tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14990042024-02-18T19:47:23.035-08:00universal destroyer, inc.a wish list for armageddon and afterDr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-22835663884988488912009-03-15T08:42:00.000-07:002009-03-15T08:49:51.157-07:00"I love killing slaves"OK. Out of context, that title might sound kind of weird or creepy, but hear me out.<br /><br />My kids were on the computer and the eldest said, "Dad! I'm so hungry I feel like I'm gonna barf!"<br /><br />I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Master. I forgot that I was your slave. I'm doing a terrible job."<br /><br />The eldest responded, "That's right! You're fired."<br /><br />"I'm a slave," I said, "You can't fire slaves. You have to kill them."<br /><br />"Alright!" they both cheered.<br /><br />"I mean, you have to sell them," I corrected myself.<br /><br />Next thing I know, they're standing next me and the youngest shouts, "I love killing slaves!"<br /><br />That makes it all better, right?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Note: No slaves were killed during the composition of this post.</span>Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-6045032020567508372009-03-12T08:34:00.000-07:002009-03-12T14:59:56.740-07:00Do You Have Any Idea Who I Am?<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeparking/1487875583/"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 5px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 189px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqxL5WvMPyDOmijv6nolfLHh5Blr5-BMbdbxAWKoXAGUR_838_Svb8441qBKYls7KEa_lJs_H_jIIWfF9uKg-K65tOZos6t6g0GIy7ilgnwG3WXcoQetV_PMbIYyFZ76q_ZM/s320/1487875583_bcc35a3420_m.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312337586864937074" /></a><br />Many years ago, I drove a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ipanemic/2323068645/">SuperShuttle van</a>. One night, I picked up a grizzled old-timer and drove him to San Francisco. He was my only passenger on that run (which meant I was making like $2.50 an hour) and we got to talking. I guess he enjoyed the conversation (which focused on the ups and downs of unionism in the Reagan era), because after a while he told me, "Ya know, you got personality. A lotta guys don't got shit."<br /><br />That stuck with me as did the notion that, if I had anything, it was "personality." As fate would have it, for a time I was able to make <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/24/jtgrant.html">a career of said personality</a>, eventually coming to embody, for good or ill, the corporate culture at a global staffing company.<br /><br />If corporations can have celebrities, I was one. I authored the corporate blog, wrote newsletters, direct mail, and"thought pieces," and represented the organization across the social media sphere. Additionally, I hosted a weekly, organization-wide conference call known as a the "Fireside Chat," a responsibility I had inherited years before from the COO after he had taken it over from the CEO. Moreover, at annual company events and manager's meetings, I regularly served as MC/host, and, when people were publicly recognized for their accomplishments, I was the tuxedoed one handing out the awards.<br /><br />In effect, I addressed both employees and a variety of external audiences more regularly than any member of senior management. Then, last week, I got laid off.<br /><br />I was surprised, though not shocked. After all, announcing weekly performance stats was part of the Fireside Chat format, so I knew which way the cookie was crumbling. Naively, I had believed that my celebrity, to a certain extent, would shelter me as the layoff waves mounted, but events proved me wrong. <br /><br />More jarring than the lay-off, however, was losing my status as a "personality." This loss was driven home when I received my severance letter. Although the numbers were tailored to my specific situation, the letter itself was decidedly "form." It felt strange to go from a "somebody" to an "anybody (who gets laid off by this organization)." A few days later, I was at a networking event and, though I knew a few of the attendees, it was clear that a bunch of the people there HAD NO IDEA WHO I WAS.<br /><br />I'm not opposed to anonymity. Nor is the notion of "ego-loss" foreign or repellent to me. On the contrary, I see it as, if not totally ideal, undeniably inevitable, and even desirable in some circumstances. Still, I really didn't appreciate being reminded that social status and personal identity is dependent on the decisions and ongoing acknowledgment of others who do not have the maintenance of the aforementioned status and identity as their primary objective.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Image Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeparking/1487875583/">freeparking</a>.</span>Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-66460168818499151072008-11-04T06:52:00.001-08:002008-11-04T07:35:30.123-08:00I Seek Refuge in Darkness...... and impending doom, but said doom is seldom forthcoming.