After discussion with OftenBen, he/we hope to run these every second Tuesday, more or less. First quotes thread here.
"My diaries are safe with me now. One entry from June, 1989, says, 'Lies written in ink cannot cover truth written with blood.' I know there are millions of diaries like mine hidden all over China, and their owners are waiting to bring them into the light." - Rowena XiaoQing He, author of Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China
This quote is from a newspaper article about China's attempt to suppress all knowledge of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I found the quote and the whole article troubling and inspiring.
I will shoutout once to previous participants so you know it's coming down the line. In general, follow OftenBen:
blackbootz, xenophon, betta90210, nowaypablo, AnSionnachRua, flagamuffin, JamesTiberiusKirk, b_b, NikolaiFyodorov, ghostoffuffle, humanodon, rob05c, Herestolife, c_hawkthorne, tehstone, beezneez, notbillgates, insomniasexx, briandmyers, AFaucetConk, thenewgreen, rezzeJ, josselinco, mk, blackfox026, mhr, blackfox026, Roycliffe, nishant625, wilkeywoman
The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labour - idleness - was a condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because our moral nature is such that we cannot both be idle and at ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive blessedness.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.
I think it's simultaneously a critique/satire of and an appeal to the 'rightness' of Puritanism, if you don't catch the satire. This posits that those who can do little and receive bounty, are both morally and materially superior to their fellows. If God blesses those who have his favor, and I have much and you have little, God wants me to have it, and you to not. In the context of it's time it immediately brings to mind the luxury of a ruling class, the aristocracy and usually religious leaders. The Bible, for example, can be quoted I'll leave the modern context alone to get off my soapbox. Suffice to say that if one takes the satirical view (As I suspect is intended, although I'm going to admit I haven't read War and Peace all the way through yet) a person could see how it uncompassionate and short-sighted of a world it will create. Or even a perception of that world. I would say it says 'Here lies a cynic.' Because I cannot imagine a word more apt for the ideas I've espoused. To be completely honest, when I was younger I had a certain acceptance and pseudo-hedonistic belief in the idea that 'He who dies with the most toys wins' and for a while considered myself not in total agreement with Ayn Rand, but at least being sympathetic to the idea of objectivist libertarianism. To paraphrase Professor De la Paz from The moon is a Harsh Mistress 'I can get along with a Randite.' But then, that's all just my interpretation.
As well as 'Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God,
and those that exist have been instituted by God.'
-Romans 13:1 ESV
And here, directly condoning slavery 'Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who
will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of
no advantage to you.'
-Hebrews 13:17 ESV
And a few other places. 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ,
-Ephesians 6:5 ESV
I don't think Tolstoy meant it in a satirical way, but at face value - he was using a parable to talk about how man feels guilty when he is idle. This particular comment is at the opening of a chapter in which one of the characters returns to military service. Anyway, I really don't think, from reading it, that Tolstoy was justifying class divisions based on Divine providence.
After following minimum_wage's link and a little extra research, you're exactly right.Anyway, I really don't think, from reading it, that Tolstoy was justifying class divisions based on Divine providence.
On the opposite end of that, Tolstoy's personal philosophy says a good bit about the intended interpretation of this quote.
Holy shit, a devout russian orthodox christian. Would NOT have seen that one coming. Although I do agree with him, any christian who supports anyone's death isn't much of a christian. You always hear 'true' christians going on and on about how you can't pick and choose the parts you like out of the bible, but I don't see them protesting for the US to bring all our troops home, or ending drone strikes, or boycotting any restaurant that serves shellfish.
Mr. Antolini showing Holden Caulfield a quote from Wilhelm Stekel. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye.The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
from Aung San Suu Kyi's UNESCO speech, Empowerment for a Culture of Peace and Development, in Freedom From Fear.When economics is regarded as "the most important key to every lock of every door" it is only natural that the worth of man should come to be decided largely, even wholly, by his effectiveness as an economic tool
If material betterment, which is but a means to human happiness, is sought in ways that wound the human spirit, it can in the long run only lead to greater human suffering. The vast possibilities that a market economy can open to developing countries can be realized only if economic reforms are undertaken within a framework that recognizes human needs.
