occasionally subtle
RMH
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Phantogram Three
Cookie Run:Kingdom Official!
Product Placement
The Bowery Presents
Fieri Frames
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
The Stonewall Inn
Interview Vampire Daily
taylor price
Claire Keane
PR's Tumblrdome
Discoholic 🪩
todays bird
cherry valley forever
🪼
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@desipio1223-blog
Meme on Steriods: Bon Iver Erotic Stories
I love the idea of adding romantic stories, much like a meme, to pictures of rugged, indie-rock phenom Bon Iver. Very clever, ridiculous, and hilarious! Really takes the network of memes to the next level...
My favorite being, "Bon Iver insisted on washing my hair, and afterwards he braided it, weaving in fresh lavender and pussy willow buds."
Astronomical Rise in Food Photography
A recent Article on NPR.org, Are Your Friends Bombarding You With 'Food Porn'?, reminded me of today's photography discussion:
"The standards for amateur food photography have risen sharply in recent years, such that the photography is now just as important as the recipes on many food blogs."
When we discussed the Wal-Mart project, what I found interesting was the idea presented about physical and online place in grocery...
I also found this to be interesting (post-Wal-Mart project discussion):
(And I feel as though I have some authority in noting this, as the company I work for has a partnership with Wal-Mart.)
Drawing Inspiration for Final Project from Kurt Vonnegut
“The arts are not a way of making a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, 2005 (via happythings.)
If you really like it I found out there is a sequel…  ;)
Orangsphynx, 'ppreciate the offer, but I'd like to tackle a couple of other pressing, more enjoyable things before undertaking the sequel, like having my gums scraped, pull weeds in the garden, and complete my last project. Thanks again for the heads-up, though. I can imagine being followed by a Greek Chorus if I did ever get around to reading this. ;)
Cyclonopedia: Don't stop believin'
Having finished Cyclonopedia and reflected more on the class discussion from yesterday, I can say with full confidence the book has digested for me. (As an update, Student won this challenge.) Granted, I didn’t understand a good third of the novel but that is okay.
I’m not sure that I am supposed to walk away with the same, smug comprehension like I do/would from a novel like Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird. Some sections were more straight forward than others, which was refreshing (decay, dirt, War on Terror, the introduction, etc.). When I listen to sigur rĂłs, I don't know what they are saying since it's either hopelandic or icelandic or just some primal noises, but I know I dig it. Â
Overall, it was a reading experience in which I had to let go – my mind was disconnected from linear thinking, as well as having gnawed away my figurative umbilical cord from Google. The section on dirt allowed my mind, as the reader, to meander. In that respect, I highly enjoyed the novel.  However, I think that pleasure is an afterthought when undertaking required readings in school. It’s just convenient when it works out that required readings are also enjoyable, or at very least tolerable. Like what Bruce Springsteen said in his keynote address at South by Southwest this year, everyone formulates their own form of appreciation/connections (though he is talking about music, it can easily be applied to literature):
There is no key note, I don't think. There is no unified theory of everything. You can ask Einstein. But you can pick any band… You go, "Bruce Springsteen, natural–born poetic genius off the streets of Monmouth County, hardest – hardest working – hardest working New Jerseyian in show business, voice of the common man, future of Rock and Roll!", or "He sucks. Get the fuck out of here!"You could pick any band, and create your own equation. It's fun.
Once upon a time when I was living in New York, a man slipped me a piece of paper on the bus. He didn’t make eye contact with me, or even acknowledge that he passed it to me. I stuffed it into my pocket, and read it once I was back in my dorm. I recently uncovered this when I was cleaning out a closet. They are clearly the writings of a schizophrenic:
Let me be clear that I don’t put more stock than that into it. That is pretty much how I feel about Cyclonopedia. As if to think, "Okay. That was interesting." I also believe the narrator to be unreliable. Like at the end of Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, and so many other books/movies/etc., I was waiting for the Nurse in a white gown to announce it was now time to take medicine.  Thankfully, it never happened.  The novel’s ending was anticlimactic, like the last episode of The Sopranos. It just ended, and now so will this blog post.  (This is where someone can queue the Journey song.)
New shit has come to light: Decay as a form of passive-aggression
Before reading Cyclonopedia, I never even considered decay as an ongoing form of passive-aggression, by resisting the process of being reborn to/from the Earth. "...decay perforates the formation of power to no end, and by doing so, prevents power from investing in the consolidation of its formation." (p. 182) Like the other sections in the book, Negarestani's didn't just throw this out there, but rather broke this down into minutiae. "..Decay is a limitropic process through which the object shrinks progressively towards zero without eventuating the act of annihilation (complete dissolution into nihil)..." (p. 185)
{Reader's note: Negarestani's writing reminds me of the dust in the Middle East. Also, I'm reading the novel as if it's like some of Octavio Paz's poems (e.i. , Altar) which were acrostic/shape poems/pattern poems (probabaly not the right term I'm thinking of - where a poem's format takes after the subject of the poem).
At any rate, the book just drags and drags on, as if I am Adam Richman from Man vs. Food near the end of a challenge; bloated, sweaty, and tired. However, the end of the book is near. In the battle of Student vs. Book, Book will not win.}
Cyclonopedia meets My So-Called Life
I wonder if 2 will ever actually meet up with the narrator. Or, maybe he will be more like Ricky's cousin, from My So-Called Life, and never make an appearance - in which case, we're left anticipating their arrival.Â
“…Once they have finished infesting the earth’s solid part...
