"fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least, more necessary arts can be performed without superior talents or national subordination; without the powers of one or the union of many. each village, each family, each individual, must always possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of fire and of metals; the propagation and service of domestic animals; the methods of hunting and fishing; the rudiments of navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn or other nutritive grain; and the simple practice of the mechanical trades. private genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these hardy plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavourable soil...since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and religious zeal have diffused, among the savages of the old and new world, these inestimable gifts have been successfully propagated; they can never be lost." -edward gibbon (1781)
game over, future generations!
11.27.2011
this thing that didn't really happen to me.
one time i woke up in an alternate reality where all the major religions lost to animism. ordinarily that wouldn't have been so bad, except for that i was fined for having too many picture frames in too small a space. at least i wasn't arrested like the guy next door, though. he got charged with toaster cruelty. twenty-five to life.
dud genies installment three.
I GRANT YOU THREE KNISHES.*
*not considered a dud genie by people who enjoy knishes.
*not considered a dud genie by people who enjoy knishes.
11.23.2011
indigenous peoples installment two: the ainu
who: indigenes thought to be descendants of the jōmon-jin people.
where: japan and russia.
language(s): variations of ainu which, today, are spoken by fewer than one hundred people. the ainu languages have no written system, and they differ slightly from japanese in terms of syntax, vocabulary, morphology, etc.
culture: traditionally, the ainu did not shave after a certain age. both men and women had the same length of hair to the shoulders, and women tattooed their mouths and forearms. men primarily ate with chopsticks while women used wooden spoons.
dwellings: reed-thatched huts with central fireplaces and no partitions.
clothing: robes of varying lengths and other garments spun from the bark of elm trees. earrings were worn by both men and women, and in winter the people favored animal skins for warmth. for important ceremonies, men wore a wooden crown called a sapanpe, while women wore an embroidered headband called a matanpushi.
law: traditionally, capital punishment and jailing were not used to reprimand criminals. instead, violators of the law were beaten, or in the case of murder, were subject to having their noses and ears cut off and/or tendons in the feet severed.
diet: the ainu fished, hunted and gathered seasonal game and plants, which were then typically either cooked, smoked or dried for preservation and placed in storehouses. common proteins included bear, fox, salmon and deer.
religion: many are now practitioners of christianity, russian orthodoxism and buddhism, but animism is the traditional religion of the ainu people. animistic ceremonies frequently involved "sending back" the spirits of killed animals.
language(s): variations of ainu which, today, are spoken by fewer than one hundred people. the ainu languages have no written system, and they differ slightly from japanese in terms of syntax, vocabulary, morphology, etc.
culture: traditionally, the ainu did not shave after a certain age. both men and women had the same length of hair to the shoulders, and women tattooed their mouths and forearms. men primarily ate with chopsticks while women used wooden spoons.
dwellings: reed-thatched huts with central fireplaces and no partitions.
clothing: robes of varying lengths and other garments spun from the bark of elm trees. earrings were worn by both men and women, and in winter the people favored animal skins for warmth. for important ceremonies, men wore a wooden crown called a sapanpe, while women wore an embroidered headband called a matanpushi.
law: traditionally, capital punishment and jailing were not used to reprimand criminals. instead, violators of the law were beaten, or in the case of murder, were subject to having their noses and ears cut off and/or tendons in the feet severed.
diet: the ainu fished, hunted and gathered seasonal game and plants, which were then typically either cooked, smoked or dried for preservation and placed in storehouses. common proteins included bear, fox, salmon and deer.
religion: many are now practitioners of christianity, russian orthodoxism and buddhism, but animism is the traditional religion of the ainu people. animistic ceremonies frequently involved "sending back" the spirits of killed animals.
"this type which at present is to be found everywhere, and everywhere imposes his own spiritual barbarism, is, in fact, the spoiled child of human history. the spoiled child is the heir who behaves exclusively as a mere heir. in this case the inheritance is civilisation- with its conveniences, its security; in a word, with all its advantages. as we have seen, it is only in circumstances of easy existence such as our civilisation has produced, that a type can arise, marked by such a collection of features, inspired by such a character. it is one of a number of deformities produced by luxury in human material. there might be a deceptive tendency to believe that a life born into a world of plenty should be better, more really a life than one which consists in a struggle against scarcity.
