Thoughts, Ideas, and Questions

New Orleans

2012-01-20T10:36:00.001-05:00

Annunciation and Felicity

My arrival was inauspicious considering my portentous blunder missing the shuttle which was supposed to bring me to the Bourbon House Hostel, located on the fringe streets of the stoically enduring Mississippi River. Eventually my hunger and curbside malaise determined that I should make an inquiry to the shuttle company as to the whereabouts of this sought after vessel which was my personal transport to the carousing labyrinth of New Orleans, a city emblematic of festival.
The phone call resulted with me resolving to change shuttles and pay the premium rate...Consequently my fortune was enriched, with the driver, a charismatic chauffeur, regaling me with illuminating history, famous landmarks, and celebrated cultural venues. Whether this encounter was anecdotal of otherwise, my attitude towards the natives was nothing but positive on account of this favorable first impression, however fanciful this author portrays his story.
Famished, an incipient worm crawls through the bowels of my guts, devouring my intestines until I satiate these carnal desires. With a courteous point along the way I traverse the crumbling cobblestone, intersecting alleyways of foreboding terrain...vacancy, vagrancy, and vandalism. I feel the threat of leering figures, lurching shadows, and lurid illusions. A convocation of dancing demons, ready to eviscerate my existence, and be the ruination of my vacation at its very infancy. So hungry I feel my ribcage caving in, any moment the implosion of my stomach will reverberate through these hallowed blocks of musical glory.
Though, spared are we of the echoing grumbles as the hostel materializes like an apparition, incarnate. I received an uncannily predictable greeting from the hostel receptionist. I wonder if the welcoming is generically issued or if my appearance somehow indicates my desire for juvenile exploits? I prefer to believe in my mature austerity, but I suppose my adolescent rebelliousness wasn’t channeled properly and still may be stewing and brewing, all geared up for revival - Payment was encouraged to be made in cash, owing to a credit card surcharge of 8% applicable nowhere else in the state of Louisiana...(travel guides neglected this not so trivial fact) levying covert, inexplicable charges is seemingly this city’s unofficial motto. The prospect of carrying $300 dollars in my pockets in uncharted terrain certainly ruffled my feathers, yet the alternative wasn’t an option given my financial distress. With speedy strides I delivered the money, retrieved from a nearby gas station, and completed the required transaction in exchange for guest services provided by the staff.
The aching, quaking, omnivorous tremors of my belly have returned with pernicious and insufferable bowel blows afflicting me with further tolls of pain! At last I decide there can no longer be any procrastination and I thrust myself wherever my saliva glands activate. My redeemer comes in the form of a gargantuan “Texas” burger, cooked medium well, slotted between toasted sesame buns, smothered with barbecue sauce, and extensively topped; bacon, eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion. Standard enough, but what exceeded my expectations was the waitress who so excellently ornamented the restaurant with a totality of tangible and ephemeral accoutrement which I took a likening to. Eclectic jams, affable conversation, and inebriated cavorting ensued all around me. I remained an observer, occasionally bantering about whatnot, ultimately exiting contented with all aspects of the instinctively motivated selection.

Chronicling Day 1

Alarm ring-a-ding-a-ling. Snooze. Repeat incessantly until I forcibly hoisted myself excitedly with the awareness that I am a visitor here, not doing some vicarious re-enactment of my own life, and had better not stubbornly drift in and out of sleep until some other urgency demands that I do so forthwith! Now I feel shambles, but what urban tramping I intrepidly experienced today. Breakfast was a mockery, but the remainder of the day, I am delighted to exclaim, was sensational...Open the door, close the door-with the greatest sensitivity... Take the prescribed route to the Saint Charles Trolley with caressing wind blowing briskly though my uncapped hair as we traverse, with no trepidation, to the historic French Quarter.
Fuck, I almost missed the trolley. Just like I almost missed relaying this innocuous, quotidian detail to you, my earnest reader - but my salvation, the next trolley, was just over yonder. Canal street (diametrically different from my Manhattan) was reminiscent of the Miami I know of my imagination. An abomination of colossal structures for those other visitors who are so desperately essential to the survival of this survivor of a city. I now am treading on my leather converse Chuck Taylor’s until I reached the water, and what capitalist buffoonery did I encounter there! Shops of all pathetic nature which made me dread my fellow man, despite my sociability... I adopted the quintessential misanthrope for this moronic endeavor... but I persevered and things only improved from this paradigmatic episode. Upon seeing (and evading) a couple from my flight, who were queuing up for tickets to the AQUARIUM, I made a steadfast approach to the market and immersed myself in the deprivation and the exaltation's of this New Orleans, home of every fathomable adversity on earth and the people whose courageous resilience with which they ignore the ramifications, persisting into a glorious oblivion.

Ambling Scenes from Wayward, Directionless Tramping

Jackson Square, the confluence of vibrant forces, resonant noise, and thriving commercialism. I have existential difficulty engaging with the stereotypically endorse activities, however who can resist powdered donuts? (a caloric behemoth , without a doubt slashing a decade off my lifespan in the instant of indulgence)
The servers appeared to have no ethnic, national, or communal ancestry, a chimera of attributes all of whom have converged and congregated at this unsurpassable establishment. Their physiognomy has features in all regards “Islander” with all the entailing variables of just which Island chain they may belong to evading my lack of nuanced perceptiveness. The donuts, or beignets, as they are lauded and praised here, were a doughy treat, deserving of their unmitigated reputation. The woman sitting at the table adjacent to mine was cliche, swampland aristocracy, whatever pictures that elucidates in your brain...She is the type whose narcissism is only outweighed by her supreme ability to convince those in her sphere that, “I am of a stature which signifies that I can flaunt, strut, and wag my bitch tail with no disrespect tolerated as I hover over you triumphantly”.
Meandering Pedestrians! This should be the adopted credo of New Orleans. An acquaintance of from my lodgings suggested shutting down all automobile traffic, giving absolute reign to walkers. I’m skeptical of compliance with the proposal, but I echo the sentiment. My memory is fleeting, but irregardless I look back with serene fondness on the ambiance, and the milieu of this domesticated, yet charmingly “uncivilized” habitat.
Chartres: A sophisticated street, with the charmed characteristic of being charmed.
Royal: Artistic erudition is what I found, a dazzling haven emanating enthusiasm, for those with the gallery sensibility of the medium’s salience for simultaneously exposing and shrouding civilized humanity.
Bourbon: Forgettable, unbearable, unendurable...
Dauphin and Burgandy: Fraternal society of hipsterdom beckoning to those fashion iconoclasts, those rapier witted humoroligists, those mustachioed affluent and unfettered demographic, fraudulently exploiting the popularity of cultivating a culture of enlightened poverty.
My conundrum is with finding an affordable and substantive meal. With the market shuttered I conclude that my options are either to break the bank and satiate the immediacy of my intense organ pangs, or retreat to where I’m already acclimated and guaranteed fulfillment. I chose Juan’s Flying Burrito, and the implications are implied in the namesake sandwich of Mexican heaven and hell conjoined. My palate was elated, but the toiled was dejected.

The Society of Hostel(ites)

The other hostel(ians), I can honestly declare, with the deepest of integrity, are amiable, commodious, and spirited travelers...exceptional companions for the dalliance which is our mate-ship. Lounging with reclusive elusiveness on our hostel patio/gazebo I listened intently to every utterance around me, while attempting equally intently to be engrossed in the book I was reading. This was a practice in futility and with my verily proficient uni-tasking I expertly insinuated myself in the midst of an unremarkable discourse on the similitude of vernacular between European and English languages. I discovered them to people of estimable intelligence, witty and clever, possibly owing to their worldliness as a traveling inhabitant's of a vast array alien destinations. This cornucopia of uninhibited and courageous denizens have an abundance of shrewd jokes and snarky jests, allowing them to generously participate with any creed.
The exchange ended with a consensus venture out and to attend a jazz club in the area where a heralded brass band was hooting, tooting, and creating exceptionally rambunctious grooves, marveling all with the rhythmically swaying exclamatory sounds. This solitary episode confirmed and perpetuated all the idealized notions I have of New Orleans, so dazzlingly stooped in the improvisational, syncopated, and breathtaking beats of a music rooted and sunk so deep in the fertile soil of the stuff. It bore a progeny to which the preponderance of the earth rock out to...

Tom: Brilliant! Trudy, did you hear that?

Trudy: Bloody hell Tom, why are you shouting, I’m standing here next to you!

Tom: There are Australians lodging at the hostel now! Those blokes share our character, our sensibilities, our, our, our... they just UNDERSTAND us!

Alex: Imperial colonization will inevitably distribute to all enemies the seeds of its womb. They were fated! no that’s the wrong word...destined! wrong word again... doomed! To be captives of historical oppression.

Arthur: Profound shit man...

Trudy: Please God just let not them be mental wankers like the pathetic Americans.

Tom: We’re not in Alabama any longer Trudy, and these guests will be absolutely golden.

Trudy: Or negatively brown!

Alex: The Australians have sprawled to every crevice, every niche, and every cracked cement structure this world has to offer. Vandalizing, sexualizing, and being the deathblow of every fragile flower they have in their breadth along the way.

Arthur: Master diatribe friend...

The Consummate Human Being

2012-01-19T23:14:00.002-05:00

A person can be itinerant, forever doomed to inhabit different places, different lands, different realms, but what is the equivalent phenomena for someone's mind? Hurtling with dread and mystification through a lifetime of unsatisfying, repetitive, and bewildering experiences and relationships! Reliability is a valuable and scarce trait...A sincerely desire to be reliable and for my friends to be reliable. The realization of this being a virtual impossibility is quite saddening, it makes me shudder in my skin. I am hard-pressed to evoke any colloquial phrase with poetic resonance as descriptors. The reality is that my current mood of lonesomeness is sobering to my predilections of rumination with my conditions as an eminently sentimental person. My flock is deceased, but I still hearken back to their vivacious and harrowing proclamations.

The Embodiment of Beauty Clashing with our Barbarous Civilization.

2012-01-18T19:57:00.002-05:00

Earth's supreme expression of the sublime.

The heavens gesticulate with maddening picturesqueness.

Canvassing the atmosphere with a shimmering, fantasizing portrait of the divine.

No inconspicuous exhibition of meteorological phenomena,

rather unadulterated exuberance of inconceivable beauty.

The purification of beauty, the distillation of beauty, the virgin refinement of beauty...

What unspeakable munificence, bestowing my domicile window's vantage point,

stretching across the entirety of the staggering borough of Brooklyn,

with such an extraordinary composition-

The stalwart defiance of the radiant moon,

the ebullience of the spuriously migrating clouds,

the arresting, stunning eruption upon the horizon...

myriad colors displaying every potentially conceivable color from the palate,

branding you with an indelible impression of tranquility.

What a sacred gift to be suddenly stirred from my fantastical dreams,

a shadow realm and to have the veritable light of the cosmos shine bright unto my corporeal domain.

This cyclically looping pattern of dazzling global incandescence,

the universal testimony, the evangelical throbbing, the missionary pulsation of holiness.

Insatiable illumination breathing into our mortally inherited souls (progeny of origination)

the unattainable suffering for immortality.

What riveting platitude on the order of ecstasy!

What elegant serenity tantalizing your vision!

What undeniable craftsmanship,

sanctifying our profane humanity with the incorruptible graciousness

that only nature can benevolently grant,

conjuring up with praiseworthy magnanimity

the extolled and revered paradise of the planet's sunrise.

disjointed ruminations while commuting in Manhattan

2011-12-02T21:13:00.004-05:00

What cosmic or societal forces are activated when people are derailed from their sacrosanct objectives? Everybody laboriously treads on the precipice of satisfaction, however dangerously we steer on the edge of an abyss into oblivion.

A maddening course of events have me desiring victim-hood, however I'm rejiggering my endeavors and plotting a realignment of my life journey...I am a breed of the mystifying and glorious unknown, uncompromising future.

Yearning for solitude on a crowded crosstown bus is analogous to desiring water amongst the vast expanses of the Sahara desert. One must foster for themselves an artificial oasis, a habitat comprised of noise cancelling, mind occupying, personally disassociating technology.

Words

2011-11-24T00:16:00.004-05:00

Words rule the way. Words I seek all day.

Words fight in my brain. Words make me insane.

Words control ideas. Words do not make a genius.

Words treat me so cruel. Words I sputter like a fool.

2010-12-31T16:48:00.001-05:00

Germany 5/09

Restless heart comes to surrender

Waking nights all come to pass

The time arrives for wandering days

Upon outstretched wings this journey departs

Which vice corrupts man’s heart the fastest?

The dance of verse, the parade of composition

Each soul yearns for its own unique form

I pray cupid strike when love’s song calls

Surprised again, the half-expecting mind

This sprawling metro shows its worth

More than home of meats combined

The market, the bindings give us a start

At last with open eyes, the valley’s beauty strikes

Pedals cycling, petals blooming, a tactical embattlement of the minds takes form

We walk, we stalk, we trek, one falls

A visit to medieval family, home of which infallible

Inglorious city worth mere pittance

Bisects running waters world renown

We glide along worn out back alleys

On moving seats our eyes take in the gilded show

Alas to come upon meaty subsistence

Considering travails of human sickness, the books reflect this I stand assured

A plan is struck, our destinations lies through zigzagging paths

In this village guided by handsome strangers, a place youth make their bohemian home

A lazy mope, we move like sloth to Temple Mount

The two compact to split, the mover on his ride, the wonderer finds his observing stone

Traversing open plains, side winding ancient forest, the travelers find joy in nature’s bounty

Can dialogue, the kind I love, move us to act, to change, to grow?

Again, we catch the bullet, just before the scheduled embark

We toast prost to the host of the kingdom of brew

Then sweep cityscape, fields, and gardens, mounted upon wheels

Settle tired bodies before the platter, chatting with strange and manic company

Jokes aplenty, knowledge still more, the verbose authority takes us on a deserving tour

All encompassing curiosity takes minds in stasis on an electrifying ride

Artist’s meaning shrouded, I invent less charming notes to those doomed to sordid history

The natives play on grass galore, the natives settle before Academia’s shore

A land once scarred we continue to, perhaps this past holds family secrets too

Guiding ourselves through what is esteemed, we are please much more with food galore

Horrors relived with great precision, we stand overlooking the fields of legions

Ten thousand years their walls do hold, a people strong and exacting I am told

Confused, reused, abused, a never-ending road is taken

Step into city majestic and profound, now how about a home to go pillow bound

We hurry for that charm filled connection, to be grasped in a most magical gaze

Then rest weary feet in gold-struck byway, where folktale is re-lived today

For once our peace is broken, owing to diverging personality

We go our ways, one to learn, the other to internalize

The heavens empty their discontent, then friends find old bonds survive the day

Street to street, safe haven is unfound, but people beautiful we find in this once charred town

Arising from our buoyant slumber, back and forth we lose our way

Awe struck eyes, sore from entranced enchantment; this place is meant for bygone days

We learn ourselves of its intrepid rise, we lament at its devastating demise

All we see is art and beauty, it’s reflected in the foreigner’s eyes

By conniving means do we find respite, a constant scare did nightmares bring

The tour unites halves once deeply divided; with fellow history lover do we roam

I connect the superficial with the source, then walk in the steps of misled militias

On patchwork lawn of grass and sand, we reminisce of old Deutschland

Israel Redux

2010-12-31T14:52:00.003-05:00

Struck with reminiscent black and white, recycled stories starring on recycled paper.

My knees wobble, though mind is resolute like the monks staunch, ancient brew.

Gazing upon grand square before the metropolis breathes the evanescent dawn spirit.

The winged miracle transcends the journey, unfathomable nowhere state, home to cult-rocker archival jams.

Steadfastly we pursue the abundant treats of the civilizations renaissance.

The humor entwined tandem feast on sugary yeast, both cooked and fermented.

The enchanting city is invigorated as we wind down, yearning for respite...

Wishing our travels destined for the promised land to be soaked with revelation of community

and soul.

Greeted with smooches and bidding farewell to the gentle cascading sky,

our most amiable hosts open their bounties with total surrender to our whims.

The town, the home, the folk are in progressive flux,

though our presence causes change to cease, and renewal of the ephemeral diaspora cousins

maintain with Zion.

The land is in perpetual identity crises, as natives and foreigners alike exist on shaky ground with a tongue twisted panoply of language, though trod forward brandishing unrelenting fierceness of mission and inexorable holy purpose...

I cherish this niche reunion, revel in bonds of laughter, and wax nostalgic with my quasi-sophisticated, fashion savvy, stardom bound, well rooted, and giddy-gawky family...

Rustled from slumber, I bow to the gravity of the moonlight mountain quest.

The dreary eyed trek through cavernous desert arouses an innate sense of mystique.

Our red, white, and blue team hustles and cheer their conquest of this deplorable, yet admirable barren rock of yore.

Vistas of utterly sterile land and tear stained water swallow the earth's every grain of soil.

The story of vanquished community, so overwrought with pride for liberty,

who could not tolerate the shackles of foreign masters,

engenders whimsical versions of their escapades for freedom, ultimate entrapment, and ghastly final act.

We scramble like ants, amongst myriad folks who guffaw, and beam with terrible awe.

My own Worse Enemy

2010-09-30T22:16:00.008-04:00

Enchanting correspondence draws two souls together...

Strangers fated by divine fortune where common threads,

their fibers of rainbow hues, unravel and intertwine...

Vivid, piercing light of the unknown penetrates blind eyes,

arousing discovery which transcends the darkness

within which we envelope our solitary lives.

But I cannot throw caution to the wing!

The damned, foolhardy game must be engaged.

Inhibitions save us from the perils of the heart.

Like the tiptoed traverse of a bold tight rope walker,

we balance laughter but always on the precipice of tears.

Marvelous mayhem would be experience

without the borders of awkward mystery.

Though some knowledge may bruise the narcissist,

the brave ego covets brutal truth.

How to conquer the fire-pit mountain,

cleanse the pipes and seal the cap,

whose bulging fantasies wish to blow and smolder

the entrapped village, already horror-struck

under a blanket of human anguish and commotion...

curiosity, sincerity, doubt, jubilation,

uncertainty, shame, the final goodbye.

So against all odds, the intrepid love lion

must transform into a new cool cat,

aware of the jungles terrain, dangers, and natural laws.

No more fixation, just discovery of untold destination.

