Michael Salk

Obligatory Front-Page Welcome Message!

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:03:43 GMT

So, I don't really post in here very much, although I do comment on friends and communities. I also f-lock things quite often when I do post, which is as often as there are lunar eclipses visible through the rain shadow of Mt. Hood. If you're still interested, you're welcome to leave a comment!

Warmest regards. (And to everyone who is actually friends with me through this abandoned journal, hi! I may, some day, get around to updating.)

Italian Politics

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:01:33 GMT

The New York Times published an article yesterday which I hope you'll enjoy. It highlights an interesting difference between Italian and U.S. politics.

In brief, a new ritual is causing structural damage to a roman bridge. Based on a scene in a novel/movie, the 'ritual' entails fastening a lock with one's name and one's lovers' name on it to lampposts on a bridge over the Tiber and tossing the keys into the river.

As the lampposts started crumbling under the weight, the city tried to start cracking down on the practice.

Now, here's the awesome part.

Inevitably, politics intruded. In this nation’s long battle between left and right, right-wing parties accused the leftist mayor, Walter Veltroni, with a crime far worse than corruption.

“The left is against lovers,” one rightist city official, Marco Clarke, charged in February.

Fighting words.

Wouldn't our country be more pleasant if conservatives complained that the left was anti-love? I mean, it's the right in this country that's anti-love, although you'll never hear them admit it. However, perhaps the gay rights movement could take a page from their book.

Fri, 05 May 2006 20:58:32 GMT

Thesis orals are the best experience humanly possible.

Oh. My. God. So wonderful. Everything about them. I recommend everybody have one asap. One person on my orals board told me that religious studies needs me and that after I take a few years off to celebrate, I must get back into the field, which is I think without a doubt one of the best compliments I have recieved ever in the last four years.

Thanks to everybody who commented in the previous post. I have been recovering from my thesis-finishing and Renn Fayre cold, and am probably taking tonight off to celebrate and read Anna Karenina. Molly's very ill, but will recover soon as well. We've both had the same thing.

Perhaps a longer post later.

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 05:40:55 GMT

Oh my god, I am nearly done with my thesis!

This is mind-blowing. I feel dizzy with accomplishment - or fever medication. Speaking of which, it's time for more Tylenol. *Cough!*

Taking a nap, then finishing.

How's all of your work? Are you done yet?

Fri, 13 May 2005 10:33:40 GMT

One... more... section...

Then done w/the schoolyear.

1:01 AM

Sat, 07 May 2005 08:03:00 GMT

Oh my god.

I have been working for 17 hours.

Woke up at 6:45 AM. Got breakfast and showered, and was working by 8:30 at least. There were a few breaks, inc. a 45 minute one to go swimming.

That was extraordinarily intense. It wasn't supposed to be! That essay should've been quick and easy.

Now I am done. Must collapse. My mother arrives tomorrow for Mothers' Day.

Much love to all.

Michael

Shit!

Sat, 07 May 2005 04:18:07 GMT

An actual passage from my essay:

Algernon recruited Maitland at this point to be [Kingsford's] guardian. From 1974-1980 she studied medicine, and she received her M.D. in 1880. Sometime during this period, she began to have visions, and the earliest entries in Dreams and Dream-Stories and Clothed with the Sun come from around 1776.

As I get more and more tired, Kingsford starts to travel backwards in time. (!!)

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:12:38 GMT

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

</td>

Postmodernist

56%

Cultural Creative

50%

Materialist

50%

Existentialist

38%

Romanticist

38%

Modernist

31%

Fundamentalist

19%

Idealist

What is Your World View?
created with QuizFarm.com

Well, then. This was a moderately bad quiz, because I didn't believe in any of the answers. I think I'm a little more modernist than it shows. And also more of a romanticist. However, I do like Foucault... and Derrida... but I hate, hate, hate Baudrillard... except for his early work... and actually Lyotard's awesome. But - I really like Terry Eagleton. And I believe in a fully accessible empirical world. And I love science.

p.s. wtf is "cultural creative"?

p.p.s. apparently my "idealist" streak has died out. When did that happen?

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:57:57 GMT

Ahhh! Up at 6:20 in the morning, and then for a half hour jog in the freezing cold. And - what's this? How about a breakfast of grits and cold prunes?

.... well, not exactly. But I *am* turning into Calvin's father. Which is funny, because I always identified much more with Calvin. Maybe they have more in common than I thought?

p.s. I really only did the waking up part. I'm not nuts. Going to commons, and then to work.

Junior Sem

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:56:48 GMT

Meh. Going nuts. Too much to write for Junior Sem.

I have the first section pretty much down, and the bibliography is mostly done. But I need the tricky four pages on whether or not my Alchemist is related to Hermetism at all... (the answers are all obvious; I'm just very, very tired.) Hence the question:

Sleep for a few hours? Hm.

Sat, 05 Mar 2005 08:05:06 GMT

Well! I've had a really good evening.

