tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51172752012-02-16T12:56:30.570-05:00The Tragic Sense of LifeSpiritual life is not a search for meaning but a release from it -- John GrayRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.comBlogger2941100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-12782228726974126172012-01-24T16:31:00.002-05:002012-01-24T16:32:44.496-05:00For everything that is understood and sensed is nothing but the apparition of what is not apparent, the manifestation of the hidden, the affirmation of the negated, the comprehension of the incomprehensible...--John Scottus Eriugena, PeriphyseonRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-69634413268489308132011-05-27T12:41:00.002-04:002011-05-27T13:03:15.440-04:00Chaos is open, it gapes wide, it is not a closed system. In order to code, one has to close, in order to class, one has to define, or shut off with a boundary. Chaos is patent. It is not a system, it is multiplicity. It is multiple, unexpected. Chaos flows, it flows out, an Albula, a white river. I hear a silky white noise, hardly smooth, with little jumping, jolting bits. A white river would notRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-66402325332303468332011-01-22T11:03:00.001-05:002011-01-22T11:05:35.273-05:00Peirce, 1893:There are those who believe in their own existence, because its opposite is inconcievable; yet the most balsamic of all the sweets of sweet philosophy is the lesson that personal existence is an illusion and a practical joke. Those that have loved themselves and not their neighbors will find themselves April fools when the great April opens the truth that neither selves nor Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-13246060923270810902010-04-10T19:25:00.000-04:002010-04-10T19:26:05.883-04:00Michel Serres on writing:I do not know who it was that said that one does not write initially with ideas, but by making use of words. That is such a shallow thing to say. In the beginning is not the word. The word comes where it is expected. One writes initially through a wave of music, a groundswell that comes from the background noise, from the whole body, maybe, and maybe from the depths of Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-56009449483612422712010-03-26T18:12:00.001-04:002010-03-26T18:13:46.204-04:00If you love only those who love you and to the extent that they love you, if you hold so strictly to this symmetry, mutuality, and reciprocity, then you give nothing, no love, and the reserve of your wages will be like a tax that is imposed or a debt that is repaid, like the acquittal of a debt. In order to deserve or expect an infinitely higher salary, one that goes beyond the perception of whatRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-59749864840378060782010-03-13T19:30:00.000-05:002010-03-13T19:31:32.444-05:00With respect to the external world, an initial sanity requires recognizing that I cannot live my skepticism, whereas with respect to others a final sanity requires recognizing that I can. I do.Stanley CavellRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-47022630133298060142009-12-30T15:29:00.001-05:002009-12-30T15:29:50.067-05:00Rilke, "Lament" Everything is farand long gone by.I think that the starglittering above mehas been dead for a million years.I think there were tearsin the car I heard passand something terrible was said.A clock has stopped striking in the houseacross the road...When did it start?...I would like to step out of my heartan go walking beneath the enormous sky.I would like to pray.And surely of all Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-78816188527358108722009-10-29T14:18:00.002-04:002009-10-29T14:23:27.704-04:00Jonathan Edwards on love:How soon do earthly lovers come to an end of their discoveries of each other's beauty; how soon do they see all that is to be seen! Are they united as near as 'tis possible, and have communion as intimate as possible? how soon do they come to the most endearing expressions of love that 'tis possible to give, so that no new ways can be invented, given or received. And how Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-76030275413925372632009-10-10T11:50:00.001-04:002009-10-10T11:50:40.124-04:00Everything is both affirmative and negative, pregnant with its contrary. The universe incessantly engages in on going agonistics--Floyd MerrellRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-76458362720967291912009-09-30T01:01:00.004-04:002009-09-30T01:13:30.445-04:00A typically difficult passage from Peirce, who often seems to take the tortured syntax of 19th century intellectual writing to new heights. Nevertheless, it forcefully demonstrates his brilliance and the all-encompassing wholeness of his thought.The supreme commandment is to complete the whole system even until continuity results and the distinct individuals weld together. Thus it is, that while Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-31372144127883207902009-09-22T15:50:00.002-04:002009-09-22T15:52:29.838-04:00Is this the sense I get of a lack of "feeling" in our times? An inability to feel? A constriction of the range of emotions? Are we protecting ourselves, keeping life at arm's length? Is this what