I'd like this blog to be brilliant, just like I'd like everything that comes out of my mouth to be, but, yeah...it will be what it is and this is only a beginning.
Today is Wednesday, which turns out to be my favorite day lately since I don't have to go to work but instead I get to go to school. My job is not terrible, it's actually probably the best job I've ever had in terms of what I'm paid and how I'm treated and my relationship with the people I work with; it's just not something I'm terribly passionate about. And wouldn't we all like to be terribly passionate about what we do...to keep ourselves in cornflakes? My father used that phrase with me when I was a freshman in college once, in one of those phone conversations where it feels like he might be communicating the meaning of life and I am flipping out about the fact that what I do (what I love to do, what it feels like I might have been put on this earth to do) is fruitless, in terms of the fruit of capital, which is green and has all these dead presidents all over it. Following me? Dad basically said, "Amira, do what you gotta do, do what you love to do, but also you've gotta make sure you keep yourself in cornflakes." What a weird thing to say, right? Like, is that a phrase out of the sixties or something? So, my point is, that when my dad presented the cornflakes, he made it seem like making money might never align precisely with my passion. Maybe he didn't mean that at all. Either way, I hope to prove him wrong.
So, I live on a little alley in a central part of San Francisco, a few steps from Dolores Park. The park is a good moderate size, with hills that slope up on one side to a path shaded with trees, a good swing set, tennis courts, lots of palm trees, and really neat views of all the tall buildings downtown. On sunny, weekend days, the crowds can be a annoying, even if you are a seasoned people-watcher, like me.
On my block, we've got the namesake of the park, the Mission Dolores, which is the oldest surviving building in this lovely town. The thing about it that I'm so impressed by is that from the outside it's just your basic gargantuan building that you walk by a million times and basically ignore, but from inside, it's like a whole different planet. I won't go into it now, but I suggest you go if you are in S.F. And I give the graveyard four stars.
Anyway, so it's Wednesday, my favorite day, and I was woken up by the sound of jackhammers pulling apart the concrete tiles of the walkway in front of my house. And I'm getting out of bed much later than my ambitious plan and today at school there are short stories to workshop; there is Foucault to discuss. Discourse on shifting structures of power, anyone? Here's a little video a classmate sent out to our class, a back-and-forth between Noam Chomskey and Michel Foucault that will give you a good idea of what Foucault is all about, in case you've ever wondered, like I did before I took this class.
Wasn't that interesting? Isn't Foucault Spock-ish? Where is this thing taking place? Who are those people in the audience?
3 comments:
Beautiful cornflake shot. Who's the photographer? Are those flakes organic? I was actually going to put up a shot of a deluxe bowl of oatmeal on my blog. You beat me to it.
From YouTube:
"In 1971, American linguist/social activist Noam Chomsky squared off against French philosopher Michel Foucault on Dutch television ... the program was entitled 'Human Nature: Justice Vs. Power' and offered sharp contrasts between the more traditional view of 'human nature' and what would become a postmodernist perspective ... Chomsky, following a rationalist lineage going back to at least Plato, believes that there is a foundational 'nature' and that its positive aspects (love, creativity, recognizing and embracing justice) must be realized, while Foucault remains skeptical of any such notion... for him, the issue is not so much whether 'justice' or 'human nature' 'exists,' but how they have historically (and currently) function in society ... in regard to justice, he says (this is not included in the clips): "... the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power..." The point of any political struggle, for Foucault, is to alter the 'power relations' in which we all find ourselves ..."
Foucault looks pretty badass if you ask me. So have we all on the east coast lost Amira for good now?
no. just for a little while. so, foucalt's yr man here? chomsky's so earnest; it's charming...
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