TASP 2003 at UT Austin:
The Mystery of Creativity |
Friday, July 30, 2004
clarification: the survey and the personal page are two different things. We take your survey answers and sort them all BY QUESTION. Your personal page, on the other hand, is a blank page in the yearbook reserved entirely for you, and you can fill it up however you like. E-mail Kelsey or me if you have any questions on either the page or individual questionnaire items.
Yes, both of those are my emails. And yes my survey page is done and in ready to mail as it has been for almost a week. I spent the last four days frantically organizing a 130 person fundraiser/volunteer pledge raiser for the convention night with Kerry's speech. Very successful, very time consuming. I'll put it in the mail pronto. Though I'm confused, there's the survey-- is there also supposed to be a "page" that we do? Or is the survey itself the "page?"
I'm reminded of K's technicolored fire-works display of a map showing where we are all headed. I think I'm going to work on a version of that map showing a fitting road trip- would we pick people up on the way- and if so- would we need to rent some rundown bus and take camping supplies, or would this be a car-caravan and a more upscale roadtrip? (Not that any roadtrip with tasper's could ever be non-upscale). I'll start procrastinating my work by working on that with Olga immediately after I take this darn survey to the post office.
This doesn't end with a question because there are enough questions in that last paragraph that need group input.
Okay, I'm posting thrice in a row, but this is somewhat important (to me). Can Alex Yablon and John please check if any of the following email addresses are correct?
Alex: Alex_Yablon@comcast.net
John: johnowens-reasm@earthlink.net OR johnowens2@lycos.com
Much thanks--
Ooh! Roadtrip! Me too!
Yeah, I was rather disappointed watching the speech this morning on CNN. But then again it was early in the morning (by my Midway Island/Samoa Time standards) when things that may be meant to touch are just disgustingly tacky. Lots of eyebrow-raising and/or choking-on-breakfast moments.
Now that Alex has started the list of movies you wouldn't exactly recommend on their value but would like to mention anyway because they're set in the area you live in-- Imelda is most definitely not a movie recommendation, but hey, what movies featuring the Philippines (except Apocalypse Now and Platoon where the Philippines poses as Vietnam) actually do make it to the international audience? You want to smack her five minutes into the film, actually you've probably always wanted to smack her, but Imelda Marcos aside, it gives you a very good glimpse of how modern Philippines had been shaped.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEX B!
Alex, I share your sadness. What a letdown. Still, I'm going to vote dem., i think- plug my nose and check the box for the lesser evil. ughhhhhh.Thursday, July 29, 2004to add positivity to this post- I QUIT My JOBBBBB!!!!! (yay!) This is good too, because it means that now I have time off!! (I had 2 days off in the 4 and 1/2 weeks I was waitressing. not even 4th of July. It was poo.) and I have finished my survey and personal page. Kelsey- is it better to email to you, or send express? I think I will try to email it all if I can. faster.
intermission to this post- gtg get up early, but i'd like to continue blabbing tomorrow : )
what didn't you like about the speech, alex?
off the list: eunice.Wednesday, July 28, 2004
still on the list: JACOB (i take no pity. it's a personal policy of mine.)
aimee! you're alive! follow up exclamation: where in the hell is your yearbook page!?!?!
to me, the funniest part of the convention music is the use of that black eyed peas song as the theme music (they even trotted them out there, with the skanky girl all covered up and her mike cut.) i guess no one remembers, but "let's get it started" is a clean version of a song originally recorded as..."let's get retarded." let me quote for a minute..."bop your head like epilepsy/up inside tha club or in your bentley." how great would it be to see all those delegates dancing poorly to that?
five more words on the democratic convention. john edwards: that's my boyfriend.
read up. http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com/: ). 1 part informative, 3 parts just damn funny.
Did anyone else notice the odd entry and exit music for the speakers at the Dem. conv.?
well, my roommate is now officially none other than the illustrious miss tara elizabeth buentello. we will probably spend most of our time doing the same things we did at tasp, namely avoiding laundry, playing pirate dress-up and trying to lure alex yablon to our room.
Eunice, phalluses are just to great to look at. Shrines to the female parts should include more than just a corresponding disk or depression (what most feature), hopefully illustrations of the entire beauty of the female form would be plentiful. Really , the only worth while part specific to the male psyche (or anatomy) is that tower of power, the Phallus.Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Dudes and dudettes, I don't understand how when Teresa Heinz Kerry says "shove it" it's a scandalous off-colour remark, but when Cheney says tells a U.S. senator to "F*ck off" no one stirs up a storm? ave.
