Tuesday, November 30, 2010

GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

I need to refocus rewire redooverrestartremovedistractions and other such nonsense.

There is a scene I see in my head of me working tirelessly until my project is complete. I take breaks here and there for food, coffee, and the bathroom but I'm going strong. I'm intelligent and getting things done. I am having great ideas. I am translating those ideas onto the screen and marveling that I could come up with something so brilliant.

While I'm viewing that scene, I'm scrolling through Reddit or playing shitty 1990s PC games or watching television or anythingthefuckelse.

I need to reimagine the illusion and start to believe it. That's how we get by.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The men who made the machines

Here's something... didn't quite know how to end it...
--------------------------------------------------------------------

The man made machines were carefully affixed to the men who made them by the men who did not make them. The diagrams were clear as to where to attach each wire. The men who made the machines wanted to make sure that the men who did not make the machines made no mistakes in this delicate process. I imagine that this scene is relatively unimaginable at this moment. Let me take this opportunity to paint a clearer picture. The men who made the machines also, previously, made a laboratory. They were then referred to as the men who made the laboratory to anyone who cared to know them. Before that they were the men who one day dreamed to make a laboratory and before that just the men. Their identities were solely based on either their aspirations or their accomplishments. Other men who did or did not make things had many other titles for these men who made the machines over the years but those were only shared in private amongst friends. You could never be too careful, especially when referring to these men as "the men who should just shut the fuck up already" and "the men who couldn't get laid if they paid a thousand dollars to a ten dollar hooker." When crafting identity based insults, logical fallacies were no match for a tersely stated and generally held opinion or pure crassness.

But back to the scene. The laboratory was grey steel and white lab coats, much as you would imagine a laboratory to be. There were tables. There were instruments. There were lights and notebooks and pencils and masks and gloves and all of the other things you might imagine to be in a laboratory. This was not a laboratory like the old black and white movies with mad men making creepy creatures. This was your run of the mill, modern day, something-you-would-see-on-a-police-procedural-television-show style laboratory. Only this laboratory was filled with the glorious machines made by the men who made the machines. And at this very moment the men who did not make the machines were affixing wires to the men who made the machines.

The details of this experiment are unclear. There is no documentation of why the men who made the machines would want the wires attached to them. Aside from the men who made the machines themselves, no one really knew what the machines were or why they made them. It is not even clear, to this day, whether the men who made the machines knew what they created. All that is known is that they had a deep desire to attach the machines to themselves, or rather, attach themselves to the machines.

As an extension of man, the machine could represent many things and serve any number of functions. Again, the exact nature of the machines and the relationship to the men who made the machines once attached is unclear. The only thing we can say for certain is that once the men who did not make the machines attached the wires to the men who made the machines, the men who made the machines smiled. It was not the smile of satisfaction one gets after a job well done. Rather it was the smile of sublimity. The smile of impossible dreams come true. If we didn't know any better (which we didn't), it could be the smile of an opiate user before the crash.

A short while later the wires were removed as per the instructions left by the men who made the machines. In interviews after the experiment the men who made the machines made it clear that their attachment to the machines would forever change the course of human history. But they didn't say why. Or how. In fact, as a response to the very next question asked they replied, "No comment". They then shooed away everyone except one of the men who did not make the machines and retreated back into the laboratory. A few minutes later, the man who did not make the machines emerged from the laboratory, shut the door behind him, and locked the doors with an absurdly large padlock. He then filled the keyhole with superglue and posted a sign that stated in clear block letters, "DO NOT DISTURB". And the men who made the machines were not disturbed.

Though we don't know why or how, the connection of these men to those machines has apparently had some effect on the world. We may never know the extent of this impact for the men who made the machines never told us. For now, all we can do is keep a keen eye on our television screens, computer monitors, and radio dials in hopes that one day this connection will be made clear.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

BBW.. no not that kind, pervert

I always think I have to write longish things for the blog and save the short stuff for Facebook. More people see Facebook and therefore more people know the force of my wit than do here... except that for the only people that read this blog are also friends on Facebook?

I'm doing that now, right?

Anyway, I'm rethinking the blog cause Andrew told me to and I do what people tell me to do.

I'm thinking I need to reincorporate the bornbackwards style and ethos into not only my everyday life, but my internet life as well. Minus the procrastination.

Does this mean more posts about the absurdity of major and minor news stories and making things up? Probably. Does it feel weird because now this is clearly the domain of The Daily Show and other popular outlets? Yes. Do I still have some pride of being part of an early pre-blog blog style website that was in hindsight way funnier than I thought at the time and way less popular than it should have been? Yes.

We could be so internet famous had everyone else put in as much effort as Ryan did. And actually took ourselves kind of seriously. Oh, the mistakes of our youth.

