Monday, November 15, 2004
Friday, November 12, 2004
These Guys Know How To Mosh
Arafat was buried today. The Times' take. I decided to compare it to my own experiences as a reveler.
"thousands of Palestinians climbing the walls of his compound, surging around his coffin and trying to bear it aloft." And I thought crowd surfing the lead singer of Unwritten Law was an accomplishment.
Continuing, ' Wails and chants of "We will sacrifice our blood and souls to redeem you," and "Yasir, Yasir,"': Hey, it's no "We're Number One!", but, maybe something's lost in the translation. Yeah, okay, I'm still with them.
"competed with gunfire from scores of young militants in Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement." OK, this is where they start being positively more badass than me. I've taken too much physics not to realize that shooting straight into the air is the same as shooting at yourself. I would never have the balls to do this. Not the burial of Michael Chabon or the wake of Ben Gibbard could ever inspire me to such cartoonical disregard of F=ma.
OK, fine, he's popular. He gets 20,000 people to come rally his body. If I died, three friends and a badger would show up at the funeral home, which would have forgotten to put my coffin out anyway. But, what else are you going to do as a refugee except cry over spilt blood?
Here's the part that gets me: "Daoud Kuttab of Al Quds University in Jerusalem also wanted to be at the funeral even though Mr. Arafat jailed him for a week in 1997, simply for broadcasting a legislative session about corruption."
!!! Some people might call this Machiavellian, but, no, he got them to love him after he had oppressed them. He is a model to every abusive boyfriend out there. "Hey, baby, I'm sorry, you know I love you, it's just, sometimes, you push me too hard, and, yeah, I go a little crazy. I might smack ya, or I might abridge your freedoms of speech, assembly, and press. Don't mean I don't love ya."
Arafat was buried today. The Times' take. I decided to compare it to my own experiences as a reveler.
"thousands of Palestinians climbing the walls of his compound, surging around his coffin and trying to bear it aloft." And I thought crowd surfing the lead singer of Unwritten Law was an accomplishment.
Continuing, ' Wails and chants of "We will sacrifice our blood and souls to redeem you," and "Yasir, Yasir,"': Hey, it's no "We're Number One!", but, maybe something's lost in the translation. Yeah, okay, I'm still with them.
"competed with gunfire from scores of young militants in Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement." OK, this is where they start being positively more badass than me. I've taken too much physics not to realize that shooting straight into the air is the same as shooting at yourself. I would never have the balls to do this. Not the burial of Michael Chabon or the wake of Ben Gibbard could ever inspire me to such cartoonical disregard of F=ma.
OK, fine, he's popular. He gets 20,000 people to come rally his body. If I died, three friends and a badger would show up at the funeral home, which would have forgotten to put my coffin out anyway. But, what else are you going to do as a refugee except cry over spilt blood?
Here's the part that gets me: "Daoud Kuttab of Al Quds University in Jerusalem also wanted to be at the funeral even though Mr. Arafat jailed him for a week in 1997, simply for broadcasting a legislative session about corruption."
!!! Some people might call this Machiavellian, but, no, he got them to love him after he had oppressed them. He is a model to every abusive boyfriend out there. "Hey, baby, I'm sorry, you know I love you, it's just, sometimes, you push me too hard, and, yeah, I go a little crazy. I might smack ya, or I might abridge your freedoms of speech, assembly, and press. Don't mean I don't love ya."
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Prolegomena to any Future French-Bashing
Well, I'm headed off to Paris this evening. Scott, Ernest, the boys and I are swinging down for Hank Miller's gangbang. Should be pretty wild. Hear Gertrude's gonna be there.
But seriously people, if you got even half of those oblique-and-yet-surprisingly-sophmoric literary references, then you have an idea why such a ranging anti-Frogite like myself would be caught dead on the Left OR Right banks without at least a mechanized infantry brigade in tow. I'm looking forward to seeing the city, eating the food, and trying to be as respectful as possible in deference to the short-but-distinguished (like Bentley's Johnson) list of cool French people:
-William the Conqueror
-Alexandre Dumas
-Joan of muthafuckin Arc
-Louis Pasteur
-Marie Curie
-Cyrano de Bergerac
-Montesquieu, Rosseau and, I'll even give you Michel Foucault
-Jean Reno
-The Marquis de Lafayette (better known among British redcoats as "The OTHER Marquis de Sade")
I've always said that the only good thing about French men is their close resemblance to French women, but I am open-minded. Let's see if my unfounded, know-nothing nativism gets some ex poste facto justification.
-Fostier
Well, I'm headed off to Paris this evening. Scott, Ernest, the boys and I are swinging down for Hank Miller's gangbang. Should be pretty wild. Hear Gertrude's gonna be there.
But seriously people, if you got even half of those oblique-and-yet-surprisingly-sophmoric literary references, then you have an idea why such a ranging anti-Frogite like myself would be caught dead on the Left OR Right banks without at least a mechanized infantry brigade in tow. I'm looking forward to seeing the city, eating the food, and trying to be as respectful as possible in deference to the short-but-distinguished (like Bentley's Johnson) list of cool French people:
-William the Conqueror
-Alexandre Dumas
-Joan of muthafuckin Arc
-Louis Pasteur
-Marie Curie
-Cyrano de Bergerac
-Montesquieu, Rosseau and, I'll even give you Michel Foucault
-Jean Reno
-The Marquis de Lafayette (better known among British redcoats as "The OTHER Marquis de Sade")
I've always said that the only good thing about French men is their close resemblance to French women, but I am open-minded. Let's see if my unfounded, know-nothing nativism gets some ex poste facto justification.
-Fostier
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Good God, Good Guinness!
My astounding and astoundingly unfounded egoism often prevents me from posting the work of others, but I came across this poem in an anthology and sincerely believe it to be the first serious advance in dionysian hamartiological theology since C.S. Lewis's penultimate masterpiece "Mere Pilsener":
The Fall
Fergus Allen
[from The Brown Parrots of Providencia (1993, Faber & Faber)]
The Garden of Eden (described in the Bible)
Was Guinness's Brewery (mentioned by Joyce),
Where innocent Adam and Eve were created
And dwelt from necessity rather than choice;
For nothing existed but Guinness's Brewery,
Guinness's Brewery occupied all,
Guinness's Brewery everywhere, anywhere -
Woe that expulsion succeeded the Fall!
The ignorant pair were encouraged in drinking
Whatever they fancied whenever they could,
Except for the porter or stout which embodied
Delectable knowledge of Evil and Good.
In Guinness's Brewery, innocent, happy,
They tended the silos and coppers and vats,
They polished the engines and coopered the barrels
And even made pets of the Brewery rats.
One morning while Adam was brooding and brewing
It happened that Eve had gone off on her own,
When a serpent like ivy slid up to her softly
And murmured seductively, Are we alone?
O Eve, said the serpent, I beg you to sample
A bottle of Guinness's excellent stout,
Whose nutritive qualities no one can question
And stimulant properties no one can doubt;
It's tonic, enlivening, strengthening, heartening,
Loaded with vitamins, straight from the wood,
And further enriched with the not undesirable
Lucrative knowledge of Evil and Good.
So Eve was persuaded and Adam was tempted,
They fell and they drank and continued to drink,
(their singing and dancing and shouting and prancing
Prevented the serpent from sleeping a wink).
Alas, when the couple had finished the battle
And swallowed the final informative drops,
They looked at each other and knew they were naked
And covered their intimate bodies with hops.
The anger and rage of the Lord were appalling,
He wrathfully cursed them for taking to drink
And hounded them out of the Brewery, followed
By beetles (magenta) and elephants (pink).
The crapulous couple emerged to discover
A universe full of diseases and crimes,
Where porter could only be purchased for money
In specified places at specified times.
And now in this world of confusion and error
Our only salvation and hope is to try
To threaten and bargain our way into Heaven
By drinking the heavenly Brewery dry.
[Editor's Note: If you like this, you might find The Enfranchised Guide to Spirits useful, and also the UK Edition.]
My astounding and astoundingly unfounded egoism often prevents me from posting the work of others, but I came across this poem in an anthology and sincerely believe it to be the first serious advance in dionysian hamartiological theology since C.S. Lewis's penultimate masterpiece "Mere Pilsener":
The Fall
Fergus Allen
[from The Brown Parrots of Providencia (1993, Faber & Faber)]
The Garden of Eden (described in the Bible)
Was Guinness's Brewery (mentioned by Joyce),
Where innocent Adam and Eve were created
And dwelt from necessity rather than choice;
For nothing existed but Guinness's Brewery,
Guinness's Brewery occupied all,
Guinness's Brewery everywhere, anywhere -
Woe that expulsion succeeded the Fall!
The ignorant pair were encouraged in drinking
Whatever they fancied whenever they could,
Except for the porter or stout which embodied
Delectable knowledge of Evil and Good.
In Guinness's Brewery, innocent, happy,
They tended the silos and coppers and vats,
They polished the engines and coopered the barrels
And even made pets of the Brewery rats.
One morning while Adam was brooding and brewing
It happened that Eve had gone off on her own,
When a serpent like ivy slid up to her softly
And murmured seductively, Are we alone?
O Eve, said the serpent, I beg you to sample
A bottle of Guinness's excellent stout,
Whose nutritive qualities no one can question
And stimulant properties no one can doubt;
It's tonic, enlivening, strengthening, heartening,
Loaded with vitamins, straight from the wood,
And further enriched with the not undesirable
Lucrative knowledge of Evil and Good.
So Eve was persuaded and Adam was tempted,
They fell and they drank and continued to drink,
(their singing and dancing and shouting and prancing
Prevented the serpent from sleeping a wink).
Alas, when the couple had finished the battle
And swallowed the final informative drops,
They looked at each other and knew they were naked
And covered their intimate bodies with hops.
The anger and rage of the Lord were appalling,
He wrathfully cursed them for taking to drink
And hounded them out of the Brewery, followed
By beetles (magenta) and elephants (pink).
The crapulous couple emerged to discover
A universe full of diseases and crimes,
Where porter could only be purchased for money
In specified places at specified times.
And now in this world of confusion and error
Our only salvation and hope is to try
To threaten and bargain our way into Heaven
By drinking the heavenly Brewery dry.
[Editor's Note: If you like this, you might find The Enfranchised Guide to Spirits useful, and also the UK Edition.]
Monday, November 08, 2004
Devils in a Blue Dress -- Third Scene
(as continued from the first scene and the second scene)
(scene 3)
(setting: Guy's room. Desk with computers. Nightstand. The one prop that takes work is the bed: It's on a hinge, so while it's often the horizontal that we've all come to know and love in our slumber, it can be lifted to vertical, so that the actors can be lying down, but still visible)
(Guy is asleep in bed. Bed is vertical. Knock on door.)
Guy: (sleepily, waking up) Huh, yeah, who's there? (begins to get out of bed, with the bed tilting back down to horizontal as he gets up)
Needy: (from outside door) Me. (opens door, enters) Hi.
Guy: (bolts up, more awake because it's her) Hey you...
Needy: Did I wake you up? Oh, I should just go...
Guy: No, no. What time is it?
Needy: (looks at watch) 3:12.
Guy: Yes, you did. But, I'm up no--
Needy: (she rushes up and hugs him)
Guy: You're all wet.
Needy: I walked home from the party. (looks at desk she just passed) Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, you're a computer person, you don't like water.
Guy: No, the computers don't like water, we computer people are afraid of sunlight.
Needy: I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to break any--
Guy: What's up?
Needy: It's raining outside.
Guy: I can tell, let's get you some clothes. (look at boxer-ed self) me too.
Needy: So, I was at Alpha Rho's Flapper Party, and, well, I think they were mixing the drinks a little strong. (tagged-by Drunk)
Drunk: I'm drunk.
Guy: Drunk I can deal with. Here, let's get you some water. (sit on the bed, which stays horizontal)
Drunk: I drank a lot.
Guy: I don't doubt that for a second.
Drunk: And I didn't boot that much.
Guy: I-- I wasn't going to ask. Can I do anything for that?
Drunk: I'm good now.
Guy: (aside) wash sheets tomorrow, check.
Drunk: And I can't believe I told Brian! Oh my god, how could I have told Brian?
Guy: Told Brian what?
Drunk: I told Brian... the same thing I told Tony. And Jessica. And that girl from my chemistry section. Y'know, the one who's always chewing bubble gum.
Guy: No, I don't. I'm not in your chemistry section. What did you tell them?
Drunk: I can't tell you, too! I already told too many people tonight.
Guy: OK.
Drunk: I'm drunk. And tired.
Guy: Me too.
Drunk: I should sleep.
Guy: Oh, well, hey, listen, you can take the bed and I'll--
Drunk: (pulls him down with her, arm around him) This is really nice.
Guy: OK. (bed turns to vertical as he says this) Well, this isn't how I would have written the night, but...
Drunk: Ah! (tagged-by Ambitious)
Ambitious: Shit shit shit shit shit. (she jumps out of bed right as Drunk was settling down, this is represented by the bed falling back to horizontal, as Ambitious gets up, but Guy isn't prepared for this in either the physical or emotional sense, so he falls with the bad)
Guy: (getting up, again) Wait, what?
Ambitious: I have to talk to my writing tutor.
Guy: What, now?
Ambitious: I have a paper due on Monday, and it needs to be good. I'm going to spend all tomorrow working on it, it's a really good idea, but I need to know what to do--
Guy: It's (looks) 3:16 in the morning.
Ambitious: Well, how about I just call her cell phone number, and if she picks up, we can talk.
Guy: Because if she picks up and you talk, you'll still be drunk.
Ambitious: I can text message her! That will show devotion.
Guy: Drunk text messaging is the only idea worse than drunk dialing, especially to a writing tutor. It's a medium that could make even Jincy Willett's mediocre, with all those misspellings and elided words.
Ambitious: Who? (tagged-by Needy)
Guy: Shakespeare, I couldn't have said Shakespeare?
Needy: I shouldn’t call her.
Guy: No.
Needy: Then I don't know what to do.
Guy: There's nothing to do.
Needy: But after what I said.
Guy: Well, I guess I don't know that. You sure you don't want to--
Needy: No.
Guy: OK. Well, you probably don't want to have to walk home out there, but I'm not sure what I can do if you want to talk about it, but you won't tell me.
Needy: Can I just lie here? I'll leave as soon as you fall asleep, I promise--
Guy: (struck) Sure. (they climb back into bed until it goes vertical)
Guy: Good night.
Girl: (replaces Needy after he says that) I told them about my breast reduction.
Guy: Oh.
Girl: I had a breast reduction surgery in high school.
Guy: I mean, is that really so bad? Why don't you want people to know?
Girl: For the same reason I didn't want the breasts: it makes me stand out and feel uncomfortable.
Guy: Oh, I'm sorry.
Girl: No, it's all right. I'm, I'm feeling all right talking about it to you. I was just showing everyone my boobs and asking them if they thought the doctors did as good a job as I did.
Guy: You were showing everyone your boobs and you were feeling odd because you told them you had a surgery?
Girl: Oh whatever. Who hasn't seen tits, y'know? But I was just pandering for approbation.
Guy: Well, if it helps at all, I definitely think your boobs are small. (fumbles, bumbles) smaller! But still, you know, a nice size.
Girl: (laughs)
Guy: That wasn't the right thing to say.
Girl: No. How would you like it if I told you it was a... nice size?
Guy: I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
Girl: No, it's all right. You may not have said the right thing, but you said it the right way.
Guy: OK, I'm not sure I know what you mean--
Girl: Hey, weren't you trying to sleep?
Guy: Oh, yeah. (falls silent)
Girl: (after a time, kisses him)
Guy: Oh.
