tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010/607 2007-12-04T19:14:16Z Movable Type Enterprise 1.02 tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5766 2007-12-04T18:10:56Z 2007-12-04T19:14:16Z

Prevalent in Ishiguro's work (having read A Pale View of Hills) is the role of memory in the narrative. In Pale View the work leans more towards the reiteration of pain to produce a state of melancholy along with its...

Dominik Pucek Prevalent in Ishiguro's work (having read A Pale View of Hills) is the role of memory in the narrative. In Pale View the work leans more towards the reiteration of pain to produce a state of melancholy along with its reflection on loss, Never Let Me Go's Kathy (and clone collegues) constantly revisit memory in nostalgic lust for the charm of days past and articles lost in order to evaluate who they are supposed to be in the now. However, this story seems more focused on the value of those things lost and the pain they must face in its wake rather than recalling a painful event. As we learn, these clones are the sort of "spoiled children" of the organ trade. I appreciate the way Ishiguro is able to handle science fiction with a very natural narrative. It is not trying to be the genre. More so, it is an analysis of the kinds of troubles the victims of cloning may face, and ultimately illustrates just how human (and perhaps a bit childish) they are. But more in line with the concern of this class, the narrative is quite profoundly engaged with the process of memory - how memories are shifted from the truth of what happened from the accounts of others as well as the narrator. There are several moments where Kathy is clearly showing us how Ruth incorporates additional elements in the reconstruction of her memories, and this agrees with the conclusions Sacks and the science of Radiolab comes to, as well as resonating with moments in our own lives. I mean, is Kathy more reliable because she tells us Ruth has a tendency to fib? I think it is more of a reflection of our own beliefs that OUR memories are accurate. Kathy engages in, much the same way as Magnani does with Pontito, a reconstruction of Hailsham itself, walking us through her small idyllic world by the articulation of her qualia, and the subjective experience she relates to objects in her collection. Most odd to me though, is that despite all the memories we are shown through her narrative, her narrative is very clearly not invested in discussing the deeper goings on of herself. For instance, why do we learn that Kathy has been flipping through pages of porn to find her "model" from Tommy? There is a consistent and undeniable quality of the importance of what's unspoken that she equates through implication with being a defining characteristic of her fellow clones. There is also a constant "fronting" going on that poor old Tommy never seems to pay attention to (or perhaps care for) - that which is told and that which is meant, which these poor souls have learned from their instructors. These elements contribute to the themes of misrepresentation, misinformation and misspeaking and the importance of reading in between the lines that is part of being from such a small community, but taken a bit further - it defines a new sect of society that is bred to die and considered non-human. Kathy's obsession moves from rememberance to the reveal of the real world, devalueing her nostalgia piece by piece until the very heart is broken, the wonder and art clouded and grayed out by the sharp and present storm of clarity. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5764 2007-12-04T18:09:56Z 2007-12-09T18:24:31Z

Back in the 90's everyone in the Tri-state area found out who Radiohead was before anyone knew who Radiohead was thanks to (at that time) the new Q104. I remember Julie Slater saying before playing them - which was not...

Dominik Pucek Back in the 90's everyone in the Tri-state area found out who Radiohead was before anyone knew who Radiohead was thanks to (at that time) the new Q104. I remember Julie Slater saying before playing them - which was not a corporate decision but hers - that she really liked this new band. It was a mecca for all things rock, and the last place rock in new york would have a healthy place to exist. It was cool because they played everything. At night around 10 or 11 they used to have Mandatory Metallica. And it was always the "old Metallica." So, in thinking about my project I've complied a short Mandatory Metal Book List. Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. It's Sacks. Nuff said. This is Your Brain On Music by Daniel J. Levitin. This book examines the elements producers in a studio enhance in order to get a specific response while listening to a record. I'll be using his analysis to evaluate the qualia of Metal music and what producers in that genre might do differently. He's definitely the guy to read too - he was a rock musician and producer himself who decided to get a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. That's pretty Metal. Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota by Chuck Klosterman. This guy is a metal expert. If you've ever seen VH1's specials like Behind the Music or 100 Most (BLANK) Moments, Top 100 (BLANK) Bands of All Time, and most importantly Heavy: The Story of Metal you've also seen Chuck. I'm planning to compare his history with mine, evaluating both our qualia and why metal is so pleasant to us. So that's all for now. See you at the coast.]]> tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5601 2007-11-27T17:28:25Z 2007-11-27T18:44:18Z

I really liked this piece. Steen's slant on why we enjoy aesthetics so is a compelling read. He gets down to the bare bones of looking at why something seen could be so pleasing, and what kind of specific truths,...

