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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 |
turkishb
|
1:18a |
well i guess it sounds easy at the outset: the mind can play many games. but the body basically plays only one game--surviving, so that it can reproduce. so the mind will be king on its board, but the body is a pawn on its. |
| Monday, November 16th, 2009 |
turkishb
|
9:47p |
what i am wrestling with lately, in a nutshell: in order to do the "right" or "good" thing, we have to identify what exists, and the relationships existing things have with other existing things in their nature, such that we have an understanding of laws that gives us predictions. but we can't even all agree on how to describe ourselves, our planet, or our method of description! so how the heck are we meant to live morally? assuming (rightly i think!) that we can't change the other participants in this game, what's the best way to play? |
turkishb
|
9:43p |
gladwell on picasso versus cezanne. his comparison feels a bit disingenuous to me because he leaves out that picasso had formal artistic training from the age of 7. so yes, he was a prodigy, but like most wunderkind he had intense parental support from an early age. part of what's missing from the argument in general is the recognition that "art" or "genius", etc., are manifestations of an intense relationship of the self to the world through some mediation. it's not simply that one is a genius, but that one has learned a relationship with a set of tools--linguistic, musical, artistic--that allow you to perform or create meaningfully. why we recognize some artists as especially meaningful is generally because, first of all, we can only recognize so many. it's rarely pointed out picasso co-founded cubism. second, broader historical influences are often ignored. could modern art have existed as it did without new technologies for mediation? painting changes because painters respond to new human self-conceptions. could romantic art have happened outside of the romantic zeitgeist? could the renaissance happened without the rise of venice and retranslation of classics and arabic works? etc. modern art had to wrestle with both a new technology (photographic reproduction) and new information about non-western art. picasso painted from african masks, van gogh was inspired by japanese prints, etc. what did our modern artists do, that was so different from their sources of inspiration? this is our modernism: simply the introduction of a subject we deem culturally sensate enough to not be naive. picasso turned away from realism because he realized that painting could do something photographic realism can't: show us our own mediation, our selves. so of course his genius is implicated in this promethean discovery--for the "first" self to be shown this way was his, according to some myths. (other myths give the torch to other artists, not my point.) the manner in which he reduces dimensionality to abstraction, this was his brilliance. but if you cast a wider net, you see immediately he was not alone, or even totally original. yet the way we can conceive of events necessitates our protagonist, and so we have our artistic genius, our prodigy. |
turkishb
|
8:15p |
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turkishb
|
7:42p |
i wonder about the history of ensemble stories. a film like magnolia epitomizes the bizarre neutrality you find in a film without one protagonist. they're often stories about chance, or the forces which make the story, which are these days thought about as a particular strain of chance: probability. luck which we have math about. part of this, i think, is self-reflexivity about story-telling itself. the dynamic massiveness of reality doesn't cotton well to the narrative. the narrative is its own reality, and a reality of the highly improbable. the narrative can run on a sort of magic: why are these implausible things happening? it doesn't matter: they simply are, and we don't need to look around for what drives them. but we also have some consciousness that there's no answer even if we look for one--there's no writer behind the miracles in reality, just the big recriminations of infinite calculations. "these" things, however rare, are happening just as mundanely as "these other" common things, just less. i see especially in the new atheist movement a lot of rhetoric about reason and science. we like to think of science as a break-out genre, but i think that's a bit dubious. reading today i saw max weber's book on protestantism and capitalism. i've read it before. i was thinking about the conundrum inherent in being the fully-responsible rational agent assumed by protestantism, against the necessary fatalism in making yourself a harmonious gear in a higher rational entity--be it country, god, whatever. and i thought, oh, of course. it shouldn't be just one. it shouldn't make sense. if i was looking to construct differences, i would expect this to happen. more than that: if i expected those differences to represent concrete, objective phenomena, then my thinking