6 November 2007
My brother bloggers – Dave Barry and Scott Adams are two names that spring to mind – often regurgitate an amusing article from a magazine or newspaper which permits them to eschew that annoying requirement to come up with something original while still providing the required column inches.
I am the first to acknowledge that Dave and Scott are, of course, minor gods and I prostrate myself at their feet; also, they publish every day whilst I only do so when the muse kicks me in the tushy; also, they actually have readers whereas I just write this for myself, but, nonetheless ….
Don’t condemn either one of my heroes, what they do is both sensible and entertaining. Why think of something new when there may be something much more interesting that you can filch from the papers? I’d do it myself more often, expanding available personal grooming time, increasing my real world work day and generally benefiting myself all around. The problem has been this conceit that I’ve got something uniquely me inside that’s trying to make its way onto the screen.
Well, that may be so some of the time but it’s certainly not so today. I have to acknowledge that ‘New Scientist’s’ 3 November issue, page 53, has anything I can come up with beat hollow. No contest.
So, what is it that is so fascinating it has caused me to abandon a long-held policy. Turkeys, my friends, turkeys …
I was in graduate school myself for a preternaturally long time so I’m very sympathetic with Marty Schien and Eddie Hale, two early 1960’s Penn State graduate students who, I’m pretty sure, had been waaaay too long in the Nittany Valley by the time our story opens. Clearly Schien and Hale drank a lot of beer because, firstly, that’s the condition of graduate students and, secondly, no one could be sober and come up with their topic of research: turkey sex. It was 1960’s, most of the United States was still suffering a post –Eisenhower hang-over (which Marty and Eddie were cleverly able to avoid by continuing to drink beer, even after they’d come up with the subject of their research). The cold, hard reality of Vietnam hadn’t yet hit home, we were New Frontiering, Peace Corps-ing, heading for the moon and trying to get booty desperately from a sex that still hadn’t managed wide-spread adoption of the pill. So, it was a rough but deluded time. Marty and Eddie deserve our respect for their bleary-eyed navigation of those ‘National Lampoon’ years.
The circumstances behind this discovery are hidden in the mists of time but, evidently with this excess amount of time on their hands (a common condition for graduate students) and, as I’ve noted, several bottles of beer to the good, Marty and Eddie observed that horny (how did they know that?) male turkeys placed in a room with a life-like model of a female turkey demonstrated all of the intelligence of human fraternity brothers and mated with it as happily as they might have with the real thing.
Inspired by this startling result, Marty and Eddie celebrated with another couple of beers and then embarked on a series of experiments to determine the minimum stimulus it takes to excite a male turkey (I could have told them that the minimum stimulus was beer. I should also note, parenthetically, that the results are equally applicable to college students.) Their research really began to break new ground now as they removed various parts from the female turkey model, one at a time, until the male turkeys lost interest.
Tails, feet, wings – Eddie and Marty removed them all – but the still clueless birds – the record is unclear whether they might have been fed beer during the research – kept on keeping on, gobbling amorously and climbing up on the hapless model.
In the end Schien and Hale proved, and I think this is the important part, that turkeys are actually more mature and discerning than frat brothers, they eventually reduced the female to just a head on a stick with which the birds dutifully attempted to copulate. Try that with any 1960’s vintage Frat brother!
Stick with me here, this really was going on. It is scientific fact as reported in the prestigious ‘New Scientist’ that I cited above. And the results of these experiments were published in 1965 in ‘Sex and Behavior’ (which most ex-college students of the male persuasion would pay to write!).
And, let’s remember, we shouldn’t make fun of turkeys without considering our own giblets first. We humans, frat-brothers or not, have been trying to mate with all manner of things for a long time. Dave Barry has written about vacuum cleaners and Scott Adams copped something about a man convicted of having it on with his bicycle (both columns, I add, ‘borrowed’ from the original work of others). Our ‘New Scientist’ article ends up recounting the sad case of Thomas Granger, a New England teenager who, in 1642, was executed for having had sex with a turkey!
I cannot write anything more. My keyboard is wet and I need a shower.
