(Josh)ingMySelf profile picture

(Josh)ingMySelf

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. -Heraclitus

About Me

"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
-Friedrich Nietzsche


"All I'm saying is that it's shortsighted to blame TV. It's simply another symptom. TV didn't invent our aesthetic childishness here any more than the Manhattan Project invented aggression."
-David Foster Wallace, interview


My Interests

magical microscopic private moments of tenderness for all that stitches together the grand paradoxical everything, music (listening, writing, recording , playing), film (watching, aspiring towards creating), reading, writing, thinking, pursuing love and friendship and romance, not thinking, film projectors, neuroscience, drunkeness, serenity, ethology, guitar feedback, loving/embracing mortality, loathing mortality, video feedback, curiosity, scarring my lungs with noxious fumes, evolutions of all shapes and sizes, awkward silence between people made comfortable by more silence/eye-contact/telepathy, bike riding, amber waves of grain, Zaireeka (my lovely cat), Emma Louise "Scout" Niblett, observance of patterns and cycles, visual distortion, question marks, pitch bending mechanisms, forest wandering, childhood, audio/visual collages, Autumn, theremins, contemplating the interconnected/interdependant nature of all things, swimming at night, philosophy of mind, animality, humanity, facing the Void with a smile on my face, the sight and feeling of sunlight, historical timelines , fasting, addictions of all shapes and sizes, wordlessness, words, self-deception, action VS. contemplation, vibration, magnetism, uncontrolled physical gestures, learning, waxing theoretical/poetic, FORA.tv , white noise, playing music with my friends in the Death Rattle Orchestra, etc...I am also interested in listing my interests since it reveals something ABOUT myself TO myself therefore, granting me a clear view into the everchanging notion of Who I Am. Scene 1: (meekly looking up towards the night sky and overdramatically blubbering): "Who am I...?" Self-Discovery: It's a hilarious demon hell-ride.

I'd like to meet:

Similar people to argue with, dissimilar people to get along with. And a lovely special someone to joyously do both with.

We project ourselves upon one another at the same time. (But we are not two-dimensional screens that take kindly to projection). With our eyes half closed we find confusion, understanding and misunderstanding in our cross-beams of light and movement. This is how I see us. This is how I see interaction in general.

Music:

the beatles, nirvana, the flaming lips, sonic youth, animal collective, ludwig van beethoven, the velvet underground, my bloody valentine, scout niblett , modest mouse, radiohead, hupp smith , puff puff, death-rattle orchestra, arcade fire, pavement, the microphones, sparklehorse, elliot smith, beck, mirah, enon, grandaddy, devendra banhart, the frogs, wilco, slowdive, syd barrett, limited express (has gone?), blonde redhead, the who (the earlier stuff), tortoise, tom waits, deerhoof, mogwai, the doors, loose fur, will oldham, little wings, the lonesome organist, trin tran, metric, jim o'rourke, sigur ros, ween, harry partch, yo la tengo, angelo badelamenti, the kinks, neutral milk hotel, wooden wand (thanks Neil), stereolab, imbalancing act, califone, louis armstrong, bjork, tosco tango orchestra, devo, manitoba/caribou, crispin glover, philip glass, vincent gallo, wesley willis, smog, brian eno, sianspheric, cat power, architecture in helsinki, neil young, yeah yeah yeahs, godspeed! you black emperor, midlake, leonard cohen, autolux, charles ives, low, boards of canada, spacemen 3, the fiery furnaces, mount eerie, broadcast, beirut, menomena, keren ann, st. vincent, fog, black dice, etc...

Movies:

stanely kubrick, david lynch, ingmar bergman, charlie kaufman, michel gondry, maya deren, fedrico fellini, wes anderson, f. truffaut, sophia coppola, alfred hitchcock, spike jonze, werner herzog, godfrey reggio, p.t. anderson, daren aronofsky, todd solondz, jean-luc godard, the coen brothers, terry gilliam, crispin glover, jim jarmusch, richard linklater, david gordon green, GUY MADDIN, etc... American Movie, Home Movie, The Saddest Music In The World, The Corporation, Wings of Desire, I (Heart) Huckabees, ARISE! , etc...

