Quantum Mechanix

A eulogy... wii!

2006-11-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

So, let the video game wars begin! My roommate just hooked up his brand-spanking-new Nintendo Wii, and might I say, "Dude!" Just to break the situation down for those who haven't been paying attention to these recent developments, I'll just mention the fact the Wii is equipped with a special controller called a "wii-mote." This little device is what makes the machine so revolutionary. First off, it's wireless, probably a good move given that everything is wireless these days. Second, it uses motion sensors to enable a player to act as a puppet master. If you move your arm left, so does your virtual character. Pretty cool, right? And if you apply those properties to your average shoot-em-up game, you get the opportunity to feel like you're actually killing people! All those purient impulses are one step closer to being fully realized.

I am eagerly awaiting for someone I know to acquire the Playstation 3, which is apparently worth an attempted homicide charge.

Also, Milton Friedman is dead. The invisible hand of the free market must have finally strangled him. . . .
Too soon?

Hello Again

2006-11-17T14:38:00.000-08:00

Okay....I know.....I'm sorry. But I'm back to update as frequently as I can. So here's a link for all you Literature Majors.

Mr. Pynchon's new novel comes out this month, I and I'm as excited as a New York Times book reviewer! Prepare yourself for many pretentious adjectives after I finish reading it.

It's been so long....

2006-07-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post this article from the LA Weekly which is a round-table discussion on literature and music with the likes of Rick Moody, Jonathan Lentham, and my favorite indie-folk singer John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats). It's a must-read!

A video and a poem

2006-07-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post another YouTube video of Noam Chomsky debating Michel Foucault. But I warn you that if you watch it, no matter what your level of education may be, you will feel really stupid by comparison to these two fuckin' geniuses.

And now -- a poem by James Merrill:

AN URBAN CONVALESENCE

Out for a walk, after a week in bed,
I find them tearing up part of my block
And, chilled through, dazed and lonely, join the dozen
In meek attitudes, watching a huge crane
Fumble luxuriously in the filth of years.
Her jaws dribble rubble. An old man
Laughs and curses in her brain,
Bringing to mind the close of The White Goddess.
As usual in New York, everything is torn down
Before you have had time to care for it.
Head bowed, at the shrine of noise, let me try to recall
What building stood here. Was there a building at all?
I have lived here on the same street for a decade.

Wait. Yes. Vaguely a presence rises
Some five floors high, of shabby stone
—Or am I confusing it with another one
In another part of twon, or of the world?—
And over its lintel into focus vaguely
Misted with blood (my eyes are shut)
A single garland sways, stone fruit, stone leaves,
Which years of grit had etched until it thrust
Roots down, even into the poor soil of my seeing.
When did the garland become part of me?
I ask myself, amused almost,
Then shiver once from head to toe,

Transfixed by a particular cheap engraving of garlands
Bought for a few francs long ago,
All calligraphic tendril and cross-hatched rondure,
Ten years ago, and crumpled up to to stanch
Boughs dripping, whose white gestures filled a cab,
And thought of neither then nor since.
Also, to clasp them, the small, red-nailed hand
Of no one I can place. Wait. No. Her name, her features
Lie toppled underneath that year's fashions.
The words she must have spoken, setting her face
To fluttering like a veil, I cannot hear now.
Let alone understand.

So that I am already on the stair,
As it were, of where I lived,
When the whole structure shudders at my tread
And soundlessly collapses, filling
The air with motes of stone.
Onto the still erect building next door
Are pressed levels and hues—
Pocked rose, streaked greens, brown whites.
Who drained the pousse-café?
Wires and pipes, snapped off at the roots, quiver.
Well, that is what life does. I stare
A moment longer, so. And presently
The massive volume of the world.
Closes again.

Upon that book I swear
To abide by what it teaches:
Gospels of ugliness and waste,
Of towering voids, of soiled gusts,
Of a shrieking to be faced
Full into, eyes astream with cold—

With cold?
All right then. With self-knowledge.

Indoors at last, the pages of Time are apt
To open, and the illustrated mayor of New York,
Given a glimpse of how and where I work,
To note yet one more house that can be scrapped.

Unwillingly I picture
My walls weathering in the general view.
It is not even as though the new
Buildings did very much for architecture.

Suppose they did. The sickness of our time requires
That these as well be blasted in their prime.
You would think the simple fact of having lasted
Threatened our cities like mysterious fires.