such is not the case, for reasons of the strictest and most fundamental nature, which this is not the place to enlarge upon. for the present, instead of those reasons, it is sufficient to recall the ever-recurrent fact which constitutes the tragedy of every hereditary aristocracy. the aristocrat inherits, that is to say, he finds attributed to his person, conditions of life which he has not created, and which, therefore, are not produced in organic union with his personal, individual existence. at birth he finds himself installed, suddenly and without knowing how, in the midst of his riches and his prerogatives. in his own self, he has nothing to do with them, because they do not come from him. they are the giant armour of some other person, some other human being, his ancestor. and he has to live as an heir, that is to say, he has to wear the trappings of another existence.
what does this bring us to? what life is the "aristocrat" by inheritance going to lead, his own or that of his first noble ancestor? neither one nor the other. he is condemned to represent the other man, consequently to be neither that other nor himself. inevitably his life loses all authenticity, and is transformed into pure representation or fiction of another life. the abundance of resources that he is obliged to make use of gives him no chance to live out his own personal destiny, his life is atrophied." -jose ortega y gasset (1930)
such is not the case, for reasons of the strictest and most fundamental nature, which this is not the place to enlarge upon. for the present, instead of those reasons, it is sufficient to recall the ever-recurrent fact which constitutes the tragedy of every hereditary aristocracy. the aristocrat inherits, that is to say, he finds attributed to his person, conditions of life which he has not created, and which, therefore, are not produced in organic union with his personal, individual existence. at birth he finds himself installed, suddenly and without knowing how, in the midst of his riches and his prerogatives. in his own self, he has nothing to do with them, because they do not come from him. they are the giant armour of some other person, some other human being, his ancestor. and he has to live as an heir, that is to say, he has to wear the trappings of another existence.
what does this bring us to? what life is the "aristocrat" by inheritance going to lead, his own or that of his first noble ancestor? neither one nor the other. he is condemned to represent the other man, consequently to be neither that other nor himself. inevitably his life loses all authenticity, and is transformed into pure representation or fiction of another life. the abundance of resources that he is obliged to make use of gives him no chance to live out his own personal destiny, his life is atrophied." -jose ortega y gasset (1930)
11.21.2011
11.16.2011
chronicling a compulsive liar part two.
"some people will tell you they were raised by wolves. i won't tell you that, but i will tell you i was raised by rednecks.
you see, i was left outside a grocery store on a mechanical pony. you know, the kind that costs a quarter and you never really think about where it's manufactured or why the saddle looks the way it does. that kind of mechanical pony. so anyway, i was left learning how to ride the thing sidesaddle since it'd been conveyed to me that this was the ladylike way to go about it; although at age five it was unlikely that unladylike behaviour would've merited public scrutiny, especially of the grocery store variety, i wasn't comfortable taking any chances.
well, time elapsed and nobody did come back for me. i kept practicing my technique, but after the quarter ran out it got a little difficult to double-imagine what riding an actual pony would be like. and then, just as i started to wonder if this was in fact a mechanical pony or a mechanical horse, a redneck family sauntered over and began describing the superiority that a nascar vehicle had over nearly all other forms of transportation, including my now stationary mechanism. they made some fairly good (albeit unsolicited) points, leaving me no choice but to adopt their views as my own. seeing as we were now united on such a defining issue, it became clear to me that it would be impossible to go back to my former life.
fortunately they extended me an invitation to come join their family; they'd recently acquired an extra lawn chair in a particularly lucrative dumpster diving excursion, but with no one to fill it up, the fixture lacked true purpose. apparently this rule did not apply to the corpses of cars that littered the front lawn, of which i counted at least nineteen before i remembered that was as far as i'd gotten in terms of numeric sequencing. to this day, i have only progressed to the number twenty-three.
my new redneck family did not, to my surprise, have red necks. they did, however, have an abundance of canned beverages, ranging from beer to mountain dew. (as an aside, the only spiritually heightened experience i've ever had followed the consumption of approximately twelve gallons of mountain dew in a span of seven minutes, and i would highly recommend it for enlightenment provided you're not a diabetic.) other dietary staples included a variety of game procured from both the lawn and the road, as well as barbecue potato chips and cheese curls that, over time, turned my fingers a permanent shade of orange.
my wardrobe was fairly extensive considering the lack of funds in my new redneck family. by some stroke of luck, goodwill was never short on t-shirts advertising places i'd never been and concert tours i'd never attended; as a result i became a master at spelling a variety of words and phrases including 'las vegas' and 'jesus saves', earning me consecutive awards and titles as the school spelling bee champion.
my redneck brethren and i had quite a bit of free time on our unwashed hands, during which we liked to shoot things and chew tobacco and not cut our hair. i gradually forgot about my real parents and instead filled the new vacancies in my memory with all sorts of vital information, including a plethora of swear words and how to draw a confederate flag. i never did get to test out my sidesaddle technique on a real horse, but i can assure you that i've mastered the art on an ATV, an experience i'm sure my real parents would have never afforded me. so yes, to answer your question, i guess i do believe in fate."
