I read Brave New World this morning with a pencil and a huge cup of coffee. This are some little bits of fantastic Huxley writing and ponderings.
Chapter 1
"For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectoers compose the backbone of society."
"That is the secret of happiness and virtue: liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like thier unescapable social destiny."
Chapter 4
"Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly, they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced."
Chapter 6
"Progress is lovely, isn't it?"
Chapter 8
"Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and rows of babies and Jesusflying up and Linda flying up and the great Director and World hatcheries and Awonawilona."
"A man can smile and smile and be a villain."
"He had never really hated Pope before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these words like drums and singing and magic. These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were taken (he couldn't make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all the same)--they gave him a reason for hating Pope; and they made his hatred more real; they even made Pope himself more real."
"He had discovered Time and Death and God."
"If one's different, one's bound to be lonely."
Chapter 9
"Zip, and the zip; zip, and then zip; he was enchanted."
Chapter 10
"The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray."
"Murder kills only the induvidual, and after all, what is an induvidual."
Chapter 11
"...there she remained; and yet wasn't there at all, was all the time away, infinitely far away, on holiday; on holiday in some other world, where the music of the radio was a labyrinth of sonorous colours, a sliding, palpitating labyrinth, that led (by whatr beautifully inevitable windings) to a bright centre of absolute conviction."
"Bernard would parade a carping unorthodoxy."
Chapter 12
"'What fun would it be,' he thought, 'if one didn't have to think about happiness!'"
Chapter 13
"An emblem of the inner tide of startled elation, the blood rushed up into Lenina's cheeks."
Chapter 16
"Only in Othello's words could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred."
"Our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel, and you can't make tragedies without social instability."
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparision with the overcompensations for misery."
"Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy."
"Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness...Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't."
Chapter 17
"But God dosn't change."
"Men do, though."
"What difference does that make?"
"All the difference in the world."
"We are not our own masters. We are God's property. It is not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own?" [To be fair, this is acctually the philosopher Maine de Biran's words.]
"Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons--that's philosophy."
"Providence takes it's cue from men."
"Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears--that's what soma is." [Soma is a anti-depressant/instant holiday pill given to all castes.]
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
Chapter 18
"'I say,' Helmholtz exclaimed solicitously, 'you do look ill, John.'"
"'Did you eat soemthing that didn't agree with you?' asked Bernard."
"The Savage nodded. 'I ate civilization.'"
"What?"
"'It poisioned me; I was defiled. And then,' he added, in a lower tone, 'I ate my own wickedness.'"
Basically, read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's brilliant.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Comment eviter leur realisation definitive?...Les utopies sont realisables.
Today at Barnes & Noble, I indulged myself. I bought myself a copy of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, as I have always wanted to read it and never have, and a book stand. It's very cheap, it looks like it was made out of an old shopping cart, with stems of metal and shards of blue Albertson's-esque plastic piping. But I adore it. I set it up in my bathroom after several frustrating minutes of trying to get it off the cardboard, and put Brave New World on it.
My mother knocked on the door wondering why I was squealing for joy.
My mother knocked on the door wondering why I was squealing for joy.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Noodle Love
On January 6th, 2007, Momofuku Ando, beloved creator of Cup Noodles and other delicious ramen concoctions, died of a heart attack at age 96 in Japan.
This is old news, but I happen to be having a chicken Cup Noodles for lunch today so I was reminded to pay homage to this great man.
Who would have thought that hydrogenized noodles in a waterproof polystyrene container could bring so much joy to post WW2 families and poor college students (me) everywhere.
This is old news, but I happen to be having a chicken Cup Noodles for lunch today so I was reminded to pay homage to this great man.
Who would have thought that hydrogenized noodles in a waterproof polystyrene container could bring so much joy to post WW2 families and poor college students (me) everywhere.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
A Tale of Heroic Valor on Basically Nobody's Part
It was a very cold night in Fallbrook, roughly 20 degrees. This was enough to make the stairs of the hot tub freeze over so when you tried to get in you slipped off and lay prostrate on the grass moaning and shivering in your bathing suit which quite frankly, does not cover much at all.
Anyway.
When it gets cold, we turn on the heater. Obviously. For most people, this is is normal. However, our house was built in the 40's pre-WW2, meaning that we can only get hot water at certian times of the day, can only have so many lights on at one time, and have to pray and cross your fingers if you want the heater on. When it is on, it makes dreadful bangs and moans like a giant flailing dying animal thrashing agaisnt the walls of the house in agony. Sometimes.
So when I was snug in my bed at 4 in the morning, toasty from many layers of synthetic fleece and wool, and I heard a bang I figured was the heater. It persisted. I realized that the heater usually is not so good with keeping time and rythym, as this mysterious sound was. So I went out into the living room, and there banging on the door like his life depended on it, was a very bearlike man. he was jiggling the handle and screaming with a very angry look on his face.
