One Last Note on 2017

Before I start posting new content, and it falls off the bottom of the page, I'd like to draw attention to the travelogue I published last December. I took a trip to a fairly desolate place while in a fairly desolate state of mind, and wrote by far the strangest travelogue this blog has featured. I wrote a Last Jedi hot take afterward that greatly overshadowed it (btw, thanks for the link, Neal!), but I think for those who missed it, it's worth a look. I recently cleaned up some errors, and added a rather fitting song to the end, as well.
Even if you hate the writing and attempts at humor, and the fact that it includes a joke about suicide, it does include some decent pictures and information about a remote place few will ever visit...
no, not Arby's, it's a travelogue about Poverty Point, Louisiana.


Comments

Graham Wall said…
One of the Arby's in my city is pretty remote ... last few times I was there, it wasn't busy, and it's got 90s decor, pictures of cowboys, outdated Pepsi logos, etc. As you can imagine, I quite enjoy it. But I suppose this is all beside the point.

Some of those Nietzsche moments had me laughing out loud. I would say he is a very overrated philosopher. What do you think? His prose, while poetic, is still convoluted. More and more am I starting to appreciate a writer who can clearly express their thoughts. As for atheist existentialism, I'd much rather take some Sartre.

When life has felt most empty to me, lyrics from songs like "Right Where it Belongs (v2)" and "Hurt" by NIN are what immediately come to mind.

And ... I love those trees with those faces and actually thought those donuts looked quite tasty!
Yes, as much as I make fun of them, I have to say...I like me some Arby's.
I agree that Nietzsche is overrated. I feel like his enduring appeal is only due to the extreme nature of some of his statements. What pot-stirring contrarian isn't immediately aroused the moment they hear the phrase "God is dead" for the first time? But as far as actual substance...his prose is extremely convoluted...it's almost like he was just following every emotional whim when he wrote until his pen ran out of ink. In fact, it's almost humorous to look at some of his more well known quotes within the rambling context in which they are presented. I'd also take Sartre over Nietzsche any day. While his perspective makes me just as nauseous, at least his line of thinking is presented in a consistent, clear, and logical manner.
I love NIN. "Right Where it Belongs" is such a head trip...haha, definitely not the healthiest place to be. "Hurt"'s got a little more hope at the end of it, unless you follow the album's narrative over the lyrical content, in which case hope is a shotgun blast to the head (of course, I rather take it in the positive direction, and judging by the path Reznor's life has taken, he does, as well).
Also, I thought they looked tasty, as well...until I bit into them!
Neal (BFS) said…
I'd maybe be more into philosophy and criticism if the majority of the big names in those fields didn't seem to prize convoluted phrasing over clarity as well. Which actually makes me put a strike against them automatically, because if you're so amazing a thinker or critic, you should be able to make your point effectively and concisely. It makes me feel like they're prizing a measurement of their intellect's "size" by how much they make you work to understand their point. Yeesh.

Giving me bad memories of my crit lit class and reminding me why I went toward creative writing rather than piling heavier and deeper with literature. :(
Agreed 100%, and actually this strikes a bit of a nerve! If you can't make your philosophy clear to a non-philosopher, then you are a bad philosopher! ...and speaking of bad academic memories, that reminds me of a Philosophy and Film class I took for my film minor.
I loved the movies we watched (Antonioni's The Passenger and A Streetcar Named Desire among others) and felt like I wrote some of my best college papers for the class, with some of the deepest insights and analyzations I've ever put to paper.
The highest grade I received on any of them was an 80. That was one of the two C's I made in college, and to put it into context, I got an A in every other film class I took, as well as every English class (the bulk of my studies) but one (an 88, and due to a quiet feud with the instructor). I felt like, and complained bitterly on the class evaluation, that the graders were not valuing the way I dispelled the ideas we covered in class to their basics, instead of rambling pompously. The actual philosophical ideas we covered, particularly Kierkegaard's (which I enjoyed) were at their core, not complex or overly difficult to understand if presented clearly, yet were only valued if treated like obtuse alien technology with unknowable passwords. The way the professor presented existentialism, which can easily be boiled down to "you are responsible for yourself," was the way KFC would present their Chicken recipe if Churches Chicken called them up on the phone and asked for it. I essentially tanked the final as a protest, knowing that it wouldn't change my grade, regardless. I have never been so disappointed in any class I have ever taken in my life.
Neal (BFS) said…
Wow, that's such a bummer. I took a wonderful film class at my college that was co-taught by a philosophy professor and an english professor, both with a strong love of film (they seriously reminded us all of Siskel & Ebert: they even sat on our class's ampitheatre stage on chairs angled toward each other and with a table between them). Because of their backgrounds, I felt like I was able to plum the ideas behind films much more strongly than if just one of them had taught it. Both were big on being understandable, too. The same philosophy prof taught one of the best classes I have ever taken, in "Bioethics" (basically ethics in medicine and related areas, like abortion, etc.). We talked about all the hard issues in there, but he got us to do it well, without any "obtuse alien technology" instruction manuals. ;)

I don't know Nietzsche particularly well. Are those quotes in line with a lot of his thinking? It actually reminds me a bit of JRR Tolkien's own preference for humans (or so I would guess), since he has Aragorn and certain Numenoreans chose their passing at the time of their choosing, before they become infirm of mind, when they are with their loved ones, etc. I don't find that idea to be particularly antithetical to Christianity, either, so it is rather curious if they matched up there.
Man, that sounds aces, especially the camaraderie between the two professors. Admittedly, the other nine film classes I had to take were incredibly enjoyable. I never took another philosophy class.
Good point about Tolkien. Truthfully, Nietzsche says stuff that at times is not opposed to Christianity at all. He just has to be such a huge ass about all of it.

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