My desktop is officialy dead and I am now making my first entry via laptop. It is changing my habits of what I do on the computer in interesting ways--since its new, lots more figuring stuff out, playing with new functions, trying to recover all of my links and et cetera from memory alone.
Other than that I finished the book "The Man Who Was Thursday", a great Dickens-y detective novel (100 pages, almost a short story) that has a lot of surrealism and philosophy and continues hilariously and pretty stongly until the disappointing ending. Now I'm moving back to "The Illiad", which I'd started and have been reading through this year, with large gaps. I've decided I want to finish the damned thing, so hopefuly making that a priority will get me through it. I'm really enjoying it, but its language, cultural oddities and sheer girth make it daunting, though all the more interesting.
Thats all for now. Today was a boring home-day, and I actually had to pick up the phone for some peer-contact. Very un-Brian.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Thoughts
Art sent an e-mail thinking about this quote:
We imagine that our mind is a mirror, that it is more or less accurately reflecting what is happening outside us. On the contrary, our mind itself is the principal element of creation. The world, while I am perceiving it, is being incessantly created for myself in time and space. Rabindranath Tagore
The thought, I think, is valid in thinking about the influence of our minds on the world which we percieve, but the language seems arrogant to me. Rather than saying "our minds create reality", why not "our minds dramatically misinterpret a reality which is 'above' it, seperate"? I have trouble with the concept that the world is merely the construct of individual minds (like dreams), and have a far easier time accepting that our minds are constructs of a larger foundation of reality. We cannot share dreams (not that we cannot dream the same dreams, just that we cannot dream with each other), but we cannot deny that we do share a common world, however different our interpretations of it may be. In the same way that we believe animals cannot "see," or think about ideas, we cannot "see" the base reality--it is beyond us, and we see only one small slice which we project (inaccurately) onto the whole.
Accepting that we create reality, though, there is the famous question, "if a tree falls in a forest, and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?" Here again, the question is too simple--it assumes that we entirely create the base reality! If one person is there, is the sound real? Is it more real if there are more people? What if a person is there to hear it, but not paying attention, and it passes under their conciousness? Is it more real, then, if that one person's life depends on that tree falling and it consumes their entire conciousness? Part of my problem with the world existing solely as perception is that there are such different levels of perception.
So I guess I think that we are all looking at one thing, but from different angles. Your thoughts?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Is it the 24th already?
Wow, I've been gone for a while. I've been wonderfully busy--here's why:
Last week on Thursday and Friday I headed up to San Fransisco and stayed with Art and Michael for a couple days. Ate lots of good food, walked quite a bit, and went with Art to Yoga. I've been to San Fransisco quite a few times, but not recently, and I noticed quite a bit that I had not before. The city really is, as Art says, "compact", with neighborhood personalities which, in LA, would be spread out over miles, all compressed into a few blocks. I walked to-and through-downtown in an hour or so, and every street's architecture and focus was different. San Fransisco is, of course, famous for being radically gay and environment friendly, and while these were certainly the most distinctive undercurrents, what I did not expect were the age and eccentricity of the place (reflected mostly in the buildings, architecture and otherwise), as well as the fact that it IS really an urban center, and so has basic "building block" elements that you could find in any city. All together, a great first semi-solo trip.
I came back on Saturday afternoon to a party my parents were throwing at our house. It was fun having something at our house where I at least knew the people (most of the time parties at our house are for Dad's grad students), and watching adults getting terribly drunk is always fun.
Then, for the last two days (Sunday-Monday), I have been sitting on the couch with my mom (and occasionally dad) reading the final Harry Potter book outloud, switching readers every other chapter to give our voices a rest. I won't give any spoilers, but let me just say that this is an absolutely worthy ending to a series that has paralelled my journey through Middle and High School. Beautifully done.
And today? Sitting around. And yennow what? It's kinda nice.
