Lapsed Modernist

cool -- what will you be doing in Oriente?

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Dissertation research. I'm getting my Ph.D. in anthropology, which, I suppose, you could have deduced from my username. I'm studying ecotourism and cultural commodification. And, of course, I want to be closer to the blue-footed boobies.

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I'm studying ecotourism and cultural commodification.
Heh, then it's a good thing I'm being cautious about committing to visiting the wild rainforests. I guessed you might be up to research (and, yes, I knew about the PhD program), but I wasn't sure if you had reached that point or not yet.
I hope your trip is as interesting and exciting as it sounds.

chachachana just wrote me (well, I just received) a postcard from Taos, in which she included her own reservations [hm, no pun intended] about pueblo-as-tourist-attraction in the American Southwest. Seems like your work would have interesting bearing on that question. Of course, in substantially more detail than a postcard.

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ooh, but I like the idea of a dissertation on a postcard...isn't brevity the soul of wit? Anyway, cultural tourism is a complex issue in general, especially when it's run entirely by the indigenous communities, or even in collaboration with NGOs. The two kneejerk approaches to it, which are a) great, that's their ticket to Global Economy, yay for them and b) Poor Natives are exploited for their culture in yet another Coloniel maneuver by the West that now wants tchotchkes instead of skulls are both insufficient...ecotourism is even more interesting b/c it deals with that whole favorite Western metonymy of forest primeval/wild man/the savage within and the Western tendency to search for meaning/self through radical alterity.

What do you study? As long as we are being geeky here.

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I agree that the two knee-jerk approaches (right knee, left knee?) aren't enough for the whole picture. I'm inclined to the left knee, but I can see that the truth is more complex -- I don't begrudge Native American tribes their casinos, either, even though I have huge misgivings about gambling as a way of raising money.

I study linguistics; specifically, computational linguistics. My research is (for my Master's) trying to improve syntactic parsing (a problem usually applied to written language) of speech, by using additional prosody (pitch and timing) information to give hints to the parser. I'm kind of a freak in that I'm registered in the Linguistics department, but my RA-ship is in Electrical Engineering.

If that's totally meaningless to you, well, you're not alone. :) Most of the research is based around having one good idea and then spending the next three months trying to implement that idea in a computer program.

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um, it kinds of means something to me but only because
a) I am obsessed with Snowcrash
b) my father got his Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, which...actually I am not entirely clear on what he wrote his dissertation on, but I know it had something to do with systems theories and some kind of cybernetics or proto-cybernetics. So even though I don't really understand what it is you do, the feeling of vague recognition without any sort of real understanding is deeply familiar and comfortng to me.

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heh -- while I think Snow Crash was a great book, the linguistics was, um, fiction. Not that modern linguistics is a whole lot better. I'd be curious to find out more of what your father's thesis was about; cybernetic linguistics is not the usual way of framing these questions but I like it.

I wrote a paper/did a project last quarter involving assistive/predictive typing. That's probably the closest I've come to doing something you might call cybernetic linguistics. I don't really know what "systems theories" means.

And hey -- vague recognition without deep understanding is the thing you learn to deal with in school, right?

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And hey -- vague recognition without deep understanding is the thing you learn to deal with in school, right?

If by "deal with" you mean "experience," then I would say "yes."

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his thesis was something abot...creating a formal standardized system/information langage for databases of knowledge, of increasing stages of complexity, from simple lexemes to grammar constructions...

And hey -- vague recognition without deep understanding is the thing you learn to deal with in school, right?
uh, what she said below...

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alice-ayers.livejournal.com

I love that you'll have to take jaunts to Peru. I will so send you a care package, by the bye..

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care package!

um, do you want to go to the spa with me? I sent you an email...I am being indulgent and bougie because, well, shit, I'm leaving the country.

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lolaraincoat.livejournal.com

Oooo, blue-footed boobies and tourists! So much to look at!

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blue-footed tourists with boobies?

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lolaraincoat.livejournal.com

Tourists with blue boobies, looking for Bigfoot?

