[PREV - BRENNER_SCALE] [TOP]
WHATSNEW
Here we go with the traditional inverse
chronological change-log, without which
no site is complete:
03/01/10
Added:
MEMORY
02/20/10
Tastes in solitary games:
SOLITARE
02/20/10
Freeman Dyson's recent writings about Dirac -- mathematical
elegance as truth and philosophical agnotiscism about quantum
mechanics:
DIRAC_TRUTH
02/19/10
A simple, playable form of 3D tic-tac-toe:
3D_TIC
Extending that to 4 dimensions:
SLICING_THE_CUBE
02/19/10
James Blish's "The Quincunx of Time" aka "Beep".
Psychological reactions to pre-destination.
QUINCUNX
02/19/10
Added:
EXISTENTIAL
FREEWILL
02/17/10
Added:
ELEGANCE
02/16/10
Added:
DOUBLE_THINK
02/14/10
Added:
DYNAMIC_PRICING_SLIPPERY_CUSTOMERS
THE_LONE_TIT
BIG_BOXES_OR_NONE
KRUGMAN_PREDICTS
02/07/10
Added:
ORWELLS_MURDER
02/07/10
Added:
ABSOLUTISTS_COCOANUT
02/07/10
Added:
MENAND_PIERCED
02/06/10
Added:
HOWROTCOD
TACTICAL_LOGIC
EARTHBOUND
02/06/10
Added:
TEXTS_IN_DECLINE
ACADEMIC_LIGHTS
DEATH_SCENES
IN_SUM
THERE_IS_A_WAR
ROUGH_HEWN
BACK_TO_CENTER
RISING_QUESTION
GRINDING_HEADS
MENAND_CLUBBED
MENAND_HAACKED
RORTY
TRAITORS_OF_INTELLECT
DECOY
DEGENERATE_TRIANGLE
SHADE_CAST
LONG_NOSED_BEAGLES
IS_POT_BLACKNESS_HEREDITARY
KRUGMAN_INCLINED
PEDDLING_PROPERITY
KEY_ISSUE
TICKING_TIME_BOMBS
24_TEARS
01/24/10
Added:
TIMED_OUT
COCKBURN_TIMES_OUT
DOING_THE_LIBERAL_RAG
FROM_BOTH_SIDES_NOW
SMALL_TIMES
CIA_FRONT
01/08/10
Added:
FONGHOOSIM
11/06/09
Added:
ANIMA_SPIRITA
PLATYPUS
SCIENCE_OF_LUCK
UNBLOCK
CARNEGIE
FREAKING_HELP
SUPERIOR_MAN
THOUGHT_ACTION_DISCONNECT
ON_THE_WALL
CHRISTIAN_ZOMBIE_VAMPIRES
DIVERGENT_WORLDLINE
HORNBLOWER
REALLY_MAD
LUST_FOR_ALTRUISM
CROSS_WALK
DARK_COMET
MUERTOS
CHINATOWN
08/07/09
Added:
BLADES_OF_PERL
06/17/09
Added:
LAOTZU
06/17/09
Added:
---------------
04/13/09
Added:
TIMES_AGAINST_DARKNESS
04/2-3/09
Scavenging some pieces begun long ago and left lying around...
A tiny little bit, a reminder to myself
to make use of my core conceit:
ZERO
An overview of book and movie versions of "Absolute Beginners":
ABSOLUTE_BEGINNERS
James Blish, author and critic of science fiction:
BLISH
Puzzling over a "New Pornographers" song:
TWIN_CINEMAS
04/02/09
Continuing my blundering around through the history of genre fiction:
reading an E. Phillips Oppenheim novel:
THE_ZEPPELINS_PASSENGER
A bit about the embrace of expansionism (from the above novel):
LEBENSHRAUM
A guess about the Meaning of WWI (that it has none):
FIRST_STAB
03/24/09
Some quotations from Goethe's "Theory of Color":
IN_CONTRAST
03/22/09
A (facetious?) suggestion about putting over a philosophy of programming
with a forced athletic analogy:
BIATHOLON
03/22/09
Failures of nerve in the web game
NERVE
But then, the software world has seen some cases of excessive ambition...
XANADU
An expanded discussion of one of Wikipedia's failure of nerve:
NOFOLLOW
03/21/09
About fiction vs. non-fiction:
NON
03/21/09
A long series about "masculinity", going over some claims
about the virtues of fictional violence, some discussion of
violent behavior among school children, and so on...
MASCULINE_AMERICAN_MAN
VIDEO_CHILDREN
HULK_JONES
SCHOOL_OF_PAIN
RACE_DOWN
VIOLENT_DREAMS
DOMINANT_WHINING
IRON-MAN
STICKY_BLADE
MEN_AT_WORK
MEN_OF_THE_WEST
MALE_ENERGY
FAILED_MISSION
LAST_TRAIL
BAD_SMELL
THE_NEW_FLESH
BEYOND_REST
BEYOND_REASON
THE_PLASTIC_FALLACY
INTROSPECTION
TATS_FOR_TITS
BAD_TASTE
03/20/09
Re-wrote and expanded:
WRONG_BATTERIES
03/07/09
Bohemia in life and art...
WHATNOT
SEEKING as in, "Desperately--"
A few fan write-ups:
The one and (one hopes?) only Bill Weinberg:
WEINBERG
Dan/Dani/L.E. Leone:
THE_JAWS_OF_THE_LEONE
02/18/09
A first brush with the Greil Marcus book "Lipstick Traces" all about
the punk-dada connection, and perhaps one of the stupidiest works
ever generated by the pomo-eighties:
CHALKBOARD_TRACES
Jamming about the game of tracing influences, thinking broadly about
patterns in cultural change (e.g. cycles between apollo/dionysisus):
FLUENCE
John Cage's take on the purpose of music "To sober and quiet the mind"
QUIET
The evolutionary character of art may explain the mystery of "the muses"
speaking through the mediocre:
DIVINE_INFLUENCES
Fashion of the 1910s and 1920s, a rejection of decoration
that starts as asceticism and turns into elegance:
SACKS
02/16/09
Tensions between activists and artists (with John Reed's musings
as an example):
ACT_VS_ART
A very small point about hipster neoteny:
LIKE_CHILD_MAN
A very inadequate piece about the moments when you know
you've crossed over into the underground:
BOHO_MOMENTS
The downtown could move uptown more easily once upon a time:
A_TRAIN
Discussing the poetry of the Moderns of the Greenwich VIllage of the 1910s:
BLANK_VERSE
About Edna St. Vincent Millay ("Renascene", etc):
MALAISE
Who she was sleeping with (and people's attitudes toward it)...
MELEE
02/11/09
Revised:
FALSE_CENTER
PUNK
01/27/09
Added:
DUCHAMP
STUCK_ON_ART
01/22/09
Added:
MY_NAME_IS_MODESTY
01/20/09
Added:
POSITIVELY_HIP
BOHEMIAN
SEARCH_PATTERN
DUSTY_MYSTERY
HAZE
ACT_ONE
IMPROPER_BOHEMIANS
WAR_IN_PATERSON
GREENWICH_SECEDES
MAD_WORLD
PROPAGANDA_AND_EXPECTATIONS
LONG_CHERISHED_DREAM
FOG
12/11/08
Added:
EMDASH
10/19/08
Added:
REAL_MEN
CONSCIOUS
SLEEPWALKERS_LIBRARY
10/18/08
Added:
MEN_OF_TOMORROW
SMALL_WONDER
COMICAL_DEAL
AMAZING_AUGUST_1928
ACT_OF_CREATION
THE_SOURCE
SUPER_CAMP
TIGHTS
BAREMINDED
EMERALD_LAND
MCFADDEN
GERNSBACK
DISTRIBUTION
NITS_OF_TOMORROW
DRUG_CRAZY
FOUND_DEAD
KEY_FIGURES_BIT_PLAYERS
10/17/08
Added:
PROPORTION
10/16/08
Added:
WAY
MONKEYTRAPS
LAMPPOST
10/15/08
Added:
ON_HUMAN_BONES
SLEEPERS_WAKE
07/22/08
Moving some material from FAITH_CYCLE to it's own page:
ACCESS_RAMP
07/21/08
Some material spun off from a recent discussion on alt.gothic,
with some additional material about creativity in the realm
of comic books (including some material about the Wylie novel
Gladiator, from memory -- but confirmed via web searches):
MAKING_WRITERS
CULTURAL_SCRAPS
GLADIATOR
07/02/08
Talking about G.K. Chesterson's "Father Brown" stories again,
with emphasis on their Christian propaganda aspects:
MATERIAL_WORLD
NATURAL_THING
ONE_TRUTH
HUMBLED_AGAIN
07/02/08
Tales of force vs. tales of intelligence:
UNDERPOWERED
07/02/08
Added:
PHONE_BOOTH
DECEPTIVE_CHARACTERS
DUCKING_DRAKE
MODULATED_VOICE
06/22/08
Another one in a series arguing against a thought that
few want to express out loud: we are not involved in
a war against Islam.
NO_CRUSADES
A summary of Delany's tale about hob-nobbing with Umberto Eco.
About (against?) "networking":
ECO_NET
(This was published before, I'm just extracting it into
it's own page for easy of linking.)
06/18/08
High-brow art:
UNRELIABLE_PRODUCT
"Make every song your favorite song":
JAGGED_PHILOSOPHY
06/18/08
A bunch of old minor things I wrote some time ago, and actually
had links to, but never got around to publishing. On occasion,
I do check my error logs, though...
