Truth and Representation

A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. Listen to Rat Kiley. Cooze, he says. He does not say bitch. He certainly does not say woman, or girl. He says cooze. Then he spits and stares. He's nineteen years old-it's too much for him-so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back.
You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty. Listen to Rat: "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckn' letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back."

- Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story" in The Things They Carried

Advertising has taken over...

...the moral responsibility for all of society and replaced a puritan morality with a hedonistic morality of pure satisfaction.

A facade of fearlessness

Pryor did not grow up in grinding poverty, but he had a childhood that marked him for life and that he mined repeatedly for his comedy. Born Dec. 1, 1940, in Peoria, Ill., his mother, Gertrude, was a prostitute and cocktail waitress and his father, Buck, who he saw beat his mother regularly, was a pimp and bartender. His grandmother, who raised him from the age of 10, owned a brothel.

Even though Pryor was in some ways fearless onstage — there was nothing he wouldn't talk about, from impotence to his crack addiction — there was sometimes a hint of the skinny little Peoria kid lurking behind his eyes as he performed, watching fearfully for bullies.

He dropped out of school after eighth grade, got in and out of minor trouble, then joined the Army and was sent to Germany. Discharged for getting into a knife fight, he landed back in Peoria in 1960, where he started singing and telling jokes in local black nightclubs. The jokes went over better than the singing, and in 1963 Pryor moved to Greenwich Village, where he performed at fabled clubs like The Bitter End and befriended Bill Cosby and George Carlin. "He had a sort of pain that was fairly evident," Carlin recalled of those early days. Read more...

Uncited Sources |All Is Sillyness|

By him I have been made to go in the dark where there is no light. Lamentations 3:2

"One thing, be sure of why you are in this discussion. Pride only fogs the lenses. Play is the most powerful way. Like a child; see, as in the heart of a child, play isn't concerend with what's right or wrong. It just plays; it just is; remember that truth is arrived at through many ways but that the heart shapes the mind and vice versa; what this entails = you want to show, know, be, or say truth, shape the heart, watch it within you and desire to know truth and love it above all your own wants - with God's help, all things can be known. ...remember, true answers necessitate being, not speculation."

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

The Frozen Hyperreal: At what time will it snow?

Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc. This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious revelling in real America, in its delights and drawbacks. You park outside, queue up inside, and are totally abandoned at the exit. In this imaginary world the only phantasmagoria is in the inherent warmth and affection of the crowd, and in that aufficiently excessive number of gadgets used there to specifically maintain the multitudinous affect. The contrast with the absolute solitude of the parking lot - a veritable concentration camp - is total. Or rather: inside, a whole range of gadgets magnetize the crowd into direct flows; outside, solitude is directed onto a single gadget: the automobile. By an extraordinary coincidence (one that undoubtedly belongs to the peculiar enchantment of this universe), this deep-frozen infantile world happens to have been conceived and realized by a man who is himself now cryogenized; Walt Disney, who awaits his resurrection at minus 180 degrees centigrade.

-Jean Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulations

Zombification and You

In 1985, Harvard University botanist Wade Davis traveled to Haiti in search of the poison powder called coupe poudre, allegedly used to cause the death-like trance state induced in the process of zombification. His sponsors believed that if such a drug existed it would have valuable pharmacological usage. He published the results of his findings in two books The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985), and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). In essence, Davis claimed that yes, there are indeed "zombies," and that they are created, at least in part, by a poisonous powder. But, Davis maintains that the poison in and of itself is not enough to create a zombie, rather that "set and setting" must be taken into account. This is the distinction that defines the field of ethnobiology, the idea that physical, social and psychological settings inform biological interactions.


