Damnit – I misplaced my reading classes again – I’m sure I put them in my shirt pocket this morning before I left home, but, now I can’t find them, again. I checked all my pockets, even the coat pockets, and there were no glasses anywhere to be found. So I got up and walked down the block to the Walgreens and bought another pair – the cheapest they had, $9.95 – what need had I for designer frames? I got bigger lens and less powerful lens (1.25 instead of 1.50). Now this is much better. Now I can write small again.
The only successful slave revolution in modern history resulted in 122 years of reparations as they paid for their live three times – once for living (as we all do), once for being caught and once for escaping. In the early 1900’s Haiti was paying 80% of its national budget on these reparations and the further loans it had to take out to manage this debt. The reparations to the former slave owners for loss of property were imposed as a condition for France to recognize Haiti’s independence and pledge not to invade the country again. The original debt was for 150m Francs. The original reparations and interest (equalivant to $21 billion today) was finally paid off in 1947
The ‘positive’ model inevitably begins to function as a norm to which reality is made to conform by the very policies derived from the model – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good., 1989 p142
Factoid: Of the 262 athletes from 13 countries who participated in the first modern Olympics (Athens, 1896), 194 of them were from Greece – makinge the average size of a non-host national team to be six athletes. The winner of the discus competition, American Robert Garrett, had never thrown a discus before arriving in Athens. The next two Olympics (1900 in Paris and 1904 in St Louis) were side-shows at the then extremely popular world fairs. Not until 1908 in London did the Olympic movement take off as an international event.
Peep is becoming a business. The business model, however illusory, seems to revolve around the idea that what people want is instant therapy, ongoing, online, primal-scream communion – Ned Niedziecki – The Peep Diaries, 2009 p 128
Sports are to our age as tragedy was to the Greeks
Opening / enormous tunnels / in grains of sand, / we discovered the mines / of flames and of chance – Pedro Salinas
Sometimes the world
When world is not just a word
Is so contemptible as a word
This world that is not composed
Of words
Words that do not represent
This world
Or any world
This word or
Any word
Words are the world
Not its representation
No compensation is demanded
No one word is adequate
No text is sufficient
A word about the world
When world is just a word
Aesthetics is always serious when agreed-upon interpretations are changed or stolen or emptied out – David Hickey – Harper’s [Dec, 2009] p93
So why is it that tripling the size of the human population considered to be “good news” (gospel so to speak)? We constantly hear about what we must do to prepare for these additional humans. Has it something to do with the way we borrow against their future and an every increasing population is necessary in order to continue to borrow against? We must do this or we must do that in order to feed, house, fuel the automobiles of the billions yet unborn. At what point shall we be standing belly to ass hole and shoving each other into the sea?
Today’s civilization runs on energy for the simple reason that all ordered, complex systems need energy to survive and prosper – Eric J Chaisson – “Long-term Global Heating form Energy Usage” - Eos, 2008
Pygmalion Complex – to fall in love with one’s own work and analytical skills – in behavioral economics this is called “over confidence bias”.
The nostrils of slow horses / Breath evenly, / And the brown bees drag their high garlands, / Heavenly – James Wright – Collected Poems, 197ht p112
Sincerity makes inequitable relationships acceptable especially when the rules for judgment of progress changes as rewards become due. People don’t really believe that everything that authority does is rignt, but rather they have a sense of doubt that makes them unsure that they have a right to fight back
Eisenhower has touched hands with Franco, embracing / In a glare of photographers. / Clean new bombers from America muffle their engines / And glide down now. / Their wings shine in the searchlights / Of bare fields, / In Spain – James Wright – Collected Poems, 1971 p122
Class makes people conceive of themselves as spectators rather than as people gratified by new material goods – Sennett p165
As spectators we get set up for future consumption. Self-sacrifice allows one to fulfill fantasies about what living decently means – the respect of “anyone in America” must be earned for what one has sacrificed for the good of one’s family
Thought is the consequence of the provocation of an encounter. Thought is what confronts us from the outside, unexpectedly. - Elizabeth Grosz – Space, Time and Perception, 1995
There is a Performance art piece on Guerrero. An empty room except for a legged white bathtub in the center, wherein lays a woman with sod laid over her. Grass grows from her head. A woman in a tuxedo is covering her with earth by the shovelful from a pile on the sidewalk just outside the door. A woman just inside the door sells red tickets that can be exchanged for drinks. There was a bench against the far wall upon which four people could sit and participate (I guess that means observe). Three young men were conducting a conversation on the sidewalk out front. I walked in and looked around but did not stay. Now I’m debating whether to return. Probably not. But I have ample time and its only a block away. OK, OK, I concede I will go back after the next beer. And the jukebox plays on - a reggae number - it is dub like without actually being dub. And I have another Sac Ale. Three dollars more and I pass a five, take a one in change and leave a dollar. The bartender slides his tip, a one from the bar. It’s baseball season again. I had received an e-mail from Lisa offering tickets for the opening game.
The function of the radical intellectual … is to struggle against what … functions to prevent thought - Elizabeth Grosz – Space, Time and Perception, 1995
The World Poker tour is on the television. There is a man in a cowboy hat glaring over the top of his lowered sunglasses. Oh, I’m so intimidated. I want kettle chips, hot crispy chips with jalapenos. I have been craving chips for three days now but have yet to indulge myself. I am showing such self-restraint. The folks behind me have two bags of kettle chips - one is cheddar and the other Jalapenos. I want to steal a few. They were sitting there unguarded a few moments ago. I missed my chance. Never pass up on self-indulgence. Just make sure that your really do want to indulge.
Cedric the Entertainer gets a Bud then a bikini wax. A guy in a red t-shirt is hollering Budweiser. The bartender tells him “I can’t hear you, you are hollering too loud.” “Budweiser” he repeats in a plaintive but quieter moan. On Thursday the Bass girls (the beer not the fish) will be on the premises. There is no sign on the door that I can see, but if it’s got a urinal, it must be the right place. The Elixir serves every beer in its own glass. Oh course every beer comes in its own glass. No, I mean every brand has a glass specifically for that brand of beer. Oh.
Freud regards the perversions as the opposite of neurosis…perversions avoid the repression that characterizes neuroses - Elizabeth Grosz – Space, Time and Perception, 1995
Patricia is the artist. It was her that was in the bathtub covered with earth and grass growing from her head. There is a chair at the foot of the tub. The gallery owner is sitting there as I walk in. I have a discussion with him regarding business models (he is obviously not into them). So this is your piece, I ask him? No, he replied, its Patricia’s. So my question is, I say, where did the dirt come from? Is it important, he asks?
Yes, I say. Let’s ask Patricia, he replies. Patricia, “I didn’t hear.” “Is the history of the dirt important”, I ask her? “Yes”, she says, “Certainly”. It was an automatic response - unconsidered. She is now having a conversation with a man with long hair and an olive jacket. I am not interested in their conversation.
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