Anyway, short posts long posts fake news posts. I need to reconsider these things!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Choosy moms choose to get out of my brain already geez

Sometimes my thoughts invoke images procured from advertisements. For instance, in my current reading Virginia Woolf describes a dream where the scene changes from a room of some sort to specifically a shop. In my head I see wispy figures and the world dematerializing as these figures move into this new setting. Now, I know that without some former image I've absorbed, that would not be my go to thought. I can't remember the advertisement but it has to have something to do with air fresheners or candles or tampons. I'm not sure which but the idea is someone so comfortable or refreshed and the cartoon woman (it is definitely the figure of a woman in ads like this) loses her legs in favor of wispy ghost tendrils as she flows around the screen in ecstasy.

This explains nothing but it's no wonder we remember the advertisements of our youth. In our formative years as our brains are developing we are confronted with images designed to be remembered, even beyond the life of the product or sale or whatever else is being sold. Certain smells or colors will remind me of Lucky Charms or Doublemint or Kix or British Knights shoes with the neon laces.

Whatever the underlying reasons, it baffles me that I read Virginia Woolf and images that didn't exist at the time of the writing pop into my head. Time and space are tightening around us and Virginia Woolf sits next to Wonder Woman and choosy Jif moms and the ghosts of tampon users.
I am collecting PDFs. Assembling an arsenal of information waiting in the darkness of virtual file folders to spring upon the enemy. The enemy is procrastination. The enemy is confusion. The enemy is hopeful/less flailing about trying to find something to hold on to. The more I add the more comforted I become. Yet this means more reading and where is all the time gathering. I'm not using it so it has to be going somewhere. Stockpiling time for future benefit. That's how it works, right?

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Keep yer cool

Today I had a minor breakdown. I was concerned about the looming specter of final papers and the immediate ghoul of I don't even know what I'm writing about yet. Then ideas! Merritt was kind enough to talk some things through with me and ideas were a flowing. Oh! Look at the time! Office hours for my professor. Let's go! So I describe these great ideas. First response? No. No no no. My heart fell into my stomach and gave me an ulcer. I've never had an ulcer before. He proceeded to be quite helpful but the damage was done and I felt like storming out of the office screaming and throwing things. You know those moments where you can feel a tension in your head and it's not a headache? Where it feels like with just a minor push, just a little nudge, something will bend or break and you will begin to drool and your filter will melt away? That's where I was and I knew it was necessary to contain it. I zapped that fucker with a dematerializer but the side effects were crazy eyes, shortness with others, and minor mania.

It has subsided and I have a place to start, I think, but we shall see how it rolls.  All I'm saying now is keep your cool. I almost lost my shit today.

PS - I don't actually have an ulcer. That was a metaphor. And a heart that acidic is probably unfit for human use.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Nonsense

I stared at dollar signs instead of working but then the reading was done and I had 5 hours until I had to be up for teaching people things about speaking.  A zombie TA with a unkempt mustache and dead eyes without their precious papers cause he ate them all up to stay awake.

Considering my lack of care for grammar at this moment, it might not be a good idea to start writing a paper. Then again, it might not be a good idea to wait until tomorrow either. Because at that very moment the cars starting whispering by his window with tired tired tires and saggy fenders.

And then they were silent.

PS - Cancer is everywhere and everything is synthetic.
PPS - There was some bad bad poetry tonight at the open mic. I wonder if people know what cliches are. Or if they care. I mean, maybe I'm using some here in this thing. But I'm not in front of a crowd pouring my heart out. A heart full of narratives from television shows movies books newspapers plays stories your parents friends enemies uncles aunts sisters brothers and everything everywhere on the internet drilled deep into the ventricles and pumped up through the brain until we regurgitated it to a room full of meaty meaning machines.  This one guy kept talking about his penis and elbows and it was terrible but sounded like it wasn't terrible but really, holy shit good god it was terrible. And a hippie got up and talked about walking around Washington DC and drivers and the environment but it was so ridiculously arrogant that all of the well meaning was washed away and I wanted to sneer instead of clap but I clapped cause I didn't want to be rude with my nose in a book I couldn't read because of all the terrible poetry.

The thing is, I could read all that above and call it poetry and people would clap and there would be a guy thinking, "Jesus what the fuck was that about. What an asshole" and someone else would think, "Whoa, that's so true" and someone else would be thinking about fucking that dude over at the other table who is writing in a notebook and looking up every few seconds, right through the ceiling and into the face of his muse and the words he writes are something along the lines of "To Do: Groceries (don't forget the almond milk!)" But really it would just be bad because I'm not even thinking about what I'm writing right now. I'm dumping piles of brainshit all over and you can read it or not and I can think about sleeping or writing in a more coherent fashion or continuing to do this because it feels a little more productive than the last however many hours.

