Part 1 of the "cultural games I don't want to participate in" series

Fashion

I'm a Fashion dullard. I'm not sure which stage of my life I was supposed to learn how to dress myself and look good, but if someone other than myself was responsible for teaching me the intricacies of style they didn't do a good job.

I guess I can have intuitions about other men or women's style. These intuitions will tell me when I think someone is wearing something that I think looks good on them. So I do have some kind of internal sensor which differentiates fashionable clothing and non-fashionable clothing. I don't know where this intuition came from. I suspect it has something to do with my experiences watching tv or going to events where people dress up. The problem is that this intuition is not really that well tuned with the rest of my fellow cultural participants'.

But I really think that what is fashionable is much too subjective to spend much time pondering about. For instance, the top notch fashion of the the 16th century is not acceptable in the 21st. I think doublets, jerkins, and codpieces look pretty cool and I would wear them if it was socially acceptable to do so (or if I found them on sale at Macy's). But that's not the case. In fact, we don't even have to go back 500 years to commit fashion faux pas. Wearing clothes from just a couple decades ago, for example, is only OK when the fashion elite deem it so.

So, I ask you, why should I invest even a minute of my day worrying about getting my style up to speed? As long as I'm not dressed in an obscene way (e.g. loin cloth, clown wig, and rain galoshes) I shouldn't be judged by my 6 pair of indistinguishable jeans, my dozens of plain t-shirts, and single pair of all-purpose shoes.

I'm probably on the 6th level

For those who don't know, here are the levels (or circles) of hell according to Dante:

First, you need to go through a dark forest. Here there are animals which can kill you. That's to make sure that living people don't get to hell. Here, you are also likely to find loved ones from heaven who want to make sure that you don't get stuck in hell. They will provide you with a poet, probably a humanist, who will be your guide to hell.

After the woods, you get to the vestibule. This is where you go if you believed in God but didn't take sides. You were neither good nor evil, an opportunist? Then you don't quite go to hell, but you go to the vestibule. Your afterlife in the vestibule is spent chasing an unreachable flag whilst being chased by insects.

Eventually, you reach Charon the boatdude. He takes you across some river where you enter the official first circle of hell. This isn't really hell as we know it, but is more often referred to as Purgatory. This is for unbaptized babies and pre-old testament folks who were pure at heart but weren't given the choice to repent for the sins of their ancestors. Nothing too bad happens here, it's just a basically boring place.

The next circle of hell is where all the lustful go: Romeo and Juliet, Zeus, Magic Johnson. Here, from what I understand, it's very windy. And there's no one to comfort you. So far hell is not that horrible.

In the third level you got your fatties. These are the gluttons who ate and drank of God's gifts and gave nothing but garbage in return. Here there's a lot of filth and garbage, with intermittent freezing rain. Sounds like a winter in New Jersey. However things can get pretty nasty in this circle as the three headed dog Cerberus might chew you to pieces if he gets a hold of you. Things are starting to get a bit more hell like.

Next, you'll get to meet some misers. In the fourth level is where you go if you are rich and collected a lot of wealth but did not give back to the community. These are the hoarders. But they aren't alone. Here you also find wasters. These are people who were given a lot but lost it all in foolish persuits. Some presidents of the US will find themselves here some day (it would seem). Their punishment is to be pushed down by great weights...

That brings us to the level of wrath. If you can't control your temper in life, you end up here, wading through the swampy mire of Styx, endlessly fighting with your neighbors. Every once in a while, you'll trod on a miserly hermit.

The sixth circle is reserved for those who were surrounded by the word of the lord but failed to accept it. These foolish beasts will be living in the capital of hell. Supposedly, this is the turning point too. From this level on things get really bad. Here you'll find Medusa and winged furies. The air is really smelly too, makes you dizzy. But the Heretics are stuck in tombs which are set ablaze. Since they denied God and did not believe in an afterlife, they will now be stuck for eternity in a flaming grave. However, the graves are open so the heretics can go out for a nice walk anytime they want. However, once the rapture is in progress, the lids will clamp down, trapping these heathens forever. If I were there, I'd get out of my firey hole and go find medusa. Spending eternity as a statue in a stinky capital is much better than spending it in a broiling grave.

