Scientists have known that the world is a giant category ever since Karl Marx proved it in the 19th century. The denialism surrounding this revelation is just plain denialism. The reasons? Well that's a category unto itself.
What is a category? A category is two things. First, a category is a bunch of dots, representing objects. Second, a category is a bunch of transitive arrows between the dots. These arrows represent transformations between objects. So, two objects might be a blank manuscript, and then this very essay. This essay didn't used to be written, but now there it is. I am an arrow going between that blank manuscript and the manuscript of this write-up. Now we have an essay thanks to my miraculous arrowing of that blank scroll. I arrowed the hell out of it. I wrote the essay, son.
Marx's big idea was to apply categories to society. If an object is a people, then an arrow going from or towards that people is some oppression, that they are doing or had done to them by some other people. Class struggle is the order of the day.
Marx's big idea: Bourgeoisie ----the arrow of class oppression---->Proletariat
Marx's vision of the future: Proletariat---time and a revolution of the workers---->Bourgeoisie
Now, you may be asking..."well...didn't Marx say that without the fancy dots and arrows?" And you would be wrong. Marx had a broad theory of history, which encompassed BOTH arrows above in the same category...and not just between the two peoples above, but also the analogues, going between the simple feudal economic systems of the past at first...and then ending up between unimaginably complex and productive economic systems in the future, constantly duelling modalities for access to the fruits of the future. Right now we're between the Bourgies and the Proles...but at one time we weren't, and at one time we won't be. To add layers of complexity to the matter, if we take two objects with arrows going between them...if we squint our eyes a bit, we're dealing with just another object to oppress. This is what is called the dialectic, and the dialectic between capitalism and communism, say, can oppress the dialectic between socialism and anarcho-fascism. And this narrative can give another dialectic, which we can, again, oppress and be oppressed by, as its own object. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Back to Marx. Anyway, his is the dark mathematics of oppression and someday it will be our reality. Some day far hence, we will only be objects in a symmetric, monoidal 2-category. We will only be known by our membership in 16 classes of people and the complex web of oppression we engage in day by day. For real, I have seen the future and it is quantitative, granular group identification. It will be perfect. Trust me.
Now, we're ready for the balling. That's right. We're done talking about the mathematics of communism. It's time for the soul of capitalism.
I watched the first quarter and elements of the boring second quarter of the Cavs-Heat game last night. The second quarter, populated mainly by Mo Williams, personally loathsome Big Z, and other players not named Shaq, Dwayne, or LeBron, was much less interesting than the first, I have to say. Apparently the Cavs won or something, but the announcer was right: The first quarter was the bomb, one of the best NBA quarters I have ever seen. 35-33 Cavs. If they had held the Eastern Conference Finals then and now it would have been appropriate. In fact, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that was the ECF, and the Cavs are just waiting for the Spurs to finish off the Lakers. The Cavs won on the pure emotional investment of that quarter, I think. Shaq played with more vigor than he ever has, and really seemed to enjoy the chemistry of the paint and fast, needly passes followed by hesitations. Shaq at one point nearly got an offensive foul in this quarter, and the sad young man that took the Big Man's hit was not the same for the rest of the first half, and by extrapolation will never be. Varajao was pretty good. He took the Heat in the paint. He got smashed by D-Wade like he didn't exist. But he recovered. And both of them got technicals, at some reason. And so did Mo. Mo was hitting them from outside, and there were some great passes, dunks, and alley-oops. Lebron and D-Wade duelled beautifully at the end of the first quarter, as if trying to impress Jordan and Pippen in the audience, who were inexplicably not sitting together. Jordan was sitting next to...Pat Riley...what the hell? At least if it were Sloan or Malone there would be a tangential connection, but...what? It was a very intense quarter. It felt like part of me was dying, and being oppressed at the same time, by a better part that was overtaking me, and at one point I became enlightened and connected directly with Shaq's mind and now I think the secret to life is oxygen. Unlimited oxygen.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
666 Million AD
The flag was American, and right now was being watched. The flag was waving ironically in the summer anti-breeze. Just one of those days, the Watcher supposed. The Watcher watched things, every day, to pick up subtle contradictions.