Paragraph break!

I just reread up there and thought, "Saggy fenders? What the fuck are you talking about?"

This Colbert Restoring Truthiness business is some shit. Some good shit. They're funding teacher projects over at donorschoice.org and fucking kicking ass. Internets be good, tonight.

Braindrain complete.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Poetry night.

The thing about poetry readings is that it's really hard to tell if someone's poetry is good or not. It seems so arbitrary. Everyone gets the same applause, but you don't really know if that's politeness or actual appreciation. Certainly, there is appreciation of the courage to get on stage and read your personal thoughts. But that doesn't make it good.  I'm not claiming to be an authority, but part of me really wants a rubric for good poetry.  In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter. Just like pretty much everything else, and you like it or don't and it's all subjective.

I read last night. And it was awkward. Probably because I didn't read actual poetry but random shit I wrote including a screenplay (very short) and a short story (very short). And a one liner. And a rambling mess of ideas about truth.

Then someone gave me a jesus card.
I said, "Thank you."
We went our separate ways.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Racquetball Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu!

I am actually too lazy to draw the comic in whatever paint program I have on this Mac, if any. It's also not that interesting. Had racquetball reserved for 4pm, got started at 4:15, left at 4:30.  Next time we're planning ahead. People in Boulder apparently really really enjoy racquetball. They're all soooo lame.  I mean...  You know... Not me and my friends... Just them...

The problem with forgetting to bring an extra pair of underwear to the gym is that you only have three options: 1) Wear gross, sweaty underwear. 2) Go straight home and revise your plans for the day. 3) Go commando.

I chose option 3 and while pulling up my shorts, the button popped off. Awesome! I mean, I've got the belt and all but it's still awkward just knowing the button is missing and feeling like it might affect the status of your shorts.  And riding a bike without underwear just feels wrong.  But it's not. There's no right answer when it comes to what you're wearing while riding your bike.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Academic or high?

"How do words relate to the world? How is it possible that when a speaker stands before a hearer and emits an acoustic blast such remarkable things occur as: the speaker means something; the sounds he emits mean something; the hearer understands what is meant; the speaker makes a statement, asks a question, or gives an order? How is it possible, for example, that when I say "Jones went home", which after all is in one way just a string of noises, what I mean is: Jones went home. What is the difference between saying something and meaning it and saying it without meaning it? And what is involved in meaning just one particular thing and not some other thing? For example, how does it happen that when people say, "Jones went home" they almost always mean Jones went home and not, say, Brown went to the party or Green got drunk. And what is the relation between what I mean when I say something and what it means whether anybody says it or not? How do words stand for things? What is the difference between a meaningful string of words and a meaningless one?"
-John Searle, Speech Acts


This is a serious academic problematizing human communication. 


But it also sounds like a conversation with someone who is high.


It's all starting to make sense now...

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Premises can't be valid or invalid, asshole

It's becoming my ritual to write here in between procrastination on the interwebs and completing my reading or writing assignments.  It's my on/off switch. If I don't write here, I can't really do anything else or stop what I was doing a minute ago.  Makes sense, I think. I have to unload whatever it is in my brain that is preventing me from working before I can move on.

Also, NOFX is still my favorite writing music. Has been since the dorm room in college my first summer when it took me 10 hours to write a two page philosophy paper. Got the only A in the class for that paper. My premises were fucking SOLID.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a badass

Got pretty much his whole history in Readings in Rhetoric yesterday.  No one knew what the fuck our professor was talking about until the end of the story, but it was a great story nonetheless.  Clearly, we understood what he was saying, what the story was, and found it interesting but I don't think anyone really understood how it connected to the class until he told us that we would be reading a letter of his through the eyes of four major rhetoricians and writing papers analyzing that letter from the respective perspectives.  This revelation also made me way less nervous about the papers because just looking at the syllabus told me nothing.  Aristotle is gonna tear that shit apart, sonnnnn.

What?

In case you don't know, Bonhoeffer was part of the plot to assassinate Hitler and helped German Jews escape to Switzerland AND rebelled against the Lutheran church to start his own when they wouldn't oppose the Nazi government.  Badass.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Communicative Explanations for Steve Slater

We all got our panties and pantaloons in a bunch over that one.  I sometimes get the feeling that no one knows what they're talking about, including myself. Especially myself. I also sometimes get the feeling that everyone knows exactly what they're talking about and are absolutely right. Like absolute truth. Wait, Truth. Capital T. 

But really it seems to me that everyone really wants to know what they're talking about and the whole process of grad school and academia is striving towards that goal and no matter how far along you go, it's still a searching process.  I would really like to know how many people feel "I've made it. I now know what I've sought to know." I think I would not get along with those people.  THOSE people. I'd perhaps think of them as liars and frauds and egotists.  Ok maybe I wouldn't go that far but I'd be skeptical.