Dominik Pucek I really liked this piece. Steen's slant on why we enjoy aesthetics so is a compelling read. He gets down to the bare bones of looking at why something seen could be so pleasing, and what kind of specific truths, precarious as they are, that process elucidates. kinds of truths that us cognitive machines relate to in encountering and appreciating a piece of art: 1 (aesthetics) "that there is a significant and systematic relation between certain orders that are externally manifest and the internal manifest order of certain aspects of our being" and 2 (imaginative), "the truth of beauty encompasses the use of imaginative immersion and the creation of virtual agents in representational art." There is something about that conclusion that makes me say, "yes, yes, YES!" Why? Because the points Steen makes are so clear when dealing with something as muddled as the cognitives of aesthetics. He links our enjoyment with art as something basic, tied to an evolutionary need, something that assists our survival in our given environment and puts our search for order on scientific terms. I just love it when science dispels magic, mysticism and belief. Somehow it makes things more beautiful to know that we seek out order in our universe to confirm order in ourselves, yes, that we are ok, and things are ok, and that we really are one with the universe after all, apart and a part. That Keats got it half right and half wrong - that our truths are derived from fictions, and our fictions dervied from truth - that that it is all I know and all I need to know. It is that sort of tension that comforts me, assists me in knowing my place in the universe. It hums.]]> tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5482 2007-11-21T21:45:34Z 2007-11-21T22:46:55Z

I want to commit myself to an investigation in the appeal of Metal, that is, the music, the culture, the art, the combined experience of each element. Being a metal fan, these things are all second nature to me, so...

Dominik Pucek I want to commit myself to an investigation in the appeal of Metal, that is, the music, the culture, the art, the combined experience of each element. Being a metal fan, these things are all second nature to me, so when Prof. Tougaw suggested that this could be a compelling project, initially I rejected it. Why? Because there is a stereotype applied to the people who comprise the metal world - that of the mosh pitting knucklehead who still lives with his Mom. My sort of thought process was "why analyze something that doesn't want and doesn't need analysis?" Because it does. Because it is second nature to me. Because being a "metalhead" is a stereotype. I didn't want to do an analysis because of that stereotype. I mean, yes, I listen to metal, but in the many ways that it defines me, there are many ways it does not. Hell, I listen to Bjork, too. In fact, a lot of my metalhead friends do. For all these reasons, I feel I must do the work to understand this essential part of my life, influence and experience. So what I propose to do is to get some material that performs a psychological / sociological / epistemological analysis on the form and culture - the WHYs that explain why certain people are attracted to the aesthetic and experience of metal, comparing it side by side with my own personal experiences, focusing on what we've studied so far in regards to qualia, emotion and feeling (and I'm not sure how yet, but perhaps memory, too (aside from recall - the process of recall)). Tell me what you think. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5481 2007-11-21T21:45:12Z 2007-11-25T04:57:13Z

Mr. David McCabe makes an interesting point that I would like to expicate here that heads in a completely different yet not unrelated direction. A broad and expansive view of the process he suggests is necessary and inevitable to making...

Dominik Pucek makes an interesting point that I would like to expicate here that heads in a completely different yet not unrelated direction. A broad and expansive view of the process he suggests is necessary and inevitable to making progress. Does it relate to consciousness?]]> I believe so. Let me quote David first: "Whether the situation is someone with epilepsy de-sheltering him/herself or a gay person coming out, "going public" could have an effect not only on how you deal with things but also on how others deal. I think the analogy holds to the extent that there's strength in numbers and that effects can be cumulative - i.e., positive social outcomes can result from desensitization/education of the public via exposure to the stigmatized group." It's this cumulative effect that I want to concern myself and this blog with. The cumulative consciousness. The beauty of our present world is that we have a place to access that opens other worlds to us. It is not just an exposure or desensitization to a "sitgmatized group", but more importantly the ease of education towards a such a group, and likewise many other groups, though all groups are in some way stigmatized by the existence of others. It provides an equal and inequal definition of the said group. The internet age has allowed us to immerse ourselves safely in the waters that comprise any given pool of people thanks to its inherent anonymity (on a surface level that is), and in essence lift or fully define any associated stigmas so as to deconstruct, or perhaps simplify them. This level of exposure and the sheer numbers of attainable detail in the self-education of any given stigmatized group is akin to a metaphoric mass consciousness engaging itself with the concerns of its world. This is big. This is huge. Humongous. Gargantuan. It is the speed and height of articualtion with which an "I" in the process of a collective mind, an analysis of any given who, or Other that is also I, which compels me to restate the immense significance the internet has on our age and equally creates and defines our age. It assists the potential of emergence in approching exponentionality. It is not a singular aperture, but a conglommeration of apertures that constructs the opening, much like an eye, literally AND figuratively, to the collection of the mass en masse. So what does this do? It reappropriates the conception of any given group, as well as the way we construct and place groups into systems of difference. It recognizes a system of difference is necessary to the definition of the group, however is short sighted without regard to the similarties it shares not only to other groups but with being a group. When the collective consciousness recognizes this, interprets it, and reapproriates this, the potentiality of positivity increases, along with anarchy in its true sense. It begins to dispel the constructs that self important and appointed "I"s have on other "I"s and thus onto the "Others" they do not recognize as the self same and all inclusive I, the collective consciousness. And it works equally for the subordained, subordinated and subalterned. The process is approching a unified accessibility. It is as a good friend of mine once postulated: "If you want a world changed for the better, you simply have but to write a letter to all as to why it must. Where this hopeful idea fails is in the dissemination of your particular letter, which must be a process different from the reiteration of universal concepts, themes, or familiarities: a process of universal contact." I can reply now, now that the work has become easier, important and reliant (rather than those same 2 words with the prefix of self), my friend, "the times, they are a-changin'." tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5304 2007-11-12T00:40:47Z 2007-11-12T00:46:34Z

Right before I sleep I hear things. I mean, I’m not sure. I think I hear them. No one’s there. I must be thinking them right? I can feel them rush on me, phantoms bearing down, breathing in my ear....

