Philosophy and Phylogeny

In my somethety-something years on this planet, I've read exactly zero books of philosophy. Somehow that seems both odd and correctable. Or as Wittgenstein would say...well, I don't know what Wittgenstein would say and that's the point. I bet he would say something about truth tables if we're talking young, calculating, I-see-the-world-with-more-clarity-than-anyone-else Wittgenstein or maybe something about how my use of "philosophy books" determines the meaning of philosophy as that which I haven't read and precludes every book I HAVE read from being considered philosophy, if we're talking to older, more world-weary and world-wise Wittgenstein.




And so that preceding paragraph is an example of how I've gone through most of my life. I recognize my lack of philosophical erudition and can compensate for it with soundbites and off-hand examples that hint that I DO know what the hell I'm talking about. As long as my conversation partner doesn't know any more than I do, or at least isn't confident that they do, I win! The key is to make sure you gauge, before you bust out with some jargon that may or may not be correct, the other person's knowledge. The last thing you want is to have someone correct you. You want to leave other people with the impression that you sure know what you're talking about, throwing Sartre and Kant into random conversations in applicable ways. Oh, I forgot, that's the other key. Just memorize a few exemplars of Kantian or Cartesian thinking and wait for a time in the conversation where you can say "well, as Kant would probably say..." That way you don't have to really worry about it derailing into a true discussion of philosophy while still getting across the point that you know a lot about Kant even when you don't.

Now, don't go thinking that this is easy. It takes a lot of work trying to predict where conversations are going to go before you actually get in the same room as the people you are going to be conversing with. Organized gatherings (church, book clubs, business functions) make it a lot easier, but know that there's a good chance you won't be able to use your pithy little insight if the right topic doesn't come up. The absolute last thing you want to do is use it in an inappropriate place and look like a fool.

So, I don't know how we got here but anyway, what I wanted to say when I started out was that I think I'll get around to reading some major works of philosophy this year. I've had Being and Nothingness on my shelf for more than two years now, so I guess I should finally read it. Of course, if I can pull it off right, I can get you to THINK I read it even when I didn't.

Theological Exploration

So, today, I'm riding the train home from work, as I am wont to do, when I looked behind me to see what people were reading, as I am also wont to do, and I saw a guy reading what looked like a bible, but was really the Book of Mormon IN DISGUISE! I figured this out when I looked, progressively less surreptitiously, over his shoulder trying to see what book of the bible he was reading. The more and more I stared, the more I realized he actually was reading the Book of Alvin.

When I got home, I did some research and found out that the Book of Alvin is part of the story of Joseph Smith. It occurs chronologically right after he finds his pair of magic spectacles that allow him to decipher his magical golden tablets that he found just laying around under a rock. He is visited by the Spirit of his old business partner Brigham Young and told to expect to be visited by three ghosts, in preparation for which he is given a pair of super-magical earmuffs (they were golden too!). That very night, he is visited by all three ghosts at once. You will immediately recognize their names from history: Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. With the help of the magical, golden, jewel-encrusted (sorry, I forgot that part before) earmuffs, he is able to decipher the ghosts' outrageous squeaking. They explained the whole history of religion (including stuff that wasn't covered in the golden tablets) from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to George Washington. Their final command, before they disappeared into the mists was this: Joseph Smith must henceforth change his name to David Seville.

And the rest, as they say, is history. More specifically: THE BOOK OF MORMON PART II: THE SQUEAKUEL.

Bad Photoetry Thursday: IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

Hieroglyphic Heliotropes

The Hourglass

A Winter's Tale

Bad Poetry Thursday: Chocolate Trap

Alphabeta Con-o-rama
by The Great Mulrooney III

I saw a campsite just yesterday
A fire still smoldered
The embers reflecting maroon, yellow, gold and grey
Perhaps a monk once sat there
Eating S'mores and spirits
He leaves the fire burning
But it doesn't mean anything.
It's not symbolism and it's not metaphorical
It's just a fire burning bright in the wilderness
Lighting up the night and then burning out.

You'll Start a War

Maybe it's just me, but toilet paper isn't supposed to be translucent, is it?

Maybe it's just me, but what the hell is a handbasket?

Maybe it's just me, but where's my tax refund?

Maybe it's just me, but didn't we expect something? Something better than before?