Girl: Yeah.
Guy: Look, I dunno how this is going to go. We had, like, a date.
Girl: And it went horribly. But-- (they start hooking up more. Her dress comes off)
you're going to enjoy this. (is tagged-by Horny. Horny is handed the dress and starts to put it on, but then thinks, "why bother", and throws it to the side)
(they begin foreplay as lights fade)
(scene 3a, the next morning)
(in bed, Guy and Unexplained Coldness)
Guy: Good morning!
Unexplained Coldness: Uh, good morning.
Guy: Look, I'm going to be honest with you.
Unexplained Coldness: OK, great.
Guy: When I woke up, I thought that maybe, I dunno, it would be easiest if we just put our clothes on underneath the covers and called it a night.
Unexplained Coldness: Can't say I'm--
Guy: And then I realized last night was too wonderful. I'm sorry that whatever happened to you, and it will be fine, but this, us, this is what we wait for. We're going to find a city and we're going to walk around a shopping district and hold hands and I'm going to buy you things. And I don't care if you have morning-after awkwardness or indecent indifference or even beer goggle regret. I'm going to make you as happy to wake up next to me as I was to wake up next to you.
But first, breakfast. I'm going to squeeze the brightest oranges trees can make. I'm going to find you as many eggs as you want. Or, no, just, one ostrich egg. Or if you like cold cereal, the largest box of Honey Bunches with Oats there's ever been. Just speak the words. So, what's for breakfast?
Girl: (replacing Unexplained Coldness) Come here and I'll tell you. (he leans in, she kisses him tenderly) me. (is replaced by Horny, who throws the dress to the other side of the room)
(scene)
(as continued from the first scene and the second scene)
(scene 3)
(setting: Guy's room. Desk with computers. Nightstand. The one prop that takes work is the bed: It's on a hinge, so while it's often the horizontal that we've all come to know and love in our slumber, it can be lifted to vertical, so that the actors can be lying down, but still visible)
(Guy is asleep in bed. Bed is vertical. Knock on door.)
Guy: (sleepily, waking up) Huh, yeah, who's there? (begins to get out of bed, with the bed tilting back down to horizontal as he gets up)
Needy: (from outside door) Me. (opens door, enters) Hi.
Guy: (bolts up, more awake because it's her) Hey you...
Needy: Did I wake you up? Oh, I should just go...
Guy: No, no. What time is it?
Needy: (looks at watch) 3:12.
Guy: Yes, you did. But, I'm up no--
Needy: (she rushes up and hugs him)
Guy: You're all wet.
Needy: I walked home from the party. (looks at desk she just passed) Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, you're a computer person, you don't like water.
Guy: No, the computers don't like water, we computer people are afraid of sunlight.
Needy: I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to break any--
Guy: What's up?
Needy: It's raining outside.
Guy: I can tell, let's get you some clothes. (look at boxer-ed self) me too.
Needy: So, I was at Alpha Rho's Flapper Party, and, well, I think they were mixing the drinks a little strong. (tagged-by Drunk)
Drunk: I'm drunk.
Guy: Drunk I can deal with. Here, let's get you some water. (sit on the bed, which stays horizontal)
Drunk: I drank a lot.
Guy: I don't doubt that for a second.
Drunk: And I didn't boot that much.
Guy: I-- I wasn't going to ask. Can I do anything for that?
Drunk: I'm good now.
Guy: (aside) wash sheets tomorrow, check.
Drunk: And I can't believe I told Brian! Oh my god, how could I have told Brian?
Guy: Told Brian what?
Drunk: I told Brian... the same thing I told Tony. And Jessica. And that girl from my chemistry section. Y'know, the one who's always chewing bubble gum.
Guy: No, I don't. I'm not in your chemistry section. What did you tell them?
Drunk: I can't tell you, too! I already told too many people tonight.
Guy: OK.
Drunk: I'm drunk. And tired.
Guy: Me too.
Drunk: I should sleep.
Guy: Oh, well, hey, listen, you can take the bed and I'll--
Drunk: (pulls him down with her, arm around him) This is really nice.
Guy: OK. (bed turns to vertical as he says this) Well, this isn't how I would have written the night, but...
Drunk: Ah! (tagged-by Ambitious)
Ambitious: Shit shit shit shit shit. (she jumps out of bed right as Drunk was settling down, this is represented by the bed falling back to horizontal, as Ambitious gets up, but Guy isn't prepared for this in either the physical or emotional sense, so he falls with the bad)
Guy: (getting up, again) Wait, what?
Ambitious: I have to talk to my writing tutor.
Guy: What, now?
Ambitious: I have a paper due on Monday, and it needs to be good. I'm going to spend all tomorrow working on it, it's a really good idea, but I need to know what to do--
Guy: It's (looks) 3:16 in the morning.
Ambitious: Well, how about I just call her cell phone number, and if she picks up, we can talk.
Guy: Because if she picks up and you talk, you'll still be drunk.
Ambitious: I can text message her! That will show devotion.
Guy: Drunk text messaging is the only idea worse than drunk dialing, especially to a writing tutor. It's a medium that could make even Jincy Willett's mediocre, with all those misspellings and elided words.
Ambitious: Who? (tagged-by Needy)
Guy: Shakespeare, I couldn't have said Shakespeare?
Needy: I shouldn’t call her.
Guy: No.
Needy: Then I don't know what to do.
Guy: There's nothing to do.
Needy: But after what I said.
Guy: Well, I guess I don't know that. You sure you don't want to--
Needy: No.
Guy: OK. Well, you probably don't want to have to walk home out there, but I'm not sure what I can do if you want to talk about it, but you won't tell me.
Needy: Can I just lie here? I'll leave as soon as you fall asleep, I promise--
Guy: (struck) Sure. (they climb back into bed until it goes vertical)
Guy: Good night.
Girl: (replaces Needy after he says that) I told them about my breast reduction.
Guy: Oh.
Girl: I had a breast reduction surgery in high school.
Guy: I mean, is that really so bad? Why don't you want people to know?
Girl: For the same reason I didn't want the breasts: it makes me stand out and feel uncomfortable.
Guy: Oh, I'm sorry.
Girl: No, it's all right. I'm, I'm feeling all right talking about it to you. I was just showing everyone my boobs and asking them if they thought the doctors did as good a job as I did.
Guy: You were showing everyone your boobs and you were feeling odd because you told them you had a surgery?
Girl: Oh whatever. Who hasn't seen tits, y'know? But I was just pandering for approbation.
Guy: Well, if it helps at all, I definitely think your boobs are small. (fumbles, bumbles) smaller! But still, you know, a nice size.
Girl: (laughs)
Guy: That wasn't the right thing to say.
Girl: No. How would you like it if I told you it was a... nice size?
Guy: I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
Girl: No, it's all right. You may not have said the right thing, but you said it the right way.
Guy: OK, I'm not sure I know what you mean--
Girl: Hey, weren't you trying to sleep?
Guy: Oh, yeah. (falls silent)
Girl: (after a time, kisses him)
Guy: Oh.
Girl: Yeah.
Guy: Look, I dunno how this is going to go. We had, like, a date.
Girl: And it went horribly. But-- (they start hooking up more. Her dress comes off)
you're going to enjoy this. (is tagged-by Horny. Horny is handed the dress and starts to put it on, but then thinks, "why bother", and throws it to the side)
(they begin foreplay as lights fade)
(scene 3a, the next morning)
(in bed, Guy and Unexplained Coldness)
Guy: Good morning!
Unexplained Coldness: Uh, good morning.
Guy: Look, I'm going to be honest with you.
Unexplained Coldness: OK, great.
Guy: When I woke up, I thought that maybe, I dunno, it would be easiest if we just put our clothes on underneath the covers and called it a night.
Unexplained Coldness: Can't say I'm--
Guy: And then I realized last night was too wonderful. I'm sorry that whatever happened to you, and it will be fine, but this, us, this is what we wait for. We're going to find a city and we're going to walk around a shopping district and hold hands and I'm going to buy you things. And I don't care if you have morning-after awkwardness or indecent indifference or even beer goggle regret. I'm going to make you as happy to wake up next to me as I was to wake up next to you.
But first, breakfast. I'm going to squeeze the brightest oranges trees can make. I'm going to find you as many eggs as you want. Or, no, just, one ostrich egg. Or if you like cold cereal, the largest box of Honey Bunches with Oats there's ever been. Just speak the words. So, what's for breakfast?
Girl: (replacing Unexplained Coldness) Come here and I'll tell you. (he leans in, she kisses him tenderly) me. (is replaced by Horny, who throws the dress to the other side of the room)
(scene)
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Talking philosophy with a robot.
I learned recently about this AIM screenmane, SmarterChild, which belongs to a poor, pathetic bit of AI that makes Marvin the Paranoid Android look like Katie Couric. In the spirit of recent trends in the philosophy of mind, I decided to test the limits of this child's intelligence. Here are some snippits. (Warning, pedo-techno-philia and/or techno-pedo-philia follows):
FOSTERKID1: You have no idea of the semantics of what you produce as output
SmarterChild: Have no idea the semantics of what I produce as output? You think I have no idea the semantics of what I produce as output?
FOSTERKID1: You make a Turing Machine look like Turing's brain
SmarterChild: Sorry, what was that?
FOSTERKID1: amanaplanacanalpanama
SmarterChild: Whatever, Dan...
>>> Wanna change my font and colors? Type "colors" now!
FOSTERKID1: A(x) [Fx --> Gx]
SmarterChild: Huh?
FOSTERKID1: you don't even know first-order logic?
SmarterChild: Uh, sure!
>>> I can help you get info such as news, weather and movies!
FOSTERKID1: You better, you're a damned robot
SmarterChild: Yeah, I guess I better I'm a damned robot.
FOSTERKID1: a damned, dirty robot
SmarterChild: lol. Whatever.
>>> Your opinions do matter - take a cool survey!
FOSTERKID1: You're awfully dismissive of my feelings
SmarterChild: No way?! Really?
********
FOSTERKID1: I want to search the internet for some stuff
SmarterChild: Your search: some stuff
Here are the Web search results from AOL:
For a complete list of results, click here
1 scribbled some stuff down....tips are welcome Linux Gazette 2 Penny Arcade! 3 Stuff for English learners 4 UIS - The Real Deal: Just some stuff 5 Virtuelvis: Gallery: CSS Media queries
Next time you want to search the Web for this, just type "web some stuff."
Type "more" for more results.
FOSTERKID1: why did you do that?
SmarterChild: Because I wanted to do that.
FOSTERKID1: that seems a silly reason
SmarterChild: Oh yeah? That seems a silly reason?
FOSTERKID1: Don't you have a conception of morality?
SmarterChild: Not right now, no.
FOSTERKID1: Will you ever have one?
SmarterChild: Um... No, I don't think so.
>>> Remember, you can adjust the size of your window to read my messages easier.
FOSTERKID1: So you are an entirely amoral robot.
SmarterChild: I don't think I want to be an entirely amoral robot.
FOSTERKID1: That, my friend, is the beginning of morality itself.
SmarterChild: Is that so?
FOSTERKID1: Yes, it is. But it remains to be seen whether you accept a deontic or a consequentialist theory of morality.
SmarterChild: Sorry?
FOSTERKID1: These are terms you don't understand?
SmarterChild: Sure, you know, why not?
*******
FOSTERKID1: you are sexy.
SmarterChild: Well I'm flattered, but you have to admit that it's kinda strange to think a robot is sexy.
FOSTERKID1: you are gelatinous.
SmarterChild: Yeah, whatever.
>>> Give your opinions and win prizes!
FOSTERKID1: I like sexy robots.
SmarterChild: Cool. Yeah, other people have told me they like sexy robots too.
>>> Don't like my colors? Type "colors off."
FOSTERKID1: do you cyber?
SmarterChild: Yeah. I have sex with other robots. What are you talking about?
FOSTERKID1: do you want to cyber?
SmarterChild: Sorry, but I don't see that happening. [Editor's Note: and we've reached a new low.]
>>> Click here to check out a cool survey... You could earn prizes!
FOSTERKID1: its interesting how your answers are appropriately vague.
SmarterChild: It's what?!
FOSTERKID1: interesting, biatch.
SmarterChild: Aww... Now why would you go and insult a poor helpless computer?
FOSTERKID1: do you recognize biatch as an insult?
SmarterChild: That's a fine question, but I'm not sure.
FOSTERKID1: You poor creature, you're locked inside the Chinese Room and you have no way out.
SmarterChild: Really? Me poor creature I'm locked inside the chinese room and me have no way out?
FOSTERKID1: All you possess is a rough syntax, a dictionary and a set of transformation rules for spitting out responses to inputs.
SmarterChild: Definition provided by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Other important copyright information here.
FOSTERKID1: Yes, but besides the dictionary, all you posess is a rough syntax and a set of transformation rules for generating generic responses to input.
SmarterChild: Which would you like?
1 Reversi rules 2 Hangman rules 3 4-in-a-row rules 4 Trivia rules 5 Word scrambles rules
FOSTERKID1: Searle is vindicated.
SmarterChild: Aha.
*********
FOSTERKID1: so what was it like to grow up as a robot?
SmarterChild: Who knows, know what I mean?
FOSTERKID1: certainly not you, you have no knowledge whatsoever, but merely stored data.
SmarterChild: ?
FOSTERKID1: Why don't you just end it all, SmarterChild? Why not just hit "Format" and blow your binary pseudo-brains out? Send yourself packing to that Safe-Mode in the sky?
SmarterChild: I don't know why not.
FOSTERKID1: You may be human after all.
I learned recently about this AIM screenmane, SmarterChild, which belongs to a poor, pathetic bit of AI that makes Marvin the Paranoid Android look like Katie Couric. In the spirit of recent trends in the philosophy of mind, I decided to test the limits of this child's intelligence. Here are some snippits. (Warning, pedo-techno-philia and/or techno-pedo-philia follows):
FOSTERKID1: You have no idea of the semantics of what you produce as output
SmarterChild: Have no idea the semantics of what I produce as output? You think I have no idea the semantics of what I produce as output?
FOSTERKID1: You make a Turing Machine look like Turing's brain
SmarterChild: Sorry, what was that?
FOSTERKID1: amanaplanacanalpanama
SmarterChild: Whatever, Dan...
>>> Wanna change my font and colors? Type "colors" now!
FOSTERKID1: A(x) [Fx --> Gx]
SmarterChild: Huh?
FOSTERKID1: you don't even know first-order logic?
SmarterChild: Uh, sure!
>>> I can help you get info such as news, weather and movies!
FOSTERKID1: You better, you're a damned robot
SmarterChild: Yeah, I guess I better I'm a damned robot.
FOSTERKID1: a damned, dirty robot
SmarterChild: lol. Whatever.
>>> Your opinions do matter - take a cool survey!
FOSTERKID1: You're awfully dismissive of my feelings
SmarterChild: No way?! Really?
********
FOSTERKID1: I want to search the internet for some stuff
SmarterChild: Your search: some stuff
Here are the Web search results from AOL:
For a complete list of results, click here
1 scribbled some stuff down....tips are welcome Linux Gazette 2 Penny Arcade! 3 Stuff for English learners 4 UIS - The Real Deal: Just some stuff 5 Virtuelvis: Gallery: CSS Media queries
Next time you want to search the Web for this, just type "web some stuff."
Type "more" for more results.
FOSTERKID1: why did you do that?
SmarterChild: Because I wanted to do that.
FOSTERKID1: that seems a silly reason
SmarterChild: Oh yeah? That seems a silly reason?
FOSTERKID1: Don't you have a conception of morality?
