early-november things

the temptation to not vote is massive when every other person on your feed threatens to end their friendships with all those who don't vote. (this includes a number of people I know, and also minor Kardashian-adjacent Steph Shep.) I'm not sure I want to be friends with someone who doesn't think to phrase their statement as "please vote for this candidate if you can" — who doesn't realize that the "simple" act of voting is more difficult for so many than it should be, and importantly, that it cannot in itself change anything for the better. (why not threaten to end your friendships with all those who vote for, like, Ted Cruz? I'm not saying that you should do that — maybe just don't post anything??? — but let's all stop pretending that we don't have strongly-held political opinions.)

(here's a piece re: Obama's "don't boo, vote" variation on this.)

anyway, I did vote, and all I'm going to say about any of it is that I would like those clamoring for a Beto O'Rourke presidential run to sit down and think a little harder about what it is, exactly, that they're proposing. it's a bad idea!!!

the age of the blog

A brief check-in, taking the form of a rather belated PSA: notable Internet user and Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, 32, has taken down the final post on his erstwhile blog "Internet Vibes"—yes, the post entitled "I HATE BLOGGING," after which we never heard from Mr. Koenig again.

30 July 2016

(It's a well-known post, previously referenced on this very blog.)

You see the lone difference between the two snapshots, barring their dimensions. "New Age Family Vacation Alert" simply preceded "I HATE BLOGGING" chronologically; it's not new material. (When are we getting that from Vampire Weekend, by the way?) It seems that "I HATE BLOGGING" (the post) has disappeared from the blog. It's not much of a reach to thus presume that "I HATE BLOGGING" (the sentiment) has disappeared from Mr. Koenig's heart.

5 October 2016

Perhaps Mr. Koenig sensed the winds of change before the rest of us and used that simple "delete post" operation to tell us—us being his fans, who all tend to skim the headlines every morning, by choice or not—this. The age of the press is, sadly, over. The age of the blog (or the one-man newspaper, take your pick) has begun anew. Stay tuned.

a choice bit of titus andronicus 3.2, before it becomes thoroughly objectionable

TITUS ANDRONICUS
Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,
And tears will quickly melt thy life away.

[MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife.]

What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?

MARCUS ANDRONICUS
At that that I have kill'd, my lord; a fly.

TITUS ANDRONICUS
Out on thee, murderer! thou kill'st my heart;
Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother: get the gone:
I see thou art not for my company.

MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.

TITUS ANDRONICUS
But how, if that fly hd a father and moth?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamented doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly,
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast
kill'd him.

listen up, y'all

"Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5:15 train." — Keynes

Everything in my life came together in the space of three seconds earlier tonight. I found the connection; the universe is telling me something. Now, what that something is, I don't know — but I am nearly 100% certain that the ghost of Ludwig Wittgenstein has everything to do with it! If you would, consider the following:

1. The book I've most thoroughly digested (and enjoyed) since I moved to Philadelphia: The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace. WITTGENSTEIN.
2. I have been on time to one linguistics lecture this semester. (This isn't my fault, mom. My programming class is in a biology building, and the walk takes ten years on a good day.) And who did we discuss in that lecture? Only a "very interesting fellow by the name of... WITTGENSTEIN."
3. On a lark (lark, what a! plunge, what a!), I went rooting around for books in West Philly last Thursday. I found four, as mentioned earlier. the first one I read is about Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel (A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin, I recommend it). Whose ideas hold the book together? Why, those of WITTGENSTEIN.
4. My father's primary piece of advice to me has always been "when you have nothing to say, say nothing." This is a corruption of "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," which hails from the TRACTATUS-LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICALUS, which is the only book ever written by WITTGENSTEIN. This is something I mutter under my breath often while in the library, for there is inevitably some blockhead Skyping sans shame in the No-Cell Zone.

This is it, y'all. I am an unwitting Wittgensteinian, devoid of wit but full of gene snit. Updates on the haunting to follow... perhaps.