"What do you want?" I sqeaked through the door.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
This was the point in which i slid over the hardwood floory to my parent's bedroom. My dad shot out of bed like a bullet which was really funny to watch because he ran into a wall which he thought was the door, grabbed an umbrella, and went to the back door holding the Marimekko umbrella like a field hockey stick.
"Wrong door, Dad."
So he went to the front door and started yelling at the guy who was still there looking angry and obviously plastered as he didn't make eye contact and was stumbling. So my dad screamed. then the guy screamed. Then they both screamed. At this point I sat down on a throw pillow in the dark and laughed, enjoying the show. My mom called the police.
A few minutes later, the police showed up. There is nothing more beautiful that the flashing blue and red lights piercing the darkness on a winter's night. I wish i could say this was the first time a sqad car hasbeen on our property. The guy was running around our front lawn screaming when they took him away.
It was at that point that I realized my neighbor, Eric, was having one of his parties. He does this almost every weekend. Sometimes there's noise, but most of the time it dosn't bother me. usually we find used condoms and beer bottle on our lawn, but not crazed drunk guys calling me Dave, trying to break into our house.
The next morning, I was lingering near the front door with some very strong coffee in my Norway mug before work, when I noticed that his car keys were jammed in the lock on our door. Poor drunk bastard.
I threw them in the flowerbed. No one disrupts my sleep and gets away with it.
Anyway.
When it gets cold, we turn on the heater. Obviously. For most people, this is is normal. However, our house was built in the 40's pre-WW2, meaning that we can only get hot water at certian times of the day, can only have so many lights on at one time, and have to pray and cross your fingers if you want the heater on. When it is on, it makes dreadful bangs and moans like a giant flailing dying animal thrashing agaisnt the walls of the house in agony. Sometimes.
So when I was snug in my bed at 4 in the morning, toasty from many layers of synthetic fleece and wool, and I heard a bang I figured was the heater. It persisted. I realized that the heater usually is not so good with keeping time and rythym, as this mysterious sound was. So I went out into the living room, and there banging on the door like his life depended on it, was a very bearlike man. he was jiggling the handle and screaming with a very angry look on his face.
"What do you want?" I sqeaked through the door.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
This was the point in which i slid over the hardwood floory to my parent's bedroom. My dad shot out of bed like a bullet which was really funny to watch because he ran into a wall which he thought was the door, grabbed an umbrella, and went to the back door holding the Marimekko umbrella like a field hockey stick.
"Wrong door, Dad."
So he went to the front door and started yelling at the guy who was still there looking angry and obviously plastered as he didn't make eye contact and was stumbling. So my dad screamed. then the guy screamed. Then they both screamed. At this point I sat down on a throw pillow in the dark and laughed, enjoying the show. My mom called the police.
A few minutes later, the police showed up. There is nothing more beautiful that the flashing blue and red lights piercing the darkness on a winter's night. I wish i could say this was the first time a sqad car hasbeen on our property. The guy was running around our front lawn screaming when they took him away.
It was at that point that I realized my neighbor, Eric, was having one of his parties. He does this almost every weekend. Sometimes there's noise, but most of the time it dosn't bother me. usually we find used condoms and beer bottle on our lawn, but not crazed drunk guys calling me Dave, trying to break into our house.
The next morning, I was lingering near the front door with some very strong coffee in my Norway mug before work, when I noticed that his car keys were jammed in the lock on our door. Poor drunk bastard.
I threw them in the flowerbed. No one disrupts my sleep and gets away with it.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Thinking about Africa
I work a corporate job which no decent person should work until they are good and thirty as a marketing assistant. Basically what I do is fanaticize about the really sexy landscaper who works outside my window everyday trimming the baby palms and rearranging the wood chips while I do a half-assed job editing consumer reports and capital fund documents, and sometimes transferring agency training documents into free reports. The only perks are that I have my own office, so I’m generally left alone most of the time, in which I have a threesome with YouTube and Facebook. This almost makes up for the fact that I have to wear slacks and heels to work.
So on this particular Tuesday, I’m thinking about making a paper clip chain and hanging myself with it as I flip to page 6 of 150 the capital fund report finding it, if possible, dryer than the pervious one. My supervisor, Susan, walks in. Susan is one of my favorite people in the world. Not only is she a total sweetheart and leaves me to my own devises most of the day from 9-5, but she is more liberal than I am. Plus, she doesn’t care that I draw dinosaurs in the margins of the free reports I’m editing, because no one in the office knows Webster’s Standard American Style Manual as well as I do. So she walks in and starts talking politics, which of course I enjoy. Today, it’s the war, plus a daily dose of Bush-bashing, one of her favorite activities. 20,000 troops are being sent to Iraq for no reason other that Bush doesn’t want to admit he is wrong, and therefore thinks that everyone will forget this if he sends more troops in.
