To Foucault I would say, if I could… it’s not so bad. Once we get over the shock of discovering that the universe was not made with us in mind, all the meaning the brain can muster, and all the emotions it can bear, and all the shared adventure we might wish to enjoy, can be found by deciphering hereditary orderliness that has borne our species through geological time and stamped it with the residues of deep history. Reason will be advanced to new levels, and emotions played in potentially infinite patterns. The true will be sorted from the false, and we will understand one another very well, the more quickly because we are all of the same species and possess biologically similar brains. (p. 47)

I learned to read music early, though to this day I can only translate notation into sound, in real time, from the bass clef into a B-flat three-keyed brass instrument.

To know a piece of music, to own it, you have to memorize it. The few pieces I memorized on the guitar, say some of the Bach preludes, I hear in a completely different way. I can hear them physically.

Having also dabbled in theatre (and literary performance), I’ve experienced a similar channeling by committing words to memory. I sometimes spend spare (and solitary) time reciting snippets of drama & poetry (often at the same time).

The above paragraph, despite some poetic shortcomings, called out to me for memorization. <3 E.O.W.

Well, here we go.

The grades are in. I also went to my first commencement as faculty today. Luckily, before the procession, I got into a conversation with a philosopher about Kant & Wittgenstein and I had something to think about during all the dumb-ass speeches.

The dumbest of all dumb academic traditions has to be the honerary degree. It makes no sense to me at all.

Withdrawal: Withdrawal symptoms may occur when sleep medicines are stopped suddenly after being used daily for a long time. In some cases, these symptoms can occur even if the medicine has been used for only a week or two.

In mild cases, withdrawal symptoms may include unpleasant feelings. In more severe cases, abdominal and muscle cramps, vomiting, sweating, shakiness, and rarely, seizures may occur. These more severe withdrawal symptoms are very uncommon.

Another problem that may occur when sleep medicines are stopped is known as “rebound insomnia.” This means that a person may have more trouble sleeping the first few nights after the medicine is stopped than before starting the medicine. If you should experience rebound insomnia, do not get discouraged. This problem usually goes away on its own after 1 or 2 nights.

Sounds like a real hoot.

I finished Executioner’s Song yesterday. I had looked at it before (in fact, likely that same copy). The best we have in Terre Haute is a Books-A-Million, which has a mediocre selection (at best) and a shopping mall atmosphere. The sole copy looked rather beat up, covered with grimy fingerprints and the sticky remains of an old price tag on the back.

I had declined due to its sheer girth. How could anyone write that much on a single capital murder case? I figured it had to be a work of pure self-indulgence. But I saw it in the same sentence with In Cold Blood one too many times. The cover said $17.00 and it rang up at $18.00. It’s the sort of thing I could pick up used (online), but I was heading out to dinner and wanted something to read right then.

He deserved the Pulitzer for best use of “Jew” as a verb.

The last third, dealing with the media storm, dragged a bit, but it was still rather enlightening. It’s kind of strange so much of the best nonfiction seems to revolve around capital murder cases (I’m thinking of The Thin Blue Line as well). Schlosser’s books are a notable exception. I read a few weeks ago he’s currently working on a book about the prison system.

If I were emperor, that would be the second thing I would reform (after the health care system). We have the largest imprisoned population in the world–both in absolute numbers and per capita. Why this is not generally considered a national embarrassment escapes me. It’s indicative of a very ill society.

I won’t bother ranting about the failures of the system itself, beyond its staggering size; I’m sure Schlosser will do that better than I ever could.

This was the last day of classes, though I had none.

As I type Mike Oldfield’s “Sunjammer” comes on. I probably haven’t heard this for a decade. I’m casually progressing in a project to have all my CD’s ripped to high quality mp3s. I have enough spare parts around to put a pretty decent computer together, to serve as a media player. I’ve just got to plunk down $170 for the external high quality DAC, and i will have my entire music library queued at a whim.

(Mike Oldfield was followed by one of Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations… now into the retro-Goth of Daniel Ash).

There is finals week, where not much happens. Some grading to do, then an awful lot of free time.

Time for me to break two addictions. The first went today. A virtual/behavioral addiction that has been feeding on my energies. It is, however, an addiction like any other. I’m guessing it will be like quitting smoking. Ten years from now, during some dull moment, I’ll get the urge to play some warcraft. Smokers chew gum, maybe I’ll carry a rubix cube.

Secondly, next week, after all the grades are in, I will get off the Ambien CR. Hopefully I can start the process by Wednesday. I’ve done it twice before, but under easier circumstances. This is a more potent form, and I’ve been on it longer.

I went to Chicago a few months ago to meet Niko for a Mars Volta show. Her flight didn’t come in. The acoustics were horrible. And I forgot my Ambien. (I did slip out of the show just in time to catch a little Vietnamese restaurant that was about to close. They let me get some take-out. I ate until my stomach hurt).

I made the three hour drive home on zero hours sleep. Almost ended up in Wisconsin on the first leg.

At this point I expect to go sleepless three days before it breaks. Preparation is an interesting question. There isn’t much one can (successfully) do when so sleep deprived. It will probably be an alternation of movies, video games, and menial household chores.

Writing ends to: King Crimson, Ladies of the Road.
Copy editing to: Van Morrison, Sweet Thing

(CNN) — A powerful cold front headed for the South on Thursday, bringing the coldest temperatures of the season to many parts of the United States.

The front packed strong winds as well as cold temperatures, and “feels-like,” or wind chill, temperatures were expected to plummet by 50 degrees in some places.

Is “wind chill” really too sophisticated for today’s news consumer? Please kill me.

[The Schwartzchild metric] reveals another peculiarity in the interior of the horizon: the function [1/(1-2MG/r)] changes sign, implying that behind the horizon the coordinate t becomes space-like, wheras the radial coordinate r becomes time-like. This interchange of space-like and time-like means that the singularity is not a place–it is a time. One approaches the singularity, not as one would approach a location in space, but as one would approach the end of the world. (Susskind, Nature Physics 2 p. 665

This is a very nice way to explain the structure of conformal diagrams containing a singularity; kind of obvious, once you think about it, but I’ve never seen it expressed quite that way before.