D-pad or joystick?

I read some Richard Weaver for my rhetoric class this week. Oddly enough, in an essay on rhetoric, he argues for a "one-ness" of everything in existence:

The explanation would be that the cosmos is one vast system of analogy, so that our profoundest intuitions of it are made in the form of comparisons. To affirm that something is like something else is to begin to talk about the unitariness of creation. Everything is like everything else somehow, so that we have a ladder of similitude mounting up to the final one-ness.

Weaver presents this argument "asking your indulgence if it seems to border on the whimsical." I'd say it does, but that doesn't mean it isn't a valid or useful line of thought. It reminds me (again) of semiotics. Saussure argued that words only have meaning in relation to other words. So, the word "black" only refers to the color black because it is not "white" or "purple" or "hammock," for that matter. In other words, all language is only definable through difference. Poststructuralism and, more specifically, Jacques Derrida's (non-)concept of différance changed this conception a bit. Basically, différance means that, because language is only definable through difference, words can't actually refer to "things," only other words.

Even so, all words and, subsequently, concepts are related through this process of différance. I don't know if this points to a "one-ness" of existence, but I think it de-whimsicalizes Weaver's argument a bit. (Editor's – i.e. me – note: At this point in this blog, I went to class for a few hours, and we talked about Saussure, but his relation to I. A. Richards instead of to Weaver. We also talked about anthimeria, of which "de-whimsicalizes" is a great example.) Anyhow, différance explains how words, if not concepts, are all connected through a web of meaning. If, like I discussed last time, thought and language are inseparable, then it seems that concepts would also be connected through a web of meaning.

I think différance can be likened to the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game. But it's not a perfect analogy.

Sit Down, Shut Up premiered last night and was less than impressive. There were some funny jokes, but the story was kind of annoying, the pilot-ness of the episode was over-the-top, and a lot of the jokes didn't really pay off. I'm still hoping for great things. The cast is probably the biggest "name" cast ever to start a TV series. I guess Mitch Hurwitz has some considerable "pull" nowadays.

The Chicago/Boston series is shaping up to be either a really close series or a Celtics' collapse. Both games (one's on right now) have been as close as Ozzie's muzzle to a plate of bacon. (I don't know if that metaphor works or not.) KG's injury has absolutely changed (Oop – Boston just won.) the playoff landscape – drastically.

QotD (submitted by Matthew):

Can Matthew call Dustin Pedroia "D Pads"?

My take: No.