Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Home Is Where Cheap Rent Is
Right. Well, what can I say except, here are my thousanth-and-something-th posts for the day, and for your pleasure, fulano. Comments? Questions? ;) http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/sep/23/le…— September 24, 2009 4:03 p.m.
Home Is Where Cheap Rent Is
c'mon refried. He can count, and he came up with that nifty "mystical elephant graveyard" phrase. I can't wait to read his blog!— September 24, 2009 3:49 p.m.
Home Is Where Cheap Rent Is
Yep, and I have lots of excuses, too. Any more questions, fulano? Working on that blog, son?— September 24, 2009 3:30 p.m.
Three shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be three!
AntiG, get over here. A chef. A Python fan, too. This may be the one for you! :)— September 24, 2009 3:28 p.m.
None
PS: refried! How dare you blow Pike/Fish's cover! Jaayzus, yer rude. PPS: Despite the fishiness of the situation, I do not think they are one ;)— September 24, 2009 3:11 p.m.
None
"I just mean to point out that the whole notion of the "true story" as distinct from "fiction" has been eroding since the invention of the modern novel." Go on, pike baby.— September 24, 2009 3:09 p.m.
They Are Not Good For Music
I would be surprised if the Reader does not give you a gig for this schtick, Pike. Fat, calorie, and nonsoluble fiber-free, yet tasty!— September 24, 2009 1:15 p.m.
My husband is slowly falling in love with San Diego
Bzzz. I'm a "wanna bee!" HAVE A NICE DAY! Sheesh! GET A LIFE! You too, sd_man. Add a couple more cliched sentiments especially from me to "youe" *Smooch*— September 24, 2009 12:54 p.m.
Letters
(cont). Von Hagens' exhibit does another thing: It is "info-tainment" or "edu-tainment" in a way that crosses a line that makes people nervous and/or ambivalent. Is it really necessary to display these remains in the poses of the living? von Hagens has a macabre sense of humor, to be sure, and you'll find plenty of playful touches in the exhibit, such as the plastinate with a black lung holding a cigarette, or the horseman of the apocalypse-style display, with the horseback rider holding his own, and the horse's heart in his hands. Here is where we need to discuss the ethics of a line crossed somewhere between exploitation and education, and we need to look at it honestly. Boundary-blurring is a big market. We enjoy “reality” television, and the suspension of disbelief that contestants are really paid (and crappy) actors, not ‘authentic’ starry-eyed lovers looking for soulmates. We are increasingly accepting of the crossing or questioning of boundaries of race, gender, and religious practice—these are arguably good things. The blurring of lines between news and entertainment on CNN, “Faux News,” and “MisinformationBC,” not so great, perhaps. Plastinated bodies as “edu-tainment?” If we open earnest dialogue on the subtextual, symbolic significance of cultural events such as these, we may find some not so flattering conclusions about our abilities or inclinations to learn without the added effect of the shock value--but we might also become more open to understanding how we allow ourselves to be conditioned by it, how we create and react to cultural subtext, and how ultimately, we ask to be taught about the world around us.— September 24, 2009 11:40 a.m.
Letters
I should add that the gesture of placing the candy in front of the plastinate is a very effectively emotional one; most people, including myself, feel an instinctive connection with such a gesture. We are (hopefully) used to not having to question the fact that besides the obvious hygienic necessity of burial, death is quickly made to transform (cremation, embalming) and disappear, so that we may immediately abstract it, and transform it in our minds to memory of a life lived. Something like plastination is conceptually not that different from embalming, or any ancient ritual of preservation--it is the reason that it is done, and that the fact that death in this case does not disappear and remains visible. We might think we are used to this kind of concept only in horror fictions, which strive to violate any and every psychological boundary possible for a cynical public surfeited with images of horror. But instead of the automatic run with the feeling that "it must be wrong," and then proceed to auto-filter the experience through one's particular religious or humanist lens, why don't we consider this phenomenon, and the process of polymerizing human remains for the purposes of study? If ethical boundaries are violated, it is much more interesting, and intellectually profitable, to bracket the personal for a moment, and look at this phenom qua phenom. (Btw, for a great study of a uniquely American fascination with and compulsion to preserve the signifiers of life, see Tony Richards' film "The Loved One").— September 24, 2009 11:39 a.m.