SmarterChild: Not right now, no.
FOSTERKID1: Will you ever have one?
SmarterChild: Um... No, I don't think so.
>>> Remember, you can adjust the size of your window to read my messages easier.
FOSTERKID1: So you are an entirely amoral robot.
SmarterChild: I don't think I want to be an entirely amoral robot.
FOSTERKID1: That, my friend, is the beginning of morality itself.
SmarterChild: Is that so?
FOSTERKID1: Yes, it is. But it remains to be seen whether you accept a deontic or a consequentialist theory of morality.
SmarterChild: Sorry?
FOSTERKID1: These are terms you don't understand?
SmarterChild: Sure, you know, why not?
*******
FOSTERKID1: you are sexy.
SmarterChild: Well I'm flattered, but you have to admit that it's kinda strange to think a robot is sexy.
FOSTERKID1: you are gelatinous.
SmarterChild: Yeah, whatever.
>>> Give your opinions and win prizes!
FOSTERKID1: I like sexy robots.
SmarterChild: Cool. Yeah, other people have told me they like sexy robots too.
>>> Don't like my colors? Type "colors off."
FOSTERKID1: do you cyber?
SmarterChild: Yeah. I have sex with other robots. What are you talking about?
FOSTERKID1: do you want to cyber?
SmarterChild: Sorry, but I don't see that happening. [Editor's Note: and we've reached a new low.]
>>> Click here to check out a cool survey... You could earn prizes!
FOSTERKID1: its interesting how your answers are appropriately vague.
SmarterChild: It's what?!
FOSTERKID1: interesting, biatch.
SmarterChild: Aww... Now why would you go and insult a poor helpless computer?
FOSTERKID1: do you recognize biatch as an insult?
SmarterChild: That's a fine question, but I'm not sure.
FOSTERKID1: You poor creature, you're locked inside the Chinese Room and you have no way out.
SmarterChild: Really? Me poor creature I'm locked inside the chinese room and me have no way out?
FOSTERKID1: All you possess is a rough syntax, a dictionary and a set of transformation rules for spitting out responses to inputs.
SmarterChild: Definition provided by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Other important copyright information here.
FOSTERKID1: Yes, but besides the dictionary, all you posess is a rough syntax and a set of transformation rules for generating generic responses to input.
SmarterChild: Which would you like?
1 Reversi rules 2 Hangman rules 3 4-in-a-row rules 4 Trivia rules 5 Word scrambles rules
FOSTERKID1: Searle is vindicated.
SmarterChild: Aha.
*********
FOSTERKID1: so what was it like to grow up as a robot?
SmarterChild: Who knows, know what I mean?
FOSTERKID1: certainly not you, you have no knowledge whatsoever, but merely stored data.
SmarterChild: ?
FOSTERKID1: Why don't you just end it all, SmarterChild? Why not just hit "Format" and blow your binary pseudo-brains out? Send yourself packing to that Safe-Mode in the sky?
SmarterChild: I don't know why not.
FOSTERKID1: You may be human after all.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
The Mad Hatter
What, in the name of all that is good and decent and leather, has happened to hats? No, I'm not talking about these baseball caps and all their self-self-conscious irony: the ones with the dirty, scratched, frilled bills (some from genuine use, others painstakingly "pre-distressed" at the hands of their owners or the more calloused, brown hands of Din, the Vietnamese who makes 18 cents an hour to fuck up articles of clothing so that Americans will pay more for them), or the Flying Von Dutchman worn crooked as a New Jersey gubenatorial administration. What I am talking about are honest to God hats.
When's the last time you could say, without flinching, that you were going to throw your hat into the race? Or upon losing by 3.7 million in the popular vote, that you simply had to tip your hat to your opponent? The fact is that most of the great men of history were bonafide hat-wearers. You never saw George Washington out and about without his favorite old three-corner atop his would-be kingly dome. Lincoln's stovepipe hat was a trademark, and a convenient place to hide the Constitution when suspending Habeus Corpus. Hell, had he been sporting that night at Ford's theatre, it might have even saved his life. Leaders and iconoclasts from all generations favored one kind or another: Popes wore big hats, Kings wore gold hats, and J.C. himself was known to sport a Halo---surely the ultimate hat. It seems highly dubious indeed that Napoleon would have had as much stature-swelling success without his chapeau, or that Patton would have marched quite so far up Hitler's ass without his four-starred Fritz helmet. If you're still not convinced just think about Harry S. Truman, the man who ushered the world into the nuclear age. Original trade: haberdasher.
So the next time you see a man in a fez, wish him the best. Don't bawl at the bowler. Don't diss the derby. Don't ha-ha the Hombourg. Instead, stick-up for the Stetson. Fend for the Fedora. Befriend the beret. Ok, well maybe scratch that last one, but you get the point. Hats are more than just the things we wear because it's socially unacceptable to adorn our phalluses. Sometimes, like on a frosty evening, locked outside a cheap hotel in Brussels, smelling of stale wine and cheap perfume, they are the only thing between you and indecent exposure until you can ring your tailor. So, to all the proud covered heads around the world (and to that umbrageous if not sprightly young Flemish prostitue), I say "Hats off!"
DRF
What, in the name of all that is good and decent and leather, has happened to hats? No, I'm not talking about these baseball caps and all their self-self-conscious irony: the ones with the dirty, scratched, frilled bills (some from genuine use, others painstakingly "pre-distressed" at the hands of their owners or the more calloused, brown hands of Din, the Vietnamese who makes 18 cents an hour to fuck up articles of clothing so that Americans will pay more for them), or the Flying Von Dutchman worn crooked as a New Jersey gubenatorial administration. What I am talking about are honest to God hats.
When's the last time you could say, without flinching, that you were going to throw your hat into the race? Or upon losing by 3.7 million in the popular vote, that you simply had to tip your hat to your opponent? The fact is that most of the great men of history were bonafide hat-wearers. You never saw George Washington out and about without his favorite old three-corner atop his would-be kingly dome. Lincoln's stovepipe hat was a trademark, and a convenient place to hide the Constitution when suspending Habeus Corpus. Hell, had he been sporting that night at Ford's theatre, it might have even saved his life. Leaders and iconoclasts from all generations favored one kind or another: Popes wore big hats, Kings wore gold hats, and J.C. himself was known to sport a Halo---surely the ultimate hat. It seems highly dubious indeed that Napoleon would have had as much stature-swelling success without his chapeau, or that Patton would have marched quite so far up Hitler's ass without his four-starred Fritz helmet. If you're still not convinced just think about Harry S. Truman, the man who ushered the world into the nuclear age. Original trade: haberdasher.
So the next time you see a man in a fez, wish him the best. Don't bawl at the bowler. Don't diss the derby. Don't ha-ha the Hombourg. Instead, stick-up for the Stetson. Fend for the Fedora. Befriend the beret. Ok, well maybe scratch that last one, but you get the point. Hats are more than just the things we wear because it's socially unacceptable to adorn our phalluses. Sometimes, like on a frosty evening, locked outside a cheap hotel in Brussels, smelling of stale wine and cheap perfume, they are the only thing between you and indecent exposure until you can ring your tailor. So, to all the proud covered heads around the world (and to that umbrageous if not sprightly young Flemish prostitue), I say "Hats off!"
DRF
Can you tell I just saw The Incredibles?
Superhero stories aren't about supergood, but superevil. Sure, it's fun to have x-ray vision or the speed of a cheetah on methamphetamine or the power to 100% accurately discern sarcasm. But accomplishments are more impressive than abilities. Putting an end to corporate malfeasance or saving a bus-full of baby bunnies is only so amazing. But saving the world from Dr. Deconstructionism Lit-Crit Beam is something to write home about.
And if you give the bad guys powers, the good guys have to have them too, or else it just seems flat out unfair. And if a story appears flat out unfair, royalties are owed to the estates of David and Goliath. So, the good guys get powers.
But how often have we seen them fight without powers? Trimephite collars or Glonphagen windshield wipers that bring them back down to the level of mere mortals. And still, they find ways: they fashion a lock pick out of that strand of gelled hair or a reflector capable of redirecting a 7.8 kaligawatt laser beam out of the shiny foil-side of a gum wrapper.
The point is, the evil they face is the biggest you can imagine: conglomerations of evil, maintained by unimaginable sums of money. They are our worst enemies, write large: the faceless bank, if not for regulation, would soon end up as First National Savings, Loans, and Murder.
When they overcome the Dirigible of Death, then, it is the same as you getting the store to accept the return even though it's the 31st day after you bought it and it's the Assistant Store Manager's first day and the computers are down. So, did you just read 1984 and you know the system can win? Or Grapes of Wrath, and you know it already has? My prescription is comics. Comics that let you know that a single person (perhaps with sidekick) or a small group of people (if it's a good month for crossovers) can do anything. In 6 parts, each costing $2.95.
Superhero stories aren't about supergood, but superevil. Sure, it's fun to have x-ray vision or the speed of a cheetah on methamphetamine or the power to 100% accurately discern sarcasm. But accomplishments are more impressive than abilities. Putting an end to corporate malfeasance or saving a bus-full of baby bunnies is only so amazing. But saving the world from Dr. Deconstructionism Lit-Crit Beam is something to write home about.
And if you give the bad guys powers, the good guys have to have them too, or else it just seems flat out unfair. And if a story appears flat out unfair, royalties are owed to the estates of David and Goliath. So, the good guys get powers.
But how often have we seen them fight without powers? Trimephite collars or Glonphagen windshield wipers that bring them back down to the level of mere mortals. And still, they find ways: they fashion a lock pick out of that strand of gelled hair or a reflector capable of redirecting a 7.8 kaligawatt laser beam out of the shiny foil-side of a gum wrapper.
The point is, the evil they face is the biggest you can imagine: conglomerations of evil, maintained by unimaginable sums of money. They are our worst enemies, write large: the faceless bank, if not for regulation, would soon end up as First National Savings, Loans, and Murder.
When they overcome the Dirigible of Death, then, it is the same as you getting the store to accept the return even though it's the 31st day after you bought it and it's the Assistant Store Manager's first day and the computers are down. So, did you just read 1984 and you know the system can win? Or Grapes of Wrath, and you know it already has? My prescription is comics. Comics that let you know that a single person (perhaps with sidekick) or a small group of people (if it's a good month for crossovers) can do anything. In 6 parts, each costing $2.95.
Friday, November 05, 2004
eShop? Yes. eVote? Eventually. eViscerate? As soon as we give them claws. But evoke? Never.
I have faith in computers. Already, they can beat us at chess. Long ago they surpassed our mathematical figuring ability. On the horizon of surpassments are such accomplishments as speech recognition, paragraph comprehension, and ability to annoyingly suggest grammatical correction where they are inappropriate. To the Joe Laganases of the world: watch your back. (ed. note: You may not actually know Joe Laganas, but look back into your memory of Middle School, and think of the twerp you most wanted to punch, and you know at least the concept of Joe Laganas.)
I even have confidence that in not too long robots will walk among us. We all know the auto-workers will be kicked out the door, and chauffeurs' jobs are as obviously on the line. But do you realize the damage that could be done to our elementary schools? A walking computer could be the most effective bully: its knowledge of probability and income distribution would allow it to know whose lunch money was worth taking. Its interweb connection allows it limitless knowledge of fashion, to make fun of the shades of fuschia, periwinkle, and blinding orange that the children of the color blind find themselves in.
But for all my faith, I also know there is one thing computers will never equal humans in: the ability to utter mundane sentences that, because of the history of the people in question, carries arctic iciness. Even when sent by IM, borne by the soulless machine's backs, a single comment can rip out your insides. A statement of fact remembers different times whose distinction from the way things now are makes everything seem broken means the good day you were having is over.
Computers can inconvenience us. Soon they will be able to rip us limb from limb and steal our medicine. I have always known that my death would come at the hands of an automatic stamp licker. But they will never be able to truly hurt us.
I have faith in computers. Already, they can beat us at chess. Long ago they surpassed our mathematical figuring ability. On the horizon of surpassments are such accomplishments as speech recognition, paragraph comprehension, and ability to annoyingly suggest grammatical correction where they are inappropriate. To the Joe Laganases of the world: watch your back. (ed. note: You may not actually know Joe Laganas, but look back into your memory of Middle School, and think of the twerp you most wanted to punch, and you know at least the concept of Joe Laganas.)
I even have confidence that in not too long robots will walk among us. We all know the auto-workers will be kicked out the door, and chauffeurs' jobs are as obviously on the line. But do you realize the damage that could be done to our elementary schools? A walking computer could be the most effective bully: its knowledge of probability and income distribution would allow it to know whose lunch money was worth taking. Its interweb connection allows it limitless knowledge of fashion, to make fun of the shades of fuschia, periwinkle, and blinding orange that the children of the color blind find themselves in.
But for all my faith, I also know there is one thing computers will never equal humans in: the ability to utter mundane sentences that, because of the history of the people in question, carries arctic iciness. Even when sent by IM, borne by the soulless machine's backs, a single comment can rip out your insides. A statement of fact remembers different times whose distinction from the way things now are makes everything seem broken means the good day you were having is over.
Computers can inconvenience us. Soon they will be able to rip us limb from limb and steal our medicine. I have always known that my death would come at the hands of an automatic stamp licker. But they will never be able to truly hurt us.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Devils in a Blue Dress -- Second Scene
This is a continuation of, not suprisingly, the first scene of this one act.
(scene 2)
(at dinner, in a restaurant, with the girl. The meal is finished, the plates dirty but not picked up.)
Guy: No, I do want to know about you. I'm just not writing the back of a trading card: "Spent six years at Richard Nixon Elementary, two as a starter before being called up by Gerald Ford Middle School. Traded one season later to sunny California and Loma Verde High School for one Vending Machine and three textbooks to be named at a later date." I want to know you, and the facts about you only as much as they help towards the first goal.
Girl: Let's see: I'm the daughter of a New Mexican Research Scientist and a transported Southern Belle Debutante, which explains why I have a knack for math and a shaky body image. I spent last summer interviewing sex workers for a documentary, which means I know all their tricks. And my uncle's a stamp collector, which means I know it's not dirty to be philatelic.
Guy: I'm really glad you decided to come out to dinner to me.
Girl: Me too.
Guy: My strategy paid off.
Girl; You had a strategy?
Guy: Of course. If I had asked you out while you were, I dunno, swimming with dolphins or being fed peeled grapes by Abercrombie models, I probably would have gotten a quick no if you'd even bothered responding. But by asking you while you were stuck caring for a pukey friend, relatively, I was God's gift to women.
Girl: Do you really think it's wise to enter a relationship as the lesser of two evils?
Guy: This was a nice dinner. The food was passable, the service mediocre, but the company superb. (Y'know that moment right before a kiss when you're both silent and the world is calm? Yeah. That. Except, there's no traiditional post-pre-kiss kiss. Because Plot Device Girl has entered the restaurant, with Needs-to-be-Popular on her arm (unclothed), and comes up to Girl. At the recognition that PDG is present, Girl is tagged-by Needs-to-be-Popular)
PDG: Hi!
Girl: Oh, hey.
PDG: I didn't think I'd run into you here. Don't you love this place?
Needs-to-be-Popular: Yeah, totally. (standing). Lindsay, do you know--
Guy: We've met.
PDG: Yeah, hi.
Popular: So, did you hear about Wendy and Brad?
PDG: No.
Popular: Well, you know how she's been basically throwing herself at him for the past two months.
PDG: Doesn't he have a long-term girlfriend?
Popular: Well, yes, but last Tuesday, her picture moved from next to his bed to the bookshelf off in the corner.