Maybe it's just me, but why is it so cold?

Maybe it's just me, but weren't you always weird?

Maybe it's just me, but I wish I could get over it.

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I can't help myself.

Maybe it's just me, but WTF?

Maybe it's just me, but do you want a piece of pie?

Maybe it's just me.

Bad Photoetry Thursday: You Are So Oblivious To Yourself

Well look at this. It's a week of second firsts, or something stupid like that.

This is Not a Joke, So Please Stop Smiling

Sometimes when you're lying awake in bed at 2 or 3 AM and thinking about the state of things, do you ever come to that conclusion that maybe, just maybe, all things considered, being as honest with yourself and the world as you can, the best answer to life, the universe and everything is, in fact, nihilism?

What??? Me? Heavens no! Where did you get that idea? Did you not read the question?? I specifically asked if you ever thought that, not if I did.

Honestly!

Minimum Wage. HEEYAAAAAAH!

The other day, I was walking around the neighborhood when....ah, who am I kidding, I never walk anywhere. I mean, there aren't even sidewalks. By the way did you ever notice that just the name "sidewalk" is car-centric? Why is walking relegated to the
"side?" Why don't we call roads "sidedrives?" Anyway, what was I talking about?

So in our neighborhood we've got this meat store called Nitsche's Meats. Imagine my disappointment when they didn't have any, not even one, Ubermensches. The meat is pretty good though, if you're into that kind of thing.

We're Just Trying to Bug You

Hey, did you hear the one about peak oil?

No?

Okay!

So, this guy walks into a bar and he sits down at the bar and the bartender says to him, "Hey Bar, what can I getcha?"

The guy looks up and he says "Give me a long, tall, cold glass of Light Sweet Crude, Black Gold, Texas Tea."

And then the bartender says, "Dude, we ain't had that here since 2009."

So the guy is all, "What???? Why the hell not?"

And the bartender (his name is Jake, by the way) says "Well, due to the rapid growth of several third world economies, the demand for Light Sweet Crude is rapidly out pacing the dwindling production of the same. This leads to obvious macroeconomic consequences worldwide from rising transportation costs to widespread social and political turmoil. Millions have died so far and the worst is probably yet to come as we reach the section of the global Hubbert's Peak curve of oil production with the steepest negative slope. We won't see any improvement until the second derivative of the curve hits a zero."

"Okay, fine," says the guy that walked into the bar at the beginning of the joke. "I can has cheezburger?"

The bartender pulls out a gun and shoots the guy in the left ass and says "There's some social turmoil for you!"

LOL!!!!11!!!


Please forward this joke to 10 of your best friends. Otherwise you will suffer economic, social and political turmoil

Bad Poetry Thursday: I'd Probably Break Down and Cry

So, somebody at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco found AToB by googling a poem using the words pants spoons and powerade. Now, unfortunately I've never written a poem using those three words so his search was in vain. Today's poem will fix that egregious error. From henceforth, the internet will contain a poem using the words pants, spoons, and powerade.



All Things to All People
Inspired by a true story

A door hangs open
in a musty room full of fear.
Pants lie strewn across the floor
like giant, deflated inflatable flailing-arm waving guy balloons.
And in the center of this melange
amidst the rubble and the spite
a group of three spoons stands erect
surveying their kingdom of trash,
their domain of some crazy garbage.

What the hell is going on?
says Spoon 1 to spoons 2 and 3.
What happened to our joy? Our life? Our land?

Spoon 3 points his fingers at spoon 2 and says
It was he, my dear, that ruined it all.
He that poisoned our hearts and drank up
all our Powerade. We have no Powerade any more.
Our wells have run dry. Our blue gold is gone.
Peak Powerade has come,
and now has gone.

And now spoon 2 must protest
Wait, s/he says
We haven't used it all.
Here, under the pants, and trash and fire and hate
we can find some more.
We can mine some more.
We can try some more.
Here is the hope for our future,
the hope for our illustrious race of spoons.