should be so clear. but how realistic is that set of relationships? one source of tension i intuit is that between the scale of change on our bodies and on our minds. i don't just mean our bodies individually here, but qua bodies. one of the enormous successes of our species is our retraction from investment in bodily adaptation. we don't grow fur in the artic. our bodies certainly respond to climates and environments, but this is mediated by our propensity to use technology to redress the deficits. one way i see this being problematic is in studies of sexual difference. part of defining sexual difference involves qualifying differences previously invisible to us, and only given to us from new contexts of measurement. it's not like we've always known xx versus xy. oh, so we think, here's our ultimate distinction. we have our parts defined correctly. but then we find out xxx, xxy, yyx, x, etc., individuals exist. or people with xx/xy chromosomes "abnormally manifested". etc. so where we thought we had a final answer about what a man or a woman is, we find only works a certain percentage of the time. (most estimates for non-intersex births would be: 99.98%) but now that we've defined not an entity, but the parts of the entity, we also see how the parts could be rearranged. so maybe we are left with even less than we started with. we've gone from absolute conceptions of bodies where abnormalities were constructed as monstrous or evil to realizing they're simply the natural periphery to the "normal" bodies. neither our stories nor our science have much to say about these problems by themselves. the story i know about sex is that it's a necessary division for the recombination and reproduction of my lifeform. the scientific story i know about sex is that natural divisions occur to the benefit of the sexes for their competitive ability. the science i know about sex tells me that i can never get rid of the exceptions, and moreover, that i'm never identifying a fixed object. but really there's no dichotomy between the story and the science. the science gives me my objects, and i try to tell the same story about them if i can. i mean, how many people deny evolution simply because they can't make peace with the recombinative cannibalism, their implicit participation in a horrifying unity, and their common heritage with the world that isn't there for them? i am looking back over the last six months of my thinking and realizing how different my perspective is lately. i guess what i wonder most of all is what cruelty is necessary in the world, and what is merely sufficient? any limits can change. not just for us, but we are uniquely attuned to change. we implicate the world in our change. we cut down the trees and build churches. we quarry the stone and use geometry to build our universities. what would it even mean to say we should do the right thing? that we should strive to be happy? there's an image in siddhartha about what i was starting with at the beginning of this post. siddhartha is seeing all the faces of being in the river. he realizes he's part of "the one" river of time. this question doesn't just loom large in buddhism--it's tackled in christianity, too. the question is: since individuals die, clearly we're not the "real" objects, and if you try to see everything at once, from where do you see it? setting aside the ontological impossibility for a moment, the question remains: how would you even say what's right? not between a couple individuals like a murderer and a victim. but all the trillions and trillions of events, memories, cells, implausibilities, which make up a whole human race? people ask why god lets suffering happen, but what would happen without suffering? i guess i come to feeling that we can't eradicate horrible things, but resign ourselves to the momentum, the counter-valence, of kindness. Current Music: aimee mann - it's not going to stop |
turkishb
|
7:01p |
magnolia is so much fun. the frogs... the frogs... |
tindronomel
|
3:02p |
|
ourbedrooms
[ 824x ]
|
12:08p |
|
baaaaabyanimals
[ amarook ]
|
8:33a |
kitten wars (Lota photos) (mishka is growing fast!)
It finally has happened. Sophie and Mishka are playing. They were playing some last week, but it was still Sophie being all hissy. Now they are wrestling. lol I caught some of the action this morning while they were rolling around on the papasan chair. Enjoy. ( Read more... ) |
baaaaabyanimals
[ versailles_rose ]
|
7:14a |
|
film_stills
[ oh_morpheus ]
|
5:47a |
|
ourbedrooms
[ zombiedansen ]
|
4:02a |
Long time lurker, first time poster :]
Hello everyone! My name is Lin, I'm 17 years of age and currently live on the east coast of the United States. Please excuse the poor quality photos, I had to take these with my phone as it is the only camera I currently have. Also they are big and there is a lot of them. You have been warned. I also apologize in advance to everyone's friends page if I don't get this lj-cut right the first time. |
| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 |
ourbedrooms
[ maiseyyy ]
|
8:37p |
Where do these lamps come from?
