Re: Figment by Dovina	15-Oct-05/5:51 AM
Ha.
Re: The End by Caducus	15-Oct-05/5:50 AM
Q: Did you know that "The End" is infamously the name of the Doors' awful Apocalypse Now theme-song? Christ, maybe I AM old. Or educated.
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	15-Oct-05/5:46 AM
An almost certain way to get you off-topic is to state the exact topic we're discussing, with concommitant questions and prompts. I suppose you're afraid of being tied down. I think at this point you're just still not getting it because you're helpless about such things. You probably don't even remember exactly what this conversation's about. DOVINA 10-Oct-05/1:32 AM: We have faith in God because we are built to have such faith. ZODIAC 10-Oct-05/11:08 AM: By whom are people built to have faith? DOVINA 10-Oct-05/12:00 PM: Maybe pure evolution. ZODIAC 10-Oct-05/12:14 PM: Evolution didn't build us. ZODIAC 10-Oct-05/12:47 PM: And what's the point of saying that anyway? DOVINA 14-Oct-05/5:52 PM: Blaaaaaaaat.
Re: Brethren, oblivion is not the road to the city Ataraxis. by SupremeDreamer	15-Oct-05/5:38 AM
That's the thing about self-love, isn't it? It's hard to find an audience as interested as you are.
Re: a comment on Rocky Road by Dovina	15-Oct-05/5:37 AM
I did come one, eventually, but nothing makes me instantly get a hard-on.
Re: a comment on I don't rhyme enough, eh? by Niphredil	15-Oct-05/5:22 AM
Ask yourself if the reason you think rap is closer to literature poetry is because it simply has MORE WORDS than other musical forms. Yeah, I thought so too, then a bunch of rappers disagreed.
Re: a comment on dictates of whose travel agency? by A. Nomaly	13-Oct-05/2:24 AM
I noticed you still didn't drop the apostrophe from dictates.
Re: monday by ay deee	13-Oct-05/2:22 AM
This is really pretty good. I'd start from the second stanza and tighten it up a little. For example, I was drafted and unprepared Or something such. Nice job.
Re: Rocky Road by Dovina	13-Oct-05/2:06 AM
The last two lines don't make up for the rest being practically not-English.
Re: a comment on Tonight’s Halloween by TLRufener	13-Oct-05/2:04 AM
By your diction I would think you're Meat Loaf.
Re: a comment on I don't rhyme enough, eh? by Niphredil	13-Oct-05/1:59 AM
People who think poetry should be something different are illiterates. I don't personally know any of these people, though the people I know are always talking about how they hate those other people. Personally, I doubt whether they exist. I've always heard hip-hop used to describe both the music and the lifestyle. I think it's because white people (including most of my professors) are more comfortable saying hip-hop than rap. I don't know why. It used to seem like a big deal to me that the world had "turned away from poetry" and so on and rap and pop music were the only poetic forms people paid attention to, but it doesn't now. Consider: 1) Originally, all poetry was set to music; it WAS music. 2) During times when access to singers/reciters or recorded music was limited, written poetry was a decent substitute. 3) But during those times there was no diminishment in the poetry-as-music movement, it was just hard to get at your isolated manor house. 4) Since recorded and live music became more available in the end of the 1800s, interest in written poetry has been diminished. Every generation since then has considered its musicians poets, and every generation has scandalized at the thought that people were paying attention to music-poetry more than nonmusic-poetry. Whatever. Here is a nowhere near complete list of the music people have had this same debate about: - Opera - Cole Porter and Broadway light opera - Jazz - Beat-style jazz - early rock - The Beatles - Bob Dylan - most other 60s rock - Led Zeppelin - early and most other rap - Bossa Nova and latin music - Grunge lyrics If you consider some of the genres on this list, DMX (actually, I think I meant Run DMC and was tired) isn't such a bad choice. Conclusion: Silly thing to argue about, nowhere near original, and not going away. The best thing to say is all music is poetry. Most is bad poetry.
