Saturday XXXIV: Gridlock Hero · 7 December 2007
There’s this phenomenon. The December Congestion. Santa Monica gridlock in all directions, starting when darkness edges in at 4 and holding out until 8—every weeknight from about the 5th through the 23rd. You can’t go anywhere. Sidestreets are solid taillights in red. Flying over we must look like a colony of fire ants frozen in time. I just want to go inside and pull the blackout curtains or something.
Or go to SF. Is the holiday lighter up there? I’ll be in Union Square and surrounding from Thursday through Sunday. Any suggestions for the visit? I like a good salad, hipster coffee shops with free wireless, and something intense (I mean activity, not waffles) on Saturday mornings. Business trip that is really pleasure.
After: Portland/Seattle. Pleasure trip that is really business. Hmmmmm. First, maybe some art this weekend. Shepard Fairey is doing his first ever gallery show, which I definitely will be skipping. But this person, Francis Alys, might be amazing.
Also, I keep listening to the Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi record while I am sitting around staring into taillights. The lyrics are talking about waiting on a moment, and about surrender, and about battling the evil machines. It’s like the Bhagavad Gita for urban girls. Maybe.
I should probably switch out the CD before I start getting all heroic or something.
● The owl persona got ruffled up about politics this week, here and there. Yeah. I’ll own it. Heartfelt apologies if my directness was at all hurtful. Here is the thing: when some say they are on the left, they mean they disfavor the present regime and want to dis-identify with it. (Boomeritis?) When I say it, I mean I want a practical, everyday politics of social class. I mean an enduring conceptual leftism with egalitarianism in its veins. Not a screw-you politics of opposition. So sometimes we are going to disagree.
● By the way, in case your email is being screened by the feds, here are some emoticons to help you go undetected. Funny.
● Faith healing at Disneyland.
● The Dawkins and friends’ conversation about God continues in Edge. Pretty good. Sciency, though. Jonathan Haidt argues the following and several others respond.
I now think of religions first and foremost as coordination devices that bind people together into moral communities with effects that are mostly good for the members, although sometimees terrible for deviants and for neighboring groups…. [E]very longstanding ideology and way of life contains some wisdom, some insights into ways of suppressing selfishness, enhancing cooperation, and ultimately enhancing human flourishing.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: markets-networks-society
, sound
Previous entry: London, Paris, Rome... / Next entry: Will and Surrender 101
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
Even though you feel like you only ruffle your own feathers, your point does become synthesized. The standard masculine approach to debate is to state one side forcefully and wait for feedback. You don’t always (not even usually?) get to see how the feedback affects the black box on the other side of the argument.
Posted by: Carl · Dec 7, 05:07 PM · #
We’re all inside the same set of feathers.
Posted by: karen · Dec 8, 08:48 AM · #
by “intense” you mean like wrestling? (am checking union sq. area)
Posted by: EoR · Dec 8, 10:39 AM · #
i think she means naked power vinyasa.
the emoticons cracked me up, as did the faith healing! the last one, i was scared to look. it could be true, y’know?
Posted by: cranky housefrau · Dec 8, 11:53 AM · #
I suppose we all do have these feathers; and thank you Carl for saying what you did. But FWIW, the Editor was shocked at my intensity about political matters this week, and his responses to my rough edges are tried and true. When the topic of The War comes up, a part of me wants to jack up the intensity (and issue quite fierce challenges to the domesticity we take for granted) to compensate for the fact that we (myself included) spend so little time really putting our heads and hearts into that place.
Posted by: (0v0) · Dec 8, 03:43 PM · #
Yeah, I love that Disneyland has taken up faith healing. Talk about a wild ride.
Naked yoga? Research?
Posted by: (0v0) · Dec 8, 03:43 PM · #
there is naked yoga after sunday mysore, onetastesf.com.
Posted by: EoR · Dec 9, 11:14 AM · #
Will catch Sunday mysore, yes. But that’ll be done by 10ish.
“One Taste” seems to be overtly Integralist. And Integral people are sort of immaculately groomed, studiedly urban, discreet, self-contained. And hairless—especially the men with their monestary-chic baldness (maybe that is just a Ken Wilber effect).
Anyway, I think such people would do naked yoga with curiosity, good taste, and lightness. Might actually do it quite interestingly and well.
Hmmm…
Posted by: (0v0) · Dec 9, 12:54 PM · #
owl, now even i’m interested. i’ve always been surprised at how few wilberheads i’ve talked to there; especially given what it’s called. integralist, yes, with a lot of UG’s wandering around.
Posted by: EoR · Dec 9, 04:24 PM · #
Wilberheads? Is that what you people call yourselves?
Posted by: Carl · Dec 9, 04:26 PM · #
Integralists are easy to spot if you know what to look for. But otherwise they fit right in with the other UGs.
Eeyore, I know you are interested in the naked yoga. When do donkeys wear clothes, anyway?
Carl, we made up Wilberhead but I bet others have too. I think it refers more to a group than a point of view. You can be integral (the p.o.v.) without being really involved with Wilber and his funny institute (the I-I, which is a group). For example, one of Wilber’s more interesting detractors, William Irwin Thompson, is himself every bit the integralist.
Posted by: (0v0) · Dec 9, 04:55 PM · #