Salon Des Geeks

The following questionnaire plays a very special part in the history of the Salon Des Grands Geeks, and our site would hardly be complete without it. During a visit to Washington at which Kiri, Trey, Iain and myself were in attendance, we found this quiz on a greeting card in Politics and Prose. Although the card was entirely in French and spelled poor Marcel’s surname “Poust” in places, we overlooked these small flaws and spent the entire afternoon and much of the next day answering it, and it has figured in one form or another in several salons since then. I have some of our answers written down from salons past, but rather than post these quite personal responses, I leave it to you to decide how much you would like to discuss online, and perhaps we can get a livelier discussion going about it once the site is read-protected. More information about the origins of the questionnaire and its famous madeleine-nibbling responder can be found here.

Questionnaire de Marcel Proust

The principal trait of my character
The quality that I appreciate in a man
The quality that I appreciate in a woman
What I appreciate the most in my friends
My principal flaw
My favorite pastime
My dream of happiness
What would be my greatest sorrow
What I would like to be
The country where I would like to live
My favorite color
My favorite flower
My favorite bird
My favorite prose authors
My favorite poets
My favorite heroes from fiction
My favorite heroines from fiction
My favorite composers
My favorite painters
My heroes from real life
My heroines from history
My favorite names
What I hate the most
Character traits that I most disdain
The military feat that I esteem the most
The reform that I admire the most
The natural gift that I would like to have
How I would like to die
Present state of my spirits
Faults that inspire in me the most indulgence
My motto

Kiri’s comment on Elizbeth’s post about the Art’s fest (My arts fest post is coming, honest). Reminded me of an idea I had for decorating. Now, I know what you are thinking, but no, you don’t need to own furniture in order to give an opinion. Besides, I have furniture now.

My idea was to decorate entirely with movie posters. In the kitchen: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman? Babette’s Feast?. Bathroom: Psycho, or The Shining. Recall that the poster for The Shining is Jack Nicholson glaring through the hole he has chopped in the Bathroom door saying “Heeere’s Johnny!”. Dining Room: Big Night(?). Et cetera. It seemed like a very interesting puzzle to select posters.

Of course I don’t actually decorate for the sake of decorating. But if I did i think I would choose to decorate with fantastic themes. The print that I bought at BayCon last year is an example. Similarly, the drawing that Joan has on her wall of a young girl riding a tiger. The piece of fine art they remind me is Balthus’s Le Beaux Jours, which I love. I like the way all these images tell a story. Certainly, the best movie posters do the same.

Is it possible to edit comments, once you’ve submitted them? I see that it’s possible to edit posts. Maybe I just can’t figure it out for comments.

At this year’s Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts , I bought three beautiful photographs by Andrew Sovjani. I admired his work at last year’s Festival, and am delighted to have been able to bring some home this year. This got me thinking about a question on which I’m interested in hearing your thoughts: How do you decide what art (if any) to invite into your home? I know that I personally enjoy quite a wide variety of art, but there is relatively little of it that I actually want to own. Much art is beautiful, and much is intellectually interesting, but if I bought everything that I find attractive or thought-provoking, I would end up with a large and disjointed collection. So, what is it that makes a work cross the line between a casual flirt and a real committment?

In the case of Sovjani’s photographs, the deciding factor was undoubtedly mood. The word that springs to mind to describe these photographs is “quiet.” Each of his photos conveys a sense of perfect stillness. To me, the artist’s love of form really shines through these images, taking a single object that is itself simple and beautiful, and showing it off to advantage. Sovjani’s eye for balance and form really epitomizes, for me, why simplicity is elegant.

So for me, I think the answer to the question of what makes the difference between admiration and purchase is the philosophy embodied in the artwork. I like my environment to reflect my philosophy and to induce the kind of mood that I like to be in. In this case, the simplicity and tranquility of Sovjani’s photographs is a very welcome addition to my home.

Interestingly, I spoke with Sovjani at the festival, and he told me he always lives with an image for at least a year before deciding to exhibit or sell it, which I thought was a neat commentary on how art “works.”

