P1010113

P1010113, a photo by PinkMoose on Flickr.

P1010113

P1010113, a photo by PinkMoose on Flickr.

• humanity's view of religion changes, so how we define religion should change.
• “yet one idea that has been produced in part of its world devolpment, namely the notion of a systematic, religious entity, conceptually indefintabile and carchatezing a distinct community, has been of special interest to us in this present inquiry and of special influence lateley throughout the world.”
• one of the changes in devolpment is finding out if the defts of religion are useful at all
• WCS thinks that this devolpment means perhaps these defintions “are much less servicable and legitmate than they once seemed”
• so, perhaps not baby out with the bathtub, but changing schematics
• one of the reasons why we need to change these revisions, is the problems of eurocentricism, racism, etc
• that one of the changes that should be made in the changes of definition, is the move from a “great man” theory of history, to one that prirotized the larger personal whole. (social history)
• that this might result in a complete dropping of religion as a defintional concept
• is this a failure of empiricism? “for example the dilema of the modern Jew is acute who has accepted the belief that there is somewhere something called Judisam, though he cannot find it” (115)
• abuts the problem of religion being understood by those practicing at all: critics who believe that religion cannot be understood, contemporary practioners (after having transferred the power to the lay), who believe that religion cannot be understood, but even the ancient pracitoners of those traidtions
• did anyone ever know how do define religion
• or is religion the after effects of the revelation of the followers, is the traces the only thing that can be measured: “no man has seen the point of his own religious tradition for whom the concept religion is an adequate indication oof what it is all about”(118)
• In this sense—those who belong to the religion are too close to understand what the religion is, an outsider has to name religions, but recent outsiders think that religion is undefinable, and so how to reconcile?
• Those who belong to the religion are too close
• outsider, might be too localised, too abstracted: “the custome of interperting other peoples religious life under a seires of rubics of the several religions, some of them named, is Western, is recent, and has already passed its zenith” (120)
• prolegomennen
• “Being a Muslim means lviing in a certain context, sociological,historical, ideological, and trqansdencents. The signifince of being a Muslim lies in this fact, not in some pprolegomenen to it. The concern of the observer with something that he calls Islam shifts attention from the heart of the matter” (124)
• the thing the critic and the adherent have in common is a kind of dismisive quality to the other: “We are now in a position to recongise that it was not dortotious that the rleigion concepts, having arisen in WEstern Europe are inherently deprectriative. For the Christian traditon, particualiry in its Protestant form, has historically been unusually disaparing of other religions traditons; and the rationalist academic tradition has been skeptical, if not disparging of all” (126)
• abstraction?
• The problerm of defining wrt this kidn of abstraction, with this wide diversity of religious abilities. (128-129)
• “we can speak with prevision and elegance in our deinfitons of imaginary construts; an irrational number of any of the notions in matthemtiacs, model types in sociological theory; the notions in mathematics; model types in sociological theory; concepts in physica, abstractions of all kinds” (129)
• this variety and diversity, suggests that pretty explcitly, that there is nothing essential in religion—that defitnions have to work with the abstracitons in such a way that it precludes essentalism: “For essences do not have a history. Essences do not change. Yet it is an observable and important fact that what have been called the religions do, in history change”
• the definition comes from the internalaztion of these abstracitons—outside of the essentializing aspescts of adherents, or the coldness of scholars: “...not to be ignored, however, is what we do not see: the Buddhist faith in the queit corner of a man's inner heart: the inspiraitonal in the mind of the artist of which is completred artefact before is iis the inadequate expression: the moral ideal in the lfie of the believer to which his actual behaviour is but a paartial and perhaps even sorry apromixaiton” (133)
• this suggests that what occurs, is not the basic element of the religion—this ties in with the changing from the one thinker, one initial essentialism, into a wide variety/network of lived rleigion—this networking suggests a constant renewing conceptualism: “To equate Buddhism starkly with the Buddha's teachings or the first decades of the Sangha's life is to dismiss with scant justice the rich elaboration of the manhayana tradition in China and Japan. This is virtually to post something called a religion and then to assert thatr is had no history, to leave unxpeained and unnoticed almost the whole religious history of man” (135)
• to return back to the original point—all of this abstraciton, and bleif in lived religion, and the academic absence, and all of that: “...Platonic ideals do not serve the beliver himself” (136)
• multiform, human and unstable (137)

Johnathon Z Smith:

• 19^th century german as sense of order
• qoutes Ricouer—the question of what is history
• Defintion as an act agaisnt colonization
• there are other ways of taxonomizing, against the 19^th century methods, or understandings.
• We can see these other forms of taxonomizing in things like Cargo Cults, and other oceanic forms of exchange as examples.
• Actual Deft, emerges on 189.

Tweed:

• bored in defining
• the possiblity that nothing can be disagreed on
• the problem of exgetical fussiness
• Actual Deft, 34.
• Placeholders, rship to traces, etc—making sure that nothing holds fast.