Ode to my Harmonica

2010-09-30T22:08:00.004-04:00

Siren of the folk parade

Marching humble with no charade

Toots with crisp, unblemished rings

Blows wild, riffs courageous as the lark may sing

Spirited humbug dares to sally forth

Announcing soulful splendor with God's great mirth

Canopy of notes fluttering like doves reminisce

When cupid's tune dared grace us with love's first kiss

Coarse blues grooves tweak the heart

While the Jazz sailboat makes for spirited impart

Radical road is bumpy, full-fledge

Journey carries you to the river's edge

Lips to sputter, stagger, drive heavy like a dagger

But our breath rides the wave without wrath or anger

What drones on battered wings is surely noise to cease

What sonorous melody helps to regale all the forest's beasts

In subterranean cellars,

jammed with idle dwellers,

packed full of New York's best sellers,

rugged and invincible fellers,

crave uproarious tale tellers.

I was Born into Suspect Anonymity

2010-08-22T13:41:00.002-04:00

I was born into suspect anonymity...Ukrainian village with a bridge.

A chemical factory makes for odorous habitat; a backyard garden leaves me in Eden, swamped by broiling politics

By all appearances a Mediterranean child, blissfully unaware of the land's bloodstained past.

The Jews lived in public shadows...best not to know who you are, a phantom identity to be reconstructed in decades to come.

All hailed authority! Bow to fatalism, a better life it cannot be.

Religion has no temple here, meager folk find no compassion here, men loving men and women loving women do not exist here...

Bigoted antics inflamed the crowds, public institutions promoted social divisions most unsound.

Books preach Marxism-Leninism. Recall the scripted socio-historical formula. Civilization is economics and art guards the parties heroic triumph!

My family grows tired of sharing what we don't have, relegated to wandering status, but a promised change hearkens from across tumultuous seas.

Yearning to be a welcomed people, reconnect with our endowed ancestral constellation...to be a spiritual brotherhood, to heal the world.

Relations in America must be invented. Memories must be buried along with old world talisman which tied us down to superstitious caste.

As the wall crumbles, (but this time we cry out of hope, not wail out of catastrophic loss)

we travail Vienna and Rome by trembling rail, and touch down in Newark, streets gilded with nervous hope.

But my role is that of fellow traveler. With precious few years experience on earth, I squeeze my teddy, and cling to suspended hands.

Now strangers in a strange land, but we reconnect with thriving tribal brethren. Accepted at the synagogue, warm welcome by our hosts.

We find our nook amongst teeming multiplicity; the lines of tolerance are blurred here.

The hoards coexist in America the chimera...New Jersey, New York are laboratories for testing the limits of tolerance.

Livingston offers superficial plentitude. Innocence can retreat for a lifetime in the harmonious backdrop of suburbia.

Our matriarch retires from defending cretins to guarding the homestead, ma and pa plunge headfirst into the national dream.

The allure of nostalgia fails to trap us...we suck at the roots of the land and hold out hope in prosperity for the laborer's hardships.

Mother studies the legal tongue, father learns the computer vernacular...this foreign boy embraces the colloquial in desperate want of a companion.

While cousins duplicate their abandoned doppelganger in Little Odessa, I am raised aware of inheriting suffocation and nudged to run from old ways.

By all appearances we blend with the natives, but some amateur anthropologists make reproach at a distance and meditate on our backwards behavioral oddities.
I patiently await my emergence...for years stalling the separation between the we and the I because of an allegiance, a pact of migratory species.

No longer burdened by stifled talents, muzzled speech, and squelched ambitions...but ever weary of becoming the prodigal son. (of family, of generation)

With entryways unsealed, baseball is a cherished new tradition, summer camp for new association. But never hassled to forget myself.

Bilingual birthday parties and hybrid holidays. Old School conservative values intermingle with this newfound creed of liberty.

Reluctant neighbors digest borscht, ruski kielbasa, cacletci...never mind haladetz.

My attitude sinks and is marred by outsider neurosis. Transplanted from archaic homeland to star spangled destination, but no calm for the ego.

Is this narcissism or an perpetual need to reassure belonging...to be a link, befriended by peers, affiliation.

The next chapter is the arrival of a real Yankee; first breath is free (from inhibitions, from insecurity, from pessimism)

Brothers by blood, but a rocky road is trudged upon. Intragenerational divides...

My pre-memory re-imagining of obstacles overcome leaves me wondering why I am so lucky. His privileged status is consumed with no regard...

But what do we effort for if not to live without hardships. Or are psycho-emotional hardships the relentless burden of human kind? (indispensable)

And what of my cherished education? Fundamental splits between Soviet stratagems and America's confident record. But I feel my mind to be stateless.

I crave that my ideas be peerless, of unique accord. Sometimes education unknowingly becomes indoctrination.

The schoolyard is pitiless. Flippant assaults...Fatty! Weirdo! Chicken! Pierced and torn by countless brazen attacks on my virgin sentiments.

And who is this foreigner? Is he a Red? A pinko sympathizer confidant! My rage is matched only by my confusion. What for did we come to this cruel land?

Please call me. Please invite me. Please like me. After all we share so much. Learn the same rules. Play the same games. Pretend equally like fools.

Growth is stunted, for while the pack roams with stolid and intrepid constancy, I toil over my station. Life is good, yet I distress over cultural power.

Of course there are some confrontations, (more to the point, clashes of barbarism) but what irks me are the markers of immigrant fashion...

Mercury thermometer, pre-packed vacation meals, hand me down t-shirts. I want rap music, I want video games, I want to devour trends.

I find that everything fades. Brief is the quality of all things. Each day consumes the prior and only memory evolves.
This mode of emotions is the enduring impression of high school. Life revolves around the social circles. Each day is a chance to reinvent my coming of age.

People can always feel the differences. A medley of kinds is the marker of the hallways. Style, expression, desires.

With everyone settling on a pattern of comfort, I fall in line with a crowd. We were late bloomers, quirky comedians, self-realized momma's boys.

Fighting boredom was our favorite hobby. Through investigating the underground we discover what is cool before it is cool.

One projects myriad styles. Escaping his close knit race, he exercises talents to create beautiful sounds.

One feels the necessity to appease all. His inner drives stymied by a willingness to laugh when funny, and when sad.

One roars and wails against the world...fulfillment is never enough, he demands logical justice! Invariably he is denied.

One opens his home to all faiths. His ethos is to solve future problems through elegant design.

One dances fitfully with personal enterprise, his hunger for achievement is an intoxicating ardor.

My athletic pursuits usher contacts of abundant past. But dreams of the grand stage delude my rational; therefore no books grow intimate with my eyes.

America is a beguiling beast. Schoolteachers present it's resolve, it's perfect democracy. This reliance on frontier fervor equivocates the souls we lost.

The competition is fierce, stirring up animosities and determination to succeed as one. There is no getting along when the almighty ranking decides our fate.

Ready for higher studies, but unprepared for life's ambiguities. I learn of contrasts to my cave....former prisoner to the shadows becomes a kindler of awe and phenomena.

Now begins the story of I. Me being the passive, the unexamined idolater. I being the actor, the pursuer of questions, awakenings, and wonder.

Family, living room, divan...we sit joyous anticipating my imminent departure. This antique ritual is meant for smooth sailing, but college is meant to rock the boat.

Nobody knows me and I want to be nobody. The campus affair is unweildy, rocking my steed off its steady and constant trail. Substances contaminate; pierce my veil, exposing the I.

Lecture halls echo from 1967. An infamous riot shook the foundation. But from lawlessness and from turbulence comes today's ethnic extravaganza. The U.N. might call this a home away from home.

Blinded by popular virtues, the bat and ball game consume my time. Perfection is my bed time story, a dogged fire I swallow because it is the performers job.

I plunge into unblazed frontiers...the world is here for me to craft, shape, impact upon. Leave science for the convinced. Part cynic, part mystic, I navigate this new course.

Unimaginable generosity provides me passage to the Hebrew homeland. A novice of conflict, I learn of the corrosive inferno in the holy land.
Never was it fathomed that long lost heritage could bridge the gap between strangers. Amidst disavowal of presence and refugee cataclysm I found hospitality and friendly faces.

On gargantuan wings, soaring over the Great Pacific, I touch down in the land of endemic beasts...the one time expansive island prison of the mother kingdom's unwanted.

The urban flavor is of multi-ethnic cuisine. A Pandora's box of wonderful assimilations is inherited here. With vast distance from the world, Aussies assemble the global puzzle.

Graduation expedition fosters a percolation of my Slavic lexicon. I unfurl naive eyes to discover irreparable discontent with the Iron Curtain's prevailing, ominous drapery.

I traverse the budding, flourishing middle nations with comrades from all derivation...from coal miners country to Sanskrit caste to alternative sexual fondness.

With a first time traveler at my side, I empty my pockets for one more ride. Rhine Valley, Black Forest, Bavaria, Bohemia, and Prussia. All hardy polyethnic clans.

With the name of Berg I embrace the vestigial remnants of my culture, the residue of my bloodline. The arc of my journey is manifold identity.

Psychosomatic Savior

2010-06-01T23:28:00.002-04:00

1-Voice of the immigrant renaissance...

2-Inflates me with pride of our adopted homeland.

3-I believe in the gift,

4-here twisted to signify an outrageous ecstacy.

6-5-Nation wide speaking tour,

7-Promoting warfront multicultural tolerance.

8-I am America's humble and hopeful servant.

9-The deceptor galavants on stage,

10-Transporting audience imagination...

11-But Woe, the revelation erupts this vivid subterranian vision sequence.

12-General Diehard extolls his fanatical virtues...I run!

13-The further we seperate the clearer our voices connect.

14-The bandwith of subliminal communication is the staging ground.

15-The unseen memory mulder cannot espace from moronic levity.

16-The world approaches catyclism,

17-but desperate escape brings me to wayward and exhaustable adventures of sadism.

18-The terrorist cannot be thrown off...

19-Bombs are layed for the grand finale.

20-Tracked from site to site,

21-The alluring and hyped projections of the media machine.

22-Action film, deserted, post apocolyptic kill zones.

23-Brainwaves compacted, contorted, confounded by the menaces plot of dastardly misadventure.

24-I plummet into the distraction land,

25-sliding along the rising, falling step conveyer.

26-Carefree moral countenance exudes from the survivores of unfinished catastrophe.

27-Life is but a trifle.

28-Mistakingly granted with absolute and unholy remission.

29-Who is the decider, the wild dreamweaver?

30-The arc of life's lyracism speaks to the contrary...

31-We are extroadinary, we are divine, we are fated to oblivion,

32-though spiritual dilemmas express themselves in epical freewheeling moonlight shows.

Oil Man

2010-05-18T22:59:00.001-04:00

I am a patch of desert amidst luscious rain forest.

Abandoned senses recognizing no pause from the safari.

In the reclusion of my boyhood tree house.

Vegetarian daydreams are lousy substitutes for carnal vitality.

A flicker of luminous sunshine, a sliver of gibbous contortion.

With a rippling beanstalk posture, the equation equals sublime.

My bellowing stones emerge uncanny to our simian urges.

The poet's amorous descent touches our affectionate organ.

Tumultuous waves of indulgent glances fill forlorn days.

To find my babe, arms akimbo, Eureka!

I strike the fertile, lovestruck ocean.

The craze of an oil man erupts from my loins!

A Dream Come True

2010-05-03T21:49:00.004-04:00

Harlem neck of the woods, square in the heart of Manhatta

Visiting Han, but the flight treks to Tahiti

The streets are menacing, a bottomless pit

Neighbors are downtrodden, leering, scowling, volatile

All exchanges are mystifying,

America the chimera

Trepidation marks the space between my steps, my breaths

I'll never make it out alive!...Inhale, exhale, inhale

Where is America?!?

The president expounds on the nuclear family in jeopardy

Behemoths crowd the streets, my vision, my spirit, my air

Why the hell am I here?!?

Lost in the maze of gaunt, jumbled faces

Drunkards stumbling, mumbling with truthful tongues

Chris packs to fly away, into the blue, but what else is new?

Deranged sensations alarm me, a raging fire of piercing blue

My mission is to crush the streets and flatten the dream

Wherefore is my normalcy? A canard is my prophecy!

4/9/2010 Dream

2010-04-12T19:04:00.001-04:00

Library themed bar with Batman and modern vampires seething with unquenchable thirst

The caped crusader deports for the lavatory...I am outnumbered

The narrator, God speaks of our specious morals, our equivocal rationale

With all realities possible, the grotesque but consequence free shootout ensues

I dance deadly with my gun, my life liquidator

Carnage unfolds with hideous beasts, marred souls, and frenzied violations of bodies

Exasperated, suffocated I gaze to Batman for aid

The dark knight turns his weapon on me, and my universe explodes

1) Robert B. Westbrook, "I want a Girl, Just Like the Girl that Married Harry James."

2010-04-08T12:10:00.001-04:00

Please excuse my deeply personal reading of this piece as it struck me on this level, and a likewise response would best serve my unpacking of it's central themes. The focus being the charge of American servicemen abroad and women in the total war effort at home, towards the private interests of securing and maintaining American man's born and sole right to access and domineer their female counterpart. The all encompassing presence of the pin-up model in military barracks, Navy battle-cruisers, and Air force fighter jets accompanied those who prepared themselves to die for their country. The social psychology behind it was the pin-ups pervasive reminder of just what we were fighting for. The sexualization of war, and the sexual objectification of women (who for the first time pierced the moral periphery of war, reorienting themselves away from being the spoils of war, becoming instead cooperatives in engineering the war effort) of the combative nations, imposed a real and vivacious requirement for defense, trumping the elusive and often ambiguous requirement to defend the social contract.

In reacting to the underlying premise of this essay, my first instinct was to react skeptically of the conclusions reached by liberal theory on the absence of political obligation arising from the civic expectations in the social contract arrangement. I suppose my presumptions on modes of citizenship and public commitments to the democratic state were never scrupulously examined or challenged. So this initial inclination, where I found myself verging on an offended state, led to an eventual self-shocking surprise that as an emigre from totalitarianism, I never once questioned the public vs. private status of my citizenship. Instead of the profound discovery of individuality and manner of natural selfishness that democratic capitalism rests its very laurels on, that my mother and father, who came of age as victims of a socialist regime indifferent to humane and "supra-political" considerations, my dedication to willful participation in defending the unmatched aura of American greatness knew know bounds. (This devotion has always been, of course, civil and peace abiding in nature, therefore extending the same sacrifice of devotion to a superficially personal state in wartime is solely theoretical)

Perhaps the gorge of perspectives on satisfying American citizenship can be reconciled by a definite generational aspect, however another strong possibility is that I have walked and talked as an incandescent billboard, promoting Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" out of a self-centered desire to confirm my status as a resident-alien turned citizen, of equal merit to the native class of citizens. Having come full circle, this revisionist, yet conspicuous assessment of American affiliation would actually comply on a psychological level with liberal theory, where I seek not to protect hearth and kin from a looming, foreign adversary, but proactively swat down an perceived threat on my coveted bonds with my adopted homeland. I am cursed to strike back at the omnipresent operatives of communal shame and unjustified guilt dictated to coerce all Americans to protect the state which protects them, by attending to whatever duties called upon by "communication elites".

One well publicized and monetarily incentivized examples of today's geopolitical climate include the well intentioned and promising route of "green living", which I wish to embark upon out of a faint hope that the actions of private obligation will transcend the private sphere, and enmesh the collective behaviors of state and non-state actors on a global scale. The camouflage I wear on these intentions is stark and pretentious, but probably not wholly isolated and drastically antithetical in purpose from my University peers. My socially aware, reciprocative minded behaviors are driven by a deep attachment for protecting my claim on American citizenship. Whatever the driving resolution be, the success of the state becomes intertwined and enmeshed with the success of the individuals ego-satisfaction.

Online Safety...

2010-04-08T12:09:00.001-04:00

With the proliferation of web based, "social experiences", the generation of kids currently coming of age are growing into dual-natured world with a fundamental disconnect in their value systems. The institution of the family should act as a literal and figurative "home base", where citizens would learn the social norms, behavior politics, and consequences of their actions in interrelated environments. From the time of our birth we all participate in institutions of education, religion, employment, athletics, and brotherhoods...Each institution has a purpose, customs, and structure, but without the institution of family succeeding in its task, regulating and judging our behavior in all exterior institutions will exist in a vacuum of rules, mores, and crucial empathetic decision making. The online institution exacerbates these foreseeable pitfalls, by subtracting human contact with virtual contact, and leaving a generation exposed to violations of dignity, character, and agency, we are raising a generation with a hole in their hearts, where respect for the human condition once filled.

Ideas From 2009

2010-03-31T12:22:00.000-04:00

The Life, Death, and Rebirth of our Stories.

2010-03-22T22:26:00.000-04:00

Most fundamental to our collective conscience is the story,
undergoing adaptations, re-imaginings, dormancy, and rejuvenation.
Folktales, fairytales, legends, and myths,
all made popular by modern modes and modern euphoria.

Obsessed with origins, with the fabled history of civilization,
we split ourselves between archeology and scripture.
From whispers shared at the tribal fireside, to globally available blog gospel,
What remains fixed is the urgency to connect, to make meaning out of randomness.

Knowledge cannot be captured, cannot be owned,
only transferred, only related, only enriched by progress.
The courier being paper, the airwaves, film, ones and zeros,
so who will stand apposed to the stories epic heroes?

We bellow the disconnect of the tangible, the traditional,
but nostalgia claims victim only to the generation of loss.
Technology must speak to the future, to the coming of age,
so fare-the-well to common binding, and greet tomorrow's digital spell!

I am a banana!

2010-03-16T21:25:00.000-04:00

31 million children, nationwide, participate in the National School Lunch program. This number is uncanny in its proximity to the 30 million Americans that President Obama is racing to establish health coverage for through the proposed bill he is risking much of his political capital on. If there is adequate enthusiasm in Congress, raging tensions broiling in the media, and an American public which appears anything but apathetic about tenable healthcare reform, then I have to make the point for why we should care so much for healthy eating in our public school settings. If the classroom is where we infuse the nation's youth with the invaluable lessons of history, the cumulative progress of science, the morals of literature, and the awesome and creative spirits of the arts, how come we refuse to accept the capital substance of educating students on the schema of a healthy diet. I don't mean exotic or far fetched diet schemes, but the composition of what we eat now and forever. Doubling down on state and federal Investments in school lunch and breakfast, cooperating with a forceful and targeted appeal from our health instructors, could be a clearcut point of departure on the consolidation of fat in America. Just imagine if 30 million students, buying lunch with vouchers, morph into 30 million fit and robust adults who tax health services only as a last resort. The reasoning may be considered specious or fragile, but my focal argument will continue to figure prominently in the national debate.

