Big Ears

I had the unforeseen and lucky privilege to obtain (through volunteering (side note: go UT VOLS side side note: compare/contrast "UT Volunteers" with Jesuit ideals of "community service", interesting, no?)) a STAFF PASS for this past Sunday's Big Ears Festival line-up.

In other words, I gained access to a little-known, yet amazingly attended experimental music festival. Thought it is only in its second year here in Knoxville Tennessee, Big Ears hosts "experimental" artists such as Joanna Newsome, Terry Riley, The Books, St. Vincent, The Caldera Quartet, Tim Hecker, and many many more.

This, in many ways, was my ideal music festival. I have never been so excited about live music before; I generally prefer going to plays or a number of other activities before I pick to see music.

I liked this festival because (1) it was mostly indoors which means calm, cool, cushioned seats. I find I am instantly more comfortable and attuned to listening carefully when I am sitting calmly rather than standing in a crowd (2) the music selections were all creative, exciting, and mentally stimulating (3) several things I noticed and enjoyed have distinct tie-ins to another blog I am contributing to, namely "Reading (w/) The Digital Human," those things being: (i) A band called The Books, which used live accompaniment and composition structured around audio and video feeds. This mixed media presentation offered an emotional and mental experience much like a book yet with an absence of books, perhaps even replacing a book and (ii.) when I sat on the ground level to a stage, the strain on my neck and posture proved distracting, yet when I sat in a balcony softly gazing down, I was immediately at ease in my position. I attribute this effect to technology because gazing slightly down at a computer or laptop screen is more familiar to my body where-as gazing slightly up is unusual and therefore uncomfortable.

More links and thoughts to come.

But first,

Birdy sat in his sun room. The perfect yellow sunroom. The ornate crown molding seemed to simper along with his mood. He was eyeing a cat. The black and white cat. He did not know when exactly the feline appeared; rather he was not looking at the black and white cat, then he was. Of course, Birdy was unsure if he should be oogling the cat. They both shared the space, sunny under the crown molding. Perhaps he would offer it some food? Or milk. Birdy thought that cats liked milk but maybe that was only a myth touted around in cartoons and had no basis in actual cat-needs.

Would you like some milk? He magnaimously asked the cat. The black and white cat did not look at him. Not that he need to, reasoned Birdy. In fact, how stupid of me to assume to talk at him if its not his fault he doesn't understand. Eye contact also is not necessarily part of cat communication. If Birdy couldnt speak to the black and white cat like a human, could he speak to him as a cat? Birdy flicked at his cigerrette. It made a soft sound as only pressed paper and tobacco can. He flicked again.

He would communicate with the cat as a cat would. He sat. He did not look at anything in particular, and he attained some captivation for the things that he was not in particularly looking at. He swished his imagined tail. He was both there and not there. Yet this was all no good. Was the cat offended that he dared attempt to mimic his cat-ways? Was he, Birdy, merely projecting the human condition of being offended when he assumed the cat might be?

No, no, since they seemed to meet on neither plane thus far, now he would have to forge a whole new way to connect with the cat. Birdy thought about this for a while, thought until he was not thinking. He let himself melt and then vibrate through the room, around the cat, thinking. His concentration was so bent, that when he moved toward the black and white cat it was as if a hypnotic glacier rocked forward and flowed from the wicker chair to the floor, so smooth the creak was gone. The cat appeared transfixed. Birdy reached out and wrapped his hand around the black and white cat's tail. He pulled. But pulled so fully, so softly, a tug. The cat, equally fully leaned away from the pull, sustained. Ah a pull, to pull, I've got you, thought Birdy.

The telephone rang, he screamed, the cat screamed, and the day went to hell.

When I Make Time,

Things I want to blog on,

AKA "coming soon"....

"Sex, Modernism, and 'The Rite of Spring'"

"Themes of Technology in Avatar"

"Absence and Presence: Does it Count if you Dont Know?"

Poem on my Crepe and Jam Morning

Envisioning E-readers

Are we overlooking the physical implications of an e-reader?

Already as it is, tooling around on a laptop all the time has given me unmistakable "computer-posture." The neck jutting forward, the head out of alignment with the rest of the spine. This mal-aligned posture is just one symptom of the (literal) forward-thinking of contemporary culture. We are so enamoured with what is in front of our faces (T.V.'s, laptops, ipods and mp3s, e-readers...) that it seems as if we have forgotten the rest of our body in the jump into the digital.

I want an e-reader that has extendable arms that fold out from the main frame. They delicately reach out and wrap around the base of my skull. Every so often the device gently reminds me to breath deeply, re-align, and rest my eyes. I am not sure yet if my e-reader will have a robotic or human voice.

