Ain't that the truth!

This article from Slate nails it on the head. Everyone's complaining that the US is power hungry, but no one else is willing to take the reins.

"And thus we are left with a curious situation: America no longer wants to be the sole superpower. The American president no longer wants to be the leader of a sole superpower. Nobody else wants America to be the sole superpower, and, in fact, America cannot even afford to be the sole superpower. Yet America has no obvious partner with which to share its superpowerdom, and if America were to cease being a superpower, nothing and no one would take its place."

The God Gene

I liked Wade's NYTimes article "The Evolution of the God Gene" because it relates to the "Philosophy of God" course I took at Bowdoin last fall and to Sam Harris' book The End of Faith, a book that has made a lasting impact on on the way I think about religion. Especially interesting are the "Letters to the Editor" in response to this article, of which I found Harris' comments especially valuable.

Mixed messages in Pakistan

I was really surprised by this video, not so much because I was shocked that Pakistanis are placing so much blame on the States for the violence and destruction in their country, but because these intimate interviews and the song lyrics of young musicians indicate that even in their heart of hearts many Pakistanis do not believe that the Taliban is the source of corruption. Because pop culture is so influential, musicians are spreading a powerful message by ignoring the Taliban's suicide bombings and assassinations while encouraging conspiracy theories and anger toward the west. The young generation, the educated youth of Pakistan, is key in the fight toward a Taliban-free nation, but (according to this video) they are dancing to anti-west music instead of taking self-initiative toward internal change.

And kudos to Adam B. Ellick, who is a great example of a talented young freelance journalist and who has created quite a few captivating pieces for the NYTimes.

Albert Lamorisse's 1956 short film, "The Red Balloon"

I read A. O. Scott's review of this film today on nytimes.com and had to post it. The film follows Pascal and his new friend the red balloon throughout a day in Paris. Adorable and charming,  it is the perfect metaphor for childhood and all of the innocent fascinations that are a part of it.

* 1956 Oscar went to Albert Lamorisse for Best Original Screenplay
* 1956 Palme d'Or for short films at Cannes

Lamorisse used his two children Pascal and Sabine Lamorisse to play the film's two child protagonists.

What I'm Listening To: Le Loup's "Family"

great stuff. a bit of a Fleet Foxes' vibe, with reverb and long, drawn out harmonies, cheerily-melancholy lyrics with a bit of an afrikana/electronic twist.

Check out this review from Obscure Sound, which includes a few photos and songs ("Beach Town," "Grow" and "Saddle Mountains") to listen to.

moment of silence

the light comes in
as it does at four thirty during winter months
bashfully bidding us farewell
before moving on to some other place

the blue of sky turns grey, and the temperature drops
it leaves us cold
so that the day seems to end before it even began

why does it go so early
     when there is so much to do today,
                       when we are alive and ready
                                        to move and feel and love?

but we accept the fact,
and we learn to take the night as it comes--
it does, after all, leave us stars and a bright half-moon
to break up the black-
                             pitch-
                                   black

but the fire burns gold like never before,

so we can see one another's faces glow

as here we are huddled together,
cocooned in old quilts,
the chill of fall air a faint sensation through the fabric.

in fond memory of William Ruane Jr. 

BAUHAUS exhibit to open at MOMA

Gropius, Meyer, and van der Rohe's brainchild on display:

"All of them lived somewhere between the world as they saw it and the world as they wished it could be. Their yearning, never fulfilled, haunts you long after you leave the show."

Architecture for the Green Age...

Building With Whole Trees!

Roald Gundersen uses stripped forest trees to make beautiful, environmentally friendly structures. By taking the "weed" trees from the forest he is benefiting other plants, who receive more nutrients because there are fewer plants sharing the land. His firm is called Whole Tree Architecture and Construction.

To see more images, click here. 

architecture, renovation and nostalgia

Diana Kellogg knows how to create amazing spaces.

I love the idea of creating something totally new out of something old. Click here to see how the art collector Juerg Judin did just that with a 1950s gas station in Berlin.

