Tuesday, Ninth Week
"I just realised that it was later in the quarter than I.... had realised." -Stacy, 04/30/2006
You know what I love? 1945. See, you do know what I love. Especiallly "Castle on the Hill" and "Stygian Mystery": how aften does an album have to songs -in a row, even!- about eating babies. It's things like this that restore my fath in society.
I had things to write about that weren't about Dar Williams or George Clinton, but I may have forgotten them. Soooo.... George Clinton and the Parliment of Funkadelic was the most organic act I've ever seen, ever. As I've said ten times each to anyone vvithin hearing distance, they were able to interact with the crowd perfectly vvithout stapping what they were doing. It was like they knew all along every single thing we vvould do, and already had it set out on their set list. Oh, and they played vvithout break for two straight hours. Nuts.
As for Dar Vviliams, she is one of those artists who sound better on CD than live. She is also one of those who knows how to work an audience, a more thon fair trade-off. She played all my favorites, and a few that look like they're gonna join the ranks. I spent my time directly afterwards falling in love with everything and every one I saw. Then I went to get a drink. As I came back, I saw Dar Vvilliams coming toward me. Before I could compliment her on her set, she stops me and asks me if I liked the Christian summer camp I went to. I told her I was going to be a counseler there this summer, and we talked for ten minutes about the camp, South Dakota, Episcopalianism, the Rez, and vvind farms. She asked my name, and I told it to her. Yeah, the 'real' one. Later, as Penguin and I were on the way to The Pub, we passed her again. She vvaved and [greeted? gret?] me by name. I probably blushed; I know I vvaved back, perhaps somewhat timidly.
It is good to be me. I need to remember that.
Still typing Dvorak, much foster. Hilarious typos ensue.
Wednesday, Eighth Week
"You're not fine, you're sober. [mumbled:] Entirly sober."
So I was about to retrieve my bike from a pay-per-hour parking lot, and Icut through the Snitchcock quad to get there. As I come out of their quad to the corner of 57th and Ellis, I come along a group of them corrying large objects and and talking loudly (as, in my opinion, Snitchies are wont to do). One of them clearly says, "I hack sculptped carabou."
Tuesday, Seventh Week
"Only authentic German Made Pyramids Make family memories last forever" -MyGermanPyramids.Com
Google is great, if you don't mind your mail being read. Sam pH sends out an e-mail about Egyptian slaves, I get ads about "Collectible Pyramids" (a note: apparantly, the ancient Germans also built pyramids: tiny, wooden, flame-powered ones). So.
So I was in the shower just now, thinking about two things. Leah will occaisonally (by which I mean "on occaision", by which I mean "on certain occaisions") ask me, "Why?" To which, on the occaisions I refer to, the answer is "[Because] I love you." This answer, as it happens, does not seem to satisfy her. In the shower just now, I (possibly) realised (part of) why this is so. It is like saying, "My hair is blond because my father's hair was blond." Now, most modern people will understand this as an acceptable cause and effect, but it is not, most of them probably also realise somewhere, not actually true. I have blond hair, and my father had blond hair, because of certain sequences of genes that we both have. Saying, "Because I love you," is somewhat like that. The same cause generating the love is what I believe to be genrating the course of action under scrutiny, but the way I am used to express this is by focusing on that love instead of the somewhat more inscrutable motives below.
Observation the first: My hair is also blond because I don't dye it. It is not unreasonable (though perhaps also not useful) to extend the analogy to say that some of these actions in question also occur through a direct lack of intervention on my part. I should justify this by noting that I like my hair blond. You may draw the appropriate parallels yourself.
Observation the second: There also exist actions for which such love is a direct cause. These should not be discounted.
The other thoughts were not concluded by the time I was towelling of and shaving (yes, shaving, I am now chopless for a whole day, and patchless for several), and so I may get into some stream-of-consciousness-ness, but something -certainly not the dozen people telling me, in a tone of voice suggesting they believe it may have missed my attention, that I haven't updated for a while*- tells me that shouldn't be a problem. Not like those llamas were. Oh, man. Llamas. Anyway, thoughts: I was involved in a discussion the other day that touched on whether Happiness is the ultimate motivation or not. This was not he focus of the discussion, but came up briefly when someone, who had been assuming that A, it is; and B, it should be; realised that not everyone shared these assumptions. She seemed amased by this in a way that strongly suggested this was something she had never thought deeply about. Being the kind of person not to be satisfied with such a state of affairs, I must presume she thought about it; indeed, last night, in another conversation, I believe she mentioned something further about it demonstrating that, while she certainly had not yet formed a solid opinion, she was thinking about it. Now, I'm no big fan of the idea that Happiness is the ultimate motivation, and especially not of the idea that it should be, but I have to concede that it seems likely that it is. 'Should be' I am still thoroughly wary of. But this got me thinking, as I have been occaisinally -and with, typically, good results- in terms of The Sims. Now, The Sims is a game where the goal is the happiness of the characters, accomplished by meeting their needs and delivering them from evil. Or, if one prefers, saving them from times of trial. In any case, this is largely different than, say, Oblivion or Command & Conquer.
Now, the first possible alternative to the pursuit of happiness (See? I'm not the only one who thinks it makes sense. Then again, they probably read Aristotle, too) as an ultimate motivator to occur to me is the puruit of righteousness. Perhaps honor, virtue, or valour would be better words. But by now, I hope one knows what I mean; the amorphous concept hovering about these words, all that. I would argue, is my point, that these games are so motivated. The virtual happiness of the character is rarely a concern, and actions should be dictated, if one is to succeed, by sense of what is "right". In OBlivion, and other such games, it is saving the kingdom, or princess, or whatever. In C&C, it is victory for the faction you represent. The protagonist in Oblivion dares the gates of Hell, which the player endures, and hours of training, which the player, thankfully, gets to skip. These are not pleasant things, nor do they fundamentally play a role in making the player happier on a larger scale. Similarly, but more blatently, do the infantry units in C&C really want to make all those suicide charges? Doubtful. But they do it because it helps destroy the GED base.
Both games being fun and immersive to play, I would't try to decide the question on their basis. Well, I mean, on top of the obvious reasons. I guess I've just been thinking about the question some more myself: Is it more valid to have internal or external motivations? They're not universally exclusive, but it comes up. Hmm. I still don't have an answer. But I am really, really hungry, and I want to eat and spend time with Leah before the Scav Meeting. And I've been sitting here typing in a towel for, like, an hour. So I'm gonna go.
Oh, yeah, and short people totally can't catch.
Wednesday, Second Week
"Now we've got it. We've got the func." -Findler, 02/09/2006
So at the Scav Meeting we just argued about the same (mostly dumb) things all over and over again. Then, as I came home, "Youth of Today" played on Joshua (the iPod).
"Throw your hands in the air! You've had it up to there, and now you're asking yourself why you...." care.
"The Youth of Today need to listen to the youth of today."
Wednesday, First Week, Spring Quarter
"So I'm gonna teach you. Well, I'm not gonna teach you; the TA's are gonna teach you." -Rogers
I got a package from the past. The first button I pulled out of it said "i saw nineteen forty-five". The second said "my heart was broken". That about sums it up.
Still typing Dvorak.
Sunday, Eighth Week
Sorry if I type slowly today; I'm still learning Dvorak. I keep hitting O instead of E. But, uh, now I gotta go type up some poetry. In Dvorak.
Friday, Fifth Week
Does anyone want a leather armchair? Because I can get you a leather armchair.
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