Eden is a Space

Old School Skanking: Beware of the 'Rowboat'

2010-03-09T08:31:00.001-08:00

I found this video while looking for a good example of how to Skank (Dance to Ska music). All I can say is, forget the Reaper, fear the 'Rowboat'! [seriously, whaaa??]

Here is a version of Skanking that I can attest to:

Of course the first is Old School Ska and the second is more like Ska Revival music.

Sometimes you just got to skank.

Holiday Haikus

2009-11-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

To be alone during any holiday is not fun, but to be relatively alone on Thanksgiving is a crime. For some reason this solitary confinement has made me think in Haikus.

To think in Haikus has its benefits. It challenges you without tiring you out. You can pare your feelings down to the size of prayers that people place at the feet of idols. It helps you prioritize your emotions on paper (or screen, I suppose). Here are a few perhaps silly ones that have been revolving in my head on the topic of Thanksgiving:

Eden

At home in Eden

food and laughter fill bellies

save room for pie.

Turkey Day

Three different meats

all turkeys go to heaven

leftovers for weeks.

sorry, one more:

Affluence

In front of TV

the Oilers are the Texans?

no one keeping score.

Ok. I invite all who so desire to leave a Holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years) Haiku in the comments section. Without making it too strict, just make a three lined poem with the following syllabic make up 5-7-5. This will help exercise your creative muscle. They can be silly, semi-silly, profound, not perverted, whatever (almost).

Ok. One more:

Thankful

Around the table

taking turns to give our thanks

missing hugs from Sam

Into the Archive: 31 and all alone.

2009-10-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've been missing my wife 'n' kids. They are currently in Priscila's homeland and so this little gem of a memory that I found in my archive, like it was the text of Don Quijote, gave me a smile today, my 31st anniversary of not dieing:

This is L at 10 months old when we were visiting Argentina in February of 2006. Yes, I am the whistler.

- Note L's improvisation at the end with her dramatic transition from waving the Argentine flag while on her feet to down on her knees during the ecstatic conclusion of the my abridged version of the national anthem of Argentina:

"Y juremos con gloria morir! Y juremos con gloria morir! [bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam]" ("And we swear that we will die in glory! And we swear that we will die with glory! [dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum]").

Funny stuff.

Millenial Fire Drill?

2009-07-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

Article

(Thanks to Cousin Sidra in situ)

Whoa oh uh oh Dream Weaver...

2009-05-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's too nice outside - Hindsight is miopic:

Interdialogue, and Mr. Wind

2009-05-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

~ So, what do you do for a living?

- Well, for right now, I go to school and I get paid to do so.

~ What do you study?

- Well, I am a PhD candidate in the Spanish Literature program.

~ What's that?

- What's that?

~ Yeah, what's that?

- I am studying how to be a good critic of literature that is written in Spanish from a perspective centered in a culture where Spanish is the main language.

~ And what can you do with that?

- With what?

~ With your PhD literary critic degree.

- Well, I am training to be a professional scholar so my best prospects for employment come from the higher education field.

~ Your going to teach College Spanish?

- Well, maybe. It depends. It depends on where I get a job.

~ What do you mean?

- If I get a job at a university where there is a possibility for tenure - which usually exclusively comes from four-year universities - then I will probably not teach Spanish as in the language (as in como se dice and yo me llamo) but will be a scholar (as in read a lot, write a lot, talk a lot, lie a lot, sit a lot, travel a lot, think a bit) with minimum teaching duties each semester (as in teach Spanish literature courses).

~ And if you don't get a job in one of those universities, where would you work?

- Well, if I don't get what is known as a tenure-track position in a four-year university I can still get a position in a liberal arts college or I suppose I could work at a community college.

~ Would you teach como se dice in a liberal arts college or a community college?

- I would most definitely teach como se dice-yo me llamo if I were to work at a community college and if I were to get a job at a liberal arts college I would probably teach both como se dice and literature.

~ So you'll be a professor?

- Yes.

~ So what does one literary critic do anyway?

- A literary critic reads and writes about all texts that can be considered literary.

~ What does that mean?

- I don't know, exactly, but it in general it includes novels, short stories, poems, films, artsy books, booksy arts, and music lyrics to name a few. Basically, fictitious art communicated through language.

~ Whatever.

- Right.

~ How does your intended career contribute to the well being of the human race?

- Whoa! Take it easy!

~ Sorry. I was just trying to hide my real question: Why would anyone pay you to read and write?

- Argh!! Salt in the proverbial humanities wound!

~ Now what does that supposed to mean?

- Ahah! See? If literary critics didn't exist, who would be able to answer your question?

