Articles of Faith

I tried to compile a short list of principles that underlie my actions and thoughts. It requires a good deal of "internal vigilance" to keep from using cliches and really get at one's core, because one has to strip every impulse down to its origin. I found that things like selfishness, love, peace, the greatest good or indeed, goodness itself, broke down upon extended analysis.

Faith itself, and as is implied by that, Risk.
Self-Love.
Human Cleverness, Individual and especially Collective.
Inwardly, Vigilance and Outwardly, Sincerity.
Common Humanity.

I assume that Faith would be found in anybody's complete list. The act of assumption is the basis for thought itself. Its corollary, Risk, is the basis for action.

Self-Love provides for a number of things including self-interest, the basis for human striving, and ego-centrism, which is an essential assumption for worldly understanding. Also self-confidence, which is the basis for intellectual assertion, power and leadership. Leadership is essential for people to organize into groups and institutions while intellectual assertion is essential for the expansion of human knowledge, so indirectly, Self-Love is instrumental in the creation of civilization.

This brings us to Collective Human Cleverness. My faith in religion, culture, media, science and vicarious wisdom of all kinds is grounded in a respect for the ability of humans to recognize the greatness of others' ideas. These ideas go through a process of dissemination and selective breeding that requires the conscious and unconscious participation of a huge number of individuals. Because of the imperfections, biases and stupidity of so many people this process doesn't seem perfect; yet it has a twisted sort of perfection analagous to the beauty of evolution. This blog plays a small role in contributing to that beautifully twisted mass consciousness.

Obviously, Individual Human Cleverness exists and can be considerable. However, I also have faith in a subtler, less explicit aspect of the human intellect: intuition. Let us not forget that for all our flaws, the simplest human mind puts even the largest supercomputers to shame in terms of both design and sheer processing power.

I believe in Inward Vigilance, which is to say I believe in skepticism, curiosity and clarity. About what and for what don't really matter as much, just do what's in front of you and try to limit the number of excuses you can make for yourself. It was inward vigilance that wrote this post.

Outward Sincerity is not something everybody adheres to. For many people sincerity is too much in conflict with the stronger principle of self-interest or even altruism. My sincerity is certainly compromised, but I am an earnest person, and where I am not sincere I strive to find ways that I can be so without too much damage to my other ideals.

I guess I kind of book-ended my list with gimmes. Common Humanity sounds as cliche as love or peace, but I can't think of a way around including it. Disagreements are either products of differing assumptions or of poor communication. That is to say, given the correct circumstances, I could be a terrorist, a member of PETA (as if there's a difference) or a fundamendalist Christian theocrat. This article of faith explains my keen interest in equivocating about Obama or Proposition 8.

So that's my list. I challenge you readers to try and distill your own articles of faith and post them as a comment. Don't tell me you are free of faith, because that's a boldfaced lie, and if you seriously write something as banal as "love" or "peace" without a thoughtful rationalization I promise you a swift kick in the rear.

On Vegetarianism

I should warn you that I am a cold-hearted bastard and I would like to remove sentiment from all but my most personal interactions. The following was originally written as a response to Rob's post Tony the Tofurkey.


I am among those who asks each vegetarian I meet why they are vegetarian. There are many reasons, and some are more justifiable than others. It allows insight into the minds of people in addition to being fun to discuss.

It's true that most people couldn't kill a chicken set before them. I could do it, but I'd have a hard time. After all, I've never done it before and I've had chickens as pets. I interpret this reluctance as weakness, as disconnection from our roots. In times when food was less abundant, people had no moral quandaries about killing for food. Evolution and culture discouraged cannibalism but they couldn't deny the practicality of a nutrition-rich food source like animal flesh. I can't either and I have the additional concerns of cuisine. Chicken is delicious.

The apparent hypocrisy of a woman eating a hamburger with her precious dog in her lap troubled me for a time, but I've realized that the worth of anything is determined by our emotional attachment. I don't care much about far off murders or grandmas dying of cancer. I care about my grandma and my people. That other grandma is a statistic to me, as are far off murders. Those deaths represent tremendous loss to someone, but when diluted by perspective, how could I care? That's not my job. I will deal with my tragedies as they come and I will help those I know or meet with their tragedies.

That is to say the dog in her lap is worth more than enough to her to justify her protectiveness. Neither human life nor animal life has any intrinsic worth. It should be unsurprising that from a singular perspective different lives should merit different worth. The chicken on the farm is worth more dead than alive and thus we kill it, or pay for it to be killed.

