This isn't really meant as a dig, but it's going to come across this way, for exactly the reasons I'm about to explain.
Why do I hate most blog comments? Why does so much e-mail come across the wrong way? Conversational Implicature, my friends! For all the great things that the Internet can do, like distribute free pornography and cures to erectile dysfunction to the huddled masses, one thing it appears to be lousy at, as a medium, is revealing a writer's intention. Beats me why, especially when the same words in a newspaper or a magazine seem to be more charitably taken than on the net.
And when I say I'm reminded of analytic philosophy, I simply mean that there is a kind of correlation here between what we focus on, like prepositions and what we leave out, like hand and facial gestures. The Internet seems to be a really horrible for the gesture.
Case in point is Russell Smith's column in the Globe and Mail yesterday, where he proposes a writing contest that parodies canlit. Now generally Smith gets slagged in the comments because he's too high-brow for the donut munching proletarians who troll the Globe site. Of course, this is because they miss the point of his writing, they miss his style.
So I find it especially amusing that when Smith asserts that he has a style, people are quick to point out that he really doesn't, because they completely miss his style, which is in full view in this very column - his sardonic wit tempered by a certain gentility, his aesthetic curiosity tempered by a strong sense of taste.
That everyone misses this isn't really Smith's fault, it's theirs, isn't it? I mean, do we really all have to write in such a way as the analytic philosophers believed language worked at the turn of the century, in declarative sentences which leave no content out for the reader to infer? Isn't this also what garbage like the plain language movement is about?
Could it be that the Internet effaces style? I have long wondered this myself, looking at my own prose on this site and often finding it wanting. Anyway, if you have an opinion on this matter, feel free to share it!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Apotheosis
Friends, I don't know why I write here anymore. Perhaps it's boredom, ennui, malaise, meloncholoy, or any of the other emotional by-products of Romanticism.
Anyway, I write now because I just attended a meeting so devoid of content, so empty of meaning, that I believe it important that its existence be preserved. So let this blog post be this meetings memorial fromaldahyde....
How do I justify this? As I watched my colleagues grope around trying to fill the hour's space with sufficient words, I detected the outline of every single meeting I have ever been to. Indeed, I believe now that virtually every meeting any of us attend takes this shape. This meeting, far from being a mere moment of my time, is a moment of every single one of our lives.
In this meeting's emptiness lay its sublimnity.
The meeting proceeded as follows:
1) Food and beverage between the main parties, supplemented by fawning courtesy from both sides.
2) The heads of each party explain their role, no, their telos, within the organization followed by an expression of shared interests and mutual solidarity, followed by examples of "that time we worked together and things went well".
3) This is followed by someone's (there is always someone) expression of existential despair by recounting the time something "didn't work". Although the reasons for something failing to work properly are usually the result of fate and not the actions of the agents involved, nevertheless, pointless questions have been raised and must be addressed.
4) Now to the heart of the matter - the reification of the individual's existential despair into a formal problem which must be solved by the introduction of a process. Usually some kind of collaboration is suggested, people are teamed up, partnered, accountability is affirmed and the meeting is adjourned.
5) Missives, both electronic and paper, are issued, thakning everyone for their mandatory participation and looking to the future, which is about three weeks, as the "formal" outcomes of the meeting are forgotten and the intial procedural gaits are recovered.
If this does not seem familiar to you, please feel free to let me know.
Also, there's a delightful article in today's New York Times about the hipster love of taxidermy. Had I been on top of things I could have beat this story to the punch with my own short film on taxidermy, but alas, I will have to be a trendsetter by stipulation only...you'll have to take my word for it. All that being said, the blog of one of those featured in the article is very nice.
Enjoy!
Anyway, I write now because I just attended a meeting so devoid of content, so empty of meaning, that I believe it important that its existence be preserved. So let this blog post be this meetings memorial fromaldahyde....
How do I justify this? As I watched my colleagues grope around trying to fill the hour's space with sufficient words, I detected the outline of every single meeting I have ever been to. Indeed, I believe now that virtually every meeting any of us attend takes this shape. This meeting, far from being a mere moment of my time, is a moment of every single one of our lives.