~ Never mind, it doesn't matter now.

- Wait, wait a second. Let me explain, maybe... Language is a part of us yet it seems apart from us. We don't just use it to communicate information (i.e. What time is it? It is one o'clock), we also use it to communicate identity, emotion, to influence someone for good or bad, to assess and to understand both ourselves and others. Literature is about this communicative power. Though you may point out, and you'd be absolutely right if you did, that spoken language is different than literature, they are unavoidably tied to one another.

~ And the economic part of the question?

- Right, have patience my friend... If language (oral and written) is so important to who we are, then studying literature is a study of ourselves. To be more straight to the point about it: literary criticism is a method of philosophy.

~ So you're going to be a philosopher. - Sure why not. ~ Still, why should anyone pay you for thinking?

- You are obviously concerned with practical matters. What do I produce? What comes of what I do? is what you want to know. A dentist fixes teeth so that they don't cause pain to their owner so that the owner of said teeth can continue to live, but without pain, in order to produce whatever the produce; A mechanic diagnoses and fixes cars, etc. so that their owners can use them to travel and to produce whatever they produce; A doctor diagnoses problems, helps cure, and alleviates his or her patients pain or discomfort so that these patients can then continue to live and produce what they produce; A teacher...

~ Right. If you're not helping society produce and progress, what are you doing? I realize that not everyone will, or should, produce something tangible but don't you think that we have some responsibility to each other as humans to make living worth living?

- Well your comments and questions are really complicated and intricate. What you are saying and what you are asking is exactly what I do as a literary scholar (I like that better, let's pretend that I've always considered my projected profession as a literary 'scholar' instead of a 'critic'). I suppose that the idea is that as I and others look at what literature has to say about questions such as yours, and as we try to 'translate' what we read from these texts, that we'll be able to find some of these answers, which opens possibilities for us as humans to 'progress' as you have put it.

~ Ok. I think I understand. But doesn't religion do the same thing?

- Yes and no. I would say off the top of my head, and off the tips of my fingers, that theology looks beyond literature and into questions of being, of existence. I certainly consider these questions as a literary scholar, but I do so through my reading of literature. I'm not necessarily looking for evidence of God in literature; rather, I am looking for evidence of God in humanity through literature - that is, what makes humans human and what makes humans inhuman.

~ Once again, you've lost me. Why don't you give me an example.

- Well, I am particularly interested in how our relationship as humans with non-humans is presented and perused in literature. My example may seem silly (oh and it is) but just watch this clip and think about what this advertisement is trying to 'do:'

- Ingenious, right? It's absurd to think of wind as a large french-sounding derby-wearing loner, right?

~ Right.

- Yet we do something like this quite often: "Why did the wind have to blow my hat off?" or "Around here the wind never rests." In order to understand our experience in nature, we create relationships within it. So how would I analyze this 'text'? It's hard to separate the context from the text in this case. Here wind is a misunderstood and ignored being who doesn't understand why he is seen this way by humans. And the way to overcome this unfortunate circumstance there is provided an intermediary: a wind-energy company that presumably does indeed understand the wind. Now that Mr. Wind has been given the chance, he and the wind-energy company have found a way to help each other out: "Wind + Windmills = clean energy for humans so that they can continue to live the way they live without the guilt that using carbon-based fuels creates, and wind becomes 'useful' and therefore 'desirable' and 'friendly' to humankind (the only thing that would absolutely clinch this is if at the end of the commercial the actor playing Mr. Wind were replaced by a more 'desirable' faced actor (probably a woman, if they would choose to follow the unfortunately historical model depiction of nature, that is)).

~ So what do you think this says about who we are as humans?

- Well, I should have mentioned earlier that not every analysis (in fact almost no analyses) ends in a revelation about what it means to be human. Some just try to point out how literature affects and effects us as readers and some simply try to tie literature to philosophy.

~ And what did you do with this example?

- I would say that my brief analysis is really a critique on how 'Green' companies use models of human/nature relationships that really aren't necessarily completely 'green' at their core and that, as is to be expected, their ultimate goal is to convince the consumer to switch to, or support, wind-energy technology so that they will be successful in business. This is not to say that their intentions lack any 'green' thinking. I am only trying to peel back their message to reveal its integral parts.

~ But wouldn't you say that the commercial is funny?

- Oh yeah, it's clever alright, I'm just a critic (I guess I'll have to go back to calling myself a 'literary critic' and not a 'literary scholar').