By throwing such a gargantuan percentage of our population onto the healthcare scheme in one fell swoop, would add weighty stress on health providers all around the nation, especially in primary care facilities which are understaffed and under-performing in terms of preventative care provisions. It is the final aspect of this point, preventative care, which is worth expanding on. Let us say that the current version of the bill is passed and stamped with the president's seal of approval. Reports from the Congressional Budget Office on total cost savings are tentative, and subject to escalations and depressions, but with no guarantee of the bill fulfilling its promise of leveling our run amok health services expenditures, or even the more moderate White House insistence on deficit-neutral spending plans. The crux of the matter is that our private insurance industry and our public-private Medicare/Medicaid programs operate more along the lines of "sick care" than "health care". If Congress, non-profits, government originated initiatives, our public institutions, and American individuals could recalibrate their healthcare expectations and entitlement attitudes, the heartbeat of the nation and of its respective democratic populace would be steadied and prolonged.

I am suggesting, and this is by no means a radical ideology or groundbreaking discovery, that our outlook on life should be one of self-restraint, moderation, and comparative evaluation. One could apply all three axioms to how we look after our bodies, by knowing when enough ice cream is enough, by entertaining a full palette of foods from breakfast to desert, and by giving due diligence to our choices in food consumption. To wit. asking our doctor, reading the labels, or investigating expert studies. I am preaching, or better yet proselytizing for Americans to gaze down the road and eat healthy now so we don't unnecessarily burden our collective healthcare network when we trudge our abused, rotund, and corporeal bodies into emergency care centers and rehabilitation centers when desperation takes hold.

The Airy In-between

2010-03-09T06:00:00.002-05:00

I am denizen of no state

Identities, memories, emerge but prove ephemeral

Sublime realism is my tantalizing illusion

Alive in Imagination, though eyes wide shut

Flashes of dance, evasive and free of form

The prism is candid, my vulnerability cannot hide

Some salubrious monster roars and I shudder

Succubus consumes my flesh much as I desire

What fortune! Chance to re-imagine yesterday

How tortuous! Tomorrow is yesterday's today

To reconcile wonder with tragedy

Perhaps life is best lived as immemorial fantasy

Visceral hopes cannibalize motivated action

I traverse steps already treated in solidarity with me

Itinerant escapades would be a welcome abode

Movement is my abiding model, my home

Where are the colors of my dreams?

When waking verges on sleeping my intentions collapse

Now I construct my bridge both sturdy and dumb

I walk on the cliff's edge, and all is grey

Technology, the marketplace, and the classroom.

2010-03-02T13:59:00.001-05:00

Brian, nice point about how public education is always a step behind technology. To follow up, I believe a good question to pose and reflect upon is; why? To begin, think about where in a capitalistic society technological innovation is primarily targeted? The answer is the marketplace. For ages inventions sprung up as basic solutions to basic human problems. Needs drove innovation. Today all of our primal needs have been aligned with relatively felicitous solutions. Innovation is now about predicting how our needs will evolve. Now that email has all but displaced the mail in our casual and business communicative modalities, the furious pioneers of technology bring us proactively anticipated fixes to seemingly insignificant complications, ala the smartphone, allowing us to communicate at breakneck speed, not just from home, but from anywhere with a satellite signal.

Of course the marketplace is not monolithic and a plethora of niches exists for products to fill, but is public education traditionally a niche target market? One must look back to the New Deal era labor movements to dig up the origins of the extant crutch on which public education hobbles on, moving in painfully slow increments towards mediocrity. Once union demands are appeased and strengthened by collective bargaining, public education becomes intractable. The status quo did become good enough, and the union will brandish the might of their collectively established safeguards of common subsistence to dissuade its controlling parties, to wit. the state and the board of education, from investing in game changing methods. For example let us say the federal government passes an education stimulus, whose chief function is to rescue the falling standing of the American public school system in the international field. Now you have the paradigmatic idea of judging the success of our schools is reoriented to the success of the teacher in guiding their students towards measurable, objective, and standardized success. We want to save jobs in America, but we also want the best people for the job, and part of the incentive involved in applying for stimulus funds is the instillation of automated score trackers, which record test data, extrapolate trends which indicate who and/or what is raising or lowering the level of success, and catch the development of failure before the student fails. Of course the implementation of this technology comes with a caveat; the teachers salary, most coveted and protected, is now on the line for better or for worse. To accept the funds means to accept a transformation (bringing justice to the security and standing of the tenured public school educator) to the nature of the job. From the perspective of the teacher, the union sheep, number one in the game is their own behinds. Though technology (if not proven but still an effort at raising the output of America's brightest minds) can help rescue the system from stagnation, it will be slow to find a niche in the classroom, slower still embraced and put to good use.

I don't know if technology will one day replace the humans who today engenders learning. What I do know is that if we all, without remorse, use technology to accommodate our private lives, why should the students of America's public schools not reap the benefits of tools which help to enhance our absolutely unique attributes like synthesis and creativity!

Origins, evolution, and future of technology.

2010-03-02T13:57:00.001-05:00

"The word technology in its original context denotes know-how or method, not necessarily for the purpose of advancing knowledge but mainly for the purpose of solving technical problems". (Domine, 7) Setting aside the most impressive, yet comparably simplistic in nature, multi-step foraging methods of stick-wielding (2) practiced by chimpanzees in Dem. Rep. of Congo's, Goualougo Triangle, we may ascertain that human being's are most unique in the animal world in terms of their evolving development of technology. One could generate a sizable and robust argument, theorizing technology as axiomatic of the Homo genus. Without the advent of language as both a conduit for internal reflection and external communicative means, society would possibly never have flowered. The adaptation of language in the human habitat was the breakpoint, the geneses of all future technology innovation, owing to the requisite coordination which communication supplies, along with the ability to store and retrieve memory engendering a scientific/methodological/empirical approach towards solutions. Language helped foster knowledge, which overcame instinctual behavior as our modus operandi. Once knowledge saturates human society, the accumulation and combination of ideas set forth towards problem solving become the paramount ingredients for further technological development, which is a facsimile of accelerating the self-promotion of human evolution.

Where prosperous knowledge, the brainchild of language, becomes relevant to the integration of technology in the classroom and by extension everything the education system hopes to achieve, (critical and creating thinking, democracy, promotion of ethics and values, and the perpetuation of social institutions) is how modern technology acts as either a barrier or bridge to attaining knowledge befitting a democratic and contributive citizenry. Technology is of the utmost essential quality in our classrooms today, just as it was in the African savanna. Language gives life to communication, which gives life to knowledge, which gives life to a new form of technology where all the world's bounty becomes commodified resources, whose eventual progeny is the modern breakthroughs in automated computing machines. While computers, as of day, are not capable of imaginative and creative thought, strictly carrying out procedural algorithms, the manifestations of computing power has been a boon to human communication and the sharing, accessibility, and proliferation of knowledge. We stand at the precipice of evolution 2.0, with iterations to stream forth at breakneck speed. Dr. Domine's, "Rethinking Technology in Schools", is the manifesto necessary to achieve a secure, egalitarian, and knowledge driven society. If the formative state of emotional development is the mother-child relationship, then the formative state of social development is the classroom, where children learn play, rules, and roles. Ensuring a responsible, educated, and well rounded pedagogy towards technology integration will be the cornerstone and backbone of creating successful adaptation (including the use and potential misuse) of knowledge in engineering development in the realms of the mind, culture, and governance.

1) Domine, E. Vanessa. (2009) Rethinking Technology in Schools. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

2) http://discovermagazine.com/1996/jul/sunsetonthesavan818

dare I develop something?...

2010-01-22T10:52:00.003-05:00

...but "frontier" implies the proverbial, "ends of the earth". The wild, the savage wilderness!

The Indian stands, head raised in salutary honor to his people, and calls out to the civilized, insatiable hordes, "But we are here! We have always been here! And we have already conquered your savage hinterland. Though it may be said that this wilderness is not so wild, in fact only as wild as those who call it home. This land must be maintained with reciprocity. You cannot tame it, force its congruence to your master plan. You can only hope to learn its ways. One receives from the plentiful bounty which bursts forth from the vernal and autumnal gods of nature, but in return you must dedicate blood, sweat, and bone which is your part in the performance of ceremonial symbiosis. This is the equilibrium of life lived with the earth, not as a hoarder of her precious fruit."

2010

2010-01-08T20:03:00.005-05:00

Do the heavens recognize our celestial embrace?

Transfixed in limbo, pausing from elliptical course.

Marking our days by seasons for diversity, malaise.

Circular, reborn, all but time the unrelenting force.

Combing the minutia, vein search for a blemish.

Why rejuvenate futile endeavor, why now?

I say unfurl gleaming eyes, welcome charming fetish!

Nobody dare command Utopian fascination for us to bow!

Candid declarations, delectations steer me homeward bound.

The blistering critique of failures, distance us from the Tao.

Galvanizing populists, self-help idols, are answers unsound.

For rehabilitation, cultural emancipation, not here, not Mao.

Ambulation gestures at the prospect of fulfillment.

Why remain inert, stupefied by the countdown?

Celebrate our star daily, live always with commencement.

No time for demarcation, live always wearing party crown.

Episodes

2010-01-01T12:36:00.008-05:00

Budding poplars, visceral instinct calls for acceptance by the valley of fruit and cradle of honey

Flowering magnolia extends age old consciousness, with infantile arms, desiring growth of self

Immature roots of pine, enveloped in sensory experience, take up trials of proto wantonness

Burgeoning field of dandelions blooms boldly to achieve industry, and be received for the cause

Virile monolithic mountain questions its own quintessence, aspiring to link with a mighty range

Branching baobab, fruit once soaked with amour, seeks enmeshment with the Savannah

Will I be the weathered plateau, or the primordial volcano, blows of fire emancipating new life

Paralysis by Dreaming

2009-12-30T23:35:00.004-05:00

How shall I begin without first declaring my intentions? My ambling ambition is thwarted by its pacifistic condition. I fear inflicting indelible and ugly incisions on the page. To write is to dance, to fiddle, to play games with the cues of cognitive essence. I yearn to remake language, to turn the mind's perception and society's symbols into tangible existence, with vitality and endurance. I crave to capture the escaping, fleeting spirit of incessant, incestuous, and timeless ideation of everyday copious platitudes, and to extract the essential, which lays hibernating within the manifold spirits of consciousness. To tame the wild spirits, tramping about the circuitry of mind, is to gift eternity to emanations, essentially to immortalize the author.

Already I am shattering Pound's utopia. Abstractions supercharge my language, at the expense of frustrated and imprisoned imagery. My pen fears fecundity for its potency is unfathomable to manipulate. My soul cringes from Confucian order, where the world order of the status quo, opens no doors for rule breaking and games of testing words, inventing expression, and birthing a literal universe with your unique exhortations. Omniscience is what I strike out for, but necessary is the trek round the futile avenues of success, failure, achievement, bankruptcy, savage victory, and nefarious plotting, so one may arrive at the beginning to understand that we barely are born before our first lesson is left incomplete.

My point is that writing hurts, and I will never know if my words amounted to any truth.

Twenty-Four

2009-12-22T09:26:00.002-05:00

We look back and out existence is time immemorial. We stride in unison against the wheeling hands. Do not forget, those hands mark a human construct. Time is but a fantasy used to wrangle the hoards who measure their lives in one way or another. But achieving what time holds so elusive is futility. One is always too late or ahead of schedule, and by the time out celebratory dance is passed, the one where merriment is aflutter, for out ambitions and time have merged, the success has passed, for all is transient, and all ends the same.

Destiny is destruction, but do not live in a state of remiss! Hold steady your thumping heart! We can choose to be without the constraints, the shackles. It is never too late nor is it every too early. It is instead always the right time. Therefore capture each moment and crown it with pride, with eloquence, with grace. We justify out of desperation for time we cannot reconcile, therefore banish excuse and leave sorrow for exile.

Remember to live light and float amidst the angelic heavens. Cast away the burden of the wheeling hands and all anxiety ceases to be. All that is left is you and the void, and without time policing over what cannot be, all is possible for the world is your canvas and the brush is forever wet. Accept the myriad things, accept chaos, release time!

A Forgettable Affair

2009-12-20T17:20:00.003-05:00

My steps are tentative, body enforcing its will over mind. The toiling marionette performs his clumsy dance, for the puppet-master's pull is waning, and the puppet propels himself into uninspired activity. With absent time is devoted to satiating an earnestness to imaginatively explore my yearnings, there is unsatisfying tumult, as my eagerness tortures my every thought. The possible floats patterns around me, tantalizing in nature, within the realm of my reach, but it cannot be embraced, only presenting me with existential angst.

The prospects of tonight will not satisfy my romantic anticipations. I foresee dull drudgery in the actors behavior, knowing strictly of the single-dimensional aspect of these local acquaintances. If ever a denouncement of free will was appropriate, the sensation of inevitable, yet forgettable free falling motion unto which I embark, stands as justification.

11-28-09

Ommegang, 10 Year Anniversary, Chocolate Indulgence Stout (7% ABV)

2009-12-20T00:02:00.008-05:00

With daylight falling into retreat.

The jocular men land here to eat.

No feast this is, just hardy delight.

Thank God for no potato blight.

Perusing shelves for proper glass.

While winter delivers its first blast.

Who would choose the stationary life?

Tramping wayward, I will toot my fife!

She pours as black as the coming night.

For the enthusiast an appealing site.

Tipping back releases punched aroma.

Seasonal zest to release the deepest coma.

I sense flavorful amalgamation at the core.

Fear not reader, no common taste to bore.

Draining smooth as silk with harmonious ilk.

Carbonated brew holds favor even over milk.

Cocoa endures from start to finish.

Subtle body won't lead to character, impish.

Decadent serves as favorite descriptor.

I conclude in toasting to this chocolate victor!

Democracy as a beacon of hope to people, not nations.

2009-05-01T23:30:00.001-04:00

Fallacious is our predetermined vision of life.

Let us instead follow natures imperfect, meandering river.

This river flows, creeks, and bends in total congruence with the lay of the land,

Needing no eye to judge exactitude of order.

But we can seek to better understand the chaos!

To discover is to attune ourselves to one another.

Wise are those who abstain from dependence on innate truth.

Only by fostering ties of mutual support can we build knowledge.

Knowledge, being inexorably tied up with our elemental conditions.

Acceptance of our influence on neighbors empowers the individual.

Inhibitions and self-reverence bring a halt to our evolving collective thought.

Absolute delight is found in uplifting each other and breaking bonds of ignorance.

Proclamation of victory over philosophical quandary charges unworthy action.

First comes recognition of humanities stark limitations.

From here self-awareness acts as the middle path of the reasoned seeker.

Finding inner centeredness clues us in to the quasi-telepathic sharing of reason.

To break down this illogical wall of suppressed brotherly fraternity

Sacrifice for the strengthened interdependence of our unwavering quest.

The journey must stand even as we question the fundamentality of this quest.

For this pursuit of reason to succeed there must be a form.

To be the unseen seer.

To take up roots in the tree of philosophy and grow.

To love the time devoted to truth.

To move beyond procedure, in its place questions to invigorate the soul.

Relieving tension is the opium of the inquiry.

Dullards and zombies alike, inquiry acts as the antidote for uninspired life.

Reason is constructed from language,

And without human reason, Universal law and order disintegrates.

Granted limited experience of infinitude, idiocy becomes inherent in judgment.

Shall we embark on an awakening, a renaissance?

Did they ancients really know so much?

Farcical is the labeling of our way as deconstruction of constructive civility!

We yearn to bring philosophies together, while suppressing religious zeal.

The community acts to embolden the wise.

The community acts to make a change of the stubborn.

The community acts to free the chained by a world passed down.

The community acts as a collective, within a democracy.

The community acts as the glue, as the stitching.

The community acts to save you from the road to perdition.

Discourse of Creativity

2009-05-01T23:26:00.001-04:00

Teacher: Students, I want to propose to you a radical idea. All of you have the innate sensibility to produce creative ideas. Although this sensibility does not naturally emanate from you, there are methods which may draw it from the chambers of your locked mind.

Students: But teacher, not all of us have shown to be able to logic with an acute perception. Some of us get our thoughts all addled when we strain to understand the books our English teachers assign to us.

Teacher: Well there you have it! Whether your English teacher knows it or not, she is training you to think on a strictly critical altitude. The questions asked of you have already been answered, and the game is to find out if you have been well trained enough to react to the questions in the prescribed mode.

There is also a danger involved in leaving the thinking to analytics alone. A practiced analytical thinker has the ability to twist, bend, and undermine a question or problem so that this question or problem may better fit their answer. This was the practice of the sophists in the time of Socrates, and the Sophists were no different from street performers, except in that they would play tricks with words and meanings, and not hoops and balls.

Students: Ah but even your explanation becomes muddled in our heads! At least in our other subjects, the teachers tell us what we need to know. Then we go home and learn it, then we perform marvelously on the tests, then we receive accolades, then we become successful. We can already tell that this class will give us nothing but headaches.

Teacher: Very good, my young philosophers! You would do just swell at Plato’s Academy. You have just done here what you never managed to do in all your other studies. You have questioned the very merits of the information and challenged the structure of the institution which is my classroom. Beyond passively responding to my explanation, you have reached underneath all my jargon in order to perceive the purpose of our whole exercise. You have invented a category all your own. You have taken this class, which you may have allowed to continue as a series of lectures, and introduced a new complexity to the structure. My best hope is that you will abjure from straightforward critical thinking and forever incorporate creative thinking into all your studies.

Students: So you want us to disagree with everything our teachers tell us?

Teacher: No no no. What I want is for you to break beyond the stored patterns of thinking in your mind and to challenge even your elders to adopt a higher level of discourse. Instead of just mirroring the patterns handed down by your teachers, the idea is to spark a fresh pattern. This is a skill which will be quite useful even beyond formal schooling. Your small universe will constantly be bombarding you with information directed towards getting you to respond in a desirable, uniform, and scripted way. At the heart of being successful in this class, is taking with you the ability to take up an internally aware dialogue between this outside information and yourself. Yes you are an active agent in your own lives!

Students: But here you are telling us about how to tackle some problem of which we have no idea about. This class seems like all smoke and mirrors!

