Another interesting article from the New Yorker. It’s really amazing how good one can get, almost to the point of it being magical, when you solely focus on one skill for your entire life.
And here’s a video of his talent on display:
:::this is the way the world ends:::
Another interesting article from the New Yorker. It’s really amazing how good one can get, almost to the point of it being magical, when you solely focus on one skill for your entire life.
And here’s a video of his talent on display:
Is anyone still watching LOST? Toby, Peters?
I have still only watched seasons one and two, but season three is soon out on DVD. Is it worth putting on my Netflix queue, or has the whole series jumped the shark by now? I haven’t heard much talk about the show lately, so I’m getting the feeling it’s become a bit less enthralling. True?
Don’t give too much away here, please, but I’d be interested if there’s still the fervor for the show among the group, or if that has died out. Is Locke still the best character, as I assume he must be? Is J.E. still the Locke of the group?
OK, so here is my first post in a while- a two-parter.
I have recently been thinking in systems theories, particularly as they partain to groups like ours. How closely does life imitate art, I ponder. In a system, each part of that system serves a function and hopefully the whole of the system is able to obtain homeostasis, that is to say, a conistancy in functioning. Our group, I would contend has been consistent over time to a degree, and has righted itself here and there over the years. So, when TV shows, movies, and theater is written, one wonders how much of what they are trying to capture could be represented in our little group. What I would suggest is that this may occur more than we think.
An interesting little experiment we might do here is to have each person consider the cast of a few shows and movies and submit them to me. Feel free to add shows, or movies we might all have some degree of familiarity with. What I would be interested in is:
1) how we see ourselves; what roles we envision ourselves in
2) how others see us
3) how well those match.
This may give us some clues as to some of the roles we fulfill with in the structure of our group. Some obvious shows: Star Trek (original and next generation), Lost, U2 (not a written cast, but a group whose members function as a system), Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, M*A*S*H*, the Office. Maybe we want to choose 2 or three to get started. Suggestions? Send them to me this week, and I will tally and report on them next Monday. I am also open to any suggestions on how to better this experiment.
The next line of business is not related with any intention to the first. I would submit that we all look at taking 5 minutes and filling out a Myers-Briggs test. Human Metrics has one that has a number of questions which should provide some validity to the project. This is strictly for fun only, and does not have any problematic mental health implications. This is a test used primarily by psychologists and is a fun way to compare what the test says about personality traits so we might compare how that measures up with observation of self and others. Really not much more than a conversation peice which may give everyone a little insight about themselves and how they function and work, what strengths they might have. I would be interested to get feedback on how whether or not everyone feels the tool is accurate or inaccurate and why. There are several of these on line, and they are not the actual test, but my experience has been that they are fairly predictive in capturing the flavor of the test. This one is a little longer than the others which should help create more validity. There are no right answers just how you feel. being honest with yourself and not playing to the bias that you feel the questionare is seeking is most likely to result in the most accurate tabulations. I took it and will take it again after I post to see if my result is consistent again. I was an INTJ.
Here is one more if you get bored or want to compare your result to another test.I am looking forward to hearing what you guys find out. By the way, Happy New Year to all.
This week’s picks for Music Thursday come from a band out of Copenhagen (Mew) and a cover of a Spoon song by Rock Kills Kid. I’ve been listening to some of RKK and been a fan of what I’ve heard so far, but this rendition of Turn My Camera On is fantastic. I don’t even like the original that much….
Here’s a couple of bonus videos from a band that I have been listening to this week. The band is called Royksopp, they’re from Norway. They’re a little disco and remind me a bit of a cross between Sigur Ros and Gorillaz. Hmmm, maybe not quite…but they do remind me of someone, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Make of my words what you will, but I think you’ll enjoy the videos. I think “Remind Me” is really great. The video really seems to bend the lyrics into a plaintive cry to the visualized Infographics, Banality, and Symbolics in the video to yield True Existence.Â
Maybe.Â
You’re tired of me…on to the videos! The additional videos occur after the jump.
