Welcome to the Hegeldrome?

It's been about 3 weeks since I got my iPhone, and as I forecasted in my last post, my life is already completely changed! I have designed a custom ear-piercing so that I can implant a Bluetooth headphone DIRECTLY INTO MY EAR! No, just kidding! Megan talked me out of that one. But really:

We have entered a brand new age of digital literacy!

Or, at least I have. I have discovered that since I last spent a lot of time online, there are many great sites that provide an RSS feed, eliminating all the flashy business and most of the ads, so that I can have direct access to the text. With the help of Google Reader, a RSS managing web app, and the Google App, I can now see the updates to interesting sites in small, bite size pieces, from which it is easy to "hyperlink" to the full article!

Interesting!

This is, nothing less than a Darwinian leap forward for web content. All the dodos (YouTube, hopefully... what a horrible GUI! Not even its own iPhone App can save it!) will be hunted down and killed by Portuguese sailors. Metaphorically, of course. Those who adapt their content to the proper form will move forward, and I think that this can only be a good thing. Why? Because those who properly form their content sites are those with the better content.

I know this sounds like a strange, digital age argument for classical forms, but think of it the other way around; rather than rely upon the time-honored forms of literature, we are now going to be pushing forward to more innovative forms, and, more importantly, not just innovation, but innovation that is found to be useful and more conducive to its content.

Take YouTube, for instance, that I just bashed. It has been heralded as a synonym for Google, not only in ownership, but in the epoch-defining titles that pundits love to trumpet, hoping that they will be known as the soul who coined the term. But no one will ever be the YouTube generation. Here's why.

The site is: a very convenient means for sharing videos, that was made even more convenient when they made it possible to embed video in your web page. Your blog/social site/web page doesn't support video, or you don't know how to make it do so? Bam. Now it/you do.

The site isn't: a video Wikipedia. Enough said. The search tags are awful, as is 90% of the content. If you're looking for bullshit, you found it. If you're looking for the "Glittering C-Beams" speech from Blade Runner, then okay, maybe you found that too. But say, you want to find specific Congressional Testimony, then perhaps not. Why? Because nobody uploaded that video. The bottom line is, if you don't want to weed through the crap, you shouldn't even bother.

Now, I'm not saying that there is a web site out there that will give me something good about any subject, all the time. The internet is all about the search and link. Even a great search engine like Google only gets you about 30% of the way to a nebulous concept, the rest is up to you.

That's why I really like the RSS business. Now I can program 10, 100, or 1,000 different content providers into my little heirarchy, and then search those trusted sources for what I need, or what I might need, but of which I'm not yet aware. For example, in my "Theory" folder, I get the most recent updates from The New York Review of Books, The Anomalist (a review of parascience sites), Erik Davis' Techgnosis, and the journal N+1. In the "Comics" section, I read Dinosaur Comics and The Comics Curmudgeon, and in my "Associates" category I have updates from my friends and colleagues blogs (see the sidebar for their links). Now I have my own little newspaper, made of the sections and contributors I choose, all updated 24-7 and prepped for my mobile device, or computer viewing. Amazing!

And you can make your own, and share articles like how Dad clips out columns for you. Cool!

One of the articles I just happened across was from the New York Times Book Review, called Online, R U really reading? See how they made the "R U" just like you were writing online? Isn't that clever? The article asks the question that Luddite babyboomers would love the answer to: "Is this crazy internet fad going to make my children into porn-addicted, illiterate nerds?"

The answer, clearly, is no. The fact that people like the author of the piece forget, is that there are many more people than Luddite babyboomers in the world. What I mean by this, is that not only are there people in the world that don't have a healthy respect for To Kill a Mockingbird, and other falsely-attributed "classics" (ME, for one) there are also people who although they have the ability, do not read at all, or only read tripe. This was occurring long before the internet, and will occur for long after. 90%+ literacy is a relatively new thing, and the fact is that most people, even in our culture, have no desire to pick up any book at all. So a teenager wants nothing more than to write fan-fiction and read online celebrity gossip... fine. S/he probably wasn't a Jr. Proust anyhow. Not that they shouldn't be prodded towards have a bigger view of the world and culture than is on YouTube, but I think we should look elsewhere than your modem for the problem.

