Saturday, July 31, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Make It Fifty-Four
Just a note for the record:
Vevah & I marked our 54th wedding anniversary with a big bag of popcorn & sodas at the movies. We toasted our enduring happiness back at home with a glass of "Whiskers Port". Perfect !!!
Vevah & I marked our 54th wedding anniversary with a big bag of popcorn & sodas at the movies. We toasted our enduring happiness back at home with a glass of "Whiskers Port". Perfect !!!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009
A Theory of Everything
I posted this video last month. To some it may seem too complex to follow and therefore beyond comprehension. To others it may seem threatening to the comfort of their belief systems, and defensively dismissed as drivel. Those who dare to challenge the completeness of meanings for which others have settled, will however, continue to enlighten... So I have jotted down my own reactions and re-posted this below to hopefully enliven the conversation:
This is a presentation recounting an adventure in science. There is a sense of beauty, wonder and awe in this quest for a more complete understanding.
It is the testing, the measurement of real things. Only by extension, of careful, honest observations of real world processes which have shaped the very stuff of existence, is he advancing a more comprehensive, BUT NOT COMPLETE theory. It's how we can account for what we already can measure, and organise it into a more comprehensive coherency. What this young man is doing is not just mathematical gobble-degook masqeurading as fact. He is trying to advance our understanding, by suggesting that with the upcoming experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, further measurements of the action of real things (sub-atomic particles), more of our place in the universe will be better understood. If you poo pooh this you will have aligned yourself with those who would have been prepared to banish into exile those who put forth the proposition ( with careful measurement, I might add ) that the earth was NOT the center of the universe.
It is one attempt to describe what is at bottom genuinely unknowable. However,these methods of measuring the processes & physicality's of life are for the sake of a more meaningful existence on this earth.
What we all want is certainty about the origins and purpose of life. That is NOT achievable without constructing an edifice of meaning into which we can invest ourselves. Any such meaning does not provide certainty, only a problematically acceptable construct for getting on with the things life sends our way. Our history is that of constructing such meaning in thousands of mythological constructs. We will go on doing this into however long we exist as a species. And this is an okay thing with me.
It is another thing to strike off into an unexamined life. When we are so secure in the mythological constructs inherited from the past and pretend that we and our ancestors have told ourselves the complete and everlasting story. Because when we do that, are we endangering ourselves by investing our of lives in hardened meanings worn thin from the testing burdens of real life.
Please scroll back up and view what a remarkable presentation this is!!
JL
This is a presentation recounting an adventure in science. There is a sense of beauty, wonder and awe in this quest for a more complete understanding.
It is the testing, the measurement of real things. Only by extension, of careful, honest observations of real world processes which have shaped the very stuff of existence, is he advancing a more comprehensive, BUT NOT COMPLETE theory. It's how we can account for what we already can measure, and organise it into a more comprehensive coherency. What this young man is doing is not just mathematical gobble-degook masqeurading as fact. He is trying to advance our understanding, by suggesting that with the upcoming experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, further measurements of the action of real things (sub-atomic particles), more of our place in the universe will be better understood. If you poo pooh this you will have aligned yourself with those who would have been prepared to banish into exile those who put forth the proposition ( with careful measurement, I might add ) that the earth was NOT the center of the universe.
It is one attempt to describe what is at bottom genuinely unknowable. However,these methods of measuring the processes & physicality's of life are for the sake of a more meaningful existence on this earth.
What we all want is certainty about the origins and purpose of life. That is NOT achievable without constructing an edifice of meaning into which we can invest ourselves. Any such meaning does not provide certainty, only a problematically acceptable construct for getting on with the things life sends our way. Our history is that of constructing such meaning in thousands of mythological constructs. We will go on doing this into however long we exist as a species. And this is an okay thing with me.
It is another thing to strike off into an unexamined life. When we are so secure in the mythological constructs inherited from the past and pretend that we and our ancestors have told ourselves the complete and everlasting story. Because when we do that, are we endangering ourselves by investing our of lives in hardened meanings worn thin from the testing burdens of real life.
Please scroll back up and view what a remarkable presentation this is!!