it means to grow up, historically and emotionally?The tendency is from tacitly sense, felt, relatively immediately experienced, visceral, corporeal, concrete images toward that age-old ideal of Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-37691833119452969342009-09-03T16:00:00.004-04:002009-09-03T22:00:32.985-04:00Michel Serres:But I want to say that there is something divine in this world, divine things. What I am saying is really beside the real, direct question: God is a noun, a name; divine is an adjective, thrown to the side. The world is divine and is full of divine things. This sea, this plain, this river, the ice floe, the tree, light and life. I know it, I see it, I feel it, I am illuminated by itRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-59428924379362643552009-09-03T01:53:00.001-04:002009-09-03T01:54:59.621-04:00Peirce's InnovationTraditional concept of a sign: an object that refers to something else.Peirce's concept: an object that refers to the version of itself then coming into being, and so on. Self-referential.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-53220946630506861182009-08-25T07:05:00.002-04:002009-08-25T07:08:36.760-04:00On Our MyopiaOn what assurance, what promise, do I affirm this pain? On the arrival of what future can I accept my present suffering? Is there any higher whole right now in which to dissolve this agonizing single part? Is the part, fallen from the whole, the form and content of my suffering as well?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-8797986532979042062009-08-20T14:42:00.003-04:002009-08-20T14:54:23.039-04:00Theme Post: The OceanDover Beach, by Matthew ArnoldThe sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! you hear the gratingRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-47112610255573840782009-08-05T06:43:00.005-04:002009-08-05T06:49:20.694-04:00Charles S. Peirce on the meaning of life, the universe, and our ideals:Thus, whether you accept the opinion or not, you must see that it is a perfectly intelligible opinion that ideas are not all mere creations of this or that mind, but on the contrary have a power of finding or creating their vehicles, and having found them, of conferring upon them the ability to transform the face of the earth.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-50308877864119131202009-08-01T17:49:00.006-04:002009-08-01T20:09:39.679-04:00DoubtI feel like there's about 20 different threads here I could pick up on, but there's one in particular that seems often overlooked in most of the reviews I've read. Doubt, as the first scene of the movie makes clear, indicates our common humanity, as distinct from Divine certainty. And there we encounter an uncomfortable paradox that seems to define the movie: the farther we are from Grace, Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-26900766020107816792009-07-31T19:15:00.003-04:002009-07-31T19:27:31.249-04:00I came across the following quote from John Dewey a long time ago, but I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Here it is.When we have used our thought to its utmost and have thrown into the moving unbalanced balance of things our puny strength, we know that though the universe slay us still we may trust, for our lot is one with whatever is good in existence. We know that such thought and Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-8883121479989454532009-01-25T10:29:00.006-05:002009-01-25T13:33:22.380-05:00Revolutionary RoadThere is a scene, about 3/4s of the way through, involving a hand on a car window during a moment of passion that reminded me of Titanic. Except it's more like a reversal of that moment, or better yet a desperate attempt to reclaim something like passion. One wonders how sympathetic we are to feel towards these characters. When I was trying to explain to a friend an odd theme inRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-25198101912037904852008-12-31T12:51:00.006-05:002009-01-04T23:12:12.141-05:00While I would be a horribly unqualified film critic, I would be a disgrace as a music critic. I have neither the vocabulary, technical knowledge, nor historical perspective to be able to offer more than "I liked that" in regards to most music, despite the obscene amount of music I seek out and listen to.Here's my best shot. I am still making my way through a LOT of music from 2008, and I suspect Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-28266079409619680552008-09-26T11:33:00.006-04:002009-01-04T13:28:20.605-05:00ZodiacThere is an essential and perhaps constitutive gap between what we normally feel to be a conviction of truth and the evidence in support of it. To some extent, all evidence is somewhat circumstantial. How do we close that gap? How much certainty is enough to be "certain"?One of the more provocative and interesting interpretations of Zodiac see the movie as dramatizing the arrival of the Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-81376704385491840572008-09-09T23:53:00.000-04:002008-09-09T23:54:23.424-04:00If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youBut make allowance for their doubting too,If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,If Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-86833007589572848402008-04-12T00:02:00.004-04:002008-04-12T00:17:27.824-04:00The Rolling StonesWhy did it take me, a music lover and even more a classic rock lover, nearly 29 years to finally appreciate the Stones? Perhaps the inevitable (and unfair) comparisons to the Beatles, a band whom they share almost nothing in common. If the Beatles represent the 60s, free love, and LSD, the Stones are the 70s, sleazy sex, and cocaine. Perhaps it might be said they are the darker,Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-28288784108288628172008-03-01T11:53:00.000-05:002008-03-01T11:54:46.691-05:00Give All to LoveGive all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the muse; Nothing refuse. 