Teacher: Firstly the comforting solidity of the issues you seek have become all too sacrosanct. Your parents have spent the whole of their lives dueling with certain opinions on certain issues. Many of these opinions are recycled, and most of the issues are immemorial. Nothing is new, even the atoms which make up you are as old as the Universe itself. The purpose of the class is to retrain your minds to carry an open reflexivity into all of your classrooms and all of your future lives.

Students: Very well, your lessons seem to hold some abiding worth to them. But our parents demand justification in the form of quantifiable facts, besides the A+ to make the property tax worth it.

Teacher: Ugh, just as I am beginning to believe that you are getting the hang of it, you regress to the standard pattern. But I suppose that I cannot win the war in just one battle. You will learn strategies of creative thinking. To counterattack the restricted road your minds have inhabited, you will learn to stretch the road both indefinitely wider and longer. You will also break up the material on which the vehicle of your mind is driving on, and seek for an alternate and stronger surface. The fuel on which your mind drives on should be tested again and again to see if it is most suitable and in fact one which will last. Your mind should be a resource which is both reusable and easily mined. Finally you will build bridges beyond the islands you live on today, which will take your minds to new lands and new people.

So please if you must, take home this analogy to your parents as proof of the merits of my class. I hope they might understand the allusions I seek to establish. Your homework is to come up with some rules and criteria for how our class should proceed upon. And try to do so creatively!

Students: Ok we will do your homework, but we have some serious questions and doubts to raise with you next class. For instance, does innate knowledge really exist? Also, how can you expect all of us to relearn how to think, and how can we tell if we are getting any better at thinking creatively? Finally, what if we forget all of this by next class!?!?

Grednielk, Ecyoj, Ydennek, Nampil

2009-05-01T23:21:00.000-04:00

1 How do we unlock curiosity, wrinkles on expired dogma?

The answer is as multitudinous as the cultures of all the lands.

Will riddles of disorienting puzzlement unleash a torrent of ingenuity?

Better to cultivate the mind; to harvest imaginative deconstructions.

The teacher may pose as the inquisitive facilitator.

2 Incognito, the umpire takes the field to play.

Each lesson we expound transforming us to beginners.

Guide and pupil together, the mindwalk is travailed.

Valuable spontaneity; upon the road less traveled we set sail on an uncertain course.

*“There are patterns I must follow, just as I must breathe each breath”

3 The souls form of forms toils to obliterate the condition of bounded chance.

In states of ephemeral brilliance the race of homo verges on evolving.

Common sentiments, episodes, inspirations are realized.

As stimulator, you awaken the listless, into skeptic undertakings.

Soaring in ecstasy, cradling the gift to mold modern conceptions.

4 From divided fractures of the whole, a re-awakening of the grand illustration.

Each generation yearns for a role in regenerating the structure, the arrangement, the fabric.

Brilliance resonates from the beautiful mind, in circles, where we create new dance.

History towers over our shape, our shadow, refusing the possibility of the possible.

Greece is history, renaissance is history, enlightenment is history; what new story may we birth?

*Thanks to Lipman, (L1) Kennedy, (L2), Joyce (L3), and Simon (*)

Thomas Hipereon

2009-05-01T23:19:00.000-04:00

Part 1

Thomas Hipereon unfurled his heavy eyelids to reveal a bleary vision of the gray ceiling of his bedroom, the only bedroom he had ever known.

This, as Thomas immediately knew, was a special waking. The scattered fragments of a puzzling dream were filling up Thomas’ head. It is not every morning that a boy remembers any of his dreams, and Thomas was sure not to lose this one.

Thomas questioned himself, “Now what was I dreaming about last night? It must have had something to do with the bedtime story mother sung to me last night. Her voice is incomparably beautiful, and I love it when she takes old stories and puts herself and me in the place of the characters in the stories.”

Part 2

Concentrating intently, Thomas’ thoughts were stuck on the confusing images and strange language brought on by his dream. Thomas set aside his dream to consider what he might eat for breakfast. “I see waffles, french toast, cereal, eggs, and muffins. No, this simply won’t do, because these are the foods I have always had for breakfast, and today I will have something new!” Thomas proceeded to scoop out two tablespoons of strawberry ice cream into an edible waffle-cone, separating the layers of scoops with diced banana and melted marshmallow fluff, topped with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. “No adult would ever approve of this!” Thomas exclaimed.

The exciting thing was that Thomas continued to wonder. He wondered about where the food in his pantry did come from. He wondered about why he had to spend so much of his life sleeping. He wondered about what might happen to him at school that day.

Part 3

Leaning his growing body against the broken down, withering front door, Thomas stumbled outdoors, and into the chilly, drizzling Spring morning. “Oh my”, Thomas yelped. “I didn’t realize my own strength. I don’t think I was quite so strong even yesterday. Tomorrow I must remember to push even easier!”

The droplets of rain fell upon Thomas’s outstretched hands in a rhythmic pattern. Plip, plip, plop, plip, plip, plip, plop, plip. Nature’s music, try as it might, could not disturb the boy from his ponderings.

Thomas decided that his mood, his energy, and his emotions all changed as the weather changed, “or maybe”, he said to himself, his mood, energy, and emotions create the weather!

Thomas looked upon his neighbor’s homes, the homes of people who lived lives full of circumstances so similar to his own, and decided that the world must look like a completely different place to each and every one of them, even though they all open their eyes to the same sky.

Before Thomas’ striding feet hopped a curious looking rabbit. Quietly, so as to not to disturb the rabbit, Thomas whispered, “This rabbit is certainly looking at me, ready to ask me just what sort of creature I am exactly.” Thomas was thinking how this rabbit, just like Thomas himself, had awoken this morning, searched for food, and was now setting out on its day’s journey.

Part 4

Fixed in a trance, looking out at the woodlands surrounding the school, Thomas was approached by Freddie Eris, who was laughing gaily.

“My, my Thomas,” exclaimed Freddie, “how embarrassing it must be that your little toe should stick out of the hole in your shoe for everyone to see! Could you not even afford the tape to patch together the old scrap of leather you wear upon your dirty foot?!?”

Thomas thought to himself how his shoes would now have to last twice as long as they had to before. The family now had to be careful with their money. This was because Thomas’ father, a once stoic idol for Thomas to follow in example, had been laid off from his job, and now lived in a state of self-pity, sleeping the daylight hours away.

Hesitating, Thomas stammered, “I, um, I am saving my new shoes for a better day.”

“You’re lying to me Thomas!” shouted Freddie. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?”

And before Thomas realized what was happening, Freddie was towering over him, threateningly. The one looking ready to square off, and the other dismayed and petrified.

“Hey, you two!” called out Ms. Astraea, the ancient languages teacher. “This school will not act as an arena for sparring! We’ll have this settled between yourselves and Principal Updike after school today.”

Although much relieved to be free of his current plight, and the hard pain which was sure to ensue, Thomas stood quite angry with the unfairness of the whole matter.

Part 5

Alone, Thomas paced the halls of his red brick schoolhouse, arriving at science class, and taking the seat in the back row, closest to the window.

The lesson was on global climate patterns, and Mr. Triton, who was going on and on, very much characteristic of his personality, was professing to the students about how global warming, the worldwide shift in temperatures inducing a myriad of ensuing calamitous consequences, was real and was the result of people turning their backs on the mother-child relationship they once held with the Earth.

Mr. Triton was enumerating the calamities. “…and the oceans will rise, and the sun’s most dangerous rays, those of ultraviolet light, will pierce through the ozone layer, and the crop cycles will be devastated, and millions upon millions of people will be displaced from their homes, and…”

This impassioned speech had no hold on Thomas however, for Thomas could only make conclusions on what he had direct experience with, and Thomas had noticed none of the changes Mr. Triton was talking about, and though Thomas did not speak much in class, he felt certain that this idea was one which was worth the change of outright embarrassment. He did not even raise his hand.

“But Mr. Triton,” Thomas called out, injecting his words into the air, which had until that moment, only been occupied by the teachers words. “I go to the same beach every summer, and the water never gets permanently closer to the beach-houses, only sometimes closer and then sometimes further! And the sun feels the same on my skin today, as it felt this time last year! And in my refrigerator we have rice, and corn, and beans just like we have always had! And most of my neighbors have stayed the same since my family moved in eight years ago. I mean some have moved out, but my father says this is because they were taken advantage of by the banks and mortgage companies.”

“That’s quite enough Thomas,” interrupted Mr. Triton. “I won’t have unruly etiquette in my classroom. Next time you call out, you’ll be sent straight to Principal Updike, and he’ll know just how to deal with you!”

Thomas, anticipating his already scheduled visit to the Principal’s quarters, had no intention of setting himself up for further reprimand, and decided to drop the matter, right then and there.

Part 6

Ears intent, mouth agape, and eyes mystified, Thomas sat back in his seat as the English teacher, Mr. Appelon, read aloud a story about a young boy trapped inside the world of some book. The story was intended to bring about forced interaction between the stories protagonist, and the personifications of grammatical terms like comma, quotation mark, and abbreviation.

For Thomas this story brought on an all too real epiphany, and so when it got to be his turn to read Thomas read his part, but before relinquishing his turn, he continued, “Mr. Appelon, I think this story is sort of about all of our lives. Just like the world of grammar was there before the boy in the story was written into the book, wasn’t the world and all that it’s made up of, like the weather, natural disasters, plants, animals, and maybe even numbers, already here before we got here. Couldn’t it be that we are part of a story, and that even our planet is part of some bigger story?”

“Now now Thomas,” said Mr. Appelon soothingly, you are letting your imagination get carried away, and before you take the rest of the class on the ride with you, let us get back to business. Grammar is not going to teach itself you know!”

Part 7

“Compete, compete dam it! Run harder! Pump those arms! Smell the finish line!” Thomas was sure he could have heard the military like commands of Mrs. Ekin, the physical education instructor, from two dozen miles away, and not only from the other side of the track.

Thomas hated gym. He had always believed that gym class brought out the worst in his friends. Why couldn’t Mrs. Ekin be more like Ms. Efreisone, the music teacher, who always told the kids that music should be individual, not about creating art that is better or worse than others, but creating art to bring people together peacefully.

Thomas huffed and puffed as he reached the end of the race. He had learned nothing, and his body was in no better shape because he had pushed himself too hard.

Mrs. Ekin was ready for Thomas and screamed, “That was weak Thomas! Weak! You’ll never make it out there without an edge!

Part 8

Numbers had always confused Thomas. Thomas understood that there were numbers behind everything. Moving from one place to another was traveling some distance. How hard a baseball was thrown, or how fast the bat was swung was measured by some speed. The right heat to cook Thanksgiving Turkey was measured by some degree. These numbers, as they were applied in the real world were understandable for Thomas, but what he could not understand was the way numbers were manipulated in math class.

“Thomas,” said Ms. Piebald inquiringly, “Can you solve for the inverse ratio of 4.23 squared?”

Despondently Thomas answered, “No, and anyway why? I guess numbers could be used to help medicine advance, to grow great works of architecture, and to get an idea of how the universe works, but the numbers, and the problems you give us don’t touch our lives at all.”

Ms. Piebald glared with outrage at Thomas, furious over the words she had heard one too many times, and responded, “Thomas Hipereon, you are just disguising your laziness, your indifference towards putting in the time required to learn the information, with elaborately developed, yet fanciful words. The fact of the matter is that you have a test on Friday, and your score on this test could influence your final average, and your final average will influence your placement in high school, and your placement in high school will influence where you go to college, and where you go to college, will influence your job, your wealth, your happiness, and will do so for the rest of your life!”

Thomas was baffled, and felt that he had been hoodwinked somewhere along the line. His mother had always filled him with the idea that what you learn in school is only as important and the personal meaning one attributes or takes on from it. She had pleaded with Thomas to learn as an end in itself, and not as a means towards attaining superficial happiness and superiority. And here was his math teacher, situated in the school and in Thomas’ life in a position which carries tremendous respect for its virtuous undertakings, and perhaps she was teaching him for all the wrong reasons.

Thomas thought to himself, “Could it just be her? Oh my, what if I have had other teachers in the past, whose advice and knowledge I have accepted out of some misplaced respect for teachers as paragon’s of truth tellers. What if there are adults, walking all over the world preaching to kids about what is right and what is wrong, who are actually no smarter than the kids themselves. Is it too late? Is my mind spoiled already? I hope not.”

Thomas looked up at the clock. Ironic how an approaching time, represented by a number, would mark his freedom. 3 O’clock.

Part 9

The sun flashed between Thomas’ eyes, as he walked through the wide school doors on his way home. Thomas’ mind was racing. “I do feel different from yesterday. Everything and everyone seemed to be teaching me a lesson or moral today. I dreamt of living away from home. Everyone has a home, everything has an origin. Adults would have you model your home after theirs. Two sets of eyes see two different colors. I am an animal, I am a calculator. What is fairness but chance? Does the world go on when I am sleeping? Am I a protagonist or an antagonist? I’ve got to keep on running, or else I am sure to be caught. What makes us adults, what makes us kids? I am new today; I will be new again tomorrow.

Elegy for a Demoralized, Stabbed, Cannibalized, and Transfigured Schoolteacher

2009-05-01T23:17:00.001-04:00

Body disemboweled, poetic pith eviscerate

Authorities flummoxed, what reality is this?

An end so sordid, only verse could demonstrate

Morbid reports told candidly with remiss

Silently did she opine, muted by ravenous hoards

Karma was her truth beheld; adrift did its virtue vacillate

Hysteria is the loathsome state; rhyme repels it with her swords

Rapier blunt, she succumbs in battle to brutes who imitate

Brothers of the ballad, fade from inexorable missions

Found in canine earnestness, missing qualities of the civilized

Corporeal doubles of beasts whose lives found remission

Our flesh too is glutted, pronounced to all with prosaic eyes

Unchecked classroom lunacy was her solemn crime

Counseled to engage in foreboding dread, not finespun allocutions

Best to disseminate certainties, than to weight the heaviness of time

Those gripping to their loneliness will come to know a swift execution

Disguised as her own doppelganger

The raven spoke words fraught with foreshadowing havoc

Poet released into blissful surrender

Laid down with poetic justice, shame it was by girls myopic

Headmaster blamed the television

Some feared the girls would suffer a severed education

The quack suggested a villainous inclination

Some called for unsparing castigation

The public was fed its dose of troubling tidings

Then officials induced to smile in a glaring paradox

To forge a future free of the archfiend’s abiding

Teach dates, avoid misgivings with the flock

My Very Own Cinquain

2009-01-15T22:41:00.002-05:00

2, 4, 6, 8, 2

Excess

Treasures of trust

Masks our necessity

Alluring heavinly domain

We fall

Ballad number 1

2009-01-11T20:33:00.004-05:00

Success she beckons enticingly

And he always had his sights on the stars

But would he be willing to sacrifice all

To stand above others, alone upon Mars

While mankind babbles in its infancy

The indelible mark to be erased for sure

One strives to be taken so seriously

The questions we answer just propogate more

With mortality looming round the bend

We solopsise and cry to make indelible feats

Still the actor will not be there to witness

How the years make remembrances cease

The road to contentness can now be bought and sold

But the answer remains elusive to most

If we accept that lifes callings are simple

Than even the farmer may boast

Brew Review

2009-01-09T22:33:00.002-05:00

Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout (.500 ml bottle, 5% alc. vol.)

This stout had always perturbed my imagination as I attempted to weave sense of this mixture. This stout came with his praise from a fellow brew hobbyist, and my curiousity finally got hold of the best of me. By no means was I dissapointed! A full body beer to be sure, this brew evokes a feel of surging spirits as you gulp her down. Displays as a brilliant brown, pours with a hearty head, and arouses tonic sensations in one's nasal cavaties. The particular aspect replenishes the body, and partners supreme with equally rich foodstuffs. I would not recommend achieving quagulation with this brew, instead employ this masterful stout as a means to attain utter satisfaction.

Distinct Perceptions

2009-01-08T23:38:00.003-05:00

As the artist revels in his capturing the essense of the landscape, the Earth itself weeps mellow cantations, sad that her the rugged beauty of nature will now be satisfied, through secondhand eyes.

free time as a modern conception

2009-01-05T22:45:00.002-05:00

Life was once condemned

Consumed in circular toil

Now is time to play

Doing

2009-01-04T22:30:00.002-05:00

There is no more significant purpose to life then to complete a task. If we are not acting to achieve some end, then our time seems to have dissolved into meaninglessness. For most, this work is taken on under the fold of a larger conjoined societal purpose. Work is done as individuals but most often for some purpose of joint interest. There are of course, some born devoid of feelings for human reciprocity and interests of animal society. Others, with an unflappable attention towards salvation, care not for the product of their own lives so long as they prove themselves worthy of a more majestic existance in an unknowable world. Our composition lends both body and mind toward work which we are most suited and because we look for special uniqueness, we hold dear to our talents and pursue that which we may contribute most plentifully. Who would wish to languor away, when they may accomplish some feat of at the least a personal accomplishment. People are not born to exist in a state of unrecirpocated vegitation, but instead look to yield some push unto their surrounding world in the hopes that the world will push back and tingle their lives into a sensative existence. By sensative I do not mean shy, instead I mean an existence where ones senses come alive. Senses including the layered folds of the mind, which at all times must crave furtherment.

2008-12-08T22:43:00.002-05:00

The time we need to know one another escapes us, so we judge each others covers. Those leveraging a fashion savy are in luck. Even the primative man makes his fasion statement.

Fissures in the earth spew the elements yeilding the atmosphere, along the seams do the forces of friction rattle the productions of mans sweat and toil, and the heavens swirl, unleashing a relentless flood of tears and wailings.

The photographer, as an artist, surveys horizons and complexions, angling and focusing in on that ideal aspect of the object and the universe intends the object to be.

Companions and Kin

2008-12-03T15:47:00.003-05:00

Distrustful of all glimmers of hope, he carves out his path with remorse for a world, unfullfiling to his bold desires.

She issues her worldly and human sentiments, only to act in direct oppossition to her expressions.

Always sure his way is right, he takes up debate in a spurrious edifice, yet the clash, like all his encounters helps to construct his well carved character.

Underlying his facade, built up through peer pressures, lies a raw capacity to love and brilliance in percieving the human psyche.

Easily racked by a nuerotic lapse of condifence, she nurtures a tall ambition to aid the unaided.

Resting within his caged persona is a boy yearning to explore, to learn, to interact, and to be free.

He strains desperately to engross himself in the life of a romantic, as his jocular nature directed at the common life, intercedes.

