The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

January 21, 2005


{x:x=x} = http://www.asondheim.org/yungheal.jpg
yunghealed


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American nationalism displays the following characters.

First, it is originated from the worship to 'The American Creed', with 
liberty, democracy and the rule of law lying at its core. The Creed takes 
form along with the shaping and developing of the country, but has been 
taken by many Americans as a truth or standard that 'fits all'. From a 
religious perspective, many Americans indulge themselves in a sense of 
superiority, believing themselves 'men chosen by God.'

Second, due to the nation's superior natural and geographical conditions, 
and its history of never being invaded, American nationalism is void of 
historical bitterness found in typical nationalism of some other peoples.

Third, American nationalism shows a strong inclination of being 
self-centered, a combination of an isolationism tendency (being disdain to 
associate with other peoples) and a sense of mission to save 'the fettered 
world' by whatever means it desires. American nationalism rejects 
nationalism in other peoples, which doesn't, or unwilling to learn other 
people's emotions and thoughts, but adopts American standards in all 
cases.

Fourth, in foreign policy, American nationalism takes a form of a mixture 
of morality and pragmatism. Sometimes America holds ideology as the 
benchmark, deciding a friend or foe by American values, beliefs and 
political considerations; sometimes it exercises double standards for the 
sake of national interest, showing a certain degree of moral hypocrisy.

(Excerpted from Christian Science Monior)

Reviews of Books I like 177 Wilson Avenue


We returned from West Virginia with a Bearcat Scanner Radio from 1981. It
has only 50 channels, works perfectly, however, and keeps me in touch with
neighborhood doings. She knows where I am, SP 1 and 2.

Radio Shack in the US carries Police Call Frequency Guide: Codes, Maps,
Trunking. Grey vehicle with a white door. Stand by. The 2005 North-East
book (Volume 1) is 384 pages. Two shots fired from a blue Honda Civic
right around the corner from us. The book gives frequencies from police,
taxis, race-cars (?!), business, airports, etc.; it also gives police and
other codes so that one knows what's happening beyond the 104. Highly
recommended. I'm mentioning the book here because it's difficult to find
scanning lists off-line, and at least this computer interferes a bit.
Clearing the area of bystanders. 10-10 possible crime.

The Daily Practice of Painting, Gerhard Richter, Writings 1962-1003,
edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist, MIT, 2002. Telephone alarm 145 Ocean Avenue,
fire in Apartment 30 on the third floor. The book is brilliant, and looser
than I'd expect; Richter is one of my favorite painters, one of the most
interesting still. There is much on specific series of works, photographs
of the painter, materials on aesthetics, and an anti-ideological position
which is spelled out in numerous ways. 1753. 10-4. Go with the numbers.
Highly recommended. He was strong-armed, punched in the face, and money
was taken.

Zen and the Ways, Trevor Leggett, Tuttle, 1988. This book, dissimilar to
many others on Zen, stresses Kamakura Zen, Kamakura Koans, with numerous
original texts. This was samurai zen, warrior zen, fierce and quick and
appealing. Nothing comes back on that plate, no records. The night
interview of the Nun Myotei is haunting. 246 Ferry Street, 724, Code 3,
male in the car not moving or breathing. There are sections on The Ways
and Texts of the Ways. It is night reading as well. 55 EMS. Material on
ri, ji, shin, ki; on the Jujutsu school Shin-no-Shin-To-Ryu, on the Itto
School, wonderful. Fight on the second floor.

Dispositions, McKenzie Wark, Salt, 2002. Of this more sometime later.
Smoke in the basement private dwelling. Additional 1014. Brooklyn to the
41, Westbound on Flatbush Ladder 159. Dispatcher 445. This work reminds me
of the best of Karl Kraus, Benjamin, what Baudrillard might have been. It
is organized by readings from a Garmin Etrex GPS device; each section is
headed by readouts representing the (primal) scene of its writing/birth.
The readouts include date, time, position (including altitude), and
accuracy. Negative K, might be in Manhattan. Pedestrian struck by
automobile near 63 Orchard Flatbush Avenue. The sections are intricate and
terse, turning around aesthetic, cultural, and sociological aporia.
Respond to box 1566. Smoke on the first floor multiple dwellings. There
are considerations of Kathy Acker, the Met, unfinished books, cities and
airports, codework, epistemology and punctuation. This is literally a
must-read for anyone interested in globality and its incursions. 10130,
459 Maple. I have to clear this up.

The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen, New Directions, 1968. I am
revisiting Patchen after all these years and Orange Bears and the poems
and other pieces are even more wonderful than I remember. Post 11. Stand
by for the next dispatch. You got a 757 with the K-9 Unit, Harry. Are you
all right over there? Right now I'm with the Chief Unit 100. Themes,
Miriam and love, Christ walking around and talking just like you or me,
are repeated, there are flowers and killings, and the intensity is
amazing. I found a long article on Patchen by Henry Miller; it's on the
Web if you search for it. Two male blacks with a black coats, fled toward
White Avenue on foot. Near Franklin and Bedford. 75 Victor at 1077 New
York Avenue. "I have but a bullet left / and there are so many things to
kill." I'm home again. Track fire on the David line, Coney-Island bound,
near Utrecht Avenue. Have a victim, cardiac, Franklin Avenue, seizure.