People care about having the latest gadgets, but don't
appear to care what they are:
DEATH_OF_HIFI
Burning Man vs. The Long Now:
LONG_AND_SHORT
Beth Lisick's "Everybody into the Pool" (originally
part of NAUGHT_SEVEN):
BETH_LISICK
The Bookchin/Foreman debate, where "opposing" sides met politely:
RADICAL_FREEZE
A note about smurph:
SMURPH
06/18/08
A craze in the 1920s amongst the elite:
GIMMICK_PARTIES
06/18/08, 06/22/08
About the faith of Father Brown, and G.K. Chesterton,
and his continuous delicate and yet heavy-handed
assaults on those without the faith:
CALUMNY
CLATTER
THE_BLUE_CROSS
FLYING_STARS
GOD_OF_GONGS
FUNDAMENT
UNLEASHING_DEMONS
Digging into a Chestertonian who appears to think
it's a sensible idea to get back to "common sense"
by all converting to Catholicism:
COMMON_ART_OF_LOST_SENSE
Reactions to Holmes, Chesterton's Brown and beyond:
FOOTNOTES_TO_HOLMES
An incomplete page, with some possibly odd links:
"Offering *practical* reasons to support religious
belief would seem to indicate that you have
none..."
RELIGIOUS_ORDER
06/10/08
Dave Egger's "826 Valencia" store, a fine example of the high-and-low strategy:
WAY_OF_THE_PIRATE
06/06/08
A suspicion that the meaning of "Beat" evolved amongst the "Beat Generation"
fairly rapidly:
EVOLVING_BEAT
06/06/08
An old note explaining the joys of night clubs to a neo-goth:
CLUBBED
06/06/08
Out-of-control hipsters keeping it under control,
while the straights on the street are losing it:
PAN_DOMESTICATED
06/06/08
Write first, read later. Maybe:
SHOOT_FIRST
Taking your time helps keep you from being trendy:
DELAYED_RESPONSE
Does it matter if "it's been done"?
DONE_BEFORE
An old "hero" accumulates some criticism from me:
SHALIZI
Since we can't know the future, we can't speak about the future?
NO_FUTURE
06/06/08
The mixture of metaphor and meaning:
MIXMASTER
Death to the car metaphor:
CHAIN_LUBE
Other possibilities:
HARD_HEAD
Strange dream about dealing with maniacal passion from another:
FOUR_HEARTS
Simile, metaphor, analogy...
SIMILARLY
UI design obsessed with metaphor, for a time:
THE_COMPARATIVE_RELIGION
Comparing fields, importing ideas from one to another:
ODIOUS
Jane Jacobs, using organisms breathing as an example of a feedback system,
and comparing that to the way national currencies work:
CENTRAL_CONTROL
05/30/08
Traces left of a re-write in a Shadow novel:
MEANINGFUL_SPLOTCH
"The Embassy Murders" leading up to a classic surreal image:
THE_HIDEOUS_DWARF
05/30/08
"We are alike you and I":
LIKE_EVIL
The Thackery "novel without a hero":
VANITY_FAIR
VILLAINOUS_MASK
ATTRACTION-REPULSION
SYMPATHY
UNIVERSAL_GOTH
"Below Suspicion", a John Dickson Carr novel that shows some unusual sympathy...
SUSPECT_BELOW
"The Skylark of Space" by E.E.Smith. Gimme that old time space opera...
except that upon re-reading, it strikes me that there's a central
theme about being able to trust the good guys to be good, while the bad
guys always must worry:
SKYLARK
And here in that "old time space opera", I find buried a bit of political
commentary about US steel:
SOULLESS_CORPORATION
And an objection to the way the "free market" messes with the cost of platinum:
FREE_MARKET_EFFICIENCY
The Skylark, a story self-conscious about the fact that it's a story?
SELFCONSCIOUS_LIT
05/25/08
Added:
ORIENTED
ROERICH
ZEN_FLESH
JUST_JOSHI
05/24/08
Added:
SUBTLE_FUSION
05/20/08
Added:
BONY_DREAD
05/20/08
Added:
TRITON
05/20/08
Added:
CLEAN_AND_BRIGHT
05/20/08
Added:
HUMAN_ERROR
05/16/08
Added:
INBETWEEN
05/15/08
Added:
RAZING_CONSPIRACY
EXTRAORDINARY_CLAIMS
05/15/08
Added:
HIGHLAND_HAWK
05/15/08
Added:
CAPTAIN_BLOOD
05/15/08
Added:
SLUSH
THE_CASE_OF_HOLMES
LESLIE_FORD
05/15/08
Added:
WILD_CARD
05/11/08
A big cluster of nodes related to
Nassim Nicolas Taleb and his book
"The Black Swan":
BLACK_SWAN
WIDE_FIELD
WHY_TELL_YOU
SAN_FRANCISCO_DREAMING
WHICH_WAY
TOY_WORLDS
KNOWN_QUANTITIES
WILD_LOTTERY
FALSE_KARL
SCALING_SIMILARITY
WILD_BALZAC
RELUCTANT_STORYTELLER
NARRATIVE_DRIVE
PLATONIC_HATE
THE_SWAN_SLEEPS
ARROW_OF_DEMOCRACY
TRAIN_RUNNER
DUALISM_TRAP
EXTREME_TRIGGER
DANGEROUS_IDEAS
PRIMITIVE_BIOLOGY
IN_DEFENSE_OF_NERDS
LOOSE_FEATHERS
JUST_DO_IT_JUST_SO
TALEB
TALEB_DECK
HATE_THE_MAN
03/21/08
Added:
FUND_OF_HEDGES
03/21/08
Added:
DEPRESSING_CURVE
GOING_DISCO
THIN_VENEER
01/24/08
Added:
LAST_THE_NIGHT
12/11/07
Added:
QUESTION_FOR_CHOMSKY
CHOMSKY_DONT_ROCK
WHEN_HYPOCRISY_DIES
PSYCHSOPHY
ELAN_VITAL
SHOTGUN_TRUTH
RUSSELLS_BREAKFAST
PRACTICAL_LIMITS
12/10/07
Added:
UN_PRINCIPLES
CRAWLING_CROSS_THE_PLANETS_FACE
METHODICAL_BLUNDERS
ORIENTALISM
TAXONOMY_OF_PLACE
GUILTY_EYE
12/10/07
Added:
22_FILLMORE
FILLMORE_GOES_SOUTH
11/24/07
Added:
TREASON_FACTORY
11/23/07
Added:
SILVER_BULLET
11/23/07
Added:
UTOPIAN_BLOCK
11/21/07
Added:
DEEP_ECOLOGY
CONSEQUENCES
EMPIRICAL_MORALITY
WILD_MIND
BEYOND_WILD
REBEL_YELL
OTHER_HAND
FENCED_OFF
PAX_AMERICANA_NIGHTMARE
HUMAN_FEEDBACK
WHAT_ARE_THEY_TO_ME
SYSTEMS_INSIDE_OUT
UTOPIAN_GREEN
LOATHING_PHILOS
A_FAMILIAR_DOOM
11/07/07
Added:
SIMPLEX
PULPY_DEATH
WRONG_BATTERIES
HORACE_GOLD
11/05/07
Added:
BURNING_CRITICISM
BURNING_DEFENSE
BURNING_CRITICS
ABSURDLY_PERFECT
SHIELDS_UP
AIM_AND_FIRE
MUSICAL_CURATORS
FOCUSING_THE_GREY_LENS
FIRST_THROUGH_THE_FIRE
EVIL_THOUGHT_NUMBER_23487
HIGH_BAR_LOW_EXPECTATIONS
CIRCULAR_FILE
CIRCULAR_FIRING_SQUAD
MOVING_TARGET
ARGUMENT_FROM_BOREDOM
11/05/07
Don't mind me, just free associating.
NECRO
10/16/07
About Anne Radcliff's "Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794):
VILLAINY
DRIP_DRIP_DRIP
GHOSTWATCH
Maxwell Grant nods:
GRANTS_TOMB
09/12/07
I got the feeling some friends of mine needed
some hints in this direction...
PLANNING_FOR_TROUBLE
09/12/07
Burning Man 2007 (don't be thrown by the babbling about Gary Snyder at
the outset... I decided to lead with what I was thinking about
instead of what happened):
BURNING_WILD
My (very) little project for this year's "Burning Man":
LIGHT_OF_RA
Gary Snyder's "A Place in Space", my pick this year for
book-to-read-at-burning-man (yes, I'm the life of the party):
RYDING_THE_BURN
08/18/07
A hint that the writers working on this
mediocre movie understood that there are
some details missing from the Joan Vollmer
Story:
FACE_DOWN
And there were a few more short pieces (added back on 07/29/07)
about my Joan Vollmer researches:
JOAN_HERSELF
ROLLICKING_FUN_DISCUSSIONS
08/13/07
Anti-war demonstration in SF from back in 2003:
DEMONSTRATION_SATORIS
A directory page, linking the following three items:
HONEST_DELUSIONS
"Corporate Media Lies!"; "My god. What do you people believe?!"
FINGER_TO_FINGER
A lobbyist upset at the notion of Washington "corruption":
BELTED_UP
Who do you identify with? That's who's rights you defend:
SELF_IDENTIFICATION
08/12/07
A notion that there are unspoken arguments that need to be addressed:
UNSPOKEN
For example, the idea that the Gulf War is about providing the US
with a supply of cheap oil:
ALL_ABOUT_OIL
Suburbia is the enemy of "community":
THE_DESTRUCTION_OF_COMMUNITY
Sketching a path to a future with energy problems solved:
ENERGY_FUTURES
A 70s idea I've always liked: solar power satellites:
POWER_SATS
A brief mention of a common problem that we have:
WHOS_WE
Sketching out the case against racism:
DAY_FOR_THE_RACES
08/11/07
Vegetarianism:
VEGE
Daniel Lazare contra Vegerarianism:
DANIELS_BEEF
The obvious connection between vegetarianism and tea-totalling:
both are about avoiding things known to be bad for you:
ALCHOHOLIC_AVOIDANCE
Cafe Gratitude considered as an example of insane beliefs as a
motivation for doing good, creative work:
I_AM_CURIOUS
Abortion debate, definitions of humanity:
ABORTION
The "helpless" deserve protection:
HELPLESS
Drawing arbitrary, but crucial distintions:
DRAWING_A_LINE
Minor squib about what I mean by "humanity" (probably
this needs to be expanded some time):
HUMANITY
More interesting squib about the problem with
"tough cases":
TOUGH_CASES
08/11/07
Chris Cutler: "the market is not a simple measure of
what a community of people wants":
POP_UNDER_FILE
08/11/07
Socialized aka Universal Health Care, my changes in attitudes:
HEALTH
A (minor?) objection to Michael Moore:
SICKO_PROBLEMS
So why isn't "The Market" working better?