Dominik Pucek Right before I sleep I hear things. I mean, I’m not sure. I think I hear them. No one’s there. I must be thinking them right? I can feel them rush on me, phantoms bearing down, breathing in my ear. Usually I can make them float away. Sometimes they don’t and I can’t keep the thoughts from screaming, stealing my very breath, the air around me vacuuming away like hands over my throat, through my chest. I drown and I drown until I scramble and crawl out of bed and get the lights up. Another red bull keeping me on until day light. I’ll get two hours of inside quiet, pass out on my desk before its time for me to get ready for work and go. Time heals all. Yeah right. Even so, those hours under a fluorescent basement light are brutal. If I stare at anything too long I think its staring back. I get that shiver that comes from seeing something you shouldn’t have, but worse. It’s something you’re not supposed to be able to see. Your eye and mind disagree. Neither right or wrong. Books beg me to open them. Drawers muffle their demand for fresh air, for my throat. My clock is leering, telling time over and over. The numbers repeat, menacing, magnetic, automatic 3:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:363:473:473:473:473:473:473:473:473:473:473:47 until I can’t stand it anymore and have to rip myself away. LED arms staggering, swishing, swinging, starting, stopping, sloping out in parabolas towards me to cut me up, cut me open. So I keep my eyes running. I turn on the TV and watch Real World reruns. It’s painful but less than going back to bed to hear them again. The subject matter has to be fucking stupid. Too intense, too much analysis, and they come again, the words – oppressors. I’ll turn the sound off and put on my headphones, blast some Lamb of God, Mastodon, God Forbid. Anything with a lot of noise and screaming. It drowns the others out. It started with my name. Just my name. I would think my roommate was calling me but, no. He’s asleep. Talking in his sleep? I would always check, creeping in the dark close to his bedroom door, always open, careful not to step too loud, socks slipping against the wood floor. I’m afraid to wake him and lose my confirmation. But he never does. He sleeps like the dead. No words pass, can’t even hear him breathing. The quiet is no calm. I’d do anything for some noise. Just my name. That’s enough isn’t it? Someone is calling me. I keep my eyes awake thinking I’m going to see something come out of the darkness. I think I do, dark shapes, swimming. But nothing is there. I keep still as a stick and leave my eyelids barely open, thinking, maybe they can see that. Maybe I can trick them. But the calling never coincides. I’m just fooling myself. Maybe it’s the neighbors. They stay up late. But, not all night. It’ll leave me for minutes, maybe even an hour, but always comes back as I feel my self closing in on the collapse to sleep. Confirmation came when I heard other voices. My name again, and again. First a whisper. Then a voice joins. A woman, a man, another man, a child. Over and over until a horrific chorus builds that crescendos to WHITE NOISE and my eyes scan everywhere in the blank black, wishing that something would come, would appear and confirm beyond reasonable doubt that I’ve fucking lost it. Un-law alive. I think about my mother. She was 26 when it happened to her. I’m 24. This is the time. It started slow with her, too. She wouldn’t ever speak about the others. I think of her back then. Think of myself now. I feel the terror she must have felt whenever my brother or I found her laughing to herself. That uncontrollable giggling. “Mom, what’s so funny?” She smiled, said “Nothing,” and went back to it. She couldn’t help it. I know she wanted to stop, I know she wanted to, but couldn’t. It would get worse and worse, until it wasn’t laughing anymore, as if the sweet nothings in her ear grew into massive monsters emerging from her lobes, crushing her head, the pressure pressing at her skull until her foot was slamming into our oven and plates were pieces everywhere. She screamed in a language I didn’t understand to others I could not here or see, but I felt them, felt them overcoming her, “Mom what’s wrong!? What’s wrong whats wrong!?! MOOOOMMM!!! STOOOOOP!!!” I think about the pain. Hers. Mine. Ours. It comes to me as Metalicca comes on blasting, Hetfield screaming, “fight fire with fire.” Imagination as weapon. I remember an exercise from psychology class in high school. We were exploring the imagination. Imagining ourselves as a tree. Feeling the roots and pushing past the soil, into the ancient dirt below, all the way into the center of the earth. Feel it throbbing. Hear it humming. Melt yourself into the core, expand expand expand…Now contract, contort and shoot yourself back to tree, slowing down at the trunk and slowly climb up up and up, sap in reverse, fill out branch by branch, feel out your leaves and begin to leave, emanate in a green essence and speed through the sky………fly…… Its all in my head its all in my control its all just that simple I can control it touch it feel it…fill in the blank…fill in the black….I lie in bed, abandon my ipod and lie still. They start to speak. I surround my self in a sphere, local, mine, magical and soothing, pink, transparent, a kiss, above and below , through the plane of the floor, and I focus…they recede, intrigued, next level forms green, healing, threading in and over the pink, sounding like reeds in wind, whispering fill in the blank… then the white to spite the noise, provide respite, stand guard and ease the pain as I release myself to sleep. FILL IN THE BLANK> FILL IN THE BLACK>> FILL IN THE BLANK> FILL IN THE BLACK>>FILL IN THE BLANK> FILL IN THE BLACK>>FILL IN THE BLANK> FILL IN THE BLACK>>FILL IN THE BLANK> FILL IN THE BLACK>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I dream of mom, sitting at the table happy I am home, a bowl of tomato soup set at my place. She smiles, speaks my name, asks me to eat. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5170 2007-11-06T21:10:44Z 2007-11-21T23:14:01Z

So apparently out of body experiences can be induced (I sent you all an article about this, come on, reconstruct - you remember). Isn't that ridiculous? And amazing. Our bodies are wonderfully brilliant organic machines aren't they?...

