I'd Rather be a Montrealer...

A few days back I was standing on my street corner and started looking around. As I did so, I started noticing things that were very apparent to me when I first moved here, but since then had become sort of ordinary. When we get used to something we stop noticing why we liked it in the first place, and the sheer awesomeness of it somehow gets lost and dulled down because of all the other things that are going on in our lives. Exams, relationships, friends, groceries, assignments, plays, concerts, coffee - there's always something to focus on, something to occupy the mind with. But the other day, when I stood there, I stood still. I didn't need to be anywhere, I wasn't waiting for anything, I had no plans and no purpose. I just stood, and I saw the beauty of Montreal. The bare trees, the old architecture, the street signs, the people, the sound, the smell, the cold - I saw all of it, and I loved all of it. The rest of that day was great, because I remembered that I am in a city I love. I have never lived somewhere that I liked this much. I've liked the places where I've lived, but because of attachments and people, not because of the cities in themselves. Montreal is different, everything about it makes me happy. Even though it's been crappy all day, and the sun set at 3:30pm, I'd rather be here than anywhere else.
I think I might've found the place that I can one day call home.

The Ultimate Dick Move

Town threatens to evict disabled boy’s pony.

Really, people? Really?

Hat tip Magnus at CUSIDnet.

holy shit

peep.

is the world really coming to a place where people are willing to kill in order to be able to go christmas shopping?

could they really not wait until 5:30 AM?

jeebus.

Flower Burgers

Things you realize, at 5:30 in the morning:

1) That after successively consuming hardboiled eggs and copious amounts of coffee, an aftertaste emerges in the back of your throat, surprisingly similar to roasted marshmallows.

2) “Hey! I can pull off that sequined sweater vest!”

3) That self-induced masochism and sleep deprivation is, really, the best way to analytically discuss vampires, sexuality, and an “A.Y. Jackson” induced suicide.

4) That you’re probably not going to that 2:30 class.

It's 5 O'clock Somewhere

I had a fantastic Buddhism class today. We learned about the 84 mahasiddhas (the great accomplished ones) according the Vajrayana Buddhism. These guys (and gals) are models of tantric practitioners, and they all have fantastical stories about their practice, teachings, and lives.

My favorite from today was a man named Virupa. His name means "the ugly one" and he was a monk by day, and a tantric practitioner extraordinaire by night. At some point he got tired of his tantric practices, and threw his rosary in the toilet. Some female wisdom deity approached him holding his rosary, and handed it back to him saying that he must continue his practices.
The pigeons at the monastery started to disappear, because a certain tantric practitioner was eating them all. Eventually, the other monks got fed up with Virupa's pigeon eating ways and kicked him out of the monastery. At this point, Virupa, using his awesome tantric powers, brought all these pigeons back to life, and they flew off all around him. He then turned around and left. The monks tried to call him back, begged him to return and be part of the monastery, but he said no, proceeding to float off on a lotus.
After floating away on a lotus, he went to a bar, where he began consuming obscene amounts of alcohol (probably a little more than is acceptable by tantric renunciation standards). After a while, the barmaid inquires as to when Virupa plans on paying his tab. Virupa, in true dramatic fashion, grabs his dagger and sticks it into the earth and says, "I will pay the bar tab when the sun reaches its zenith, and the dagger's shadow is in such and such place". Barmaid says awesome, and gets back to work.
Little does the barmaid know, that because of his awesome tantric abilities and control over the universe, Virupa has actually fixed the sun in the sky by sticking his dagger into the earth. For three days, Virupa drinks and drinks and drinks, and still the sun doesn't move. After a while the King begins to worry about the lack of sun movement, and so he goes to Virupa and asks him to release the sun. Virupa replies, "If you pay my bar tab, I will release the sun."
And so he does. And that is the story of when Virupa held the sun hostage.

I thought you guys should know.

-Mer and Paul who is a Ghost.

Arts 4 Lyfe

I like working in Schulich.

When I feel motivation slipping away, I get up and take a stroll. I take a peek at some of the titles on the shelves. A quick scan reveals books like "The Electrochemistry and Characteristics of Embeddable Reference Electrodes for Concrete", "Landmark Papers in Yeast Biology", and "Structural Integrity of Fasteners Including the Effects of Environment and Stress Corrosion Cracking".

It reminds me that I like what I do.

Paul who is a ghost doesn't want to knock science or engineering. In fact, he thinks they're pretty wonderful. They just aren't his thang.

We Are The Centaurs of Our Forbidden Forest

Over the last nine months (Nine!), we've seen our fair share of emotional rants, poetic waxings, and good-god funlovable pith. 
We've inexplicably synthesized our thoughts, feelings, and influences, somehow spat them into a small taupe box, and seen them take new life in this space, growing like the little plant we all wished we knew how to take care of. Fact is however, this little experiment of ours is not just any plant, but more like the chia pet who grows not up, but in all furry directions. 

And this chia pet is turning 100.

This particular silly passage marks Dessert Ticket's ascension into the blogosphere's century club. Despite traditional responsibilities such as family, friends, lovers, and work up the wazoo, we've managed to keep our little buddy from going brown and brittle. 

Huzzah.

There are countless times we could have been, should have been, doing more important things, but instead, each and every one of us has chosen to spend at least some time here, where our internet boxes are in sync.

