Existential Detective Agency's topics - tribe.net

Are you who you are on tribe...

2007-08-23T05:40:09Z

...or are you someone else?

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 40 replies

Existential Detective Assignment - #1 - Trolling for Being

2007-06-28T12:36:40Z

1. Investigate all of your own postings on tribe, including listings, invitations and your own private messages.
2. Develop a profile of the person who sent and posted those messages.
3. Try to determine if that person actually exists and track them down.
4. When you find that person, engage them in conversation and find out more about them. Are they you?
5. Post your results here.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 10 replies

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

2007-06-02T18:15:49Z

now i get it

We have recently been lucky enough to discover several previously lost diaries of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre stuck in between the cushions of our office sofa. These diaries reveal a young Sartre obsessed not with the void, but with food. Apparently Sartre, before discovering philosophy, had hoped to write "a cookbook that will put to rest all notions of flavour forever." The diaries are excerpted here for your perusal.

October 3
Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for a Denver omelet.

October 4
Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. I tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

October 6
I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.

October 7
Today I again modified my omelet recipe. While my previous attempts had expressed my own bitterness, they communicated only illness to the eater. In an attempt to reach the bourgeoisie, I taped two fried eggs over my eyes and walked the streets of Paris for an hour. I ran into Camus at the Select. He called me a pathetic dork; and told me to go home and wash my face. Angered, I poured a bowl of bouillabaisse into his lap. He became enraged, and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw propelling the wrapper into my eye. "Ow! You lung sucking dog anus!" I cried. I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled.

October 10
I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe: Tuna Casserole.

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish.
Directions: Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustrated.

October 12
My eye has become inflamed. I hate Camus.

October 25
I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Rather, I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work, I produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons of beef, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.

November 15
I feel that I may be very close to a great breakthrough. I had been creating meal after meal, but none seemed to express the futility of existence any better than would ordering a pizza. I left the house this morning in a most depressed state, and wandered aimlessly through the streets. Suddenly, it was as if the heavens had opened. My brain was electrified with an influx of new ideas. "Juice, toast, milk" I muttered aloud. I realized with a start that I was one ingredient away from creating the nutritious breakfast. Loathsome, true, but filled with existential authenticity I rushed home to begin work anew.

November 18
Today I tried yet another variation: Juice, toast, milk and Cheetos. Again, a dismal failure. I have tried everything. Juice, toast, milk and whiskey, juice, toast, milk and chicken fat, juice, toast, milk and someone else's spit. Nothing helps. I am in agony. Juice, toast, milk, they race about my fevered brain like fire, like an unholy trinity of cruel denial. And the fourth ingredient! What could it be? It eludes me like the lost chord, the Holy Grail. I must see the completion of my task, but I have no more money to spend on food. Perhaps man is not meant to know...

November 21
Camus came into the restaurant today. He did not know I was in the kitchen and before I sent out his meal I loogied in his soup. Sic semper tyrannis.

November 23
Ran into some opposition at the restaurant. Some of the patrons complained that my breakfast special (a page out of Remembrance of Things Past and a blowtorch with which to set it on fire) did not satisfy their hunger. As if their hunger was of any consequence! But we're starving, they say. So what? They're going to die eventually anyway. They make me want to puke. I have quit the job. It is stupid for Jean- Paul Sartre to sling hash. I have enough money to continue my work for a little while.

November 24
Last night I had a dream. In it, I am standing, alone, on a beach. A great storm is raging all about me. It begins to rain. Night falls. I am struck by how small and insignificant I am, how the entire race of Man is but a speck in the eye of God, and I am but a speck of humanity. Suddenly, a red Cadillac convertible pulls up beside me. In it are these two beautiful girls named Jojo and Wendy. I get in and they take me to their mansion in Hollywood and give me a pound of cocaine and make mad, passionate love to me for the rest of my life.

November 26
Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a live beaver, challenging the very definition of the word cake. I was very pleased. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet, and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker Bake-Off.

