In the stairwells in the science/engineering library, if you tap on the banisters in the right way with your fingertips, they become discordant chimes. It doesn't quite make a song, but it's nice.

"[Yogic leg exercises] teach the muscles in your legs to hold your joints in proper alignment" - boo ya. the exact exercises we do before class at the Broadway dojo. and they really work, like when my knee was paining me from walking funny on the thorn in my foot all day.

"We must be systematic, but we should keep our systems open" - A.N. Whitehead, Modes of Thought -- I thought this was nice because it seems to tie into the 'everything is bound by context but context is boundless' notion; just a different kind of application

   I had a random idea the other night, pacing on the phone in our front yard and watching the neighborhood partygoers congregate, and it oddly had to do with zen. Or something. Anyway, it had to do with the principle of being still and yet in motion simultaneously. The common example of this is the reflection of the moon on running water. So my thought was, while someone is sitting still their mind is probably often in motion, thinking and daydreaming and whatnot. But then when people are moving or completing some action, they are often still thinking and keeping the mind working at the same time. So to be in the zone or zen or....some other z word, the mind is still while the body moves. And it just clicked that that's a pretty common notion, so there's my realization thereof, I guess.

Dark Fury - I think I've developed a sort of morbid fascination with the character Riddick - I don't really like him, but I get curious whenever he appears again

Doom Funnel Chasers! - It reminds me of Farscape because of the whole gravity-slingshot effect (yay for obscure nerd references!), and the duct tape ball makes a fun noise when it hits the planets

another poem rough -

Apology

Your words are a clawed whip striking at my face-

the fanged crack of noise taking out my eyes,
leaving me hollow, and the torn sockets
filled with dry tears.

In my new emptiness I float outside myself,
in the bare moment of the echo
of word-pierced air.

In that breathless instant of freefall
my eyes find their voice again
and call back to me what they see:

Her crimson glare is a mask!
We see through the ruby lens of narrowed eyes!
It is not flickering fire, but chilled blue glistening
of sharp-frosted pain in her irises!

In the silence as you withdraw your whip
I find myself drained, on my knees, at your feet;
yet I am filled, again,
no longer with red, tense anger -
only cool violet remorse.

I press my forehead against
the back of your hand, and breathe.

And the balm of quiet soothes our tired eyes.

-Phantom of the Opera now comes in yummy movie format

-The Peacekeeper Wars - a conclusion (?) to the best skiffy show that used to be around (in my opinion)

-all forums should be done this way

-Lovers - two things going for it. Was made by the same people who did Hero. And has hottie Takeshi Kaneshiro starring. --addendum: Xuemei pointed out that the original name for the movie is House of Flying Daggers, and that Zhang Zhiyi is in there as well --addendum.2: the "actual translation" of the name would be Ambush from Ten Sides

-mmm...nice melons

We watched the Exorcist the other night, which was very interesting (though the unedited ending in the special features is nonsensical without it being explicitly explained in a random interview with the director). What the movie really made me think of, in any case, is the legend of the jinn from Islamic folklore. Basically the article in particular that I had in mind was proposing that an evil jinn could influence a person to make them seem possessed, so it was interesting to watch the movie in that line along with the standard demon-possession idea. As for the jinn, to quickly summarize there are many different perspectives but basically they are a parallel form of life to humans (created from smokeless fire, as humans were created from clay and angels from light, but just as humans are no longer clay, they are no longer smokeless fire). They eat, sleep, have a society of sorts and even pets (no I don't know what they would keep as pets), and there are good and bad jinn, just like there are nice people and jerks. Also, the other interesting thing that kind of differentiates jinn from say, Greek gods, is that they are kept on a theological hierarchical level close to humans (ie, Mohammed was not just a prophet to humans, but also to jinn). According to the legends they have their supernatural powers and whatnot, but the idea is that they are held accountable for their use of them, i.e. if they exploit them or use them to help people). And if I got any of that bass-ackwards someone pleeaasse tell me.