We should all be proud of ourselves, and continue spinning our own twisted brands of science like it ain't no thang, cause it actually is a thang. And quite a thang at that.

And that's what makes it sweet.

Us here at DT HQ love the ability to open the same page every day and see something new, something unique, something consistently fascinating, and we love all 19 (19!) of you others for that.

And to the reader dude from Cleveland--rock on. Go visit the Hall of Fame for us.

We're doing great, team; keep up the inspirational blither.

"Consistency is the Hobgoblin of little minds" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thank you for your continued support of Dessert Tickets, 

Love to All God's Chilluns, 

ICGYABL and Bernice.

Oread

Poetry is, essentially, a vehicle for translating meaning, elusive or otherwise, in often-unconventional ways. Poetically speaking, this transfer of information is meant to be slippery. We are rarely, if ever, met with direct “truth” (be it lofty, whimsy, or menial) in poetry. More often than not, poetry embodies a sense of trickery, and innumerous times we are left scratching our heads, without a clue (just look at what’s up Wallace Stevens’ sleeve). But even when we’re left a puzzle, whose exclusion of necessary pieces was intentional -- even then there’s meaning to be found, be it simply the Platonic theory of “I know that I know nothing,” (amidst confusion, why, this is always the prevailing truth).

For me, the beauty of poetry is in the struggle. When played right, it becomes a game to pin down meaning, and what’s really fun is that there’s never a fundamentally wrong or right answers; all interpretations go!

Modernist poetry, in this sense, is sort of like the Wii of the Nintendo generation – both are far more physically orientated, playful, unconventional in relation to predecessors and eye grabbing by nature. What emerged in the 20th century, under the appearance of the Imagists, was a reactionary new forum of Modernist poets that revolted against traditional emphasis on formalism and ornate diction. The outcome was poetic freedom: to iterate meaning without the constraints of regulated meter, the verse, and like inhibitions. While this expulsion of “form” may have taken away some the fun of creating within a box, it did enable a regeneration of poetic exploration and, with it, befuddlement.

One literary convention that I find particularly interesting, which is neither strictly akin to the Modernists nor otherwise, is anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is fun. Talking parrots aside, entertainment is easily derived from the portrait of a smoking feline, or witty ferret or existentialist owl. As such, the hybridization of humans and animals is usual central to children’s literature and poetry, with such pieces as “The Wind in the Willow, ” or Beatrix Potter’s series of anthropomorphized stories, most notably “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.”

Arguably, this is because anthropomorphism allows for a sense of escapism. Animals are separate from our own rational species: we speak different languages, have different priorities between reason and instinct, and, generally speaking, aren’t as cute and cuddly. These barriers, most importantly being language and reason, are the dividing crux between animals and ourselves. So, when we see an animal parodying human attributes, its sheer impossibility ignites a sense of fantasy and, thus, the necessity for suspension of disbelief.

This willing suspension of disbelief is an important trope. And not just for children, whose desire to foster imagination makes such thinking easy, if not natural. No - it’s far more important for us. Adults are usually disenchanted by fantasy, because they believe that their elevated understanding of the world places them above such whimsy, and those who derive pleasure from fantasy are, in some way, deemed to have immature tastes. However, it may be argued that it is more our inability to suspend our belief, than our conscious retreat from it, which denies us the pleasure of fantasy. So imbedded in the straightjacket of rationality, it might be that seeing “make-believe” is no longer in our grasp. Willingness to separate oneself from reality allows for creative thought and a metaphysical extension of understanding. Not only is this important for interpreting poetry, but for interpenetrating unconventional meaning as a whole.

Which brings me to the question: what happens when we put talking animals and the like in adult literature, or serious poetry?

Unquestionably, the use of animals with human agency grants access to a world separate from our own. This world is not simply unique, either, by its otherness from people, but from by its entirely new layer of existence. Their world is an extension of ours, since their language, social constructs, and communities mimic ours, however the obvious differences force us to view their world to be intrinsically separate. This separation disassociates their world from ours and, as such, allows us to view it with a subjective eye, as we are not criticizing from underneath the microscope. Too; humans, whether children or adults, respond differently to an animal character than they would a human character. Because we see animals as simple and instinctual, animal characters are deemed as safer and, thus, we impart more trust into animals. This trust, and, with it, suspension of disbelieve, denies us of the hostility that we may react with, if met with a more recognizably unconventional situation. Instead, we are more inclined to believe.

One may view Marianne Moore, editor of Poetry, as the embodiment of animal poetics.

The Pangolin

“Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast
each with a splendor
which man in all his vileness cannot
set aside; each with an excellence!
"Fearful yet to be feared," the armored
ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but
engulfs what he can, the flattered sword-
edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and
body-plates
quivering violently when it retaliates
and swarms on him.”

However, Moore does not extend the fantastic beyond the Pangolin’s understanding of reasoning and language, and uses this trope for commentary on animals specifically, as opposed to an extension or caricature of humanity. Her purpose is driven to aid the animal itself; she allows for poetry to act as a manifestation for whatever voice she believes the Pangolin to have, so that he may be heard and respected. While her use of anthropomorphism may be ethically commendable, it still conforms to the adult denial of fantasy, which is so readily evident in children’s stories.