<br /><br />When I read the work of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/">Theodor Adorno</a>, I took it to heart. "Auschwitz" became my watchword and the measure of all things. Of course, "Auschwitz" was itself just a cipher, a stand-in for Nazi horrors which didn't seem so much to repudiate 2000 years of Western Culture, as represent it's inevitable trajectory. Auschwitz was the Apocalypse, in the original sense of Revelation. It revealed an essential truth and the baleful glare of its light robbed everything that came after of all meaning and reality.<br /><br />For me, Auschwitz became a kind hammer. I used it to reject and destroy anything that seemed comforting or affirmative as naively trivial or criminally frivolous. On the other hand, works of art or fiction that were disturbing, unsettling, or even cruel were redeemed by their mimetic approximation to the Holocaust. The serene, albeit inhuman, warmth of Mark Rothko's paintings, for instance, served as a kind of metaphysical valium drawing a veil over void, while the jarring and panicked post-punk of <a href="http://www.saccharinetrust.com/saccharinetrust_gallery.htm">Saccharine Trust</a>, or the macabre austerity of <a href="http://www.enkiri.com/joy/joy_division.html">Joy Division</a>, on the other hand, held up a mirror to human brutality and froze its nauseating topography in colours drawn exclusively from the palette of the abyss. <br /><br />Now, of course, I'm more apt to see this morbid focus on humanity's "darker angles" as a kind of a cop-out. I wasn't living in a death-camp or being driven from my home or seeing my children murdered before my eyes. I was a privileged kid from suburban LA who cavalierly flaunted mankind's malevolence as a badge of hipness. Acknowledging the abominable suffering of others, not just in the past but right now, today, a suffering that the people I grew up around seemed intent on avoiding, denying, or down-playing, was a step towards maturity, clarity, the truth. But lingering there, was not, is not. <br /><br />The first of the <a href="http://www.erowid.org/spirit/traditions/buddhism/buddhism_four_truths.shtml">Four Noble Truths</a> states, as I understand, that "suffering is really happening." But that's just the first truth. The Truths go on to acknowledge a cause of this suffering, the possibility of suffering's cessation, and, most importantly, the way to bring suffering to an end, not just for you, but for all sentient beings. <br /><br />Enlightenment isn't about insisting that things suck, it's about hunkering down and dealing. Or, to quote the Beastie Boys: "Darkness isn't the opposite of light, it's the absence of light."<br /><br />I want to turn on the light and, as <a href="http://wild-bohemian.com/pigpen.htm">Pigpen</a> used to howl with his alcoholically unbridled passion: "... LEAVE IT ON!"Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-37623494130660952502008-10-31T07:10:00.000-07:002008-10-31T07:18:58.450-07:00Humanitarian CatastropheTens of thousands have been <a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hoitt5BsM5OKJ2Mmc3g5q6iufXjwD945GJC80">driven from refugee camps</a> in Democratic Republic of the Congo. The camps were then looted and burned. 5 million people have died in the civil war there and, as anyone who's been paying attention knows, countless women and children have been <a href="http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11294767">raped</a>, and <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20038999/">worse</a> (this report mentions forced incest and cannibalism, for example). <br /><br />Oh, but there are some great <a href="http://www.greenspace.info/misc/twitter_halloween.html">Halloween Icons</a> you can use on Twitter!<br /><br />I'm feeling especially snide today.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-48272985595237913382008-10-19T11:31:00.000-07:002008-10-20T07:49:29.285-07:00They'd do it, if they couldThe other day I heard <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95774683">a story</a> about experiments on monkeys that may prove beneficial to paralyzed humans. Seems that some scientists paralyzed these monkeys with drugs, stuck thin electrical wires into their brains, attached the wire to some sort of transformer which was then attached to a muscle in the monkey's wrist, and discovered that the monkey's could actually manipulate the wired wrist in this way, enabling them to play video games.<br /><br />I'm more ambivalent about Man's <a href="http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/cor/dominion.htm">dominion</a> over the beasts of the field than the folks at <a href="http://www.peta.org/">PETA</a>, but stories like this get me moving more swiftly in their direction. I don't have any problem with victims of paralysis volunteering for studies like this. In fact, I bet a good number of them would. But, this sort of experimentation just creeps me out. We are monkeys, for chrissakes. Would researchers perform studies like this on human slaves? Should they?