The alleviation of poverty involves processes which change the way in which the poor perceive themselves and the world. Mere material assistance is not enough; the poor must have the sense that they themselves can shape their own future.
- The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore Edit: Please, my little hubskets, let's read this.In paradise there is nothing to say. Eden was sacrificed not for the pleasure of a fruit, but for the pleasure of the word. Now we have shame and pain and knowledge of death and whatnot, but at least we can talk about it.
I checked into a bargain priced room on La Cienega
Gazed out through the curtains at the parking lot
Walked down to the corner store just before nightfall in my bare feet
Black tarry asphalt, soft and hot And when I came back, I spread out my supplies
On the counter by the sink, looked myself right in the eyes St. Joseph's baby aspirin
Bartles & Jaymes
And you
Or your memory I ducked behind the drapes when I saw the moon begin to rise
Gathered in my loose ends, switched off the light
And down there in the dark I could see the real truth about me
As clear as day, lord, if I make it through tonight Then I will mend my ways
And walk the straight path to the end of my days
The Mountain Goats - You Or Your Memory. Telling a story in so few words. St. Joseph's baby aspirin
Bartles & Jaymes
And you
Or your memory
Awesome. I just took an English course called "Poetry and contemporary alternative music lyrics." Imagine a poetry class where half the texts are poems from an anthology of great poetic works, and the other half are the lyrics to music by artists like The Mountain Goats. Anyway, The Mountain Goats were on our syllabus, and that's how I discovered them. It was such a fun class. I've always felt that song lyrics didn't get quite enough recognition as meaningful art- they are often, I think, as much poetry as poems are.
Absolutely! Below I have pasted just the section of the syllabus with the texts we read, grouped together by motifs, themes, and styles. Ignore the stuff like quizzes and presentations and other class stuff. I didn't take the time to delete it all out. The abbreviations like "(MP)" or "(c)" after certain poems indicate to the students where we are to find the texts (our book, online, online module, etc). The textbook we used was "The Making of Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms" and it was very good. It was written and compiled by working, published poets, instead of by academics. Anyway, enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions about it! Week 2 : Form and content relationships
W, 1/15 Poems: George Herbert, “Easter Wings” (MP 143); Miller Williams, “The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina” (MP 38-39);. Songs: Cold War Kids, “Hang Me Up to Dry.” Quiz 1. Sign up for 3 possible presentation dates. DMP rep to stop by to explain the resources the DMP offers you. F, 1/17 Poems: George Herbert, “The Collar” (c); Thom Gunn, “The J Car” (MP 133-34). Secondary reading: Fenton, “Where Music and Poetry Divide” (c under “secondary reading”). Quiz 2. Week 3
W, 1/22 Point of view/personae. Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” ” (MP 130-132); The Toadies, “Possum Kingdom”; Portugal. The Man, “Creep in a T-Shirt.” Quiz 3. F, 1/24 Romance/Realism. Poems: Sarah Piatt, “A Lesson in a Picture” (pp); Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Richard Cory” (c) Songs: Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, “Real Naked Girls”; The Postal Service, “Clark Gable.” Quiz 4. Week 4: Carpe diem lyrics and variants
W, 1/29 Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (MP 209); John Donne, “The Good Morrow”; Songs: Radiohead, “Nude”; Weezer, “Tired of Sex.” Quiz 5. F, 1/31 Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”; Sharon Olds, “Sex without Love”; Songs: The Smiths, “Ask.” Quiz 6. Presentation: Raybecca Week 5: The not-here