"Do you have a badge around your neck, like a real cop? That means you
pay." - This interrupting. 10-4.

Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to Its Source, translated by D.C. Lau and Roger T.
Ames, Ballantine, 1998. Ames' introduction is brilliant. Which car,
Sergeant? Box with plastic wrapping on it, next to a hydrant. Corner of
President and Utica. This is an extremely important Taoist text, related
to Daodejing and Zhuangzi, stressing triggering, water symbolism,
accommodation, and the "Gerundical Dao." The text is short but requires a
great deal of time to absorb. Its style is equal to the others, although
it was written late second-century bce. Dispatchers on the 539, 739. I got
a 39. The text seems to me to be unique in its stressing of ecological
considerations; by virtue of the Dao, nature-ing. Oddly reminds one of
Marcus Aurelius. Open door on Henry.

Windows XP Annoyances For Geeks, David A. Karp, O'Reilly, 2004. This is an
update of a book already reviewed - but this is an entirely new work,
covering SP2 among other things. This may well be the best book available
on tuning. Injured skater up on Community. Have them come to door #6 on
the side of the building. Church fire. Broken down pickup truck. Recommend
an ATA for a 36. There is a lot here for geeks as well - VBS scripting for
automation, hardware troubleshooting, etc. Like the other O'Reilly books,
it's detailed in terms of how things work. 71 call for help. The book is
expensive, $34.95, but well worth it.

It's extremely cold out. The dispatcher _sieves, distributes, filters._
Redundancy's kept to a minimum. I find myself distracted by this internet
of the real, these vectors laid and relayed across the square mile that
constitutes my neighborhood. In the midst of a sentence, incoming; I'll
move it to the end.

Mind Hacks, Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain, Tom Stafford & Matt Webb,
O'Reilly 2005. By all means get this book, which is an absolutely unique
description of the working of the mind - in practical, hacking, terms,
with numerous Web references. Calls for help in Bushwick. The picture that
emerges is that of a dynamic brain which doesn't map or model digitally;
instead, it's a complex dialectic of frequencies, internal and external
stimuli, locations and transmuted locations, retinal and other imminent
learnings, etc. An accident by Bergen and Chancellor, possible 908. Don't
know if anyone was hurt. Private house with smoke. Negative, anonymous
caller who hung up. The hacks, by the way, are useful; I've incorporated
some of the ideas into virtual modeling. If I were teaching new media,
this is one of the books I'd use. All units stand by. 315. 315. Drifting
of snow is expected. Snow will begin to fall at twelve-hundred hours. Plan
A and Plan B emergencies.

Drama Contemporary, Germany, edited by Carl Weber, Johns Hopkins, 1996.
This has plays by Strauss, Tabori, Seidel, Pohl, Dorst, Jelinek, and
Muller. I particularly love the Muller and the Jelinek (who just won the
Nobel Prize for literature). Alpha zero three one six zero five five six
six nine two. The Jelinek was a revelation, amazing, related to Heidegger
and Arendt; after reading it, I read The Piano Teacher and Women as Lovers
and will eventually order the rest of her work. It is torrid, dry, Duras,
Beckett, Kraus, and amazing; the intensity drives it like Gillian Welch,
inescapable. All of the plays here are brilliant, believe it or not; I've
been missing out. 104 Montgomery Street, Washington and Franklin.
Jelinek's is Totenauberg (Death/Valley/Summit); Muller's is Mommsen's
Block; Tabori's is Mein Kampf.

A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Raph Koster, Paraglyph, 2005. What can I
say? This is exactly it. I don't have any units available for this job.
Supposed to be a private house. One item. Dispute. Call for help Greene
Avenue. This book reminds me of the late Wittgenstein, deceptively simple,
concerned with the habitus of game-play, expectation suites (my term),
player/human concerns within and without the game-world, and so forth.
I'll be using this for my own virtual work this summer; I recommend it as
a way of clarifying intent, structure, and phenomenology of one's work.
There is text only on the left-hand page, illustration on the right, but
the cost is relatively cheap at $23. Armed man. "Even if players can see
through fiction, the art of the game includes that fiction."

Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic
Environments, Gary R. Bunt, Pluto, Critical Studies on Islam, 2003. The
kids live in the same building. Be advised. I will be reviewing this
elsewhere, and am reading it now; I wanted to mention it as a guide -
including a huge listing of websites - to online Islam. The book is oddly
careful and "nervous," perhaps for obvious reasons. A wide-range of
Islamic practices are described. Robber, first floor. The numbers for that
search. I think detailed work, along these lines, is necessary on all
fronts - it takes loose ideological cartels as beginning-points, and
examines practices within them - instead of, for example, beginning with
the "blog-structure" and proceeding out of it. Different forms of jihad
are described, including inner, greater, and lesser. There are sections on
9-11, Islamic diversity, Sunni Religious Authority, and so forth. 34 in
progress, male black choked. Missing female black, 11 years old, Charisma
D. wearing red shirt, cloak, coat, hat, and blue jeans, last seen this
morning. Please notify, anxious.