<br /><br />Talking with somebody about this story he said, "Well, they'd do it to us if they could." The Nietzschean notion that "life is will to power," and that domination of one species by another is the natural order of things, while not indisputable, certainly has an enduring appeal to which I admittedly have not always been immune. Still, it's not the case that predators hunt their prey of choice to extinction, or raise them for the purposes of exploitation and multi-faceted use. As far as I can tell, only humans and our <a href="http://www.montalk.net/alien/35/synopsis-of-the-alien-master-plan">alien masters</a> do that.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-62252418295062604262008-10-17T06:51:00.000-07:002008-10-17T07:08:58.187-07:00John Coltrane and the Face of GodListening to Coltrane's <i><a href="http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=drb4ysff7n&ref=browse.php&refQ=sortfield%3Dveryrecent%26amp%3Bpage%3D1%26amp%3Bformat%3Dall&anchor=12337">Settin' the Pace</a></i> this morning. It's not one of his greatest hits and even the various jazz cd review books give it second tier status, but I really enjoyed it. "I See Your Face Before Me" is the lead track, an exquisite ballad that, I humbly believe, outshines the more famous "I Want to Talk About You" from <i>Soultrane</i>. <br /><br />Still, saying this or that by Coltrane is better than this or that by Coltrane seems trivial and, frankly, beside the point (much like I found Ben Ratliff's book on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coltrane-Story-Sound-Ben-Ratliff/dp/0312427786/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224251857&sr=8-3">Coltrane's sound</a>). These are just opinions, after all, and vanity moreover. Who cares what you/I think about any particular work by this man? It's a mixture of hero-worship and elevation-by-association that frankly demeans the opiner by revealing a lamentable failure to listen.<br /><br />I read an interview with Matisyahu once in which he pointed to the number of love songs out there as an indication of how much people are yearning for the love of God. Coltane's commitment to God makes me hear his ballads in the same way. The face he sees before him, is the face of God. The "you" he wants to talk about is You, My Lord. <br /><br />Is all love the love of God? Should it be?Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-51672776642142696372008-10-16T10:53:00.000-07:002011-01-26T21:21:12.659-08:00the perils of anonymityi've maintained this blog in quasi-anonymity from the get-go. i've done this in part because I lead a public life on the web and, for some reason, i thought that i would be addressing subjects here that would not sit well with my employer or my role as public representative of his company. i'm not sure that i've entered into any territory that is overly controversial or patently offensive and, in fact, i start to wonder if this anonymity is more inhibitory than liberating. <br /><br />it reminds me of an experience i had on second life some time ago. I had gotten into that v-world and started blogging about its potential as a marketing platform in my worklife. then i had a tryst with another avatar and realized that it would not have been difficult for "her" to find out who i was in "real" life, since a google search for my avatar name would have led "her" straight to me. so that i could then explore the dark digital underbelly of life, i created a new avatar and set off for my adventures. oddly enough, my carefully crafted masquerade actually made me feel more shy, as foolish as that may sound, in this world and, eventually, i stopped second life-ing altogether or, if I did go in for work purposes, i used my original "public" persona. <br /><br />what am I afraid of? that people will know that i advocate the legalization of most drugs, even if it means that you must acquire a license to take some of them - psychedelics in particular? my thinking is that if people can demonstrate that they can deal responsibly with this stuff, why shouldn't they take it? you can own and use a handgun but you can't even possess LSD without committing a felony? that's just not right <br /><br />i also think that the war on terrorism is bullshit and a thinly veiled, when it's veiled at all, power grab by the executive branch to do whatever it wants. neo-con guru frances fukuyama effectively stated that free markets and authoritarian government are not mutually exclusive and the war on terror, as it's sometimes called, is the perfect excuse to do anything you want. <br /><br />terrorism doesn't exist, as I've mentioned here before. no one self-identifies as a terrorist - it's a label you get from an enemy. declaring a war along these lines means giving yourself carte blanche to go after anyone, etc.<br /><br />again, what am i afraid of? this stuff seems tame or trivial<br /><br />wait, THAT's what I was afraid of!!!! OH GOD NOOOOOOO!Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-29010987960409577332008-10-15T16:12:00.000-07:002008-10-15T16:25:48.888-07:00tell the truthcan we only tell the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7vImjEQDVc">truth</a> while masked? while <a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808529947/info">hypnotized</a>? unconscious?