the midnight schulich to nowhere

The trouble with working late is you lose your sense of time--and, as a consequence, the ability to budget it effectively.

Just as we should be anxious to finish and break free, home begins to seem a further and further prospect as sleeplessness and silence dull the knife-gleam focus we brought with us: for it is warm in the sleepy belly of this old hall, and the night is cold and the walk is long--perhaps I might just stay a little longer?

It begins to seem like infinite time is available--like we, the strange passengers on this slow train, are not here to accomplish goals, according to the logic of the day, but only to pass these strange hours, waiting, always waiting, for the moment when we will all arrive...

Later, an elegant solution: I run out of pencil lead.

Life advice

One of the people I worked with (or near, I suppose) this summer was a woman from Costa Rica. As soon as she found out I knew a little bit of Spanish she would constantly come by to have a chat. I suspect she was amused, but she was never mean about it, and it was fun to practice Spanish amongst the drudgery.

This one time she was asking me why I hadn't taken my break. I told her a few people hadn't shown up, so we were behind quota.
'Hay suficientes mártires' I think is what she said to me.

The phrase keeps popping into my head.

Fashion Sense?

I saw a man on the street today
Whose face was burned so badly
That afterwards I could not remember
Whether his shirt
Or his pants
Were bright purple
But all things considered
Either one
Would have offset
The gentle hue of his scars
Marvelously

"Boris is a cuntface"

May 31, 2008

Where were you?

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fiverforthelips enjoys honey and peanut butter on toast

அன் இரோனிக் உஸ் ஒப் ஆஃஉஇரெட் ச்கில்ல்ஸ் (An Ironic Use of Acquired Skills)

I felt a funeral, in my brain
when i am in poetics class.

i sit here
bored
waiting for something to happen.
i am tired of literal images.
i am tired of studying syntax and inflection.
i am tired of a windowless room.

The most....honourable customer support ever, or...what?

The following is a partial transcript of a correspondence I had with HP after my laptop died. True story.

------

Stefan: Welcome to HP Total Care for Pavilion and Presario Notebooks.My name is Stefan. How may I assist you today?

fiverforthelips: Hi there
Stefan: Please go ahead with the notebook issue.
fiverforthelips: I'm having a problem with my notebook as it will not boot up
fiverforthelips: the power works and everything but there's no display
fiverforthelips: this happens both with battery and ac power
fiverforthelips: the buttons light up, i hear the dvd drive for a second, and then nothing
Stefan: I understand that the Notebook screen is blank , am I right ?
fiverforthelips: correct
Stefan: Please let me know have you taken any troubleshooting steps to isolate the issue ?
fiverforthelips: i've drained the power
Stefan: Okay, Please provide me the serial number and product number of your Notebook, which you can find on the beneath the Notebook, in service tag.
fiverforthelips: s/n: 2***************
fiverforthelips: p/n: A#*************
Stefan: Thank you for the information. Please hold on for a couple of minutes while I gather the exact Product Information and the specifications of your Notebook.
fiverforthelips: SURE
Stefan: I am sorry for the delay in responding.
fiverforthelips: ok
Stefan: I recommand you to remove and reseat the memory modules may resolve the issue.
fiverforthelips: sure.
fiverforthelips: what should i do if that fails to resolve the issue?
Stefan: fiverforthelips, I saw that the Notebook warranty is expired, However i will fight with my supervisor to arrange the repair for free of cost for your Notebook.
fiverforthelips: that would be fantastic.
Stefan: Please do not worry, as I promised you, Sure I will assist you better.
Stefan: Since your satisfaction is most important for us.
Stefan: Please let me know once you have done with the memorey reseat.
fiverforthelips: sure, should I stay on the chat with you?
Stefan: Yes, fiverforthelips.
fiverforthelips: Just re-seated the ram -- it hasn't solved the problem
Stefan: Okay, Please allow me some time while I fight with my supervisor to arrange the repair for your Notebook.
fiverforthelips: sure
fiverforthelips: thank you very much
Stefan: Thank you for allowing me.
Stefan: I am sorry for the delay in responding.
Stefan: fiverforthelips, I fought with my supervisor to arrange the free mail in repair for your Notebook.
fiverforthelips: thanks -- although i'm not entirely sure what that means
Stefan: I mean to arrange the repair for free of cost.
fiverforthelips: oh
fiverforthelips: right
fiverforthelips: that's excellent
Stefan: I am really very happey to inform you that I am Glad to arrange the repair for free of cost for your Notebook.
Stefan: Happy*
fiverforthelips: thank you very much -- how do i go about doing this?
Stefan: Sure, I will explain you the process of the mail in repair.
Stefan: A box with the required packaging material, packaging instructions, carrier contact information and a pre-paid shipping label will be delivered to you in 1 to 2 business days.
Stefan: Once you have received these materials and have packaged your product, you will need to contact the carrier to schedule a pick-up.
Stefan: Your repair service has an estimated turn around time of 3 to 5 business days from when we receive your product at our repair center.
Stefan: Once we receive your product we will provide an estimated delivery date and order status updates to the e-mail address you provided
fiverforthelips: right
Stefan: You can check the status of your order by either going to: www.hp.com/go/csostatus 
or 
By calling HP Customer Care at 1-800-hpinvent. (1-800-474-6836)

