searching for the ineffable
I am translating a few pages of Giacomo Leopardi‘s Lo Zibaldone for an unrelated (someone else’s) project. A philosophical tract with sentences that neither end nor make sense, meandering on and on and ON.
What a pain. On the other hand, it’s fun. On the third, fourth and fifth hands, I do not understand some of these sentences at all. How am I supposed to translate them?
Sigh. Philosophers. :)
I haven’t known whether to blog about this or not: I’m just on the periphery of this one. But it is affecting my community, and some of my dearest.
Kevin “Frostbyte” McCormick, 29, died last Sunday, it seems from a heart attack. He was a brilliant light artist and an MIT alum. He fostered community, was generous with his time and his energy and his art.
I might have more to say about this later. For now, I am just glad that at this year’s Burning Man festival, I finally got to have a conversation with him after having seen him around for years, and to join in the chorus of appreciation for his light.
I’ve been in a slump of varying sorts. Luckily, it’s ending.
Work is going… well, it’s going. At least some of the projects that had been stalled, are moving. The way this was accomplished means a lot more work for me, but at this point I’m happy to do it, rather than battle communication issues.
I’m terrified of the impending end to the grant period (not until June, but still!). We’re running out of time. On the other hand, this makes things exciting, and now when I say “X has got to be done now” people can’t ignore me, or tell me to go take a chill pill.
Submitted an abstract for a conference right on the due date (of course), and a book review somewhere between a few days and two weeks late (depending on how you look at it… considering the book is 450+ pages long, and dense, I’d say not bad.)
Got sick on Monday with whatever it is that Ethan has. He’s almost over it; I managed to sneeze myself into a half-hour long nosebleed yesterday, and coughing hurts like a… a thing that hurts a lot. Have you ever tried to cough gently when sick? Yeah, doesn’t work too well.
My poor, long-suffering mother has to find yet another person to help her take care of gramma (who is at home with Alzheimer’s). This will be the fourth: the woman who lives with her currently has to leave for personal reasons. Sigh.
Been getting back into music while working. Don’t know why I took such a long hiatus, but finally made an iTunes playlist of all my songs with no lyrics (635 of them). It helps me work, it does.
Two good friends are due to become parents any day now! Making beef stew for them to throw in the freezer (which is, reportedly, full of tasty goodness made by various folk) was by far the culinary adventure of the month. I haven’t made food with so much intention in a while.
The world keeps spinning. Dick Cheney stuck his foot in his mouth big time – BBC’s article is fairly neutral, but the photo speaks volumes. The story of Sony’s viral software is more than meets the eye, says Wired – it’s a great article on corporate bullshit and companies that make virus “protection” software, please read it.
When I grow up, I want a hidden door in my house.
Speaking of labyrinths, Nick Montfort has released another interactive fiction piece, his first in a while, called Book and Volume. Looks interesting. I was kind of indifferent to his Winchester’s Nightmare and absolutely loved Ad Verbum. Haven’t played any IF in a long time, perhaps it’s time to start again? :)
Burning Man 2005 has been photographed from above, and someone posted a particularly beautiful shoton Flickr.
Just because I haven’t posted any more November-photo-month pictures, doesn’t mean I haven’t been taking them. In due time.
Time to catch up on work.
Ethan, while doing homework, to Aki’s latest move in the Cats’ Campaign Against Literacy (wherein he will walk, sit or lie on just the book or magazine you’re trying to read):
“You are going to interfere with my anaerobic fermentation. Because you are a contaminant. So I’ll have to remove you, dilute you, find something that complexes with you…”
Via friend Harlequinaide:
Washington Post writes about Bush’s visit to Howard University. Just…. just go and read it. Wh… just…
How is it that anyone still supports him? How?
current mood: insanely angsty, for work-related reasons. it’ll be All Better this afternoon.
My friend Daneel suggested that, since NaNoWriMo is here, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, it might be fun to post fifty photos all taken in November, on some topic or not.
Behold, I have begun. (Here’s the Atom feed for the tag, if you’d rather.)
*happy sigh* “I love face masks. Love ’em. They make me feel like a girl.”
“Funny; they make you look like a zombie.”
Dear brain,
This note is to remind you that when there is any suspicion of a possible ulcer,* getting a cup of coffee with your bagel is a really stupid idea. Deciding to keep drinking it when it makes you feel crap, however, breaks the idiot meter altogether. Please stop.
