The Perils Of Believing In Round Squares

Being called “insightful and very intelligent” at least six times in one class period has gone to my head…

Also being able to baffle a teacher with wit and guile. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to defend against predators with said wit and guile, but its nice to know that academia (by which I mean this one particular professor) thinks I am funny…nay, a laugh riot. His works not mine. Oh, I did this by making fun of jam bands.

And I have suddenly realized that the bar is now set way too high. I’m not actually that bright or funny…shit!

This troubles me as well:

“Science is clearly one of the most profound methods that humans have yet devised for discovering truth, while religion remains the single greatest force for generating meaning. Truth and meaning, science and religion; but we still cannot figure out how to get the two of them together in a fashion that both find acceptable... if some sort of reconciliation between science and religion is not forthcoming, the future of humanity is, at best, precarious.”
-Ken Wilber

Wilber is a Buddhist and a psychologist. I usually find both troubling. Not in a bad way. They just make me ponder things that get in the way of everything else I have to do.

That was the quote of the day on wikiquote…I love the “wikiverse.”

The Impression That I Get

As I enter week #2 of school there are a few things I want to share with you all. And by "you all" I mean of course the three people who read this.
1.) Health class is the biggest joke in the universe. Of this I am convinced. One of my major projects is a "health family tree." Yeah...it seems like I'll be okay for that one.
2.) Biology is actually interesting. I saw a rotifer today (which is a multicellular organism that feeds off debris in pond water, if you were interested)
3.) Philosophy should be interesting. The teacher simplifies everything and wrote the text book we use (read: he's a bit full of himself). Otherwise the students are at least engaging the material. This is a very rare occurance in fake college.
4.) Pop Music History is sweet. But I knew it would be. I got to write a paper about the history of Emo last night :)

In another vein: the weekend was great. Elizabeth and I went to see The Prestige. A seconf viewing has me sure that it is the only movie about magic that will ever mean anything. There was a 90s party that was okay. Now I'm working and sleepy. I am looking forward to making various mixes in the near future and the obligatory artwork that goes along with it.

Listening to Les Masquerade by Icollide
(And I know the post title is lame, its okay...so am I)

How Wheeling Feels

So the craziness has begun. The new semester has started and I'm one class through. Granted, that class (which was suposed to last from 8-9:50) was only about 20 minutes long. I'm sort of excited to be a real (read full time) student again. There will be a lot of work but then again I'm never so happy as when I can't think I'm so busy...and able to complian about it.

This weekend was nice. I finished work on Thursday and met Elizabeth to shop and shop and shop. When the dust had finally setteled I found myself with two new pairs of jeans, a new shirt (with french cuffs, aren't you proud Shah?), a baby blue t shirt (cause I apperntly don't like color) and Bert Russel's History Of Western Philosophy (which is amazing).

Besides the materialistic part of my weekend I got to see Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men. Both were very good. Pan's Labyrinth was visualy stunning. And while sterotypical of modern Spanish cinema (e.g. broad christian overtones, all about the civil war and, you know, in spanish) it was endearing and very differnt. I guess an adult fairy-tale would be though. Children Of Men was intense. I went in thinking that it would be a techno-thriller with an interesting take on setting. It was to a certian extent but it managed more than just that. I walked out trying to figure out whether it was a good idea to have kids or not. Any movie those message is conveluted enough to, at the end, have its still be up for debate is one I'd see again.

There was also dinner at Sushi in Tenley. That was nice. The Coach provided. Now I owe him a ridiculous dinner and a 21 birthday to rival all others...great.

Well back to the real world. I'm sure I'll have more to say after my classes.

Listening to the Joan of Arc album A Portable Model Of

Baby Britain

I was reading my horoscope earlier and it said that people might perceive me as having an “embarrassment of riches.” Also it told me that I could not make a bad decision today. Lastly I was informed that I should stick to my gut. Good to know, if you ask me. Life as a Taurus seems to be coming up 7 today.