Dominik Pucek So apparently out of body experiences can be induced (I sent you all an article about this, come on, reconstruct - you remember). Isn't that ridiculous? And amazing. Our bodies are wonderfully brilliant organic machines aren't they? derealization and depersonalization, both of which seem to be related because any individual that experiences either usually experiences the other. Because of this relation these scientists continued work that postulates it has something to do with an error that occurs in the part of our brains that monitors where you are in space. I understand this first hand. During my late teens, well, let's just say that I was a fucked up kid. I had a lot of stress going on for the most part of my life. I had been dealing with it fairly well until around 17-19 when I could not hold off the pressure anymore. I started experiencing bouts of unreachability. It wasn't an out of body sort of thing, that's never happened to me the way it's been talked about in the news or tv. It was where I could see what I was doing, hear what I was saying, was aware of things that were going on, but I couldn't necessarily feel them. It was as if all my impressions and sense of self and sense of the world had forced the "ME" I believe to be perceive them from a distance. I felt like I was not there, or that perhaps I was not real. Which eventually lead to feeling that perhaps maybe the world wasn't real. It just felt terribly terribly strange, and I would do horrible things like say or do things I knew would anger / sadden / offend people just to be sure I was still a part of and not apart from reality. It would feel so ODD. Like some sort of awkward hangover. I would 'wake' from this state groggy and disoriented. Which, when looking at this research, seems to make perfect sense when considering out-of-body experiences. According to the experiement, certain parts of the brain believed to be associated with de[re/per]sonalization when stimulated can induce an intense feeling of dislocation for approximately. Most subjects reported that they would feel as if the "they" they know would be located behind and to the left of where they actually were, and felt as if they could watch themselves. I cannot say I ever felt anything so intense as that, but I do relate. The researchers postulate that the "white light" they see may be an illusion they experience due to the severity of trauma that needs to be present for this particular state to be induced naturally, and they begin to see the one light when the effect wears off, returning to the body - where the light of bulb or flashlight my be over them. This of course, hasn't been explained yet. But it is n eye opening, and for me, a comforting discovery.]]> tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5169 2007-11-06T21:10:31Z 2007-11-10T18:23:32Z

Years ago, in the 90's, Metallica released a video for One, a song they wrote inspired by a movie/book called Johnny Got His Gun. The video features clips from this movie about a man who had gone to the war,...

Dominik Pucek One, a song they wrote inspired by a movie/book called Johnny Got His Gun. The video features clips from this movie about a man who had gone to the war, survived a bombing, but was left without arms or legs, sight, hearing and speech. I thought that was one of the most horrific things you could possibly experience - being trapped within the mind completely.]]> The aesthetics of Metal music typically involve death and revolve around the dark, so for Metallica, this sharply defined them as leaders of the genre by examining a fate that could be considered worse than death, while making a politcal and moral point about war, which is also very Metal. The unfortunate soldier loses his sanity as he drifts in and out of sleep hoping that he could wake up and hear him. His signals S.O.S. with his head, but doctors do not know what to do with him and keep him alive via a feeding tube. By the end he wishes for death to release him. Bauby on the other hand, manages to deal with his fate with an odd positivity, coming up with a language facilitated blinking system and using his memory to construct comforting re-experiences. His struggle to reach the world through the most limited movement is truly an inspiration. As a writer, I cannot imagine how frustrating it must have been to desire to communicate, to construct a tale, and to have only one tool, trust in a note taker. Its interesting to see how he describes the process, as a mental memorization of the words and then their execution. One also cannot deny that his restrictions also forced the novel to be so characteristically sharp and clean. Not one word is a waste, and though the novel is short, it is not without rich experience, a remarkable memoir. That said, I feel unsure about how much we are given. I feel that despite his disclosure, his honest prose, and effort to focus on the positive leaves me wondering about the tremendous pain with which he lived. Yes, we are told about it, given the lines of the situational, but I never really feel the horror like Metallica's video did. I wonder about how the work ran through his head, I wonder about those days when he could not write another word, the sheer unbearability if his condition. Ultimately, I am not so sure why these emotional moments are undercut. Yes his sense perceptions were at odds, and yes he could not feel. But what is there in that emptiness. How does his mind feel it? These unacknowledged moments, unanswered questions, are what creates the horror. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5168 2007-11-06T21:10:18Z 2007-12-09T20:26:00Z

In Blue and Gold again. Just me and Boris this time. It had been hard since Jo-Jo'd left for Australia. Especially since it meant it was over with Pete, just at it had been over with Boris. Now she'd left...

