| Do me a favor! |
[30 Jun 2007|01:35am] |
If you use MySpace then you should friend me. Also, you should do a good deed and follow These Instructions.
Basically, it'd be a way for me to get attention for my book. No, I'm not asking you to buy it. I'm asking for a quick and painless and free and fun way to promote it.
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| If you're using the IUPD host... |
[29 Apr 2007|09:42pm] |
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Why are you reading this? Whomever 149.159.29.6 is, that person seems really interested in me. I haven't been bad, I promise.
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| Five years later |
[10 Sep 2006|03:00am] |
11.09.2001 was a very, very hard time for me. I wasn't personally touched in the most visceral sense; the closest connection I had was that an old friend of mine had a father who worked in the Pentagon (but was safe, and I wasn't even talking to her at the time) and my then-"girlfriend"'s father worked for the FAA so it was very real for her.
My initial feelings were anger at my own country. I had always had a very tortuous relationship with my own nationality, just like any pissed-off white middle-class adolescent male. I had known that something like this was bound to happen and that the Middle East would probably be to blame, but seeing the level of destruction as it was actually happening as from a vacuum was just unreal. In the summer of 2000, I spent a week in NYC, which is considered an exotic locale for a rural Hoosier. I remember the time I spent wandering around the two towers, looking at the Bronze globe in the center as a memorial to the first WTC bombing (it was the third such one I'd seen in two weeks, the others being outside the Sistine Chapel and the UN Building). I bought some trinkets for my family from some booths set up in the plaza, and I gazed at what I saw as the most artistic expression of mankind's perversion of the landscape I'd ever seen. The way the foundation just kind of melted into the ground was very, very elegant to me.
I was hurt because of the loss of life, but it was ironic to me that while in New York I was educated on the depravity of America's relationship with the rest of the world as well as the dire situation of hunger in the third world. Given that roughly 38 000 children alone died of hunger and disease on that day, adding a few thousand more adults who had the luxury of being even in America's lower class just seemed surreal.
I had hoped that maybe we would become aware of not only our own mortality, but that which is shared by all of humanity. I had hoped that we would become more aware of the world which exists beyond our borders. I had hoped that the ashes in Manhattan would birth a wonderful Phoenix.
I was solipsistic in my early adolescence, and some of those past attitudes forever molded my perceptions of reality. It's human nature to always think of one's time as being unique, superior, yadda yadda, as if the world of the now were the teleological aim of all of physical evolution. "Presentism", they call it. Yet, when something happens to re-affirm what we know to be true yet cower from recognizing, that we are just players of a greater history, it terrifies us. It's painful to confront the fact that there is no arbitrary line between "history" and "life".
I knew that we'd scapegoat and go to war. I supported retaliation so long as it was not revenge. I wanted us to do something, but I could not bring myself to support the bombings of Kabul. I had remembered from Vonnegut's Bluebeard that the first reaction to attrocity is to reciprocate attrocity. "Now it's the women's turn." Knowing that there would likely be a draft, I took the ASVAB and scored a lowly battery of 97 because I had to urinate so badly during its administration. I was thinking that maybe I could choose to join a nuclear submarine, which would unlikely be used to commit any real abomination and would grant me experience in the sciences as a nuclear technician. Or, if the national insanity was bad enough, I'd gladly expatriate.
I had to come to terms with what it meant to me to be an American. I gradually realized that for all the secret wars and foul politics and manipulations of which we are guilty, I cannot escape what I really am. I grew up in the country eating American food, loving my American relatives, and taking part in the blessings of the world's sole Super Power. I don't know that I'd trade that for any other life if I could, but I began to slowly love my countrymen for what they are--their ignorances and fears are but a part of what it means to be human, not by definition American. I had even hoped that some of those fears and ignorances would be alleviated by this terrible experience.
-------------------------
Five years later, I am still angry. My generation had responded more or less as expected, with a sharp dichotomy of my peers being suddenly more interested in the international community and others being uncharacteristically nationalistic. Patriotism is essential, nationalism is a travesty. I cannot forgive my brothers and sisters in citizenship for their support of the rape of Iraq, but I concede that they merely felt in in their conscience that the blatant lies should be believed. At the same time, I was in a major university while the anti-war protests happened and so I saw what it meant to love one's neighbor, regardless of the borders between.
