There is a lot that is remarkable about Gene Wolf’s Book Of The New Sun tetralogy, but surely one of the most arresting bits (for me at least) comes in the conclusion of the first book where the narrator, a torturer by trade, compares his new-found role as author to the job of executioner which [...]
Two quick links to demonstrate how uneven online encyclopedias can be: The government of New Zealand has a “new, bilingual encyclopedia of New Zealand”:http://www.teara.govt.nz/ online. I think they’re still adding content to it, but the front-end is very pretty. Currently there is no entry for ‘”moko”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moko ‘ or ‘”Crowded House”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowded_House” (which, _ahem_, Wikipedia does). But [...]
Here’s an advanced mathetmatical concept which even the late lamented Leuschke.org would approve of: The Hasselhoff Recursion. It’s this sort of thing that makes me think maybe I haven’t given Baudrillard the time he deserves.
In an earlier version of my Anthropology of Virtual Worlds syllabus I incorrectly attributed the pieces “bow, nigger” and “possessing Barbie” to Jim Rossignol when they were in fact by always_black, who runs the the website (wait for it) alwaysblack.com. Sorry for the confusion, AB. It’s a good site and if you haven’t yet read [...]
I’m probably The Last One On The Block To Hear About This, but The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication has tons of interesting stuff like The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Invidualism. The current issue has a few articles on virtual communities too.
In The Hall of the Mountain Kings: One little man’s journey into the world of Grieg Sumo Wrestling.
Two quick music notes: First, J’s Pazz and Jops list is up so go listen to that stuff. Second – O-SHEN. The new album rocks. The new album is particularly good. Check out Burn It Up (audio stream). Tok Pisin rap — we need more of it on this planet.
Dude. The other day I blogged what I thought was a felicitous congruence between Walter Benjamin and Jonathan Osorio. The passage from Osorio that I thought was so cool was this: Ka wa mamua and ka wa mahope are the Hawaiian terms for the past and future, respectively. But note that ka wa mamua (past) [...]
Well looky here… Bookish.com – a new blog by a charming and literate bloggerista…
Will it actually happen? The Gary Becker/Richard Posner Blog has finally spawned. I know Posner has blogged at least twice before — once on Slate and one Lessig’s blog. Will they stick with it?
Here’s a collection of useful quick links about sociologists (warning: in FrogSpeak).
The other night during flossing the Beloved and I discovered that she did in fact own a Chinese Bandit Mask hidden away behind our pharmaceutical collection. So I now have a bandit mask that is currently in beta-testing. Results are positive so far, but the release candidate will have a looser fit and ‘roach silk’, [...]
Michael Barber: The guy who wrote the new biography of Alfred Schutz.
Oh, honestly. Some of you Fearless Readers seem to have gotten the impression that Rex is drinking himself to sleep every night just to blot out the moonlight shining through our inadequate curtains. I’m here to report that his insomnia has been ever so slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect. It’s important to realize that doses [...]
I’ve lived in Honolulu for two months now. This is what Manoa looks like from Roundtop when the scarily erudite beloved is standing stage right: The insommnia is getting better, mostly through repeated doses of gin and SEB. I’m relearning how to defocus and let my mind wander, which keeps me from staying up Thinking [...]
Augustin, Roi de Kung Fu. For those of you who liked Irma Vepp, another flick from Maggie Cheung’s French Period.
I don’t know if it’s any good but the Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology has an awesome name.
Well shit. The Economist backs Kerry. Next thing you know the Red Sox are going to win the World Series or something.
A while ago on the blog I mentioned Secret Project #1 was in the works, and I am pleased to announce that it is now unveiled: Prickly Paradigm Press is releasing its back catalog under a creative commons license. I’ve been working with both Creative Commons and Prickly Paradigm to make this happen, and I’m [...]
Derrida/Dangerfield Memorial: Rodney Dangerfield “Under Erasure”
Gimme Tenure: Any academic blogger who is currently reading “Take My Wife… Please: The Memoirs of Louis Althusser” is OK with me.
The UofC’s own Judge Richard A. “Tricky Dick” Posner is guest blogging at Lessig’s blog. It’s interesting to see what is happening over there given what Posner has written in the past, and having such an eminent judge blog on an activist’s site so soon after Grokster represents a new and powerful way that blogging [...]
I was locked off of Word Press for the last two days for a stupid reason. Now I am back on Word Press and will start blogging again. Huzzah!
(file this under ‘yet another book I don’t have time to write’) The prequel to Georg Simmel’s monumental epic Philosophie des Geld, this intricately detailed history of nineteenth century Berlin is a must for anyone truly interested in the fantastically imagined world of fin de siecle German social thought. Starting from Simmel’s attempt to purchase [...]
I am most definitely not one of those people who use their blog to wail and nash their teeth about how awful it is to go to graduate school and get a job as a professor. I’ve never liked these blogs for a number of reasons which I won’t get into here because, well, it [...]
I’m now officially over the hump of my insane period of presenting humungous amounts of papers. As a result, I have absolutely no idea what to do with my free time. It’s quite a relief actually. And so I present you with the following: 1. “The Puritans felt a compelling duty to employ government to [...]
As I work on the revised, publishable version of my Copyright and Taboo paper, I continue to be amazed at how incredible the world is. For instance, for the paper I ran through the economic indicators for Everquest and Papua New Guinea using Ted’s paper on the Cyberian Frontier and the PNG 1998 Human Development [...]
Everytime that I think “this is it – crunch time,” things get more and more hectic. I’m working on a Very Important Talk at Columbia for the end of this week, as well as trying to meet a publication deadline for February 1. This wouldn’t be so bad, except for the fact that the first [...]