EXTREME_HEALTH
08/10/07
Bob Black and the distinctions between work and play:
WORK_AND_PLAY
A brief summary of ethnographic evidence cited by Bob Black
(this one isn't very interesting as it stands, I must say):
HOBBESIAN_HOAX
08/10/07
A continual pattern: lefties beating each other up (because
it's too dangerous to hit anyone else?):
CONTRARIAN_WARS
On quoting unreliable characters...
DUBIOUS_FLARE
My changing attitude toward Bob Black: from superficial appeal
to deep revulsion:
THE_ANTIBOB
Digging into the minutia of one of Bob Black's many low points:
BLACK_TAR
A small collection of Bob Black quips:
BLACK_HUMOUR
08/08/07
I.e. San Francisco and New York, which would not be legal to build
in any place with "modern" zoning regulations:
ILLEGAL_LANDS
08/03/07
The perception of different elements ("objects") in music:
SPECTRAL
Many faces of Buddha:
MANY_FACES
A note that Cage compositions need sympathetic performers,
despite what Cage may have thought about it:
POSITIVE_CAGE
Toward a set of esthetic rules:
RULE_OF_REVERSALS
08/03/07
Writing up the Patti Smith show at CBGB's Second Avenue
(New Year's Eve, at the close of 1977):
CBGB_SECOND_AVE
The "what was your 'first concert' ?" game:
FIRST_CONCERT
David Bowie live, on the "Low" tour, 1977:
ART_DECADE
"Hot Tuna", live at the Suffolk Forum on Long Island:
HOT_SUFFOLK_FORUM
Out of the mouths of anthropologists: Ziggy Stardust.
MEASURE_OF_MAN
07/26/07
Three items about names:
THE_IRON_KEY
07/25/07
Not terribly new remarks about "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen",
moved here from NAUGHT_ZERO:
WEIGHTY_CONCEIT
07/22/07
Quote from an A. E. van Vogt novel, about beauty as the
driving force:
GOLDEN_SPHERE
07/18/07
Lawrence Lessig takes on "corruption":
WIDER_FIGHT
THREAT_MODELS
VAST_RIGHT
WEB_LOG_COMMENTS
07/18/07
Going into CNN shock (I lead a sheltered life):
MOST_TRUSTED_NAME
Ideas that do the opposite of what they were intended to do:
INTO_THE_BRAINPAN
An optimistic hope for widespread American cyncism:
CHILDHOODS_END
07/17/07
Thorne Smith's "The Night-Life of the Gods":
PAGAN_DREAMING
07/15/07
Maybe this is just a detail, but it's one I care about:
the WTC was actually a bunch of really awful buildings:
FALLEN_TOWERS
07/15/07
Fragments toward some experiments in inter-tribe communication:
FINGER_EXERCISES
Giving up on the Economist's "shenanigans":
RHETORICAL_LOAD
07/15/07
The notion that conspiracy theories become less plausible as
they require larger numbers to be in on it:
TOO_MANY_ACTORS
Group think makes it difficult to hold on to a minority POV:
RED_PILL_BLUES
The rigged election of 2004:
INCREDIBLE_BUSH
United in our right to a diversity of states of denial:
A_CHOICE_OF_DENIAL
"Tips for terrorists" are perhaps in bad taste, and yet...
TIPS_FOR_T
07/15/07
Problems with the notion of "racial profiling":
PROFILE_OF_STUPIDITY
07/15/07
The appeal of spontaniety to the un-:
SPONTANEOUS_COMBUSTION
07/14/07
A recent issue of "The Wire" magazine ("underground" music
of various stripes, definitely not including the white):
LONDONS_GRIMING
When it gets too easy to burrow down into the underground, then what?
THE_ACOUSTIC_FIREHOSE
A few odd locations in the United States I've never heard of:
THE_WIRE_AMERICA
Capsule reviews of music, quoted from "The Wire" in abbreivated form:
THE_WIRE_ENCAPSULATED
07/14/07
John Cage versus improvisation:
THE_CAGED_SELF
On the appeal of "spontaniety" to the over-intellectualized:
SPONTANEOUS_COMBUSTION
07/07/07
Social networking sites think of themselves as toys, and
hence will inevitably become played with, by well-funded
attempts at subversion:
THE_TOY_WEB
07/07/07
"Have faith" as a learning strategy:
FAITH_CYCLE
07/07/07
The difficulties with "considering the source":
SOURCES_CONSIDERED
07/07/07
The "Plat_Forms" contest: an actual attempt at getting real data
on the efficacy of different programming languages:
CASE_STUDY_3
07/07/07
Quote from a Patti Smith poem...
AND_WHO_EXISTS
06/13/07
The short life expectency of POCs cast as second-banana heroes:
GUNGA_DIN_SYNDROME
06/13/07
Making a random selection of three entries from Paul Goodman's "Five Years":
GOODMAN_GAME
06/13/07
Two barriers: "having nothing in common" and "being too close to the problem":
TOO_CLOSE_TOO_FAR
06/10/07
About "Macross 7": a case where popular art can be "difficult" art...
SEVEN_NOT_PLUS
PLEASED_TO_MEET_YOU
SUN_BLAST
MACROSS_PLUS
SEVEN_SHELLS
SIVIL_LIES
SEVEN_HEARTS
05/28/07
I got a million of them:
HALF_APHORISMS
04/29/07
About Dave Eggers "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius":
STAGGERING
WHAT_AM_I_GIVING_YOU
BOTH_WAYS_LOSE
SATURATED_NIGHT_LIVE
CORE_DUMP
STAGGERING_SAN_FRANCISCO
SPARKS
ON_A_STICK
UGLIEST_HOUSE
BOXING_MEANING
THE_KRYPTONITE_ESCAPE
UNREALITY_POPS
THE_WHITE_BOG
AMBIGUOUS_APPEAL
NEO-IRONY
BEAUTIFUL_LOST
SLITHERING
TREAD_OVER
PUSH_THROUGH
LOW_FLAME
04/14/07
A directory page, about:
"jargon, definition, paradox, neologism...
problems with words as mental tools."
DENOTE
04/12/07
An 80s fad for castles made of jargon:
JARRING
04/11/07
About Plato's...
PHAEDRUS
04/11/07
A grand treatise in-progress on the nature of
"religious wars" in the nominally "technical"
world of software:
LANGUAGES_OF_POWER
MODEST_PROPOSAL
COMPUTER_SCIENCE_PROOF
CSG
RELIGIOUS_ISSUES
THE_DAMIEN_PRACTICES
THE_PERL_AFFAIR
SIGILS_OF_POWER
GENTLE_ART_OF_PROGRAMMING
CASE_STUDY_1
CASE_STUDY_2
PAUL_GRAHAM
HACKING_GREATNESS
LITTLE_OLD_ME
TECHIES_FALLACY
THE_HOLY_PIGEON
RIGHT_TOOL
KNOWLEDGE_IS_GOOD
PRACTICAL_IDEALS
THE_COMPUTER_PHILOSOPHERS
REPTILLIAN_MONOTHEISM
REAR_VIEW_PIONEER
AGAINST_BOREDOM
WELCOME_TO_HELL
04/10/07
A case in point, where some connectivity is good, but too
much would probably have been bad:
CONNECTIVITY
03/30/07
Gene Simmons vs. Terry Gross:
SERPENTINE_KISS
03/23/07
Noting that "neo" is derisive:
NEONEO
03/19/07
Colin MacInnes on Jazz:
HOME_PLANET
02/17/07
On the lifestyle of Homer Evans:
LIFE_OF_HOMER
02/16/07
Another trip to New York around the beginning of the year,
and various related thoughts:
Being in New York city, 2007:
THE_BRIGHT_GRAY_LANDS
EAST_VILLAGE
CYPRESS_HILL
Being in New York, 2003:
EAST_OF_THE_EAST
BLACKOUT_2003
Differences between New York and San Francisco, in particular in arts scenes:
COMMERCE_IN_CULTURE
Differences between New York and New York:
BIG_HERE
MANHATTAN_WOODY
Improvised music in New York:
ABC_NO_RIO
... and in the Bay Area:
BEANBENDERS
The New Years poetry marathon, again:
ST_MARKS_CHURCH
A few of the poets
BUSHYEAGER
IIJIMA
Being out on "The Island":
LONG_ISLAND
ON_THE_ISLAND
Cities vs. 'Burbs:
SUCKING_VORTEX
Musing on the utility of gender pronouns and what other tricks
like that might exist:
GENDER_FIXS_AND_UNFIXES
Brief thought about the death obsession of Tibetan art:
TIBETAN_METAL
Conmtinuing with a possibly silly business... creating handles/nicknames
for the various members of friends and family I feel like talking about
on occasion:
CASTING
INWOOD_ANGEL
KLEE
BIG_WALTER
VILLON
SUN_FISH
A defense of Dave Eggers against the neopunks:
EGGING_ON
What does it mean when I think someone
KNOWS_SOMETHING
02/15/07
Yes, at long last it's the doomfiles handbook of style. You can rest easy now:
STYLISH_HAND
02/14/07
Reflections upon Burning Man 2006:
Hipster-against-hipster:
BURNING_IRRITATION
The great RV debate:
BURNING_ROVER
Musical taste:
FROZEN_SOUND
The Flaming Lotus Girls piece:
BURNING_SERPENT
Does it makes sense to worry about how much it makes sense?