I am angry at my government. I could never, ever support either political party, but I'd take the lesser evil whenever possible. In raw ideology, I see the Democrats as capricious tools and I see Republicans as hypocritical exploiters. It's worse now. Given the support for the Mondus Belli Americani, I cannot imagine any optimism without a drastic shift of paradigm. Two possibilities lie on the horizon: total dystopia or total annihilation.
I find it interesting how harshly (and to this point, accurately) my generation has been accused of laziness. We are in a Children's Crusade, and when the toys are broken it will be us who must pick up the rubble. History is not going to remember this as an easy period.
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| Camus, I would like to solve your problem. |
[02 May 2006|07:22am] |
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mood |
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 nostalgic |
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music |
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JUST MAYBE Mozart's Requiem |
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I personally think that listening to an mp3 of Mozart's Requiem is a nice cap on a very long day before I go rest.
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| Chewed up toes on her chopped-off feet, I took a picture 'cuz I thought it looked neat |
[22 Feb 2006|08:40pm] |
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mood |
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 ditzy |
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music |
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Suicidal Tendiencies- I saw your mommy |
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I was skimming my Friends page, and I thought I was reading the IU journal with the headline that four kids were arrested in a protest. I assumed it was about the Ann Coulter hooplah, so I was reading with that in mind. After reading the article, I realized it was the UofC journal, and after even more inspection I remembered that half of those arrested were friends of mine three years ago. One of them was a Jewish atheist in my house, and the other was a kid in my SOSC class who took his Marx-Engels Reader way too seriously. With the latter, I remember one time we stole tables from one classroom, interrupting a lecture in progress, for our own and he kept spouting out about how it was redistribution of wealth for the sake of the proletariat, or something.
Weee. I miss quiz bowl, and the IU team seems to be defunct. I just emailed someone asking if that's true. Aargh.
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| Buy my book! |
[22 Jan 2006|12:10am] |
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mood |
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 anxious |
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music |
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Filter- Welcome to the Fold |
] |
www.coeternalism.com/book1.html
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| Und so weiter |
[15 Nov 2005|02:02am] |
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mood |
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 awake |
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So, if you haven't heard already, the book is complete. I just need lots of editting and lots of feedback now. I think my goal is to submit it to the publisher I'm looking at by Thanksgiving, so maybe I can have copies of it by Christmas (if I'm very very lucky). It's 184 pages, which is about what I was hoping for. Ah well.
Have any of you had Bad Elmer's Porter by Upland Brewing Company? This stuff is absolutely excellent, although it's a Bloomington microbrew so I doubt many of you have heard of it. It's about like Barley Island's porter, although I won't pick favorites. Speaking of Barley, that's where little Jess is going to have her 21st birthday. I highly look forward to it, as I don't see that girl nearly enough.
Agh, I need to get to the grocery store. I've been eating so unhealthy lately, mainly because I just run out for fast food whenever. Gotta stop that. Hmm.
I remember feeling so guilty first year about having a few glasses of wine once on a Tuesday. I was afraid I'd turn into an alcoholic. I don't think that's much a threat now, as I haven't been decently smashed in a long long time. My tolerance seems to be even more than usual, as at Kyle's party I drank all night and was still pretty sober by the end.
I need to really avoid 5:00 am naps. Those kill my class attendence. Ah well. I always feel really guilty about missing class, but that doesn't make much difference when running on half an hour of sleep. Those of you without sleep apnea, count your blessings.
Eh, I'm out.
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| New website up |
[13 Sep 2005|05:02am] |
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mood |
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awake |
] |
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music |
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Medieval Latin mass chants |
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My New Webpage
Okay, it's essentially the exact same as my old one. I added new pics, got rid of the frames, and gave the cam its own page to cut down load-times. Hope everyone enjoys it.
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[08 Sep 2005|01:21am] |
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mood |
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 listless |
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music |
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Scott Weiland- Barbarella |
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An episode that I left out of the Alpha version of my autobiography, taking place in the summer of 2002:
( Read more... )
I did terrible on my Greek quiz today, as should be expected. Ah well. Classes are going fine otherwise. Woo. Had some very emotional dreams during an afternoon nap, but I guess I shouldn't go into that.
