complex analysis

Palmkite - Thanks For The Dinosaur (by jommeez) i wish this...

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:38:32 -0400

Palmkite - Thanks For The Dinosaur (by jommeez)

i wish this guys had more music and i am said that they probably will never make more music

Creative Writers' Guild: Breeze

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:36:38 -0400

by Luke High

—

The leaves rustle slightly in the thick summer breeze

and every dog on the playground is just asking for one more game of fetch.

I’ve somehow found myself at the end of civilization, staring curiously down the straight path of what I once was.

What scares me is that it doesn’t…

AUS-tra-lo-PITHECUSaf-ar-ENSIS

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:36:13 -0400

AUS-tra-lo-PITHECUSaf-ar-ENSIS

emoisdead: William Bonney // Drug Lord

Thu, 10 May 2012 06:46:11 -0400

emoisdead:

William Bonney // Drug Lord

i finished jack london's call of the wild last night

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:58:05 -0400

a few points of interest:

this novel (novella maybe?) made me feel more despondent than i had imagined it would. perhaps this is only because of london’s excessive anthropomorphism, but i found buck to be a character that made empathy very easy. thus, his troubles and pains seemed very real. of course, i find this to be a great boon to a novel’s status - if literature doesn’t invoke any feelings, then what’s the point? sparing any details about the plot, i’ll just say that london’s depiction of difficult transitions and the hardships that accompany them makes for a very provocative theme.

london’s narration is a little odd. again, this may be due to his anthropomorphism. i didn’t find the plot difficult to follow, but something about the way that he dichotomized buck’s internal environment and the external environment of the world around him (and subsequently brought those two worlds together) made the story seem a bit jumpy. i’ll have to read some more of his works in order to see if this is apparent elsewhere.

i spend most of life thinking of this book as a children’s novel of sorts (and based on some of the editions that i’ve seen, i can only imagine that others do as well) - i was very surprised to read accounts of flesh being stripped from the bone and throats being rent open. “call of the wild,” as it were.

today’s used book store haul: jane eyre and a collection of jack london stories (including...

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:58:02 -0400

today’s used book store haul: jane eyre and a collection of jack london stories (including call of the wild). $3.50. yeahhhh used book stores.

neat sample. neat song. i think i just found my show opener for...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:48:40 -0400

neat sample. neat song. i think i just found my show opener for tomorrow’s radio show!

as a follow up post

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:06:47 -0400

the feeling that i get when i really enjoy a band and search around for their music only to find that they have a total of two short releases is quite the bummer.

i fell asleep listening to palmkite last night and it was a...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:03:00 -0400

i fell asleep listening to palmkite last night and it was a wonderful transition into slumber. here is a video of them playing one of their many excellent songs live.

someday, i’m going to brew up a lot of coffee and just read on the road straight through while...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:35:36 -0400

someday, i’m going to brew up a lot of coffee and just read on the road straight through while drinking all of it. i feel as if that’s the most appropriate way to approach that novel.

poetry from 10th grade

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:34:19 -0400

this is a poem (or something) of mine that i wrote in 10th grade and just rediscovered. apparently it was inspired by my reading of paradise lost at the time.

“As an artist of the pen I muse, and this is my blackened pride.

A dagger across my skin is my words, and though I bleed,
I weave tales for the masses.
Behold, my mind! My soul! My heart!

Before the beginning, Satan was cast unto Hell,
and this is now earth.
In the beginning, only Adam and Even and Satan inhabited this world,
and they were all.
Adam loved Eve, Eve was of Satan’s romance,
Eve loved nothing.
But she was not without sin.

Though wed unto Adam, Even claimed the seventh of unholies.
She embraced the loins of the serpent; Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer.
Of many names, many countenances, but one evil, he grasps her within his clutches.
Tempted by the fruits of lust amongst a life withstanding beyond the hereafter,
she accepts the sacrilege of her antichrist,
but acceptance is not love, nor lust.
Just acceptance, but not even that.

