like myspace and livejournal and stuff, but since I kind of don't have time to talk to people ever for any reason except if they're drinking with me, I kind of sort of stole it. [Update: Apparently Khamsin is also on to this one. I have added parenthetical commentary in like fashion. Yay, unoriginal! ;D ]

Look at the following list and:
1) Bold what is true about you.
2) Italicize what you wish was true about you.
3) Add one true thing about you to the end of the list.

* I miss somebody right now.
* I don't watch much TV these days.
* I own lots of books.
* I wear glasses or contact lenses.
* I love to play video games. (My love has attenuated.)
* I've tried marijuana.
* I've watched porn movies.
* I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship. (Though others (who are psycho) might beg to differ.)
* I believe honesty is usually always the best policy. (Note 'usually' is not 'always'.)
* I curse sometimes. I'm really trying to stop, though, it's so trashy.
* I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.
* I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.
* I have broken someone's bones. (I have a specific person in mind from long long ago.)
* I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal. (Technically true, although notice the question doesn't ask Do you have more than one?)
* I hate the rain.
* I'm paranoid at times. (Which would mean there were times when I am not paranoid.)
* I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar- and pain-free.
* I need/want money right now.
* I love sushi.
* I talk really, really fast. Especially when I'm nervous.
* I have fresh breath in the morning. (Not every morning, anyway. Cf. my comment about drinking.)
* I have long hair.
* I have lost money in Las Vegas.
* I have at least one sibling.
* I was born in a country outside of the U.S.
* I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past.
* I couldn't survive without Caller I.D. (Caller what?)
* I like the way that I look. I just wish other people did too. (One would think one would grow out of this, eventually, but for all my not giving a fuck this hasn't got there yet.)
* I have lied to a good friend in the last 6 months. (I let you all speculate about who and what... and no it's not that obvious.)
* I am usually pessimistic. (At least, not anymore)
* I have a lot of mood swings.
* I think prostitution should be legalized. (But only for Christians.)
* I slept with a roommate.
* I have a hidden talent. (If it's hidden, how would I know if it's true I've got one?)
* I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.
* I have a lot of friends. (Define 'a lot'--a lot for me, but maybe not a lot for you.)
* I am currently single.
* I have pecked someone of the same sex. (Does frenching count?)
* I enjoy talking on the phone. (But I prefer it to IMing.)
* I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
* I love to shop and/or window shop.
* I'm obsessed with my Xanga or Livejournal.
* I don't hate anyone. (Cf. for instance the bone thing... although the people I hate are very few and very far between.)
* I'm a pretty good dancer. (Bad dancers don't think so though.)
* I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
* I have a cell phone.
* I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.
* I've rejected someone before.
* I currently like/love someone. (How could you stay alive without?)
* I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.
* I want to have children in the future. (The distant future. See below.)
* I have changed a diaper before.
* I've called the cops on a friend before.
* I'm not allergic to anything.
* I have a lot to learn. (People not bolding this one are so fired.)
* I have been with someone at least 10 years older or younger.
* I am shy around the opposite sex. (Usually but not always, and not always how you'd expect.)
* I'm online 24/7, even as an away message.
* I have at least 5 away messages saved. (Although I used to.)
* I have tried alcohol or drugs before.
* I have made a move on a friend's significant other or crush in the past. (They were done all but officially.)
* I own the "South Park" movie.
* I have avoided assignments at work/school to be on Xanga or Livejournal. (Well, it's Blogger, but what do you think this is right now?

2005/09/15

Bah

Another long-term project down the drain. And she was so cute though.

2005/09/14

drip....drip

so here I am awake again
ears pealed to the thunder
some cracks and shakes
some bursts
booms
and the lightning disappears behind sheets of liquid
and leaves loosed from the Ginko
in the muddy yard
and I was sleeping
half-asleep half-dreams and wonderings
and it's too cold air
but like to sweat under the blanket
night sky isn't even black or charcoal, navy, ultraviolet
but gray-orange sulphur streetlamp
colors washed and faded
with the rustle of a cat tip-toe-ing past the sill
shrubs humped one on the other
the lowest branches drip
on the rabbits breathing so silent
the Gardener
awakens me again

2005/09/13

0 donna, 0000 donna

yo gotst 'skin tite' 'turn 21' an' 'gold medal'. not much 2 review fokes butt if u r n serch uv tha girl-rock--n hoo iznt--den tha donnas is teh r0x0rz. strayt up rockin.

plus bonus plugs 4 doze whooz lookin fur tha seduckshun muzik: not tha latest, not tha previous, but tha 'riginal: miz erykah. dat is tha slow jamz hottttt yoz.

2005/09/12

Weather Report

Clear blue and smooth sailing; expect a red sky tonight.

2005/09/11

Predictable memorial title

You know what day it is. Did you see that overblown country music jamboree the Pentagon set up? Nice to know a tragedy works as a great p.r. opportunity.

Option 1: ignore the memorial. Perhaps not a great option, but at least it keeps you from that dangerous jingoistic fervor that the neocons like to whip up.