<br /><br />"before too long then I was looking good, man, I was beautiful/i made believe that I could tell the truth to the whole wide world"<br /><br />the truth is only make believe<br /><br />the truth is always exactly what you think it is<br /><br />the really real truth is more like the "ding an sich" - unknowable, by definition, ineffable, inescapable<br /><br />are we capable of the truth, or incapable of it? incapacitated by it?<br /><br />like I said, we always know exactly what the truth is<br /><br />we never know<br /><br />pure, uncut, the real deal, accept no substitutes - the uncanny connection between the truth and what is.<br /><br />what is the truth? the truth is what isDr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-71681313990663620132008-08-21T11:28:00.001-07:002008-08-21T11:29:38.016-07:00Models of Enlightened BehaviorIf you drop something, pick it up.<br /><br />When the bill comes, pay it.<br /><br />When the phone rings, answer it.<br /><br />When the light turns green, go.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-66302793783912984702008-08-18T16:51:00.000-07:002008-10-20T07:51:17.112-07:00One Definition of EnlightenmentTo be the same person in every situation, whomever you meet, wheresoever you go. <br /><br />To be the same person, without masks, without ruses, without guile, without anxiety or greed, without schemes, agendas, or goals. <br /><br />To be the same person you were before you were born and after you're dead. A carbon atom doesn't change when it belongs to a carrot or a rabbit or a hawk. Neither should you so change.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-76505753365081863582008-08-08T15:57:00.000-07:002008-08-09T18:01:55.139-07:00Ethics Are the End of ReasonWhen someone deems your actions "unethical," they generally mean, "does not conform to a certain ethical standard which separates actions into 'right action' and 'wrong action'." When you ask them the basis for their ethics, they will have two possible answers: On the one hand, they will refer to an authority who has established the ethical code and infer that you should abide by the code out of respect or obeisance to said authority. On the other hand, and this is the post-enlightenment tendency, they will justify their ethical standard in terms of practical or utilitarian concerns regarding the outcome of actions deemed wrong.<br /><br />Here is where conflict arises. No ethical standards can be immediately or unproblematically derived from the world of phenomena, particularly when the phenomena in question are social in nature. The ethical conclusions drawn in this way from or against any particular act are dependent both on knowledge and depiction of the human situation concerned - both areas in which certainty is, for the most part, provisional.<br /><br />Dispute is always possible when we are describing situations in human life and particularly when we are claiming that, "given situation x, action y, will lead to outcome z." In the realm of science, the experimental method stipulates that exceedingly rigorous conditions be met if someone is to even make the claim, let alone experimentally verify, that, given x, action y leads to outcome z. In fact, the experimental situation is intentionally artificial, the connections between x, y, and z demonstrably tight, and the conclusions peculiarly modest. <br /><br />Unfortunately, in human life, given the number of variables involved in even the simplest interaction between two people, let alone the complexities inherent in the multiple, both highly interdependent or very weakly linked, interactions that compromise any social process, ethical standards that are justified in terms of "inevitable" outcomes of specific actions are either trivially few or unquestionably questionable.<br /><br />Yet, herein lies the conundrum. If you question the ethical standard, you are pointed to the utilitarian reason behind it. If, however, you question the utilitarian reason, you are quickly accused of questioning the ethic. <br /><br />It becomes clear that the ethic itself is not seen as the product of social consensus and open to revision or dispute. The apparent argument from utility reverts to an argument from authority. Thus, if you are questioning the ethic, you are implicitly questioning the authority. If you are questioning the authority, you are in opposition. If you are in opposition, you are an opponent. If you are an opponent, you must be overcome. <br /><br />Any conflict that cannot be resolved via dialog and compromise, must be resolved by force. While such a resolution may be "comprehensible," to the extent that if follows the laws of physics, for example, it will not be "reasonable."<br /><br />Disputes over ethics are sad and the sadness stems from weakness. The proponents of a particular ethical standard resort to force in order to silence opponents because, sadly, they do not possess the power that could transmute their ethic into law.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-30560097896513847612008-08-08T11:12:00.000-07:002008-08-08T15:56:12.128-07:00There is no God, but GodGrim: The only thing I care about now is God.