And to address the topic of nostalgia, Wild Hearts' "Dancing on Our Tongues" video. 

My own sample of structuralist thought...

The Myth of Sex
an essay from February 10, 2009                 


                      Gone are the 1970s and the days of “free love,” but we are currently very much in the midst of a sexual revolution. However, this revolution is not about opening our minds to the idea of sex as natural and healthy and is instead about establishing sex as the basis of relationships and existence in general. This trend is evident in trivial ways throughout mainstream society. No longer are PG-13 movies for those older than thirteen. No longer are cleavage, exposed g-strings or bra straps taboo. Song lyrics boast everything from cryptic sexual references about “licking lollipops” to moaning noises and the utterances of other sexual intimacies or vulgarities. Movies are based in sexuality, and no serious film is complete without an intense love scene. Gone are the days of Chevy Chase or Bill Murray. Modern adult comedy could not survive off of innocent humor: sex is essential. 

            Along with the naturalization and expectation of sex in media has come the commonplace role of sex in mainstream society and a transformation of traditional gender relations. The times have changed. Forgotten are the days of chastity and the view of sex as a somewhat sacred or holy act. Our parents’ generation will forever refer to the “good ole’ days” when a guy was thankful to earn a kiss at the door after the first date. As my brothers came of age in the 1990s, a girl who hit more than first or second base on the first date was fine for one night, but was rarely considered dating potential. Now, as mainstream media has completely normalized sex, one-night stands are hardly unthinkable and are actually far more commonplace and casual in our society than handholding. Today, if you are holding hands with another individual, you have surely been fucking and are most likely also engaged to be married. Mainstream society says your PDA (Public Display of Affection) is making everyone vomit. Please, get a room. Today, for both men and women, sexual intercourse is just as nonchalant as most all sexual acts. In fact, it may even be more routine than oral sex, which is oftentimes considered far more personal by mainstream society. Sex has become the behind-closed-doors version of the wink: a fleeting, often one-time connection of intimacy. 

            And so the myth of sex, better known as the myth of highly idolized casual fuck (fuck connoting all forms of sexual interaction, but especially intercourse), is created. In correlation with its permeation in society has come the slow decline of traditional femininity, a rise in a new form of masculinity rooted in a male’s ability to have casual sex at a whim with the object of his desire, and a general view of sex as commonplace. Sex has been embraced as the ultimate equalizer: Everyone benefits from sex and gets pleasure from it that wants it. And we all want it, right? It is the object of all of our desires…right? Ultimately, sex has been embraced by our society in a way that portrays it as the centerpiece of all healthy lives and relationships. It is what defines us as humans, what unites us as humans, and what allows us to embrace and fully realize our humanity. The invention of several forms of reliable birth control has only served to highlight the facility with which casual sex can be executed. Stick on a latex and let’s go, if you will.

            I would claim that this myth is one that, like the humanism myth that Barthes analyzed in “The Great Family of Man,” seems harmless. Its destructiveness arises only when it becomes a social norm to the extent that it replaces the societal pressure for abstinence and is transformed into a form of repression itself. Slowly but surely, a human being is defined not by the content of his or her character but by his or her sex drive and ability to have sex. If he or she has a strong sex drive and is able to fully explore and indulge in it, he or she is healthy, happy, and normal. If he or she has a weak sex drive, does not indulge in it and/or suppresses it and fails to use it in the acceptable form dictated by mainstream society, he or she is not healthy, and there is no way he or she is happy or normal.

             In fact, the term used to describe such an individual is asexual, and though only 1 percent of society is technically asexual, anyone who does not indulge in the myth of the casual fuck might be deemed so. Asexuality is never addressed by mainstream media and is far from reaching the normalization that even homosexuality or bisexuality is beginning to achieve. I would argue that more people fear asexuality than fear homosexuality or bisexuality. Consider, for example, Katy Perry’s hit song, “I Kissed a Girl.” It was an instant success when it came out on the radio last summer, for it excites heterosexual male fantasies and homosexual fantasies alike. It is a song with sex at its center, one individual’s personal embrace of her bisexuality. The myth of the casual fuck thrives off of this sort of thing, because while bisexuality is the theme of the song, at least some sexual is being expressed. God forbid a song come out with the line, “I’m asexual, and I like it.”

