So some readers will automatically jump to read the conclusion of a book. I rarely do that but always read the acknowledgements first. It is first of all, a fascinating genre that admits to the deeply collaborative, conversational nature of our work (in a way that our larger texts are not allowed to do because the convention is to only cite that which is printed already) and it is an intellectual compass, directing one to the broader intellectual milleu and genealogy through which the works was produced.

I also find it highly (perhaps way to much) entertaining to see the immense variation of the basic following confession:

1. The work is indebted to the insights, suggestions, advice, criticisms of [x] others
2. So much so
3. That only the good stuff should be attributable to others
4. And that the bad stuff is of my own making

This basic confession can be said so many ways that it astonishes me and I love to mull over the fine distinctions and differences in what boils down to a pretty similar message.

I did not think beyond this although now that I have been writing so much, it so strikes me as an accurate confessional and unfortunately one that is so limited in scope. I was recently pleased to see this confessional in the actual introduction of Michael Warner’s book, Publics and Counterpublics, which makes me like it more than I already do.

As I write my dissertation, there are clearly so many ideas of “mine” that really emerged in conversation, as outright suggestion, or magically appeared through some weird state of assocation from what someone else said or told me. It is fantastically endless.

Members of my dissertation committee have blown me away by their suggestions, in part because this world of geekdom is not you know, their area of expertise. Yet each member within like a 15 minute description of my musing, had some insight or question that put a lot of “out of place” material, back into place.

Then there are those, most notably, patrice, mako, ck, golub, and micah who are all very familar for various reasons with the worlds I am trying to evaluate. Each of them has pushed me into directions and places I don’t think I could have ever gone on my own. I know I am starting to sound cheeseballish but what can I say, let the ball be cheese. It is true.

Last night, I ODed on Dune
(The Sci-Fi not David Lynch version) at the house of Golub where many geeks came to enjoy hacker beer, chips, pizza, and the strangely enthralling 3 disc series. By the end, I was completely hooked although as put by Karl Fogel (or at least some version of it) every step of the way was pretty darn cheesy. The costumes were gaudy and sophmoric, the acting lukewarm (though decent at times), and the graphics were lackluster (though also cool at times). Yet what an epic and with some decisive points of heckling it was full blown enjoyment, especially for someone who had only interacted with irc-humanoids for three days prior.

I am also reading, finally, a book that Cory Doctorow, Mr. Science Fiction himself, recommended: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. She is the daugher of an anthropologist and it shows immediately in this tale about Sheveck, a physiciist from an Anarchist Colony who returns to the “outside world” to I guess seek some answers (I am not that far into yet, only at the part where he arrives at Urras).

This seems only fitting for me right now as I am learning some stuff about Anthropology and Anarchism and I like her very sort of anthropological take on things. She is careful not to laud or condmen either Anarress or Urras as Manichean opposites where the utopia stands in clear contrast to the capitalist order. Its more ambivalent and complex. She states it nicely in a recent interview

UKL:.. I thought both Urras and Anarres had their virtues and their faults, so that each could serve to some extent as a corrective and model to the other – though obviously my heart belongs to Anarres! Therefore the utopia, instead of being prescriptive like most utopias, is ambiguous. Ambivalent. Ambidextrous. Two hands, each offering something different.

Anthropologists have straddled that line of acceptance/tolerance of others (and ourselves) and critique in which bringing to light the ways of one culture can stand as a correct to the other. This is not always an easy ethical position to stand on but one that I personally find enjoyable and worthwhile. I have written about that a little elsewhere and it is a tension on my own ethical and political sensibilities that I might never resolve. However, today I was very pleased to hear that the American Anthropological Association issued the following press release on Mr. Bush’s recent announcement that he will seek a constitutional ban on gay marriage. This is good to see.

Statement on Marriage and the Family from the American Anthropological Association

Arlington, Virginia; The Executive Board of the American
Anthropological Association, the world’s largest organization of
anthropologists, the people who study culture, releases the following statement in response to President Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as a threat to civilization.

“The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.

The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association strongly opposes a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.”

Media may contact either of the names below:
Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, AAA President (847) 491-4564, office.

Alan Goodman, AAA President-Elect (413) 559-5372, office.

Roger Lancaster, Anthropologist, author, The Trouble with Nature: Sex in Science and Popular Culture , 2003 (202) 285-4241 cellular

Chutney \Chut”ney\, Chutnee \Chut”nee\, n. [Hind. chatn[imac].]
1. A warm or spicy condiment or pickle made in India,
compounded of various vegetable substances, such as
chopped fruits or green tomatoes, etc., often cooked with
sweets and acids such as sugar and vinegar, with ginger
and spices.

Glow \Glow\ (gl[=o]), v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Glowed} (gl[=o]d); p.
pr. & vb. n. {Glowing}.] [AS. gl[=o]wan; akin to D. gloeijen,
OHG. gluoen, G. gl["u]hen, Icel. gl[=o]a, Dan. gloende
glowing. [root]94. Cf. {Gloom}.]
[1913 Webster]
1. To shine with an intense or white heat; to give forth
vivid light and heat; to be incandescent.
[1913 Webster]

Yesterday I was listening to a Saturday morning reggae program and heard a song Chutney Glow. It albeit was not my favorite soca song but I took a fancy to the pairing of chutney and glow. Chutney Glow. A bit of an unexpected union, it brings the pleasure of tasting of chutney to the state of beaminess, so that one’s disposition too can be seen as a delectable and textured morsel for others to ingest. It is the state of Carnival where pefromance is one of collective glow that should be as tasty, full and rich as the flavors of Caribbean food that intermingles sweet and spice.

And that is what I love about Caribbean language whether found in song, poerty, or informal coversation, it plays with the senses, to bring out from the depths of your experiences, an emotional and textured lyricism where song and play comes out even when no one is singing or playing. By this paring the “whiteness” of glow is all of a sudden transformed to be infused with color and texture in a way that inflects through your own pleasures with chuntey (and come one, chutney is truly pleasureable).

Now I must find myself some chuteny..