<br /><br />World: But you said God didn't exist.<br /><br />Grim: You're not fucking listening to me.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-91873969321443152652008-06-29T19:23:00.000-07:002008-06-29T20:09:57.002-07:00Intestine Baalism - Bad Name/Good MusicBeen on a heavy metal kick of late. Told everyone I was re-dedicating my life to metal. So, I go to <a href="http://www.newburycomics.com/">Newbury Comics</a> and scrounge through the "[insert letter of choice] Misc" bins looking for metal cds - the semiotics of extreme metal are pretty well-defined, it's hard to know what will succeed, however, within the discipline and rigor of the genre - and buying anything that looks obscure and cheap. Thanks to this aesthetic foraging, I've come across some great stuff. Right now, I'm listening to <a href="http://www.myspace.com/intestinebaalism">Intestine Baalism</a>. It's totally awesome!<br /><br />Death metal, of the <a href="http://crossedcombs.typepad.com/recordenvelope/2007/12/swedish-variety.html">Swedish variety</a>, but from <a href="http://www.exploratorium.edu/nagasaki/">Japan</a>, and broken up by epic "melodic" moments - which are more psychedelic than anything, and <a href="http://brokenlens.deviantart.com/art/Maidenish-conversations-47616839?moodonly=1">Maidenish</a> - then back to thrashing death. The 1990s were THE decade for death metal (this one comes from '97), a time of purity and simplicity. A time of honor and focus. Truth.<br /><br />Everything now is an adventuresome and reverent pastiche (I'll write about <a href="http://www.hammersofmisfortune.com/">Hammers of Misfortune</a> later), not that there's anything wrong with that.<br /><br />Anyway, I had already flipped by this one a few times in search of <a href="http://www.anus.com/metal/inquisition.html">Inquisition</a> or something, now that I have all the <a href="http://vampirefreaks.com/playvideo/?v=25249">Immortal</a> cds I could ever want, when I saw it today. I almost bought it and I didn't (though I did pick up something by <a href="http://www.moribundcult.com/band_blood_ritual.html">Blood Ritual</a> that was quite impressive, albeit from the 21st century).<br /><br />I wasn't sure. I'll bet a few bucks ($4-ish) on music I've never even heard of if there is the chance that it will be <a href="http://www.anus.com/metal/sarcophagus/">surprisingly</a> <a href="http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Track/1806/">awesome</a>. Anyway, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Beast-Intestine-Baalism/dp/B00009FXKM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1214793855&sr=1-2">this cd</a> on that score is amazingly brilliant. Crushingly brutal, death-grunt morphing into blackened, tortured screeches. Then, and this is what all the Amazon reviews tell you, it veers into a grungy take on NWOBHM.<br /><br />But also like I said, the melodic parts sound more progressive and psychedelic than metal. There's even a really spacey acoustic intro on one cut. <br /><br />Bottom line, the thing is this: as I type these words, and listen to this music, it consistently catches my attention, surprises and astonishes me. Intestine Baalism, extreme and sublime masters of this weird art.<br /><br />I bow to their excellence.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-52838589824181861312008-06-19T19:19:00.000-07:002008-06-19T19:48:19.033-07:00Ripping Corpse, "Dreaming With The Dead"Saw <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping_Corpse">Ripping Corpse</a> listed on some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-Bloodsoaked/lm/RXBH9QH3Y8RJV/ref=cm_lmt_dtpa_f_1_rdssss0?pf_rd_p=253470301&pf_rd_s=listmania-center&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000006J9H&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1EVSEXGKYGHEZPFCDXTK">death metal lists</a> and got their amazing <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Dead-Ripping-Corpse/dp/B000006J9H/ref=cm_lmf_tit_16_rdssss0">Dreaming with the Dead</a></i>. <br /><br />I was expecting something heavy, but not exactly this. The highly processed/phased guitar reminds me of Euro-metal like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coroner_(band)">Coroner</a>, but the drums have some real thrash elements, and the vocals are fairly hardcore. Maybe it qualifies this as <a href="http://www.anus.com/metal/about/grindcore.html">grindcore</a>, I don't know.<br /><br />I do know it's good. Real good. Strange chaos moments, heavy moments, psych-wank soloing, and those vocals. I guess the mainstream version of this would be Pantera, if that makes sense.<br /><br />I was intrigued by the participation of Erik Rutan, who has played off and on with <a href="http://www.morbidangel.com/">Morbid Angel</a> and co-founded (founded?) <a href="http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=131">Hate Eternal</a> (in which Ripping Corpse guitarist Shaune Kelly now plays. If I'm not mistaken, the first album was recorded with one of the guitarists from <a href="http://www.anus.com/metal/suffocation.html">Suffocation</a>, <a href="http://www.voicesfromthedarkside.de/interviews/hateeternal.htm">Doug Cerrito</a>). I'll address the question of Morbid Angel in another post.