Tuesday, October 27, 2009
15627485798653623142
I stepped on my computer and the screen is all cracked. Since I'm obviously a cyborg, it's so deeply imbedded in my sense of self that I'm starting to feel a little cracked myself.
"Green" Steam Engine
We are building this-- the first steam engine made in the last 75 years, using a new and improved design based on contemporary parts & technology. Don't worry, it's not necessarily "green" in the politically charged sense, it's only the inventor's last name.
Edit: But I don't think it's a coincidence lost on him.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
FUUUUCK -- a free DOLPHIN EXPERIENCE? Sorry all you wanna-be anarcho-folk-punk-whatevers. If you thought "Juno" was shitty, you're in for even more embarrassment...
Obama/Biden Katana Slayer Contest 2009
Though obvious to us high-minded intellectuals, this makes rudely apparent that diagnostic marketing (and perhaps "industry"?) is about manufacturing the problem rather than solution. Moreover, isn't it odd how imaginary this is? Even if you were "scummy", ("If you could see it..."), it must be imagined in the present... very surreal.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Discipline, Children, Leashes, and Collection
My work at the Tucson Children's Museum has always been a fascinating first-hand look into the intersection between theory and life. Being a general dick (that's a theoretical term), I maintain a constant ironic commentary in my head, which in turn helps the hours pass.
I've served alongside hired "princess" actors for little girl's birthday parties (What the hell is a "Princess"?), meticulously cleaned plastic oranges, kicked alcoholics off of our lawn, led 10-year-old drum solos, made popcorn, and dressed up in a seven-foot-tall Curious George costume while some of the richest people in town came up to me and sat in my lap.
I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid, but It wasn't until I started volunteering there during my teens that I really realized why I liked it. The Tucson Children's Museum isn't themed in any way, shape or form: it's an odd collection of exhibits, activities, and festivities. Its general slogan, "Learning through play", is as free-form as its ambiances, and recognizes the odd collection it houses within its walls. Exhibits include a giant, robotically-moving T-Rex, a fake Farmer's Market (including plastic fruit), a refurbished and stationary police motorcycle, a historic collection of Mickey mouse paraphernalia, and a large room filled primarily with board games made 100 times their normal size. I do like kids - It's not that I don't - but I love that its weird and eerie insides replicate a un-structured and unassuming place for kids to do what they do, and to interact with weird and interesting stuff that isn't trying to tell them what to do.
If I have any critical Pedagogy, it's "Don't fuck with your kids". This morning, I sold admission to a middle-aged woman carrying her oversized purse in one hand and her child's motherfucking leash in the other. "What the hell is the deal with that?" I always ask myself; but it's not any logic you can teach to these mothers, who pride themselves on keeping their toddlers (and sometimes much older children) within two feet of them at all times (in response to my last post, it also seems to relate children to animals; derogatory?). As she fumbled with her wallet, she saw she had no choice to let her child go from her for at least a moment. Eyeing the end of the "leash" where it ended on her child's back, where it connected with a monkey-shaped "backpack" (that everyone, including the child held in check by the leash, knew was but a ploy), she turned to the leashed child's 4-year-old sibling. "Can you please hold your sister's.." and she fumbled for a moment; I could tell she didn't know what to call the leash. In the act of me staring at her, I realized that, at least for a second, she had to confront whatever insane idea she had about child-leashing. "...Tail", she finally said; but I could tell that something had occurred.
In an unrelated staff-meeting, my brethren and I (collectively, the "Discovery Explorers"), were given sheets of paper explaining what appeared to be an infantile sociological method for structuring activities and children's play. "What kind of Play are these kids taking part in?" asked a Xeroxed sheet, and underneath was a picture of two babies dressed in fireman's outfits, or something similar. The briefing continued, issuing different "types of play" and adult interaction: "structured" and "unstructured" play, "cooperative" and "uncooperative", etc. I hate to be the fool who says it, but WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE? What is this incesent need for scientific discourse? When will my job be indistinguishable from the amateur child psychoanalyst? Do I need to "understand" children for them to have "fun"? Do they have to "learn" in the scientific way our all-knowing faculty have advised? To cut to the chase, fuck the man; "Technically useful" discourses are killing children every day. It's been proven by science.