Harmonious beyond what any of us might expect, her generous reciprocity repels the cynic, as her luminious, gentile life is paved for the benefit of the good hearted.

He involves himself each day with verocity, accumulating books, ideas, names, parts, works, qualifications, and accessories. These act to disguise his angst, his thoughtful reproach.

Striving to emerse himself in his taste for artistic uniqueness, the boy remains amiable to all.

Peculiar to the bone, his introspective mannerisms cause outward akwardness, although this will not disrupt his souring enthusiasms.

Stubborn will, lack of grace, superior work ethic, force of love enough to make the most hardened man weep, friendly laugh.

Wrapped up intelligence, politics ingrained by her past, seeks out calamity, pride in her acuteness, unbending love.

Regard to those sharing in her joys, she sweeps away those who express thoughts other than her own.

She has branded herself as a city girl, but refutes those who she deems unworthy of her city.

I image myself according to the best of all worlds, leaving me to fall short of filling my role in the world I occupy.

He smiles to friends and strangers alike, his bright stature evident through small talk alone, lacking the passion for his convictions neccessary to be strong.

Achieving all that is asked of him, he resolutely affirms his niche, but does all this alone, sharing no longing to stimulate his creative soul.

Good to all, yet keen on others behavior, he takes a bold step, and discovers he was unprepared.

Known by his innocence of humor and eratic, but harmless behavior, friends must take effort to pierce his mind for nutrients.

Who can understand the signals she emits? She rises supported by family, and crashes when family is cracked.

He exceeds the restraints of facade, weilding mind, body, and soul to combatting injustice. Friend to a friend.

She volunteers for each and every cause, doing so for her own cause, before she realizes her causes make her miserable.

Superficial understanding we share in common, without pretensions she makes those around her know a real girl.

These characterizations are extrapolated from the small quantity of time spent with companies and family. Give me cause and I shall proclaim.

I need work tomorow!

2008-12-01T23:03:00.002-05:00

Why do I push my mind to extract the significant, when upon reflection what makes my heart most warm is to laugh at the absurd?

In a consumerist society, the business man is king.

What exactly am I doing here? Vomiting up mechanically processed digital information? Or, or...am I fusing mountains of knowledge into genius?

Brew Review

2008-11-30T21:14:00.002-05:00

Don De Dieu; Belgian Strong Ale, Triply Fermented (9% ABV)

While not supposing any variety of Unibrou to eminate an eclectic presentation, I was sure in for a surprise. The bottle did not present my with any prognostication on my future expected experience with the Don De Dieu. The bottle did, however, learn me that this brew is the namesake of Samuel de Champlain's (French explorer/navigator) ship. The direct translation being, "Gift of God". This brew capped off my 6 month case study on French Canadian-Belgian immitation beers. Upon pouring a shapeless, hazy orange, imbued with a heap of carbonates, my initial inclination was that this brew had been spoiled, skunked if you will. Quick research yielded assurance that my brew was in perfectly normal condition. I tilted back and awaited the unexpected. Pow! The extreme sensations immediately reminded me of the Belgian Lambic style. Gueuze would be my best guess. This includes a borderline overwhelming ratio of malts to wheat, is fermented spontaneously, and finished with a powerfully sour aftertaste, which takes some getting used to. What saves this brew is a minimization of fruit inclusions, preventing possible obnoxious flavors from ruining the event. To be had with a bounty requiring refreshment, for if drunk with an empty pallet, the results would prove unpleasent. If this is all God has to offer, then to Pagan God's will I turn for my brew!

everyone will always tell you to look at the big picture. i say it's awful tough to get a good view from down here

2008-11-28T22:18:00.003-05:00

The olympic athlete devotes precious youth in the pursuit of some pinnacle moment, where the hoardes of atrophied and swollen bodies will look up in awe, while Mars, Zuess, and Nike may look down and laugh to see the athlete crawling, hobbled by their meager humanity.

Faith and reason have no place at the dinner table together. They do not share a class, refuse to drink from the same straw, and would not offer a tip of the cap in acknowledgement as they stroll passed one another down the street. Faith may finds itself sprinkled amongst both the glorious achievements and the most harrowing sadness, yet apply reason in such settings and you might find yourself stimulated and your senses elated.

Our differences bombard against state bounderies, yet when we speak patriotically we emphasize our national spirit and kindred value systems.

The revolutionary soldier believes his cause is the natural progress of his people. The government now understands that governments may only stand as long as the revolution, which always looms from the moment a society settles, will allow it to stand. Revolution, itself, knows that it will always be there to manipulate those revolving in and out of the gateways of life.

Me: I just hope that Law School will give me the chance to study abroad again.

GF: Forget Europe, I just hope that the next one to walk through my door will be worth studying!

Brew Review

2008-11-27T23:09:00.002-05:00

Delirium Noel; Belgian Strong Ale (10% ABV)

Could I possibly regret any consumption made on this festive and glorious day? Certaintly this sensational brew gave me no good reason! Wine Legend presented this special Winter delight as a surprise to my gaze. Pours golden brown, maintains a well scented appeal, and delivers rich and savory flavors, including a rainbow of fruits and spices. Stands as a perfect counter to the Tremens edition. This brew will create a fusion of excited matters of the mind, leading you to ascend the pink elephant, and putting you well on your way to the happy circus.

Appenzeller Holzfass Bier; Swiss / Euro Pale Lager (5.2% ABV)

I have yet to develop an feel for this brew, worthy of a stylistic account, but I would like to present some basic details about my encounters with her as such. Perhaps this weak recollection is due to this brews late round appearances, frequenting NYC West Village establishments. Championed by Senegal's poet laureate, Matt Horowitz, this Bier is best remembered by the swinging capped bottle it is served in. This may be used time and time again for my at home drinking pleasure.

I've got to sleep on it...

2008-11-27T00:37:00.002-05:00

Our desires exist in a perpetually trapped state of unease, overexuberation, and anxious wishes.

I would rather carry all my worldly posessions, a light load, in my pockets, than be rushed by weight of the world on my shoulders. I am no Atlas.

We ride the soaring wings of science towards Utopia, although I pray it is not the Utopia of Huxley, Orwell, and Thatcher!

I am convinced that prevention is the best friend of a safely guided existence.

Form, under the guise of artistic constraints, should be overshadowed by the slyistically savy and smart free spirit.

Brew Review

2008-11-23T22:38:00.002-05:00

Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale / Dubbel (7.50% alc. vol.)

A 14th century charm accomodates this superb brew, arising from a dumbed down time. She pours highly reactive, so please give care for the ultimate pleasure is riding on the desirable tilt. Steady throughout does the brew hold, without overwhelming complexity, giving you a consistant expectance of a hardy compisition. The fruits and spices are disguised well, so as to leave you thinking, "ah this drinks damn good, and yet I don't quite have the words to give it justice!". Shared with my father, over salmon and CousCous. Courtesy of Wine Legend.

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (10.50 alc. vol.)

Style: Russian Imperial

Pours like sleek oil, although far more valuable a resource to the continuance of man. Carries a potent musky aroma, piquing my level of attraction. Cocoa in scent and cocoa in its delight, yet the spectacular varients normally associated with imperial stouts are masked by the overwhelming nature of roasted alcohol. Presents a muscular covering for a generally hospitable and nurturing brew. Knocked back at the Peculiar Pub amongst friends to which the level of class and style no brew can hold ground.

Uncertainties, Proclomations, and Revelations

2008-11-21T23:48:00.003-05:00

We can only manage to remind each other to appreciate the little things, never actually ponder on them in meditation.

Blooming, Churning, Sweeping, and Chilling through the constructs of our civilization, the seasons grind down the earth, with no appreciation for those best laid plans of ours.

We wander to explore what most massages our senses. The brain then activates its receptors, engaging itself and fooling the bodily occupier into believing that the wonders we take in are in direct conversation with our souls.

Imagining is our senses acting in desperation for a disconnection from the primal experiences the senses crave so earnestly.

In all respects can I reflect on mankind operating as machines, with the exception of dreams, for when machines shut down to reboot, no inner reflection continues.

Generally, I just want to get through tomorrow without anybody noticing...

2008-11-19T22:37:00.002-05:00

To best serve others, you must first serve yourself.

My cool is lost, my thoughts in flux, jittery hands, need to make a new plan.

Nature is tormented to fit our peculiar tastes for delicacy? Why no eat that which arises most naturally from the earth?

Laughter subdues all other woes.

Our primal mode of transport gives us the most raw satisfaction in mind and body.

Reflections, Aspirations, and Potential

2008-11-16T21:07:00.002-05:00

Floating around as words, unable to be grasped by the weak and selfish, used to stage the most magnificent drama, levied by the stallwarts of righteousness.

Labourious and proud is the donkey. Independant and self-assure is the elephant.

An inexorable path towards liberty cannot exist within a nation built of principles of equality.

She will allow me to release all inhibitions, she will reflect radiating beauty in both the ballroom and the living room, she will speak to my reflections.

Brotherhood is the state of advancing towards both glorious and homely dreams hand in hand.

What, who, how,only if, and what

2008-11-14T21:43:00.002-05:00

Art must plunge naked into what exists and pull from nature that which is art.

We must study history for we are history, and it is essential to know ourselves.

Only the evolved being may have the luxury to contemplate his own evolved state. Can we not just agree that we are amazing and leave out for how long and how it came to be. Study that which is falsifiable and advance from there.

Neither great deeds, nor basic acts may happen while one is in a state of desperate hunger.

From April through October, I watch, from November through March, I wait.

Poetics, Justifications, and Hearkenings

2008-11-13T22:45:00.003-05:00

I don't want to hear your politics, I don't want to know about custody rights, I just want to see you cry.

Statistics is the science of using hard numbers to try to prove and disprove that which holds a flexible unfixed place.

Weeping for the polar bears on your private ride in the sky, you hasten the disappearance of that which you seek out.

We conversate, play-act our fate, assume the state, reciprocate, take on mandates, try not to be late, search for some mate, all the time yearning for our piece of cake.

Everyone has got a theory, and well my theory is yours.

Sense, nonesense, and why

2008-11-12T22:45:00.002-05:00

It was the quintessential river, it was the food of the people, it was the genius of the design, it was the pockmarks of history and history rebuilding itself.

Some finite, some infinite. They define war, civilization, and everything in the middle.

Poverty is a culture, which must be radically rooted out by the stem.

Accumulate enough individuals and you have before you a movement sure to contend with the establishment.

Oh to be like the mighty oak, amongst a deep forest of shrubs and crisanthemums.

Logic, Dreams, and Rhetoricals

2008-11-10T22:19:00.002-05:00

Technology acts to free our potential, yet acts to deride our feel of the planet.

Who ever asked to be born anyway?

Would you want some kid from Africa handing out candy to your children?

Some are born to serve the people of their country, others are born to be politicians.

We must remind ourselves that trajedies are not limited to the afflicted party, but are a mire upon all of us.

2081421782019, 945119, 1144 16215192091519

2008-11-06T23:37:00.004-05:00

We are all born subscribed to the religion of humanity.

A healthy democracy is an evolving democracy.

A pyramid built of liberty is sure to crash. A skyscraper built of equality will withstand the ages.

The truth is penned with valour, and the truth-teller is assailed with totalitarian thuggery.

I say yes, and you say no, good ideas fly, and the executive denies.

could be, maybe, is it?

2008-11-05T21:41:00.003-05:00

Is human behavior a manifestation of the times? Is the law of economic incentive the only agent of humanity to span the epochs? Or is there more to us, something shared, something vital, something to be cherished?

I throw myself into a tumult of exhaustion, endorphin levels exillerating my whole self, my mind tempered, and my muscles replenished.

Willpower is man playing a joke on his animalism.

One small step for America, one giant leap for the world.

(I sort of feel that we are living in a major transitional phase, just like the 60's, with the difference being that the protest has become more sophisticated)

How is the Bible and Seinfield alike?... There's an episode for everything.

philosophize, theorize, and the socratic method

2008-11-04T18:54:00.003-05:00

Who wouldn't choose to remember themselves in all their glory?

I cast the line and let linger the bate to draw out the substance which only from within may eminate.

Galalaio and Bohr stand ready to showdown with Limbaugh and Levin. Perhaps Aquinas should moderate...

I involve myself not to expound on the magnitude of my creativity, but only to recycle the knowhow given to me from other involved people.

You hypothesize and they materialize. The complexity of the character is infinite.

really only the questions matter

2008-11-03T19:13:00.003-05:00

The byproduct of a human who is a natural thing tinkering with some other natural things has got to be natural, doesn't it?

Who the fuck does this guy think he is, offering hope and restitution to so many poor people, without any real plan! You've got to go out there and make your own plan! (I speak of God, not the guy running for president)

Questions are so much smarter than answers.

The old words crumble in your imagination, as you dream of history knowing that these dreams of yours will be history tommorow.

My favorite times are when I sit opposite a friend, and our souls open, reach, embrace, and understand each other.

some art history...

2008-11-03T15:24:00.002-05:00

Throughout modern history, the Renaissance that occurred in Europe during the 15^th century was considered to be a rebirth. A rebirth of what, someone might ask. The Renaissance was a rebirth of ancient Greek and Roman culture, or in other words, a rebirth of classicism. The Renaissance was interconnected between three threads of antiquity, which included Classical, Byzantine, and International. The Greeks were the first to develop a truly rich, diverse, and artistic nation. After their demise, the Romans took what was best from the Greeks and developed further, what came to be known as classicism. The Romans took the idea of the arch, learned how to poor concrete captured reality through the arts, and created 3-D imagery through their paintings. Then came the middle ages, which was an almost thousand year long period of a lack of growth, of dark and religious works of art, an obsession with religion and the afterlife, and a lack of culture. This lasted until the early 15^th century when the Renaissance first began to take ship in Florence, Italy. The people of the time began to look back on ancient Greek and Roman culture and bring it to modern day. This began a “rebirth” of classicism and ancient culture. It was at this time that humanism became prominent in the views of the citizens. People wanted to perfect themselves, seek out many interest, and create beautiful and intelligent monuments. The Renaissance, and particularly the Early Renaissance, made people aware of their ancient past and the people alive at the time actually knew that they were taking part of a renewal of antiquity, the arts and culture. Patrons began to sponsor the arts just as in Roman times, artists once again strived to perfect images of the human body, and artists wanted to treat old subjects in a new way.

The focus of this essay is to discuss Renaissance art and how it was considered to be a rebirth. This topic must begin by stating some basic characteristics of Renaissance art. Intense civic pride, a desire to stand out and be remembered, making art a version of real live, and a return to realistic images that would help in forcing the viewer to observe more carefully. Some more characteristics of the time period was a return to classical prototypes, a new monumentality in art, a new sense of energy and humanity, the use of optical realism, which altered works to trick the viewers eyes, a more monumental and humanized form of sculpting, and a new consideration in the factors of using light in works of art. You can look at the Middle Ages as death of human culture and civilization and you can then look at the Renaissance as a time when people woke up, or were born, once again and began to take strides towards modernization. In order to truly describe this phenomenon, examples must be used. Three examples from the three different worlds of art are Nanni de Banco, who was a sculptor, Brunnelleschi, who was an architect, and Massacio, who was a painter. All three of these artists created their works in the Early Renaissance and portray the true beginning, or birth, or the Renaissance.

This was an old essay of mine from freshman year arthistory, which I want to post here so I may include an example of all forms of artistic criticism. The rest of it to come...

Considerations, Ponderings, and Possibilities

2008-11-01T22:04:00.003-04:00

I am sick micro-measuring decisions. I will take risks, so I may reap those rewards.

Only when you figure out that preachers, in all of their forms, preach to their desires and not necesserily the plain truth, can you seek that truth in its fullest.

The human mind, which we hold to be the greatest signifier of our evolved position, may squash the hearts, which we hold to be emblematic of a home for our soul, deepest inner desires.

The greatest intimidator is our self doubt. Conquer the doubt, accomplish what you may.

Love is a matter of circumstance.

I'm starting to push it here...

2008-10-29T22:11:00.002-04:00

So when do pitchers and catchers report?

Can one man be a national prototype? Are we molded in the likeness of the politicians carved up, deceitful words? Are we not unique in our pursuit of the American dream?

I analyze, clouded eyes, perceive lies, punishing myself for all errs along the way.

Do we dare to push forth on the merit of our actions, and look past the one staring dumbfounded, emulating the posture of our soul.

It is built with careful molding, accrueing stature steadily, yet how the surest of us may fall tripping over a pebble.

Brew Review

2008-10-27T23:01:00.002-04:00

Unibroue Maudite; 8% alc. vol.

This murky amber Belgian strong ale delivers a torrent of modulating spices, fragrances, and malts. The sensation makes a direct punch on the frontal lobe pleasure sector. To be served slightly below room temperature and with preferably hearty foods. Your senses will buzz from the pleasurable aroma alone, as your nose takes in notes of stimulating hops. Rolling smoothly down your throat, if you be a stable chap, then take two. The historical antedote on the bottles label really tells is all...

"As the story goes, these 'thirsty' outdoorsmen made a pact with Satan to fly them in their canoe to the distant festivities in time to get their fill of that 'damn fine' ale!"

"We were travelling so fast that we passed Montreal before we could stop. But we still made it to the party in no time flat. Canoeing down La Blanche could never prepare us for this!..."

Joe the Cook

... The Flying Canoe

views, dreams, and queries

2008-10-26T22:24:00.002-04:00

She should not only blow away my senses, but stimulate my mind as well. Otherwise she is no more then a carnival attraction.

Before wasting time on useless escapades, put yourself in dire straights to establish your true friends from the phonies.

Knowing what I know now, I would revel in the chance to do it all again, yet I know that I have become a man for the better through the thicket of volatility.

College is the place you go to learn again everything you thought you knew.

In Leander, Texas, the heights of childhood backyard dreams can be relived time and time again.

hmm, aha, hmm

2008-10-25T23:07:00.002-04:00

Born in a unreal country, overshadowed by mettalic blinds, the welcoming soils of Ukraine beckon my return.

The law pervades society, yet is governed by society.

My reach into this world is unlimited as long as a book serves as my extention cord.

Characters which come from the mind, if well established, have every much of a soul as their creator.

What good is a brilliant thought, if it lingers lonely in the deserted straights of the mind?

..., !, ?

2008-10-21T23:57:00.001-04:00

There is hope for those who greedily desire land and resources, but for those devoured by their faith, their lies a greater danger to the world.

Our global economy cannot be measured by common scales of measurment, instead it operates on grand anarchy disguised by principles of trust, credit, and capitalism.

