I was forced into this...

Asperatus: new/old firmamentation formation?

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:26:27 GMT

Have you heard of Asperatus clouds? I can't find much information about them, perhaps due to their being new, or maybe just a lack of recognization... anyhow, apparently "[t]he Cloud Appreciation Society ("There's a Cloud Appreciation Society?") is trying to get the Royal Meteorological Society to recognize a new form of cloud." Asperatus, "Latin for ‘roughened up’, like a choppy sea." Seriously, there is a great paucity of information about them, is one to believe they just go by a different name AND that the whole Cloud Appreciation Society has never heard of them before, hence their creating a name for them? Whence come the asperatus?

"We are the mimics. Clouds are pedagogues."
- Wallace Stevens
I could never agree more. Clouds have furthered my knowledge of aesthetics, relaxation, self-formation, generation of meaning, impermanence and transformation, non-duality, breathing, appreciation for darkness, ad nauseam; what water was to Bruce Lee clouds have been to me.

If only the The Cloud Harp were still operating to provide a rendition of Asperatus formations. "The Cloud Harp. The transposition of a natural phenomenon into music. The melodies and sounds are determined by factors such as cloud height, density, structure, luminosity, and meteorological conditions." I don't doubt it'd sound more agreeable than falling stock charts fed into Microsoft's Songsmith.

These are beyond beautiful, but who knows, perhaps they signify the coming of Gozer...

not so pleasing (with dirty body talk)

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:28:14 GMT

Have you ever known somebody who has removed a tick from their penis (and in particular the mushroom head)?
If never before, now you do. I'll spare you some details of the encounter...
At first it felt to be a painful scab, but knowing otherwise (he's treated quite nicely, these days), I had to take a closer look. However, being neither a yogic master nor Ron Jeremy, and with poor eyesight to boot, not much could be seen. Took the camera out, zoomed in as much as possible (wow, first time I've pointed a camera at it), the screen showing all kinds of blurriness. Experience informing me this to be rather tiny for penile a scab, with there being little causation for one to be there in the first place, in addition to a small dislike for ticks, I plucked at it cautiously, not unlike one first picking up a guitar. No feel good! Despite the unpleasantries of all this, what was probably a tick had to go, and off it came. Onto my nail now, it remained motionless. I'd removed wood ticks before, but never a deer tick, and sadly had to see one for the first time manifest on my johnson. Time will tell if there's a rash or the appearance of bruising (another form of cocktusion? [the first one beknownst to me being a mushroom shaped bruise from a cock slap]), possible indicators of Lyme -- but even if so, I'll still be thankful that such would be the first malformity of the spoken of member.

pig dreams

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:25:27 GMT

A dream perhaps three weeks ago:

Someone entrusted some items unto me, to deliver to someone else. I went walking, through the rain, and ended up in a big store. Spoke to a friend there, whom said I must stick around to see his co-worker Wally (or maybe it was Walter). Wal(?) never showed up, so this friend did an impersonation of him, and his voice rumbled like an old southern black man's, joyous in recollection of a sad story from the past. Then I was gone.

Up in a kitchen I arrived, or was, my grandmother standing by a cutting board, with some pig skin laid out next to it. I set my backpack upon the counter, said there was some thing(s) for her, then looked inside the part where I normally carry my water bottle. There was a white rabbit's hind end sticking out, I pulled, and it gave resistance; its teeth sunken into the skull of a pig that was further in there. Suddenly feelings of neglect and negligence of duty overwhelmed me, apologies streamed out of my mouth, unaware of how the delivery of a live animal could have been so forgotten. Eventually the rabbit was detached from the pig, then the pig was set back in the pouch, upon such grams asked if there were more, so in I peered. There were five in all (including the one placed back in there), but now two of them (again, including the one just placed inside by myself) looked immensely sick and rotten, rotting, deathly, one of which had a bump on its head. I looked to grams, distressed, then back inside, the bump on the one caved inward, then pus-blood flowed forth and down, and more blood came from elsewhere inside. That moment, sheer absolute horror was all I knew.

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:19:34 GMT

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~ Anais Nin

Wish I had time for just one more bowl of chili.
– Alleged last words of Kit Carson

There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.
- Gilles Deleuze

(w)hole

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:49:46 GMT

When you feel there is a hole in you, and act (it is hardly always the case when one is aware of such acting, or even of such feeling) as if it (the hole) is the whole (i.e. inescapable, all consuming) of you, it will never suffice to fill it (be this filling much of one or many things), it must be healed. To fill it, this is only distraction, a vacuum, a black hole; one cannot clean the oceans cup by cup, no matter what with; the source(s) of poison(ing) must be found. Change diet, or more cavities surely are on the way. Awareness is key, and distraction/deception tugs in opposition to that (just as justice often sits in opposition to understanding). Why must we deceive ourselves, with mental sleight of hand? what makes it easier to ignore such poisoning? There are automatic conditioned responses (e.g. thoughts), -- that one needn't reflect, just know otherwise (they are called thoughts, a noun, static, not thinking, the verb, which has been done in the past in this instance. Thought of this variety is not reflection, but condition [a conditioning having already taken place to bypass/override thinking/reflection]). Knowledge without reflection, and you call this truth? What you call your truth I call self-deception. Go against your side, briefly, consider antinomian thought, if but for a moment. I write to ears, but do they hear through all the distraction?
Do you hear that? Surely, it calls again, it beckons, always. Go, go back. It sounds now, that you must return. Follow the noise, and there, there is your breadcrumb trail. Me? I will wander on. That is my destiny, my destination.

what's that's means? edit plus: ex-determination

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:54:13 GMT

"That's not what that word means", he says to me.
"Well shit, that's what I mean when I say that word." At least that's the best response I can think of.
I mean, you mean to tell me that what I, an individual, mean, is separate from what a word actually means? (i.e. subsume/submit into the larger whole. dissent not. do not [as in never] create your own meanings! worship stasis and the status quo [step ye not out of line, wait until that use has become standardized before saying it as so], that is, until specialists legitimize such change. Could this be called ex-determination ? [rhymes with extermination...] ex-determination meaning
1. a. determined by one outside of yourself, especially specialists.
b. waiting for another to present the options or categories from which to choose.
2. using a very small amount of your brain capacity, not doing yourself or your mind justice, seeing as it is capable of so much more: she did not do herself justice, that is, she was unjust to herself, and awaited others to enact justice for her, this is but one way in which ex-determination played out on her.
3. laziness in responsibility of choice.
4. giving up choices to the larger whole, to the one [e.g. unity], in effect becoming possessed by the need for others to decide and change things for you.
)
My question is, how does something like this effect the rise (allowance?) of an authoritarian state, both in its populace, and in its rulers? How does our society stand up? Which direction is it moving?

People speak of freedom and diversity, but then are mean to you about your misspellings, missayings, tell you to stick to the same grammar as them, one that some dudes they've never met codified. Yeah, that's diversity and freedom alright. As if that word has always meant that thing, and only that thing always. What's that that Nietzsche said? Oh yeah, "Everything the philosopher has said about man is, however, at bottom no more than a testimony as to the man of a very limited period of time." And I'll add 'geography' to that one (only because so many think that time and space are separate [what the shit is with that anyways? I thought it was time-space, yet time is the fourth dimension, and space is the first three? yay for old box categories, the unbending ones, x and y axis]). Extrapolate that to language if you will (if you can). The map is not the motherfucking territory, people. The world changes, and to have a signifier that doesn't change, how is there truth in this abstraction? how much truth?

~

On another note, I swear off something.

what does it mean when a government collapses?

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:59:46 GMT

Financial crisis topples Iceland government
Iceland’s government collapsed on Monday following political turmoil prompted by the global financial crisis.

~

Whatever it means, and whatever it was, that was not America, and will not be. This nation is too damned great, dammit. Power grids may get overburdened, collapse, and string others along. Economic systems are not power grids.

But really, what does it mean when a government topples, is collapsed?

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:35:00 GMT

I've overheard and had conversations with people about the economy being shit, going further to shit, some having said we were not headed for a recession, now seeing that we are in one that it'll get better, whatever.

I'm not arguing one way or the other (I know my stance, and don't care to change anybody's mind for one, and I think if any of you reading this have read what has been written here in the past, you know my feelings on such anyhow), yet, at the same time as not wanting to debate about the state of matters,
I ask (as has been asked a million times before myself), what about this collapsing discriminating parasitic competitive abusive destructive rapacious controlling dominating enslaving monotonous flattening tunnel-visioned life-hating system makes you want to save it? -- Not a rhetorical question.