Has everyone heard from his or her future roommates? I hear a few of you so far, what of the rest? Mine seem cool (and musical). right. This one guy, Daniel, from Morrocco (sp?) plays nine instruments. I can't talk to the other dude because his orchestra is away in Russia.
i'm done.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN!Monday, July 26, 2004
Argh I just got back an hour ago and I've never loved the Philippines more. And my computer. Kelsey is ineffably wonderful.Sunday, July 25, 2004
I MET SUSAN!!!
I'm doing the announcing on her behalf as Susan is either in China or touring the South of Korea (what would you call that? South South Korea?). I'd love to tell you about the lovely time we - or at least I - had, but it would work better with the few pictures we took, actually I just want to share the pictures, so I'll get back to this once I get to upload my photos.
And, Adam, I found this rather amusing: I met up with a couple of Korean girls a few days ago and in all Korean ditzdom we were talking about college and the "waters" at each school. I don't know the etymological origin, but traditionally Koreans haved talked about 'good waters' 'bad waters' when referring to potential marriage material. Anyway, one of the girls turns to me and goes, [rough translation] "Oh! I was worried about you at first but it's all okay now! There's a cute Korean guy at the school you're going to! Look for Bryan Lee!"
John, I don't remember much of the Kant, but I think a lot of it had to do with 'disinterestedness.' As in, when one judges something to be beautiful he must be disinterested for the judgement to be valid, free of personal wants like a desire to possess the beautiful object in question. Otherwise it would be 'pleasing' or the other 'not-beautiful' term he defined.
Also, Kelsey, JACOB IS NOT EXCUSED because he agreed beforehand to send in his things before he left. In conclusion, Jacob is a terrible person. Not to mention a bad tasper.
I'll end this post with, not a question but, something I read on the plane. It's for Eunice, who kept saying, every time we walked back from seminar, that there ought to be a way to describe how sunlight flickers through leaves as you walk beneath them.
He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves
- Ulysses
Speaking of "badass," I have a little story from Japan. On our very last day, our tour guide took us to a phallic shrine. Literally. Our guide informed us that we were in the farming village of Takata-Ginja, told us a minimal history of the need for farm laborers, etc. As the legend goes, a woman who could not conceive gave birth to many children after she began worshipping a piece of wood shaped strikingly like a penis. Gradually, more people began worshipping the wooden phallus, hence the creation of the shrine. I listened to all of this with disbelief, but as we neared the front of the shrine, I saw a six-foot-long wooden replica of a phallus. "What about those?" I asked, pointing to the many smaller replicas around the enormous ones. These smaller versions were gifts to the shrine, our tour guide explained.Saturday, July 24, 2004
"Why do they need more than one replica?"
"Because they burn one every year."
Good grief. The tour guide assured me that there was also corresponding shrine for females, but it was too far away from our directed course. To this, I say: "'This {trip} smacks of phallocentricism.'"
tara's off the list, too.Friday, July 23, 2004
Wow. My Princeton room mate is a guy from Dallas just like my room mate in DC and of course you all occupy that special texas-sized part of my heart. I think the stork dropped me a few hundred miles too far north. The lone star always calls.Thursday, July 22, 2004
Kelsey -that may be true of some but since only beautiful girls (and boys) read this blog I am clean.
err...well, as it turns out, my browser doesn't actually allow me to
edit posts. so you can go in and edit yourself off, or this can serve
to inform everyone that john is no longer on the shitlist. three
cheers for john!
Yay for Kelcey being a badass! Three cheers for how cool she is and how obviously deplorable I am considering I'm on the worst part of the list. (it's in express mail...move me the second you get it?)Wednesday, July 21, 2004
matthew, i think that's something boys tell ugly girls to sell magazines.
PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ONLY BAD TASPERS BUT ALSO TERRIBLE HUMAN BEINGS IN GENERAL:
Alex Borinsky
Jacob Eigen
Aimee Clark
Natashia Piazza
PEOPLE WHO MAY BE OR HAVE BEEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND SO ARE NOT OFFICIALLY HORRIBLE PEOPLE BUT ARE STILL CERTAINLY VERY BAD TASPERS:
Jared Fryer
Susan Lee
if you talk to any of these people, kindly remind them that i need their goddamned yearbook pages. i will accept pleas, excuses, and bribes to be moved from one list to the other, but mostly i will accept completed yearbook pages. if your page is not in by july 28, i am making something up for you, and you can bet your sweet bippy it will be uncomplimentary and quite possibly libelous. GET THEM IN FOLKS.
