Incorrect Pokemon Portmanteaus

Well here's my blog post for the quarter. I just found a mysterious note next to my bed, which I really can't remember writing, and which only reads "Incorrect Pokemon Portmanteaus." So, for your viewing pleasure, and with apologies to any philatelists, I made a couple.

Square Turtle

Rapper Dash

More words on a blog

So I've been back in Australia for weeks, mostly spent wandering around the city, and my house, looking at things and saying "Oh yeah, I remember that." Well one of my favourite rediscoveries of the moment is this old collection of Micallef writingses, which I though I'd lost well before I left the country, called Smithereens. It's mostly a collection of old columns he wrote for The Age, or something, plus a few sketches, etc etc. Anyway, it contains this pair of paragraphs, which are great, and I feel like sharing:

It will come as no surprise to learn that my uncle was an ostler. In fact, I defy you to have any reaction whatsoever, short of befuddlement. True, the grains of time have grit-blasted 'ostler' from common usage, but even way back then we had a hard time working out what one was. Even my uncle wasn't sure. 'How was work?' Auntie would ask as he appeared in the hallway at day's end, suspiciously light attaché case in hand. 'Good, good - yeah,' he'd mumble guiltily before changing the subject. You just let things along in those days.

But I was a curious kid. I snuck into my uncle's study one night and found him sitting at an empty desk, scratching his head and muttering, 'What am I? What am I?' When they took him away less than a year later he had taken to getting about on skis wearing a Viking helmet and a lion skin. 'Look at me - I'm ostling!' he was shrieking as they loaded him into the van. The neighbours watched sympathetically as my aunt waved him off. Good people, I remember thinking - although later they returned under the cover of darkness to spray-paint the word 'Weirdo' on the front of the house. Halcyon days.

So yeah, I remain quite fond of Micallef's comedy stylings, and would fork out for a Newstopia DVD if I saw one around, topical though it was. I also got a copy of this Novella he recently wrote, so hopefully that will be awesome, as I will find out as soon as I read it. Then there's that Other TV Show he recently made... Well, I reserve opinion about that until I see it, preferably in some kind of Ad-free medium.

More about that guy I sometimes go on about.

Two years ago I wrote that I would be afraid of running around screaming "Robyn Hitchcock is friggin' awesome!!," as there was every chance that I'd suddenly discover that he actually wasn't that good, and so would "find myself severely embaressed [sic] in a month or two." Apparently I couldn't spell two years ago.

Well two years later I'm still completely in the thrall of this artist, and continue to find new, excellent music by him (most recently devouring his early work with The Soft Boys). He is easily, if last.fm is to believed, which it may as well be, my most-listened-to artist since I learned of his existance. Existence. Apprently I still can't spell.

In 2009 I wrote "I wouldn't exactly recommend Robyn Hitchcock to anyone that I know. I like a lot of his music, but I can't straightforwardly see any reason that anyone-in-particular else should."

In 2010... I suppose I mostly still think this is true. He often seems to fit into this certain niche of music such that no one I know really enjoys that type of music as much as I do, namely the folky niche and the poppy niche. Still... Still... I suppose I still feel this urge to put some kind of recommendation out there, a general recommendation, a registration for posterity that this music is incredible, just so no one can turn to me in 2015 and ask "Why did you not warn me earlier, why did you deprive me of this for the last five years?"

Of course, then there's the problem of what to recommend. His output is pretty diverse in style and (sometimes) quality, though usually on the spectrum between poppy and folky, and usually on the spectrum between good and superb. For someone who suspects they might prefer his folkier side, you can't go past Spooked. For Hitchcock in more of a (restrained) Beatleseque Pop mode, Jewels For Sophia may impress. For an incredible, more punky, or perhaps rather post-punky sound, the Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight approaches perfection. But I suppose I'm most inclined to recommend the first album of his that I heard, the strange, genre-shifting psychedlic masterpiece, I Often Dream Of Trains. It certainly hooked me.

So yeah, in conclusion I'd say to most of my readers: If you trust I have a good sense of your taste of music, you probably won't be as into Robyn Hitchcock as I am. But just in case I'm underestimating you, it might be worth giving him a listen. Just because I happen to be listening to it at the moment, here's him in an unrepresentatively Rocky moment:

Minor joys

One thing that I really thought I'd never get any pleasure from is casual interactions with strangers. Being in Canberra a fair amount a couple of years ago, after living in a city all my life, I remember getting totally freaked out when random people passing in the street, or in parks, would say crazy things like "Good morning" and "Hello." Naturally, I was all like "WHAT'S GOING ON WHO ARE YOU ARRRGH." I'm still pretty sure that's the right response.

