Freestyle Blogging

More car anecdotes

2008-01-31T20:55:00.001-08:00

We here at freestyle blogging are dedicated to bringing only the finest, ripest, and most ridiculous stories of Robert John Falconer's life. Indeed, the challenge is not in the finding, it's in the sifting, as there are just so many ridiculous occurrences to choose from.

Today, for instance, I was driving along in my car as I sometimes do. Like in my previous story, it is very significant to this event that it was snowing. Scene:

The visibility is poor. The snow is less to blame than my completely ineffective windshield wipers, whose utter failure at wiping and propensity towards loud squeaking present a windshield wiping sin so foul that it would no doubt receive the death penalty if tried by a jury of it's peers.

It is late morning, and I am rushing to drop something off at a friend's house. Of the last twenty-four hours, I spent eight of them studying for a test that I am taking right after dropping this off. I also got about six hours sleep in the process. As a result, i'm more than a little crazy-eyed.

With visibility as it is, I see the street i'm looking for just a fraction delayed, and, without thinking, enter the turn. Ordinarily this would be about as remarkable as the autonomic process of blinking (which is to say, not very) as I am going all twenty-five miles an hour. Except, at this point, we should all recall with a gasp that it is, and has been, snowing.

My car (never being the type of automobile that dabbles in critical thought) obliges with my command and swings itself into the turn. Then, it keeps swinging. I end up completely sideways with my back tires up on the curb. Remarkably, I have hit nothing, and so I calmly turn and drive off.

Now, this street I just turned off of was a major thoroughfare, and I know that multiple people just saw me spin my car a complete ninety degrees. Just down the street is my friend's house, and so it is only a matter of some feet before I park. As I am getting ready to get out, I see out of the corner of my eyes a van pull up.

The driver waits until our eyes meet. He is an older gentlemen. I can see the dignified crinkles outlining his world-weary eyes. Once eye contact has been firmly established, he shakes his head back and forth. Crisply. A total of four times, all while mouthing the word "no" in the strongest tones of disapproval i've ever seen anyone mouth anything. Shoot, I didn't even know a tone could be mouthed.

I then proceed to die of laughter, content that the event had been stamped, sealed, and perfectly concluded.

Today I Dragged A Traffic Cone for Miles

2008-01-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

No, seriously.

In front of our apartment, where we all park, there was a mysterious traffic cone. It blocked approximately 1/2 of a parking space, was the only traffic cone within sight, and had no apparent function.

Now, after a few days of this, I just accepted it's presence. Like a suddenly grown third arm, it's existence was strange for only a time before I started bringing scissors with me to cut a third hole before trying on clothes. Interestingly, it also seemed like no one wanted to remove it, despite the fact that it took up valuable parking space. It looked like an official sort of cone. What if it was there for a reason??

Enter the present, this morning, with twenty degree weather and four fresh inches of snow on the ground. I sigh upon seeing this, as the crucial five minutes required to wipe off the snow on my car will ruin my carefully timed departure. Knowing this, I wipe only the front and back window and take off like a giant, motorized snowball, determined to keep to my schedule. I have the route from my apartment to school mapped so precisely, it's nothing short of scientific, and I hate to have my fine instrumentation ruined by unexpected variables.

All this is quite important to note, as it explains what happens next. Driving along the familiar roads, I notice a scraping noise that intermittently sounds from beneath my car. For the first few minutes, I figure it is just some residual ice breaking off from the bottom. After a while, I start to get suspicious. I notice people reacting somewhat strangely as I pass them. And the noise isn't stopping as it should if it were just ice.

Finally, just as I am thinking I should stop and see what in the world is going on down there, a car pulls alongside me. At first, I am annoyed, because I am trying to change lanes in order to pull over and he is blocking me. Eventually I look at the driver, and see that the man is gesturing to the undercarriage of my car and saying something. I give him the "yeah, i'm on it" expression, and we arrive at a stop light. He pulls alongside me, rolls down his window, and, in a near impenetrable accent, says something like "You have a crone under your car! A crone!"

I have an old, cranky lady under my car?? No, clearly not. Let me pull over and end this silly affair once and for all! Wait a minute. Is that...the cone from outside our apartment?? Oh my. I DID park behind it last night and, when the snow fall obscured it, I simply drove forward over it. I then proceeded to drive with it trapped beneath my car (kind of remarkable, really) for over a mile.

It is still there on Howard street, at the corner of McCormic Blvd. I saw it on the way back, and felt a twang of guilt/pity.

Also, I felt a certain satisfaction. Too many cones without purpose get away with their crimes. This one didn't. This one experienced vigilante justice in the realist way possible: by being dragged by a car for miles.

School Restarts: A selection of images

2008-01-17T17:26:00.000-08:00

1) Hey girl that I am attracted to in a purely physical and shallow way! Wait, what's that? You just answered your cell-phone with the phrase "holla at yer girl" and then proceeded to talk about how your boyfriend is "soo craazy"?

Drat. Even liberal application of pretending gel can't allow me to continue to be attracted to you.

2) Books purchased. Put in trunk. Keys in ignition. Realization:

The costs of these books alone are half of what I need to buy a scooter. You are such a jerk, higher education.

3) Why do people feel the need to throw things in urinals? Seriously, people.

4) I would tell you that it is rude to attempt to listen to your iPod in the back of the class, oh most clever of active slackers, but judging by the determined look on your face i'm relatively certain those iPod buds are fused to your ears.

No doubt it was some sort of tragic accident, and my bringing it up would only cause further anguish.

5) As much as I enjoy peeing on such an impressive assortment of things: what the crap? Does someone come in to the bathroom with a large bag of random crap, lock the door behind them, and then one by one toss it's content into the urinals with a solemn, self-satisfied look on their face? Perhaps while whispering "you never have loved me, mother"?

INTRODUCING: Five Scientifically Backed Reasons I'm Sometimes, Possibly, In The Right Lighting, Awesome

2008-01-11T16:34:00.001-08:00

Or FSBRISPITRLA for short.

1) My last name wins. Falconer? I mean, come on. You are going to disagree, scoff at, and generally ridicule the rest of this list, but who can contest such a mighty last name?

2) I practice Capoeira (somewhat)regularly. This means I am prone to doing impressive stunts out of nowhere - an intrinsically awesome thing.

3) I use successive double negatives to buy time when asked tricky or poignant personal questions. Like:

"Well, i'm not, not embarrassed about making a list of five reasons why i'm awesome."

4) I believe in, and actively practice, Phrenology. This is actually not awesome, and is oft the subject of well deserved mockery.

5) When I was a kid, I use to walk around all the time with a bicycle helmet even though I didn't know how to ride a bicycle (I didn't learn until I was 9 or 10). This is also not awesome, but I just remembered it, and seriously five items in a list is too demanding.

Tune in next weekmonthdayrandompost for Five Reasons Why Everyone Who Is NOT Backed By Science Says I'm NOT Awesome. Or, again, FREEWANBBSSINA for short.

Reminiscing about the good ole' times

2007-12-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

I've never been able to recall much from my early life. Occasionally a topic will come up, and I will receive a snap shot, blurred and rehashed. I fancy that I can see the huge hill upon which our creaky house sat, basking in the harsh North Carolinian (Carolineian?) sun. A flash of my best friend when I was eight, both of us rolling around with bike helmets despite being no where near bikes. Because that's just what you did.

But still, never have I felt connected to my past. When I truly try to think about it, I am only left with a vague impression of being lost. Say what you will about the psychological and sociological relevance of being raised the youngest of four boys - it doesn't change the fact that, up until my mid to late teens, I was entirely adrift.

Now, on one hand I know this is somewhat normal. Who knows who they are when they are thirteen? It is a fundamentally awkward period, where the body and mind need to simply stretch their limbs and aren't so concerned with what those limbs hit. On that inevitably other hand, however, I feel robbed, cheated. Almost as if someone has stolen from me the chance to have a developmentally helpful childhood and left me only with these ambiguous flashes and this vague gnawing void.

