Tuesday, May 15
- What Fools These Mortals Be -
Like tables of standard functions, most of the computational wisdom of previous generations seems to be regenerated rather than learned or inherited (But hope springs eternal, so I shall finish this book).
Like tables of standard functions, most of the computational wisdom of previous generations seems to be regenerated rather than learned or inherited (But hope springs eternal, so I shall finish this book).
Friday, April 13
making love to Stokely Carmichael
Wednesday, March 28
yall better check out my friend's music:
027 of 100milkteeth - everything's running
Sunday, March 25
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable ; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher ? It was a mystery all insoluble ; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
Tuesday, February 14
A narrow logic of numbers
By using checklist of symptoms about emotions, you have gone out and confused normal human responses to life with mental disorders, and therefore you've created an illusion of a vast epidemic; a medicalized illusion. And obviously a situation where you medicalize is a situation where your focus will not be on social change. It will be on controlling the individuals to fit in properly. That's the subtle and overall danger here, that it could serve our kind of social economics system's needs in a way in which we would become more efficient but less human.
By using checklist of symptoms about emotions, you have gone out and confused normal human responses to life with mental disorders, and therefore you've created an illusion of a vast epidemic; a medicalized illusion. And obviously a situation where you medicalize is a situation where your focus will not be on social change. It will be on controlling the individuals to fit in properly. That's the subtle and overall danger here, that it could serve our kind of social economics system's needs in a way in which we would become more efficient but less human.
Monday, February 13
the chilly enduring odor of bear
Sunday, February 12
Langston Hughes on "when Harlem was in vogue"
It was a period when, at almost every Harlem upper-crust dance or party, one would be introduced to various distinguished white celebrities there as guests. It was a period when almost any Harlem Negro of any social importance at all would be likely to say casually: "As I was remarking the other day to Heywood--," meaning Heywood Broun. Or: "As I said to George--," referring to George Gershwin. It was a period when local and visiting royalty were not at all uncommon in Harlem. And when the parties of A'Lelia Walker, the Negro heiress, were filled with guests whose names would turn any Nordic social climber green with envy. It was a period when Harold Jackman, a handsome young Harlem school teacher of modest means, calmly announced one day that he was sailing for the Riviera for a fortnight, to attend Princess Murat's yachting party. It was a period when Charleston preachers opened up shouting churches as sideshows for white tourists. It was a period when at least one charming colored chorus girl, amber enough to pass for a Latin American, was living in a pent house, with all her bills paid by a gentleman whose name was banker's magic on Wall Street. 1t was a period when every season there was at least one hit play on Broadway acted by a Negro cast. And when books by Negro authors were being published with much greater frequency and much more publicity than ever before or since in history. It was a period when white writers wrote about Negroes more successfully (commercially speaking) than Negroes did about themselves. It was the period (God help us!) when Ethel Barrymore appeared in blackface in Scarlet Sister Mary! It was the period when the Negro was in vogue.
From The Big Sea by Langston Hughes (New York: Hill and Wang, 1940)
Thursday, February 9
and the new discipline called behavioral economics has been studying whether people really do behave as the simplified model anticipated; their studies show only two groups in society actually behave in a rationally self-interested way almost in all experimental situations: one is the economists themselves, the other is psychopaths. hahahahahaa!
Tuesday, January 24
The prosperity of our people rests really on the oil in the Persian Gulf, the rubber and tin of Malaya, and the gold, copper and precious metals of South- and Central Africa. As long as we have access to these; as long as we can realize the investments we have there; as long as we trade with this part of the world, we shall be prosperous. If the communists [or anyone else] were to take them over, we would lose the lot.
Thursday, December 29
SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