10 November 2007
The Omnopticon ...
4 November 2007
‘Omnopticon’
I sat bolt upright this morning – around 4 AM. This was either because I was having a eureka moment or the pizza I had for dinner was repeating; either way, the word/invention ‘omnopticon’ came to me out of the blue. I had been thinking about ways to get more readers and it hit me that Sweik’s Anabasis was probably not the most common referent for what I was trying to do with it. Like a lot of other lazy people, I use my blog to express shallow opinions and relate short histories; it allows me to set down unthought-through opinions about any topic that my dilettantish mind flits over without really having to break a sweat.
And those things I write about tend to be pretty varied – whatever passes in front of either my physical or mind’s eye. Of course, in the case of the former, I mean my ‘eyes’, I’ve still got two of those. This does raise an interesting question as to whether schizoids have two or more mind’s eyes and another about non-schizoids: are they a sort of mental Cyclops because they’ve only got one eye? I’m digressing here, aren’t I?
Anyway, this multiple streams-of-consciousness approach to putting it out there ought to have a single word to describe it, no? And that’s when ‘omnopticon’ came to me.
So, like any semi-literate denizen of the century, I googled it but found only one use of the term by Jeffrey Rosen in a 2004 book that I’ve got to read within the next decade or so. Intriguingly called ‘The Naked Crowd. Reclaiming security and freedom in an anxious age’ (New York: Random House, 2004), he is apparently, and among other things, worrying that the Age of Google is going to result in not the panopticon where authority can see all but the omnopticon where everyone can see everything.
I think I can better that definition: omnopticon is a place from where everyone can see everything and, indeed, has the freedom to look in all those places. Because it’s a concept rather than a physical place, the omnopticon must be virtual, not real; you can’t be in all those places at once.
So, can I link ‘Anabasis’ and ‘Omnopticon’? Perhaps so. In Jaroslav Hasek’s book, ‘The Good Soldier Sweik’, despite his brilliant, single-minded and endlessly inventive obtuseness, the protagonist eventually has to go off to the war. It is at this point that his anabasis begins.
Sweik goes left, he goes right, he goes north, south, in circles, backwards and, occasionally, forward but every single step is directed at keeping him from being shot. The anabasis is, indeed, a wander around without a map and, hence, its seeming randomness. But, at a deeper level, the trip is an ‘omnopticon’ because it allows Sweik to see (and show us) the futility of that war and the absurdness of the society that is trying to get him into that conflict from a variety of angles. The chaotic nature of the anabasis is actually a way of finding logic and pattern in the world; it gives Sweik an omnopticonic view which enables him to confirm his own instinctive view that the war is insane and, therefore, he’d be nuts to go along with those who want to get him shot in it. The only rational response is the anabasis. But you can’t tell those others that’s what you are doing, they wouldn’t understand, they haven’t got/found an omnopticon (begins to sound like something tangible, doesn’t it? Like a small metal contraption you carry around in your briefcase and pull out from time to time in order to help you figure out where you are. It could be a sort of philosophical sextant, couldn’t it?).
I didn’t really set out to write about ‘The Good Soldier Sweik’ but I did want to fool around with the word ‘omnopticon’.
Let me try the definition again: ‘omnopticon’ is a place from where you can distinguish the patterns behind seeming random, chaotic reality; the omnopticon is a Picasso-like way of looking at the world. It’s a virtual philosophical instrument that permits you to be in that place where you can make those multiple observations from multiple angles. We’ve all seen those works where Picasso tries to show the interior of his subject by painting two dimensional views of the figure from several angles, thereby giving us three-dimensions in a two-dimensional medium. The omnopticon allows you to see the world out there from all angles (or at least from a lot of them) but, it also allows everyone else (and everything else) to see you. I’m positive that the world out there that you are looking at is not reality because that has to be the result of how you interpret what you see; as Richard Rorty says, there is no such thing as objective truth. So, the omnopticon is one tool that gives you the opportunity to create your own truth from the sum of multiple observations (including observations by others and yourself of you). I wonder also if it might require wine for lubrication?