JL
Monday, July 27, 2009
Hassan's table of differences between modernism and postmodernism
| Modernism | Postmodernism |
|---|---|
| Romanticism/Symbolism | Pataphysics/Dadaism |
| Form (conjunctive, closed) | Antiform (disjunctive, open) |
| Purpose | Play |
| Design | Chance |
| Hierarchy | Anarchy |
| Mastery/Logos | Exhaustion/Silence |
| Art Object / Finished Work | Process/Performance/Happening |
| Distance | Participation |
| Creation/Totalization | Decreation/Deconstruction |
| Synthesis | Antithesis |
| Presence | Absence |
| Centering | Dispersal |
| Genre/Boundary | Text/Intertext |
| Semantics | Rhetoric |
| Paradigm | Syntagm |
| Hypotaxis | Parataxis |
| Metaphor | Metonymy |
| Selection | Combination |
| Root/Depth | Rhizome/Surface |
| Interpretation/Reading | Against Interpretation / Misreading |
| Signified | Signifier |
| Lisible (Readerly) | Scriptable (Writerly) |
| Narrative / Grande Histoire | Anti-narrative / Petit Histoire |
| Master Code | Idiolect |
| Symptom | Desire |
| Type | Mutant |
| Genital/Phallic | Polymorphous/Androgynous |
| Paranoia | Schizophrenia |
| Origin / Cause | Difference-Difference / Trace |
| God the Father | The Holy Ghost |
| Metaphysics | Irony |
| Determinacy | Indeterminacy |
| Transcendence | Immanence |
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
YouTube Symphony Orchestra: from idea to reality
4/15/2009 09:41:00 AM
(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)Today represents the final culmination of an idea many months in the making: a first-class global orchestra brought together by YouTube. This week, over 90 musicians from around the world -- including a Spanish guitarist, a Dutch harpist and a Lithuanian birbyne player — have gathered in New York City in preparation for tonight's historic YouTube Symphony Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall. And today on YouTube's homepage, we are proud to present the world premiere of Tan Dun's composition "Internet Symphony, Eroica," as selected and mashed up from nearly 3,000 video submissions from around the globe.
Monday, April 13, 2009
DANCE OF 1000 HANDS
There is an awesome dance, called the Thousand-Hand Guanyin, which
is making the rounds across the net. Considering the tight
coordination required, their accomplishment is nothing short of
amazing, even if they were not all deaf. Yes, you read
correctly. All 21 of the dancers are complete deaf-mutes. Relying
only on signals from trainers at the four corners of the stage,
these extraordinary dancers deliver a visual spectacle that is at
once intricate and stirring.
Its first major international debut was in Athens at the closing
ceremonies for the 2004 Paralympics. But it had long been in the
repertoire of the Chinese Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe
and had traveled to more than 40 countries.
Its lead dancer is 29 year old Tai Lihua, who has a BA from the
Hubei Fine Arts Institute. The video was recorded in Beijing during
the Spring Festival this year.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
It's That Time Again ...To Celebrate With Our Irish Citzens
May the good Lord take a liking to you...But not too soon!
be no worse than the happiest day of your past!
May God grant you many years to live, 
for sure he must be knowing,
the earth has angels all too few
and heaven is overflowing...
May the lilt of Irish laughter lighten every load.
May the mist of Irish magic shorten every road...
And may all your friends remember
all the favours you are owed!
Here's to the land of the shamrock so green,
Here's to each lad and his darlin colleen,
Here's to the ones we love dearest and most.
May God bless old Ireland... that's this* Irishman's toast!
Here's to each lad and his darlin colleen,
Here's to the ones we love dearest and most.
May God bless old Ireland... that's this* Irishman's toast!
*Irish.... at least on March 17th
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday, March 02, 2009
Prompt Plant
Click to enlarge Photos
Click to enlarge Photos
Banks Rose-March 1st 2009
The rear yard at Joe & Vevahs
Right on time, it blooms. Again, to remind us life has its own calendar. Through out its life, it may appear to have lost its "raison d'etre*" but faithfully returns to affirm its glory.
*in Englsh use, it also comes to suggest a degree of rationalization, as "The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone"
Friday, February 20, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
My Sentiment for Valentine's Day
How do I love thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, ---
I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
...Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
The quote in the "heart" is that of Robert Browning
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The IQ Test
Here's an interesting article on the desirability for broadening the parameters of what is already a good test... so as to to make it's measurements more meaningful. A new wrinkle on the old "Nature vs Nurture" conundrum.
Dysrationalia —The newly coined word to signify a "disorder," for "the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence." ..... might afflict some of the smartest people you know.
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