Eliza and I went and had Thai food, and afterwards to the Pied Cow, where we had quite a lot of chocolate desserts. It was very nice to catch up, and it tops off a good week of actually-talking-to-people. It's wonderfully nice to remember that I have plenty of friends who live off-campus, and actually to get to see them.

I also went to the gym, ending about two months of laziness. I think I've been sort of morose lately because I haven't been taking care of my body. I think I'm going to try to go three times a week from now on. I feel way, way better being alive if I make it a point to work out.

Busrides are really weird at night! There were two incredibly drunken girls loudly laying claim to all of the boys on the bus - (I'm actually not joking)- and I kept having to duck and look at Eliza so that they wouldn't do anything untowards. They alternated between putting on their makeup and flirting with everybody present, which was funny, because in general they weren't all that attractive.

Let's see. What else. Well, I suppose that's a good start at updating this. I'm not sure if anything fun is going to happen for the rest of the weekend. There's a Hermeticism conference from 1-6 on Sunday, and they're shipping in some impressive people. Beside that, I was invited to some sort of burlesque thing with Anaiah and Norah and her friend, but I think it's at about the same time.

Anyway, it's been a sort of downbeat week, just because of all of the friend-issues, so it's good to have a really good evening.

Some pictures...

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 08:32:11 GMT

Uncle Colas and Bobby (pronounced roughly" beaubee") sit peacefully in a paris cafe after listening to piano at the Jardins de Bagatelle.

Meanwhile a cherry tree sits quietly four days later in the front of the Chateauneuf en Auxois.

What sort of tree is this? It was filled with bees and butterflies when we encountered it on a walk through the countryside. It was extraordinary and has filled me with a longing to eat acacia honey and pretend it was one of those.

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 07:44:44 GMT

Well, I was feeling like shedding some skin, so my journal's getting a new background and some other things are being modified. The current picture is of a staircase in Montmartre, by our apartment, taken in the middle of a freak rainstorm which proceeded to flood the entire intersection of Caulaincourt and Avenue Junot. We ran outside with the camera; it was incredibly beautiful. I wish things like that happened more often.

Ahh, nostalgia. Well, but that's what always happens when one thinks of summer.

Sat, 10 May 2003 09:24:52 GMT

There's one part of dating someone 1,200 miles away that's infinitely worse than any other.

It's when, at 2 AM, I've finished spending time with my friends, and I don't really want to be alone but I have to be so I go back to my room. It's not like I even want anything romantic. I'd just like to sleep next to a human or something. It'd be so much better than just sitting here lonely, and having to get into an empty bed. There doesn't have to be anything, just someone to be close to. If Molly were here it'd be a different story, but she's not.

I totally miss companionship.

Sorry for excessive sloppy emotion. It's just that it would be so natural to act differently. There are so many people I could be with right now. But I'm not because I'm completely rediculously faithful to a relationship with someone I can't feel or see 90% of the time. And it's not like I can't talk with friends. But when push comes to shove and it's 2 AM there's something about a cold telephone and having to hang up eventually that doesn't quite cut it. Phones can't kick you accidentally in the middle of the night. Nor do they smile.

And here I am, with an empty bed.

Tragic. :P

This is so disturbingly accurate

Fri, 09 May 2003 07:16:43 GMT

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

A Question

Tue, 22 Apr 2003 07:56:39 GMT

Why is everyone essentially empty?
And what will fill them up?

This is something to think about.

Life

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 01:36:05 GMT

- that is, I am currently alive. Just to let people know that although I'm not around, you're in my thoughts. Spending a lot of time writing and working on music, being with Molly, travelling, living etc. Things are good. Hope to see you all sometime soon.

M.

Molly being adorable and a weird rant about sexuality

Fri, 02 Nov 2001 10:57:43 GMT

"I usually don't think of you as a 'relationship'... you're my second person."

... Molly's so sweet. We were talking about relationships and how she hasn't found anyone that she can feel close to - and after a second of thought - "Well, except for you... I -"

(I love it when she says things like that. *grins*)

In other news, I've found the dark underbelly of livejournal. And it's funny as hell. Where someone would think that kind of thing up, I have no idea... And how about this?

I mean, come on.

Plus ca change...

Wed, 31 Oct 2001 22:06:46 GMT

"He understands that there will always be people who fight the last wars, whether they're Kosovo, whether they're the Persian Gulf, or whether they're Vietnam. He's not. He's learned lessons from those. But this war is totally unlike those which have become before." - Ari Fleischer

Yeah. Totally different. The bodies have different scortch marks from newer bombs, and there are less of our bodies and more of theirs.

Death is an innovation. We are improving on the outdated deaths of the past.

(Totally unlike those that have died before...)

But O O O O that Shakespherian Rag --

Sun, 28 Oct 2001 01:55:11 GMT

I just wrote something last night that was deleted by livejournal's latest fuckup, about feeling emotionally queasy and lonely.