In this meeting's emptiness lay its sublimnity.
The meeting proceeded as follows:
1) Food and beverage between the main parties, supplemented by fawning courtesy from both sides.
2) The heads of each party explain their role, no, their telos, within the organization followed by an expression of shared interests and mutual solidarity, followed by examples of "that time we worked together and things went well".
3) This is followed by someone's (there is always someone) expression of existential despair by recounting the time something "didn't work". Although the reasons for something failing to work properly are usually the result of fate and not the actions of the agents involved, nevertheless, pointless questions have been raised and must be addressed.
4) Now to the heart of the matter - the reification of the individual's existential despair into a formal problem which must be solved by the introduction of a process. Usually some kind of collaboration is suggested, people are teamed up, partnered, accountability is affirmed and the meeting is adjourned.
5) Missives, both electronic and paper, are issued, thakning everyone for their mandatory participation and looking to the future, which is about three weeks, as the "formal" outcomes of the meeting are forgotten and the intial procedural gaits are recovered.
If this does not seem familiar to you, please feel free to let me know.
Also, there's a delightful article in today's New York Times about the hipster love of taxidermy. Had I been on top of things I could have beat this story to the punch with my own short film on taxidermy, but alas, I will have to be a trendsetter by stipulation only...you'll have to take my word for it. All that being said, the blog of one of those featured in the article is very nice.
Enjoy!
Friday, June 05, 2009
Some Thoughts on Persian Rugs
I have been recently enjoying a new blog, چهارباغ.
The author has been displaying some beautiful rugs on his site, and it puts in mind of my own encounter with a rug so powerful that I sought out a similar kind of rug for years, never to find one, and ultimately forgetting about it until his recent series of posts.
My only visit to New York City was in February of 1996. Through chance and pluck, the person I was staying with was a professional conductor who had led, among other groups, the New York Philharmonic. He had a beautiful Upper West Side apartment, with a view overlooking the Hudson River.
Here I was, a conducting student, hanging out with a guy who had not only made it, but he had made it in New York. I could brag about all the great things that happened those 5 days I was there, but none of that is really important anymore.
What I remember better than anything on that trip is the feel of a small silk orange and red patterned rug he had next to his piano. I would stand there for literally hours, barefoot, just feeling the rug with my feet, never touching it with my hands. It was unbelievably soft, cool, but not cold, yet never seemed to warm to my touch.
I cannot recall its provenance - he had been given it by someone a long time ago, and he would exercise on it. (Just so none of you think I was being cheeky about walking barefoot on it, it was he who had suggested it in the first place!)
When I returned to Calgary, I set out to find a rug just like it, or enough like it that my feet, would be able to experience perhaps the only true joy they have ever known.
I have long forgotten about that rug, but I am in sore need of a new one now, and perhaps it's time to take up the search again.
The author has been displaying some beautiful rugs on his site, and it puts in mind of my own encounter with a rug so powerful that I sought out a similar kind of rug for years, never to find one, and ultimately forgetting about it until his recent series of posts.
My only visit to New York City was in February of 1996. Through chance and pluck, the person I was staying with was a professional conductor who had led, among other groups, the New York Philharmonic. He had a beautiful Upper West Side apartment, with a view overlooking the Hudson River.
Here I was, a conducting student, hanging out with a guy who had not only made it, but he had made it in New York. I could brag about all the great things that happened those 5 days I was there, but none of that is really important anymore.
What I remember better than anything on that trip is the feel of a small silk orange and red patterned rug he had next to his piano. I would stand there for literally hours, barefoot, just feeling the rug with my feet, never touching it with my hands. It was unbelievably soft, cool, but not cold, yet never seemed to warm to my touch.
I cannot recall its provenance - he had been given it by someone a long time ago, and he would exercise on it. (Just so none of you think I was being cheeky about walking barefoot on it, it was he who had suggested it in the first place!)