Now I don’t normally read my horoscope but today I just happened to glance at it on my yahoo homepage. Now here is why I mention this: David Beckham is having horrible luck and he is a Taurus too, Just like me. He has just signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy. It was one of the largest sports contracts to date. And he wants to live in America. This all sounds good, right?

Wrong.

David Beckham is making the same mistake. Pele did the same thing in the Seventies. He tried to make soccer more popular in the US and now so is the “Beckster.” It just isn’t going to happen. I feel bad about it and all (as soccer is the only sport that I have watched with any regularity… ever) but there just isn’t a market for the world’s most popular game here in the states.

“Why?” you might ask There are many reasons: no time for commercials, the fact that we already have a number of major sports to follow, nobody in the states over the age of about 14 is considered “good at it.” The whole endeavor is doomed to fail. And as one of the most famous personalities in the sport gets ready to put on the Galaxy jersey and play his “futbol,” I pity him a bit. He will lose the few fans abroad he still has (soccer fans, that is, since he is considered by many to be overrated) and spiral downward into obscurity in a land where his passion and, indeed, his entire career are made fun of, not watched, and in some cases down right hated.

So while Beckham may have a hot wife and a brand spankin’ new house in the Hills he has made some pretty awful decisions lately. So I’m going to keep an eye out, and if anybody was going to offer me a multi-million dollar soccer contract I think I’m going to have to pass.

I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel

I don’t feel too bad. I got all my work done. It feels good actually. Damn good.

I’ll never learn any lessons if I continue to skate by at the last minute.

Or maybe I’m just that good? I doubt this.

To Do Today
1.) Face the friendship music; breaking hearts and taking names…even if I don’t want to.
2.) School
3.) Work, which should be crazy. My boss wants me to send things all day and work for another department. Cool…
4.) Smile at my baby

Listening to I Am The World Trade Center’s album The Cover Up (they sound a lot more inflammatory than they are, the name was around before)

Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era

Meaningless work accomplished. I’ve recorded all of the reference information from our reference files into a computer file, checked and double checked every line and printed them out on nice paper to send with each box of reference files to the great big filing cabinet in the sky: our off site storage warehouse. If this strikes you as one of the most redundant things ever then you are not alone. It serves no purpose. And yet it will be done by two other people all over again before it reaches its final resting place on a dusty shelf in a climate controlled warehouse in the middle of nowhere. All this effort to preserve the fact that a company ordered a wall moved ¼ of an inch in 1999 and spent $300 to do it. That could be important in the near future but I was thinking slightly more long term. When our civilization is dust and the long forgotten, what will archeologists think of us? A culture is remembered for the artifacts that we leave behind. Our material possessions survive long beyond our meager scope of years. And when these future beings uncover this warehouse they will find construction files. Boxes upon boxes. Rows upon rows. It will of course strike them as a treasure trove of information. They’re archeologists and therefore all nerds, I know my mom was an archeology major. But the average person will hear this and wonder about a time when all that mattered was the recording and re-recording of data concerning the length of grommets and the placement of lighting grids. All that remains of us will be the meaningless archives of apparently very boring people who built stuff on occasion. All I’m really saying here is: my time would have been better spent designing a pyramid or something…

Bigger Cages, Longer Chains

I was walking around campus yesterday I saw this girl.

She was wearing a shirt that said:

“Capitalism Stole My Virginity, And I Want It Back”

Of course, a reference to The International Noise Conspiracy.

The shirt was homemade and I do love that band.

But all I could think was:

“Your chaos ain’t me,

No matter what the shirt says

And I hate to break you little heart:

But chaos definitely ain’t you”

I mean she was wearing Uggs…

Staring At The Sun

This weekend was the longest I’ve had in a while and it was still over too quickly. Saturday I attended my first gallery opening. It was a lot of fun, even if the only substantive conversations I managed to strike up were about my t shirt.