In case you are curious, the three photos that I bought are “Study in Whites,” “Ten Tulips,” and “Coral Charm.” The one that I really wanted was under the “Uniquely Ordinary” gallery and is called “Steps,” but that photo is one that looks much less impressive on a smaller scale than it does in a large size, and I couldn’t afford the large one, so I decided to hold out. I am also extremely fond of “Paper White” in that same gallery.

I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on art and how you choose (or don’t choose) it.

The Arts Festival convocation of the Salon Des Grands Geeks was a great success, although it bore little resemblance to our usual salons, as there were very few members and no cooking (!). However, we had much good conversation and saw a lot of wonderful art, and even bought some of it. I plan to talk a bit about my purchases and post links to the artists under the “Arts” section - perhaps Iain and Natarajan will do the same?

We also attended the midnight release party for the newest Harry Potter book, an extravaganza that included about 2,000 people, real owls from the Shaver’s Creek nature center, and lots of wee children with lightning bolts painted on their foreheads. We all agreed there should be more parties in honor of book releases!

A conversation we had this weekend that was especially interesting to me was about an article in Parade Magazine, in which Marilyn Vos Savant fielded the question, “Are Men Smarter Than Women?” Her answer was fraught with some troubling assumptions and poor examples, and we enjoyed pouncing on it and weighing in with our own perspectives on intelligence, gender, and what one has to do with the other. I had hoped to link to the article, but Parade tells me they don’t make articles available online until the week after they are published. I’ll try to remember to prod you for your opinions then. In the meantime you can take their annoying online poll.

Many thanks to Donna for opening her home to us so generously, as usual. Iain and Natarajan, your takes on the weekend?

I got back from AAAI, the annual AI conference, very late on July 13. It was a lot of fun — good talks, cool robots, and getting to see a bunch of friends. (Trey was there, too!)

Visiting this site reminded me of AAAI, because this is the first time I’ve ever participated in a group blog, and this year AAAI is for the first time having a collection of students contribute to a student blog, which is neat in that as you scroll through it, you get a sense of the very different experiences the students are having, as they pursue their individual interests in different talks, demos, tutorials, and workshops. Several of them took pictures, too, including some of the Doctoral Consortium I organized:

me and two other DC attendees,
dinner at The Sonoma Grille

and here is a picture of me and my co-author, Marie, at our poster. Note my adroit use of the fork.

It would be really nice if there were some way to easily see which posts are new since your last visit and which posts have new comments. This could be done simply (and not as satisfyingly) by comparing the time-of-last-visit against the time-of-posts, or more sophisticatedly (but satisfyingly) by tracking which posts you’ve viewed. The system knows who we are (since we log in), so maybe it already supports this functionality?

I am not really a big reader, unlike most of the rest of you, but I like The Book Show on Northeast Public Radio. It is usually quite interesting, and those of you who really like books might like it

I noticed Admiral Stockdale’s obituary in the New York Times. Since obituaries give you more history than a newspaper should on any other page, they are often refreshing.

This one was surprisingly so. Stockdale was as far as I knew nothing more than the sad, confused butt of jokes. He was mercilessly mocked for his performance in the Vice Presidential debates in 1992. The reason that his obituary goes under the category of Philosophy is that it discusses his love of stoicism, and specifically the works of Epictetus. This led me to a google search, and this site:
Epictetus. Cool. It is hard for me now not to think that I owe my knowledge of this information to the Admiral.

I found the description of Stoicism to be very appealing, and reminded me of the ideals of my youth, sans Christianity. This made me think of Wes. Hey Wes, you out there? Further, it made me think that perhaps it appeals in the same manner as Objectivism, because it preys on the weaknesses in the character of the believer. Objectivism preys on logic, and this seems to prey on lack of passions(apatheia?). Perhaps I should resolve to use the word appealing, in reference to Philosophy only in a derogatory way?

By the way, I have a new email address iain@tractat.us iain@tractat.us to go with my web page tractat.us . I have decided to be reponsive to email, so please send me some to respond to.

Is this the right category for stuff like this? Maybe we need an unspecific category. I like that thought. It is good to get all the unspecific stuff in one place.