"So how do you watch television, The Watcher?" a nearby child asked, unwary of the Watcher's processes.
"I watch it to make sure it doesn't jump up and eat me," the Watcher intoned, verbatim from his manual. There were answer manuals that Watchers could read, before and after they technically were certified Watchers.
"But what happens if you eat a television, The Watcher? Must you live in fear of your stomach?"
Uh-oh, thought The Watcher. There was nothing in the manual about this. I will have to improvise.
"Uh...no. If I eat a television it ceases to be a television, by virtue of its newfound unwatched nature. And no one has to watch unwatched things. I don't have to watch it. In fact, I don't have to watch anything that is unwatchable. Why, that is absurd. Move along, child."
"But what about God? Or the subjective experience? Or love? Or immanent forces of power? Aren't these all unwatchable, and therefore beyond your domain? What about the very process of watching." Uh-oh, thought The Watcher. There was nothing in the manual about this. I will, again, have to improvise.
As the child spoke the flag ripped itself off from the flagpole and started to move away from the pole, but not in the breeze. Now the flag was splitting and moving away from the Watcher. Or was it...multiplying?
"None of those things exist. What cannot be watched ceases to exist, by that fact alone. A television, even one that is eaten, is in principle watchable, perhaps by a vicious bear that could rend my stomach and throat in two, and reconstitute its television atoms from only what it finds in there. However, no eyes can ever watch God."
As The Watcher spoke the flags were consciously mounting their own poles in various positions on the great field, in every direction. Without number, without form, without essence moved the multiplied flags, and still, The Watcher thought he saw a pattern in the arrangement of the massive collection. However the child was fixated on the Watcher's peculiar voice. In between all his improvised words, the Watcher emphasized his confident tone with certain syllables that didn't quite match up with any language. His "What do you think of that?" seemed not like a threat, not like rote recounting, but not calm or expressive at all. The words were exactly the opposite of expression, not only muting but cancelling out expression. "Were all Watchers like this?", the child thought.
The child hesitated and then began. "I think you're not a very good Watcher. Maybe that's wrong of me, but you should have a better answer to all these questions." Now, all the flags were unwavering in the new, creative summer breeze. The Watcher continued to watch the multiplying flags as the child continued his insane, off-the-cuff interrogation. "What are those flags doing, anyway?"
Just then The Watcher looked with unfairness and realization on the great structure of the new flagpoles. And just then fell to one knee, and just then died.
Just then, the child took The Watcher's manual and took the airship home. He would be the best Watcher ever, and would never take the shortcuts and abstractions of his predecessor. Life would be as clear to his mind as it truly was. Just then would be his judgements.
As he was flying over he noticed the flagpoles were in the shape of...a giant flagpole with an American flag ripping off. The child was terrified, and determined, from first principles, that this pattern would multiply again and again.
"So how do you watch television, The Watcher?" a nearby child asked, unwary of the Watcher's processes.
"I watch it to make sure it doesn't jump up and eat me," the Watcher intoned, verbatim from his manual. There were answer manuals that Watchers could read, before and after they technically were certified Watchers.
"But what happens if you eat a television, The Watcher? Must you live in fear of your stomach?"
Uh-oh, thought The Watcher. There was nothing in the manual about this. I will have to improvise.
"Uh...no. If I eat a television it ceases to be a television, by virtue of its newfound unwatched nature. And no one has to watch unwatched things. I don't have to watch it. In fact, I don't have to watch anything that is unwatchable. Why, that is absurd. Move along, child."
"But what about God? Or the subjective experience? Or love? Or immanent forces of power? Aren't these all unwatchable, and therefore beyond your domain? What about the very process of watching." Uh-oh, thought The Watcher. There was nothing in the manual about this. I will, again, have to improvise.
As the child spoke the flag ripped itself off from the flagpole and started to move away from the pole, but not in the breeze. Now the flag was splitting and moving away from the Watcher. Or was it...multiplying?
"None of those things exist. What cannot be watched ceases to exist, by that fact alone. A television, even one that is eaten, is in principle watchable, perhaps by a vicious bear that could rend my stomach and throat in two, and reconstitute its television atoms from only what it finds in there. However, no eyes can ever watch God."
