'Ask matt' was almost immediately successful in generating a letter, but I don't think I'll get any more (hint). I discovered in college that it's almost impossible to get people to look at (let alone appreciate) your work with the kind of fascination you think it deserves, or the kind of fascination with which you look at it yourself.
I think there are three things behind this: 1. People often react almost defensively to creative output by someone else (especially when it's marketed in any way), and see it as a form of one-upmanship or ego-broadcasting that needs to be countered with disinterest. 2. The work is not objectively interesting, but seems strangely more so to me simply because I'm obsessed with myself. 3. People are trained to look at and listen to online work very quickly, and to see it as an obligation rather than a treat. I'm reasonably certain that this is largely because of the association of computers with the workplace, but I wonder if cursory computer use might also have something to do with a subconscious need to 'keep up' with the computer, which can of course add 1+1 together a lot faster than a person can. I dunno, it's a theory.
I've noticed that people spend a few seconds taking in one of my online expressive projects, while they might spend a few minutes looking at a painting in a museum. Part of this problem is that no matter how interesting something I've made might be, it's still just a webpage, presented on a little 15-inch screen in some fluorescently-lit office, with miscrosoft outlook and microsoft powerpoint running in the background, not to mention the distraction of actual 'work' looming in the background. The thing-unto-itself is always going to be pixels on a screen contained within a microsoft window, and sound coming out of little miniature speakers. The underlying concept and hours invested in the project rapidly become irrelevant when the means of presentation are so static.
The dynamics of human-computer interaction have been almost entirely co-opted by the workplace, and it's difficult to disassociate an employment contract from staring at a screen, clacking a keyboard and rolling a mouse. The result of this is that computer use is usually going to be reviled to some degree due to unsavory associations, even if a particular usage of a machine may have nothing to do with generating profit for the ruling elite.
Instead of taking a visual-anthropological approach to computers, seeing everything as interesting to look at, as well as experiencing cultural, social, personal and even spiritual meaning to be omnipresent in every crafted shape and form, the computer user isn't able to enter this child-like mode of art-and-life confusion, of noticing the beauty of the pictures on their screen or sounds emanating from the speakers when they are stripped of their associations. The ssh window that I'm typing in now is black, and the monitor gives a little static-electricity protest whenever the screen is called up, because all of those pixels are suddenly turned off. Because there's no light coming out of this portion of the monitor, I can see in it the shape of the reflected patio window, the couch, and I can even see a reflection of the reflection on the glass table of the patio window. There are little specks and smudges on the monitor, and a little red cursor that moves across the screen, depositing behind it blue characters of a mono-spaced terminal font.
Dear Matt,
Did you really pay only $4 for your guitar and $13 for your trumpet? Did you get them off eBay? Even then I would think the shipping alone would be more than the stated prices. I had no idea musical instruments were so cheap!
Curious in Gaithersburg
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Dear curious,
Yes, perhaps I should have explained this better. John was a strange dude, and had developed a syndrome where he would copy much of what I did, such as squeezing his hair into a pony tail, making a bot, starting a blog, and then finally getting a trumpet and guitar. I suppose this behavior was a form of flattery, so I wasn't too creeped out, but maybe it helps paint a portrait of john as 'disturbed' that might help account for his disappearance (if one were to abandon the abduction-by-morax theory).
So, it was in an inspiration of matt-imitation that john bought his el cheapo instruments, indeed from ebay. I'm not sure what the shipping costs were -- probably $5 - $10 per item, tacked onto the actual sellers' prices, which I remember being $3.99 and $12.99 for the guitar and trumpet, respectively. While my memory may be a bit faulty, the price certainly didn't deviate beyond 2 dollars from those figures. Damage wasn't as big a concern as it would have been with valuable instruments, on which bumps and bruises might actually affect the playability, and I'm sure this helped keep the shipping costs down. The instruments were functional inasmuch as they produced sounds, but that's about it.