W 2/5 Ideas of heaven. Poems: Emily Dickinson, “’Heaven’—is what I cannot reach!” (#239); Songs: Talking Heads, “Heaven”; Arcade Fire, “Keep the Car Running.” Quiz 7. Presentation: Sophia
F, 2/7 The Romantic dream. Poems: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.” Songs: Wild Nothing, “Live in Dreams” and “Take Me In”; Animal Collective, “What Would I Want? Sky.” (All Animal Collective lyrics are available on the band website, animalcollective.org.) Quiz 8. Presentation: Jack
DMP workshop #1: GarageBand. Meet in our regular classroom. After the quiz, those taking the workshop will head to a DMP room tba. Week 6: Cameron McGill
All selections this week are preparation for our videoconference with working musician and published poet Cameron McGill, of two bands (Cameron McGill and Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s; see cameronmcgill.com for info). The lyrics for the new record (just out in Dec.), Gallows Etiquette (GE), are posted on Carmen--sent to this class by the artist himself! W, 2/12 Side 1 of GE; Secondary reading: Katie Darby Mullins, Editor’s Note, Measure 7.2 (2002): vii-viii (attached to syllabus); Cameron McGill, “Haiku Cycle” (published in Measure; attached to syllabus); Cameron McGill, “Three Poems,” Split Lip Magazine 9 (Jan.-Mar. 2014) (c). The three individual poems are titled “Heart-Sowing,” “In the Waiting Room,” and “If the Mayans are right” Quiz 9. Presentation: Laura F, 2/14 Side 2 of GE; Cameron McGill, three poems from Poetry East (2013): “I Fall Asleep Like Lions,” “Painted Dolls,” and “Broken Guns.” Today you must also hand in, during class, a word-processed list of six videoconference questions for our 2.19 videoconference. Here is the assignment: Develop a list of six questions to ask Cameron McGill next week. It works best in these videoconferences to mention a particular song or poem by the artist; quote lines; then present your interpretations to which he can respond. At least three of your six questions should be about interpreting the language from particular songs. They do not all have to be songs we discussed in class—feel free to range more broadly in his work on your own. Your other questions may be about topics in music and poetry more broadly. Bring a copy of your questions to the videoconference, and attach to it the lyrics of the songs you ask about so you have them when you need them. Not all his lyrics are fresh in his mind; you will want to quote the lines you are referring to when you pose your question. Each of your questions should fully develop an idea to which he can respond. Your interpretive questions should be about 3 sentences in length. Quiz 10. Week 7
W, 2/19 Videoconference with Cameron McGill. Bring a copy of your questions to the videoconference, and attach to it the lyrics of the songs you ask about so you have them when you need them. F, 2/21 Youth, Pressure, Escape. Poems: Sarah Piatt, “The First Party” (pp); William Stafford, “Fifteen” (c). Songs: Neutral Milk Hotel, “The King of Carrot Flowers, Part One”; Beirut, “Elephant Gun.” Quiz 11. Presentation: Max Kilcup
DMP workshop: iMovie. Meet in our regular classroom. After the quiz, those taking the workshop will head to a DMP room tba. Week 8 Intimacy and Its Perils
W, 2/26 Poems: Marilyn Hacker, “Villanelle” (MP 16-17); Songs: Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”; The Antlers, “Two.” Quiz 12. Presentation: Ivy F, 2/28 Poems: John Keats, “Bright Star” (MP 62); Christina Rossetti, “From Monna Innominata” (MP 63); Songs: Death Cab for Cutie, “Brothers on a Hotel Bed”; Bon Iver, “Blood Bank.” Quiz 13. Presentation: Michaela Week 9 Disconnections
W, 3/5 Poems: Walt Whitman, “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand” (c) and “To a Stranger” (c); Stan Rice, “The Strangeness” (c); Songs: The National, “Green Gloves.” Quiz 14. Presentation: Kent F, 3/7 Poems: Louise Bogan, “Tears in Sleep” (MP 188) The Mountain Goats, “Moon Over Goldsboro” (attached to syllabus in its form as a poem by John Darnielle, from Measure). Quiz 15. Presentation: Cody SPRING BREAK, 3/10-14 Week 10 Alienation & “Modern Man.”