<br /><br />Final Analysis: <i>Dreaming with the Dead</i> is an artefact of a bygone era, the sign-post to a path not taken by metal, and by extension, the world.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-31371474701697300722007-08-31T19:01:00.000-07:002008-10-20T08:48:23.910-07:00Should your Fantasy become a Reality?In our culture of indulged, individualized experience, a certain perfection of life is ascribed to that moment in which your fantasy becomes reality. The idealized human life culminating in the realization of fantasy, in other words.<br /><br />Accordingly, it is assumed that everyone wants their fantasies to become reality. For example, I have a friend whose life plays like a never-ending letter to Penthouse Forum. To many, his life embodies an (pornish) ideal. I myself am not above admitting to have looked upon his life from time to time with eyes greened by envy.<br /><br />Nevertheless, I do not hold reality to be the perfection and natural destiny of fantasy. I want many of my fantasies to go unfulfilled because they are fantastic, outlandish, or impossible. More importantly, I'm glad that they do not contain the weight and persistence of reality. I am nurtured by their unreality and, in many ways, dependent on it. <br /><br />Reality does not lie on a continuum with fantasy, but unfolds rather as an autonomous zone. Fantasy can, and should, guide and inform our actions. It should not, however, be revered as the measure of our actions. <br /><br />Personally, I am drawn to reality precisely because it is beyond my control and intent, because it surprises and startles, and because it does not wholly conform to my expectations. Reality attracts me, ultimately, because it does not seem to be me.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-33642727301335226212007-08-04T19:44:00.000-07:002007-08-04T19:45:35.259-07:00castrationsitting with my laptop on top of my lap - connected to the interweb via wireless, wondering if I was castrating myself with radio waves....Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-33677822701408884402007-01-14T08:45:00.000-08:002007-01-14T08:49:06.463-08:00Snuff Culture, Part 2There are a number of sites that feature grisly photographs of the dead and dying in Iraq. <a href="http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html" target="blank">This one</a> is particularly gruesome. When we view the slaughtered and the maimed, do we take away more than our own sense of having survived or escaped? Do we consume massacre? Or is violent death the new opiate of the masses?Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-51309966316595145182007-01-02T21:48:00.000-08:002007-01-02T22:01:30.023-08:00Chaos is our MotherI have always maintained that chaos is fundamental, the state from which all reality springs and the state to which it perpetually returns - the law of its weaving and unraveling. God must needs be come from chaos, which precedes it as origin. God, in fact, is the human spell cast to bind chaos. Reason, instead, tries to harness and direct it, driven to uncovering greater and deeper sources of it, never sated, having once tasted the awesome and demonic power. <br /><br />Of course, we always conceive of chaos as madness, profusion, and violence. But there is also chaos in absolute uniformity. The heat-death of the universe, when all entropic movement ceases, is as chaotic as the star-birthing convulsions of the big bang, in fact, more so. The random coalesence of matter we call the universe, while formally unpredictable, embodies the chaos of emergent form. The thermo-dynamic end, however, is devoid of form, and inditinguishable from nothingness.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-64447614928704250262007-01-02T21:44:00.000-08:002007-08-04T19:48:29.375-07:00Why do people do wrong?Are actions wrong in and of themselves, or only contextually? In other words, is there a universal law of value, or merely situational efficacy? The codes of conduct maintained by human beings, must be considered part of the situation. It doesn't matter if they were ordained by god or not. As long as there are humans ready and willing to enforce them, or adopt them as internalized ways of being, they are "in effect," regardless of their providence.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-30243937110681396782007-01-02T21:23:00.000-08:002007-08-04T19:56:20.272-07:00Welcome to snuff culture. <br /><br />The whole world watching sleazy saddam necro-porn. Low budget home movie of an execution in what looks like a basement by leather-jacketed thugs. It had no trappings of the official or even professional, more like an impromptu.<br /><br /><p align="center"><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/H5jr7iUvO-o"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H5jr7iUvO-o" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></p><br /><br />How many death-scenes can I find on YouTube?