There are certain phrases which to use in a poem
Is like rubbing silver with quicksilver. Bright
But facile, the glamour deadens overnight.
For instance, how “the sickness of our time”

Enhances, then debases, what I feel.
At my desk I swallow in a glass of water
No longer cordial, scarcely wet, a pill
They had told me not to take until much later.

With the result that back into my imagination
The city glides, like cities seen from the air,
Mere smoke and sparkle to the passenger
Having in mind another destination

Which now is not that honey-slow descent
Of the Champs-Elysées, her hand in his,
But the dull need to make some kind of house
Out of the life lived, out of the love spent.

Better living through chemistry

2006-07-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

As of late I have been prescribed a couple new medications for General Anxiety Disorder, or as I like to call it, my artistic temperament. But as helpful to my creative endeavors as they are, my constant emotional rollercoaster rides (for lack of a better metaphor) provide a plethora of social problems that, I fear, could alienate many of the people that I hold most dear to me.

Psychiatrists are a shady bunch, to say the least. I had never visited the office of one until about six weeks ago. Upon entering the Saluda Center for Mental Health here in Rock Hill, the first thing that I noticed was a bookshelf full of promotional literature for various psychoactive drugs. Each corporation that together form that dreaded monolith "Big Pharma" was represented, and each were hocking their supposedly life-changing pills and concoctions. What was most disturbing about all of this was the obvious attention paid to advertising aesthetics. Every brochure was appealing to the eye, too appealing. I found myself drawn to pamphlets (for conditions that I was in no way at risk for) by post-modern and minimalist artistry, including one for bipolar disorder with a very interesting neo-expressionist piece on the cover (think Franz Kline having a manic episode). And due to the embarrassingly poor magazine collection the institute had massed over the years, I had no choice but to indulge my need for constant intellectual stimulation by reading about drugs. Once I picked out the most attractive bunch, I settled down into a corduroy sofa and began to study.

What I found inside the sleekest of the ads is worthy only of the word charlatanry. I felt like I was transported back to the streets of Gilded Age Chicago or New York. You know, that wonderful time in American history before such silly organizations as the FDA put the kibash on the lucrative practice of street-side witch-doctoring. The brochure for Ambien (made famous by everyone's favorite intoxicated congressman Patrick Kennedy), for example, immediately informed me that if I had ever experienced a night of constant tossing and turning, I might very well have a sleep disorder, in which case I would be the perfect candidate for their product. It seemed as if these drugs were picking me as a user, instead of vice-versa. And it was almost flattering. "The perfect candidate? Aw, shucks guys!" Thank god my reading was disrupted by my actual appointment. On the way out of the waiting room I grabbed a tissue out of a box emblazoned with the Ambien logo and some photographs of very sedate, but happy, individuals.

psychiatry appointments aren't very long, and should never be used as an alternative to the cognitive therapy sessions offered by psychologists, those crazy folks with actual degrees in psychology and not just doctors who took a few psychoanalysis and bio-psych classes during the last semester of medical school, but I digress. I was told upon entering Dr. Aking's (I believe she's from India) office that we would only have twenty minutes to chat and that we had a lot to get through. Thus began the interview. I was grilled about every aspect of my life. However, the interrogation seemed way too superficial to me. Every topic was touched upon, but only for a few moments.

Admittedly, the most lengthy aspect of our discussion revolved around my recreational drug use. I confessed to her my love affair for cannabis sativa, at which point she sternly relayed to me that I would die within the next five years of my life if I did not quit. I sat staring at her for an awkward 30 seconds before she turned to her prescription pad to scribble down the name of my long-awaited cure for coping with life. It turned out to be called Effexor, a drug so new that there won't be a generic version of it until 2017. And that's when I realized what Ms. Aking really was -- nothing more than a pusher for the pharmaceutical industry. I didn't want to entrust the future of my mental health to a person who would dole out a drug that has been party to no research concerning long-term effects, but would have the gall to tell me that pot will end my life early. I got her to give me a two-weeks free sample of Effexor so I didn't have to pay if it ended up not agreeing with me.

Moral of the story: Psychological disorders like anxiety and depression were invented by major corporations to sell us drugs. But I'm a child of the internet age, I just want to feel normal again as soon as possible. If the drug helps, so be it.

2006-07-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Read my friend's blog. . . or suffer the consequences! (Which include a profound sense of despair and a strange inkling that you will never be whole again.) Toodles!

ANARCHY NOW!