Option 2: honor the dead by closing your doors and praying in private.

Option 3: overblown country music jamboree or similarly stupid ceremonial enshrining of American lives as more important than the lives of people from other places.

Option 4: sensible reflection on the psychology of mass-scale trauma and the infantalized society that gave birth to our present decline-of-empire situation.

A piece of advice before you decide--ask yourself What Would Jesus Do? (Hint: Jesus was not a country music fan, and he was also a pacifist.)

2005/09/10

Politics

Apparently, some people thought that the petition I linked to yesterday was "retarded." Officially, I would like to announce that those people are retarded. And gay.

Political action doesn't always take the form of well-reasoned argumentation, or why complaining to head-nodding agree-monkeys. Much as you might think otherwise. It often involves slightly ridiculous rhetoric and a lot of yelling. That's how the game is played.

And that's why you're politically inept whiners who have the approximate spine of a nematode or blastocyst, while I'm contibuting to a good cause, i.e. helping to ruin people who need ruining.

You'd probably like a colon-filling from the monkey-in-chief. Screw you.

2005/09/09

Pour on the pressure

By signing this petition (email address required; NOT a spam sign-up) you can help shine a light on the hypocrisy of our "noble cause."
"I demand that George W. Bush's daughters, and his eligible nieces and nephews, serve in Iraq to prove their support of Bush's 'noble war for a noble cause.' If the Bush family does not believe in 'sacrificing' for the war and is not willing to put their lives on the line, then Bush must bring the troops of middle class and poor Americans home now."

Dee-Licious

2005/09/08

i have stolen away

my house of stone
deep shadows fell
my bourbon-scented cave

sipping tea with the
skeleton of each
passed, bleached memory

your ghost pads
on carpeted floor
stained wall
open door
emptied shelf

my rhizomes squeeze out
'tween cracks in these
old foundation's chinks

trunk, bursting up
from the widow's walk
my cap and canopy

pantry and cellar
collapsed and opened
broken and mulched for me

i am staid, ravine
cottage bounds burst
corn to caern

2005/09/07

Four hours

of sleep. At about quater til two in the morning I'm out walking and there's this drunk guy. Some dumb fucker straight off the train from the burbs and literally tripping over his own feet. I stopped for a bit and watched from behind a hedge. This dudes ugly head had about three inches of hair that probably was coiffed up at some point but he was so trashed that it was all mached up into kind of a New-Wave-ish sort of mowhawk/flattop combo at about a 20 degree lean to the left of vertical. I busted up. I thought maybe he heard me but I guess he couldn't tell if I was real of if maybe his eyes couldn't focus and all he saw was a wrenchmonkey with a Black Death cigarette. Anyway if you have not seen this it is a real treat. Asshole. And anyway now I am underrested but at least I can hold on to the contrast between myself and that sorry piece of shit.

2005/09/06

Bifurcationism?

Although a huge and growing field in philosophy, Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind have fundamental problems at their cores. Expecially in the case of Phil Mind, we see that the basics of the inquiry are not even agreed upon. Indeed, it is not the case that the general area of inquiry or any particular types of approaches are generally accepted. In this vein let us consider qualia. The following are merely suggestions not to be construed as indicating my position.

I do not propose to solve or speculate about a solution to the problem of the subjective experience qua experience as it may turn out to be different from experience described in purely physical terms. I think rather that this is one of the deep problems of philosophy, where our language truly fails us. By deep problem, I mean that it is easy to tell that the third-person perspective description of consciousness, of mind, is entirely possible just in some sort of physical description. (It may include a functional description, but in any case has to do just with mechanically describable systems.) And it is easy to tell that the first-person description of subjective states, that they are sad or happy, that there is red or glowingness or beauty or discordance, are not possible to reduce to physical description. We have what you might call basic or foundational intuitions that tell us that such reduction takes away something essential to a proper understanding of subjective, conscious experience.

A proper explanation would show both (i) that all first-personal experiences can be described third-personally and vice versa and (ii) what it is that is "lost" when reducing subjective experience to physical description, or at least why it is that it appears something is lost. Phil Mind is no closer to solving either of these than it was before. Colin McGuinn has, I believe, written that the problem may be insupperable. I would like only to add something that may aid in this connexion.

It is perhaps possible to remove a philosophical difficulty by showing that a position is incoherent, or that a term is empty, or by assimilating the meaning os seemingly disparate terms to each other; it is also possible to solve a problem by showing that the difficulty is in the mind of confused philosophers and has not to do with what is the case. If it is the case that the language of subjective experience, with its expressions and non-empirical denotations, cannot be satisfactorally reduced to third-person description (and so forth for explaining physical reality in terms of subjective qualia), we may suppose that the two types of description just treat of "entities" that do not occupy any of the same classes. On assumption that there is an external world that our senses reliably contact, we can say that, for instance, the orange I am holding reflects to me light at an average wavelength and luminosity (X,Y); this is true. It is also true that the orange is orange. A simple case of colorblindness is sufficient to demonstrate that '(X,Y)' and 'orange' are not synonymous, and that the former does not entail the latter. That is clear especially if we construe 'is orange' to entail its appearing orange (...to me); but let us not.

