On This All-Encompassing Trip
The Whitman Edict:
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
Self-appointed memeticians
On these pages, we will do our best to act as memeticians, meting out any desultory erudition that happens to strike a chord with us. We have no expertise in this pursuit, save a rabid thirst for knowledge, a healthy respect for questions, and a providential opportunity to spark change. Our goal is to spread ideas.
Culture, according to anthropologists, is comprised of technology, art, science, as well as moral systems. Your authors, quixotic though we may be, are trying to encapsulate culture as we know it. This leaves quite a broad spectrum. Broken down, Richard Dawkins called units of culture memes. As far as we can see, they are worthwhile posits and fascinating nuggets passed down to us and passed around by us. We can use ideas to help us evolve as people and, more importantly, as a community.
Can beauty heal a cultural schism?
Art and Science: two fields regarded by many as different, if not entirely divergent. Our hope is to prove they are brethren, that they are kindred spirits working hand in hand to explain this weird and wild world that we kick around in.
If Jessica Hagy indexed the two spheres of art and science, the intersection would probably be "fractals or Cygnus Nebula." (No, she would come up with something much wittier than that.) I think Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is a perfect example of organic overlap. The familiar image can stand alone as art. It can stand alone as science. But deeper than that is a bond between the two. It is an indescribable feeling of connectivity between empirical illumination and inherent splendor: a sumptuous gaze into divinity through rudimentary eyes.
Look closer. Da Vinci's man exhibits the proportions that reveal, in his words, the cosmography of the microcosm. That means, more or less, a map of the heavens and the earth as found in men and women, alike; an enchanting notion.
The eye of the beholder
The underlying application of these certain proportions, the well-known Golden Ratio, is not just in da Vinci's chap but is found ubiquitously throughout nature and culture. It is interlaced with Fibonacci's famous sequence, the one that dictates flower petals and breeding like rabbits.
Anyway, this is all quite technical and that's not really how we roll. The fact is, it's highly disputed whether da Vinci and other artists and designers actually used the ratio deliberately or coincidentally. This debate speaks to the point: beauty is intrinsic. The Golden Ratio is found intrinsically in naturally beautiful things, like attractive faces and nautilus shells. So if a person sets out to make something beautiful, it would stand to reason that he or she could approximate this notion of beauty without even trying. So we understand beauty intricately, even if we don't know why. It's ingrained in our mainframe.
A firm handshake
So, we have art and science and beautiful things. Another tenet: we hold in high regard any handshake between entertainment and education. Whether it's in the form of Bruce Springsteen's music, Jeff Skoll's movies, or Malcolm Gladwell's books, it's enjoyable information or informative enjoyment. KRS-One called it Edutainment. This conviction doesn't eliminate from our topical range things that are exclusively artistic/entertaining or scientific/educational. It just scores more points with us when it touches both planes of consumption.
Rome had its gladiators
Sports are central to our world, sometimes to a fault. Some moments are unforgettable. Recall the World Series quake in the Battle of the Bay. Everything went fuzzy and Al Michaels said "I'll tell you what -- we're having an earth--." These moments, viewed through the filter of sports, transcend mere game play. Sports, partly art and science, partly order and chaos, has always been for me humanity's public forum, from soccer fields to polo fields. So we'll wonder about butterfly style and knuckleballs? Does the perpetual flight of the Jumpman defy physics or define iconography? How can one strange game value a boots-man with half a foot, a legally blind ball-hawk, and a socially-dysfunctional and expressively-inept man child protection extraordinaire? We'll watch your blind side.
Can the institution of sports provide an outlet for intense regionalism and the animal instinct of battle, effectively circumventing humankind's need for war? Probably not, but it seems to us - at least partially - like sports can be a release valve, a geyser, for these deep, boiling currents.
What we're internetting
We're not technology wizards but we are plugged in. As Jason Kottke can probably tell you, fine hypertext products are hard to come by. So we'll try to supply some links too. We'll keep an eye on ergonomics and Freakonomics, how to win at Monopoly or how to Gonzo properly. From the next Tale to the next Tail, we'll find it. Immortality, viral marketing, artificial life, convergence, moral godlessness, and elephants on acid. What more could you ask for? Fish out of water? You got it.
Ultimately, we believe in collaboration as a means to conquer complex problems. The world is flat, after all, and there is wisdom in the right crowd. We'll keep our eyes on the prize, and give credit where credit is due.
We try to apply some intelligent design to the articles. In a survival-of-the-fittest world, the balancing scales of brain versus brawn are slowly tipping in favor of the brain. Memetics : mind :: genetics : body. As the t-shirt goes, "It's in the genes." But, alas, it's actually in the memes as well. Yin and yang.