Last week on Thursday and Friday I headed up to San Fransisco and stayed with Art and Michael for a couple days. Ate lots of good food, walked quite a bit, and went with Art to Yoga. I've been to San Fransisco quite a few times, but not recently, and I noticed quite a bit that I had not before. The city really is, as Art says, "compact", with neighborhood personalities which, in LA, would be spread out over miles, all compressed into a few blocks. I walked to-and through-downtown in an hour or so, and every street's architecture and focus was different. San Fransisco is, of course, famous for being radically gay and environment friendly, and while these were certainly the most distinctive undercurrents, what I did not expect were the age and eccentricity of the place (reflected mostly in the buildings, architecture and otherwise), as well as the fact that it IS really an urban center, and so has basic "building block" elements that you could find in any city. All together, a great first semi-solo trip.
I came back on Saturday afternoon to a party my parents were throwing at our house. It was fun having something at our house where I at least knew the people (most of the time parties at our house are for Dad's grad students), and watching adults getting terribly drunk is always fun.
Then, for the last two days (Sunday-Monday), I have been sitting on the couch with my mom (and occasionally dad) reading the final Harry Potter book outloud, switching readers every other chapter to give our voices a rest. I won't give any spoilers, but let me just say that this is an absolutely worthy ending to a series that has paralelled my journey through Middle and High School. Beautifully done.
And today? Sitting around. And yennow what? It's kinda nice.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Life of Pi
Last night I finished Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I had tried to read it a few years ago and dropped it out of boredom. I found it engrossing this time around.
I'm not going to bother with plot summary, which you can get anywhere. Suffice it to say that it is a story about a boy who lives for months in a life raft with a Bengal tiger. It can be wandering and reflexive and I found the narrators voice putrid the first time I tried to read it, but it didn't bother me this time around. What this novel does very well is end. And I mean that in a good way: it has the best ending of anything I have read or seen in a long time. The ending in a way is a "suprise"--an alternate version of events--but rather than coming across as sleight-of-hand, it really forces you to re-evaluate both the events in the novel and your own feelings about stories. One review described the book as magical realism, and I think I agree. You are presented with outrageous events (a story to "make you believe in God") in stunning detail, without the narrator telling you how to feel about them, or even whether to believe them or not.
The book contains good insights into a suprising breadth of topics: zoology, religion (Hinduism, Chistianity, Islam), survival and the ocean, and storytelling as an art. I would definitely put Life of Pi in the "quirky" catagory--I can't say it affected my belief in God one way or the other, but its been the best thing I've read this summer.
I'm not going to bother with plot summary, which you can get anywhere. Suffice it to say that it is a story about a boy who lives for months in a life raft with a Bengal tiger. It can be wandering and reflexive and I found the narrators voice putrid the first time I tried to read it, but it didn't bother me this time around. What this novel does very well is end. And I mean that in a good way: it has the best ending of anything I have read or seen in a long time. The ending in a way is a "suprise"--an alternate version of events--but rather than coming across as sleight-of-hand, it really forces you to re-evaluate both the events in the novel and your own feelings about stories. One review described the book as magical realism, and I think I agree. You are presented with outrageous events (a story to "make you believe in God") in stunning detail, without the narrator telling you how to feel about them, or even whether to believe them or not.
The book contains good insights into a suprising breadth of topics: zoology, religion (Hinduism, Chistianity, Islam), survival and the ocean, and storytelling as an art. I would definitely put Life of Pi in the "quirky" catagory--I can't say it affected my belief in God one way or the other, but its been the best thing I've read this summer.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Haven't posted for a while...
I've been really busy so I haven't been posting. This is just a nice journal-type list of things I've been doing.
Friday: Voice lesson, went to a bonfire at a secluded area of beach near Malibu. It was small, dingy and cold, with insects everywhere, and we roasted chicken.
Saturday: "Rediscover Your Childhood Day" was not a great success as only a few people showed up. Nevertheless, we managed a water baloon fight in the scalding heat, then decided to go exploring up Bilbots (the hill the park we were at is on), which is all constuction and oil pumping equipment and buildings. From the top you can see the whole of LA to the barriers at the edges which fade into smog, but the buildings up there have not been touched in such a long time that it resembles a ghost town. Really a very special place. Afterwards, watching SouthPark and Flight of the Conchords at Jessica's and a sleepover with Robbie.