CRITIC_OF_THE_BURN
Some people think about what-it-all-means:
BURNING_PHILOSPHY
Burning man policies on advertising and such:
RULING_OUT_RULERS
02/14/07
Sound and meaning, explication and inference:
DOUBLET
Explaining what a "doublet" is (fluid flow):
IN_THE_LIMIT
FRACTURED_WORDS
Squib about "The Wire", the British music magazine:
NO_D
The Mona Caron/Chris Carlsson future:
AFTER_THE_FLOOD
02/14/07
Elements of formal poetry (rhyme, rhythm) depend on region accents:
ACCENTUATE_THE_DEVIATIONS
02/12/07
To a large extent, this batch of stuff is just "infill",
I'm adding some (unfortunately, minor) pieces to try to
smooth over some (percieved) rough spots in the "browse
sequence"... which has undergone a lot of re-arrangement of late:
Quotes from David Byrne about the CBGBs days:
FORGIVE_ME_FOR_LIVING
A quote of an old Paul Goodman proposal for a car-free Manhattan:
CAR_FREE
The word "anathema", and example of a definition doing a near
complete flip from it's original meaning:
ANATHEMA
A "directory node" of sorts, classifying a number of my
other writings according to the "snobbery"/"reverse snobbery"
axis:
TURNING_THE_SNOB
In outline, the "writing pulp" game:
RECOMBINANT_PULP
02/08/07
Franco Moretti's "Distant Reading":
HOW_SOFT_A_WHISPER
Mention of Heinlein's theory that there's a connection between
poor health and becoming a writer:
UNHEALTHY_MINDS
Writeup of my reaction to the play "King Lear" (not very
positive):
LEAR
02/07/07
An outline for a projected work "How-To Think":
THINKING_HOWTO
Quoting the eight principles of the "Eight Track Mind":
8_TRACK_MIND
Writer's are the last people you can expect to speak
truth to editors:
EDITED_REALITY
02/01/07
Editor's reserve the right to stick writer's work
with whatever title they feel might sell:
UNDESERVED_TITLES
01/31/07
My '07 reading list, in progress:
NAUGHT_SEVEN
About the novel "Moonraker":
RAKED_OVER
FUEL_OIL_BLACK_PEPPER_VODKA_MARTINI
01/28-31/07
I've got my tools working that let's me swap chunks
of doomfiles nodes around in the browse sequence...
so I've been doing a lot of rearrangement of where
the "NEXT" links go.
As far as new material goes, the new stuff isn't so new:
A quick list of "recommended" picks:
CRITICS_CHOICE
The full introduction I wrote to "The Beat Generation",
including the point that Kerouac was originally being
awfully loopy when he claimed that a "beat generation"
existed:
BEAT
And related to that, we have a bunch of relatively
redundant, whiney material that no doubt sounds even
more egocentric than usual: a wikipedia flaw the "no
original research" requires that you report
consensus wisdom even if you know it's wrong:
WRONG_CONSENSUS
And all this is just some still older material, split
out into it's own pages:
CLUB_DUMAS
POLYGYNY
HAIR
ATTACK
01/23/07
A ranking system without too many ranks.
The question: "Did you get anything out of it?"
BRENNER_SCALE
01/22/07
Filling in an explanation of another handle:
DANGERBABY
01/20/07
Writing down a few of my old raps...
Attitudes toward characters in "Gone With the Wind";
The puzzling reputation of "Alan Alda" as a male feminist.
GONE_WITH_THE_WIND
ALAN_ALDA_PARADOX
01/20/07
Pre-Rand "Objectivism" in a 1939 episode of "The Shadow":
VALLEY_OF_THE_LIVING_DEAD
Minor note about ghost writers who've used the "Ellery Queen" label:
QUEENS
01/20/07
Various musing about pornography, and people's reactions to pornography:
SCREAMED_WITH_JOY
ORIENTAL_TWIST
WITHIN_OR_WITHOUT
EROTICA_GAMES
SOMETHING_VISUAL
01/15/07
Some small bits about words in Carr novels:
WELL-QUALIFIED
JUST_MEN
WORDS_WORTH
01/15/07
Opon reading the Sept. 1952 issue of "FUTURE":
FUTURE_DECLINE
01/11/07
The importance of "flow" in language (you can't reduce a
text to bits without losing the text):
ATOMIC_THOUGHT
ORIGINAL_DOOMFILE
01/11/07
Doom Research: trying to find the source of the phrase
"The Voice of Doom":
THE_VOICE_OF_DOOM
01/09/07
Patti Smith's latest written poetry:
PENNYWORT_AND_DOLLAR_SHORT
01/09/07
Problems with the "personal odyssey" angle in writing:
PROBLEMATIC_TALES
My personal political odyssey:
BROKEN_WING
The original wedge between me and the left: nuclear power:
NUCLEAR_SPLIT
01/06/07
Sontag's post 9/11 remark about "cowardice" and the strange reactions:
COWARDLY_LIONIZED
01/05/07
Voting seems quixotic, particularly when you're off on the edges anyway:
ON_EDGE
01/05/07
Techniques for arguing from ignorence:
EMPTY_HAND
01/03/07
being morbid vs a sense of meaning
THE_BIG_LIFE
12/19/06
Conquest by not conquering:
STRATEGY_OF_ALEXANDER
12/12/06
About the journalist Robert Fisk, his book about Lebanon, "Pity the Nation",
and his ill-treatment at the hands of right-wing "bloggers":
PITY_THE_NATION
SAVAGE_NIRVANA
GLASS_BUBBLE
SMEAR_THE_MESSENGER
THE_TRUE_FISK
TOUGH_BEING_TOUGH
JOHN_REED
Amy Goodman at the San Francisco Green Festival: on the
importance of the victim's point of view:
SWORD_OR_SHIELD
But "Democracy Now" isn't perfect... for example, it was
light on election fraud issues:
BLINDSPOTS_LEFT
New rights, new lefts, and us left behind somewhere:
THE_BUSH_LEAGUE
Argh. More beatnik poetry. Did I mean to publish this?
THE_PINBALL_GAME_OF_HISTORY
A brief discussion of usenet:
WELL_USED
Some disputes among new left and old:
STRIKES_BACK
Some bitching about the mainstream media again
((maybe these should be stuck together into one page)):
BELOW_THE_FOLD
SMALL_THUMB_RULE
The light dawns that one of our allies has been acting evil (a surprise,
I know). At long last I take a definite side on Israel-vs-the-Mideast:
THE_SOLDIERS_HAVE_COME
FALL_FROM_ZION
PERFECTLY_CLEAR
CYCLE_OF_VIOLENCE
OFF_THE_FENCE
TIPPING_THE_BANDWAGON
LITTLE_DRUMMER_GIRL
ZIONISTS_OF_WALT_WHITMAN
PARALYZING_DIALOGS
HOPELESS_DEBATE
START_THE_CLOCK
Paul Krugman and smear campaigns.
Also, the rich-getting-richer theme.
KRUGMAN_FUNNIES
Problems with neutrality:
NEUTRAL_ADVOCATE
On kill-ratios...
PROPORTIONS
About the slaughter of innocents:
STATEGIC_BOMBARDMENT
HIROSHIMA
Some more platitudes about how it isn't as bad as it seems:
BLANKER_THAN_YOU_THINK
CLOSER_THAN_YOU_THINK
Assasination okay? Musing on the meaning of the means...
ASSASSINS_OF_GOVERNMENTS
MEANS_WHAT
Tracking my political "progress":
MIRROR_UNMIRED_OFF_THE_WALL
Pondering the need to understand the motives of the "great",
and speculation about the True Character of Bush Jr.
PSYCHO_REGIME
Poorly named node about talking to the wall. I mean, the people.
THE_BORG
Irresponsible speculation about hired-guns infesting the discussion
groups of the internet:
THE_ROVERS
SURROGATE_TRUTH
On talking to the jailers:
PENETRATE_THE_SHELL
Difficulties of deception:
HUMANITY_METER
So, which is it? Don't bother worrying about motives, or not?
PEGGED_AT_ZERO
A stub:
PENDULUM_SHOVE
Difficulties with maintaining integrity during political
engagement:
POLITICAL_ANIMALISM
Another wikipedia failure scenario, the trouble with consensus:
CONSENUS_ILLUSION
No "mandate" for the right:
MANDATE_ZER0
And admission that I'm probably wasting my time (and yours --
but that's your problem) with this political stuff:
CLONING_AROUND
About fraud in the 2004 US election (beginning with a
book review of the Freeman & Bleifuss book):
LAST_EXIT_FOR_DEMOCRACY
SOFT_PEDDLED
BURNED_IN_2004
But not even I buy into *every* conspiracy theory out there,
a case in point:
AN_INCONTINENT_TRUTH
On the subject of being slow:
SLOW_ARC
SWIFT_BOATS_SLOW_MINDS
Pulp as the first mover:
TWISTED_PATHS
The obvious problems with an over-worked, under-defined term:
TERRORISM
Musing upon the practice of what the "bloggers" have been calling
"fisking":
THE_AUTUMNAL_WEB
War as PR:
DAISY_CUTTER_DIPLOMACY
TAILSPIN
UNDERSTAND_JUSTICE
MEMORY_EXERCISES
MORAL_VALUED
Miscellanious:
TRIBAL
LIGHT_AND_DARKNESS
HETEROPHILLIA
09/23/06 - 09/28/06
Added:
PROVOCATEUR
ADVANTAGE
09/16/06
John D. MacDonald, Travis McGee and Me:
DEEP_BLUE
WASTES
IN_A_BLUE_HAZE
09/12/06
The fifty book challenge ("can you read 50 in a year") and some
related pages:
FIFTY_IN_ONE
HOWLERS
FIRST_THOUGHTS
BEARDLESS_IN_PARIS
ZENITH_ANGLE
MODERN_FORGERS
A_DOLLS_HOUSE
STYLES_OF_CARDBOARD
DEAD_HARE
GHOST_FINDER
FIFTY_MINUS
SABATINIS_CHIVALRY
CANON_FIRE
KRUGMAN_UNRAVELING
09/11/06
About Richard Kostelanetz, and the problem of "cronyism":
MULTI_LEGGED_KOSTELANETZ
END_OF_INTELLIGENT_WRITING
MERIT_INSTITUTIONALIZED
09/11/06
Paul Goodman's magnum opus, "The Empire City":
EMPIRE_CITY
FIRED_HOLY
CROWD_FEEL
PARTICIPATORY_TRUTH
UNIFORM_AND_SHAPELESS
WITH_WHAT_WEAPONS
COPE
SANE_AS_HAMMERS
ANOTHER_CLOWN
08/21/06
At long last, wrote up the tale of Stuart Reges,
fired from Stanford for going up against the
"War on Drugs":
REGES
08/20/06
Another quote from Don Quixote:
THEATRICAL_RANTING
A brief complaint about T.H. White's "Once and Future King":
WHITE_WASHED
08/13/06
Some speculation about the evolution of the Emma Peel
character from Catherine Gayle... and associates:
THE_VENUS_SMITH
07/15/06
The Shadow of the novels was originally supposed to
also be the guy who narrates the radio show:
SHADOW_OF_THE_ETHER
07/11/06
Making fun of the myth of High Art again:
HEROIC_ART
07/11/06
Speculations on what might be the right way to
handle a cliche. "The Temptation of Luke":
DARK_SIDES
07/11/06
Some additional pages on Jane Jacobs and
(distantly) related things:
POWER_BROKE
SUBURBAN_HOPE
AUTOMOTIVE_GUILT
AMERICAN_LOVE
06/26/06
Added a long over due tribute to Jane Jacobs (who died a few months
ago), and some stuff about traffic patterns in Bali and what this
says about human nature...