The seventh circle is actually made up of three sub-circles. This is where the violent people go. If you were violent against others, started wars or beat up neighbors, you get to go under a boiling hot river of blood. If you try to peek out, people shot you with arrows and stab you with spears. If you were violent against yourself, that is you cut yourself or kill yourself, you are turned into a tree. It is upon this tree that harpies eat and I guess it hurts because you'll bleed and scream every time the harpies take a bite. You do this forever because you are growing quite fast, as fast as you are being eaten I presume. If you were violent against God, this includes sodomites, blasphemers, and art critics (I'm not making this up) then you get to spend eternity in a desert showered upon by fire rain.

Those last two levels were pretty bad, I guess. I think that a 21st century author could have come up with much worse punishments than those. Read Harlan Ellison for an example.

The second to last level is very tough to describe. That's basically because it's like 10 levels in one. I think Dante was a bit strapped here trying to include a bunch of other sinners without including another dozen levels. So he hodge podged 10 groups in this one circle.

Who gets to go here?
1) Thieves
2) Hypocrites
3) Panderers
4) People who exchange a high position in the church for money
5) Flatterers
6) Liars
7) Pessimists who are loud about it
8) Evil counselors
9) Fortune tellers
10) ?

The 10th are referred to as grafters, but I don't know what a grafter is. Best as I can tell, a grafter is a greedy person, but I thought those people are already spending time on the 5th level so I'm confused.

Anyway, all these people are given punishments that fit the crime, but they are all pretty dull. So I wasn't very surprised at the disappointment of the last, most evil level of hell.

The eight circle of hell is Antarctica in winter. But at the center of the earth.
If you killed a member of your own family, you get buried up to your neck in ice but can move your neck about. If you were disloyal to your country, you are also buried up to your neck in ice but you can't move your neck even. If you invited someone to your house and killed them, or if you were invited to someone's house and killed them, you get buried up to your nose in ice. If you kill your master, you are entirely entombed in ice.

Whoopdy doo. Stuck in ice for eternity. That's the last circle of hell.

Give me a break, Dante!

My man, the don (and sancho p.)

Inspired by Jeff Chaucer:

It's like a religious experience

I created an image for the front page of this blog out of a photograph I took two years ago. After posting it I realized that this, along with the title of the blog, makes the whole enterpries look like it has something to do with religion or Christianity. It doesn't, except indirectly. But I'm not going to change any of it.

Annoying people with my musical tastes since 1991

I just added this music thing to the top of the blog. I had itunes find me some of my favoritest songs and then I used some kind of online playlist making device to find those songs and put them on a playlist to share. If you are reading this from the blog page, I hope you enjoy. If not, then hit the stop button.

If you are reading this blog using a news reader and are interested in listening, go to my blog page!

From the "I wish I had thought of that" file:

Take a video camera and put it on a kaiten sushi conveyor belt.

Best movie ever.

Instrumental love

I am a gigantic fan of the accordion. It is my second favorite sounding instrument next to the violin/viola/cello (oh yeah, they are the same instrument with respect to my ears). So I try to be on the lookout for accordion related news and accordion related musicians.

This is why I'm very excited about Motion Trio. Do check out their 'music online' link where you can hear and download some of their tracks.

My vote matters... but I don't know about yours

These days everyone has a story about how horrible life is in a post 9/11 world. Whether it's tightened security at the airport, or overzealous citizenry targeting the "brown" people. I just read an article written by a guy who took some photos of french fries on a New York ferry and was accosted by the ferry staff and treated rudely. The author of the article had to really reach to make this link between rude ferry staff to accusations of terrorism, but he went for it anyway.

Is life harder in a post 9/11 world? Well, it's definitely less convenient for me as it is for a lot of other people who are currently living in the US or trying to come live in the US. But I think it's a lot harder for Iraqis. And what about the Sudanese? Well, I bet life in a post 9/11 world is just as shitty for them as it was in a pre 9/11 world. The same probably goes for folks in Myanmar and Venezuela.

The thing that really gets me the most is that there is a huge overlap between the people who are complaining about the inconveniences of living in post 9/11 america, and the people who don't even bother to learn what the patriot act is, people who vote for the straight republican ticket because they believe that A) their vote doesn't count, B) all the candidates are assholes anyway, and C) gots to gets me my taxes lowered!

