On Facebook
In exchange for making our social lives more convenient, Facebook enters into a relationship with society such that it has the power to transform our sociality into commercially useful information, turn our relationships into market research and use that data to anticipate and shape our future selves with the ads it calculates that we should be presented with. It manages our friendships and then processes the data interrelationships to guide the process of how we subsequently develop our identities through its site.
On Hunger
Half the world will go to bed hungry tonight. Interestingly, among hunter-gatherer's whose lives have barely changed in 40,000 years, hunger is seldom seen. Thus, this (and not the stone age) is an era of hunger unprecedented.
Now, in the time of material over-abudnance, starvation is not merely an overlooked, sadenning outlier. No, it is much more than that: it has become a necessary institution. For it is always true that as material goods accumulate, people suffer, victims of the very goods they helped accumulate, and which now enslave, victimize, and starve them. Simulatenously, they create an unceasing desire for more, and so doubly increase our hunger.
The history of humankind is this: once upon a time we lived in a world of plenty, because our needs exactly matched our available resources. Things were going well until one day someone decided to start hoarding. Agriculture (i.e., animal and plant hoarding), buildings, fat people, and facebook naturally followed (note these are all forms of hoarding behavior).
On The Coming Of The Apocalypse
The White Horse (Liar)- Bill Clinton
The Red Horse (warmonger)- George Bush
The Dark Horse (brings economic despair) -Barack Obama
The Pale Horse (world war) - Sarah (Pale)in
Immense Solar Activity. Calendars ending. Aztecs. 2012
The Evidence Is Overwhelming: The Apocalypse is Coming...
This grand cycle of evolution will culminate
winter solstice, December 21, 2012 AD. More here
No Motto Please, We're British
Some time during the year of 2007, it was proposed by one Gordon Brown that the British adopt a 'national motto' to sum up the 'values' of our great nation. Of course, it went absolutely nowhere, but the public nonetheless were given the opportunity to have their fun with it. The Times held a motto competition, for which members of the public were invited to give 'suggestions' as to how best express what it is that binds us as a nation. The highlights are as follows:
“Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco”
“Britain, a terribly nice place”
“Less stuffy than we sound”
“Stubborn to the point of greatness”
“Promoting ahistorical unity myths since 1066”
“West Lothian was my undoing”
“Once mighty empire, slightly used”
“Your nation, ruined by Labour”
“Going down with Brown”
“Americans who missed the boat”
"We strive for valiant defeat"
"Let’s discuss it down the pub"
"Sorry, is this the queue?"
"Drinking continues till morale improves"
"In America we trust"
Last but not least, my personal favorite:
"At least we’re not French"
I'm Not The Only One
This video would be sublime perfection were it not for the presence of one Yoko Ono and her stare of death.
On the political mobilization of nature in seventeenth-century French formal gardens.
Could anything possibly be more obscure?
And, yet, the importance of this phenomenon should not be underestimated. The formal garden, one of the most disturbing examples of man's obsession of tailoring nature to fit his own narrow, symmetrical, consumption-orientated mind, is in dire need of re-evaluating. As any human being compos mentis is aware, nature's political mobility seeks to achieve this.
Ne humanas crede.
Think about it.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes
Or the importance of keeping Latin learning alive.
From bbc.co.uk:
Councils ban use of Latin terms.
A number of councils in Britain have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they might confuse people.
But the ban has prompted anger amongst some Latin scholars
Professor Mary Beard of Cambridge University said it was the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.
But the move has been welcomed by the plain English campaign, which says some officials only use Latin to make themselves feel important.
A campaign spokesman said the ban might stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g with egg.
More here
Good News
This from the today's New York Times:
"The economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter, as personal consumption spending fell for the first time in 17 years."
No doubt, people all across our great nation are becoming inspired by our message: Stop consuming, and start creating!
On War
Obama-McCain have been waging war on the American mind. Their weapon of choice: boredom. Day after day, we are subject to a barrage of badges, buttons, and all sorts of nick-knacks, and for what?
An election is an artificial game, which follows a strange, arbitrary set of rules. Hence, when you enter the polling booth you become nobody.
