Myspace Re-Post #16: A Funny Little Note

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 15th, 2007.

Hello boys and girls,

I will be posting the next installment of my tell-all recent biography soon. Meanwhile, here is the text of an email I sent an (anonymous) friend recently:

Subject: what up

Message:
the subject line is to be read in exactly the same way that I typically answer my phone, with a higher pitch on the 'what' and a lower pitch on the 'up' - perhaps you could tell me how to relate that in the terms you philologist motherf---ers like to use...

So I was on vacation and wasn't answering my phone. went to Dallas. it was fun.

quick things:

1) Interpol - on the cover of Rolling Stone this month. does this mean you hate them now?

2) Noah Feldman - in case you weren't aware, that article he wrote (were you the one who sent it to me?) kicked up a shit-storm in the self-obsessed worlds of the liberal orthodox-hating Jews and of the orthos themselves. just google his name or something - it was the topic of much conversation over Shabbos in Montreal a week ago (all of those people - Avi, his dad, one of his friends) are really into the Rabbinic gossip stuff...and speaking of which, did I ever make you look at this essay written by Hillel Halkin? It's about his apostasy. Perhaps you will enjoy...

3) Social constructionism - I might have mentioned that I've been reading an article that aims to reunite social psychology with social constructionism. It also gives a background to the rift, which is not inconsiderable (<-- double negative). Anyways, you might want to read the article - it's actually very well written, and occasionally hilarious as well. Here is my favorite sound-byte:

"Perhaps the single most significant and enduring bone of contention between [the camps] ... concerns the issue of truth. To simplify things greatly, experimental social psychologists believe in truth." - tee hee, aren't we cute, with our antiquated notions?

They also turn the tables on the constructionists, pointing out that "the notion that there is no truth or objective reality, for example, provides a convenient objection to any claim about the (real, actual, material) existence of injustice, inequality, exploitation, and oppression." - Oh snap! All that exploitation and oppression y'all obsess about - just a construction!

Anyways, how are you doing?