'Tis a brave master, Let it have scope, Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope; High and more high, It dives into noon, With wing unspent, Untold intent; But 'tis a god, Knows its own path, And the outlets of theRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-67983824531138509712007-02-09T00:45:00.001-05:002007-02-09T00:44:01.925-05:00This just about never gets old.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1167114180835550952006-12-26T01:08:00.000-05:002006-12-26T01:23:35.870-05:00The Pursuit of HappynessOnly fools laugh at Horatio Alger and his poor boys who make good. The wise man who thinks twice about that sterling author will realize that Alger is to America what Homer was to the Greeks.--Nathanael WestThere was a pretty big disconnect for me between the advertising for this movie and the experience of watching it. For one thing, despite all the trappings of a Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1166549512282648272006-12-19T12:06:00.000-05:002006-12-19T12:41:34.236-05:00When the Levees BrokeProbably the greatest sin of Spike Lee's masterful documentary is too often mistaking provocation for enlightenment. Kanye West's seemingly bold proclamation that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" may well be a daring political statement, especially considering it was delivered in a typically bland "we care about you" bullshitathon from Hollywood, but it collapsesRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1165164382639188822006-12-03T11:39:00.000-05:002006-12-03T11:48:02.296-05:00Casino RoyaleI don't very much about Bond movies. Just putting that out there. I don't really like them. The formula (gadgets, nice car, hot babe who is possibly a femme fatale, exotic locales) is nice once or twice, but it seems to sap the joy of surprise out of the films. Ultimately, the movies seem to blend into each other, offering infinite variation which only serves to underline their basicRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1154383930315088082006-07-31T18:00:00.000-04:002006-12-01T16:08:26.666-05:00Thriller by Michael JacksonListening to this in 2006 creates a lot of cognitive dissonance. First of all, it's nice to hear some actual funk on this record, which moved Jackson one step further into pop from his best album, the almost all funk Off the Wall. There's a freshness and bounce to these songs, a sense of fun, that's all but lacking in modern pop, obsessed as it is with laughably Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1153118663655216672006-07-17T02:33:00.000-04:002006-07-17T02:45:34.473-04:00Superman ReturnsThere is another interesting post to be made on the pop-mythology in movies like this, and the fact that I feel a bit chagrined that stories such as Atlas, Prometheus, and even the Gospels are mined to lend this story a feeling of significance and unearned pathos. It's not the echoing and repetition of mythology I find annoying, just the implicit notion that a story like this can Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1149285392137614322006-06-02T17:52:00.000-04:002006-06-02T17:56:42.586-04:00Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism:The best defenses against the terrors of existesnce are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted in a characteristically pungent remark, that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary happiness. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1145658550979987022006-04-21T18:28:00.000-04:002006-04-21T18:46:42.686-04:00From G. Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form:Let us consider, for a moment, the world as described by the physicist. It consists of a number of fundamental particles which, if shot through their own space, appear as waves, and are thus of the same laminated structure as pearls or onions, and other wave forms called electromagnetic which it is convenient, by Occam’s razor, to consider as traveling throughRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1144366590308435592006-04-06T19:33:00.000-04:002006-04-06T19:36:30.320-04:00Damn I knew it!Well, add A History of Violence to the list below, somewhere in the middle, probably after Munich. It's mostly just funny to me, not really worthy of the self-important seriousness many critics want to attach to it. It's a cartoon version of America and probably says a lot more about how we accept and use violent stories of innocence and corruption (see the two justly lauded