Immanent Domain

Meat Space 2.0

When we lived in Durham NC, the Winn Dixie supermarket had a slogan on the awning: “Home of the Meat People.”  Liz and I used to joke about this, imagining creatures assembled from beef cuts, groaning as they limped across the Winn Dixie parking lot.

I first heard the term “meat space” from Jason Borum, who had a friend so happy online that he didn’t like to interact with people off-line in “meat space,” which he claimed bored him. I have met people like this. They are in the coffee shop, blogging away on their wireless connections. You haven’t seen them for weeks or months, but they are more interested in their computer.

One reason I avoided Facebook, the online social network, is that I was afraid it would suck me out of meat space. But it had the opposite effect. As a result of Facebook, I see more people, and more frequently, in meat space. I’ve been hanging with local friends like Miles and Ed Polish, I’m going up to Portland to guest lecture in one of Maude’s classes, and will surely see Sarah and, if I can track him down, Jason Borum.

For me, there are two main reasons for this enhanced activity in meat space:
1> I hear what friends are doing and thinking, and I respond to that.
2> I'd like to have interesting things to share about myself on Facebook.

The second reason sounds a little silly, but I think it’s instructive. In a way it’s an extension of what happens in meat space: you have interesting friends doing interesting things, and you respond. You find it stimulating and inspiring. Your connections online stimulate your life off-line. Meat Space 2.0

RIP Residual Culture

After a life of less than four hours, the Residual Culture blog was incorporated within Immanent Domain. Though I did love the slogan I put on the masthead: "I defy any amateur of painting to love a picture as much as a fetishist loves a shoe" -- Bataille.

Gravity's Pull

In a short matter of hours, I've been drawn back to the graphics from my original home page. Batman and Tinky, truth be told, are more at home in my other blog, Residual Culture.

Maybe it's having grown up around heavy machinery. Originally my dad ran an excavation company, so I have many early memories of wandering around the shop, looking at the disassembled underbellies of backhoes and bulldozers. And to this day, I find the smell of heavy oil oddly comforting. Lying under my 1970 LandCruiser, servicing the transfer case, is practically womb-like.

Pants on Fire

So once I settled on an image, my original quote didn't work. I felt that Batman & Tinky Winky needed the counterbalance of a more serious quote.

Serves me right for being inclined to give text primacy over images. Here's the quote I originally planned on: "The teeth being harder than the tongue / Are the first to wear out." (Again, giving primacy to words, and in this case speech).

The quote is from the Yuan Dao, by Liu An, shown here ascending to heaven accompanied by one of his dogs and a rooster, both of whom managed to ingest the dregs left over when he mixed an elixir of immortality.

And the Winner Is ...

Went to sleep and woke up thinking of an appropriate quote for the masthead. Even knowing it could be changed, I still had a tough time. I wanted something thought-provoking without being pretentious; something that reflected my goals without being pedantic.

Some also-rans:
“The fox condemns the trap, not himself.” –William Blake

“It may be that believing in this world, in this life, becomes our most difficult task.”
–Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari

“Like Dale Cooper, to anchor us in the courage and faith needed to inhabit the high reaches of intuition.”
–Martha P. Nochimson on David Lynch

“What color is your fever?”
–something I was asked in a dream