For me, T.S. Eliot comes closest to the fantastical in animal hybridization, with “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,” a selection of poems with a propensity towards feline psychology and sociology. Funnily enough, it was the precursor to another capricious spectacle of felines: Cats. “Possum” reads much like Dr. Seus; feigning silliness over somewhat truer undertones:

"The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse.
Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat -
And there isn't any call for me to shout it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!"

But, this leads me back to the question: do we take this seriously? Is anthropomorphized literature really such a poetic anomaly that we cannot truly associate ourselves with it, without in some way undermining it?

I hope that Cats doesn't act as an agent of answer. As, in that case, I would have to say, undeniably, no.

If I Only Had a Heart

The following is at least possibly an unabashedly Conservative version of an intellectual history I have very little right to tell!

CHURCHILL, DISRAELI, OR TWAIN famously might have quipped that anyone who is not a liberal at the age of 20 has no heart and anyone still a liberal by 40 has no brain. I've always wondered why this should be the case, since it seems to me that a person ought to be as likely to become disenchanted with the crassness of individualism as with the insidiousness of the nanny-state as he gets older. It's my intention with this post to clarify the histories and essences of both Left and Right, because I want to remind everyone that if your "Left-Right" spectrum isn't more than a few decades old, you're missing part of the picture. And it's cool.

The Left-Right division in politics traces back to the French Revolution, when members of the French Legislative Assembly sat on the right if "reactionaries" and on the left if "radicals". (Even then, the criteria for Rightness and Leftness were extremely fluid. Those who supported a very limited monarchy in the British style were considered Left before 1791 and unconscionably Right--reactionary--afterwards.) From the beginning, then, Left has always meant progressive reform and Right has meant gradualism and respect for tradition; that much, at least, remains true today. So when Democrats are for change and Republicans aren't, you can't blame either one of them. It's built into the ideology.

In 1791, though, the leftists tended to support laissez-faire capitalism (since it meant less control by the nobility and crown and more freedom for the common man), and the Right preferred to keep allocative control with the crown; from the political side, the Left stood for equality in the form of inalienable rights while the Right defended clerical and aristocratic privilege. Since Enlightenment philosophers like Locke and Montesquieu--along with early ("Classical") economists like Smith, Ricardo, and Say--also advanced theories of individual liberty, they called themselves Liberals. And standing against privilege, Divine Right, protectionism, and arbitrary oppression by government, these liberals fell squarely among the eighteenth-century Left. But in the 1800s, thinkers like Marx and Engels developed a radical interpretation of the notions of equality advanced by the liberal Left that was characterized by total equal distribution of wealth, equal sharing of allocation decisions--the abolition not only of feudal privilege but all property rights. Suddenly the followers of the old Left, who did support the individual's freedom to do business and pursue his own happiness, became the Right. This is why I've been using "Left" instead of "liberal", in spite of the quotation I started with: liberalism started Left, then it became Right, and in many cases it's now Left again. Libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism are the ideal types for this new economic Right--just as perfect communism is the ideal type for the economic Left. Much of modern Leftism has embraced anti-Globalization or anti-free-trade views, on the grounds that trade facilitates the exploitation of the world's poor, in spite of the fact that the Classical liberal economic theories of Smith and especially Ricardo held that trade holds mutual benefit for all parties. Thus we can talk about liberal markets that are representative of the economics and philosophies of the Classical Left but are now more directly associated with the modern Right--small government, high levels of individual freedom and control of one's own economic decisions, and as little regulation on business as is feasible. The modern Left, meanwhile, stands for progressive tax-and-transfer policy, more class-specific legislative attempts for create “fairness”, and more regulation on business interests and government intervention in markets. In other words, the economic goals associated with Left and Right have made a complete one-eighty since 1791.

To make matters worse, the social implications and goals of the Left and Right have flipped since then too: the Right has reconnected with its traditionalism and clericalism, which means that it still occasionally objects to (new Left-) liberal ideas like gay marriage that probably fall within the boundaries of the older-Right-original-Left ideals of individual liberty (eschewing them for the "community liberty" side that represents, in this case, religious freedoms). Meanwhile, the Left's post-Marx, post-Keynes orientation calls for more and more government control not just over capital but also over individuals' positive liberties in order to secure negative liberties for the community. This is the source of gun control, for example. I doubt very much that Robespierre would have thought very highly of government gun control--but I think Burke might have appreciated it!

Let's review: the new Left is the old Right, although it is also the old Left (though not the aspects which became the old new Right), and the new Right is the old Left, except where it is the old Right. Clear as mud. For now, Left is for progressive tax (where tax rates vary with ability-to-pay), Keynesian economic principles (government consumption is a major component of income, because spending is high), and higher levels of market interventions (subsidies, rent ceilings, regulations); in other words, it tends to sympathize with the consumer and the employee, where Right tends to sympathize with the producer and the employer.

So it seems to me that young people, who tend not to own businesses or pay very much tax, can more easily get excited about redistribution of wealth, punishment of the big corporation, and so on--and as people get older, they get more and more likely to rub up against Leftist regulation in their business lives, paying more taxes, supporting social programs they don't agree with.

Thus the quip should be revised: anyone not a liberal at 20 owns a business and anyone not a conservative at 40 is probably in a union!

