What I Learned During the Week of January 22-28

(this post was written by Kyle on January 27, 2006, and it concerns & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & )

Last Friday, I introduced a new feature here on Fluid Imagination called . The Gobbledygook posts are a catch-all for the things I’ve learned over the past week. So, why don’t we get started?

Here’s what I learned this week…

  1. …from moving pictures:
    • That the tragedy of is not that he was killed, but that he was killed only after having experienced the power of diversity. After fighting so long for a back to Africa movement, which is akin to admitting that there is no solution to racism but separation of the races, he traveled to Mecca and, among Arabs, Africans, and Europeans, Malcolm X realized that skin color is not important to the only judge who matters. With such an awakening and his natural charisma, Malcolm X could have done not just a lot for African-Americans in this country, but he could have done a lot for all of us.
    • That it wasn’t Jennifer Tilly who was in the Big Chill, but her sister, . I always wondered how such a delicate looking woman could become the visual force that is . But now it turns out she doesn’t. She simply exists as a whole other person.
    • That neither a fine cast, which includes Eric Stoltz, Parker Posey, and Joey Lauren Adams, nor the helping hand of Quentin Tarantino on the script can save a piece of shit film such as .
    • That it doesn’t even matter that they don’t make smart television anymore. Over 15 years after it originally aired, can still be one of the smartest shows on my television.
    • That thanks to the wonderful invention of BitTorrent, even those of us without cable can understand why is quickly becoming the funniest person on TV today; what’s more, BitTorrent also helps us remember that his friend and producer, , isn’t going down without a fight.
    • That as scary as she may look, is still a funny broad; and that Bob Saget might be one of the funniest people on the planet.
    • That while even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked, he also has to send people to their death, which is why not just anybody should work in the Oval Office. Just .
  2. …from books:
    • That by four and half months, a baby “can tell” that 1+1 = 2 and that 2-1 = 1; that rats, chimpanzees, raccoons, parrots, and pigeons have numerical capabilities; and that these two things together begin to explain , specifically, it comes from the way our bodies interact with the world. This may not seem like a big deal, but you gotta remember that ever since the Pythagorus, we’ve pretty much conceived math as something that is not contingent upon anything. If Lakoff and Nunez are right — and they make a convincing case –, then everything we’ve ever thought about the foundational nature of math has to be reconceived.
    • That the death of the novel does not mean the death of literature, the end of literature; instead, it means a rebirth of writing, a liberation of writing from the prison of the narrative. This doesn’t have to mean pretentious writing, writing that can’t be understood except in the ivory tower of the university mind. It can also mean that examine the heart that is common to all.
    • That even a genius has trouble engaging another genius. I’ve been unsuccessful in my attempt to respond to Levinas’ without uncritically depending upon the metaphors he uses to build his argument. I began to get pretty frustrated, and so I picked up Derrida’s essay on Levinas (which you can find in ) to get some ideas. Then I came across a footnote where Derrida confessed that he too was having trouble addressing Levinas’ terms without falling prey to the metaphorical structures they necessitate, and I felt a little better about my trouble.
    • That, according to , any metaphysical system must address the basic concepts of time, events, causation, the mind, the self, and morality. Whether this is true doesn’t matter to me, because what it does is give me a boundary, a limit, a scope, and a horizon for my long-ass senior study paper, which, if all goes well, will be my attempt at an original metaphysical system. If I only have to address these six concepts, that’s about 1038 less concepts than I imagined. Should save me some pages.
    • That sometimes even a chair can show you the light at the end of .
    • That words that are almost 250 years old can still be funny and thought-provoking, and can make you reconsider what it means to be human. What’s even cooler is when the ideas I read in Montesquieu’s turn up in Levinas’ , specifically, the notion that humans don’t stop being animals and become human until religion enters their lives — that is, that it is only our recognition of the infinite that moves us to be moral.
  3. …from the web:
    • That interesting things happen
    • That is oh-so-much better than I originally thought, and that it even beats out Slashdot in its effect on the number of visitors it can bring to your site.
    • That everyone realizes the hierarchical structure of organizations suck, but that very few people know what form should take.
    • That in the Oscar race of 1992, Al Pacino’s performance in Scent of A Woman, which was arguably the beginning of the end of Pacino’s acting skills, beat out Denzel Washington’s performance in Malcolm X, which was unarguably better than his Oscar-winning performance in Training Day.
    • That nobody makes good templates for , the word-processor/consumer-level desktop publishing application in Apple’s iWork suite. As part of a class this semester, I need to layout a small monthly newspaper. I hoped to create it in Pages because, once the template it set up, it seems like it might be the easiest thing for me to use. But I can’t find a freakin’ template for it! Contrary to what web-sites might tell you, there doesn’t seem to be an iWork community. Apple really should manage user-created templates itself, like it manages the user-created widgets for Dashboard.
    • That at least one other person besides me has the Garageband songs of my girlfriend on their computer.
    • That, since February 18th, I’ve listened to Wilco more than I’ve listened to Bob Dylan, which is so strange as to just about blow my mind.
    • That screen shots from videogames now come in 3-D.
    • That I’m not color blind.
    • That there’s no guarantee that I would recognize a she-male if (s)he was hitting on me.
    • That there still aren’t any truly interesting rumors going around about Leopard, the next version of Apple’s OS X.
    • That there are so many developers out there (here are two that I’ve worked with: 1 & 2) who are more than willing to listen to their users’ feedback on their software, and that this very fact is what stands in the way of Heidegger’s fear about the essence of technology.
    • That there’s a better reason to think that there are other Earth-like planets out there.
    • That there is such a thing as recyclable camera tripods.
    • That anyone can have their own flickr logo.
    • That galaxies are beautiful when you’ve got cool cameras like the Hubble.
    • That even Jews got their own vibe. Their own JVibe, that is.
    • That Santa Fe is looking better and better to me.
    • That a cold bedroom doesn’t have to make it uncomfortable to read when you’ve got a .
    • That there are actually some pretty good recipes on the web site (that’s Classico, as in the pasta sauce).
    • That, despite the cancellation of its publication many years ago, is available on the web…for free!
    • That flickr has its own “Name that tune”-like game, and its name is .
    • That there are a lot of good quotes on democracy.
  4. …from the real world:
    • That people who you’ve written off as unengaged with the world can turn around and surprise you with some rather insightful comments on 250-year-old texts
    • That people who may be too shy in class can sometimes have incredibly complex things to say when you give them the opportunity to post their ideas to a class blog
    • That a little thing like Super Smash Brothers Melee can really alter the entire way you look at the world…by which I mean, it can make you stop looking at the world and focus on nothing but kicking the shit out of Luigi, Pikachu, and Link, otherwise known as “your best friends.”
    • Chicken Alfredo is sticky.
    • That girlfriends really appreciate it when you do all the chores before they even wake up in the morning.

    And I think that’s it this week.