As The Watcher spoke the flags were consciously mounting their own poles in various positions on the great field, in every direction. Without number, without form, without essence moved the multiplied flags, and still, The Watcher thought he saw a pattern in the arrangement of the massive collection. However the child was fixated on the Watcher's peculiar voice. In between all his improvised words, the Watcher emphasized his confident tone with certain syllables that didn't quite match up with any language. His "What do you think of that?" seemed not like a threat, not like rote recounting, but not calm or expressive at all. The words were exactly the opposite of expression, not only muting but cancelling out expression. "Were all Watchers like this?", the child thought.
The child hesitated and then began. "I think you're not a very good Watcher. Maybe that's wrong of me, but you should have a better answer to all these questions." Now, all the flags were unwavering in the new, creative summer breeze. The Watcher continued to watch the multiplying flags as the child continued his insane, off-the-cuff interrogation. "What are those flags doing, anyway?"
Just then The Watcher looked with unfairness and realization on the great structure of the new flagpoles. And just then fell to one knee, and just then died.
Just then, the child took The Watcher's manual and took the airship home. He would be the best Watcher ever, and would never take the shortcuts and abstractions of his predecessor. Life would be as clear to his mind as it truly was. Just then would be his judgements.
As he was flying over he noticed the flagpoles were in the shape of...a giant flagpole with an American flag ripping off. The child was terrified, and determined, from first principles, that this pattern would multiply again and again.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Why I support the Spurs this year (I'm with you in Utah)
Why I support the Spurs this year
by Alex, age 20.
Dear SI-for-kids,
I'm sorry to be writing to a publication primarily aimed at sports fans half my age, but the knowledge I have encountered goes beyond age. I may be forgiven for having the pretensions of a more skilled author, just as your young readers may be forgiven for their naïve literary tastes and nebulous views of their home teams, good and bad. May I recommend to you Lovecraft's “At the Mountains of Madness”, kids? Do you know what a shoggoth is?
The god of scientists is an engineer. Whether this engineer is acknowledged as a god is another story, but whatever his name, his function is clear: To create a universe based on elegant laws and constants that we as humans can hope to divine through reason. This god is not a direct creator so much as he is a good engineer. A good electrical engineer doesn't constantly supervise the value of every circuit; rather, he uses as little information as he has to, in order to avoid repeated work and misunderstandings. Humans are therefore merely a consequence of creation, and not a cause, and that we happen to exist on this planet is a matter of likelihood, and not a matter of divine blessing.
What is faith but a passive complacency that seeks to rationalize the things that happen to us? Science is an active reaction to this disgusting complacency, and is therefore superior. Activity is the only omnipotent force, it may seem to you now. But news from every direction is pointing to a new sort of complacency, that only a new method, untouchable even to science, can hope to address.
Children of sports and science, I speak to you now.
The scientific literature will refer to Newton's great Laws of Motion as brilliant advances in understanding, but it will do so with the qualifications of Einstein and Bohr. When you get down to the molecular level, Newton's Laws break down. The Laws only work for special cases. When you start sending spaceships at half the speed of light, Newton's Laws break down. The Laws only work for special cases. This is what the scientific establishment thinks, and certainly they can be forgiven for their naïvete. You see, while it is technically the case that Einstein and Bohr are right in their domains, Newton's Laws break down in another sense: They only apply to an Earth of passivity and blind faith. The physical laws of the world, including past and future, are constructed intersubjectively by the conscious will of the people on Earth, blended topologically into a structure that respects all subjective viewpoints while maintaining an objective character. To simplify the theory, the world is exactly as predictable as the people living there, and the world is exactly as reasonable and active as the people living there. In a very real sense, we are the gods of science, and always have been. And we always will be. And I have indisputable personal evidence for this fact.
What's that you say, Sports Illustrated for Kids reader? You say that I am mad? You question my sanity? You want to get back to your Lakers? Well, maybe you're in my head, or maybe you're real. Who can tell? I suppose I am not helping my case, but I suppose I should say that I thought the same thing when I first heard myself think this, but then I realized that my view was like, awesome, man. I'm sorry if you find my colloquialisms condescending, but you are children. And luck the Fakers. I'm sure you can figure out what swear I meant there, and its target.