Sin, as God once did, engendered humanity,
displaying the perverse intercourse of Eve and Satan to Adam, to God,
and to the most wretched of creatures beneath and upon the firmament’s daughter.

The serpent, Satan, impregnated Eve with the spoils of Hell,
and the curses of humanity spewed forth from her womb and her tender thighs,
birthing those pious evils in into these unholy heavens.
Satan would later embrace these curses beyond their sins,
and he would be vanquished by piety for this.
Prior, humanity will suffer beneath Satan, bearing his wounds, his wraths, his tongue.
But still it will remain.
Stronger than Satan, stronger than its creators, stronger even than The Creator.
Piety matches only its strength, piety beyond that of The Creator.
And time passes.

As such, it imposes the eternal question.
How is the beauty of humanity drawn from the pure sin of Satan? From the pure hatred?
Humanity is beautiful beyond its curses, Satan horrid beyond his perfections.
Though timeless in its own sense, this is not for wandering minds to reveal.

Not even I, though indebted, am amongst those indebted prophets.
I have decided that the world needs not knowledge of its sins, but humanity does.
For this I will reveal them.
And I am at rest with my musings, for they will hold true to humanity,
no matter the curses of Satan.”

Photo

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:40:52 -0400

gorging myself on faust and hemingway (but mostly hemingway)

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:25:02 -0400

“last year my brother and i lived near the coast in a town that bordered a forest on the south side. every morning the sun woke us up and warmed the ocean, drawing the king mackerel fish to the surface. these fish populated the shoreline along with the chalky white boulders of the beach and at about seven every morning a group of fishermen sat patiently by the ocean with their reels cast and their hands steady. the summer lasted until the leaves began to fall to the forest floor and even before that, the mackerel had left the coastline for warmer waters.”

inspired partially by my writing out the opening paragraph of a farewell to arms in a bored attempt to learn more about hemingway’s style (writing out sections of an admired author’s works can help to learn the creative process that went into writing those sentences - try it); primarily inspired by the duality of my love for hemingway’s writing and the comfort that i have with writing in that matter-of-fact style. i might try to write a genuine short story modeled around that sort of narration.

that feeling when

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:04:17 -0400

i relate too much to the titular character in herman hesse’s siddhartha

radio playlist; 4/07/2012

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:48:11 -0400

i’m part of the radio station on my university’s campus (millersville university, pa - the station is wixq). i used to primarily play variety, but i’ve shifted more towards a genre-restricted show. in this case, i play mostly pop punk, emo, screamo, and hardcore. if anybody cares to listen (and to perhaps listen to some bands that aren’t well known but definitely should be), my current show is from 12pm-2pm every saturday. i cohost the show so i only have one of those two hours for my music (and it alternates every week), but after this semester i’m going to try to pick up a time slot of my own. to listen in, go to www.wixq.com and click on the link to listen to the online player. my playlist for this upcoming saturday is (and there are some trainees on the show right now so i only have a half hour):

american football - you know i should be leaving soon
1994! - acknowledge the rage
merchant ships - long term relationships were only cool when divorce wasn’t
midwest pen pals - bobby markos posi talk
park jefferson - a homemade portland
street smart cyclist - pastor of muppets
snowing - methuselah rookie card
spraynard - spooky, scary
the promise ring - b is for bethlehem
we were skeletons - weekend at moleman’s, pt. 2

the dharma bums

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:43:13 -0400

i finished the dharma bums last night. i was a little disappointed when i realized how short it is, but perhaps the brevity of the novel is what adds to the charm and strengthens the thematic elements. i haven’t fully formed an opinion of it yet, nor have i begun to compare it to on the road, but i definitely felt a sense of satisfaction upon finishing it. kerouac’s optimism about life and its “meaning” is very contagious. i might have to reread the novel sometime soon to explore its nuances a bit more (and isn’t that true of any novel that’s rich in both style and subtext?), but as of now i’m content in realizing that the journeys undertaken by characters within a novel don’t have to be tangible in order to be rewarding.

