Swamp
Confessions of an Academic Pseudo-Giraffe
30.4.04
"All photographs are memento mori", wrote Susan Sontag. They function as reminders of human mortality. Here is an article that chooses a bit more direct approach to that idea.
07:12
29.4.04
Note on yesterday's entry: as usual, there are slightly different versions available of this poem too. The only real variation seems to occur in the first stanza. The title also appears to be quite interchangeably "Solitude", "Solitude: An Ode", or "Ode on Solitude".
How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns;
Contented breathes his native air,
In his own grounds.
Which version of the poem is better? I think the changes in the first two lines clearly create a different "message" for the stanza. 19:20
How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns;
Contented breathes his native air,
In his own grounds.
Which version of the poem is better? I think the changes in the first two lines clearly create a different "message" for the stanza. 19:20
28.4.04
From "Solitude" by Alexander Pope (1668 - 1744):
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
I have this impulse within me, but then I'm also enough of a child of the Enlightenment to appreciate many values and experiences that cosmopolitanism presupposes or entails. Which only proves that I am one of the multitude of walking paradoxes who wander the face of the earth in search of contentment.
Of course, this is only a problem if the choice exists. Hundreds of millions of people are practically given one or the other extreme (permanent rootedness or a recipe for cultural nomadism) at birth. 21:00
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
I have this impulse within me, but then I'm also enough of a child of the Enlightenment to appreciate many values and experiences that cosmopolitanism presupposes or entails. Which only proves that I am one of the multitude of walking paradoxes who wander the face of the earth in search of contentment.
Of course, this is only a problem if the choice exists. Hundreds of millions of people are practically given one or the other extreme (permanent rootedness or a recipe for cultural nomadism) at birth. 21:00
27.4.04
Monday night in the ivory tower of Steiner House. After cooking for twenty people, I suffer from a persistent disinclination to perform any unambiguously useful tasks. Instead, I seem to revel in the futile activity of composing sentences with unnecessarily stiff vocabulary and either placing them into the confines of my exceedingly frivolous virtual diary or incorporating them into the text body of Word files of deteriorating quality.
06:03
24.4.04
At 5.17 p.m., a bird is singing, and my computer is humming. The good people of the world are preparing for Friday night.
00:17
21.4.04
I just learned of the existence of a new and brilliant term: dumbassification. This self-explanatory word refers to something that is now everywhere, unavoidably pervading all our lives.
To go one step further, what makes dumbassification dangerous is its ability to assume gradually the status of common sense (i.e. reasoning based on the dominant ideology of society - this is why I'm open to the idea that the phenomenon is at least partly country-specific). In other words, it seems to me that disturbingly widespread naturalisation of dumbassification is plaguing us. Perhaps it stems from the complexity of society's functions (understanding is too ambitious a goal) or from the media (pre-dumbassified content), or maybe the garbage around us, the preservatives, the pollution, the radiation, the gene manipulation, etc. are finally beginning to have a chemical effect on us. 18:58
To go one step further, what makes dumbassification dangerous is its ability to assume gradually the status of common sense (i.e. reasoning based on the dominant ideology of society - this is why I'm open to the idea that the phenomenon is at least partly country-specific). In other words, it seems to me that disturbingly widespread naturalisation of dumbassification is plaguing us. Perhaps it stems from the complexity of society's functions (understanding is too ambitious a goal) or from the media (pre-dumbassified content), or maybe the garbage around us, the preservatives, the pollution, the radiation, the gene manipulation, etc. are finally beginning to have a chemical effect on us. 18:58
19.4.04
Today's adjective: hot. Upstairs, in the kitchen, on the porch, on the basketball court, in the car, in the tea house. In my brain. And the women... OK, I'll stop. It's strange how quickly the full-blown summer (27 C) arrived after it decided to.
06:28
18.4.04
No voi hyvä Sylvi. Äkkiä iski kuin tyhjästä aivan posketon halu saada karjalanpiirakoita ja munavoita. Siis aivan järjettömän kova. Ei mitään rajaa.
06:53
17.4.04
Well, the sun is out and so are the people. Did a lot of sitting on porches yesterday: six to seven hours in total, I'd say. Observations:
Pasta cools down too fast out of doors.
Squirrels are natural comedians.
On a lit porch after dark, one feels as if it were a stage where a play is being acted out. This may partly result from the specific topics under discussion. Once you've had this sense for the first time, you don't even need the darkness any more to achieve it.
The musical choices of fraternities reflect a desire to disrupt the atmosphere instead of creating it. All kinds of consistency seem to be banned. (At least right now someone is playing Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, but what's going to follow? Roxette? Justin Timberlake? Linkin Park?)
