"It is important...to understand that the institutional order...is continually threatened by the presence of realities that are meaningless in its terms...All social reality is precarious. All societies are constructions in the face of chaos. The constant possibility of anomic terror is actualized whenever the legitimations that obscure the precariousness are threatened or collapse."
"The appearance of an alternative symbolic universe poses a threat because its very existence demonstrates empirically that one's own universe is less than inevitable."
"When not only theoretical but practical competition arises between groups of experts dedicated to different ultimate definitions of reality, the depragmatization of theory is reversed and the pragmatic potency of the theories in question becomes an extrinsic one; that is, a theory is 'demonstrated' to be pragmatically superior not by virtue of its intrinsic qualities, but by its applicability to the social interests of the group that has become its 'carrier.'"
I like big words. They make me happy.
I'd like to meet:
Tourists.
Music:
Drakkar Sauna, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Telegenic, St. Vincent (live), Animal Collective, Klaxons, be your own PET, The Grates, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mount Zion, Joanna Newsom, Tokyo Police Club, Des Ark, The Cripples, The Willowz, TV On the Radio, Essie Jain, Einsteurzende Neubauten, Musterhaus, Controller.Controller, Devotchka, Rachel's, Esmerine, Tom Waits, Faith No More, Beirut, Black Ox Orkestar, Liars, Neutral Milk Hotel, Do Make Say Think, Feist, Ladytron, The Knife, CSS, Split Lip Rayfield, George Crumb, M83, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, R.L. Burnside, Terry Riley, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Four Tet, Arvo Part, Hangedup, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, old Misfits, Set Fire to Flames, Run-D.M.C., Caribou...
Movies:
So I actually do really like movies, but I sort of like to go see them along with someone else who hasn't seen them yet instead of always being the guy to whom people always say, "Yeah it was alright; I guess I'd go see it again...if you want to."I think the last movie I saw in theaters was the second Resident Evil movie, and I think prior to that it was the first Resident Evil movie. I mean come on guys, why doesn't anyone ever invite me to go see a good movie.Anyway, yeah I like some of these movies:Weekend, Partner, One Hour Photo, Manhatten, Annie Hall, and other Woody Allen flicks, Wes Anderson flicks, Dr. Strangelove, The Man Who Wasn't There, Marx Brothers movies, Godard flicks in general, Harold and Maude, Fight Club, Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas, Blow Up, Death to Smoochy, About Schmidt, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Crash, Vertigo and other Al Hitchcock movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Solaris (both versions really), Lost in Translation, The Grapes of Wrath, Igby Goes Down, American Psycho, The Big Lebowski, Citizen Cane, the Evil Dead trilogy...
Television:
Everyone on MySpace acts like they're too cool for TV. Whatev...I watch TV, and lots of it.
I've recently become a big Star Trek junkie (again), and truthfully I've seen every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation...multiple times.
But it's not like Star Trek is very good; I mean as far as sci-fi goes I don't think you'll find much better than the new Battlestar Galactica series on the SciFi channel...at least not on TV. Star Trek is guilty of the same essentialistic worldview that you find time and time again in lame Fantasy books, television shows and movies...and in most bad sci-fi. But Battlestar deals with ambiguity in the same sense that the best sci-fi has always attempted address. It's certainly no 2001 and no Solaris, but you've got to give credit where credit's due, and I appreciate BSG's existentialism considering what passes for sci-fi these days.
Books:
Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Lorax, and other books with pictures...oh and movies from books so long as they aren't lame like the Lord of the Rings or anything.
Heroes:
Harold, the Lorax, and anyone who makes books with pictures.