The "classical" element of culture has always been the minority, and probably always will. And I think most who consider themselves part of that culture would like it that way. I remember being able to flash my Philosophy Department credentials in order to get in a standing-room-only lecture by Zizek in New York; imagine if I had to go up to Yankee Stadium (by then, renamed the Hegeldrome) and buy $150 scalped tickets just to watch that lecture on the Jumbotron!

But, what about the internet? Is there any goodness in it for us high and mighty, classical-culturally inclined? Of course! Did you not just hear how I made my own custom newspaper with a few cut-and-paste's in five minutes FOR FREE? The nation's newspapers are going out of business? Fuck 'em! As long as there is online advertising to be sold, there will be more than enough knowledgable opinions online to sort through. And after all, newspapers aren't going to disappear; they are only going to lose some weight, long over due. For those who read them, you will never beat a printed sheet. You can quote me on that. But if the NYT stopped printing it's society pages, I know I wouldn't mind.

The internet is not a dreamland, however. There are censorship issues a plenty, and I'm not (only) talking about the government. But that is a theme for a further post.

The Age of iQuarius

I have a terrible confession to make:

I bought an iPhone.

And not only did I get one, but I got one the second day they were out. I waited in line for two hours to get it. And the entire week prior, I was scanning the internet for rumors as to what it would be like, because I was so damn excited to get one.

"What?" you say. "Adam, who so typically eschews anything hyped, anything deemed 'the next big thing', has fallen into lockstep, and not only that, but signed a two-year contract?"

Perhaps. But what is this blog if not a long-winded apologia for everything I have ever thought, said, or done? So, in this spirit, let me tell you exactly how world-shatteringly important it was for me to get a new iPhone.

This, really, is nothing less that the future. Ten years ago, if someone told you they were getting a laptop, you would say to yourself, "Why does s/he need a laptop? S/he isn't a business person, so what use could s/he possibly get from a portable computer?"

Now, times have changed. To have a desktop is to be anchored, permanently, to a desk. That isn't a "computer" as we have come to know it; rather, it is an appliance. You don't bring your microwave out to the coffee shop anymore than you bring your car to bed; an appliance or a piece of machinery fills a task in a particular place or time, to have it outside of that context is non-sensical.

So what in the context changed? Well, you could say the internet has proliferated. Web 2.0, mp3s, MMUDs, blah blah blah. Also, WiFi has grown, so that having a "plug" for a computer to be useful isn't as necessary.

But this is the key: WiFi hasn't grown just to reduce our use of cords. It has grown to web almost all major cities on the planet because what one does with a computer has changed. Computing has become a lifestyle. Actually, it has joined, grown, and insinuated itself into many different lifestyles. Computing isn't something that you do anymore--its something that helps you do other things.

This is more than being "jacked in" to some kind of net. That happened with the Walkman. All of a sudden, you could be linked to another "dimension" via a portable electronic device. Mp3 players just upped the ante on a technological development that was 20 years old. So you can plug in, and have your attention drawn to something other than the world around you. I see people who read books while walking, hell, while driving! Some people don't even need that, wandering out into traffic while plain lost in thought. Being distracted from the "real world" is as old as the "real world" itself.

What is different is that a dimension is unfolding that is not just alternative to the "real world", but that is intimately bound to it. In fact every day, this dimension gets a little bit more hyperlinked, "digg"ed, and posted into where the old, "real world" used to begin and end. Of course, as the good, semi-Marxist semiotician that I am, I could argue that literature does nothing different. And I do. Literature is an extension of consciousness, a material building-outwards of our psychic material into the world, like rickety scaffolding from a dock out into the ocean.

And this is where this amazing new techology fits in: it is aiding our ability to read and write. "What?" the aging pedagogue retorts. "The internet age had caused a decline in reading! The young people are too busy sucking Facebook to pick up something as important as literature!"

Well, think about how many people used to read the classics up until this century. Almost none. Except for the academics, of course. So then we entered the age of literacy, and penny-novels sold like penny-candy. Now people read crime dramas and celebrity tell-all novels, and... read internet sites about celebritites, and watch online videos of crimes!