But the Picture Has a Mustache

On Christmas, I myself experienced a Christmas miracle. It was Christmas 1996, and snow covered the ground like a 4-foot thick blanket of snow. I woke at the crack of dawn and rushed downstairs to see what was the matter. And the matter was that God had not blessed us, every one. In fact, there were no presents under the tree. The lack of the presence of presents was disturbing. Even more disturbing was the spirit that was present. It was the Ghost of Christmas Present. So instead of actual packages tied up with strings, all that was there were ghosts of presents tied up with strings. When I tried to open one of them, I felt of jolt of electricity shoot up my arm. It was at that point that I realized that I was not unwrapping a ghostly present, but instead sticking a fork into an outlet. I was worth more dead than alive, so I decided to jump into the river. I tried, but half-way down into the water under the Frank Redmon Memorial Bridge, I was caught by a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer and driven by a jolly old elf. Well, it WAS driven by a jolly old elf, but I landed on him and killed him, apparently, because he disappeared. So I put on his suit and I turned into Santa Claus with a big ol' bushy beard and delivered presents all around the world in negative 5 hours (Santa can go back in time, it's true), and returned home in time to have Christmas morning again. And this time, the presents weren't ghostly. I got everything I always wanted! An Oscar Meyer Wienie Whistle, Zuzu's petals, a baby brother and a dad, a warrant for my arrest torn up into little pieces and five pairs of pants made out of strawberry rhubarb pie. It was a real Christmas miracle.

But even more miraculous is the miracle that occurs every year at Christmas: for about two weeks, everybody gets to pretend that being considerate and unselfish are actually good things. I mean, being able to pretend that is a REAL CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

When I Survey the Wondrous Blog

Get it? I put "blog" in the title of the post! It's meta!

Anyway, it's still SURVEY WEEK here at ATOB so we'll keep on surveyin'. Only now it's going to be a big communal performance art/survey thing! How's that sound everyone? Here's the deal. We are communally going to write the best survey in the history of mankind. When someone answers it and then you read their answers, you will have a perfect picture of their true selves. If you meet them for the first time after you have read their responses it will be just like you are the oldest friends. This survey will bring world peace. This survey will be the world's best matchmaker, not Orly. This survey will play jazz trombone. This survey will eat your babies. This survey will divide by zero. This survey will crush your soul.

So, I will write a couple of questions and then everyone who reads this (and I mean everyone. If I check my site meter and I have more visits than comments, I will come and hunt you down and...um....do something that justifies the cost of a plane ticket to Prague or wherever) gets to chime in with more questions of your own devising. Then, we will compile them into one giant survey the likes of which the world has never seen. It will dominate the cluttered world of user generated online surveys, a world that is rife with Harry Potter and anime garbage. Then we will all post it on our blogs and MySpaces and Livejournals and stuff. Then we will give it it's own webpage which will look really cool and simple and iconic. It will get more traffic than Google. We will need a million warehouses full of servers to hold all the responses. Soon we will all go down in history as the group (or cohort, is that cooler?) that wrote the survey to end all surveys. Future generations will worship us as prophets, much like the Wyld Stallyns were worshipped in B&TEA.


This is the beginning of the greatest survey. It is called: From Time Immemorial

1. What is worse: Going to your favorite restaurant, ordering your favorite steak only underneath the steak is a scabby band-aid. Or?______________________

2. Do you like me [YES] [NO] Circle one.

3. What percent of all paper clips that you come in contact with do you unfold?

4. What are your five favorite movies? (Legally Blonde does not count)

5. Have you ever left a pair of underwear in the forest?

6. If zombies were real, would you be afraid of them?

7. How many Cold Cut Combos could you eat in a day?

8. How many times have you lost your keys in an article of clothing you are wearing?

9. Do you like almonds?

10. Does God exist?

11. Is there something better than pie?

12. What were/are the economic, social, and political consequences of Marbury vs. Madison?

13. Age?

14. Sex?

15. Location?

16. In your opinion, is there always room for one more, or not?


Okay, now it's your turn you ingrates. I don't think you realize how great this survey will be yet, do you? It will be everything I have claimed. One warning though. DO NOT ANSWER ANY OF THE QUESTIONS UNTIL THE WHOLE THING IS COMPLETE! I think that's obvious, but some of you might not. I'm just saying.

L i s t T u e s d a y

A Bunch of Things I'll Probably Never Do, so what.

