If it works, it's obsolete!

IF IT WORKS,
IT’S
OBSOLETE
Marshall McLuhanisms
-thoughts in italics

The story of modern America begins With the discovery of the white man by
The Indians.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public
incredulity.

Whereas convictions depend on speed-ups, justice requires delay.

The nature of people demands that most of them be engaged in the most
frivolous possible activities—like making money.

With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is
“sent.”

Money is the poor man’s credit card.

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into
the future.

Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors, just as NASA is
managed by men with Newtonian goals.

Invention is the mother of necessities.

You mean my whole fallacy’s wrong?

Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth.
So does the glossy sheen/lacquer of beauty...

The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.
So true!

Why is it so easy to acquire the solutions of past problems and so difficult to solve current ones?

The trouble with a cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.

People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.

The road is our major architectural form.
Correct! When a developer says that a project is 40 or 50% open space... don't believe it... because chances are, 35% of it is roadway. Same idea goes with the parking lot


Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.

Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business.
True! Malls and businesses are in constant reinvention... heck, even Architecture has fallen into the realm of fashion... look no further than Vegas, where modernism is layered onto "obsolete" postmodernism

The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.

News, far more than art, is artifact.

When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.

Tomorrow is our permanent address.

All advertising advertises advertising.
And so the dog wags its tail, and chases it at the same time...

The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.

“Camp” is popular because it gives people a sense of reality to see a replay of their lives.

This information is top security. When you have read it, destroy yourself.

The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy.

One of the nicest things about being big is the luxury of thinking little.
In the case of the corporate world... so true... millions of people atrophy wasting their time waiting for their next paycheck... and not using their noodles to do something productive...


Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.

The missing link created far more interest than all the chains and explanations of being.

In
big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be
clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab
for isolating dangerous viruses.
The status quo is 10x lovelier than a big, new, game-changing idea, why? its so much easier... the one who benefits the most from a game-changer, is also the one that is oftentimes marginalized by the status-quo.

When a thing is current, it creates currency.


Food for the mind is like food for the body: the inputs are never the same as the outputs.
Case in point... a lot of educated people, churn out crappy work.


Men
on frontiers, whether of time or space, abandon their previous
identities. Neighborhood gives identity. Frontiers snatch it away.
This is true... and not necessarily negative or positive... people who grow and improve themselves adapt a migrant's mindset... one without firm neighborhoods and unbound by frontiers... the moment you're too confortable... you're not growing anymore...

The future of the book is the blurb.
People don't read anymore... tsk tsk...

The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.

A road is a flattened-out wheel, rolled up in the belly of an airplane.

At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images.

“I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.”

—Copyright © 1986, McLuhan Associates, Ltd.

Random Update

1. Finally finished with the GREs... did pretty well, got a 610 verbal and a 690 math, (cut-off for M.Arch is around 550 verbal and 600 math, mean scores are 500 verbal, 550 math) I'm now in the thick of admission procedures for a couple of longshot schools. Doing the paperwork in UST and the Brit Council was hellish because of the lines and traffic...

2. Congrats to Manny Pacquiao! San ka naman nakakita ng sumasapak ng paatras? Ano yun? Fadeaway punch? Galing talaga ni Manny! Iba ka repa...

3. I saw the new Tan Yan Kee building and Alumni Park/Fountain in UST. I'm really disappointed with how things went. The money donated for the building could have gone to better use if the structure was sited and designed in a more responsive way. The building shows utter disregard for the fabric and context of the campus. Ditto for the fountain... which could have been located along the main vista through the Arch of the Centuries instead... Oh well...

4. Saw Casino Royale over the weekend, and I have to give it 2 thumbs way up! Go figure... As a prequel it tells how James becomes Bond when he gets screwed over by a woman. That turns on the ice in his heart, and brings in the cold, playboy secret agent that we all know from the Bond flicks. I bet a lot of Men and Women can relate, once you get fooled/betrayed /or worse... Ignored by a loved one, it definitely changes the dynamic in your system and turns you into a jaded, remorseless, calculating, self-serving prick/bitch. Also... you got to love how they did the movie... That torture scene sure brought a lot of men wincing in faux pain.