This will probably not be helpful but I think physical beauty is often in perceptions, basically a girl is much hotter if she thinks she is than if she doesn't, except in those rare cases where positive thinking is not enough. Also, doesn't mystery add to beauty? In a book I'm reading the author commentedhow an idea took hold out of the "force of its strangeness more than any recommending feature" (referring to Schweitzer's Jesus). These are subjective criteria. John, I Kant remember. Sorry, it was irresistible. I knew this wouldn't be helpful.Tuesday, July 20, 2004
I think physical beauty is a pretty strait fwd cultural issue... in that most people don't argue that beauty is a genetic thing... even when they are arguing attraction is. But I don't even think attraction is a genetic thing. Obviously physical appearance is somewhat or even mostly genetic, but I think attraction, minus pheromones, (i.e. saying "yes I'm attracted, or no I'm not at racketed to the person in xyz photo) is a purely social thing. But I'm open to not believing that anymore because I have yet to see any good arguments either way.
Can anyone remember a brief outline of Kant's views on beauty? (or maybe I should just go back and reread it eh)
So my friend Myrrick used to date this chick Holly who is unnaturally beautiful. She has a very unique and almost perfectly strait nose, and lovely ...eyes. She actually is Mrs. Teen Illinois, by title through competition. Anyway, four of us idiot guys are hanging out with Holly and her friend (who's name I can't remember, but outfit I could recall in vivid detail) and it occurs to me that they would be wholly unremarkable people if they weren't so darned (hot damned) attractive. It was pathetic to watch how whenever they moved all of the males in the room reoriented casually so that they always faced the beauty queens. I was completely disgusted by myself when I tried to look in any other direction; I couldn't. I literally couldn't.Saturday, July 17, 2004
It was almost too much, but I couldn't get enough. ha.
So we've all discussed creativity before, but what do you all think of physical beauty.
great news! the yearbook pages WILL be printed in color, so all ofFriday, July 16, 2004
you who were crippled by the artistic constraints of black and white
can go ahead and send them to me now!
Tae-yeoun, if you think that meeting someone that looks like Bryan Lee is scary, you should hear my story of orientation. After we checked in we were all herded into an auditorium, where we were split up into groups. The nerdy engineering kids were of course segregated into their own groups. There I met this kid named Winston whose voice was just like Bryan's. His personality and even his laughed matched those of our Korean friend. And if that wasn't enough, later I met another kid named Brian Lee. Get outta here! All in all I'm excited for college, it's gonna be sick. Walking around the city I couldn't help but be reminded of austin, austin and boston rhyming and all. We move in on september 4th so call me sometime. In conclusion, the theme of all trips, be they to boston, korea, or chine, is Bryan Lee.Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Alex, I agree completely with your evaluation of the movie. I guess I was feeling rather positive about the message and failed to notice such little flaws, but since you mention them, they were there.
As for reading, I've been really heavy into The Tales of Known Space by Niven for a few days now (and a few of his books all summer).
What is friendster.com
Matt, what all does the 2ndHomestead Act do? What does it entail? I'll stand behind anything you ask me to as long as it doesn't offend environmental concerns.
On the note of political involvement, I have a tree-huger letter to put up. If any of you would spend 5 minutes of your time and go to the link at the bottom of the page, you could help appease Captain Planet. I'm not terribly keen on the blog becoming a big Spam-ish posting site, so if anyone objects to me putting this up, I'll understand completely:
---
"On Monday, the Bush administration proposed to repeal protections for 58.5 million acres of America's pristine national forests. The Bush administration proposal would allow many of President Bush's top campaign contributors in the timber, mining and oil industries to log, mine, and drill in pristine areas that provide 60 million Americans with clean drinking water and provide habitat for over 1600 endangered species. Even for an administration that has
weakened so many environmental and public health protections, this proposal is extreme.
The Bush administration proposal would repeal the Roadless Rule that was enacted in January 2001 to protect 58.5 million acres of our last wild forests from logging and road-building. The
Roadless Rule ensures that forests will continue to provide clean drinking water, habitat for wildlife, and endless opportunities for recreation and solitude. It was finalized after decades of scientific study, 600 public hearings, and 1.6 million comments in support of the rule. It is the most popular conservation initiative in our nation's history; more than 2.5 million Americans have submitted comment supporting the rule.
This support has reached into every sector of society. Even major wood products consumers like Staples, K.B. Homes and Hayward Lumber think logging America's last pristine forests makes so little sense that they've written the Bush administration to urge protection of America's roadless national forests. Now, it's only extremist elements of the timber, oil and mining industries that support logging these areas – but it's those elements that the Bush
administration is listening to.
Fortunately, we now have the opportunity to stand up to these powerful industries and send a clear message to the Bush administration that Americans want to protect our last pristine
forests. Please take a moment right now to submit an official comment to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth. Then - even if you've never done so before - ask your family and friends to help
by forwarding this along; there is no more important time to act.