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speaking of cultural exoticization: big-boobied tourists, looking for the Blues?

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I feel that after we exhaust all possible permutations and combinations and based on the presence of the color blue and boobie questing we may have introduce another term of the (male) anatomy to continue this fun and intellectual activity we have going.

also, you're thinking of Mardi Gras.

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I knew that the Mississippi river or one of its outlets would come into this as soon as I brought in the Blues. Mardi Gras does indeed sum that up nicely.

And, WRT the male anatomy, I quote our fearless leader: "bring it on".

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Well, the boobies index Mardi Gras.

Our fearless leader ought to know from male anatomy...at least where socks are concerned.

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heh -- "you know you've been in academics too long when..."

... you use "index" as a verb in a sentence with "boobies".

I am in awe, and completely smitten.

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well, if you want, the boobs can symbolize rather than index...or, I suppose, they could just point...

*blushes*

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Whoo hoo! Fieldwork! And you won't even have to be here during the probably horror at the beginning of November!

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You know, I feel terrible I won't be here in November. I was actually planning on leaving at the end of July originally, but I couldn't imagine not staying for the RNC. But if I stayed until November and Horror happens, I would want to stay through it and through January and the inaguration protests, and this could go indefinitely...political work will be here either way after I get back...and I want to get fieldwork over with. Also I will be back in the US soon enough after the election...I believe I am getting into SF on the 12th or 13th of November for the AAAs.

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Yeah, I can see that. I'm just so not looking forward to the long and sleepless night of November 2.

I really enjoyed the fieldwork while I was doing it. Or maybe I just enjoyed it in retrospect -- who knows? On the other hand, the thought of coming up with yet another project and doing another stint of fieldwork doesn't really hold much appeal.

At any rate... you've still got that whiskey coming to you in November.

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At any rate... you've still got that whiskey coming to you in November

Excellent! I really look forwarded to meeting you. Are you presenting?

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Nah, just pathetically looking for a new job. I plan to focus on schmoozing, drinking and eating.

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lolaraincoat.livejournal.com

Retrospect? Nah. You had a pretty good time at the time, too.

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klingrap.livejournal.com

omg, do you even like speak Ecuadorean or whatever? do they have running water there? and McDonald's?

yours with an American public school education,
Klingrap

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i just couldn't resist commenting on your comment.. yes in Ecuador we do have running water, we speak Spanish and there are other indean native languages.. There's McDOnald's too.. ( not my favorite place to eat )

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she was joking and being sarcastic...:)

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si puedo entender eso.. pero me enojo facilmente si alguien habla así de países sudamericanos..

:)

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mjmj.livejournal.com

it's hard to believe that you're leaving with the Apocalypse so near. the Hellmouth is prophesied to open soon, and, if it does, then the Master (cheney) and the Annointed Child (shrub) will be free, followed by their demon hordes.

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I know I know! By the way 4 keys on this keyboard are not working, I a sre yo will figre ot which ones by the end of this reply. Bt yea, I feel horrible abot leaving in the iddle of the Apocalypse, and I do really think of it like that...bt if I fret too ch abot it, it's like I have the hbris to think of yself as Bffy which I a not, and if there is one thing I have leardned fro Bffy is that there is always another Apocalypse...we had the RNC, we will have Nov. 2nd, we will have the inagration...there will be political work for e to do when I coe back...and I don' plan on checking ot on things and sitting on y ass in Ecador anyway.

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cuàndo llegas a QUito ?.. Yo tambien pienso ir a Perú algùn rato el pròximo año quizàs.. Nunca he estado allì..

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¡Llego en Quito el próximo sábado. ..I no lo puede creer!

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el 2 de octubre ???

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si!

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ert.livejournal.com

Y'know, just coming up to speed with bits of your journal, I kind of figured that you were going to Princeton because that's where your bike went.

I'm glad to know that other countries besides the U.S. scoot their visitors to their borders periodically. Required trips to Montreal once a year aren't entirely bad.

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