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| Eternal |
[05 Sep 2005|12:40am] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
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music |
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U2- Walk On |
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Please, everyone read this and tell your friends. It's my autobiography in Coeternal terms, uncut, unadulterated, and naked. Salve and peace out.
Eternal.
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| You could live in this solution; you could choose to believe |
[26 May 2005|02:26am] |
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mood |
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awake |
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I just blew $70 on Amazon... again. This time:
The Future of an Illusion by Freud, Sigmund
G.W. Leibniz's Monadology
Malebranche: Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion
Descartes' Les Passions De l'Ame
"Opium Furs Volk" and "Kauf Mich" by Die Toten Hosen.
Of course, all but the last two items are for research. But still, I sometimes amuse myself.
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| Broken, Bruised, Forgotten, Sore |
[26 Mar 2004|01:39am] |
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mood |
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pensive |
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music |
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Counting Crows - St. Robinson in his Cadillac |
] |
Well, I am finally back from Europe. It looks as if I will be returning to Chicago come Sunday. I finished my thesis. If you want to read it, it's 41 pages so I'll have to email the document to you. Leave a message or send me an email. It's about metaphysics and modernizing religion. From now on, I'll be making updates on my website blog. Follow the link to The Chantepleur Elysium to go there.
Yeah, peaches and pastries.
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| Me again :( |
[18 Mar 2004|04:47pm] |
Yeah, I found these entertaining so I figured I should post'em here.
These are search querries that people enterred to find my normal blog:
"well i like coffee and i like tea"
"kim jung il livejournal"
"midnight miridium"
"arguments Owen Flanagan uses to show there is no soul"
"well i like coffe and i like tea" (again)
"indiana hoosier breaded pork tenderloin sandwich"
"terimisu"
"my dorm cam"
"costume christmas party"
"hoosier sugar cream pie"
"burton judson webpage"
"hellenistic history" blog
"tenderloins, north manchester, indiana"
"briquettes lowes"
the toadies "possum kingdom" meaning
Hoosier tenderloins
"mardi gras pictures"
L'Opera Restaurant Bloomington Indiana
jenga+"mathematical"
"MARIOKART 64"
Yeah, those were just from the most recent 100 visits.
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| And all the stars are just like little fish |
[18 Mar 2004|04:22pm] |
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mood |
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 complacent |
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Well, I had a pretty decent St. Patrick's Day. Went to an Irish pub called The Pale with some other Institute Touraine kids, at which American English was the dominating language. I went home early, however, because my medication requires that I sleep an insane amount right now. I absolutely hate having to sleep so much. I'm starting to love Irish beer, however. It's so much better than the American sort, but curse it for being so expensive. Really there's nothing noteworthily new in my life. I'm about done with my thesis on Coeternalism, so expect a plug on that pretty soon. I'll be home in four days and counting. Huzzuh. I think maybe I'll go to Paris tonight to see Sainte Chapelle and buy some luggage. Or maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Time will tell.
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| Je me suis souvent |
[15 Mar 2004|05:20pm] |
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mood |
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 okay |
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So, hello. I took a trip southwards this weekend, so I guess I'll talk about that. I figured maybe I could catch an early-morning train from Paris to Montpellier on Friday, but having chosen to attend half of class I missed it. That had me trapped in Paris for half a day, which I suppose was fine enough. I tried to go into the Pantheon to see the tombs of some of my heros, but the place was all locked up. I spent some more time in Notre Dame, going into its treasury for the first time. There was a monstrance in there that was a gift from Napolean II that was constructed of a huge mass of gold and what I calculated to be over three thousand diamonds, many of which must have been two or three carats. Absurd, it was. I really didn't see all that much in Paris, but I walked around the Latin Quarter and Montmartre a great deal. Around 20:30 I hopped on the overnight train from Paris to Barcelona and I tried to catch as much sleep as possible. The other people in my cabin were Yugoslavian and I believe Ethiopian, so the common language between us was French. I didn't socialize all that much, of course.
