Welcome to the blog of quodlibetor, nom de ‘net of Brandon Maister. I am a twenty-something year old computer science/education/philosophy/math major with an interest in music, dancing, and all things awesome. (Term © Pres. Bush)
About my name:
- quodlibet
- 1a. A philosophic or theological point offered for disputation
- 1b. The disputation about the point
- 2 A whimsical combination of melodies, a medley
And then ‘-or’ is the standard latin conjugation for some(one/thing) that does a thing.
About the blog’s name:
“Light Fiction: ain’t that the truth” is a de-pretentious-ized version of the original title “Feuilleton Observations.” Although I fear both using “de-pretentious-ized” and mentioning the original title, never mind the url, totally defeat that purpose. Be that as it may, the name references several of the overriding concepts of my mindbrain.
Originally, the word ‘feuilleton’ was given to me by Hesse, who—in his book ‘The Glass Bead Game’—describes our time as “the age of the feuilleton.” A “feuilleton” being a short section of a french newspaper dedicated to gossip or lighthearted criticism of art or society. Basically the trash that has taken over the popular memesphere. In this sense “LF:attt” is a statement of exhasperation with society in general, and news media in particular.
Another sense can be had from the old and seriously over-used expression “truth is stranger than fiction.” Although I mean it in the opposite direction: sometimes fiction is more honest than truth. Based on the sheer number of people who I have had interesting conversations with about this specific topic I’m pretty sure that it has been well-percolated through the art and college crowds. Sometimes I take that tack, and most of the fiction that I publish here is strongly (and tritely) allegorical. Thank god there isn’t too much of it, right?
I suppose that brings me to a third interpretation: “the people’s” seemingly constant willingness and desire to promote fiction to the status of truth. I’m not speaking exclusively of religion here—which at least has in its defense millenia of cultural indoctrination and ‘good-enough’ answers for people who have not been taught anything else—but our damn-near impossible to understand tendency to rationalize anything that we even kind of like with a fantastic story that nobody who doesn’t already like what we like can understand. In this form, I guess “LF:attt” is a question posed ironically by my not-audience.
Enough about names, get to the point:
As you can see, I like names. Or rather, short symbols for large and ornate concepts. Also, I didn’t realize I had a point. For now, a list of things that interest me:
- Freedom of Thought, thus:
- Religion, and religious intolerance
- Political Freedom and Free speech
- Software and Artistic Freedom have lead me to an interest in copyright law and open-source
- The future of the world, thus:
- Science
- Technology, and especially
- Computer and Communication Technology, and especially
- The Internet, The Web, and the potential for education and collaboration that it creates
- Art and Fun, epicurean hedonism in general, thus:
- Music, from classical to dance-pop
- Books, scifi to philosophy to children’s
- Food: I can think of very few things that are better than food
And I reserve the right to talk about any of those things, and anything else that I want.