pop punk and kerouac

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:12:09 -0400

over the past few weeks (and, largely, over the past few months as well), my music tastes have shifted towards pop punk, emo, and hardcore. the wonder years and spraynard are two such bands that have been completely dominating my listening habits ever since spring break. this actually provides a lot of clarity for the daily situations that i find myself encountering - something about the concrete narrative quality of such bands is a huge breath of fresh air in the face of my avant-garde music habits prior to roughly a year ago.

i’m definitely not saying that one genre is better than another for any large purposes - heavens no, i’ve spent a large part of my life defending individual music habits and waving the flag of subjectivity in the face of “music snobs. my main point is that on a personal level, for myself, i’ve started to come to terms with the reality of “real life” - especially since i’m about halfway through my undergraduate career. words of encouragement from like-minded dudes help out a lot.

furthermore, i’ve also been identifying more and more with kerouac’s ideas since winter break. i’m currently delving into the dharma bums (and completely digging it, for that matter) and i plan on picking up my copy of on the road the next time i go home to reread. i’m not sure how that ties into my music tastes (although i’m sure that there’s some sort of connection there), but all i know is that life has become more enjoyable ever since i’ve started to search for my own personal connection to the ideas of like-minded people. that feeling of “community” is pretty cool.

the portable atheist, compiled by christopher hitchens

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:00:45 -0400

after roughly three months of on-and-off reading, i finally finished the portable atheist: essential readings for the nonbeliever, which is a collection of essays, excerpts and writings concerning religion, belief, atheism, and science. it was compiled by the late christopher hitchens, a journalist and somewhat notable spearhead for humanistic ideals in the face of the decidedly misanthropic climate that the modern world occasionally experiences.

prior to reading the portable atheist, i had read his main work on religion, god is not great. i found it a refreshing read following dawkins’ the god delusion, albeit rather lacking in “proof” that extended beyond merely pointing at the inconsistencies and atrocities of religion and expecting the reader to become convinced. despite this, its venomous qualities left an impression upon me. this is part of the reason why i enjoyed the portable atheist - it had an interesting blend of loathsome venom and pure reason. the variety contained within held a fair amount of promise and ultimately did not fail to deliver.

as follows, i’m going to highlight a few of my favorite selections from the book. before i do that, however, i’d like to make one important note. hitchens, no doubt, set out to “convert” people from religious thought towards a more skeptical view of the world. barring that, i’m sure that he at least desired people to question the foundations of their belief even if they are not willing to change their minds about it one way or the other (although i can’t say for certain - i’m not familiar enough with his ideologies to make any definitive remarks).

prior to starting this book, which would have been around christmas of this past year, i most likely would have called myself an atheist entirely. looking back, i feel as if i was too quick to not only divorce myself from the possibility of any sort of spiritual thought but also to antagonize religion due to its impingement upon a “rational, scientific world view.” bear in mind that this was in the middle of my immersion into the collective world of such thinkers as carl sagan, michio kaku, richard dawkins, and roger penrose. while i feel as if i can ultimately never turn to a “personal religion” to either form a basis for my morality or explain the natural world, i cannot say for certain that religious (or, at least, spiritual) thought should be antagonized as hastily as it is by some. i disagree with fundamentally anti-scientific beliefs and the process of allowing a collective doctrine to govern individual morality and ideology, but i’m not so sure that spirituality as a whole should be disregarded. interestingly enough, it was a reading of jack kerouac’s on the road that helped me to realize this, but i feel as if that’s a story for a future post. my main point is that religion, science, spirituality, and morality are not as black and white as i had previously thought. i’m beginning to realize more and more as the days pass that i’m ultimately too young to solidify a belief in anything - especially with the sparse amount of world experience that i have. life (and existence, for that matter) is too complex to be as compartmentalized as some would wish the world to be. with that, on to the highlights!

