Goethe in The Sorrows of Young Werther
via booklover
![The smell of autumn. The sound. Endless poetry has been written. It is one of the joys of the four seasons. It reminds us of the importance of the senses - there is a vitality in the changing seasons. The colors of the leaves pictured above. The sound of walking through them. The smell of the earth in the crisp air. The tactile sensation of the experience goes far beyond what can be communicated in image and yet more and more of our time is spent looking at things and less is spent touching things.The Onion ran one of my favorite headlines in recent memory: Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles. I imagine that the next generation - the generation which lives in an increasingly virtual world of digital books, digital games, distant friends - may revolt. There might be a movement of the real. Like the Hollywood New Wavers of the early 70s trying to get at the human experience itself rather than derivative man-eating sharks and laser-zapping ships whooshing through space. Or maybe not. Today, the greatest asset of these glowing rectangles is not the experience they provide but the accessibility. The ease of escape. The low investment. One thing that cannot be argued about even the most advanced digital media of 2009 is that it has a lower resolution than even everyday occurances - the touch, the smell, the sounds and even the visuals - and yet it is the primary way that some of us navigate through our weeks.
[Photo: 35mm Fuji Velvia]](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kpb43ifbFB1qzzio5o1_500.jpg)
The smell of autumn. The sound. Endless poetry has been written. It is one of the joys of the four seasons. It reminds us of the importance of the senses - there is a vitality in the changing seasons.
The colors of the leaves pictured above. The sound of walking through them. The smell of the earth in the crisp air. The tactile sensation of the experience goes far beyond what can be communicated in image and yet more and more of our time is spent looking at things and less is spent touching things.
The Onion ran one of my favorite headlines in recent memory: Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles.
I imagine that the next generation - the generation which lives in an increasingly virtual world of digital books, digital games, distant friends - may revolt. There might be a movement of the real. Like the Hollywood New Wavers of the early 70s trying to get at the human experience itself rather than derivative man-eating sharks and laser-zapping ships whooshing through space.
Or maybe not. Today, the greatest asset of these glowing rectangles is not the experience they provide but the accessibility. The ease of escape. The low investment. One thing that cannot be argued about even the most advanced digital media of 2009 is that it has a lower resolution than even everyday occurances - the touch, the smell, the sounds and even the visuals - and yet it is the primary way that some of us navigate through our weeks.
[Photo: 35mm Fuji Velvia]
Consequences 
An article ran in the BBC today that discusses a voyage scientists took to the Texas-sized vortex of plastic trash in the the North Pacific Gyre. It is an astonishing feat of collective human neglect that created the conditions for such an incontrovertible reminder that even our smallest actions - disposing of a water bottle for instance - can have far reaching ramifications. From the article:
Project director Doug Woodring said: “One thousand miles from shore with no sign of human life for days, yet our human footprint is now apparent in even one of the most remote places on the planet.”
Little things count.
“Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.” — Ada Louise Huxtable.
via inennui
A call to the innocent
When Oppenheimer headed the first atomic explosion in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the 1940s he started a chain reaction that would finally culminate in the last decade of possible innocence - the 1990s. Today the plethora of immensely available, diverse viewpoints are literally at the fingertips of anybody with unfiltered internet access.
The destructive power - and inversely the positive possibilities - of an individual has never been so manifestly global. As satellites slowly provide those in remote areas of the world unlimited information and micro-loans tie even the smallest of revenue sources into the larger economy it is increasingly difficult to maintain a level of sheltered autonomy. Our actions affect other people. The data that conveys the larger impact of collective individual choices is readily available. Innocence is involuntary ignorance. Voluntary ignorance - the type that many (most?) economically-enabled conscious adults choose in industrialized countries - is simple cowardice. It’s not that people have to live in isolation, it’s that people choose to.
Those that do engage don’t have to be bleeding-heart liberals, they can cultivate the strength that comes from bringing together compassion and wisdom to make the choices to make small positive impacts in their immediate communities - friends and family. It’s not about being Ghandi or Martin Luther King but understanding that small actions have residual implications that contribute to a larger whole. The aforementioned men understood that their strength lie not in their individual will but the collection of people that made their community a movement. All movements matter regardless of size - whether they be positive or negative.
The isolated choose not to take part. They are not innocent. They are implicated by their simple inaction.