War, in contrast, is best defined as a game with no rules. War is life. It is the most biological (and therefore least artful) form of human existence. When you enter this game, you perish. The best you can hope for is to replicate your genes and store them in the body of your "child." (I agree: disgusting!)
An information war has scorched the metaphysical plane. Ergo, our society has entered into a state of suspension; and the flower that is art has ceased to bloom (but has not yet wilted).
On Language
Language is a highly flawed means of communication. I call for perestroika and glasnost on the commonly accepted devices for transmission of ideas, concepts and emotions. After all, how can we as a species ever truly acknowledge the constraints that we are forever bound to if we cannot place ourselves outside of language? Pictorial representations offer a glimmer of hope, but are perhaps not entirely effective either.
Comments, offerings and suggestions are highly encouraged (nay, pleaded for).
[Quentin]
A modest proposal: at the heart of all communication is the Will to Groom. Yet grooming, as currently practiced (e.g., 'www.facebook.com'), is unacceptable. Ergo, I call for an extension of our perestroika and glasnost into the realm of grooming.
[Quentin]
A modest proposal: at the heart of all communication is the Will to Groom. Yet grooming, as currently practiced (e.g., 'www.facebook.com'), is unacceptable. Ergo, I call for an extension of our perestroika and glasnost into the realm of grooming.
All Gloss and No Substance
Or, why PowerPoint is responsible for the death of the soul. With the advent of the PowerPoint presentation we have descended into a society of light, color, bullet points and nothing more.
Think about it.
More Reasons to Salute Richard Dawkins
Finally, Dawkins has spoken out against Harry Potter. More here.
Possibly the best part of the article: "His scientific world view once led him to talk about suing astrologers under the Trade Descriptions Act".
Kurt Vonnegut Quote of the Day
Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.
On The Importance of Being Meta
Fiction and art are dead; only metafiction and meta-art are appropriate.
On Nihilism
I think God cast himself into oblivion.
There is no divine doctrine.
Do whatever you please, children.
Many things exist, but ultimately the sum is zero. There is no pillaging: we are all paying for it (we just cannot see it).
The way I see it, to encompass the whole is death itself; no longer are we bound to a particular dimension.
We think conspiracy exists but none are privy enough to realise that it is mere evolution.
If you were not tormented by others, you would find a way to torment yourself.
On the Human Obsession With Noise
The Laughter-Track; The requirement to "Contribute" in class; The Assumption that an absence of words suggests Deficiency;
All examples of the sick, carcinogenic human OBSESSION with meaningless, pointless noise.
And what is noise?
Noise is grooming. Noise is a more evolved (i.e., more efficient per unit energy) form of primitive, primate social conditioning. We call for a glasnost on noise.
Enjoy the silence. See: "Words are very unnecessary."
Quash your obsession with noise to free your soul from the chains of earthly desires. You have everything you need to survive. Stop the grooming. Make grooming an embarrassing vestige of thoughts I once had. Better by far that you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad (See: E.B. Browning).
On Micro-Aggression
We, the aforementioned, propose a new term to guide our academic inquiry: micro-aggression. By micro-aggression, we mean a deterministic, logical behavioristic account of every-day violence.
Credit to: Jaymie Paige Stein, for her ongoing work and research in this field.
On Historiographic Metafiction
History is a mere fabrication. Nothing matters. Be here now.
History is used to control people through the construction of a community mythology centered on forcibly-imagined events.
This Life is Only a Part of a Mosaic
There is writing happening
Maybe thats hard for you to understand
I am here but "I" am not here
I am writing but "I" am not writing
Inside of me in the heart cave is a
Mantra going on that reminds me
Who I really am
Over and over again
In this inner place
I am
And even as I write, where this
Mantra is going on Im just watching with
Great awe and wonder
Why I Love Richard Dawkins:
Richard Dawkins and his British Humanist Association are paying for ads like these to be posted on buses in London.Said Dawkins of the campaign:
"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion."
On Elevators (Lifts)
Elevators are one of the most inappropriate inventions of modern times. It is not the concept per se, but instead the execution of the elevator plan that falls so short of appropriateness. A situation in which human beings are forced into such unwanted intimacy is inherently wrong. Humans as a species were not designed to cope with other (nay, unfamiliar) humans in confined spaces. Ipso facto, elevators serve only to make the experience of existence even more painful that it has to be.