sex Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1143322243598200432006-03-25T16:24:00.000-05:002006-04-06T22:42:20.003-04:001. The New WorldThis was the best film of 2005, and perhaps the best film of the decade so far. I saw two different versions, and while I preferred the dreamy abstraction of the longer cut, the shorter one has its virtues as well. Malick, more than any other working filmmaker, uses film language for amazingly expressive and intelligent ends which never sacrifice emotional weight. I guess some Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1143230994922102952006-03-24T15:04:00.000-05:002006-03-24T15:09:54.933-05:00So here's my top ten, as promised. I've decide to just post the list now and add comments later, hopefully soon. As for relative quality, take number 1 as a "great" film and 2-3 as "very good" and the rest as just "good."1. The New World2. Brokeback Mountain3. The Weather Man4. Munich5. Grizzly Man6. The 40-Year-Old-Virgin7. War of the Worlds 8. 20469. Wedding Crashers10. Kung Fu HustleRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1138516558453550372006-01-29T01:35:00.000-05:002006-01-29T01:35:58.463-05:00Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.— Franz KafkaRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1137818882569346072006-01-20T23:45:00.000-05:002006-01-20T23:48:02.570-05:00Well it's been a while, hasn't it? I'm gonna start this puppy up again, and hopefully keep at it more regularly. I'll probably being posting a movies and music round up of 2005 in the next few weeks as I catch up on what the year had to offer. In the meantime, check out Matt Zoller Seitz's blog "The House Next Door" added on the sidebar. Seitz is one of my favorite critics and one of the few to Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1120436927539788302005-07-03T20:28:00.000-04:002005-07-03T20:28:47.543-04:00.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } FarSideDogCartoon, originally uploaded by rawhite. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1119282560808867302005-06-20T11:46:00.000-04:002005-06-20T11:49:20.816-04:00Courtesy of Tim, from the Buddha:"With birth as condition, aging and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering."I live a life of such ease that I only suffer when I desire; when I feel the anxiety of self that a knowledge of death brings. Was Nietzsche right that Buddhism is the religion of a decadent culture?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1113794769879047342005-04-17T23:19:00.000-04:002005-04-17T23:28:39.340-04:00Emerson's ExperiencePeople grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1113623106445678792005-04-15T23:32:00.000-04:002005-04-15T23:45:06.446-04:00I'm of two minds. It's amazing to look at, most of the time, but perhaps there is less to the visual style than it seems at first. Why copy so slavishly the comic book when you can copy the actual film noir that the comic book is itself a near-parody of? The visual richness of those films cannot be denied I think. But what's at stake in this really? Something like depth? Something as shallow as Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1113272532286539142005-04-11T22:20:00.000-04:002005-04-12T00:48:48.860-04:00Read a poem! You won't regret it. Here's a favorite, Arnold's Dover Beach, a monumental poem:The sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; -on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1113146929435187922005-04-10T11:22:00.000-04:002005-04-10T11:29:10.946-04:00E.M. Cioran on Nietzsche:All his hatreds bear indirectly on himself. His weaknesses he proclaims and erects into an ideal; if he execrates himself, Christianity or socialism suffers for it. His diagnosis of nihilism is irrefutable: because he himself is a nihilist, and because he avows it. A pamphleteer in love with his adversaries, he could not have endured himself had he not done battle with Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1113068778960693672005-04-09T13:45:00.000-04:002005-04-09T13:46:18.960-04:00You know, things like this have almost convinced me that there are people in the world who will not be happy until they make everything suck.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1112853158210767842005-04-07T01:44:00.000-04:002005-04-07T02:00:48.963-04:00One of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer (it may help you to know that "merde" is french for "shit"):Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less that I ever knew before, having learned only to Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1112290385392698352005-03-31T12:32:00.000-05:002005-03-31T12:33:05.393-05:00Just what I always suspected...Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1111940658051613202005-03-27T11:19:00.000-05:002005-03-27T11:24:18.053-05:00One can open Pascal's Pensees almost at random and find something wonderful. Here's a few that are particulary important for things I have been thinking about:Between us and heaven or hell there is only life half-way, the most fragile thing in the world.And:Neither an abasement which makes us incapable of good nor a holiness free from evil.Perhaps cynics like me would do well to remember the Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1111274554428165742005-03-19T18:21:00.000-05:002005-03-19T18:22:34.426-05:00Schopenhauer:There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity.Yes. But what do we do when our loneliness begins to feel vulgar too?