gut response, Translations dialogue

A: Sometimes I hear those sounds over the radio, and I get so frightened, especially when I’m alone. I switch the thing off, but that doesn’t always make me feel better.

B: You shouldn’t be afraid of music.

A: Well, if not music what should you be afraid of?

C: Its seems the literature and artistic endeavours of man will encapusulate some of his queries and miseries—can’t you be afraid of what you don’t know yet? Its what you fear that teaches you what you don’t know.

D: If you’re not scared, you’re not thinking.

C: Or is it the other way around?

E: I’d ruther be a brave fool anyhow.

D: And we love you for it, Beuford.

E: Damned pig robot should be scair’t of the things that he don’t understand. I’ll teach him to be.

gut response, Bourbon and Laundry dialogue

: How do you know?
: I read it!
: Read it where?
: In a book.
: What book?
: I dont know, Leno, just this thing in a book!
: Wait did you even read the whole book?
Silence.
: Did you read the whole book?
: Thats not the point. I--
: NO. Did. You. Read. The. Book?
: Not... all of it...
: Ah! Typical! How can you lecture me when you have a half-assed idea yourself? If I didnt hold you up to the wall and make you eek out that you don't know what youre talking about, you'd be running around Knoxville using that infuriating tone of voice-
: What tone of voice? And whether or not I read the whole book, the idea is the same regardless.
: using the tone "you know leno, its very frustrating to me to see you abuse your body in this way..."
: Shut up! shut up shut up shut up shut up-- That isnt fair. That isnt funny.
: still in the tone, "Of course you know I want you to be happy..."
: It just means that I care.
: No, no. It means you dont know what the heck you're talking about.
: You don't need a whole book to make a point in an argument!
: You do.
: You dont.

what is school?

blah blah blah... loss of identity... blah blah blah.... duality of man.... blah blah blah... juxtaposition

orientation, space, and the internet

I have been recently excited by some new posts on Reading (w/) the Digital Human blog: orientation, space, and the internet.

One contributer says physical space is different from the internet becuase we can map it. As of now, there is not way to map two-dimensional space online. The best way, continues the contributer, is to orientate ourselves by ways of traffic and hits, the most visited sites become more defined as more paths lead to them... google, facebook, etc. The contributer uses the word gravity to characterize the force of their attraction. At first gravity, to me, still implies problematic directions. On earth it is "down." But after some thought, (and remembering reading Enders Game back when) I've re-remembered/realized that in outerspace we can rid ourselves with up/down/left/right: cyberspace follows these same rules, a thought that this contributer shares.

And yet does't routine have something to do with internet orientation? I have a log of sites I must cycle through whenever I get online. This sort of ritual is not unlike an obsessive/compulsivist's desire for order and comfort. This habit-building online throws into stark light my habit-building offline: routines I enact every day in my physical body for the sake of normalcy.

I used to think of these websites as rooms, after all chat "rooms" and other forums want us to be familar with these spacial distinctions... Facebook is a house with many rooms, and I feel good when I go there because it affirms what I'm doing as what others are doing. But if one extends the analogy of rooms and houses, what is the space where we are traveling to and from? Cyberspace does not give us the time for journeys in between destinations. The closest we get is the loading symbol on multi-media heavy pages, and those, like some aspects of long car-rides, provide only aggravation.

And as I am writing this, I am becoming increasingly aware of euphamisms, or are they demarcators, that we use for these online spaces. Are they rooms? Sites? Pages? All? None? Why?

Will future nostalgics opt for digital simulation of travel? Maybe they will want scenery of paths that lead them from site to site, or bits of graphic breadcrumb 'bites' like Hansel and Gretal.

Or maybe, future nostalgics will wish for a loading bar (45%....76%.....90%....) just like the "good ole days."

forever sunsets

I do believe that when its raining outside, this is something that I as well as others can independently comment upon. I don't think the whole world is a hoax or anything. I just think that actually getting at the rain outside is tricky and maybe impossible. Its like "watching the sunset"-- that figure of speech stacked up many times over in your brain, until the original event, literally watching a sun set is lost, lost so that it might as well have not existed in the first place. This is not to say that I can prove any of this, only that maybe one time I knew and felt it so much, but now I only sort of remember it being right.

a holy message

The Message came to her as she was leaving the gym, sweaty and satisfied. In this moment of ungaurded calm, the words unbiddenly entered her brain, like the tea labeled "mint-infused" that she bought at Weigals. And these words were perfect, balanced, concise. She got home, typed in her new facebook status, hit enter. So natural, it felt right.

gut response, Woyzek dialogue

: I saw Woycek.

: Yea?

: I thought, I thought that in that scene? It could have been you, with that knife, I saw you there.

: What scene?

: The one. The one where he kills her.

: I’m not going to kill you!

: But you could!

: Lena!

: But you could! You could! You could! Oh my God its too terrible.

: Lena, I’m not going to kill you. I love you.

: That’s all it takes—he kissed her. He kissed her when he was doing it. Oh my God.

: Lena, Lena, stop. Stop it.

: I can’t, I can’t! Anything could happen--

------------------------

: No its not like anyone's "crazy"! We just go to see the psychiatrist, you know, just in case we are.

: Covering all the bases?

: Exactly! Covering all the bases. In case.