 Where do these lamps come from? I've seen quite a few rooms with them. They're white and look like they have ...embroidery or something on them? Anyway, they are too cute. Thanks! |
ourbedrooms
[ versayce ]
|
4:52p |
hi
i've posted my room before, but not here. and it was a while ago. things change! sorry for the inconsistent lighting, it was getting dark as i was taking pictures. 
( more here ) |
| Monday, November 16th, 2009 |
stanleylieber
|
12:54a |
|
| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 |
turkishb
|
11:49p |
discouraged though i've been getting, i keep coming back to myself and saying: no, alex, you're not done. be careful, be cheerful, be quiet. you know this cycle, wait to feel better. trust yourself. unbelievably, this seems to work. |
oh_snap
|
11:26p |
I like it better when I go through phases of my life where I talk to the internet honestly. It is the most boring thing to anyone else, I'm sure, but to me it always feels therapeutic &helpful. I've been getting these really intense headaches that start at the base of my neck and work their way up my skull and over my eyes and then down my face? They aren't migraines, but they don't feel like tension headaches either. They are some kind of super hybrid of pain & disaster. I have been doing a lot of studying & reading for my Classical Literature course & my Latin course. I need to decide if I will take Latin again next semester. So far next semester I am taking a class on Literature of the Industrial Revolution, another Comparative Literature class & some kind of course that is called "Semiotics of Literature & Media". I also may take a class on "The Blues" which just seems so appropriate & fitting, but if not then I guess Latin again? There is too much Latin to learn in one semester &anyway it turns words into a nice and personal inside joke. Other than crazy headaches &reading Virgil, I don't know what I have been doing. I have been trying to do a social thing with other people at least once a day but that's not working. It is not even working every other day because normally I just want "alone time." I want endless alone time. Being an only child really had a different feeling to it when I was a kid. I constantly wanted to be around other people because I was bored and wanted to be stimulated. When there wasn't anyone else around, I amused myself by making up very elaborate games & yes, having alone time. But I was still always longing for friends and boyfriends and different people to feel different voids. Not saying that I still don't fill voids with people, but I am glad to say that things have changed in the last 20 years and the last 10 years. That's something, right? This past year feels like it has gone by so quickly. Last November was such a different thing. I was really putting this different kind of effort into life then. Oh & that's funny because I just read what I wrote a year ago today which is equally insane: November 16th, 2008
No one wants to believe the good stuff, and I am laying here in my bed sunday afternoon with this book I have to read and this paper I have to write and I can't see out the window because I am not lifting my head.
&I don't know, it's just this time of year I always start thinking about the next year already. It's always like this
soon it is going to be the year 2000, you are a freshman in high school, the world will probably end
soon it will be 2001 and we're gonna turn sixteen and we're gonna drive our cars we're gonna drive our fucking cars
now it's going to be 2003 and i will be 18 and i can get the hell out of here
now it's going to be 2004 and everyone in college is just like everyone in high school
and here comes 2006 and i will be 21 and we will be in love and we will change the world
and here comes 2007 and nothing that happened in 2006 will matter because i moved to new york city
Because the years are never over and then I am on to the next one and it's like that damn "Long December" song is playing on someone's car radio while they are pissed off at me and driving me home and I wish I could stay in a car forever because it is always suddenly already over.
And anyone can give advice on this, they can say "you just have to live in the now" and then they rationalize this and give head in public restrooms and say that this is about life experiences. And then we all sit together one last time before we leave for the airport and I can't see in anyone's face that they have anything to show for it.________________________________________________________________
I am not really thinking about Next Year in that way though. Ohh whatever, I so am. Next year I will turn 25 and it will be 2010 and that seems insane. That seems like "what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what what how when how when?"