JANE_JACOBS
THE_GREAT_CITY
CURRENCY_EVENTS
MEGAPOLISOMANCY
CONSTELLATION_OF_CITIES
ZONED
HOLLOW_AMBER
THE_ROAD_OF_BALI
HUMAN_NATURE
06/23/06
What does the blogging habit do to bloggers lives?
ENGAGEMENT
One of my many mildly deranged teenage schemes, reforming my life
by writing a mystery novel:
THE_MIST
06/23/06
Shifting attitudes toward the fiction best seller list:
SELLERS_OF_THE_BEAST
06/19/06
Talking about the Christopher Fry play, "The Ladies Not for Burning":
BURNING_LADY
06/19/06
A little bit of stuff about scene-ology, with emphasis on
beatniks, and also on the expat artist scene in Bali in
the 1930s:
GOING_UNDER
SIGHTING_SCENES
PASSING_AS_PASSE
SERIAL_HIPSTER
LATE_STAGES
BEATNIK_59
GENERATING_BEAT
PASSAGE
COLLAR
THE_JUVIES
PROTO_GOTH
PROTO_PUNK
AMBITIONS
IN_THE_NEWS
JUST_MISSED
FUNNY_PART
AUTHENTICITY
BLANKING_THE_CANVAS
SO_FAR
LOST_IN_BEAUTY
A_HOUSE_IN_BALI
TO_SEE_OR_TO_DO
BALINESE_MUSIC
FIRE_DANCE
PRIME_DIRECTIVE
SECONDARY_WANDERING
PITA_MAHA
STRANGE_TRIANGLE
EXPAT_PATHOS
OFF_OFF_CAMERA
SUBCULTURE
CITIZEN_DOOM
WAYAN_SIKA
MIXED_UP
06/18/06
Talking about mutations in comics and mutating comics...
BRAND_X
06/18/06
Some things I started writing awhile back on hybrids of
western and world music, and the odd prejudice against them:
VIETNAMESE_MUSIC
EXO
ETHNICALLY_AUTHENTIC
06/18/06 and 06/28/06
Firming up a little about what I know about what is
known about the ellusive Shadow:
SHADOW_LAUGH
SHROUDED_IN_SHADOW
06/17/06
More about being a college radio DJ, this time with emphasis
on the problem of doing live mixes of multiple sound sources.
BRIGHT_GRAY
NUTS_AND_BOLTS
03/24/06
Ibsenism, it's the latest craze:
PEER_GYNT
02/28/06
Patti Smith on the subject of civic responsibility:
CAMDEN_TOWN
02/27/06
The problems with trying to fuse
the sciences and the humanities:
FUSILE_LINK
BRIDGE_OF_STARS
STRUCTURAL_FAILURES
BANG
GOLDEN_SPIRIT
02/27/06
Returning to "War and Peace", and it's evident theme of
"flawed genius", perhaps somewhat contradicted by Tolstoy's
display of it...
SURFING_HISTORY
FLAKES_OF_GENIUS
TIGHT_PIECES
01/09/06
A resolution to read more junky schlock rock biographies:
DIONYSIAN_SOAP
01/08/06
American Literature sucks, a case in point, "Huckleberry Finn",
and a minor remark about finishing books just so you can complain.
ANTIAMERICAN
HAWKING_FINN
SECURING_RIGHTS
01/08/06
An old insight about insider hipster sabotage producing bad
government/corporate art, prefaced by a note about odd sexual
references in the titles of old pulp fiction...
FREUDIAN_PINK_SLIPS
SABOTAGE
01/03/06
Some basic material about James Blish's
CITIES_IN_FLIGHT
12/29/05
Big block of minor stuff (that took forever to write none-the-less).
Bit of free-associating here -- which I don't do nearly enough of
these days, but still maybe it makes the non-linearity of it all
a bit too non...
Mystery novel author takes on Russian novelists!
Tolstoy strikes back.
RUSSIAN_PLOT
Small bit of Carr's rumbling, this time about Ibsen, of which
I hope to have more to say in the future:
RUMBLING
Slight (?) bit about how both the left and right seems to have
it in for "intellectuals" (at least on some occasions):
DAMN_INTELLECTUALS
Trying to punch through an obvious thought or two, about punching
through the stone cold trail into the minds of idelogues (or something):
STONE_COLD
Odd little nostalgia piece, putting together bits I remember from
50s/60s television, attacking those damn intellectuals:
WEAK_REEDS
Once upon a time, the boobs felt self-conscious about it:
KICKING_SELF_IMPROVEMENT
Trying to answer the question about War and Peace from WEAK_REEDS
FAVORITE_SCENE
Free associating (?) possible misogyny in War and Peace:
MISSING_GYN
And the tale of Cerebus, and Dave Sims infamous descent into misogyny:
THE_LONE_HEAD_OF_CEREBUS
Sexism at Stanford, circa 1995:
STANDING_WATER
Following the trail from STONE_COLD
MEMEONS
Working from memory, trying to come up with attacks on
modern art in the movies. Companion piece to WEAK_REEDS
ART_AGAINST_ART
Carr's anti-intellectual intellectualism reminds me a bit
of Ix...
ICKY_GOBBING
12/29/05
Really, these are some older pieces, extracted from GAIMAN
AMBER_GRAINS
KICKING_SAND
12/26/05
An example of the way serial fiction can become an all-consuming
passion (it's a good thing I don't do soaps, eh?):
SERIAL_LIVING
Serial publication, prevalent in the history of high art as well
as old:
RETCON
12/15/05
Writing a bit about the way that attitudes toward sexaul practices
change... It'll be interesting to see if this one climbs higher
in my weblogs than ACCIDENT
NORMAL_PERVERSION
Around and around with transgression and puritanism:
CIRCULAR_MOTION
True perversion:
KNUCKLE
Against "Pornified":
PORNFRIED
Patterns of anti-sex polemics:
ON_NO_BACKS
The nature of humanity, again:
ANIMAL
Musing on the dorkiness of "The Lifestyle":
STYLE_IMPAIRED
12/15/05
George Sand, trying to argue Flaubert out of his famous schtick:
AEOLIAN_EXHAUST
Transcendental sex:
INFINITE_ARCH
Another Flaubert quote, on the sins of the romantics:
SENTIMENTAL_TAIL
12/05/05
Back to punk and related subjects...
Some quotations from the eminiently quotable:
PLEASE_KILL_ME
Problems with "punk=stupid":
AUTHENTICALLY_STUPID
DISCO_SUCKS
Group loyalties...
SOUL_SO_DEAD
At home with (one of) my tribe(s):
HOLY_COATS_OF_BLACK
11/26/05
Intellectual puzzles considered as...
TRAPS
11/26/05
Typing up some of my file of Algis Budrys quotations:
AJAY
HOMILETICS
HORRIBLE_TRUTH
11/24/05
This stuff isn't really new... mostly I'm just
rearranging the material that was shoe horned
into the one node HEINLEIN:
FORECAST
COVENTRY
TO_SAIL_BEYOND
POOR_BEAST
11/20/05
I stuck in some links to this a long time ago, it's
about time I pushed something out to fill the spot:
FULL_MONTAIGNE
PRIMARY_MONTAIGNER
11/20/05
Some basic philosophy on the layout of tracks on a CD:
TRACKSIX
11/02/05
Back to the Shadow again:
LONG_SHADOW
TWISTING_SHADOWS
FURY
10/30/05
Added:
GOOD_GUYS_DONT_DO_BAD
PRIDE_OF_CRAFT
10/30/05
Added:
NAME_OF_THE_SAINT
UNCTUOUS
CHASING_GHOSTS
THE_WHITE_RIDER
SMELL_THE_TIGER_BURN
10/30/05
Added:
ESOTERICA_THRILLERS
INFECTIOUS
RENDER_INNOCENT
HISS
A_GAME_OF_DUMAS
A_STRANGE_LIFE
QUOTE_OF_QUOTES
DA_VINCI_FLU
DOWN_WITH_ARISTOCRACY
RED_ON_BLACK
LANGUAGE_BARRIERS
ALL_WRONG
TARTUFFE
09/07/05
Some Ed Sanders inspirational advice:
METHOD_ATTACK
Have some respect for "low art":
HIP_REDUCTION
Take high art low and low art high:
UP_AND_DOWN
More material about Bond/Fleming, upon reading the
biography by Pearson:
BONDED_TIGHTLY
BONDED_COURIER
COUGHING_UP_FLEMING
CASINO_MUNDANE
DIGGING_FLEMING
FINAL_ASSASSINATION
DEADLY_CIPHER
BOND_AND_DETERMINED
09/05/05
Predicting fashions in mutable flesh...
