This was the week that classes started. My classes were East Asian youth, anthropology of contemporary Mexico, politics of life — a Foucault biopower/biopolitics class, and Japanese.
Daily Journal Entry #11702 01/13/08 Sun
- Read an excerpt from the book Made to Stick, and their point on emotions reminded me of both (1) an argument I made for the importance of affect in ethnographies and (2) my displeasurable response to the aesthetics of (quantitative) sociology, as opposed to (qualitative) sociocultural anthropology: “How do we get people to care about our ideas? We make them feel something. In the case of movie popcorn, we make them feel disgusted by its unhealthiness. The statistic ’37 grams’ doesn’t elicit any emotions. Research shows that people are more likely to make a charitable gift to a single needy individual than to an entire impoverished region. We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions.” (Got there from this New York Times article that says, “As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off.”)
- Found an incredibly funny and surreal video about the hand vagina (it’s safe for work).
- Went to Murphy’s to meet up with some of the atheists. This guy Elliott, a Christian, argued for the inclusion of intelligent design in the science classroom, and I explained that in asking for its inclusion he was actually asking for a complete transformation of what we consider to be “science.”
Daily Journal Entry #11703 01/14/08 Mon
- My Japanese teacher was born in Tokyo, went to school there, and also worked for the Board of Education there.
- Figured out how to download BBC radio shows and found a place to download NPR. Pure heaven.
- Lifehacker’s combination of feeds and tags reminded me of an idea I had about having high priority feeds that only feature “important” posts, so you can stay subscribed to someone, but not drown in their content.
- Super nap from about 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.
- Had a really good time at C-Street’s industrial night. They played Dominion by Sisters of Mercy and Tanz Mit by Laibach.
Daily Journal Entry #11704 01/15/08 Tue
- East Asian youth started off on a neoliberalism tip (and Karen complimented me on my hair).
- Japanese.
- Rosanne exposed me to Corey Worthington, the Australian guy with the famous sunglasses.
- It was way cold. It got down to 24F around 4 p.m.
- Went over the syllabus in politics of life.
- Started using /shrug instead of *shrug* in IM conversations.
- Sherri Shepherd from The View hears voices too.
Daily Journal Entry #11705 01/16/08 Wed
- Japanese.
- I worked on my journal at the Courtyard Cafe. This girl had a teddy bear charm on her phone that was bigger than the phone.
- Went over the syllabus in anthropology of Mexico.
- Went to El Toro with Ricky and John. Ricky said he didn’t understand why people in the social sciences couldn’t just go to another department when they encountered a problem that was handled better in another discipline, like they do in the natural sciences. When I explained that each discipline has its own turf, history, politics, and theories, he argued that we just haven’t come up with a precise language to communicate with each other, as they have in the natural sciences. I rhetorically asked if he had ever even heard of semiotics, which I consider to offer some technical precision, and, when he said no, I said that the social sciences doesn’t get to benefit from an early and extended education in mathematics, physics, and chemistry the way that the natural sciences does. We got onto morality at some point, and I argued that it makes the most sense to understand the history of morality in terms of changing styles, but, when he argued that we have simply gotten better at discerning moral truth, I just gave up.
- Rosanne and I chatted about golf claps, Valentine’s hearts, and harmony balls.
- At some point I came across Minpaku, the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan.
Daily Journal Entry #11706 01/17/08 Thu
- Japanese.
- I discovered Tiny Living, which has “furnishings for small spaces,” watched some great moments from the leaked Scientology video (and Jerry O’Connell’s wonderful parody), downloaded a free copy of My Tiny Life, watched this bizarre hypnotism/virtual reality video, and got excited by embodied cognition.
- I gave an impromptu talk at the atheist group about the differences between “new atheists” and “friendly atheists.” A curmudgeon took issues with the terms themselves and gave me a hard time in general about the whole endeavor. After he grumbled when I said that friendly atheists were pro-alliance (as opposed to new atheists being anti-religion), however, I did concede that I was still searching for the best terms to use. Almost everyone got riled up, though, when I said that new atheists had a bias towards men, which I supported with observations in our group of men showing a preference for debate, and women showing a preference for discussion. In the end, I said that we should at least be aware that these two perspectives exist in the atheist community, and that they should also be formally built into the structure of atheist organizations, such as by having a committee for each.
- I met some cool history grad students, Andy and Rachel, at Murphy’s. Andy was drawn to my hair and was worried about how his puppy at home was doing. Rachel told me to read John Randolph’s book The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism.
Daily Journal Entry #11707 01/18/08 Fri
- Japanese.
- I had mixed feelings about Juno. The writing was a little too hip and witty to be believable at some points. The part that bothered me most, though, was when Juno proclaimed her love for Bleeker at the end. He seemed like such a lackluster character throughout the film that I wasn’t convinced there was a good enough reason for her to have these feelings, and I felt that she was still a little too inexperienced in life for me to be able to fully respect her feelings, no matter how smart she was. I also didn’t like how Jason Batemen’s character, who had sacrificed so much for his wife’s normative lifestyle, was made into some sort of bad guy, when it was Jennifer Garner’s character that was the real villain.
- Went to Barfly with Bharath, Kiril, and Ricky. Someone was repulsed by my 2g1c name tag, and I facetiously argued that the video was an ironic anti-war statement against Bush, where the “stuff” is his lies, and it is being shoved into our mouths.
Daily Journal Entry #11708 01/19/08 Sat
- Watched a great clip of Sarah Silverman’s show with the following dialogue:
âWhat do we want?â
âThe freedom to explore issues of race in American culture through the use of post-modern dramatic irony.â
âWhen do we want it?â
âWe think itâs fairly obvious.â
- Watched the trailer for Teeth, which uses “vagina dentata” as its plot device.
- Kevin said, “Every time I hear Ira Glass laugh it reminds me of you. For years. Your laughs are almost identical.” In my subsequent confirmation of this fact, I found some wonderful storytelling suggestions by Ira Glass!
- Went to salsa night at Radio Maria with Bharath, but I didn’t dance.
- Shot my video late late late in the evening.