-Jakki Rowlett in The Ethnobiology and Ethics of the Haitian Zombie

Not For Human Sacrifice, Rather Against Humanity

Clearly, it is difficult for us to come to a true understanding of what human sacrifice meant to the sixteenth century Aztec: but it may be observed that every culture possesses its own idea of what is and what is not cruel. At the height of their career the Romans shed more blood in their circuses and for their amusement than ever the Aztecs did before their idols. The Spaniards, so sincerely moved by the cruelty of the native priests, nevertheless massacred, burnt, mutilated and tortured with a perfectly clear conscience. We, who shudder at the tale of the bloody rites of ancient Mexico, have seen with our own eyes and in our own days civilized nations proceed systematically to the extermination of millions of human beings and to the perfection of weapons capable of annihilating in one second a hundred times more victims than the Aztecs ever sacrificed.

-Jacques Soustelle in Daily Life of the Aztecs: On the Eve of the Spanish Conquest

For Bryan

Apparently in response to the woman's threat the she was going to stop helping her daughter if the daughter didn't stop responding to her abusive husband’s financial and emotional demands, Tonio, in an admonishing tone, gave the woman a piece of his mind, quoting an aphorism: "Una madre nunca echa los hijos para afuera, siempre los recoge" (A mother never kicks her children out, she always gathers them near her). Seeing that this woman was going on endlessly about her problems, he conveyed that he was going to resolve her problems by saying, "Yo se dónde está el monte" (lit., "I know where the rain forest is"; i.e., I am the brujo).

-Raquel Romberg in Witchcraft and Welfare

Backin' it up with Berger [x2]

According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man's presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking. If it is small or incredible, he is found to have little presence. The promise power may be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, sexual - but its object is always exterior to the man. A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others. By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste - indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.

- John Berger in Ways of Seeing

"Bad" Girls

A book by fourth-grader Rosa hints at the tensions some girls may feel between operating within a discourse of love and romance and an alternative 'good girl/good student' discourse. Love and romance may represent a sanctioned cultural pathway for girls, but they receive conflicting messages about when and how they are to embark on it, such that in certain times and places for girls to operate within a discourse of love and romance is to position themselves as "bad." This may be especially true for Latinas, who are often stereotyped in good/bad binaries, and for girls within the context of schooling, where being “good” generally requires a denial of one’s sexuality. In the initial draft of her story, Rosa wrote about a girl who watched too many soap operas, talked about them incessantly in school, kissed a boy while under their influence, and performed miserably as a student until her teacher talked to her mother. At that point the girl stopped watching novelas and became a model student.

-Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Good guys and "bad" girls: Identity construction by Latina and Latino student writers in Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse

A is for Affective

Affective epistemology is based on the idea that there is a way of knowing which transcends, specific perceptual frames. The idea is predicated on two primary elements:

1) Feelings and emotions (affective components) are relative to localized perceptual frames. They are not specific to perceptual frames. Individual affective components are specific-to-specific thought forms.

2) These components maybe categorized into two basic sub-classifications lateral and trans-lateral.

Affective components indicate the qualitative and quantitative efficacy or weighted meaning of a given perception, thought form, or way of being in the consciousness of human beings and sentient life.

There is a faith that, through affect and reason, an understanding of reality can be attained.

The Horrible Templet

Don't be confused, Orange is not my favorite color.
...this is the calm before the storm.

The Glory of Love

If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back, it will always be yours.
If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and destroy it.

Hat Tip (pt 2)

You are nothing compared to these guys.

Link

Hat Tip

This one goes out to all the ones that check this blog more often than I update it.

...this bud's for you!

The Next and Last Semester [Are Yall Ready?]

ART 21: Figure Drawing (3 units)
ART 160: Ceramics (intermediate) (3 units)
ART 120: Drawing (advanced) (3 units)
ART 113: Design (advanced) (3 units)
ART 140: Intermediate Painting (3 units)
ART 179: Development of Artistic Expression (3 units)

Daily Life of the Aztecs: On the Eve of the Spanish Conquest

Thus neither nature nor man are to be sent to an everlasting death. Resurrecting forces are at work: the sun comes up again each morning after passing the night 'under the holy plain' teotlalli iitic, that is to say, in Hades; Venus dies and is reborn; the maize dies and is reborn; the whole world of plants, struck dead in the dry season, arises more beautiful and younger each season of the rains, just as the moon dwindles in the sky and returns according to the rhythm of its phases.