I recently saw an interview on Sixty Minutes in which an American doctor (working in Darfur, Sudan) accused the Bush administration of refusing to send in intervention forces because they were receiving information on Osama Bin Laden from the men in power. Osama apparently visited the current president to recruit men. When a German doctor was asked what he wanted to say to Americans watching, he said something like (paraphrased), “I have seen men gang rape women, while killing their children in front of them, mutilate and chop up men, and throw body parts into drinking water sources so that it is certain that no one can live there for years. What do you think I should say to my fellow Westerners? History will judge them harshly. They can not continue to lie and say, “We just didn’t know.”
For those of you who have seen the film Hotel Rwanda, this is that all over and maybe worse. I find it ironic that while Bush claims to be such a Christian, he has left Christians in Africa to be butchered — sandwiched between African Resistance movements and Islamist militias. The truth is that we likely wouldn’t even need to use military force, but merely just put some pressure on these people. We’re too busy trying to deal with the nuclear can of worms that we opened and can’t close. We need new methods of negotiation and diplomacy other than intimidation and violence. Every lunatic on the map wants a bomb now, because we then have to recognize the threat that they pose. Did we learn nothing from our bomb shelters in the 70s and 80s?
If anyone has additional information on Sudan, I welcome it. I have a few articles that I copied from my free NY Times emails, if anyone wants to read them. As I said the Sixty Minutes interview aired last Sunday night. I am considering writing a letter to my Congressman in outrage, but I have my cynical doubts as to what difference it may make. Also, I am just slightly into a book by Gene Sharp called the Politics of Nonviolent Action and I already would suggest it to any of you.
You guys might have seen these before, but those who haven’t I think it’s worth putting it up. Ok Go is the band, and legend goes, their sister is a choreographer who helped them out on the first video. They distributed this first one on burned Cds at their concerts and it spread.
The second is unique in its use of a gym:
You can see a millions ways they perform this on stage, too…it’s over on YouTube.
I realize this comment will be lost on many of you, but it is time to make my annual appeal. I know TV ranks very low in most of our lists, but I have one guilty pleasure I wait all year for, the TV series, Lost.
Tob, help me out here.
Sept.27 is the first showing for the season (actually, a recapping of events so far.). Now, I am not a big fan of recap shows, but this would offer a chance to get in and get caught up (as well as one can be, the show has just too many layers, plots, subplots, and sub-subplots all related in an impacting way to the main plot.)
This show is written to be completed in a 5 year timeline and acts as a giant , multi-dimensional puzzle. Every show leaves you guessing, hypothesizing and re-hypothisizing. It is an incredible mental exercise, and I would encourage one and all to give it a trial run.
…No, the cheesy narration is not a show mainstay, but must be included to sum up actions which may have occured over several episodes, so bear with it.
Tob, would you agree that JE is the John Locke of the group?
Think about it, folks. Cheesy, campy, self-agrandising, astonishingly sub-par musical talent, a huge, I mean huge, cult following. Amanda pointed this out to me. I think it rings true.Â
 I noticed today that a real cool looking building in town here is for sale. It is the old baptist church building. I think you can view it on Rolanderrealty.com (or some such site). They want 140,000. Think about it, we could start our own artist colony, our own compound. We could raise our kids there, safe from the world. We could homeschool and buy all our crap at sam’s in bulk and have it delivered; shut ourselves in from the outside world while we slowly go insane!Â
…but safe from what scientists will refer to as the “hasslehoff effect”, that which brought upon us the end. With a whimper, indeed! My whimpering, and the whimpering of billions, whimpering away in choir of whimperieness. Or we could all just keep doing the stuff that makes us happy and pretend that hasslehoff isn’t real. Your choice, but I know he is real. I know what he is doing. slowly, to all of us.Â
Look at the hidden messages within the video, but don’t look to long, alas you will be sucked in, too. converted to his minions. stay safe tonight.   Â
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