Also, in 45 minutes of racquetball I scored a total of two points.  Two points I was damn proud of.  

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Fuckin' Sophists

It feels strange reading 30 pages and realizing not only did you forget most of it, but you also don't really understand most of it.  I'm choosing to be OK with that for now.  If it persists, I might worry.  I might worry myself into a little ball o' fetal position and suck my thumb. No. That's ridiculous. Who does that?? Babies. That's who.

I bet babies wouldn't understand what I just read either. They don't even know what a symbol is, let alone a series of symbols lined up in rows upon rows for the purpose of conveying meaning. They don't even know what (or why, for that matter) their poop is. And they don't know that it is frowned upon to end your sentences with prepositions, but if I've learned anything in my recent readings on writing, it is that in the modern evolution of the English languages, it is acceptable to end sentences in prepositions, just because. Because what? I don't know, but I don't think it is acceptable to end sentences in conjunctions.

In other news, there's nothing like the blank stares of freshmen at 8am to start off a productive day.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Summer's Eve

There is always an alternative to what needs to be done. And what should be done. And sometimes, despite all your best efforts to concentrate, you have to just go get a haircut instead because you don't want to look like a scruffy freshman douche. For those of you who don't understand the term "douche" it is at once a tool used by women to clean (some say this is dangerous!) their vaginas and a term used to describe people who are idiots or just all around people you don't like.  One douche will call another douche a douche on a regular basis. For instance, the hypothetical scruffy freshman might see me walking down the street with all my grace and class and think, "wow, look at that douchebag*! I would love to punch him right in his jaw!"  And he would be correct in his assumption that I am a douche because once the determination is made by at least one person, it becomes the reality of that person and perhaps to the people in the immediate vicinity.

I'm sure there are some serious gender issues going on here.  If you would like to discuss them, please leave a comment.  I'm in grad school now so things like this must be considered.  However, I would like to note that the term "penis pump" could be used as a synonym for the term "douche" or "douchebag." They are interchangeable.

*A variation of the term "douche"

Day 1

Holy shit! They're everywhere!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Readings in Coffee Shops

Oh, dear God.  The people at the table next to me are studying accounting and I'm getting horrible, stressed out flashbacks to College Part 1.  They are huddled around the computer, staring at balance sheets, debating where the debits and credits should go. If I had to take all the decisions I've made in my life and order them from best to worst, leaving accounting would probably be first on the list. A close second is probably the choice not to kill that man in St. Augustine, which would have begun the most perplexing serial killing spree the police, the feds, and the CIA have ever attempted to solve.  Yeah, leaving accounting was better than that.

Last night of freedom

The sexual harassment policy was widely ignored last night.  I don't mean that everyone was banging everyone else. I mean that awkward stories were shared, often centering around sexual topics.  Guess who doesn't get to hear those stories. You!

There are repercussions, of course. Like how my stomach feels like a dog bored its head in there and vomited a lil bit.  Aesop Rock is playing at the coffee shop so at least my brain is happy.

To the readings!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Welcome Letter

Congratulations! You've been accepted to view the blog of incoming graduate student Adam! Though there are millions of people on the internet, only a select few will find their way to this corner of the blogosphere. We're very pleased to have you here!

Let us begin with an explanation...

There is no us. Just me. And you, of course, decoding my messages rolling down the information superhighway. Remember that term?  Zoooooom!

So this blog is my attempt to remain sane and grounded as I navigate academia after a 5 year hiatus.  Though I'm actually interested in what I'm studying this time around, there is a lot to get used to and I will be ridiculously busy.  If you know me at all, you know that I can only maintain intelligent discourse for a limited amount of time before I have to crack a joke, make an awkward comment, or embarrass myself in some way.  In fact, if you're one of my former bosses reading this, you've probably had to talk to me about this whether you wanted to or not.  But I digress (this is how you say you've gotten off track or that you are rambling in grad school).  

Really, I just need an outlet to write and dump the various things clanging around in my brain onto a virtual sheet of paper and mess it up a bit.  And not always have good grammar. Or worry about how this will be judged or if I'm going to pass or fail miserably.  You certainly can feel free to judge me and leave a comment judging me.  

I will try to refrain from personal issues with fellow grad students and faculty simply because that could cause problems in the future and is just plain not nice.  I may make really vague references that people who know me really well will understand but no one else will. Maybe not. I don't really know what's going to happen here just yet.  (Disclaimer: I don't actually have any issues with fellow grad students or faculty at this point, but who knows what will happen)

BUT I DIGRESS.

Enjoy. Or don't. I'm just going to write some shit.