The AGO currently has an exhibit in its Italian gallery of beams of wood carved away to reveal the heartwood. Literally starting with a building material, the artist is able to reveal the tree inside it – in other words, in something whose form has been neutralized, made identical (one beam is the same as [...]
Archive for June, 2009
Form inside matter
Posted in Art, Being, Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, beginning on June 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Serra’s Shift
Posted in Being, Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, Philosophy, Photography, Picturesque, Pragmatics, Technology, Things, beginning, global warming on June 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday morning my father, myself, and a few roomates and friends piled into my new one dollar van to drive north of Toronto to see Richard Serra’s early site-specific work, “Shift”. Although I first heard about the piece four years ago in a course on late Heidegger, a lack of private transportation meant this was [...]
Van Naming Contest
Posted in Pragmatics, Things, beginning on June 25, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of naming things I own, inanimate things. It helps animate them, make them meaningful. Last summer the Taurus had the name “official place of fun”, or something along those lines, due to its involvement in various trips. That, however, is a descriptive and not a proper name. I’ve always been [...]
Bike lanes, and why cyclists are better off without them
Posted in Capitalism, bikes on June 24, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Bike lanes seem to have some plus points – the city is carving a place on the road for bikes, theoretically making cycling in traffic safer, and faster during traffic jams.
However, the reality happens to be the opposite. While bike lanes create the illusion of safety, they tend to produce situations of extreme unsafety in [...]
Values and Religions
Posted in Art, Capitalism, Philosophy, beginning on June 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Reading Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” has got me thinking about how future historians might talk about our age, and to what extent capitalism might be interpreted as a “religion”. While that might sound far-fetched at first – hear me out. For instance, when Diamond talks about the history of Easter Island, and how changing material conditions [...]
An Adventure in the Making
Posted in Capitalism, Ethics, Technology, beginning, coffee, global warming on June 23, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Is this the Vehicle that will take me across Canada? The story began several weeks ago with some couch surfers who needed to sell a Van they had driven from Vancouver to Montreal and Toronto. Unfortunately, they were not able to sell it. Which was lucky for me, because it meant they were willing to [...]
Cabin Feever is a state of mind
Posted in Capitalism, Ethics, Music on June 8, 2009 | 1 Comment »
This weekend Drew Sexsmith’s band came through town, and I put them up at my house. Although I missed their set, I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with fine musicians, and getting to experience a bit of the fun filled comical frenzy that is being on tour.
Saturday morning was especially enjoyable. I jammed with Drew, [...]
On Eating Alone, or Engagement and the Social Valuation of Food Consumption
Posted in Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Pragmatics, Things on June 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I noticed after returning from Montreal that I was finding eating much less enjoyable than I did while I was there. Trying to find a reason for this, I went over several possibilities. One is that in Montreal I was free to purchase dairy products to consume at home – I certainly do value soft [...]