A dessert is a type of food that is eaten after lunch or dinner. It is usually a sweet food, like ice cream, cookies, and cakes.

I joyfully invite all of you to join me in the enjoyment of Wikipedia's "simple English" capabilities.

It's quite simple really. We all know that Wikipedia is offered in all sorts of languages beyond english, and most of us don't care (english has the most articles anyway)
but as i perused the front page, carefully inspecting all aspects of the website in case I hadn't overlooked anything fun (how many of you know about the picture of the day? .... the random article generator?) i noticed that one of the languages offered was simple english.
This intrigued me.
i didn't know there was another english?
I thought i was fluent in english.
Turns out that simple english only uses basic words, to define mundane objects and express complex concepts (try searching zero, or utilitarianism) with the needs of those new to the language, or the mentally disabled in mind.
It's actually quite fun.
try and stump it...find the loopholes of over simplification (i guarantee you won't), its also quite a relief to read up on famous battles or your favourite historical figures, without the nuisances of overly formal written english.

so enjoy, community

Because I'd Rather Be A Bacontrepreneur Than A Jewish Historian

Yoachanan Ben Zakkai, Yoachanan Ben Zakkai
I want to write about you-i cant, but Why?
There is so much else that i can learn about
Primarily foods that can give you gout
O Internet, you distract as much as you inform,
Gone from a luxury to a cruel social norm
Your Supplies of pages will never run dry,
Like Hamlet did, i just want to say Fie!
But as hard as i can possibly try,
my love for you will never die.
Yoachanan Ben Zakkai, I ask Why oh Why?
Why cant you compare with Bacon Apple Pie?

The Detrimental Power of Fame

Girl Talk (the guy with the laptop) in Concert:

Girl Talk (the guy standing) when I saw him on Thursday:

I really hope that wasn't Girl Talk and instead a homeless doppelganger. This guy in the stands totally could have been Girl Talk (person in strange headed suit):

He was part of the entourage (he held a leafblower):

Animal Crackers stole most of these photos from her friend, a very dear, unsuspecting friend.

The Mandate

I want to officially remind myself, and everyone else who may have forgotten, that Dessert Tickets is not FOR anything except conversation. It was founded on a principle of nondiscrimination and thrives on that same principle: no post is any more or less worthwhile than any other. The less we try to control the blog, the more comfortable everyone will be to post and comment on whatever strikes their fancy, and the better the ideas--the experience--will be. No post is too long, too risqué, too out there, too smart, too dumb, too much about bacon. To paraphrase Dostoevsky: If skullfucking is okay, then everything is permitted. If the cost of that freedom is having to scroll down a little farther to see if my new opus has any comments, then so be it. Let none of us harbour any resentments about the direction of the blog--it is directionless, except in a very loose, anarcho-syndicalist kind of way.

To Dessert Tickets, now and always.

A Guide to Bacontreperneurialship

For my birthday last year Mr. Sir and Michelle Obama Has a Rabbi in the Family made me the proud recipient of this:

I would love to have someone to share the kitchen with in making something (if only to have someone else touch the raw bacon...and share the love of course).

AnimalCrackers was also given bacon for Christmas by her Secret Santa...she made it that night.

Everything but the Oink!

Try undoing this baby.

Also, those of you who resided in Toronto this summer, does anyone remember this glorious moment?

Management 450: Bacontrepreneurship

In our new series of bacontrepreneurship, I present to you a masterpiece of ideas

To paraphrase Mr. Skylight,

"Nobody should ever be allowed to drink anything else again"

Enjoy.

I'm to preach, mafuckas.

Baconentrepreneurs

Well, look.

If that's how it's going to be, that's how it's going to be.

Eat.

Your.

Heart.

Out.

Seriously, you will probably die of a heart attack if you attempt any of these.

Housekeeping II

Alright team, it seems as if we've developed a pattern here with themes of certain posts.

So, i'm officially creating a new regular (albeit unscheduled, of course) segment here on the good old DT.
It's called, in honor of Paul Who Is A Ghost's first post on the theme, Bacontrepreneurs.
Everytime something interesting involves bacon in some way, we post it, and put "bacontrepreneurs" in the label, or title, or preferably both.
Kapeesh?
Good.

I'll put another one up later in the day
Thank you for your continued support of dessert tickets.

The College Problem

A brick-and-mortar campus is increasingly obsolete. The physical infrastructure of the college used to make sense for three reasons. First, a good library was essential to higher learning, and only a college faculty and student body provided the economies of scale that made good libraries affordable. Second, scholarship flourishes through colleagueships, and the college campus made it possible to put scholars in physical proximity to each other. Third, the best teaching requires interaction between teachers and students, and physical proximity was the only way to get it. All three rationales for the brick-and-mortar campus are fading fast.

--Charles Murray, "Are Too Many People Going to College?", The American Enterprise Institute

It struck me on a pitch-dark snowy afternoon last year that the university system is badly broken. For a long time I've been meaning to write a post about it, but it's frankly too scary to ponder. Thankfully Charles Murray hits most of the points I'd thought of, and some I hadn't, in the article I quoted above. Please have a look, unless you're on the verge of a wintry-midtermy existential crisis already, in which case you should go have a hot bath and not read any more. But the problems he identifies are practical; mine are spiritual. And if there are are spiritual problems with university, we should make ourselves wary--for college is not only our jobs; it is our lives.