Bipartisenship cannot be considered a virtue solely for its own sake, as reaching across the table must make sense and not lead to overreaching your bounderies and losing your hands.

To be humble, questioning, selfless, and generous are certaintly principles of bueaty, so long as one continues to care for the state of ones body.

The biomass of this world is teeming with energy, just waiting to be exploited in an environmentally friendly manner. (think woodchips)

some more conjectures, inspiration, and inquiries

2008-10-21T00:07:00.002-04:00

There are no new stories, only new interpretations to lifes unnatainable questions.

Glorious music transplants the listener from the mundane terrain of lifes landscapes to the lofty expanses of cerebral heaven.

Some of our nation's grand conundrums could be put at ease via the general health of the people.

Lists are neccessary because without favourites or most regrettables we would have nothing to be passionate for.

Our age witnesses the decline of responsible journalism, yet the age simaltaneously calls for the unhindered coverage of the amazing modern state of the world.

Some thoughts, ideas, and questions...

2008-10-14T23:38:00.003-04:00

Why is it that humans, who require social relations just as much as they require oxygen, often find their most revealing insights from within?

In space travel we are seeking to find ourselves, for the universe shares those same particles which originated in singularity.

Everything that I am, I am thanks to my grandmother.

Do the societies of the world grow parralel to one another in their future expectations, or do we each grow with accordance to the differences between us?

For the Yankees to succeed in 2009, Cashman must sell off overpriced aging stars, committ to solidifying the starting pitching, and make the cutthrought trades which need to be made(ahem, Santana, ahem). Girardi must provide assurance for the players that they are wanted when Steinbrenner commits acts of lunacy, and quit trying to micromanage the game. The players need to embrace the tough spots, and allow their athletisism to take over. The stadium must not try too hard to be like the old Yankee Stadium and just be itself. The fans need to support their guys and wisen up about baseball, not simply employ false old fashion viewpoints of the game.

*for more, please provide me with some topics to write on...anything really...otherwise I'll keep on pulling from my list, then maybe expand on each

The Forms of Wiffleball

2008-10-14T22:41:00.003-04:00

Backyard Game - The backyard as a wiffleball venue is the most historically significant and the most currently used venue across the nation. No matter the immense growth in the popularity of wiffleball as a semi-professional venture, the backyard will always be king as far as this game is concerned. Backyards offer a homely environment at minimum expense, unless it is at the expense of your parent’s pristinely maintained lawn. Being that wiffleball is at its heart a derivative of baseball, and has been much adjusted to suit the nature of both children’s and the amateur game it is most important that this game may be played under any circumstance, where there are people willing to play. Wiffleball is adaptable to all forms of backyards, and within a circle of peers a chain of backyards could service as the fulcrum of your own local league. Square shaped, rectangle shaped, or shapeless, dirt or well groomed, flat or diverse terrain, obstacle or open. The beauty of this simple game is that there is no common structure outside of a plastic bat and a plastic ball, be it of either the standard wiffleball variety, or of alternatives such as the pickleball wiffleball. The rules of the game are also subject to personal interpretation to adjust to player skill and yard peculiarities. Number of outs and innings played, baserunning, pitch speed, the strike zone, form of plastic bat, doctored equipment, etc are all quasi natured.

Local League - One outgrowth of the more arcane backyard game is the structure which comes along with formal organization. There comes a time in the development of any serious wiffleball player, when they realize that there is some measure of talent towards this advanced hobby, and decide that they should advance this simple activity into a competitive venture. First one must recruit a considerable number of geographically proximal wiffleball players, all of whom share this passion, or would just like to channel their athletic drive towards something both extremely challenging and extremely fun. While the formalization of one’s one league operations and standards for play most definitely qualifies as unique, an alternative route would be the adoption of game rules, field measurements, and team settings from a more advanced league or organization such as the New Jersey Wiffleball Association, or the NJWA. Having engaged with a strict makeup for your league one must now find a patch of grass or road in which the game may fit. Next one must overlay the official field dimensions or parameters upon their own settings. Finally, one must attribute official gameplay to their own. This may mean restriction of equipment, questionable rulings, and a certain style of game, which winds up being alienating to a voluminous percentage of your leagues population and ultimately lead to its demise.

National Circuit - While nobody really ever retires from wiffleball, most rational, multi-celled organisms do drop any measure of seriousness involvement in the game. Either the surprisingly difficult nature of the game being played at its most uninhibited level, or the reality that life’s realities are approaching players to abandon this childhood pleasure. Then there is you. You who has studied the physics of the game, you who has enough of a soul in themselves to not forfeit the rest of their lives to schemes of personal profit, and most importantly you who has found in themselves the ability and skills which is in many ways different from its ancestral predecessor baseball, to play this game with the best of the best. Now is the time for dedication. You access information on the upper echelon of wiffleball competition. You discover Wiffle-Up, the Golden Stick Wiffleball League, NJWA’s Summer Showdown, and regionally unlimited Fast Plastic. You test your mettle against this crop of seasoned vets, until you, yourself is peering at the pinnacle of the game. You meet players from across the country, share stories, share laughs, and engage ultra-competitively. Your level of play soars to new heights and upon closer video inspection your mind is shocked. You fear not social persecution for how you choose to spend your valuable time, and most of all you dream, for the chance to be crowned national champion.

Scanning Vocabulary

2008-10-12T23:57:00.007-04:00

- So I gave myself about a minute per letter of the alphabet to come up with this interesting word. There is no unifying theme, which should make for a good story, making use of the words from A-Z, sentence by sentence. The story should make a certain matter of sense. This is not madlibs, as I will carefully construct the words usage. This was a decent mental workout...

A- Ameliorate

B- Bellipotent

C- Conciliatory

D- Didactic

E- Enmity

F- Funicular

G- Gargantuan

H- Heliocentric

I- Infallible

J- Jurisprudence

K- Kinetics

L- Limerick

M- Misogynist

N- Nepotism

O- Octogenarian

P- Pedantic

Q- Quintillion

R- Reverberate

S- Sequester

T- Tangential

U- Uncommon

V- Vestibule

W-Woebegone

X-Xenophobic

Y-Yonder

Z-Zealot

Each waking moment I dedicate towards ameliorating our broken chords.

In the war I wage for your heart, I failed to display myself as bellipotent, my love surrendering to your protests.

There is no conciliating the wounds buried deep in my soul.

I was far too didactic, wanting to express the world in romantic style and hyperelegance.

How can I starve away these feelings of enmity, as I am a vengeful animal.

You escape my passions beyond this mountain, rugged like our entanglements, via the funicular. I take gargantuan leaps in desperation to catch your fleeting essence.

In my modern day common folly my world circles around your radiating energy, just as the universe was once known as heliocentric.

Our love was infallible, such as was ancient principles, and yet the waves of time brings a wrecking to all we hold as everlasting.

No jurisprudence can trap you into becoming my own, for love holds no laws.

The kinetics of our bodies worked in broken synchronizations.

A limerick, for sure, this prose is not.

A misogynist, for sure, I cannot be accused of, as my heart drains affection for you.

Nepotism has not brought us to where we are today; we succeed each day on our own.

Let us follow the impulses of our soul, for regret may otherwise fill our octogenarian years. Although I appear pedantic, it is only a display to win your confidence in my mind.

A quintillion times have I replayed the acts of our drama.

These memories reverberate through my senses.

Why have you sequestered my attempts to pursue our engagements, I can only respond likewise leaving us both without the other.

You are tangential to all ascpects of me.

I make uncommon rejoice in the memories of your smile.

I do so as I stand waiting in the vestibule into your home.

May this woebegone man enter?

Xenophobia has mangled human affairs, and we must work not to fear one anothers ideas.

Over yonder do I wait to hear your voice.

My zeal for your love is infinite.

Writing Concepts

2008-10-12T00:16:00.001-04:00

ideas of isolation/social relations, space travelparallel anthropological growth, grandma, write a story, Yankees, old stories, music, , health,), importance of free media, top ten lists, , hopeless in israel, economy faltering, bipartisanship, bhuddism, environment, the ukraine, , law, literature, characters, share books, girls, friends, high school, college, wiffleball, baseball, the country, family, self-doubt, self-image, confidence, taking calculated risks, influence of teachers/profs, knowing what I want, intimidation, love, nature, god, philosophy, ancient texts, conversations, childhood memories, what feels important to me, ethics of modern day science, , nature, coaching, character study, growing up, ethics/morals, athletics, willpower/self control(glucose levels), future state of globalized world, bible, books reviews, movie reviews, music reviews, childrens rights, democracy, independence, danger to journalists in oppressive state, veto power, , freedom to the world, stem cells, peacecorps, inner workings of Washington, haulocaust, eastern Europe, natural resources, culture of poverty, independent voter, taking a stand, celebrities, statistics, global environment(adventure/eco tourism), sociology, anthropology, thoughts on philosophy, , what makes a book,movie,music great, history, art, , evoloution vs. intelligent design vs faith vs etc, food donations, baseball offseason, morals, democrats and republicans(liberty vs equality, my dream girl, fatherhood vs brotherhood, charity, stress, food, wats funny, walking, the little things, seasons, exploring, imagination, dreams, deepest desires, being content, olympics, church vs state(school), conversations and learning, state vs federal, reading history and talking politics, revolutions, study abroad, , science, , business, opinions, clothing, countries travelled to, natural disasters, working, books, authors, photos, generating new ideas, religion/temple/why, free time, better to stay simple than to rise to great heights

Brew Review

2008-10-10T23:33:00.002-04:00

Old Rasputin; Russian Imperial Stout (9% ABV) - North Coast Brewing Co.

A wild ride, not uncommon to the Imperial Stout flavour. A second go around has driven this beer admirer to validate its standing. It holds a rambunctious character, unfolding layer by layer of complex flavors. You should be able to stand your ground with the manic mystic as he is a powerful fellow, and any mystical embattlements should be held prior to engaging with other brews. The remnants at the final quintile of the brew should be considered residue, because that is all it's worth. Yet this should not dissuay you from embarking. The wild consistancy produces a kolaidascope of facial tensions and releases, as your mouth is continually accustoming itself to the visiting hops. A fine Imperial Stout, yet far from superior.

Following Breakfast...

2008-10-07T00:08:00.003-04:00

...Through breakfast, the state of my life is normal enough for a man of my standing in life. It is the discontinuation of a fulfilling path which disrupts this normality. The commencement of how I envisioned this year is slow in the making. This vision will materialize, but with much painstaking bueracracy blockading my happiness, I must make due. I do not yet ahbor myself. The day is still young. Only when my mind is left numb by the divergences I create, do I cringe with unrest.

Recently, the U.S. postal service offered me hope for a better tomorow. I took this hope with me on an adventure today, which concluded with the promise of more waiting to come. This adventure was enough to save my day, for the promise is still visible through the morning haze. Until then, the tools of modernity, both making our lives infinitely easier, and infinitely more complex, will make my company. This weblog is the child of modernity. The landscape of possibilities, answers, and connections, creates epic swarths of information, often unmanagable.

I dive into the newspaper reports. I am spurred by my ignorance. I spew bulshit. The ignorance is overwhelming, but at least I have made my way this far. I crave experiences, because I know the opinions I formulate are severed from experience. These opinions are reformatted opinions I absorb in the newspaper report. Yet the expanse of humanity cannot be encapsulated in the reports. There is no universal, only interpersonal. We do not exist under commonalities. We can only digest life as we share it with one another. Ethics evolve, morals disintegrate, and opinions diversify. Of course I can not expect myself to only accept first hand accounts. I am but one individual, and often need to rely on fellow individuals and their accounts to grasp at a more insightful understanding. My fear is oversimplification, because we are all a confused amalgam of our collective experiences. Maybe I can only speak for myself. We talk to one another and have moments of shared brilliance. Is it real, or simply what we have come to expect?

How do I strike a balance? I crave knowledge of the whole, yet I am in need of a mastering of a particle of this whole. For me the two are irreconcilable. I involve myself in dialectics to mask my uncertainty. I question all that is questionable, because I cannot insist on an answer. I choose because decisions have to be made, but it is a choice of most suitable faith. The leap is made from unglued information, to what I would consider the best possible choice available. This does not make it right. Only it is how far my mind has taken me. We then construct layers upon the breakthroughs of those who came before us. Does it lead upwards, or is progress a myth? Buildings grow taller, countries grow richer, and stomachs grow plumper, but have we drawn any closer to the fundamental questions of who we are. Has the human race grown wiser, or do we persist at the same mistakes, disillusioning ourselves with societal context. We continue to be a species more about reaching individual heights, than survival and coexistance.

So I write. Today I write with abandon. I make no sense to myself. But if I continue to write, then one day I will break through this wall, and the true sensations of my being will be clear. I will not fate myself to thoughtlessness. I will think through it all. While my intuitions may not always be the strongest, I will always go down swinging. This is what makes me human.

I am missing a piece of myself, from whence my dedication once rested. I must find new channels to focus my dedication. I could not stand to continue posting jiberish forever.

What I ate today...

2008-10-01T23:25:00.006-04:00

On the menu at 8 Washington Ct.

Breakfast

- I awake at 8:58 AM. Each day I remember the precise time of my awakening until I awake the following morning, upon which time, a new moment of awakening displaces the previous. My mind begins to stretch out, recall what the day may hold, and the next instant I am operating on routine. My life is regimented on routine. We all need a routine, even if this routine is chaotic inconsistancy, for persistant chaos is a routine of disorder. This routine gives me purpose, for if I arrive at some state of being where my routine hits a dead end, well then boredom sets in. In my experience boredom usually leads to irrational decision making. We try to spark a faint interest in our current state of boredom, by introducing something unusual.

- Now I don't mean to say that I live as a machine. By routine, I intend to mean my series of purposes on that given day. I would in fact prefer a new state of purposes with each new rising sun, however as long as each moment has a personal significance then I may continue without the interference of boredom. Of course at any time I am privelaged to convince myself that whatever I happen to be doing has purpose. I can manipulate the circumstance to fit into some overarching phase, identity, or scheme that my is my life. I ail when purpose cannot be attributed, and while you may ask, but can you not attribute some measure of purpose to anything, well then let me reconstruct personal purpose as that which has been melded by my accumulated knowledge. Purpose is also only purpose so long as it consists of positive forward motion. The negative has no purpose, but as an aside, before the ultimate conquering by positive purpose.

- I understand the world as it affects me. By all means this appears to be a selfish manifestation of the Universe, yet how else could I see things. For if I am not here, well then the universe does not exist for me. Before I arrived, the universe did not exist for me. People will say, that when your mother was but a young gal, or your father but a young lad, that you, their future offspring was but a twinkle in their eyes. The twinkle is a metaphor. I will approach life as it is to me, not how the metaphor shapes it to be. If life is to be defined as a physical phenomena, then the nebula is teeming with life. The rocks have there purpose, which is to transform and create new rock, earth has its purpose which is to hold the rocks together, planets have their purpose which is to provide gravitational pull on their sattelites, the star has its purpose which is to maintain the delicate balance of the planets. The galaxy holds its purpose, which is to mantain the delicate balance of the Universe. If life is to be defined as biological, well then those physical objects, lacking a biological sub-bases, fail to deliver on purpose which is not relevant to the biological. Without biological life, the Universe is dead meaningless matter. Has biological life always been there? If so I celebrate for life! If not, I feel that life is not the purpose. The purpose may simply be the antithesis of purpose.

- Of course I speak of what my mind can never comprehend, and so I am glad of this. For my limitation proclaims the presence of higher sophistication. I am not held accountable for answering my deepest questions, yet I do understand that my questions have answers. I laugh at my petty reasonings. They are for naught. I may come to some troubling conclusion, at which point I will laugh, for I am but a bumbling idiot. I continue to bumble, for bumbling is my purpose.

toasted country whole wheat, farmers market cottage cheese, honey, hazlenut cream coffee

Smert at Ivan llyich

2008-09-30T22:57:00.006-04:00

Knishka Rasgavor

Kak moshit bit shough chilavek ctau ne znall smertni balezna mog bill napesat pra pasledni moment shizna? Esli to moshish adavat schlescam vnoga rema taki dume, y te veriash apriori snaki, tak moshna scazat shou Leo Tolstoy smatrel ceridini evou dusha u mog bil psaugh panimat. Bolshi tem ati vishi duma, Tolstoy bleska smatrel nah shisna at vishi chilavek at Rusia, y crasival portrait at kak ati ludi shilli biz serozni dum. Kada tvoi shizna nah sami vishi rema, kak bill advocat Ivan llyich, tak tvoi smert prehaudit kak sami strashni. Ani shilli na bolshoi moment y na ver shou ani billi precrasni y vashni ludi. Nebil nekakoy rema shob adavat not philosophichisni dila. Vabshe ani tolka mog bili panimat pra siba. Strashni dila tolka bill trudnance patamushtu ani not resrishili atat chilavek shoub bet rad. On panimal kak nada bit palashini y verne, nu phsigda dumal pra rema shou atat trudnas bilbi eushol y on mog bil rad apat. Bolshistvou lude bilba dasha paminalis nah ne drug, illi shina prosta shob not umerate atat moment. Ani tolka mog be shit nah atat moment, kak abizan, y probat shou eti na vishi progres. Na Ivan llyich, smert phigda bil prosta kak steni shou nada bila prabetsa. Dashi kada ludi vacrug teba umeriate, ti tolka moshish skazet, "no luch shou ata ne bill ya!". Nu cada atat smert zahodit nim dver, emu prosta netu sazehelena, sill, y panematetnsa shob panimat ata. Dashi esli ti mog bill delat logicichna dum at tvoi smert, ata prosta ne chustviat kak realnast. Ti vidumaish kak moshna dashit nah tvoi smert bis patera tvoi mosgue, nu kashdi raz to deliash ata, ti zapomnaish pra kak ata cansa. Kak mir prodelgitsa biz tiba, y ti ne budish rasbuditza sledushi den. Uteba dashi neta radi rema tvoi shizna shough ti moshesh zapomnit y skazat shough ya kakta pamagal mayi druze, illi shough ya pamagal mir. Kashdi moment dirshayitza dum pra smert. Moshit bit esli llycih mog bil umerat kak on shill tak evough smert bilba prashol luchi. Nu kashdi den, dashi esli ti ni vidish ata, tvoi tella dvegiatsa blishi smert. Y na cansa on phsau panimal, nu ne mog verit ata. Esli chilaveki shilli biz dumi, tak me mogbili, kak phse drugi vsveri, shob prosta shit biz bispacoinast. Patamushat atat smert sluchilsa seridini dom, llyich bil mesta geda shizna bill vesde, no sami rema shough oun umeral. Tolka melki chilaveki, kak domashni servant panimal y pamigal kak on mog. llych astaval ati dumi naugh atit pasledni rema evou shizna y ni mog delitsa sa atit trudnast. Evou mosgue igralsa snim. Adaval chance shou shizni mog bit prabitsa kak narmalna, shou evu ballezni mog bill zakonchitzna, nu sledushi dum bill pra kanetz, y shough nechivou astavalsa. Menshi dila shou oun veril ransha, pasmatreli kak nechivou, if fsaugh shou billa, at bil smert. Shizna tolka nachal tvoi smert.

