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Bruce I. Kodish
- 57, Male
- Pasadena, CA
- United States
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Bruce I. Kodish's Discussions
Homer Jean Moore Jr, 1951-2008
3 Replies
Started this discussion. Last reply by David Linwood Nov. 13, 2008.
"Buddhist General Semantics"
2 Replies
Started this discussion. Last reply by Bruce I. Kodish Jun. 3, 2008.
Korzybski Files Annex
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It reminds me of the zen practice when one sits in zazen and is suspected to fall asleep (or is actually ~ !) a master comes along and hits him on a shoulder with a "keisaku" (flat wooden stick or slat used to keep meditators focused and awake.) I...
Yep, once you start flapping one little part, you can end up flapping more and more and more until you're just one big flapper flapping yourself. Nice visual of that!
Profile Information
- Where do you live?
- LA LA Land
- Are you a teacher or student?
- No - Other
- If a teacher or student, what's your specialty or primary subject?
- As a Learner I study and teach. I confess to knowing quite a bit about Applied Epistemology ('General Semantics'), Posture-Movement Education
- If a teacher or student, what level and what school?
- Primarily Adult, Visiting Lecturer/Presenter (on request). But I seek to learn at any level in the school of life.
- If you're not a teacher or student, what do you do for a living?
- I aspire to be learning whether teaching, studenting, or other.
My main activity now—finishing a book-length biography of Alfred Korzybski.
Practicing physical therapist and Alexander Technique teacher.
GS (Applied Epistemology) Consulting
- What interests do you have that others might wish to contact you about?
- Life and Work of Alfred Korzybski, History of 'General Semantics', History of Science/Mathematics, Comparative Religions and 'Philosophies', Physical Therapy, Jewish History and Culture, Hebrew Language and Literature . [etc.]
- If you could have a front row ticket to any sporting event, concert, theater, or event, what would you choose?
- Tenacious D Rock-a-thon with Blue Oyster Cult and Moody Blues as Special Guests
- What well-known living persons would you like to meet during Happy Hour?
- Charles Krauthammer, John McCain, Barack Obama, Thomas Sowell, Nassim NIcholas Taleb
[Two Jews, a WASP, two African-Americans, and a Greco-Syrian were sitting together in a boat in the middle of a pond...]
Bruce I. Kodish's Blog
Flapping Yourself
How do you flap yourself? What does it have to do with 'general semantics'? Read my latest Korzybski Files blogpost to find out.
http://korzybskifiles.blogspot.com/2009/04/korzybski-and-parable-of-flappers.html
http://korzybskifiles.blogspot.com/2009/04/korzybski-and-parable-of-flappers.html
Posted on April 3, 2009 at 3:27pm — 2 Comments
Google Contest: Is There Something Here For You?
Google to reward those who do good
If you have an idea to make the world a better place, Google wants to hear about it, and - if it's deemed worthy - provide the money to
bring it to reality.
The $10 million project, introduced Wednesday, is a competition that will end with the Internet giant picking five winners. "These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple - but they need to have impact," Google said in a statement.
The criteria for picking the winners wi… Continue
If you have an idea to make the world a better place, Google wants to hear about it, and - if it's deemed worthy - provide the money to
bring it to reality.
The $10 million project, introduced Wednesday, is a competition that will end with the Internet giant picking five winners. "These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple - but they need to have impact," Google said in a statement.
The criteria for picking the winners wi… Continue
Posted on September 26, 2008 at 1:06pm — 3 Comments
Chain Reaction
On my Korzybski Files weblog I've got a new posting on a dramatic demonstration that Korzybski used in his seminars in the late 1940s. There's a neat video of a similar demo that I included. Jump to the link below to view it. http://korzybskifiles.blogspot.com/2008/07/chain-reaction-dramatic-demonstration.html
Posted on July 31, 2008 at 11:30am — 2 Comments
The 13th Floor Elevators
They came out of the Texas inspired by Korzybski and L.S.D—one of the first of the psychedelic rock bands of the 1960s. They had a singer Roky Erickson, who had the vocal range of a Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger rolled-into-one. Tommy Hall, who—inspired by his study of Nietzsche, Gurdjieff, Korzybski, and others—wrote many of the lyrics, played an amplified jug (that strange rhythmical 'tooka-tooka-tooka' sound you can hear in the background).