Don't get me wrong, I will rant against bullshit attempts at cultural enrichment until the day I die. But get this: there is an iPhone app planned that will let you read any book in Project Gutenberg in eBook form, for free! Amazing! Now when I'm out and trying to think of that first line from The Confidence Man, I don't have to run home to my meticulously kept library, I have it in my hand. Literacy, 1: ignorance, 0.



I don't mean to imply that the downloads of this app (I believe it is called Stanza, but it is not available yet) won't be hugely dwarfed by downloads of Super Monkey Ball. But this is always the way that things are. What technology is doing is changing the way that we can interact with and manipulate literature in our daily lives. Literature came out of the monasteries with Gutenberg, it was delivered from the corporations by digital printing. It was finally released from its chains of material, destructible (need I mention, burnable?) hardcopy by the internet. And now, it has been rendered universally accessible throughout the "real world" by the mobile web.

So this is the importance that I see in the iPhone. This is the beginning of a new epoch; one approaching the era of cyborgs: when our technology will seemlessly link our consciousnesses to the real world through interface. The mind-body debate will fall away, because our minds will be as fluid and disjointed from reality as our bodies are. When you can feel as much information about how your ligaments are functioning as what your current mood is, then you'll believe me. It is important to get in on the ground floor with this; we all need to be understanding the transformation as it occurs. Matrix-like transformation are only uncanny if they suddenly replace your established reality. If they grow on you, it is no different than growing older, or learning. Also, this way we can make sure we, the users, control the technology. Love your local tech-nerd, because one day he may be the only one who can unlock, or "hack" your proprietary bowel software so you can take a shit when you want.

Just one thing that I've already noticed about how mobile web will change the way we think about the world and the internet:

A big gripe about the iPhone is that it doesn't have Flash support. People want this, considering how many slick websites are all Flashed out these days. But, on the other hand, think about the last Flash site that you visited. It looked all snazzy, but wasn't it as hard as fuck to navigate to what you wanted? Especially if a particular function wasn't written into the site? You had to let all the cool clothing fly around the page just to look at the next shirt in the catalog without returning back to the orbiting "men's section". How annoying!

On the other hand, if you are accessing the web through a mobile platform, you are automatically at a disadvantage because of screen-size and data transfer speeds. Hence, no Flash support. What you do have though, are "mobile oriented sites." If you don't have mobile web, go here for an annoying video that lets you see what it looks like. It is basically bare-bones: limited pictures, relevant text only, small page span, large links. And... OMG! no ads on a Google site! Shh... don't let them know I noticed.

But this is an evolutionary trend: the useless (Flash heavy sites that are the equivalent of 400-page glossy magazine/catalogs) will be left by the wayside for efficient, well-designed means of data transmission. Of course, data transmission will only get better, and I bet we see Flash on the iPhone in less than a few years. But still, this evolution will continue. As the web-surfing public becomes more mobile, there will still be a need for efficient, well-designed sites and apps. (And from my brief survey thus far, Google looks primed to take the lead. Their Search, News, RSS Reader, and Chat web apps are currently available in mobile form, and all are amazingly useful and well-suited for the iPhones data and interface capacities. Still waiting on Blogger!) And of course, there will always be a place for Super Monkey Ball, just like there will be fashion catalogs until the last printing press rusts away. But those of us who are interested in information, in literature, and in improving our interface with the world will be the true winners. The fashionistas and salon goers will still be chasing their tail through the epochs, no doubt.

Let's Build a Giant Airship!

Remember the cuddliest cyborg of the 80s?


No, not the Nexus-6!



I'm talking about the bear with a soul of standard audio tape, the creature containing enough C-battery voltage to stun a 6-year old, the often replicated, often duplicated, Teddy Ruxpin!


Note the way the children nod their heads in commanded unison.





The bear works by only having audio on one of the stereo tracks of the cassette; the other contains its evil, mouth-moving hypnosis commands in the form of buzzing pulses.


The cartoon works via a heroic dose of psilocybin injected directly into the bloodstream.




Did you manage to see the LARGE CRUCIFIX on the rear of the airship?

They made a full 65 episodes of this! And then, as I'm sure you remember, half the population of bears became self-aware and fought the other half for control of all the crystals in Grundo.