Okay, something I think elementary kids should be taught: using a 'stasis point' in an argument ('cause the first place I heard about it was in Engl 306/Rhetoric). Generally for every argument both parties can backtrack to some point that they both agree on, and then in working on from that point, things are generally much more pleasant. Simple as that, no frills. But when people are so focused on what they themselves are saying that they start arguing over something they either actually agree on or just because they totally missed something the other said, not so happy. Finding the stasis point actually requires that they listen to each other, wonder of wonders, and slow down, and start by working towards agreement in some regard, even if they end up agreeing to disagree in the end. Of course, if that were the case I wouldn't have had to spend three hours listening to people bitch and bicker at the dojo meeting (though entirely tangentially there was an interesting mix of Arizonan, Midwestern, British, and New York accents, and even a misunderstanding caused by a touch of Ebonix).

I read a couple interesting things in a Scientific American column: "The reason dualism is intuitive is because the brain does not perceive itself," and "Children and adults alike speak of 'my body' as if 'my' and 'body' are dissimilar." While I think there are a lot of interesting tangents from these statements (zen, physical training, &c), it also made me think of a book I'm reading for my thesis. So the dualism I thought of was between the concepts of East and West (cultural hemispheres, that is). What I'm wondering is that is there a connection between that mind/body point and a perception of the world being split that way because the world entire does not intuitively see itself as a whole?

The other night I had this odd, vivid dream/consuming thought/? come over me, ironically during my devotions. It occurred to me that the ER at UMC doesn't have any windows, just really bright florescent lights. So I imagined what it would be like if there was a sudden power outage; the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't not think about it. I went through the motions in my head of calming a hysterical patient, then thought, 'well, what would i do?' So I dug around in my pack for my cell phone and turned it on. And in the blue light were skeletal, child-sized things crawling between the nurses, over the walls and desk and ceiling, and they all jerked big black eyes towards the light. That's when I opened my eyes, and I had to take several deep breaths and even go through the bowl-of-pebbles meditation (the one that works for headaches) to get the...daydream? out of my head. Interesting times...

Most obvious rip from Robert Jordan ever

Kewl Word: 'animadvert' - to turn the mind or attention to

Def Jam - Fight for New York - I only recognize maybe three or four of the rappers in the game, but the fighting looks as fun as Soul Caliber 2, but with less martial arts and more gutterstomping. That, and the trailer where it displays all the characters in a cutscene reminds me of some details in a David Brin short story where the concept of tribal behavior in a modern context came up.

Amber (aka a really rough poem)

Bittersweet amber
is, I think,
the color of my discontent.

No wound apparent, just
some thing, in your voice –
in your tone;
and the burnt gold blood seeps from my skin.

I feel it,
and wonder at it –
and you.

When I reach to touch your shoulder,
when I reach to turn your face to mine,
it holds me (frosted glass tears,
cooled to stillness at the unspoken language of your body).

Later, alone,
I find a different amber.
Sparkling crystal grains –
the shattered skin of some
beautifully dead insect.

Each time I trail my finger
through the skeleton-skin
the sun shines from each
warm yellow facet.

Later, with you,
when I trail my fingers
across your cheek,
Some thing shines –
and the amber
under our skin
is perhaps not so bitter anymore
----
Xuemei's Nice Meal of the Day:
-wood ears, chicken, and cauliflower with rice; ginger and sweet sauce
(don't be like me and eat the one tiny chunk of ginger in the entire bowl, and thus taste the burning)
----
Steven gets a "wooowwww" for his pictures from Thailand - he gots mad skillz, j0. Things of note included war monkey statues, his cute friend who had the cool name 'Apple', massive temples covered entirely by tiny paintings, floating markets, red light districts (re: a bar named "G-spot", advances by prostitutes), a video of a guy sticking his arm down the gullet of a crocodile, and scary tropical storms. None of us had realized the Indian/Asian mix that Thailand seems to be, which was interesting in and of itself.

On the suggestion of the improbably pleasant produce dude at a ghetto-Fry's, Xuemei and I decided to buy Kelsey and Italian plums. Well, rather, Xuemei threatened me with violence if I bought another weird fruit that didn't bear eating again. But, as it turns out, both are pleasingly...plummy...lack of adjectives here....and the Kelsey plums actually kind of do seem like "big green grapes," as the produce dude put it.