GAY_APPAREL
About Don Quixote...
QUIXAND
07/17-22/05
Added more beat research data:
BURROWING
NEAL_AND_JOAN
SUBTERRA
Because I'm still: LOOKING_FOR_JOAN_VOLLMER
05/22/05
Added:
HIGHWAY61
IN_THE_IRON_MASK
COUNT_CHRISTO
05/22/05
An intellectual maneuver you might call "the honest strawman":
addressing simplified/purified forms of your opponents position:
INTO_THE_STRAW
05/06/05
Ian Fleming studies is not a pretty business:
BANG_BANG
About the oddly fascinating though definitely flawed Russell
Jacoby book, arguing that a generation of intellectuals
have been lost to the academic world:
LAST_INTELLECTUALS
Identifying an absence:
VOID
FLORID
05/03/05
An afternoon at the Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco's Japantown:
CHERRY
The Walt Whitman Shopping Center in Huntington Station, New York:
MAULED
A little bit about Gruen, the original architect of the shopping mall:
GRUEN_HILLS_OF_EARTH
04/20/05
A brief listing of facts (hopefully not mere "facts") that I
think are "underknown". This was intended to be read on the
radio, which is one excuse for it's terseness. It's essentially
incomplete (at a minimum, it needs links to supporting information):
UNDERKNOWN
03/29/05
Added:
STATE_OF_THE_DREAMS
ELIDE
ANASTRUCTING
03/12/05
At long last, I'm beginning to talk about some of Paul
Graham's essays... the topic at hand being essays
themselves.
THE_GREAT_DEBATE
03/10/05
Problems that I had with some high school assignments:
THE_QUESTION_OF_ESSAYS
02/23/05
Some (not terribly new) thoughts on tactics for activists:
INSIDE_AND_OUT
Cheap suspense in cheap thrillers:
CHEAP_SUSPENDERS
Reader? Viewer? A difficulty in talking about stories
without specifying the medium:
WHOS_ON_FIRST
My point-of-view concerning the point-of-view of narration:
POV
02/14/05
Some "quick" notes on Delany's "1984", leading into some
thoughts on visions of human nature.
ALLUSIVE
BETWEEN_SOUL_AND_FATE
WANDERING_PURPOSE
ASTIGMATIC
Which reminded me about Tolstoy's "War and Peace" which prompted
me to add a little about it...
WAR_AND_PEACE
Much of what I did add is all just quotation, though:
HISTORYS_SLAVE
WARRING_PIECES
CARBONUNDRUM
AGAINST_FREEDOM
DERANGEMENT
MOTIVATION
TOYING_WITH_TRUTH
TOYING_WITH_TECH
TERRIBLE_KNOWLEDGE
KUTUZOV
DIFFERENTIAL_OF_HISTORY
TREED
BIG_SKY
An aside about my problematic problems with Delany's Neveryon series:
NEVER_SAY_NEVERYON
02/14/05
A little history of the role of some magazines (particularly
pulps) with some emphasis on the Shadow:
BLACK_MASKS
PULPED_STURGEON
ROMANCE_OF_THE_REAL
AUDIOVISUAL_TRADITION
GHOSTS_OF_THE_SHADOW
LIGHT_OF_SHADOW
02/07/05
A quick sketch of the problem of receiving technological gifts
that have problems...
MORE_OR_LESS
OPTIONS_ARENT
TV_RULES
LUCK
FAQS
02/04/05
Added:
QUARTERMAIN
THE_CORPSE_BENEATH
02/04/05
Added:
BUTCHERS_BILL
02/04/05
Music, context, meaning --
GRAIN_OF_TIME
Some babbling about the way I read stuff these days:
TRACERS
TABS
02/03/05
Edging toward yet another musical metaphor for social organization...
COUNTERPOINT
HIGHLY_THEORETICAL_NOTES
Talking about a recent (cf. only 5 years old) Bond flick:
WORLD_ENOUGH_ALREADY
BOND_NOVA
STANDARD_STANDARDS
Working with what you've got, even if it's trash...
OUT_OF_THE_DUMPSTER
ENDLESSLY_ROCKING
Pulp fiction as a literature of evolutionary development:
MUTATION
NOVELTY_AGAIN
Shameless bragging:
DROPOUT
Tedious personal detail:
TRACES_HOME
01/28/05
An Algis Budrys quote. I've got a million of 'em:
SHARPER_LANCES
01/28/05
An odd epitaph:
DUMAS
01/22/05
Trying to record my take on Delany's always
controversial Dhalgren...
DHALGREN
ORCHID_PETALS
FUNCTION_OF_WORD_PATTERNS
01/18/05
Working my way through Susan Sontag's "On Camp":
SUNDAY_CAMP
SUNDAY_MORNING
SUNDAY_LOW
SUNDAY_LOVE
SUNDAY_CONVENTION
THE_FALCON
Ayn Rand's slightly different view of the campers:
AVENGING_RAND
A few related pieces:
ESCAPE_TUNNEL
ROUND_AND_ROUND
01/8-10/05
Added:
DANCING_ON_PINHEADS
PLAY_BALANCE
11/28/04
Added:
FLIP
ANARCHY
11/19/04
Added:
MASKS
11/17/04
Some more on the skiffy related stuff I started writing
here with:
LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS
THINKING_SKIFFY
NULL_HINGED
MULTIPLY_HUNG
ETERNAL_HUMAN
HUMAN_WONDER
LUCIFERS_HAM
11/12/04
A little bit of stuff about markets & madness & governments &
libertarian success and failure...
(Let us tarry while I wonder leak and leery from many
a furious brawl of forgotten ore).
BALANCE_OF_PRAGMATISM
DEATH_OF_THE_REPUBLIC
TONE_DOWN
SPORTS_LOGIC
TARAIAN_CONTRA_SUV
STATISTICAL_INDIVIDUAL
DOOM_CONTRA_TARIAN
MADNESS
RATACT
PENGUIN_FIRM
SECRET_GUILT
MANY_FREEDOMS
NATURALLY_FORCED
EFFICIENTLY_INVISIBLE
PROPPED_UP
GET_SMALL
MONOCULTURE
DOWN_SO_LONG
THE_WORKS
10/24/04
Broke out pieces of BATESON
as separate nodes:
INFLECTION
BOTTLE
ENTROPY
SHIFTS
BLACKBOX
10/24/04
Added a few notes about Theodore Sturgeon's obessions,
notably the hive-mind notion:
ONE_GESTALT
SYZYGY_MATTERS
09/18/04
Some notes about James Bond (largely the Ian Fleming
version, though not entirely):
LIVE_TWICE
ODDS_ARE
WINNING_VESPER
GALE_OF_THE_WORLD
09/18/04
Conan Doyle's "The White Company". Chivalry considered as a
an achievable ideal for a world without much practical hope:
LIGHT_EXPECTATIONS
A small hole in Rebecca Solnit's otherwise impressive defense
of optimistic philosphy of engagement:
DARK_HOPE
09/18/04
The rules of fiction, i.e. the problem of coincidences:
CHANCES_ARE
Modesty Blaise, the comic strip and the prose works:
BLAZING
Small bit about blood-thirstyness as a realism criteria:
TASTE_FOR_DEATH
The movie pulp fiction (among others), and the fatal attraction
of twisted villians:
BRAIN_PULP
09/17/04
Added:
"The Emperor's New Mind" by Roger Penrose, a flawed argument
perhaps, but a flawless book of remarkable intellectual
honesty:
MIND_PENROSE
A listing of books at the core of my world view (or
close to it), and a common thread among many of them...
the "two cultures" cross-over:
BIBLES
And a list of the also-rans:
APOCRYPHA
And one that comes no where near making either list...
E.O. Wilson's "Consilience", a slippery book of questionably
honesty, in my opinion:
CONSILIENCE_PRIZE
Wilson, argues for what sounds an awful lot to me like
Jungian archetypes, in particular for the sign of the snake:
SERPENTINE_FEARS
Some clarification (?) is Wilson arguing for an understanding
that goes from the grand abstractions down to the atomic
level, or is he satisfied with evolutionary principles that
arise higher up than that?
DOWN_TO_THE_BOTTOM
Some notes on Science as a social process:
DANCING_AT_THE_SCIENCE_SOCIAL
The nature-nurture debate, and it's near irrelvance:
NATURE_OF_THE_WALLS
Funny-primate Pride:
THE_HUMAN_ANIMAL_REDUX
Brief run-down of the old "Two Cultures" distinction,
and the probably useless changes it produced in the
educational system:
TWOCULT
About C.P.Snow's truly excellent novels, well worth
reading if one can stay awake through them:
GENTLY_SNORING_SNOW
The general futility of educational reform:
AGAINST_STUPIDITY
When standardized tests lead to standardized education
(and as an aside, a complaint about the ways the big
name schools can be really lousy):
TEACHING_THE_TEST
08/14/04
Mostly, accumulated thoughts on experimenting with
different approaches to reading and listening:
TOTAL_IMMERSION
CONSUMING_FLAME
BROKEN_LINES
PROSE_POEM
TRICK_OF_ATTENTION
08/07/04
Some minor insight into the character of RMS and Linux Torvalds
from reading their as-told-to's:
SIDES_OF_THE_COIN
FUN_WITH_IDEOLOGY
08/02/04
Some meandering about old ideas concerning the inevitability of
conspiracy, the low opinion held of people who speculate about
them, standards of proof for different situations, etc...