Yes, yes. So head pains. I wanted to go to sleep by 11 tonight but I slept until 2 PM today so whoops, I am not tired. I should make a picture post soon since I just uploaded the pictures off my digital camera like a week ago. I didn't make a Panama picture post or a Portland picture post. World tours. |
oh_snap
|
9:21p |
Let's get a silver bullet trailer and have a baby boy.
I loved them because they were always talking with their fists. They were always slamming their hands through walls. They were slamming their hands through each other, and I guess through me too. Sometimes I would cry so hard that I was just screaming my head of on the side lines. I'd rip out anyone's hair because then still, then when the boys were going to jail and we were crying in backseats-- then we still had everything to live for. We had everything to live for but we didn't look at it like that, instead we just thought we'd live forever. And I loved them because. And I loved them because. And now I don't remember how I loved anyone like that. I can't feel that way at all. It was the most hopeless thing, the most dedicated thing. And now I can't even understand it at all. No part of me wraps my head around it. No part of me raps about it, because we're not even funny more. I loved them because they meant it, as much as they possibly could have, they meant it. They meant it more than I could ever mean anything now. I'll just get myself to sit in a back seat and I will talk to all of you like your lips are bleeding too. |
oh_snap
|
9:16p |
extinction or evolution?
Pt.1 The operator forewarns you will have to take this call (you can use your office as you like) but it will not matter to anyone. There are no telegrams any longer (which seems like a shame at the time) and the man never learned to use e-mail (not a surprise) so things will go on like this, as long as communication is necessary. Where are you going? What do you mean? Where have you been? Why did you leave me? When did I love you? Everything sounds muffled and feet are falling through the floor. Pt.2 They are falling through the floor &going down to the earth. Kissing earth worms on their mouth while they make their plight South. Baby, this isnt the time for this. With a twist to the right &a game of bloody knuckles. Knocks on the front door while you pass through molten rock. Your hand on the receiver while the mucus drips down South. Everybody is always saying "I told you so." The long lost patron saint of mediocrity leaves a message via cellular phone to say "I figured as much" and you laugh while you pass through the underworld you are saying "okay. fine" You are living out some stand off, some holy war in your head, some parade of pirated porn stars, secretly driving their kindergarten class to the bus stop, saying "its fine momma will be right outside" and everybody is wondering when they are selling their soul for half a cent 'where did you go now Ma, you said you'd be outside' when they are scraping their knees &the inside of their throats &when they are learning how grown ups learn to fall. If you were getting over a fever, you're not really going to get over much at all. We use commas instead. Pt.3 extinction or |
oh_snap
|
9:12p |
plagarizing OR preparing for funerals
With blood and rags &barbed wire mouths they asked "where is my baby". Laying down in rows of beds &staying up in lines of ceilings we watched them depart their own bodies &we bit down hard on our tongues. The use of showers &the air conditioning, artificial sweetner and debit cards. I kiss my mother's cheeks before she boards up the airplane because she is going to try &go North (all over again). We won't stop until we get it right, we wont stop until we see it in writing. With a boarding pass &a wine glass half way down her throat we realize all the women in my large family are either sedated off drugs or the holy ghost &they'll fly or drive to anywhere to set things right again. We will drive two thousand miles to send apologies to highschool lovers &we will fly across the Atlantic to fix the house in old country. It passes through a woman in a bar, it pretends to be a hurricane, teaches us to read &gets a twenty percent discount. There are citizens singing on the sidelines they are saying "where is my baby", and we are wondering if this is rehearsed. Where is the chorus line, Ma? Is there a piano on stage right? Stage right and stage left reflect the actors perspective dear, not the audience- now straighten your soldiers &breathe from your diaphram (it says). It passes through some sadness, stops to say "good bye" we mimic but it is not satisfied- no say it like this- so we try again &again. We end up trying for the rest of our lives to get the words out right. With our mothers in their hospitals, our mothers in their SUV's, our mothers in their graves, our mothers on their airplanes (flying away to set it right) our mothers drinking their gin &tonics, our mothers talking like men, our mothers raising us &our father's slapping us &then our mothers fleeing the scene time &time again raising their eyebrows as if to say "Get out while you still can, child". All the songs were overplayed so it turned off our radios, it closed our schools &said "I'm just pretending". It passes through a woman in a bar, flips over four cars &likes to watch television. With blood &rags &barbed wire lips we are all kissing on the mouths, victims laying in the streets &schools on fire from the inside, love made it all go wrong &she'll board an airplane like she could ever make it right. |
oh_snap
|
9:09p |
& Figurines
I. CHARACTERS
1. The denunciation of central figures will only take place when the protagonist has suffered loss through themself or through those close to them. The girl (myself) is walking down a street &there is a lot of snow on the ground. The denuciation of God and Worship will occur when a system of morals has been corroded, when the part of Self is Denied and the Parents are Blamed. They were bleeding to death their whole lives (falling down, losing balance) mainly in public &sometimes behind closed doors.