Well, actually, all the companies that ever sold it (like 4 in all) went out of business, despite the toy's popularity.


I'd really like to get a hold of one of these for use as a boom box. They don't seem too expensive (they did make a lot of them), but I really hate eBay. The modern remakes use a chip rather than cassette tape.


NEW FOR THE INTERNET AGE:

Teddy Ruxpin's Airship Child-Safe Internet Surfing Portal!




ps. Happy 100th Post to me!

Post-Modern Blues

My life is becoming busy. There's work, which is a set number of hours a week, a set number of hours that expands as the job demands more as I try to do it better. Forty is a jumping off point. In addition to the job (which is a hobby) there is the hobbies, (which are my real professions). It's the stuff that I fill my time with when I'm not earning the money that is the axis of sustainable capitalistic existence.

There's my partner, first and foremost. She has her own world, and her own spinning axes, and thankfully we can overlap our globes together for the pleasures of companionship and partnership.

Then there's a lot of other things. I don't know what you call these things; hobbies is a stupid patronization, interests is too business-like. Yet they are investments, because they require time and resources be expended, and they certainly give returns.

I'm not talking about humanistic, soul-returns either. This is part of production--strictly material. I'm making something here, can't you see that? Well, perhaps not, because the production is not strictly spatial, but it is material all the same. No afterlife, no karma, no sense of defiant self-worth here. But I'm making it, and when its done, it will be done, and on to the next.

There's the cardboard tree in the next room, build from one-inch tubes and hot glue, growing not from the root or the buds but from an effort of my own to convert time into space and make "it". Making what? A tree from the processed pulp of real tree? No...

There's the writing, that's every where. On the computer, on the desk, taped to the wall, and under the chair. Vague theories about sending it somewhere and getting something back, but meanwhile, maybe the instruction manual to the machine, or maybe just more wasted paper pulp.

The food: not just sustenance, but foods requiring "preparation", tools, rare ingredients, magical poltices ground and manufactured for expressly kitchenic voodoo. Why? Why not? Goes well with wine.

Music, expanding over and over, crate after crate, millions of empty electronic crates grouped into megas and gigas. One song isn't enough, there must be more, they will beat the hammers on the rivets of THIS machine, winding springs. Gravity transformed into not just a down-and-in, but outward, and up, and prepositional shifts that make me dizzy, spinning on thousands of tiny gyroscopes.

That's what I'm doing now; Saturday morning, woke up early, cleaned the kitchen, made coffee and sat down, frantically busy.

Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings.

Four discs and a companion booklet, free from the library. I try to get most of my resources as free as possible, saves wear and tear on the "job" axis, more time on the downstroke for the upswing and... well, et cetera.

Early Armstrong, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929. Dixieland, swing, big band. Compared to Coltrane it sounds slow, old-timey, porch and lemonade. This is eighty years ago. Now we have punk and electro that would make Louie's head explode. Maybe.

Then it was "race music". You know what it is. Not marketed to everyone, just an opportunity to make some more money on the sides. Today we call it a sub-culture, then the "sub" was less substantial.

A funny thing happened; white people started to like it. It could be popular, what this black man in a white tuxedo was doing. It was big, and was bigger once they made more and sold it. Hot Five became Hot Seven, other numbers just became Hot Five, and the money was made. It was now pop, what the race was doing. Jazz was next.

But what was going on? Was it just that Louie was that good? Good enough to pass as a white trumpet player? Jackie Robinson on the cornet?

Of course not. There was A, B, and C; there was X, Y, and Z; there were numerous plotable points of artistic ingenuity that show, without a shadow of a doubt, that the clines were rising, that the times were changing, and that time x space executed a dramatic cultural capital transference that surplused even the white man's profits, so that there was something that "we" could "all" benefit from, even those non-racist whites that lived after Louis was already dead and on a postage stamp.

It had that, that SWING, man. Listen to it... just listen to it. A blow of air through a metal pipe vibrating at the speed of frequency, warmth, breath, hip and hop. Elan vital, of course, of course. Says Robert G. O'Meally, "a forward-tilting, dynamic process of coordinating with diverse but nonetheless connected fellow-workers/players and listeners/dancers alike." A vibrato that could make a single note swing. Yes yes, very good.