Here's a quote from the liner notes—th… Continue
Here's a quote from the liner notes—th… Continue
Posted on May 29, 2008 at 11:00pm — 1 Comment
Ben Jonson's Time-Binding Testament
Will Shakespeare's friend, Ben Jonson, knew a few things about human evaluating. Here's a quote from his essay ,"Discoveries Made on Man and Matter:
"If in some things I dissent from others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgement, I look up at and admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness. For I thank those that have taught me, and ever will; but yet dare not think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity what they also could add and… Continue
"If in some things I dissent from others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgement, I look up at and admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness. For I thank those that have taught me, and ever will; but yet dare not think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity what they also could add and… Continue
Posted on May 20, 2008 at 12:00pm — 1 Comment
Comment Wall (26 comments)
- At 9:20pm on June 7, 2009,
Mike Plugh said…
- I'm not sure I can accurately predict the content of Popeye's response to your proposition, but I think I may be able to characterize the nature via this famous exchange from the 1980 film starring Robin Williams:
Popeye: I'm your one and only exspring. See, we got the same bulgy arms.
Poopdeck Pappy: No resemblance.
Popeye: We-we got the same squinky eye.
Poopdeck Pappy: What squinky eye?
Popeye: That's going to be hard for you to see. Oh, we even got the same pipe, Pap.
Poopdeck Pappy: You idiot, you can't inherit a pipe!
Popeye's attempt to link the biological bond between the two men fails in it attachment to abstractions. A DNA test would surely help to move along the ladder towards a comprehensive proof that squinky eyes and bulgy arms are no coincidence at all, but alas he rhetorically settles for the superficial and potentially arbitrary. Indeed his mention of the pipe, bears no fruit in its attachment to appearance-based formulations of a paternal relationship, whereas the common behavioral trait of selecting a pipe as an oral fixation may be a testable premise upon which to base a legitimate claim.
Popeye, like McLuhan, is often more useful as the catalyst for meaningful discussion than the shepherd leading us to our final destination. Hence his invitation to my party. ;)
- At 5:20pm on June 1, 2009,
Mike Plugh said…
- Thanks Bruce. My happy hour group was sort of a stream of consciousness deal...I thought Kim Jong Il, Popeye, and Prince might have an interesting conversation. Popeye, after all, would supply the fodder for a good mapping conversation. "I am what I am and that's all that I am. I'm Popeye the sailor man."
- At 6:28pm on November 27, 2008,
Bill Sharp said… - Hi Bruce,
Glad you got to meet Lance and even more happy that you see promise in him as a leader in general semantics.
Thanks for the kind comment on my writing. I guess I will put the Hayakawa article in the pile to do. Most of it I can take out of my manuscript but it will need a lot of editing. I am hesitant to muddy the waters as I know there are strong supporters of Hayakawa and last year in New York there were some strong words exchanged about him. I was simply disturbed by the difficulty Korzybski had with him and the criticism of Korzybski he and Chase had after Korzybski’s death.
A related topic. Have you seen Keyser’s “Mathematics and the Science of Semantics” article published in 1934? In the second edition of Science and Sanity, I noted the most important absent scientific option was Keyser’s. I also noted that Korzybski commented on some of Keyser’s remarks about the book in a short article. Keyser's article was printed in Scripta Mathematica and is hard to find. I think there may be a copy in a basement library of the math department here are Penn State and have it on my list to make some calls about it. Any comments on that?
I agree Chase was a lightweight, in economics and politics as well as general semantics. But like Hayakawa he was a best-seller lightweight and FDR admired him as a popularize of economics and a supporter of his administration, and of course taking “The New Deal” from him.
Does it matter? Probably not.
Meanwhile I am moving in the direction of launching more activity around local economies. I’m tweaking a little article I’m just going to mail to any person or journal or newspaper I think might be interested.