david hume - the natural history of religion, of miracles // i have fond memories of reading hume’s “dialogues concerning natural religion” for my introduction to philosophy class last year. while i knew nothing of hume’s beliefs or even who he was at the time, the structure of his arguments and his use of logic as a tool in and of itself resounded strongly with me. i was actually very surprised after having read the dialogues to learn that he wrote them in the eighteenth century; they seem very modern. hume’s excerpts within the portable atheist showcase the duality of his reasoning as it pertains to both empiricism and logical rigor. his arguments are concise and cut immediately to the point. i feel as if his arguments against the very idea of a “miracle” provide a solid foundation for rational thought in the face of mystical claims.

sigmund freud - the future of an illusion // given that i began my college career as a psychology major, i’ve been very aware of freud’s ideas over the past few years. nonetheless, i’ve never actually read anything of his - my delight with the conversational tone of his writing definitively showed me that primary sources are almost exclusively more enjoyable than any sort of summary. in “the future of an illusion,” freud targets the foundations of religion from both a sociological and a psychological standpoint, showcasing the very “human” nature of religion as a cultural phenomenon. having read this excerpt, i developed a strong interest in a sociological study of religion, which has led me to many wonderful places in my research. while i do not necessarily find freud’s ideas to provide strong convictions against religious thought, his highlights of the evidence for the cultural evolution of religion cause one to wonder wherein the future religion lies. this selection tied in well with a class that i had taken last semester, behavioral biology, as both showed me that the simple things in life are often very complex in origin and evolution. religion is no exception.

carl sagan - the god hypothesis // taken from sagan’s the varieties of scientific experience, this selection cherishes sagan’s love for truth in the face of adversity. sagan identified himself as an agnostic, which is definitely an interesting position for him to take given that he very keenly criticizes religion in “the god hypothesis” (and indeed, in the entirety of the varieties of scientific experience). if anything, his agnosticism only further expounds upon the fact that he is truly skeptical at heart. taking this subtext into account, sagan’s ideas concerning religion as an explanation for the natural world become powerful in both their scope and their depth. sagan reasons against the idea of a personal god through use of questioning and inquiry, most decidedly not staking claims where no claims can be staked. his skepticism and rational inquiry are inspirational if only because they serve as a reminder of an interesting duality - as humans, we can never know some things for certain, but also as humans, we can always ask the questions that will take us incredibly close to this knowledge.

victor stenger - god: the failed hypothesis // this is, i believe, the most scientific selection in hitchens’ compilation. as such, its ideas go beyond cultural explanations of religion and delve into scientific alternatives to the “god hypothesis.” i found some of stenger’s explanations to be fascinatingly immense (particularly his demonstration of how “something” can easily arise from “nothing”) and the strength of his ideas only served to reinforce this immensity. while i cannot claim to possess the knowledge necessary to fully understand the implications of many of his ideas, i find them to be very interesting and intellectually challenging enough to leave me wondering. while some of stenger’s ideas merely open up more questions and raise a number of possibilities, his overall attitude of scientifically approaching the question of god as an explanation for the world is one that possesses a strong quality of endurance in the face of criticism.

ayaan hirsi ali - how (and why) i became an infidel // oddly enough, i don’t have a lot to say about the last selection in the book. i’ll leave it merely at this - the personal nature of this short essay leave an impact upon me that i was unable to find in some of the more “rigorous” analyses of religion contained elsewhere in this collection and that serves to add an extra dimension to my comprehension of religion as a totality. while testimony can never replace fact or reason, it cannot be denied that religion is an inherently human phenomenon and as such, its effect upon the individual cannot be ignored.

again, this book is an interesting read and one that i would recommend to believers and nonbelievers alike. some of its writings can certainly be taken with a grain of salt, but others have the potential to leave an impression upon anybody with an open mind. while i was ultimately left with more questions left unanswered than i had before, i found the experience both illuminating and invigorating. life is, as i stated before, complex. religion is simply another reminder of that fact.

commence tumbling

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:04:00 -0400

i decided to start using tumblr because i think that its general functionality is neat and because most of the blog sites that i’ve used before were kind of lacking. i’m not even sure what i’ll be posting here, but it will be nice to look at all of the blogs that i’m interested in on one page. commence tumbling!