Sunday: After Robbie went home biked to Rez's house (about 40 minutes through upscale Culver to "the ghetto") where we played a bit of Guitar Hero. Then back to my house for a Butoh meeting. Performing (even as a quasi-rehersal when no-one is watching) in your own home is a bizzare experience. Everything becomes strange, objects that normally pass under the radar as scenery become tools, shapes stand out. It is highly uncomfortable.
Friday: Voice lesson, went to a bonfire at a secluded area of beach near Malibu. It was small, dingy and cold, with insects everywhere, and we roasted chicken.
Saturday: "Rediscover Your Childhood Day" was not a great success as only a few people showed up. Nevertheless, we managed a water baloon fight in the scalding heat, then decided to go exploring up Bilbots (the hill the park we were at is on), which is all constuction and oil pumping equipment and buildings. From the top you can see the whole of LA to the barriers at the edges which fade into smog, but the buildings up there have not been touched in such a long time that it resembles a ghost town. Really a very special place. Afterwards, watching SouthPark and Flight of the Conchords at Jessica's and a sleepover with Robbie.
Sunday: After Robbie went home biked to Rez's house (about 40 minutes through upscale Culver to "the ghetto") where we played a bit of Guitar Hero. Then back to my house for a Butoh meeting. Performing (even as a quasi-rehersal when no-one is watching) in your own home is a bizzare experience. Everything becomes strange, objects that normally pass under the radar as scenery become tools, shapes stand out. It is highly uncomfortable.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
An exhausting day
Today has been an excellent laid-back day, celebrating my Mom's birthday with a nice lunch, Harry Potter movie, and excellent dinner. This Harry Potter was pretty good--my favorite of the books, although the dialogue in the movie bugged me. Right now I am very happy and sleepy.
BUT this post was originally supposed to be about yesterday (Thursday), which was an extremely stimulating day for me, mentally and physically. I biked to my friend Clare's house and we rode down to the beach for swimming, talking, and lunch, then biked back. Later that day I walked with Cheolseung to his house and talked more, so all in all some interesting topics were breached.
Clare and I talked a bit about good and evil (a branch from a discussion about spirits and the dead that we had after playing with an ouija board). Lately on iTunes U I have been listening to a lot of really good talks on genocide and non-violence (with a missionary who ran orphanages in Rwanda and one of Ghandi's grandsons), which prove to be excellent reference points. The Rwanda missionary talked a lot about grey areas: a woman soldier who had served the military at the start but switched sides devoted herself to saving people, to the point of dying in the effort. Clare and I talked about the idea of "bad" versus "evil", with the difference being (as close as we could figure) that "bad" referred to action, "evil" to intent. We played a bit with a philosophic scenario I'd heard from somewhere with the idea that the highest "good" was "the greatest good for the greatest number." In this scenario, a train is on a track at full speed, and in front of it are three people, tied to the track. You cannot stop the train, but you can throw a switch so it will change tracks to one that has only one person tied to it. Is it better to be indirectly responsible for the deaths of three or directly responsible for the death of one? What if that one was your mother? Where do friendship and loyalty fit in? Is it "right" to value people we know over those we do not? This applied to genocide and related subjects as well--should we be concerned with people on the other side of the earth? To what extent?
I talked about quite a few things with Cheolseung, from the idea that Western philosophy *struggles* or *fights* for an answer, while Eastern philosophy accepts or *surrenders* to one. The most interesting little nugget was talking about the value of "thank you," or gratitude in general. Being too grateful is as bad as not being grateful enough, which seems odd.
That's a strange place to end this post, so I'll end it with this instead: Happy Birthday Mom!
BUT this post was originally supposed to be about yesterday (Thursday), which was an extremely stimulating day for me, mentally and physically. I biked to my friend Clare's house and we rode down to the beach for swimming, talking, and lunch, then biked back. Later that day I walked with Cheolseung to his house and talked more, so all in all some interesting topics were breached.