Between Lilliput and Brobdingnag

2009-02-18T08:25:00.000-08:00

Beardlog, Hairdate 56:03:32 (humor me non-Startrek fans):

'Although it has only been 56 days, 3 hours and 32 minutes, it feels like I've gone
through 1001 nights. I've tried to quell the rebelliousness of my nerves but I've failed
miserably. I am finding myself looking everywhere for meaning in my experiment.

Last week I was finally organizing the books that I inherited by what seemed to be
pure chance from my eccentric neighbor who mysteriously disappeared the week
before - only 3 months after he had moved here from his homeland of self-described
"men of small means yet highly trained in the art of weaving rope and tying knots." I
found the books inside an old, somber looking wooden crate outside my door one
morning. My only clue that these books came from him scrawled itself
perpendicularly on a lined sheet of notebook paper that I found stuck inside a book
missing its cover and title page. The paper was a crisp contrast to the antiquatedly
frayed page margins of the yellowed manuscript. It must have been this contrast that
roused my curiosity to the point that I slid the note out of the book's grasp until the
manila, ragged pages rolled together again. Laying the book back down carefully into
the crate as if I would set off a bomb if I didn't put it back exactly in its previous
position alongside its fellow antiques, I read the note. I suddenly became aware of my
indiscretion and I scanned the note precipitously. A word caught my glance. Better yet
it was a letter that attracted my returning gaze. Looming like buzzing neon, "G" was
hard to ignore and it reminded me of the curious way my neighbor referred to himself
- in such a way that I never pushed for an explanation as to its origin - as "Mr. G." As if
by a projection of a subconscious recognition of what was already on my mind at the
moment, I reread the note with more confidence:

"grown too big for this old place. moving on to bigger and better things. take my books, no room in my life for vestiges such as these. best of luck with your endeavors, G."

I never doubted for a moment that these were the words of Mr. G. He knew that I was
a bibliophile and I knew that he was anxious to change his surroundings. In fact, his
insistence on constant change was at the base of his eccentricity. G was always
changing everything about him, especially his appearance. If we didn't meet in the
hall or outside the apartment building at least once a day, I would feel a strange
disorientation when I would see him again to the point that G would have to remind
me that it was he who I was looking at by simply looking me in the eyes and saying
"G." Inevitably I would banally respond by indicating the change that had already
been adequately emphasized in his eyes and in his name: "Sorry. Your new hat threw
me off." We both knew that it wasn't his change in fashion that perpetually confused
me. Something else had changed that made his hat look smaller or his shoes clown-
like. During the first two months of our acquaintance, my studies of English Folktales
were so tightly wound around my head like iron hoops around a wooden barrel that
these uncanny discrepancies slipped from my mind only to return when we would
reintroduce ourselves upon our next encounter.

His want for change was contagious and the present experiment is, in many ways,
because of his insistence that I finally let my beard grow. I had never let my beard
grow before because I couldn't. My school and my work allowed only the moustache
as a reflection of refined manhood and so my decision to grow facial hair was reduced
to a decision between enduring frequent nicks on my chin and keeping a 'booger
broom' in addition to only slight decrease in nibs of toilet paper polka-dotted with
blood. Mr. G's suggestion at first bothered me because I had already planned to begin
to grow a beard but I didn't want to do so if this obviously disturbed man could
possibly think that he had any influence on my decisions regarding personal hygiene.
And so when I retorted his suggestion by revealing my idea for an experiment where I
would see how long a beard I could grow in a year, G's response of delight surprised
me as much as my spontaneous plan to avoid embarrassment had surprised me. Now
that I reflect upon it, our conversation that day was the longest line of connected
sentences that we ever shared. I now realize that it was the only conversation that we
had. G told me that he was somewhat of an expert in all matters that deal with the
human body's growth rate and he pulled out of his large breast pocket an aluminum
tube that had been perfectly rolled like the instructions on the back of a toothpaste
tube suggest. He handed it to me and said, concluding our conversation and our brief
acquaintance: "With this there are more islands on the horizon." All of this my
experience with G returned to me like in the back of a dream when I reached the
bottom of the box and found that the book without a face that I had placed on the top
of the box was now at its bottom. My still hands and calm fingers betrayed my
spinning mind as I began to read the first lines on the first page...

It doesn't matter now. The only words that remain in my memory are G's last words
"With this there are more islands on the horizon." Unwittingly, I had casually opened
the metallic tube and, assuming that it was an innocent hair tonic, smoothed its
contents onto my face where I felt my beard would grow. Nothing that followed that
fateful beginning seemed to be out of the ordinary. My beard grew and my
appearance began to shift accordingly.