I did foolish things for no reason. Porno was not supporting the degradation of women and giving into a baser nature, it was a curiosity. Spending hours and hours playing video games was not unhealthy, it was my escape and savior. Nearly failing out of school was not an action I regretted or planned, it was just the knee-jerk impulse of a mind more full of flotsam than purpose.

Indeed, there wouldn't be a Robbie to type this blog post if it weren't for a few key figures providing crucial life lines. My comrade Orion on The Candy Coating is one, my older brother Brent another. Perhaps the biggest was my best friend danio - a man so filled with virtue that he seemed to ooze it from his pores as a normal man would sweat. Though many years my senior, he had the goodness of heart and the perspicacity of spirit not to see the weaning fop that I was but the conscientiously noble being that I, like each of us, had the potential to be. If not for these folks, ladies and gentlemen, I simply wouldn't exist.

So it is with this background and this frame of reference that I shiver for today's upcoming generation. I am only twenty years old, but already I feel the guilt of passing to their still fragile shoulders the weight of a such a heavy, twisted world. Sometimes I wish that I were a Titan incarnate, that I could merely spread my arms and shelter them from a world entirely concerned with their exploitation and assimilation.

It is no idle cause. No fundraiser created by an unknown charitable group. This is as real as it gets: Junior youth are dying. Mentally decaying, spiritually oppressed, physically poisoned - they are being slaughtered every single day and it just about breaks me in two when I consider the scope of it all.

For Bahai's, we can turn to the Junior Youth Animator courses, a series of courses designed to arm junior youth of every creed and background to grapple with such a monstrous world. But this is not enough. Everyday I live and breathe on this earth I search for at least one child, one youth that I can help in the way that danio helped me. It's not even a matter of kindness. I have to do so, I must save at least one. To do otherwise would be to betray the trust I have been given, and to usurp the second chance that life, despite my unworthiness, has seen fit to bestow on me.

As real as it gets. Youth and junior youth are not the future, they are the now. They are not promising, they are promise fulfilled. But they are also lost, like I was. No quarter a day is required, no monetary grant can assuage this debt. All that is required - all that is needed - is for each of us to open up on our islands of stability a tiny plot for them to call their own. With such a simple act we are ensuring the future, yes, but we are also insuring ourselves. The call is clear, the need apparent. To sit idle is to fail, while the mere act of arising is to achieve the most complete and perfect of victories: the victory of giving life.

Oh, Racism.

2007-10-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

I've seen things. Not that I am some gray-beard, capable of defeating any potential objections by merely referencing my years. But by this assertion of ocular experience, you should apprehend the mildly somber tone of my intended discourse.

In the Baha'i Faith, racism is described as America's most challenging issue. This makes sense to me, as racism is not based in logic. There are no proofs one can assemble, no flow charts to be constructed in Powerpoint. Racism is inimical to logic; Anathema to reason.

Certainly there are the obvious examples. Tattered remnants of the KKK that appear like so much flotsam on documentaries. The "N word" thrown about with an accompanying quantity of spittle. But what really bothers me about racism in America are it's subtle manifestations.

I went to an affluent, upper-middle class highschool, and one only had to walk down the hall for a few seconds to hear some racial slur said in jest.

In jest. Ingested. Injustice.

It is more than ignorance, though ignorance is a part. It is more than hate, though hate is present. It is a fundamental misapprehension of the unity of humans, as distasteful to the sensibilities as shouting is to the ear. What a perverse, inverted world we inhabit that we who were born of the same substance choose to differentiate ourselves based on so paltry a thing as skin color.

The subtle things. Jokes about mexicans. Cracks about blacks. The same thrown the other way and rinse, lather, repeat until all is red, red, red. And all to what? Raise ourselves? It doesn't take a genius to realize that there is a difference between raising oneself and lowering others.

Racism really is everywhere, because everywhere there is a lack of appreciation of unity. But the worst are we who occasionally dip into it, like the employee who wins awards by day and steals from the place he works by night. Not quite a full fledged thief but not a character of virtuosity either. It seems to me that we who have freedom have a great burden when it comes to using it. And if there is one thing worse than a thief, it's a hypocritical one.

Paul-o-Tics!

2007-10-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on www.thecandycoating.com. Can it get any sweeter?

The other day I was cheerfully ambushed on the street by a young person representing the Green Peace organization. She started by saying "You look like you care about the environment!" Once I got over the momentary annoyance necessarily inflicted by the manipulative nature of this line, I proceeded to engage in a wonderful discussion (she spoke while I nodded sagely) about Green Peace, which then lead to an even more wonderful discussion about Politics and the Baha'i Faith.

At the basic level, Baha'is are completely non-active in politics. By this is not just meant mere refraining from partisanships, but rather a complete detachment from political involvement. This was brought up in the context of the aforementioned ambush because eventually I informed her that, as a Baha'i, I really couldn't join Green Peace due to it's inherent political ties.

And thus we have reached the stark white bone of the issue. I know that many people are somewhat confused by this aspect of the Baha'i Faith. I also know that it is easy to confuse this policy with apathy and a lack of caring. So, here are the facts!

Firstly, Baha'u'llah prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith, wrote: "The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements." So, this rules out the apathy theory, as Baha'is are specifically told to be concerned.

Having established our concernedness, we are lead to the next point (you know, secondly): Why Baha'is can't be politically involved. For the answer, we can look to Shogi-Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith: "Fully aware of the repeated statements...that universality is of God, Baha'is in every land are ready, nay anxious, to associate themselves by word and deed with any association of men which, after careful scrutiny, they feel satisfied is free from every tinge of partisanship and politics and is wholly devoted to the interests of all mankind.

And this leads us to our conclusion. It is not that the intent of politics is not also shared by Baha'is; most people want to change the world for the better. But to associate with one specific group is to almost inherently exclude another group. Most politics (even the well-intentioned ones) are fundamentally devisive. Instead, how much better to focus our attentions on the unification of humankind as a whole, and to work in accord with all people to reach this aim.

Oh, and, of course,Baha'is can vote.

I love you

2007-09-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on www.thecandycoating.com, though still written by ME. Check it out!

It’s what we want to hear, what we love to say. What we want to think. But is the way we think about love the same as everyone else? Culturally, aren’t there vast differences between what “love” means? What love are we even talking about? Oh, so many questions.

Enter the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir-Whorf hypothes is a linguistic axiom, or self-evident truth, that our friend Wikipedia defines as: “a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.”

In other words: The way we talk affects how we think and behave. Quick example to remove any confusion: anthropologists found an island culture that did not have a single word for “war” or “weapon,” and from this could conclusively say that this culture was entirely peaceful. If they don’t have a word for it, how could they do it?

Along these lines, I want to point out something that my Anthropology professor pointed out to me: English only has one word for love. This may not seem strange in itself, until one factors in the Sapir-whorf hypothesis. What does it say about how we think and behave with love that we only have one word for it?

Even more poignantly, what does it mean that our primary conception of this one word is romantic love? The Greeks had three words for love: Agope – which is basically altruism, Filial – which is brotherly love, and Eros – which is what we would call romantic love.

These observations are significant insofar as they indicate our lack of descriptive language when it comes to love. When I say, “I love you,” it is purely context and interpretation that we must rely on. Or even worse, it is just assumed that I mean love in the romantic sense.

Now, I’m not saying coming up with new words for love will solve everything. But I am saying that coming up with new concepts for love would be a good start. Elevating and recognizing other forms of love as equally valid to and just as important as Eros or romantic love would, I think, go a long way in helping us, as a culture, develop a more mature sense of LOVE. And if you don’t believe such a thing is necessary, perhaps you are unaware of the state of things. This is forgivable, but only to an extent! With a 50% plus divorce rate and a penchant towards separation that is so strong it has led psychologists to label Americans as practitioners of “serial monogamy,” it seems clear to me that we don’t actually know what the crap we are doing here in America.

