New Game:
Hit the "Random article" button on Wikipedia, and then, starting from that article, see if you can make it to the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" entry by clicking on less than 10 links within the articles.
martedì 22 aprile 2008
martedì 15 aprile 2008
Monologue
Ready? Do it like this. It doesn't need to be perfect, no, stop, don't try to make it perfect. Pull that down. Right, OK.
One animate imagination, that's all you need. Use it. Remember what you're saying, though, don't forget that you're in the middle of an assignment. Don't get all frantic on me. Rhythmic, yes, good. Don't forget what I'm telling you. You want a glass of water? Get him a glass of water. OK, perfect, stop it there.
Write it all down. Don't forget the rules. Stretch your legs, don't sit for too long at a time. Have you finished? Have you understood?
Is it real? It's just as real as you perceive it to be. Can you control that? You'd be foolish to try. What should you do? You should accept what makes you happy and challenge what makes you feel disappointed or trapped. Little disturbances are bound to crop up along the way. Pay no mind. Remember always: if something makes you unhappy, it's not you that's wrong. If you're unhappy, change something.
This is how it needs to be. The constructs, the language, it's full of phrases and methods of control. Call the airline and book a trip to your favorite city on the planet, right now. What was your initial reaction?
And why can't you? Constructs. Control. Why shouldn't you have everything that makes you happy?
Don't consume, it's dangerous. Be aware of your place in the construct. Strive. Push yourself to do things that will make you happier. Don't strive to fit into the construct better. You'll end up unhappier.
When you were young, did you want to be President? Let that one go - it's the only unrealistic dream you have. It's not how it looks, I swear.
Make lists and keep them. Work to promote the ideas behind your beliefs, but never try to make others believe the same. While you're working, challenge all your beliefs and decide whether or not you actually agree with them. Don't work for organizations to make it happen - work in ways where you can see the real world results of your actions. They're all in the construct, but you're refusing to play by the rules of the construct.
Don't ever decide that something looks fun because the newspaper or TV made it seem like fun. Investigate, always investigate, gather information, be skeptical, think always, keep in mind your place in the construct. When the construct exerts its influence on you, be aware and make your own decisions.
Is it too much? Should I slow down? Another glass of water, perhaps? Oh! Research. Always research. Always learn. Always advance your knowledge of any situation.
Always think about what makes you happy. Then think about why it makes you happy. Analyze the causes of your happiness. It'll give you a better insight into who you are.
Keep things clean. Knowing where something is is an underrated joy of life. A well-cooked meal is a good victory to round out any kind of day.
One animate imagination, that's all you need. Use it. Remember what you're saying, though, don't forget that you're in the middle of an assignment. Don't get all frantic on me. Rhythmic, yes, good. Don't forget what I'm telling you. You want a glass of water? Get him a glass of water. OK, perfect, stop it there.
Write it all down. Don't forget the rules. Stretch your legs, don't sit for too long at a time. Have you finished? Have you understood?
Is it real? It's just as real as you perceive it to be. Can you control that? You'd be foolish to try. What should you do? You should accept what makes you happy and challenge what makes you feel disappointed or trapped. Little disturbances are bound to crop up along the way. Pay no mind. Remember always: if something makes you unhappy, it's not you that's wrong. If you're unhappy, change something.
This is how it needs to be. The constructs, the language, it's full of phrases and methods of control. Call the airline and book a trip to your favorite city on the planet, right now. What was your initial reaction?
And why can't you? Constructs. Control. Why shouldn't you have everything that makes you happy?
Don't consume, it's dangerous. Be aware of your place in the construct. Strive. Push yourself to do things that will make you happier. Don't strive to fit into the construct better. You'll end up unhappier.
When you were young, did you want to be President? Let that one go - it's the only unrealistic dream you have. It's not how it looks, I swear.
Make lists and keep them. Work to promote the ideas behind your beliefs, but never try to make others believe the same. While you're working, challenge all your beliefs and decide whether or not you actually agree with them. Don't work for organizations to make it happen - work in ways where you can see the real world results of your actions. They're all in the construct, but you're refusing to play by the rules of the construct.
Don't ever decide that something looks fun because the newspaper or TV made it seem like fun. Investigate, always investigate, gather information, be skeptical, think always, keep in mind your place in the construct. When the construct exerts its influence on you, be aware and make your own decisions.
Is it too much? Should I slow down? Another glass of water, perhaps? Oh! Research. Always research. Always learn. Always advance your knowledge of any situation.
Always think about what makes you happy. Then think about why it makes you happy. Analyze the causes of your happiness. It'll give you a better insight into who you are.
Keep things clean. Knowing where something is is an underrated joy of life. A well-cooked meal is a good victory to round out any kind of day.
Kurt Vonnegut
"8 Rules for Writing Fiction:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things: reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet or innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of."
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."
"Young Booboolings didn't see any point in developing imaginations anymore, since all they had to do was turn on a switch and see all kinds of jazzy shit. They would look at a printed page or a painting and wonder how anybody could have gotten his or her rocks off looking at things that simple and dead."
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things: reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet or innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of."
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."