1. Play professional basketball


2. Eat a million pounds of steamed crab


3. Stop writing this stupid blog at the end of the month


4. Juggle more than 8 apples


5. Throw a baseball more than 1,000 feet on the fly. I've yet to top 800


6. Star in a Broadway Show about the life and times of Edgar Rice Burroughs


7. Care who Edgar Rice Burroughs is


8. Fight fire with fire


9. Lose more than one SmarTrip card at a time


10. Call someone who cares


11. Cry over spilt milk


12. Spill milk


13. Cough up a lungfish


14. Be buried alive


15. Climb every mountain


16. Ford every stream


17. Hold on loosely


18. Walk 35 miles through the desert to find some old sage just to get the chance to ask him one question: "What in the world are you doing out here?"


19. Shoot flames out of my ears


20. Think that Bono isn't a tard


21. Play chutes and ladders. It's Snakes and Ladders or nothing for this guy.


22. Fly to Nebraska


23. Drink a whole bottle of vodka in one sitting


24. Work in this town again


25. Join forces with evil

Viva Administration! And Bad Poetry Thursday

Okay, we'll get to the bad poetry in a sec. First I've got some administrative things to write about.

First, in one of the strangest things ever to happen to me, I have at least one reader from Provo, Utah. I don't even know where Provo is, let alone know any um, Provozoans?. I think it might be near SLC, but I'm too lazy to open up Google Earth and check. At first I thought it was someone who knows my sister-in-law, but it's not. It's some random girl I've never met named Becky Karlsven. She seems like a nice enough person. Anyway, it appears to be a long story, but there are five links on her blog: Google News, BYU (hey, she's from Utah), sudoku, her brother (I assume), and me. Why me??? Not that I mind. I actually feel kind of special that some random person I don't know would link to me as though I was someone important! It appears that she first found my blog (I don't know how) in August when she left a comment on this post and she has been a reader ever since! Thanks, Ms. Karlsven. I appreciate it.

Also, I still have regular readers in Seoul, Sunnyvale, CA, and recently, the UK. But none of them link to me, so I don't like you as much, okay?

Second, when searching for that post from last August, I came across another post that now has 22 comments, almost all spam, and almost all new! Awesome!

Third, today and tomorrow will be post-heavy in the morning and not so much in the afternoon. I have a lot of work to do. And by work, I mean constant refreshing of ESPN's NCAA tournament scoreboard.

Fourth, I just wanted to let you know that They Might Be Giants are playing the 9:30 Club in April, if you want to go. I already have tickets (they went on sale over one hours ago!) and if you want to go, let me know. Also, I feel kind of stupid for being excited about this show. I am out of the age range where liking TMBG is really appropriate. It starts at about 13 (there's just something about their cleverness that nerdy teenagers love) and goes to about 22 (or 25 if you're still in college. Undergraduate, that is). I guess it now includes babies and parents of babies so, hey, maybe I do still qualify! Yeah, I'll rationalize it like that. Does that mean I have to take Levi?

Okay on to.....


Waiting By The Side Of The Road As If You Think Something Is About To Happen
by "Skizz"

When you look in the windows of the passing cars
you can see the look in the eyes of the of drivers of the passing cars
and you think "what would they do
if I threw
a full cup of orange soda through
the open windows of the passing cars"

Or remember the time
that you forgot the time
and went late to the movie about
the guy who lived in a small house on the side of the road
and threw orange soda through the windows of the passing cars
like you did just now

What a strange world you think
what a funny place to raise a child in
or on or around or about face
you cannot find a trace
of your child in the world you live in
since your children are in fact a part
of nothing at all
and don't even exist in your mind's eye
that is looking through the windows of the passing cars

Birds and bees flutter in and around your head
and my head
and the sounds of the passing cars fill and follow our ears
and a single dangling piece of pie
hanging from a delirious lamp post
across the street is tempting
you to cross the street and eat it
but perhaps you will miss the bus
and find that the pie was only dust
or come in contact with the passing cars
that have star in thars
You are sure to lose that battle


On the street, people come and go
talking of Michelangelo

Or more likely why must the traffic be so bad
or guess how much my house is worth
or can you believe what that guy just said
or I heard that Howard's cat is dead
or I didn't want to leave my bed
or please stop these voices in my head
or oh god my blood is spilling, red
or I wish I had some more street cred

But nothing
happens because a watched pot while only occaisionally boil
and now is not one of those occaisional times
when a pot will boil
and the passing cars knocked the pot on its side
and spilled the water down the gutter on the street
where the passing cars have orange soda flying from
their tailpipes and their drivers eyes.