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110991599616040662005-03-16T11:43:00.000-05:002005-03-16T11:49:30.116-05:00A note on page 8 of the Cambridge edition of The Gay Science:Plutarch reports that in a temple in the Egyptian city of Sais, there was a veiled statue of the goddess Isis with the inscription: "I am everything that is, that was, and that will be, and no mortal has ever rasied my veil." In his Critique of Judgement Kant says that this inscription is the "perhaps most sublime thing ever said."To Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110940931064942992005-03-15T21:41:00.000-05:002005-03-15T21:42:11.066-05:00!!!Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110848218246541672005-03-14T19:54:00.000-05:002005-03-14T19:58:02.906-05:00Nietzsche in The Gay Science:You have no idea what you are experiencing; you run through life as if you were drunk and once in a while fall down a staircase. But thanks to your drunkenness, you don't break your limbs in the process; your muscles are too slack and your head too dull for you to find the stones of these stairs as hard as the rest of us do! For us, life is a greater danger: we are Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110592899595042962005-03-11T20:49:00.000-05:002005-03-12T02:15:48.206-05:006ixtynin9 I much prefer the title as it appears in subtitled version I saw: A Funny Story about 6 and 9. This is sort of a Hitchcockian Thai film from the same director as Last Life in the Universe. It's interesting to note some similarities (dead bodies, bizarre conversations) but it's also a very different film, a dry witted observation of mounting panic rather than modern loneliness. Our Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110589670496447612005-03-11T20:06:00.000-05:002005-03-11T20:22:29.186-05:00Nietzsche:Without music, life would be an error.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110483395394389622005-03-10T14:34:00.000-05:002005-03-10T14:36:35.396-05:00On page 41 of Niklas Luhmann's Social Systems you will find the following sentence:We have not yet considered a further theme, which multiplies all problems: Time.Now that's a forehead slapper if there ever was one!Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110177526162622242005-03-07T00:54:00.000-05:002005-03-07T21:17:07.903-05:00My Year in Movies 2004Alternate title: Ryan's year of Asian film. Not really, since it's been clear for quite some time now that the best movies in the world are coming out of Asia, and not just Japan and Hong Kong. Add Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan as big art-house players. This list gets increasingly arbitrary towards the end, but then 10 is a fairly arbitrary number for ranking films. Just Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1110166396215524972005-03-06T22:32:00.000-05:002005-03-06T22:33:16.216-05:00Is there something in the water in Lebanon? Seriously.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1109395310005702332005-02-26T00:20:00.000-05:002005-02-26T00:23:17.376-05:00Those who are unhappy to find themselves without faith show us that God does not enlighten them: but the others show us that there is a God who is blinding them.--PascalRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1109122286597413062005-02-22T20:19:00.000-05:002005-02-22T20:32:09.546-05:00This interview with Simon Critchley is worth your time. If you're busy, here's a good excerpt:Nietzsche's response to nihilism is the doctrine of eternal return. You could read that in a cosmological way, as a belief that the universe is cyclical and is going to recur. Or, as you hinted, Vico's notion of cycles of history could be seen as signalled. I think that's all window dressing, though; I Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1108356064864670542005-02-13T23:26:00.000-05:002005-02-14T00:05:15.140-05:00Michael Tanner on Nietzsche's last year of sanity and Twilight of the Idols:And this is Nietzsche bravely talking about the joys of heaven from a position in hell--for this last year he says No as never before. One might even say that his affirmations are only, and this is his tragedy, the negations of negations. His faith--and it is remarkable to find him talking of faith at all in a positive Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1107575347792462412005-02-04T22:48:00.000-05:002005-02-04T22:49:51.340-05:00"That I could clamber to the frozen moon and draw the ladder after me." -- Arthur SchopenhauerRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1107376095221624442005-02-02T15:26:00.000-05:002005-02-02T17:36:18.983-05:00The Metaphysics of Donald Rumsfeld.
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
This is a very old article, but I thought it would be fun to link to it again. The "poem" Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1107314083741809382005-02-01T22:12:00.000-05:002005-02-01T22:14:43.740-05:00Yet more proof that we live in the best of all possible worlds. (Brace yourself. I'm not kidding.)