I know I and everyone else is perfectly capable of slaughtering a nameless animal. Our grandparents were certainly capable, and I can find no fault in their actions. We just don't have opportunity or incentive to. I don't mind other people doing my dirty work for me, because I don't think it's "dirty work" in the pejorative sense. I will jump at the opportunity to kill an animal for food, with the greater motivation being intellectual curiosity and the second motivation being a desire to overcome my own resistance to what I am already comfortable with in theory.

Regarding the trophic level issue, first of all, chickens require 3 pounds of grain for one pound of meat or egg. That can be lower grade grain that we would not eat, which explains the fact that grain at the store can cost as much as chicken per pound. Furthermore, man can not subsist on bread alone, as we well know. Do you sincerely think that the hoops vegans jump through to meet their nutritional requirements are free? Do you still think it inefficient to eat some chicken with your rice? Furthermore, I thought it was widely known that human starvation is a problem of distribution and overpopulation, not supply. The food you don't eat will not magically find it's way to that starving child's hands.

Scary Movie Month

October has a lot going for it. Among those things is my third annual tradition of Scary Movie Month. Like many of you out there, I never really liked horror films. I didn't really get why people watched them. So, I decided that just like I'd done with so many kinds of music, I'd teach myself to like scary movies. I looked up the most critically acclaimed films, downloaded them, and approached each with an open mind.

That was October of 2007, and by the end of the month I'd hated some and been quite impressed by others. I didn't yet love horror movies, but the next year I was compelled to continue what I had begun and was left a bit more intrigued than the year before, which brings us to the third annual Scary Movie Month.

I think I'm starting to genuinely enjoy horror and the thrill that it endeavors to produce. I still don't anticipate becoming a fan of the Saw saga, Hostel or the recent House of Wax (bits of each I've seen). The gore-as-terror equation never really made much sense to me. Gore is an enhancer of terror rather than it's generator. It's the fear of harm that drives the scariest movies rather than the actual harm. Don't think I don't relish the satisfying crunch of bones, squelch of flesh or spurt of blood as much as the next moviegoer. I do. It's just supposed to be the ominous warning to the hero/heroine that if they don't run like crazy they'll be next, and it's this epiphany and the ensuing flight that make for the white knuckled ride we look for in modern horror.

Keep in mind that Scary Movie Month is intended as a fulfillment of October rather than a straight out scream-fest. I included movies that have little to do with Halloween and little to do with horror. Even the definition of horror has changed (from King Kong to said gore-fests), and I've endeavored to keep my operating definition as broad as possible.

These are the movies that I've watched these past few years.

October 2007:

Shaun of the Dead

Zombies are my favorite horror movie monster. They don't feel pain, they increase logarithmically and they fucking eat brains. Brains, man, brains. Also all that crap about social commentary is pretty cool. Shaun of the Dead was an obvious choice for its preeminence within that genre and its relative modernity. It's hilarious, sincerely scary and all that, but I'm not sure it lived up to the considerable hype. It's a classic, no doubt, but it probably won't ever make my facebook list.

28 Days Later

An obvious followup to watching Shaun of the Dead because its also about zombies, also British, also from the mid 00's and also critically acclaimed. This movie rocked my socks. It has a good blend of humor, commentary, terror and emotional heft. If there's one movie that I recommend you watch from this post, this is it.

Donnie Darko

While gripping and occasionally scary, this is no horror movie. This is a psychological thriller. What struck me most about Donnie Darko was its serenity and its perfect absorption of that magic month, October.

Ginger Snaps

A Canadian indie film made in 2000. This is a well-rounded horror film that builds from a comparison between werewolfism and girls at puberty. Don't mind the 80's effects, this is a solid movie.

The Lost Boys

This vampire film draws the comparison between vampirism and teen angst. It's a fun 80's movie that you have to watch if you have any interest in Santa Cruz, where it was filmed.

Freaks

This is a 1930's cult classic. It was made before regulations prevented filmmakers from exploiting people's deformities for gain, or whatever, so it's on one level a literal freak show. Overlook the bad acting and you'll find a horror movie with heart.

October 2008:

Hocus Pocus
This has to be in contention for the ultimate Halloween movie. It manages the tricky feat of being simultaneously light, creepy and thrilling. All hail Bette Midler and Disney. How could a movie this good not earn accolades?

Evil Dead
Obviously I had to watch this with my interest in zombies and cult films. Bruce Campbell is a pip, but I'm not sure I was prepared to appreciate the movie's outlandish sense of scare and style.

