there  could  be  snakes  in  here

A toy model of aesthetics with just two binary variables, 'classiness' and 'busyness'*: Minimalism : Simple Classy Baroque : Busy Classy Brutalism : Simple Vulgar Rococo : Busy Vulgar Are these descriptions true ? Well, they are incomplete, and are not definitions (i.e. one-to-one mappings ), but yes. Are they helpful? As a start, absolutely. Now, the labels on the left are vague and intuitive family resemblances ; it is a fool's game to imagine they could ever be nailed down as monothetic definitions (the philosopher's ideal of neat, necessary and sufficient sets of attributes). We can still model usefully and harmlessly, even if the models can never be complete.** But the critics and art academics I know spend far more time muddying the water: deconstructing our use of the problematic term "classy"; and who gets to say what 'simplicity' is anyway? They don't seem to want to explain things, even fuzzily .*** Or, maybe the...

(Turn it up will you?) Histories of figurines so fresh in the mind of Babes who were never witnesses but must relive the Consequences in the fiber of their day-to-day. When I thought of these incidences then, When I thought of all these happenings then I was thinking of now; Gives resonance those hours I spend Contemplating the effects of resonance. Dear resonance, is the distance real? Talk of war and actions that resemble such; And I dance in this club with the guilt Of my apathy shaking this indifference. And then I hear Lennon’s 'Imagine' and the generations Round me waltz in mockery and irony. I want some distance! It hurts to know history’s closeness can blow A hole right through your guile (Without showing its face). The times may be constantly changing, Bob, But what does that mean to resonance? Dear resonance, is the distance real? A giant mad pop ramble on historical consciousness, free will, and path-dependency. A protest song; but,...

Dedekind cut (n.)  A partition of a ordered list into two nonempties, such that everything in the first sublist is less than every member of the second sublist, and such that the first contains no greatest element . Used in the rigorous definition of the reals . As "an infinitely thin thing", also used in the following burn from Wilfrid Sellars: The crux of a philosophical argument often appears to be a Dedekind cut between a series of 'as I will show's and a series of 'as I have shown's. Popperazzi (pej. pl. n.)  Term of contempt for people who use Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion in a simplistic or inaccurate manner. juke (East Coast US v.)   To massage or dredge or miscode data. (As in "juke the stats": police coding robberies as thefts in The Wire .)   Maybe some connection to the Chicago genre of cheap fast dance music, juke (incomparable adj.)   See also cook the books , creative accounting . loggia (Italian n.)  A ...

'Everything is PR' has become the favorite phrase of the new Russia; my Moscow peers are filled with a sense that they are both cynical and enlightened. When I ask them about Soviet-era dissidents, like my parents, who fought against communism, they dismiss them as naïve dreamers and my own Western attachment to such vague notions as ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ as a blunder. Just as Cherkesov [head of the Russian DEA] was investigating Patrushev [head of the new KGB] , so Patrushev supported those who were fighting Cherkesov. So when the FSB heard about Yana's story, they made sure the police didn't close down the demonstrations [for Yana's freedom] , that the right newspapers and TV channels covered the protests. This was one of the reasons ‘liberal’ papers and TV channels existed, to give one power broker a weapon to hit another power broker with. ...the new Kremlin won’t make the same mistake the old Soviet Union did: it will never let TV become dull. T...

poz (Troll v.). 1) To intentionally infect with venereal disease , especially HIV. Mercy. 2) By analogy, to stealthily corrupt a culture. I don't think either has ever been deployed by a decent human being. mortmain (French n.). 'Deadhand'. Common law term for the legally binding decisions of dead people. See also the awesome-sounding area of public policy, dead hand control . Like forex control, pest control. truscum (SJ n. and adj.). Person who holds, along with most of the medical establishment, that gender dysphoria is a necessary condition for someone to be transgender. This gets attacked in the strongest terms for gatekeeping and questioning the lived experience* of nonbinary people who want to call themselves trans. It is all very sad that it is impossible to talk clearly about it. See also "tucute" for the equally unhelpful mirror insult. * Had to force myself not to use scare quotes there. A dreadful pious phrase; what other kind of experience i...