Take a journey in a peopled elevator today, and just feel the tension that suffuses the very air space into which you are confined for those torturous moments as you desperately await your destination. Unpleasant, isn't it?
My proposition? Individual elevators. (In addition to this, I would like to see isolation booths in libraries)
For other examples of inappropriate human confinement, see: underground train networks, espec. the London Tube.
Hoc est in votis
Take a journey in a peopled elevator today, and just feel the tension that suffuses the very air space into which you are confined for those torturous moments as you desperately await your destination. Unpleasant, isn't it?
My proposition? Individual elevators. (In addition to this, I would like to see isolation booths in libraries)
For other examples of inappropriate human confinement, see: underground train networks, espec. the London Tube.
Hoc est in votis
Why Text-Messaging Matters
From PopMatters.com:
[Texting]'s about escaping the hassles of reciprocity in communication. Something is certainly lost in this; much is communicated incidentally in conversation as people wend their way to what they want to say and react to the seemingly extraneous information that enters in to the exchange. But much is gained in the way of emotional efficiency when you can broadcast your intentions and proceed. This seems like a main shift in the way we communicate—social networks and cell-phones and such encourage us to broadcast information about ourselves without particular concern for reciprocity or the particular context our audience might be dealing with. It grants us the gift of impersonality, which is not the same as anonymity—it’s instead a heightened performativity; the posture of a writer toward a public. It requires us to assume a certain self-centeredness, to be sure, but it also respects the audience as well, in that it doesn’t demand their immediate attention. So I think Menand is totally wrong when he claims that “delay is the only disrespect.” The whole point of texting is that delay is your prerogative. You are not required to hold this radiation-emitting device to your ear waiting for a response.
[Texting]'s about escaping the hassles of reciprocity in communication. Something is certainly lost in this; much is communicated incidentally in conversation as people wend their way to what they want to say and react to the seemingly extraneous information that enters in to the exchange. But much is gained in the way of emotional efficiency when you can broadcast your intentions and proceed. This seems like a main shift in the way we communicate—social networks and cell-phones and such encourage us to broadcast information about ourselves without particular concern for reciprocity or the particular context our audience might be dealing with. It grants us the gift of impersonality, which is not the same as anonymity—it’s instead a heightened performativity; the posture of a writer toward a public. It requires us to assume a certain self-centeredness, to be sure, but it also respects the audience as well, in that it doesn’t demand their immediate attention. So I think Menand is totally wrong when he claims that “delay is the only disrespect.” The whole point of texting is that delay is your prerogative. You are not required to hold this radiation-emitting device to your ear waiting for a response.
As Facts Emerge
From the Atlantic:
Anyone who has blogged his thoughts for an extended time will recognize this world. We bloggers have scant opportunity to collect our thoughts, to wait until events have settled and a clear pattern emerges. We blog now—as news reaches us, as facts emerge.
Interested? Read more.
Limerick for D.W.
There once was a pupil named David Wu.
Sad face! His website was overdue,
So he worked through the night.
"I won't fail at life!"
Undergrad? Undergrad, Harvard's a zoo.
Why Gender is a Fabrication and Identity is a Free-Floating Artifice
Judith Butler has always been able to express this better than I ever could:
"There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender;...identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results."
Now read this.
On Personalities
The term "personality", used to describe the traits that make each human being an individual, is a misnomer. "Personality traits" are merely outward manifestations of insecurities, of which nearly all humans are suffused with. The only secure people are those with absolutely no "personality".
Consider various "personality traits":
Humour- Little more than a defense mechanism utilised in order to deflect attention from oneself and onto a situation, alternative person etc.
Kindness- Little more than a desperate attempt to win the approval of others.
Ambitiousness - Little more than deep dissatisfaction with oneself and one's position in life.
As a consequence, our personalities are little masks which we wear, even to deceieve ourselves, each personality hiding from the others, every person a set of personalities, insecurities.
But where, boys and girls, do insecurities come from? They are bred from fear, and fear is the greatest enemy of all.