Not that I have a leg to stand on. I didn't participate in any protests. I'm not writing letters to my congressman or senator. I'm just sitting at home making sure my internet works so I can get a daily dose of the lolcatz.

Have you thought about who you're going to vote for?

Something else Americans are good at

We may not be number 1 at it, but I'll take 2nd place. What am I talking about?

Touristing.

Americans come a distant second to Japanese as the 'best' tourists according to hoteliers or people who operate hotels. No one comes even close to touching the Japanese when it comes to tidiness and politeness. But second place is pretty darn decent and much higher than I expected. I think that's fantastic.

Speaking of Linux

If I had a child, I would want it to have its own computer by the time it was 5. I would want that computer to run Linux. People have tried this and it seems to have worked. But I don't think they were concerned with internet safety. I don't think I would have to police a 16 year old's internet access, but I sure as heck wouldn't want my 5 year old accidentally or purposefully stumbling into one of those awful awful sex sites! Awful!

What kind of open source 'net-nanny' program is available for a linux-based OS? I think the answer is -none- and that's a shame. I believe the whole open-source movement would benefit from getting these kids young.

Littrachure

I'm reading a novel called The Method Actors by a dude named Carl Shuker. On page 129/492 I believe this book to be about a couple dozen characters doing things in various cities, mostly Tokyo, across the span of about 10 years. I can barely keep up with who's who. Keeping track of which character is doing what in which year is made more difficult by the minimal information provided in any one designated section/chapter of the book.

Yes, I know that this is probably a literary device which the author uses to lead the reader to understand the chaos which the characters feel in their own lives, with no home to go to, and living in a relatively strange city that is unlike any other in the world. But even knowing this doesn't change the fact that it's a serious detriment to story telling. I want to know what's going on, but I'm left with fuzzy snapshots of transparent characters. At page 129/492 I don't care about any of them, I only enjoy the wonderful (though somewhat overly metaphoric) descriptions of the city.

I was led to believe that it was the best book to come out of 2005. Well, I surely would be stunned now if I discovered this to be true. I believe that it is a decent novel and I do feel a bit nostalgic about the setting. But somewhere on the internets this author was compared favorably to delillo and auster, and a good comparison this ain't, since unlike Shuker, they can tell a comprehensible story.

Oh yeah, I'm a total philistine.

I think literature in this country is leaving the general public behind. Art in general is leaving the public behind. That's a damned shame. High schools need to teach Shakespeare more better and stuff. Reading a half dozen of his plays is not going to do it. Teach the period, teach the history, teach the style, then read one, and only one play from set A and one, and only one from set B:
A) Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice
B) A midsummer night's dream, the Tempest

Above all, make sure they learn why he was important and why high schools all over the god damned english speaking world make their students read him. I suppose this implies that the teacher must know the answer to this question. I hope he or she does. Anyway, if that's the only lesson they learn, that should be the lowest setting on the bar.

How to spend your time

I was reading this article about how Rolling Stone magazine got some of their ratings wrong, not objectively wrong, but disagreeably wrong.

Exhibit A: Joanna Newsom's Y's
It got a 2/5. I don't own this album (yet) but I think it's much better than a 2/5.

Exhibit B: Nirvana's albums (most of 'em)
I'm a big fan of Nirvana, but I wouldn't disagree that (other than the Unplugged album) they don't deserve 5/5s. Or, to put it another way, I would disagree that they deserve 5/5. Or, to put it another way still, I would agree that they don't deserve 5/5.

Exhibit C: The Pixies's Doolittle
Someone at rolling stone gave this a 3.5/5. Maybe my favorite of the Pixie's albums. I don't blame the reviewer at rolling stone's because this just goes to prove how we really shouldn't assume ratings and reviews are objective pieces of data.