White Volkswagen, check conditions if you will. And check out Razorsmile
#3 - I always love this magazine, this one features chaos magick/tarot -
go to http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt.lee7/razorsmile. Good writing by
Matt and Morrigan, whom (who?) some of you may know. Accompanying cd-rom.
Habitual runaway. Second floor.

Figure Skating for Dummies, Kristi Yamaguchi, IDG, 1997. This is one of
the best guides ever to the sport; I could well have used this during the
Tonya Harding / Nancy Kerrigan debacle. For all sorts of reasons, I'm
fascinated by Figure Skating; this is the best guide I've seen. Lighten up
Frank. Don't call me Frank. Figure Skating is the "knot" between sports
and the social, and the "knot" among issues of gender, muscle, creativity,
restraint, intelligence. It plays out among all of them; in a sense, every
event is an essay. 1403 New York Avenue. 1085. That unit.

The Aryan Christ, The Secret Life of Carl Jung, Richard Nol, Random House,
1977. I'm fascinated by this work on Jung's spiritual interests and
associations. Corrected address 3025 Ocean Avenue. 169. 64 Woodhaven
Westbound. Thin build, 5' 4", 130 pounds, she has brown hair, brown eyes,
wears glasses, 13 years old. I've always found Jung both fascinating and
problematic, veering towards the Aryan imaginary; this book goes a way in
explanation. I've read this "out of context," not "being" a Jungian, so I
have no other critical guidance than my own sparse understanding. But I do
recommend this, if only for the sources - for that matter, I tend to
believe in its findings. I've got him out on the -. Oklahoma plates.

Godey's Lady's Book, 1866, edited by Sarah Hale. Godey's was the most
popular 19th-century woman's magazine in the United States; it ran from
the early part of the century until 1898. Sarah Hale, an early and
problematic feminist, edit it for most of its life. 12827. The
illustrations are found ripped out and framed in numerous antique shops;
on the other hand, if you can find a full issue, purchase it; the reading
is excellent and one might learn more about 19th-century daily life from
it, than any other source. There are stories, book reviews, poetry, all of
interest. Mobilization point is the gas station on Auburn Street. She's
was wearing red and black sneakers. Should I pick up my dog yet.
(Something tells me I've already reviewed this and a few others - but I
can't find the reviews anywhere. In my mind, then, perhaps, or perhaps you
know better.)

Prayer Book for Sabbath and Festivals, Translated and Annotated with an
Introduction by Philip Birnbaum, Hebrew Publishing Company, New York,
1950. I've wanted to write on the Siddur for a while now, and this seems
like an excellent standard edition. You need to respond to the second
floor. Information is available upon request. There are notes and
alternative readings. The Siddur is the heart of Orthodox daily practice;
like all religious texts, there are ideological embeddings, subtexts, etc.
I hope to do at least a partial deconstructive reading of the work. In
general - with any number of religions - prayers are rarely analyzed; even
with Shinto, while the Norita have been translated, actual practice and
texts are rarely described. (I'm sure there are technical journals with
such information, but it's not readily available.)

Jeans, red hat, red coat. The Collected Verse of Lewis Carroll, Macmillan,
1933. Includes illustrations. I understand Deleuze's fascination. The work
is not only beautiful; it's almost literally indescribable. What seems
simple really isn't - He used to live in the building, doesn't live there
any more, hangs around there. Michael Maldenado, hispanic, mustache,
short hair, they call him Sparko, walk down Bergen Street. That was a big
word there, I got you. 10-4 Good Night. There are issues of capital,
technology, reworked nature, all at play; even nonsense is self-critiqued;
the pieces reference each other; oddly enough, the children are hardly
present. Charley's requesting a sergeant. Then there are the erotics of
his photography; check out Alison Smith, editor, Exposed: The Victorian
Nude, Watson-Guptill, New York.

It continues to be difficult to focus. TD involved in an MDA. There are
sirens outside the window uncorrelated with the scanner background sirens.
311 fire location. I think I'm letting you down, that these reviews aren't
up to the usual, that centripetal daily life interferes, exhales. Every
apartment is a lockdown. Bush spreads freedom while our jail population,
mainly "minority," is well over two million. Spread the jails around the
world - more money for corporate usa. 111 Police Boulevard. Confirmed
fifteen-year-old habitual runaway.

To be reviewed: Phyllis Chesler, The new Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis
and What We Must Do About It; Tony Northrup and Eric Faulkner, Home
Hacking Projects for Geeks; Frances Crosby, Poems of a Blind Girl. He's
not answering. 37 George. Disregard, disregard. Disregard that. Family
dispute. 3214 Beverly Road. 10-4. Altercation. Automatic alarm at the
mall. Ex-boyfriend fighting there, destroying the house, 2143, code 3.

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