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The Aran Islands

John Millington Synge was a great Playwright who died too early, at age 38, of Hodgkin’s disease.  Synge was also a poet and a musician.  W.B. Yeats was a bit of a mentor to him, and Yeats told Synge that, in order to be a fine writer, he needed to expand his understanding of the world around him and then write about the experience. That advice is what led Synge to Galway Bay and the Aran Islands.  That travelogue, written in 1901 and published in 1907, still sings with a Gaelic heart that murmurs with life and mesmerizes today.

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Michael Moore Misquotes Bertolt Brecht

Over the weekend, filmmaker Michael Moore wrote a piece keeping the peace over the Ground Zero Mosque.  However, the most fascinating part of Michael’s argument was found pinned at the end of his article — as if an afterthought — where he tossed in a quote from German Playwright and Grand Thinker, Bertolt Brecht:

The man who speaks of the enemy
Is the enemy himself.

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Reverse Contextual Aural Discrimination: Did You Mean Ass Burger or Asperger?

A while ago, I did a Google search for “ass burger” — and while I can’t remember the why or wherefore, I do remember grabbing this screenshot of the event so we could discuss this later — meaning now.  I wonder how “Asperger” feels being included in a Google search return for “ass burger?”  Is this search return an example of “searching by sound” and not by rational context?  I can’t imagine “ass burger” is a common misspelling for “Asperger.”

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Memory Runoff Review

To live is to remember; and how we choose to consecrate our memories is what gives texture and context to our lives as the Panopticon becomes public.  Google is good at creating the instant now for future recall, but The Wayback Machine is the granddaddy of soliciting who used to be.  Today we have — Memento — a new contender for scrapbooking our online lives.  So who is the king of our remembering?  Wayback or Memento? 

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Cogency without Context

There’s a disturbing move afoot: Removing the vital call and reply learning dyad between instructor and student.  We learn by exchanging ideas in real time, not by filling in choices in an online multiple answer exam.

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Proper Pronunciation to You, Horrid Abomination to Me

I was walking home from the train this evening and I heard a woman speaking with someone on her mobile phone. She was talking about some restaurant and how much she enjoyed their food. She then proclaimed that they had absolutely delicious “fill-ehh mean-yawn.” I shuddered right there on the street. A complete and full ripple through my body. I was completely and utterly disgusted. What is wrong with me?

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Dick Licking: Memeingful Changes

This image of “Dick Licking” was emailed to us for wanton analysis
and mocking — and we are happy to oblige with the usual caveats and
exceptions:

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Creating a Semiotic Web Through Enchanted Learning

The “inventor of the Internet,” Tim Berners-Lee, argues Google’s days ruling the web are numbered by claiming the future is a “semantic web” functional interface:

“Using the semantic web, you can build applications that are much
more powerful than anything on the regular web,” Mr Berners-Lee said.
“Imagine if two completely separate things — your bank statements and
your calendar — spoke the same language and could share information
with one another. You could drag one on top of the other and a whole
bunch of dots would appear showing you when you spent your money.

“If you still weren’t sure of where you
were when you made a particular transaction, you could then drag your
photo album on top of the calendar, and be reminded that you used your
credit card at the same time you were taking pictures of your kids at a
theme park. So you would know not to claim it as a tax deduction.

“It’s about creating a seamless web of all the data in your life.”

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Does Changing the Label Change the Context?

If you change the label of a concept, is the context forming the underlying concept changed as well — or is the concept always the same no matter the name?

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Meaning in Translation

How does one create a context for understanding in translation when words can have a multiplicity of meanings in one language and a single meaning in another language?

Ideas require the specificity of definition with words in order to be fully comprehended in all spheres of sensation, but what happens when there is no specificity to be had in the translation of a word into an idea?

What is immediately lost?  Subtlety?  Humor?  Context?  Frames of innate understanding?

As the world crumbles in space and time how it is possible for nations — let alone people of the world — to agree on anything important that involves words and meanings and definitions that pull us beyond the universal human myth of shared beauty and aesthetic?