Signifying nothing: journal

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-307
Professor Tenretni
Saturday,July 19,2003 03:40:17 PM

Well don't I feel like a dip. I just realized that friend Elisa is having a party tonight as well. I would have to say that it is important to be at the Guevera party in that they are leaving town soon, and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have been rescheduled, but I still feel badly about having to miss Elisa's party. I spoke with her (which, I think is more than some folks do when blowing off parties), but I think she was disappointed. She doesn't throw parties all that much and she did plan this one pretty far in advance. Doh. I guess the weekend of party has its pitfalls.

In other news, I wandered about my neighborhood today for a bit. I was going to go for a leisurely hike, but I didn't get out of the house until it was far too hot for that.

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-306
Professor Tenretni
Saturday,July 19,2003 09:29:22 AM

Summer

Friend Chris threw friend Tif a surprise birthday party. Tif was suitably surprised. The party was held in their backyard, which I have seen fill in over the years. It is now a pretty pleasant spot with lots of shade and interesting plants to look at. There were lots of folks there all pretty interesting. There was a woman there whom I met at some of Tif's other shindigs, but she always leaves before I get a chance to talk with her. The same was the rule for last night. Ah well.

As I was driving home from the party, it was nice to feel that hot summer air blowing across my face. Bitch as I might about the heat and the intense sun, there is nothing like a nice summer night.

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-305
Professor Tenretni
Friday,July 18,2003 02:06:41 PM

Your mom threw away your best porno mag

Well so begins the weekend of party. Last night was curry night, and despite the heat, it turned out well. Tonight is a surprise party and Saturday an adios party for friends the Gueveras. Nothing more to say.

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-304
Professor Tenretni
Wednesday,July 16,2003 06:48:02 PM

"It is your mother's last meal. Eat!"

I've been thinking a lot about ramen lately. Apparently, others do as well. Imagine, a whole record company fueled by it. What do you know! College Rock. There is an affinity, of course, between college students and ramen, as it states on the so-called Ramen Home Page. The jury is still out on whether college students eat it because they are poor, or simply because this is the first time that they've had to fend for themselves. Sadly or gladly, the Ramen Home Page seems abandoned since its database no longer functions. Ah so much for college humor. It changes faster than college music tastes (well there will always be a place for the whiney, angst swept yodelings of sophomores, so perhaps it doesn't change.)

Nissin, as I recall, first brought Ramen to the United States with now the decidedly uppercrust brand Top Ramen. Having tried all of their flavors, I can report that my favorite, woe is me, has met its demise: sesame chicken. Ah well. Now I lead a life less satisfying, less fulfilled. But rest assured, Nissin is on the job:

From intense research and quality control measures, to the use of the best raw materials available, Nissin consistently upholds a high standard for ramen. Closely controlled steps, which are taken in manufacturing the ramen product lines, have made Nissin oriental ramen noodles the finest available. The primary features of our ramen are consistently high quality and flavor. Superior flavor can result only from the best ingredients, formulas, manufacturing and packaging. (2)

"Intense research", best raw materials", "high standards", "closely controlled steps", "consitently high quality", "superior flavor." Reassured? In all the page uses the word "quality" five times, and "high" four times, and "consistently" three times in five paragraphs. Do you think they want us to think that Top Ramen hass consistently high-quality? I am, however, curious about their formulas. Can't I have less SO2 in my Picante Chicken please?

One down side to Nissin's page, nevertheless is that Nissin is fomenting a war in the ramen world with this statement: "Top Ramen is a dry soup rather than canned" (3). We'll get back to that later.

Bored as hell? Got a few hundred thousand Yen you want to drop? The Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum is waiting for you: "The historical development of instant ramen is painstakingly chronicled, and the invention of cup ramen (the kind where you pour boiling water directly into a styrofoam cup) is celebrated as the dramatic technological achievement it most certainly was" (2). They are serious, I'm telling you. No, really. They are. You can top off all your learn about Ramen by having fun in the underground theme park that is "not quite Disneyland" (4). Next time I'm in Yokahama, you'll know where to find me.

Our next stop on the Google Ramen tour brings us to the inspiration for the title of this entry. RamenCity video store tempts us with a bowl of savory, plain ramen in order to get us to rent the classic Japanese movie Tampopo, and hey! what do you know! they have over 80 different kinds of ramen! Tampopo is a movie that has any kind of food that anyone could want (well maybe if you are Japanese). The scene that inspired the title quotation is introduced by a man running break-neck down a street as if someone were either 1) dying, or 2) he had just killed someone. The movie chases him for a while, and he runs up the stairs to a shabby apartment where there are several children and a rather ill wife. "Where's dinner!" he shouts, and the wife dutifully but painfully gets up, slowly retrieving a wok and various ingredients. Finally she is done and weakly sets the wok in front of the waiting family and promptly collapses. Pandemonium ensues and the husband wails, and the children wail, and then he shouts "Eat! Eat! This was your mother's last meal! Eat!"

When I first came upon the Global Incident Analysis Center's Ramen Worm page, I was a bit concerned that despite all of Nissin's assurances, I was subjecting myself to some nasty intestinal parasite. Luckily for us all, the Ramen Worm is just a Linux virus meant to exploit certain Red Hat Linux boxes. Oh shit. I have a Red Hat Linux box. See what good goofing off and looking up ramen can do? It is research, damn it. Research I tell you.