you see, i was left outside a grocery store on a mechanical pony. you know, the kind that costs a quarter and you never really think about where it's manufactured or why the saddle looks the way it does. that kind of mechanical pony. so anyway, i was left learning how to ride the thing sidesaddle since it'd been conveyed to me that this was the ladylike way to go about it; although at age five it was unlikely that unladylike behaviour would've merited public scrutiny, especially of the grocery store variety, i wasn't comfortable taking any chances.
well, time elapsed and nobody did come back for me. i kept practicing my technique, but after the quarter ran out it got a little difficult to double-imagine what riding an actual pony would be like. and then, just as i started to wonder if this was in fact a mechanical pony or a mechanical horse, a redneck family sauntered over and began describing the superiority that a nascar vehicle had over nearly all other forms of transportation, including my now stationary mechanism. they made some fairly good (albeit unsolicited) points, leaving me no choice but to adopt their views as my own. seeing as we were now united on such a defining issue, it became clear to me that it would be impossible to go back to my former life.
fortunately they extended me an invitation to come join their family; they'd recently acquired an extra lawn chair in a particularly lucrative dumpster diving excursion, but with no one to fill it up, the fixture lacked true purpose. apparently this rule did not apply to the corpses of cars that littered the front lawn, of which i counted at least nineteen before i remembered that was as far as i'd gotten in terms of numeric sequencing. to this day, i have only progressed to the number twenty-three.
my new redneck family did not, to my surprise, have red necks. they did, however, have an abundance of canned beverages, ranging from beer to mountain dew. (as an aside, the only spiritually heightened experience i've ever had followed the consumption of approximately twelve gallons of mountain dew in a span of seven minutes, and i would highly recommend it for enlightenment provided you're not a diabetic.) other dietary staples included a variety of game procured from both the lawn and the road, as well as barbecue potato chips and cheese curls that, over time, turned my fingers a permanent shade of orange.
my wardrobe was fairly extensive considering the lack of funds in my new redneck family. by some stroke of luck, goodwill was never short on t-shirts advertising places i'd never been and concert tours i'd never attended; as a result i became a master at spelling a variety of words and phrases including 'las vegas' and 'jesus saves', earning me consecutive awards and titles as the school spelling bee champion.
my redneck brethren and i had quite a bit of free time on our unwashed hands, during which we liked to shoot things and chew tobacco and not cut our hair. i gradually forgot about my real parents and instead filled the new vacancies in my memory with all sorts of vital information, including a plethora of swear words and how to draw a confederate flag. i never did get to test out my sidesaddle technique on a real horse, but i can assure you that i've mastered the art on an ATV, an experience i'm sure my real parents would have never afforded me. so yes, to answer your question, i guess i do believe in fate."
indigenous peoples installment one: the saami
who: nordic indigenes.where: the northernmost parts of sweden, finland, norway and the kola peninsula of russia.
language(s): variations of saami including akkala and kemi, both of which are now extinct.
clothing: gákti, a dress-like garment worn by both men and women at different lengths. traditionally made from reindeer leather and sinews, but more recently featuring wool and cotton materials. details like colour and pattern can reveal where a person is from, marital status, family history, etc. gákti can be worn with belts, ponchos, hooded jumpers (sweaters), leggings and boots.
livelihood: fishing, fur trapping, reindeer and sheep herding.
art: duodji, handicrafts that combine artistic aesthetics with functionality.
religion: traditionally shamanism, but more recently lutheranism, eastern orthodoxism, etc. the old beliefs recognized the importance of connection to the land, animism and the supernatural.
diet: local ingredients including reindeer, moose, sheep, fish and berries. berries are especially important due to lack of vegetation in extreme climates, the cloudberry being a staple variety. smoking and drying meat and fish is a common practice for food preservation.
11.14.2011
11.08.2011
11.07.2011
things that i would like for christmas this year.
1. FUR
2. socks.
3. this mao zedong watch i saw at the chelsea flea but it cost like $50 and the guy selling it didn't speak english so i couldn't tell him how lovely he looked to make him sell it to me for $5 instead. also i didn't even have $5 at the time though.
4. that's all.
2. socks.
3. this mao zedong watch i saw at the chelsea flea but it cost like $50 and the guy selling it didn't speak english so i couldn't tell him how lovely he looked to make him sell it to me for $5 instead. also i didn't even have $5 at the time though.
4. that's all.
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