-- Jacques Soustelle

Could be the Beginnings of a Term Paper

On the side, thanks Ken for reminding me to get back on track. Today I drove over to Dennis R. Falk's Dentist Office and got myself a crown. I listened to Mariah Carey on the way.

Fear, Love and Anonymous Comments (A Final Note)

This is a public blog. Its readers come from a variety regions, both culturally and geographically and there are few limits to their access. Comments are provided as a space for readers to respond to the written thoughts of the author. They are solicited by the author. A link at the bottom of each post is provided for comments.

By providing a space for comments, the author is inviting her or his readers to enter into a public, mini forum where readers are permitted to view past comments and to post new ones. It has been long suspect that comments help to attract readers as they are often interested in discussion.

The mini forum provided by comments is, like all forms of human communication, a place for dialog. This dialog can range from a pleasant conversation to a heated debate. However, regardless of the tone or mood of a particular dialog, it is always and essentially a place where comments are made, either agreeing or disagreeing, in response to previous comments.

Often, a person posting a comment will desire to remain anonymous. This happens for a variety of reasons. It can be agitating to the author of the blog and other commenters when an anonymous person comments contrary or controversial opinions because we all have a deep desire to defend ourselves. This desire can be and is often motivated by our fears.

I have a personal belief, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, that it is best for me to behave lovingly toward everyone. I do not claim a right to defend myself at the expense of others. I do not demand anyone's name. This is not a level playing field. If my readers are the scum of the earth, then I am joyful as they are those to whom I have been called to speak.

My aim is only the truth, and I will pursue it with the means by which I have been afforded. I am not afraid to hear the truth spoken harshly to me, though I do not recommend such a delivery. I am not afraid of losing my social status. I am not afraid of losing my job. I have already lost my life.

A Quickie

Folks, why is it so hard to behave appropriately when someone posts anonymously on your blog?

In a debate, the identity of another person is not only beside the points, it should not at all be factored into a response to...said points. Don't you see that to respond with knowledge of the other person hinders you? It opens the door for unjust condemnation, blinding you from the truth or lack of truth in their arguments.

If a person signs anonymous, it is not because they are weak or ashamed, it is because they want you to deal with their points... not your ill conceived notions of their character.

A Few Things

1. www.mybad.com is a porn website.

2. I have never been to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

3. "Who are you?" Indigo Montoya tone.

Do you want to know?

Three times now I have recieved the following email:

To initiate the process for resetting the password for your
Google Account, visit the link below

http://www.google.com/accounts/

Thank you for using Google.

For questions or concerns regarding your account, please visit the
Google Accounts FAQ at
http://www.google.com/help/faq_accounts.html.

This is a post-only mailing. Replies to this message are not monitored
or answered.

This means, someone is trying to gain access to my email without my permission.
Don't worry, I'm not offended. Whoever you are, just email me at Jlyons@Gmail.com and I'll send you the password. It's no big deal.

Expression

Think about the word: Primal.

Rudimentary, basic or primitive. Early, first, old, original, prehistoric, primary, primordial. Pejorative?

How about, primal - simply not available for export.

Backin' it up with Berger! (Ways of Seeing)

"The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight."

"One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision: a sight."

Gender Enabled

When the first allegedly nonsexist Bible published in Britain was launched, a press release said that "the revisers have systematically changed expressions such as any man to anyone, but have kept the masculine, especially for God, on the grounds that this is faithful to the original." This comment draws attention to the way in which our mental imagery associated with God is, by cultural convention, masculine, at least within the Judeo-Christian world view.

The belief that the universe is created by a male God has an impact on how we see the creativity of men and women. No wonder there are few female pronouns in religious discourse. After all, we say God made man in HIS own image! Or was it men who created God in a masculine image?