<br /><br />How many watching actually contemplate the reality of their own death? Its inevitability? Not to be avoided, they say. When I die, no one else will live this life. I don't have to believe that I go anywhere or become anything. The earth doesn't believe it, either, seeing in me more material. <br /><br />And why should we morn the destruction of the biosphere? Oceanic dead-zones, clear-cut forests, extinct species. The human spasm will find its end. <br /><br />But not the earth's.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-1146580493094805392006-05-02T07:05:00.000-07:002006-10-13T21:12:17.630-07:00i've never believed in reincarnation. the human soul is too obviously contingent, a product of its physical substrate and environmental pressures, and famously instable. at the "pulse of life" level, it is too generic and thoughtless, too deinviduated for a linear, body to body, journey. for this reason, a karmic doctrine asserting that the conditions for this current life have been set or in any way influenced by behaviors and preoccupations in a previous life have always struck me as either absurd or as an ideologically motivated ruse, one which paints the current situation as somehow pre-determined by the irretrievable, and thus unchangeable past. however, it is not unreasonable to claim that the lives we live have been set in motion by the actions of others, parents, grandparents, etc. and that we are carried along by the momentum of their dreams, their successes, their failures. we act out and out of their passions and, unless we take the time to consciously recollect our origins, or the origin of our origins, we do indeed live lives of a blind, karmic pre-destination. <br /><br />On the other hand, karma is really just a doctrine of cause and effect. the entire universe is a complex chain reaction that goes on and on and on and, at least theoretically, there is a continuous chain of cause tying all current being to every other state of being, in its totality, stretching back to the primordial, original cause. There is no doubt that my behaviors, my actions, even my intentions, are part of an unbroken chain of physical events reaching back from this moment to the beginning of time, criss-crossing with innumerable other chains of discrete events, and carried along by the wave of all things happening forever. Reincarnation may simple mean that a particular chain, or more likely, complex of chains, has once again attained personhood. The exploration of past lives is always only an effort to understand this life and capture, in a highly symbolic narrative, the forces which have shaped both our proclivities and experiences.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-1146496241949244012006-05-01T08:05:00.000-07:002007-01-02T12:50:42.313-08:00apparently blogging is about updating content with an alarming frequency<br /><br />i'm eating pretzels and am getting fatter by the minute<br /><br />when i am living in the woods, fleeing authority, reflecting on the decisions that led me to commit the regrettable, the forever undoable (what can ever undo the done?) and wondering if, though i am at large, i will ever feel free (for the hunted live in the shadow of pursuit - never resting, only hiding), i will thank the Utz company for their manufacture of these salty carb sticks, which my body thoughtfully converted to fat in anticipation of this now inescapable eventuality.Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-1146492122572141762006-05-01T06:57:00.000-07:002007-08-04T20:00:29.247-07:00in five minutes i've got to do something<br /><br />awoke this morning thinking about the alt-rock indie underground - can't explain why -<br /><br />mind too prone to relativize, to absolutize, in an ascending and descending sequence - a genetic code of culture, but in reverse, an entire universe of individual entities (that means "beings") that don't matter to anyone - since "things"<br />only matter to "someones" - or so I'm told<br /><br />if someone said, "I saw Julia Roberts yesterday," and you asked, "Where?" and they said, "On TV, they were replaying "Pretty Woman,'" you would think that odd. "Seeing" someone is supposed to be different from seeing a picture of them. But for movie folk, they mainly exist for us as images. Real images, in other words. (Thoughts I had after seeing a man who looked like Tom Cruise and wondering what it would be like to be a recognized image, like him, but then walk anonymously down the street in a Boston city. If you are used to being recognized, and then are not recognized, does this cause pain? Does this cure pain?)Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-1143561688495727972006-03-28T08:00:00.000-08:002006-03-28T08:01:28.503-08:00i'm going to return to this blog and let the world know what i think<br /><br />WORLD, YOU ARE OFFICIALLY ON NOTICE!Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1499004.post-1063979666559957462003-09-19T06:54:00.000-07:002008-08-08T15:55:52.640-07:00What if a god, instead of creating the universe, merely found it? And then, what if he lost it?Dr. M. L. Grimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14289206290425207619noreply@blogger.com0