Just so that I have no direction to go but down, I’m going to go ahead and do the most pretentious thing that it is possible for a human being to do. That is to “define” a kind of art. In doing so, I’m trying to explain some of the thinking that goes [...]
Category Archives: Criticism
The Case for Defunding NASA
January 27, 2012 – 12:12 am
However shall we fill our time?
Exquisite distances
between the lines
Three thousand years to get to outer space
all the time wishing we were
face to face
What makes a difference?
Is it information spat back to the earth?
Why not just use our lives
to celebrate the moment of our birth?
You can bring the olives
and I will bring some wine
he can cook [...]
some thoughts on Internet privacy and identity (city vs. village)
November 13, 2011 – 8:37 pm
One of the things at stake–in the debate about internet privacy, say–is whether or not people will be able to be whole people, real people, on the Internet.
This is related to the question of whether or not people can be whole people, real people, in public.
A difference between living in a city and living in [...]
to a coin
October 31, 2011 – 12:04 am
You are brilliant. You are foolish. Your nature cycles like the sunlight.
Which are you, in any moment, in particular? How could you tell?
Can you reach behind yourself to pull your own puppet strings? Can you reach in front of you, lift your own palm to your face–’stop’?
Eyes will only see only [...]
Apotheosis of Crowds
October 29, 2011 – 5:30 pm
Oh, ye of little faith, why don’t you just put the broader problem out
on the internets and hope for an emergent self-organization? – Yuri Takhteyev
Today, the crowd is wise, participatory, and united. As the success of Wikipedia and existence of Mechanical Turk prove, ‘crowdsourcing’ techniques, which harness voluntary human activity to produce knowledge [...]
An OPEN LETTER to Maestro R. Stuart Geiger, PhD (student)
October 13, 2011 – 7:39 pm
An OPEN LETTER to Maestro R. Stuart Geiger, PhD (student):
I have recently received joint approval from the UC-Berkeley Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects and the Graduate Division for our Nemesis relationship.
This is a relief. It’s been a restless fortnight since our last Thirsty Thursday encounter, when you scandalized me with your ideological [...]
Book Review: The Secret of Staying in Love
August 11, 2011 – 5:51 pm
The Secret of Staying in Love by John Joseph Powell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book has changed my life.After reading this book, I feel much better about accepting myself and the fullness of my emotional life. I feel more comfortable expressing those emotions, and believe that open expression of emotion is a condition [...]
Jetsam: “Postmodernism”
July 20, 2011 – 6:46 pm
Not sure what was going on here. The paragraph is in quotes, so I think it may supposed to be read as ‘overheard in New York’ or a parody of Lacanian-influenced (Butlerian?) jargon.
“Postmodernism attempts to solve the problem of cultural rape with a policy of universal castration, equalizing all narratives by reducing them to [...]
Public Service Announcement: MS Paint Adventures
April 20, 2010 – 12:17 am
One of the best things on the internet right now is an interactively composed webcomic called, misleadingly, MS Paint Adventures.
Its artist and writer, Andrew Hussie, demonstrated his potential first with Problem Sleuth, a year-long masterpiece of magical realist detective noir. From simple, whimsical beginnings it mutated into a brilliant epic that proved that the [...]