--------------------------------------

fiverforthelips does not play cricket, hockey or smooth country.

In light of the recent Sarah Palin craze, I decided to investigate the age old belief that height and to a lesser extent, physical attractivness, are directly correlated to an individual's success. I mean who wouldn't want a former "People's Magazine: Sexiest Man" running one of the most influential countries in the world should he choose to run.

On paper Palin could have exactly what it takes to win a crowd over, humour, style, former daytime televison actress looks, and an easy teenage daughter. John McCain's daughter, Meaghan, who has been known to spend time with Republican Heidi Montag, has gone as far as to describe Palin as 'really chill'.

I guess my question is, does Palin have what it takes? Are her looks enough to run for office and subsequently run a country?

Historically, at least in the good old days of American history, a perfectly coiffed moustache seems to be all that was needed. 10 of 12 Presidents from Lincoln to Taft sported a stache, but what about their Vice Presidents?

The Vice Presedential counterparts seemed to emulate their leader yet manage to be slightly more attractive than their leader. Evidenced by Spiro Agnew (how could he swindle the American public?) and Richard Nixon (ew). Charles Dawes and Calvin Coolidge are another example, although Coolidge is likely one of the least frightening looking American Presidents. This may be due to the fact that when many of the other presidents were elected, the only time they got their picture taken was after death.

Taking a step into the global perspective, how about leaders around the world and furthermore successful female politicians. When you see Elizabeth May, the current leader of the Green Party of Canada, does her presence scream future Prime Minister?

When looking at the current presidential candidates (and there spouses) there is no doubt that this is a very attractive election year in general. Obama and McCain each have very attractive wives, Obama's a cutie himself and there's something to be said about seeing a man in uniform. So does it come down to Vice Presidents? If so Sarah Pallin could very well be the deciding factor.

So now, on the cusp of election night, just maybe we'll know for sure.

I'm sorry this post is not complete, I still want to investigate other female leaders around the world and the fact that with the exception of Bush Jr. historically the taller candidate is victorious. Alas, I'm out of time.

something special

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

--Science fiction pioneer Robert A. Heinlein, in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long


In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

--Karl Marx

AS AN ECONOMIST, trained in the soup of Neo-Classical theory, I'm obligated to turn up my nose at this brand of jack-of-all-trades-ism. Specialization allows workers to focus on a task, and by practise and training, to shave precious resources from the total production cost of the finished whatzit. In so doing, man can turn his finite resources into ever more whatzits, and thus he creates wealth. By contrast, since every human is not equally predisposed toward efficiency in butchering hogs as in programming computers, when Heinlein's aesthetics demand that everyone be capable of doing both, what they really require is that a man suited to be a butcher is only sometimes a butcher and other times a programmer--which means, economically speaking, that while he is programming, he is wasting productive capacity and ought to be butchering instead. (There is, of course, a conceivable if hard-to-measure cost to the repetitive stress injuries, boredom, errors, and alienation the worker experiences. But the system seems to work, especially when you factor in clever systems designed to minimize these costs.) Besides that, the resources required to train an individual in dozens of careers would be effectively sunk. Economically speaking, I have few doubts.