But listen to it, and... what, what is that? The trumpet is doing, doing that thing, what Django's guitar does; it's what Coltrane's sax does; it's what the distortion of an electric guitar does, it's...

Fist-pumping, foot-tapping, head-bopping, crowd-jumping, body-touching...

Henry Chinaski said, "Only assholes talk about writing." I don't think Henry Chinaski could play any instruments.

O'Meally sums it. "Like the twentieth century's other supremely influential figures--Einstein, Picasso, Joyce, Stein, Ellington, Le Corbusier, Freud, for example, Armstrong's original conceptions changed the field of music forever. Like these others, Armstrong made changes in his chosen form of expression that corresponded magnificently with the sophisticated moment at the beginning of the century when, across the disciplines, the focus and agenda radically shifted to reflect a world that was suddenly faster, smaller, and more technologically advanced: a world of new information and answers to old questions that spawned new sets of hard questions, new uncertainties and anxieties. With his majestic sound, Armstrong intoned lines of improvisation that parodied and deconstructed received originals as they created new structures in their place. In his playing, one discovers an apt soundtrack to the new world of particles and waves, moving pictures, lightening quick communication, Freudian psychology, the New Negro, stream-of-conscious writing, the Manhattan skyline, cubism and color cut-outs, world wars, modern weapons of mass destruction as well as revelry and ribaldry in spite of everything."

Yup, Louis Armstrong is everything all clogged together in the post-modern kitchen sink, including the sink itself, spinning downward in Coriolis loops of stream-of-conscious writing.... Wait a minute, stream-of conscious writing?!?!

Well, maybe not. Or maybe so. Maybe post-modernism just seems to fit it correctly, because that is what is going on outside that porch with the old Victrola and delicious lemonade where my consciousness is sitting, listening to Louis Armstrong blow a trumpet like god-doesn't-fucking-know-what. But he really is all that, and more, because it just sounds so good. Listen to it, just listen to it. "Georgia Grind," "Cornet Chop Suey," "Drop that Sack". Drop that sack! Oh yeah, like crazy.



Anyway, the point is, I'm really busy this Saturday morning, because I'm listening to Louis Armstrong and drinking coffee. This isn't just for fun, or because I'm interested in it. I'm working. I'm building something, producing something, and when it's done maybe I'll let you use it a little bit. We'll see. How do you think that Louis did it? He just practiced a lot? That's all there is?

I think more people should work harder. It's important to keep yourself busy. Not because down-time isn't good, but because if you aren't working on building it, on producing it, you can be sure as shit that nobody else will do it. They'll just sell you someone else's. You might be lucky, and get ahold of Louie's, or someone else who worked real hard and was good at it. Or you might just get some hobby project, some half-baked crap on TV that someone only made because they had to, not because they were really working on it.

I gotta go, gotta get back to work.

Disengagement Gears

[A couple of folks started talking with me about the subject of my recent post. I feel bad posting my response without including theirs, but I didn't want to post without their direct permission (it's from another forum). That's why I didn't include their real names (except for those privy to that particular forum) so that they could be considered more flatly, from my point of view (it is my blog, after all). The gist is, both of them, while agreeing with certain elements of my argument, disagree, saying that there is still political power and capital found in supporting candidates' campaigns for other political ends, such as the environmental and labor movements. Which, I concede, is true. Political power works in strange ways. But, that doesn't include the actual voting, which my original argument was against. Here and how, however, I am responding to the assertion by [wellslin] that I have a " general attitude of disengagement from the political process".]

it begins...

[wellslin] My disengagement is from the federal executive branch election. While both you and [glynnsea] have made good arguments for there being political aspects to certain parts of the circus surrounding this sort of election, I don't think either of you would actually call the election political, or a political process. It sounds like you both are focused on strategies regarding "power", which, if I understand correctly, are not the same thing as "being" president.

It's sort of a pet peeve of mine that the reaction from a lot of people to my voicing my views is that I am "disengaged, disenchanted, or otherwise just sullen and upset." Not that you said all that, but... well, it's been typical. Nor that I'm not, in some degree. However, I feel as if, as a response, it shuffles my opinion off into a margin of "angry, do-nothing, and therefore, superlative." Maybe if somebody actually appealed to the "disengaged" demographic with something other than useless ideology and boring busy-work, we would be able to re-engage.

