Phylum of Alexandria

I don't know all that much about Murakami, but for what it's worth, the Wikipedia page for Hear the Wind Sing says it was written in Japanese, and translated into English by Alfred Birnbaum.

No, he writes in Japanese and has other people translate into English.

I'd like to read more of his work. I've read Norwegian Wood, and while I liked it more than loved it, his other books would likely fare better, as magical realism is very much my thing. One thing that has stopped me from reading further is that I was thinking of trying to read in the original Japanese. Alas, while my comprehension of spoken Japanese is pretty good, my reading has really deteriorated. Obviously English would be the way to go, but I'm so curious as to what I'd be missing from the original text. So, I can't get out of that mental loop of inaction.

If that happened, Biden may as well go into benevolent dictator mode. Execute Trump and all MAGA leaders, take out the radicals in Congress, and in the courts. Then install the people he wants, and conveniently resign before any impeachment could come.

The original wording I was responding to was "the bigger error." From McConnell's point of view, sure, I guess you're right. I was interpreting it as the bigger catastrophe for us. Because fuck McConnell.

I dunno, if McConnell hadn't dangled that open justice seat as an election issue to galvanize conservatives, there's a good chance Trump would have lost to Hilary in 2016, which would have butterflied away the later decision on conviction. (still, it's not either/or. He fucked us majorly on both decisions)

So I was trying to wake up this morning, but drifted into a short dream. I was looking at a drawing of a baby, surrounded by a bunch of cartoon eyes. As I focused on the eyes, I realized that it was the menacing eyes of Chong Li, the villain from the movie Bloodsport. The End. What's interesting is that, thinking about the dream, it's clear that the cartoon eyes were from a drawing I recently did. It was the first thing I've drawn in more than 10 years, actually. It was a satirical take on the Uncle Sam poster, but commenting on how creepy conservatives got during George Dubya's march toward war with Iraq. I intentionally made my "Uncle Jim" character have a glowering expression, but I didn't consciously think of Chong Li. I'm kind of impressed that my dreaming brain made that connection, because it makes sense to me, even now. I'm not quite sure about the baby. I'm hoping my dream brain is not trite enough to symbolize my recently born artistic urge with a baby. That would be lame, dream brain.

Don't combine our comments together into some larger critique--they're quite distinct! Ty is saying that no pop star today is good. I totally get Beyonce's critical and fan adulation, and don't totally get Taylor's adulation, though I acknowledge that she has talent. And I think the right wing sour grapes is just pathetic. Horse sounds closer to where I am, though I don't know where he falls with respect to other pop stars. Edit: Also, I never said "great" lyrics. Elvis Costello has great lyrics. Taylor Swift has better lyrics than her peers.

I have looked up some of her lyrics, and she does seem to have a sort of Elvis Costello vibe: all wounded emotion and snark wrapped up in clever turns of phrase. But her turns of phrase called to mind early Springsteen more than EC. Still, her song topics are overall too Dear Diary for me personally, but as I said, young listeners can do a lot worse.

I don't completely disagree. I tried to make similar points in a thread about The Culture Industry. But I found it was hard to tease apart that critique from good ol' curmudgeonly snobbery, whether it was due to my explanation, or others' interpretation, or both.

I don't know, I'd say that Beyonce is uniquely talented. A unique all-around talent as an entertainer. Not as sensational as Michael Jackson was, but in that vein. I hate the pop music machine in general and the cult of fans it creates, but I don't begrudge Beyonce any of her success. Taylor I don't quite understand the worship, but you could definitely do worse. Rihanna's just cool, and she knows it. I'll add some playlists of new music just in case anyone's interested. Some great stuff! 2023 Part 1: 2023 Part 2: And this one's from January 2024 alone:

Interesting. I didn't realize that "convenience" was used for toilets. In Japanese (and probably Chinese), the second character in the word for poop (大便, "daiben") and pee (小便, "shouben") is also used for convenience (...and also, deliveries). Poop is basically "big convenience/delivery" and pee is "little convenience/delivery." And a crude word for toilets is 便所 (benjo), which I always translated as "shit place," but it could also be a place of convenience. Where is Uncle Benjen? In the benjo!

If anyone can AI-generate a voice clip of Viggo singing Ginuwine's "Pony," I'd be forever in your debt...

The same could be said for Philip Zimbardo, but he's not mocked like Freud is (and he came a lot later). Freud wasn't a good scientist, but he was a good philosopher. Was he a good psychiatrist? Probably for his time, though obviously standards have changed. I really liked Viggo Mortenson's take on Freud in Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method.

Hey, there's no one way to do religion, and there's no one way to do Tarot! I do Tarot readings, but strictly as a tool for introspection or creative contemplation. Kind of like Rorshach ink blots, except that there's an elaborate system behind the possible meanings of the cards. It's got nothing to do with fortune telling. More of a practice to verbalize thoughts and feelings that you might not be aware of, and also just to shake up your neural connections for creative purposes.

I agree, in that I don't think there's some elaborate code to be cracked, and certainly there's no fortune to be read from a dream. I said in a different comment, I think the meaning (if there is any) is usually fairly accessible to the dreamer, so long as they take the time to contemplate the dream with respect to what's going on in their lives. It's always random nonsense to some extent, but sometimes there's a real feeling with significance that you can recognize embedded in the nonsense. In my psych doctoral program, we all made fun of Freud as outdated pseudoscience. Now I don't dismiss him quite so harshly. It's true that what he was trying to do wasn't very scientific, but it's also true that science hasn't got very far into exploring the richness of subjective mind states. It might simply be something that it's not well suited to address--beyond qualitative reports. So, Freud's work is not falsifiable, but he was trying to do something that is extremely difficult to do. I admire his efforts, even if his insights need a whole shaker of salt for inferring their practical relevance.

Yeah, that's like one of The New Pornographers' better tunes. I am looking forward to the album!

I think if there's meaning, it's usually somewhat baked into the dream itself. Maybe not instantly apparent, but if you take the time to think about it, sometimes its significance comes to the fore. So I do think they're worth contemplating. At the very least for me, as a source of bad puns. Though with my schedule I often get ripped out of sleep by my alarm and can't remember.

And sometimes you're waiting for further development of a story to have a thought about it. This story does seem important, but I don't have much to say at this point beyond: "Oh shit," and "Dear Lord."

Lots of fiber there. Q: How does cheese get its flavor? A: From age (wait, this is the dreams thread, not the bad jokes thread)

Even now, at 42 years old, I'd say that 95% of my dreams still take place in my childhood home. It's seared deep into my brain. The other 5% take place in a school or some vague, unspecified street. I don't think I've ever had a dream that took place in an apartment that I rented, or my current property. That I remember at least.

Some recent tunes to enjoy. This playlist will likely be fairly different by the summertime, as I will have settled on my favorite tunes and sequencing. But already there's a wealth of great music, and January's not even over!

That's absolutely horrifying. And he was at Penn State while I was in graduate school! The thought of sharing any space with this fucked up wretch makes my skin crawl.

Continue. This border standoff is concerning. Maybe it'll be nothing, but it has potential to cause havoc. One more spark for civil war. Additionally, Tommy Vietor recently expressed concern about the political situation in Mexico, and how potential unrest there would impact the US border situation. Aside from the general shittiness of the situation and resulting instability, it's a perfect climate for right wing politics like MAGA to champion for their cause.

That was almost certainly Stephen Miller. I don't know if I'd say he puppets Trump, but he sure knows how to get on his good side and put ideas into his head. And yeah, beyond any one personality, the MAGA movement is a fairly well oiled machine now, with detailed plans in place to advance a blatantly fascist agenda.