W, 3/19 Poems: T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” (c); Songs: Arcade Fire, “Modern Man”; The Antlers, “The Universe is Going to Catch You.” Quiz 16. Presentation: Max Orr F, 3/21 Edwin Arlington Robinson, “The House on the Hill” (MP 9); Ezra Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberly” sections I and II (c). Songs: The National, “Mistaken for Strangers”; Modest Mouse, “Missed the Boat”; ”; Wavves, “Convertible Balloon.” Quiz 17. Presentation: Isiah Week 11 The poetic image; or, What’s a Poem to Do?
W, 3/26 Poems: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam” (sections LIV and LV) (c); H.D., “Oread” (c); Songs: Radiohead, “Kid A.” Quiz 18. Presentation: Joey F, 3/28 Michael Davidson, “Et in Leucadia Ego” (pp); Paul Hoover, “Poems We Can Understand” (pp); Animal Collective, “Peacebone.” Quiz 19. Presentation: Richard Week 12 Parents
W, 4/3 Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays” (MP 150); Weldon Kees, “After the Trial” (MP 36); Sufjan Stevens, “Romulus.” Quiz 20. Presentation: Devin F, 4/5 “Intention” v. “intentional fallacy.” Andrew Bird’s essays, “How’s My Living?” (c) and “Words Will Tell” (c); Andrew Bird’s songs, “Oh No” and “Not a Robot, but a Ghost.” Quiz 21. Presentation: Hilary Week 13
W, 4/10 Sex and/or Love? Poems: Sharon Olds, “Sex without Love” (c); Metric, “Poster of a Girl”; Wild Nothing, “Vultures Like Lovers.” Quiz 22. F, 4/12 Daily Life. Poems: Jackson Mac Low, “Daily Life” (pp); William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” (MP 61); Songs: Animal Collective, “Daily Routine.” Quiz 23. Presentation: Caroline
Kid A was certainly challenging. Our instructor said that she personally thinks Kid A was written to be read and approached like language poetry
Okay. At the risk of wasting a bit more of your time, that page didn't give me a great handle on what "language poetry" means. So there's more, right? I continue reading. But seriously, this sentence -- -- links to a) nature, about the physical universe; b) disjunction, a logic theory page; c) materiality, which is subject theory mind/matter stuff; and d) signifier, which is an in-depth semiotics page. That's a hilarious/ridiculous vintage Wikipedia sentence. It rather dances around educating me about language poetry.Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work.
Certain aspects of the writing of language poets became strongly associated with the members of this group: writing that challenged the "natural" presence of a speaker behind the text; writing that emphasized disjunction and the materiality of the signifier; and prose poetry, especially in longer forms than had previously been favored by English-language writers, as well as other non-traditional and usually non-narrative forms.
Aha you're right. That's a terribly unsatisfying description. I won't pretend to be an expert on language poetry, but here's what I remember learning in class: Language poetry has two big defining characteristics that stick out to me distinctly. First, it does indeed place huge emphasis on the reader. In practice, this means that the author gives the reader very little to work with. Usually this means poems with no context, a lack of coherence, language and sentences that don't seem to make any sense, etc. The idea is that the reader does all the work in giving the poem meaning. There is nothing, or little, that can be deciphered in these poems. Instead the focus is heavy on creating something unique between the text and each reader. The idea is that the poem will spark something different or special for everyone. The author, in fact the idea that any person is behind the poem and dictating it is as removed as possible in order to facilitate this. The second primary characteristic is that a lot of language poets like the idea that poetry should not be slaved over, meticulously crafted, or even deliberately written. They do things like create poems by literally copying a newspaper article word for word, and inserting line breaks and new punctuation to give it new meaning. A great example is the poet Jackson Mac Low, who created a poem called "Is That Wool Hat My Hat?" According to an interview we read for class, Mac Low was at a show where he overheard one person ask another the question, "Is that wool hat my hat?" The phrase stuck out to him. He assigned each word a number between 1 and 6, and rolled a die a lot of times to determine in which order the words should fall. Each line of the poem is the same six words in a randomized order. He wrote it as a performance poem for four people to present together, each one chanting his/her own unique set of lines of the same six randomized words simultaneously for a few minutes. I found a video here! It is kind of madness, but that is indeed how it was written to be performed. I have a copy of pages form Mac Low's own book with the very instructions, which I can post when I get home in about a month. So anyway, the point is that the phrase itself holds almost no meaning, and took a few minutes of dice rolling to create, but