Clare and I talked a bit about good and evil (a branch from a discussion about spirits and the dead that we had after playing with an ouija board). Lately on iTunes U I have been listening to a lot of really good talks on genocide and non-violence (with a missionary who ran orphanages in Rwanda and one of Ghandi's grandsons), which prove to be excellent reference points. The Rwanda missionary talked a lot about grey areas: a woman soldier who had served the military at the start but switched sides devoted herself to saving people, to the point of dying in the effort. Clare and I talked about the idea of "bad" versus "evil", with the difference being (as close as we could figure) that "bad" referred to action, "evil" to intent. We played a bit with a philosophic scenario I'd heard from somewhere with the idea that the highest "good" was "the greatest good for the greatest number." In this scenario, a train is on a track at full speed, and in front of it are three people, tied to the track. You cannot stop the train, but you can throw a switch so it will change tracks to one that has only one person tied to it. Is it better to be indirectly responsible for the deaths of three or directly responsible for the death of one? What if that one was your mother? Where do friendship and loyalty fit in? Is it "right" to value people we know over those we do not? This applied to genocide and related subjects as well--should we be concerned with people on the other side of the earth? To what extent?
I talked about quite a few things with Cheolseung, from the idea that Western philosophy *struggles* or *fights* for an answer, while Eastern philosophy accepts or *surrenders* to one. The most interesting little nugget was talking about the value of "thank you," or gratitude in general. Being too grateful is as bad as not being grateful enough, which seems odd.
That's a strange place to end this post, so I'll end it with this instead: Happy Birthday Mom!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
V.
So I just finished Thomas Pynchon's novel V. God. Damn.
In the summer after third grade, I made it my goal to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not since then has a book frustrated me so utterly, nor seemed so long. At the end of that third grade summer, I emerged proud and with a love for the trilogy born partly from a feeling of conquest. V. is no Lord of the Rings, but I emerge with a similar feeling.
There is no plot. There are two "main characters": Stencil, in search of a woman named V., and Profane, a "shlemeil" who just sort of wanders; "yo-yo's around" in the book's words. Then, there are about 50 characters who get about equal time on the pages and are all seemingly irrelevant until a little piece of their 50-page narrative is mentioned (once) in the final hundred pages. But together, they create a vision of a post-World War world (not in a linear time frame of course--too easy!), a world that should be undergoing an existential crisis but instead merely...continues. The book goes everywhere (all over Europe and the US) and does everything (sex, politics, religion) to a (deliberate) outcome of doing nothing and going nowhere: the principal theme, as I see it.
It is a portrait (more than a story) of the force of aimless youth. Nice and timely for me.
In the meantime, I am seriously considering joining the rising dark side and getting a Mac for a college laptop. Thoughts?
In the summer after third grade, I made it my goal to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not since then has a book frustrated me so utterly, nor seemed so long. At the end of that third grade summer, I emerged proud and with a love for the trilogy born partly from a feeling of conquest. V. is no Lord of the Rings, but I emerge with a similar feeling.
There is no plot. There are two "main characters": Stencil, in search of a woman named V., and Profane, a "shlemeil" who just sort of wanders; "yo-yo's around" in the book's words. Then, there are about 50 characters who get about equal time on the pages and are all seemingly irrelevant until a little piece of their 50-page narrative is mentioned (once) in the final hundred pages. But together, they create a vision of a post-World War world (not in a linear time frame of course--too easy!), a world that should be undergoing an existential crisis but instead merely...continues. The book goes everywhere (all over Europe and the US) and does everything (sex, politics, religion) to a (deliberate) outcome of doing nothing and going nowhere: the principal theme, as I see it.
It is a portrait (more than a story) of the force of aimless youth. Nice and timely for me.
In the meantime, I am seriously considering joining the rising dark side and getting a Mac for a college laptop. Thoughts?
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
A quote...
Right now I am reading the book V. (complete thoughts forthcoming when I finish all 533 bloated pages) and found a quote on tourism that is frighteningly accurate and something I am hoping to avoid in my travels.