(Fig. 1: Child reenacts scenes from "Birth of the Clinic")
I've served alongside hired "princess" actors for little girl's birthday parties (What the hell is a "Princess"?), meticulously cleaned plastic oranges, kicked alcoholics off of our lawn, led 10-year-old drum solos, made popcorn, and dressed up in a seven-foot-tall Curious George costume while some of the richest people in town came up to me and sat in my lap.
I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid, but It wasn't until I started volunteering there during my teens that I really realized why I liked it. The Tucson Children's Museum isn't themed in any way, shape or form: it's an odd collection of exhibits, activities, and festivities. Its general slogan, "Learning through play", is as free-form as its ambiances, and recognizes the odd collection it houses within its walls. Exhibits include a giant, robotically-moving T-Rex, a fake Farmer's Market (including plastic fruit), a refurbished and stationary police motorcycle, a historic collection of Mickey mouse paraphernalia, and a large room filled primarily with board games made 100 times their normal size. I do like kids - It's not that I don't - but I love that its weird and eerie insides replicate a un-structured and unassuming place for kids to do what they do, and to interact with weird and interesting stuff that isn't trying to tell them what to do.
If I have any critical Pedagogy, it's "Don't fuck with your kids". This morning, I sold admission to a middle-aged woman carrying her oversized purse in one hand and her child's motherfucking leash in the other. "What the hell is the deal with that?" I always ask myself; but it's not any logic you can teach to these mothers, who pride themselves on keeping their toddlers (and sometimes much older children) within two feet of them at all times (in response to my last post, it also seems to relate children to animals; derogatory?). As she fumbled with her wallet, she saw she had no choice to let her child go from her for at least a moment. Eyeing the end of the "leash" where it ended on her child's back, where it connected with a monkey-shaped "backpack" (that everyone, including the child held in check by the leash, knew was but a ploy), she turned to the leashed child's 4-year-old sibling. "Can you please hold your sister's.." and she fumbled for a moment; I could tell she didn't know what to call the leash. In the act of me staring at her, I realized that, at least for a second, she had to confront whatever insane idea she had about child-leashing. "...Tail", she finally said; but I could tell that something had occurred.
In an unrelated staff-meeting, my brethren and I (collectively, the "Discovery Explorers"), were given sheets of paper explaining what appeared to be an infantile sociological method for structuring activities and children's play. "What kind of Play are these kids taking part in?" asked a Xeroxed sheet, and underneath was a picture of two babies dressed in fireman's outfits, or something similar. The briefing continued, issuing different "types of play" and adult interaction: "structured" and "unstructured" play, "cooperative" and "uncooperative", etc. I hate to be the fool who says it, but WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE? What is this incesent need for scientific discourse? When will my job be indistinguishable from the amateur child psychoanalyst? Do I need to "understand" children for them to have "fun"? Do they have to "learn" in the scientific way our all-knowing faculty have advised? To cut to the chase, fuck the man; "Technically useful" discourses are killing children every day. It's been proven by science.(Fig. 1: Child reenacts scenes from "Birth of the Clinic")
Friday, May 8, 2009
Cat Food
In the last 48 hours, I've seen 3 pet food commercials (taking advantage of my mother's cable TV) that decry the "tastiness" of their cat-food, using describers such as "all-natural salmon" and "delicious vegetables". I'm sure it's old news, but isn't there something about pet products that calls for an anthropomorphizing lens? To have the happiest cat, you must be the cat... This is in stark contrast to the "scientific" method (shades of Purina), which talks about the healthiness of your cat's diet and the scientifically-proven method by which the food will strengthen your cat. (Your pet becomes the observed. Subject versus object? When is it fruitful to qualify your cat in this subjectifying way? Hasn't it always been done? Yes, but it does strike me oddly. Perhaps the blurring and de-centering of subjectivity has been realized quite early in this stage of the anthropomorphization of the animal. Old-school treatment of animals was a "Purina" treatment; a scientific, objective, and distanced observation where the animal was personified but not subjectified, perhaps? Now the cat becomes the subject...
Other News:
The cartridge bottom bracket on my Bianchi actually partially fell out. What the hell? Now I have this damn piece of metal clinking every time my crank makes a rotation.
More later,
Elliott
Other News:
The cartridge bottom bracket on my Bianchi actually partially fell out. What the hell? Now I have this damn piece of metal clinking every time my crank makes a rotation.
More later,
Elliott
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