November 30
Today was the day of the Bake-Off. Alas, things did not go as I had hoped. During the judging, the beaver became agitated and bit Betty Crocker on the wrist. The beaver's powerful jaws are capable of felling blue spruce in less than ten minutes and proved, needless to say, more than a match for the tender limbs of America's favorite homemaker. I only got third place. Moreover, I am now the subject of a rather nasty lawsuit.

December 1
I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week for two months, and I am now experiencing light tides. It is stupid to be so fat. My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less. From now on, I will live on cigarettes and black coffee.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 0 replies

Existential Exploration Society

2007-06-02T18:13:29Z

Does anybody notice how the Playa is the realm of possibilities

and that David Best is the ultimate existential Architect

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 0 replies

What's your coincidence?

2006-11-22T17:32:48Z

Portland's been coming up a lot for me.

;^*)

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 12 replies

tribe.net rant

2006-11-22T16:07:29Z

This place is weird. You're sort of obligated to collect "Friends" and some people have hundreds because they write people at near enough random. They send you a friend request and you accept because you're new, have few friends and it seems rude not to.

Then, of course, you never hear from them again and you wonder just how many of their "friends" have merely exchanged just a single message with them. To actually maintein all the friendships they appear to have, as real friendships, they'd have to spend all day writing on tribe and have no other life at all.

When will they stop collecting? I sometimes wonder if there's a secret tribe somewhere where these people all meet and and where they're discussing their game to collect as many useless friends as possible.

Before I came on this site I counted myself as having just two online friends and that was enough because we've known each other several years and we mail or talk most days. The only other people I talked to online were web designers and such. Now I've got more than two real online friends but I've definitely got a few people on my friends list that I know almost absolutely nothing about.

I'm a loner in life, I'm not a joiner at all. I've got a bunch of friends who I just meet at random on the streets or in bars - I certainly don't wear them on badges every time I go out.

I can't help but feel that tribe.net has somehow been usurped and had its original intent subverted.

I thought I'd raise these here since you are existential detectives.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 2 replies

Existential Detective Project at Burning Man

2006-08-08T18:13:13Z

What: The Existential Detective Agency
Patients requiring existential prognosis will come in for a consultation, will be followed around the Playa for observation of their daily activities, come back to the ICU for therapy such as sensory deprivation, guided visualization, counseling or other prescriptions.

Where: The ICU of the DMT theme camp

When: 3pm - 4 pm on three days alternate days of the Instantaneous plays near the beginning of Burning Man.

If anyone is interested in recieving or providing this service before Burning man send me a message

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 2 replies

The Defective Detective

2006-08-05T19:23:45Z

A guy is browsing in a pet shop and sees a parrot sitting in a cage on a little perch. But it doesn't have any feet or legs, so the guy wonders aloud, "Sheesh, what happened to this parrot?"

The parrot says, "I was born this way. I'm a defective parrot."

"Holy crow!" the guy replies. "You actually understood and answered me?"

"I got every word," says the parrot. "I happen to be a highly intelligent, thoroughly educated bird."

"Oh yeah? Then answer this: how do you hang onto your perch without any feet?"

"Well," the parrot says, "this is pretty embarrassing... But since you asked, I wrap my weenie around this wooden bar like a little hook. You can't see it because of my feathers."

"Wow!" says the guy. "You really can understand and speak English can't you?"

"Actually, I speak both Spanish and English, and I can converse with reasonable competence in either on almost any topic: politics, religion, sports, physics, philosophy. I'm especially good at ornithology. You really ought to buy me. I'd be a great companion."

The guy looks at the $200.00 price tag. "Sorry, but I just can't afford that."

"Look," says the parrot, "I'm defective. So the truth is, nobody wants me 'cause I don't have any feet. You can probably get me for $20. Just make the owner an offer."

So the guy offers $20 for the parrot and he walks out with it. Weeks go by. The parrot is sensational. He has a great sense of humor, he's interesting, he's a great pal, he understands everything, he sympathizes, and he's insightful. His new owner is delighted.

One day the guy comes home from work and the parrot says, "Psst," and motions him over with one wing. "I don't know if I should tell you this or not, but it's about your wife and the postman."

"What are you talking about?" asks the guy.

"When the postman delivered the mail today, your wife greeted him at the door in a sheer black nightie."