Nosferatu
I suppose this is the first silent movie I've watched. This is the original vampire movie and it gets a lot of kudos for pioneering the genre. I found it amazing how much of the movie's montages and imagery had been appropriated to Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein, since spoofs are bellwethers for influence. The movie is good, if a little slow. Unlike Dracula (which was based off the same book), vampires are compared to plague-bearing rodents rather than suave seducers.

Frankenstein
This classic turned out to be everything I'd hoped. It's both scary and heart wrenching in that old horror way.

Near Dark
Rotten Tomatoes gave this rave reviews for its straddling of genres (vampire/western/family), but I didn't see what made it a classic. It's a solid movie, just not spectacular.

Halloween
Apparently the original Halloween was an indie movie and it started the slasher style that defined horror for the next two decades. This movie is all about building suspense rather than violent gore and it does it very well. Brandon thought it was too slow. I think that's mostly a quibble with the genre rather than the execution, though.

October 2009:

Alien
Matt Wingert was trying to tell me about Alien and Aliens and how they differed. Mid-explanation, he just gave up and said, "You need to watch both of them." So that's exactly what I did when Scary Movie Month rolled in. I watched one after another. Alien is a suspenseful slasher with a similar cadence to Halloween.

Aliens
Where Alien was suspenseful, Aliens is riproaringly intense. The movie is a repeated pattern of action, terror, suspense, that spirals higher and higher. What can I say? I found it intensely gratifying. At the beginning I noted feeling genuinely scared and that fear kept snowballing into the kind of claustrophobic horror that is as traumatizing as it is satisfying.

Slither
This movie is lauded for it's worthy tribute to various classic horror movie styles. Nathan Fillion (from Firefly) stars in this genre romp. By the end of the movie, I was thoroughly disgusted and scared. In a good way, of course, but this isn't for the faint of heart.

Rosemary's Baby
After watching this I must have noticed like five cultural references to the movie. This is Roman Polanski's classic about a woman who believes she's been impregnated with the spawn of Satan. There's no terror, really, just a lot of unsettling horror.

Young Frankenstein
In Mel Brooks's low-brow fashion, this is a parody of Frankenstein and indeed all things horror. I told Jill that after watching this she hardly needed to see the original.

Nightmare Before Christmas
Season-appropriate and by Tim Burton, this was a must-see. Obviously I'd watched it before, but this was the first time I recognized this movie for its full greatness. This isn't just a great Halloween movie, it's a great Christmas movie, a great animated movie and a great musical.

Satan's Little Helper
This independent film is about a boy obsessed with a video game called "Satan's Little Helper". He dresses up as Satan's Little Helper for Halloween and goes out "to find Satan". He finds a serial killer in a Satan costume, befriends him, and takes him home. What ensues can be left to your imagination, but I assure you it's worth your while. Surely this is a testament to power of the Halloween mask.

Rules of the Road: Davis

Davis prides itself for being the only city in the nation with a platinum rating (though that sentiment is actually a bit out of date) from the League of American Bicyclists. Among the qualifications for this distinction is the degree of lawfulness displayed by the city's bicyclists; obeying traffic signs, not riding on the sidewalk, etc.

However, the preponderance of bicycles has beaten automobiles and pedestrians into submission. There are so many bikes on the road that other forms of transit become habituated to deferring right of way to bikes. By nationwide standards Davis bicyclists get away with murder. Even normally uptight townies generally ignore many traffic laws that apply to bicyclists, like stop signs. I've compiled the de facto Rules of the Road for Davis bikers for your viewing pleasure.

There's a saying around here that according to bikers, traffic signals are stop signs, stop signs are yield signs and yield signs are decorative. That might not give the uninitiated an accurate picture of how things work here, though.

Bicycles have right of way over cars because cyclists are fragile and over pedestrians because getting hit by a bike hurts like a bitch. This is the crux of the double standard that produced Davis traffic rules. This first rule forms the logical basis for much of the following.

Bicyclists can at will change from using pedestrian priveledges (like riding on sidewalks) to vehicle ones (like riding in regular car lanes when the bike lane is inconvenient). As per the aforementioned right of way rule, this means that pedestrians will stop and make space for you to pass if you, technically illegally, ride on the sidewalk.

The second fundamental rule of Davis biking is that bicycles need only obey laws when enforcement is imminent, in contrast to cars. This includes Bicycling Under the Influence, as previously discussed. However, bikes, just like cars, assume all blame should their liberties with law cause a crash.