But as a romantic, Heinlein's vision appeals to me. On a deceptively fundamental level, it's simply cooler to know how to do things than to be helpless. Multiskilledness, in the way Heinlein describes, means being prepared--and anyone who's read a few of his novels knows that his characters are appealing because they know everything and know how to do everything. We might call this the MacGyver Relation, or, if you prefer, the Renaissance Factor: the more situations you are equipped to handle, the more impressive you are. More importantly, I think it seems more human. We like to imagine that the power of man's mind is infinitely malleable; the same spirit we bring to painting should function, with training, as well in politics or poetry. Man is not a tuned component in an efficient system, our souls cry: he is a creature of the infinite, and his works must be as prismatic and many-splendoured as the divine cloth from which he was cut. The geniuses of the past have been philosophers in the morning, mathematicians in the afternoon, artists at sunset and astronomers at night--and we can only shake our heads and wonder where that kind of man has gone.

This is not to say that a person with exceptional skill in one field is not impressive or to be admired. Perhaps both may serve the tribe. Da Vinci was great, of course, but I suspect Michael Phelps would not be greater if he were a poorer swimmer who also dabbled in mathematics. Still, there is a secret scorn reserved for those geniuses whose gifts act only in one direction. They may be admitted into legend, and stand as testaments to the upper reaches of human achievement, but by the unidirectionality of their genius, they are also freakish, disproportionate, grotesque. We can all look at Phelps and say--"sure, but can he play the guitar? or pick a lock, or beat my high score in Tetris?" Those one-trick geniuses are easily trumped; their myriad humanities make them small. And even this applies only if one is lucky enough to be a genius, at least. For most of us, the real choice is between mediocrity in one field and mediocrity in many. The world could at least grant us the freedom to bumble in more flexible circumstances.

It will already be apparent to the reader that our society's education process, beginning in earnest at the undergraduate level, is a way to sharpen the student into the finest possible edge; to prepare him as well as possible for work in this field or that but never both, according to the law laid down by Adam Smith more than two centuries ago. To be sure, niceties like interdisciplinary programs and interfaculty degrees are available, with the aim to develop more than one side of the mind--but they are, at best, limited in scope. Certainly a "Bachelor of Everything", of the sort Heinlein and Marx might have imagined, is not possible in this system and age.

The specialized human is a precisely tuned creature of an efficient system: he cannot, from morning to night, change his role at his whim; that kind of freedom he offers at the altar of efficiency in exchange for material gain. For Marx, this constitutes alienation; for Heinlein, it is weakness and failure to achieve full humanity. For me specialization is a straitjacket. The cost of efficiency is the loss of flexibility of mind; it is the stifling of an infinity of icgyabls and the consequent death of many worlds of possibility. Having consented to the bargain and optimized himself to accomplish a task, he signs away his right to the diverse life Heinlein and Marx yearned for. That may be something we choose to accept--for our lives are forged precisely by this process; any decision closes a million doors. But we should be aware of it, individually and as a society.

Here enters what a dear friend aptly called the "tyranny of choice". Our lives are privileged; we can choose from hundreds of directions--specialities--which branch from this point into innumerable possibilities. The trouble lies in knowing that that choice is, if not final, at least weighty: how can I choose which of my selves I want to kill?

Don't drink the poison Kool-Aid

Have you ever sent your awareness of your mind to a certain part of your body? Like your arm, for example. Felt it with your consciousness -- became aware of its presence?

What a weird fucking question.

It also happens to be what I've been doing for the past eleven days, in an isolated camp in the woods. No physical contact, no communication, complete silence in the presence of about 60 other strangers doing the same thing. This is known to some as Vipassana meditation.