Take off your masks; do not be afraid.
Think about it.
Why I Love Democracy
From the New York Times
“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”"
This Picture Reminded Me of a Book
System.out.println("The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.");
God jewGod();
Boolean jewGod= false;
Child littleChild = "David Wu";
//This picture disturbed me on many levels.
The Community of Selves
From the Atlantic Monthly:
"Imagine a long, terrible dental procedure. You are rigid in the chair, hands clenched, soaked with sweat—and then the dentist leans over and says, “We’re done now. You can go home. But if you want, I’d be happy to top you off with a few minutes of mild pain.”
There is a good argument for saying “Yes. Please do.”
...
"We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I."
Why There is No Morality
Morals evolved. Morality is blindly selected for things that are necessary for survival, and nothing else. Therefore there is no universal morality, and if there is no universal morality, then there is no morality whatsoever.
Fin
COMMUNITY IDENTITY STABILITY
"Stability," said the Controller, "stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individualstability." His voice was a trumpet. Listening, they felt larger, warmer.
The 2000s: The Decade of No Culture
{
//The 2000s will heretofore be known as the decade of no culture, the public static void[]
//of our times;
}
Oscar Wilde Quote of the Day
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
I Am
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
John Clare
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
John Clare
Proust Fact #1
Did you know that Marcel of the Prousts had one of the first telephones in Paris, and that he used his telephone to listen to operas, so that he would not have to leave his bedroom?
The Devolution of Mankind
Humans are devolving. We repeat: humans are devolving. By devolving, we mean a whole host of ideas about revolutionary behavioral change. Our story begins with the stone age, and ends with the silicon age. Our bodies have become useless, and our brains are only useful insofar as they master the circuitry required to interact with the machines which rule our lives (see: video games espec. Rock Band).
The Perfection Delusion
Perfection cannot be achieved because if you could imagine it, you would achieve it. Therefore, perfectionists should instead be referred to as striving-for-perfection-ists. Perfection is a delusion, and those who strive for it are likewise deluded.
The Perestroika of Self-Esteem
How does one embark on this seemingly impossible task?
The loss of self-esteem is a terrible thing. How do you retrieve it? Where does it even go?
The answer is in the enchanted forest. Everyone is lost in the forest.
When a preying mantis male encounters a female and the two mate, the wedding ceremony typically ends with the female consuming the male. The reason: it is highly unlikely that the mantis will find another female, and so he has to make the most of his opportunity. Rather than destroy the female's self-esteem, the male instead enriches, with literally all he can offer, both the mind and body of his invertebrate bride.
Grey Squirrel: America's Revenge
Long ago, a man named Christopher Columbus inhabited a boat for an inappropriate amount of time and crashed into a distant island, whereby he and his tribe proceeded to kill or enslave all the inhabitants.
Next came the squirrel, who left America for the distant shores of England. Here, they encountered their own 'red man,' the red squirrel, that is. There was a struggle. Swiftly, their evolutionary history enabled them to poison their aboriginal rivals, thereby rendering the indian squirrel extinct, and ensuring American hegemony.
Revenge through reverse-colonization? We think so.
The Declaration of Human Rights
- No adverts on the subway
- Above-ground trains
- Monorails (see 2.)
- White Paint
- Central Park should extend from river-to-river, thereby creating a necessary divide.
- Americans, but only Americans, are entitled to exceptionalism
- The mascot of America should be changed to the grey squirrel (see Grey Squirrel: America's Revenge)
- Inter-generational mentors
- Silence
- Robots, not waiters
The Elephant in the Room: That Elephant is Religion
Is there a God? Yes. His name is Richard Dawkins. Now consume.
The Complicated Appeal of Puppetry
or, why I'm going to be a Gallatin student at NYU. I am self-motivated, disciplined, and individualised.
The Vulgarity of Humans
Dear Space Log:
Humans are deplorable. They erect cities as though they were monuments to power, when in reality they are merely the artifacts of our flesh-and-blood reactivity (see action-reaction).
Why the 1980s Were the Zenith of Western Civilisation
The 80s has not been adequately assessed. Our aim is to begin a process of Glasnost regarding this seminal period in humanity's history. We know that our task is surmountable. It is also one which is of pressing concern, even absolute necessity.