And in other news, (while waiting for the also improbably pleasant beach volleyball) we caught the women's rowing. Besides the excitement of a race that came down to hundredths of a second, that's some hardcore badass shit. Yes, yes, synchronized divers have rippling muscles and are hot and all, but there's not eight of them being synchronized (that was kind of eerie, in truth). And the coxswains-on-the-verge-of-spontaneously-combusting provide comic relief. So, props to Carolyn, Steph, and Steph...KATN.

I have to agree with Scott, the weather yesterday was awesome. Random impressions: driving my mom around, she noted that the color of the sky where we should have seen the sun setting was just like the ocean, our fascetious thought being that there was so much water in between us and the sun that it just made sense. In truth, the weather guy I saw was freaking out over the size of the storm. Running between the two parts of the Honbu dojo, which is like 20-30 yards, got me entirely soaked and dripping. Wyatt's football team saw a freaking funnel cloud, which was unbelievable even to them, till they saw a picture of it confirmed on the news. And as another random femme on the news put it, "It's great! We get riverfront property at least twice a year!"

And on another random note, the deleted scenes section of the Blade II dvd is hilarious with the commentary on. It's basically the Italian director and I think one of the producers cursing at each other and making fun of themselves through a succession of really bad scenes that were edited out for obvious reasons. It also includes such gem quotes as:
"Never underestimate the power of the pussy. One hair from that thing'll drag a freight train up a three mile grade." (+ plus the most perfect reaction by Donnie Yen)
and
"What better way to end a deleted scenes section than with sperm?!"

Okay, this started wandering around in my brain as I stared ruefully at the clock at work. How do humans sense time? It's not exactly one of the five main senses with a straightforward complex of neurons assigned to it. I think I remember something in neurobiology about a larger part of the brain having something to do with it, but that was about as precise as that class went into it. So then in some hypothetical part of the brain is there a logic function operating, like we know this is the present because it happened right after what just happened in the past? And ignoring all the readily apparent faults in that logic, what do we even recognize as the present (one second? an instant? is that based on brain chemistry as well?). Then my other question becomes, do other animals sense time differently than we do? Or do they even sense it all - or rather, is there some threshold of sentience that has to be passed, or is a timesense something that is inherent to all? Any ideas or answers, anyone out there?

   Two random, not really connected thoughts, not really with any purpose behind expressing them. I get headaches. They are either constant, long, and dull, or horribly intense yet very short. I'm usually cool with this, as it is something I can deal with ninety percent of the time to the point where it doesn't affect me much beyond slowing me down a little. But when my discipline is not up to par for whatever reason, I go down, hard, until I can discipline myself again. Yoga and meditation usually help a great deal, but when I really get in a slump, it becomes almost too much to concentrate or focus enough for those to be effective. Exedrin almost always helps me hit the ground running, but I loathe being dependant upon a chemical, or any substance affecting my body.
   And a thought from a book I'm reading, to which I haven't decided whether or not I agree with entirely: the body is something that we tell to do things, while the mind cannot be told to do things; rather, it just is, and we can learn to interact and work with it. Thoughts, opinions?

10 points to guess the book:
I never wanted to be a god, he thought. I wanted only to disappear like a jewel of trace dew caught by the morning. I wanted to escape the angels and the damned - alone...as though by an oversight.

 "I told him that to endure oneself might be the hardest task in the universe."
"That's...that's..."
"A bitter pill."
"Bitter nonsense!"
"The greatest palatinate earl and lowliest stipendiary serf share the same problem. You cannot hire...an intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witnesses to provide answers. No servant - or disciple - can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see."

"We have eternity, beloved."
"You may have eternity. I have only now."
"But this is eternity."

