Month: November 2020

Weber’s Iron Cage

In sociology, the iron cage is a concept introduced by Max Weber to describe the increased rationalization inherent in social life, particularly in Western capitalist societies. The “iron cage” thus traps individuals in systems based purely on teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control. Weber also described the bureaucratization of social order as “the polar night of icy darkness”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_cage

Downwards Head Nod vs Upwards One – Implicit Knowledge, Example of


Dear men, what’s the difference between the non-verbal downwards head nod and the upwards one? from AskMen

docgima
Up is more “what’s up”, and down is more I acknowledge your presence and show you no disrespect.

EmeraldJonahMale
Chin down is more respectful, more like saying “Hello”. Chin up is more informal, and more like saying “what up?” Depends on the audience. I’d probably never start a job interview with a chin up head nod. But i’d greet my buddies with one.

doofygoobz
In addition to what you said, I also see downward as indicating that the greeting is over, there is 0% chance that I want to interact further. With upward there is maybe a 3% chance that we’ll actually stop to talk.

This is an example of the type of thing no one explicitly tells you but everyone picks up if they’ve been around enough.

Finding the Game – Meaning Of, Improv Concept

From the wide spectrum of opinions emerge two fundamental definitions of game, based mostly on its relative importance to the scene. The first definition is associated with the improv community of Chicago, and the second is associated with the community that it birthed, the UCB.

1. The game is any pattern that emerges within a scene that the improvisers may follow while exploring the relationship between the characters.

…

2. The game is the single pattern of unusual behavior that defines the scene.
WILL HINES: [The game is] a consistent pattern of behavior that breaks from the everyday pattern of behavior. The reason we say that is we want games that are based on an unusual thing, something that’s different from reality, that repeats in a consistent way. That’s our mathematical way.

KEVIN MULLANEY: For me game of the scene is a metaphor: Games have rules, and so can scenes. It’s up to the players to figure out those rules as the scene develops. The rules can be ways in which the characters behave or react, patterns to the way they think, or rules governing the situation or even the world in which the scene exists.

Matt Visconage, Vulture

Alan Arkin Interview

What is a successful life to you?

A successful life is constantly shedding skin. When you’re a teenager, you lose a girlfriend or boyfriend and you think you’ll die. Five years later, you look back and you realize it was childish. You’re laughing. That goes on through a successful life — you come to endings and you have the courage for continual growth.

Do you prefer standup, sitcoms or feature films?

I mostly can’t abide sitcoms. I feel there’s an undercurrent in most of them that’s: “You remember us, we’re the cute people you love.” A director once told me the problem with sitcoms: “A great theatrical act has a beginning, middle and end, sitcoms are always act two, they have no beginning or end.” A Buddhist idea of hell is being trapped in a perpetual cycle of mistakes you never get out of.

Nadja Sayej,
InsideHook

Good To Be Alive – DJ Rap

 

Don’t crucify if I feel alive
It’s a natural high and I’m satisfied

Absolved from sin
I called the devil from within
He told me live my life
Don’t let them criticize

It’s good to be alive
Sometimes I wonder how I survived
And in my minds eye
When you’re low no-one seems to know
A fallen angel tonight
I feel no shame when I’m high
It feels so good must be right
It feels so good inside
Inside

I’d love to love you but I’m too impure an angel
I’d love to love you

Don’t compromise
You don’t live my life
‘Cos I don’t judge you
When I look in your eyes

It’s good to be alive
Sometimes I wonder how I survived
And in my mind’s eye
When you’re low no-one seems to know
A fallen angel tonight
I feel no shame when I’m high
It feels so good must be right
It feels so good inside
Inside

I’d love to love you..

On the soundtrack of the movie Go – Life begins at 3am

Lollapalooza Lineup – 1995

North America

Dates: July 4, 1995 – August 18, 1995

Main Stage: Sonic Youth, Hole, Cypress Hill, Pavement, Sinéad O’Connor (first few shows; bowed out due to pregnancy), Elastica (replaced O’Connor, as did Moby for a few shows), Beck, The Jesus Lizard, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Side Stage: Coolio, Doo Rag, Possum Dixon, Poster Children, Yo La Tengo, Brainiac, The Coctails, Geraldine Fibbers, The Dambuilders, Laika, The Pharcyde, Tuscadero, Built to Spill, Helium, Redman, St. Johnny, Dirty Three, Mike Watt, Versus, Hum, Blonde Redhead, The Roots, Blowhole, The Zeros, Pork Queen, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Sabalon Glitz, Psychotica, Patti Smith, Overpass, Moby, Superchunk, Beck (acoustic, generally), Spring Heel Jack U.S.A., Ariel, Incredibly Strange Wrestling, Gary Young’s Hospital, Dandelion