meaning is created in the moment that people perform it together. Because language poetry is often non-compositional, like jumbled up newspaper articles or phrases thrown together by rolling a die, many academics and poets regard it with disdain. They view it as anti-art, and not as poetry at all. It is a controversial subject. The professor who taught this class, however, thinks language poetry is very fun, and is a big fan of how it works. She is currently compiling an anthology of poetry for undergrads studying the English. She has actually included a lot of song lyrics, including "Kid A." She said that the song lyrics and the language poetry is where she has encountered the most resistance with her publisher. I believe the book is to be released this month. Personally, I find language poetry frustrating. I really like the idea behind it, but I always find myself annoyed and as though I haven't come up with much. Maybe I should keep trying, or maybe it just isn't for me. I think this makes the Wikipedia article a little bit clearer. The style emphasizes disjunction because there is an intentional disconnect between reader and author, between sentence structure and how we usually speak, between the idea that poetry is crafted and what the poet is giving you, and indeed between each word and line of the poem. It is all very disjointed and feels unnatural or unintuitive. These poems focus on materiality and the physical world in that they distort everyday things like questions about hats and newspaper articles. I'm not so sure about the rest though. I hope this gave you a little bit of a better handle on language poetry. When I get back home (I'm studying abroad right now) I will be able to get into my folder from the class and provide you with more examples if you'd like! But right now I'm having trouble finding/remembering the poems and poets.
This is very interesting. lil are you following this thread? This is my knee-jerk reaction. I'm watching that video and ... I mean if I needed something to make fun of people who get degrees in poetry ... it would be mean, low-hanging fruit. So one side of me is like, come on. The other side is in the "just about everything is art" camp, or that everything's subjective and down to interpretation. I was reading an interview with a writer once, I think it might have been Gabriel Garcia Marquez but that's probably wrong, where he said that as a youth he started writing poetry -- but he stuck to rhymed poetry because everything else felt like cheating. Most of the time when I write poetry I feel that way, even if I shouldn't. So if skipping out on a rhyme feels like cheating, banging on a table is probably grand larceny. Kid A is one of my favorite albums, but I'm not sure how much the lyrics add.Because language poetry is often non-compositional, like jumbled up newspaper articles or phrases thrown together by rolling a die, many academics and poets regard it with disdain. They view it as anti-art, and not as poetry at all.
I'm on the same page as you with language poetry. I'd hate to be one of those people who declares that this or that isn't art or holds no value, but...man. The wool hat video just seems so...silly! I feel embarrassed that I've studied that poem it in the same class that I've studied George Herbert and Thom Gunn.
Oh and some of the poems are obscure or difficult to find (i.e. Cameron McGill and Stan Rice). I may still have PDF's or links to many of them if you are interested in reading them but cannot locate them online or through a database. So let me know.
Great list. Thanks for posting it - lots of new alt music to discover. Good for your teacher for creating an approach to literature through modern music lyrics and recognizing modern music lyrics as literature. I've always felt that song lyrics didn't get quite enough recognition as meaningful art- they are often, I think, as much poetry as poems are.
Absolutely. Did you have to write something for this course?
We did, yes. We started with a brief 2-page close-reading of a set of lyrics. Then we wrote a short paper (5-6 pages) on a song or poem of our choice from the first section of the syllabus, and our final project was a 10-page paper on 2-3 related songs of our choice or poems of our choice. We could also write comparatively about a song and a poem, do a creative response (in the form of a song or poem, or music video) and write a 6-page paper explaining it. I chose to write the longer paper because I mostly want to improve my writing skills, and the professor is incredibly helpful. She encourages us to to come weekly to office hours and she goes over our papers with us over and over, giving lots of concrete feedback on our writing. We also had weekly quizzes, and twice we video-conferenced with working musicians/poets. For the conferences, we had to come up with lists of six analytical questions regarding the work of the artists. The questions were graded as small papers as well. The opportunity to talk to the artists for two hours about their lyrics or poetry was incredible.