Television:

I prefer and often demand it to be commercial-free, usually on the internet or DVD: the simpsons, upright citizens brigade, mr. show, other weird and/or subversive sketch and/or animated things...twin peaks, arrested developement, dexter, home movies, PLANET EARTH , anything involving Stephen Colbert, nearly every documentary I've seen done by the BBC, shows about shows, shows about non-human animals, Brad Neely's I Am Baby Cakes and Professor Brothers, etc , all things involving Rick Steves, whatever crap Sam is watching, etc...I actually I like a lot of TV shows I just cannot deal with commercials, thank the good lord Zoraster for the piracy of the internet including commercial-free entertainment.

Books:

david foster wallace, herman hesse, fernando pessoa, don delillo, j.d. salinger, sam harris, will self, william s. burroughs, aldous huxley, hunter s. thompson, hubert selby jr., rick moody, samuel beckett, chuck palahniuk, noam chomsky, james joyce, denis johnson, christopher moore, all sorts of philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, theologians, "thinkers", etcetera: (i.e. nietzsche, hannah arendt, sir francis bacon, karl mannheim, freud, martin buber, darwin, simone debeauvoir, weber, stanley milgram, and on and on), various historical examinations, religious texts, propaganda and DISINFORMATION, slick photography books, film theory, etc...and collections of paintings by francis bacon, rene magritte, and salvador dali.

Heroes:



and

"Most of us see with our eyes, but what if we could see with other parts of our body, too? The idea may seem ridiculous, but it's already been done. Nearly a half-century ago, maverick neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita discovered that it was possible to "rewire" the adult brain, connecting regions in ways no one ever had imagined. Today, his ideas have given a handful of blind people the ability to see for the first time—using their tongues."

and

"The little Brit with a voice like a world-weary Care Bear..."

and

See: www.IRRITACTION.com for more photos by
CHRISCHA M. OSWALD

and

Many, Many Others

My Blog

"My Flesh Sings Out"

I've begun placing articles, videos, photos, et al. on yet another weblog site: imbalancingact.blogspot.com...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Fri, 09 May 2008 11:14:00 PST

conversational thoughts

Some stuff from a conversation with (essentially) a stranger:"Why is the existence of a Christian God more compelling than the existence of the thousands of other Gods that have been worshipped and be...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:41:00 PST

add-on the run-off

So this (see the previous blog/DeLillo excerpt) has basically got me thinking a bit about the relationship between trying to follow the best evidence where ever it made lead (no matter how unpleasant)...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:20:00 PST

Murray says we are fragile creatures surrounded by a world of hostile facts.

I’ve been reading Don DeLillo’s White Noise for the second time now. It’s a really wonderful book. I read this earlier today and it struck me as pretty interesting, got some though...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:48:00 PST

a beautiful, melancholic song

Oh there'll be time to get by Or get dry after the swimming pool Oh there'll be time to just cry I wonder why it didn't work out Oh there'll be time to fish fry For letters by yours truly Yo...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:36:00 PST

i (heart) animal collective: the remix

I especially like the parts between 0:50 through 1:50 & from about 4:00 through the end: ...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:55:00 PST

but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by, etc

bland on the outsidestormy on the insidecovertly unentitledrattled and embattledthe inner circle rotatesand raises up the templethe common, urgent uptakegestures angled forwardbiting at the handsthat ...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:40:00 PST

a small sketch of ethics

From a previous discussion about ethics:"Good points about the history of religion and totalitarianism. I would say that ethics have existed and will continue to exist with or without the belief in or...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:03:00 PST

pretty words and ideas

"A nurse's aid threw the contents of a patient's water glass out a window, the mass of water hitting the ground dislodging a pebble which rolled across the angled pavement and fell with a click on a s...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:48:00 PST

I have been very preoccupied...

...with financial problems. Severe ones. Like very close to getting evicted type money problems. Being out of work for a month and a half has been really difficult. I have a new job now but immedi...
Posted by (Josh)ingMySelf on Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:06:00 PST