This comes up most frequently on the issue of riding the wrong direction in bike lanes. I performed this maneuver routinely when I lived at Kingston Apartments, because my formal path involved a left turn at an intersection followed by crossing left over the street and I figured that was bullshit and I'd just cross early to the left bike lane and turn left into the sidewalk. This worked out fine for me, but I almost got creamed by someone doing it recently. As my eyes began to cloud over with rage at the near miss, I heard the offending bicyclist yell, "Shit, sorry!". This I deemed to be adequate appeasement, but if we'd collided and the impact had bent my front rim I would have asked him to cough up the $60 replacement.

Back to intersections:
Traffic signs are treated as traffic signs when there's enough traffic to mandate adherence, but bikes are permitted whatever liberties they can safely get away with, which includes flexing their de facto right of way.

Four way stops, which are the bread and butter of the Davis downtown, again need only be paid attention to if there are physically cars in your way. During heavy traffic bicyclists slow down and stop to wait for their opening, but if a car is going your direction you are perfectly entitled to ride in its shadow without so much as a touch of your brakes. Because cars defer right of way to bikes to such an extreme, an aggressive bike can easily forgo waiting its rightful turn if it finds a small opening. Cars will stop in the middle of the intersection just to let that overeager cyclist through without harm.

That's the skinny on Davis bike traffic. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility, so don't forget to treat the little people in cars and on foot with their due respect. In our privileged position we should strive to make traffic flow as smoothly and efficiently as possible to the extent that it doesn't interfere with our own self-interest.

End of Summer Melancholy

There's always a certain melancholy associated with the break between school and summer. Part of it was mixed feelings about school, but more of it, I'm now realizing, was the loneliness from most friends being on vacation. At the same time, it's also a time for unprecedented partying if you're still in Davis. There's nothing like a half-blacked-out night followed by a long day with nothing to do and no personal contact for some sobering self-reflection. Also, a lot of emotion comes from the hunger from forgetting to eat, which happens when you spend an entire day doing nothing.

It's the kind of melancholy that makes you squirm. Like you want/need something so desperately but you don't even know what it is that you want. That makes you want to do anything to slow the flood of thought. It's the kind of melancholy that makes you feel physically sick, and by the way I might be coming down with something. Sleep is always the most obvious solution, but part of having nothing to do is being irritatingly well-rested. Other solutions are television, talking with friends in person or via telecommunication, and drinking yourself silly.

Sometimes I want to lash out and hurt people around me. It's not an emotional desire so much as a cognitive one. I feel like people take my self-possession for granted and that their lack of control is attributable to laziness on their parts. And maybe, maybe, if you took the same liberties as they do they would respond and treat you with all the attention that you don't get but feel you deserve. But I've found that you cannot get away with the actions of others if you aren't in the same headspace as they are. If you do something malicious on intellectual whim that other people do in passion, you will be held accountable in ways that the passionate person won't be. In short, the world expects of us what we can give. Furthermore, and this should be obvious to everyone: everyone sometimes thinks they deserve more attention than they do, and to base short term actions with long-term consequences on angst and whim is rarely a sound course of action.

Why Having a Girlfriend is Awesome

Someone to go to the farmers market with

Physical contact

I'm allowed to stare.

Another kind of shampoo in my rotation

Lazy Saturdays

Help on Restaurant City

Cooking from recipes

Summer's Nights

There's no common time so romantic as a summer's night. This is even more true in Davis, where night is the only comfortable time of the day. You may think I'm being dramatic, you may think I'm not being fair, but it's been true to me for years. Ignoring human-made holidays and momentary variances in weather, when you're really talking about the time and not anything else, there is nothing so persistently magical as when the land is cool and dark. The possibilities for mischief and holy moments stretch out like fingers across a wide, rounded back.

My obsession with music has passed. It came to me in the morning, ravaged me all day, and went along its way in the evening. Now that it's night, I'm not sure I'm sad it has gone nor am I convinced that it won't return, but I'm glad it came and left me full of color and taste. I'm haunted by its echos. Not the myriad minor bands that I strove to categorize and appreciate, but by the great bands, the bands that formed the only recognizable soundtrack to my college experience.

I'm finally riding my new bike Smoky again. He's inky black like night and dirty like me in summer. Road bikes are such a pleasure to ride. The other bikes get you from place to place, but without the exhilaration of Mercury's speed.

There's something creepy about the progression of summer nights from late spring to early fall. It likely has to do with the apprehension I've viewed the end of all things with, particularly things so open and beautiful as summer. Even now, I'm sensing the approach of September in the dark air. A sweeter smell, maybe? Not like spring's heady pollen, but a deeper, melancholy, more earnest kind of sweetness that has replaced high summer's smell of baking dry tan grass.