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Took a walk in the 19th century this morning. Women wearing hats and children in what may have been 'Sunday Best'. Wondered aloud why western society gets all condesceningly superior in regards to Islamic 'primitivism' regarding attitudes to women and what they should wear in public. It was only recently that public day-time bathing on beaches was made legal in Sydney (1903). In time cultures and people are different, but across time they seem to be pretty much the same. With a different set of circumstances, the majority western opinion and practice could be very much different to what it is now.
The Muslim calendar started a few hundered years after the Christian one. Perhaps give them a chance to 'catch up'? The Inquisition was hardly civilised, and happened not that long ago (and ended far more recently than I imagined: 1834 ). By that measure, maybe Islamic Culture is actually doing a better job than yours?

Some recent event links I stumbled upon while checking up some things on Wikipedia:

Robert Anton Wilson died earlier this week:
I have not actually read any of his work, but I know of it, in a not very clear sort of way. Which seems appropriate.

I knew of the web effort to raise money for his recent bout of illnes, but did not do anything about it.

http://robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/


Another ongoing issue that sounds pretty awful for those involved: A SubGenius member's custody battle for her son, taken off her by her ex, who seems like a far less fit parent than her and her new husband. The case has been going on for a ridiculous amount of time and involves all sorts of knee-jerk stupidity on the part of the judges and legal-system. "Why a goat"?

An announcemnet earlier in the week said she had won, but the ex basically kidnapped the son for the evening and moved to have the order reversed somehow. Hopefully his actions count against him.

When society (or exs with issues) force 'performance art' and family not to mix:

http://www.modemac.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Reverend_Magdalen
and
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/11/reverend_magdalen_ge.html


In nicer news, MIT has opened up many of its course material to the public, and apparently plans to have all courses similarly presented on the net in order to spread knowledge.

http://ocw.mit.edu/

There are quite a few interesting science and arts/literature papers with reading lists and course outlines etc.

.. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Writing-and-Humanistic-Studies/21W-765JSpring-2006/CourseHome/index.htm may be of interest to the polis.

Drinking Baltic beer and eating Austrian radishes, the room smells of sewage. The silhouette of a fly on the window plays across the primary monitor.

Maybe the smell of an eaten bird, a little halo of feathers scattered about two neatly laid out claw-footed legs, slivers of dried flesh stuck to the gloss skirting.

All will be forgotten...

AHA - just overlaid three versions of 'All the Pretty Little Horses', David Tibet, Nick Cave (w/ c93), and Coil...


... and he pastes junk from a browser window:
( Read more... )

Am reading Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation" at the moment.

An example of a simulacrum?:

Via Modesta Valenti (vrml .wrl file, browser plugin required)

c.f : photo apparently from 'the real world'

But What is Via Modesta Valenti? A 'virtual' Italian street that exists within the bureaucracy in order for the physically homeless to obtain certain government benefits.

What the street sign from 'Holburn' is, I do not know. I just 'simulated' it somewhat in vrml. Simulation of a simularum that may in fact be something real in a different location?

Never bothered with these before, seems like only one actual meme exists -- the mislabeled idea of an 'lj-meme', which persists. The individual examples peter out pretty promptly.

Anyways, this one has eju-muh-cational potential. A Wikipedia meme, from artaud.

1.Type in your birthday (minus the year) in the search bar at Wikipedia.org
2.List three interesting facts, two births, and one death that happened on your birthday.

26 November

3 facts:

1862 - Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) sends the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

1922 - Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Egyptian King Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.

1977 - 'Vrillon', representative of the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', takes over Britain's Southern Television for five minutes at 5:12 PM.

2 births:

1894 - Norbert Wiener, American mathematician and founder of Cybernetics (d. 1964)

1922 - Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist (d. 2000)

1 death:

326 - Hugh the younger Despenser, English knight (b. 1286)

---

Notes: I had never heard of the 'Vrillon' event before, and a quick web search only produced results from Wikipedia. It would be interesting to find some real info about this event. It is either an early TV broadcast hack, or a contempory Wikipedia 'hack'.

Also, Hugh the younger Despenser's death was nasty.

I had forgotten what a great drink is absinthe the combinations of fire water sugar and green

empty flat, music gear, pc and stereo, highlights: Johnny Cash's Hurt video, Grace Slick and the Great Society on vinyl (provided by myself as an appropriate reminisce, glad that went down well.. ), Pain Jerk, Massonna, shakuhachi, Shonen Knife

appropriate farewell, destination japan ..