What in the hell …

Okay so I know I said I wasn’t fucking around anymore but sometimes I can’t help it, too often actually but I’d like to think that some of this sometimes is good for me and not in just a letting off steam sort of way but in a makes me a little smarter in a way kind of way. If you click on that second link, or if you read that post already, you will know I recently discovered garden path sentences. I think these are great, and/but they make my head hurt.

I decided to try to write one that contained global ambiguity (I learned this term today, here’s an example - “I know more scientists than Stephen Hawking,” this could mean either “I know scientists in addition to Stephen Hawking” or “I know more scientists than Stephen Hawking,” without additional context each interpretation is equally correct), and that referenced garden path sentences. Here’s what I came up with:

“The sentence led up the garden path made me very happy, more than my high school English teacher.”

This one isn’t self-referential, but I still like it.

The novel proved to be written by Calvino in a month was eaten by bookworms.

That one works, I think. I think it works… ambiguity because “in a month” could qualify “proved”, “written” or “eaten.” Garden path because of “was eaten by book worms.” It’d be funnier with “just like my high school English teacher” at the end.

I would now like one that contains a pun about the word “sentence”, one that references (either explicitly or more subtly) the Borges story “The Garden of Forking Paths” (which I should read again, because I don’t remember much except the title) - preferably this one will also contain a pun or some other joke of some sort, and one that begins with the phrase “What in the hell.” I’m not sure that last one is possible.

I’m not working on any of this tonight though cuz it’s late and I gotta walk my dog and really above all because that one I wrote made my brain feel tired and knotted.

Question: are garden path sentences paraprosdokians, or just sort of like them?

*sigh*

The “what it the hell elipse question” thing was meant to help me avoid the need to come up with titles but sometimes I can’t come up with a question to come after the elipse. Same problem as trying to come up with a title. Annoying.

I finished reading Hamerquist’s Althusser essay, took very fragmentary notes. I still haven’t even scratched the surface on my post on ch25 of v1, nor have I reviewed my posts on ch23 and 24. I get so little sleep and have so little time to read these days, I’m not sure when I’m going to get to that, let alone all this stuff. On the plus side, my daughter is amazing and beautiful. Yesterday she developed a new laugh, a high pitched squeak/shriek/chirp and today she graced me with it several times.

For now, new reading plan, at least for political stuff. I’m going to read these, in the following order, mostly more stuff by Hamerquist. My friend Pete and I are going to try to talk about this stuff together to formulate questions and responses. This too will no doubt be interrupted (for instance, as I read the last chapter or so of Commonwealth, and as I read Manituana on the bus), but whatever. I accomplish only laterally, by procrastination, and without goals I can’t procrastinate.

1. http://bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/64
and http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/fascism/shock.html

2. http://bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/69
and http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2006/08/on-islamic-radicalism-and-left.html

3. http://bringtheruckus.org/node/79 (Akuno first)

4. http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2009/02/paretsky-responds-to-thinking-and.html

5. http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2009/04/response-to-paretsky-21909.html

6. http://bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/63

7. http://bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/73

8. http://bringtheruckus.org/node/83

My new rule is that I don’t reply to electronic communications in which there is some disagreement until I have let 48 hours pass then I have read them a second time, unless it’s a decision making issue and time is important.

I recently stumbled onto the wikipedia entry for “garden path sentences.” Here’s an example of a garden path sentence from that entry:
The old man the boat.

Here’s another:
The horse raced past the barn fell.

There’s more. Reading the above two at first sort made the inside of my head throb (it made my brain hurt).

I mentioned this to an old friend today and he said “oh, it’s mental push ups. Cool.” Then he recommended the following as another version of mental pushups, for people who know how to count to ten in two languages or more.

Count to ten alternating languages. For instance:
One, dos, drei, four, cinco, sechs, seven, ocho, neun, ten.

Neat. The next step, I’ve not tried it, would be to do basic math problems in a similar fashion.

Funny enough, a number of blogs that I read only very occasionally but regularly, if that makes sense, have had a big wide-ranging discussion about ontology and politics at the same time as I’ve gotten into an argument with some friends in my offline life about this very same subject, friends who I’m pretty sure don’t read any of these blogs. (more…)

I’ve been meaning for a long time go back and read the three part Aufheben article on decadence theory. (This piece played a role in Aufheben’s exchange with Theorie Communiste, which I’ve still not read except in a very cursory fashion.) One of these days (after ch25 of Capital! and after my latest round of Hamerquist’s writing!) I’m going to have to dig into this stuff.

For now, Hardt and Negri in Commonwealth:

a “symptom of capital’s illness: its failure to engage and develop productive forces. When Marx and Engels describe the centuries-long passage from feudal to capitalist relations of production in Europe, they focus on the expansion of productive forces: as feudal relations increasingly obstruct the development of productive forces, capitalist relations of property and exchange emerge to foster them and spur them forward. “At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange,” Marx and Engels write in the Manifesto, “the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.” Every mode of production, capital included, at first powerfully expands productive forces but eventually holds them back, thereby generating the foundation of the next mode of production. (…) Capitalist relations of property are becoming increasingly such fetters today.” (298.)

Capitalism, from once helping to now hindering progress. From progressive to decadent social formation.

This is a slightly edited and expanded version of what I said in my notes, about Ignatiev’s piece as part of the Hamerquist Lenin discussion. I tried to post it as a comment over there but it didn’t work so I’m posting it here.

Ignatiev’s piece is about CLR James and organization. Ignatiev begins by noting that James both rejected the idea of the vanguard party and retained a commitment to organization. What’s that organizations for, though? (more…)

Trick question. It’s a self-evident good. (more…)