If I could do any one thing...

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:10:41 GMT

If I could do any one thing...

I would take every last leader in the world who has ever caused another harm, file them into a gigantic theater, and force them to watch Hook and then Fern Gully. And every last bit of them.
On acid. Or mushrooms.
Sure they could feast on fresh foods, tea wine beer whatever, scrumptious berries and refreshing vegetables, and other things that were becoming weeded out, closer to extinction, whatever, but not their normal fare.
Those that thereafter didn't become more caring, less discriminating, and more appreciative of other lives, I would shoot them. Repeatedly. Then burn their bodies. I'd like to say I'd feast on them, but I hear human isn't supposed to be the greatest thing to eat (unless it's vagina, then it's at the top of my list).

Ohbama! - Disaster Capitalism / "WIBDI: What If Bush Did It?"

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:25:42 GMT

When will double standards be done away with?

The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous. An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological or financial. the appetite for easy, short-term profits offered by purely speculative investment has turned the stock, currency and real estate markets into crisis-creation machines, as the Asian financial crisis, the Mexican peso crisis and the dot-com collapse all demonstrate. Our common addiction to dirty, non-renewable energy sources keeps other kinds of emergencies coming: natural disasters (up 430% since 1975) and wars waged for control over scarce resources (not just Iraq and Afghanistan but lower-intensity conflicts such as those that rage in Nigeria, Columbia and Sudan), which in turn create terrorist blowback… Given the boiling temperatures, both climatic and political, future disasters need not be cooked up in dark conspiracies. All indications are that simply by staying the present course, they will keep coming up with ever more ferocious intensity. Disaster generation can therefore be left to the market’s invisible hand. This is one area in which it actually delivers.

Believe that's from Naomi Klein's 'The Shock Doctrine', found quote via this link. Also read on Carolyn Baker's page, Obama Revitalizes Disaster Capitalism: The Shock Doctrine Receives A Make-Over, which is a-ok.

Obama may be better suited to whatever tasks may lie ahead than that older fuck and that hot ass bitch, but that's hardly a reason to not hold a flame to his (or anybody else's) ass to do the things he said he would, and hardly a reason to not be fucking ready to skewer them and hold them both A) accountable and B) over a bonfire, and dine upon their cracklings, for being traitors to humanity (yes I know it's yet to be displayed, time will tell). Already I've seen a number of people that voted for Obama (you know, the mascot of their party), and upon seeing him become president elect, pretty much stop caring because of a belief in their party's infallibility and therefore that everything will like be alright, man. I think it is quite important that the more liberal news sources to not become like what Fox News was for George W. Bush, blindly following because he was on their side. Fuck false dichotomies, fuck this whole progressive good, conservative bad us/them bullshit (bushit! ha ha...). Two sides of the same coin. Wait no, just kidding, as I'm sure he'll never sell himself to corporate power in the slightest. Nor has he ever.

"WIBDI: What If Bush Did It?"

This user-friendly analytical tool provides a quick and easy way of determining the value of any given policy while correcting one's perception for partisan bias. Simply take a particular action or proposal and submit it to the WIBDI test: If Bush did this, would you think it was OK? Or would you condemn it as the act of a warmonger, or a tyrant, or a corrupt corporate tool, etc.? The just-concluded campaign has already shown us how our hordes of our quondam dissidents have signally failed this test, excusing, countenancing, defending or even embracing the actions and positions enumerated below by Chris Hedges:

"Sen. Barack Obama’s vote to renew the Patriot Act, his votes to continue to fund the Iraq war, his backing of the FISA Reform Act, his craven courting of the Israeli lobby, his support of the death penalty, his refusal to champion universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans, his call to increase troop levels and expand the war in Afghanistan, his failure to call for a reduction in the bloated and wasteful defense spending and his lobbying for the huge taxpayer swindle known as the bailout..."

That article ends with "In measuring and judging the operations of power, we must judge an action or policy for what it is, in reality, and for what it does, to actual living human beings, and not for who has ordered it."

There is also a great documentary on the RNC and DNC protests, and police brutality against protesters at both of these. It is called Ground Noise & Static, put out by Submedia.tv (you know, those that also put out the great ITEOTWAWKIAIFF, It's the End of the World as We know it and I feel fine).

It is not so simple as saying that politicians will just do bad/evil/harmful/corrupt things, which is not entirely the case; to say that they will act politically may be spot on, however. But it does nobody any good to believe that all anybody is capable of is good. A belief that all that another is capable of is good is an open invitation for them to do everything but that, too.

umm...

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 02:23:29 GMT

bitches_tyrone now knows that it's easier to go from doin' it to puking, than from puking back to doin' it. Particularly the second time. Stomach can handle whiskey drink and swigs of tequila alright, but get them stirring... oh boy! At least there was no slipping butt naked in the bathroom and knocking shit all onto the floor from above the back of the toilet. Right.

for lack of a better subject line

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:35:21 GMT

i want to speak of how awesome i feel, but can't really think of why i feel so.
the more i learn, the less capable i am of getting thoughts out to others. this bothers me not at all.

i do not feel that those in possession of esoteric knowledge (some may call this gnosis) are elitist for their refusal to speak of what they know. some knowledges can only be conveyed through a vocabulary of experience. i cannot simply say the word 'pain' or the word 'love' and have you feel (know) those things. knowledge without feeling? perhaps a knowledge damaged enough it ignores emotion, feeling... all feeling is knowing, how much knowledge is feeling?

yep

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 22:28:17 GMT

sometime tomorrow morning i depart from madison for a couple weeks, hopefully after packing up all my stuff, clearing out my room for the dude who's to be residing here next. off to the hometown for a few days, then to lake superior with some cousins and their rents. they'll depart, i'll stay, attending the Lake Superior Traditional Ways Gathering from the 17th to 23rd. then back to madtown for code name 'Riverdance' on the 28th, but that's something else entirely.

i will not be on a lease this year. hopefully much biking and camping, visiting parks, couch surfing, stay with a friend in west africa if the funds are gotten, don't really know what all. there's a room i may rent by the month when need be, that couch surfing won't get too old for others.

but as for now, i gotta get to packing shit and moving it attic-wards, throw some clothing to the curb or box for st. vinny's or similar, eat some mushrooms, grill out, socialize, get toenails painted, hug.
if i have anything of yours in my possession do let me know. or any camping equipment you don't use and want to get rid of, also let me know.

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." - George W. Bush

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:41:35 GMT

“President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit. As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter.'"

From here, found via so_very_doomed.

Is it so hard to see that this president does not give a shit about you and I or anybody we know, and never has? And yet he runs this country.
(Into the fucking ground.)
IF he cared about us, wouldn't he care about the land that sustains us? Bah, from what I know of most that read this, you already hate Bush, or,
"hope he falls into a toxic pit
and drowns in it
slowly"
onto another note.

I have absolutely no faith in any system that can get a fuck like that elected, and elected again, with next to no contestation. When it's that fuckwad or another who's "better than [him]" (this, for many, being the only reason they voted for such a chode monster), a douche and a turd, when there's voting fraud, hackable voting machines, restructuring of voter zones, ignoring votes of blacks, even denying some the ability to vote, on and on and on and on. And this is only voting. What about the bills that allow greater surveillance of us citizens, even the candidate claiming to be on the side of Change and citizen power is pro such a bill, the man from WI with a spine supports one who lets his rot.
Cousin J has this to say about Backbone Man: "yeah he is pretty stand up, Obama is the one who voted for it.
Feingold still believes that the democratic party is worth something, that is why he is lame" [emphasis added]

Let me correct one thing said above. I said I had "absolutely no faith", which is true in some sense (in the sense of lacking faith in anything I'd like to see being done politically, environmentally, economically, agriculturally, etc., for example). But in another sense it might be more true instead to say that I have faith that the system will work, but continue working for the most part just as it has in the past, and is doing so now, that it will exploit many, either directly or by ignoring their existence, faith that many people with power have gained such in games of concessions, games which involve trading integrity for influence, games that only The Rich and ~~The Famous~~ the wealthy can "buy in" on (with us playing [being played as] the poker chips), faith that, whether or not it was Mussolini who originally said "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power", that there is some truth to such. John Taylor Gatto has chronicled the dumbing down of Americans, and Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, in his book Propaganda, said "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society." A father of public relations, not to mention influential in advertising. What do you mean our desires are manufactured?
I'm getting off topic here.

