"More broadly: for years now I’ve been fretting about how feminist philosophy can make itself pertinent in the real world. I’m dead set against philosophers’ making pronouncements about how people should and shouldn’t live their lives. We shouldn’t be in the business of telling people whether the human race ought to condone cloning or eat meat or banish pornography.


What we ought to aspire to do, I think, is interest people in the project of continually reflecting on their settled views on such subjects.


(Any good philosopher knows from personal experience that reflection often reveals that one’s own views are horribly muddled or arrogant or self-contradictory.)


But it’s a whole lot more fun to watch TV or surf the net or go to a bar than it is to engage in serious self-reflection. So for anyone who believes that self-reflection is critical to our ability to make wise decisions, exhibit genuine empathy, or care for ourselves at the deepest level, the challenge is to figure out the best, most honest way to try to attract people to the enterprise."

--Nancy Bauer

Bauer's editorial on Lady Gaga and feminism:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/lady-power/

Interview:
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/07/is-lady-gaga-a-feminist-5-questions-for-philosopher-nancy-bauer/

There is now such an enormous gap between me and the rest of the world that sometimes I am amazed to hear people say the simplest and most natural things. The most commonplace remark sometimes holds me rapt with admiration. There are gestures and tones of voice which utterly undo me, and stupidities which almost make me dizzy. Have you ever listened attentively to people talking a foreign language which you did not understand?

--Gustave Flaubert

one of my favorites.

it's okay to say you've got a weak spot.
you don't always have to be on top.
better to be hated than
loved, loved, loved for what you're not.


you're vulnerable; you are not a robot.
you're lovable, but you're just troubled.


you've been hanging with the unloved kids
who you never really liked, and you never trusted.

but you are so magnetic; you pick up all the pins.



don't be so pathetic.
just open up and sing:

"i'm vulnerable. i am not a robot."

i love it when the title doesn't make sense. when the work is scoured for reason, for explanation, as if the author owes anyone an explanation. that when a reader can't find it, s/he is left in the dark, ignorant to some piece of meaning created only for the writer.




even better when the author has yet to interpret what has been created. rather, it's all stream of conciousness, carefully crafted, full of malapropism and freudian slips.

let them say what they will; they will anyhow.

credit my weak heart and strong mind to that
bad circumstance of that terrible time.

...eggshells are not easy to hold.

i fought with a stranger and i met myself
i opened my mouth and i heard myself
it can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
guess i could have made it easier on myself

maybe understanding just doesn't exist.


technically,
it can't really.


nothing is certain.



the ideas of
trust
or
understanding
or
dependability


are almost fictional.













because conciousness is solitary.

love is so foreign.

true or false?

hatred is taught, while
love is inherent.








or else


neither is instinctual
but rather
one or the other is
an indirect result of surroundings.

I ask this… If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door And that’s all.


I ask for the movement to continue.


Because it’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… it’s about the “us’s” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up -


I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.


So you, and you, and you… You gotta give em’ hope… you gotta give em’ hope.

proposition hate ruled unconstitutional.

SCOTUS is next.

myq kaplan.

whatever your religion is, that’s great. [i’m jewish. i’m not uber jewish, like, i will use german to describe how jewish i am.] just don’t use your religion to antagonize other people for their beliefs, like:



“you guys don’t eat pork? that’s weird. we drink the blood of our savior. we call it Jes-oozy-juice.”

and they get so religiously extreme that they deny reality, like:
“gay doesn’t exist! you don’t see gay in the natural world!”

you know what i don’t see a lot of in the natural world? angels. those are half-human-half-bird creatures. the devil is half-man-half-goat, i’ve seen gays more, is all i’m saying.

i am gay friendly…i don’t like the phrase “gay friendly,” it makes me straight angry, honestly, because no other oppressed group has that sort of lingo to deal with.

nobody’s like “i’m black friendly!” because that sounds racist. nobody’s like “i’m jew friendly,” because nobody is, ever.

but bigotry is getting so confusing these days. it used to at least make logical sense. it was never ethical, but back when the issue was interracial marriage, it was like

“don’t let them marry us, don’t let the black people marry us! don’t let them marry us, make them marry each other only.”

today with gay people, they’re like:

“don’t let them marry each other!

make them marry….us? i guess…”

guess I went somewhere to hide
far behind my eyes.


and i willed you there to see,
but you never came for me.

But what are two people who love each other anyway? They are two people who hurt each other. Because you can never promise anyone that you won’t hurt them.


But you can promise them that you won’t leave.

And we hurt each other. And we hurt each other over and over again. And we stuck around. Because that’s what people who love each other do. They hurt each other because they are human. And they feel the pain because they are alive. And then they thank their lover for reminding them that it was all real. And it’s all fragile. And it will heal them. And build them. And teach them. And they won’t leave.

Because that’s what people who love each other do. They stick around.

"my entire childhood i searched my entire town of wellsville, kansas for anybody who was like me.



and i couldn't find anyone."

you just up and left and now
the dark is turning red.

i just need to know where you went.

seventh september

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel.


You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”

ray lamontagne's

songs are the most fun to play.

especially plugged in; the sound feels massive, even with a lone guitar.
the man is a musical, lyrical genius.

brilliant.

i adore her.

kelly cutrone:

“it’s mainly a book to make people realize they’ve been programmed. I talk a lot in the book about how mothers, the life-bringers themselves, sing songs to their daughters like, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.” It’s excessive.

You have to be skinny, pretty, make good grades. Says who?”

i adore her.
and want her book. it's titled:

If You Have to Cry, Go Outside

brilliant.

all is fair in poetry and music.
love and war just fall in line.