DISQUS

Thanks, I think? :)

Anyway, I know this is not within the scope of your blog, but what do you think of the election so far? I think my preference would be pretty obvious based on you knowing me and my demographic.

I'm gonna be really Unitarian and say probably looking at a real live human brain at the Our Body exhibit at the Witte Museum this weekend or looking at any number of NASA photographs. Or listening to Isaac Hayes' "Walk On By". Although the song elicits feelings way more like the ache of God's absence.

Mr. G! I wrapped up my album this evening. Here is a temporary link to download it.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ds2il0

There is no objectionable language, although there are two noisy tracks which may be aesthetically offensive if you do not care for dissonance/atonality.

Ah, that's too bad. Although I suppose it's easier to record an album in a week than write a book, but maybe that's based on my own abilities.

I'll let you know when I finish, and will make sure to make a clean .zip file so that kids may listen. There is gonna be a song called "Love Winnebago". It's unfortunately not anything like "Love Rollercoaster". This is because a Winnebago is nothing like a rollercoaster. And I do not have the resources to sound like the Ohio Players.

mr g, this is unrelated to the topic at hand, but i didn't know where to ask. are you perchance taking part in nanowrimo this year? i ask because i am doing the album based equivalent (nasoalmo) and am curious if anyone is along for the ride, at least in spirit.

I think you might like Eluvium. Pretty Eno-ish, very lush.

My favorite ambient track is Disc 1, Track 3 on Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2'. That thing could go on for days, I think I could live there.

Also I love love Kung Fu Hustle, the same guy did a movie called Shanghai Soccer I think? I want to see it.

Is the Harold Budd/Brian Eno collab any good? Also what are some other ambient jams you dig?

What is meant by 'authenticity' and 'post-modernism' in this case? I feel like po-mo is like a scareword in this context.

"I’m not necessarily playing devil’s advocate here, THOUGH I am normally a fairly grateful and happy person..."

I guess I'll speak for the doubters, or rather AS a doubter, though I would not call myself an atheist by any stretch of the imagination. The label is ultimately irrelevant, I think, for agnostics or deists or "freethinkers" or otherwise irreligious peoples because I think religion's absence has little significance for their lives, but the term atheist is used by those who proudly wear this badge to be deliberately inflammatory.

I have not read much of Hitchens or similar figures (Dawkins, for one, seems like a dick), but they are taking such hardline stances as a reaction to the same spirit found in much of the evangelical crowd that has forced its brand of Christianity (which typically has little to do with Jesus' actual words, instead relying on whatever bigoted passages of the Bible they can find and white American traditionalism -- I mean, would Jesus be a capitalist? materialist (big 'M' and little 'm' both?) upon American politics. Because scientists (and people who like science) have had their work put into question by people who either don't know how it works or choose not to know, there has been a bit of resentment and bitterness on their part because decades of scientific achievement are viewed as an affront to the almighty. I mean, I'd be frustrated as a physicist (as my cousin's husband is) or an anthropologist to have reasoned, scientific explanations for the birth of the universe or the evolution of humankind deemed to be on par with the Genesis creation myth as a matter of historical and scientific fact! Is it unfair that all of Christendom and religion are under fire by these figures? A little, but there hasn't exactly been as vocal a Christian response to the Young Earth Christians, and it's no wonder, because half the country believes in the Genesis creation myth in the first place.

As for the question, "Is God great?" Well, I guess if I think of kittens and flowers or something insipid like that (not to pick on you, L.L.) then I think, yeah, there's some beauty in this world. But on the whole, if I am to credit God for all that is neat and fluffy and fun and life-affirming, I must also credit God with all that is awful and putrid and abominable and horrifying. I think it's a bit easy to marvel at the pleasant banalities of everyday life in the context of a post-scarcity society, only to ignore or perhaps put aside the tragedy of worldwide hunger, genocide, et al. I mean, I don't want to play Debbie Downer here, but if were to take a look at the course of human history, I think I would trade away pretty sunsets if it meant kids weren't crying themselves to sleep because their daddies touched them weird or if it meant nobody got shot because they were wearing glasses.

I hope I am not trivializing the question or appearing combative. I'm not necessarily playing devil's advocate here because I am normally a fairly grateful and happy person, but it only seems proper to take the extent of human misery into account if we are to examine the greatness (or lack thereof) of a deity. Because if there is a God that is deliberately responsible for this, I'd sooner wager that God really, really hates us, on the whole. This is why I prefer to think of God as "merely" the process responsible for creation, completely unaware of our existence.

I'd agree with you that a probable God is larger than the sum of its parts, so I guess it seems petty or self-centered to focus simply on human or earthly concerns. But, I mean, these have to count for something, right?

One more, and just realizing the need for sci-fi/fantasy...

A Hard Day's Knight - John, Paul, George, and Ringo are used to avoiding screaming mobs, but they usually don't have torches and pitchforks! The Fab Four parade through Medieval England, desperately fleeing hoards of confused and enraged villagers looking to destroy this satanic rhythm music and the hellspawn responsible for it.

Green Eggs and Hamlet - A whimsical yarn about young Hamlet's refusal to digest oddly colored pig slaughter and chicken abortions and his quest to reveal the truth about his usurping uncle, who has probably poisoned the food.

Sketchers in the Rye - Holden Caulfield is mopey...to the extreme! Now he must win a skateboarding competition all while putting on airs and sulking in this action-packed adventure!

My new digs are here, but most of the entires are friends-protected, so you needs to get on that if you wants to reads it.

No limericks, but I have done a complete rundown of this year's American Idol.

Does this doubter expect an answer? If so, is he disappointed when there isn't one?

Haha, I just checked and I think we had this conversation over a year ago. Oops. I can send it to your current email address. Sorry for cluttering your blogspace!

I don't mean to be off topic, but I sent you an e-mail to your iprofguy account and was wondering if you received it. I'm not sure if you still check that one or not.

I wouldn't say you were the KING of anti-funny. Maybe more like archduke.