7 Billion Reasons 2 Think Twice

Swift

I Hated You, I Loved You Too.

Written at the age of 18 years old and performed here at the age of 19. It's a remarkable song if only for the way Kate Bush squeezes the lyrics and syntax to achieve something different for "so cold, let me in your window" with emphasis on the second syllable of the last word not the first syllable as would be expected. 

As soon as I understood what she did just now here, I realised it was as pure as art gets in a singer, song writing (not forgetting interperative dance) and then I thought of the parallels (lines) with Debbie Harry's lyrical contortions and Mezzo Soprano vocal transitions in Heart of Glass that made the song worth posting too. They both sing of the love/hate dynamic often found between lovers, which I have to say I'm not a fan of in real life, but recognise as productive and useful in many relationships I've observed.

Whatever you think of these two songs I've yet to hear someone sing them so that they are indistinguishable from the original. If you do let me know.

MyCrAsian (Crazy + Asian) Mother

Consistently brilliant. Human, Insightful. More over here.

Second Coming

Paul has written a very useful gem over at Forbes: Chonqing Express. You heard it here first.

Woah This Is Trippy

The multiverse as outlined in M-Theory is, as most bleeding edge science is, both mathematically supportable and at the same time as mystical as say the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's well outlined in an entertaining manner in this Family Guy episode.

All the best for 2011.

Personal Responsibility

This one is for the Department of Homeland Security: Y'all come back again any time you feel need.

A Darwinian Theory of Beauty

Editor of compulsory internet culture site, Arts & Letters Daily Dennis Dutton died recently and so I'm posting his last TED talk on Darwinian theories of beauty. For me it fits just beautifully into that point of evolutionary biology where, for reasons nobody can yet say certainly, the lights were switched on both at the point where art began to be made around 100 000 years ago and then again later when speech emerged from our mouths around 30-40 000 years ago. There's also a great EDGE video of Dennis rapping about his favourite subject of art within and of our species.

Whom were you talking to?

2010 Facebook Global Social Graph - Via Tony

Surreal

More on the Angry Birds over here

Unleash Your Inner Psychopath

No raping of women or disemboweling of children yet. It's your duty.

4am Materialism

Attachment is suffering.

Reality Check

Hipski

Quantum Science & Aristotelian Logic

It was Andrew who pointed out recently that I have a flair for pointing out the intellectual brilliance of someone and thus immodestly declaring my own brilliance. It's a fair (and funny criticism) because one of the things about branching out into evolutionary biology and quantum physics this year (along with Gnosticism and Hermeticism et al) is that the more I learn the more I realised how diminished is the full extent of my knowledge. 


And I haven't even mentioned my capacity for plain mistake making and errors that like to go large with me.

One of the benefits of trying to be as intellectually diverse as I can handle without lurking to long on the Alien Abduction scene (very interesting from a Jungian Analysis perspective) is how gorgeous and deeply orcestral is the range and tightly interlocking depth of Universal symmetry. 

Its Oneness if you will. 

I don't mind science as an approach, though the gadget-fetishists appear in my eyes to be ethically stunted. In my estimation we're measurably into morally diminishing returns when it comes to the latest technology, though it's clear they work extraordinarily well from the perspective of distraction. 

Sorry did you say something?

I find science fundamentalism ball-achingly lacking in imagination. This is why I think the mysteries of quantum physics point the way towards the limits of repeatable experiments and are thus a robust case for a cosmic deity as supra-scientist.

One of the most disappointing observations from watching the theists and atheists slug it out is the crudely empirical nature in how they both forward their arguments. This morning I came across somebody who frames these questions and thoughts in ways that are much closer to me than say Hitchens' and Blair's recent pedestrian effort.

OK, OK, so it was Einstein, but please read it if you get a chance.

A period of silence on my part would be most appreciated right? 

Well..... Robert Anton Wilson in the background?

Radovan Karadzic

I just realised I got it wrong in that post the other day. It wasn't Slobodan Milosovich (who of course was an oaf) that wrote the poetry about staring at the sun like the BMW retina burning advertisement. Of course it was Radovan Karadzic. He was also a psychiatrist. Worth remembering in a world where people are all to easily persuaded of handing over the consciousness or limits of consciousness to the state. Here's the poem. I first heard it quoted by Slavoj Zizek:

Convert to my new faith crowd

I offer you what no one has had before

I offer you inclemency and wine

The one who won’t have bread will be fed by the light of my sun

People nothing is forbidden in my faith

There is loving and drinking

And looking at the Sun for as long as you want

And this godhead forbids you nothing

Oh obey my call brethren people crowd

可愛さ (Kawaii)

I have a theory about the Japanese and technology. I believe that as they were (and still are the only people to be) on the receiving end of atomic/nuclear technological warfare, that they shed their Samurai traditions and embraced technology with a fervour that is drenched in Kawaii cuteness but is ostensibly, an all out potential pursuit of revenge. Well it's either that or they're just really 'into it', though I urge you to read a little into the history of Astro Boy before you dismiss my thinking on the subject.

JOY IS BMW

Slavoj Zizek talks about the necessity for the poetry that the Serbian Slobodan Milosevich wrote and used to stir the emotions of his countrymen to carry out war crimes against the Croats and other members of the Balkan states back in the 90's. I can't remember the exact wording though he quotes it in some of his online speeches. Roughly speaking it goes something along the lines of 'come with me, dont worry about the rules, today you can stare at the sun, you can play and do as you feel, free and unblinking from everyday life'.

Is one man's ethnic cleansing another man's (BMW's) brand experience? I'll find the exact words to the poetry and post it below when it turns up. Incidentally, Zizek says at the beginning of the video I link to at the start of this post exactly the same thing regarding images, as was quoted in the Wittgenstein fascist advertising complex post I did the other day. I'm quite sure they're unconnected other than perhaps mutual nods towards Baudrillard's gulf war simulacra or Guy de Bord's Society of the Spectacle.

I'm mildly amused that people at the screening of this thought it was cool. This is not unexpected from BMW customers.


Update

Joyeux Noel

I don't celebrate Christmas. It's been a long time since I wasn't turned off by the commercialisation of what is after all meant to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, a figure who by any metric began a story which in the age of horse travel was beating at the gates of power in Rome within half a century or so.

Are Vogue doing this for commercial reasons? I don't know but I can imagine some curled lips at both this and the mention Jesus' gets in the post. More over here.

Are Harleys For Pussies?

Quite possibly the quintessential freedom-brand has nothing to say about freedom of the press, freedom of the individual, freedom of the State to pursue an individual facing fishy rape charges and so we're left wondering if the whole Brand image is an illusion that lives in an abstract and hermetically sealed world that bears no relation to the one ordinary people live in. Ordinary, as in people who don't wear shiny leathers, have long hair and sit on the fence usually reserved for gay moped owners?

What do Harley think about Julian Assange and those fishy rape charges? Are they even thinking? Or is it a thoughtless, no-trousers brand?