I'm trying to send posts to this blog from a variety of sources, but for some reason it's not working. The curious thing is that it worked before and I've done nothing to change it. I did notice that some methods 'expired' with the excuse that permissions were no longer set (likely because of cookies, though I haven't checked). Anyway, I thought I'd try a normal, old-fashioned post to see how it comes out.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Violence of Theory and Practice
There are natural forces in the construction of an ideal that influence every belief system, whether that system is religion, political ideology or simply guideline and policy. There must be some form held pure and guided so that there may be a practice, which will invariably mutate into species that will be denounced and rejected by the body of proponency for the original ideal.
The reason for this duality is that some rationale must exist for the formulation of individual components, all of which must unite to form a virtually seamless whole. Both the wholeness and the seamlessness are illusory, a necessary feature that makes the finished product appear as though conceived in completeness as a "brainchild" like a Mozart Symphony. But to the human mind, credibility is a function of this pristine and inviolable condition, the immaculate conception of every great notion.
There will be a form of "practice" in the field, though, that will be gritty and rude, with all the features of a creature that evolves with a need to survive. The ideal will be adapted to match the character of the terrain in which this belief system must live. In arrid climes, it will retain a freshness that soothes the organs and organisms which it supports, where it is cold, it will provide warmth; where there is little stimulation the belief system will produce characteristics that nourish its subscribers.
The guardians of purity will assume one stance, defending the delicate crystalline suspension of frozen time wherein the kernel was originally conceived, and the staunch practitioners will fight for the species whose familiarity and comfort has sustained them through its adaptation to their applications. There will be the variety for the hunter-gatherers and nomads, there will be a form for the agrarian populations and the rooted settlers, there will be a rendition for the maritime cultures and any sufficiently advanced idea will shape itself around all other forms of practice where it can be applied.
In the way of example, if gardening were a religion, in some location where it is respected, there will be a central shrine: The location of this shrine itself may be a contested element because each population will want to own the source of its power, appoint its leaders and create its priesthooods. There will be an inevitable schism between the disparate bodies and the ways in which they communicate, which is also subject to weather and the demands of every cover type.
But let us say that one meditative capital where a gardening shrine is built might be London, where there would likely be an enormous Cathedral where claws, seeders and fertilizers surround a great golden trowel, a symbol in which so much value is invested that armed guards will be assigned to protect it and the social taboos against besmirching it will make hainous crimes of any offense that is an indication of disrespect for the great golden trowel.
The guardians of the ideal will surround the shrine and try to associate themselves with it both physically and intellectually: This is not to say that they are insincere; one must remember that the great golden trowel is not only the bread and butter of the gardening religion. The Great Golden Trowel will be a symbol of purity and goodness, poem and song will laud its virtues in a culture where great works of art are dedicated to it.
But the staunch practitioners will be the gardeners, whose tools are worn and bent, covered in the soil where they labor; this species of thought made pure through labor, this form embued with sanctity through habit and practice; the gardeners will adapt themselves to every conceivable environment where they may cultivate great stems and stalks or protect moss and lichens on some craggy cliff. The rituals will be specific to their needs and considered indispensible and necessary to all practitioners, whether it applies to their form of gardening or not. While the hallowed halls in London are polished to translucence, the implements in Mississippi will endearingly worn by the habits of the hands that manipulate them, filthy with the mud of whatever swamp or bog nourishes the flower of their art.
So when any religion, political ideology or policy grows to its production capacity, there will be a battle between those who tried to preserve its holy original form and those who manage its blessed gritty application. War is often inevitable: Humanity is characteristically poor at seeing its particular individual and social adaptations to the elements which limit them, and far more suited to a glorification of the attributes of its own practice that acknowledge the superiority of its sector of influence over the common "metademands" under which they must grunt and sweat. Their practice may be guided by weather, but it will not be the same weather; their habits may be formed by their terrain, the same Earth, but a different face thereof.
Somewhere in the midst of all this is the problem of communication: Occasionally understanding is achieved, however rare. While a certain basic symbology is agreed upon, there will be many varying interpretations that will confuse both priest and layperson alike: "Why must we examine every detai?" they will ask, "Is the trowel not universal?" The symbols of the discipline, the icon or the word is invested with meaning: With every practitioner, different semantics will be applied to the canon of the gardening religion.