Two Hundred Words of Bad Poetry

Hmm. I'm liking this idea of writing bad poems of nonsense with an arbitrarily decided number of words. I think it could work. Next, I'll arbitrarily decide the structure that the poem must fit. Wow, I love writing bad poetry. It doesn't even have to make sense. Actually, I think it's better when it doesn't.



The Absence of Fire
by SJSTL


When a synapse fires in the morning
Does it make a sound
Like a pop or like a thud
Or is it something that we as robots
Aren’t supposed to worry about
Okay then, just let me find my socks
Amidst the tangled thoughts of the masses

At a time when everyone else
Would never speak a line out of turn
Some idiot wandered
Over to the smoothie machine
And threw up
All over it

Man, I really wanted a smoothie today
I guess that an
Italian Soda With Whipped Cream
Will suffice
Hold the fire, and don’t forget the ice

This is the way the world ends
Not getting what you want
And settling for something
Similar but not quite the same

And now this lovesong is stuck in my head
I think all things to all people
Is nothing at all to anyone

What a weird day to notice for the first time
That one leg is shorter than the other

A large bird just landed on my window sill, dead.

Or maybe it was a vision
A prophetic vision of death and life
All wrapped up in a total wash
Of the windows
Of an office building

Horrid Poetry Thursday

Let's try a little self-pity poetry, or what I like to call self-pietry, today. It's fun, it's easy, and it sounds like real poetry! Try it, you'll like it!

Understranded
by Schuyler

No one
gets it
Nope, not anyone
No one understands my plan
Or what it is I am
tyring to say
No one cares
that I am stranded
here on an isle
of shimmering sand
that might collapse at any moment

No one knows
my master plan

Bad Poetry Thursday

No genre today, just some of my awful, bizarre, and ultimately meaningless poetry. Seriously, don't read anything into it. I wish I lived in the 20's because then I could write ridiculous crap and just call myself a surrealist and the literati would eat it up. Probably with some absinthe.

The Day The Earth Stood Mostly Still
by Schuyler

On the day that the whole earth
almost stopped moving
my feet were swollen up with pride
and in my hand i held a dearth
of worms with compasses inside
which by way of that were proving
that a worm can be a navigator
and tell north from south and east
but not west.

The dogs on my block all
ate their breakfast at a very unusual rate
and the food all spoiled rotten
in their dishes in the hall
of neighborhood houses long forgotten
by the owners of the dogs that ate
the flesh of the owners
of the neighborhood houses
who had fallen into their dogs' plates.

The sun shone down on metal
robots made of metal gleamed
in sunlight cast from nuclear reactions
and absorbed by petals
on the flowers whose pigments came in fractions
of the colors that I saw in a dream
i had the day the earth
came to a halt and sent us spinning
off into space.
Almost.

Bad Poetry Thursday

Today's genre is angry-poetry-slam-pseudo-intellectual-yuppie-rambling. As you read it, imagine that you are in a horribly stereotyped, smoky coffee house watching a young white dude trying to act all cool by reciting "improvised" poetry in front of an apathetic audience that all look like clones of the guy at the mic. Also, there are bongo drums playing arhythmically in the background. Random words are to be shouted.


Morning (Mourning) of My Way
by Schuyler

MOVE!
I SCREAM into the stale air at the
slow, FAT tourists that will not

GET OUT OF MY WAY

I cannot understand THE processes of their
slow, fat BRAINS as they perch
So DELICATELY up the moving stairs
The LEFT SIDE of the moving stairs

GET OUT OF MY WAY!

I will not simmer in OBSEQUIOUSNESS
While OTHERS stomp on my very WILL to live.
It burns me up INSIDE the hollow shell that used TO be my heart
Before she crushed it between her LONG, LONG fingers.

GET OUT OF MY WAY!

I do not want to get LOST in remonstrances
Of things about WHICH I do not WISH to think at all.
WHY, WHY, WHY did she do that and do they do that
I want to KNOW my brain shrieks as I come dangerously close to tears.

GET OUT OF MY WAY!

I holler at ALL of you
All of you that HOLD me back and HOLD me down
I AM going somewhere
I AM going somewhere incredible
I AM a driver
I AM a winner
Things are going to Change, I can feel it.

GET OUT OF MY WAY!