See more of God's aborted creations here.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1107277119789746162005-02-01T11:47:00.000-05:002005-02-01T12:00:06.853-05:00Conor Cunningham on Plotinus and the non-being of the One in Genealogy of Nihilism:The One cannot be alone. The One cannot be alone because that which proceeds from its plenitude does no necessarily. Furthermore, the One many well require that which emanantes so that it can itself be the One....If there were no emanations there would be the nihilism of pure undifferentiated "being" which may Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1106974370793949052005-01-28T23:43:00.000-05:002005-01-28T23:56:25.316-05:00Tokyo Jihen - Kyoiku
(I couldn't find a picture of the whole band, so here's my favorite picture of Shiina Ringo, who is basically the mastermind behind the band anyway.)
This one takes a while to grow on you, but boy does it grow. Shiina Ringo's sense of melody is, as always, outstanding, and she must be one of the few truly original songwriters I know of. The album is often frenzied, as even Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1106800306535402582005-01-26T23:21:00.000-05:002005-01-26T23:32:27.363-05:00The City of Lost Souls
This was my first Takashi Miike film excepting a few chunks of Audition caught on cable that I was too chicken to finish watching, and I'm not sure how to respond. It's kind of a typical yakuza gangster film where everything basically goes batshit crazy from time to time. For example, in this film you will see:
1) chickens using matrix-style martial arts in a cock fight
2Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1106590146367060062005-01-24T13:03:00.000-05:002005-01-24T21:38:37.680-05:00Music Video: Utada Hikaru, Hikari
This is an immensely charming video. The camera never moves or cuts from the shot you see above; the entire video is done in one take. Utada, who gives a very sweet performance here, washes the dishes and sometimes sings and sometimes doesn't (even at one point taking a drink of water while we still hear her singing). It's as if she is singing along to the Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1106508311627699702005-01-23T14:06:00.000-05:002005-01-24T13:11:11.223-05:00Million Dollar Baby
Emerson on Fate:...And not less work the laws of repression, the penalties of violated functions. Famine, typhus, frost, war, suicide and effete races must be reckoned calculable parts of the system of the world.
These are the pebbles from the mountain, hints of the terms by which our life is walled up, and which show a kind of mechanical exactness, as of a loom or mill in Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1106026806167607002005-01-18T01:26:00.000-05:002005-01-18T00:55:03.856-05:00Fallen Angels
What a strange film! Wong Kar Wai made this one (starring, among others, the very striking Michelle Reis--former miss Hong Kong apparently--pictured above) right after making the masterpiece Chungking Express, and it seems to be related to that film in the same way 2046 is related to Days of Being Wild. That is, a lyrical riff on similar themes, almost an echo of events in the Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1106005375301617672005-01-17T18:40:00.000-05:002005-01-17T18:42:55.300-05:00
Nietzsche hits awfully close to home sometimes, too close for comfort:The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuitionRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1105336134879554452005-01-10T01:48:00.000-05:002005-01-12T22:59:56.460-05:00Take Care of My Cat
Yet another example of the strength of Korean cinema, this film about the weakening bonds of friendship among a group of classmates making the transition to adulthood has a slowness and looseness that perfectly serves its story depicting the onset of general adult ennui. Time empties old friendships and obligations of their meaning, leaving them hollow and oppressive, and Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1105335784477096172005-01-10T01:42:00.000-05:002005-01-10T00:44:15.940-05:00Coming soon: my write up of 2004 movies. Here's a hint to what number 1 will be:
Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1104877329048329852005-01-04T16:44:00.000-05:002005-01-04T17:35:10.533-05:00Music 2004
Since it's a new year finally I figured it was time to clear off the sidebars. I'll leave the films up for a little while longer, at least until I see a few more movies; mainly Million Dollar Baby, House of Flying Daggers, and Time of the Wolf, and probably a few others. (I have a deep suspicion that Goodbye Dragon Inn will eventually be my favorite movie of the year, but I haven't Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1104859755212163672005-01-04T13:13:00.000-05:002005-01-04T15:19:32.970-05:002046
I have only seen an unofficial copy of this so far, and I can tell the usual Wong Kar-wai style vibrant colors are washed out a bit. I can picture how it is supposed to look at times, such as when Faye Wong (who, it must be said, looks insanely gorgeous in this movie) stands in a green dress in front of green bottles I imagine the sensuousness of the color is overwhelming. But on my copy Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1103144691349956622004-12-15T16:02:00.000-05:002004-12-15T17:18:45.703-05:00"But it was not a star, it was falling, a bright angel of death"