Romantic love is certainly a form of love. It is even a good form of love. Me and romantic love - we tight. However, it is only one facet on the much larger diamond of love. Expecting relationships, marriages, and our love lives to last on only romantic love is like expecting a tripod to stand with only one leg. There is more to it; there has to be, because, as any who have had even the most cursory experience with romantic love can testify, romantic love is unreliable and generally short-lived. A spark may create the flame, but it cannot sustain a flame once lit. A flame untended is a flame doomed to die out. And a flame doomed to die out is hardly a flame worth having at all.

But hey, I’m just the guy writing these things – what do I know? I’m curious what YOU think. So, what do you think?

Are there any who object to this union?

2007-09-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

Mawaige! Lacey, frilly, bell-tolling - oh, yes, mawaige. Immaculately cleaned males dressed in oak-solid suites; Gloriously adorned females wearing dresses directly imported from some magical flower realm. Weddings are nothing if not replete with eye-candy.

This past weekend I went to Minnesota to bear witness and testify to the union of Anisa Smith and Stanfano Ascari. It was a lovely ceremony. Austere in it's simplicity yet dynamic in it's depth and meaning. Then it was done, they was mawwied, and we danced the night away.

In the Baha'i Faith marriage is described as the "fortress of well-being." It is cited as the very bedrock on which a stable and successful society is founded. It is as elementally necessary to our continued progress as fire was to cavemen.

Weddings are a different beast, however. While I appreciate as much as the next man a good rite of passage, and while I love as all do friends and family being near at significant life moments, I can't help but think of the classic anglo-saxon wedding as two parts opulent, one part silly, and one part fun. It's a monstrous machine, functioning now like some terrifying AI of the future, functioning outside of human control and fueled by it's own longevity and weight. It has attained cultural inertia, and the best we poor mortals can do is try to dive out the way without being entirely crushed.

The wedding this weekend made me think of this specifically because it wasn't a denizen of this terrifying beast. It was a breath of fresh air; something of a trend with Bahai weddings that i've attended. Sitting there, listening to the simple collection of readings, read by a diverse number of people each of whom meant something to the couple being wed, I felt a glimpse of hope for this bloated institution. It turns out you don't need a solemn man in a large hat to conduct a lengthy and established ceremony (although solemn men in large hats are not strictly unfavorable either). You don't need pillars of gold leaf and angels performing fly-bys in tight flight formations. You just need two people, their love for each other, and some simple method of connecting with an essence beyond the ordinary world. Song, ceremony, men in large hats - all are aimed at this last goal, and all are acceptable in their own way. But in my experience, God, spirituality, Allah, our emotional selves - whatever you wish to say - is more responsive to sincerity than to lavish displays.

The required vow in the Baha'i Faith is simple: "We will all verily abide by the will of God." And whether or not you believe in God per se, it strikes me as a good idea to base such an ambitious vow of commitment in something beyond humans. Humans fail. Humans falter. Humans are limited. But a concept of the Divine can transcend all these things and last eternally - just as we want, on the most basic level, for the proposed union of two souls to last. Thus, to me at least, weddings are not just a ceremony. They are a pledge to strive, for as long as we live, to seek our nobility over our depravity. Our solidarity over our fractured selves. For surely we have the capacity for both, and at some point we will have chosen by our actions which direction we favor. How much better, then, to choose conciously and wisely, and to do so with someone there to help us when we (as we must) falter.

Re: Harry Potter

2007-08-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

NO-SPOILER WARNING: This post contains no spoilers

That having been established, let me begin by saying that Dumbledore is not dead and turns out to be a parrot trained by Voldemort, Harry is a figment of a House-elf's imagination, Hermine is a brussel sprout, and Ron is really a pimple on a fourteen year old boy. Shocking revelations, all.

I do not wish to post about the actual story - no, that is silly. If you care about the story go buys yous the books and read them. I wish to comment on the phenomena that is Harry Potter.

You see, I do not regard these books as books. Not even as stories. A story, traditionally, is something one reads at one's leisure. It is something one visits occasionally, like a distant relative calling for Christmas. It is NOT something one painfully slaves over, both seeking and dreading the ending, as is the case with Harry Potter. Instead of remaining content with visits like most stories, an unfinished Harry Potter book practically demands you move in, next to the cat and please won't you remove you shoes. An unfinished Harry Potter book takes on a life of it's own - it activates it's own gravitational field and, until summarily defeated, cackles maniacally as your ordinary activities circle around it's slightest whim.

It is almost a spiritual experience. Ancient tribes use to beat their drums for hours on end while inhaling hallucinogens, the Orient meditated while on Opium, and now America adds it's own chapter to the epic-ways-humans-have-tried-to-transcend life by READING. Oh America, you always DID have the dorkiest hobbies.

Record times are put up. People who read nothing besides the occasional issue of People finish a book in two days. I personally finished the most recent and final book in something like 10 hours, pausing only to use the bathroom and sacrifice to the gods of fictional writing (sometimes doing both at once to speed things up.)

I don't really want to identify WHAT causes this madness. Was Europe really that relieved when people found out it was rats that carried the Bubonic plague? Actually yes, yes they were. Bad analogy. But the point is that the phenomena defies identification. On the simplest level, they are just really, really good books. Yet, human history is fraught with really, really good books, and next to none have transcended cultural, generational, and personal taste-tional boundaries like Harry Potter has.

Sad thought: It is the Iliad of our day, and J.K. Rowling our homer.

Well, one thing is clear: J.K. Rowling has one hell of a task ahead of her in trying to create any other fictional work. It's like if Prometheaus, not content with gifting humans with fire and the ability to heal, decided to try his hand at inventing the plow. Gee thanks Big P, but I think you peaked a little too early.

Picture this!

2007-07-18T16:38:00.000-07:00

Armed with flip-flops, cruising along the montrous eight-lane road aptly named broadstreet that bisects Malls and restaurants alike, rocking out to Michael Jackson's "Bad" and other classics, and cruising in my mother's German-engineered Audi station wagon.

Ah, yes...I must be home.

Next stop: CALIFORNIA

Ground Control to Major Tom

2007-06-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

I am once again in the ancestral homeland. Actually, that is a lie. The many unfounded assumptions I have about who my ancestors were (i.e. Ghangas Kong AND Attila the Hun) would certainly be shaken by the revelation that they actually wanted to live in Richmond Virginia.

I am, however, once again in the childhood homeland. After two years of low-rez, fuzzy apartment living; with slim cuisine, slimy counters, and other alliterative adjectives, this place seems like a wonderland. First off, it's a house. Second off, they have a yard, which is something of a myth in the greater chicago area. Thirdly, there is, like, beverage here. All the time. We're talking high quality juice people. Juice!

In this new world I find myself, a world viewed through the hardened lens of apartment living, a place that can afford continual supplies of juice is a place of significant wealth and grandeur. First thing I do when I go to a person's residence now is surreptitiously check their refrigerator. If I see juice, I give my companions significant looks and move my eyebrows around, as if to say: "We've struck gold. These people are LOADED."

Really, I've just come to appreciate the inherent stability of a family. Whenever I enter a house in which a family lives, I feel the difference as a palpable thing. It's like I just passed through a curtain. Outside is instability and dog-eat-dog craziness, inside is order, well being, and juice.

In conclusion, my title has made me think of a new pickup line*: "Hey baby, you be major tom, and ill be ground control. Together we can explore."

*All pickup lines read on Falcomatic.blogspot.com are NEVER to be used. Ever.