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	13-Oct-05/1:42 AM
For the gazillionth time, it fits the theory because the theory was made to fit the circumstances. Take the following circumstances: - a dishwasher explosion, - Wonder Years re-runs, - prison gang-rape, - the 1984 Olympic games, - water on Mars. A good scientist can make a theory that incorporates and explains all of these phenomena. Let's call this theory "Jimboism". If a slightly dim person studies Jimboism, she'll be astonished that dishwashers, re-runs, gang-rape, the 1984 Olympics, and water all act UNFAILINGLY according to this theory. She'll tend to credit the dishwasher, etc, with an extra importance, with some magic synchronicity. None of these things deserve that, the scientist does. Do you see yet? You'd have done better to say (as you almost have) that calling faith, etc, a product of evolution is important because it relieves you of responsibility for faith. Not only can you be excused for trying to be faithless and then rushing desparately back to God, but you know that people who try not to have faith ARE IN FACT UNNATURAL AND ACTING AGAINST THEIR NATURE. And some other cool evolution-produced traits fall into the same category! Like, - Killing in self-interest, - Stealing from non-relations to provide for your genetic line, - Eating fatty foods if you're a woman, - Being vain and appearance-centered if you're a man or woman, - Being horny and desperate if you're a man or woman. So hey, that IS pretty useful! But wait, wasn't there a point in history where evolution made pre-humans have grasping toes for a specific purpose related to survival of the species? And don't we NOT have grasping toes now? So doesn't that mean that characteristics "made by evolution" - even including faith, reproduction, and fat-eating - can become non-essential or obsolete, and therefore our own responsibilities again? Judges' ruling: NO SCORE FOR YOU.
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	13-Oct-05/1:23 AM
2) Have I defined John?
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	12-Oct-05/1:08 AM
PS- This is John: "Lawnmower". Is John a lawnmower?
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	12-Oct-05/1:01 AM
HOMEWORK 2 - Agree or disagree with the following thesis. "My evolution-produced need for faith is more important than my evolution-produced hairless ass."
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	12-Oct-05/12:58 AM
1) EVOLUTION IS NOT A SOURCE OF ANYTHING. 2) Let's agree for the sake of areguemenete that by 'evolution' you mean and have always meant 'a series of near-random phenomena' - which would be the right thing to say, incidentally. Yes, then 'evolution' resulted in faith. It 'made' us have faith. So what????? So-FUCKING-what???!? Consider: 'Evolution' also made me have an ass mostly free of hair. Does that make my mostly hair-free ass any more fucking meaningful than it would be if it weren't a product of evolution? No. Does that make my ass any more meaningful than a hairy-assed person's would be? No. If in an alternate reality all humans were born with hairy asses, do you think they would either (a) fail to invent evolution, or (b) have somehow failed at evolving? No. They'd have a theory of evolution that explains, I don't know, humans developed hairy asses to pad their spines while sitting on hard office chairs. Why wouldn't they? It's a fucking measurement system for rationalizing a set of circumstances that has already produced them the way they are (ie, among other things, people who need measurement systems for rationalizing things). If it didn't explain why they had hairy asses, if it wasn't amazingly coherent to their real lives, it would be a horrifically failed theory, wouldn't it? So basically, saying that something is a result of evolution has NO CONVERSATIONAL OR DISCUSSIONAL VALUE. NONE. NOT AT ALL. Who in his right mind would think saying something's a result of evolution gives it any meaning at all? You would. Why? I don't know, because it has four-syllables, maybe, and four-syllable words sound important to you and you desperately need some kind of meaning having cast off God and gone running naked into traffic. It's not bloody like you've bothered at any point in this conversation touching on how evolution gives any trait importance. You've just spurted the word 'evolution' about 50 times into the conversation and expected us to all be as impressed with you as you are. If you're going to argue anything, please start arguing that. Thanks, and all my love, zodiac PS-Stick. I did understand and you don't. So you remember, HOMEWORK - Agree or disagree with the following thesis. "Saying something is made by evolution gives it some importance or argumental value it lacks otherwise."
Re: a comment on I don't rhyme enough, eh? by Niphredil	12-Oct-05/12:31 AM
Here's some more math: Name the 10 most famous rhyming poems you know. Now name the 10 most famous non-rhyming poems. Did you actually make it to 10 non-rhyming poems? You're disqualified from this discussion.
Re: a comment on I don't rhyme enough, eh? by Niphredil	12-Oct-05/12:30 AM
The 'Is hip-hop poetry' discussion is this year's version of 'What if the color I think is orange is really purple?' Of course hip-hop is poetry. Most of it is bad poetry. In grad school lit classes we studied Tupac and DMX. We didn't study poemranker poets. Do the math.
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	11-Oct-05/6:22 AM
Whatever. Add and retract half-witted attacks all day. I assume you're done saying I've "defined" philosophy as such and such. Considering I'm the only one involved in this who's ever claimed a distinction between "I hold X to be true" and "I believe X", weak argument. And besides, who ever said belief is philosophy? A philsopher doesn't say "I philosophy X". You do. That's why you're not a philosopher.
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	11-Oct-05/6:19 AM
Balls. Balls, balls, balls. I had more respect for you than this.