Shit like this is all the more reason why I most likely won't be voting in the coming election.
No, I'm not abstaining because of any desire to save my pure virgin cherry. It's been popped.
Some act as if voting will make all the difference in the world. I believe quite the opposite. That people, by believing that putting a check mark (or punching a chad, oof!) on a piece of paper makes a big difference, do not go far enough; many of said people hope to change the world for the better, and at the same time hate their neighbor just for voting for an opposing candidate. This is an act that says to me "I'm willing to give only enough of a say so somebody up there can A) change things, or B) keep things the same, but that's the only effort I'm willing [i.e. required] to put forth. Oh, and you're stupid and voting for the other party, morans." The kind of asshole that expects something from you but would never give one morning to volunteer for Meals on Wheels. It's like the priest that preaches community peace and love, then raises his nose to all those not of [H/h]is denomination. You say "vote for somebody in the system", and I say "I didn't even vote this system into place. Now where's the democracy in that?"

Voting will change some things, yes, but it is for the most part a hands off system, throw in some coins, push the button, sit back and watch, repeat every four years - a vestige of change for a highly-televisioned, pacified and mediated consumer culture, a culture that largely believes if it's not name brand or played on the radio or seen on MTV, that it's worth no consideration; how does somebody like this even consider a third party candidate (and no! I'm not saying this is where any salvation lies!)? Not only do I find most candidates illegitimate potential leaders (the same goes with almost anybody who has the desire to lead), but also the role of president, the government, along with any other body that claims to represent others but somehow always ends up making decisions against the interest of their constituents (all the while claiming a monopoly on legitimacy). Hell, representation I find illegitimate in most cases. Try to represent to me in prose the content of a poem. No thanks. And a politician is supposed to be capable of representing many living people, with their constantly changing minds and desires, who are quite more complex than a poem, which on the other hand has its words etched in stone (well, paper), to never change? I have yet to see a politician nuanced, delicate and fierce enough to do so legitimately.

Represent this to your representatives for me.

Voting: Because sometimes you're choosy when it comes to getting fucked by a fifty-some year old man you've never spoken to.

Me, I'd rather not ever get fucked by someone who doesn't want to hear my voice, ideas and opinions.

Armed with shovels, a crowbar and a box of condoms,

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:42:31 GMT

the men went to a cemetery in Cassville in southwestern Wisconsin in 2006 to remove the body of a 20-year-old woman killed the week before in a motorcycle crash, police said.
-http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,379223,00.html

Ah, Good Ol' Wisconsin, how I love thee. Found on Rotten News (thanks be to Robin), something I'm disappointed I hadn't known about before.

But what really sold it to me, the first entry on the page at the time, 'Priest Receives Fruit Basket with Aborted Fetus'.

Northward, Alfred!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:28:30 GMT

"For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electrical waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon."
-Whitehead (1920/2004, 29), found at The Pinocchio Theory

A man influential in the history of process philosophy, formulator of point-free geometry (don't know that I get this one necessarily, and definitely not the equations), also the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which sounds very much like reification (not the Marxian kind). I'd like to read Process and Philosophy, maybe, if my plate weren't filled beyond the point of what could choke a man, and if I needed further arguments from those realms.

O frabjous days!

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:48:24 GMT

Visited the fam this weekend. Sister was celebrating the bday of two of her kids. Her baby's daddy is a fucking negligent putz. At least this time he did some grilling, which is much more productive than I've seen or heard of him ever being. One on one I could maybe get along with him, perhaps even shroom with the fucker some time, but as a partner for my sister and a father to her child, he has been failing miserably as far back as memory extends. Meth heads such as him keep a job only long enough to save enough cash up to pay for their portion of rent, ask the person they're living with (my sis in this case) for their amount to run it to the rental office, then go out, rent a hotel, and lock themselves up in a room or some such and get fucked up until the cash runs dry. Hooray for them.

Also hung out with some friends, had some good times with a sixteen year old chick (nothing illegal) and friend. Smoked a bit, saw a smoking ban go into effect, helped a cousin move out of his house, and drank much while eating little, the first couple days of such hurt, then my body became used to it. Gotta stop that.

Walking along one day, looking about at the ground as I am wont to do, saw a plant I recognized from The Forager's Harvest, said "That's gotta be Lamb's Quarters", and grabbed a leaf, pulled out the book while it was beginning to sprinkle, looked it up, and felt convinced it was so. Still didn't eat it though. Asked a friend for a second opinion, he said "all those plants in there look the same to me", so delayed the consuming of such. Asked someone a little later after a purchase of booze, and got it confirmed.

A couple days later hung out with my father's friend, a man known to me since childhood, Hoss, and walked around out at my father's house a bit and he showed me a few plants before going off to Truck. Finally spotted some variety of Sorrel (tastes great!), ground cherry, spiderwort, yarrow, and a few others that escape recollection now. A little earlier before taking off though, he asked if I'd have interest in going up north with a few others, and be shown old soap-making methods, cordage, brain tanning, plant identification, flintknapping, stone tool making, on and on. Must remember to ask about plant based insect repellents.
Hells yes!
Lock me out and keep your cursed keys of separation.

i said: "kiss me, you're beautiful - these are truly the last days"

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:07:03 GMT

The last day and some hours have been rocking my balls in so many good ways.

Most recently, I and some friends watched Cool Hand Luke, ate some eggs, took some shots, got sick. I almost got my head puked on. Video hopefully forthcoming.

I experienced something yesterday that's had me feeling constantly, consistently great. Like a phenomenally beautiful and vibrant sunset with immense clouds in the sky, tripping hella-mad on some syrian rue and fungi, thinking you might die any moment, with no fear in the slightest of such, just gratitude.
It brought me back to some time last August, where I felt quite used, kinda really liked it (in some ways), but there was no continuation of such for whatever reason (actually, lack of reciprocation is the only reason that comes to mind). Not that such ventures wouldn't be undertaken immediately if they were to present themselves this very moment.

Q: What does the number fourteen sound like in French?
A: My favorite thing.
I am such a boy some times.
If only it were all times.

So many symptoms, so little time.

Wed, 28 May 2008 15:16:06 GMT

I find little hope for a better future when a world of people continually act as if minor inconveniences were the end of the world, and put them off and ignore them only to have them pile up and multiply, morphing these once minor problems into possibilities of future catastrophes.

The same goes with a world of people that value human wants over the needs of all other nun-human life on this planet. Mindsets of the types that subject all value to human use have little value to me. Value of only these things perceived to be of use to humans is a death call for those that are not of said use, as those other things only take up space for these valued things, and therefore must be done away with. This destroys redundancies, creates homogeneity (it's efficient!), forges weak links in the chains that sustain us, and has already been the end of many a thing. What will stop such from being the end of many of us? I mean, when you poison your waters, desertify your crop land, overfish the oceans, dam up the rivers that fish spawn in, deforest rainforests, pollute the air, start using less efficient fuel methods all the while consuming more and more energy, and on top of that breed like fuck, where can you expect to get?

Many pay lip service to progress, but act as if there's no tomorrow.
Not that there's any contradiction here. Funny thing, though, that those that believe their end is near, and those that believe in the nearness of infinite abundance, both act with this same reckless abandon. But why, when you say the end is nowhere near, yet at the same time see that this infinite abundance seems further and further away, less and less attainable, why continue such beliefs that fly in the face of any and all evidence contrariwise? what is the reason for this? Does not the progression of disaster increase daily?

In doing nothing, everything is done.

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:50:54 GMT

New Scientist: Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

If crops fail because rain is patchy, build irrigation canals. When they silt up, organise dredging crews. When the bigger crop yields lead to a bigger population, build more canals. When there are too many for ad hoc repairs, install a management bureaucracy, and tax people to pay for it. When they complain, invent tax inspectors and a system to record the sums paid. That much the Sumerians knew.

Diminishing returns

There is, however, a price to be paid. Every extra layer of organisation imposes a cost in terms of energy, the common currency of all human efforts, from building canals to educating scribes. And increasing complexity, Tainter realised, produces diminishing returns. [...] To keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang for your buck.

Now, I for one don't believe that "each problem solved means more complexity", necessarily. But note that such was prefaced by "to keep growing". Increased complexity is necessary inasmuch as a society believes that progress is linked to growth, in fact, growth and progress become intertwined (if not one and the same). And in this same worldview of binary thinking/categorization having prevalence, progress links with forward (and therefore speed, as speed speeds up forward), links with efficiency (but efficiency only in regards to time, energy efficiency is rarely idealized, let alone valued [if you don't have to do the work, how much do you care how hard others have to work to get it done?]).