First thing I did when I got to Barcelona was look for a hostel, and luckily I had memorized the directions to the last hostel at which I stayed last time I was in the city. I deposited my stuff and thought that I'd take an hour nap before hitting the sights. After I woke up from what I thought was an hour nap, I checked my watch and saw that five hours had passed without my knowing it. Oopsies. So, first thing I did after that was I made a trip to a licor store I'd read about on the internet. I was like a little kid in a candy store there. I spent a great deal of money on Absinthe, which was one of the principle reasons for which I decided to go to Barcelona in the first place. Afterwards I spent about an hour in the Picasso Museum, which I really enjoyed becuase I've long wanted to learn more about him. When the museum closed, I decided to eat at the bistro at which Picasso held his first art exhibition, Els Quatre Gats (now anglosised to just "4 Cats"). My sister Sarah and I had actually eaten there the first time we went to Barcelona, but that was a 15 minute visit that simply didn't do it any justice. I treated myself to a five-course meal because I wanted to savor the environment in which I was eating. The restaurant was founded in 1896 by a former waiter of Le Chat Noir, the advertisement poster of which is quite famous now. I had bread, fish soup, roast leg of lamb with steamed potatoes, white wine, coffee, and an appertif of Crema Catalan. The lamb was heavenly. They didn't ask how much I wanted it cooked, and it was delivered medium well. I was at first disappointed by that, as I prefer my meats extra rare so that you can taste the flavor of the meat instead of the cooking process, but the lamb had its natural flavor preserved very well. It was so very good. At an American restaurant, I would expect to have paid around $70 for that meal, not even counting the fact that I was eating in a veritably historic location. The total? 31€. I was quite pleased.
After I had my fill and savored the location for a good amount of time, I returned to my hostel and spent about an hour working on my thesis. I'm drawing it to a conclusion right now, and it looks like it's going to be somewhere around 45-50 pages of text in the Chicago Manual of Style, not counting the glossary and FAQ. Where I'm at with it right now tends to require a great deal of abstract thinking, so it's kind of beginning to hurt my head at times. Sabrina and Shanghai Knights played on the television as I worked, each dubbed rather poorly in the characteristic Spanish style. I went to sleep around midnight and set my alarm to get up early. I really didn't need to set my alarm at all, since around the time I was supposed to wake up someone came in plastered and proceeded to urinate on some random people's stuff. I was lucky in that none of my stuff was in the area. This provoked a half-hour screaming festival, so I was glad to leave around that time. I got on the train to Narbonne with the plans of going to Lourdes that day. Well, I managed to fall asleep on the train, so I was whisked away to Montpellier. Oopsies. So, I took the last train of the day from Montpellier to Paris and I arrived back in Tours late Sunday night, as compared to Monday morning as if I had gone to Lourdes. Ah well.
All in all, I ended up spending a great deal of money for stupid reasons (mainly train reservations that I didn't really have to make), but I enjoyed my weekend. It was fun to leave France for a little while, and I was happy to hear Castillian spoken once again. I think someday I'm going to teach myself to speak Catalan as well, as it's very similar to Langue d'Oc, a medieval French dialect I used to study in high school.
Weee.
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| I even smoke a pipe just like him! |
[09 Mar 2004|05:39pm] |
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mood |
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 bouncy |
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Weee. This explains my love for pantheistic metaphysics and the theories of relativity. Tonight is yet another hookah night, but this time Isabella might be there. Woot.
Anybody else notice that most of my entries aren't scheduled to transpire for another three years? Either I'm just mysterious like that or I'm too lazy to fix it. I bought some more tea today, but it's not quite the same as that for which I've been searching. I bought tea in Vienna that has the most magical scent to it, and I've been on a quest to find some more. There are four high-class tea vendors on the same street by my apartment, and none of them had it. Nom de dieu, c'est merde.
So, whuzzup?
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| Der Vater aller Spiegel |
[08 Mar 2004|01:20pm] |
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mood |
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indifferent |
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A few days ago I was ruminating on my thesis, and I stumbled across a means for the soul to exist. I think I have faith again because of this. I won't explain it all right now, but basically it has to do with the expansion of the universe and its consequential ending of time itself. Yeah. I've decided that I'll write my thesis as much as possible within the confines of the Catechism, and hopefully I'll make fewer enemies that way. It's getting colder here in France. No snow, just cold.