Locked doors. Slammed doors. Slamming the doors all day long for no one to hear.
2. Sometimes seventy-five cents &four dollars can seem like a lot to spend on a pair of earings. The owners of shops will not seem like your friends &you will wonder why you ever left the house in the middle of the week. The girl (myself) does not even wear earrings (anymore) she did have her ears pierced at age five (not as a baby as her mother felt it was barbaric &too goddamn Catholic). Reflecting the extended theme of the failure of religion. She should start referring to herself as a woman but she thinks she is missing her insides so she uses her fingers to poke for internal organs. Where did they go? Does anybody got a stick? Hey hey! Does anybody got a stick? A sharp one that you found by the forest. "Hey" the man says. He says something about trees and she just asks what her was.
3. Some of them were boys (p.86-757) the footnotes explaining their birth &origin- it is noted that the author [myself] has given opinion as well as paranthetical documentation pointing to their true origin &their true character.
Some of them were men. Some of them were men. |
oh_snap
|
9:03p |
19 year dream
The story of my life doesnt exist. The parts you have in your mind are just a mistake, you think you can remember it for me- but you cannot. You will not. It is just your ex-lover, the gap in time you fill up, the smile on the face, the teeth the eyes the subjection, your memories, they are illusions. There are great spaces where you pretend there used to be someone, you define that time by them, the days when i was with so &so, the day when he held my hand when she kissed my cheek when I sat on the couch that night. You define your time by them, but you don't know them anymore. When I say you, I don't really mean me, by me I don't really mean you. Tantalus, the mortal son of Zeus, was well loved by the gods, until he fed them his first born. Spoon feeding on Mt.Olympus does not take place in this story, I was born a girl after all, nothing special-nothing personal, my fahter put his head in his hands for a moment- twelve months went by &I aged, only at night, never during the day, circles-cirlces-cirlces always under eyes-eyes-eyes (but this story is already over by that part).I was always one age for a full year, everyone I had loved was not. I fell in love with the spring &summer babies, their births had marked the flowers changing color where as mine had marked the dead of winter. I was born the first month of the year, right in the middle. I would age accordingly, by December I was exhausted with myself and I was always a new age every summer. I held the hand of those who'd have two ages every year, in one year they'd remember being eleven and twelve- but i was just eleven, the transitions didnt occur in hte middle, the middle fell out. I would continue to desperately grasp their fingers in mine, but I'd never know what it was like to be them. I'd never get the chance (it appears they no longer exist anyone, as the story of my life &the story of my birth- which starts when I am fifteen &a half, you see my grandmother recieves a letter one day, I'm fifteen and a half so it's summer, summertime is lover time as my birth days signify the dead of winter- which does not exist in Florida, where the seasons are hot-hot-hot &hotter- the letter comes in the mail, and I begin to age- everything from this point on is different, from here on out it is your story). I have stopped holding hands to hear the news- apparantly the letter came in the mail marking my death, I am fifteen &a half escorted down the stairs by my elders to hear the propchies of three thousand miles east, to hear what has been said about me on a small hilltop village, across the Altantic, an ocean that my backyard provides no view of, I was not born in the middle of that.