2006-06-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

I just watched a new DVD released by AK Press called Anarchism in America. It's actually a re-release of a documentary made in the early 80's. I expected a lot more from it, but some of the interviews and news-reel footage made the weaknesses of the film very much worth it. What I was the most irritated by was the confusion created by the outlining of similarities between Anarchists and Libertarians. I understand that some contemporary anarchists (like Noam Chomsky) prefer to use the term "libertarian socialist" when describing their political philosophies, but the classical libertarian belief system (if you go by the libertarian party platform) has much more in common with feudalism than anarchism. Because, in my belief, if government is removed from the picture, capitalism must go with it. Otherwise corporations will just replace the government, and as much as Milton Friedman would just love that, it would be worse than any political dictatorship we've ever seen. I much prefer anarchists who emphasize the individual as part of the collective "we." Without individual liberty we can't be collectivists, and without a sense of cooperation we can't preserve our liberties. Classical libertarians want the right to exploit labor and smoke weed at the same time. Fucking selfish.

Anyhow, here's a clip from the movie of American anarchist Murray Bookchin talking about his conversion from Marxism to anarchism.

Finally

2006-06-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all,

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while, I got a job that has been keeping me very busy for the past week. Marx's idea of the Alienation of Labor has never been clearer to me than right now. But, thus is life I guess.

Anyways, I wanted to post this link for everyone. It's a video of Noam Chomsky debating William F. Buckley in 1969. It's pretty awesome (Chomsky obviously wins).

I've been watching a lot of world cup soccer lately. The Ghana versus Czech Republic game was especially interesting.

Okay, so I promise to keep updating on a regular basis. Peace Out!

A poem by Kenneth Rexroth

2006-06-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

FROM THE PARIS COMMUNE TO THE KRONSTADT REBELLION

Remember now there were others before this;
Now when the unwanted hours rise up,
And the sun rises red in unknown quarters,
And the constellations change places,
And cloudless thunder erases the furrows,
And moonlight stains and the stars grow hot.
Though the air is fetid, conscripted fathers,
With the black bloat of your dead faces;
Though men wander idling out of factories
Where turbine and hand are both freezing;
And the air clears at last above the chimneys;
Though mattresses curtain the windows;
And every hour hears the snarl of explosion;
Yet one shall rise up alone saying:
“I am one out of many, I have heard
Voices high in the air crying out commands;
Seen men’s bodies burst into torches;
Seen faun and maiden die in the night air raids;
Heard the watchwords exchanged in the alleys;
Felt hate speed the blood stream and fear curl the nerves.
I know too the last heavy maggot;
And know the trapped vertigo of impotence.
I have traveled prone and unwilling
In the dense processions through the shaken streets.
Shall we hang thus by taut navel strings
To this corrupt placenta till we’re flyblown;
Till our skulls are cracked by crow and kite
And our members become the business of ants,
Our teeth the collection of magpies?”
They shall rise up heroes, there will be many,
None will prevail against them at last.
They go saying each: “I am one of many”;
Their hands empty save for history.
They die at bridges, bridge gates, and drawbridges.
Remember now there were others before;
The sepulchres are full at ford and bridgehead.
There will be children with flowers there,
And lambs and golden-eyed lions there,
And people remembering in the future.

2006-06-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, What The Fuck?

Here's another item to add onto the ever-expanding list of horrible things the CIA has done.

Confess or complain to a monkey in Belarus.

So for the past two days I've been sitting around in an under shirt and pajama pants, glued to C-SPAN like a deadbeat sopa opera fan, in order to catch every last minute of their dramatic new series "Senate Debates Gay Marriage Amendment." What a show! The baby-faced Rick Santorum gave a performance worthy of such adjectives as "stunning," "breath-taking," and "douche-baggy." With the help of giant blue plackards emblazoned with quotes from former Supreme Court decisions, Mr. Santorum made use of some of the classic catch-phrases that initially made him a star, like:

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

Sam Brownback was up to his old tricks again as well. In an unprecedented move he actually incorporated French legal theory and sociological empiricism straight out of the pot-smoking Netherlands into his speech. That's hardly fair! The one thing that liberal politicians could always count on was European precedent to back them up. I guess Democrats are going to have to start quoting scripture to catch up. *Le Sigh*.

2006-06-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

I always hoped that I would never see anyone I knew listed as a casualty of war.

Oh, Kip, you were just a kid. I can't believe you had die for all this bullshit.

Some news from the UK

2006-06-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

A Brit's eye view of Bushlandia.

Boycotting Yahoo.

Marijuana is good for you...I swear!

And, who would want to be a teenager these days?

