Thou Art

I sat next to some interesting people in the cinema the other day. One was a culturally knowledgeable woman, who was apparently trying to educate her teenage daughter. She commented on the songs playing before the advertisements started, the meaning and relevance of the French song playing during an advertisement, and then during the trailer for Fast & Furious 5 about the potential of film as an art form and how it is wasted on car chases. As if well-choreographed car chases are not a kinetic art form.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Dogs

I spotted a good piece of advice in a magazine: "Get a dog. Even geniuses need some unconditional love." Not that genius warrants much love anyway. But in one of those rare moments of clarity, a hybrid of epiphany and prescience, I saw how it will all turn out:

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The grand narrative of progress is shoved in our faces wherever we go. Since consciousness is bound to the illusory arrow of time granted us by thermodynamic entropy, the existence of psychological phenomena such as memory and (apparent) free will leads us to adopt that grand narrative. That presupposes a certain principle that guides free will toward progress, but the grand narrative itself reinforces the existence of that principle in a positive feedback loop. Such a tripartite Escherian structure cannot exist without any pillar; the grand narrative is necessary to justify der Wille zur Macht, that driving force of life, and der Wille is required for progress.

Spiderman innamorato

Once upon a time, in one of the rare moments of peace known during Charlemagne's reign, a knight-errant was roaming the land. He had not had any deeds to perform for years, and was contemplating returning home that day as he rode towards the village. It was an average-looking village next to an average-looking forest, and his spirits fell at the thought of the deeds he would not be performing in this village.