In high school I took French; since I've been working at UMC I can almost understand slow Spanish just by inundation of it, and lately I randomly started listening to teach-yourself-Italian CDs (thanks Carolyn!). The point I'm getting to is that it's been interesting to compare the three Latinate languages as I review or go over them, and then doubly compare them to Semitic or Asian languages (my mom's Arabic or my roommates' Chinese or Japanese from the dojo). For example, I wonder how the different regions each of them developed in contributed to the differences between them - say, Italian being more close to Latin because of Rome, or the French 'r' as opposed to rolled 'r's in the other languages. Because they're each very similar to the others, but different in specific ways, so I wonder if maybe languages that already existed in those areas influenced how the Latin changed over time? And I wonder what made each of the languages' structures develop as they did, like why are the meanings of Arabic words organized by the consonants in them and why are the short vowels relegated to the role they have, or why does doubling a word or name in Chinese or Japanse have the effect it does? I dunno, I think it's interesting. Thoughts, opinions?

-The Five Types of Blogs - I guess mine is somewhere between a zine and and linking blog, and I would say that I think most WBC bloggers probably think they're writing personal blogs

-natalie dee: drawings to huff by

-when I was really little, I always wanted to climb inside the geodes at the agate shop

So I was watching this old movie a kickboxing instructor gave me with my brother and his friend. And we're alternately falling asleep or Mystery Science Theater-ing it or looking for something to read because the movie is nigh incomprehensible and barely worthy of being labeled a martial arts movie (more like, one horribly confusing, barely visible hundered person brawl after another). In any case, the interesting part was that at totally random moments, the scene would shift to to white guys (playing pool apparently) who weren't being dubbed, and who appeared to be having innocuous if stilted conversations about the benefits of being in the military, or how one should get their insurance checked with the correct officer on base. It was very confusing to us, so if anyone's ever heard of that....(we were figuring movie made in 1969, so Vietnam war?)

I don't know if this would hold true, but it sure seemed to be the rule of thumb in the pool hall tonight that at any given time if you looked around, there would be at least one person (of either sex, whatever) looking at you (probably a function of the number of people in there? it seemed kind of eerie at the time). And very obese women with boobs falling out hitting on skinny Asian guys is funny.

-CNN said "12 dead"

Toonjitsu, gallery by Dave Daniels (not just for the punny name, of course)

-interesting article on the structure of Arabic names, ironically by SCA people

"There is an old Sufi story about philosopher-fool Nasrudin, who was looking for his house keys under a street light. A couple of friends happened by and joined in the search. Finally, in exasperation, one of the friends asked Nasrudin where he thought he had lost the keys. Nasrudin pointed to a spot some distance away where it was extremely dark. But why are we looking here then? he was asked. He replied: Because it is so much easier to see under the light."

The Village left me very...conflicted. Which I guess is interesting in and of itself. In fact, as much as I very much enjoyed the movie, I also left feeling kind of hurt and betrayed. While I can't really think of much to say without giving anything important away (if you're not planning on seeing it then feel free to ask), I think Chris summed it up in the parking lot when he said the nice thing about M. Night Shyamalan's movies is that while they often have that twist that is their trademark and that has people talking (re: The Sixth Sense), the more valuable/important part about them is the relationships between the characters. In this case, Ivy and Lucius, you are so beautiful, to me.

In other random news, General Tommy Franks let out in his autobiography that before the invasion of Iraq, a double-agent was used to make the Iraqis think that all of the coalition was coming from the north. Then the entire coalition came from the south. Heh. Hehehe. The other byte he said was that there was a plan set to flood post-invasion Iraq with funds and resources, but for various and several reasons, the money couldn't be raised in time (aka, there was a plan, it just had to be drawn out).

I, Robot was pretty exciting. Well, in any case, just as Asimov claimed he wasn't a writer of literature so much as a scientist, this (in having little to do with his works) was much more entertaining. All they used that I could tell were the three Laws and some name references; I could be missing some memory or another, but it seemed like the movie dumbed down the loophole/logic themes of Asimov's stories enough to popularize them and at the same time lumped them together nicely. And...robot jujitsu. You can't beat that. Seriously. It was so pretty. And I haven't cheered and slapped my legs like that since the all-aiki/jj scene in Blade II.

Xuemei's Nice Meal of the Week:
-Spicy ground pork with bamboo
-Shiitake mushrooms with bok choy
-Potato and pepper strips

"What are you sniggering about?"
"You. You're discussing philosophy with a cat."
"What could be more natural? Cats are by their very nature very philosophical."
The cat nodded agreement. "When we're not sleeping or killing something."