Dominik Pucek In Blue and Gold again. Just me and Boris this time. It had been hard since Jo-Jo'd left for Australia. Especially since it meant it was over with Pete, just at it had been over with Boris. Now she'd left the two boys to sort it all out for themselves and, well, you wonder who's problem it really was. Boris and I grab 2 'Dirty Hipster's and slide into a booth. We down the shots of jaeger and sip our PBRs. He breaks into it, telling me things you can expect, like I hate fucking Pete, and I hate fucking Jo, when I know and he knows he's gonna miss them both. We were all so close. But right now, the pain is fresh, like an open sore. And there isn't much I can do to heal it for him. It's the sort of thing you need to allow to just breathe, crust over. Boris is resiliant. He's flicking matches. Lighting them and flicking them so the flare blasts in the passing moment, but in the end, it's a charred strip of cardboard. I don't know if Boris is trying to make someone feel his pain, per se, or what even just the action means, or satisfies. But he's flicking them over my head, never at the same angle, as if there are some terrible chords in his head, and that depsite the changes he can't master any melody. His words reflect that, moving around in circles, unsure of where to end or begin. He is a man decentered. But he needs to speak, to share. I sit silent, eye to eye with him, forget about attempting to help him make any sense of it all. One match flies over and doesn't go out. The girls behind us all start yelling and shouting, and I just them realize that someone's product has just caught fire. I look at Boris and he's still lost in himself, didn't even notice. He'd been drinking all day so, granted, he was sloshed. Anyway, I grab his arm and drag him out of there. I took a quick glance, and it was already put out, but we didnt need to be there for the after. We get outside and I hope those girls have no idea what we looked like because we're pretty much regulars there - as regular as you can be in Alphabet City. Boris has no idea what's going on and I just keep pushing him forward. He starts to kick the garbage bags on the side of the street, and when that's not enough, he starts picking them up and flinging them across the street. That area is pretty deserted when it comes to cars, but still, this ain't good for anybody. Though Boris is a twig compared to me, he's strangely strong when he's this far gone, and Boris is gone, boy. Some guy steps out of his store, who knows what he's still doing there at near 1 AM, but he starts yammering about how he's gonna get a ticket for what Boris is doing, bout how he's gonna fuck him up, no wait better yet, he's gonna get the cop he knows who usually walks through the park. He's off, and Boris, with perfect timing, exhausted, collapses in my arms. Dead weight. And I resign myself to the fact that tonight, Boris and I are getting booked. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.5166 2007-11-06T21:09:51Z 2007-11-13T12:45:37Z

I have always been intrigued by deja vu. I don't remember the first time I experienced it, but I experience it a few times a year, and each time I don't really feel a fear come over anymore, more of...

Dominik Pucek I have always been intrigued by deja vu. I don't remember the first time I experienced it, but I experience it a few times a year, and each time I don't really feel a fear come over anymore, more of a comfort. I think this is because I've rationalized the whole thing, analyzed it as hard as I could, and thus took the mysticism out of it. It has lost its quality to me as prophecy, or precognition. Its also been scientifically explained as an anomaly of memory/vision, perhaps related to stress. Interesting, but boring, maybe. As a matter of fact, I had deja vu twice this week. I feel the scientific answer is right. Why? is boring. Each time I have deja vu, it occurs under tremendously mundane circumstances. This past weekend my friend Omar called me. We talked about football and I heard him say something hateful about Peyton Manning, then make a prediciton for the rest of the Green Bay Packers' season. Now he talks about this sort of thing a lot. But at the fringe of awareness I could sense that I knew exactly what he was going to say and how, not by intuition or familiarity, but because I was sure it was happening presently exactly the way I remember it happening, only it hadn't happened yet. Or did it? Science says it did, that there is some sort of lag, on the level of milliseconds, where our memory records the event before we are aware of it. When we do become aware of it, we get that strange feeling of knowing what is going to happen because it has already happened, we were just unaware. This makes sense in regards to what we learned from Carter about there being a lag between the moment of perception and the processing of that perception. When deja vu occurs, there is a mis-step somewhere in the translation/transmission of this information that increases the lag. This is confirmed by our inability to change events as they are occuring - how can we change them if they've already happened? When I was younger, being a hardcore sci fi geek, I used to imagine that deja vu was evidence not of memory anolmalies, but temporal anomalies. There was in that moment, for me, some sort of cosmic shift, perhaps a very tiny and imperceptible black hole passing through my neck of the universe, and time had blipped as a result, skipped like needle on vinyl, but had to right itself before some wormhole opened up to suck me in and transport me elsewhere a la Stargate. Or maybe it was a multi dimensional coincidence between two timelines in one moment, my entity having gotten off track, needing to press the reset button like Sega Genesis, so that this specific me doesn't die in a car crash next week, but of a heart attack at 54. Then I saw the Matrix, and the scene where Neo sees the cat twice is explained as a glitch in the system indicating that agents have arrived seemed to make perfect sense to me. I mean, they're all coming to get us right? We just haven't woken up yet. Then there's deja vu's brother and sister, deja senti (already felt) and deja visite (already visited). Is there some grand secret to the multiverse that we haven't unlocked? Yesterday I was working on a manuscript and was shcoked to find that the pattern of letters making up the chapter's references were oddly familiar, exactly so, and the fact that there were 97 of them felt immensely significant. I knew I would then take a sip of the lukewarm green tea sitting in my mug to the left of me and that there was no way that I could not. A very short moment, yes; the sheer lack of control was quite a trip, as it always is, but accompanied by a Douglas Adams toned "great, here we go again." So am I a prophet? Are there going to be 97 deaths, intricately linked so that I must save the world from apocalypse? Am I a hero whose powers have not been realized yet? Is that it? Not fucking likely. I probably just need some sleep.]]> tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.4834 2007-10-27T07:16:58Z 2007-11-06T21:15:55Z