THE_THEORY_OF_CONSPIRACY
STANDARDS_OF_PROOF
MOTIVATIONAL_BIND
UR_CONSPIRACY
And a brief criticism of one thing Camille Paglia has
said about male role models, which touches on the
whole "high art and low" complex...
ROUGHLY_READ
07/23/04
Note about the concept of imposing a linear "browse sequence"
in hypertext works such as the doomfiles:
BROWSE_SEQUENCE
07/12/04
Added:
FIRST_PUNKS
GOD_OF_HELL
07/06/04
Added some remarks from a year ago or so on early encounters with
postmodernism, the co-incidence of it's incidence with object-oriented
programming, and some proposed defences the "Social Text" gang could
have used, if they weren't actually idiots:
THE_SO_CALLED_HOAX
07/06/04
A classic film that really is a classic:
FORBIDDEN_PLANET
Adventure fiction, ancient greek vs protestent
THE_ILIAD_AND_THE_PROTESTANT
Mistakes in the control room as a proof of skill:
ALL_PANDAS_THUMBS
07/05/04
Added:
FLIES
07/05/04
Added much exposition on the works and attitudes of the
mystery writer John Dickson Carr, with some emphasis on
his contempt for high culture, and some musing about where
those kind of attitudes lead to...
THUNDER
UNLIKELY_CONFESSION
SAME_CARR
FALLEN_FASHION
BOOKSHELF_OF_CARR
A_THING_OF_WIND_AND_LIGHT
CASTLE_SKULL
07/04/04
A year or two ago, back when she was still doing
the young and innocent schtick, I was severely weirded
out by Britany...
CREEPING_SPEARS
A probably ill-conceived, back-handed tribute to
Ashley Adams that I've been sitting on for a few
years, but what the hell:
ROLLING_A_MODEL
Also added some meanderings about the difficulty of
being *really* eclectic in music:
BRAND_ECLECTICS
07/04/04
Over the last five years, I've occasionally written one
or two little things discussing things related to the
bay area improvised/creative/new music scene, beginning
with the complete lack of an adequate name for it:
IMP_PERVERSE
POWER_OF_NAMING
THE_NAMING_OF_MUSICS
ZORN_ADVANTAGE
LIVE_YOUR_OWN_DAMN_BOOK
NOISE_ABOUNDS
EXPLAINING_THE_INEXPLICABLE
PLONSEY_IN_THE_OCEAN
WHEN_THE_END_IS_NEAR
SCENIC_ROUTE
CATCH_5_7_TIME
INCOMPREHENSIBLE_DESIRE
CONCRETE_MUSIC
NEWMUSING9
06/24/04
Added:
ALPHAVILLE
Incompetence is a selling point.
06/19/04
Dashiell Hammett's "The Glass Key", a novel that
writes about the nature of human consciousness
by avoiding any expression of it.
GLASS_KEY
Quote from an earlier Hammett story:
FOGGY_BOTTOM
Lawrence Sterne, author of "Tristram Shandy", clearly also
had some insight into this subject:
SHANDY_TOWN_MIND
A long overdue (?) summary of the chapter from the "Maltese Falcon":
G_IN_THE_AIR
Aside about the true nature of action/adventure fiction:
PRAISE_OF_ONES_ENEMIES
06/18/04
Added:
UNIVERSAL_ART
Something I wrote a few months ago that seems related to the
HONEST_JOHN sequence...
Not to mention DEFINITION_GAME.
06/17/04
Digging into the esthetic->ethics notion I settled on long
ago:
BEAUTIFUL_GOODS
UGLYBEAUTY
METHODICAL_PARADOX
PRETTY_TRUE
RECURSIVE_DEFINITION
CLOUDS
DEFINITION_GAME
EIGHT_RAVING_BEAUTIES_COUNT_EM
Largely useless attempt at "applying" the esthetic->ethics
notion to a real world social problem:
LESS
LESS_LESS
Ducking sideways into an abstraction generation game:
DEALING_THE_DECK
THE_DECK
ACCORDION_THE_DECK
STRANGE_EQUATIONS
When technological improvements aren't really:
DEATH_OF_THE_ALBUM
06/07/04
Once upon a time, I read
"The Geography of Nowwhere" (1993)
by James Howard Kunstler,
and wrote up a bunch of things
I liked and disliked about it.
I am now promptly adding it all to
the doomfiles, three years later:
NOWHERE_MAN
NOWHERE_WARNINGS
NOWHERE_OIL
NOWHERE_MODERN
NEW_URBAN_HERESY
NOWHERE_PUNK
GEOGRAPHY_OF_GEOGRAPHY
NOWHERE_TRIP
NOWHERE_POLICY
NOWHERE_SMOKE
NOWHERE_TRANSIT
NOWHERE_VICTORIANS
PEDDLING_SUSTAIN
MODERN_TRAP
06/05/04
About Homer Evans of the Elliot Paul novels.
Escapism/Engagment...
TAKEN_LIGHTLY
A favorite subject of mine in my continuing studies of
the popular trash of yesteryear, the Alcohol Comedy:
ALCOHOL_COMEDY
06/05/04
Added some stuff about the way the culturally conservative
(such as Heinlein) react to artists like John Cage and
Robert Rauschenberg...
HONEST_JOHN
KNOW_WHAT_I_LIKE
A_BIT_FAR
BRIGHT_SILENCE
06/02/04
Added stuff I wrote a few years back about the Tolstoy novel
"Anna Karenina", along with many a quotation:
ANNA_KARENINA
MORAL_CHOICE
PILLAR_OF_LEAR
THE_ABSTRACTION_GAME
THOUGHT_AND_ACTION
PEOPLE_UNGROUNDED
04/03/04
Added an approach to non-fiction book reviewing,
an application of the rough/fine approach... TWO_LEVEL
an in depth look at just the first thirteen pages:
FIRST13
A stab at applying the above ideas to Joel Garreau's "Edge City":
EDGE_CITY
Some (probably redundant) musing (about some ancient ideas)
about on-line debate and the kind of discourse it fosters:
LIGHTNING_WAR
04/03/04
My reaction to the "Tim Berners-Lee" book,
which I actually wrote a few years ago:
WWW
A comparison of old-style command-line ftp to
the web:
JOY_OF_FTP
03/24/04
Added:
BICYCLES
BIKE_SAFELY
These follow URB and
flow into MAPGAME
(which I've moved from where it was originally parked).
03/16-18/04
Added:
More beat generation stuff...
Much is known about who Joan Vollmer
had sex with and what kind of drugs
she did. Lately I've been wondering
what she said and thought about:
LOOKING_FOR_JOAN_VOLLMER
GO_
LITOUT
ON_JANE
TOWNIE_MARY
BEATGEN_ANGRYMEN
JUNE_ORIENTATION (Really, added:
Thu Jun 17, 2004)
02/23/04
Some discussion of one of Asimov's Foundation stories,
published in the 1945 issue of Astounding:
DEAD_HAND
SECOND_PARAGRAPH
02/02/04
Added Genesis P. Orridge quote in
INDUSTRIAL_RECORDS
01/29/04
A self-fufilling negative slogan, in action:
MONKEYS_BUTT
01/06/04
Bruce Sterling's Legs, and the Viridian Movement:
STERLING_DISTRACTED
12/19/03
Stating some obvious truths about the mainstream musical world:
MUSICAL_DAMAGE
Some stunning news for you: Punk did not begin with The Sex Pistols.
PISTOL_WHIPPED
12/19/03
More musing on the sfnal mindset:
FANTASTIC_VEIL
12/15/03
THE_SECRET_MASTERS_OF_DESTINY
It all goes back
to Van Vogt.
12/14/03
About Samuel R. Delany's "The Madman":
SYSTEMS_OF_THE_MADMAN
12/14/03
Added 24 (!) nodes, all more or
less about Science Fiction, past
and future...
GENESIS_OF_THE_CYBER-PUNKS
A golden oldie: what cyber-punk
meant to me, back in 1985
LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS
Is science fiction dead?
Or merely transmuted?
FUTURE_SHACKLED
The brakes are on.
DECLINATION
Of the West.
FUTURE_FRAGMENTS
Glimpses of what might be done with SF
DARKWOOD
Awkward critique of fuziness in "LOST_WORLDS..."
points the way toward "Deep SF" in "IN_DEEP"
NEOLOOGIES
Advantages of making up your own terms, when the
existing ones seem too cluttered.
IN_DEEP
Staggering toward a manifesto for a new movement
in SF. (Probably needs work.)
HARD_PROBLEMS
The soft underbelly of Hard SF.
RAYMONDS_FOLLY
Taking on the esr thesis that libertarianism and hard sf
are what SF is really about.
THROUGH_THE_LENS
Aside about E.E. Smith's Lensman series.
WHEN_THE_DEVIL_QUOTES_SCRIPTURES
Just a redirect to send you to the page
"Libertarianism for People Who Don't Give a Shit"
FLAME_SPOTTERS
How to find the good stuff?
MODERN_DECAY
Warm fuzzy regard for the icy charms of modernism.
HOPE_OF_THE_SLANS
Taking on the conceit that reading SF requires
you to be smarter than the average litcritter.
TELL_ME_TRUE
If you have something to say, then say it.
PURLOINED
The advantages of being passe
TECHNOLOGY_SECTIONED
Complaint about what newspapers think "technology" is.
STANDARD_FUTURE
The oversimplified curves of futures vs. history
AG_SPARKS
Quotations flying off from Chairman Sterling.
ESSAY_ON_THE_UNDERGROUND
(1) a radio show set (2) theme of said set: taz the enemy
of the revolution.
NOTHING_IS_PURE
Idealized futures vs. messy realizations
TIME_MIND
Living with the idea of change
TOADKEEPER
Stub (at the moment) about Edward Brenner.
12/05/03
Doom takes on Hollywood! A discussion of the *X-Men* movie!
Only out of date by a few years and a sequel or two...