Also, I think e-readers should come in different colors.

hashbrowns

And we were walking around

downtown

it was pretty.

Telling stories

mostly about when we were kids

and I thought of these stories

how that they are different from mine

and you grew up differently

and learned different lessons

and know things that I do not know

and the things I do not know scare me

I am scared of everyone and what they know

and what they dont, what I know and what I dont.

I think I will fry you up something,

or just hit you over the head with the skillet.

Anthro II: Disgruntlement

I am disgruntled with my anthropolgy class. I mentioned a selection from the text book in a recent post but my focal issue now is with the lecture.

Generally the class is bothersome because our instructor presents material in such way that we breeze through cultures, in time and space, by blips of facts. Fun facts sprinkled around that we write down in our notes and then repeat faithfully back for scantron tests every few weeks.

(Besides the limited engagement this produces with the material) I think what to critique here is the whole frame-work of gen-ed classes. Made to be thrown away, like single-use ziplock bags and tampons. If taught this way, with this attitude in mind, they are a waste of everyones time. Introductary overveiws. Its more beneficial to get down into the nitty gritty of the topic instead of superficially skowering the surface of topics. In this troposphere of education, partial information is equivalent and as lethal as mis-information. But thats a side note.

In particular I am bothered becuase of today. Today's lecture subject is human marriage and kinship. With a special emphasis on human sexuality. What confuses me was that it seemed our professor pointed to biology to reason out all sorts of things at every turn.

One particular incidence: Human females are different than other primates becuase they have concealed ovulation. AKA their sex organs dont get red and swollen and pharemones dont ooze in the air around them when they are ovulating. Prof says this allows females to be continually receptive to males' sexual advances, and keeps males on thier toes because they don't know when they are going to get some (in so many words). Consequently, this set-up promotes bonding between the sexes.

I am deeply unsatisfied with this explanation.

And can't I be?

This isnt a law of science. Its one theory. And I think there are better ones out there. Or waiting to be thought upon.

If I read my text book correctly, humans' largest tool to succeed from generation to generation is culture. Being part of, and communicating with, the group is more essential to surviving rather than making physical adaptations. Otherwise, wouldn't humans in colder climates grow more body hair to keep warm? Instead they make coats and distribute them to other humans. We stay warmer faster with out taking centuries to develop. In this way, humans who are quick to problem solve and communicate are selected by evolution to succeed.

As I type this, I am remembering that there are some exceptions to this in regards to skin pigmentation. But still, when is it biology? When is it culture? Is always a bit of both?

But, besides that, why do we neccessarily need biology to explain this aspect of human sexuality stated above? Females have "concealed" ovulation, true. But human females also have the capacity to communicate, to say hey "I'm on my period" or "Hey I've been counting my cycles and its ovulating time." Wouldnt this feature of culture trump this strange biological explanation?

In fact, within this same lecture he had us copy down the phrase

cultural success=reproductive success

And what I said above seems to agree with this.

So why this stuff about biology when its not the biology that matters but how we innovate around it?

Lastly, I do not appreciate this interpretation of male dominance over females in the animal world. Our professor described the large genitals of a chimpanzee are useful for taking a female chimp by suprise and getting the deed done quickly. These interpretations are not fully objective. I would like to read what zoologist and philosopher Donna Harraway thinks about all of this. I am ordering my Primate Visions book off of Amazon today. According to wickipedia,

"In her book, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, Haraway explicates the metaphors and narratives that direct the science of primatology. She demonstrates that there is a tendency to masculinize the stories about "reproductive competition and sex between aggressive males and receptive females [that] facilitate some and preclude other types of conclusions" (Carubia, 4). She contends that female primatologists focus on different observations that require more communication and basic survival activities, offering very different perspectives of the origins of nature and culture than the currently accepted ones."

Ultimately, I think it is a damage rendered to a receptive classroom when a professor runs through facts without taking time to ruminate over contradictions that may arise.

you snobby bastards

I think its funny when the book reviews on back covers seem to be in competition with the text between covers. These reviewers are out to prove something: they are worth just as much as the published author.

They try to argue beyond that. Their lofty phrases seem to imply that they are more important, for their words determine the worth of the others. They pass jugment and exist outside of the bounds of the novel. They deem the work worthy and present it to us, the reader, simply becuase it pleases them.

This is the plite of the other brother, the reviews banished to the back of the book. They are forced to dazzle and impress in a few mere lines, sharing space with the featured piece, yet confident in their independence, or rather, transcendence above the subjects of their reviews.