Since 1958, US college enrolment has increased more than fourfold--by nearly ten million--and outstripped population growth during the same period two and a half to one. In 1958, about eight percent of Americans over 25 had completed four or more years of college (and only ten percent of white males, before you ask) Today it's more like 30. And in the wealthy, urban, white or Asian corners of society, going to university after high school has become the rule. Those who have the grades but aren't funnelled into the higher-education system are--well, kind of bohemian. For practical reasons, as Murray shows, these numbers constitute downward pressure on the quality and the value of a university education: though it's contentious to say so, higher education is an inherently undemocratic game and works best when people think of it that way. But I want to consider a more personal consequence of the normalization of the university track: the increasing number of students who find ourselves in university without the faintest idea what we think we're doing here.

Now, there are surely some of us who choose university deliberately, deciding as rational consumers (or self-actualizing free humans, if your terminological inclinations run that way) that we need four years of training for some task or another--as preparation for more academic specialization; or in order to accommodate employers who acquired the leverage decades ago to demand that job applicants train themselves; or to network for business; or to revel in the boundlessness of independence; or to indulge a love of knowledge. Even the student who makes his peace with goal-lessness is, for all intents and purposes, embracing the goal of exploration. For this deliberate student, a goal is always in mind or at least close at hand. And so although his day-to-day may be taxing or exasperating, he will never be forced to ask--"Why?". The answer, unwavering, is his goal; and if his goal is shaken, then he must change his education or he loses his claim to deliberateness. For him, a professor is a resource which he has made deliberate sacrifices to access; not a babysitter, an arbitrary taskmaster, or a vexatious guardian of an elusive degree. A class is either a transfer of desired information or at least a necessary evil, maybe boring but never pointless.

The active student wanders through a rich orchard, reaching to grasp the fruit of knowledge; but the passive student imagines himself as a jar on an assembly belt, waiting to be filled, labelled, and shipped out to bigger and better things. For those with goals close at hand, the orchard is deep and winding and wonderful. For though the most luscious fruit grows on tall trees that resist the climb and deep in the dark hearts of winding vines, every hard-fought jewel of knowledge is a triumph and another precious step toward the goal. But for the rest of us the story is quite different.

The societal normalization of college means that in many circles, postsecondary education is not a path--it is the path, barring intellectual, financial, or familial impossibility. Increasingly, amazingly, it is those who have plans--to travel, to study a trade, to start work--who spurn university and those without plans who end up here. That means hordes of students, pressured by their families or peers to take the college route without specific goals in mind, wander in and--drift. Without a conception of their experience as a deliberate quest for training or knowledge, we drifting students inevitably find ourselves swept up in the mindless grind of readings, lectures, exams, all with no real purpose; and in the vacuum another conception forms: the student, instead of an active seeker of education, begins to think of himself as a passive vessel into which education is placed. He sees education as something done to him; his responsibility is only to show up, not too hung-over, and the rest is the responsibility of the institution. After all, that's what he's paying for! In the absence of any reason to subject himself to this other than the willful self-deception that "a job", a mythic talisman capable of bestowing maturity and meaning even to a person in whom both drives have atrophied, lies waiting to be amazed by the degree program he managed not to fail out of, the only reasonable course is to have as much fun as possible--while he can. The duration of the average bachelor's degree is thus transformed from a means to an end into a means to avoiding an end: it constitutes an absurdly costly pause button, a replacement for the time in the army or the workforce that has become the object of societal disdain. And as if the fact that this attitude guarantees his inability to actually learn anything except by accident wasn't bad enough, in the absence of purpose or ambition, he is left pink and defenceless against the question the arbitrariness, meanness, and difficulty of university life demands of each of us: "Why?"

To make matters worse, most of these accidental scholars opt to study as broadly, cursorily, and noncommittally as they can, spilling into the aisles in lectures on things which should, by rights, only be of interest to a proud and peculiar few: political science, anthropology, Greek mythology. (This point may or may not apply in the sciences; I don't know. But at McGill the arts faculty is twice the size of the next largest one, and I believe drifters are the reason.) The idea that a B. A. can "teach you to think critically" may be true but more likely it is a cooperative, consensual delusion whereby faculty, corporate HR staff, and students can justify an untenable and irresponsible misuse of resources and lives--either way, the average accidental B. A. student will find he never learns to do anything that might enable him to create, to contribute, to support himself--in other words, to work. I believe there is dignity in work, not just waking up early and the joy of getting paid; and the ability to work is a critical component of self-actualization and of being human.

So he drifts.

This drift is the abysmal failure of higher education in our time. Our society's understanding of higher education, and its relationship thereto, is hopelessly muddled, and its result is nothing any less than tens of thousands of disaffected, alienated, half-formed men and women with degrees and nothing else but a strong sense of entitlement and a faint resentment for institutional education and intellectualism. Lacking in productive skills, hopelessly entitled, habituated to think of themselves as passengers in their lives, and clutching a diploma which lacks the job-commanding power they expected, this kind of graduate finds himself at a loss.