The Dream

2007-06-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has seen me over the past two weeks, you may have observed one of two things:
1) I'm awesome
2) I'm awesome-er because I've been borrowing my brother-in-law's scooter.

This is the NEW age people. And it is an age of scooters. An age of scooting. Of the scoot, if you will. The old age, where scooters were strictly used by economically savey dweebs who coveted their vespa as if it could fill the void created by their lack of female contact, has been annulled. And it is clear and manifest that in this day, the scooter is the new motorcycle.

Seriously, you don't even KNOW how many chicks I had on the back of that thing (five, actually, and all Baha'i girls that rode in a totally platonic and un-braggable way, with me just being helpful when they happened to need a ride. So, now you DO know how many chicks I had on the back of that thing.) Five is not bad for two weeks of work though!

Don't believe me? Fine, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

In the profound words of my good friend T.I: What you know about that?

Ignoring the obvious fact that the person on back is not actually a chick as I just boasted, can you imagine a cooler, more enviable robbie? I certainly can't.

Oh, and why post about "the dream"? I'll tell you why. With a link. One, simple, LINK.

The Big Fat Golden One

2007-06-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

Preface: It's my birthday today, June 20th.

Post-preface: June 20th has also been named by congress "Bald Eagle Restoration Day" or some such, because the Bald eagle is about to become un-endangered. Now, an eagle may not be a falcon, but I would point out that BOTH are birds of prey. Therefore, I am going to go ahead and thank congress for honoring my birthday with a celebration that has a vague connection to my last name. Really the United States Government, you shouldn't have.

Main post: I guess this is my "Golden birthday." You know, where the day of the month matches the age of the birthee. In my case that number is 20 - a solemn occasion indeed. In this past I have been accused of not taking these things seriously enough, but this year I have already layed out my holocaust cloak and plan to remain beneath it's dark, voluminous layers for the remainder of the day. Thus, when people ask me why I am walking down the street in a giant black cloak in the middle of summer, I will peer out from beneath my hood - my face half covered in shadows - and answer in a deathly whisper: "It is my GOLDEN birthday and I am treating it with all due solemnity."

I have the urge to climb a mountain, ride a wave, tame a sea urchin and use it to brush my hair in the mornings - but such is my nature. Often enough I just like to have ME time on such days of birth, which is just a nice way of saying that I do crazy and mildly dangerous things on my own. This time, I am settling on having a massive evening dinner. We are eating sushi, and the 1% chance that someone could die from raw fish poisoning at any point during the meal will have to satisfy my lust for danger. And yes, that is the official name: "Raw Fish Poisoning." It's all quite scientific.

What I love most about birthdays is how every single daily act seems to fall meekly in line behind this title. For instance, my friend just bought me some birthday tea. Tonight I will go and have a birthday dinner. I like to take it to the next level, however, and talk about how this morning I birthday woke up, did some birthday choirs, and then took a birthday nap. Perhaps later I will birthday change-my-clothes.

Really, people, I just popped out of the womb! We all did it (great idea for a bumper sticker: "Pro-life peer pressure: Pop out of the womb - every one's doing it.") Still, I am grateful for the confirmations of love and fellowship, and for the natural period of self-reflection. We humans loves our rites of passage, and it's clear why. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a holocaust cloak to put on.

I accidentally saw the Fantastic Four 2!

2007-06-16T20:49:00.001-07:00

Never one to pass up an opportunity to be hypocritical, I have been making fun of fantastic four all week. Of course, I didn't exactly anticipate seeing it at the end of said week. Unfortunately for my dreams of distant mockery, a group of irresistibly cool people went to see it, and so intent was I on reveling in their company that I was left with no choice: I accidentally had to go see the new Fantastic Four.

That's right, I just used a whole paragraph to make excuses about why I even have the knowledge to make this post! Some might see that as insecure, but I think any self-respecting individual would do the same. It's like calling a criminal on the run insecure about being caught - perhaps there is a certain wisdom in his/her insecurity.

I came in with a certain low expectation. My challenge to the movie was not to jump over this extremely low bar - indeed that would about as good of a challenge as demanding someone jump over a curb while crossing the street. No, I wanted to see if this movie could actually be worse than I expected. It seemed a nearly impossible feat, but, sure enough, Fantastic Four "The Rise of the Silver Surfer" managed to limbo it's way to a lower position. I mean, we're talking some nearly horizontal limbo-ing, the sort of thing that is only seen in Cirque Du Soleil or on planets that boast all invertebrates as inhabitants.

Although, it was pretty fun to make fun of. Glaring plot holes, terrible acting, mediocre action scenes and a script seemingly created by a cliche-belching machine and an attending troop of monkey operators - it is a movie replete with mockery opportunities.

Go see it if:

A) you hate yourself
B) you really hate yourself
C) you gave up good movies for lent
D) you like to make fun of things

P.S. We don't usually do movie reviews here at falcomatic.blogspot.com, but some movies require immediate and summary expulsion from ones memory banks. Like drawing poison from a wound, it must be done swiftly lest it spread to the heart.

Poe-A-tree!

2007-06-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in a man's life where he must form fellowships. Alliances. Pacts. Agreements that foster success and guarantee domination. There is one such combination whose legendary resonance vibrates throughout the poetry writing world: the illustrious Nathan Davis and myself.

Ok, sure, point out that we've never actually done anything together. I don't care - My hot air balloon is flying too high for your rocks to hit! Combined we are the stork AND the crane, the Phoenix AND the fox (I would take the time to come up with diametrical opposed animals whose symbology actually means something, but seriously, how much time do you think I have to make these posts?! Therefore, take these nonsensical animals and be happy.)

It was still a good point however, as Nate and I have totally failed to do anything together. It is possible the greatest example of the sin of wasting potential ever committed by humans. Possibly it still loses out to that whole Adam and Eve thing. But I will NOT lose out to those jerks Cain and able!

Anyways, let us get to the point: This illustrious figure has started a blog! And it instantly gets the oft coveted falcomatic stamp of approval. Check it out at www.nathonius.blogspot.com

And also, look at this poem I wrote!

Vagrant Thoughts

These thoughts wander,
Vagrants.
Though they have means,
Still they steal rides on the empty trains,
Not caring where they end.
A bundled handkerchief of insights,
Tied to a stick of whimsy,
It doesn’t take much,
To see what drives them.
Wandering,
As only wander winsome wants,
They have no more structure than a willow.
Weeping.
I wish to gather them again,
And explain to them my purpose,
But I too enjoy a good droop,
And their charm cannot be denied.
So I loose them,
Wandering winsome wants of a lost age,
They construct these lines,
To speak of their story,
Hardly even asking my permission.
I loose them to see the world,
And to send me these blurry,
Dream-like reports.

Well.

2007-06-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

It turns out that there are multiple ways to get exhausted throughout one's day. Most recently, I was exhausted by school and by too much work. Strangely, i'm now experiencing exhaustion due to "socialization overload." Two of my friends got married at the House of Worship this weekend (Lev and negin, woot woot!) and the number of Baha'i youth this drew to the chicagoland area could only be measured in the old style, with large stones (for the curious, the number of Baha'i youth equaled roughly 5000 stones).

I am currently breathing deeply in an attempt to recover, half-finished classes of yoga flashing through my head. If memory serves, I should be channeling the essence of the spiritual warrior even as we type.

It was a beauteous ceremony, and held at the House of Worship here in chicagoland - possibly the most attractive building and grounds in the whole of the western hemisphere. The day cooperated nicely, no one fell down embarrassingly, and I got to marvel once again at the simple majesty of two young people dedicating their lives to one another.

Congrats lev and negin! May all your tomatoes ripen and all your beds remain fluffy!

Capoeira!

2007-05-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Some responses to me sharing that I practice Capoeria:
"Awesome!"
"Impressive."
"...what? You do...what?"
"Aren't you too tall?"

