Elevator Logic

Surprisingly, Mr. Soucheray is in no way the inspiration for this phrase, but rather some random structuralist philosopher of the early 90s. I suppose that this person could have stolen "elevator logic" from "Garage Logic" but I don't even know when that title began, nor do I imagine that this random dude happened to listen to Twin Cities talk radio. Regardless, lets just assume that its not related to Joe-Joe. The phrase is related to structuralist philosophy as an alternate illustration of the "chess game" example.

(I don't mean to patronize anyone here, but here is the very rough form of the argument: structuralist philosophy says there are underlying structures, or rules, that govern human behavior, language, traditions, etc. The philosophy that results from this assumption tends to take the form of descriptions of what these rules are. Of course, in classic Platonic style, the limititations of temporal humanity mean that we have no direct access to these rules, but can intuit them only through observing societal formations and the like. A great example, if you are interested, is Levi-Strauss's classic Structuralist Anthropology, a really good book in general. Check out his discussion of the incest taboo for a pretty clear argument. The chess analogy is a way to understand how this could work: imagine that you know nothing about a chess game, you have never seen a board, or the pieces, but then you sit down and watch two grandmasters play a couple games. Pretty soon you will be able to figure out the basic rules, which pieces move in which ways, when they can move, etc. After a little while you will start to understand some strategy and you will elarn the game your damn self.)

The elevator logic example argues that if you watch people get in an elevator together they will, for the most part, behave in certain ways. They will divide up the space in very specific fashions depending on where the other people are standing. When more people get on or off most often there will be adjustments in the way people are standing even if there is no obvious reason for them, like no one is touching, but they still will. Anyway, the clearest way to understand that this is really the case is to go into an elevator and do something that fragrantly violates these rules, or wait until someone does it in your elevator. There will be a palpable sense of discomfort amongst almost everyone. Some people would say that this is because someone is violating their space, but for the most part this is never the case. Even the people whose space is not being violated will feel uncomfortable when elevator organization is off. The same people will feel entirely comfortable when in an elevator with 10 people when they are "correctly" organized.

I bring this up only because this motherfucker got into an elevator with me and this other dude today and totally fucking broke the rules. There were two of us, we spread into the back corners of the elevator, which means that this dude should be roughly in the front center. Instead he faced my wall (the right) and was right in front of the other dude. It was totally weak and we were both very obviously distrubed by the flagrant violation of elevatorial ettiquette.

Off the tangent and back to some updation. Last Tuesday was my birthday and unfortunately I had to work pretty much all day. I mean, I got up at like 7 and got ready. Katie gave me a ride to school because she had some appointments for work interviews that afternoon. I taught and had class and shit. In between my classes I got to utilize my first birthday present, which Katie insisted on giving me the night before, which was seasons 3-4 of Buffy. That was totally sweet. I had been talking not too long before about how much it sucked that I was so far behind on the best series of all time, and she just smiled shyly, as she so often does when she has already beaten me to the punch. Anyway, I watched a couple episodes and then went to my two classes that afternoon. The classes were actually pretty hella good. I love listening to Ernesto Laclau talk, dude is fucking smart as a fucking motherfucker, just unbelievable. Regardless, I got done with my classes and Katie picked me up at school. We decided to splurge a little and rolled to the RedLob for some dinner. I couldn't decide earlier if I would prefer having steak or lobster, but Katie is more of a seafood girl than an Outback Steakhouse chica so I opted for the Loob-ster.

Katie rolled some pretty sweet salmon stuff, I think it was covered with a Cajun style sauce thing. I only had a couple bites, but it was tasty. I got to enjoy the Red Lobster shrimp special with an Ultimate Seafood Feast, which featured fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, the new barbecued shrimp, and a lobster tail. The barbecued shrimp were really awesome, they are pretty new and all, but very tasty. I think they will keep them around for a long time and I will continue to order them in this exact meal, with the exception of Lobsterfest, where I will go for more Lobster. I also got to enjoy the biscuits, which I need to get the recipe for, because they rock so hard. Regardless, Katie also made an uber-tasty double decker chocolate cake frosted with, what is essentially, melted chocolate. There is still a tiny bit of it left, unfortunately I cannot eat it because of my fucking tooth situacion. Fucking sugery.

Maybe later again tonight, we will speak again. Until then dudes and dudettes...

Peace,

MB-K