Still, since I moved to a more out-of-town area of this already tiny town of St. Andrews, it's been happening to me all over again, on my daily walk to town. But the scary part is that I've started doing it myself. Or, at least, rather, I've started responding to the greetings in kind. Maybe (maybe) even started preemptively greeting the people I recognise as having greeted me in the past. But what I find really weird is that I get some kind of pleasure from this. Like, afterwards, my mood increases. I feel slightly happier for a few minutes. My affective state improves. And to a pretty severe degree too, though it doesn't last very long. I'm not really sure where this joy comes from. Maybe it's just some kind of "Hey, you managed to navigate that social interaction with aplomb!" feeling, or rather a "That's not something you do usually, well done!" thing. Maybe it will wear off.

Similarly, today I actually sustained a conversation with the person behind the counter at the supermarket. Moments before it happened, I would've thought this was pretty much something I would never do, let alone enjoy. I actually disliked it when people tried to talk to me when I worked in a supermarket, but in this case I did not intiate the conversation, so I'm pretty sure I didn't make an already horrible job that much worse today. Anyway, yeah, again, this gave me a pretty substantial boost to my mood, for a good dozen minutes. WHAT'S WRONG WITH MEEEEE!?!?

In unrelated news, here's a song I like too much by a musician who is too excellent for words:

Events, happenings, and transpirations.

I have become a PhfD student. I've finally embarked on this grand project of defending a hedonistic theory of well-being... Or perhaps I should rather say a Mental State view. That is, for those who may not know, I am concerned with arguing that what makes a life good for the individual leading that life can be cashed out purely in terms of the quality of that individual's experiences (that is, emotions, moods, feelings, sensations... Those kinds of things.) It's not a popular view, though it once was, and it's been getting quite a few defenders recently. Or maybe it just seems that way because, you know, getting into the literature inevitably leads you to notice people defending a view and then you can be all like "Oh wow, look at all these people defending this view."

I've been unusually busy so far in the semester, mostly writing up Some Stuff about Nozick's Experience Machine. These past two weeks I've been more generally trying to have some Interesting Thoughts on the relationship between well-being and desire, and more or less failing. I might try tomorrow to have some uninteresting thoughts instead.

In other newses, I've moved in to a lovely new place of residence, with a lovely new housemate. I've met a lovely bunch of M. Litts, those who are doing the lovely course I did last year. I went on a lovely reading party to the lovely village of Strontian, after which the lovely element Strontium is named. It's been getting lovely and cold here, but I'll be getting some lovely Australian Summer Action around January. Which is lovely.

Well, now you're up to date with a bunch of facts. And now I should probably be getting some sleep. Fare thee well, every one of you, whoever you may be. Until next time!

Life Updatez

So, what's happening in my life? Well, I just finished my dissertation; handed it in today. It's pretty... It's pretty okay. To echo sentiments I have heard from more than one other student, I expected a lot, and ended up with not so much. I hoped for a grand unified argument about The Dualism of Practical Reason, about how our practical reasons are incommensurable leading to a fundamental indeterminacy about what an agent "ought to" do when his self interest conflicts with moral demands, and all this kind of stuff, but I ended up with a small collection of barely related arguments leading to a "Well, we just don't know" conclusion. Still, arsetastic as that makes it sound, I'm still pretty happy with it; it has its moments. Like... Everything I say is more or less good, but it doesn't lead anywhere exciting. I was considering linking to it here somehow, but I'd have to work out... How to host it. Hm.

I and James also managed to (almost definitely) finally organise some accommodation for next year, which is good. I'm not entirely clear on when we're moving in and all that, but he, and maybe I, are moving some stuff in today. To that end, I've been cleaning my room, for the first time in a year, so as to pack up all my stuff for the move. It was in so doing that I found, amongst my class notes, a comic, which I suspect was meant to illustrate how the standards for what counts as knowledge may change in a high-stakes situation. I found it amusing, so I copied it. Here it is:

Hilarious, innit? No? Yeah, it probably looked better on paper. I really need to get a tablet or scanner or something. Eh, probably not worth it.

Another Victory for Genre Tags!

So my earphones have been pretty broke for some time. The kind of broke where the left speaker makes an awful buzzing noise now and then for reasons that I'm not astute enough to completely pin down. This is extremely annoying, as I use them to listen to music whenever I go anywhere. This has possibly made me even more reluctant to ever go anywhere than I ordinarily am.

However, I have discovered this!: For whatever reason, the haphazard collection of tunes that I happen to have tagged as being "Dream Pop" cause the buzzing to happen substantially less. I'm sure there's a reason for this, probably something to do with... Less bass? Maybe? Eh. Anyway, the upshot is that now I can once again go places, so long as I'm happy to be carried along by a wave of ethereal soundscapes and indecipherable wailing. Which, of course, I always am. Here's some:



That said, I ordered some new earphones last night. Specifically some of those crazy gross ones that, like, go right into your ears. I've been wary of them before, but I'm sick of my other earphones being crappy* and dying on me all the time. And I'm not sure I can commit to carrying actual headphones around, and I worry about them pressing my glasses right into the side of my head. As can happen. Still... I'm worried about my ears going "Ow, what are these gross things in me, go away," and of being hit by a car while I wander around unable to hear anything but Elizabeth Fraser's ethereal wailing. So let's hope both and either of those things don't happen!