"Young Booboolings didn't see any point in developing imaginations anymore, since all they had to do was turn on a switch and see all kinds of jazzy shit. They would look at a printed page or a painting and wonder how anybody could have gotten his or her rocks off looking at things that simple and dead."
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
Ernesto Guevara
"I went to see an old woman with asthma, a customer at La Gioconda. The poor thing was in a pitiful state, breathing the acrid smell of concentrated sweat and dirty feet that filled her room, mixed with the dust from a couple of armchairs, the only luxury items in her house. On top of her asthma, she had a heart condition. It is at times like this, when a doctor is conscious of his complete powerlessness, that he longs for change: a change to prevent the injustice of a system in which only a month ago this poor woman was still earning her living as a waitress, wheezing and panting but facing life with dignity. In circumstances like this, individuals in poor families who can't pay their way become surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony; they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life and, consequently, a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were a personal insult to those who have to support them. It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over. In those dying eyes there is a submissive appeal for forgiveness and also, often, a desperate plea for consolation which is lost in the void, just as their body will soon be lost in the magnitude of the mystery surrounding us. How long this present order, based on an absurd idea of caste, will last is not within my means to answer, but it's time that those who govern spent less time publicizing their own virtues and more money, much more money, funding socially useful works."
Banksy
"No one listened to me until they didn't know who I was."
"The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising some people have given up altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race are a lot more streakers."
"I wouldn't sell shit to Charles Saatchi. If I sell 55,000 books and however many screen prints, I don't need one man to tell me I'm an artist. It's hugely different if people buy it, rather than one fucking Tory punter does. No, I'd never knowingly sell anything to him."
"People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access."
"If you only ever read one book in your life, I highly recommend...that you keep your fucking mouth shut."
"The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising some people have given up altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race are a lot more streakers."
"I wouldn't sell shit to Charles Saatchi. If I sell 55,000 books and however many screen prints, I don't need one man to tell me I'm an artist. It's hugely different if people buy it, rather than one fucking Tory punter does. No, I'd never knowingly sell anything to him."
"People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access."
"If you only ever read one book in your life, I highly recommend...that you keep your fucking mouth shut."
lunedì 21 gennaio 2008
The Aforementioned Weight Tally
This blog will not actually be a weight tally. There are several good and a few bad reasons for this:
1. I have no idea how to convert kilograms to pounds, and while I could find out, it seems like a lot of trouble.
2. I can't find a scale anywhere, and I imagine if Rome doesn't believe in drying machines, there's little hope for scales.
3. Everybody in Italy is as thin or thinner than me, so it would be very depressing to try and measure how much I'm failing at life in comparison to them.
4. It might make me want to eat less.
5. I really like eating.
The problem is that I'm more or less living in a weird dream where they've made everything around me smaller: the cars, the people, the living quarters, etc. In this nightmare, it's not difficult to imagine yourself walking around the city like a gargantuan beast whom the native Romans are worried about being devoured by. Every time I pull out a camera or struggle to speak in broken Italian in any of the shops, a nervous twinkle enters the eye of the natives and they immediately become less eager to spend any more time near me, fearing for their safety.
However, I can rely to some extent on the others (Americans), who have been heard pronouncing such gems of wisdom as:
1. (in response to the question, "Can you speak Italian?") "Yea, but just un poco."
(ed. -- 'un poco' is most decidedly a Spanish expression).
2. "If I put an Italian SIM card in my phone, is it gonna change my whole phone to Italian?"
3. "Is there shampoo in Italy?"
4. "If we, like, on a test, write an essay on a philosopher and we didn't understand what the philosopher was trying to say, are you going to take points off?"
A good strategy will probably be to stand near these people to illustrate the stark contrast between me, the ignorant, and they, the hopeless. The natives are sometimes easily fooled.
1. I have no idea how to convert kilograms to pounds, and while I could find out, it seems like a lot of trouble.
2. I can't find a scale anywhere, and I imagine if Rome doesn't believe in drying machines, there's little hope for scales.
3. Everybody in Italy is as thin or thinner than me, so it would be very depressing to try and measure how much I'm failing at life in comparison to them.
4. It might make me want to eat less.
5. I really like eating.
The problem is that I'm more or less living in a weird dream where they've made everything around me smaller: the cars, the people, the living quarters, etc. In this nightmare, it's not difficult to imagine yourself walking around the city like a gargantuan beast whom the native Romans are worried about being devoured by. Every time I pull out a camera or struggle to speak in broken Italian in any of the shops, a nervous twinkle enters the eye of the natives and they immediately become less eager to spend any more time near me, fearing for their safety.
However, I can rely to some extent on the others (Americans), who have been heard pronouncing such gems of wisdom as:
1. (in response to the question, "Can you speak Italian?") "Yea, but just un poco."
(ed. -- 'un poco' is most decidedly a Spanish expression).
2. "If I put an Italian SIM card in my phone, is it gonna change my whole phone to Italian?"
3. "Is there shampoo in Italy?"
4. "If we, like, on a test, write an essay on a philosopher and we didn't understand what the philosopher was trying to say, are you going to take points off?"
A good strategy will probably be to stand near these people to illustrate the stark contrast between me, the ignorant, and they, the hopeless. The natives are sometimes easily fooled.
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