The guitar was particularly difficult to 'play' in any way corresponding roughly to western musical standards. If one could manage to get a strings up to pitch for a few seconds, the overtone series was so muddled that even an 'in tune' note sounded dreadful. This may've been a product of drastically faulty intonation (the location and tone of the harmonics corresponding well to that of the fretted notes), or it may've been strange parts of the guitar vibrating along with the string. But this was immaterial, since the strings wouldn't hold their pitch for longer than a few seconds. The $3.99 guitar was valuable as a noisemaker, and as a tool for serenading morax, but was not 'playable' in any formal sense of the word.
John's trumpet was a bit more functional than his guitar, since with it one could generate discernible, consistent pitches. The trumpet's main issues were a very flat tone, and strangely constructed valves that stuck a lot. John had apparently been told that one wasn't supposed to ever oil them, which was either indicative of a revolutionary new trumpet design, or construction of something other than brass. I tend to suspect the second possibility. But the costlier trumpet was playable, surprisingly, unlike the guitar. You get what you pay for, I guess.
Thanks for your question, curious in gaithersburg. I hope this cleared things up for you.
Sincerely,
Matt
The problem with both art and liberalism is that artists and liberals are the most annoying people on the planet. There's nothing wrong, per se, with spreading antelope dung on your naked body and running around the neighborhood singing 'alouette,' nor is there anything wrong with saving the spotted owl. It's not these issues and concepts that are objectionable, but rather the culture that surrounds them. The people who are shrieking 'save the spotted owl!' and who are painting themselves with antelope dung also happen to be cliquish, affected, solemn-faced snobs who are as unpleasant to be around as they are defensive of their social circles.
It's a shame that things as interesting as performance art and activism have been co-opted by the biggest assholes on the face of the earth. Those who are intellectually and socially progressive tend to be the same people with whom I'd least enjoy spending time. Conversely, the nicest, must unpretentious, inoffensive people tend to be your cultural philistines and soybean-farmers. Maybe the problem is education, or simply intellectualism: the more self-absorptive intellectual self-stimulation a person does, the more egocentric and socially ugly they will turn out to be as a result. But scientists aren't that way -- science and math people tend to be quite refreshingly nice (for the most part), despite their smartitude. The problem-area is populated with arty types who are, quite simply, unsuitable for human interaction.
But as I said, it's not art per se, or activism per se, or even postmodern lit-crit per se (well, maybe that last one) that is objectionable. What's objectionable is the strain of human that partakes in such activities, and his sniveling, petty, contrived culture of exclusion and blatant social hierarchy.
I'm inclined to believe that much of the problem comes from the fact that artists and liberals have defective senses of humor, either by nature or by the poisonous nurture of their own stifling social environment.
Maybe we expect more from the liberal intellectual, and are then disappointed when he turns out to be as base a creature as g.w. Bush, merely with different colors of war-paint plastered across his cheeks. A human is a human, and is going to perform body functions, assert his dominance, covet and exclude, regardless of his education or social rank. He might use bigger words to express these things, or wear nicer clothes while he's expressing them, but the hand-axe and foot-axe fit nicely into any hand or foot, regardless of what college that hand or foot went to.
If you have convictions, it's 99% likely that you have them for the wrong reasons. email me for advice and opinions. I should start an 'ask matt' column. In fact, if I receive any 'dear matt, why does blah blah?' emails, I will use them as a blogsource.
I just realized, with nick's help, that the last time I saw john was when he and I went into the woods with a trumpet and guitar and performed musical incantations to morax. I wish I had recorded them somehow -- they were quite stirring. The lyrics went something like this: 'ohhhhhhhh morax...we beseech thee...ohhhhh morax...we summon thee...oh morax etc,' and were accompanied by a $3.99 mail-order acoustic guitar and $12.99 mail-order trumpet, the three voices together weaving sublime goetic demon-thrall over dark, damp and frozen woods somewhere in damascus. Putting two and two together, I can only deduce that john's disappearance had everything to do with morax's unholy power. email john and tell him he's a fucker. I'd give you his number and tell you to call him too, but I moved all of my files upstairs after my mom tried to delete some of them.