3:59 AM. All is silent across the camp except for the sound of the crickets and the rustle of wind on the leaves. The gong sounds at 4:00 AM, and I slowly get up, wash my face and trudge to the meditation hall, sit and observe the breath entering and exiting my nostrils. The hall is dark; a dim light reveal shapes of people sitting as still as stone statues.

I break a few hours later, eat my first meal, and collapse on my bed for forty minutes. The gong sounds again and I repeat the same process until the next meal. It's now 11:00 AM. People trudge around like zombies, eat, and then disappear into their quarters. At 1 O clock we resume. Minutes pass like hours, hours pass like seconds, seconds pass like years. It's been 12 hours. Tea Break, more meditation till nine, then sleep. Repeat for ten days.

Ten days of virtual isolation. Now I'm back.

Having no opportunity for human contact I found ways to entertain myself when I wasn't sitting in pain and observing it. I saw them every day; in the meditation hall; shuffling by on the pebble road between meditation times; in the queue for the washroom; sitting outside drinking tea. But had no idea who they were. So I invented aliases for them; so that when I was referring to them, my mind would know which one I was talking about.

First and foremost, there was "Really Korean Guy". I knew nothing about him -- except that we we shared a room, he looked really Korean and his name was Kim -- which I had managed to extrapolate from the shower schedule on the wall of Washroom A.

Really Korean Guy took as many naps during rest breaks as me, which was all the time that was possible, he had an orange blanket and was growing a moustache. Also, He also snored like a hoover vacuum. The walls resonated with the sound at night and at nap time when he fell asleep before me. Otherwise, I didn't notice. Which was okay because I'm pretty sure I snored, and most definitely talked in my sleep.

Stereotypical Old Chinese Man wore khakis, running shoes, shuffled around everywhere and did stretching during breaks.

Ultimate Nature Dude was awesome. Ultimate Nature Dude wore long dreadlocks, a matted beard and ate all his meals on the floor outside. With his hands. He also walked around barefoot everywhere, smelled, and often used the outhouse for taking a crap; most people only peed there because it was gross.

Beer! Was a big beefy guy who looked like he needed a beer. Humble Asian Guy always wore a hood and shuffled around. Camping Catalogue Dad would fit right into Canadian Tire. Lawnchair Meditation Dude sat in front of me with elaborate setup of pillows and back supports and spread himself across the floor. I sneezed on his neck by accident once but couldn't apologize because we couldn't talk.

Then there was Looks Most Like A Tibetan Monk, White Yoga Instructor, Guy Who Looks Like The Actor Who Played The Main Character In Hamlet 2, But Balding, Guy Who could probably beat me Up, Karate Disciple and so on.

On the last day, we were allowed to talk and I found out Really Korean Dude wasn't actually Korean: He was Chinese. I was shattered, but able to recover and remain equanimous due to my training in the course.

Much wisdom may arise from such deep meditative practices such as Vipassana, this is true. But know also, that as much wisdom that arises, there is overwhelmingly greater proportion of crap that also floats up. When deprived of all stimulation, sitting in darkness and complete silence for 10 days, your mind starts compensating by throwing as much shit in your face as it can.

Memories, fragments, faces, people (you guys all made an appearance in one way or another), sounds, ideas (pleasant, and unpleasant) arise, and try to undermine and shatter your concentration.

These ones succeeded phenomenally and resulted me nearly bursting out into laughter.

JT's pecking order for an orgy.
Chicken fighting in a nightclub/angry hipsters.
Derek doing the "Shopping Trolley" to Billie Jean
Derek Ikwueke. Deserves to be mentioned twice.
Wacko Jacko
"Youuuuuuuuu!", "Meeeeeeeeeee!"
Tim's "Follow Guy" (the blonde one may eventually understand.)
Annyong.
Power naps. And the really hot girl at the bus stop that remembers the conversation you had about them when you started talking to her at a bar a month ago and never saw again until now. Man she was hot.

Finally, Muse's Absolution without fail, played in the the back of my head continuously. Meditation to the sounds of the apocalypse. Sing for absolution? Could be appropriate. Or Crank That.

Anyway, I'm back again. What's the game this week?
---------------------------------

fiveforthelips likes food a lot. almost as much a his mother.