When I returned to Calgary, I set out to find a rug just like it, or enough like it that my feet, would be able to experience perhaps the only true joy they have ever known.
I have long forgotten about that rug, but I am in sore need of a new one now, and perhaps it's time to take up the search again.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tautological Aphorism VI
Taxpayers demand accountability when it comes to their tax dollars, and they expect governments to spare no expense ensuring every tax dollar is properly accounted for.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Maybe Marlowe painted it with the help of Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere
I know that I ususually have nothing but contempt for online story commenters, but CBC has a story about the authentic portrait of Shakespeare where I encourage you to read the comments, because they're hilarious.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Anton Kuerti on....Cars
The Globe and Mail has found yet another way to talk to classical musicians about anything except boring old stuffy classical music. Boooring!
Today, there's a profile of Kuerti and his car. Turns out he's very practical and doesn't like to drive. Also, he's rather left-wing (good lord!).
Come to think of it, this is actually a pretty damn brave article to slap in the middle of the Globe's Car section...if I owned a car, I would listen to his recording of the Beethoven piano sonatas on my CD player every day. I love them that much.
Sorry things have been quiet around here. They will be for a while longer, probably until May. Carry on!
Today, there's a profile of Kuerti and his car. Turns out he's very practical and doesn't like to drive. Also, he's rather left-wing (good lord!).
Come to think of it, this is actually a pretty damn brave article to slap in the middle of the Globe's Car section...if I owned a car, I would listen to his recording of the Beethoven piano sonatas on my CD player every day. I love them that much.
Sorry things have been quiet around here. They will be for a while longer, probably until May. Carry on!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Statues of Queen's Park II: Al Purdy
I snapped these at a rather different time of year, as a follow up to a series of posts I started nearly two years ago!
They are of the statue of the poet Al Purdy. Here's hoping that Chris Miller makes his way over here again to let us know what he thinks of both the statue and the photos...
Who would have thought that a forarm vein could be so compelling? Does anyone else remember how, in our youth, these veins were a sure sign of physical strength?
To be honest, I'm not quite sure of the pose - contemplative? But why? Or, why like this? Beats me.
I think this is a better angle...although you wouldn't know it because of the sun...
This one is also nice:
I do believe he is not only the first poet to be honoured with a statue at Queen's Park, he's the first artist.
They are of the statue of the poet Al Purdy. Here's hoping that Chris Miller makes his way over here again to let us know what he thinks of both the statue and the photos...
Who would have thought that a forarm vein could be so compelling? Does anyone else remember how, in our youth, these veins were a sure sign of physical strength?
To be honest, I'm not quite sure of the pose - contemplative? But why? Or, why like this? Beats me.
I think this is a better angle...although you wouldn't know it because of the sun...
This one is also nice:
I do believe he is not only the first poet to be honoured with a statue at Queen's Park, he's the first artist.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Big Sale at the Monkey's Paw!
Toronto's Best Bookstore, The Monkey's Paw, is having a very big sale for the month of February. I cannot really describe the place, although some nice folks at BlogTO have tried, so I encourage you just to visit both their site and the store itself, across from the LCBO at Dundas and Dovercourt.
Now although I have already been to the sale, and bought all the interesting and incredibly inexpensive books, I am willing to broach the possibility that you, the five basement-dwelling individuals who read this blog outside of my family (he there!), may have different tastes from mine.
So just go and visit. You will not be disappointed. And if you tell him you read about the sale on the Transcontinental, he won't give you a discount, so don't even bother, or bother, but don't blame me if he says no.
Now although I have already been to the sale, and bought all the interesting and incredibly inexpensive books, I am willing to broach the possibility that you, the five basement-dwelling individuals who read this blog outside of my family (he there!), may have different tastes from mine.
So just go and visit. You will not be disappointed. And if you tell him you read about the sale on the Transcontinental, he won't give you a discount, so don't even bother, or bother, but don't blame me if he says no.
On Memory
Perhaps it is the impending milestone, but my thoughts have lately been turning to how much I have forgotten over my lifetime.