Many will opt for graduate school, and it, too, absurdly, is beginning to undergo normalization; they gamble years of their lives on the hunch that in the tradition of grade school, high school, and their undergraduate studies, some unseen institutional hand is guiding them toward productivity, wealth, satisfaction, true knowledge. And this should not be a surprise. We are trained from early childhood to expect this system. But there is of course a crucial difference between public and higher education! Public schooling is mandated--and paid for--by governments. It is controlled by an unseen institutional hand! It is designed to guide us! And though it requires at least some hard work, it is meant to be done to us. But in universities, only the market decides the curricula. No one is responsible in, or concerned by, our education except us. Before graduating from high school, the school is part of a machine that intends to teach us in order to achieve certain social goals--but university is not part of that machine, and it has divested itself of the responsibility to form us. Because in public school we are children: in university we are consumers.

But at some point, we must accept responsibility for our lives. That the mechanism that has created this problem is societal is not to say that the solution is not personal. On the contrary: the recognition of ourselves as the sole beneficiaries of, and stakeholders in, our education is the only solution. Instead of imagining that education will happen whether we like it or not, we should acknowledge the truth: it is the easiest thing in the world to graduate without learning a thing. If you don't want to learn, or if you wait to be forced to do so, you will find it easy. It's not hard even to get As without truly learning--provided you ensure you don't ever analyze and interpret the class material in the context of your own beliefs and the rest of your knowledge. But it is foolish.

To get anything at all out of our so-called education, we drifters must endeavour to see this time in our lives as much too fast, classes much too simplistic, and degrees offered much too easily. We should work harder than we need to, read more than we are required to, and above all think more than we are asked to, in order to catch even the most fleeting glances of real knowledge as we barrel through this stillborn system like a passengers on an express train ploughing through a wonderful museum. We must seize this opportunity by the throat, instead of waiting to be handed something to care about. If we want to get anything out of this life at all, we need to do away with the rotten, insidious idea that life begins after graduation.

Frankly--it's about time we grew up.

The Jealous Type?

If trees can only hold hands beneath the earth
would they not long
to flaunt their love
at the sun?

Jetman Challenge?

I'm feeling better.



I couldn't beat the known high score, but I did just spend the best time of my (and my roommates') pre-dinner life getting this:

Just Couldn't Make the Jump

If someone tells you I was crying...they're totally lying.

I just may have died inside.

Doing you a (Dis)Service

Having sent this to I Can't Give You Anything but Love last night, I feel like it would suit you all to waste as much time he (and his roomates -- Paul I'm looking at you) and I did on playing this. Because if he fails his midterm, it was definitely because he spent all his time learning QWOP and fighting ninjas 

So good....

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

and:

http://www.foddy.net/Ninjas.html

The highest I got was 57. What can you do?

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

fiverforthelips kissed a girl. and he liked it.

WhatWouldYouDo if Your Son was at Home Crying All Alone on the Bedroom Floor Cuz He's Hungry and the Only Way to Feed Him is to Get a Machine that Duz

It's happening again.

Last week I awoke to the sound of roaring machines at the lovely time of 6 AM. I should be (and would love to be) awoken to be the sickly sweet sound of chirping birds at this time (but we live in front of an alley, so if anything it'd be the cooing of pigeons, and pigeons are disease ridden). Instead I am awoken by what I think is a giant robot coming to tackle down the building.

Yesterday was worse. I spent most of the day alternating between watching and listening to the men working construction, respectively.

At around 6 PM, the flashing lights began.

8 PM The flashing lights continued.

10 PM More flashing lights.

12 AM Flashing lights and the sound of that damn machine.

3 AM Flashing lights, the machine, and I started hearing voices.

10 AM I awoke to more voices, the ostentatious machine, but no flashing lights.

12 PM I noticed a giant crane...more voices and the clanging machine.

2 PM I study in my room to the sound of foreign voices and a machine still full of steam.

3 PM I escape the house, and the general vicinity.

10 PM I return to a house filled with only the sounds of giggling roommates.

11 45 PM I think I hear the sound, look out my window and see an empty space.

12 AM I miss the sound...the machine is gone...so is the crane. I'd like to think the machine frightened the workers enough to never return and then left on it's merry way, free to roam Montreal, free to be, free to stand on it's own accord.

12 30 AM I hear the roaring noise (no voices), but all there is is a puddle like shape. I may have that syndrome some people have in which they think they hear bells ring.

12 38 AM Good luck my sweet machine friend; you accompanied me into slumber, may I always accompany you and your tin heart to liberty.

Animal Crakers also has an interesting story about a girl named Pigeon girl; she chills by Redpath.

Home

One of the fundamental instincts for scientists is to categorize and to define. It makes things easier to put in boxes, and therefore easier to understand. We find similarities in color, shape, size, sex, behavior, origin, sexual orientation, belief and pretty much anything else we can use to arbitrarily define people, and it makes the world a lot simpler for us. This is what makes it so important to have an identity, because defining yourself is the way that you judge everybody else - and defining yourself means that you are one step closer to understanding yourself.

I think like a scientist. I want to define myself, and to do that I have to solidify an identity. For me, a very important part of identity is the place you call home. I can't decide whether it's only important because it's the one thing that for me has been impossible to find. It's true that identities are impermanent, and that things change, and people change, but I feel like for most people, a tangible home exists. A place that is familiar, comfortable and reassuring - and mostly it's the place they grew up.

