You are currently browsing the daily archive for December 5th, 2007.
In class today, I mentioned something I discussed in my Aesthetics class last year, about objects and ideas and there “thrice” removal from their true forms. I looked up Plato on Wikipedia, but found a section about his relationship with Socrates. Under the metaphysics section, I found this, “according to Socrates, physical objects and physical events are “shadows” of their ideal or perfect forms, and exist only to the extent that they instantiate the perfect versions of themselves. Just as shadows are temporary, inconsequential epiphenomena produced by physical objects, physical objects are themselves fleeting phenomena caused by more substantial causes, the ideals of which they are mere instances. For example, Socrates thinks that perfect justice exists (although it is not clear where) and his own trial would be a cheap copy of it.”
Being able to know what something is inside of your head and draw a picture of it is an amazing feat. Hopefully someone else will be able to determine what you drew is the same object that was inside your head. As a writing major, and I discussed this in my final paper for Tweedie, I think being able to describe a thought in your head is pretty much just as cool as being able to draw it. Describing, through words what you see allows the reader to be the artists and paint their own picture in their head. I guess it all depends on if you want the audience of either a painting or an essay to see exactly what you saw in your head, or their own version. However, I bet plenty of artists get frustrated when their paintings don’t look exactly the way they want them too. In this regard, I can finally understand why our major is titled writing arts.
If you don’t understand what Socrates is trying to say, give this a look.
A week ago I was at The Electric Factory in Philly and saw one of the best shows of my life: Coheed and Cambria (one of my all time favorite bands). They played a two-hour set! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band perform that long. The energy was just ridiculous, and I came out exhausted, dehydrated, and drenched in my own sweat…and I loved every minute of it. Here’s a video of “No World For Tomorrow,” the song they opened with off of their new album barring the same name.
(I should be somewhere around where this video was taken actually)
In McCloud’s article, “The Vocabulary of Comics,” I gained an insight into my personal perceptions. Although I hadn’t thought extensively about it before, the fact that we as people can associate a circle, two dots, and a line with a face is remarkable; we really are a “self-centered” race.
I have been an on-again, off-again comic book enthusiast, but I have never though so in-depth about the medium until having read this piece. There are many things to consider: the abstract and concrete, level of detail, and the bond between words and pictures. From Batman to Spiderman, I’m sure there are things I have overlooked in between the lines.
More interestingly enough, this philosophic comic made me realize the degree to which objects surrounding us become a part of ourselves. For example, on page 8 McCloud provides the riveting example of a car crash. “Hey! He hit me!” proclaims one of the comics, and rightly so. In a situation such as this, I (and presumably most people) would say the something to the same effect. This realization has made me consider how objects can easily become extensions of us.
From vehicles to clothing, the objects we surround ourselves with ultimately become a part of who we are. The clothing we are represents our tastes and sense of style just as much as CD’s do. But there is something significant in the example above about the car crash; we wouldn’t say “Hey! He hit me!” if someone struck one of our iPods or laptops. Clothing can be a tricky middle because if someone were to step on my shoes, I would be inclined to say “You’re stepping on me,” when it is clear that they are only offending my ratty pair of Chuck Taylor’s.
All in all, I believe that this article was probably one of the most riveting of the ones we have read. While the concepts were intricate, they were represented in a fun, visual way as to maintain the attention of the reader reader and aid in the process of understanding.
Last year, at time not unlike now, I felt nostalgic and seasonally deprived; it simply never felt like Christmas here at school. All right, there’s a Christmas tree and blowup menorah in Savitz Hall, but I still don’t feel the Christmas spirit.
Like the majority of freshman, I didn’t have a car on campus, and I feel that this attributed to my lack of Christmas spirit last year. Seeing as I couldn’t drive around, and I spent 90% of my time on campus, I saw no blinking lights or lawn ornaments or intricately decorated malls.
This year, sadly, seems to be no different; I still don’t feel nearly as festive as I think I should. I do, however, have a car on campus this year, but it seems that I’m rarely off gallivanting around the neighbor (mostly because I don’t know the neighborhood).
There is a mere two or three weeks left of this semester, so I suppose that’s a plus in and of itself. Where’d the time go guys? I’m always amazed at the passage of time, and even when it seems like the workload will never end, the days seem to slip right through my fingers.
I don’t know what I can do to better prepare myself for the holidays, but I wish everyone the best on their finals and nothing but good times over break.
I’ll see you all next semester.
One of the points made in the Bump article is that holding class discussions online rather than out loud encourages more people to participate. I completely agree with this — I personally found it much easier to speak up when there was no actual speaking involved, and I didn’t seem to be the only one. I think that there are a few reasons for this. First of all, I found it a lot easier to organize my thoughts in writing than while speaking, because in the chat I could stop in the middle of typing, think about it, and then resume. Theoretically, you could pause and gather your thoughts while speaking, but it just results in awkward gaps in the conversation and you run the risk of being interrupted and not getting a chance to go back and complete your thought. Secondly, communicating online allows you to focus more on what you’re saying than on how it’s being perceived, because you don’t see other people’s immediate reactions the way you do in face to face conversation. This encourages people to be more blunt and to say what they think without worrying about peer rejection, although as the Bump article points out, it’s possible to take this too far and become completely apathetic towards the feelings of the people you’re chatting with. I can’t imagine a class discussion getting that heated, but it’s something to keep in mind. A third advantage of online chats is that everyone has a voice. In normal class discussions, only a handful of people are willing to volunteer, or else there simply isn’t enough time to hear from everyone. In the chat, everyone was able to type at once without interrupting each other or losing track of what the other people were saying. Although there were still people who remained relatively quiet, for the most part the discussion was far more inclusive than what we normally experience. For these reasons, I feel a chat session could be a valuable addition to most classes, although I don’t think that I would want one as often as the students in the Bump article voted for. I don’t think it will or should ever replace face to face discussion, but they could work very well as complementery components of a course.
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