I will get to the evidence in later letters, but suffice it to say that when you are stranded on Pluto with Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson, having to rely on your will alone to make food, only then can you challenge my assertions. Dear readers, young and stout of heart, know that for a time, I was God of that planet and the universe surrounding, along with Starbury and Iverson, and none of us has fully recovered from that realization. How do you throw an assist to someone that wasn't God? How do you break the ankles of someone you might have created? Oh, the commissioner assures us that everyone has the same amount of power, that society and economics of billions of people stifles the manifestation of an individual's will, and other such comforts. However, we have only the commissioner to trust, and God knows that he will lie just to protect whatever deep truths he knows. I can't say I blame him...at least for this.
So we train, all three of us, in a room of our creation, on Mars. We train so that Stern's one hundred guards on Neptune, all versed in this perfect power, will never be able to take the air from our lungs when we strike at dawn. By the time you read this, the battle will have started. It promises to last for hundreds of years, but it is the nature of these wars to construct a different past in their aftermath. You cannot know the winner of a war, because the winner has already created the battlefield. I prefer to think that Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain together ended WWII, but, as with the movie Primer, these time-ripples upon time-ripples produce combinations and motives that, in their totality, are not only unknown, but unknowable. But we all go on living in this terrifying unknowledge.
And in the meantime, I support the San Antonio Spurs to win the finals, as a different sort of insurrection against Stern's totalitarianism. Their faith in Christ is not merely the naïve faith in a miracle-worker, but indeed, the very construction of Christ through will, action, reason, and the application of benevolent power. They are manifesting Christ on Earth and building schools, and as much as any blasphemy can be said to be holy in this new vision of things, they provide a guiding force against Stern and his New Jordans and his Ubermensch, Lebron.
Nevertheless, I still believe that the Cavs (powered by the Two Towers Shaq and Ilgauskas [how I hate him!]) will still win the ECF, assuming my will is still strong and I am still among the few that have awoken to this letter. But for your sakes I sincerely hope that is not the case.
In the words of Sly and the Family Stone, “I am no better, and neither are you. We are the same whatever we do. Love me, hate me, but know me and then, you can figure out the bag I'm in. I am everyday people."
Let me add a verse, Sly. “I make the science, and you make the faith. We construct the world, combined in belief. Love it, hate it, but know this and fear: you can manifest and make the world. I am everyday people.”
Let it be.
Sincerely,
Alex, Age -less
by Alex, age 20.
Dear SI-for-kids,
I'm sorry to be writing to a publication primarily aimed at sports fans half my age, but the knowledge I have encountered goes beyond age. I may be forgiven for having the pretensions of a more skilled author, just as your young readers may be forgiven for their naïve literary tastes and nebulous views of their home teams, good and bad. May I recommend to you Lovecraft's “At the Mountains of Madness”, kids? Do you know what a shoggoth is?
The god of scientists is an engineer. Whether this engineer is acknowledged as a god is another story, but whatever his name, his function is clear: To create a universe based on elegant laws and constants that we as humans can hope to divine through reason. This god is not a direct creator so much as he is a good engineer. A good electrical engineer doesn't constantly supervise the value of every circuit; rather, he uses as little information as he has to, in order to avoid repeated work and misunderstandings. Humans are therefore merely a consequence of creation, and not a cause, and that we happen to exist on this planet is a matter of likelihood, and not a matter of divine blessing.
What is faith but a passive complacency that seeks to rationalize the things that happen to us? Science is an active reaction to this disgusting complacency, and is therefore superior. Activity is the only omnipotent force, it may seem to you now. But news from every direction is pointing to a new sort of complacency, that only a new method, untouchable even to science, can hope to address.
Children of sports and science, I speak to you now.