I have fallen in love with a girl named Capoeria. And by girl, I mean a Brazilian Martial Art that incorporates dance, deadliness, and awesomeness into the most holistically satisfying experience imaginable. Actually, let's test that statement: Envision something satisfying. Like, really really satisfying. Now add a rocking chair and contentedly rubbing your belly to that image. It's like that! (If being in a rocking chair and rubbing your belly was your original answer, just add teddy bears and the smell of momma's cookies in the oven to that.)

Pronounced cap-o-a-da(ish), it is great for building strength, learning how to defend yourself, and simultaneously looking awesome. I mean, there are plenty of deadly martial arts out there, but how many teach you to walk on your hands and do a back flip as a part of their natural curriculum? And how many of them use such things in practical ways? It requires minimal exposure for the supremacy of a spinning-handspring-kick-of-death to be felt, and the affirming "oooh's" and "ahhh's" are nearly knee-jerk in their authenticity. Indeed, such ascendancy resonates bone-deep, apparently encoded on some strand of the human DNA. Like a mighty Leviathan rising from the vasty deeps, its presence simply must be felt.

Not that i'm saying I can do any of those things yet! Let us just say that I can "hold my own" and that I "do just fine." Nevertheless, my deposit of a few months has, much as that persuasive Portuguese bank teller assured me, yielded maximum quantities of enjoyment. The interest rate is storybook perfect, and the long-term enjoyment exponential in growth.

I am a self-avowed, if you would allow the term, obsessor. One who obsesses, fixates, and circles 'round, moth like in my devotion. I accept this fact with a mixture of pride and resignation, and recognize that I am a man condemned to wander the cavernous tunnels of always needing to find something new. This having been said, I have also found a few key activities that combine to form a hard, immutable core around which the peripheral and more fleeting obsessions gravitate in elliptical paths. Capoeira is most definitely one of these, and I couldn't be more pleased! It is here to stay, and I must ride this confirming truth to its ultimate termination. If along the way I happen to learn to back flip...well, it never hurts to know how to back flip. I am told by reputable back flipping sources that it is a great party trick.

Le Profound

2007-05-19T16:30:00.001-07:00

Well, I haven't posted a poem written by my own hand in a while. I was searching through my compiled words documents of scribbled lines, of half completed poems and completed poems that are in no way completed, and I found this little gem. I am trying to reconnect with my poetry, as school made composing hard for me. Mad props to anyone who can actually figure out what it means!

Storm Summoning

I summoned the lightning,
And was summoned in turn by the solemn,
Psalms.
Angel-songs solemnly sung,
Solemnly held,
Solemnly long.
Beholden to the rising rhythm,
Of rising voices riding on slender slim-
Ghost steeds of past victories,
Gliding softly,
Gliding within.

I summoned then the thunder,
And was summoned in turn by the erratic,
Gongs.
Devil-songs erratically sung,
Erratically held,
Erratically strong.
Captive to the chaotic clamor,
Of cloying notes closing within,
Obsidian-black fences of past failures,
Holding me captive,
Holding on whim.

And left now to my own devices,
I combine (both) to summon the storm,
And seek balance in the triumphant wailing
Triumphantly held,
Triumphantly strong.

Robert Falconer

2007-05-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

I never knew my grandfather. He had to have been a good man, because my dad is a good man. I am told that he was marvelous with his hands, that he liked to laugh, and that he was kind.

I was still very young when grandad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I have vauge memories of he and grandma Joan's old house in connecticut. Sleep overs. Late night games of Heart. And Grandfather's room, a foreboding place that I was forced to enter and pay homage to a man I barely knew.

I was scared of him back then. I didn't know what Alzheimer's was, not really anyways, and; as only children can do, I appreciated the stigma without the cause. Later in life, I remember hearing my grandmother tell stories of how he would ask her for breakfast three times after having already eaten. Towards the end he reportedly threatened her with a butter knife, unable to remember his own wife.

The commercial is what made me think of him. Some medicine that possibly could maybe reduce the symptoms. It was the way the commercial played out that had me thinking of grandpa. Watching the elderly actor portray a man struggling to keep his identity, seeing his equally elderly wife loving tend to him, it was all too easy to transpose grandfather and grandmother into the scene. Within a minute, I found myself crying - a startling event, as I am not prone to tears, and have always been frustrated at my lack of ability to cry when feelings might otherwise warrent it. In that moment this actor was my grandfather, and the commercial a call to remember his terrible struggle during the final years.

Robert Falconer. My namesake. There is a power to names, a spiritual connectivity that cannot be denied. In my living room back home there sits a picture of the three Robert Falconers - my grandfather, my father, and me. How strange that it took a drug commercial to remind me of this connection, and to turn my attention back to the man after whom I was named.

I'm not quite a Prancing Pony

2007-05-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Although it is only a matter of time. Soon, very soon, the tyrannical siege of finals will have been lifted, and I will be free to roam (play) the verdant fields (video games) of my ancestors. No longer will my time be limited; nay, it will be spent in close communion (reading) with the very source of my powers (books). I will soar to the very heavens (soccer fields) and frolic there with the round fairies who inhabit those fair stretches (soccer balls).

I do not, of course, mean that I am not quite a tavern from a high-fantasy trilogy, but am indeed referring to the equestrian breed known to exhibit such uninhibited joy in their step. I may seriously attempt to prance, although I will leave it to those present to determine it's relative likeness to that of a pony's.

Translation to all of this: Finals end soon, and I will be the happiest boy you ever did see.

I'm not quite a Zombie

2007-04-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

I only know this due to extensive investigation into the matter. I do not crave brains, I am not inclined to rip my clothing in order to look more ill-kept, and I am not (as far as I know) rotting. The issue only bears relevance in the remarkably numerous other ways that I AM currently like a zombie. I tend to stagger, my sentences often end in zombie inspired moans, and I am becoming less and less distraught at the idea of drooling. I mean, do you know how much relative energy is required to keep saliva in?!

What I mean is that I have gotten very little sleep and imbibed entirely too much caffeine. I've now embraced my sleep delirium state with something resembling resignation, and something else resembling pathetic mewling. Seriously, you should see me. One of four papers opened in front of me, I claw the air blindly in a futile gesture of impotent rage, and make sounds no human has heard since ET came out.

I've gone through the full round of appropriate cliches. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. It builds character. No pain no gain. I've settled on a mixture of two: No killing no gain. For some reason when I say this out loud people look at me strange. I'm just trying to inspire myself, people.

It will be curious to see if I actually remember posting this or not.

Who are we?

2007-04-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

A cliche question if ever there was one. Unfortunately, it's one of those cliches that loses none of its potency just because it is a cliche. Any person even mildly inclined towards reflection inevitably has to bow their head to this paterfamilias of internal questions. Thusly, I find myself at its familiar threshold, as, even with my storied propensity towards reflection, the question remains quite relevant.

I have decided that who we are is largely who we are perceived to be. Yes, there is an internal you, somewhere deep down, which has been hardened over time into a consistency tenacious enough to endure the outside pressures it is subject to. But surely this is only a core, a small, but weighty portion. The large majority of who we are depends on the context of each moment. Who are we talking to? How do we feel at the time? How is that person responding?

Along these lines, I have thought out three universal truths for how we are perceived and how we perceive others. In written form, they can be described as the following:

We are what we do

We reflect what we say

We project what we think

Shape wise, these would form a pyramid, with the item with the largest frequency, what we think, forming the base, and the smallest section, what we do, forming the tip. This reflects the frequency of our reality: i.e. we think things way more than we do things. Much like in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, however, the size of the sections are disproportional to their significance. In terms of importance, we can think of it as a pyramid that is partially buried. It is the top most section, our actions, which are most readily discerned by those on the surface, followed by the second section, what we say, and ending with what we think.

