Monday, May 30, 2011

Human Experience

"(We) occupy landscapes of values--worlds made up not of quantum lattice structures, but of opportunities and obstacles, affordances and hindrances."

Alva Noe

The full 13.7 post is here and worth reading.

I think that this, the sensation of swimming in a sea of significance(s), whether noxious or gratifying, is a major reason I wound up a psychiatrist. It is no wonder that our species yields paranoids and creates deities to worship. We do not generally perceive the universe as what it would be without us--that is, a constellation of infinite facts--but rather as a shifting drama of desire and revulsion, of affirmation and repudiation.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

You (Don't) Say It's Your Birthday

Happy birthday, Bob.


Alex Ross posted some favorite lines.


There is something about Dylan--the musician, the poet, the cryptic cultural figure-- that is gratuitously compelling. If grace were to exist, it would feel something like listening to Dylan, to that "thin wild mercury sound" of 45 years ago.


It seems miraculous that he is still alive, both literally and figuratively.


Favorite line? At random:


"Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus"