An unexciting saturday- optional reading

Pretty straightforward day- went grocery shopping with ben this morning and we made fun of all the usesless and absurd products. Picked up a bag of suki food and kittly litter. It was a beautiful day today. A bunch of college students had a party with margaritas out by the pool. I worked some more on my history paper and came up with a third pool design. Tomorrow I'll pound out some models and make some more site adjustments.

Bleh. That was terrible.

Thursday I listened to a really interesting leture on Andean native culture over in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Boliva, etc. The lecturer talked about an interesting point concernig stylization in thier art and crafts. In contrast to the Judeo-Christian mythology which stems from a Platonic system of thought, that things on earth are imperfect and flawed representations of perfect ideas on the heavenly plane, the indians believe that the spiritual world is contained WITHIN the everyday. The owl is an owl, but it is also a concealed goddess of the night on a lower plane.

What happens is that after awhile, the earth and the gods wear down, and can no longer keep order and things get confused. The spirit world intrudes, the gods forget who they are and become monsters, and consume the world. In fact, there were a bunch of native movents a little while back like Ghostdance, and in Ecuador there was a big panic becasue someone reported a talking land snail- talking animals is a sure sign of the return of the old magic days.

Anyway, more fodder for my paper in latin american design. I'd like to write a book either from the vantage point of a talking snail, or the guy who finds it.