I don't want to bitch and moan about how real life isn't exciting or correct enough for me, and that I'm too good for it. That's not true. Actually, I am fully engaged in my own life, which contains various political aspects and various processes; some of them are close to blossoming into fruition, and others are much more long-term, and others no doubt will be abandoned as time and place sees fit. There are some parts of my life with which I'm disappointed, other parts for which I'm quite excited. Not everyone will agree that my life is political, but hey, everyone is fully able to have his/her own opinion on what politics are (I certainly do).

But this is the problem. Everyone knows that a problem with the American Left (whatever) is that when somebody disagrees with the Left, the disagreeing party is "wrong", and unprogressive. So, because I disagree with the Left's strategy of supporting presidential candidates, I must be wrong, unprogressive, and as [wellslin] said, "disengaged from the political process". No, I'm not disengaged from the political process, I'm disengaged from your political process (the particular facet of which includes supporting presidential candidates). I have my own political process, thank you very much, which certainly does NOT include voting for nor supporting any candidate, in any way. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be doing what you're doing or anyone else shouldn't be doing what they are doing, but it means that I have decided that I am doing what I am doing, and this is not an apolitical, unpolitical, or illpolitical decision, but a political one. It is part of the political process of boycott. Whatever political effect it has, that is a separate discussion. But please don't marginalize my choice because you disagree with it (which, interestingly enough, is a primary tactic of those campaigning and supporting political candidates).

Let's not switch "power" for "politics", either. Politics wouldn't be political without the power. If the consolidation and implementation of power is what you are looking for, there are certainly many ways to do so. One way, literally, is to get the power company to supply power to your campaign office. You do this by paying a bill. This electricity enables you to do many things. This is why it is called power. I'm being facetious because these days many people like to argue about what politics "is all about". Politics is all about oil, or its all about ideology, or its all about money, or its all about water, etc. All of these things can be invested with a certain amount of power, and turn the switch on other power else where, and around and around and around. So you want "power". For good ends, obviously, I don't doubt it (not facetious this time). But if you really wanted to get a lot of power, you could just get a lot of money, which would act like a lot of power. Or, you can build a mass movement, and use the power of a lot of angry people. Or you could try and get the largest number of people who hold positions that give them a certain amount of power behind you, like "workers". Or, you could threaten to blow up all the power plants, which would give you a certain amount of power through fear. Whatever you are doing, you are implementing different strategies of getting power.

The differences between these strategies are what is typically called "politics". The difference between capitalism and populism and communism and terrorism is what sort of rules are agreed upon for the consolidation and use of power. They all share some similarities, and all have some differences. So, to say your politics is about power is kind of simple. There is more do it than that, and it is what you think is "ok to do in the pursuit of power". (There is necessarily more to an adequate definition of politics, namely something to do with the "people" in some way, but I'm going to avoid this for now, because it seems that both [wellslin] and [glynnsea] agree that they are after power.)

Clearly, both [wellslin] and [glynnsea] think that supporting presidential candidates, as part of a strategy for consolidating power, is a good idea. I don't. I am all about power, folks. I totally believe it exists, I think some people have too much of it and use it wrongly, and I think a lot of people need more of it and need to use it better. But I don't think that supporting presidential candidates is a good use of power, or that in doing so will result in any positive changes in the way that power is distributed or used. In fact, I worry about the opposite.

This is highly political decision on my part, and I resent any suggestion to the contrary. It is part of a highly-evolved and seriously considered strategy for changing the way power is distributed and used. It isn't synonymous with your strategy, but I don't expect it to be, as it is my own.

I'm not going to go into the details of my own strategies and tactics. (Part of it is super secret!) But part of it involves trying to draw general attention to the illogical and demeaning arguments that support certain elements of the current power structure. These include voting, the support for presidential candidates, and certain "political" factions' arguments that would subjugate and marginalize alternative political orientations to their own, namely, those political orientations that would decry the factions' own actions, including support for political candidates.

In other words, it is clear that by supporting a presidential candidate, you are forced to call my position wrong, apolitical, and disengaged. If my rejection of voting was to be a political opinion, it would draw attention to the bankruptcy of elements of your own political opinion. This is why non-voters never get to sit at debates. And I don't mean undecideds, I mean non-voters.