The scientific literature will refer to Newton's great Laws of Motion as brilliant advances in understanding, but it will do so with the qualifications of Einstein and Bohr. When you get down to the molecular level, Newton's Laws break down. The Laws only work for special cases. When you start sending spaceships at half the speed of light, Newton's Laws break down. The Laws only work for special cases. This is what the scientific establishment thinks, and certainly they can be forgiven for their naïvete. You see, while it is technically the case that Einstein and Bohr are right in their domains, Newton's Laws break down in another sense: They only apply to an Earth of passivity and blind faith. The physical laws of the world, including past and future, are constructed intersubjectively by the conscious will of the people on Earth, blended topologically into a structure that respects all subjective viewpoints while maintaining an objective character. To simplify the theory, the world is exactly as predictable as the people living there, and the world is exactly as reasonable and active as the people living there. In a very real sense, we are the gods of science, and always have been. And we always will be. And I have indisputable personal evidence for this fact.
What's that you say, Sports Illustrated for Kids reader? You say that I am mad? You question my sanity? You want to get back to your Lakers? Well, maybe you're in my head, or maybe you're real. Who can tell? I suppose I am not helping my case, but I suppose I should say that I thought the same thing when I first heard myself think this, but then I realized that my view was like, awesome, man. I'm sorry if you find my colloquialisms condescending, but you are children. And luck the Fakers. I'm sure you can figure out what swear I meant there, and its target.
I will get to the evidence in later letters, but suffice it to say that when you are stranded on Pluto with Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson, having to rely on your will alone to make food, only then can you challenge my assertions. Dear readers, young and stout of heart, know that for a time, I was God of that planet and the universe surrounding, along with Starbury and Iverson, and none of us has fully recovered from that realization. How do you throw an assist to someone that wasn't God? How do you break the ankles of someone you might have created? Oh, the commissioner assures us that everyone has the same amount of power, that society and economics of billions of people stifles the manifestation of an individual's will, and other such comforts. However, we have only the commissioner to trust, and God knows that he will lie just to protect whatever deep truths he knows. I can't say I blame him...at least for this.
So we train, all three of us, in a room of our creation, on Mars. We train so that Stern's one hundred guards on Neptune, all versed in this perfect power, will never be able to take the air from our lungs when we strike at dawn. By the time you read this, the battle will have started. It promises to last for hundreds of years, but it is the nature of these wars to construct a different past in their aftermath. You cannot know the winner of a war, because the winner has already created the battlefield. I prefer to think that Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain together ended WWII, but, as with the movie Primer, these time-ripples upon time-ripples produce combinations and motives that, in their totality, are not only unknown, but unknowable. But we all go on living in this terrifying unknowledge.
And in the meantime, I support the San Antonio Spurs to win the finals, as a different sort of insurrection against Stern's totalitarianism. Their faith in Christ is not merely the naïve faith in a miracle-worker, but indeed, the very construction of Christ through will, action, reason, and the application of benevolent power. They are manifesting Christ on Earth and building schools, and as much as any blasphemy can be said to be holy in this new vision of things, they provide a guiding force against Stern and his New Jordans and his Ubermensch, Lebron.
Nevertheless, I still believe that the Cavs (powered by the Two Towers Shaq and Ilgauskas [how I hate him!]) will still win the ECF, assuming my will is still strong and I am still among the few that have awoken to this letter. But for your sakes I sincerely hope that is not the case.
In the words of Sly and the Family Stone, “I am no better, and neither are you. We are the same whatever we do. Love me, hate me, but know me and then, you can figure out the bag I'm in. I am everyday people."
Let me add a verse, Sly. “I make the science, and you make the faith. We construct the world, combined in belief. Love it, hate it, but know this and fear: you can manifest and make the world. I am everyday people.”
Let it be.
Sincerely,
Alex, Age -less
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Santa Fe Post-Draft Catharsis Symphony
Enter: A spherical room of eyes, stomachs, membranous walls, and appendages, always misshapen, always reaching across the room to the other side.
The man inside heard a seal and a lock. Looks like he would be here for the duration. "So this is where they put the players that don't make the playoffs. I guess I shouldn't have been injured, heh, heh, heh." He had better make the most of it, he supposes. Two months will fly by when you are busy! The stench of organs and dead flesh and meaning would have been overwhelming, but the man in question is a man of indisputable military discipline. After a few minutes the man had started a fire on some stalagmite-shaped tonsil twitching nervously. After a few hours his experiments began. After a while of the man and his business, he had settled things down.