Notes on the Da Vinci Code

2006-05-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to see the latest film that has conservative Christians calling into talk radio shows to complain about how persecuted they are. It certainly has been interesting these last couple of years to see evangelical protestants come to the defense of Catholics. Whether they're protecting Mel Gibson from Hollywood liberals, or slamming Dan Brown for insinuating that the Vatican might not be the most honest institution, it seems as if American WASPS have forgotten their history of Nativist impulses. The people that are trying to soften the public's opinion of Opus Dei on the nation's airwaves today were the same folks that called JFK a dirty papist and claimed he'd sworn allegiance to Rome. But for some reason these right-wing Christians feel threatened enough by The Da Vinci Code to stick up for the Catholic church.

That being said, the movie (I haven't read the book) is full of all sorts of historical inaccuracies that should be addressed. And while I understand that it is a work of fiction, Dan Brown did preface his work with a claim that all his references were authentic and based in reality. I don't want to make you read a laundry list of all the stuff that Dan Brown just got plain wrong about religious history, there are plenty of websites for that. But I would like to talk about a few of the ideas that are proposed within the storyline. One of grievances against the Vatican proposed by the main character of the movie is that the Church has been institutionally oppressing women since the early Middle Ages with the justification that since women played no role in the initial founding of the Church, that they shouldn't play a role in its present incarnation. Now, Mr. Brown is definitely not the first person to question this myopic piece of Catholic dogma, but he has certainly brought the scriptural justification for it to light within the mainstream of American culture. The Gnostic gospels (which I think are just as reliable as the four canonized gospels) clearly indicate that Mary of Magdala's relationship to Jesus was a much more intimate one than what we learned at Sunday School. And yes, there seems to be enough evidence to suggest that Jesus and Mary could have been a married couple, or at least lovers (and at the very least she was probably heavily involved in the original manifestation of the Christian Church leadership). It does seem as if the Catholic Church has been purposefully neglecting this possibility for the sole reason of keeping women from being priests and assuming any sort of position of authority in the biggest all-boys club in history. And at least The Da Vinci Code, despite disarmingly bad performances by Hanks and Tautou, has made radical scripture a popular subject. Thank God.

2006-05-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

While I'm totally in favor of sexual liberation on all fronts (as well as the breaking of most taboos), I find it very telling that pedophilia "activists" consist of 99% middle-aged men, and that the 12 year-olds that they claim to be liberating tend not to be on the front lines of protest with them. But I guess their voices deserve to be heard as much as anyone else's.

So this guy serves in the United States military for over 15-years, fights in two wars, dies for oil in Iraq, and our government won't recognize his religion of choice in his memorial.
“The least his country can do is give him the symbol of faith as he would have wished,”... for real!

And it seems as if Moscow could use a bit more protesting all around.

I thought the Europeans were the progressive ones

2006-05-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Usually I can say that I'm proud to be French, but it seems as if my people may not always hold civil liberties as close to their hearts as I do.

And right across the border, the Germans (well, at least some of them) continue to embarrass themselves. Even though racism doesn't exist in Germany anymore, Gerhard Schroder had this advice for those people of color wishing to spend time in the Fatherland for the World Cup:
"There are small and medium-sized towns in [the German state of] Brandenburg, as well as elsewhere, which I would advise a visitor of another skin color to avoid going to.... It is possible he wouldn't get out alive."
All of this coming on the heels of a brutal attack on an anti-fascist activist in Warsaw.

Many Moroccans are fleeing their water-side residences in a scene reminiscent of the panic caused by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast in the 1938.

Oh, and Fred Phelps is still out of his fucking mind!

Acts of Genocide

2006-05-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

The New York Times magazine section ran a terrific article last week on the situation in the Darfur Region of the Sudan. You would have thought that the UN would have learned its lesson in Rwanda. But, alas, the international community has much better things to do than prevent the government-backed mass murder of African villagers. And leave it to the United States media to find a way to demonize Muslims in the process. The racial slant of the Sudanese crisis presented to American citizens by our illustrious, non-biased, corporate news makers is one of the most irresponsible bits of reporting I've seen in a long time. Just because white people feel the need ethnically classify everyone, doesn't mean that those living in Darfur see it that way. It's very easy to blame racial tension because it brings the conflict to the surface, so to speak. But the "Arabs" in Darfur have a skin-tone that's not much lighter than the non-arabs being killed. The anti-Arab xenophobia running rampant in the United States is now being fueled again at the expense of a nation-state that most Americans couldn't give two shits about otherwise. But we'll all wake up one day, won't we?