Yeah, absolutely! I had not realized how much meaning and careful writing I was missing by listening mostly passively to many artists. When I sat down and slowly and deliberately did close readings of songs, I found all sorts of new pleasure in artists that I have been listening to for years. I found that many writers employed lots of poetic devices, recurring images, symbolism, intricate metaphors, double meanings, clever word play, recurring images, and poetic tropes. There were even some that seemed to be very conscious of form, using enjambment and following patters in meter. Some artists have particularly cryptic lyrics, like Alt J and even The National, and I had previously not bothered to dig through them. But I found it very rewarding to discover deeper-than-surface-level content in the lyrics, and I feel that I get more out of the songs this way. Though I'll admit, I often neglect to be so deliberate, as it is often hard to find the time and motivation to sit down and pour over song lyrics. At the same time, I found that some of my favorite artists have rather shallow lyrics that don't hold up well under a close reading. That's OK. Their music isn't worse, their lyrics just seek to accomplish something different than the lyrics of artists who write extremely consciously.
mk music gone?Yeah, absolutely! I had not realized how much meaning and careful writing I was missing by listening mostly passively to many artists.
The rhythm and musical effects distract us from the "meaning" of the words. I think thenewgreen would be interested in your comments given that he is a thoughtful songwriter. Meanwhile, every The New Green song previously available on hubski, seems to have been eaten: https://hubski.com/pub?id=130108
Very cool. I ought to give those songs a listen!
lil, thank you for the mention, I appreciate it. I've always been a fan of lyrics from an early age but mostly because I was writing songs. I've been in bands that played "originals" since I was 12 years old. I recall sitting around a small table, eating pizza with bandmates trying to collectively craft lyrics at 16. The words were MUCH different back then. Lot's of focus on rhyming and coolness. Later, I realized that the reason the words were so hard to come by was because I was thinking to much about the recipient of the words and wasn't focused on what I needed to say. Now, I allow the lyrics to just happen (at least when I can) and don't "try" so hard. There are times that I will sit down and craft lyrics deliberately but it rarely leads to something worthwhile imo. I once decided to write a song around a single word. You know... like "Yesterday" by the Beatles. I came up with Almost. -That's a song I "crafted." Then there are songs that just happen like Grow Up -much more earnest imo. But yeah, I really love lyrics.
On the topic of Mountain Goats lyrics. Got a fight and the lies that we both love to tell
Fail to send our love to it's reward down in hell
I got pudding for a backbone
But so do you
Fault Lines, off of All Hail West Texas. La la la La, hey hey.
They also gave themselves, and one another, more blame than was deserved when things went badly. This gave them all jumbo-sized guilt complexes. It is usually that way on primitive planets, before quantum causality is understood. Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy by Robert Anton WilsonMost Terran primates did not understand the multiplex nature of causality. They tended to think everything had a _single_ cause. This simple philosophic error was so widespread on that planet that the primates were all in the habit of giving themselves, and other primates, more credit than was deserved when things went well. This made them all inordinately conceited.
Can I use this space to beg, please, move it to the top of the list, super-important, that hubski implement formatting that makes common sense? Surely it's not that hard. Stuff typed on separate lines should show up on separate lines. That's all I ask. Enter should, you know, return the line. mk forwardslash
"And that's how I became a runner once again. In the course of a single night I had been transformed from a drunken yuppie fool into a reborn athlete. During a period of great emptiness in my life, I turned to running for strength. I heard the calling, and I went into the light. For weeks after my thirty mile jaunt I was nearly incapacitated from muscle spasms and inflammation..." from Ultra Marathon Man: Confessions Of An All-Night Runner by Dean Karnazes, chapter 4, page 64
Running is a popular theme on hubski. thenewgreen had a podcast on running and wasoxygen recently posted a very impressive marathon report.