This is, I believe, how we ultimately form opinions of others, and why that other great cliche, "actions speak louder than words," seems to ring so true. Given time to get to know someone, it is possible to slowly excavate their pyramid, to reveal more and more of why they say what they say, or to understand more clearly what they think given a situation. The one thing that is visible at all times, however, is what we do.

Stress!

2007-04-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

It is shaping up to be one of those months. I have been floating with relative comfort above the tidal waves of everyday life these past few months, and have tackled things with such a large quantity of efficiency that I almost feel like I should take a picture standing next to it, smiling a big smile and giving the thumbs up like one would to a recently captured fishing prize. It would be for posterity, obviously.

This feeling, it is to be immediately understand, is highly relative. I am not and never will be the organized type who cuts through red tape at whim. My recent foray into the realms of "doing" are only successful when compared to my extensive past history of "not doing."

All of this having been said, I will now get to the stark, white bone of the issue: There's a crap load to do this next month! School is kicking into high gear, and by May 1st I need to have a comprehensive and impressive application turned into Northwestern University for their Medill School of Journalism. Also, I'll be gone a lot this month, so I'm looking down the familiar barrel of the "I-know-what-I-have-to-do-but-seriously-when-will-i-have-time-to-do-it?!" gun.

And so enters a rather unfamiliar enemy whom I've rarely had to deal with: Stress. I''ve been under plenty of stress, but I can't easily recall being stressed. So now when someone says "I'm stressed," I can nod sagely while stroking my beard, for I will know to what they refer. The sun has not stopped in it's natural course, and the stars are still very much set in their twirlings and whirlings, but this next month is shaping up to be one of the hardest I've had to deal with in a while.

I guess that's it. Oh, one other thing: Wish me luck! Or pray for success. Or pray for luck while wishing me prayers!

Timing Is Everything

2007-03-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

A couple posts ago I made intimations that materialism was the main religion of western culture. I asserted this claim based on the observable permeation of materialistic themes into every level of western society - a permeation that is nothing short of dogmatic in it's overwhelming ingratiation. Well, upon further reflection, I have decided that this mainstream religious practice is actually polytheistic in nature, as only slightly below that of materialism we seem to worship the deity of time.

Possibly the most telling proof to support such an absurd theory is our language. Anthropologists have long held that a culture's language provides telling insights into that culture's dominant paradigms. Like, for instance, when a small group of hunter-gathers was found on a previously unknown island, their language was discovered to have no words for "weapon." They were thus called the "gentle people," as clearly a society without such a word can not have the same conception of war as most cultures.

But back to the point - our language shows how concretely our culture views time. We "waste time" when we are doing something we feel unproductive, someone who is about to go to jail is "doing time," when we are short on time we are told to "use it wisely," and when we are nearing the end of an event we can even "run out of time." In short, time to us is a concrete, tangible thing to be wasted, used, done, run out of and acted upon. To most cultures, this paradigm is borderline psychotic. Time is time to most of the world, nothing more and nothing less.

Beyond this it is interesting to note that most of our harshest and most feared punishments usually involve time. Being sent to jail is, at it's core, being confined for a lengthy period in a place where we cannot "use our time wisely." Children who misbehave are sent to "timeouts." The examples go on and on, but the pattern already emerges: Time to us is a real, guiding hand whose force is to be reckoned with.

We who worship time even pay daily homage to it, turning multiple times each day to stare respectfully at the "face" of clocks. We follow painstakingly the enshrined teachings of time, deviating only at great risk when we are told it acceptable to have fun, work, eat and sleep. Each day most of us awake to the voice of time, a shrieking call to worship that emits commandingly from our alarm clocks. If there are more TVs than toilets in America, then surely there are more clocks than both combined.

Money makes the world go 'round, and time makes us keep pace with it. The most alarming and fascinating thing about this aspect of our culture is how unaware of it we are. To us, it is the most natural thing in the world to deal daily with countless stresses that directly result from our fanatical worship of time. But what are we rushing towards, and where did this dichtomy rich conception of time come from? Just taking one example, how can we really "waste time"? Is time a given allotment which we must hoard jealously at each moment? We spend an extra hour at the DMV and we are livid - but what would we have done that was so infinitely more worthy during that hour?

Thus, the old cliche speaks more accuractely than it seems to know. Truly, in America, timing is everything.

The Poem

2007-03-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

It has been occupying many a waking (and unwaking) moment of late. Brought to you by the fancifully perfect mind of E.E. Cummings.

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words, as uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then i shall turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

Theme songs

2007-02-27T10:46:00.000-08:00

Those of you who own an iPod, especially a nano, know what I mean when I say that it has drastic effects on the everyday experience. It seems to draw out hidden, musically bound meanings to life that require it's beckoning hand in order to emerge, hesitantly and blinking, from their dark and sealed lairs. One of the most noteworthy causes of this is how darn small the thing is. It can literally be taken anywhere and as a result I oftentimes take it everywhere.

Consequently I have begun to appreciate what it would be like to have a fitting theme song for every moment. Strolling around with my iPod blaring, there are occasional flashes of perfect synchronicity between the musical experience and the world surrounding that precious little bubble. For instance, as I round the last bit of a run and Rage Against the Machine's "Tire me" comes on, I can't help but scrutinize the moment for a divinely guiding hand. "Yeah you tryin' to tire me, tire me...Why don't you get out in front of me?" Guitar rifts. Yelling. And i'm sprinting with a sudden burst of energy as if I was just beginning my run instead of just finishing it.

In another, more extreme and more ridiculous example of this, I once took my iPod with me as I went to use the bathroom before a workout. Tool's Aenima was just reaching it's climax as I sat there on the toilet, and I couldn't help but laugh, most likely disturbingly and embarrassingly, at the fitting nature of a man yelling "I wanna see it go down, tear it down, flush it down" as I was trying to take a dump.

Maynard of Tool was, of course, referring to the decadent nature of the world and his desire to see it done away with, but for me, in that moment, he was clearly encouraging me in my efforts to empty my bowels.

Hence, ladies and gentlemen, a new theory: Every moment has the perfect theme song. Either you just haven't heard it yet or it hasn't found it's way into concrete manifestation.

Pressfield

2007-02-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

Steven, Pressfield. This is my new favorite author, ladies and gentlemen. His choice of genre? You get three guesses.

No.

No.

You suck at this - why don't I just tell you? He writes historical fiction, which, if not the most geeky of my pleasures, certainly ranks among the top five. Truly, I'll enjoy this type of novel even if it seems to pretend to detail historically based tidbits about the ancient world. Oh man, and if it is about the Romans and/or the Greeks? Whoa baby, don't get me started about the Romans and the Greeks. Purrr.

Anyways, if historical fiction is my kryptonite then Steven Pressfield is simply Krypton itself. So compellingly does Pressfield construct his stories that sometimes I suspect the man actually IS from the ancient worlds his books describe, and, having mastered the mysteries of time travel, he has decided to settle in this day and age. This would make him something of a cheat and a liar, as this means he doesn't write historical fiction at all, but instead just relates events as he remembers them.

For those who don't know, historical fictions are books that take a historical figure, event, or thing and then add some fictional story that would be conceivable in the context of the period. Thus, Pressfield's Gates of Fire is about the battle at Thermopylae, but takes you through it from the perspective of a single, fictional soldier. I consider this book a must read - especially if you intend to see 300 next month.

So, if even the smallest corner of the dustiest space in your mind finds itself stimulated by such writing, you HAVE to go buy one of his books immediately.

If you read this post and mentally translated every word to "blah blah blah, geek geek geek," then I simply ask that you don't throw things at me or call me names.

Mustard Man!