“Lab Stage”: Shallow, Lucifer Wong, Clod Hopper 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lollapalooza_lineups_by_year#1995

Politics as Sport – Metaphor

When any political movement loses all sense of self and has no unifying theory of government, it ceases to function as a collective rooted in thought and becomes more like fans of a sports team. Asking the Republican Party today to agree on a definition of conservatism is like asking New York Giants fans to have a consensus opinion on the Law of the Sea Treaty. It’s not just that no one knows anything about the subject; they don’t remotely care. All Republicans want to do is beat the team playing the Giants. They aren’t voters using active intelligence or participants in a civil democracy; they are fans. Their role is to cheer and fund their team and trash-talk whatever team is on the other side. This removes any of the seeming contradiction of having spent years supporting principles like free trade and personal responsibility to suddenly stop and support the opposite. Think of those principles like players on a team. You cheered for them when they were on your team, but then management fired them or traded them to another team, so of course you aren’t for them anymore. If your team suddenly decides to focus on running instead of passing, no fan cares—as long as the team wins.

Stevens, Stuart. It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump

You’ll never understand how politics works if you don’t understand Anna Nicole Smith

After a lecture, David Rieff, perhaps America’s most important writer on humanitarian issues, made this surprising comment: “You’ll never understand how politics works if you don’t understand Anna Nicole Smith.” What could Anna Nicole Smith have to do with politics—or brain scans, for that matter? Abundant clues to the answer could be found on any TV channel that night. There were viewers calling in, recounting their emotional responses to Anna Nicole’s life and death. Most of them were women, mourning her, idolizing her. To others, she was a gold digger, an empty-headed celebrity, a celebrity only because she was a celebrity. Her life and death resonated so profoundly with so many people because she exemplified a remarkable variety of narratives. Those narratives exist outside the body – in our culture – and inside the body – in the very building blocks of our brains. David Rieff was completely right—understanding the importance of Anna Nicole Smith will help us understand politics.

Lakoff, George. The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics 

The Rolling Stones, Trump, and Atlantic City

Atlantic City wasn’t where you’d expect to find the Rolling Stones in 1989. It was, for the most part, a mecca for East Coast pensioners who couldn’t endure the trip to Vegas. Church groups would show up by the busload, throw nickels in the slots, feast on a free buffet, and reboard the bus before nightfall. Frankie Valli was as rock ‘n’ roll as it got. Donald Trump lured the Stones to this den of decadence with a huge offer. It called for three concerts, December 17, 19, and 20, at the Atlantic City Convention Center, next to Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. It’d be the Stones’ last stop of the tour.

…Trump bought these shows outright for $6 million – a ton of money back then – so he was the boss. He, not the Stones, determined the ticket prices. He also got to sell/distribute the tickets however he wanted. For the December 17 show, he comped the best seats to his high rollers. Blue-haired old ladies and guys who reeked of Vitalis. They couldn’t name a single Stones song, but when they saw the value of their tickets – $500 a pair – they couldn’t resist the perk. The Stones weren’t happy, but it was their own fault for making Trump their boss for the week. At a preconcert press conference, they avoided all photo ops with him and threatened to leave if he came near them.

German, Bill. Under Their Thumb

Being Guns and Roses Manager

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: When you’re dealing with two heroin addicts, a cocaine addict, and a bipolar lead singer, every day is mayhem. Well, three heroin addicts, actually: Izzy, too. But Izzy cleaned up midway through the Appetite tour.

… when I get back to the hotel, there’s four ambulances, two fire engines, about fifteen cop cars, and three hundred people standing in a circle. Slash is there, naked. And bleeding. He’d come in overnight, to bring Steven heroin, I think. I told my security guy, “Earl, go to my room and get my briefcase.” I used to carry between $30,000 and $50,000 at all times, just for situations like this.

So I go, “Did anybody see anything here?” And a guy goes, “Yeah, I did.” So I walk away with him and he goes, “I saw him throw a maid to the ground.” I’m thinking, Okay, this is not good. I said, “I notice you got a little blood on your shirt. That’s, what, a $2,000 custom shirt?” He goes, “No, no.” I said, “Trust me, I know clothing. That’s a $2,000 shirt.” I bring out $2,000 and give it to him. “Think you’re okay going on with your day?” He said, “Yeah.”