We are, after all, more advanced than those societies in the past (we passed them by), and to simplify (go backward) would not only be regression, but at the same time an admittance of defeat (and admitting such would mean we were on a wrong course, no, we were right from the get go, and winners, too). All this works much like western medicine often does, by providing a cheap cure rather than remedying the source of the problem; it's not "let's pause for a moment and assess the situation" but instead "we'll find a quick fix for this in the near future when our technologies are better."

How many times have you heard someone equate progress with slowing down, simplifying?
A semi-survivalist'ish friend of my father's says, "don't work hard, work smart." This was regarding going out and hunting big game, or using traps and snares to capture possibly smaller game. The yield on the latter may be less, but is the greater amount more necessary?
I'm reminded of being at a shrine in Japan, and questioning our sensei's friend as to what a post read, "simple is best," she responded. That's stuck with me ever since then.

"I could complain, but what's the point?"

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:12:23 GMT

Heard those words the other night, and smiled.

What follows is directed at no one in particular, as I've had numerous influences. I tend to rant about lack of drug legality or shit going on with the environment and such, so have something different. It's very 'I' heavy, but I don't care.

Lately I've been feeling like some think of me as a rope in a game of tug of war, only the game being played is hardly being played for fun. Pull too hard and I will wish rope burn on your hands, I am also far from impervious to schadenfreude. There are games I enjoy and these will be joined voluntarily upon my wishing. Pulling on me to off-balance another, c'mon. I do not mind when people vent, it's absolutely necessary to blow off steam at times, but it is another thing entirely when you play the victim and slander others, in attempts to elicit a response from me (or others) to join your side. It's all so much bullshit to play the victim yet continue getting into (even forcing) these situations wherein repetition of perceived victimization is sure to follow.

They: "Guess what so and so did to me."
My thoughts: "What the fuck could you have expected? Seriously."

I mean, the world and situations are so much more complex than A acted on B, as if B were some inanimate object waiting to be worked on. Instead there's a whole confluence of forces, though it is pretty easy to focus on just one. This whole subject/object mover/moved victimizer/victim dichotomy in thought does not do one's mental capabilities justice, and crying wolf after egging another on when you damned well know what their response will be is fucking lame, hey, but do whatever furthers your ability to bitch and moan while feeling wronged and right. In feeling wronged the other becomes wrong and you right, them active victimizer you passive victim. Oh, such compelling stories. Two illusory sides. Divine Heaven separate from base Earth. Republican from Democrat. Right from Left. Truth from lies. There are distinctions, yes, but absolute separation (and absolute contradiction)? We're all big kids here, we can do whatever the fuck we please, even continue wearing blinders that ignore the connections.

I am not saying that there are no victims: sometimes it occurs that a psychopath breaks into your house and stabs you to death, but so so so many other times these psychos are antagonized and what they do is far from murder.

I am not your intermediary, I will not judge with you, I will not judge you, I do not hate, but would love to fill my ears a million times over with needles and cover them with cement, than hear some unconvincing talk of how sweet little innocent you have been done a great injustice unexpectedly (unless such is honestly the case). It's not that I don't care, I just care much much less when someone's trying to sell me a story involving these dichotomies and insist on them absolutely.

Some have acted as if I'm naive and unaware of shit (which has some basis some times), hence my inaction regarding some situations. I think another part of this is an assumed belief that, if I knew the same shit, I'd act in the same way. Not so. We all have different tolerances (wow, really?). As time passes I find my values increasingly at odds with those of another or others, for example, I don't think murder is wrong and have no problem with pedophilia. Oh my! What poor judgement on my behalf! Nah, lack of judgement, rather.

-Chad, your less-than-sympathetic neighborhood curmudgeon.

go go go

Sun, 04 May 2008 09:59:53 GMT

sometimes it's damned reassuring to find out that, even after only a year short of a decade after ceasing study of another language, i still communicate better with a native speaker of japanese than some dude who's in his second semester in college. it's been nine years, and i totally flunked the last 1.5 years of high school teaching (of four). a lot of this communication tonight (er, this morning) was based on the ability to say "holy shit i'm a stupid retard for not knowing what you just said", in a convincing fashion and tone. after four years of studying under a japanese teacher from japan, sure i didn't get all the words and phrases down, but got the intonation a bit just from hearing her scold me for not getting those; that much i got. intonation was huge, and though not something explicitly taught in class, still definitely something learned there.

ramen time (if only it were ramune time!).

raw nose

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:08:43 GMT

i've got a cold. a cold that cost me $5200, as covance gave me the boot yesterday morning, my pulse being high and all that jazz. that and some of my enzyme levels were high, for reasons unbeknownst to me. however, still made $500 for the two days there, being an alternate and all (with the possibility of making the study, but didn't). been blowing my nose since sunday or monday, more and more frequently, which irritates it more and more. the only thing i could think of that would be soft enough to not just not damage it, but to sooth it also? tissues made from baby bottoms. somebody get on this, pronto.

i'm highly disappointed at my inability to make mad cash, as i'd hopes and plans for about every dollar of that. the timing of this disaster (as i'll call it this once) is far from ideal, so any other study i can do will be further into spring/summer (meaning outdoor weather), therefore eating into camping, disc golfing, porch sitting and lake and people watching.
things i was hoping to spend the $5700 on: rest of this lease's rent. camping gears. perhaps a bow. sweet ass knife. tattoo(s). fix my bike up. trip to sierra leone this coming winter. perhaps a gun. seriously. every sign points to TEOTWAWKI drawing nearer, after all, and to remain sitting on my ass all the time would hardly do me and this mind any good.

Procrastination is our favorite form of self-sabotage.
-Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

oh, and here's a link: Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time

Booklist finally here (not that anyone asked for it, but here ya go anyhow).

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:00:54 GMT

I'd wager there's just short of 500 books following, ranging from philosophy (Pre-Socratic to Hegel to Nietzsche, Existentialism, Postmodernism, Post-Structuralism, whatever else have you), to Psychology, Linguistics, Socialism Marxism Feminism Environmentalism and other radical stuff, to Anthropology, Archaeology, Ethnogrophies, to Religion, Spirituality, Mythology (and studies/interpretations of by the likes of Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, Marie-Louise von Franz), to Fiction, Literature, Poetry, and writing in general.

Gonna be listed on madisonwi later on today (Monday), perhaps on Tuesday, so if you have any interest, look sooner than later.

Most of the books have no price next to them, meaning $5 is desired. Specifics follow after the cut.

Yeah, $5 is what is hoped for for many of these, but I'm not against bartering, especially if one's interested in more than a couple few books. Many of these books have been purchased from used book stores or used off the internet, though if they're in superb condition (and not that cheap to boot) this has been noted in some cases. The same if they've taken considerable beating, have poor binding, etc. There's a chance of underlining/notes in these, and if it's that important, I can manage to flip through and inform you if there's really any in there (so long as you're not looking for me to check dozens). I'm not beyond making mistakes and not noticing things, so there's a chance that a book hasn't been noted as beaten. Though if it's so bad, it's likely I couldn't not notice. So, if you'd like to swing on by and browse for a while (thereby checking conditions yourself, or the general content of a book), I don't mind company, and I've plenty time. And some tea. I'm willing to ship to my friends not in town, if any of you've read this far.

Okay. A few things.

Again, if there's no price next to the book, $5 is asked. If there's a price, that's what's being asked. Simple enough?

~~stricken~~ items have been sold, but kept on the list for posterity's sake, to show that you didn't hallucinate reading a book title here.

* before means it's been called for, but the transaction has not yet happened. I can set some books aside, but at least give an estimate on when you could pick them up.
for example:
* A Thousand Plateaus - Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari - $10
is a book that a person has displayed interest in, but has not yet left my possession. and $10 is wanted. Note: you won't find that book in the list. I will not sell it. It is loved beyond what you can afford, buy yourself a cheaper one online or in a book store.

And as for the categories, they're generalizations. There may be overlapping, things placed where you don't think they belong, whatever. Something that you think should be in the anthro section might be in the religion and spirituality section, or even philosophy (claude levi-strauss for example). Something on semiotics may be in philosophy (structuralism'ish) or language. This isn't due to a desire to get people to look through every last book, but rather because I suck at categorizing stuff and didn't care to scroll all the way to another section when typing out fourteen pages of titles.

