http://www.livejournal.com/users/girlwithagun/

http://geekgirl.motime.com/

maybe worth linking. later.

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this whole "blogging" concept seems a bit out of favour, nowadays.

odd, though, how the most new and dazzling ideas come during workouts. so much so that there is now a new piece of equipment that acts as official accompaniment to sweat and energy: the small artists' pad and a ballpoint pen.

most likely the reason for all these thoughts is the opposite of what makes computer programming so maddingly addictive at times: conscious logic. the workout that can be called 'mixed martial arts' in some ways embodies what is happening in mind at the time. in the progression from

warmup to technique- and strength-training, cooldown and stretch,

conscious mind is fully occupied with maintaining technique as i push to move faster and hit harder. limitations are boring so there is always an urge to get stronger as time passes. as the drills become more varied and time becomes more compressed in the 'moment', unconscious mind finds ever-widening windows of opportunity through which to whisper ideas and new interpretations.

the reflection in the mirror is beset by an irreducible contradiction: certainty in one area (business) and urgent curiosity in all others (they all say that youth is fleeting). curiosity is both strength and weakness at this point, split into two impetuous children finding balance on the delicate, shifting seesaw whose fulcrum is time itself.

on one side, business. on the other, creativity. how can creativity be indulged without the foundation of secured funding to feed it? the business is growing, slowly, but at the end of the path, amidst an imagined backdrop of wealth and achievement, the question of true attainment is a menacing garish brightness that threatens to unravel the dream itself. money is not what a human mind was designed to create; not this mind anyway. the question is where the path lies upon which footsteps will eventually reach

a world where creativity can create wealth
as a side effect.

does this world exist without descending into the depths of product placement and media junket hell?

the actor-artist fears commercial success; transformation into marketing object/studio image, "icon".
the model-mannequin fears commodization of youth in the dejected narcissism of the older, future self; thousands of reprinted, retouched, manipulated mirror illusions.

the face becomes owned by someone else. and what becomes of mind and body?

. . .

these fears are a waste of time.
consequences will have to wait.

old age will come regardless, as well as what comes after.
action must come first.

Why do they agree to the bargain society has made for them? The answer to that question, I think, suggests Ishiguro's message: The real world raises many of its citizens as spare parts; they are used as migratory workers, minimum-wage retail slaves, even suicide bombers. "The Island" doesn't go there, but then did you expect it would?

1950: At age 14, he aspires to become a journalist and is a reporter for the youth newspaper, which is under the influence of the government. After a relative is imprisoned without trial, the newspaper stops publishing Andris's articles. The experience turns him off journalism. "I was crushed as only a slighted adolescent can be," he later writes. "I did not want a profession in which a totally subjective evaluation, easily colored by political considerations, could decide the merits of my work." He turns from journalism to science.