"Simple, uncomplicated souls who do not attach such great importance to their own life, are able to accept their illness, because they accept their fate: life and heart have done their work, time for them to go. By contrast, successful and self-assured people are usually at a complete loss when faced with the reality of physical collapse."

-German literary critic A. L. Vischer

*Tolstoy himself lived on the verge of his abysmal inability to deal with his own future death. Terrifying reminders of his fate haunted him at every juncture of life. This ordeal interfered with his ability to live, to attend to his family and estate, and to write. He would often flee from an ordinary moment as if death was at his tail. Perhaps, "The Death of Ivan llyich," was Tolstoy's attempt to implant his reasonings into fiction, and make sense and reason out of his futile efforts to deal with a concept which horrified him so tremendously.

Brew Review

2008-09-30T22:28:00.003-04:00

La Caracole Nostradamus (9.5% ABV)

Bottled at Peculier Pub, a West Village staple, this sweet brown Belgian ale, makes for an evening of successive pleasurable moments. The moments coming each time you tilt back your mug. This one erks at ur taste glands leaving you salivating for more. This brew arises an aftertaste of gentle goodness soothing your every woe. With not a note of corrosiveness, it remains wonderful to the terminal drop. I predict to drink more of this brew in the future.

2008-09-17T21:56:00.004-04:00

Music Review; Conor Oberst ("Conor Oberst") 2008

http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/conor_oberst_lyrics_39558/

In Mr. Oberst's resturn to his solo endevours, he presents a sweeping appeal to those frustrated with the mechanations people create in order to fool themselves into satisfaction with their lives, which he believes to exist in a state of flux. Despite man's attempts at improval by use of predictive devices to starve off disasters, manipulations of logic to make sense of their lives, and manifestations of science to prolong their lives, the world continues to persist in chaos. Oberst displays a longing for simpler times ("he's gonna do it by hand"), professing that love is the only sure thing in his world. He harks out a call to be saved from a cold and lonesome hospital death which comes to so many in the modern world. He yearns to live and die within the natural realms of life. The anger and frustration he displays, is depicted as a result of a childhood innocence where life was presented in black and white, yet now he realizes just how much ugly grey exists everywhere. Medicine could not save Billy Calahan, and Oberst struggles with his scary insights. ("so I remain between her legs, sheltered from all my fears")

A folksy appeal intermixes with outbursts of pure rock, in a collection of songs which are unified by the circular connectedness of the rythms. The songs are often carried by a plucking effect which carries the song in the backround, as Oberst's words take center stage, leaving complicated arrangments behind. The electric guitar makes appearences but in the form of short and timely riffs. When wanting to emphasise the importance of some of the words, the notes are played with equal emphasis to draw one's attention. The music acts out responsively to the urgency of the message Oberst seeks to get across, including blurred piano displaying confusion, fast paced driving guitars, and a country feel reproachfulness. The album operates with what seems like a neverending flow of sounds, which begins with a push of momentum and continues with little contrived impetus. ("keep going up and down; up and down")

This Week in the News; 9/8-9/15

2008-09-15T22:54:00.007-04:00

Just to whom should all the devestating nuclear weapons of this world belong to? Should the peace spreading, democracy loving, imperialist denouncing western nations bear this weighty responsibility? So the military arsenals would be secure right? And whose to say that the full weight of this arsenal wouldn't be unleashed at the moment of greatest convenience to such a nation, when say their energy interests abroad turned out to not be so secure? And how glad I am that this big war is paying big dividends! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1 Or that the minimal government intervention conservatives know how to infringe minimal federal plans and do so effectively...but then again it has always been the liberal claim that government action is generally unefficient. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/us/11fence.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1Then the logic would be like this...We need to protect the lives of our citizens from threats to our national security, a blanket statement which could cover any number of dangers, which of course could not be disclosed to the public on account of it being high class information. The verocity and trustworthiness of the governments information can not be questioned of course, because that would make one seem like anti-state, and unpatriotic. We'll I sure am glad that our government can't simply peer into our private lives without and reasonable justification. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/washington/13justice.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin)

And if our enemies around the globe are just as unstable and treacherous as we portray them to be, and I do believe there are some truly terrifying radicals, then why is our defense department so eager to trade a host of our finest military inovations to nations bordering the homes of these radicals? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/washington/14arms.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1I understand the logic, which is to supply the hands of these nations, our allies to help defend against these threats at close range. Realistically these radicals aren't looking to cause damage to their neighbors, because in most likelyhood Pakistanis and Indians are much closer in culture, history, and economics to these radicals then we are to these radicals. We are the infidels. There is also a history of arming our allies going afoul, when these arms are either intercepted by radicals or even more ironically, our allies become these radicals! I believe we have very little control over the location, protection, and ultimate usage of these weapon systems. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/world/asia/15kabul.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1

We do however, keep a close gaurd on the billions of dollars these weapons sales wrangle in right? Well with a government 4 trillion in debt, uninhibited earmark spending, and gov bailouts to uncontrolled institutions I am quite unsure just where this money lies. Of course it may be suitable for the gov to try and make up for a poorly regulated market infrastructure by saving the monsters they created, but as the saying goes, two wrongs do not make a right) (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/08consumer.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/business/15lehman.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1 Of course the economy runs with accordance to human infallibilities, but our votes carry a certain charge of responsibility to our elected officials. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/business/14every.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1

With much criticism over the state of our nation and the policies of our government, is there any chance at term limits being set at some knew limits? Perhaps at the state level there are... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/nyregion/10limits.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1 ...

There can be no advances made in deteriorating foreign relations until we come to understand the inner construction of people who simply see the world in a different frame from ourselves... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/africa/09cairo.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1...

Jeez, I've brought up some harsh words, but where else could I have the freedom to play out my intellectual curiousities, or challenge the status quo. Only in America of course... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/opinion/15mon4.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1

"All I want is the truth

Just gimme some " (Lennon; Gimme Some Truth; Imagine)

* To see some of the casualties of this mass engine of weapons exchange please check out the documentary, War Photographer, as breifed in my blog profile information *

2008-09-13T23:44:00.004-04:00

Brew Review

Rochefort(8) Trappistes- 9.2% vol.- A hearty Abbey Ale, brewed by Belgium monks since the 16th century, offers a deep pallete of fruits and spices. This is one to be endulge without interference from inferior brews, lest the delicate intricacies of exotic flavors disintegrate. Amber in shade, and deep in flavor, this is a genuine refresher. Served bottled at Vol De Nuit. Corner of 6th ave and w4th st.

*The image of my own Rochefort was not amblazened with the appropriate quantity of light

2008-09-13T00:22:00.004-04:00

Is man hence made malleable by their education? Can we engineer the citizens we desire to build the country we desire? Or is man quintessentially free and most apt to follow the inertia of his inner swayings?

"I get the news I need on the weather report.

I can gather all the news I need on the weather report." (Simon and Garfunkel)

State of Education

2008-09-12T23:38:00.004-04:00

Here is what I would do if given the a class to teach. Much of what I would employ is a direct response to the state of our education system today. While I cannot hold a personal grudge on account of the excellent education I recieved, I do recognize that this education is not made available for all, and that while my teachers and professors have opened my gaze to wonders my mind could have never imagined, not all students are advantaged enough to experience such euphoria. If we are to live in a society as communicable people and stride to create a democratic nation committed to one anothers benefit, then we must be able to understand one another. If some ficatious person recieves farse of an education, how can this person relate to, laugh with, philosophize with, debate with, and work together with this other person who simply comprehends his universe with a different vocabulary. I am speaking of the empowerment of the masses by spreading a global education. Not a globally planned education, but one which considers the globalized state of our world. Such an education allows business to be made bridging nations in peril of cotastrophe, such an education allows cultures to come to grips with one anothers wild differences, such an education allows for the people of a single nation to use their learnings to fulfill their duty to their nation. To be actively involved in civic participation. Perhaps this education might spark a stronger desire to serve for and volunteer for one another. Then if you have set out to help your fellow man, then you are in turn helping yourself just as well, for if this fellow man is of the same breadth of understanding as yourself then you are the same. The measure of folks stems from their perception of their surroundings. This perception is formed by knowledge, this knowledge is accumulated in the classroom, so I conclude that the classroom forms the individual more than any other factor. In America today, it is in the classroom where the average student spends the majority of their time, without taking sleeping in their beds into account. If they are not at school, they are with their friends, or participating in youth athletics, or specializing in an instrument, or volunteering, and so on. The classroom is vital, and cannot be passed up as a secondary issues, for all other issues stem from these roots. Even once outside of classroom walls, a former student is analyzing new information, it will be analyzed using the analytical approach learned in the classroom. We must do better then we do today.

Personal identity is a self-constructed image, which is constantly under revision and reconstruction by the individual in order to create the public and private persona each one of us wishes to express to the world. The composition of an identity is accumulated from a great variable of contexts, frames, histories, and ideas. Identity can be recognized by one’s group memberships which may include nationality, religion, sexual orientation, stature, hair color, eye color, political orientation, sex, gender, athletic ability, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on and on, making the concept of conforming to any single given identity profoundly difficult or even impossible, for when an identity is placed on your name, the oppositional viewpoint of the one claiming to have defined you maintains only an abstraction of who you truly are. Where is it that the public consumes their beliefs and views on identity? It is through the gaze of the media. The media not only delivers the news, entertains us, and informs us of the state of our immediate and retrospective world; it actually creates who we are in our minds. The media formulates public opinion, instructs us what to believe and what to think, tells us on what is popular, rationalizes norms and stereotypes, informs us where to travel for vacation, and subjects us to its holding of how our world is constructed and how matters of identity are constructed. The media marginalizes the complex nature of identity to the point where the population is consented to adjust themselves to the possible markers of their identity which are available.

My given identity in this country can narrowed down to white, male college student. This is what the common outside observer would most likely associate me with. A basic introduction would then make it known that I am a former immigrant from the Soviet Union’s satellite state, The Ukraine, but even the specification of the latter would be looked past because I am already a packaged identity. I am a communist. Children and adults associate Russia most directly and strongly with the cold war, and therefore I am a red and represent the fear, the socialism. This media spurred marker of identity has in the past stripped my ability to be viewed as the person whom I believe myself to be. The caricature of myself was comprised and formulated growing up in a predominately white Jewish and Asian neighborhood. While I was strongly associated as a Jew, I was also different in the fact that I was an immigrant. The fact that I emigrated at the age of three and am thoroughly American in all aspects with the exception of the land where I was born becomes secondary. I have always been an avid believer in the idea that you are who you represent yourself to others as. It is solely in the context of the social strata where your identity exists, for human beings are in fact social animals, and it is our social relations which compromise the whole of our existence.

I am a student, a male, an intellectual, an athlete, a lover of great conversations, people, jokes, music, television, literature, and film, a role model, an older brother, a loving son and grandson, good natured, understanding, an avid debater, fan of laughing, a moderate, a baseball fan, a follower of the international landscape, beer connoisseur, reliable and meaningful friend, and a real person. The latter of which being my favorite and most telling self-descriptor. I crave to educate a class of multi-cultural youth because of the opportunities it provides. I am in the position to combat stereotypes and help expand limited images of identity. I am in the position to allow the students to explore where they come from, and who they unknowingly may be. Perhaps the kids already know themselves and yet feel the pressure to fulfill their media and peer driven prophecy. Perhaps the kids have been blind and deaf to their reality. The position of educator allows me to give to the students the best gift I have ever received and that is the gift of knowledge. It is when knowledge, that is the truth and not propaganda or politically driven biases, is stolen from a student, that same student goes on to become the ignorant follower, the victim of poverty, the criminal, the abuser, the passive citizen, and the one who propagates the same stereotypes which plagued them into the life they lead. Once in possession of the truth anything is possible. The truth allows for a realistic, understanding, unbiased, and critical outlook on the world and one’s own identity. The truth allows the students to form who they are and not be molded from the cookie cutter.

With no regard to the teaching credentials I posses upon commencement of this class, there is very little correlating job experience, internship opportunities, or documentation of my capabilities as a teacher. I am an excellent communicator and command a valuable vocabulary which allows for me to best define the idea I am trying to express and helps my counterpart best understand this idea. I have always been enthusiastic about what I believe in and approach goals of mine with soberness, an organized plan, and rigor. I am naturally inclined with children and seemingly maintain certain qualities which allow children to feel comfortable around me. I am understanding of the differences presented in a multi-cultural classroom and am ready to approach my pedagogy logically. It is logic or lack thereof, which creates the framework of society. I believe I can teach my students how to be responsible citizens, active drivers of their lives, responsible decision makers, knowledgeable of the global society in which they live, understanding of their niche in the world, and ultimately solid people. Otherwise I cannot say I am prepared, the most worthy, clearly able, understanding of where the students are coming from, have knowledge of the most advantageous way to approach my job, or am even qualified period. I only know what I know of myself and what I can control as an educator.

Classroom Makeup

- I am teaching a history class of twenty general education high school seniors between the ages of 17-19. The class population consists of eleven girls and nine boys, eight black students, three Hispanic, two European whites, one Indian, two Japanese, one Native American, one Iraqi, and an Icelandic student. The children are of average ability for students coming out of their environment, which is Brooklyn, NY, in a school system which has provided the basic necessities required by state mandate, yet has offered little as far as extra-curricular, gifted education, and provisions of outside resources which could allow for the students to coalesce knowledge accumulated in school with their outside lives. The school does hold a computer lab which operates outside of school hours being from 7 AM to 4 PM. I have personally subscribed each one of my students to the New York Times, with a portion of the funds I had set aside to introduce classroom foreign materials into the student’s lives.

Aim

- The focus of my assignment will be to provide the students with the necessary information to make a qualitative judgment and recognition of their own identity. I plan to have the students actively seek their identities while interacting with current events and how history has played into these events, and subsequently how the media portrays subjectively or objectively any given group the students choose to identify themselves with. Introducing worldly literature into the student’s lives will hopefully make the students critically engage with the issues affecting their identities and to ultimately challenge these identities. While the crux of the assignment will be to have the students create a healthy image of themselves, related objectives are to enhance the student’s critical thinking skills, make them familiar with the political, historical, geographical, economic, and social issues affecting their lives, creating an awareness of the differences in the classroom, creating a classroom of respect for those differences, and allowing the students to tie in what they learn in the classroom to the unlimited potentiality of the outside world.

Assignment / Activity Plan

- The course spans the entirety of the school year and is a survey of the history of humanity. Considering the breadth of the topic, individual subsections will never be covered too complexly, however a general knowledge of humankind’s social institutions, forms of subsistence, civilization types, and cultures will be provided. My assignment to the students will equally span the year and culminate with the students writing a short analyses describing what they see as their identity and the importance of that identity at the end of the school year, as opposed to the initial write up of how the students identified themselves at the outset of their senior year. More on this paper to follow in the assessment plan. Each week of the school year will bring a new topic to my class and with each new topic the students will be asked to seek out an outside resource of current relevancy which must in some way link the current topic to any given population, group, or form of identity the student believes himself to be a member of.

For example, when studying modern Japanese society, a student can seek out an article on Japanese foreign trade relations and draw out descriptors or ideas of Japanese as being industrious and diligent laborers. Another example could be finding a relevant documentation or literary analysis of the disadvantaged state of black individuals in the workplace, and link it back to our study on American slavery. A final example could be connecting the views of conservative republicans in the film, Lions for Lambs, with our lesson on the history of United States politics.

The resources may include online news and printed news, scholarly journals and magazines, modern non-fiction, historical fiction, and realistic fiction novels, and film. While incorporating anecdotal stories, television, and internet blogs are allowed and encouraged to help develop the student’s thoughts, theories, connections, and ideas they do not serve as otherwise legitimate sources for their weekly reports. The weekly reports will be an overview of the cited source, including who, what, when, where, and why, expression of subjectivity of objectivity, what the student learned from the source, and a brief analysis of how the related strata of the students identity is formed, affected, challenged, incorporated, introduced, or brought into historical perspective. The reports should consist of at least one typed page, single-spaced, proper annotation and documentation of the source, and finally a brief explanation of the usefulness of the source within the ultimate goal being actively creating a positive identity for the students.

Each Wednesday the students will be afforded half of the period to work on their weekly reports in any way they see fit, which includes time at the computer lab if desired. I will be available to the students both during the designated time and before and after each class period, to answer any questions, and to discuss any ideas or problems. Additionally I will make myself available via email at all times. While the assignments will not be collected on a weekly basis, each Friday two students will be selected at random to present an outline of their weeks collected work. The presentation will hopefully open the door to a weekly class discussion and debate on the structures of identity, current events, and classmate’s opinions of the weekly report in general. Should the selected students be unprepared for their turn, they will be marked off 2.7% off their final grade on this assignment, which will count as twice its weighted average do to the time and effort needed to complete it. At the conclusion of each marking period a portfolio of the weekly reports for that given period should be submitted. These portfolios will be returned and counted towards the student’s participatory grade to the degree that substantive completion of the reports will count for 20% of that quarter’s grade. Students are encouraged to seek a wide array of sources and to devote reports to as many aspects of the student’s perceived identity as possible.

Assessment Plan

- In addition to the collective quarterly reports accounting for participation, and the final compilation accounting for the courses final grade, the students will present their final evaluation of the assignment which should include basic ideas of what the assignment has taught the students on a broad scale and a re-evaluation of the students self-perceived identities. Included should be how the students believe the media has portrayed different aspects of their identities and how the students wish the world to see them. This final write-up will be presented in class, in front of their peers, and will not be evaluated in any way by myself aside from completed or incomplete.

I believe the overall relevance of such an assignment will allow for a complex understanding of identity issues and will incorporate additional outcomes of the work which should include insights into current events, responsibility and honesty, dedication to the attainment of a worthy goal, public speaking, and introduce extra-curricular connections.