In high school, I met people that hadn't lived in the same country for more than two years, people with four different passports, people that had grown up in Dubai: the city that nobody calls home. These people named themselves "global nomads" or "citizens of the world". However, I was never comfortable giving myself that name. Because I had obviously lived in Pakistan for 13 years, it was where I grew up. It was supposed to be my home and for a long time it had been my home. For all intents and purposes, it was my home every minute of every day that I was in Dubai. The only problem was that when I was in Pakistan, the place that I so desperately missed, all I wanted to do was go home. It confused me and it made me very uneasy. For some reason, having a tangible place to call home was and is very important to me. I constantly thought I was going home, but I could never quite get there. Andrew Largeman from Garden State put it so perfectly with the quote "It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist." I just wish I had said it first. For me it has become an active struggle to find a place that I can call home, and if I do nothing else, I will make that place for myself somewhere.

-Mer

Is this a poem?

My Grandfather's refrigerator just broke.
In case he forgets
I thought I'd post a reminder here.

Losing My Religion

I come from a place where everything is the same. Everybody follows the same religion, everybody is the same color, everybody speaks the same two languages, and everybody celebrates and mourns the same things. When I moved away, I was exposed to everything else there was, and for the first year I was insatiable. I wanted to know everything about everybody, but most of all I wanted to know about their religion. I think at that point in time I associated with Islam enough to call myself a Muslim, and I found it fascinating to be surrounded by Christians and Hindus and Buddhists and Sikhs. But the more I asked people about their religions, the more I realized that nobody knew. And that's when I realized that if somebody asked me about the religion I claimed to follow, I would have nothing to say. I could tell you stories about what school boys do during Ramadan, and I could tell you that all the men in the family go to pray at the mosque early morning on Eid, and I could tell you that the head male of the household is supposed to slaughter the goat on Eid-ul-Adha - but I knew nothing about the religion. I couldn't tell you why anybody did those things. For me, my religion was my culture. It was not something I thought about, or learned about. I read the Quran - in Arabic. Didn't learn anything. 2 years I spent reading all 30 of those books, and I couldn't tell you anything about what it said. And for some people that's enough. Associating with a religion and having it to fall back on is all they need. But I couldn't do that, and I found it very hard to hold onto religion once I understood that.

I don't know if this would've happened if I hadn't left. Where I come from, instead of being peer pressured into drinking and smoking, you get peer pressured into praying. I remember I went to one of my friend's house when I was in the 7th grade and she got up to pray, and I actually prayed too because I felt bad just sitting around. I didn't want her to think that I didn't pray, because I wanted to be one of them. I don't think I ever completely got it. I would always try to get out of reading the Quran, but I think that might be because I couldn't understand anything and just reading a bunch of pages I didn't understand didn't really interest the 10-year-old me. The one thing that really stands out now is that whenever I was told to pray (during Ramadan or whenever my mom decided that she was going to be religious for a few days) I would try to get out of it. And the reason I did that was because I didn't completely believe in God or Islam, and if God in fact did exist, he'd be pretty insulted by me just going through the motions. Mom insisted that you start out by going through the motions, and belief comes after, but I could never quite get comfortable with that idea. I always thought that if God existed, he'd want you to believe in him before you started praying to him. And to this day, I haven't found a reason to believe in God, and so I don't.

Once I lost the religion, it became very difficult for me to connect with other Pakistanis. I felt like an outsider, and that I had lost the common ground that once linked me to my entire country. It’s the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It was made so the Muslims could have their own country. The Pakistani flag is green to represent the Muslims. And I had lost that one thing that was the reason my country existed in the first place. Damn.

Heart-Shaped Bed

paul who is a ghost says:
spend all your time pretending that you go to work, hate your job, and then come home and fail to get laid despite your best efforts

paul who is a ghost says:
you even bought the heart shaped bed

paul who is a ghost says:
which worked for a bit

paul who is a ghost says:
but no longer

paul who is a ghost says:
now there are dishes everywhere

paul who is a ghost says:
you're unemployed

paul who is a ghost says:
I sucked at The Sims.

A Practice for the Presentation I am giving in 26 minutes

Leroi Jones once said:
" I am a Man
Who is Loud
On the Birth
Of His Ways."
There is and application in this - not in Jones necessarily, as what I understand to be the birth of his ways is a lot of drugs, luxurious lunches, and masturbating while reading romantic poetry (not that there's anything wrong with any of that. kinda).
However ostensibly filthy his methods seem, it is his worship of his own experience which is fascinating.
But I find throughout the infancy of my education in literature that this is the essence of creative writing.
Is it fair to say that authors and poets have more worship for their own animus than everyone else? probably not, but it's still true, whether even the writer in question knows it. Jones obviously does, but that's besides the point.

Take a look at this, something I peeped on Deadspin this morning. Yes it's about sports, but it still helps my argument.

How will that runner remember this race? Coming to a foreign country and excelling on the pinnacle of international sport against all odds, or expectations, or actual written rules?

Or will he remember it as the day he performed at an elite level and received absolutely nothing due to his own mistake. But then again, does he really need a medal and his name written in the right book?
How would he do that if he was Leroi Jones? and what if it was what led him to be a writer? To what level would his prose or poetry be about disappointment or perhaps a daddy issue that led him to be a long distance runner? Or even about Success and personal fulfillment? What would Jones, Ginsberg, Lowell, or even Ashberry think of this?