A brief explanation of the metaphysical business I've been up to may be found here: http://www.i-mockery.net/viewtopic.php?t=10461
I'm becoming quite the regular at the local narguilé bar, Les Trois Pucelles. It's in a building that quite possibly dates to the 15th century. Last time I went there I drank on the house, which is always quite nice. I'm becoming quite the tea drinker lately. I liked my tea brutally strong, much the same as my coffee. A shining star in my life is that the 24-hour grocery store near me sells 250 grams of espresso roast arabica coffee for 1.55€. That's about $3.50 a pound, less than half the market price in the States. With that in mind I expected it to be a harsh mix, but no. I had some this morning and it is delectably smooth.
So, yeah. Nothing truly new in my life. I actually went to mass on Sunday in the cathedral, the first time at all since Christmas. The accoustics were horrible in there, so I could hardly discern any of the French that was being spoken. That place is huge, so I guess that's what I should expect. I wish I still had a camera with me to take pictures of it, its architecture is mid/late gothic so it has flying buttresses and high ceilings but lots of ornate trim and such, and on top of that it is lined by a plethora of stained glass windows. I'm not much of an expert on window history, but most of them looked as if they were replaced or installed sometime after the 17th century. As a medieval classicist, that kind of thing sticks out like a sore thumb to me. Closer to my apartment there is a romanesque church with an attached abbey, but I've never seen it open to visitation and I doubt that mass is ever heard in it.
In reading my friends' updates, I have two options for surveys to fill out. I'll go with Lisha's this time, it being the less incriminating one.
01 Using band names(or artists), spell out your name. ( minus 'the's in names )
Stone Temple Pilots
Evanescence
Toten Hosen, Die
Harvey Dangers
Pearl Jam
Anthrax
Cyrano
Everclear
(I omitted "Thomas Augustine")
02 Have you ever had a song written about you? Yeah, but I was the one who wrote it.
03 What song makes you cry? Nothing in this world can do that these days, I'm afraid.
04 What song makes you happy? "Sugar High" by Coyote Shivers, probably
05 What do you like to listen to before bed? Right now is NIN's And All That Could Have Been, because that's the best album I have here in Europe.
06 Name a song by Coal Chamber: No.
07 Who was / were your idol[s] when you were younger? The only one I can think of is Mannfred von Richtofen. I thought it was cool that he killed 80 people in aviary battles.
08 First album you ever bought? Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt. How far I've come...
09 Name a song that reminds you of someone and why? I have a contextual memory, so pretty much any song in my library reminds me of someone or something.
Yeah, a short survey is good for now.
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| Tired faith all worn and thin |
[01 Mar 2004|11:12pm] |
Well, howdy. I've been in this city for a few days more than a week and I think I've already hit about every bar it has to offer. I'm having a hard time making friends, and an even harder time waking up. My medication makes me require 10-14 hours of sleep daily, which is exceptionally brutal since most of my life I've been accostomed to less than six. The French language and I have a weird relationship. I can read just about anything in Spanish just fine but I find it impossible to speak or listen to the oral language, and my problem is the precise opposite with French. I can hold up a conversation much better in French, but whatever I read seems to be loaded with too many words I can't comprehend. That's rather counter-intuitive, but yet it's true. The weirdest thing is German, in which I understand rather little of both the spoken and written language, with the exception that I can understand its poetry and music superior to my French and Spanish. My mind is just messed up like that, I guess.
Well, the only real news with my life is that I decided I wanted a classy dinner last night, so I took the two-hour train to Paris. I ate at two of the ritziest and most historical cafés in the world, those being Les Deux Magots (a favorite of Jean-Paul Sartres and Simon de Beauvoire, among others) and Café de Flore, which was long favored by Hemmingway and Picasso. All this considered, it really wasn't outrageously expensive. Except for the espresso, which was 4€ a shot. Last time I checked, that's almost the same as its weight in silver. But it tastes so good! I can only wish that I could make coffee that tastes that divine.
All well. I'm not sure where all I will go this week, but Poitiers and Lourdes are two possibilities.
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sethomas84's journal