Saturday, June 30, 2012

Uncanny Feelings

The uncanny (Ger. Das Unheimliche - "the opposite of what is familiar") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar.

Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

On Democrats

Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength,
up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault
of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beamlike spears.
Give no ground; and if you beat them, do not brag in open show,
nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry.
Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree you
give way to sorrow. All our life is up-and-down like this.
-Archilochus of Paros (67)

Friday, June 8, 2012

Running Away from Life

"Run, run, as fast as you can.
You can't catch me!
I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Songs of Innocence & Experience

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

- William Blake

Friday, June 1, 2012

Legal Guardians and Other Liminal Figures

...Guarding the Gate of MY "Before the Law"
The riddling Sphinx compelled us to let slide
The dim past and attend to instant needs.
- Sophocles, "Oedipus Rex"