So we’re ranting like two old ladies even though only one of us is actually old, and I start bringing up things that the military should be focusing on instead of Iraq. I bring up many humanitarian efforts, but when I get to the crisis in Nothern Uganda, Susan sports a puzzled look on her face.
I spent the next 15 minutes filling her in on everything, from the Lord’s Resistance Army, to the 50,000 invisible children, to the documentary, to the Global Night Commute, and I looked up to see she was crying. She was so touched by the issue and so ashamed at herself and her country for not acknowledging the issue that she was moved to tears. People make fun of bleeding liberals, but without them the world would be a cold place. The Invisible Children are a huge issue that is sort of a hot button with today’s youth, one of which is sort of popularized. It’s a ‘cool thing” to be into the Invisible Children campaign. Except for Carrie, who is 18 and only works here cause she tried to kill herself and need supervision by her mom, who is an agent in the office next to me. She had heard of it, but didn't give a shit. I could have guessed it.
Anyways, usually people who jump on the train because everyone else is pisses me off (hell, you all saw how mad I got when Regina Spektor started showing music videos on VH1...sell out.) but this is something different. I have talked to people who were acctually full of distain for those people who were just sort of latching on to the whole humanitarian thing. So what? At least the message is getting out somehow, whether or not they are wholly commited, at least they have an idea of what is going on. People over the age of 25 seem to have no clue! So as I watched Susan’s face change as I told her everything I could about the cause, I saw what all of our faces should look like when confronted with a cause so great.
I feel like our hearts have been numbed by news and TV. Just the other day, I was watching CNN, and a story about the tornado in the south came on. What did I do? I changed the channel. It hit me a minute later as I was watching Comedy Central: I didn’t care, it didn’t even affect me! What is wrong with me? I think people, me included, have become disassociated with their own hearts, we hear 1000 Chinese have been killed in a tragic train crash, it’s sad, but we move on and watch the Simpson’s and eat In-N-Out like nothing has happened.
But Susan didn't act like this, she cared, she really, really, cared. She didn't play the part people usually do, shaking thier heads, muttering a "oh, that's too bad..." and retreating back to thier desk to think about lunch. she got on the computor and bought two copies of the documentary, one for me and one for her. Then she ran to Rick, the IT guy who is a divine pain in the ass, to ask if any computors in the office had DVD burning capabilities. Bless her heart, she is going to burn copies for everyone in the office for Valentine's Day, with the words, "Have A Heart" on them. Isn't she great?
Lately I've really been thinking about how to reckon a servant's heart in a self-serving career. I have recently decided on a career goal, a book editor, mainly so when people ask me what I want to do with my english writing major, I won't gape at them like a retarded fish, or have the following conversation:
Them: "So, are you going to be a teacher?"
Me: "No."
Them: "What else are you going to do with your major??"
Me: "Be happy."
Which upon retrospect, is a pretty selfish career. I suppose I can make people happy with books, but still, next to nurses, and psychologists, and teachers, and missionaries whose entire careers is to help people, I feel a strain on my concience.
I've been talking to my oldest friend, Lauren, about this. Lauren as been yo-yoing with majors and careers choices since were 15. We used to love it when the PSAT's rolled around, we would guess what Lauren would put down as a career goal, landscaping, bus driving, chef. Lauren is now thinking about being a missionary doctor, a far cry from all the joking we used to do. I think about this and just feel ashamed that what I'm doing dosn't really help anyone. Lauren, bless her soul, went into a spiel about how my writing makes people happy, blah, blah, blah...
They're not really in high demand for editiors in the jungles of Africa.
So I'm sitting here in an office shivering from the industrial air conditioners, with my bare feet propped up on a filing cabinet, with a styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee Roxanne in Accounting made especially for me when I was the last to get to the Mr. Coffee machine this morning. I bitch and bitch and bitch about having to wake up at 7 every morning monday through friday for a job that pays far above minimun wage where I don't acctually have to remove my ass from the padded swivel chair once. I compose these documents that do nothing but make people richer. These people are sharks, out for a deal, out to get what is bigger and better, out to conquer the corporate world. They are bustling around in a caffinated frenzy to serve themselves, and all I can think about is Africa. And I feel like a fool.
