but, it did the job.

and coffee and cigarettes is the coctail that is good anytime.

especially on the way to work.

today is all about elliott smith and modest mouse. i am listening to 'this is a long drive' and it's bringing back all sorts of memories. mostly they are of the summer between my first and second years at cal, when i took the most heinous of all the philosophy classes i have ever taken: logic.

NOW! do not let your analytic feathers get all ruffly my fine analytic philosophy friends. i LOVE formal logic. i used to have dreams where things that people said came out in long formal expressions, and would lay them all on the ground and try to figure out whether or not what they were saying was valid, in the strict analytic sense. i used to pass the time going through my kahane/tidman "logic and philosophy" book lovingly, working on derivations to pass the time between classes.

once i worked on a derivation for two days, and it was like...i don't know, like 50 or 60 lines...and when i saw to the end of the derivation, on how i was going to get from where i was to proving the conclusion some 20 lines or so later...well, i think i wet myself, and i pretty sure my body went through something like an orgasm.

so this is not about how i didn't like logic. oh no.

this is about how the natural derivation system can bite my ass.

whereas the derivation system i originally learned, and for a couple semesters taught at my junior college to small groups of students who wanted extra help, was completely intuitive to me. it was clear, and it felt good. (ha, if my mentor could hear me talking about "feelings" her hair would start falling out.) it was just very easy and i picked it up with little effort. and it was fun.

the natural derivation system, however, was like, the most evil thing i have yet to encounter in philosophy. it was worse than my class in epistemology that was so hard that not even the TAs were entirely clear on what was going on. this natural derivation system, if i am remembering correctly, was created (or at least championed) by russell and frege and wittgenstein, and it's enough to make all my hair turn grey. steps that would work in one line using theorems that i used in the other derivation system took upwards of 15 lines to prove.

it made my stomach hurt.

so, this album is making me think of being at the top of campus where the evil logic classes were held with the most boring student teacher ever, though his assistant (also a grad student) was white hot goodness. it makes me think of waiting at the bus stop for the shuttle to take me to bart, of the sun beating down on my shaved head and headphones, of sitting on the curb and reading through the Logic Book over and over, trying to make sense of the HORSESHIT steps they wanted me to go through.

i'm still kinda bitter about it, actually. before i got to cal i really thought i wanted to teach logic and ethics. after taking both classes i pretty much want to have nothing to do with either for the rest of my life.

that's not true. i really want a good teacher to show me how to tackle that fucking natural derivation system.

if i did that, i would feel like champion of america.

damn, dude.

i would sit there and try under the beating sun, and then i would sit there and try in the bouncing shuttle, trying not to be nauseas. and then i would try sitting waiting for the train to come, and then i would try waiting in mcarthur station waiting for my transfer.

i remember sitting on one of the cold stone benches in berkeley station, waiting for my train, it was mid-day, so it was practically empty. and i had my notes spread out around me, working furiously on this one derivation (which i don't think i ever got), and i was listening to 'this is a long drive...', and it came to that part during "lounge" when everything gets all dreamy and spacey, and i looked up from my problem and i was dizzy. i felt like everything was tilted a few degrees offcenter and i kept blinking and rubbing my eyes trying to get everything to be straight again.

i think that class might have broked my brain.

but you know...thinking about all this philosophy stuff is getting me excited. i looked at the philosophy program at university of iowa this morning and i got kinda hippity hoppity because it looks like a really well-rounded program. lots of continental thought and even some medieval courses.

so, maybe when i go out there i'll take some art classes and work first towards a masters and then maybe a phd somewhere like chicago. or maybe like brown. that program is supposed to kill.

but i am getting ahead of myself.

i am all excited this morning, and i'm not sure why.

ps--why do all the philosophy books that i want cost a million bagillion dollars?