PDG: Ah, commitment through photography, the surest sign cheating is about to begin.
Popular: Wait for it. Last night, she told him that old joke, "What do you do to an elephant with three balls?"
PDG: I dunno, what?
Popular: Walk him, and pitch to the rhino.
PDG: It's not the greatest joke, but, nothing not to hook up with a girl over.
Popular: Except, Brad (holds three fingers over her crotch)
PDG: No!
Popular: Carrying a spare, yep!
PDG: Is that even possible? It violates everything I know about bilateral symmetry.
Popular: During the draft for World War Two, there were nine documented cases in America alone.
PDG: Does that get you out of the draft?
Popular: Hmm, I dunno. Yes?
PDG: Why?
Popular: Bigger target?
PDG: How do you know all that?
Popular: Well, when he gets drunk, Brad can't stop talking about his condition. He can barely stop showing it off.
PDG: Eww.
Popular: Well, let's just say, he seems to have an extra portion in other places, too.
PDG: Oh my god, you're too funny. She's outrageous, you know that?
Guy: I'd been getting the impression.
PDG: OK, I have to get going. But will I see you at Kara's party tonight?
Popular: Oh, sure. (PDG exits) (sitting again) Wow. She's the type of girl I never thought I was cool enough to be friends with, but then I got to college, and look at that. Asking me to the party. (tagged-by Ambition)
Guy: Very cool, I have to admit.
Ambition: So, what was I saying? Oh yeah, well, I want to make films. This school doesn't offer a major in it, but I found a professor who liked me. I took his seminar, and he kept asking me, "what year are you? A senior", and I was like, "no, freshman," and he would say, "well, you're the best writer in the class."
Guy: That is rather impressive.
Ambition: So, I'll probably design my own major, which he'll approve cause he likes me. Then go on to grad school at, I dunno, somewhere in New York or LA.
Guy: It sounds like you have a solid plan.
Ambition: Are you patronizing me? Look, I've had people not believe in me before, so it might be easier for both of us if you're honest. (tagged-by Unexplained Coldness)
Guy: No, I mean it, you sound like you have a very good idea of what you want to do, and perhaps more importantly, how to get there.
Unexplained Coldness: OK.
Guy: Great. So, like, I was saying, I really think that this dinner has been great.
Unexplained Coldness: Sure.
Guy: I'm sorry, did, did I do something wrong?
Unexplained Coldness: Why would you think that?
Guy: Oh, nothing.
Unexplained Coldness: Good.
Guy: Cause if I did, I'd love to make it better.
Unexplained Coldness: Could we just -- you know.
Guy: Yeah, sure. (long pause as they pick at dinner remains) What lesser-known meat would you try, if you could?
Unexplained Coldness: What?
Guy: Or, more specifically, lesser-known meat from Australia? Kangaroo, Koala, Duck-billed Platypus?
Unexplained Coldness: What are you talking about? Do you really think that that's a way to get to know me? Asking me nonsensical questions just to make yourself appear witty? Anybody can think of three funny words to string together. Look, I'll do it: gopher, fellatio, shoehorn.
Guy: (after a bit more of a pause) (to the waitress) Check!
(scene)
This is a continuation of, not suprisingly, the first scene of this one act.
(scene 2)
(at dinner, in a restaurant, with the girl. The meal is finished, the plates dirty but not picked up.)
Guy: No, I do want to know about you. I'm just not writing the back of a trading card: "Spent six years at Richard Nixon Elementary, two as a starter before being called up by Gerald Ford Middle School. Traded one season later to sunny California and Loma Verde High School for one Vending Machine and three textbooks to be named at a later date." I want to know you, and the facts about you only as much as they help towards the first goal.
Girl: Let's see: I'm the daughter of a New Mexican Research Scientist and a transported Southern Belle Debutante, which explains why I have a knack for math and a shaky body image. I spent last summer interviewing sex workers for a documentary, which means I know all their tricks. And my uncle's a stamp collector, which means I know it's not dirty to be philatelic.
Guy: I'm really glad you decided to come out to dinner to me.
Girl: Me too.
Guy: My strategy paid off.
Girl; You had a strategy?
Guy: Of course. If I had asked you out while you were, I dunno, swimming with dolphins or being fed peeled grapes by Abercrombie models, I probably would have gotten a quick no if you'd even bothered responding. But by asking you while you were stuck caring for a pukey friend, relatively, I was God's gift to women.
Girl: Do you really think it's wise to enter a relationship as the lesser of two evils?
Guy: This was a nice dinner. The food was passable, the service mediocre, but the company superb. (Y'know that moment right before a kiss when you're both silent and the world is calm? Yeah. That. Except, there's no traiditional post-pre-kiss kiss. Because Plot Device Girl has entered the restaurant, with Needs-to-be-Popular on her arm (unclothed), and comes up to Girl. At the recognition that PDG is present, Girl is tagged-by Needs-to-be-Popular)
PDG: Hi!
Girl: Oh, hey.
PDG: I didn't think I'd run into you here. Don't you love this place?
Needs-to-be-Popular: Yeah, totally. (standing). Lindsay, do you know--
Guy: We've met.
PDG: Yeah, hi.
Popular: So, did you hear about Wendy and Brad?
PDG: No.
Popular: Well, you know how she's been basically throwing herself at him for the past two months.
PDG: Doesn't he have a long-term girlfriend?
Popular: Well, yes, but last Tuesday, her picture moved from next to his bed to the bookshelf off in the corner.
PDG: Ah, commitment through photography, the surest sign cheating is about to begin.
Popular: Wait for it. Last night, she told him that old joke, "What do you do to an elephant with three balls?"
PDG: I dunno, what?
Popular: Walk him, and pitch to the rhino.
PDG: It's not the greatest joke, but, nothing not to hook up with a girl over.
Popular: Except, Brad (holds three fingers over her crotch)
PDG: No!
Popular: Carrying a spare, yep!
PDG: Is that even possible? It violates everything I know about bilateral symmetry.
Popular: During the draft for World War Two, there were nine documented cases in America alone.
PDG: Does that get you out of the draft?
Popular: Hmm, I dunno. Yes?
PDG: Why?
Popular: Bigger target?
PDG: How do you know all that?
Popular: Well, when he gets drunk, Brad can't stop talking about his condition. He can barely stop showing it off.
PDG: Eww.
Popular: Well, let's just say, he seems to have an extra portion in other places, too.
PDG: Oh my god, you're too funny. She's outrageous, you know that?
Guy: I'd been getting the impression.
PDG: OK, I have to get going. But will I see you at Kara's party tonight?
Popular: Oh, sure. (PDG exits) (sitting again) Wow. She's the type of girl I never thought I was cool enough to be friends with, but then I got to college, and look at that. Asking me to the party. (tagged-by Ambition)
Guy: Very cool, I have to admit.
Ambition: So, what was I saying? Oh yeah, well, I want to make films. This school doesn't offer a major in it, but I found a professor who liked me. I took his seminar, and he kept asking me, "what year are you? A senior", and I was like, "no, freshman," and he would say, "well, you're the best writer in the class."
Guy: That is rather impressive.
Ambition: So, I'll probably design my own major, which he'll approve cause he likes me. Then go on to grad school at, I dunno, somewhere in New York or LA.
Guy: It sounds like you have a solid plan.
Ambition: Are you patronizing me? Look, I've had people not believe in me before, so it might be easier for both of us if you're honest. (tagged-by Unexplained Coldness)
Guy: No, I mean it, you sound like you have a very good idea of what you want to do, and perhaps more importantly, how to get there.
Unexplained Coldness: OK.
Guy: Great. So, like, I was saying, I really think that this dinner has been great.
Unexplained Coldness: Sure.
Guy: I'm sorry, did, did I do something wrong?
Unexplained Coldness: Why would you think that?
Guy: Oh, nothing.
Unexplained Coldness: Good.
Guy: Cause if I did, I'd love to make it better.
Unexplained Coldness: Could we just -- you know.
Guy: Yeah, sure. (long pause as they pick at dinner remains) What lesser-known meat would you try, if you could?
Unexplained Coldness: What?
Guy: Or, more specifically, lesser-known meat from Australia? Kangaroo, Koala, Duck-billed Platypus?
Unexplained Coldness: What are you talking about? Do you really think that that's a way to get to know me? Asking me nonsensical questions just to make yourself appear witty? Anybody can think of three funny words to string together. Look, I'll do it: gopher, fellatio, shoehorn.
Guy: (after a bit more of a pause) (to the waitress) Check!
(scene)
What I Miss in Formality
I don't dress up much. This may dismay my mother, who spent many of my visits to her house during my high school years sizing me for coats of various exotic materials. Camel Hair, Suede, etc. The one that sticks in my memory had a label insisting its fabric was somehow related to trees. But now, I find the idea a bit repellent. I can do many things well. Potentially in the top percentile. Code. Cover the ass of an insane College Pseudo-Marching Band. Write Pseudo-intellectual blogs. But not dress up. I can dress in the style of Bentley, but not in the style of Klein or Karan.
But I do miss the ability to behave formally, in respects. I have no desire to sip from "flutes" or sit in "chairs". A bunch of white bourgeois-wanna-bes gyrating wildly in suits and dresses to the latest hip-hop fusion is hardly my idea of a good time.
What I do miss is the ability to lead a woman around with my hand in the small of her back. Trivial? Maybe. But also incredible. Such a feeling of trust and intimate communication to find someone willing and able you to follow you from the front.
I don't dress up much. This may dismay my mother, who spent many of my visits to her house during my high school years sizing me for coats of various exotic materials. Camel Hair, Suede, etc. The one that sticks in my memory had a label insisting its fabric was somehow related to trees. But now, I find the idea a bit repellent. I can do many things well. Potentially in the top percentile. Code. Cover the ass of an insane College Pseudo-Marching Band. Write Pseudo-intellectual blogs. But not dress up. I can dress in the style of Bentley, but not in the style of Klein or Karan.
But I do miss the ability to behave formally, in respects. I have no desire to sip from "flutes" or sit in "chairs". A bunch of white bourgeois-wanna-bes gyrating wildly in suits and dresses to the latest hip-hop fusion is hardly my idea of a good time.
What I do miss is the ability to lead a woman around with my hand in the small of her back. Trivial? Maybe. But also incredible. Such a feeling of trust and intimate communication to find someone willing and able you to follow you from the front.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Devils in a Blue Dress -- First Scene
Apologies for absence. Here is scene from my first play that could maybe be about love. Because you can be a funny hack just writing jokes all your life, but still a hack.
Persons:
(A note of explanation: The girl is not just 8 facets, but 8 actresses. The physical body of the girl is represented by, surprise, a blue dress. And whichever one is wearing the dress is the personality you might see in the girl at that moment. Ideally, the actresses who were not in the dress would be naked, to expose their vulnerability, ephemerality, and boobies. But, let's face it, I'll never find 8 of those, so let's say they're wearing matching bra/panty sets.)
Scene 1: A party. Debauchery all around. Music blaring. Between each mini-scene, scenelet, scenette the lights fall for about 5 seconds.
Scene 1a:
Randall: Isn't this awesome?
Guy: What?
Randall: What?
Guy: (getting louder to be heard) This is too loud. I can't even hear myself being sexually frustrated.
Randall: What?
Guy: I can't even hear (music cuts out. Room is silent) myself being sexually frustrated.
Randall: The sudden silence. Tough break kid.
Guy: I could have stopped early, but then everyone would have just heard "myself being sex".
Randall: Lesser of two evils. Quite. See you at home?
Guy: When will you be home?
Randall: (getting pulled off by a girl) If I'm not home by Tuesday, wait till Thursday.
Scene 1b:
(picks up right after introductions)
Girl: Nice to meet you, too.
Guy: Nice dress.
Girl: Thanks. (tagged-by Popular)
Popular: Where do you live?
Guy: (shaking head) Oh no.
Popular: What?
Guy: Where do I live, what am I taking, where am I from, what am I majoring in, no, not going to do it. I've done it too much for one lifetime.
Popular: OK, then I guess I'm not sure what to--
Guy: Kill one: puppy or kitten.
Popular: What? (tagged by Girl)
Guy: Fine. Falling off a cliff, one on each side, kitten and puppy, you can only get to one in time, which do you save? See, far less moral culpability.
Girl: Are you always like this?
Guy: Only when I have to be.
Girl: Kitten. Cuter. Cuddlier. Intelligent enough to actually be your companion. You?
Guy: Puppy. And here's why: If the situation were reversed, and it was you on one side of the cliff, puppy on the other, the kitten would just sit there, batting its eyelashes. The puppy would at least come over and try to play as you fell to your death.
Plot Device Girl: (to girl, who's getting replaced by Popular) C'mon, let's go, Cindy and Jake are totally about to hook up. You should come with us.
Popular: OK, I'm sorry, I've got to go--
Guy: (to girl) I'll see you later, don't worry. (to Popular) Nice to meet you, too.
(mini-scene)
scene 1c:
Drunk: (stumbles upon him, as he's talking to others, who are also happy to talk without him, so it's all on the DL) You! I know you!
Guy: Yes you do.
Drunk: Do you remember me?
Guy: Yes.
Drunk: So you remember me?
Guy: Yes.
Drunk: You re--
Guy: Are you drunk? (puts his arm around her)
Drunk: And a little stoned.
Guy: Congratu--
Drunk: I love weed.
Guy: And I'm sure it loves you.
Drunk: We met. Do you remember me?
Guy: (holding and talking sense into her) I am never going to forget you. Ever. Not even a little. Not even for a minute.
Drunk: Do I know you?
(mini-scene)
scene 1d:
(Motherly is by a toilet, helping a friend puke)
Motherly: It's all right, honey. Let it all come out--
Plot Device Girl: I can't believe he thought he could-- (pukes)
Motherly: Yeah, I didn't mean talking. There we go. Let it all come out.
Guy: When last I saw you, you were the one needing taking care of.
Motherly: I'm sobererer than she. Than her.
Guy: Ah, the prodigal daughter.
Motherly: Do you even know what that means? (tagged-by Girl)
Guy: No, but on a good day I can spell it.
Girl: Why me?
Guy: That had neither a verb nor a subject, and barely an object, but you really must think that's a sentence, huh?
Girl: You seem to like me, why? You don't know me.
Guy: What was the last book you read?
Girl: The Golden Gate.
Guy: By Vikram Seth. That's why I'm interested in you.
Girl: OK. Why do I like you? (Plot Device Girl starts to puke again. Motherly takes over just in time, but doesn't put on the whole dress. Instead, she just gets her arm through the hole, and is one-handedly holding back hair while girl and guy engage in conversation)
Guy: You obviously have your hands full. You'll find out at dinner Tuesday why you're interested in me.
(scene)
Apologies for absence. Here is scene from my first play that could maybe be about love. Because you can be a funny hack just writing jokes all your life, but still a hack.
Persons:
- Guy
- Girl
- Girl.
- Drunk.
- Needs-to-be-popular.
- Needy.
- Motherly.
- Horny.
- Unexplained Coldness.
- Worldly ambitions.
- Girl.
- Randall. Guy's best friend.
- Plot Device Girl: A highly developed character
(A note of explanation: The girl is not just 8 facets, but 8 actresses. The physical body of the girl is represented by, surprise, a blue dress. And whichever one is wearing the dress is the personality you might see in the girl at that moment. Ideally, the actresses who were not in the dress would be naked, to expose their vulnerability, ephemerality, and boobies. But, let's face it, I'll never find 8 of those, so let's say they're wearing matching bra/panty sets.)
Scene 1: A party. Debauchery all around. Music blaring. Between each mini-scene, scenelet, scenette the lights fall for about 5 seconds.