![Chicago West Side
[Fuji Velvia 35mm]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/dv0V1E7y8qat2zzemw9I0t42o1_r1_500.jpg)
As Susan Sontag points out in her essay An Argument About Beauty - beauty has come to be equated to haughtiness. Caring about aesthetics is essentially out of vogue and something to deride. Contemporary consumer architecture and aesthetics is the definitive statement that the vast majority of Americans venerate the ugly. There is nothing beautiful about the strip-mall. There is nothing inspiring about the sea of pavement, the parallel yellow lines that denote parking spaces and the tiny islands of destitute young saplings that hopelessly try to shade a single car. It is a tribute to functionality, convenience and precaution. The dimensions of a suburban parking lot always exceeds the use, as if a big-box store is preparing itself for the day that the entire community descends upon it and frantically searches for a place to put their vehicle. It is a triple-crown of functional triumph over ocular nuance; excessive size to compensate for poor planning, structural expediency over aesthetic.This is absolutely the fabric of American throw-away materialism and yet to show such fervent disdain for it is at best divisive and at worst dismissive. Those that live around it certainly would find the sentiment elitist. It’s because the problem at hand hasn’t been caused outright by consumerism. The issue is that people that care about aesthetics spend too much time ridiculing the rest of America and not enough time promoting a more beautiful social good.
There is an economy for the tasteful. Not every product sold is made in China. Not every house built is cut from the same mould as the previous ten. The economy is based on aesthetic and craftsmanship is measured by human-instilled value and not complex financial instruments and political manuvering. At the root of cheap products are exploited workers and filthy fossil fuels sold at artificially controlled prices. What man and woman make by hand is beautiful and will be treasured from generation to generation, not just thrown away.
In the end, the exploited will organize, fossil fuels will no longer be politically and economically viable and beauty will win. If people don’t always reject the ugly outright, they do over time.
![This photo encapsulates the brutal bout between Frank Mir (left) and Brock Lesnar (right) last night - the lack of tact and tactic on behalf of Lesnar, his lack of respect and discipline and the fundamental absence of all the things that make trained fighters admirable. With all that said, the grotesque has a real beautiful honesty to it as Henry Miller would undoubtedly agree. Lesnar was a pure destructive and negative force. He lacked anything worth venerating. I suppose that I like to see it because it is the yang to the ying. When it’s so transparently embodied it viscerally demonstrates the laws of the universe that we reside in.It takes a lot discipline for a fighter to get where Brock Lesnar is. And yet something deep-seeded within his mind caused him to be so possessed by rage after the fight that he threw out all respect for the opponent (seen above), the organization he fights for and even himself . After his victory he ran around like a salivating gorilla, yelled at the heated Las Vegas crowed and taunted his opponent. Completely crazed. It’s the worst of who we are. In this case it was anger but it manifests everywhere. It could be sexual desire. It could be love. It could manifest in something we’re trying to accomplish or when we evangelize a way of living. Fundamentally, it closes you off from other experiences. Lesnar was so consumed by the moment - an angry booing crowd and a rush of untamed adrenaline - that he lost track of all the parts of himself that brought him there. You don’t become a NCAA Division-I wrestling champion without some level of discipline and sacrifice. Part of being happy is living without attachment or aversion. It wasn’t the fight that caused Lesnar’s antics. There are plenty of other fighters who could go through the same situation and come out calm and collected. It was the milieu of words, taunts and question marks surrounding someone who is obsessed by his pride. His own idea of self. The sad thing for a person like Brock Lesnar is that he identifies himself as someone who is big and strong. However, he will not always be. If he lives long enough he will someday grow old and weak. And then who is he? Someone who was and not someone who is.Fighting is like a complex pattern that comes from a simple recursive formula. It’s very easy to have an understanding of what’s going on but it’s incredibly difficult to master. In general, I like things like this. A simple, accessible surface but as your understanding increases so does your appreciation. As your appreciation increases, you are rewarded by uncovering the complex foundations that lie underneath. I always felt that a good piece of art rewards the repeated viewer but is also accessible to one-time engagement. Sports and some games are particularly good at this. Simple on the surface but the inner-workings of the competition are so elaborate that it takes a lifetime of dedication to be a virtuoso. The image above is more than just a heinous barbarism. It’s a narrative. It’s a story with an unhappy ending. Not for the person with the horrific face but for the one pointing at him on the right. At first glance the picture is hard not to react to. It’s hard not to have an opinion on. It is immediately polarizing. Beneath the surface is a sad story. That’s why the fighting organization, UFC, is doing such remarkable business. The story. Lesnar doesn’t understand that people are paying to see his hubris play out - not to see him fight.