Any questions, feel free to email me at 4trahasis (at) gmail (dottttt [not so many t's]) com
googletalk should inform me of new emails, so if I'm sitting around on my duff, you may receive a prompt response.
If numerous people want the same book, don't know what'll have to be done. Fight to the death or something cool like that. Whatever the case, it's unlikely the person who's trying to barter me down on the price will get priority here.

And without further ado,

The List

Philosophy:
The Presocratics - Wheelwright
The Presocratic Philosophers - Kirk & Raven (poor binding) - $3
Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings
Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit - Hyppolite $30
In the Spirit of Hegel - Robert C. Solomon - $20
The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution - William F. Church (editor)
The Shaping of Modern Thought - Crane BrintonNietzsche in Turin - Lesley Chamberlain
Daybreak - Nietzsche (orange Cambridge, 1985 edition) - $7
Writings from the Late Notebooks (green Cambridge) - Nietzsche - $16
Human, All Too Human (green Cambridge) - Nietzsche - $14
Untimely Meditations (green Cambridge) - Nietzsche - $14
The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche - $15
The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two - Alenka Zupancic - $10
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist - Kaufmann - $10
For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourselves - Kierkegaard (Lowrie translation)
Training in Christianity - Kierkegaard (Lowrie translation)
Philosophical Fragments & Johannes Climacus - Kierkegaard (Princeton Press)
Either/Or Part I - Kierkegaard (Princeton Press)
British Empirical Philosophers: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Mill - A.J. Ayer (editor)
Readings in Classical Rhetoric - Benson & Prosser
Critique of Pure Reason - Kant (Norman Kemp Smith translation, unabridged)
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics - Kant
Ideas - Edmund Husserl
The Cambridge Companion to Husserl - $8
Being and Time - Heidegger - $10
Heidegger and the problem of Knowledge - Guignon
The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger - $8
Martin Heidegger (Routledge Critical Thinkers) - Clark - $7
The Method of Ethics - Sidgwick - $10 (hardcover)
Philosophical Essays - Bertrand Russell
Human Knowledge - Bertrand Russell
Unpopular Essays - Bertrand Russell
A History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell
Authority and the Individual - Bertrand Russell $3
The Problems of Philosophy - Bertrand Russell $2
Reason and Goodness - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $60
Zettel - Wittgenstein
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - Wittgenstein
Notebooks 1914-1916 - Wittgenstein
The Blue and Brown Books - Wittgenstein
Education in the Age of Science - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $8
The Nature of Thought (both volumes) - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $80
The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $15
The Uses of Liberal Education - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $34
Four Reasonable Men - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $115
Reason and Analysis - Brand Blanshard (hardcover) - $15
On Philosophical Style - Brand Blanshard - $30
An Essay on Man - Cassirer
Language Truth & Logic - A.J. Ayer
Unended Quest - Karl Popper
Existentialism and Human Emotions - Sartre
Truth and Existence - Sartre
Being and Nothingness - Sartre - $8
Search for a Method - Sartre - $3
Essays in Existentialism - Sartre
Literature & Existentialism - Sartre
Saint Genet - Sartre $3
Imagined Communities - $8
The Ethics of Ambiguity - Simone de Beauvoir
The Forgotten Language - Erich Fromm
To Have or To Be - Erich Fromm
Hegel: Texts and Commentary - Walter Kaufmann
Hegel: A Reinterpretation - Walter Kaufmann
Phenomenology of Spirit - Hegel (Miller translation, analysis & foreword by Findlay) - $8
Dialectic of Enlightenment - Horkheimer & Adorno - $8
Empire - Hardt & Negri
Multitude - Hardt & Negri
Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri - Paul Passavant and Jodi Dean (editors)
* The History of Sexuality - Foucault
* Discipline & Punish - Foucault
* The Order of Things - Foucault
Remarks on Marx - Foucault
* Madness and Civilization - Foucault
The Use of Pleasure - Foucault (smaller older version than the above Foucault books) - $3
Foucault, Marxism and Critique - Barry Smart (taken some beating, holds up)
Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today - John Holloway $8
The Cambridge Companion to Foucault - $10
Between Genealogy and Epistemology: Psychology, Politics, and Knowledge in the Thought of Michel Foucault - Todd May
Of Grammatology - Derrida - (slight creases in spine, holding up) $10
Dissemination - Derrida - (slightly warped) $11
Positions - Derrida - $7
Community Without Unity: A Politics of Derridean Extravagance - Corlett
Felix Guattari - An Aberrant Introduction - Genosko - $12
Nomadology - Deleuze & Guattari
On the Line - Deleuze & Guattari
After Postmodernism: Reconstructing Ideology Critique - Simons & Billig (editors) - $15
Modern French Philosophy - Descombes - $16
Jean Baudrillard (Routledge Critical Thinkers) - Lane - $8
Revenge of the Crystal: Selected Writings - Baudrillard - $6
The Perfect Crime - Baudrillard
Paroxysm - Baudrillard
The Transparency of Evil - Baudrillard
Cool Memories - Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings - Poster (editor) - $10
In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities - Baudrillard
The Ecstasy of Communication - Baudrillard
Simulations - Baudrillard
Structuralism and Semiotics - Hawkes
A Postmodern Reader - Natoli and Hutcheon (editors)
What's Left? The Ecole Normale Superieure and the Right - Rubenstein
Illuminations - Walter Benjamin - $11
Introducing Walter Benjamin
Introducing Semiotics
Introducing Lacan
Postmodernism for Beginners
Derrida for Beginners
Foucault for Beginners
Saussure for Beginners
The Postmodern Condition - Lyotard - $8
Postmodernism and Politics - Arac - $8
Utopia - Thomas More - $3
A History of Philosophy Vol 2: Augustine to Scotus - Copleston - $7 (hardcover)
A History of Philosophy Vol 3 (parts 1&2) - Copleston - $4
A History of Philosophy Vol 6: Wolff to Kant - Copleston - $7 (hardcover)
A History of Philosophy Vol 7: Modern Philosophy - Copleston - $6
The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus - $4
A Critique of Pure Tolerance - Wolff, Moore, Marcuse - $2
Elements of Semiology - Roland Barthes - $3
Ethics * TIE * Selected Letters - Spinoza
The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James
Status Anxiety - Alain de Botton
Language and Myth - Cassirer - $3
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms - Cassirer - $4
The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner (translated by Byington)
Beginning Postmodernism - Woods
~~Nietzsche - Robert Solomon (editor) (poor spine)~~
The Moral Theory of Poststructuralism - Todd May
Deconstruction: Theory & Practice - Norris
Society of the Spectacle - Debord (Black & Red)
~~existentialism - Robert Solomon (editor) (poor spine)~~
Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy (2nd ed) - Bowie, Michaels, Solomon (editors)
Philosophical Problems: Selected Readings - Stumpf (editor)
Elements of Arguments: A Text and Reader (4th ed) - Rottenberg (editor)
Contemporary European Philosophy - Bochenski $4
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life - Giorgio Agamben - $17 (like new)
An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism (2nd ed) - Sarup - $10
~~Early Socratic Dialogues - Plato~~
~~The Last Days of Socrates - Plato~~
~~Conversations of Socrates - Xenophon~~
Introduction to Logic (10th ed) - Copi & Cohen (hardcover) - $6

Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Psychobabble:
A Dictionary of Psychology - James Drever - $2
~~Aion - C.G. Jung - $9~~
~~The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature - C.G. Jung - $6~~
~~The Practice of Psychotherapy - C.G. Jung - $18~~
~~The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious - C.G. Jung - $18~~
~~Alchemical Studies - C.G. Jung - $18~~
~~Psychology and Alchemy - C.G. Jung - $18~~
~~Psychological Types - C.G. Jung - $8~~
~~Civilization in Transition - C.G. Jung (hardcover, hand-bound) - $50~~
Psychology and Religion - C.G. Jung (hardcover) - $40
~~Man and his Symbols - C.G. Jung (hardcover)~~
~~Mysterium Coniunctionis - C.G. Jung - $15~~
Symbols of Transformation - C.G. Jung - $13
~~Two Essays on Analytical Psychology - C.G. Jung~~
~~Synchronicity - C.G. Jung - $8~~
~~Psyche and Symbol - C.G. Jung~~
~~Memories, Dreams, Reflections - C.G. Jung - $6~~
~~Boundaries of the Soul: The Practice of Jung's Psychology - June Singer~~
Complex, Archetype, Symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung - Jolande Jacobi
I and Thou - Martin Buber
~~The Politics of Experience - R.D. Laing~~
The Unheard Cry For Meaning - Viktor Frankl - $3
The Doctor and the Soul - Viktor Frankl
~~Psychotherapy and Existentialism - Viktor Frankl~~
The Sexual Revolution - Wilhelm Reich - $4
Wilhelm Reich the Evolution of His Work - Boadella - $10

Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism, Radical, Pedagogy, Feminist, Political stuff:
Black Protest: 350 Years of History, Documents, and Analysis - Grant (editor)
Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx - Tucker - $4
The Marxian Revolutionary Idea - Tucker - $4
The Lenin Anthology - Tucker (editor)
Kronstadt 1921 - Paul Avrich - $6
Russian Rebels 1600-1800 - Paul Avrich
Trotsky's Marxism and Other Essays - Duncan Hallas
Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution - Karol - $3
Mao Tse-tung on Revolution and War - Rejai (editor) - $3
Che Guevara Speaks - Che Guevara - $3
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
Revolution in the Revolution? - Regis Debray
Mohandas Gandhi - Woodcock
Antonio Gramsci - James Joll - $4
The Subversion of Politics - Katsiaficas - $9
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - Max Weber
Castro, Cuba and Socialism: The Economics of State Capitalism - Binns & Gonzales
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell - $4 (back cover has part of corner torn off)
World Hunger: Twelve Myths (2nd ed) - Frances Moore Lappe, Collins, Rosset
Persistent Poverty - Beckford - $3
Fascism and Big Business - Daniel Guerin - $16
Patterns of Anti-Democratic Thought - Spitz - $4
Living My Life - Emma Goldman (spine splitting) $3
Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman's MOTHER EARTH - Edited and with Commentary by Peter Glassgold
Underground! - Disinformation, Preston Peet (editor) - $10
Everything You Know is Wrong - Disinformation, Russ Kick (editor) (hardcover) - $10
The Reproduction of Daily Life - Fredy Perlman - $2 (pamphlet)
The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism - Fredy Perlman - $3
Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say - Douglas Rushkoff
The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States - Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall - $8
Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party & the American Indian Movement - Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall - $8 (slight crease in spine, holding up well)
Talking the Walk - Cutting & Themba-Nixon
Civilization on Trial & The World and the West - Toynbee
Propaganda and the Public Mind - Chomsky
Powers & Prospects - Chomsky
Turning the Tide - Chomsky
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Chomsky - $10
~~The Chomsky Reader~~
The Politics of Alternative Technology - David Dickson
One-Dimensional Man - Herbert Marcuse - $6
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s - Hampton & Fayer
The Radical Reader - McCarthy & McMillian (editors) - $9
Friendly Fire - Bob Black
Anarchy After Leftism - Bob Black
Apostles of Revolution - Max Nomad
Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism - Marshall - $20
Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow - Kropotkin
~~Reinventing Anarchy - Ehrlich, De Leon, Morris~~
Death Blossoms - Mumia Abu-Jamal
~~On Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence - Tolstoy~~
Remaking Society - Murray Bookchin
Take it Personally: How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World - Anita Roddick
Adicto a la Guerra - Joel Andreas
The Revolt of the Masses - Ortega y Gasset
Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison - Kathy Kelly
The London Years - Rudolf Rocker (like new) - $8
Prairie Fire - Weather Underground - $35
Women as Revolutionary Agents of Change - Shere Hite
Primitive Government - Lucy Mair - $3
Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity (2nd ed)
Backlash - Susan Faludi
Patently Female: Stories of Women Inventors and their Breakthrough Ideas - Vare & Ptacek
Socialist Thought: A Documentary History (Fried & Sanders, editors)
Postcultural Theory: Critical Theory after the Marxist Paradigm - Banner
ABC - Ivan Illich & Barry Sanders
The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir
Psycho-analysis and Feminism - Mitchell
The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon
The Democratic and the Authoritarian State - Franz Neumann
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman & The Subjection of Women - Mary Wollstonecraft & John Stuart Mill (respectively)
On The Public (Thinking in Action) - Alastair Hannay
Darwin, Marx, Wagner - Barzun - $2
The House of Intellect - Barzun
Lacan and Postfeminism - Wright $2
Paths in Utopia - Martin Buber (Old binding, pages near coming loose) - $3
Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World - Wink
Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Freire $6
Theory and Resistance in Education: Towards a Pedagogy for the Opposition - Giroux - $7
Revolutionary Pedagogies - Trifonas (editor) - $24
The Case for Socialism - Alan Maass
Mutual Aid - Kropotkin
Memoirs of a Revolutionist - Kropotkin
Radical Environmentalism: Philosophy and Tactics - List (editor)
Zapata - Millon
The Stalin Revolution - Daniels
Anarchism: Old and New - Runkle (creased spine, holding up) - $4
Anarchy and the End of History - Gunderloy & Ziesing (editors) - $7
Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy - Gay & Gay - $10 (hardcover)
The Development of the Modern State - Lubasz - $3
No Logo - Naomi Klein
Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth - Best & Nocella (editors)
Capital Vol 1 - Marx - $9 (all 3 vols for $22, with the Communist Manifesto $25)
Capital Vol 2 - Marx - $7
Capital Vol 3 - Marx - $8
The Communist Manifest - Marx & Engels (Findlay, editor) - $6
Civil War in France: The Paris Commune - Marx & Lenin
The Karl Marx Library Vol I: On Revolution - Padover (editor & translator) - $7
The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 - Hobsbawm
For Workers' Power - Maurice Brinton - $8
Main Currents of Marxism - Kolakowski - $18 (hardcover)
The Russian Revolution - Suny & Adams
Lenin for Beginners
Mao for Beginners
Trotsky for Beginners
Marx for Beginners
Telos: Summer 1981
Telos: Summer 1984
Russia & the Soviet Union (4th ed) - Thompson
The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991 - Malia
The McDonaldization of Society (revised) - Ritzer
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King. Jr. (edited by Clayborne Carson)
Lewis Mumford: A Life - Miller (hardcover)
The Life of Lenin - Louis Fisher (hardcover)
Eros and Civilization - Herbert Marcuse - $7

Linguistics, Language, Semiology...:
Course in General Linguistics - Ferdinand de Suassure
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax - Noam Chomsky
Language and Mind - Chomsky
~~The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker~~
Language in Thought and Action - Hayakawa (creased binding, holding up) - $4