What do YOU, English 323 Class, think of this?

Thank you for your continued support of Dessert Tickets.

Housekeeping

A few days ago Animal Crackers tearfully told us the story of how she nursed a baby post with a broken wing to health over many weeks and then, when she was finally ready to set it free and hit "publish", it did not fly away but simply disappeared.....

Anyway, I found it. The problem, AC, is that when you publish a draft, the Blogger software keeps the date on which you started the draft and uses that as the publish date. Which means it can be several pages of posts back. I think the workaround, at least until they fix the problem, is to copy-paste into a new post when you're finished a draft, so that it appears brand spanking new at the top of the front page where it belongs. This applies to everyone, so watch out!

(Now go read AC's post!)

Love to all God's chilluns,
icgyabl

The Nature of The Pick Up

It's Wednesday night and I'm riding my bike downtown to meet a friend for 60s night at Strangelove. (Turns out she doesn't have ID so it's a moot point for the night, but we find minimal techno, beer and wings and it's all good.)

I'm waiting by a stoplight on my bike to get to where I need to be when a car pulls up. It doesn't quite register, but I turn my head and finally realize that I'm being talked at. Car window rolls down, and I don't particularly catch what's being said -- but I know something's up. The driver is looking at me. She winks suggestively.

Whoa! Here I am, minding my own business and riding my bike and in my own headspace, and I'm being hit on.

She's a cutie. I don't blame her; I'm dressed to the nines......(Trilby, black skinny jacket, white shirt, silver and black checked tie, black drainpipes, pocket square.) cos that's just how I roll.
But never before have I ever been hit on while riding a bike from inside a car at a stoplight. And as a person who studies and practices this kind of stuff (surprise!) I'm really impressed at the audacity and ballsy-ness of the attempt because honestly, even I haven't tried anything that ridiculous before.

So I grin at her and wave back. Is this really happening? It is. But the light is changing.

There's a cry of irritation from the back seat. "Come on! Lets go!" A female voice cries. And it's something that catches me totally off guard. So I hesitate, somewhat confused. Then I grin apologetically. Time to go.

The nature of this particular beast is almost always that the masculine is the initiating party and the feminine is the receiving -- so I'm pretty impressed when it happens, really. Role reversal is always fun albeit slightly disorienting at times. I definitely asked myself, "Did that just happen?"

My critique: She should have been louder initally, more direct in her approach in order to cut through the strangeness of the situation. Her intentions while later on were clearer, should have been apparent from the start. That would have helped.

But kudos for making the move. It's a lesson to be learned and I'll be ready next time. Just like now when the drummer's sister gets her friend to introduce her, I know what to do.

I know it!

-------------------
fiverforthelips prefers drum and bass and will probably be more candid about his adventures in the future.

Men at Work: Down Under

And men, you thought inadequacy was a just middle aged plight.

Studs of the Animal World: An August conference presentation by a University of Central Florida researcher touted the frolicking, profligate mating of male South African squirrels, enhanced, the researcher hypothesized, by the fact that "they're hung." The typical proportional equivalency for human male genitals, she said, would be 13 inches. [New Scientist, 8-15-08]


Indiana University researchers reported in September that male Australian dung beetles differ from U.S. dung beetles in that evolutionary diversion of nutrients has given the Australians small horns but large penises and the Americans the opposite. Thus, noted the researchers, big-horned American males tend to fight each other for females, while Australians rely more on sneakiness. [New Scientist, 9-6-08]

The next time you lose a girl to a cute guy with an accent, just remember boys, there's a dung beetle who has too.

One Art by Hammy

A failed presentation

The young woman walked up to the front of the class. Her palms sweaty, her eyes twitching she knew that failure was iminent. But she had passed the failsafe point and could not turn back. There was only one option: go down in flames with dignity. Or so she thought...
“Just picture them all in their underwear” is what they told her. She tried... to no avail. Her mind was frozen. The stress of presenting a poetic analysis worth almost five percent of her overall grade was just too much. Not to mention what it would mean to disappoint the esteemed Old English scholar; her mentor and best friend: Dorothy Bray.

“Well H.M.? Are you ready to begin?”Bray inquired coldly from her perch in the back of the classroom.

“Uh...Uhh... I...um”

“H.M., are you trying to tell me that you did not sufficiently prepare for your presentation?”

The echoes of laughter that sprung from her peers and rang throughout Arts West were too much. She collapse on her knees, head in her hands; the Norton Anthology of Poetry she had been holding now sopping wet from her tears. The end was nigh.

“Hammy Hammy Hammy” jeered the class.

H.M. tried to start her presentation but the mascara she had put on that morning to impress Dorothy Bray now covered the words of the poem.

“Uh The wart of lovthing is net hurd to..”

The class went dead silent. They had all suffered cardiac infarctions. They had laughed themselves to death.

Epilogue

H.M. never finished her recitation. She was charged with the second degree murder of 23 students and one professor. Sentenced to life in the Kingston Penitentiary, H.M. is not eligible for parole.

Happy November, Everyone

Thanks for a prolific month, friends. See you in November.