            This is a myth because it is a sexual revolution turned repression. It stems from the concepts attached to the new wave of sexual revolution, a revolution that idolizes the casual fuck and establishes sex as the baseline of mainstream and everyday society differently from its 1960s and 1970s predecessor.  The myth depicts sex as the center of life and the most crucial element of human existence and happiness, so that it becomes not a facet of life, but the central component. Sex is reduced to its primal qualities and begins to take the place of other forms of intimacy and personal connection within the context of relationships. We are bounded by, not liberated by, the myth of the casual fuck, and our perceptions, along with mainstream media and society, have become skewed. For example, in the comedic world, the myth is so infiltrated in everyday humor that it is stifling other forms of comedic creativity. The film genre is captivated by and entangled in the myth of the casual fuck, either unable or afraid to abandon the cliché sex scene or sexy protagonist. If the myth continues, sex’s place as a component of everyday life that should be accepted and treasured will be lost forever. Replacing it will be the suppressing idea that sex is the be-all-end-all, and the idea that life is nothing without it. Hopefully we can regain perspective and find a happy medium between the casual fuck and the romance of lovemaking. Perhaps then handholding will regain its place in society as the casual expression of affection instead of a marriage contract. Then we can truly link hands and declare liberation. 

Levi-Strauss has died at 100

Levi-Strauss was an influential thinker and anthropologist from France who is considered the father of structuralism, which is essentially the belief that CULTURE IS A CONSTRUCTION. This structure could be that of myth or, as Saussure is famous for arguing, language. The movement had its greatest 
(though brief) popularity in 1960s-70s France, came after existentialism and was followed by 
postructuralism (Derrida, Foucault).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04levistrauss.html?hp

I love the structuralist and poststructuralist movements, and really enjoyed reading thinkers like 
Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault and Baudrillard in my Literary Theory class last spring.

I would like to thank Professor David Collings for being such a phenomenal, passionate and brilliant
teacher!

My roots (from the oaks in Alabama)

   wet ground to me will always smell of summer 

those mornings on the Alabama coast

hot and humid, the air thick enough to swim through

nothing cools the body like Crystal Light lemonade

    we made it in bunches, sold it to passersby in tiny, wax-coated cups

sipped it 'til it dyed our lips 

the yellow brightness of childhood

    my days were littered with cacti, driftwood, and fish skulls

little scraps I picked up on a beach walk

I piled them into colored buckets of orange and blue and green

my collection a treasure-trove

that I kept in the fort we'd made beneath the wharf

   the wasps would sometimes build their nests there, to keep us company

their dangerous buzzing like gossip at a country club luncheon

stirring up excitement while poisoning the air

   and the neighbors

all with the lawng, lazay suth'un drawl

some who know my grandparents, know my mama and daddy,

or the whole family tree

wave from time to time when they pass our

white-picket-fenced front yard

    they are often like

bits of praline pekan cookies, so sweet

the brown sugar melts in your mouth

the salt of the nuts always savory and rich

but with a bit of a bitter aftertaste

when the morsels stay stuck in back molars

to be sucked out with help from the tongue

   I didn't notice the aftertaste as a child

my palate hadn't yet evolved

and besides,

I'd pop a piece of Bazooka in my mouth

at every meal's end

I was always moving to the next sensation

   today I am far away

but home does stay in the heart

and while I feel estranged from

those days of sandy feet and hands made green from crab-trap-goo

there is no other place 

that I will never leave behind

because in doing so I would leave myself as well

   as the sun sets over Mobile Bay

and the 'bama moon sucks the daylight from the sky

leaving the night the opaquest of black

those bullfrogs and crickets still speak to me

   now, long after my toad-catching years

when my daddy puts on those old Temptations' tunes

I dance with him, 

he turns me with a gentlemanly hand

and I sway for the sake of saving every bit

of my southern soul.