9/10/08

2008-09-10T23:41:00.007-04:00

Illuminations

Oh, I question myself daily

Just where does my allegience lie

The news reports sure do confuse me

Life surely is not black and white

The heart craves children's easy tales

But how does the mind so often misconstrue

While my bleeding heart does virtue brew

As phonies capture fame and fortune

My voice exists, enough will be if you receive it

We get your laughs from souless hacks

Please grow some back and see the truth

But of course who really makes a difference

Our world confuses why for what

There are those whose plight did change the course

They care not for some alibi

I do swear by the stately Bhudda

From whom great wisdom eminates

The epiphany came from within

Not promised by a clergy man

No god commissioned missionary

A journey seeking basic facts

Dismissed the lies absolutely

Brought peace, and joy, and harmony

Why bother preaching history

Timeless legends re-imagined make for lovely story

If by chance we should succeed on Earth

The righteous future would be the only course

No rhetoric justified by mystery

Just knowledge spread by decent folks

It's all linked back to dead souls books

Read what you can in the library den

9/9/08

2008-09-09T23:56:00.004-04:00

Why write? My reflections are passing inconsistancies. I want to express the world, yet can only do so on my own superficial level. I am looking for a connection with others. When I read, I look for that connection with the author. This instant where the words on the page transcend their intentions, and bring myself into one state of mind with the author. I feel connected when I recognize my thoughts in others.

Reflecting back on my feeble attempt to mantain my writing almost a year in the past has me both intruiged and in disbelief over the words that streamed forth from my thoughts. I wrote on my experiences and I wrote on what was current. I often appeared as fairly certain in my convictions, yet this could not be further from the truth. Daily, I struggle to find my authentic self amongst all the knowledge I accumulate. Rarely do I recognize a belief which I can feel eminating as from my heart of hearts. I prefer to analyze, to debate, to critisize, and to not take anything for granted. (Right now I am disgusted with my inability to disengage myself from these illnesses which I leach onto. Television may spread progressive ideals, it may be the media's most effective agent in delivering global truths, and it may engage children in fruitful manners, but most often to myself it sucks me away from simple pleasures, real thoughtfulness and reflection, and action.) I am unable to formulate stances. I cannot see the benefits in party affiliation. The real world has not compelled me yet to feel so adamently. I understand the importance, but I cannot fully feel the impact. If only I could flee from my suburban oppression! I would rather live and fail, make ill-fated decisions, experiment, than to have lived amongst squandered opportunities. I have certain gifts, yet my ambition is too weak. If only I could convince myself to know. To assure myself that what I believe and how I choose to live out my beliefs is genuinely who I am, and not a reflection of what I read. Or is there no escape from this reality. Are the titans of this world too a reflection on the societal forces they grew up in?

If so, then this realization is miserable to me. I want to stand as a unique persona, one that has never existed before. Otherwise, I feel that there can be no soul. What happens to those souls who never had the chance to come to an understanding of who they are. Not solely on a spiritual level, but a recognition of oneself as human. Where those who fell prematurely also ignited by some inner flame? If this flame never comes to fruition then is it put out eternally, or do the embers recieve another go? I am thrilled by the goosebumps elating my soul at this very moment. It is the sign I need which tells me that I am more than what the electrical circuits in my brain tell me to be. My mind exists in a parallel alley, and these goosebumps signal to me that I am alive. I am not insignificant because I matter to people around me and those people matter to me. I am significant in a relative sense. I do not want to fool myself by false truths, but I am ready to fool myself into happiness.

I talk to friends who are so sure of themselves. How can this be? We have only experienced life so short a time. Why divide ourselves by parties. If we seek to conquer the difficulties encountering our society, how can we discount the opinions of half of ourselves. If only we realized how ridiculous we look. Both simply cannot understand how the other half lives with themselves, instead of trying to live with each other. We cannot forfeit our representation to the parties. We must act as individuals united. The parties do what is best for the parties. Politicians, like the rest of us, seek ambitious personal goals, and ride the momentum of their own egos to greater heights. There are countless among us, better suited to lead this nation, yet how few are able to jostle and position themselves into relevancy. I want to believe in my vote, but logic tells me otherwise.

I share my photos in order to inspire the same affinity I have for renewed discovery. Old happenings are lame, and to exist in constant newness is a grand existence.

The link above is to the 2008 Fast Plastic standings. Anthony, Chris, and myself, the future Mashers finished the year at 16th in the nation. It seems petty, but I am proud.

"I better quit my talking now; I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, I'm older than your old folks, and I'm younger than the young, And I'm about the biggest thing that man has ever done." (Woody Guthrie)

2008-09-09T23:39:00.000-04:00

I can't write!

2008-01-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

Brew Review - Leffe Brune (6.5% Alc. Vol.) - Premium Belgium Abbey Beer, difficult to locate around here. Local bar in Caldwell carries Leffe on draft. Served in its signature Leffe branded glass, this beer captures what is quintessentially everything I love about beer. Incorporates malty/fruity flavors, and delivers a potent aroma of freshness. (watever that means) This is the pinnacle.

*followed with a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA* not the 120 minute so I won't even waste your time here*

This will be my final post. I can no longer devote the necessary energy and enthusiasm it takes to put out readable material. Perhaps this just wasn't the right time for me to do this. My hope was to opportune myself with an outlet for my writing and this certaintly gives me a forum, but not necessarily the one I am looking for. I have greatly enjoyed writing on the variety of ideas and employing a variety of writing styles. I am now marginally more assure of my webskills. I can use some of my posts as samples for resumes at some time. For now, I need to be take time for other pursuits, more pertinant to my near future. I have gained a certain measure of confidence in my ability, and really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read any of this amatuer crap. Thank you.

The Idan Raichel Project

2008-01-11T01:03:00.001-05:00

Yeasayer- 2080

2008-01-11T00:59:00.001-05:00

Greeks and Will Smith

2008-01-11T00:31:00.000-05:00

Fascinating how the Milesians, some of Greek earliest thinkers on metaphysical concepts, percieved, without any naturalistic scientific aid, that the essential element of all universal beings are indefinite atoms that are neither created nor destroyed. While the compasition of this unit of matter was not consistant in their theories, the premise was agreeable. For a Greek philosophy class I took several years back, I wrote on these philosophs and the paper is posted at the conclusion of this post. I beleive it's a descent jumping off point for anyone looking to familiarize himself with some basic meta-worldly ideas.

I want to write about Juno, however I feel like whoever actually reads this I have talked with them about this film, or even seen it with her. Instead I will deliver a list of my 10 of my favorite actors This is in no particular order

10) Will Smith (may or may not be a Scientologist)
9) Bill Murray
8) Christain Bale
7) Dustan Hoffman
6) Robin Williams
5) Tom Hanks
4) Leonardo Dicaprio
3) Scarlet Johhanson
2) Natalie Portman
1) Robert Redford

*Morgan Freeman, Robert Deniro, Tim Robbins, Jim Carrey, Jack Nicholson (ok this list was put together rather quickly, I was just thinking about great movies at the time. Tell me some of your favorites.)

Ok actually this is it...

A question, common to almost all human beings throughout time, is the attempt to understand the vast mystery that is the universe, and all that we know to be. To study and grasp an understanding of existence and the nature of existence was a major intrigue of ancient Greek philosophers. Three of particular interest, Milesians in heritage, are Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. These three early cosmologists shared a particular view or answer to the riddle of existence, only with slight variations in their explanations. They all believed in a definite entity or “subject” as they referred to it, which was the guiding force or nature or the universe.
Aristotle, a student of Plato, writes this passage in respect to these three men, “Most of the first philosophers, then, thought that the only principles of all things were material. For, they say, there is some that all beings come from, the first thing they come to be from and the last thing they perish into, the substance remaining throughout but changing in respect of its attributes. This, they say, is the element and the principle of beings. And for this reason they think that nothing either comes to be or is destroyed, on the assumption that this nature persists in every change, ….” (Cohen et al., 695) All three Milesian philosophers held the theory that a single, unbroken, and eternal “subject” was the basis of the entire universe. When one refers to the concept of the “subject” they mean an entity that is forever lasting and without birth, that stays transfixed while change occurs with respect to its attributes. The above mentioned philosophers, not counting Aristotle, share this belief and only vary in regards to what exactly the subject is. Thales believes that the principle and guiding force behind all things is water. He states that food, blood, and semen all contain water. Based on this fact he states that all living things depend on water. The conclusion to his argument is that water must be the principle of all living things. (Class 3. Notes) Anaximander, who agrees with Thales on the basic idea of a substance, disagrees with Thales that this substance is water. He believes this substance to be something indefinite, which he calls, apeiron. He claims that this unidentifiable subject cannot be seen, is indefinite, bearing no qualities, and is eternal. (Anaximander notes) Anaximenes, who also believes in the concept of a subject on which reality is formed around, also differs from his contemporaries, in regards to the form of the subject. He believes the subject to be air. He depicts air to have a boundless quality perfect for an explanation of what the universe truly is. (Anaximenes notes) When looking at Thales’ reasoning for water being the substance behind the universe, Anaximander argues that one cannot explain the creation of all things on the basis of water. Anaximander’s principle on the other hand depicts the subject that is reality to be something vague and indefinite. He calls this subject “apeiron”. Man cannot see the apeiron, it has no qualities, and it is eternal, which allows for an explanation of the universe. According to Anaximander a seed dislocated itself from the apeiron and from this seed grew hot and cold. The seed grew cold and was encompassed by a ring of fire creating a mist between the hot and cold. Finally the cold mass formed into the Earth and the hot mass formed into the stars. (Anaximander notes) It is because of the extreme ambiguousness of the subject that Anaximander believes to exist that it is possible to spawn the story of creation. Anything too specific could have faults to it. Anaximander is basically giving people an explanation for all that is unknown and unseen. A problem or question that may arise after close examination of Anaximander’s view is the idea of having something with no qualities. First off it seems to be quite difficult to picture or imagine something that is in fact unimaginable. The human mind is not trained to formulate thoughts or images of things they cannot comprehend. For example, believing or envisioning something arising from nothing. So how then is it possible to imagine something without qualities? Something without qualities can otherwise be stated as being nothing. This leads back to the idea of the creation of the universe. How can something arise from nothing? One cannot be expected to simply accept this theory on blind fate or to accept it because nothing else seems more fitting. There is no reasonable explanation provided by Anaximander. People are just supposed to accept his basic premise. This type of argument can lead to faults in the conclusion. One needs more evidence or rational to accept Anaximander’s philosophy. In response to my argument one might say that simply because you cannot fathom the concept of an everlasting, unchanging subject does not mean that it does not exist. After hearing such an argument I would retort by saying that there is still no proof to such a subject. In addition the preceding argument would allow for anyone to come up with wild theories on anything and everything and in defense say that, “just because you cannot imagine it, does not mean that it cannot be so.” That is the fault that one can find in Anaximander’s theory.

Reason? Logic?

2008-01-09T22:40:00.000-05:00

Comcast is progressing in their development of a concept to potentially compete with netflix and Blockbuster's Total Acess, while facing falling stock exchange rates. The project is called Infinity, and the idea is to greatly enhance their ondemand output (thousands of films), and offer currently airing network programs online. While rates are still in question, this development could potentially help comcast outpace fellow competitors to a total influence over in house t.v. and film options in the country. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/technology/08cable.html

With much of what I have read on sabermetric baseball, would it make just as much sense to eliminate the human element in in-game decision making and coaching, and replace management with some form of computer randomization. Given a proportionate sample size, the numbers generally work to some median level of decreasing returns. I don't really buy it. Just an idea.

It's incredibly frustrating to simply not recieve any form of response in reply to many of the resumes I have sent out. Even if it is to tell me that I am in no way qualified, I just want some feedback!

I am always reminding myself of the importance of not taking yourself too seriously. When people become all-knowing experts in their given fields, alternative avenues of thought are often disregarded or thought to be unfeasible, while the prehistoric foundings of some concept persist, despite obvious inequities due to the changing times. You can never become ignorant of the fact that ideas, products, philosophies need to be adapted with the society within which they exist. The constitution, Bible, and baseball management strategies come to mind. We cannot continue to live in the age of the dinasours.

Perhaps it is those with some sort of mental imbalance which can see the obvious truth just within their reach, because they are not pre-disposed towards self-deception as a means to mantain their stubborn pride, as regularly thinking people would. It seems like especially in Business, it is of economical advantage to forget the past, and set your sights at focus towards the horizon. (this is no good, i read the article with this idea in mind at least a week ago, and cannot relocate the link)

Finally, in the January, 2008 National Geographic, their was a focus on the geological devestation taking place in and around Indonesia's, riding the Ring of Fire. Communities of tribes insist on mantaining their lives at the base and along the assent of these volcanoes. Spiritual leaders proclaim that animal sacrifices to the God's living within these monstrocities will appease the furious rage of the beings and will be repayed with plentiful foodstocks and safety. The volcanic sites on Java are some of the worlds most regular eruptors and almost never fail to deliver within relative geological timeframes. Thousands die and the survivors return to continue the lifestyle. The government is in a fierce fight to combat the extreme outlooks supported by baseless spiritual connections. People cannot simply be transported like nonliving entities and are most likely their to stay .

Where the fuck is the reason and logic!?!?

NYC and Other Matters

2008-01-06T20:30:00.001-05:00

Brew Review - Duvel - (8.5% Alc Vol.) This triple fermented ale, arouses intense anticipation and strong pre-taste building in one's saliva. Cared for as a wine, Duvel ages extremely well as it developes a variance of fruity aromas. While the rich, frothy head is of equal satisfaction in the drinking process, one should take care to pour appropriately, so as to not create an unfavorable disbalance of head to beer ratio. Accented by the shear brilliance of its well crafted flavor, I believe each person to respond uniquely to it's taste.

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout - (10.6% Alc. Vol.) Basically an highly alcoholic version chocolate milk.

La Chouffe - (8% Alc. Vol.) Actually drinking this Belgian strong Ale was the culmination of my experience with the gnome represented on my La Chouffe cap, which I aquired at a Belgium Beer Festival in Melbourne, upon being denied the opportunity to sample this golden brew. I wore this cap while camping and hiking in the Outback, and traveling New Zealand's South Island. This one was much enjoyed.

The final beer I had last evening, which I spent with a few friends of the highest esteem in the Lower East Village, I cannot quite recall the name of, however I can tell of the monestary in which we endulged our beer hobby. Posted signs, which issued warnings establishing a certain maximum noise decibel level, attributed a certain quirky character to this music-absent bar. As the whispers slowly evolve into lowtalk and then into the occasional shout, the barkeep issues a shhhhhhhh which is adopted by all the customers, upon which all is silent, until the process reproduces itself.

Given the outside possibility of NYC mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, involving himself in the presidential race, I read up on his policies, ideas, and stances. I was impressed, not only with his nationality, but with his contempt with ungovernable gun laws, reasonable acknowledgement of illegal immigrants role within our economy, and his ability to fund his own campaign leaving him absent of the dirty business that is lobby and private party funding. His ideas think of logic and obvious reason, which is often missing from many candidates whom are more influenced by their necessary constituents. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/nyregion/06bloomberg.html

According to Discover, it is now possible to transplant a manipulated genome into an already existent bacteria, which results in a semi-synthetic creation of life, where the engineered qualities (gene therapy) of the implanted genome takes the place of the original life forms given genome.

I am a huge believer of the mind body connection. I believe Human Growth Hormone to work just the same. The placebo factor is most defenitely real. Here are some numbers to consider... http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/93003.php

Should it matter to the writers of the Baseball Writers of America Association, that their votes for certain seasonal achievement awards impact upon contractual bonuses which allow for substancial increases in ones yearly salary? Say some player like this jackass...http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/zozone/schilling%201.jpg

Why Read

2008-01-04T20:26:00.000-05:00

Why read?

1) to expose yourself to ideas outside of those you feel most comfertable and secure with

2) so as to not burnout ur mind with either nonsense or emptyness

3) need for a source to inspire unique ideas

4) you get to meet new people

5) to experience places you otherwise would never get the chance to see

6) to ultimately share what you have read

7) application towards needs, goals, and dreams in the real world

8) often reading pertains to a specific interest, and some book may enrich this interest

9) to connect you with your history

10) to avoid complacency

Is it really this easy ... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?em&ex=1199595600&en=4d0fe11046ae2db0&ei=5070

Modernity and Law

2008-01-03T19:41:00.000-05:00

I believe there to be a strong connection between the effects modern bureaucracy has on social isolation and disconnect between individual action (simply completing one's assembly line role) with respect to the ultimate result, and our ability as insignificant human beings to allow tragic disasters to occur without any significant uproar of the masses demanding justice. See Holocaust. (I should have a link here for this book review on a great work concentrating on how modernity made possible for healthy, well intending, normal individuals to either give direct or inderect aid in supporting the holocaust or to contribute to the viability via complacency.) Perhaps this same indiference can be applied to the slow, yet crippling degredation of the environment.
http://media.www.studlife.com/media/storage/paper337/news/2007/12/10/News/Smith.Calls.For.Environmental.Action.Now-3140704.shtml?reffeature=popuarstoriestab
-I am not in complete convergence with the man's idea's however he raises a crucial area of interest to us all.
"Today is like yesterday, so tomorow will be like today." Does our inability to recognize the sometimes unrecognizable change doom our future where we will suddenly be living in some apocalyptic state? (The film, The Lord of War, where Nicholas Cage plays a wealthy arms dealer, who feels perfectly comfertable in his skin, as an international illegal arms dealer, dependant on the destruction of civility and human mores, regional conflict over land and resources, and war to make his business operate at its optimum. Additionaly the processes of basic proliferation of guns, the advent of the atlantic trade system, and the growth of profit crops, were key in the outfall of the slave trade.)

I am having trouble with understanding the concept of defemation of character. For such a civil assault on the societal stature of somebody to be proven, doesn't all instances of innocence over the course of that individuals life, with reference to the accusers claim, be displayed. Basically, with limited one party accusations of Roger Clemens steroid intake, minus all other physical proof or documentation, how can Clemens prove the matter that he never cheated, unless he passes some sort of comprehensive urine exam covering all foreign substances passing through his system over the course of his life? Don't misconstrue my words, for my initial reaction to Macnamee's statement is that Clemens has most likely cheated, however I am basically interested in the matter of the law.

In Rainbows - Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place (Live)

2008-01-01T19:27:00.001-05:00