2007-02-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

There is a small, Chinese restaurant very near to my apartment that goes by the name "Hunan Springs." It's right around the corner, in fact. It's the type of place that I call when utterly out of groceries, sure that my order of cashew-nut-chicken will be both filling and delicious. Ordinarily things go smoothly, with the possible exception that their spotty english makes ordering via phone an adventure at best, and a hellish five minutes of miscommunication at worst (one might contend that, following the unwritten law of cultural restaurants, the degree to which a restaurant can't speak english is inversely proportional and reciprocal to the tastiness of the food). Today, however, things proved different...they proved super.

I had just paid for my meal, and was arming to go back into the cold. Walking out off the restaurant, I turned left to leave by the back alleyway, as is my want. I had only made it about forty paces when I heard a desperate "Sir! Sir!"coming from behind me. Turning, I saw one of the employees of Hunan Spring's running after me, with mustard packets held in his outstretched hands. I knew they were mustard packets because he was yelling "Mustard! Mustard!" at the top of his lungs as he drew near. He was skinny with large glasses, wearing only a t-shirt and was obviously cold. Yet so noble was his character, so firm his belief in his mustard bearing cause that he proceeded completely undaunted. He spoke very little english and simply said "Mustard, right?" when he reached me, placing the packets in my hands. In awe, I stammered a thank you and stared as he ran back to the restaurant.

Clearly, I had just encountered Mustard Man - the superhero empowered beyond normal human means to track down those lacking his precious yellow cargo and supplying them with all the mustard they so desperately need. I knew he was a superhero because of his apparent immunity to the cold, as well as his immediacy in tracking me down (I.E. How did he know I left the parking lot by the back entrance, when the front is so much more likely? Only a super hero could do that!)

It took me a good five minutes to let sink in the bizarreness of what I had just experienced, and to fully appreciate it's impact on my day. It should be noted that I did not even order mustard with my meal, as I don't really like it that much. Today, however, I knew exactly what I had to do: I solemnly removed the somewhat battered packets out of the bag, and in ceremonial fashion spread their golden substance over my chicken in a much earned salute to Mustard-Man's efforts.

Bravo, Mustard Man, Bravo. Your nobility convinced me to eat mustard today, and for that we all owe you thanks.

Rocking Quotes from a Rocking Class

2007-02-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's something like week three, and I can officially declare my anthropology class as my favoritist. It was a close race, with my Composion II class putting up a valiant fight due to my natural interest in the subject matter and my professor's extremely effective teaching methods. There were three things that ultimately let Anthropology take the cake:

1) My professor is an elderly, yet still vibrant, raging badass of contradictory qualities that somehow mesh into a really awesome lecture experience. He seemes constantly short of breath as he speaks, yet is oddly powerful in his projection; he takes firm stances on things he dislikes (like our concern for materialism in this country), yet truly believes in unbiased appreciation; he makes clear points, yet somehow always makes you feel as if you reached said point, and so on. Also, he's insanely sincere and humble.

2) The subject matter, and the way he presents it, strikes an immediate cord. Anthropology, for those who don't know, is the study of cultures. On the first day, he passed out a little blue pamphlet he called our "passport" with questions such as: "What does it mean to be human? What can we as humans become? What is true, lasting, and ennobling?" He calls the course a journey, and engages in other fanaciful departures from the norm, yet seriously knows his stuff and still provides all the necessary scientific backing. It's like studying, systematically, how I can change the world.

3) He gives us awesome quotes every class to guide our dialogues (This is the word he demands we use, "dialogue." We are assigned into "sapitential circles" (sapien meaning wise) where we pass around a talking stick and discuss things he prompts us on. You cannot talk unless you have the stick, and are forced to listen to what the other peeople have to say. I don't think i've ever come across it's like in the academic world.) Here are two such quotes to give you a taste:

"In america we have improved means to unimproved ends."

"Great minds consider ideas, average minds consider events, and small minds consider people."

So, it is with a glowing smile and a queenly wave that I proudly present Anthropology 101 with the coveted title of Robbie's Favorite Class This Semester

The art of island building

2007-02-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

The name of the game is Independence. Sanctuary. Homebase tagged in the moment before one gets out. That is life - the dual, divisional processes of solitude and interaction. They are not, of course, mutually exclusive and they often overlap. But while our interpersonal relationships fluctuate with all the fickle force of a hurricane, our intrapersonal state can be as calm and deep as the ocean. And as strong as the hurricane might appear, it bases it's entire existence on it's proximity to the ocean.

Along these lines, it seems to me like we spend our whole lives learning the art of island building. Our virtues are it's beauties, it's palm trees and glowing beaches, while our vices are its volcanoes, often dormant but capable of eradicating all our careful efforts in one single bout of baleful expression. We educate ourselves and the island grows, we meet with disappointment and our island shrinks beneath the weight of dark storm clouds. Our successes gather in golden clusters along it's shoreline, beaming brightly to the world, while our failures sprinkle themselves like dark snow, dulling every surface. What we take pride in we hold out to the very edges of the coast, as eager children during show and tell, while what shames us we hold close, secreted within dark forests so that the world may never see.

You, me, everybody has their island. The entirety of our social reality is one vast body of water endlessly dotted with these constantly revised citadels of ourselves. The crazy thing is how little we seem to know about our own islands, how little we appreciate what causes what. We are oftentimes experts on our neighbors islands - what hammocks they employ, how many coconut trees they have and how white their beaches are. But we couldn't tell you what we want to do with our own island, what we want to add and what we want to disappear. Or rather, we know the facts but not the application. Well, there is a quote my anthropology professor shared with our class: "If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

With this lens reality becomes a simple question that proves complex in answering: Where are you going with your island?

Relativity Sucks

2007-02-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong: I love me some Einstein. And I enjoy the benefits of the relative quality of workmanship as much as the next chap (like when my math test score was curved UP to a 100 earlier this week, I was pretty happy). But when it is eight degrees outside, and every Chicago native in the area looks at me like I am a wimp every time I mention this ludicrous fact, I tend to draw the line.

Relativity, this is the last straw. The fact that you have made a whole culture of people unable to acknowledge the simple fact that eight degrees is flippin cold is ridiculous and wholly unappreciated. I don't want to say "It's eight degrees outside!" and be greeted with nonchalant shrugs; I want instant gratification and counter whining. I want a sane response, something like "Yeah, wow, that is cold man. You are totally right to be cold," not the now familiar "You think this is cold?! Wait till it gets in the negatives!" Negative degrees were designed for measuring things in science experiments, not for humans.

So, relativity, I'm delivering an ultimatum here and now: quit making cultures who live in environmental extremes become more use to those extremes compared to the rest of humanity! It's just not fair, and if such behavior continues I may or may not be forced to blog about this topic AGAIN, which is something no one wants. No one.

Rain

2007-01-31T17:56:00.000-08:00

If you know anything about me, you most likely know that I adore the rain. It really trancends mere affection: I am an entirely different person when it is raining outside. Something about the wholesome presence of rain inspires and elevates my thoughts to a realness that I crave when the boring sun is the only thing around. Perhaps it's the symbollic association with rebirth. Maybe it's the remembered peace of rain pattering on the windows of my childhood. Whatever it is, I maintain that you have not known me until you have seen me in the rain.

Along these lines, I wrote a poem about rain. Isn't that what poets do? Write about stuff they love? That's what they tell me, anyways. Enjoy!

Sinking Deeper

I’m sinking deeper now,
Carried by silvery gray clouds,
I’m sinking deeper now,
Surrounded by the pattering peace of short-lived
Heaven-borne freedom.
I’m sinking deeper now,
Dragged down by droplets of life chaos,
And I’m sinking deeper,
Like I was in mud,
Churned long by uncertain feet,
But now,
Now very still;
A man reformed in these droplets,
Reborn in this torrent of change-
I’m sinking deeper into the sky,
Lured by the singing rain,
Singing my name,
I melt.
Sinking, soaking, soaked-
Till I am the rain,
Wetfreehappyuntamed,
So with an excuse me,
And a sigh,
I loose the final handhold,
And sink deeper into the rain’s embrace.