[Photo from Foxsports.com]](http://28.media.tumblr.com/dv0V1E7y8ptug2ko6NSwl4X4o1_500.jpg)
This photo encapsulates the brutal bout between Frank Mir (left) and Brock Lesnar (right) last night - the lack of tact and tactic on behalf of Lesnar, his lack of respect and discipline and the fundamental absence of all the things that make trained fighters admirable. With all that said, the grotesque has a real beautiful honesty to it as Henry Miller would undoubtedly agree. Lesnar was a pure destructive and negative force. He lacked anything worth venerating. I suppose that I like to see it because it is the yang to the ying. When it’s so transparently embodied it viscerally demonstrates the laws of the universe that we reside in.
It takes a lot discipline for a fighter to get where Brock Lesnar is. And yet something deep-seeded within his mind caused him to be so possessed by rage after the fight that he threw out all respect for the opponent (seen above), the organization he fights for and even himself . After his victory he ran around like a salivating gorilla, yelled at the heated Las Vegas crowed and taunted his opponent. Completely crazed. It’s the worst of who we are. In this case it was anger but it manifests everywhere. It could be sexual desire. It could be love. It could manifest in something we’re trying to accomplish or when we evangelize a way of living. Fundamentally, it closes you off from other experiences. Lesnar was so consumed by the moment - an angry booing crowd and a rush of untamed adrenaline - that he lost track of all the parts of himself that brought him there. You don’t become a NCAA Division-I wrestling champion without some level of discipline and sacrifice.
Part of being happy is living without attachment or aversion. It wasn’t the fight that caused Lesnar’s antics. There are plenty of other fighters who could go through the same situation and come out calm and collected. It was the milieu of words, taunts and question marks surrounding someone who is obsessed by his pride. His own idea of self. The sad thing for a person like Brock Lesnar is that he identifies himself as someone who is big and strong. However, he will not always be. If he lives long enough he will someday grow old and weak. And then who is he? Someone who was and not someone who is.
Fighting is like a complex pattern that comes from a simple recursive formula. It’s very easy to have an understanding of what’s going on but it’s incredibly difficult to master. In general, I like things like this. A simple, accessible surface but as your understanding increases so does your appreciation. As your appreciation increases, you are rewarded by uncovering the complex foundations that lie underneath. I always felt that a good piece of art rewards the repeated viewer but is also accessible to one-time engagement. Sports and some games are particularly good at this. Simple on the surface but the inner-workings of the competition are so elaborate that it takes a lifetime of dedication to be a virtuoso.
The image above is more than just a heinous barbarism. It’s a narrative. It’s a story with an unhappy ending. Not for the person with the horrific face but for the one pointing at him on the right. At first glance the picture is hard not to react to. It’s hard not to have an opinion on. It is immediately polarizing. Beneath the surface is a sad story. That’s why the fighting organization, UFC, is doing such remarkable business. The story. Lesnar doesn’t understand that people are paying to see his hubris play out - not to see him fight.
[Photo from Foxsports.com]
The city’s all wrapped up in plastic like an electronic cocoon
If you lay in the street you can hear it humming, building up slowly from underground
If you close your eyes you can observe the blueprint, the man-made dna that spirals breathlessly out of control
As synapses collapse, bridges snap, into a restless utopia, Nutopia
Nutopia - Meg Lee ChinThese lyrics, written in 1997, were intended to parallel Alan Ginsberg’s Howl. It seemed as if my generation was coming down from the angst-high in the early 90s and Meg Lee Chin was at the epicenter. Partially a reflection of the decade’s early abuse, it starts off quoting late-50s original - I saw the best minds of my generation (running on empty)….
I’ve always liked the particular section quoted above. “The city’s all wrapped up in plastic - if you lay in the street you can hear it humming, building up slowly from underground.” The city is an organism on its own. We are just the bacteria that live in it. Some cities are relatively healthy, like Seattle, while others are ill, like Detroit. With the health of the city, so goes the health of its constituents.
But there is a stark difference between these organisms. A city never actually has a pulse, like a mammal, but instead has a hum, like all complex man-made systems. A car hums. A computer hums. When they are awake, alive, turned on - they hum. While we are alive, we pulse.
I’ve always liked the idea of lying down on the sidewalk and listening to the city. For better or for worse, this hum is our future. You can’t see it yet but it’s there. Just listen.
![Gary, Indiana
[Digital Photo]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/dv0V1E7y8ofi13a9UfZnoVaFo1_500.jpg)
