signalnoise

hahah nice Glad I'm not the only DD/Miller dork here

My whole approach to audience participation is getting people to relax and participate. To realize it's fun and that it's exhilarating to realize you can do something you didn't think you could. It's best if you have them do something that isn't too demand or putting them on the spot. I love getting people to sing. Actually, the way to deal with mistakes is to assume that they are going to happen. That way, when they do it isn't the end of the world.

I've found that most of the time if I make a mistake and handle it properly, most people won't even notice. People are watching the overall performance.

Maybe I'll learn a Mellancamp song for you.

Theater goers back then are the equivalent of sports fans today.

When I was growing up in Iowa, we used to have a gas grill outside and there would be a trail in the snow leading to it from the house. It's a matter of dedication.

As far as keeping your feet warm, I recommend wool socks and stamping your feet.

It gets cold here, but it's a wet cold so it's harder to stay warm. Also, the structures are poorly insulated and drafty. I do miss the electrical storms but the storms we have had recently have been satisfying.

Oh man, you really must see Amlie! It's amazing. It genuinely puts me in a very good mood.

Yeah, this debate we've stumbled into is perennial. In all honesty, I draw my disagreement with free will and rationality from Goethe's Elective Affinities.

I wanted to add re: Nietzsche and liberalism. You're positively right; the former has no patience for the latter. From Twilight of the Idols ("Expeditions of an Untimely Man," #38): "Liberal institutions immediately cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: subsequently there is nothing more thoroughly harmful to freedom than liberal institutions. One knows, indeed, what they bring about: they undermine the will to power, they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to a moral principle, they make small, cowardly and smug - it is the herd animal which triumphs in them every time. Liberalism: in plain words, reduction to the herd animal..."

But there is a place for reason in Nietzsche. That's the trick.

[Edited on Jan 07, 2005 6:35PM]

Dude, knowing you perhaps a little more than some of the other folks here, I couldn't be happier that you posted some pics of you guys. HE DOES EXIST!!!

We so need to hang out. So let's shake off some of this holiday hangover, so to speak, recoup some finances (that is, MY FINANCES) and work on that, a'ight??


[Edited on Jan 04, 2005 8:37PM]

That is one cute picture, fo sho. And your wife's New Year's hat-making abilities are awe-inspiring. Sounds like it was a good party.

Good luck with your presentation next week. I just started the new quarter at DePaul last night. Taking a class in artificial intelligence and another in bioinformatics (which I'm really pretty excited about - so many applications). What about you? What's on your plate?

I've been here for a little over two weeks, so I'm still taking it all in. It's a far cry from Montana

Indeed, Marxology is a field all to itself. The polemics definitely got really intense (especially with Lenin). As a matter of fact, have you ever seen Foucault's brief comments on polemics? He said something to the effect of: "When I see someone being accused of infantile leftism, I close the book immediately."

TSUNAMIS TSUCK

I figure I *don't* wish I had cool tchotchkes like that...

Re: SE Asia. I agree, and I wish. Unfortunately, the fact that Bush took several days even to make a generic compassionate statement speaks volumes about how much we don't care. Would that we had either liberals or realists in charge! Instead, we've got neocons, who are like Wilsonians and Trotskyists, except that they don't give a shit.

As for my diss... who knows? They now want major structural changes; so as fast as I can make them, I suppose.

hi

It's going. It doesn't have any option but to go right now, so that's what it's doing. The final crunch is here, which is totally freaking me out, but I can't wait to spend the spring in a world where there is no thesis hanging over my head.

Hmm? No job talks yet. Just a mock interview. I don't even have any actual interviews yet, let alone campus visits (not until Feb at the earliest).

Nowehere, yet. But if I get them, they won't be until at least Feb. I am in the process of commencing to panic that I haven't got any APA interviews yet.

i only get to read the New Yorker when i visit my mom. i read a great article about tow boat operators over Thanksgiving....

anyway, interesting take on that issue, but it still reeks of suck to me.

hi!

Hmph. Spoken like someone trying to undermine my tactical advantage.

I never said rock bottom was a bad thing. It's all relative... ask Einstein.

actually, today is the first time i really sat down and played.
i have messed around briefly with friends' basses and i play a mean "air bass"....heh...........but no, not much experience.


playing put me in a calm state of mind. i sure wished i could have gotten the thing today, cuz i need that with christmas coming up

Hey, I really appreciate the comments left in my journal. As you can see, I didn't get much response to my post (that's ok, but I was really hoping to hear at least something). Things are going pretty well now. I'm in an as good a position I could hope for. I have time to try and pull myself together, get healthy, and can more or less return at me leisure. It's really great.

It's interesting, reading your most recent entry, I must say I cannot believe how similar some of my thoughts have been. It is very existential: asking if what we are doing really matters to anyone, anywhere. I'm doing research now for someone, and just seeing the volume of literature that already exists, I would be discouraged were it me writing the book. But I'm probably not a good measure right now.

My experience with Straussians is that there are basically left and right factions. I think they both share a certain Platonic-aristocratic bent (which honestly, I can sympathize with, from a strange, quasi-Nietzschean perspective), but I don't think all Straussians support Mr. Bush and the current agenda, for example. (Btw, I had no idea Keyes worked with Mansfield! Thanks for the tidbit!)

If you haven't seen them, Mark Lilla has two recent articles in the NYRB about the state of Straussianism. I have them in .pdf, if you are interested. But it appears you can probably get them from the source. In any event, cheers, and thanks again!

I completely agree: the examined life brings with it some beautiful and some wretched things. If you look at my journal from a day or so ago, I just recently watched The Piano Teacher. There's a scene in which the female lead (the teacher) recommends to the male lead an essay by Adorno on Schumann. Apparently he (the latter) was going mad, and he knew it. He continued to compose despite it. Sure, Schumann was a musician, but there's a relationship. Anyway, I really want to read the essay (despite the fact that Adorno can be notoriously difficult); I almost felt this way a few months ago! I guess everyone's favorite example is Nietzsche, but the guy had syphilis, for crying out loud.

Anyway, my guess is that the NYRB has already archived the pieces. If you would like .pdf, just let me know.

It's my second year.

tell me about it

Funny, i just wrote an entry about weddings. One of the key differences that I didn't highlight between french and american weddings but maybe I should have was the utter shift in focus from materialistic enjoyment (the american perspective) to social enjoyment (the french version.) There's almost no gift giving in french weddings, they don't do bridal showers, engagement parties, or any of the other myriad ways that we manage to subvert this essentially social/religious holiday into the orgy of capitalism that it has become. The party would have been considered by americans to be spartan, the wedding dress simple, but the whole idea was to bring together friends and family and just have a good time (you can tell which version I prefer.)

Weddings in particular are a fertile area for study because of the intense cultural pressure found in the US (more so in some regions, like mine, than others) to have the "perfect, fairy-tale wedding." Young girls are indoctrinated with notions of this from the time that they are small children until they're married - it's an intersection of advertising, marketing and culture that has spawned a behemoth-like industry. When it becomes a social taboo to not do something extravagant it's an odd social phenomenon, I think.

We are really lazy around here. We have two trash cans that always overflow before they get changed. Oh well, better enjoy the bachelor life while I can, right?