You may not be able to make much of my definition but it makes some sense to me. That may be because I had to struggle through trying to set it down in a comprehensible manner. Reread the above and tell me if you think I’ve done any good. Or, just have a glass of lubrication.
‘Omnopticon’
I sat bolt upright this morning – around 4 AM. This was either because I was having a eureka moment or the pizza I had for dinner was repeating; either way, the word/invention ‘omnopticon’ came to me out of the blue. I had been thinking about ways to get more readers and it hit me that Sweik’s Anabasis was probably not the most common referent for what I was trying to do with it. Like a lot of other lazy people, I use my blog to express shallow opinions and relate short histories; it allows me to set down unthought-through opinions about any topic that my dilettantish mind flits over without really having to break a sweat.
And those things I write about tend to be pretty varied – whatever passes in front of either my physical or mind’s eye. Of course, in the case of the former, I mean my ‘eyes’, I’ve still got two of those. This does raise an interesting question as to whether schizoids have two or more mind’s eyes and another about non-schizoids: are they a sort of mental Cyclops because they’ve only got one eye? I’m digressing here, aren’t I?
Anyway, this multiple streams-of-consciousness approach to putting it out there ought to have a single word to describe it, no? And that’s when ‘omnopticon’ came to me.
So, like any semi-literate denizen of the century, I googled it but found only one use of the term by Jeffrey Rosen in a 2004 book that I’ve got to read within the next decade or so. Intriguingly called ‘The Naked Crowd. Reclaiming security and freedom in an anxious age’ (New York: Random House, 2004), he is apparently, and among other things, worrying that the Age of Google is going to result in not the panopticon where authority can see all but the omnopticon where everyone can see everything.
I think I can better that definition: omnopticon is a place from where everyone can see everything and, indeed, has the freedom to look in all those places. Because it’s a concept rather than a physical place, the omnopticon must be virtual, not real; you can’t be in all those places at once.
So, can I link ‘Anabasis’ and ‘Omnopticon’? Perhaps so. In Jaroslav Hasek’s book, ‘The Good Soldier Sweik’, despite his brilliant, single-minded and endlessly inventive obtuseness, the protagonist eventually has to go off to the war. It is at this point that his anabasis begins.
Sweik goes left, he goes right, he goes north, south, in circles, backwards and, occasionally, forward but every single step is directed at keeping him from being shot. The anabasis is, indeed, a wander around without a map and, hence, its seeming randomness. But, at a deeper level, the trip is an ‘omnopticon’ because it allows Sweik to see (and show us) the futility of that war and the absurdness of the society that is trying to get him into that conflict from a variety of angles. The chaotic nature of the anabasis is actually a way of finding logic and pattern in the world; it gives Sweik an omnopticonic view which enables him to confirm his own instinctive view that the war is insane and, therefore, he’d be nuts to go along with those who want to get him shot in it. The only rational response is the anabasis. But you can’t tell those others that’s what you are doing, they wouldn’t understand, they haven’t got/found an omnopticon (begins to sound like something tangible, doesn’t it? Like a small metal contraption you carry around in your briefcase and pull out from time to time in order to help you figure out where you are. It could be a sort of philosophical sextant, couldn’t it?).
I didn’t really set out to write about ‘The Good Soldier Sweik’ but I did want to fool around with the word ‘omnopticon’.
Let me try the definition again: ‘omnopticon’ is a place from where you can distinguish the patterns behind seeming random, chaotic reality; the omnopticon is a Picasso-like way of looking at the world. It’s a virtual philosophical instrument that permits you to be in that place where you can make those multiple observations from multiple angles. We’ve all seen those works where Picasso tries to show the interior of his subject by painting two dimensional views of the figure from several angles, thereby giving us three-dimensions in a two-dimensional medium. The omnopticon allows you to see the world out there from all angles (or at least from a lot of them) but, it also allows everyone else (and everything else) to see you. I’m positive that the world out there that you are looking at is not reality because that has to be the result of how you interpret what you see; as Richard Rorty says, there is no such thing as objective truth. So, the omnopticon is one tool that gives you the opportunity to create your own truth from the sum of multiple observations (including observations by others and yourself of you). I wonder also if it might require wine for lubrication?