Two months pass when you are busy, indeed. "The finals are over! You can all come out now!" David Stern's voice had been transmitted to the manifold rooms of the unsuccessful Spurs. Many of them had been psychologically broken merely by the months of solitude, even excluding the special horrors of their chambers. Each Spur in his room claimed his room and experiences were the most extreme. Despite these claims, David Robinson's room, the flesh sphere, had in fact been the worst. The chambers opened to reveal some unneeded therapists and a certain friend of Mr. Robinson.
As David knew, Pop would be the first to greet him. The Admiral was not smiling or emotive when he left the chamber. But indifference is a latent smile for David Robinson, and inaction is just a latent act of charity.
"You got Duncan, right?"
"Of course I did, David. We can go back to the Spurs family now. Dennis Rodman is out."
Robinson smiled a smile so broad they saw it in Phoenix.
"We've always made the best of our situations."
Pop and his new companion departed from the chambers to introduce the Two Towers for the first time. It was a good day.
Enter: A spherical room of equations, water, algae, and soft hands of gentle women, always endearing, always reaching across the room to satisfy a desire for happy companionship on the other side. The terraforming of this room was replete, and a place better than Earth had been created and could be arbitrarily expanded to create a utopia here on earth, if a traveler to this chamber had even a passing interest to do so. Robinson's love and charity seemed to have been absorbed into his former prison, though he himself could never know the full depth of this influence.
But news travels fast in the pros and, at the commissioner's request, a prison in Santa Fe burned to the ground silently.
The man inside heard a seal and a lock. Looks like he would be here for the duration. "So this is where they put the players that don't make the playoffs. I guess I shouldn't have been injured, heh, heh, heh." He had better make the most of it, he supposes. Two months will fly by when you are busy! The stench of organs and dead flesh and meaning would have been overwhelming, but the man in question is a man of indisputable military discipline. After a few minutes the man had started a fire on some stalagmite-shaped tonsil twitching nervously. After a few hours his experiments began. After a while of the man and his business, he had settled things down.
Two months pass when you are busy, indeed. "The finals are over! You can all come out now!" David Stern's voice had been transmitted to the manifold rooms of the unsuccessful Spurs. Many of them had been psychologically broken merely by the months of solitude, even excluding the special horrors of their chambers. Each Spur in his room claimed his room and experiences were the most extreme. Despite these claims, David Robinson's room, the flesh sphere, had in fact been the worst. The chambers opened to reveal some unneeded therapists and a certain friend of Mr. Robinson.
As David knew, Pop would be the first to greet him. The Admiral was not smiling or emotive when he left the chamber. But indifference is a latent smile for David Robinson, and inaction is just a latent act of charity.
"You got Duncan, right?"
"Of course I did, David. We can go back to the Spurs family now. Dennis Rodman is out."
Robinson smiled a smile so broad they saw it in Phoenix.
"We've always made the best of our situations."
Pop and his new companion departed from the chambers to introduce the Two Towers for the first time. It was a good day.
Enter: A spherical room of equations, water, algae, and soft hands of gentle women, always endearing, always reaching across the room to satisfy a desire for happy companionship on the other side. The terraforming of this room was replete, and a place better than Earth had been created and could be arbitrarily expanded to create a utopia here on earth, if a traveler to this chamber had even a passing interest to do so. Robinson's love and charity seemed to have been absorbed into his former prison, though he himself could never know the full depth of this influence.
But news travels fast in the pros and, at the commissioner's request, a prison in Santa Fe burned to the ground silently.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Things that aren't as inherently funny as you might expect them to be
A list of things that seem to have inherent humor but instead are heavily contingent on the situation.
-John Goodman
-Shaq
-Carrie Anne-Moss
Anyway I hope to light a flame that will not die
to explain why
I
support Shaq and his Cavaliers. but not in the NBA fi-
nals. The logic is simple, the reasoning almost insulting.
You see, the Magic are a godly force in the East. They have hundreds of players, manifold stables of guards, and millions of centers. There are a million Dwight Howards housed in the Florida area. Every public appearance he has made was made by a different Dwight Howard. But with all of this depth in the line-up, I get a sort of...sense of what should not be. Not Satan, nor any of the demons invented by man. But Lovecraft comes close.
