brianfelsen.com

(click on photo for full size)

This vivid piece of photojournalism, taken in extremely arduous conditions, documents elusive first-person mental states. Here, in the war zone of Fairfield, CT, we braved the forbidding terrain of a middle-aged Jewish lady’s kitchen. The woman was extremely accommodating – until the boxes of snack food started flying around the kitchen, crashing into her cabinets.

This photograph addresses three of my primary intellectual concerns:

Focus and attention. Here, Elif is beckoned by the siren call of snack food, and she’s literally pulled, zombie-like from her work into the kitchen.

Balancing short- and long-term goals. Friends and lovers often endeavor to reward each other and share pleasure in ways which are harmful to their wallets, society, or their long-term goals and future selves.

Butts. A picture is worth a thousand words – yet, while the English language contains hundreds of thousands of words, not one of them does full justice to the marvelous beauty of a woman’s posterior.

***

Here’s a version I mounted on a card for Holmes stereoscope viewers:

Continue Reading

Image via Wikipedia

Last night, we were eating dinner at a stargazing gathering in the Mojave desert. Anatol made a comment about death, and I commented, “That’s my little existentialist.”

Anatol: “What’s an existentialist?”

Me: “Existentialism is a school of philosophy which was big after World War II… you know, Camus, Sartre… OK, it means that even if life seems absurd, you have to create your own meaning…”

Anatol: “I don’t understand.”

Me: “Suppose I were to ask, what’s the pupose of life and why are we here?”

Anatol: “We’re here because of the explosion of a supernova!”

At this, the scientists at the table from NASA and JPL pricked up their ears.

Me: “No, I mean… let me put it this way: A lot of people believe in God, and that’s OK, but suppose you don’t – what do you think, then, is the meaning of life?”

Anatol: “The meaning of life is 42!”

The whole table laughed.

Anatol: “Daddy, can I go roast some marshmallows now?”

My 7-year-old is quite proficient in finding his own meaning and living sincerely and passionately, and I’m here to help him roast those marshmallows.

Continue Reading

Click for full score

Note: The free Scorch plug-in is required to view the scores in your browser. Turn off your speaker volume, since the score documents are formatted with non-standard MIDI settings and will produce only drum sounds.

Text:

5. Clamoring For Clout

He’s a much cleverer philosopher than I am.
He’s more famous than I am.
We’re all clamoring for clout.
Neither of us wants to be left out.

Think of this dissociation.
Failures in collaboration.

Suddenly, a famine strikes!
Gives a new throw of the dice.

How can science intervene
if nature’s found its golden mean?
Does that mistake cost you hard?
Which of these two things does that mis-snake bite?

But then -
It’s a mutation!

Unpredicted variation
Snowballing acceleration
Will this new line live or die out?
Will this rhythm/rhyme jibe with the last one?
Now we’re subject to spectrums of sensations like pain
He will rebel against me and I will complain!
     My idea is not the same.

(Don’t forget the atavism.
Or the lessons of positivism.)

You think our raw sensations, if they exist, leave naught behind
     So you say…
(Made me realize what was missing from his picture of the mind and mine…)
What concerns us isn’t just the stream of thought but also it’s the feeling…
     (…feeling of being a subject to this spectrum of sensation…)
How can a system take one step back so it can take steps forward?
A fixation! A fixation!
     A fixation at the best level throughout the population
Does this preceding sentence refer to that receding sentence?
     Do these preceding lieder refer to this receding…

How can falling back turn out to have been advantageous?
     Sometimes a mistake can later bring beneficial consequences…
     Are you writing about me?

Continue Reading