Adrienne Rich

Someone is writing a poem. Words are being set down in a force field. It's as if the words themselves have magnetic charges; they veer together or in polarity, they swerve against each other. Part of the force field, the charge, is the working history of the words themselves, how someone has known them, used them, doubted and relied on them in a life.


What does a poet need to know?

-That to track your own desire, in your own language, is not an isolated task. You yourself are marked by family, gender, caste, landscape, the struggle to make a living, or the absence of such a struggle. The rich and the poor are equally marked. Poetry is never free of these marking even when it appears to be. Look into the images.

Lighting up Caverns

This summer, I became convinced the drops of sweat were my tears. Too tired to realize, I was lying to myself.

Cumulus Congestus

I watch the children play at my work during recess. I watch them run and chase and play on the jungle gym. They often make trips to the drinking fountain and I think about what it is that they've lost and what they're replacing it with.

Water, in both cases, beading up on their noses. Falling in large drops from dirty strands of uncut hair. It lands in the sand between and among the myriad of footprints. I watch their sweat evaporating out of the earth and meeting the clouds high above.

I think about the three forms of water and realize the sweat falling from my brow. I too am in the clouds.

2005 Vacation, Relocation Update Part 2

Entire State of Texas
iPod
Louisiana Swamps and impeneterable Forests
Monsoons
Trailer Hauling Fiberglass Elephant & Other Oversized Animals
Hardee's (East Coast Carl's Jr.) sucks ass
Flamin' Hot Cheetos (Con Limón)
Huge Rivers (Mississippi)
18 Mile long Bridge
Exploding Frieght Truck Tires
3 Bros Hauling a Helicopter behind a Station Wagon
Unrealistic Expectations of Other People Being Perfect
Over Abundant Usage of the Term "Ape Shit." IE, I'm going ape shit!
Why is it a "penny for your thoughts" but you have to "put your two cents in?"
.....,,.Somebody's makin' a penny!
Mah Bah (My Bad)
My Bad This!

2005 Vacation, Relocation Update

10 hour days
iPod
Desert vistas and Saguaro Cacti
Monsoons
Super hot waitress in Needles, CA with a fantastic short cut
El Paso, TX sucks ass
West Texas sucks ass
Dueling pianos in downtown Austin
A tour of the Real World House!

Finally, a New Post...but wait!!!

I'm going on Vacation. I'll see yall later!

A new Post for Comments

You can now begin commenting.

The Hummingbird

Like a Coca-Cola promotional before your favorite movie, I've been feeling a bit disingenuous. I've spent the last three weeks relatively alone; I've suffered (yet again) a great misfortune/loss in my life. My attempts to create anything valid, credible, and authentic have all fallen sort.

I stopped feeling this way yesterday, when for the first time, I held a hummingbird. 'Be still and wait,' she says.

Can you believe that?

Robert Frost for Inspiration

As you may or may not have noticed, the Jetta Resurrection has been silent lately. Our staff writer has been worker overtime in a remote location, far away from any kind of "high speed" internet and has consequently been unable to write with any amount of his mediocre skill. In order to diminish the unfortunate rift of posting regularity, we offer you, faithful readers, a wonderful poem. Enjoy!

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Bruggeman!

The odd testimony of Israel puts forth a theological claim that is profoundly subversive of the present. Israel has known, ever since the barrenness of Sarah, that there is a deep incongruity between the intention of Yahweh and the circumstance of lived experience. Israel, in the face of that incongruity, did not have many alternatives. It could accept the circumstance of its life as the true state of reality-thus, for example, Sarah is barren and then the promise is voided within one generation. The alternative, Israel's chosen one is most seasons, is to rely on Yahweh's oath as a resolve to override circumstance, so that it is the oath and not the circumstance that tells the truth about reality. In this theological intentionality, Israel embraces this uttered testimony as the true version of its life.

--Walter Bruggeman, Old Testament Theology

XXI

A monk ran into a party of handmaids of the Lord on a certain journey. Seeing them he left the road and gave them a wide berth. But the Abbess said to him: If you were a perfect monk, you would not even have looked close enough to see that we were women.

--Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

Oh No He Didn't!

Look at them all... so nice and lined up like that.

A Vague Explanation

The so-called Smiling Figures (Previous Post) from the Remojadas region of Veracruz, Mexico are often regarded as expressions of Mesoamerican humor. These hollow ceramic sculptures are thought by many to be associated with a god of dance, music, and joy. Another compelling interpretation, however, relates them to a cult of pulque, an intoxicating beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant. The animated faces, puffy cheeks, and swollen protruding tongues are regarded as evidence of intoxication. The figures may depict ritual participants, or even sacrificial victims. The survival of many more smiling Remojadas heads than bodies suggest to some a possible ceremonial decapitation and destruction of the bodies. This bare-chested figure, with open mouth and filed teeth, stands energetically with legs spread and arms lifted as if caught in mid-motion. The garb of this celebrant consists of circular earrings, a beaded necklace and bracelet along with a skirt decorated with laterally symmetrical patterns. On her cap are ollin symbols, a sign for motion. This sculpture evokes a festive dance or ritual accompanied by the rhythmic reverberation of the hand-held rattle and celebratory sound escaping from the figure's open mouth.

Mysteries in Mesoamerica

Doesn't she look so happy?

Barber Shop Commentary

It began with a definition of integrity. Dictionary.com served us up three subtle variations:

1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
2. The state of being unimpaired; soundness.
3. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

The conversation turned toward a denigration of particular morals and I quickly check out. We all can agree that the infusion of the concept of "completeness" into the definition is significantly more provacative than what conservative, geriatrics think about goodness. (I don't say this to attack conservative values, but more over to attack the values of tired, old conventional thoughts.)

Everyone has an idea of what completeness is, but few of us have it. Like falling asleep quickly or smelling some kind of flower. Paris Hilton and Buddha. A few people feel comfortable in their own skin, but most people don't.

I drove to the Barber shop at the corner of First and Shaw and I listed to the horrible radio station, Y 101.1 (It's a social critique I'm working on).

Why?

(high pitched voice) Annie Lennox is so tight!

Wear the Wrong Colors, be Cautious

Hate it or love it the under dog's on top
And I'm gon shine homie until my heart stop

Go'head'n envy me
I'm rap's MVP
And I ain't going no where
So you can get to know me

Consider the Source

A few days ago, I received this fortune cookie. I was ecstatic. Finally, a sign from the gods detailing the amazing feats I will achieve in my life. Verifiable proof than not only am I a great person now, I will also be successful in the future! In my euphoria, I showed it to a friend of mine who sobered me up pretty quickly with the words, "Consider the source."

It's definitely easy to doubt the reliability of fortune cookies. In fact, a friend of mine once got one that said "Buy the red one" and he wasn't even car shopping. However, even if these unreliable claims are put forth by meaningless traditions, we still have a responsibility to evaluated the claims by themselves, not by their sources.

I've heard a lot of talk on the blogs about anonymous commenting. Anonymous posting is available here. Most opponents of the idea frequently make accusations of cowardice instead of dealing with the truth of the statements. It's easy to say, "Oh, James Lyons is an idiot. I don't have to listen to a thing he says." Our first thought when reading an anonymous comment is, "I wonder who said that?" It is of little or no worth to allow the prejudices of our appearances to cloud the truth, or lack of truth, in the statements we make.

Today, I made a huge mistake and criticized someone about something I didn't really understand. I considered the source before I thought about the meaning of what was being said. It's been driving me up the wall. I've been listening to Eninem: Encore.