The Lathe of Heaven Ursula Le Guin Trade Paper 176 Pages ISBN 0-06-051274-1 MSRP: $12.95...

Dominik Pucek The Lathe of Heaven Ursula Le Guin Trade Paper 176 Pages ISBN 0-06-051274-1 MSRP: $12.95 ]]> Le Guin Reprint Resonates Sharply Readers old and new will recognize that the recently reprinted HarperCollins edition of this Le Guin classic is frighteningly timely. The grim vision of the future she presents as Orr’s initial world circa 2002 is not too far from where our present may be heading. Overpopulation has strained the world’s resources and living space, leaving the majority of America malnourished and cramped. Health care has had no choice but to become a socialized entity, and sadly, that’s not a good thing. Global Warming is in full effect, where even Oregon, the setting for the novel, has Octobers in the 80s. There is a greater understanding of the need for her book, more so now than perhaps in its own time. It seems our reality is so steady and vast in its decline that the only safe space to imagine having a palpable impact is within our dreams. Nothing speaks louder in this regard than the recent success of the Matrix Trilogy, offering the idea that reality itself is questionable – and perhaps malleable. Nonetheless we may feel limited and powerless to do any better than to hope for the world to come around on its own. This conflict becomes represented in the parasitic relationship between Haber and Orr, which becomes even stronger in today’s context. Haber bears our lust for the potential to be the orchestrator of positive change, and Orr is the enabler and instrument of that potential. Of course, Le Guin would not be the Sci-fi force she is without impressing her philosophical viewpoint on us by setting limits for the two, and thus limiting each other. Haber’s high-minded lone wolf ego and twisted altruism prevents him from realizing that the gains achieved in each new world do not justify the losses. Orr, feeling hopeless and doomed, views his gift as a curse; as a result his bleak outlook on life makes him unerringly compliant, but also mitigates the effectiveness of Haber’s vision. In one of the early continuum shifts, Haber’s guidance allows Portland, Oregon, and presumably the world, to return to its previous abundance – wide open spaces, the absence of an over-packed city, and a healthy and well-fed population. However, Orr knows that his dream of a vast plague that wiped out most of humanity allowed this new reality to be. He must bear the knowledge of the world beforehand, and with it, the guilt of having been a part of causing billions of souls to be lost. As Le Guin’s novel illustrates, the will to control reality is bound to affect it both positively and negatively. Ultimately, as her Buddhist epigraphs suggest, the world will always balance itself out and is as it is, as it will be. When Orr is directed to imagine an Earth without war, a new reality occurs where Aliens fight humanity for the Moon. Le Guin makes a point here about the nature of humanity, the world and our universe – that chaos and order is inherent. Conflict and strife will exist, and must exist, no matter our level of advancement. In effect she begets in us both an acceptance of our limits and our need for limits. Positivity is not forthcoming without something to challenge it and her work illustrates the beauty of that. Even beauty itself is at stake. Orr’s inability to stand up on his own and challenge Haber allows each successive world to come into being, but he eventually becomes empowered by the strong willed lawyer Heather Lelache. As the third element, she acts as a regulator – and in this sense represents our conscience, the limit of what should be done given the possibilities. She tries to foil Haber by attempting to convince Orr that he needs to stop Haber. However it doesn’t work until Haber achieves the elimination of racism by making all skin gray. Le Guin’s solution for racism gets a bit shortchanged here – after all, there are still shades to every gray. But her effort is to show what kind of sterility can come from utopia: for each beauty gained there is a beauty lost. Orr laments the graying of the beautiful brown skin of Lelache, allowing him to face Haber head-on. Le Guin presents this well without being overly wistful about it. Veteran readers of Le Guin know that her works are predicated on archetypical and representative characters. But despite how tightly woven these three entities are, readers both new and old might feel that they are borderline stereotypical – their behavior is almost comedic, making the story a bit too predictable. Newcomers to Le Guin might also find that her language can be unpolished, even clunky at times, which the reprint appears to have glossed over. There are also grammatical errors that one would not expect from Harper. It seems the reprint may just be a way for Harper to capitalize on the current revival of science fiction and fantasy in popular culture. That said, this doesn’t diminish the fun or nostalgia in encountering the sheer 70’s sci-fi weirdness that results from Haber’s conceptual aberrations. One must appreciate Le Guin’s ability to set up a complete science fiction world whose stakes soar higher and higher within the short space of a novella. The tale in relation to today’s adult reader could easily come off as PG, but this would be a fantastic read for any young sci-fi reader. In the wake of today’s rather violent science fiction cinema there is potential for this work to translate as a didactic and beautiful piece commenting on human potential and the need for limits. Overall, The Lathe of Heaven is well conceived and only becomes more relevant in retrospect. ]]> tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.4659 2007-10-23T22:42:16Z 2007-10-24T00:27:08Z

Somehow I managed to pre-empt the entry into Sacks' accounting of and ruminations on memory loss and nostalgia. My earlier blog "Watch for the Changes" connects and responds with a blog from Psych 801 that mentions Clive, a man who...