This is a courious country, populated only by a breeed called
"tourists." Its landscape is one of inanimate monuments and buildings;
near-inanimate barmen, taxi-drivers, bellhops, guides: there to do any bidding,
to various degrees of efficiency, on receipt of the recommended baksheesh,
pourboire, mancia, tip. More than this it is two-dimensional, as is the Street,
as are the pages and maps of those little red handbooks. As long as the Cook's,
Travellers' Clubs and banks are open, the Distribution of Time section followed
scrupulously, the plumbing at the hotel in order..., the tourist may wander
anywhere in this coordinate system without fear. War never becomes more serious
than a scuffle with a pickpocket...; depression and prosperity are reflected
only in the rate of exchange; politics are of course never discussed with the
native population. Tourism thus is supranational, like the Catholic Church, and
perhaps the most absolute communion we know on earth: for be its members
American, German, Italian, whatever, the Tour Eiffel, Pyramids, and Campanile
all evoke identical responses from them; their Bible is clearly written and does
not admit of private interpretation; they share the same landscapes, suffer the
same inconveniences, live by the same pellucid time-scale.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Monday
My mom left for her break this morning and I woke up to an empty house...This dosen't seem terribly unusual, but since our house is essentially one room, the experience of being alone (plus dogs and cats, but who's counting) is almost unsettling. I find that having other people provides an inertia--I wake up, the house is quiet. The immediate goal is to keep it that way, to go about my goals unobtrusively in a nice peaceful coexistence. But alone, the is nothing to stop me from bringing singing out of the shower, talking to myself, playing music loudly, and generally an absolute lack of self-consciousness. This is really nice, but being able to do anything makes doing nothing a lot harder. After a few hours alone in the house, with no need to be there (when you are alone, no one is going to talk to you) I rode my bike down to the beach and back for a little. It's something I don't think I've done since elementary school, and a lot less onerous than I remember. Being back on a bike makes me feel like everything is much closer than I think it is, which is quite liberating.
As much as I think I'll enjoy having a week with the house to myself during the day, I think it makes getting out a few times a day an absolute necessity. One can only interact with objects for so long, and I can only connect with the canned minds of books in brief spurts. We spend our lives procrastinating from tasks, struggling against obligation toward freedom. But, when freedom splays itself out before you, you realize that what gave you fulfillment was the struggle, not the goal.
As much as I think I'll enjoy having a week with the house to myself during the day, I think it makes getting out a few times a day an absolute necessity. One can only interact with objects for so long, and I can only connect with the canned minds of books in brief spurts. We spend our lives procrastinating from tasks, struggling against obligation toward freedom. But, when freedom splays itself out before you, you realize that what gave you fulfillment was the struggle, not the goal.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Since the 4th
Let's be honest, nothing terribly interested has happened on/since the fourth--that's not a bad thing. This week has been quite a party week, which is terribly fun in a terribly unproductive way. Art was down for a couple of days, and it was good seeing him. I am really looking forward to going up to San Fransisco in a couple weeks. I was thinking of going somewhere this weekend, but blissful apathy got the better of me, and here I am.
For which I'm a little glad. Social reciprocation apparently works: I'm about to head off to a party at the house of a guy (Amir) who I know through school, but not socially until I invited him and his friends to a bonfire last week. Last night I went to party at Jessica's which I think had enough people from her dorm to classify as my first official "college party". Well, sort of anyways.
Meanwhile, I have rediscovered the bike as a mode of transportation. Huzzah!
For which I'm a little glad. Social reciprocation apparently works: I'm about to head off to a party at the house of a guy (Amir) who I know through school, but not socially until I invited him and his friends to a bonfire last week. Last night I went to party at Jessica's which I think had enough people from her dorm to classify as my first official "college party". Well, sort of anyways.
Meanwhile, I have rediscovered the bike as a mode of transportation. Huzzah!
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Wow...
The day before the 4th of July and fireworks have been going off intermittently for the last couple of days. A holiday of explosions and drinking...what could be more quintessentially American?
And a newsitem that I think is absolutely worthy of a story:
And a newsitem that I think is absolutely worthy of a story:
ABUJA (Reuters) - The price of machetes has halved in parts of Nigeria since the
end of general elections in April because demand from thugs sponsored by
politicians has subsided, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria reported.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0246874220070702
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