In this struggle between purity and application, between theory and practice, whether acknowledged or denied by the body politic, there will be a point where principle is held above human life, and human life will fare very poorly. First it will be the individual, the sinner, the one who insults the trowel by the manner of his/her grasp, the force applied to the point or even whether there is a point to the trowel. Where there is one violator, there are associates, sympathizers, cohorts, organizers, dissenters and they will all eventually be prosecuted.
Everything is a matter of faith: We are born, we live, die and murder in accordance with our beliefs. For each of us there is a separate metric for purity and corruption but there will be some measures held pure and guided so that there may be a practice, which will invariably mutate into forms that will be denounced and rejected by the body of proponency for the original ideal.
The reason for this duality is that some rationale must exist for the formulation of individual components, all of which must unite to form a virtually seamless whole. Both the wholeness and the seamlessness are illusory, a necessary feature that makes the finished product appear as though conceived in completeness as a "brainchild" like a Mozart Symphony. But to the human mind, credibility is a function of this pristine and inviolable condition, the immaculate conception of every great notion.
There will be a form of "practice" in the field, though, that will be gritty and rude, with all the features of a creature that evolves with a need to survive. The ideal will be adapted to match the character of the terrain in which this belief system must live. In arrid climes, it will retain a freshness that soothes the organs and organisms which it supports, where it is cold, it will provide warmth; where there is little stimulation the belief system will produce characteristics that nourish its subscribers.
The guardians of purity will assume one stance, defending the delicate crystalline suspension of frozen time wherein the kernel was originally conceived, and the staunch practitioners will fight for the species whose familiarity and comfort has sustained them through its adaptation to their applications. There will be the variety for the hunter-gatherers and nomads, there will be a form for the agrarian populations and the rooted settlers, there will be a rendition for the maritime cultures and any sufficiently advanced idea will shape itself around all other forms of practice where it can be applied.
In the way of example, if gardening were a religion, in some location where it is respected, there will be a central shrine: The location of this shrine itself may be a contested element because each population will want to own the source of its power, appoint its leaders and create its priesthooods. There will be an inevitable schism between the disparate bodies and the ways in which they communicate, which is also subject to weather and the demands of every cover type.
But let us say that one meditative capital where a gardening shrine is built might be London, where there would likely be an enormous Cathedral where claws, seeders and fertilizers surround a great golden trowel, a symbol in which so much value is invested that armed guards will be assigned to protect it and the social taboos against besmirching it will make hainous crimes of any offense that is an indication of disrespect for the great golden trowel.
The guardians of the ideal will surround the shrine and try to associate themselves with it both physically and intellectually: This is not to say that they are insincere; one must remember that the great golden trowel is not only the bread and butter of the gardening religion. The Great Golden Trowel will be a symbol of purity and goodness, poem and song will laud its virtues in a culture where great works of art are dedicated to it.
But the staunch practitioners will be the gardeners, whose tools are worn and bent, covered in the soil where they labor; this species of thought made pure through labor, this form embued with sanctity through habit and practice; the gardeners will adapt themselves to every conceivable environment where they may cultivate great stems and stalks or protect moss and lichens on some craggy cliff. The rituals will be specific to their needs and considered indispensible and necessary to all practitioners, whether it applies to their form of gardening or not. While the hallowed halls in London are polished to translucence, the implements in Mississippi will endearingly worn by the habits of the hands that manipulate them, filthy with the mud of whatever swamp or bog nourishes the flower of their art.
So when any religion, political ideology or policy grows to its production capacity, there will be a battle between those who tried to preserve its holy original form and those who manage its blessed gritty application. War is often inevitable: Humanity is characteristically poor at seeing its particular individual and social adaptations to the elements which limit them, and far more suited to a glorification of the attributes of its own practice that acknowledge the superiority of its sector of influence over the common "metademands" under which they must grunt and sweat. Their practice may be guided by weather, but it will not be the same weather; their habits may be formed by their terrain, the same Earth, but a different face thereof.
Somewhere in the midst of all this is the problem of communication: Occasionally understanding is achieved, however rare. While a certain basic symbology is agreed upon, there will be many varying interpretations that will confuse both priest and layperson alike: "Why must we examine every detai?" they will ask, "Is the trowel not universal?" The symbols of the discipline, the icon or the word is invested with meaning: With every practitioner, different semantics will be applied to the canon of the gardening religion.