But that road leads us into the labyrinthine tortures of the literature, from which has come only a great confusion--and enough hot air to put a battleship in orbit. The problem may just be that the levels of description are incommensurable. On the one level there is a description of physical events. On another there are the "mental" events. The third-person perspective gives the one, the subjecive description the other, as far as we shall be concerned. The levels of desciption have to do with their objects: the one with (arbitarily) discreet measurable and predictable events, the other with possibly discreet possibly unmeasurable unpredictable events (that is, from the first-person perspective). I would suggest that the way to get a satisfactory beginning to dissolving the problem then is the following. First, take seriously (which is not to say agree with) Davidson's pseudo-epiphenomenalism; second, take seriously the possibility that this is not even a problem, but a peculiarity of our navigation of the world. As language reflects our navigation of the world (yes, there is a lot of technical talk at this point, and too bad for you, dear reader) just in the sense that our understanding is mediated through it; if our language, or a language cannot be made to bridge what may only appear to be a gap, it may be that the subject matters are just different enough not to be worth trying to fuse. In this way we may be able to "give up" honorably.

2005/09/05

Weather Report

Expect extreme laziness to overtake the region beginning in late morning; 90% of the populace will experience no cognitive dissonance when celebrating the proletariat with a day off.

2005/09/04

howl's moving castle

saw tha nu Studio Ghibli flim Howl's Moving Castle. p'raps mo' adult themed'n sum prev. flims by Miyazaki. tech notes 1st i guess. animation tiptop, of course, tho most all drawn, n u cn tell 2. real control over tha fine details uv objects n characters. esp clear in mid-late sexns when 1 uv tha charaxerz has a lotta changes in facial feechurs. both lotta fantastic views n jus' xlntly rendered 'depth' backgrounds uv relatively ordinary scenez. basixly it givez M a lotta room ta tella story about love, redemshun, selfdiscovery, committment, etc.

tha story haz tha us. elements--young female protag. an fantastical setting/magic/forces, blobby villanz, silly animals/spirits/etc., an' uv corse transformativ discuvereez fr w/in tha chars what bringz tha plot 2 conclusn. unfortunite aslo therez a storee element that not quite w3rk: thas tha war setting what does sum w3rk in tha main plot esp near tha end but as a devix fails b/c wrapped up far far far too neatly @ tha denouement (itz basicully a childz view uv how a war worx, plus sum unsavory implicaxuns uv its being a devix for gettin howl 2 chan 'is self aroun').

prolly not tha bes' flim fr Miyazaki, frinstance kikisdeliveryservice 'z b3tter. howe'er he got sum nu work in here, esp 2 do w/tha connexion btw ambition, pryde, an' fulfilmint. that titular char, howl, za loenly wizard (w/unaccountable young boy sidekick to he iz like mid-20ish). 1 thing tha flim duz well iznot 2 give 2 much ta tha viewer. therez a lotta stuff hap'nin'n tha way uf facial expressions butt itz not hokey or 'xagerated. his search for 'freedom' iz bofe literal 'n metaphoricul, cuz 'eez got a seecret by which he had trapsd hisself. sorta tha same iz tru uv tha protagamist who iz a your woman living a drab life w/o connecshuns 2 otherz. she even 'stranged fr she momma.

iz also an interessin' devix 2 hav her live baxward b/c she gets turned ancien then as we find out needs 2 find a way 2 break that curse. u wif tha cynacle views cn prolly work out tha res' uv tha storee. fortunatable therez a lot uv beauty in tha sparseness uv tha story. 1 partic moment will suffix 2 demunstrate, wherewhen near tha beginning tha sophie girl gets up an brushes the front uv 'er dress in a most realistic way. tha tiny inclusion uv .9 secs of flim makes 't that much mo' realz. an' so 'f nuthin else u shood c tha mov' for tha styles. in subst. itz still sorta a youngstarz joint.

go see it yoz, an go late so az 2 avoid tha kiddiez. not entirely cake butt more entartainmint than mental distraxion, on the whole exelint if u cn ignore tha overconvenient wrappup. thumbs etc up.

2005/09/03

Ulysses NOT redux

Aagh. This book is still unreadable. I'm going to give it to gdog and see what he thinks.


Geh.

2005/09/02

Bad Friday?

not my usual but here is a link maybe to cheer you up on a bad news day: (it's a ymntd).

2005/09/01

.mused.

Begun, today, Ulysses. The bowerblue book sat hard by the lamp next the beddindown. There Thoth lay eyes unlidded like the sea's wide foile flashing colour. He did not focus on the tough printed overflowing prose therin.

--Hits my Jacob's in pugilistic splendour, he said, himself hearing only. A literature to dense for me boken fry grinders, the which the last bitter years I slowly have taken to the hardtack philosophies acedemics did praise.

The smell of aged vellum, lye. Beyond the wisp hairs on his wrist holding up the book each page folded on another sedimentarywise. Failure.