Quoth the Raven

2007-01-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

Ma·te·ri·al·ism (muh-teer-ee-uh-liz-uh m)- The preoccupation with or emphasis on material objects, comforts, and considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.

That's right, materialism. Recently I've started studying the publication One Common Faith, which deals in no small part with the subject of materialism and it's diverse affects on our world today. Essentially, as the commentary notes, materialism has become the dominant religion of the modern world. Social Darwinism, communism, even social and economic development - all have their ideological roots deep in materialism. It spans both the good and the bad, both the laudable and the atrocious, and has penetrated down to nearly every level of western culture

But OK, traditional rant against materialism concluded, what really is it? It's all well and good to say the world is suffering from materialism, but that's just like saying that someone is sick without being able to articulate why. In it's most basic form, it is the sincere belief that through present means humankind can solve nearly any problem; it is the belief that while the inherited moral structures of the past may have been provided by such things as religion, modern morality has reached a level where it no longer needs to be expounded on, only enacted. It is, basically, the belief that through sincere action, we can realize the golden age of humankind. Which means it is, even more basically, naiveness at it's most extreme.

You see, we can say things like this nowadays, because the world has experienced nearly one-hundred revolutions around the sun with materialistic values as the core of popular belief, and rather than exemplifying the promised golden age, the world seems more than ever on the brink of total chaos. Even the well-minded aspects of materialism have eventually collapsed under their own weight. Take social and economic development projects, an item I listed earlier that may have seemed out of place. Clearly, this is a well-intended concept, and has produced some admirable changes and advancements. But taken as a whole, what can we really say about it? If the entire point of a social and economic development project is to advance needfull cultures to a level of accepted advancement and comfort, then where can we really point to as a symbol of actual success?

The extremes of poverty and wealth are greater than ever, and the suffering of "third-world" countries has never been more noteworthy. It is not that current human actions are ineffective, it's that they are misguided; it is not that a social and economic development project is unsuccessful, it's that it misses the point entirely. Humanity does not just thirst for a new car, it does not just hunger for material advancement. It does not only want world peace and only desire an end to world hunger. We, it, them, everyone - all truly thirst for a spiritual reality that gracefully allows for all of the above and infinitely more.

So you see, materialism isn't even evil. The world will always function by material concerns, as we dwell in a world made of matter. The real evil is the narrow-mindedness that materialism represents - the denial that while our everyday life is material, our thoughts, beliefs, and values exist in a higher state. What we need is a belief system that delineates in clear terms how and why we should act rather than just halts at the action itself, that intertwines material advancement with moral application, and allows progressive understanding so that we do not become stuck on only one aspect of what is a multifaceted existence. What we need, in short, is:

re·li·gion
[ri-lij-uhn]

Manifesto

2007-01-16T19:41:00.000-08:00

Pursuant to the aim of unity among my fellow man, and complimentary to the process of life itself, I must establish unity within myself. Unification of action, thought, belief, function - realization that ultimately what I know is what I am, what I am is what I do, and what I do is all the word will ever see.

Unity among my fellow man, a lofty goal. One that, before ever conceivably reaching completion, necessitates a complete Renaissance in global thought and action. And history, that great keeper of secrets, has shown us that Renaissances always begin at the most basic, grassroots level: the individual. All it takes is one man, woman, or child for a new era to begin, because the only thing standing between us and truth is our ability to perceive it. If something is perceivable, it can be potentially understood; if it can be understood it can be implemented, and if it can implemented then it can truly affect the world around us.

This is how I see unity. It is only as lofty as the next man to question prejudice, the next mother to whisper of peace in her child's ear, or the next scientific breakthrough to change our world. What, after all, is change if not an adaptive, reactive process that results from the demands of each new moment? Therefore I consider it my duty, sworn and sealed obligation to increasingly demand more of this moment than I did of the previous; to question more of my answers than there were formerly answers to question. I am not going to change the world; I am going to lay siege to it. I am going to bombard it with boulders of love, unity, and progressive with such intensity and duration that there will be no choice but to rebuild, as there will be nothing of the old world left.

Nothing, that is, except the many boulders conveniently on hand to begin construction of something new.

You know that feeling?

2007-01-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

Where the walls loom above you, blue and grim, maniacally laughing as the furniture dances in hypnotic circles around your head?

Yeah. Me neither.

School starts soon, and I already feel its powerful, gravatational influence arranging my other activities into neatly obediant elliptical paths. It's like the alpha male of the gorilla tribe of my life has just returned after a month's vacation, and has busied himself with reetablishing his position of dominance. Calmly, he put the young buck who stood in during his absence back into his place, reassured the dominant female that yes, indeed, he does possess the most impressive "stuffs" out there, and re-marked his domain with some judicious, concise use of fecal matter.

Anyways, I'm about to become a full-time student for reals, which is something i've honestly never done. In the past i've either never tried when I supposedly was a full-time student (highschool) or i've taken a limited number of classes when trying (college). In both scenerios, I haven't felt challenged, and so this semester i'm pushing the envelope to it's full, crinkly limit! We're talking 18 credit hours people - 5 classes, two with labs!

If I don't survive, I hereby authorize a lock of my hair to be given to each of my loyal readers.

Robbie reserves the sole right to define what a "loyal reader" is, spontaneously and nonsensically if need be.

The Prank

2007-01-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Imagine you are at a party. It is a fun party, replete with those whose company you enjoy. Somewhere along the line, you find yourself near the door and hear someone knocking. Being a socially conscientious human, you offer to let the person in on behalf of your gracious host, who stands halfway across the room. You open it with a smile - one that quickly falters when confronted with a middle-aged woman whom you've never met, standing there wearing a shirt that distinctly has your face, large as you please and in stencil form, right in the middle of it.

Now substitute any and all "you" and "your" with "me" and "mine," and then appreciate that this very thing happened to me the other night. Yes, I know. My face! On a shirt worn by a woman I've never seen before! So what did I do when I opened the door and saw this strange, unexpected occurrence? Did I talk to the woman, wring her for information, find out then and there the identity of the real culprits behind this prank? No, of course not! I let out a small, startled noise (some would say a "yell of fright") and fled across the room, burying my head in the couch. In short, my ostrich instinct kicked in and it became a matter of survival.

But how could this be? Well, as it turns out, she was Jamie's (the hosts) neighbor. Also as it turns out, the stenciled picture of my face was drawn by one Andrew Johnson, although even he is baffled as to how it made it's way into Jamie and his conspirators' hands, and how that consequently made it's way onto a shirt.

I tip my hat to the aforementioned conspirators. Clearly, I did not expect a shirt with my face on it. I don't think many people do expect their face to appear on shirts. In fact, I feel pretty comfortable assuming that anyone who expects pictures of his/her face on shirts whent hey go places might be in need of professional help. Or an official clothing line. Either one.

Edit - Here is the picture that so noteworthily decorated the t-shirt:

The Return

2007-01-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen: it is with great pleasure that I bring to you Freestyle Blogging - the reincarnated second edition of Dangerboy's Blog. Come weary traveler, venture into these depths if you dare!

Stand stupified as profound prose pelts you with such rapidity that you might come to believe you've been sentence to death by pillory as in the old'en days. Watch helpless as bloated metaphors trump up and down lines and margins as if they were a heretofore hibernating and hungry Godzilla, and the lines in question were the very avenues and streets of Tokyo City (In this metaphor about metaphors, you, the reader, would be one of the thousands of screaming Japanese citizenry forever doomed to run from Godzilla while wearing 80's short-shorts).

But above all else enjoy yourself. Leave comments as you see fit, and sit back and enjoy the unique specticle of a man constantly hovering on the brink of nonsensical rantings.

We're back ladies and gents!