It starts with this:
we had not believed in gods until the day after your birth
before your birth we believed in One True Holy Powerful God
after that we realized our plans had been foiled, the next five years would be foiled- we realized this after your birth- the storm provided snow instead of shelter, so we knew that God had given up (at this point fingers cross over rosary beads, over mouths &under lips)-before your birth we believed in One True Holy &Powerful God- there was one God for everything- pause
It had never really existed to begin with, my life, my dreams the way I slept the lost ambition, but in this story I am fifteen in a half, in a basement that I have been escorted to, my ankle was the only part of me my mother had dipped in the river styx. The seer had sent &all would be mended, the rosary beads would smash against the fingers, smash against my mother, smash against myself and I spend all the time before sleeping (aging) remembering
the babies born in spring &summer, remembering the periods of time that are marked by other who I do not know anymore, who do not know me anymore- they have stopped growing at age fourteen, at age seven, at age eighteen or age six- because I do not have the capacity to remember them in any other way.
Between drivers &employers there are still packages to be delivered- there are gods to be sent-letters child! letters! sent out the letters, forget about them, forget about them, that's not the right story to write. |
oh_snap
|
8:58p |
time travel is lonely
We were evolving into monsters. We no longer needed our baby toes, so we began evolving not to have them. My fifth grade teacher said if we needed a sixth toe or finger (a third arm or leg) , if nature could tell a sport or a solution would be brought by them, we'd have them. She explained that females are better listeners because in ancient times (or maybe yesterday) they had to wait for calls from the forests. She said that men were better hunters because of their depth perception. She said that African Americans had dark skin because of the sunlight, and Native Americans had crossed a frozen tundra to America. She left out all the good parts &talked about her ex-husband. She did not watch Oprah, but liked siamese twins. She lied because even the fourth and fifth, will soon be gone. We were evolving to look like dinosaurs, to look like monsters, we were evolving to be taller than our parents, taller than our grandparents, taller than their parents and their parents.
Don't tell me you don't see it in your own face, because I see it all the time, in you i see it everyday- don't tell me that your magic friend in the mirror doesnt project how disgusting you really are, the wrinkles or the imperfections, the place where you used to be kissed like you were Christ- there is no difference between the way I look at you, and the way you look at yourself (except for constant vanity &excess hysteria, you quitter). We'd be giants with large heads, all the features smushed together. Physically we were evolving into creations, inwardly we were not evolving at all (or animals, instict started being considered superstition so everyone would pass on it). This could all be summed up in my relationships, facial expressions &mannerisms when in public. The goddamn commies were gonna kills us all. The gays were going to take over the world. The feminists would cause nuclear war &Barney would molest your children (with the help of Pope John Paul).Nostradumus was right and George Bush was right and my Grandmother was right, the papers were right, the dinosaurs were gone- are faces were morphing away, the dyin times would be upon us a preacher screamed at me in new jersey. save your souls children! save your souls! rid your sins! pray your fears! confess your ears! he too, was right. but like everyone else, my fifth grade teacher, she was lying, nature was not going to work with me- it was not going to allow me to grow a sixth finger and type faster, I was just like everyone else, waiting for all the time to run out.
For you I would rewrite history (you'd never let me), for you i'd make myself a stranger, for me you'd teach me calculus turn back time to our mothers twins, you'd teach me how to preach on the street corner about jesus christ! about judgment day! about salvation. Oh if I only know you, I would tell you it was true. All the stories that we had forgotten, were just waiting for us to look away. What I mean is "hey kid, the jokes on you". |
tindronomel
|
3:02p |
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| Monday, November 16th, 2009 |
ourbedrooms
[ bubblewrap_x3 ]
|
2:54a |
welcome to my lair.
hi everybody, i'm ashleigh/johanna, i'm seventeen and i live in new zealand. welcome to my lair!  Current Mood: tiredCurrent Music: you got it wrong ~ the rasmus |
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