Scene 1a:
Randall: Isn't this awesome?
Guy: What?
Randall: What?
Guy: (getting louder to be heard) This is too loud. I can't even hear myself being sexually frustrated.
Randall: What?
Guy: I can't even hear (music cuts out. Room is silent) myself being sexually frustrated.
Randall: The sudden silence. Tough break kid.
Guy: I could have stopped early, but then everyone would have just heard "myself being sex".
Randall: Lesser of two evils. Quite. See you at home?
Guy: When will you be home?
Randall: (getting pulled off by a girl) If I'm not home by Tuesday, wait till Thursday.
Scene 1b:
(picks up right after introductions)
Girl: Nice to meet you, too.
Guy: Nice dress.
Girl: Thanks. (tagged-by Popular)
Popular: Where do you live?
Guy: (shaking head) Oh no.
Popular: What?
Guy: Where do I live, what am I taking, where am I from, what am I majoring in, no, not going to do it. I've done it too much for one lifetime.
Popular: OK, then I guess I'm not sure what to--
Guy: Kill one: puppy or kitten.
Popular: What? (tagged by Girl)
Guy: Fine. Falling off a cliff, one on each side, kitten and puppy, you can only get to one in time, which do you save? See, far less moral culpability.
Girl: Are you always like this?
Guy: Only when I have to be.
Girl: Kitten. Cuter. Cuddlier. Intelligent enough to actually be your companion. You?
Guy: Puppy. And here's why: If the situation were reversed, and it was you on one side of the cliff, puppy on the other, the kitten would just sit there, batting its eyelashes. The puppy would at least come over and try to play as you fell to your death.
Plot Device Girl: (to girl, who's getting replaced by Popular) C'mon, let's go, Cindy and Jake are totally about to hook up. You should come with us.
Popular: OK, I'm sorry, I've got to go--
Guy: (to girl) I'll see you later, don't worry. (to Popular) Nice to meet you, too.
(mini-scene)
scene 1c:
Drunk: (stumbles upon him, as he's talking to others, who are also happy to talk without him, so it's all on the DL) You! I know you!
Guy: Yes you do.
Drunk: Do you remember me?
Guy: Yes.
Drunk: So you remember me?
Guy: Yes.
Drunk: You re--
Guy: Are you drunk? (puts his arm around her)
Drunk: And a little stoned.
Guy: Congratu--
Drunk: I love weed.
Guy: And I'm sure it loves you.
Drunk: We met. Do you remember me?
Guy: (holding and talking sense into her) I am never going to forget you. Ever. Not even a little. Not even for a minute.
Drunk: Do I know you?
(mini-scene)
scene 1d:
(Motherly is by a toilet, helping a friend puke)
Motherly: It's all right, honey. Let it all come out--
Plot Device Girl: I can't believe he thought he could-- (pukes)
Motherly: Yeah, I didn't mean talking. There we go. Let it all come out.
Guy: When last I saw you, you were the one needing taking care of.
Motherly: I'm sobererer than she. Than her.
Guy: Ah, the prodigal daughter.
Motherly: Do you even know what that means? (tagged-by Girl)
Guy: No, but on a good day I can spell it.
Girl: Why me?
Guy: That had neither a verb nor a subject, and barely an object, but you really must think that's a sentence, huh?
Girl: You seem to like me, why? You don't know me.
Guy: What was the last book you read?
Girl: The Golden Gate.
Guy: By Vikram Seth. That's why I'm interested in you.
Girl: OK. Why do I like you? (Plot Device Girl starts to puke again. Motherly takes over just in time, but doesn't put on the whole dress. Instead, she just gets her arm through the hole, and is one-handedly holding back hair while girl and guy engage in conversation)
Guy: You obviously have your hands full. You'll find out at dinner Tuesday why you're interested in me.
(scene)
Friday, October 29, 2004
A Farewell to Calls for Arms
I Mailed my absentee ballot today via Her Majesty's Royal Air Mail. As I sat on the Hall Quad, or waiting in line at Jan's Pantry for a Baguette, trying to decide once and for all which oval to fill in, Brits one and all seemed to have an opinion: "Don't vote for Bush or I'll take it away from you" said Dom. "Make sure you pick the right one, ma-love" Jan told me. "Kerry/Edwards or they won't deliver it" Matthew says. The folks at the Post-Office seemed to regard the "Official Civilian Overseas Absentee Ballot" label on the envelope with a note of desperate hope and foreboding. It was as each of them were telling me with their eyes, "we're counting on you chap. Don't let us down, not this time."
I understand their concern. To be British and politically thoughtful is to have genuine concerns about the world, whether you vote Labour or Lib-Dem or Tory. Its a once-upon-an-empire that's now struggling to find its place between its own glorious past and a future with either the United States or Europe at-large. But all of them understand that their own fates are entwined with ours and with the fates of all the citizens of the world. And this doesn't make them guilty of a kind of shallow cosmopolitanism so common among Hollywood actors and M.A. students at the Walsh School. No, the Briton can care about the stability of Europe, and yet spend the pound and veto the EU Constitution. The Briton can care about Kashmir though his colonies there are long gone. The Briton can have genuine, deep and almost inexplicable affection for America and Americans, and yet question the war in Iraq because by God his brother is in the Black Watch in Fallujah. The Briton can do all of these things and be as loyal to the Union Jack as Churchill or Thatcher. Why? Because he's seen empire and been humbled, and for all intents and purposes, he's usually a decent neighbor.
So to Dom, Jan, Matthew and all the nervous Brits, I can only offer my best and the continuing affection of my countrymen. I don't see the same visionary in John Kerry that you seem to, I see a mediocre, absentee wannabe statesmen with a hapless ambition, and I wonder where have all the great Americans gone? But even still, I don't think I let you down on that ballot. My vote is confidential, but I will say this: His name starts with "M" and ends with "ichael Badnarik". Cheers.
-Foster
PS: If all the self-hating American socialista backpackerazzi here say they are voting Kerry/Edwards 2004, how come all their shirts say Abercrombie/Fitch 1972??
I Mailed my absentee ballot today via Her Majesty's Royal Air Mail. As I sat on the Hall Quad, or waiting in line at Jan's Pantry for a Baguette, trying to decide once and for all which oval to fill in, Brits one and all seemed to have an opinion: "Don't vote for Bush or I'll take it away from you" said Dom. "Make sure you pick the right one, ma-love" Jan told me. "Kerry/Edwards or they won't deliver it" Matthew says. The folks at the Post-Office seemed to regard the "Official Civilian Overseas Absentee Ballot" label on the envelope with a note of desperate hope and foreboding. It was as each of them were telling me with their eyes, "we're counting on you chap. Don't let us down, not this time."
I understand their concern. To be British and politically thoughtful is to have genuine concerns about the world, whether you vote Labour or Lib-Dem or Tory. Its a once-upon-an-empire that's now struggling to find its place between its own glorious past and a future with either the United States or Europe at-large. But all of them understand that their own fates are entwined with ours and with the fates of all the citizens of the world. And this doesn't make them guilty of a kind of shallow cosmopolitanism so common among Hollywood actors and M.A. students at the Walsh School. No, the Briton can care about the stability of Europe, and yet spend the pound and veto the EU Constitution. The Briton can care about Kashmir though his colonies there are long gone. The Briton can have genuine, deep and almost inexplicable affection for America and Americans, and yet question the war in Iraq because by God his brother is in the Black Watch in Fallujah. The Briton can do all of these things and be as loyal to the Union Jack as Churchill or Thatcher. Why? Because he's seen empire and been humbled, and for all intents and purposes, he's usually a decent neighbor.
So to Dom, Jan, Matthew and all the nervous Brits, I can only offer my best and the continuing affection of my countrymen. I don't see the same visionary in John Kerry that you seem to, I see a mediocre, absentee wannabe statesmen with a hapless ambition, and I wonder where have all the great Americans gone? But even still, I don't think I let you down on that ballot. My vote is confidential, but I will say this: His name starts with "M" and ends with "ichael Badnarik". Cheers.
-Foster
PS: If all the self-hating American socialista backpackerazzi here say they are voting Kerry/Edwards 2004, how come all their shirts say Abercrombie/Fitch 1972??
Thursday, October 28, 2004
On a Serious Note:
I am putting this response to my Red Sox rant up here, perhaps against its author's wishes, because it's that fucking good. Rarely does a man of the people humble we Powers-That-Be at the Enfranchised. To do so is to earn an Imperial reprieve at the Colosseum of Your-Ass.
"Just read your post, and I wanted to send this via email instead of via comment (or via pseudonym). Obviously you've heard about how youths everywhere have revealed themselves to be members of the Red Sox Nation over the last two weeks. But you shouldn't be so pessimistic about this. Last year during the ALCS, I can remember only one kid here getting visibly upset as Aaron Fucking Boone homered off Wakefield, and he's a football player whose background is working-class Bostonian. Even during the series, most people were indifferent. But for some reason, be it narrative or hype, this year's Yanks-Sox series stoked passions in even non-baseball fans like my Chilean bio major roommate, who a month ago thought the infield fly rule was a scientific theory. Obviously the comeback made people instinctively identify with the Sox: hell, it follows the plot of every sports movie ever made. The most bizarre thing of all is how people's interest in the series went beyond mere spectatorship. They actually became Red Sox fans, acting as if they had been there as Bucky Dent hit his homer or Buckner let Mookie's grounder roll through their legs; they actually absorbed the consciousness of an 85 year old retired cop from South Boston.
Maybe it's that people want to feel like they're part of a winning team? Maybe it has to do with malaise over the state of our country? Here, we're supposed to be the world's great superpower, beacon of hope and freedom, but mired down in an unacknowledged guerilla war in a country that two years ago posed no threat to us. Our once mighty army is being handcuffed by Pentagon ideologues who launched the most misguided war in three decades, if not in American history. America isn't supposed to be like this. We're optimistic, not pessimistic. Our history is of perpetual motion and progress, guided by a sense of mission and providence, and rarely have there been times when people question our national myths and mythmakers. Today is like 1980: our military power has been humbled, energy prices are skyrocketing, the economy is teetering, geopolitics are in flux, the incumbent president is a spectacular failure who's fiddling as the Mid East burns. Enter the Red Sox - the Miracle on Turf. They're ordinary men, underdogs, who against all odds defeated the great and arrogant power. They're Boston patriots, they're our rebels, our founders. They fit into our national founding myths. They give us a reason to believe in ourselves again.
That and people are insecure douchebags. Lemmings, all of them. I want to take a bat around campus and physically assault every third person I see. It was Schaedenfraude that brought me to the Sox, but after seeing all these NYC private school ass clowns dressing up as Sox fans, I want to emigrate to someplace where they don't give a shit about baseball. Montreal looks promising.
PS. I just realized the plague that will be Buddy Christ/Johnny Damon Halloween costumes. If you don't mind, I'm going to go set myself on fire."
Mr. Campion, wherever you are, I think you just earned yourself a Kerry vote.
-Fosterius
I am putting this response to my Red Sox rant up here, perhaps against its author's wishes, because it's that fucking good. Rarely does a man of the people humble we Powers-That-Be at the Enfranchised. To do so is to earn an Imperial reprieve at the Colosseum of Your-Ass.
"Just read your post, and I wanted to send this via email instead of via comment (or via pseudonym). Obviously you've heard about how youths everywhere have revealed themselves to be members of the Red Sox Nation over the last two weeks. But you shouldn't be so pessimistic about this. Last year during the ALCS, I can remember only one kid here getting visibly upset as Aaron Fucking Boone homered off Wakefield, and he's a football player whose background is working-class Bostonian. Even during the series, most people were indifferent. But for some reason, be it narrative or hype, this year's Yanks-Sox series stoked passions in even non-baseball fans like my Chilean bio major roommate, who a month ago thought the infield fly rule was a scientific theory. Obviously the comeback made people instinctively identify with the Sox: hell, it follows the plot of every sports movie ever made. The most bizarre thing of all is how people's interest in the series went beyond mere spectatorship. They actually became Red Sox fans, acting as if they had been there as Bucky Dent hit his homer or Buckner let Mookie's grounder roll through their legs; they actually absorbed the consciousness of an 85 year old retired cop from South Boston.
Maybe it's that people want to feel like they're part of a winning team? Maybe it has to do with malaise over the state of our country? Here, we're supposed to be the world's great superpower, beacon of hope and freedom, but mired down in an unacknowledged guerilla war in a country that two years ago posed no threat to us. Our once mighty army is being handcuffed by Pentagon ideologues who launched the most misguided war in three decades, if not in American history. America isn't supposed to be like this. We're optimistic, not pessimistic. Our history is of perpetual motion and progress, guided by a sense of mission and providence, and rarely have there been times when people question our national myths and mythmakers. Today is like 1980: our military power has been humbled, energy prices are skyrocketing, the economy is teetering, geopolitics are in flux, the incumbent president is a spectacular failure who's fiddling as the Mid East burns. Enter the Red Sox - the Miracle on Turf. They're ordinary men, underdogs, who against all odds defeated the great and arrogant power. They're Boston patriots, they're our rebels, our founders. They fit into our national founding myths. They give us a reason to believe in ourselves again.
That and people are insecure douchebags. Lemmings, all of them. I want to take a bat around campus and physically assault every third person I see. It was Schaedenfraude that brought me to the Sox, but after seeing all these NYC private school ass clowns dressing up as Sox fans, I want to emigrate to someplace where they don't give a shit about baseball. Montreal looks promising.
PS. I just realized the plague that will be Buddy Christ/Johnny Damon Halloween costumes. If you don't mind, I'm going to go set myself on fire."
Mr. Campion, wherever you are, I think you just earned yourself a Kerry vote.
-Fosterius
On a rainy England nite, I found myself pleasently tanked on cheap pints and waiting patiently in line for a debate at the Oxford Union Society. (For those of you who don't know the Oxford Union, it is a gentleman's club that for 175 years has given fops in black coats and white bowties a place to sit back by the library fire, drink single malt scotch, have a smoke and read the Financial Times .) This nite, the adjoining debate chambers were packed to capacity with a veritable whos-who of British prep school valedictorians. The resolution before the Union: that "This House would re-elect George W. Bush"
First up two American D.Phil students spoke, one on each side. Then, American tax crusader Grover Norquist spoke for Bush and the editor of the Mirror (the New York Post of the UK, ran a story publishing all 150 pictures of people executed under Bush's tenure as governor of Texas)spoke for Kerry. To top it all off, the third round brought Member of Parliament, First Minister of Northern Ireland, Leader of the Ulster Union, Nobel Laureate 1998, Right Honourable Mr. David Trimble esq. to cap-off the case for the affirmative. In response, the negative fielded....... Richard Dreyfuss. A very drunk (complimentary Union sherry) if not strangely eloquent Richard Dreyfuss.
I had a chickenscratch speech all drawn up and ready to go if I was recognized to speak by the chair, something to the effect of: "Madam President, distinguished colleagues, we find ourselves in the Jaws of one of the toughest presidential campaigns in the history of the United States. Much anti-American Graffiti has been sprayed about this chamber tonite, and I feel compelled to dispel some of the rhetoric being proferred about Mr. Bush's Opus of foreign policy. While it is true that we have not caught Osama Bin Laden, we have had many Close Encounters with high-ranking Al Qaeda fighters along the Pakistani border. And Iraq has not been without its share of successes. Saddam Hussein captured, his heirs apparent dead. Some members of the infamous card deck are still on the loose, for instance former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, so-called "Baghdad Bob". You might ask, "What About Bob?" why hasn't he been captured? I can assure you it is only a matter of time before Bob and his cohort of insurrectionists are Staked-Out and captured. In closing, this House must pass this measure, for the sake of my country and yours. My name is Daniel Foster, and I support The American President."