Dominik Pucek Somehow I managed to pre-empt the entry into Sacks' accounting of and ruminations on memory loss and nostalgia. My earlier blog "Watch for the Changes" connects and responds with a blog from Psych 801 that mentions Clive, a man who has lost his short term memory, and Proust's "In the Search of Time", whose narrator lusts for the past. I also had an experience (in "Fairly Terrified") parallel to Franco Mangani's presumed temporal epileptic revelations. So what the hell do I talk about now? Nostalgia? Like how I used to feel about Columbus, and his day? Nostalgia. I hardly ever knew thee, accurately, apparently. One of the things Sacks tackles with his work is the explication and delineation of what the process of memory is. He comes to state that memory is both the retension of an original event, complete with images, and subject to revision or reshaping, though neither is neccesarily essential. When it comes to reproduction and reconstruction he feels that the process of remembering, accessing a memory, is a little bit of both. And I agree. Memory is highly subjective in relation to objects. We remember things the way we want to remember them, whether exactly, exaggerated or diminished. Think to yourself about your own memories. If you're any bit honest you'll admit that there a certain memories you can recall vivdly, others that are a bit shady and ones that you have told yourself are the truth. I don't think anyone in this class has never experienced being met with evidience that their memory is incorrect, however intact. "But I thought--" a bu bu buh - shut up. I was amazed clicking through the work of Franco Magnani's, which I did before reading Sacks, at not only the detail with which he can recall, but more importantly the subjectivity with which he paints. It is clear that his revelatory moments (what could be temporal lobe epilepsy) reshape the specific scene he paints in order to hit the new viewer with the same affectation, the same idyllic quality. He says that art is like dreaming, and for him it is true. I can see looking at his work how it seems to mimic the way our dreams work, where things may appear larger, smaller, or from a different angle than we experienced it, even unable to experience it. How is such a thing possible? Imagination is indeed a powerful force, and it seems it is intricately networked with memory and emotion. Sacks hits on an important note on recall and its moment of appearance in art. He says Proust believed his cycle to be about 5 years after an event that it could be dealt with in writing; that there is hand-in-hand with recall the process of reconstrution. It makes me think about Sacks' own writing in this regard. In both pieces you can feel Sacks attempting to reconcile highly subjective experiences (meeting and interacting with Franco and ________) with the objectivity needed to step out of it and apply his thoughts, theory and approach. In effect his own writing mimics the process of reapproaching and perhaps reappropriating events to meet his observational criteria. Does it matter, though? Does it have to be true and wholly accurate to get at something deeper? Sacks points to _______ who says that it doesn't. And it shouldn't. Fiction and fact are equally each other, and I think it is important that a little bit of both is needed for us to keep pushing forward. The power of the mind is such that we could truly convince ourselves, if we wanted, that the world is still flat. That it feels flat, too. That it is round, and equally feels round, too, however, is a terrfiic metaphor for the turning of humanity from myth into intellectuality. It proves tht power of the mind is also such that we won't simply believe everything we are taught or told - that we will challenge it. Thanks, Chris, if not for the origination of this metaphoric revelation, but for the popularization of it. It was more important than finding India. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.4570 2007-10-22T08:53:02Z 2007-11-13T11:19:45Z

After workshopping Jennifer's piece, I thought Cognitive Daily's article on whether the color red impairs performance was a timely piece for me to read. I have always wondered why people always seem to be uncomfortable with the color. What does...