--Gravity's Rainbow
I think this line does a nice job of summing up the terrifying reversal (indeed, the arc of gravity's rainbow itself) that the novel seems to be about. What if our greatest hopes, dreams, and desires are merely the masks of a death wish? Is there a way out? Hopefully I'll be able to post more on this later...(Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1102415879090715382004-12-07T05:37:00.000-05:002004-12-07T05:37:59.090-05:00Surely, you can't doubt for one minute the fact that we live in the best of all possible worlds?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1102185430998293622004-12-04T13:37:00.000-05:002004-12-04T13:37:11.000-05:00Schopenhauer, 1823:If at times I have felt unhappy, then this has been largely due to a mistaken identity: on those occasions I regarded myself as someone other than who I am, and lamented that person's misfortune: e.g. a Privatdozent who is not made a professor and has no audience, or one of whom a philistine here speaks ill or a gossip there talks scandal, or the defendent in that bodily injuryRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1101882462240585592004-12-01T01:18:00.000-05:002004-12-01T01:28:10.163-05:00Here is a interesting interview with Philip Roth. It's of limited interest overall, but the series of comments Roth makes toward the end are most important:JEFFREY BROWN: Some years ago, I know you were involved with Eastern European writers at a time when they were a kind of moral voice against a totalitarian society. What do you see as your role, or as the role of a writer in our society?
Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1101611929248426152004-11-27T22:12:00.000-05:002004-11-27T22:18:49.246-05:00The great Simon Critchley says everything I ever wanted to say about The Thin Red Line. Even though he makes a very easy and common mistake: the vast majority of the voiceovers in the film are from a character we actually see very little of, and not Witt, as most critics think. I think this doesn't really matter so much, because the voiceovers are meant, I believe, to run together in this way Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1101241022543414712004-11-23T15:15:00.000-05:002004-11-23T15:17:02.543-05:00Anaximander and the Ontological Difference
Perhaps the earliest surving fragment in the history of philosophy is Anaximander's sentence:Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.More here, if you are interested.
I Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1097951131768915972004-10-16T14:24:00.000-04:002004-11-23T15:14:56.770-05:00Question: Are the Dinobots the pinnacle of Western Culture?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1095908245066428572004-09-22T22:57:00.000-04:002004-09-26T23:06:55.680-04:00
Anticipating...
and also anticipating some more.
(Hmm, watch much Vertigo Mr. Wong?)
Even more.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1095396015174721892004-09-17T01:38:00.000-04:002004-09-17T00:40:15.173-04:00Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Should I admire Rabbit Angstrom? I must admit that I do, whether I should or not. He has known grace, and will not settle for anything less. We all must settle into the despair of everyday life, yet Rabbit foolishly and selfishly keeps running; running across a field of death in the cemetery, pursued by moral obligation in the form of a minister. Rabbit gets away, and Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1095315292352654582004-09-16T02:14:00.000-04:002004-09-16T02:15:18.586-04:00"Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see."
Henry James, letter to Grace Norton, July 28, 1883
Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1091763866771229912004-08-05T23:43:00.000-04:002004-08-08T00:09:17.983-04:00The Leopard
It's difficult for me to really express why I admired this film so much. There is of course the amazing cast: Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale (appearing here the same year as her memorable performance in 8 1/2, talk about a good year!), and even real Sicilian royalty in the breathtaking 45 minute final scene. There is the graceful and beautiful imagery. Visconti Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1091325938859582202004-07-31T22:05:00.000-04:002004-07-31T22:20:00.560-04:00Dread
In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift imagines a race of beings who are immortal. Gulliver is astonished to hear this news, and imagines that they must have the utmost happiness and prosperity since they have overcome that most basic human problem: death.
Swift reverses this formula however: the life of the immortals is one of continual agony, pettiness, and boredom. To cut to the chase,Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1091320195473341812004-07-31T20:21:00.000-04:002004-07-31T20:30:54.133-04:00Before Sunset
If the first film (Before Sunrise) was about the fantasy of Romantic love, something so intoxicating that it compells the characters to foolishly give themselves and their happiness over to chance in keeping with the spirit of the moment, then this film is about an attempt at a recapturing of that moment.