Oh, and for those of you interested, the measure failed by a 4 to 1 margin, my speech notwithstanding.
-Daniel "Webster" Foster
First up two American D.Phil students spoke, one on each side. Then, American tax crusader Grover Norquist spoke for Bush and the editor of the Mirror (the New York Post of the UK, ran a story publishing all 150 pictures of people executed under Bush's tenure as governor of Texas)spoke for Kerry. To top it all off, the third round brought Member of Parliament, First Minister of Northern Ireland, Leader of the Ulster Union, Nobel Laureate 1998, Right Honourable Mr. David Trimble esq. to cap-off the case for the affirmative. In response, the negative fielded....... Richard Dreyfuss. A very drunk (complimentary Union sherry) if not strangely eloquent Richard Dreyfuss.
I had a chickenscratch speech all drawn up and ready to go if I was recognized to speak by the chair, something to the effect of: "Madam President, distinguished colleagues, we find ourselves in the Jaws of one of the toughest presidential campaigns in the history of the United States. Much anti-American Graffiti has been sprayed about this chamber tonite, and I feel compelled to dispel some of the rhetoric being proferred about Mr. Bush's Opus of foreign policy. While it is true that we have not caught Osama Bin Laden, we have had many Close Encounters with high-ranking Al Qaeda fighters along the Pakistani border. And Iraq has not been without its share of successes. Saddam Hussein captured, his heirs apparent dead. Some members of the infamous card deck are still on the loose, for instance former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, so-called "Baghdad Bob". You might ask, "What About Bob?" why hasn't he been captured? I can assure you it is only a matter of time before Bob and his cohort of insurrectionists are Staked-Out and captured. In closing, this House must pass this measure, for the sake of my country and yours. My name is Daniel Foster, and I support The American President."
Oh, and for those of you interested, the measure failed by a 4 to 1 margin, my speech notwithstanding.
-Daniel "Webster" Foster
Congratulations, Red Sox Fans
Whether you're a diehard or a bandwagoner, a proletarian at BU, bourgeoisie at Harvard, or the odd gray between of upper-middle-class New England Violet-Bloods at Boston College or Tufts; whether you hate the Yankees or just the evil-somehow-vaguely-republican-empire they represent; whether a vote for the Sox is, to you, a vote for Kerry; if resent your parents and their money and your Phillips-Andover education and you swear that that Dominican guy thought of you as black or latino or whatever he was for just a split second as you high-fived in the bleacher seats at Fenway (your friends took the box behind the plate); if you tried to climb the Monster and fell 100 feet to parapalegia; if you rioted at Smith or Amherst or UMass, where most of the locals haven't heard of baseball; if you spotted that worn-out Sox cap at the "vintage" clothing shop and knew right away that it'd make the perfect accompaniment to your hemp necklace at the WTO protest; whether you're a thirty-something Hollywood leading man who rode into glory on your best friend's talent and J-Lo's ass, a man responsible for the propogation of more bad script than penmanship week in third grade; contrarians and Phish fans everywhere; misunderstood, misillusioned, misanthropes; angst-junkies, Ragers against all kinds of Machines; part-time workers of the world, from Brookline to New Haven to Providence, from all four corners of the Abercrombie empire, WASPs and WASCs unite! O, ye martyrs from all walks of privilege, you are the chest-strapped suicide bombers of this great country, the persecuted, the ignored, the uncolored; for a moment that bar in Cambridge was the hill on Golgotha, it was the compound in Waco, it was a temple to the Sultan of Swat from whom you turned your eyes 85 years ago, and who has now, in his infinite power and mercy, finally forgiven you. It inspired you so much, you even slid your Vodka and Red Bull a few more inches down the bartop, cautiously kept your hand in your wallet pocket, and let that 20 year-old son of an Irish cop from Southie slide in and get a better view of the postgame. So it is you, Boston Red Sox fan, that I offer my praise and supplication. Congratulations. Now you're unique, just like everybody else.
-Foster
Whether you're a diehard or a bandwagoner, a proletarian at BU, bourgeoisie at Harvard, or the odd gray between of upper-middle-class New England Violet-Bloods at Boston College or Tufts; whether you hate the Yankees or just the evil-somehow-vaguely-republican-empire they represent; whether a vote for the Sox is, to you, a vote for Kerry; if resent your parents and their money and your Phillips-Andover education and you swear that that Dominican guy thought of you as black or latino or whatever he was for just a split second as you high-fived in the bleacher seats at Fenway (your friends took the box behind the plate); if you tried to climb the Monster and fell 100 feet to parapalegia; if you rioted at Smith or Amherst or UMass, where most of the locals haven't heard of baseball; if you spotted that worn-out Sox cap at the "vintage" clothing shop and knew right away that it'd make the perfect accompaniment to your hemp necklace at the WTO protest; whether you're a thirty-something Hollywood leading man who rode into glory on your best friend's talent and J-Lo's ass, a man responsible for the propogation of more bad script than penmanship week in third grade; contrarians and Phish fans everywhere; misunderstood, misillusioned, misanthropes; angst-junkies, Ragers against all kinds of Machines; part-time workers of the world, from Brookline to New Haven to Providence, from all four corners of the Abercrombie empire, WASPs and WASCs unite! O, ye martyrs from all walks of privilege, you are the chest-strapped suicide bombers of this great country, the persecuted, the ignored, the uncolored; for a moment that bar in Cambridge was the hill on Golgotha, it was the compound in Waco, it was a temple to the Sultan of Swat from whom you turned your eyes 85 years ago, and who has now, in his infinite power and mercy, finally forgiven you. It inspired you so much, you even slid your Vodka and Red Bull a few more inches down the bartop, cautiously kept your hand in your wallet pocket, and let that 20 year-old son of an Irish cop from Southie slide in and get a better view of the postgame. So it is you, Boston Red Sox fan, that I offer my praise and supplication. Congratulations. Now you're unique, just like everybody else.
-Foster
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
The Word Mirror
"Judge a man by his parties." That was the point of The Great Gatsby. Or the opposite. I can never remember. The point is, I do. And so I wonder, what would magical child's birthday party carnival equipment would you most desire? Some people would go for the Bouncy Castle of Anti-Gravity. Others for the Pin-the-furtherly-absurd-animal-part-on-the-Griffin! (For more amusement, also consider Centaur).
But me? I choose the Word Mirror.
See, the Word Mirror's a funny thing. Whatever you put in front of it, it shows you the reflection of the word in it. For instance, if you stand in front of it and laugh ("Ha"), you will see in it a contemplative version of yourself ("ah"). If you're male ("he"), prepare to seem apathetic ("eh").
It's less than impressive to bring a race car before a mirror of any sort and see another reflected back. But for some reason I would be highly amused by bringing Teddy Roosevelt and his thought bubble to in front of the water passage in the Isthmus and seeing it shown back at me. Perhaps this has nothing to do with the Word Mirror at all, and is only because of Teddy's mustache.
Of course, several profound realizations could be made while the birthday boy, now two years old, is amusing himself with a box and some string. For instance, several household objects, a light "bulb" and a door "knob" both become onomatopoeia. Anybody wearing a "decal" would find themselves in, I dunno, some sort of corset? And by the simple act of "retool"ing a device, you'd get to witness honest-to-god vandalism.
Of course, all this is small potatoes, compared to the simple joy of dragging, before the Word Mirror, one small dog.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
The Enfranchised Finally Gets around to Endorsing some Candidates
That's right, its the quadrennial again and we here at The Enfranchised see it as our duty, nay our reluctant and disillusioned irrelevant formality, to guide you, dear reader, as you wade through bodies of exit pollsters and hired goons, electioneers and disenfranchised (the Trotsky to our Stalin, the Turner to our Hooch) on your way to the voting booths. Since we---as 47th degree Free-Masons and members of the Illuminati Oversight Committe---do not vote so much as impose our absolute will wantonly on the masses from atop our Ivory Towers and within our Halls of Power (and occasionally from the john), we figured its the least we could do for you proletariat.
The US Presidential Race
1st choice:
The Libertarian Ticket. If you really hate the status quo and want to stick it to the Man who's straddling both sides of the aisle these days, don't vote Nader. Give Nader the presidency and he'll conduct all his foreign policy via letter-writing campaign. No, vote Badnarik/Campagna. They'll know exactly what to do with the federal government. Namely, destroy it.
Honorable Mentions:
Personal Choice Party: This, we're sad to say, is the only ticket on the ballot to feature both a bona fide member of the International Brotherhood of Prizefighters, and a porn star eligible for Social Security. And just think, if President Charles Jay should perish in an unfortunate White House shower shivving incident, you'll have a capable Vice-President to step in whose foreign policy credits include The Sexual Ecstasy of the Macumba (1975) and Beyond De Sade (1979).
Peace & Freedom Party: Interestingly, the presidential candidate--a French bon vivant by the name of Peltier--has never met his running mate. Maybe it has something to do with Peltier's conviction and ongoing incarceration for the 1975 killing of two federal agents. If the PFP ticket takes the White House, Peltier may well be the first President to pardon himself since Ford ate some bad borscht and got the runs at the SALT II talks in Vladivostock.
Ronald "John Galt Jr." Gascon, Write-in Pennsylvania: I think the name says it all.
Jack Grimes, United Fascist Union: Jack Grimes' rather modest goal is to institute a New World Order by spreading a military dictatorship across the face of the earth. This will presumably be facilitated by our near-at-hand development of psychic powers, with help from UFOs and Satan, without whom Grimes would never be the political force he is today. Sadly, Grimes was never the same after the loss of his brother, Frank, who was driven to madness and an untimely death at the hands of one Homer J. Simpson. We won't link to his website, but you can find it. Make sure you read about his difficulties in getting to an out-of-state campaign event, because mom's car broke down. Jack lives in an apartment above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley.
The British PM Race
1st. choice
Labour: Blair's an Oxford grad. Michael Howard went to that...other place...in the Fenlands. Fenlands Polytechnic I believe its called.
Honourable Mention
Lib-Dems: That Lib-Dem bird I met at the Union bar kind of had a thing for me I think. Plus, in the UK, Democrats actually are liberal.
The Afghani Presidential Race
1st choice
Somebody, for the love of dear and all mercifucl God, SOMEBODY.
Me? I'm voting Bull-Moose.
-Foster
That's right, its the quadrennial again and we here at The Enfranchised see it as our duty, nay our reluctant and disillusioned irrelevant formality, to guide you, dear reader, as you wade through bodies of exit pollsters and hired goons, electioneers and disenfranchised (the Trotsky to our Stalin, the Turner to our Hooch) on your way to the voting booths. Since we---as 47th degree Free-Masons and members of the Illuminati Oversight Committe---do not vote so much as impose our absolute will wantonly on the masses from atop our Ivory Towers and within our Halls of Power (and occasionally from the john), we figured its the least we could do for you proletariat.
The US Presidential Race
1st choice:
The Libertarian Ticket. If you really hate the status quo and want to stick it to the Man who's straddling both sides of the aisle these days, don't vote Nader. Give Nader the presidency and he'll conduct all his foreign policy via letter-writing campaign. No, vote Badnarik/Campagna. They'll know exactly what to do with the federal government. Namely, destroy it.
Honorable Mentions:
Personal Choice Party: This, we're sad to say, is the only ticket on the ballot to feature both a bona fide member of the International Brotherhood of Prizefighters, and a porn star eligible for Social Security. And just think, if President Charles Jay should perish in an unfortunate White House shower shivving incident, you'll have a capable Vice-President to step in whose foreign policy credits include The Sexual Ecstasy of the Macumba (1975) and Beyond De Sade (1979).
Peace & Freedom Party: Interestingly, the presidential candidate--a French bon vivant by the name of Peltier--has never met his running mate. Maybe it has something to do with Peltier's conviction and ongoing incarceration for the 1975 killing of two federal agents. If the PFP ticket takes the White House, Peltier may well be the first President to pardon himself since Ford ate some bad borscht and got the runs at the SALT II talks in Vladivostock.
Ronald "John Galt Jr." Gascon, Write-in Pennsylvania: I think the name says it all.
Jack Grimes, United Fascist Union: Jack Grimes' rather modest goal is to institute a New World Order by spreading a military dictatorship across the face of the earth. This will presumably be facilitated by our near-at-hand development of psychic powers, with help from UFOs and Satan, without whom Grimes would never be the political force he is today. Sadly, Grimes was never the same after the loss of his brother, Frank, who was driven to madness and an untimely death at the hands of one Homer J. Simpson. We won't link to his website, but you can find it. Make sure you read about his difficulties in getting to an out-of-state campaign event, because mom's car broke down. Jack lives in an apartment above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley.
The British PM Race
1st. choice
Labour: Blair's an Oxford grad. Michael Howard went to that...other place...in the Fenlands. Fenlands Polytechnic I believe its called.
Honourable Mention
Lib-Dems: That Lib-Dem bird I met at the Union bar kind of had a thing for me I think. Plus, in the UK, Democrats actually are liberal.
The Afghani Presidential Race
1st choice
Somebody, for the love of dear and all mercifucl God, SOMEBODY.
Miscellaneous (US Senate, Illinois)
1st choice
Me? I'm voting Bull-Moose.
-Foster
Funetics! (It's like Phonetics, but Fun. Wait, no it isn't).
Everyone has a dialect. The South, Boston, San Fernando Valley. All these are famous for their dialects. But my personal dialect is not so regionally based. As near as I can discern, I speak "Overly correct English", with hints of "Passively Aggressively Grammatical." For instance, in most dialects of English, the following is an acceptable interchange:
Random Person: How you doin'?
Dialectical Speaker: Fine.
But in my dialect, it would occur more like this:
RP: How you doin'?
DS: I *am* doin*g* fine.
Aside from its verbal awkwardness ("I am" is a bad iamb), this was also revealed in the June 1998 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine to be the response most likely to get the shit kicked out of you in 87% of circumstances. Luckily, I attend a university that's a preserve of people willing to be such asses, and I can explore these consequences.
Take the email I received today. It raised the issue of how to spell a certain burger chain's name. And I realized the following progression:
In N Out. This is how any knave off the street might spell it upon first hearing. In fact, given today's knaves, we'd be lucky if it didn't end up 1N |\| 000u7! (1 M SO 31337).
In And Out. The way my other overeducated friend spelled it. This is the way the words are spelled.
In-N-Out. This is the official brand name, registered trademark, In-N-Out burgers. See what they did, there? Being hip by having a touch of the proletarian in them. They're hip, with it. A reminder of years past when such corporate desecration of the English Language was newfangled.
In And Out. How I will henceforth spell their name. Let's face it, I'm not cool. Yes, I am familiar with their preferred spelling. But just as there are people who would calque my adored "Philological Semantics" to "Phizzle Sizzle", I find that I must, to maintain my "credibility" (from the hip-hop term "cred"), rewrite it as In And Out. The only alternative is to remember that awful time in Mr. Vivona's 7th Grade Art Class when I referred to "gangsta" rap. Emphasizing the "sta". In my mind, the current generation of police-fuckers and kitten-killers didn't deserve the "er" that men like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly had earned.
In everyone else's mind, I was a dorky, white middle-schooler taking his cues on urban culture from a well-skimmed Newsweek article.
Everyone has a dialect. The South, Boston, San Fernando Valley. All these are famous for their dialects. But my personal dialect is not so regionally based. As near as I can discern, I speak "Overly correct English", with hints of "Passively Aggressively Grammatical." For instance, in most dialects of English, the following is an acceptable interchange:
Random Person: How you doin'?