To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser: http://wildforests.com/wildforests.asp?id=11&id4=ES
Susan, I'm here till the 26th and I'll call you tonight. Your trip to China is strangely coincidental, as Bryan should be there right now... where are my countrymen (and women) disappearing to??Monday, July 12, 2004
I vote no to comments for the same reason a lot of us said no to message boards. If I get a vote. *guilt*
The scariest thing happened to me the other day: I met someone who looks EXACTLY like Bryan! And his name is Jun Ho! (nb: Bryan's Korean name is Yun Ho.)
hi susan, my suitemate and love! did you get my phone message before you left? to answer your initial question, i haven't heard anything about the 50th anniversary events. this is because the telluride association hates me and in a fit of passive-aggressive pique sends my mail a couple of months after everyone else's. so tae-yeoun gets ta mail before i do.Saturday, July 10, 2004
to answer your technical question, there could be a couple of reasons. one is that blogger's been really buggy lately, and i've been unable to view the blog a few times myself. often hitting reload helps, or reading the blog from the july archive page (http://reasonablyremarkable.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_reasonablyremarkable_archive.html). compounding that, when i just tried to read the blog, the page loaded your two posts and then choked and refused to load anything else. when i checked the blogger dashboard the template code had been modified to try and enable comments, which of course in the crappy cobbled together voodoo template i've thrown up made the whole thing keel over and die.
which brings up another issue. comments. i do realize that tae-yeoun and i have run the blog a bit autocratically (technocrats?) and that the issue should be decided by all the users of the blog, meaning all of us taspers and not just the two who are hunched obsessively over their keyboards all hours of the night (okay, maybe only one of us is like that.)
here is how i feel about comments: i am ideologically opposed to them in this context. i think they are a great tool on blogs run by one person, where the format is something like a lecture and comments allow readers a bit of participation. however i think that this here website has way more of a taspish spirit than that and is more like a seminar. a seminar that allows for (encourages!) discussion of face-farting and the such, but still. and in a seminar, not only is there no room but there's actually no need for the kind of segmented discussion and side conversations that grow from a commenting system.
on michigan tasp 2003's message board, a tasper writes "Based on my experience in forums and blogs, threaded posts are much easier to navigate. In flat forums, you tend to spend a lot of time wading through other people's conversations that have no bearing on what you are interested in." while i'm sure this is true on special interest forums about, say, knitting or nascar, i'm afraid this person has totally missed the point in terms of post-tasp blogging. because all of our conversations have bearing on what we're interested in - that topic of interest being, of course, each other. not to say that everyone has to participate in every conversation - they don't, of course - but that all the conversations that go on in this forum have some bearing/interest to us, and if they don't, someone will speak up about it.
evidence: the aforementioned michigan tasp message board, which has very few posts at all; the cornell tasp's threaded blog (linked to the right), which has had few posts until very recently, and seems to be updated by the same 5 or 6 people. (it could just be, of course, their prideful and prejudiced nature.)
anyway, enough. i've made my position clear, but if there's a majority in favor of comments, i will dive into the creaky template code and implement them properly. i suppose what i'm doing is proposing an erni, in favor of keeping our blog comment-free. only i've gone about it all wrong, because i've said my opinion first and theat's a terribly biased way of doing it. or maybe that's how it's done, i can't remember. (john, a little help?) so kindly advance your arguments and your votes.
i am all in favor of reviving the post-ending question, susan, i've been terrible about remembering to do that. so my question to end this post is: WHERE IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY ARE THE REST OF YOUR YEARBOOK PAGES?!??? (yeah, i know that's a bad question, but i think i've asked one with the rest of my post and everyone should answer susan's first anyway because i'd like to know too.)
missing you all terribly.
Had my face farted in today. Reminded me of you guys. :)Thursday, July 08, 2004
do i hear you championing welfare, matthew?
First, a question: has everyone registered to vote? Now more directly (with pointing finger) have you? Three choices is not many but there are clear differences.
In this election I find myself primarily concerned with an issue that's off the public radar entirely -the decline of rural America. The US Census Bureau reported that my town's (also known as O'Neill, NE) population has declined from 3,772 in 2000 to 3,592 in 2003 at that rate of decline there will be a mere 75 years before the last person moves or dies. Other towns have much less time. Page, pop, 149, has about 20. Other Nebraska towns, the biggest in their areas, are faring worse. Burwell lost 48 of their 1130 in three years. Basset, a county seat, has lost a whopping 62 of its 743 residents since we were fifteen. Though these losses will vary from year to year, the trend of rural decline is accelerating and it seems as if the plains could be depopulated almost as quickly as they were settled.