Today I realised that this is the first time I've been truly alone in a month. My parents are away on some sort of anniversary honeymoon staying at some sort of bed and breakfast somewhere, and no one else is around to distract me from me but this computer, which I shall soon be turning off.

I'm not talking deep introspection, no - I'm just hoping on having a little quality time with myself. Maybe we'll watch Star Wars... that's sort of my comfort movie. I tell you unabashedly, I will cry when Obi-Wan dies, and I will cry at the end of the award ceremony when R2-D2 beeps. If I watch the rest of the series I'll probably cry every time yoda says anything.

Before and after this I intend to sit by myself. I don't really feel like confronting right now. Things are changing deep inside me, and as I wrote last night before it was deleted (grr), I'm not sure quite what or how. It has a lot to do with my grandmother, but it transcends that too.

Right now I just want to get grounded. A lightning rod does no good without one end in the sky and the other plunged into the earth. And I've been doing a lot in the air without ever taking some time to just be.

'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
What shall we ever do?'

Grandma

Fri, 26 Oct 2001 05:04:13 GMT

I'm a little bit depressed... I just saw grandma a little bit ago. We talked for a couple of hours. I thought I was fine afterwards, with the fact that she was dying, and fine with the fact that she understood that I loved her and fine with the fact that things were as they should be.

But now I feel very close to falling apart and I really wish you g u y s were around because I could use a little support. In any case, I don't really know why I'm writing this to this. I'm going to wait for about thirty minutes and if I don't find people by then maybe I'll hide and cry on the phone with Molly all night... I just don't want to put her through that because she hasn't slept all week and she needs to rest.

I love my grandmother. Immensely. She's one of the most striking, intelligent, sardonic, lucid and brilliant people I've met in my life, beside the fact that I've known her since I was born and there has almost not been a week which I haven't seen her in. It's really sort of like losing a parent.

She said to someone who called while we were talking, three hours after we started, - "We just covered the gamut of the entire world, internal and external... Yeah. How're you?"

I'm going to miss her.

(humans please appear soon. crying alone sucks. I need a hug.)

(... not as I do)

Mon, 22 Oct 2001 11:30:00 GMT

Man.

After a long day - really, really long day - many thoughts cross my mind as I try to settle down for the night.

But, of all those myriad thoughts, shining in all of their glory, one thought pierces through them all like an itchy brand:

Sex and poison oak don't mix.

'night. (*scratch*)

Sun, 21 Oct 2001 23:42:07 GMT

Saw this in antiwar. It's kind of touching, in a way, that humans can be so moved by three kittens while people are off murdering in their name - moving because it shows, like so much else does, that the only reason people act this way is complete desensitization.

If you can still cry over three kittens, at least you're human, and the fact that you can't cry over the people who are or soon will be dying and starving is, if horrible... at least changable?

I sure hope.

"This summer I hear the drumming..."

Sun, 21 Oct 2001 12:44:26 GMT

I got another death warrant in the mail today from the Selective Service. They must really hate me to want me to die for them this badly.

When you think about it seriously, war is almost identical to human sacrifice, except worse. Kill a couple million people, and the Gods magically make your nations get along. It doesn't make any logical sense how death makes anything better - it simply does. That, or maybe people just get sick of it. (Why the hell can't we all be sick of it before it starts?)

In any case, I'm left in a bind about responding. If I don't respond, they're going to give me hell. If I do, I get put on their death list. But I think my chances of avoiding serving in the military are better if I just go along with this until I have the ability to become a conscientious objector. There are enough people who know how antithetical violence is to me, and enough indications from my actions alone, and enough psychiatrists willing to vouch for my pacifism (one) that I have a feeling things will work out that way. There's certainly a strong case for not letting me go to war. They shouldn't want me in their army.

It's just, when I start to write down my name... *shivers*

Fuckers. All of them.

My situation. If they want war, they stand at the head of the line to die.

Also good reading: Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.

'Youth' today are saying that WTC was a defining event in their life. It certainly has been for me. It has made me realize how much I hate war, how strongly stupid and arrogant I believe violent foreign policy to be, and, in thinking about it further - that even were there to be a war that I considered good, I could never fight in it. No one could ever provide me enough reason to take an anonymous soldier's life, no matter how 'evil' the cause they stand for. They would probably just be an innocent draftee as well. That, or some condition in their life forced them to be there to survive. If you think anyone in an army wants a war, you're very wrong. They need money, or an education, or something to fill a gap in their lives. I doubt they start out fighting because they want to kill.

Killing them wouldn't be killing them as humans. It would be killing a symbol through the death of innocent people.

And I don't believe in human sacrifice.

Journal Appearance

Fri, 19 Oct 2001 11:03:41 GMT

... is very temporary. Expect it to change around a lot over the next couple of days to make it easier to read. Thanks for your patience.

Okay. Now I can finally sleep.