NO_CREDIT
12/02/03
Yeah:
SHAMELESS_BEATNIK_POETRY
You want to make something of it?
11/30/03
An outline of the methods of dealing with
the "Social Epistemology" problem raised
in GARDNER:
NEED_TO_KNOW
TWO_LEVEL
GOLD
CRAZYIDEAS
(Review of Robert Ehrlich's "Nine Crazy Ideas in Science")
10/09/03
Movements to change language usage always
run up against difficulties:
STUBBORN_WORDS
10/08/03
Slice of life, bumming around in North Beach:
BURST_OF_ROSE
BOLTHOLES
Another slice, sailing trip to Angel Island:
ANGEL_ISLAND
CONTEXT_AGAIN
And a slice of "life", watching an old serial on video:
MYSTERIOUS_DOCTOR_SATAN
SATANS_PLACE
(All about maintaining a sense of place in film and more
ranting about the incompetence of Hollywood in doing what
they're supposed to do best.)
08/05/03
About the James Thurber book:
13CLOCKS
06/18/03
Added review of Bardini's book about Englebart: "Bootstrapping".
ENGLEBARTS_BARD
FURTHER_REFLEXION
YOU_KNOW_TOO_MUCH
DEEPKEYS
01/10/03
Added:
WILDONE
My reaction to the infamous "The Wildones" flick.
One more time: the problems with didactic art,
and a lament for the lack public spirt among
the citizenry.
1/2/03
Some (fairly slight) remarks about Balzac:
BALZAC
With a few satellite nodes:
FRENCHREVS
GORIOT
Pushed out a cluster of things beginning with this:
GARDNER
An extended review of Martin Gardner's
"Fads and Fallacies in the Name of
Science", with emphasis on his failure
to address the problem of social
epistemology ("How do we know what we know?").
12/21/02
And now, never before published in this venue...
STEIN
Notes on the novel Frankenstein, with some attention to the
actual technology that Shelley had in mind (note, nothing
much about electricity), followed up by some wild
speculation on how the Frankenstein scenario might have
played out if you didn't have some narrowminded notion about
the un-holiness of "playing God" i.e. creating a new
lifeform. (Actually I wrote this stuff a few years
ago, and read it on the air in March 2000... and posted
a copy to alt.gothic in 2001 or so...)
Also put out some entertaining (to me) ranting
about a bad mystery novel from 1928:
GREENE_MURDER
COMPOSITION_UNITY_AND_CLUELESSNESS
HIPSTERISM
Some things about Beatness and Authenticity:
CREBBS
THE_SAUCE
12/17/02
Minor piece about early encounters with the
music of Sun Ra:
ALONG_CAME_RA
Rambling about the novel the "Diceman" and the idea
of living randomly:
DICE
Excessively detailed description of a random bike
ride game I play sometimes:
MAPGAME
A mapgame ride to McCluren Park. Musing about
descriptions, the art of connotations:
McCLUREN_PARK
A cross-roads of some random writings about randomness:
RANDOM_CONNECTIONS
Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control", and the bit about Sullivan's
work with system adaptability vs a connectivity parameter:
CONTROL
Some old, probably excessive, ranting about the Flaubert
novel "Madame Bovary", it's cyncism, and some dark
suspicions about why it may have been so well-regarded by
those who regard it well:
BOVARY
About Chaim Bertman's autobiographical novel, and the goal
of total honesty, complete nakedness in writing... and maybe
an example of not quite achieving it:
STANDUP_TRAGEDIAN
A quote from the same, about extreme attempts
at preservation becoming a kind of destruction:
FLORENCE
And this stack has got a hell of a lot of stuff in it,
which I'm not in the mood to describe in detail.
Note: idea for a privacy sigil, to keep yourself out
of the major media.
Note: Odd notion of a generalized drag force as an
alternative to individual control or centralized
control.
FAST_MEDIA
SUBCULTS
MEDIA_FAST
DRAG
Oh yeah, and this little piece about
the speed of beat vs. style of dance:
DANCE
And an even littler paradox about the
appeal of games:
GAMES
11/3/02
The node SURVIVAL is supposed to
establish what may be a stunningly obvious point: the
purpose of human life is not just to live, and hence you
can't come up with a complete, rigorous moral/ethical code
based on the needs for individual or group survial.
While writing this, I decided I needed to extract this
bit from the DRUGS node and give it a node of its own:
HAPPY_BREED
(About the John Sladek story.)
And similarly, it turns out that it makes more sense to move
the "vanilla existentialism" stuff from IRONTHORN to:
LIFE
10/19/02
Brace yourself, I'm about to press
the "irony" button:
I wrote this material, in which I
discuss the problem of writers
who ruin things with later re-writes:
FIRST_THINKS_FIRST
NOW_AND_LATER
The point being that maybe you should
just go with your first thought, and
never revise once you've published.
Stop questioning the judgement
of the version of yourself that was
probably more familiar with the material
than you are now.
Then I started thinking about where this
should go in the doomfiles "browse sequence".
Then I proceeded to rip apart the existing
browse sequence, and try to re-arrange everything
into a new order.
Who knows what damage I've done,
I certainly don't.
Other new nodes added while I was doing
this "great" re-arrangement:
Phil Jose Farmer's _Maker of Universes_ series,
and it's relatives:
MAKER
Tidbit about improvisation in music:
IMPULSE
Notions about how to create creative music
(perhaps ala Eno's infamous deck of cards):
SOUND_ADVICE
Pretentious little bit about terror at the inadequacies of
rationality:
WASTELAND
The tendency to pick something to center your world
view on that's very often obviously bogus:
FALSE_CENTER
The act of naming, with an eye toward the problem of genre
names in music:
ACTIVE_NAMING
Musing on the definition of City:
URB
Brief listing of some of the purposes of music:
PURPOSES_OF_MUSIC
When music has nothing to do with music:
VORTEX
On the popularity of H.P.:
LOVECRAFT
Diamanda Galas = perfect, but perhaps not sincere. So?
GALAS
Another vanilla existentialism quickie:
LIFE
Misconceptions about Leonard Cohen's "Sisters of Mercy":
MERCY
Misconceptions about pop-music lyrics in general:
TURNING
Yet another scheme: pop music that is not pop music:
SUBVERSIVEPOP
Early encounters with Suzanne Vega:
NEWFOLKS
Why I am not that cool:
EDGESCUT
The Strange Case of Freeman Dyson... constantly brilliant,
though somewhat inconstant:
DYSON
Whew.
10/04/02
Wow, nearly a year since I've added something to this
mess... Anyway, took a short piece about a trip to New York
that I wrote last June, and picked a place for it (after the
UNINTENDED->AGES sequence... it would be funny if
chronological order was the right thing to do now, recording
the natural flow of the thought...):
REVIEW_NEWYORK
Breaking that theory immediately though, by putting a bunch
of the alt.gothic.bookworms material (reviews of Lewis's
"The Screwtape Letters" and Twain's "Letters from the Earth"
and so on) after the old "GODDEATH" node, which is funny
because GODDEATH totally contradicts the MORTALGOD piece
it leads up to:
GODDEATH
SCREWTAPE
LETTERS_FROM_EARTH
AUTO
MORTALGOD
10/05/01
Just wrote:
UNINTENDED
This is some jamming around the idea that the
limitations of human intelligence lead to a disconnection
between the desired and the beautiful.
In the "browse sequence", I'm putting it (and a slight
companion piece, AGES) after MOREBEAUTY, and before NEOPUNK
(though getting it closer to PUNK might make more sense).
09/08/01
Added BURNING_MOMENTS, a description of some experiences
of my first trip to Burning Man in 2001.
BURNING_MOMENTS
I stuck this immediately before DRUGS (after SLOWCULPT),
though I suspect it will ultimately reside between SPLIT and
STURGEON. (The general
reasoning: the Burning Man folks might be interested in
my philosphy, such as it is, about recreational drugs.)
And while I'm at it, I'm pushing out something I wrote six
months ago: musing about the probable impracticality of the
legendary/mythical "Key Parties": KEYPART
It seemed to fit pretty naturally between STRANGER and
GROUPS... it didn't take an hour to figure out where to put
something for once.
08/08/01
Some ramblings about greenesque refrigerator design,
the emergency preparedness problem.
Includes a stab at a new slogan:
"The emergency is your life", which I suspect
will not catch on.
GREENISH-TINGE
04/14/01
Got around to adding my reaction to the movie
GROOVES (a fictional account of the SF Bay Area
rave scene):
GROOVEN_IMAGES
06/30/00
Wrote up the events surrounding Bill Sheffield's suicide:
WAYOUT
(and after a bit of thought, I appended it before
the AMERICANBEAUTY node in the browse sequence...)
05/01/00
Babbling about the movie "American Beauty",
and it's main theme, seeing beauty in
unlikely places:
AMERICANBEAUTY
MOREBEAUTY
Also wrote on the subject of the apparent
fear of sex that can be inferred from our
behavior, if not from our tastes in
fiction and so on.
EXCUSES
SEXUALENGINEERING
04/30/00
And writing that stuff below left me
once again musing about truth, cynicism,
believability, persuasiveness and
so on...
GENTLER
Oh, and I also just decided to add
this silly thing:
WHATSNEW
And re-wrote the TOP
to reflect the recent changes.
04/29/00
Added some new nodes going into some more detail
on my theories (and very occasional practice)
in picking up women:
BACKING_IN
HOOK
LINES
04/25/00
Restored the browse sequence,
putting the Friday night whining
about relationships up top again. DRYSPELL
It doesn't reflect the condition of
my life anymore, but it remains one
of the better examples of a doomfile
node, and the subject probably has
a certain universal appeal...
04/10/00
Fixed the browse sequence
(there were some bugs, where
skipping forward wouldn't take
you to the same places as
skipping back; skipping forward
actually literally skipped most
of the nodes; punching 'next'
would take you into an infinite
loop and so on...).
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