A blog, of sorts, intended as a place to experiment, struggle, question, and play with whatever research I am currently working on. The themes will thus change over time as my projects change, and the entries may be quotations that strike my fancy, attempts to puzzle through hairy problems, notes on sources, experiments, musings, dead ends, odd angles of looking at things. It is a voice to my frustrations, discoveries, curiosities, and confusions. It is thinking out loud. ...More 
certainty, curiousity, ideas, questions, religion, security —
24 Oct 2008
I had the Mormons over earlier tonight. I guess I was really just curious. I was curious to see what they would have to say, and curious to ask them all sorts of crazy questions, and curious just to watch and listen to really, really ardent believers—the sort of people and fervent belief that I have been thinking about so much lately. I thought it would be educational.
What I wasn't expecting was just how disquieting the whole experience would be. Not in a flashy, obvious, "wow, you're crazy get away from me" way. In a very quiet, deep down, niggling but undefinable sort of way. They were lovely gentlemen. They were sweet and kind and dedicated and a little awkward. They were cute and ordinary. One of them had the sweetest, blondest, most see-through eyelashes of anyone I have ever met. And they had not the slightest, remotest, barest question about what they were doing. They knew that they were right. What made me so uncomfortable was that they never, never questioned anything. Their sureness was their comfort to themselves. Their safety. Their reason for being in the world. Their home. And what, after all, is more dear to a person than their home, their family? What is the one thing a person will do anything, anything for, if not their home?
I was disquieted because, while one can easily define the outlines of a loved one, a house, or an object, how does one define the outlines of an idea? How does one define the outlines of a God, or a theory, or a system? How does one define the outlines of democracy or the outlines of science? If we make these things our homes, where do we draw the line at their defense?
I had wanted, perhaps, to challenge them a bit, but in the end I felt it would be too cruel. I might not agree with them, but I hardly felt it appropriate to enter their home and profane it. So I simply sat in awkward silence, feeling terribly guilty for wasting their time because of my insatiable curiousity.
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curiousity, design, ideas, inspiration, reading, tantalization —
10 Jul 2008
I love reading because of the ideas and insight it gives me, but for much the same reason I have little patience with pedantic, trivial, belabored, or non-insightful writing. I can think of nothing worse than reading something that has nothing new to say, or reading something painfully long and slow that spells everything out for me. Instead, I like to read short snippets that fire my imagination. Things that have something new to say, or that come at something from a surprising angle, or that expose me to a thought or tidbit I've never had before. I like playful writing that takes chances with language or ideas and puts things in a way no one else ever has. Writing that dares to fail.
It almost goes without saying that I rarely have the patience to read a full book - certainly not non-fiction, though I love it and buy it all the time. I do love learning and reading, yet I rarely have the staying power to see the author through to the end. My guilty secret is that I absolutely adore magazines, because they expose me to something new and then leave me with just enough info to tease me, to leave me thinking about the ideas, chewing them, worrying them, playing with them and turning them this way and that and coming up with my own. Just enough to whet my appetite but leave me hungry for more.
Okay, I'll admit it. I like to be teased more than anything in the world. There's something sumptuous about magazines that books don't necessarily have. If not just the fact that they are overflowing with different positions and perspectives - as if it weren't enough to have a hundred ideas in the course of 4 hours, or the serendipity of finding a new voice you'd have never found otherwise - magazines have a tactility that's oddly missing in books. I especially love magazines with matte paper that soaks up the ink. The images become super saturated and acheive a lushness and depth (god the depth, you feel like you could fall into the page) that books rarely have. Each page brings a new image, a new writer, a new idea, a new font and layout. All but the best books are ossified in their presentation, formulas, and ideas, and it's easy to put out a shit book. But putting out a magazine consistently is expensive and risky, which ends up meaning the signal to noise ratio in the magazine world is a lot more favorable. I have a small collection of magazines that I have bought simply because they are so damn beautiful I couldn't pass them up. I purchased them thinking that someday I might create my own magazine, and I keep them for inspiration.
Just a few fantastic magazines I have been drawn to, whether beautiful, insightful, novel, intriguing, brilliant, necessary, or just plain good:
Cabinet, Coupe, American Scholar, Gagarin, Canteen (beautiful but notably sorry reading), Foreign Affairs, Polar Inertia, Farimani, Dumbo Feather, The Economist, Texas Monthly, Brick, Leonardo
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