Saler:

• Prototype approach
• Wittengenstin—words affect general concepts.
• The words, can be thought of to come from which is determiend to be first
• we can work this from the 19^th century,
• category does not need to be a judgement of the act
• “a few kind words on behalf of essentialism

Ninian Smart:

• multipiclity of discourses
• refusal of monomyths (this includes the studying of religion, via theology—15) which does not preculde the possiblity of xians doing serious theology. Or w/i branches (19)
• attempts at disrupting religion, including but not limited to marx
• marx, freud, etc become a kind of religious tendency
• hursell's empiricism 14
• difference b/w empathy and sympathy (15)
• religion then can be understood thru the lens of a spec structure (26)
• This can be constructed thru an explicitly emperical lens (25)
• polymethody and how it relates to the rship that humans have with themselves and others (28)
• ideas need symbols

P1010302

P1010302, a photo by PinkMoose on Flickr.

P1010076

P1010076 a video by PinkMoose on Flickr.

don't buy hardcore japanese bear porn before meeting evangelical xian buddies
don't try to explain that yr problem with sexuality lately, is not shame (you have mostly gotten over shame) but is ennui or exhaustion, using the one liner: "monogamous heterosexuality is the only kink i haven't tried"
don't have anexity attacks about money in front of yr best friend at 11 30 on monday night.

one of the more interesting things about this long discussion of the 20 years b/w days of heaven and the new world, is that many of the projects taken up and then abandoned, either as scripts wrote of films shot, are adaptations that required more narrative concision than the ones he chose (including Dirty Harry, McMurty's Desert Rose,  Percy's The Movie Goer, a biopic of Jerry Lee Lewis, and others.)

southern poverty law center is collecting racist ephemera for research

Chuck Eddy's work on the intersections of hip-hop and country, in the 1980s and 90s, are now mostly held in weird little listicles, like this brilliant one from spin, but should be a huge book. it is vital, historically minded, and  quite difficult work. I haven't quite engaged with the implicaitons, but there are class and gender overlap.

Barbra Kruger  fucks with Supreme Skateboarders, an interesting test case for the line b/w approporiation an copyright.

major early serra is rotting in a farmers field outside of king city ontario.


Wombat Video One.


wombat video two.

the cartography of video games, strikes me as one of those places where the implicaitons of interioirty and discrusive nature of textual movements, could be fully epxressed--an updating of the medevial rooms of memory, Lana Polansky's brilliant article, hints at that reading, ut goes to places unexpexted and much smarter:

A city is a mapped space, full of landmarks and signage. It’s a space where dynamic things can happen—people can alter or displace themselves or objects in unpredictable or unforeseen ways—but always on top of a basic underpinning of urban planning. I walk through areas of my city, which are like dark spots in my mind, to see where they connect, and there’s a thrill in discovering what’s new to me. But once the spots are coloured in, they become defined, and they lose their mystery. They aren’t mine to uncover anymore. Oh, that’s how this connects to that. My head becomes familiar with the layout, and constructs a mental map. The place becomes labelled, explainable and mundane. There’s exactitude to this.
I have the same attitude to game territories. Their maps are there a priori; they’re built into the code. The space is designed, or mapped, before I step in. It is not my job to go where no player has gone before: instead, I am filling in a new mental map of deeply conceived, designed, mapped, and programmed territory.

Owen Hatherlty on Thatcher as Enemy of The Built Enviroment.

The interesting thing about Bass as a designer is how afraid he is of colour--his famous work, with it's under rated taxonomy, and blunt butch miniliasm often flirts but rejects the implications of decoration as a design, this is why his titles for Around the World in 80 days is so impt--it's vulgar.

web remix  of Leaves of Grass and House of Leaves, it becomes almost infinite.

a bakers dozen install shots of the new El Antusi show in Brooklyn. The best work is the carved, small horizontal, wall based compositions.  though the epic spectacle of the "blankets" of bottle caps retain their gravitas and power.  (i like how their are dots, splotches, lines, and ragged edges in the smaller, horiziontal peices--and how the peices are gouged, carved, nailed, and tied together--much of the formal problems of sculpture, of how to make sculpture, were left to painters and assembelge artists after the mid60s, early 70s, and in these spaces they are seemingly wrenched back) (altho they are called horiziontal wall peices, they are often a collection of small vertical slats placed in an uneven line--and so they are horiziontal only in the sense that the bottle cap peices cascade and falling eschew the common binaries of sculpture) (there are also two v. small circiular table peices, that just curve into each other with such tenderness and intimacy)



90 minute live concert of Josh Turner at Sea World in Orlando. His patter is so charmingly uncharming.

Peter Bochave,  veteran of the 80s bath house raids, founder of Spa Excess, civil serant to toronto' sexual avant garde, died this week. The obit is fantastic.

Elaine Stritch dying in Michigan, instead of her apartment at the Caryle, just seems unfair.

Graphs  comparing the disparity of ages of male and female love interests in hollywood film.

new bowie video

Like  Gedney's photos of Kentucky, which just seemed anonymously reflecting the needs and d esires of s all communities, Tammy Mecure does the same thing for her county in Tenesse. It's incredibly difficult to do with any amout of artfulness, contempt or seeking an observers vision. Her works continue a long tradition of localized documentation in the South, and are brilliant.

On Hip Hop and Pussy Eating

i am not sure if i don't want to do the work, because i find the work invalid, or i am growing a carapce of apathy as a defense mechincaism, because i dont think i can do the work (last essay for lalonde's revisions)

P1010014

P1010014, a photo by PinkMoose on Flickr.

la freeway cloverleafs
bucks and antlers entangling in fight
aieral photos of waterparks

P1010382

P1010382, a photo by PinkMoose on Flickr.

hooray, hooray, the first of may/
outdoor fucking begins today