Monthly Archives: October 2006

“Closing-piece,” Rainer Maria Rilke

Closing-piece Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. me) Death is great. We are His laughing mouths. If we mean ourselves in the middle of life, he dares to cry out in the middle of us. Notes: 1. “His” is how I am translating Seinen, which is capitalized in the German. “Wir sind die Seinen / lachenden Munds.”

South Park, Equality, and Power

I recently saw the episode of South Park entitled “Make Love, not Warcraft” (h/t Kishore) and found it very funny and also very true. Online gaming does suffer from those who accumulate too much power and find themselves bored with it. – The artificial intelligence of computer enemies is very dumb, because of how intricate

Clarifying the "Crushes" Post

This post is a bit too harsh in tone, and Josh’s comment is exactly right – true love can be conceived as a perpetual crush, and can be made lasting through such a conception. I personally have said that it doesn’t matter why one falls in love, what matters is what we do with that.

Football Outsiders on NFL Retirees

This article discusses the plight of many NFL greats of yesteryear. I left a comment in the thread below a link to this article, after reading several comments that said other professions don’t have it as well as the NFL, and one comment that suggested the retired players didn’t spend their money wisely at all

Mind & Heart

Usually at times like these, I have a very numb feeling, like the heart has collapsed upon itself and I am unwelcome in my own body. This time around, something else is happening. I don’t feel bad in any part of my body – in fact, I feel free from concern. It’s my head that’s

Attempting

I am more diligent in attempting to do work, and some work is getting done, but nowhere near enough. Should I be grateful that I feel thoughtful right now, that I feel like I’m about to reach some new insights that I hadn’t had before?

On Pound’s "In a Station of the Metro"

In a Station of the Metro Ezra Pound The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Commentary: I used to think the speaker of this poem was on a subway car in the Metro, flying by Metro stops and seeing the crowd beside the car. The movement would cause

Let’s Just Say Classical Music Is Dead, And Be Honest

Here’s a load of b.s. Just because technology is making possible a collection of fine-arts performances that could not exist before doesn’t mean we’re not in severe cultural decline because of technology. When you have synthesizers and sound effects, why play piano and Brahms? Why go perform blues guitar live when you can lip sync

Crushes? In Our 20′s?

You would think as we approach 30 the issue of “having a crush on someone” would be moot. After all, that’s only something that happens to children, right? – Only children get totally taken with how someone presents themselves. – Well, last night I was talking to someone I consider very mature and he was