You may not be able to make much of my definition but it makes some sense to me. That may be because I had to struggle through trying to set it down in a comprehensible manner. Reread the above and tell me if you think I’ve done any good. Or, just have a glass of lubrication.
Vinculated sintonia ...
3 November 2007
Another Saturday night and how I wish I had someone to talk to …
There is a certain ‘sintonia’ to the past couple of weekends. I’m not sure what the English word for ‘sintonia’ is; I’m pretty sure it’s right out there just beyond the edge of my mind. ‘Sintonia’ is another word like ‘vinculado’, one of those words that should exist in English but doesn’t …quite.
Things are linked but that isn’t quite the same as ‘vinculado’; there’s a degree of connection that ‘vinculado’ implies that is far more than a mere link.
But, as always, I’ve digressed. Somewhere back there I was trying to talk about the ‘sintonia’ between this Saturday night and the last. If I recall the last one, I was seated here, my computer in my lap, ruminating on the shallow vacuous-ness of evenings spent with empty minded people eating over cooked and tasteless food with over-priced wine and watered-down cocktails (at least that’s what I was thinking about). I was, if I recall, singing the praises of creative loneliness. A far more entertaining and constructive way to spend you time than engaging in empty verbal trivialisation about superficialities.
[Wow! I really do sound bitter, don’t I? Perhaps it’s time for the wife to finish sorting out her Mother and the rest of the family in Taiwan and come on back before I fold up into some sour old cynic?]
There’s really no point to ‘sintonia’ here – it gave me a chance to parade a bit of language knowledge, to write smarter than I speak, think or, sadly, am.
Of course, now I’ve given the game away. I just created the opportunity to use ‘sintonia’ and ‘vinculado’. But, wait, maybe there is something to be gotten out of all this, maybe there’s a way to rationalise the time I’ve spent writing this crap and you’ve spent reading this dross? … Yep, I think there is! And this is what it is:
You need to recognise links in life. ‘Vinculation’ is important. ‘Sintonia’ is also important. It helps you to recognise patterns and make a picture, to put things together (to ‘vinculate’ them if you will).
Another Saturday night and how I wish I had someone to talk to …
There is a certain ‘sintonia’ to the past couple of weekends. I’m not sure what the English word for ‘sintonia’ is; I’m pretty sure it’s right out there just beyond the edge of my mind. ‘Sintonia’ is another word like ‘vinculado’, one of those words that should exist in English but doesn’t …quite.
Things are linked but that isn’t quite the same as ‘vinculado’; there’s a degree of connection that ‘vinculado’ implies that is far more than a mere link.
But, as always, I’ve digressed. Somewhere back there I was trying to talk about the ‘sintonia’ between this Saturday night and the last. If I recall the last one, I was seated here, my computer in my lap, ruminating on the shallow vacuous-ness of evenings spent with empty minded people eating over cooked and tasteless food with over-priced wine and watered-down cocktails (at least that’s what I was thinking about). I was, if I recall, singing the praises of creative loneliness. A far more entertaining and constructive way to spend you time than engaging in empty verbal trivialisation about superficialities.
[Wow! I really do sound bitter, don’t I? Perhaps it’s time for the wife to finish sorting out her Mother and the rest of the family in Taiwan and come on back before I fold up into some sour old cynic?]
There’s really no point to ‘sintonia’ here – it gave me a chance to parade a bit of language knowledge, to write smarter than I speak, think or, sadly, am.
Of course, now I’ve given the game away. I just created the opportunity to use ‘sintonia’ and ‘vinculado’. But, wait, maybe there is something to be gotten out of all this, maybe there’s a way to rationalise the time I’ve spent writing this crap and you’ve spent reading this dross? … Yep, I think there is! And this is what it is:
You need to recognise links in life. ‘Vinculation’ is important. ‘Sintonia’ is also important. It helps you to recognise patterns and make a picture, to put things together (to ‘vinculate’ them if you will).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)