It's too long to read all of it, but I'm certain that your comment above is very relevant to that discussion on how to handle the periodic system-crashing influxes.New here on Hubski, and to get a reply or two feels like a welcome to the party. :)
Have you been tuning in to the discussion here on the influx of new users?
Yes, thanks for the shout-out running sucks featuring ultra-marathoner cliffelam and avid runner cW.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1 I meditate on the meaning and weight of this passage quite often. I felt it was appropriate to post this in a thread about quotes. The power of the right words cannot be underestimated. *Expanded thoughts and context: I've been fascinated by the power of language ever since I was a young man. I was (and am) a voracious reader, and my passion for the written word led to a career as an editor and writer. (I'm off the clock so don't judge me if I have typos) I currently spend eight hours a day helping exceptional writers craft the perfect sentence, then I go home and read some more. I've read the Bible twice: once as a Christian and once as a lit student. I'm currently rereading it just because I love its use of language. I didn't really focus on John 1:1 until this third pass. For some reason (possibly because I'm actively studying the Chicago Manual of Style for the first time since college) the passage didn't stick out to me until now. But when I read it again a few months ago, it struck me that of all the things I've read in the Bible, this one passage might be the truth at its most basic: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The passage, which mirrors the creation myth in Genesis where God speaks the universe into existence, conflates language and communication with deity; it quite literally says "the Word was God." The Word--language and communication--is what we worship and what has pulled us from the muck of an animal's life. In the beginning, communication enabled knowledge to live beyond the lifetime of a single person. The wheel may have been invented multiple times in multiple places by multiple people, but once we could communicate the concept, we didn't have to reinvent it every generation. Communication, starting with stories and evolving into the written word and eventually the language of math and physics, is a force and knowledge multiplier. It is a godly power, to be able to communicate and share minds nearly instantly with another person, whether via a casual conversation or a post on hubksi. Language--the Word--is the god that propelled us out of the fringes of existence to the dominant species today. Sure, it's imperfect and we more often than not are TERRIBLE communicators, but my god. We dumb stinking apes have terraformed a planet (accidentally, of course, but still...) and landed spacecraft on celestial objects with our imperfect and clunky communication skills, and we're only getting more refined. I believe the internet is taking us into unexplored but breathtakingly amazing territory. All the shouting back and forth and the noise and bruit of the masses--even on reddit, as much as I bitch about it--is the birth cry of humanity's next great leap forward. As barriers to communication fall, we will become orders of magnitude more efficient in transferring knowledge, and then we'll see exactly to what degree the Word is God.
[communication] is a godly power, to be able to communicate and share minds nearly instantly with another person, whether via a casual conversation or a post on hubksi.
Thanks for your expanded thoughts. Words put together into languages create a complex and nuanced tool that must evolve as we evolve.
Great verse, very interesting explanation, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of your points, philosophically.
People can say whatever they want about the Bible(Myself included), but there is some beautiful poetry in there. This in particular is a verse that rings completely true to me, with some interpretation. Re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land I always find myself thinking about how words shape reality and vice versa, and 'God' defined as 'Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresence' and how that really means that just all of creation can be interpreted as 'God.' Mike, early on in SiaSL puts it very succinctly 'Thou Art God.' and 'All that groks is God.' As everything does eventually 'grok' in Martian understanding (And language), all that is is God. 'As was in the beginning, is and ever shall be.'"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1
Excerpt from Lu Bu We's Spring and Autumn as quoted in Magister Ludi, Hermann HesseWhen the world is at peace, when all things are tranquil and all men obey their superiors in all their courses, then music can be perfected. When the desires and passions do not turn into wrongful paths, music can be perfected. Prefect music has it's cause. It arises from equilibrium. Equilibrium arises from righteousness, and righteousness arises from the meaning of the cosmos. Therefore one can speak about music only with a man who has perceived the meaning of the cosmos.