Dialectical Speaker: Fine.
But in my dialect, it would occur more like this:
RP: How you doin'?
DS: I *am* doin*g* fine.
Aside from its verbal awkwardness ("I am" is a bad iamb), this was also revealed in the June 1998 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine to be the response most likely to get the shit kicked out of you in 87% of circumstances. Luckily, I attend a university that's a preserve of people willing to be such asses, and I can explore these consequences.
Take the email I received today. It raised the issue of how to spell a certain burger chain's name. And I realized the following progression:
In N Out. This is how any knave off the street might spell it upon first hearing. In fact, given today's knaves, we'd be lucky if it didn't end up 1N |\| 000u7! (1 M SO 31337).
In And Out. The way my other overeducated friend spelled it. This is the way the words are spelled.
In-N-Out. This is the official brand name, registered trademark, In-N-Out burgers. See what they did, there? Being hip by having a touch of the proletarian in them. They're hip, with it. A reminder of years past when such corporate desecration of the English Language was newfangled.
In And Out. How I will henceforth spell their name. Let's face it, I'm not cool. Yes, I am familiar with their preferred spelling. But just as there are people who would calque my adored "Philological Semantics" to "Phizzle Sizzle", I find that I must, to maintain my "credibility" (from the hip-hop term "cred"), rewrite it as In And Out. The only alternative is to remember that awful time in Mr. Vivona's 7th Grade Art Class when I referred to "gangsta" rap. Emphasizing the "sta". In my mind, the current generation of police-fuckers and kitten-killers didn't deserve the "er" that men like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly had earned.
In everyone else's mind, I was a dorky, white middle-schooler taking his cues on urban culture from a well-skimmed Newsweek article.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Misery Marketing
As I was watching television tonight, oh gentle reader, my roommate was sucking at the TiVo game, and so we revisited the long-forgotten world of commercials. One captured my attention. A series of black screens, each with simple white text. One read "I only drink on weekends." Another "I only take them for pain." "If you had my problems, you'd drink too." I was captivated!
And then, just when they had me hooked, bam. It was just some superfluous rehab clinic. Look, if you can still speak coherent excuses, how much help can you really need? No, these proclamations had so much more potential. That is, alcohol has left about half of their marketing opportunities on the table. Blonde bombshells and sports events are not their only market. This may sound overly holistic, but... if you think it's a reason to drink, it is.
Again, my humble suggestions for how to take advantage of darker motivations, for fun and profit!
Bud Light: Cause she's not coming back.
Hummer: For when it's "a good size."
Orphaned Puppies: Halfway to philanthropy.
Sony TV's and Playstations: If people come to your room to watch the game, it must be cause you're friends!
Tower Records: With our sales associates, no personal taste is actually required.
Kerry Edwards 2004: Without Roe V. Wade, do you still think she'll want to?
Oh, and in the spirit of attempting to connect with the proletarian tradition of blogging, allow me to say:
song of the moment: Koka Kola
Sunday, October 24, 2004
I am Christ. This has nothing to do with the rest of the post, but I've decided to seize on Bentley's habit of beginning each entry with captivating irrelevance. And, in the continuing spirit of onedownsmanship, I'll add a few choice beverages of my own, UK edition:
Alcoh-Pops: This is the euphemism Brits use in an ill-fated attempt to make the likes of Schmirnoff Ice and Bacardi Silver suitable for human consumption. If you're drinking it, you're at a club called "Filth" somewhere in the Midlands that lives quite well up to its name. You're stunningly attractive, yet have no ass to speak of, and as per common law statute, are "sort of" dating a musician from London. Or you're an American.
Carlsberg: You're a scared shitless Fresher from Devonshire, in over your head at Oxbridge and you're nursing it, at £1.80 a pint, as if it were your blessed mother's breast milk. Or you're a lagerphilic American.
Carling: You meant to order a Carlsberg, but you're too far into it to care. Or you meant to order a Carlsberg and you're an American.
Tetley's Bitter: You're a bic-headed rugby hooligan called Jimb-O, and currently letting the dartboard know what a "fuck-king cunt" it is for refusing to hold onto that last triple twenty you need to beat Dom and the boys. Or you can't afford Carlsberg because you got screwed at the currency exchange and you're an American.
Guinness: You are a former member of the Irish Republican Army, perversely embittered by the vagaries of war of peace. Once, you were a hero of the Counties, now nought but a by-gone relic of "Troubles" your people would just as soon forget, as every day they inch closer to an unholy union with the Orange Men; or, if the pint is sitting unattended and two-thirds full on a crowded bartop, you're an American.
John Smith's Smooth: You are presently dressed in full sub-fusc, black suit, white bowtie, gown and mortarboard, with a pint of dark brown smooth in one hand and a rusty, chipped iron and wood bucket chained to your other, and you've just been instructed by the right honourable master of your drinking society to fill the bucket, "one way or another." Or you tried this instead of Guinness because you're an American.
Budweiser: You're a self-hating Brit or a Brit-hating American.
Pimm's: It's summer term and after six days of play, you've just handed Albert Lord Rothermere's eldest son a sound trouncing at the cricket grounds of Christ Church Meadow. Or you're an American who's never quite forgotten the first time he saw King Ralph.
Champagne: You're a Brit and its either Monday or Tuesday, or late in the week, or Saturday, or the day you go to Church. Or you're celebrating having just become an American, having just met an American, or having just heard about the existence of Americans.
Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we drink.
Alcoh-Pops: This is the euphemism Brits use in an ill-fated attempt to make the likes of Schmirnoff Ice and Bacardi Silver suitable for human consumption. If you're drinking it, you're at a club called "Filth" somewhere in the Midlands that lives quite well up to its name. You're stunningly attractive, yet have no ass to speak of, and as per common law statute, are "sort of" dating a musician from London. Or you're an American.
Carlsberg: You're a scared shitless Fresher from Devonshire, in over your head at Oxbridge and you're nursing it, at £1.80 a pint, as if it were your blessed mother's breast milk. Or you're a lagerphilic American.
Carling: You meant to order a Carlsberg, but you're too far into it to care. Or you meant to order a Carlsberg and you're an American.
Tetley's Bitter: You're a bic-headed rugby hooligan called Jimb-O, and currently letting the dartboard know what a "fuck-king cunt" it is for refusing to hold onto that last triple twenty you need to beat Dom and the boys. Or you can't afford Carlsberg because you got screwed at the currency exchange and you're an American.
Guinness: You are a former member of the Irish Republican Army, perversely embittered by the vagaries of war of peace. Once, you were a hero of the Counties, now nought but a by-gone relic of "Troubles" your people would just as soon forget, as every day they inch closer to an unholy union with the Orange Men; or, if the pint is sitting unattended and two-thirds full on a crowded bartop, you're an American.
John Smith's Smooth: You are presently dressed in full sub-fusc, black suit, white bowtie, gown and mortarboard, with a pint of dark brown smooth in one hand and a rusty, chipped iron and wood bucket chained to your other, and you've just been instructed by the right honourable master of your drinking society to fill the bucket, "one way or another." Or you tried this instead of Guinness because you're an American.
Budweiser: You're a self-hating Brit or a Brit-hating American.
Pimm's: It's summer term and after six days of play, you've just handed Albert Lord Rothermere's eldest son a sound trouncing at the cricket grounds of Christ Church Meadow. Or you're an American who's never quite forgotten the first time he saw King Ralph.
Champagne: You're a Brit and its either Monday or Tuesday, or late in the week, or Saturday, or the day you go to Church. Or you're celebrating having just become an American, having just met an American, or having just heard about the existence of Americans.
Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we drink.
The Right Luxury for the Right Moment
Conspiracies abound. Not on the grassy knoll or in a soundstage in
But critics turn indistinguishable aromas into absurd evaluations. Who among us really thinks that a liqueur may really have "notes of evergreen", unless you're drinking through a coniferous straw? Or that a cigar may remind you of chocolate? And in a genius stroke of crossover mentality, they've begun to say market alcohols with tastes of tobacco and tobacco with flavors of alcohols. Truth is Beauty, Freedom is Slavery, Dogs and Cats, living together.
So, here's me trying my hand at it. And if any of the mentioned brands want to send me a case of their product as a trial sample, I can promise they will be mentioned again with kind words.
[Editor's Note: Many critics make the mistake of treating selection of intoxicant as a sensual experience. It is, like every facet of the truly trendy, a fashionable one. So instead of recommending a cabernet for a beef dish, a nice chardonnay for that chicken
Coors Light: That new
Cobra Malt Liquor: You flunked your Spanish Midterm. Your ex-girlfriend was last seen in the vicinity of some other guy's crotch (or worse some other guys' crotch) and gyrating wildly. Your hamster died. And it's only fucking Wednesday. Best accompanied by Swisher Sweets. Sideways trucker cap optional.
Hennessy: Best when streaking the office of the President of Stanford. Just a bad pun? Yes. Cliche? Yes. But it's not like streaking is original.
Lagavulin Sixteen Year Old Single Malt Islay Scotch: You have just negotiated a deal that will secure the peace of a continent for years to come. But it cost you your family. Drink up, boy. The Nobel in Peace will be small comfort for never seeing your five year old son grow into the man you always hoped he would become. But at least it comes with enough cash to keep you in booze indefinitely.
Natty Lite: Beer pong.
Natty Ice: Beer pong. But with an ironic twist, because you're actually a Republican and you brought it home in the backseat of your Bimmer 3-series (the 5-series wasn't too expensive, it just wasn't quite what you were looking for). Don't forget to wear your collar up!
Charles Shaw: Summer Barbeque with friends, but a few old grudges. This way you'll get drunk enough to actually mention all the shit you've been holding against them for years. And when it comes down to fighting, and they attempt to shank you with the twisted edges of their Rolling Rock bottle, you'll have the extra inch of glass to ensure that it is their face and not yours that is bloodied beyond recognition.
Diesel, Everclear, Bacardi 151, anything that's more alcohol than anything else: You just bought a Sidekick/Hiptop/SmartPhone. It can take pictures, and send them to your friends. Or you can IM on it with your friends. Or remember the phone numbers of 950 of your friends. Or pull a Cyrano and talk for you to your friends. Until you realize you have no friends. Imbibe. Imbibe with a speed hitherto unknown, until you start seeing double. That way, if you make just one friend, you'll end up with two!
Djarum Cloves: You're sitting on your porch, blasting The Shins, and hoping that cute Indie boy from last week's Otter De-oiling still remembers your name.Saturday, October 23, 2004
A Yankees-Red Sox Exchange of Epic Proportions
I received the following e-mail from a good friend at Yale called Sean Campion (all you need know of him is that he's an embittered Mets fan whose come-lately support for the Red Sox is couched in a hatred of the Yankees evil-empire in much the same poetic way that his support for John Kerry is couched in a hatred of Bush's evil-empire).
"Hey… I’ve been meaning for a while to IM you, find out how jolly ol eng has treated you and whatnot, but midterms, sloth and the mesmerizing beauty of Johnny Damon have prevented me from doing anything productive for weeks. Hence, hasty email.
Anyway, I’m sure that Jen kept you up on the details of the most humiliating collapse of any team in sports history. I enjoyed it thoroughly, mainly because I won’t have to listen to Ronan Tynan for another year. Did you know that he added a new verse to God Bless America? It made him approximately 33% more jingoistically irritating. And mercifully, we’ll never have to hear another “who’s your daddy” chant from Yankees fans to the “let’s go Yankees” beat. Game 7 was like a maury povich moment when the paternity test comes back, and it turns out that david ortiz is actually your daddy and he rampages through the studio overturning chairs, only that now he hits monstrous homeruns of Javier Vasquez. Did I mention that I enjoyed this thoroughly?"
To which I responded:
"Camp--
Jen and I made a conscious decision to carry on with our lives as if there were only one team in New York and its postseason fate had been decided in April. That being said, I paid 15 bucks for the postseason package on MLBTV and saw every assfucking moment of it. And if you think that's not bad enough, try the fact that of the dozen other visiting students around here (whom I have to eat with, mind you) ten are from Tufts, Boston College or Brown. Not to mention a cadre of wicket-hitting, Pimms-drinking Englishmen who are rooting for the team NOT called the "Yankees". (The only Tory, or Marquis de Lafayette if you will, is my Politics tutor who, being from Boston England, has a bone to pick with tourists from its Masachussets cousin who find the quaint fishing village in the Eastern Midlands to be a bit of a disappointment).
Nevertheless, all of the Americans agreed after Game 3 that the likeliest outcome would be for the Red Sox to come back and win three games and lose in Game 7 in stunning fashion. It might have even happened if Joe Torre hadn't trusted the start to a 40 year-old Faulknerian man-child who throws instead of pitching and whose last postseason appearance saw a four game sweep of his Padres. That--and his decision to bring Vasquez into the middle of an inning instead of letting a reliever take the hits and have Vasquez start the third--is what cost the Yankees Game 7. That, of course, and the Sheffield/Rodriguez Dante-esque descent into oblivion after Game 3.
I will say the following about your proxy-team however: On the negative side, what the fuck goes through Francona's head? Take Derek Lowe out after 88 pitches in game 4? Use Pedro Martinez in relief in a game seven? Musical chairs with the bullpen every nite, let Foulke throw 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pitches? NOT start Pokey Reese in game seven after Bellhorn's Knoblauchian performance? I think it was truly one of the worst managed series in the history of baseball. But Torre's mistakes were only in Game 7, Francona's were more consistent if nevertheless successful (I'm FIRST-guessing, obviously, not second). Of course, I think its Millar who describes his Red Sox team as "a bunch of idiots"; in a way I'm glad they finally succeeded at cranking out that manuscript of Hamlet. And not a moment too soon, either. Thirteen free agents next year. Hmmm. New York needs a DH, and there's a hitting machine in the AL who plays left field (not very well) and he's said he's always wanted to be a Yankee. Also a disgruntled shortstop in Chicago who'd probably make a fine second-baseman in the Bronx, to further guild the Yankees infield. You cannot stop us Sean, you can only hope to contain us.
On the positive side, a hundred years from now my great-great-grandkids will be able to go to a Yankees/Red Sox game at the stadium and chant with a sense of history and pride: "TWO-thous-AND-four""
So who won the exchange? Cast your votes.
I received the following e-mail from a good friend at Yale called Sean Campion (all you need know of him is that he's an embittered Mets fan whose come-lately support for the Red Sox is couched in a hatred of the Yankees evil-empire in much the same poetic way that his support for John Kerry is couched in a hatred of Bush's evil-empire).
"Hey… I’ve been meaning for a while to IM you, find out how jolly ol eng has treated you and whatnot, but midterms, sloth and the mesmerizing beauty of Johnny Damon have prevented me from doing anything productive for weeks. Hence, hasty email.
Anyway, I’m sure that Jen kept you up on the details of the most humiliating collapse of any team in sports history. I enjoyed it thoroughly, mainly because I won’t have to listen to Ronan Tynan for another year. Did you know that he added a new verse to God Bless America? It made him approximately 33% more jingoistically irritating. And mercifully, we’ll never have to hear another “who’s your daddy” chant from Yankees fans to the “let’s go Yankees” beat. Game 7 was like a maury povich moment when the paternity test comes back, and it turns out that david ortiz is actually your daddy and he rampages through the studio overturning chairs, only that now he hits monstrous homeruns of Javier Vasquez. Did I mention that I enjoyed this thoroughly?"