A water pipe with a colourful hose, standing at a central spot on the porch, has an effect on the feel of the moment whether or not anyone's using it. 19:23
Pasta cools down too fast out of doors.
Squirrels are natural comedians.
On a lit porch after dark, one feels as if it were a stage where a play is being acted out. This may partly result from the specific topics under discussion. Once you've had this sense for the first time, you don't even need the darkness any more to achieve it.
The musical choices of fraternities reflect a desire to disrupt the atmosphere instead of creating it. All kinds of consistency seem to be banned. (At least right now someone is playing Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, but what's going to follow? Roxette? Justin Timberlake? Linkin Park?)
A water pipe with a colourful hose, standing at a central spot on the porch, has an effect on the feel of the moment whether or not anyone's using it. 19:23
16.4.04
Why am I so talented at anticipating a big step forward and in retrospect realising that it in fact amounts to two giant leaps backward? Should I pretend to be an optimist and desperately tell myself that any movement is good? From any factual point of view, I should have nothing to complain about, but there are moments - sometimes long ones - when I'm glad that I don't have to choose whether to wake up the next day or not.
Inevitably and monotonously, tomorrow is always a new day. There is going to be movement again, and hopefully some enjoyable moments as well as (in contrast to today) a blog entry someone can decipher. 08:19
Inevitably and monotonously, tomorrow is always a new day. There is going to be movement again, and hopefully some enjoyable moments as well as (in contrast to today) a blog entry someone can decipher. 08:19
13.4.04
While Kaija is visiting, I have a good chance to listen to the voice of obligation and see what Cleveland officially has to offer before I leave the city in a month. Today we paid a little visit to the Rock'n Roll Museum and Hall of Fame, where consumption of time is the least of anyone's problems. Suggestion: if you ever have a whole day to waste (as I frequently have, for some mysterious reason), go to that place, climb to the fourth floor, settle in front of one of the jukeboxes, and listen to a hundred classic tracks in a row. I believe this is a much more enlightening option than devouring one of those concise book-form histories of rock. I have to add two things, though: I've tried neither option myself, and in principle I'm of the opinion that almost any other topic is easier to exhibit satisfactorily in a museum than music. The founding principles of the western museum seem to demand that the guests' experience be primarily visual. I don't remember ever visiting a museum where you could taste or smell things. Sound and touch I've had, in small doses.
05:35
10.4.04
Back in the north. There was a nice range of things and temperatures to experience in Arizona, from a bit of snowfall by Grand Canyon to genuine heat in Tempe.
The canyon challenges the conventional principles of human perception. It's simply too big to see and take in at once. Standing at the edge of the South Rim, you start to observe a bluish green surface that looks like velvet somewhere close to the bottom, only to understand that the texture and colour have been created by vegetation that's impossible to see. It's too far away. Then you turn around to look at something ten times closer to you and realise it's still too far. You choose a spot that seems to be right next to you, and finally you realise that the tiny dots slowly moving across that area are people, still at least a kilometre away.
A big thank you to our generous hosts in Tempe. 03:15
The canyon challenges the conventional principles of human perception. It's simply too big to see and take in at once. Standing at the edge of the South Rim, you start to observe a bluish green surface that looks like velvet somewhere close to the bottom, only to understand that the texture and colour have been created by vegetation that's impossible to see. It's too far away. Then you turn around to look at something ten times closer to you and realise it's still too far. You choose a spot that seems to be right next to you, and finally you realise that the tiny dots slowly moving across that area are people, still at least a kilometre away.
A big thank you to our generous hosts in Tempe. 03:15
6.4.04
Surprise: I have landed in Arizona. What am I doing here? The only thing I was definitely supposed to bring here is the one thing I forgot: swimming trunks. Tomorrow we'll rent a car and try to make it to Grand Canyon in time to admire the sunset there.
Feels like a real change of climate. Palm trees. Shorts. Mountains at a distance. 09:58
Feels like a real change of climate. Palm trees. Shorts. Mountains at a distance. 09:58
1.4.04
Tämä vanha tuttu aforismi Erno Paasilinnalta on viime aikoina alkanut kummitella mielessäni yhä useammin: "Itseoppinut on ainoa oppinut, muut ovat opetettuja".
06:49
It just occurred to me that when the adjective cute refers to tangible things, its use seems to be limited to objects/beings within a certain size range. Let's assume that we had no technical equipment (microscopes, cameras, etc.) to enhance our sight or to decisively change our perspective. What would be the biggest thing you could call cute? The smallest?
06:24