The cops are cracking up because they can see I’m paying people off. I grabbed the hotel manager and said, “Give the maid $1,000 and an apology from us, please. What about the damage to the hotel?” He goes, “I’d say it was $700.” I said, “So another $2,000 will take care of that. Do you feel like pressing charges?” He goes, “No.” This whole time, Steven is on his balcony, yelling at Slash: “You stupid heroin addict!” We got in the car as quick as we could and boogied. It probably cost $10,000, but I kept ’em out of jail.

Tannenbaum, Rob; Marks, Craig. I Want My MTV

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot – Is it Dramatic?

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has established itself as the most original contribution to dramatic literature since 1950. The distinction of the writing is undeniable. All kinds Of good things may be said about the dialogue, “but is it dramatic?” Let us set aside the fact that very little happens in the play, for this is true of so many good plays. And many good plays have wrongly been found undramatic (“not a play”) by their first critics. The first critic to make the point, and repeatedly, that Beckett’s dialogue is not dramatic is Beckett himself — in that dialogue. For this “criticism” is inherent in the recurrent joke of letting the conversation simply dry up and having one character tell the other to say something. In this, Beckett has put into a play what “cannot be put into a play.” For in a play, the dialogue cannot conceivably dry up. A play is, so to speak, a much longer piece of dialogue, reduced to the number of lines one sees in the final text by the craftsmanship of compression. Pauses can only occur when they are equivalent to dialogue, when their silence is more eloquent and packed with meaning than words would be. The dramatist fights against time. He cannot “get it all in.” His craft is the filling out of every nook and cranny that each second as it passes may offer him, just as the painter’s craft is the filling in of each square inch of canvas. That any part of the dramatist’s precious couple of hours should stand empty, and that there should be any difficulty about filling it, is absurd. But Waiting for Godot is ‘drama of the absurd.”

Eric Bentley. The Life of the Drama

Pascal’s Wager and Hamlet

Pascal and Hamlet both struggle with the question of how to act under circumstances of constant uncertainty. Hamlet deeply desires conviction before he acts, while Pascal argues that our actions will lead to belief. And, since we can never be absolutely certain, only the highest in a set of probabilities should dictate our actions. Though they try to weigh finite probabilities against the infinite, both Hamlet and Pascal recognize that the human condition limits our ability to know the infinite consequences of our actions and choices. To understand these probabilities, Pascal reasons through rigid, calculable steps. His process contrasts sharply with Shakespeare’s representation of temperamental human logic in Hamlet. Hamlet’s distorted reasoning highlights our mortal tendency to fixate on even the smallest risks in the shadow of vast gain. As Shakespeare writes, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”.

…
Regardless of the strength or weakness of one’s conviction, acting with confidence (even if insincere at first) creates a stronger, genuine belief. Uncertainty, according to Pascal, can be overcome through action and outward show.

Conversely, Hamlet is immobilized by uncertainty. Unlike Pascal, Hamlet needs to believe in his choice of action before he can perform it. He is thoughtful to the point of obsession, and constantly puts off action for the sake of having a more solid reason to do it. Hamlet recognizes his own hesitancy, and often berates himself for not being as passionate and resolved as the actor is in relation to the fictional Hecuba, or as Fortinbras’ soldier is over an inconsequential piece of land. All the while that he, Hamlet, has the strongest reason to act – his father’s wrongful death and his mother’s disgraceful marriage – all he does is complain:

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A stallion! Fie upon’t, foh! About, my brains.

Student Essay
Brumbaugh, Victoria. “Action and Uncertainty in Pascal’s Wager and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”

The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-017-the-art-of-the-probable-literature-and-probability-spring-2008/assignments/

Course Description
“The Art of the Probable” addresses the history of scientific ideas, in particular the emergence and development of mathematical probability. But it is neither meant to be a history of the exact sciences per se nor an annex to, say, the Course 6 curriculum in probability and statistics. Rather, our objective is to focus on the formal, thematic, and rhetorical features that imaginative literature shares with texts in the history of probability. These shared issues include (but are not limited to): the attempt to quantify or otherwise explain the presence of chance, risk, and contingency in everyday life; the deduction of causes for phenomena that are knowable only in their effects; and, above all, the question of what it means to think and act rationally in an uncertain world.