intellectual properties

you are what you love

When we do what we love, again and again, our life comes to hold the fragrance of that thing. When we hold something in our hands day after day, our hands conform to the shape of what we have held. We become what we have cared for our lives are shaped by what we love….With our every action, word, relationship, and commitment, we slowly and inevitably become what we love.

-from prince gomolvilas’ how to beat the wintertime blues

everybody knows the fight is fixed the poor stay poor and the rich get rich

http://www.theplaceswelive.com/

The Places We Live features panoramic photos of slums, narrated by the people who live there (through translators). Really really engrossing. To access the stories in the restricting Flash interface, skip the intro, click on a city, and then on one of the households in the upper left corner.

~via kottke

all the press about Slumdog Millionaire has created a lot of awareness about the slums abroad, which is great, but what about poverty here in america? last night, jay and i watched “Brother’s Keeper“, a documentary about the murder trial of a poor illiterate farmer from upstate NY. it was one of the most heartbreaking, and heartwarming, things i’ve seen in a really long time. i literally ACHED watching this film. related to the website about slums because these 3 farming brothers lived, in the 1990s, without water or heat in a shack on their delapidated family farm, all sleeping in one bed, and when the murder trial hit the news, no one could believe that they lived that way, right here in America. the footage of the news coverage of the way these men lived is downright degrading, painting a sort of “Deliverance” picture of the brothers and their community, not to mention the treatment by the D.A., who basically accused them of being monsters and deviants. there are slums in america too; maybe not as sprawling or populated as Mumbai or Jakarta, but there are places in this country where people live their whole lives without ever having enough to eat, or sleep 3 to a bed, or only own one pair of filthy pants. “hillbillies”, sometimes they’re called, but as this movie shows, in modern america, outside of the visibly homeless in our streets, the impoverished are usually ignored and marginalized to the point that most people don’t even believe they exist.

i also recently watched Reel Paradise, about an american family that moves to poverty-stricken Fiji and opens up a free movie theatre. the movie gets a little tedious, but i think portrays the lessons of being the “rich white people” in a impoverished community, as well as reflections on what it means to be rich or poor in this world.

all of these things make me both incredibly grateful for all that i have, but also incredibly sad that there are so many suffering, and the numbers just keep growing every day, usually due to the rich trying to get richer.

however, unlike in Slumdog, where poverty is portrayed as obviously oppressive, in both Brother’s Keeper and Reel Paradise, there is also a questioning, an implication, that maybe the simpler life isn’t so bad, and maybe being poor shouldn’t be equated with being unhappy.

edwardian

mr. nightshade’s photos from the edwardian ball on saturday night are up.

certainly this is not meant as a disparagement toward those who curated/produced the show and did an amazing job (the displays were very cool!! and i did like the music, just not for a live standing-room-only performance), but, for me…..dressing up was 90+% of the fun. i got coiffed with a great group of ladies and we were very excited and had loads of fun getting all stuffed into our corsets and putting on our gorey accoutremonts. but once we got there……i didn’t realize it was going to be such a “see and be seen” scene. lots of standing around. not much activity. i guess that’s what happens when costuming and drinking are the major focus. or maybe i just wasn’t in the mood. everyone else seemed to be having a pleasant time.

in any case:

elsewhere, USA

some of you might remember that i interned at the Breakthrough Institute (http://www.thebreakthrough.org) last year for 6 months, and i really can’t speak highly enough of their work and their drive and their vision. Breakthrough Senior Fellow and NYU chair of Sociology, Dalton Conley, is speaking about his new book tomorrow in Berkeley. $10, but it is more than a book signing and should be really interesting.

“Thriving in Elsewhere USA”
“A Conversation With One of America’s Greatest Living Sociologists.”
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: First Congregational Church of Berkeley
Street: 2345 Channing Way
City/Town: Berkeley, CA

For decades society has changed, but our social and economic policy hasn’t kept up. We live differently, work differently, and raise our children differently today than ever before, but our social contract with the government dates back to the 1930s and 1960s.

In a groundbreaking new book that Publishers Weekly has already called “prescient” — Elsewhere, USA: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety — Breakthrough Senior Fellow and NYU Professor Dalton Conley offers a new look at how the technological, social, and economic changes that have reshaped the world are also reshaping our daily lives – and what this means for a new social contract for the 21st century….

>>>>>

Welcome to Elsewhere, USA, where the American individual has become extinct. Acclaimed sociologist Dalton Conley looks closely at a population of intraviduals – fractured people who struggle to juggle professional, familial, and personal pursuits. Gone are the days when professionals could count on clearly-defined work days with the same company for twenty years, and clearly defined roles within the family to come home to. Instead, today’s citizens of Elsewhere must try to satisfy their various selves simultaneously. By examining three arenas – economic, familial, and technological – Conley is able to illustrate how we have all become inhabitants of Elsewhere, where division between home and office has been all but demolished; our wireless economy encourages us to work 24/7, marketing has invaded the most intimate aspects of our lives, and leisure has become a lost art. Conley, university professor of the social sciences and chair of sociology at New York University, offers an essential understanding of how these changes have reshaped our world and our lives. Dalton Conley’s essays have appeared in numerous publications; his previous books include Being Black, Living in the Red, Honky, and The Pecking Order. Joining Conley in conversation this evening are Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, co-founders of the Breakthrough Institute, authors of Break Through and The Death of Environmentalism; both were named Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment 2008”. There is a cover charge of $10 per person.

(facebook event)

anxi-

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

–Milton, Paradise Lost

Continue reading »

the year of the earth ox

happy chinese new year!

26 January 2009 – 14 February 2010: Earth Ox

earth:

Earth is a balance of both yin and yang, the feminine and masculine together. Its motion is inward and centering, and its energy is stabilising and conserving. It is associated with the color yellow and the planet Saturn, and it lies at the center of the compass in the Chinese cosmos. It is associated with the turn of each of the four seasons and with damp. It is believed to govern the spleen, stomach, mouth and muscles. Its negative emotion is anxiety and its positive emotion is empathy.

ox:

The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

Ox people need peace and quiet to work through their ideas, and when they have set their mind on something it is hard for them to be convinced otherwise. An Ox person has a very logical mind and is extremely systematic in whatever they do, though they have a tremendous imagination and an unparalleled appreciation for beauty. These people speak little but are extremely intelligent. When necessary, they are articulate and eloquent

that seems to jive well with the coming of the new Administration, especially since Obama was born in the year of the Ox.

all signs point to a pretty good year.

dancing in the dark

boy george, on being a freak.

“Before Leigh Bowery and his mid-’80s London club night came along, being a freak was not considered a fine art form. Pop star and DJ Boy George remembers the legendary scene where glamorous polysexual debauchery and head-to-toe body makeup went along with the music.”

read it here: www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/taboo/

btw, if you don’t know who Leigh Bowery is, you should watch this.

the shakespearean insulter

best random thing i’ve come across on the internet in quite some time:

the Shakespearean Insulter.

“Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.”

burn!

the event horizon

the edge
the point of no return
the tipping point
the pareto frontier
the event horizon.

it is not a bright line,
difficult to see,
until you’ve gone past it;
the forces which pull you toward
often unfelt, unseen.

or are you we am i just not paying attention?

or am i?

selfish and hedonistic,
resistant to the forces that could save you:
they pull the other way.

dangerous,
foolish even,
to risk crossing over
just to see what is on the other side.

i don’t like that i am we are i am we are i am we are getting so close.