The Golden Age:
Material wealth and spontaneity characterize the 80s, whilst our age is defined by material want and predictability.
We need more poetry. The 80s was a time for poets, a zenith for the artist. Today, art is dead. All that is left is a cadaver, which the fungus that is modern technology decomposes into nitrates such as nitric acid (see: nitrogen cycle).
Nature's Magic Show
Water devices: A gift from the gods?
Too much? Our new friend Bong Erban would beg to differ.
Did you know that water devices produce a smoke containing significantly fewer cancer-giving chemicals? Not to mention the zenith of sensation that is the silky smooth journey of the aforementioned smoke as it wends its way into your lungs in order to perform its magic trick, and that magic-show experience of traveling through reality in the state in which it is best experienced: as close to "reality" as the human mind can ever truly experience.
Things in the physical world are often imagined as belonging to a different category of things than mental concepts. But physical things only exist - in the mind. Can we untie this knot?
We cannot. It is a magical mystery that only the help of Bong Erban and the flower that we implant in its chambers can make sense of.
dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori
General Genocide: The Truth about Washington
Have you ever taken a stroll through the hallowed web of New York city, only to find yourself face-to-face with white supremacy? I hope you answered yes. Because if you have ever crossed a street or an avenue in this "land of the free", you have.
The White Man: symbol of hope, safety and enticement to progress through the erban jungle on your journey of your life.
The Red Hand: symbol of fear; threat of danger. Heart of Darkness.
We, the aforementioned, are deeply concerned by this egregious use of race-based symbols in our everyday affairs. We venture into the erban jungle to escape from our shameful legacy, only to be reminded at every turn and crossing of the forever-tainted past.
It is time for some Perestroika. Namely a reconsideration of the nomenclature of our street signals. Join us in our renewed effort to reverse this blatant propagation of white supremacy. Likewise, please join our movement to have General Washington hereafter referred to as General Genocide.
Button Moon
Excerpt from a trippy British kid's TV show of the late 80's/early 90's. This is what we were raised on; it explains so much. The best part is the music; let it permeate your very being.
The Irony of it All by the Streets
It is time for Perestroika and Glasnost. Take this very seriously.
Haiku
And now a little something inspired by our Japanese friends. A haiku, if you will.
David Wu Websites
What college do you attend?
Undergrad? Harvard.
Senses Working Overtime by XTC
The guilty ones can all sleep safely...
This is, quite simply put, one of the best songs ever known to Creation. Hear the metaphors. Live your lives according to them. Can you taste the difference between a lemon and a lime?
Why Numbers Are Incompatible With Life
Think about it.
From birth until death we are assigned numbers. The predicate "x years old" (where x is a number) is used in a manner that implies it has meaning. But it is no more than a celestial scarring of the Earth; a marking on the sands of our habitat. Where did these numbers originate? And why are they accepted as universal truths? They are merely a blindly-evolved misfiring of primitive comparing and contrasting behavior. No more than a lion on the Savannah contemplating energy sources.
Numbers are a plague on our lives. They are used to control. You are x years old and now you must do y. This is the mantra by which we live. Note the use of the number to direct and control.
In times gone by, humans did not life their lives governed by numbers. Not merely the commoners, but kings too, were blissfully ignorant of the number to which today we would assign then. Imagine a life sans age. Where one is free to encounter life's supervenient obstacles at one's own pace and volition. The liberty to enter and exit centers of mental hygiene (formal education establishments) when one is mentally, emotionally, psychically and physically ready. Citizens will reach the zenith. Life as we know it will reach the zenith.
Linearity, closely related to numbers, is another institution we wish to cleanse from our mental store-houses.
Genesis
Hark.
Here be the culture and the creation of Emily of the Martins and Andrew of the Goldbergs.
"People the world over need to stop consuming, and start creating"
This is the quote that precipitated This. One foggy day in Londinium some time during the year of 2008, the aforementioned female was in the company of a BBC documentary concerned with ART. The featured ARTtist uttered these immortal words. Consumption was re-evaluated. Creation ensued. This is the not the beginning. This is merely the end.
EM; AG
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