It's been written that one of the dissapointments of life is the inability Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1091165010344273572004-07-30T01:22:00.000-04:002004-07-31T13:28:07.653-04:00Indisputable and conclusive proof that we live in the best of all possible worlds.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1089302474770087182004-07-08T11:52:00.000-04:002004-07-29T01:32:43.066-04:00Elephant
A slow and studied observation of the life of a high school occupies most of the movie, and it is at times very beautiful. Van Sant shoots the corridors of the school like The Shining, and the overlapping narrative, whereby we experience the same moment in time through different perspectives, creates a strange feeling, almost as if these characters are ghosts doomed to repeat themselvesRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1089165932634365782004-07-06T21:42:00.000-04:002004-07-10T13:10:29.980-04:00Pointless But Fun
Original list here. I've eliminated questions I know nothing about.
1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
Gotta go with Kelly--I prefer his athleticism. (Note: this marks me as having poor taste I know, but I'm gonna try to be honest here.)
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises?
Gatsby, obviously. Tragic and beautiful.
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington?
Ellington. Though really Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1088894197964644422004-07-03T18:31:00.000-04:002004-07-06T03:20:03.036-04:00"Philosophy has been sought in vain because man has sought it by the path of science rather than the path of art."
-- Schopenhauer
"Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial--out of Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1088451760487979942004-06-28T15:36:00.000-04:002004-07-02T20:27:58.526-04:00Tokyo Story
"Life is disappointing."
A line like that at the end of any other film would be intolerably self-pitying. But coming where it does, near the end of this supremely humane and compassionate film, it is devastating.
Towards the climax of the film, the most callous and seemingly shallow character in the film erupts into a powerful and heart-breaking show of grief. That Ozu can make usRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1088451270719077882004-06-28T15:32:00.000-04:002004-06-28T15:44:19.426-04:00"Man has this choice and this alone: nothing or God. Choosing nothing he makes himself God; that means he makes God an apparition, for it is impossible, if there is no God, for man and all that is around him to be more than an apparition. I repeat: God is and is outside of me, a living essence that subsists for itself, or I am God. There is no third possibility."
-- Friedrich JacobiRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1087494547960801232004-06-17T13:46:00.000-04:002004-06-17T17:27:59.363-04:00An interesting thought: I just learned that the Japanese character for "sound" is a combination of the characters for "sun" and "stand." This is particularly interesting given the cover of my favorite album ever:
It seems to be a literal depiction of the character for sound!Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1087324978540045162004-06-15T14:41:00.000-04:002004-06-15T14:42:58.540-04:00I think this might just be my favorite New York Times article ever.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1086643457672349532004-06-07T17:11:00.000-04:002004-06-07T17:35:36.813-04:00
Shena Ringo is a 24 year old classically trained musician and ballerina turned popstar from Japan. Her music is just as weird and wonderful as that sentence implies!
Her latest album, Karuki Zamen Kuri no hana (roughly translates as "Chlorine, Semen, Chestnut Flower"--and no I have no idea). It is a masterpiece in the glorious baroque pop tradition of Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper's. This is Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1086114715503408822004-06-01T14:31:00.000-04:002004-06-03T02:11:11.563-04:00Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
This Korean film is movie of the year so far, and I have some doubt it will be replaced. Its deceptively simplistic structure and "cycle of life" style themes coincide with an impressively dark philosophy of human existence; it suggests that the only escape from the moral darkness in our hearts (as certain as the seasons) is a form of self-annihilation. Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1086062656522843942004-06-01T00:03:00.000-04:002004-06-01T00:06:37.933-04:00I strongly recommend reading this beautiful letter from a soldier in the Civil War, it's a good way to honor Memorial Day and be reminded of the power of eloquent words at the same time.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1085505489642972982004-05-25T13:17:00.000-04:002004-05-25T13:18:09.643-04:00Now this is more like it.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1085429332131935272004-05-24T16:07:00.000-04:002004-05-24T16:09:08.953-04:00Read on a message board concerning the upcoming Canadian election:
The Marxist-Leninist Party's victory is historically inevitable, fools!Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5117275.post-1085429041188884302004-05-24T16:02:00.000-04:002004-05-24T16:04:01.186-04:00So the idea with the picture and quote above is to have a rotating (it will probably be changed every few weeks) image and quote at the top of the blog. Normally it will just be a picture I find interesting or striking, and the same goes for the quote.Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00461555823754469364noreply@blogger.com0