emancipate yourself from particulate matter.

I've been thinking a bit about economies of scale. First, in regards to time: taking a moment and saying, "this is just one moment," and letting the one outlast the other. Second, in regards to sheer geographic scale and how difficult it makes the concept of co-temporaneousness: me here typing, some hours or days or weeks later you reading what gets typed, with me - presumably - off somewhere that is not ether but for all intents and purposes may as well be. I think I was in college when I realized that "for all intensive purposes" was not right.

I visited, as a visitor, crestfallen-like, an emergency room two days ago. The Coke machine was a locus of activity and the automatic doors made a sweeping sound that was neither natural nor un-. Styrofoam cups of coffee were all the rage, as was shoe-gazing. someone told me upwards of five inches of snow is at this moment converging on the part of the Northern Plains I occupy. I am not surprised. Not one bit.

creative exploration defeating boredom

http://www.wefeelfine.org/mission.html

http://indexed.blogspot.com/


From Three Farmers on Their Way To A Dance:



The paradox of the self-attacking observer is this century’s hallmark, reached simultaneously in countless disciplines. Psychologists now know there is no test so subtle that it won’t alter the tested behavior. Economic tracts suggest that Model A would be inviolably true if enough people realized its inviolability. Political polls create the outcome they predict. Even in the objective sciences, physicists, in describing the very small, have had to conclude that they can’t talk about a closed box, but that opening the box invariably disturbs the contents.

These are the recognizable bywords and cliches of our times. Casual talk abounds with the knowledge that there is no understanding a system without interfering with it. This much I knew well. What did not occur to me until the second time through the Ford biographies is that this position is itself tangled. Generalized, it attacks itself. "All observations are a product of their own times. Even this one."

This recursion is critical, not because it places a limit on knowing, but because it shows the impossibility of knowing where knowledge leaves off and involvement begins. If there is no independent vantage point, if the sitter’s life is not separable from the biographer’s interfering observation, then each of the sitter’s actions must similarly be tied to biographical impulse. The two are inextricably tangled. Describing and altering are two inseparable parts of the same process, fusing into a murky totality

Now the zoologist on expedition to Africa to study the great apes is not freed by this paradox of the observer to make up figures or indulge in poetic whimsy. The scientist is obliged, however, to acknowledge that the presence of a field team and film cameras tells the apes as much about human motives as it tells humans about apes’ behavior in the wild.

With every action, we write our own biographies. I make each decision not just for its own sake but also to suggest to myself and others just what choices a fellow like me is likely to make. And when I look back on all my past decisions and experiences, I constantly attempt to form them into some biographical whole, inventing for myself a theme and a continuity. The continuity I invent in turn influences my new decisions, and each new action rearranges the old continuity. Creating oneself and explaining oneself proceed side by side, inseparably. Temperament is the act of commenting on itself.

Cleaved from archival resources

It's that time of the year when I reestablish connections with you before they grow too tenuous. I'd call to try to accomplish this but I'm even more awkward
on the phone than I am via written word . . . . I will not do too much sharing of personal information except to say this year = upcoming enrollment in South Dakota, University of + renewed interest in defeating dualist body/self distinction (which is essentially defeating a "take that" attitude towards bodily health) + departing from flyfishing/hiking/conversations with Montana separatists/Indian reservation life + continued resistance to televisual technologies + awestruck gaping and head-shaking at modern American life.

Books - Brothers K, Education of A Coach (or whatever the Halberstam/Bellichick joint is), Dispatches, Revolutionary Road, Main Street. Employment - teaching, Forest Service chainsawing. Music - Stravinsky, Thermals, EPMD (Greatest Hits), that SOS song by Earl Greyhound (oh-oh, oh-woh-oh-oh), Gang of Four revival. Torrid summer, muted fall winter, balanced spring, back to muted this summer.


Shots from the hip/in the dark:

It's become clear to me that nostalgia is not just a theme in the Great Gatsby. Esquire Magazine is the devil and John Kruk confounds me. It's probably going to get much worse before it gets worse, geopolitical situation-wise. Depictions of suburban angst may eventually win a split decision over grumbling about the inanity of depictions of suburban angst. I have yet to find an adequate response for attempts in casual conversation to define the Nineties or any aspect of culture, politics, intellectual paradigms, etc. therein. Costello's "Allison" just came on (cf. "nostalgia" supra). I have both too much and not enough furniture.