Differences Above Similarities

The existance of verifiable atruism among primate populations has long puzzled evolutionary biologists. Altruistic behavior cannot evlove by ordinary natural selection because it decreases the fitness of the individual performing the behavior. An answer to this problem was not clearly formulated until 1964 when a biologist named W. D. Hamilton published a theory which predicts that altruistic behaviors will be favored by natural selection if the costs of perfroming the behavior are less than the benefits discounted by the coefficient of relatedness between actor and recipient.

rb > c

r = how closely the actor and the recipients are genetically related
b = the total benefits to all individuals affected by the behavior
c = the cost to the individual performing the behavior

Simplistically, this theory proposed that the closer the relationship between two individuals, the more likely they will behave benevolently toward one another.

Today, as I drove to work I was cut off by several persons insignificantly related to me. I got mad, made a few verbal and gestural comments, and then took the McKinley Ave Exit. I was listening to Ennio Morricone: The Mission Soundtrack.

Notice to Appear

Most things we do in our lives are for practical reasons. The Jetta was resurrected for practical reasons. I needed to drive to my place of work, I needed to partake more readily in the activities at church, and I needed to pay for a parking ticket. Take time to consider a definition:

cat·a·lyst (kae tE lihst) n.

A substance, usually used in small amounts relative to the reactants, that modifies and increases the rate of a reaction without being consumed in the process.

In this situation, a parking ticket was the catalyst for much of the initiative to resurrect the Jetta. Nothing like "trouble with the Law" to kick your butt into action. Now, it's true that my car did sit in front of my house un-insured and un-registered for a little while... but it wasn't hurting anyone. Come on, we all know that the Clovis PD checks their residential streets for un-lawfully parked vehicles more than I check my e-mail!

But it's cool. I'll be alright. Many, many good things came out of the discipline of paying this $50 ticket. This website, for example.

Today, I drove over to my friend Shawn's condominium. We played some poker, and watched some people move a couch. I listened to Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to the Head. Wouldn't it be great to hear their new album?!

Bankrupt?

I am an artist and I work in a conceptual format. Conceptual art can be difficult for uneducated viewers as it lacks the sedative elements of simpler works. Don’t be confused, art has always been about ideas. From the earliest cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux to the diverse spectrum of content and form that we enjoy today, art is and has always been confined in the relationship between an idea and the expression (in any manifestation) of that idea.

This particular work is a library of bankruptcy law which I acquired through a generous donation. The volumes alphabetically catalog the precedent setting bankruptcy cases in the history of the United States. At its highest, it measures over 9 ½ ft and weighs over 1,200 lbs. It is the sad story of so many of our people.

Today, I am yet to drive anywhere, though I may try to make it over to the mall to get fitted for a tuxedo. Yesterday, I listened to INXS: Kick.

I Work at an Elementary School

It's true, I am employed by the Fresno County Office of Education and I work in an afterschool program at the school of John Burroughs. I work with children, third graders in particular, and I facilitate their educational development through a variety of games/homework (No Ken, I will not teach Sunday school).

As far as the image is concerned, it is a barbie jean jacket with glitter trim and has been in the Jetta's cup holder for the last six months. It was given to me by a young, second-grade lady named Stevie Sanchez. She's a gem of a girl, gracious in most things, but she desperately needs to work on her "times."

My current milage is 34mpg on the highway and 28mpg in the city. My overall average is up this week due to my numerous trips to Oakhurst, CA. God Bless the US!

Today I drove down to GW School Supply and listened to Kelly Clarkson: Break Away!

The Reason of the Jetta Resurrection

Writing, like any other human action, is an extension of the thought process. You may have noticed that the structure or logic of the writing at Jetta Resurrection isn't very "good" and this in turn might lead you to believe that the staff writers here are not competent. The intent of this post is to confront and contradict that presumption.

Robert Kaplan (1966) made a study of English composition written by foreign students and discovered that there are predictable differences in writing styles. Different cultures use specific approaches in developing a topic. Here is a diagram:

As the diagram indicates, English essay writers tend to be direct, with the main idea clearly stated, examples presented, then followed by a conclusion. Semitic writers tend to include many instances of parallelism, stating related ideas in succession. The old testament is a great example. Oriental essayists tend to develop indirectly. It is considered insulting to the reader to be direct as the reader is expected to determine the meaning. Romance languages, such as French, Spanish and Italian contain long digressions.