Like most things (I blame College again) ramen has a clique. I joined.

Music and ramen, what an affinity. This place has one hell of a toilet, however. I wonder if they put someone in the cemetery of rock.

Blah blah blah more Ramen Worm here and here, and finally we're back to the actual food product. The page has not been updated since 1997. You can see why, but the history is enthusiastic.

Yes, I know, your energy from reading this interminable post is waning, and mine is from writing it, but I did promise you CONFICLT and DRAMA. Lo and behold we are there. Word Ramen.net seems hell-bent on making ramen pure. In contrast to Nissin who seems willing to accede to Western sensibilities, World Ramen.net bludgeons its readers by clarifying the eternal question "Is ramen soup?" with a resounding "NO!" in a bright red font. Furthermore, in what could only be describe as angry tones, World Ramen.net chastises its readers on what is and is not ramen. I will leave you to enjoy their anger, with the echoing tones of "NEVER, NEVER, NEVER RAMEN! THIS IS NOT JAPANESE, EVEN." Do you want to break it to them or should I that ramen is actually Chinese?

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-303
Professor Tenretni
Wednesday,July 16,2003 06:44:11 AM

Simplify and Save

I've been reading an article from the journal biography. The issue of biography is devoted to online, personal writing. Madeline Sorapure deals specifically with journal or diary writing, stating that blogs "...are often conceived as of by their authors and by the social scientists who have studied them as a space for identity construciton and self-presentation" (1), which, gentle reader, you will recognize agrees with the general idea behind this site for me. As I have said in the past, the over-arching goal of this site is to explore the construction of the self, and how others receive that construction. (Now don't you feel like a guinea pig? I sure do.) Diary blogger Shelly Jackson is quoted as saying that her site is "an autobiography with lies." Now purposefully I have avoided telling lies or making things up here, but I will say that it is quite tempting at times to see how far things could get stretched. My promise to you, oh reader, was to be honest, but not foolish; up front, but not drop all barriers. Barriers, of course, are important, and the side tacit application of this site is to allow me to explore those barriers since I have been in the past an extremely private person.

Now to the real point of this all--in the piece Sorapure explores the notion that "about me" pages provide "a more linear, narrative format than the diary entries allow" (8). She then quotes a diarist "'An absent bio page is like a jigsaw puzzle with ten missing pieces'" (Random Rain). Since I got this broadband account a couple of years ago, I have purposely avoided an "about me" page. Aside from a few academic projects, in fact, I don't think I've really ever had an "about page" I must ask, why do I refuse to make such a biographical page for this place? I think it is my annoyance that I would so clearly define who I am. I would prefer that people put the pieces together for themselves (and the missing ones are the most intriguing), and I think that such a page is going to be a badly done summary of what I see alone. I don't think such pages put any pieces together. It also smacks of huge self-aggrandizement. Of course that entails that someone is really interested in reading this sheep dip anyway.

Solipsism. Blech. Ptoeey.

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-302
Professor Tenretni
Monday,July 14,2003 10:28:24 PM

hands up for everyone who is obsessed with obsessions

I found a dying sparrow on my back doorstep. Being that I had to do my daily sojourn at work, I had to think fast, to make the bird's dying moments a bit more peaceful. I picked it up and placed it in the ivy outside. It is dead out there now. I recall the thoughts of the moment. Dying bird. Take care. Annoyance. Dying bird. Care for it. I was probably too brusque with it. Now that I think about it, I did toss it.

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Clint Gardner
Signifying nothing 301-301
Professor Tenretni
Sunday,July 13,2003 10:05:18 AM

The untuned and jarring senses

Speaking of music, the other night friends came over for the expressed interest in listening to my vinyl classical music collection. Now my collection is by no means the world's greatest, but I have managed to put together 137 albums representing a good variety from the various eras of music. Most of the collection was put together when I was a teenager and was seriously thinking about a career in music and fascinated by how such music worked, and the effect it had on me. I suppose I am still fascinated by that, but the poor vinyl has been neglected as of late, so it was good to share it with others. I've also been trying to spend Sunday mornings listening to the collection.

Aspects of the collection are weak: it lacks a certain depth. Bach, for example, is poorly represented even though I think he is the sheyat, and could listen to fugues non-stop. I am, however, particularly proud of the near-complete Beethoven piano sonata collection, as well as the dept of the chamber music from various eras. Quartet? Septet? Quintet? You name it, I got it.

Nowadays it is more difficult to find good classical vinyl. One sad occasion was when friend Richelle and I went to the Clearfield D.I. (a thrift store) and found 2 huge cart loads of at least 2,000 opera albums. Now I am not a big opera fan, and I often think bel canto singing sounds like the wails of a dog who has been run over by a ice cream truck (ok that is a bit harsh, especially to all those singers who train for decades to get that voice down), but it made me feel sick that this person had spent decades building this collection only to have her or his shit-for-brains children haul it off to the thrift store as so much junk.

Pisando la tierra dura
de continuo el hombre está
y cada passo que dá
es sobre su sepultura.

Calderón del la Barca, El Principe Constante

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