Dominik Pucek whether the color red impairs performance was a timely piece for me to read. I have always wondered why people always seem to be uncomfortable with the color. What does it signify to them? Threat? Lust? Blood? It always seems to be associated with being direct and primal. I used to use red on people's workshops and would usually get a similar reaction: "not only were you brutally honest, you wrote all your comments in RED," the emphasis as if I had caused them further injury than my critique and analysis of their work.]]> The article introduces a series of recent tests that appear to indicate that when the color red is present on a test booklet, the quality of performance on that test goes down. When compared with other colors, it seems to have the most effect of all the colors. Green and gray, for some reason, seem to have no marked difference in terms of adverse effects on performance. So the question is: Wuzzupwithat? I think it is undoubtedly linked in some way to the connotations that culture has, over time, associated with the color. Blood is red, therefore, many associations can be made just from that fact alone. Our faces become red with anger or embarrassment. It is the color of passion, of lust. Red is pain, injury, violence, but is also linked to pleasure, release, victory. Red is an alert: fire exit signs, stop lights, police sirens are accompanied with a flashing of red. Red seems to say, in the given moment of its perception, "be careful - there has been a loss of control somewhere, some sort of threat." These uses of red in time shapes and defines our perception of what red means when we are met with it. It is a dual message, one which offers on the level of core consciousness, the emotion of red. The feeling of red, that is red dealt with on the level of the extended consciousness, is a response to this emotion, the evaluation of it. Let me try to explain this by an example. which may be crappy, but should get the point across. Someone can see blood and be chilled by it, others driven by it. The ones driven by it might revel in violence, and may think of grabbing an axe, wishing to join the party, or perhaps end the violence, violently if need be. The others, being chilled, may decide to find the one who has been hurt and help them, or perhaps drop it all and run to the hills for their lives. Horror movies play on this set of responses to blood, which I feel is the strongest red there can be in anyone's life. It signifies that something vital is being lost, sacrificed, and also, that irrationality reigns. Perhaps this is why people perform poorly or respond poorly to letters written in red. It is irrational to think that my comments on your paper in red is meant to incur injury, but subconsciously, do I derive pleasure from it? Likewise, the red on your paper is just ink, nonetheless, you might think, irrationally, that I have threatened you, tried to damage you or your work. Does that pain you? And do you enjoy it? They say the releasing of anger can better any medicine under the sun. The point is, red declares irrationality, and perhaps the test takers feel something irrational is going on, and in response to that, some might second guess what the right answer is and choose the wrong answer because of the suggestion that it may seem right. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.4561 2007-10-22T06:32:16Z 2007-10-22T10:56:58Z

Generally, Zunshine's book is easy to read. Her matter of fact and down to earth tone makes what could have been horrifically dense analysis and critique actually a pleasure to read. It's important that any new idea brought to the...

Dominik Pucek Generally, Zunshine's book is easy to read. Her matter of fact and down to earth tone makes what could have been horrifically dense analysis and critique actually a pleasure to read. It's important that any new idea brought to the table, especially when dealing with cognitive science, is accessible, and Zunshine has a very direct and consistent viewpoint. Speaking specifically, however, is another story. Zunshine's critical space, no matter how well put, has a tendency to come off as a one trick pony. She effectively explicates ToM by bringing up important evidence via discussion of disorders like autism and schizophrenia where the operation of ToM is stunted or non-existent. However, once this is applied to literature, her argument begins to lose its consistency and momentum. As we discussed in class, she puts herself into a trap by attempting to state strongly that ToM's presence in fiction is so elemental that fiction itself cannot exist without ToM and also that fiction exists because of ToM. She conveniently does not address the other elements of fiction and that in a sense supports her arguement. But is ToM so essential to fiction, or writing for that matter? I am not so sure. This is not the only moment where she seems to mitigate the strength of her own argument by attempting to strengthen it. By bringing in a point about an autistic who writes a mystery but whom is unable to create a fictional narrative because he cannot imagine himself doing something he hasn't done, one has to ask - does that matter? She admits that he had become aware of the workings of the social scene, that others had something he didn't which is ToM. But, if we didn't know the story was non-fiction, does its potential to be fictional disappear? How many non-ficiton pieces have been fictionalized deliberately either for the purpose of shock or didactics or maintenance? Granted, my own argument is a bit loose. I'm sure the autistic's narrative style would appear stunted. But its important to be aware that just as quick as she is to state something strongly, she reiterates the fact that most of her argument is based on theoretical evidence. She reaches poignancy, but her langauge has a way of letting her bottom drop out. I can't help but feel she is trying to sell us something, rather than tell us something. Whoever guesses the owner of the song my title emulates, I'll buy them a drink. tag:blogs.qc.cuny.edu,2007:/blogs/0907N_1599/010//607.4559 2007-10-22T06:31:49Z 2007-10-22T10:46:59Z

Had a terrifying experience the other night. I woke up from a dream to find that I was still dreaming. Literally....

Dominik Pucek Had a terrifying experience the other night. I woke up from a dream to find that I was still dreaming. Literally. It was eerie, like the cover to Rush's Moving Pictures. I could hear the characters in my dream speaking to me still. I could speak back to them, though, physically, no words passed from my lips. "I'm fucking losing it" proved it. They couldn't hear that. I could see my room, hear the wind, the hum of generators, feel the bed sheets with my hands and yet I could see, hear and feel another world that was not there. I knew it was in my head. I knew I was awake. I knew I was going crazy. All I wanted to do was sleep. That was not the most horrifying part of the experience. I could assert control over the dream; it was lucid. I've never dreamed that way before. But the one thing I could not do, for the life of me, was push myself away from the dream. I would not shrug off. It was as if I was trapped in transition between two states of consciousness. I felt like a Windows app when the program needs to end now. But there were no ctrl+alt+del keys to save me. Soon I had passed out. I woke two hours later to take the longest fucking piss of my life. I kept waiting for the shroud to return, but only heard the thundering of liquid into liquid. It would not come out in the light. I flushed, stared at my own eyes for quite some time before returning to bed, trying to figure out if what happened was dream or reality. It sounded absurd, Le Guin-like. I cannot explain to you the feeling of thinking you have completely gone mad. It is like the moment where you know a bottle is on the verge of breaking, can do nothing to save it, and feeling that in waves over and over. It is as dramatic as the books say, but not so accurate.]]>