I like this idea a lot! Here's mine:
This a part of section 4 of Walt Whitman's poem "Children of Adam." I've been working my way through "Leaves of Grass." I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in the company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing
flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm
ever so lightly round his neck or her neck for a
moment, what is it this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
Late to my own thread!
I'm glad people like these threads, I'm excited to read them! 'They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could
predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.'
If you've read pretty much anything I've written, you can see why this quote would interest me. I was rereading Jurassic Park this morning (Been a summer reading list staple for years) and this line just JUMPED out at me. The world lost something very special when Michael Crichton died. -Ian Malcolm, Jurasssic Park
- From Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. Plenty of spine-tingling indigenous rage in this poem. Stolen rivers and mountains
the stolen land will eat their hearts
and jerk their mouths from the Mother.
The people will starve.
They will bring terrible diseases
the people have never known.
Entire tribes will die out
covered with festered sores
shitting blood
vomiting blood.
Corpses for our work
Set in motion now
set in motion by our witchery
set in motion to work for us.
They will take this world from ocean to ocean
they will turn on each other
they will destroy each other
Up here
in these hills
they will find the rocks,
rocks with veins of green and yellow and black.
They will lay the final pattern with these rocks
they will lay it across the world
and explode everything.
Set in motion now
set in motion
To destroy
To kill
Objects to work for us
objects to act for us
Performing the witchery
for suffering
for torment
for the still-born
the deformed
the sterile
the dead
Whirling
whirling
whirling
whirling
set into motion now
set into motion
In his defense, Suttree cries, "I was drunk." Suttree by Cormac McCarthy.Mr. Suttree it is our understanding at curfew rightly decreed by law and in that hour wherein night draws to its proper close and the new day commences and contrary to conduct befitting a person of your station you betook yourself to various low places within the shire of McAnally and there did squander several ensuing years in the company of thieves, derelicts, miscreants, pariahs, poltroons, spalpeens, curmudgeons, clotpolls, murderers, gamblers, bawds, whores, trulls, brigands, topers, tosspots, sots and archsots, lobcocks, smellsmocks, runagates, rakes, and other assorted and felonious debauchees.
the company of thieves, derelicts, miscreants, pariahs, poltroons, spalpeens, curmudgeons, clotpolls, murderers, gamblers, bawds, whores, trulls, brigands, topers, tosspots, sots and archsots, lobcocks, smellsmocks, runagates, rakes, and other assorted and felonious debauchees.
smellsmocks? I can only imagine. - a notable list of lowlifers. Suttree's defence sounds like my mayor (Toronto's Rob Ford)'s defense for smoking crack: "probably in one of my drunken stupors."
"'This is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow & lamentation, for the disappearance of pain & distress, for the attainment of the right method, & for the realization of Unbinding — in other words, the four frames of reference.' Thus was it said, and in reference to this was it said."
At least I knew it was a game, and I smiled as he sheathed Terminus Est and led me to where Jonas stood. Volume one of The Book of the New SunMy captor now lifted the wire noose until I stood. I was conscious, as I have been on several similar occasions, that we were in some sense playing a game. We were pretending that I was totally in his power, when in fact I might have refused to rise until he had either strangled me or called over some of his comrades to carry me. I could have done several other things as well—seized the wire and tried to wrest it from him, struck him in the face. I might have escaped, been killed, been rendered unconscious, or plunged into agony; but I could not actually be forced to do as I did.
I was a drone for most of this week due to finals and was unable to dig into anything good, please keep me on this list though! I'll plug in a haunting and Radiohead lyric that is relevant to my current plight, from "Packt Like Sardines In a Crushed Tin Box." I'm a reasonable man, get off my case.After years of waiting, nothing came.
"Years later, when the Moreno child is twelve, the two daughters that Conte had lost in a vicious divorce on the West Coast are murdered -- to all appearances either by his ex-wife, Nancy, or her husband, Ralph, or both, but no charges were filed, and the long-absent father raced from his grief with legs of stone, while in the grip of his desire for revenge." -Frank Lentricchia, The Dog Killer of Utica ...and yes, this is the recently retired Duke professor that wrote After the New Criticism