Religion, Spirituality, Mysticism, Occult, Mythology:
The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell (hardcover) - $6
This Is It - Alan Watts
Myths From Mesopotamia
Greek Tragedies Volumes 1, 2, and 3 - Grene & Lattimore - $10
Bulfinch's Mythology - Thomas Bulfinch
The Upanishads - Easwaran - $6
Inanna - Wolkstein and Kramer - $6
A History of Religious Ideas Volume I - Mircea Eliade - $7
The Grail Legend - Emma Jung & Marie-Louise von Franz - $8
The Nigelungenlied - Penguin Press edition
~~Hesiod and Theognis~~
Aesop's Fables - $3
Interpretation of Fairytales - Marie-Louise von Franz - $11
Redemption Motifs in Fairytales - Marie-Louise von Franz - $9
Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology - Marie-Louise von Franz (like new) - $28
Personality Types: Jung's Model of Typology - Daryl Sharp
The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimensions of Fairy Tales, Legends, and Symbols - Joseph Campbell
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent - Elaine Pagels
~~The Origin of Satan - Elaine Pagels~~
Spiritual Disciplines - Joseph Campbell (editor)
Man and Time - Joseph Campbell (editor)
~~The Inner Reaches of Outer Space - Joseph Campbell~~
~~Transformations of Myth Through Time - Joseph Campbell~~
~~The Mythic Image - Joseph Campbell (hardcover)~~
~~Myths To Live By - Joseph Campbell~~
Historical Atlas of World Mythology (in five volumes [complete set], paperback) - Joseph Campbell - $65
Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Penguin Classics - $3
A Fire in the Mind: The Life of Joseph Campbell - Stephen and Robin Larsen
Yoga: Immortality and Freedom - Mircea Eliade - $7
Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries - Mircea Eliade
Myth and Reality - Mircea Eliade (poor binding) - $2
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion - Mircea Eliade (like new) - $7
Cosmos and History - Mircea Eliade
Gods, Goddesses, and Myths of Creation - Mircea Eliade
Essential Sacred Writings From Around the World - Mircea Eliade - $9
Sufism: Veil and Quintessence - Frithjof Schuon - $9
Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam - Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey) - $45
Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy - Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey) - $45
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment - Rudolf Steiner
An Open Life - Joseph Campbell
The Masks of God: Creative Mythology - Joseph Campbell (all 4 for $17)
The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology - Joseph Campbell
The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology - Joseph Campbell
The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology - Joseph Campbell
The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy - Mircea Eliade - $8
Baksheesh & Brahman: Asian Journals - India - Joseph Campbell (hardcover) - $8
The Mythic Dimension - Joseph Campbell
Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization - Zimmer
The Legend of the Baal-Shem - Martin Buber
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: An all-new translation of the famous 210 stories, plus 32 tales that have never before appeared in english - translated and with an introduction by Jack Zipes - $7
The Tao of Inner Peace - Diane Dreher
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft - Sir Walter Scott
Urban Shaman - Serge Kahili King
Rites of Odin - Fitch - $3
The Siva Samhita - Rai Babadur Srisa Chandra Vasu (translator) (hardcover) - $7
Voodoo in New Orleans - Tallant - $2
The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History (3rd ed) - Duling & Perrin
Introducing the Bible - Barclay
The Rise of Modern Mythology: 1680-1860 - Feldman & Richardson (editors) - $7
* The Kabbalah Unveiled - Macgregor Mathers (hardcover) - $7
* On the Kabbalah & Its Symbolism - Gershom Scholem
* The Early Kabbalah - Dan (editor), Kiener (translator) - $10
The Feminine in Fairytales - Marie-Louise von Franz
The Bahir - Aryeh Kaplan (translator, commentary) - $15 (like new)
* Sefer Yetzirah - Aryeh Kaplan (translator, commentary) - $16
* The Tree of Life - Israel Regardie
The Middle Pillar - Israel Regardie
777 and Other Qabalistic Writings - Aleister Crowley
~~The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autobiography edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant (part of cover missing) - $4~~
The Alchemical Mandala - McLean
The Cipher of Genesis: The Original Code of the Qabala as Applied to the Scriptures - Suares
Patterns in Comparative Religion - Mircea Eliade (back of cover coming off, binding still holds)
The Four Gospels: An Introduction, a comprehensive explanation of the background, content, and meaning of the Gospels - Bruce Vawter (hardcover)
Symbols of Freemasonry (hardcover) (this and following 2 for $12, or $5 a piece)
Symbols of Judaism (hardcover) (see above)
Symbols of Tibetan Buddhism (hardcover) (see above)
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume I: The Roots of the Problem and the Person - John P. Meier (hardcover, no dj) - $15 (all 3 for $55)
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume II: Mentor, Message, and Miracles - John P. Meier (hardcover, no dj) - $25
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume III: Companions and Competitors - John P. Meier (hardcover, no dj) - $30
Holy Bible: New King James Version, Words of Christ in Red, Dictionary, Concordance
The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead - Stephen Hoeller - $8
~~Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library - Stephen Hoeller - $10~~
Origins of the Kabbalah - Gershom Scholem - $10
Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah - Gershom Scholem - $15
Renewing the Covenant: A Kabbalistic Guide to Jewish Spirituality - Leet
* The Qabala Trilogy: The Cipher of Genesis, the Song of Songs, The Sepher Yetsira - Suares - $10
The Enochian Magick of Dr. John Dee - Geoffrey James - $80
* The Nag Hammadi Library: The Definitive Translation of the Gnostic Scriptures Complete in One Volume - Robinson - $8
* A Dictionary of Angels - Davidson
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English - Geza Vermes (hardcover) - $8
The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy - A New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes by Everett Fox
The Occult: A History - Colin Wilson (hardcover)
The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies & Fraternal Orders - Axelrod - $8
The Celestine Prophecy - James Redfield
Magical Alphabets - Nigel Pennick - $6
* Sepher Rezial Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial - Savedow (editor, translator) - $8
The Great Mother - Neumann
~~The Origins and History of Consciousness - Neumann~~
Classical Myth - Powell
Man's Eternal Quest - Paramahansa Yogananda
God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita - Paramahansa Yogananda (hardcover, box of 2) - $25 (like new)
Beowulf - Seamus Heaney (translator) - $7
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity - Danielou
The Homeric Hymns - Shelmerdine
Book of the Hopi - Waters
* The Babylonian Genesis - Heidel
Greece Before Homer: Ancient Chronology and Mythology - Forsdyke
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas - Elaine Pagels (hardcover)
* The Gnostic Gospels - Elaine Pagels
9 1/2 Mystics: The Kabbala Today - Weiner
The "Soul" of the Primitive - Levy-Bruhl - $4
The Holographic Paradigm and other paradoxes - Ken Wilber (editor)
A Brief History of Everything - Ken Wilber
The Tree of Yoga - BKS Iyengar
Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - BKS Iyengar
Alexandria: The Journal of the Western Cosmological Traditions vol 1 - Fideler (editor)
Alexandria: The Journal of the Western Cosmological Traditions vol 2 - Fideler (editor) (water damage on pages, spine creased but holding up well)
Alexandria: The Journal of the Western Cosmological Traditions vol 3 - Fideler (editor)
The Religion of Technology - Noble
Tai Chi Chuan: Roots and Branches - $3
The I Ching - Wu Wei - $3
The Mythology of North America - Bierhorst
I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers - Swann & Krupat (editors)

Science'ish:
Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene - Eldredge
The Language of Genes - Steve Jones
The Fractal Geometry of Nature - Mandelbrot (hardcover)
Three Roads to Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin
The Language of the Cell
Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos - Waldrop
Chaos: Making a New Science - Gleick
Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare: An Ecologist's Perspective - Colinvaux
The Diversity of Life - E.O. Wilson
The Origin of Species - Darwin - $4
The Math Gene - Devlin
Genome - Ridley
Life at the Edge - Gould/Gould
The Strategy of Life - Grobstein

Civilization, Nature, Technology, Ecology:
Technology and the Politics of Knowledge - Feenberg & Hannay (editors) $10
Towards a Rational Society - Jurgen Habermas
Questioning Technology: A Critical Anthology - John Zerzan & Alice Carnes (editors)
The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays - Heidegger - $6
The Only World We've Got: A Paul Shepard Reader
Beyond Geography - Frederick Turner (hardcover)
The Technological Society - Jacques Ellul (hardcover) - $15
Against the Megamachine - David Watson - $7
Overshoot - Catton - $17
The City in History - Lewis Mumford - $12
Technics and Human Development: The Myth of the Machine Volume One - Lewis Mumford - $16
Extinction - Left Bank
Endgame: Volume II, Resistance - Derrick Jensen - $6
~~Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control - Derrick Jensen - $7~~
Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests - Derrick Jensen & George Draffan
"My Name is Chellis & I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization - Chellis Glendenning
Health & The Rise of Civilization - Mark Nathan Cohen - $10
The New Politics of Science - David Dickson (hardcover)
In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the Indian Nations - Jerry Mander
Tropical Rainforests - Park
The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations - $2
Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization - Manes
The Condition of Man - Lewis Mumford
The Highway and the City - Mumford - $3
The Future of Technics and Civilization - Mumford
The Ecology of Freedom - Murray Bookchin - $10 (like new)
The Modern Crisis - Bookchin
Post-Scarcity Anarchism - Bookchin
The Limits of the City - Bookchin
Traces of Omnivore - Paul Shepard (hardcover)
The Culture of Make Believe - Derrick Jensen - $8
Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization - Manning
The Garden of Peculiarities - Jesus Sepulveda
Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (1st ed) - John Zerzan (editor) $12
Elements of Refusal - John Zerzan
Animal Language - Michael Bright (intro by David Attenborough)
On Garbage - Scanlan - $8
Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage - Rathie & Murphy - $8
Listening to the Land - Derrick Jensen (editor)