5. Chris Cornell's opening theme for Casino Royale ROCKS!!!

6. Had the chance to teach a college design class last saturday. It was very fulfilling to stand there and actually see the class' reactions to my thoughts and directions for their project... The Pasig River Terminal System. They picked my mind after the class and told me that I stand as a startling contrast to how their current prof teaches the class. Indeed there may be no money in teaching, but I tell you, if you want to change the world and get the most fulfillment for your idealism... TEACH!

7. Finally had the chance to focus on some sideline projects, and things are moving along fine. Its tough when you constantly have to switch your attention between things-to-do. I'm a diesel... I need to warm-up on a specific task for me to make a full-lock contribution to what I'm doing.

Casino Royale Opening Theme

Artist: Chris Cornell
Song: You Know My Name

If you take a life do you know what you'll give?
Odds are, you won't like what it is
When the storm arrives, would you be seen with me?
By the merciless eyes of deceit?

I've seen angels fall from blinding heights
But you yourself are nothing so divine
Just next in line

Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?

The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name

If you come inside things will not be the same
When you return to the night
And if you think you've won
You never saw me change
The game that we all been playing

I've seen diamonds cut through harder men
Than you yourself
But if you must pretend
You may meet your end

Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?

The coldest blood runs through my veins

Try to hide your hand
Forget how to feel
Forget how to feel

Life is gone with just a spin of the wheel
Spin of the wheel

Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?

The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name
You know my name

Sticking it to THE MAN

Its been a while since my last post. I've been too preoccupied with
work and a lot of other things. Although, there are times that I find
myself staring out into space, thinking of things to write about. And
here's a sampling:



1. I really need to get myself more involved with SFC. The longer I
don't attend household or go to chapter assembly, the more my internal
plumbing gets screwed up. Showing up at CLP last week helped a lot, I'd
want to serve more, although I think it'll happen later than sooner.



2. Remember, remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and
plot. yep... thats the opening line to V for Vendetta. I went DVD
tripping last November 1... also watched Nacho Libre just for laughs.
Liked both movies because of the underlying theme of STICKING IT TO THE
MAN! Which is a very rebellious/rock and roll thread of thought. Heck,
come to think of it, even Jesus Christ stuck it to THE MAN.



3. Speaking of THE MAN... I just hate election season in the
Philippines, and yes, the coming holidays are ushering in next year's
round of lunacy by local/national politicians. Case-in-point: I've
counted more than 35 billboards plastered with our mayor's face,
proclaiming all sorts of spin/marketing crap... about the city
supporting the asian games athletes, about the city's beauty pageant...
come on man! How low brow can you go? To think I actually voted for
you. Just shut up, and quit plastering your initials on sidewalks all
over Paranaque. Running a city is more than that.



4. About THE MAN again... I just hate how people just drink up whatever
pop culture tells them to. Whatever happened to having your own
personality, and real depth? Not to go against capitalism of the free
market, but I think too many people end up as shallow shells of their
true selves, mainly because they just take in whatever crap that pop
culture/big business shoves down their brain pipes. Whatever happened
to critical thinking, about self-improvement, about mentoring/leading
people and finding inner beauty/content? Too many people are glossed
over by ads, fancy imagery/clothes/aesthetics/fancy gadgets and crap
but if you strip them of all of the wrapping, what do you see?
Oftentimes its a kid lost, without direction, and not knowing what they
really need to do. Its sad... because so many good, intelligent, and
able people end up doing mundane/mediocre crap in order to earn money
to buy more crap that they don't really need. Of course I don't claim
immunity from this, and I have to wrestle myself away from this reality
with every lucid interval, but how about the people who don't know
what's happening? Those folks who are perfectly content with that
arrangement. You might as well roll them up and plug them into the
matrix or something. We are losing a whole generation to it.



I'm running out of brain cells to think of other things... most of
whatever neurons I have are devoted to studying for the GRE and work,
and squeezing in a few hours for sidelines. Heck I don't even have free
neurons to get emotional about things that used to get me down. This
probably explains the absence of new content on my blog...