Could not believe it myself, but Negarestani mentioned the cyclical nature of the Ouroboros on page 94: "The cycle of epidemics moves in a spiraling manner or in the form of an Ouroboros, which registers its bestial flight not only as departing from creationsim, but also returning to creation with fangs ready to poison and devour: Tiamaterialism." Desipio1223, there may be hope for you yet. Full steam ahead!Â
“Reducing to dust is thus neither a monotheistic
All the dust talk reminded me of a “fact”
I found the section regarding dust to be especially interesting. I enjoyed when Negarestani wrote, "Dust simultaneously emerges as the alpha and omego xero-data; there is no signal or message other than the compositional insurgency of dust, whose syncretism and obsuce polytics of creation can be effectively registered or rooted on a flux of dust. 'Dust' is the name of a rebellion marked by utter collectivity and progressing at a cosmic level." Â No movie scene could better illustrate this than The Big Lebowski's Walter Sobchak's eulogy for Theodore Donald Karabotsos. (Remixed with the Kansas song "Dust in the Wind") "...And so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince." (As Donny's ashes from the Folgers can are being blown into The Dude's face.)
Oh Ouroboros, Don't You Weep For Me
"...Once they have finished infesting the earth's solid part, the larvae will cut breathing holes and press their headless tails against the surface for air. The larvae will continue to grow while boring out spinal cavaties for the earth's body which will never be filled..." (Cyclonopedia p.67)
"In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself." Carl Jung
*Since Negarestani mentioned Freud, it is hard not to also associate Jung. It's like saying Oreo and not salivating for (soy) milk - stomach can't handle that "spicy milk" (Courtesy of Jim Gaffigan). (A Pavlovian reaction if you would like to continue along with the other psychologist/psychiatrist examples.)
Cyclonopedia: A case for hypermedia
In reading Cyclonopedia, I've found myself using Google more than usual. On page 16 alone, I've researched the following terms:
blobjectivity
petropolitics
New Earth
Mecca-nomics
Erathication
Gog-Magog Axis
Abrahamic
Technocapitalism
First impressions of the book (sans-introudction from ix-xx) feels like an episode of Family Guy - lots of references thrown into a bag, shaken up, and thrown onto a page.Â
(To me) Imagine how different a reading experience this would be if the book was written in hypermedia. For example, I wouldn't have to Google The Blue Mosque. Instead, its image would appear as a mouse over, hyperlink, or even video. Or, type those two links from p. xvii to find this page and that page.
Perhaps this is lazy, or maybe the new frontier of reading, or even a diplomatic hybrid of the two. In any case, I was fairly warned when I opened the book - “ incognitum hactenus.” (p. ix) And so, I’m going to cut my figurative umbilical cord to Google. Instead, I’ll let the book charter my mind into the unknown. Anchors Aweigh!
Another piece of flair (from the Philosoraptor)
Image Courtesy of Know Your Meme.
Thank you, Philosoraptor. Your effervescent insight never ceases to amaze me. You’ve managed to sum up how I felt when I read Latour’s statement as the Professor on page 142, that “…you should not confuse the network that is drawn by the description and the network that is used to make the description.” A good part of the past four chapters (including the introduction) seemed counter intuitive for me, in this same way. It wasn’t until the Professor character provided the analogy (p. 144) of the picture frame that things started to make sense. “A frame makes a picture look nicer, it may direct the gaze better, increase the value, allows to date it, but it does not add anything to the picture… just describe the state of affairs at hand.”
This is related to the discussion of “True Self” from class. If I permit myself to put myself out there (did I just refer to myself in the fourth person?), my true self is that I am a woman. But I am also a daughter, friend, colleague, student, seamstress, skier, among a list of myriad possibilities.  “Like a cheeseburger on roller skates, rolling down a pyramid of cash” (cite: Ryan Adam’s 12/02/11 concert), I’d like to think of myself under these terms with as much gusto. Latour would like to think otherwise. As far as Latour goes, those titles/adjectives are just a picture frame; my true self is the work of art.
Rabbit is a rhizome!
"The point is that a rhizome or multiplicity never allows itself to be overcoded, never has available a supplementary dimension over and above its number of lines." (p.9)
Project 2: Match maker, match maker, make me a match
For the second project, I'll be creating dating profiles (hello network!) for several, pop culture/literary bunnies:
Hazel, from Watership Down
Cadbury Bunny, from Cadbury Creme Egg notoriety
Rabbit (name unknown), from Of Mice and Men
White Rabbit, Alice's Adventure in Wonderland
Jack, from Donnie Darko
Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams
Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs (The Great and Powerful Oz), from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Runny Babbit, by Shel Silversteen
They will be vying for the love and affection of Vinge's Rabbit character. It will be a multimedia smogasbord. Still have to develop how this ties into Deleuze's Rhizome essay, and will hope (or "hop") to develop this more once I have reread the essay. Â
M.C. Escher's Wing
Relativity by M. C. Escher, 1953Â
"Welcome to the Escher Wing" he said...At the bottom of the stairs there was another ninety degree turn. Parker said, "Okay, now we're walking back toward the building's utility core, only we have the feeling that we're still wandering through unending books." (Rainbow's End 175)
Reproducing like Rabbits: Rainbow's End
I wonder the significance of Vernor Vinge's Rabbit character being a rabbit. This animal seems to reappear in several novels, such as Richard Adams' Watership Down, C.S Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (not to mention that creepy, ginormous one in the film Donnie Darko). I'm anxious to see how this character develops and in what ways his character relates to its namesake.
P.S. I also wonder the whether when Vinge wrote that, "But in this brave new world..." (p. 61) he was also referring to Aldous Huxley's novel by the same name (Brave New World)? I'll be following the character Winston Blount closely as well, and I believe this character is also somehow related to the 1984 character Winston Smith. Could be too soon to make that sort of connection, but that's at least what I'm thinking 100 pages into this novel. (Then again, aren't all things connected?)
