It is -15F out, -33 with the wind-chill. I am hesitant to walk a half block to get coffee, in spite of my current headache. Despite the cold, there is a certain beauty to such extreme landscapes. It is crisp, clear, and the low sun angle seems to reflect millions of diamonds off of the snow while the compacted powdery dusting crunches beneath my feet like Styrofoam.
In my writing and research I am working from a more phenomenological approach, which means Im reading more existential thought than my brain can handle. I get to a point where I can only take so much regarding the construction of reality, experience, freedom, meaning(lessness) and death. I believe I am getting to that point where things in life start to become rather distant and surreal. Time to lay off the books and take a break.
I think I need to get out more. There is a poetry festival this week that I am going to check out. The poetry and art scene in Edmonton is a little impoverished. Most artists, once they become popular, move to Vancouver or Montreal. So, the city is left with middle aged men, that suddenly realize that they want to be creative, and a few angst filled teenage sophomoric writers. I even wrote about this local poetry reading group, the Raving Poets. They are heroic, but very painful:
No amount of alcohol can shelter my senses
against the Bulimic Poets slapdash scavenging through
self indulgent caboodles of banal expletives
while hastefully gulping trite phrases with gluttonous abandon
to be explosively purged,
mushy and undigested, to
an audience of similar
solo acts thrusting the microphone down their throats
to better project the soundtrack to themselves.
It wont be all that bad; there will be some good poets that might inspire some creativity. Its amazing; all it takes is one person or event to breach the dam.
In my writing and research I am working from a more phenomenological approach, which means Im reading more existential thought than my brain can handle. I get to a point where I can only take so much regarding the construction of reality, experience, freedom, meaning(lessness) and death. I believe I am getting to that point where things in life start to become rather distant and surreal. Time to lay off the books and take a break.
I think I need to get out more. There is a poetry festival this week that I am going to check out. The poetry and art scene in Edmonton is a little impoverished. Most artists, once they become popular, move to Vancouver or Montreal. So, the city is left with middle aged men, that suddenly realize that they want to be creative, and a few angst filled teenage sophomoric writers. I even wrote about this local poetry reading group, the Raving Poets. They are heroic, but very painful:
No amount of alcohol can shelter my senses
against the Bulimic Poets slapdash scavenging through
self indulgent caboodles of banal expletives
while hastefully gulping trite phrases with gluttonous abandon
to be explosively purged,
mushy and undigested, to
an audience of similar
solo acts thrusting the microphone down their throats
to better project the soundtrack to themselves.
It wont be all that bad; there will be some good poets that might inspire some creativity. Its amazing; all it takes is one person or event to breach the dam.
medical anthropology is really interesting. i strive to be a birth anthropologist/academic. i have written a few articles on how the obstetrical practices of each generation affect the subsequent generations' obstetrical practices. i'm also interested in oral histories as they pertain to women being initiated into motherhood and sharing of birth stories.
i have a million thoughts on the medicalization of birth in western culture, i definitely don't think it is anything new. ever heard of scopolamine? that makes for an interesting conversation.
xo