I just had a long email debate with an old friend on free will vs. Determinism. The only conclusions I was able to draw were that neither argument is falsifiable, and that a discussion on free will has to be independent of logic since you can't prove anything either way. Needless to day, I hold that free will is an illusion to some, and a complete fabrication to others, one that's rooted in western ideas like morality, an immortal soul and the sanctity of the individual, none of which hold any water for me.
I really don't have the educational background for such a discussion. For instance, quantum mechanics illustrates a breakdown of the causality model, and I would think that this amounts to a refutation of determinism, but (luckily for me and my position) apparently it doesn't, and blah blah blah. It's funny how physicists are quite able to discuss philosophy, but philosophers are quite unable to discuss physics.
I find that my thinking often outstrips both my damaged brain and my fruitcake education's ability to keep up.
But hey -- I can still enjoy the sunny weather and go for bike rides, which is what I plan to do. Imagine that tomorrow, there is a nuclear/biological/chemical holocaust, and you have to live the rest of your life in a cold, damp underground cavern, peering at the sooty acid sky through a 10-inch thick plexiglas window. Did you spend your pre-holocaust time surfing the web or going out for bike rides?
I'm not sure if my mom is still kicking me out or not. We'll see, I guess. Tomorrow, I have my first meeting with my vocational rehab caseworker.
I finished my wikipedia reading for the day ('free will' leading eventually, via hypertext navigation, to an article on 'bell's theorem'), and I found that I had a very hard time with articles on physics. Do I not have what it takes, or do I simply not have the education? Oh well; fuck it. I think the thing that I'm best at is music -- maybe I should be focusing on that.
I discovered what I don't like about working. I don't like working for anyone. This is unavoidable. Even if one runs their own business, then that person still works for his or her customers. I don't mind work, as long as I don't feel the stinking breath of hierarchy and contractual obligation on the back of my neck. For instance, I worked really hard in school, and on my own individual writing, art and music projects. I'm just not a big fan of contracts, I don't think.
The only thing I might be able to do without hating myself is being a railroad hobo.
What's really not fair is the fact that I spent 10 years in school, and I'm no more employable than a high school graduate. I realize that I kept telling myself that graduating from college isn't some magic button that, if pushed, propels one into social status or financial ease, but I never really payed attention, and somehow expected the difficulty to end with graduation. Life just keeps on being difficult; there's no respite, ever.
Since this blog has no other bells and whistles, it has to get by on content alone.
I guess the key is to accept that the nature of our society is that one will always have to work for someone; someone will always be your boss, and your paycheck and continued employment will always be contingent upon your performance, unless you work for the government. I've heard that it's very difficult to fire a government worker, and that the standard model of work performance relating to job rewards sort of breaks down. But I think I might have ethical problems with working for the u.s. Government.
My mom kicked me out. I'll have to leave in 3 weeks - 2 months.
I went 'out' last night. Every time I actually *do* something, I feel an obligation to write it in my blog, as if a journal was a '(n) personal record of occurrences.' but this is a lot harder to do than writing about my theories on the universe. I'll keep the summation of events brief, and I'll do it in outline form, just to be snide. But really, isn't that the best way to recant procedural, time-linear events? Outline form rules. I was excited about it in elementary school when I first learned it, and the excitement continues. Part of the joy of outline form (possibly most of the joy) is that you can use sentence fragments and don't have to worry about narrative or literary flow. It's helpful when one has some daunting project of recollection ahead, that such as going 'out' generates. And then you can go crazy and make some of the points into big cumbersome paragraphs.
The other advantage of outline form is that it always appears complete, even if the writer plans to expound on more points when he gets back from a movie (hint).