In this struggle between purity and application, between theory and practice, whether acknowledged or denied by the body politic, there will be a point where principle is held above human life, and human life will fare very poorly. First it will be the individual, the sinner, the one who insults the trowel by the manner of his/her grasp, the force applied to the point or even whether there is a point to the trowel. Where there is one violator, there are associates, sympathizers, cohorts, organizers, dissenters and they will all eventually be prosecuted.
Everything is a matter of faith: We are born, we live, die and murder in accordance with our beliefs. For each of us there is a separate metric for purity and corruption but there will be some measures held pure and guided so that there may be a practice, which will invariably mutate into forms that will be denounced and rejected by the body of proponency for the original ideal.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Do you think Watson will win on Jeopardy or do you think man will triumph over machine?
I don't think man wants it badly enough, and Watson is unable to want it. He'd better stop those senior moments, though, before IBM starts losing contracts.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
x22;Cupid" (1998) - IMDb user reviews
0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Cancellation a bad move?, 20 July 2006
Author: Ernie Cordell (ernie.cordell@cdumail.com) from Washington, DC, USA
While I feel that my impressions of this work is generally aligned with the other proponents of its continuation, I would largely omit many of the superlatives praising its art, performance and collection of virtues.
I don't mean to attack the show in my criticism, I'd just like to try the understated defense of that collection of virtues. In doing so, I'd like to try to guess why it was cancelled. Sponsorship strikes me first and foremost: I would guess that whatever it was supposed to be selling, it didn't hit the market demographic or some other equally enlightening pseudoscientific ratings language. This strikes me of the sort of industry error that one might compare to pitching to one person and charging another. If you make a show that a lot of people seem to like, it doesn't make sense to complain that it doesn't sell enough lawn-mowers to the 50+ crowd; or maybe it's just me.
A more legitimate reason might seem to be that the show relied too heavily on the bubbly babbling of the Jeremy Piven character(s). It might seem, from a production viewpoint, that it would be too difficult to sustain that Dolly-Madison-a-la-Streisand tenor over a series of a number of shows. While part of me says, "While the people are still watching, who cares?" but my realistic side says that we do have to predict the future when we write, produce, direct and play in performance art. Further complicating the idea of sustaining the expected tension is the notion of suspending disbelief or finally deciding whether our "Cupid" is a Greek God or someone with a personality disorder.
Maybe one of the things that the show failed to accomplish is its intent that was reflected in an episode of the series "Bewitched" about a witch, in this case, who conjures up Benjamin Franklin. Evidently the disbelieving public of that imaginary world were ready to commit poor Benny until witch Samantha Stevens steps in to defend Franklin's antics as "reminders of Benjamin Franklin's great deeds" whether he were a counterfeit Benjamin or not. While difficult to sustain throughout a series, a previous incarnation of "Relationship Rescue" might be to pay attention to a present-day interpretation of another, possibly slower-moving civilization's attitudes toward love and romance.
Whether a real "Cupid" or "Eros" would espouse the sanitized semi-serious sitcom alternative to pop psychology relationship advice is rather immaterial. After all, it is not a serious contrast of 20th century head-shrinking against Golden-Age Grecian attitudes on romance, it is an appeal to look at issues we consider agonizingly complex and idealize them into a simplicity we can digest. An irony that may have been lost on a big part of the audience is that this is both a goal of "science" and the more "holistic" approaches reflected in the modernized presentation of a Greek God's practical common sense.
Was it a bad move to cancel the show? I believe it was -- not so much because it was such stunningly good art -- but maybe because it could have been if effort were given to sustaining the mood and supporting the premise. If I might make a bad and clichéd comparison, it is as though the advice on romance were wholly missed by those who originally promoted it: They loved it enough to commit in the beginning, but they lacked the perspicacity to dedicate time and effort to solving the problems that may have plagued it in some projected future.
The pathology reminds me of current publishing policies: A good story told well isn't enough; we want the name recognition up front so that we don't have to cultivate a good thing.
38 reviews in totalRelated Links
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via imdb.com
Monday, February 07, 2011
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