To which I responded:
"Camp--
Jen and I made a conscious decision to carry on with our lives as if there were only one team in New York and its postseason fate had been decided in April. That being said, I paid 15 bucks for the postseason package on MLBTV and saw every assfucking moment of it. And if you think that's not bad enough, try the fact that of the dozen other visiting students around here (whom I have to eat with, mind you) ten are from Tufts, Boston College or Brown. Not to mention a cadre of wicket-hitting, Pimms-drinking Englishmen who are rooting for the team NOT called the "Yankees". (The only Tory, or Marquis de Lafayette if you will, is my Politics tutor who, being from Boston England, has a bone to pick with tourists from its Masachussets cousin who find the quaint fishing village in the Eastern Midlands to be a bit of a disappointment).
Nevertheless, all of the Americans agreed after Game 3 that the likeliest outcome would be for the Red Sox to come back and win three games and lose in Game 7 in stunning fashion. It might have even happened if Joe Torre hadn't trusted the start to a 40 year-old Faulknerian man-child who throws instead of pitching and whose last postseason appearance saw a four game sweep of his Padres. That--and his decision to bring Vasquez into the middle of an inning instead of letting a reliever take the hits and have Vasquez start the third--is what cost the Yankees Game 7. That, of course, and the Sheffield/Rodriguez Dante-esque descent into oblivion after Game 3.
I will say the following about your proxy-team however: On the negative side, what the fuck goes through Francona's head? Take Derek Lowe out after 88 pitches in game 4? Use Pedro Martinez in relief in a game seven? Musical chairs with the bullpen every nite, let Foulke throw 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pitches? NOT start Pokey Reese in game seven after Bellhorn's Knoblauchian performance? I think it was truly one of the worst managed series in the history of baseball. But Torre's mistakes were only in Game 7, Francona's were more consistent if nevertheless successful (I'm FIRST-guessing, obviously, not second). Of course, I think its Millar who describes his Red Sox team as "a bunch of idiots"; in a way I'm glad they finally succeeded at cranking out that manuscript of Hamlet. And not a moment too soon, either. Thirteen free agents next year. Hmmm. New York needs a DH, and there's a hitting machine in the AL who plays left field (not very well) and he's said he's always wanted to be a Yankee. Also a disgruntled shortstop in Chicago who'd probably make a fine second-baseman in the Bronx, to further guild the Yankees infield. You cannot stop us Sean, you can only hope to contain us.
On the positive side, a hundred years from now my great-great-grandkids will be able to go to a Yankees/Red Sox game at the stadium and chant with a sense of history and pride: "TWO-thous-AND-four""
So who won the exchange? Cast your votes.
Social interactions are inherently funny. Perhaps this is because humans are essentially oversized, hairless rodents. But I think it's also because, when you get right down to it, we make no sense. My favorite, and most vexing example comes from two friends talking together:
Guy friend: Man I miss sex.
Girl Acquaintance: Me too.
Guy: ...
Girl: OK, good night.
If this is not immediately absurd to you, try replacing "have sex" with other phrases, like, "gain intimacy", "engage in a meaningful soulful discussion" or "continue this conversation for more than one sentence." My point is: mutual desire is a quorum in all these circumstances.
To clarify, allow me to gloss the above conversation with my favorite metaphor for physical intimacy.
Guy: I want waffles.
Girl: Funny you mention that, I happen to have a giant surplus of waffles, personally.
Guy: (suggestively) Y'know, you could give me some waffles.
Girl: No, that would be weird. I'm going to go try to give away my waffles. Bye.
Only two things have changed here. One, the suggestion is now voiced, whereas before it was implied. But you don't want to be hooking up with a girl who can't read ellipses anyhow. And second, replacing sex with waffles. And if you think that substantively changes the discussion, well then, my friend, I think you haven't been having the right kind of waffles.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Theses on Bentley's Theory of History
Author's Note: I've decided to fashion my response to Bentley's recent work in the time-honored and celebrated form of aphorisms. The reasons are manifold. For one thing, as Bentley is decidedly more proactive than I am, he has written the thesis on which I can only, in a sense, comment. For another, Bentley is a historical figure whose ideas have had a marked and lasting influence at The Enfranchised and should be come-to-grips-with before any meaningful departure from them can take place.
1. Signifiers as memorials are aimed at evoking a sympathy which can not, by the loose and overlapping 'laws' which govern the human mind, be produced ex nihilo in an unaffected subject. One way of putting this is to say that memorials are signifiers which reinforce the primacy of the (insert unit of political aggregation here), or sustain and reproduce various "imagined communities", whose decay or absence would undermine the prevailing discourses of power. A more sympathetic and slightly less...Continental way of thinking about this, is to say that memorials as signifiers give an otherwise disparate and indifferent set of individuals a common frame of reference from which to motivate certain moral judgments and beliefs which they would otherwise be unmoved to issue. I give you the Le Monde on September 12, 2001: "Today, we are all Americans."
2. We will allow, and indeed assert, the kind of point that Bentley makes about the all-too transient nature of historical remembrances. The Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor, all fade with time and are replaced by the likes of Mai Lei, Tianamen and September 11 (notice the degree of ex poste facto reflexivity and cosmopolitanism associated with the first five that the last, as of yet, lacks). The sheer biological fact of man is that his sympathies fade with spacial and temporal distance. Hume conjectured this in 1740 and it has been confirmed by 150 years of anthropology and social psychology. But this doesn't seem to be all we can say about the matter.
3. Material and institutional remembrances are of two discrete kinds: Those which aim to commemorate and reinforce a particular act, belief, or mode of behavior deemed to be useful and/or important to a given society; and those which aim to emphasize a particularly disuseful or distasteful act, belief or mode of behavior so as discourage its repetion in the future. To acknowledge this distinction is to acknowledge that to say "Support our troops" is something quite different--not just in context but in kind--than to say "Never forget the Holocaust." This, of course, in no way precludes the possibility of a remembrance appealing to both the reinforcement of a positive and the admonition of a negative--as say, the Gettysburg Memorial is both a testament to the bravery of American soldiers and a warning about consequences of deep civil divisions; or Martin Luther King Day is both a celebration of the life of a great American and a warning against the kind of ideological pathos that led to his assassination.
4. Bentley calls on us to "stop deceiving widows and orphans: your loss will be remembered for as long as it can be, as long as it is still useful to remember, as long as it doesn't cause more loss as baggage than it reminds of joy. We are sorry if this compounds your loss, but it has only been by telling this to the generations before you that you even now can walk through streets without weeping at the undiminished loss of those who came before." This is an accurate and thoroughly unattractive conception of the facts. It nevertheless gives the lie to Bentley's broader skepticism. For Bentley, this call to action stems from the moral repugrance of a political end. And while we will not assert that that which is morally impermissible is in someway politically permissible, we will reluctantly but forcefully assert the political efficacy of something that is not impermissible but morally counter-intuitive. By this I mean that the broader social grief and remembrance outlined in #1 is and ought be distinct from the rather more personal and permanent grief and remembrance we can attribute to those "widows and orphans". Whereas the latter are all-too-human reactions to the loss of loved-ones, the former are at least in part practical social tools. I say "in part" because some of the public reaction to 9/11 was no doubt rooted in a universal human sympathy (the existence of which is beyond our present scope). I say this sympathy is in part a "social tool" because it and its material manifestations (memorials etc.) are of one of the two types mentioned in #3. As signifiers subject to distribution via the global media, they remind peoples around the world of acts, beliefs and behaviors to be approbated or admonished. (Notice too that the very same material signifier can and does signify different things to different cultures, e.g. coverage of 9/11 on CNN vs. coverage on Al-Jazeera).
5. Hegel saw history as the acts of a metaphysical agent he called the World Spirit, or, in facile German, the Weltgeist, whose teleological Idea was the substantiation of human freedom through the dialectics of historical change. In Hegel and many of the thinkers of the late Englightenment, there is a kind of almost absurd belief that the history of the world tends toward the better, the greater, the more just. This is what seems so alien to us in the 21st century (and to Bentley and his sympathizers), both about the thinkers themselves and the prevailing social structure to which their ideas gave form. Of course, now we know that it is not inevitable that things get better. In the very least it is contingent. At worst, if one believes in a sort of social entropy, it is inevitable for things to get worse.
6. This knowledge sheds light on a salient and complex feature of history as we have come to understand it: namely, that while things can get better and worse (and while the prevailing discourses of power can be both progressive and reactionary) history itself cannot, in a very important sense, move backwards. It can't, that is, only so long as we remember. It doesn't necessarily matter which particulars we remember, or which images and persons we choose to immortalize, it only matters that there survives a recorded overlapping consensus (with all its inevitable contradictions and subjective interpretations) of what HAS BEEN and WHAT IS. It is of chief importance to remember, even transiently, because remembering is the stuff civilization is built on. Its artificiality need not inspire cynicism in us; its artificiality is essential to its purpose. Society, ideology, material culture, all of it IS artifice. It is the scaffolding to which we cling to keep our collective noses just inches above the raging sea of fundamentalism (and I use that term in its absolutely broadest sense) that threatens to drown us in the pre-historic anarchy, in a life which Hobbes aptly describes as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
7. The human capacity for language, its opposable thumbs and precision grip, as well as a handful of other evolutionary upshots, have given us rational and material capacities sufficiently rich that we can Represent. And if we can Represent we can Remember, and if we can Remember we can Learn, and if we Learn we can Change. It is my hope that it won't be viewed as ugly humanism (and if it is, so be it) to say that man can lay claim to at least some part of the stake in his own teleological end which, until Ozymandias (for all his arrogance and irony), was solely the province of Mother Nature.
D.R. Foster
Pembroke College
Oxford
Erratum
i. Homo Erectus was by definition a hominid, not an australopithicoid.
ii. Signifiers and signifieds? Derrida is dead, may he rest in peace.
Author's Note: I've decided to fashion my response to Bentley's recent work in the time-honored and celebrated form of aphorisms. The reasons are manifold. For one thing, as Bentley is decidedly more proactive than I am, he has written the thesis on which I can only, in a sense, comment. For another, Bentley is a historical figure whose ideas have had a marked and lasting influence at The Enfranchised and should be come-to-grips-with before any meaningful departure from them can take place.
1. Signifiers as memorials are aimed at evoking a sympathy which can not, by the loose and overlapping 'laws' which govern the human mind, be produced ex nihilo in an unaffected subject. One way of putting this is to say that memorials are signifiers which reinforce the primacy of the (insert unit of political aggregation here), or sustain and reproduce various "imagined communities", whose decay or absence would undermine the prevailing discourses of power. A more sympathetic and slightly less...Continental way of thinking about this, is to say that memorials as signifiers give an otherwise disparate and indifferent set of individuals a common frame of reference from which to motivate certain moral judgments and beliefs which they would otherwise be unmoved to issue. I give you the Le Monde on September 12, 2001: "Today, we are all Americans."
2. We will allow, and indeed assert, the kind of point that Bentley makes about the all-too transient nature of historical remembrances. The Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor, all fade with time and are replaced by the likes of Mai Lei, Tianamen and September 11 (notice the degree of ex poste facto reflexivity and cosmopolitanism associated with the first five that the last, as of yet, lacks). The sheer biological fact of man is that his sympathies fade with spacial and temporal distance. Hume conjectured this in 1740 and it has been confirmed by 150 years of anthropology and social psychology. But this doesn't seem to be all we can say about the matter.
3. Material and institutional remembrances are of two discrete kinds: Those which aim to commemorate and reinforce a particular act, belief, or mode of behavior deemed to be useful and/or important to a given society; and those which aim to emphasize a particularly disuseful or distasteful act, belief or mode of behavior so as discourage its repetion in the future. To acknowledge this distinction is to acknowledge that to say "Support our troops" is something quite different--not just in context but in kind--than to say "Never forget the Holocaust." This, of course, in no way precludes the possibility of a remembrance appealing to both the reinforcement of a positive and the admonition of a negative--as say, the Gettysburg Memorial is both a testament to the bravery of American soldiers and a warning about consequences of deep civil divisions; or Martin Luther King Day is both a celebration of the life of a great American and a warning against the kind of ideological pathos that led to his assassination.
4. Bentley calls on us to "stop deceiving widows and orphans: your loss will be remembered for as long as it can be, as long as it is still useful to remember, as long as it doesn't cause more loss as baggage than it reminds of joy. We are sorry if this compounds your loss, but it has only been by telling this to the generations before you that you even now can walk through streets without weeping at the undiminished loss of those who came before." This is an accurate and thoroughly unattractive conception of the facts. It nevertheless gives the lie to Bentley's broader skepticism. For Bentley, this call to action stems from the moral repugrance of a political end. And while we will not assert that that which is morally impermissible is in someway politically permissible, we will reluctantly but forcefully assert the political efficacy of something that is not impermissible but morally counter-intuitive. By this I mean that the broader social grief and remembrance outlined in #1 is and ought be distinct from the rather more personal and permanent grief and remembrance we can attribute to those "widows and orphans". Whereas the latter are all-too-human reactions to the loss of loved-ones, the former are at least in part practical social tools. I say "in part" because some of the public reaction to 9/11 was no doubt rooted in a universal human sympathy (the existence of which is beyond our present scope). I say this sympathy is in part a "social tool" because it and its material manifestations (memorials etc.) are of one of the two types mentioned in #3. As signifiers subject to distribution via the global media, they remind peoples around the world of acts, beliefs and behaviors to be approbated or admonished. (Notice too that the very same material signifier can and does signify different things to different cultures, e.g. coverage of 9/11 on CNN vs. coverage on Al-Jazeera).
5. Hegel saw history as the acts of a metaphysical agent he called the World Spirit, or, in facile German, the Weltgeist, whose teleological Idea was the substantiation of human freedom through the dialectics of historical change. In Hegel and many of the thinkers of the late Englightenment, there is a kind of almost absurd belief that the history of the world tends toward the better, the greater, the more just. This is what seems so alien to us in the 21st century (and to Bentley and his sympathizers), both about the thinkers themselves and the prevailing social structure to which their ideas gave form. Of course, now we know that it is not inevitable that things get better. In the very least it is contingent. At worst, if one believes in a sort of social entropy, it is inevitable for things to get worse.
6. This knowledge sheds light on a salient and complex feature of history as we have come to understand it: namely, that while things can get better and worse (and while the prevailing discourses of power can be both progressive and reactionary) history itself cannot, in a very important sense, move backwards. It can't, that is, only so long as we remember. It doesn't necessarily matter which particulars we remember, or which images and persons we choose to immortalize, it only matters that there survives a recorded overlapping consensus (with all its inevitable contradictions and subjective interpretations) of what HAS BEEN and WHAT IS. It is of chief importance to remember, even transiently, because remembering is the stuff civilization is built on. Its artificiality need not inspire cynicism in us; its artificiality is essential to its purpose. Society, ideology, material culture, all of it IS artifice. It is the scaffolding to which we cling to keep our collective noses just inches above the raging sea of fundamentalism (and I use that term in its absolutely broadest sense) that threatens to drown us in the pre-historic anarchy, in a life which Hobbes aptly describes as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
7. The human capacity for language, its opposable thumbs and precision grip, as well as a handful of other evolutionary upshots, have given us rational and material capacities sufficiently rich that we can Represent. And if we can Represent we can Remember, and if we can Remember we can Learn, and if we Learn we can Change. It is my hope that it won't be viewed as ugly humanism (and if it is, so be it) to say that man can lay claim to at least some part of the stake in his own teleological end which, until Ozymandias (for all his arrogance and irony), was solely the province of Mother Nature.
D.R. Foster
Pembroke College
Oxford
Erratum
i. Homo Erectus was by definition a hominid, not an australopithicoid.
ii. Signifiers and signifieds? Derrida is dead, may he rest in peace.
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