(no subject)

[dwenius]

1. civil disobedience:
   When the antiwar crowd blocked the streets of S.F. a couple years ago, I thought of buying them coffee, but they had their arms locked together in those metal sleeves, so it would have been moot. I have marched my share, but so far managed not to get arrested.
2. deconstruction:
   It may be dead in the classroom and subject to whole conferences trying to slam its applicability to the modern world, but I still find myself using deconstructive strategies weekly. Learning how to extract the Western Cultural influence on any written text has proven surprising useful in extracting corporate bullshit or unsupportable personal opinion from a business or technology proposal. Never mind how handy it is for bitch-slapping Marketing text.
3. fractals:
   I have been playing with fractals since 1987, when it took about an hour for Fractint on a 286 to generate a 640x480 image in 16 colors. I'm not bored yet; don't expect I ever will be.
4. immanuel kant:
   Dr. Facknitz was right. You can't escape Kant. Love him, hate him, curse him, refute him, cite him...somehow, you have to deal. Missionaries used to ponder whether the savages who they nevfer preached to were nonetheless saved; philosophers might similarly assert that even the most illiterate and uneducated among us harbor some powerful, latent opinion of Kant's philosophy.
5. joseph campbell:
   Love his ideas, but boy does he ever prove the point that even smart men need a good editor. I keep a few of his books around, and I enjoy them, but often, I'll finish a long chapter of digressions and throw the book aside wondering what the point was, and what the hell, in fact, DID happen to the shaman after the bear people went on the long walk, or something like that.
6. miles davis:
   In case you didn't know, the album _Kind of Blue_ consists entirely of first full-band takes (with the exception of Freddie Freeloader, which is the second take). Davis collected the band, played the melody and talked about the modal shape of the tunes, they turned on the recorder and bam...done. Every one of those solos is the musicians first idea. Can't get much more pure than that.
7. richard feynman:
   Such a mind. If you don't have the time or inclination to dig through the whole Lecture series or QED, you should still read _Six Easy Pieces_, and marvel at the man's ability to stun you with deeply revealing metaphors and examples.
8. tarot:
   I have not been reading as regularly as I used to, but I still have my Thoth deck. True to form, even when I throw a reading in a moment of careless curiosity, it smacks me around with some insight or some issue I am avoiding. It occurs to me that when I was doing readings most regularly was in grad school and right after, when I was most up on my critical theory, and the tarot offered me a way to deconstruct my subconscious by applying a wholly foreign symbol map and interpretive strategy to whatever was on my mind.
9. the standard model:
   Oh, it isn't perfect by any means. And when you talk Standard Model, you can't use the phrase "space-tearing flop transitions", which is about the coolest scientific term ever. But until the String people really get their act together, the Standard Model has it where it counts.
10. w.h. auden:
    Tell me that The Fall of Rome isn't one of the most perfect and powerful little thing, ever. The comments on this particular linked version of the poem are curiously competent.
    Edited: Previous, erroneous banker comments removed.

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Comments

[fredfred.livejournal.com]

what's the association between auden and banking?

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I seem to have grabbed the wrong memory. I could have sworn it was Auden who was an investment banker by day for most of his whole life, but Wikipedia informs me otherwise.

Well crap. Who was the banker, then?

[fredfred.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking of Wallace Stevens? He worked for insurance companies and eventually ended up Vice-President of one.

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

That must be it. Sigh.

I miss my mind. I wonder where it wandered off to?