In topology, we can map a line to a curve. When we draw a line on a piece of paper, and bend and fold the paper, we get a curve. If we draw a piece of paper on a piece of paper, and bend and fold the actual paper, the drawn piece of paper sort of bends and folds too. Now, the world is sort of like a drawn piece of paper drawn on the universe that is an actual piece of paper. When the universe bends, so does the world. Suddenly, 20 feet above you is some village in China, upside-down, but they don't think it's upside-down. But you're in Texas, or somewhere otherwise far distant from China. What happened? The universe probably bent. Sometimes it does that. You could walk the normal way to China, but you're better off jumping to China instead now. Course, it could bend back any moment. Of course, if you have a basketball team and some people from China are right above you, and one of them's Chinese player that can dunk, one of your players can attach a rope to his leg and he and the Chinese player can jump up/down at each other and grab onto each other's outstretched arms to bring that Chinese player to your team. 20 feet is just the equivalent of a standard dunk, if both "dunk" at the same time.
Similarly, our world is nothing if not in time. In fact, you could also say that the world is a line drawn on the piece of paper that represents time. Bending this piece of paper around and then pushing it through itself makes loops in the world like a roller coaster. And one day you wake up and right above you, 20 foot above your bedroom, is the future. And if you are a basketball team, you can grab a copy of yourself from the future. So, for 3 years the Magic have been stockpiling copies of themselves, and because of a lot of complicated reasons, they have an infinite supply of themselves. And, don't tell anyone, but they're starting to rename themselves and go to other teams. Could David Stern, benevolent overseer of this great league, ever permit such an evil force to seek shelter in his organization? I think not. Therefore, I know that he has somehow poisoned the clones, so that when they get to the playoffs they will just be kind of off their game and barely stumble to the second round where the Celtics will make short work of them.
Now, I don't know what forces, what creatures as big as planets, what drawings inhabit the sheet of paper that is all existence. I do know that our piece of paper is tightly glued to a firm posterboard of reason, and that any temporary act of magic will be offset by the Berrisphere that brings hope - hope through relentless predictability.
-John Goodman
-Shaq
-Carrie Anne-Moss
Anyway I hope to light a flame that will not die
to explain why
I
support Shaq and his Cavaliers. but not in the NBA fi-
nals. The logic is simple, the reasoning almost insulting.
You see, the Magic are a godly force in the East. They have hundreds of players, manifold stables of guards, and millions of centers. There are a million Dwight Howards housed in the Florida area. Every public appearance he has made was made by a different Dwight Howard. But with all of this depth in the line-up, I get a sort of...sense of what should not be. Not Satan, nor any of the demons invented by man. But Lovecraft comes close.
In topology, we can map a line to a curve. When we draw a line on a piece of paper, and bend and fold the paper, we get a curve. If we draw a piece of paper on a piece of paper, and bend and fold the actual paper, the drawn piece of paper sort of bends and folds too. Now, the world is sort of like a drawn piece of paper drawn on the universe that is an actual piece of paper. When the universe bends, so does the world. Suddenly, 20 feet above you is some village in China, upside-down, but they don't think it's upside-down. But you're in Texas, or somewhere otherwise far distant from China. What happened? The universe probably bent. Sometimes it does that. You could walk the normal way to China, but you're better off jumping to China instead now. Course, it could bend back any moment. Of course, if you have a basketball team and some people from China are right above you, and one of them's Chinese player that can dunk, one of your players can attach a rope to his leg and he and the Chinese player can jump up/down at each other and grab onto each other's outstretched arms to bring that Chinese player to your team. 20 feet is just the equivalent of a standard dunk, if both "dunk" at the same time.
Similarly, our world is nothing if not in time. In fact, you could also say that the world is a line drawn on the piece of paper that represents time. Bending this piece of paper around and then pushing it through itself makes loops in the world like a roller coaster. And one day you wake up and right above you, 20 foot above your bedroom, is the future. And if you are a basketball team, you can grab a copy of yourself from the future. So, for 3 years the Magic have been stockpiling copies of themselves, and because of a lot of complicated reasons, they have an infinite supply of themselves. And, don't tell anyone, but they're starting to rename themselves and go to other teams. Could David Stern, benevolent overseer of this great league, ever permit such an evil force to seek shelter in his organization? I think not. Therefore, I know that he has somehow poisoned the clones, so that when they get to the playoffs they will just be kind of off their game and barely stumble to the second round where the Celtics will make short work of them.