So, long story short, I don't hold it against you for marginalizing my position by saying that I'm "disengaged", because I think we all now might know what you really mean. But let it be known that I am far from disengaged.

Vote Not To Vote

My computer is broken so my posting is even less often than usual. Right now I am at the local branch of the Multnomah County Library, where I have 25 more minutes to use the internet. However, seeing as now the election race has begun, because now there are actual tangible machinations occurring rather than the boring and recycled rhetoric of campaigns, I thought I should give my usual spiel.

I DO NOT VOTE FOR PRESIDENT. This is a logical, political decision, and I feel that all of the people (being, the large majority of the population) who disagree with me should deeply consider their own choices in light of the logic that I have used to make my choice. In other words, I'm right, you're wrong, and everyone should listen to me.

HERE'S THE DEAL:

I disagree with large aspects of Slavoji Zizek's philosophy for deep, critical and academic reasons that are boring to anyone who doesn't read 20th Century Continental philosophy or Leftist psychoanalysis for fun. However, an analogy that he used to describe America's justification of the Iraq War is quite apt, amusing (as much as such a subject could be), and quite applicable to other situations of similar lapses of logic in favor of ideology. It is called, "The Story of the Borrowed Kettle." It is a joke, which I will paraphrase here:

A man goes to see his neighbor, bringing with him his kettle, now broken, which the neighbor has just finished borrowing. When he confronts the neighbor, the neighbor rebuffs him, telling him it is not his fault for three reasons, first, he returned the kettle in one piece, second, it was broken when it was lent to him, and third, he never borrowed the kettle in the first place.

I don't tell jokes very well. But, the point is that the neighbor has been caught in a lie because in his effort to give overwhelming evidence to his point, he has contradicted his other evidence, three times over.

This is the same sort of flawed logic that people use when they make the decision to vote, and when they argue with me that I am wrong not to vote.

My proposition: the statistical effect of my vote, in our election system, is an insult to the ideals of a governance by the people. Furthermore, the parties are corrupt, political corporations that should probably be run out of town on a rail, if not tried for crimes. And lastly, the idea that any particular candidate could ever inspire my confidence in a state like the United States of America is against what I have come to identify as political truths, any sort of human/natural/ecological justice, and my own life in particular.

The counter-arguments come thick and fast. And the "kettle" rears its ugly, broken spout.

First Kettle, as poured by the typical liberal, fan of American democracy:

1. My vote does make a difference.

2. My vote doesn't make a difference, but if everyone else thought as I did, then one vote would make a difference.

3. Votes don't make a difference at all, but I should vote anyway as some sort of "citizen's duty". Kind of like a pledge of allegiance.

How can any of these three be, seeing as they all contradict each other? And furthermore, they all contradict the statistical fact that one vote does not count. One of my favorite citations for this fact is a book called To Vote or Not to Vote, the authors of which I cannot remember right now. It goes into deep analysis of all the bizarre probabilities that could potentially come into play and shows that no, in fact, a person's vote, among a category of choices, does not matter. They, however, maintain the 3rd option listed above, that despite this statistical fact, it is an important national ceremony of some sort.

There are additional kettles. One regards the candidates. I think that there is can be no candidate for president, under whom I would feel comfortable living as subject. But even for those candidates that I think should be president, under the logic that my vote boycott will not eliminate the executive branch and therefore there should be a person who can do the least harm in the office, the choice to vote for a candidate does not in any way cause a candidate that you wish to be elected. It is false choice, a horrible compromise, that is endlessly cooked down until you have to choose between Shitty A and Shitty B.

Here's the Kettle:

1. Of the two, nominated, major party candidates, one will be a good president.

2. Neither of the two major party candidates are great picks. Therefore, one should vote for a third party candidate, in the spirit of democracy.

3. Voting for a third party or otherwise minority-appeal candidate "throws a vote away". Therefore, you should vote for the candidate that you hate least, that might have a chance.

The way this kettle works is that it attempts to tell me that what my logical pick is, is the person who has already been picked. Regardless of what my political opinions are, it tell me the best place to look for my selection is to see what everyone else has already selected. How is this "My Choice, 2008"?