Anthropology, Archaeology, Ethnography, Sociology:
An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology - Layton
Religion and Magic in the Life of Traditional Peoples - Child & Child
Patterns in Prehistory (4th ed) - Wenke
People of the Past: The Illustrated History of Humankind (hardcover) - $8
Islands of History - Marshall Sahlins - $6
* Waiting for Foucault, Still - Marshall Sahlins - $6
* Tristes Tropiques: an anthropological study of primitive societies in Brazil - Claude Levi-Strauss - $7
Totemism - Claude Levi-Strauss
Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research - Burch & Ellanna (hardcover) - $10
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Cultural Anthropology - Welsch & Endicott (editors) - $7
Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands - Christine Ward Gailey - $7
Civilization in Crisis: Anthropological Perspectives (Essays in Honor of Stanley Diamond) - Christine Ward Gailey (editor) - $10
Archeology of Violence - Pierre Clastres - $10 (crease on spine)
Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity (with CD) (9th ed) - Kottak
Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems (3rd ed) - John Bodley - $7
Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System - John Bodley - $8
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
Grand Valley Dani: Peaceful Warriors - Karl Heider
The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya - Robert Knox Denton
Abkhasians: The Long-Living People of the Caucasus - Sula Benet
A Mountain Village in Nepal - John T. Hitchcock
Being a Palauan - H.G. Barnett
Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society - Chavez
The Mardudjara Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia's Desert - Robert Tonkinson
The Mardu Aborigines (2nd ed) - Tonkinson
Gopalpur: A South Indian Village - Alan R. Beals
The Dobe Ju/'hoansi (2nd ed) - Richard B. Lee
Ulithi: A Micronesian Design for Living - William A. Lessa
Mountain of the Condor: Metaphor and ritual in an Andean Ayilu - Bastien
The Inupiat and Arctic Alaska - Chance
Elota's Story: The Life and Times of a Solomon Islands Big Man- Roger M. Kessing
The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation - Colin M. Turnbull
Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers - Lee & DeVore
Yanomamo (4th ed) - Napoleon A. Chagnon
Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology - Peters Golden
Cultures Around the World: Five Cases - G. and L. Spindler (editors)
~~Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor - Johanson & Shreeve~~
Anthropology: The Cultural Perspective - Spradley & McCurdy
Archaeology: The Science of Once and Future Things - Hayden
Human Geography: Cultures, Connections, & Landscapes - Bergman (hardcover)
Anthropology 03/04 (Annual Editions)
Introduction to Physical Anthropology (7th ed) - Jurmain, Nelson, Kilgore, Trevathan
Anthropological Studies of Human Fertility - Kaplan (hardcover) - $8
* Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History - McGee & Warms (editors)
Peasant Wars of the Twentiech Century - Eric R. Wolf
Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology (9th ed)
* Cannibals and Kings - Marvin Harris
Death, Sex, and Fertility - Marvin Harris & Eric B. Ross
~~The Forest People - Colin Turnbull~~
Maps of Meaning - Peter Jackson - $20
Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage - Rathie & Murphy - $8
Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History - Barry Cunliffe (editor) - $8
The Falcon - John Tanner
Nomads and the Outside World - Khazanov - $18
~~The Savage Mind - Claude Levi Strauss (hardcover, boxed) - $9~~
Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology (7th ed)
The Social Construction of Reality - Berger & Luckmann - $7
* Primitive Passions: Men, Women, and the Quest for Ecstasy - Marianna Torgovnick (hardcover)
The Anthropology of Religion - Fiona Bowie - $8
Magic, Witchcraft and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural (4th ed) Lehmann & Myers (editors) - $8
Global Sociology: Introducing Five Contemporary Societies (3rd ed) Schneider & Silverman
Essentials of Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach (5th ed) - Henslin - $10 (with following book)
Study Guide Plus with Tutor Center for Essentials of Sociology - David Peck
Simply Living: The Spirit of the Indigenous People - Shirley Ann Jones (editor)
Exploring Your World: The Adventure of Geography - National Geographic Society (hardcover)

History:
Twentieth Century: The History of the World 1901 to 2000 - J.M. Roberts
A History of Europe - J.M. Roberts
The Great Ideas Today: 1963 (hardcover)
The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome - Scarre
From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life - Barzun (hardcover) - $8
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History - Kaplan
Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism - Gold (hardcover)
The Penguin Atlas of World History (two volumes) - Kinder and Hilgemann - $8
What a Year it Was: 1946 - (hardcover) - free
The Story of America - National Geographic Society (hardcover) - $2
The Ascent of Man - Bronowski

Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Writing:
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde - $2
The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde - $4
Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne - $2
Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne - $2
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells - $2
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - $3
* Illuminatus! Trilogy (in three parts) - Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea - $12 (early edition paperbacks)
Trilogy of the Fallen (Ashes and Angel Wings, The Seven Deadlies, The Wreckage of Paradise) - Greg Stolze - $8 (all three books)
The Decameron - Boccacio - $3
The Collected Poems of Lord Byron - Wordsworth Editions - $2 (crease on spine, holds up)
The Immoralist - Andre Gide
Dante's Inferno - Musa (crease on spine, poor condition due to this)
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Orczy - $3
1984 - Orwell
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
~~The Viking Portable Library - Emerson~~
The Viking Portable Library - Walt Whitman
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
Magister Ludi - Hermann Hesse (beaten pretty badly)
The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Stowe
The St. Martin's Guide to Writing (4th ed; short edition)
Ten Great Mysteries - Edgar Allen Poe
Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve
Collected Works of Guy de Maupassant (hc) (slight water damage towards center of book on upper right, pages still turn great)
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The New York Diaries - Drennan
The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 - Jorge Luis Borges
Heart of Darkness and Selections from The Congo Diary - Joseph Conrad
How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler & Charles van Doren
Brain Droppings - George Carlin (hardcover)
Six Memos for the Next Millenium - Italo Calvino - $6
Psychotic Reactions and Carburator Dung - Lester Bangs
The Writer's Presence: A Pool of Readings (3rd ed) - McQuade & Atwan (editors)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig (hardcover) - $7
Having Little, Being Much: A Chronicle of Fredy Perlman's Fifty Years - Lorraine Perlman
The Complete Stories - Franz Kafka
The Castle - Franz Kafka
The World and Other Places - Jeanette Winterson - $7
Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson (hardcover)
The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

Perhaps something else..:
Shadowrun Companion: Beyond the Shadows - FASA
Vampire: The Dark Ages - White Wolf - $10
Hacking Exposed (2nd ed)
Hacking Linux Exposed
A World of Ideas - Bill Moyers
Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms - Paul Stamets - $30
Vegetarian Christmas - Rose ElliotDangerous Grains: Why Gluten Cereal Grains May Be Hazardous to Your Health - Braly & Hoggan
C: A Reference Manual (3rd ed) - Harbison & Steele JrVegan: The New Ethics of Eating (revised ed) - Erik Marcus

snow, awesome people, and hummus

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:10:23 GMT

goddamn it snowed hellsabunch yesterday. after getting out of a car, pushing it out of stuckness, and the same with the car of the people who helped, i headed to half price books, which closed a couple hours previous thanks be the inclement weather. then sat at a transfer point for a good fifty minutes or so waiting for a bus headed downtown. there was a 'not in service' bus parked there, packed with people, with its sole intent to keep people warm. i stayed outside, feeling adequately dressed for the weather (minus feet and legs [just because boots keep out the wet, does not mean they keep out the cold 8( ]). and there was plenty company of talkative persons, too. one girl offered me some dove brand candies, to which my empty stomach and i enthusiastically accepted. it turned out that they were ice cream filled, not that these hands noticed. a bus arrived, and i was off.

got off on the corner of johnson by the old milio's/big mike's/JJ's (i can't recall which, it's been closed for a while), next to where casa bianca (was that the one?) once was, also, and near the laundromat. the block previous the angelic brewery. due to the red lights and slow movement and whatever else, and lack of momentum being an inhibitor for upward movement thanks to these, many cars couldn't make it up the hill, which further slowed traffic. yet there were droves of college kids (well, a good dozen and a half at least that i noticed) going from stationary car (front wheels a spinning) to the next stationary car, pushing them up hill. all these events thus far, they hadn't "restored my faith in humanity" or anything of the sort, but increased my love of a few humans, in the least.

continued walking home, and single handedly (well, double handedly), assisted two cars out of their dilemmas. spoke to the hippies down the block who planned on making a slide down their stairs seeing it hadn't yet been shoveled, then went home and made hummus for the first time. it turned out... not like any hummus i've tasted before. don't know, but it might be the amount of roasted garlic (too much?) i put in it. or that the chickpeas were crushed using a mortar and pestle, and not thrown in a food processor, leading to some amount of chunkiness. not sure. oh, and also recently discovered that the terra cotta garlic holder i've got can as a garlic roaster.

all in all an agreeable day.