Something I think but don't think that you think

I overheard a conversation walking through campus today. I will abbreviate it thusly:

----------------
Person A: I saw on tv how lack of vitamin D causes breast cancer. But I found out today that it is not true. My professor said so.
Person B: But your professor isn't a doctor right?
Person A: No, he's actually a doctor in a hospital and everything.
----------------

So here's what I think. A cursory google search seems to say that Vitamin D may actually be linked to reduced cancer risk. But what is key here is that causal links like these are hardly ever conclusive. Unless results of tests are incredibly clear, given really good statistical analysis, you're going to have academics disagree about results. Way too many people rely on what the professor said. Often the professor is right. More often the professor is half right. Typically, the professor is heaving spoonfuls of subjectivity into each sentence.

OSX and Windows (Linux too)

It turns out that the difference is just not that great. Spend some time on one, then spend some time on the other. There are benefits and drawbacks to them both. My experience with Linux is minimal but I believe the same can be said about that OS.

It's what's true for forms of government, or cultures, or pizza restaurants. For every pro you can find, someone else will perceive some con.

No one has got it right. There's no utopia just as there's no perfect operating system.
You just have to find the thing that's right for you. I never really considered myself a relativist, but maybe I should.

On becoming secular

The Scenario ------------------

A wonderful woman, mother of one, dies of old age and is sent up to heaven. She was such a wonderful [insert adjective form of denomination which requires belief of such things (e.g. Roman Catholic)] that whoever is in charge up there wants her eternal afterlife to be blissful as promised in the sacred scriptures.

Although this woman did a wonderful job of raising her one child, much of her good work was destroyed when her child decided one day that [insert religious doctrine/rule/commandment (e.g. keep that sabbath holy)] was not an essential doctrine/rule/commandment to adhere to. Little did that child know that this doctrine/rule/commandment was fundamental. Breaking it unrepentantly would be an offense unforgivable in the eyes of [creature in charge up there]. This was clearly stated in the sacred scriptures, unfortunately the one child failed to appreciate this clear warning.

Upon that child's death, unrepentant, the trip to hell is a brisk and unpleasant one.

The Problem -------------------

How can the mother's bliss be assured now that her one and only child will be spending eternity in a very unpleasant place while the mother will be spending it in such a pleasant one?

The Solution -------------------

A) Mother's entrance pass to heaven is rescinded, on account of her failure as a parent, allowing the pair to rejoin in hell.
B) Child's entrance to heaven is reconsidered as a once-in-a-millennium exception due to Mother's exemplary behavior.
C) Mother's memory of child is completely wiped, allowing her to remain blissful (though ignorant)
D) Heaven is just not as pleasant as scriptures would have us believe (i.e. we bring our own baggage).
E) Stop asking such questions, we cannot presume to ever be able to understand His plan.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

As a child of 11, solution E) was that provided by my catechism instructor.
As a child of 26, I'm not sure I still have a better answer. And that's just not acceptable.

How to fall asleep

There's this method I use to fall asleep sometimes, when my consciousness is being obstinate about defying my will to lose it. I derived it from something some guy I know, who studied Buddhism in India and Tibet, said he used as a strategy to get his meditation on.

As you lay in bed with your eyes closed you think of empty blackness. There is nothing, except for a single object. This object is a perfect cube. Its size is of no consequence, could be 1ft^3 or 1cm^3 or 1km^3, since there is no other object to compare it to. This cube is spinning. The axis of spin doesn't matter either. It's made of transparent glass and it is hollow. As you focus on its spin it begins to fill with a fluid. The type of fluid is also inconsequential. As the fluid completely fills its innards, the cube bursts apart. Then the fluid takes shape. What shape it takes is entirely up to your subconscious or conscious desires. You let your imagination run wild from there.

While all of this is happening, you can imagine that a wave of inactivity is affecting your body. I like to imagine that, beginning with my toes, everything goes numb and frozen. I count up from one and by the time I reach ten, my toes are asleep. I move on to the sole of my foot, ten more seconds and that's now paralyzed. I keep going up my foot, ankle, calf, shin, knee, thigh, etc. I hardly ever make it past my waist. I'm out in 5 minutes.

If none of this works, that means my body is just not ready for sleep so I get out of bed and do something else.

I'll be writing a lot about sleep. I like sleep.

First Post

This is how it begins. I decided to start a blog again, but I'm not really sure why. Maybe I want to post for posterity. More on that later.

Anyway, let's see what happens.