Today I write this with great difficulty as my fingers clumsily sort out the keyboard
one letter at a time, my hands are heavy, my elbows ache. I have outgrown my clothes
and food not longer satisfies my hunger. This must be my last entry. I must move
forward:'

Why the story? Well I bought baby bananas and I took this picture. I thought that I could both update my beard growing and diffuse of the schizophrenia that I'm going through as a result of being under the yoke of 4 PhD seminars including Victorian visual culture, Post Franco Spanish lit, Literature and post-natural discourse, and Latin American visual modernities.

Oh. Someone else who's is growing to-big-for-their-britches (feel free to use this cliche/idiom):

Sam (photo taken by Priscila):

Watch Your Back Nature!

2009-01-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, from time to time, I have found myself wasting time on YouTube looking for
clips of soccer goals or old TV shows (like the other day I looked up
"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" (a made-for-TV-movie that, for some
unexplained reason (maybe it was the resemblance of the rough-and-tumble kids to
some childhood neighbors of mine), gave me strange dreams that have faded in and
out of my mind as memory))). As much as I can appreciate the pop-power of
YouTube, I think that I like other video-sharing websites more. The one that I've used
to put two of my own short films on my twin site (edenisaplace.blogspot.com) is
called Vimeo.com. There are some really interesting and artsy films that I like on the
site but what I really think is cool is that there are some beautiful videos of nature as
nature and there are some thought-provoking time lapse films. Vimeo works as a
place to put your own, original videos and not a place to copy and paste videos of
others. The site itself has a better look to it and it has some additional features that
YouTube may not have. Many videos on Vimeo are absolutely professional and some
are not-so-professional. I'll let each of you decide in which of the two categories does
the video below belong.

Let me just briefly preface this video by disclaiming that I am not absolutely certain if
it is intended to be taken serious or not. Part of the lure to finish the entire video is to
see if you can catch a snicker on the face of one of the 'dancers.' Below the video I will
suggest what I think are the top three parts of the video and I will offer an
interpretation of its title "Conflict With Nature."

Conflict With Nature from Jessica Brannan on Vimeo.
Top Three moments according to Me:
1: The Karate Kick
2: The Hill Slide
3: The Sudden Running Away.
Honorable Mention: The Fists Pounding the Ground.

[I open it up to discussion as to any other candidates for top moments in the video]

I found this video because I did a search for 'nature' videos and when I saw the name
of this video I thought: "Hey, what does a 'conflict with nature' look like? I'm
interested. I'm going to watch." My first interpretation was completely based on what
I was expecting: something about something and nature. In other words, my initial
reaction was to try to lead what the video is showing into what I expected to show
me. This presumptuousness on my part did not last very long because I couldn't
decide which of the actors was nature and which was not nature. I suppose, then, that
'nature' here could have something to do with 'gender' (if you know what I mean) or
'psychology' or 'good taste in art.'
Beyond all of these digressions, this film was just too funny to keep to myself.

Beard, Beard, Beard, Beard, Beard... (Continue to the "CHARGE!!" Tune that They Play at Basketball Games: "butupbutumpbutum: BEARD!")

2009-01-03T14:06:00.000-08:00

I am letting my hair out... on my face. I am growing a beard. No, this is not the first

time that I have grown a beard but I've always had a hard time just letting it be. I get

to a point when I want to modify it or shave it off because I have a slight case of ADD

or because it itches like all get out. Of course, the fact that for the last 9 years of my

life I've either been a student at BYU or an employee of the LDS Church has also had

some bearing on my decision to beard or not to beard.

Considering all of the above reasons for not growing hair on my face as my hair

concurrently and gradually falls from my head, the basic truth is that my wife doesn't

want me to have a beard. After she saw a picture of me when I had a reasonably-full

beard (a month's growth), however, she like-a-what-a-she-a-see-a (overly

stereotypical Italian accent (don't ask me why, just ride the river Mac (no euphemism

intended))):

Me in Argentina June, 2007

In any case, deciding to grow a beard can be tricky. Why in the hello operator would

anyone want to grow their head on their face? What I've found out about myself and

my primal urge to grow facial hair is that sometimes a Man has to feel like a Man (as

opposed to a Man having to feel like a Woman or a rock or maybe a kitten). Of

course, there are different kinds of beards. I found a website that is seriously devoted

to the art (the necessity) of beard growing. That's right: http://www.beards.org/. NO

joking, lty (laugh to yourself (I refuse to lol)). For those with unspeakably-wrong hair

fetishes, there are plenty of hairshirts to go around on this site. Some men just

shouldn't grow beards, despite what this website argues en contra.