What triggered this today? I was browsing through the archives of the Varieties of Unreligious Experience, and I realised that I do not remember most of what was written here in May of 2005. And I don't mean that I don't remember the arguments, I mean that I do not remember them at all.
This is rather unsettling. In 2006, when I started blogging, the Varieties, along with a few other blogs, were pretty much the essence of my online existence. I read everything that came out, and I've gone back and read them again. And pretty much everything Conrad writes is excellent, and more importantly, it's memorable.
At least I think it is, when I reread it there, for the first time.
***
Beyond my own forgetting, and my long struggle to improve my memorization skills (I have what appears often to be an excellent memory, but a terrible ability to memorize), I am also watching my 4 year son going through what I call the Great Forgetting.
What do I mean by this? As a toddler, he had a fantastic memory, not only of his things, but of places he had been, and things he had done. Over the past 6 months, as he has become more of a little boy, he has forgotten a lot things which he remembered even a few weeks ago.
His brain seems to be going through a process where much of his young childhood is disappearing - he has forgotten some very significant things. Yet he still has the fantastic nearly photographic memory of a child - he just no longer remembers himself at a point in time where it would be wonderful if he did.
And then the worry becomes, given my own memory, who will remember him as a little boy? How much do we lose? And yet I've never really understood the desire to videotape or photograph everything, to capture each moment in time, so one ends up living the great moments of one's life behind some device that will allow one to watch it, perhaps, some time later.
***
And so I read the Varieties from 2006, and I think of my own blogging since then, and how much of my intellectual disengagement has to do with my inability to remember all these facts and strands of thought which, not so long ago, came so easily. This blog has taken the turns it has, in part, because I cannot remember why I write in the first place.
So this blog has been a depiction of a life as anti-bildung, of a desire for progress that never comes. Progress as something I expect to show up, in a big white Cadillac with horns on the front, to deliver me from the work that has always needed to be done. That it is memory, and not process, that allows one to grow.
However, one thing I can say - I remember all of my own work. At least for now.
What triggered this today? I was browsing through the archives of the Varieties of Unreligious Experience, and I realised that I do not remember most of what was written here in May of 2005. And I don't mean that I don't remember the arguments, I mean that I do not remember them at all.
This is rather unsettling. In 2006, when I started blogging, the Varieties, along with a few other blogs, were pretty much the essence of my online existence. I read everything that came out, and I've gone back and read them again. And pretty much everything Conrad writes is excellent, and more importantly, it's memorable.
At least I think it is, when I reread it there, for the first time.
***
Beyond my own forgetting, and my long struggle to improve my memorization skills (I have what appears often to be an excellent memory, but a terrible ability to memorize), I am also watching my 4 year son going through what I call the Great Forgetting.
What do I mean by this? As a toddler, he had a fantastic memory, not only of his things, but of places he had been, and things he had done. Over the past 6 months, as he has become more of a little boy, he has forgotten a lot things which he remembered even a few weeks ago.
His brain seems to be going through a process where much of his young childhood is disappearing - he has forgotten some very significant things. Yet he still has the fantastic nearly photographic memory of a child - he just no longer remembers himself at a point in time where it would be wonderful if he did.
And then the worry becomes, given my own memory, who will remember him as a little boy? How much do we lose? And yet I've never really understood the desire to videotape or photograph everything, to capture each moment in time, so one ends up living the great moments of one's life behind some device that will allow one to watch it, perhaps, some time later.
***
And so I read the Varieties from 2006, and I think of my own blogging since then, and how much of my intellectual disengagement has to do with my inability to remember all these facts and strands of thought which, not so long ago, came so easily. This blog has taken the turns it has, in part, because I cannot remember why I write in the first place.
So this blog has been a depiction of a life as anti-bildung, of a desire for progress that never comes. Progress as something I expect to show up, in a big white Cadillac with horns on the front, to deliver me from the work that has always needed to be done. That it is memory, and not process, that allows one to grow.
However, one thing I can say - I remember all of my own work. At least for now.
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