Despite these alarming facts, this has received little attention from the national media. I have read one New York Times editorial buy, I think, David Brooks who proposed that northern Nebraska to the Canadian border should be transformed into a "Buffalo Commons" where most people would leave (or had already left) and the rest would run services for tourists from "Japan and Germany" who "would love to visit such a place." I support this idea as long as the American Indians (this means you, John) agree to paint their faces and run around whooping, this would get the French on board. Perhaps Buffalo Bill could be unearthed as well. Failing this plan, proposals to turn Manhattan into a 3-D "Buffalo Stockyard" (which would buy Nebraskan crops for feed) have been offered by some locals but seem unsatisfactory.
More seriously, few of the people out here want our communities to die. When General John O'Neill brought my ancestors and other Irishmen to this county he was hoping to give them a new life where they would bound to the land not by British serfdom but by American ownership. When Moses Kinkaid, and O'Neill congressman helped push through a "super" homestead act he was doing the same thing. These men had come to love the people of their communities and the way of life those people led. Even though rural people haven't been abused like General O'Neill Irishmen had been by Bthe British, they have been ignored or offered temporary solutions like subsidies.
I think we all have an interest in preserving the diversity of communities that enriches America. Register to vote and support the Second Homestead Act that is currently in Congress. I hope I'll be able to return to O'Neill -I love it.
I would like to repeat line #5-6 from Alex's poem/lament.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!!!!
jacob does indeed begin at deep springs today, and as we type he is in a plane somewhere over the heartland winging towards death valley. he asked me to post his mailing address to the blog:Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Jacob Eigen
Deep Springs College
HC 72 Box 45001
Deep Springs, CA
via Dyer, NV 89010-9803
he thinks the things he will need most are cigarettes, vaseline, and normalized human contact, so adjust your care packages accordingly.
I. NEED. YEARBOOK. PAGES.
oh yeah, and everyone should join friendster.
If the plane reaches Narita on schedule, I will set foot in Japan at 4:05 p.m. And you, Olga? Tae-Yeoun? Bryan? Susan? I'm going to keep my fingers crossed...
Bryan, "IB tests" is, like "pop," a phrase that sounds so familiar and so foreign at once. I'm so sorry that you missed your 45 by a point or two, but Bryan, when you go back to high school in August(?) to get your diploma, perforation marks on the edges and all, they're going to give you an IB magnet thingie that will dazzle the wits out of you. Just think!Tuesday, July 06, 2004
(sorry, I just checked my scores now. I get a diploma!! And a magnet too! - actually I don't know about the magnet anymore; the year before they gave out pens I think)
Actually, on IB scores, Bryan: how come they don't let you see the breakdown of your scores? All those early early morning internals!!
what ib magnet thing... i dont get no ib magnet thing. sigh... and besides... the perfect score is 46 and i missed it by 7 points - a little more than i had hoped.
sigh.... i hate ib testsMonday, July 05, 2004
kp alert...the new holder of the american world record for hot dog eating, with 32 dogs and buns in 12 minutes, is sonya "the black widow" thomas, a korean-american (and my new hero!)Sunday, July 04, 2004
See Fahrenheit 9/11.Saturday, July 03, 2004
Documentary lovers and future politicians would do well to pay attention, as well as anyone who plans to be in the United States within the next few years (all of us). Great film, with enough comedy to keep it from being a two hour downer, but enough truth to make it worthy. I admire the fat guy obsessed with Bush who made this work, he is noble and cunning and virtuous. I hope more voters watch this film, and I hope our children all have to when they take history in school.
I am a Democrat and can be nothing but an American.
But I will not hide my hate for our current administration (among other things).
On a different not, I think I need to change my answer to one of the yearbook questions. The word Hafto (HAF-too) should be added to the language as a contraction of "have to." Everyone does it phonetically, why not on paper too?
sTrIcKeN PWNS J00!!!!!!!!!11Thursday, July 01, 2004
matthew, what's to come of your "common man" rhetoric now?
good taspers: tae-yeoun, olga, adrian, bryan. bad taspers: EVERYBODY ELSE. 15 more days!
Oh wow, Eunice, I'm so sorry I have such a nonexistent monstrosity for a phone number.
And from the string of numbers you've posted I only recognize 632-819-2530.
In any case, I'm in Korea right now, and number I posted on the blog is my cellphone number in Korea - I have no idea how it would configure; maybe, 8210-311-7181, but I'm not sure. In any case I do not advise placing an international call on a cellphone. So the easiest solution is for you to come visit me in Korea, no?
(Susan: where are you??)
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