There are other kettles as well, but my internet time is almost up.

I would like to direct anyone who thinks that they are going to vote, who still isn't sold on the second kettle, to peruse this Democracy Now! interview with Alan Nairn and Kelley Beaucar Vlahos. They talk about what you are really voting for: not the candidates, but the advisers. And the advisers are the same people already fucking over politics: the ones responsible for war, environmental degradation, and death. So enjoy voting for Obama, losers. I hope you feel good when you do it, like you have the spirit of hope. Because no matter what you do, they've already won.

How does 1983 feel?

So this past weekend I bought the original single of "Blue Monday" by New Order for a dollar. It wasn't in great condition; it was obviously well-loved, and the BPM sticker on the sleeve (130) tells me it was owned by a DJ. However, this also means that the disc itself was taken care of, and it plays perfectly.

What a great dance track! Depite, its subsequent hipster overplay.

Also, the outer sleeve is die-cut to look like a 4 1/2 inch floppy disk! Like this!



The inner sleeve is silver, and pokes out as if it were the original "disk" in floppy disk. Your flash drive doesn't make a good album cover, that's for sure.

The video features lovely computerized graphics that also remind of the same technological epoch. Check it out! I especially like the pixly image of the space shuttle blasting off.

Let the Crooked be Made Straight...

I used to be offended, in that sort of sideways, "it's not actually offensive to me personally, but I'm sure glad I'm not them," way about the fact that Hallmark brands its African-American greeting cards as "Mahogany" cards (you know, the cards that were brought over from Africa as slave cards, but now are half as American as a white card). Mahogany is a dark, rain forest wood (though, strangely, from the Amazonian rain forest, I guess that magazine had already copyrighted "Ebony") that is highly priced for its sturdiness, and rich, dark color. "Mahogany Cards: when you just need to play the race card." That's not actually the slogan, but I bet [jungesam] will think its funny.

Anyway, I was that sort of offended, until yesterday, when I became actually offended. I went to Walgreens to buy a Hanukkah card, and what did I find, as a relic of the prejudice that is forever a part of the Northwestern United States' history? All the Jewish cards--Hanukkah, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Simchat Torah, and what-have-you--are all now branded as "Tree of Life" cards. Bastards!

Offensive, times two: one-the tree of life is forbidden by God's edict. We are forever shut from the garden of eden, and they had to rub that in our faces! Our bronzed, diasporadic, faces. Two-you know what the "tree of life" refers to, besides that? The LOINS OF DAVID. The line of David will bring the messiah, and thus, resurrection. I guarantee that not only does the tetragrammon NOT send holiday cards, if s/he did, they would not have messianic power, because THEY ARE ONLY PIECES OF PAPER WITH CARTOON DOGS EATING LATKES ON THEM.

Fun religion fact! Did you know that according to the heretic "Christian" faith, as the Messiah, Jesus is of the line of David? That's what all those "begats" beget in the beginning of Matthew. See, there is David sperm in Jesus! Even though, you know, Mary was a virgin... right. Hmm. But, the really fun part of this fun fact is that because of this medieval artists often protrayed Jesus as the "branch" of the tree of life--literally! There is a stained glass window in some cathedral in Europe that shows David lining on his back, a tree of life blossoming from his crotch, and Jesus hanging out in the branches! I shit you not! Religion is really weird.

And all I wanted to do was send a holiday card to my parents. Goddamn apostate Hallmark sick sexual perversion begetting bastards.

Tomorrow we'll talk about the mystical application of the tree of life in Kabbalah!


Adam

ps. I can't seem to find a picture of the stained glass window, but I've definitely seen it before. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please let me know.

Some time, some where, there will be blogs...

Hi...

Just checking in to tell those interested in pCARL but are perhaps not checking the pCARL blog, that I have decided to memorialize and periodize my pCARL attempt in a Journal on the pCARL blog. So, if you want to read about my experience re-writing The Confidence-Man: His Mascquerade by Herman Melville, you should check pCARL at intervals.


Later!

pCARL, off into the world you go

pCARL has its own blog! Check it out!

Soon to come, social networking! The interdome is JUST THAT EASY!