So on this particular Tuesday, I’m thinking about making a paper clip chain and hanging myself with it as I flip to page 6 of 150 the capital fund report finding it, if possible, dryer than the pervious one. My supervisor, Susan, walks in. Susan is one of my favorite people in the world. Not only is she a total sweetheart and leaves me to my own devises most of the day from 9-5, but she is more liberal than I am. Plus, she doesn’t care that I draw dinosaurs in the margins of the free reports I’m editing, because no one in the office knows Webster’s Standard American Style Manual as well as I do. So she walks in and starts talking politics, which of course I enjoy. Today, it’s the war, plus a daily dose of Bush-bashing, one of her favorite activities. 20,000 troops are being sent to Iraq for no reason other that Bush doesn’t want to admit he is wrong, and therefore thinks that everyone will forget this if he sends more troops in.
So we’re ranting like two old ladies even though only one of us is actually old, and I start bringing up things that the military should be focusing on instead of Iraq. I bring up many humanitarian efforts, but when I get to the crisis in Nothern Uganda, Susan sports a puzzled look on her face.
I spent the next 15 minutes filling her in on everything, from the Lord’s Resistance Army, to the 50,000 invisible children, to the documentary, to the Global Night Commute, and I looked up to see she was crying. She was so touched by the issue and so ashamed at herself and her country for not acknowledging the issue that she was moved to tears. People make fun of bleeding liberals, but without them the world would be a cold place. The Invisible Children are a huge issue that is sort of a hot button with today’s youth, one of which is sort of popularized. It’s a ‘cool thing” to be into the Invisible Children campaign. Except for Carrie, who is 18 and only works here cause she tried to kill herself and need supervision by her mom, who is an agent in the office next to me. She had heard of it, but didn't give a shit. I could have guessed it.
Anyways, usually people who jump on the train because everyone else is pisses me off (hell, you all saw how mad I got when Regina Spektor started showing music videos on VH1...sell out.) but this is something different. I have talked to people who were acctually full of distain for those people who were just sort of latching on to the whole humanitarian thing. So what? At least the message is getting out somehow, whether or not they are wholly commited, at least they have an idea of what is going on. People over the age of 25 seem to have no clue! So as I watched Susan’s face change as I told her everything I could about the cause, I saw what all of our faces should look like when confronted with a cause so great.
I feel like our hearts have been numbed by news and TV. Just the other day, I was watching CNN, and a story about the tornado in the south came on. What did I do? I changed the channel. It hit me a minute later as I was watching Comedy Central: I didn’t care, it didn’t even affect me! What is wrong with me? I think people, me included, have become disassociated with their own hearts, we hear 1000 Chinese have been killed in a tragic train crash, it’s sad, but we move on and watch the Simpson’s and eat In-N-Out like nothing has happened.
But Susan didn't act like this, she cared, she really, really, cared. She didn't play the part people usually do, shaking thier heads, muttering a "oh, that's too bad..." and retreating back to thier desk to think about lunch. she got on the computor and bought two copies of the documentary, one for me and one for her. Then she ran to Rick, the IT guy who is a divine pain in the ass, to ask if any computors in the office had DVD burning capabilities. Bless her heart, she is going to burn copies for everyone in the office for Valentine's Day, with the words, "Have A Heart" on them. Isn't she great?
Lately I've really been thinking about how to reckon a servant's heart in a self-serving career. I have recently decided on a career goal, a book editor, mainly so when people ask me what I want to do with my english writing major, I won't gape at them like a retarded fish, or have the following conversation:
Them: "So, are you going to be a teacher?"
Me: "No."
Them: "What else are you going to do with your major??"
Me: "Be happy."
Which upon retrospect, is a pretty selfish career. I suppose I can make people happy with books, but still, next to nurses, and psychologists, and teachers, and missionaries whose entire careers is to help people, I feel a strain on my concience.
I've been talking to my oldest friend, Lauren, about this. Lauren as been yo-yoing with majors and careers choices since were 15. We used to love it when the PSAT's rolled around, we would guess what Lauren would put down as a career goal, landscaping, bus driving, chef. Lauren is now thinking about being a missionary doctor, a far cry from all the joking we used to do. I think about this and just feel ashamed that what I'm doing dosn't really help anyone. Lauren, bless her soul, went into a spiel about how my writing makes people happy, blah, blah, blah...
They're not really in high demand for editiors in the jungles of Africa.
So I'm sitting here in an office shivering from the industrial air conditioners, with my bare feet propped up on a filing cabinet, with a styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee Roxanne in Accounting made especially for me when I was the last to get to the Mr. Coffee machine this morning. I bitch and bitch and bitch about having to wake up at 7 every morning monday through friday for a job that pays far above minimun wage where I don't acctually have to remove my ass from the padded swivel chair once. I compose these documents that do nothing but make people richer. These people are sharks, out for a deal, out to get what is bigger and better, out to conquer the corporate world. They are bustling around in a caffinated frenzy to serve themselves, and all I can think about is Africa. And I feel like a fool.
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