Jetta Resurrection does nothing less than simultaneously defy and compile all of these patterns.

Over here, we're comin' from the left, we're comin' from the right, we've already hit the bottom and we're movin' down on the top. We've been here since the beginning and you're gonna wanna wait around for the end.

Today, I drove to school and home and school and work. I listened to The Fire Theft: The Fire Theft.

The Motor's Job is to Apply Torque

Torque is a interesting and commonly misused word. Most simply, it means a turning or twisting force. Similar in many ways to spinning. This is half of what the jetta does. It allows me to "go". The other half is a little more confusing, a little less simple.

GM and Shell ran an advertisement in today's NYTimes. A huge two page spread. Most of those two pages were used to portray a bright blue, unsmoged sky. The rest of the spread hyped a vehicle and, most unsuprisingly, a Shell "hydro" gas pump.

Something reeks about the Ad. Something reeks with the stench of fraud and exploitation. GM doesn't produce a car that could be filled up with your garden hose, not because they are incapable of doing it but rather because they are incapable of making a "profit" on it. Profit , around here, is a dirty word!

This morning, I cruised the beautiful Hwy-168 on my way to Fresno State and listened to The Shins: Oh, Inverted World.

Jetta Resurrection: Belief and Doubt in Blogging

The blog has been hailed as a place for dialog, a unique forum to come together, apart the confusions of appearances. The blog has been said to be a wonderful way to express and catalog ones inmost thoughts and feelings. The blog has been toted as the new revolution.

We all can agree that a lonesome few blogs live up to those callings. We all can say we've seen some bad blogs. We all have read the I hate blogs blogs. Anyway, the main purpose of this post is simple, what I write here might not be the truth. In fact, I might outright lie to you. It's cool. You'll be alright.

Today, I drove to work and downtown Fresno. I listened to The Arcade Fire: Funeral.

Yo, the Gas Man!

Gas was a significant factor in the decision to decommision the Jetta and since it's resurrection, the direction prices have taken has been unfortunate. Wrong Way/Do Not Enter!

Sometimes, I wish I could just fill up my car with my garden hose. Wouldn't that be great. I mean for $2.69 per Gallon, I could fill up my tank will good ol' 2% milk. That way, I could supliment some of the gas that comes out of the cows!

Today, I've been listening to Dave's iPod in my car: Thanks iTrip.

It's a Beautiful Morning!

Yesterday, in the face of other great obstacles, I went to Radio Shaque and dispelled all the negative rumors about FM transmitters. That's right folks. I purchased a Griffin iTrip (I did refrain from the $15 warranty). This means for all you iPodless, that I now have the ability to listen to my iPod in either my own car or your's at my own discretion. Yesterday was about discretion and it was about a lot of other things.

I listened to Beck: Sea Change.

An Introduction, a Revival, a Metaphor

What is a Jetta Resurrection and what is the Jetta Resurrection blog? When did the Jetta die? These are the questions of beginning and re-beginning, reminding us of the cyclical nature of our world.

The death of the Jetta is alleged to be somewhere around the late fall of 2004. It was due to a great number of factors, ranging from financial depression to genuine political upheaval. The death of the Jetta marked the end of an era, then end of an innocense.

During the time of the Jetta's "non-presence," I took to riding the Bike. It proved a cost efficient, though arduous endeavor. Like warm water on a hot day. Like little cactus needles (the feeling you get when you just look at them). It was a dim time full of ambient light, similar to dusk or dawn (without Brad Pitt).

The Jetta's Resurrection occurred on the 15th of February, 2005. It was a momentous occasion, full of sweet and bittersweet and bitter and other tastes. Back in the saddle, back in commission, back in the hands of the Bush administration.

So, this is a blog about the daily interaction of me with the Jetta, the Road, and other stuff. It'll be random. It'll be concise. I'll post regularly...

Yesterday, I drove out to Easton, California. I listened to U2: War.