Cordially,
-YOUR OWN INSIDES OF WHICH YOU ONLY GET ONE SET
*went to the doctor yesterday. hopefully will find out what the hell is wrong with me early next week.
This sort of news doesn’t usually make it out to the general public; it stays in the crowd to which it pertains, people just don’t tend to hear about it unless they’re actively searching. If you’re an unconnected party, especially if you’re an academic, please spread the word.
On August 20th, a 90-strong SWAT team raided an electronic music event – a rave – that was legitimately taking place an hour’s drive from Salt Lake City in Utah. They brutally beat people, pointed guns at their foreheads, drew Tasers. They proudly announced having confiscated many drugs, their largest drug “bust” being the stash of stuff that contracted security had confiscated from partygoers. There was at least one helicopter. There were dogs, and at least one person is claimed to have been attacked by a police dog.
Drug Policy Alliance article: According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Utah County detectives wanted to “get their point across that such activity was not welcome in their area”… Since when are police officially sanctioned to do anything but uphold the law?
Another article by the Daily Herald in Provo:
Recently released documents show Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy made plans to break up an August party in Spanish Fork Canyon days before he had officers raid the event.
The pages of documents, including police reports and memos from officers involved to co-workers and the sheriff’s office, indicated Tracy knew about the party as early as Aug. 18, two days before it happened, and contacted other law enforcement agencies for assistance in shutting down the event.
Several days after the raid, the Daily Herald sent a request to Utah County under the state Government Records Access Management Act for any documents relating to tactical planning received or sent by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. Chris Yannelli, an attorney in the Utah County Attorney’s Office, told the newspaper at the time the documents didn’t exist.
But those documents do exist…
Utah County Departmental News release about the rave bust: “A 17 year old female from West Jordan, found by officers, had overdosed on ecstasy. She was treated and released to her parents.”
Another report stated that the young woman was “close to overdosing on Ecstasy”, whatever that means. Which Ecstasy? MDMA? GHB, sometimes referred to as “liquid ecstasy” and with markedly different effects? an unknown substance? Let’s assume MDMA, the most common. What are the symptoms of “overdosing” – hell, what are the effects considered to be within normal range for people taking a drug? What are the negative effects? Was she hospitalized? (No.) Her pulse was said to have been 176; hell, if she was on “Ecstasy” and saw SWAT all around her, I can see how she’d have an elevated heart rate. That last link above reports palpitations nowhere near as high as the report stated. We’re talking a difference of 85-100 beats per minute.
Salon has a great article on this, here. It’s free if you watch a short ad. They do present both sides of the story.
The ACLU got involved in a suit against the sherriff: a federal judge asked to prevent future raids on electronic music events. The ruling was in the sherriff’s favor.
Finally, here’s a two-minute video (.mov viewable with Quicktime, 15.76MB) shot by an attendee (I’ve put it on my own site just in case it ever gets taken off elsewhere). The police claim there was no brutality.
I’ve received an unexpected gift from a stranger. It totally floored me.
It began innocently, with a blog comment. Joe, you see, wrote this post about the Moscow Cats Theatre performances going on right now in New York.
Omigod, Kuklachev and his cats!!1! I grew up watching them on television. The clown’s art has a special place in Russian hearts: the circus still comes to town, indeed lives permanently in most major cities, and clowns are a huge part of that. The skits are generally mimed, or nearly; it’s all physical comedy, but not all of it is slapstick. They make you think, they tug on your heart strings.
I’m getting all nostalgic here. If you want to know more about Russian clowns, this article in The Moscow Times is a pretty good start.
Anyway, so I react to this effect in a comment to Joe’s post. Go see them if you can!, I wrote, I’d sure be there in a heartbeat if I had the money.
A couple of days later, a letter arrives from Charlottesville. I’m all confused; I was just recently in Charlottesville for the digital tools summit, and don’t remember meeting someone by the name on the return-address stamp. I open it, and out comes a color printout of the poster for the show and another one with the Ticketmaster blurb. And money to cover a ticket.
Well, holy shit.
Ethan and I were so excited about the prospect of going (we can swing another ticket, and no way I was gonna see this without showing him a part of my childhood) that we talked some of my family into going with us. So at the end of December, when my mom flies into New York for New Year’s with my brother-and-family and us, we’ll all be going. The two of us, and my brother, and my sister-in-law, and my nephew (who is going to LOVE this), and my mom, for whom this is possibly more nostalgic than it is for me.
Thank you, Joe. You’ve brought me back some beautiful memories from the old country.
current mood: pretty damn thankful