Now, I don't know what forces, what creatures as big as planets, what drawings inhabit the sheet of paper that is all existence. I do know that our piece of paper is tightly glued to a firm posterboard of reason, and that any temporary act of magic will be offset by the Berrisphere that brings hope - hope through relentless predictability.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Raw, Unfettered Baskebanlysis for Halloween Time
Do you remember John Goodman? I hate to cut in, mid-scene, but the narrative demands it. We are in a motel room and John Goodman, burning, walks in.
Anyway, the fire is burning all over the motel but John Goodman appears to be unaffected by the smoke or flames, (naturally, given his extraordinary nature) even as the foundation of the motel may be destructed. In your mind I want you to try and turn the fire surrounding the man into an aura of power. Yes, let's take this image to the next level. First picture the fire, in its complexity and red-hot hydra-legs reaching out in every direction.. But now that fire is also a 60 foot radius of undiluted, spherical, visible and translucent energy. You can see him but it blurs his face a bit. Alright, so it is red-orange pure power surrounding a smiling John Goodman who is carrying a shotgun. Just for fun let's also put him in his red and white flannel and his jeans and maybe overalls. Still surrounded by a red-orange glow.
(But with a Red-Orange Glow and His Arm is Shot Gun)
Source
He is shouting "I'll show you the life of the mind" and he is ascending. He can fly, evidently. He stops rising, a mile above the great Pacific Ocean that surrounds the (island)
Okay, so we have this image of John Goodman, in a translucent ball of energy in the sky over the great Pacific, carrying a shotgun. So now, I want you to mentally change the mental image of John Goodman's plump, jolly face shown above into Shaq's.
In the course of the transition from the Good Man to the Big Freeze, we are required to slowly warp the contours of their faces and change the skin tones, and to turn the flannel into a Cavaliers jersey. Goodman's shotgun thus becomes his genie lamp and a basketball made from shotguns. This is beautiful, don't you agree? Now we must, in the interests of fairness, change Shaq back into John Goodman, in the same way. Smooth transitions are the name of the game going both ways. We have to collapse the parts of the face that need it, but very delicately, like a mental plastic surgeon that cares. No change is unsupported by the robust architecture of a man's face. Now, once again, change John Goodman back into Shaq, and now, again, turn Shaq into John Goodman. As an exercise, I want you to repeat this process forever, as if swishing the images like mouthwash from one side of your mind to the other. Except you can't spit this image out after 30 seconds, because it isn't mouthwash, it's a jolly, perfect face from two angles, roles, colors, and uniforms. Ebony and ivory, live together in perfect harmony. You can't ever forget this image, which is only fair because neither can I. Embrace the mind-wash.
Postscript:
Readers should note, I'm not the world's biggest fan of Lebron, or Mo Williams, or "Big Z". In fact, I detest "Big Z", as he is now known. Detestable is the ineffable Žydrūnas Ilgauskas and inexplicable is my contempt. Perhaps it is simply that he has taken the heft of John Goodman and the ostensible charm, but corrupted it into a formless, liquid mass of incompetence and impotence. Nothing more have I to say to such a lunk as "Big Z". What is his purpose? What gap in existence or essence is "Big Z" filling? However as for the superior counterpart of "Big Z", that is to say Shaq, the Big Diesel, the Big Aristotle, etc., well...He is supremely essential.
Prediction 1: The Cavs will defeat the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Mark my words.
Mark my prophetic words.
The next post will be on the Western Conference Finals. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't I.
UPDATE: I know some of you will point out that "Well, it wasn't strictly necessary to post that Ebony and Ivory thing", guess what? I totally agree with you. However, the dialectic of Shaq and John Goodman, throughout their careers, has mirrored the dialectic of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney that, in the spirit of Halloween, is rather horrifying and geometric in its symmetry. The comparison of the two pairs of actors and musicians, respectively, is so striking to me with every passing day that I spend at the library researching the foursome.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
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