You know I am eager to see your book but do appreciate the ardor of the work.
Bill Sharp
- At 1:24pm on November 20, 2008,
Bill Sharp said…
- Hi Bruce,
Time does fly. Thanks for asking. I've been working the garden (still have some late stuff coming out), working on my local economy idea, trying to get an article on the human potential off my desk, keeping one eye on the campaign and now both eyes on the economy. I've also been pondering the article on Hayakawa and Chase but now see that the most worthy book in the general semantics area gets the Hayakawa award. Since the article deals with their frictions with and criticism of Korzybski I think it might be too volatile, so it sits on the compost heap. I've also been doing some business development and grant writing for a little local engineering startup company. We just won three for three, submitted two more and now the new solicitations are out. Thank goodness I'm retired.
So how are you and how is the biography coming?
Bill
- At 7:57pm on October 28, 2008,
Carol said… - Hi Bruce
Actually, I'm an American who decided it was time for a change. I moved to NZ last December since my old job in Chicago was killing me. I started a philosophy class which lead to me cruising the web one day looking at meditation and language which lead to me finding out about GS. I'm really a novice at this but I'm looking for a group here in Wellington. Surprise!
- At 12:10pm on September 2, 2008,
Bruce I. Kodish said…
- Gary,
This is probably a symptom of my age and the time when I was emerging from the chrysalis and became a 'butterfly'. It's the music I listened to in HS and College, when we still played records that came in albums with psychedelic covers. Remember them? 8-)
Brain Salad on your accordian?
Awesome!
I feel ashamed to admit that I never heard of Spock's Beard or the Flower Kings. I am familiar with Philbroid Studge though. Weird!
- At 9:17pm on August 31, 2008,
Gary Chapin said… - Bruce, Holy Cow on a Bun! ELP??? Who'd a thought!?!?! I noticed that Lance, too, was into prog music. Is this some symptom related to our fascination with things obscure, knotty, and complex? Time to go listen to some Spock's Beard and Flower Kings. Can I learn Brain Salad on the accordion?
- At 6:39pm on August 13, 2008,
David Linwood said… - Hi Bruce,
I followed Ralph Hamilton's lead, since he had some experience from Millbrook in 1948. I was the assistant at the Yale Seminar in 1948-1949 (winter).
It was my job to post the set-piece diagrams on the blackboard before the first lecture in the morning --although AK did some of the "boiler-plate" drawings himself, just the way he liked them. Then I recorded the lectures and took notes of the actual material covered -- since sometimes AK could wander for hours in reminiscences of his personal life (especially in his last year of life). At Yale AK was under a strait command from Kendig to leave the personal stuff alone. We were relieved that he "followed orders", because he could not have completed the seminar in the limited time otherwise.
At mid-day I would show AK my notes and check off any diagrams on the blackboard he had discussed. It was his call whether to leave the diagram alone or to return to it and "spiral upward another turn" if he thought he might want to discuss some aspect he had not touched on.
At day's end I did a complete recap with AK listening intently and asking questions. He had a very precise mind and remembered his performance in detail if I just gave him a bit of a reminder -- a very easy professor to work with.
When we returned from Yale he and I seem to feel a lot "closer", and he would sometimes stop me briefly when I was on duty and open a conversation with me. He had the habit of treating his young "assistants", somewhat like the (grown) children he never had. He was especially close to D. David Bourland -- feeling that he was "in loco parentis" -- or at least acting that way.
If you look at the main photo of the Yale Seminar, you will note that AK and I were the only ones in the whole group wearing "informal" clothes (no coat and tie).
- At 10:13am on July 21, 2008,
Kristen said… - As I have been studying and learning more, I wondered if ol' Korzybski had had any thoughts on literacy. I look forward to seeing what you share! Most students in my school are capable readers. My problem lies more in tapping their intrinsic motivations. It's a tricky subject because in the way I am talking about, I can't motivate for them, they have to do that themselves.
- At 11:36am on June 5, 2008,
Maximilian said… - Hi Bruce...
no problem with translating the letters. Seems like an honor to me :-)
send a good scan of them to my e-mail and I'll get to it!
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