And so it goes, I am growing a beard from Christmas '08 to Navidad '09 (I'll be in

Argentina most likely). Yes, I'll trim it frequently and no, I won't make funny shapes

with it:

Picture of Will Chevalier

courtesy of http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/chevalier.html

I may post a photo of my beard's progress later in the year. Wish me luck.

Eden is a Space: Cliché of the Day

2008-12-16T05:08:00.000-08:00

I am in the middle of writing my brains out. That's right, it's end-of-the-semester
time and I am once again trying to be original in writing 20-page term papers for
at least three different courses. As I get further into the various topics of my papers
I find myself trying my hardest not to repeat my words and phrases. While repeating
one's own words too much is a stylistic no-no, what is worse is repeating someone
else's words (you know, plagiarism). And somewhere in between these two writing
faux pas is repeating over-used phrases, otherwise known as clichés.

Cliché is a french term that refers to plates used in printing presses with movable type
(also known as a 'stereotype' in English). They facilitated the process of flexible-
printing, which eliminated the need to cast new or 'original' type in order to print
a new document. In any case, clichés are omnipresent in our everyday discourse
but I think that it is too bad that some clichés aren't used as much as they used to be.
Therefore, I am proposing what I will call "Cliché of the Day." "Cliché of the Day" is
a program to reintroduce under-used clichés back into everyday speech - thereby
bringing them back into their being as clichés (yes I realize that "Cliché of the Day"
not only rhymes quite well but that it also contains the clichéd "of the day" pattern
(how's that for irony)).

This is how it will go down: I will introduce a cliché every post-in-a-while that I will
challenge anyone who reads this blog to use in their daily conversations. As part of
this challenge I would encourage you, wayward reader, to use this cliché in
appropriately inappropriate situations - or in other words, use the cliché in a sort
of randomly-patterned fashion.

For the first entry into this social experiment I offer this basic but perhaps little-used
cliché:

"back against a wall"

How to use it? Well, for example, lets say that you are speaking with a roommate or
a spouse or a friend, etc. and you were discussing the cold weather:

Other: "It looks like winter is finally starting."

You: "Yep, we really have our backs against a wall now"

or:

Other: "Wow, today looks like it's going to be a warm day."

You: "Yeah, winter's got its back against a wall."

OK, one more, this time you are talking about the Pres. Bush shoe-throwing incident:

Other: "Did you see the video of the guy throwing his shoes at Bush in Iraq?"

You: "No but I bet Obama's back will be against a wall on this one."

(I should mention that you're on your own after you use the cliché).

This experiment is to reinvent cliches without necessarily changing any words - as
most people do in order to give clichés new meaning (i.e. this website (which I didn't

copy, by the way)).

Those who choose to comment, please feel free to suggest clichés for future

"Cliché of the Day" posts. Remember, the cliché must be one that can be

classified as a not-used-as-much-as-it-used-to-be cliché.

If you try this out you may make new friends, lose old friends, avoid a fight,

or lose your soul (it all really depends on how you choose how to use it).

At the very least you'll get a private chuckle out of the experiment.

And finally, a cliché of an image:

Image found originally along with an interesting article at http://theconnollycolumn.blogspot.com/2008/07/ch-t-shirts-not-completely-useless.html

Christmas

2008-12-01T21:36:00.001-08:00

As Christmas pokes its head over the eastern horizon once again, I pause to reflect on the multiple faces that it shows year after year. Take St. Nick, por ejemplo.
Sure, the current idea of Santa was sold to us in a softdrink and while some say that hindsight is 20-20 others say that it still requires rose-colored glasses. All I know is that Santa used to smoke and that his snow-white beard is probably yellowing around his mouth and that he may very well have lung cancer:

Courtesy of a slide-show on nytimes.com

He went from a "stump of a pipe" in "THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS" to the "Guard against Throat-Scratch" Pall Malls. Shame on Santa! "Think of the children!"

Before I began to understand the unsettling principles behind the pitty-pat of our nation's capitalistic heart, I looked forward to Christmas for the magic created by the very idea of Christmas. The question now has become: why do we continue to commodify our dreams year after year while we muddle the line between holy and holly? Sure, the American dream has all to do with selling your way to the top so that you can have vinyl fencing, aluminum siding, air-conditioning, wood flooring, two car garage, 1.5 bathrooms, .33 acres, and a 30 year mortgage. Of course I say this from my ivory government housing third-floor bedroom.

Every year we try to reconcile our desires to join in the spirit of Christmas without disowning it. I offer nothing new to this debate. I only think that I need to remember why I still love Christmas.

I still love Christmas, but only because it puts me back into that moment between the elipses of my night mind and the revelations of morning - when I am everywhere and nowhere at the same time, when time rests from itself and I appear in its dreams.