Archive of things to do with 'philosophy'

• 11.27.07 Message in a bottle:

  Listening to the radio the other day I heard a program (sort of) about the 1977 Voyager spacecraft, launched into space with a golden record and other goodies; the hosts of the show talked to several moderately well-known people and asked what they would include. Philip Glass, for instance, would include Bach and Tuvan throat-singing (details unspecified); Neil Gaiman would include the The Wizard of Oz, among other things. Several of the folks interviewed included things it would be difficult to include on a gold record: mandarin oranges in syrup, or an entire meal at Chez Panisse. Naturally, this got me thinking…

  
  Tags: self, reading, personality, change, taste, travel, detail, project, boredom, philosophy, thinking, water, fear, library, future, letters, language, context, value, music, unfinished, rhythm, mood, pace, time, smell, idle, anxiety, performance, perception, concept, kaleidoscope, level, character, arrogance, navigation, politics, cicada, memory, dream.
• 04.10.07 Stray thoughts:

  I used to think: faces are like characters, or they match them. It might seem that people don’t look like who they are, but you think that because you haven’t understood yet what they look like. I also used to think (and I’ll still say it, if I’m feeling pressured) that people aren’t who they are:

  
  Tags: personality, work, management, turkey, philosophy, simile, money, idle, perception, character, arrogance, politics, history, comics, illustration.
• 04.01.07 Those magic caskets:

  I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys, when it was still possible to see the full splendour of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted and spoilt; I wished I had not trodden that ground as myself, but as Bernier, Tavernier or Manucci did … Once embarked upon, this guessing game can continue indefinitely. When was the best time to see India? At what period would the study of the Brazilian savages have afforded the purest satisfaction, and revealed them in their least adulterated state? Would it have been better to arrive in Rio in the eighteenth century with Bougainville, or in the sixteenth with Léry and Thevet? For every five years I move back in time, I am able to save a custom, gain a ceremony or share in another belief.

  
  Tags: reading, personality, change, travel, detail, dialogue, philosophy, thinking, nationalism, fear, research, ghost, letters, language, context, rhythm, mood, time, levi-strauss, Tristes Tropiques, fatigue.
• 03.24.07 Tristes Tropiques:

  Blogs collect unfulfilled projects. (It’s a form of internet lint.) Why should this one be different? One more thing I plan to use this site for, another thing I get to avoid doing in avoiding coming here, I won’t notice it. So let’s announce it: We, Mfc and I, plan to read Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques, a couple chapters a week, for the next however long, and blog an exchange about it.

  
  Tags: blog, reading, travel, writing, project, dialogue, boredom, philosophy, thinking, levi-strauss, Tristes Tropiques, ambition.
• 01.06.07 Dialogue beginning, draft:

  Another project I’ve had sitting around is a philosophical dialogue. It bogged down because I couldn’t see what my point was. But I like as far as it got. Maybe it’ll go further. (Here’s to hoping.) You’ll see I wrote myself into a corner.

  
  Tags: writing, project, dialogue, heidegger, boredom, philosophy, draft, unfinished.
• 01.04.07 Similes:

  Composition: you suddenly, after looking out idly over a dark water, see a plastic milk jug bobbing on the surface, not far away. You row up to it, you tug on it, try to pull it into the boat. You notice motion out of the corner of your eye: another jug, floating nearby.

  
  Tags: shame, writing, philosophy, draft, art, composition, thinking, water, drained, sink, simile.