The rest of the weekend was blissfully clam and relaxing. Now I’m back in the real world where I need to write a bunch more before Thursday and I’m still not quite mentally prepared for my next semester to start up. On the upside my final in sociology is a take home that I got today and isn’t due till the end of the week. Oh, fake college…Coffee with Harry tonight will only add to this feeling of procrastination. But at least I have a plan, right?

I spent a lot of last night looking for IKEA furniture to redecorate my room. This was in hindsight a bad idea. I mentally bought about a thousand dollars worth of white Swedish furniture in my head. Now I’m going to have to buy it all in real life too. I just hope my rationalization works on my parents so they’ll pay for it.

I’ve got work and school for until Thursday and then I get to pretend to be a hipster homemaker until Tuesday. These two long weekends in a row are going to spoil me rotten.

Listening to TV On The Radio and wishing I was a wolf.

The Chandelier Swing

Two things real quick, as I sort of slept late / got a lot of work done last night and feel justified in doing so.

1. I think I want to be a cynical satirist when I grow up.

2. I woke today to this thought:

"I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. My field is the history of thought. Man is a thinking being."
--Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault - October 25th, 1982.

Thanks…thanks for reminding me I still have to read Russel and about thirty other books. But any day that starts off the post-struturalist way is going to be interesting. You never know who will show up, and I’m just talking about yourself here.

Listeing to M.I.A. and wondering why all music doesn’t involve samples of videogame violence these days.

A Distorted Reality Is Now Neccesary To Be Free

So I rocked my midterm. And did not enough reading…that is going to be made up tonight.

Last night was fantastic. Elizabeth and Carrey came up/down and we dined and then played Trivial Pursuit until the early hours. I won. No big deal. It was sort of expected…

So I’ve never felt more like shit until I listened to the lyrics of “Patriarch On A Vespa.” But gender socialization has been a theme for the last few days, I just dislike the prevalence of it in subcultures that I frequent or want to…Emo being maybe the worst offender of them all. Sexuality stereotyping like whoa!

Oh by the way; my love/hate relationship with fake college is bordering closer to love right now. I can get away with reading stuff like this for class. Oh the wonder of the social “sciences.” Ha!

“And it's very likely you will say, "well, the larger thesis is somewhat underdeveloped, but there is this point early in the story where he takes a woman to Ithaca for no real reason, and it initially seems innocuous, but - as you keep reading - you sort of see how this behaviour is a self-perpetuating problem that keeps reappearing over and over again." In all probability, you will also complain about the author's reliance on self-indulgent, postmodern self-awareness, which will prompt the person you're conversing with to criticize the influence of Dave Eggers on the memoir-writing genre. Then your cell phone will ring, and you will agree to meet someone for brunch.”

-Chuck Klosterman

P.S. Don’t you just love the title? Its still a song. Elliott Smith. Of course.

Fingers In The Factories

Oh God, I an get on facebook from work! No good can come of this, or at least no work. None at all. Hooray!

Oh by the way, slave-like reading and writing is about to commence until next Thursday. So you know, feel free to distract me at will. I’ll need the diversions

Okay, back to looking at profiles…I mean archiving.

Listening to the Editors album (Why do I love contrapuntal guitars?)

I'll Believe In Anything

Back from St. Mary’s. It was really nice, but too short by half. Indian food, reality TV, astronaut ice cream. What more does a man need? Oh, right…to stop living with his parents! Oh and also let it be known that the weekend was “luscious” and that I “handled it.”

I need to work on brevity and frequency with this hunk of cyber-space trash…

Sociology is fun. Even if its only 3 weeks. Yeah, I started last Tuesday and my midterm is this Wednesday. Shit…

I really need to read more. I can’t seem to finish a book to save my life these days. All I do is start them, or so it would seem. Also, I think I’m probably going to fall prey to the “black crack” of vinyl buying. So much for trying to live by Orchid lyrics.

Shah will be here on May 23rd. This is some of the best news I’ve had in ages. That is actually not true, I’ve had a lot of good news lately but I am insanely happy none the less.

Okay, school time and work time.

Listening to Teen Angst by M83