"WHAT?!" the guy asks incredulously. "THEN what happened?"

"Well, then the postman came into the house and lifted up her nightie and began running his hands all over her," reported the parrot.

"NO!" he exclaims. "And she let him?!"

"Yes. Then the postman continued taking off the nightie and he got down on his knees and began to kiss her all over..."

"THEN WHAT HAPPENED?"

"Damned if I know! That's when I fell off the perch!"

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 0 replies

I HEART Huckabees

2006-08-05T18:46:54Z

I'm here because I truly love that movie. Anyone else? I watched about six times last time I was home at my family's -- therapy in a DVD.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 0 replies

Drawn back into human drama....

2006-07-31T20:22:03Z

Okay, everybody, find your other and smack 'em in the head until they are free.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 2 replies

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

2006-05-12T18:30:55Z

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

We have recently been lucky enough to discover several previously lost diaries of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre stuck in between the cushions of our office sofa. These diaries reveal a young Sartre obsessed not with the void, but with food. Apparently Sartre, before discovering philosophy, had hoped to write "a cookbook that will put to rest all notions of flavour forever." The diaries are excerpted here for your perusal.

October 3
Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for a Denver omelet.

October 4
Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. I tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

October 6
I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.

October 7
Today I again modified my omelet recipe. While my previous attempts had expressed my own bitterness, they communicated only illness to the eater. In an attempt to reach the bourgeoisie, I taped two fried eggs over my eyes and walked the streets of Paris for an hour. I ran into Camus at the Select. He called me a pathetic dork; and told me to go home and wash my face. Angered, I poured a bowl of bouillabaisse into his lap. He became enraged, and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw propelling the wrapper into my eye. "Ow! You lung sucking dog anus!" I cried. I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled.

October 10
I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe: Tuna Casserole.

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish.
Directions: Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustrated.

October 12
My eye has become inflamed. I hate Camus.

October 25
I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Rather, I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work, I produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons of beef, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.

November 15
I feel that I may be very close to a great breakthrough. I had been creating meal after meal, but none seemed to express the futility of existence any better than would ordering a pizza. I left the house this morning in a most depressed state, and wandered aimlessly through the streets. Suddenly, it was as if the heavens had opened. My brain was electrified with an influx of new ideas. "Juice, toast, milk" I muttered aloud. I realized with a start that I was one ingredient away from creating the nutritious breakfast. Loathsome, true, but filled with existential authenticity I rushed home to begin work anew.

November 18
Today I tried yet another variation: Juice, toast, milk and Cheetos. Again, a dismal failure. I have tried everything. Juice, toast, milk and whiskey, juice, toast, milk and chicken fat, juice, toast, milk and someone else's spit. Nothing helps. I am in agony. Juice, toast, milk, they race about my fevered brain like fire, like an unholy trinity of cruel denial. And the fourth ingredient! What could it be? It eludes me like the lost chord, the Holy Grail. I must see the completion of my task, but I have no more money to spend on food. Perhaps man is not meant to know...

November 21
Camus came into the restaurant today. He did not know I was in the kitchen and before I sent out his meal I loogied in his soup. Sic semper tyrannis.

November 23
Ran into some opposition at the restaurant. Some of the patrons complained that my breakfast special (a page out of Remembrance of Things Past and a blowtorch with which to set it on fire) did not satisfy their hunger. As if their hunger was of any consequence! But we're starving, they say. So what? They're going to die eventually anyway. They make me want to puke. I have quit the job. It is stupid for Jean- Paul Sartre to sling hash. I have enough money to continue my work for a little while.

November 24
Last night I had a dream. In it, I am standing, alone, on a beach. A great storm is raging all about me. It begins to rain. Night falls. I am struck by how small and insignificant I am, how the entire race of Man is but a speck in the eye of God, and I am but a speck of humanity. Suddenly, a red Cadillac convertible pulls up beside me. In it are these two beautiful girls named Jojo and Wendy. I get in and they take me to their mansion in Hollywood and give me a pound of cocaine and make mad, passionate love to me for the rest of my life.

November 26
Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a live beaver, challenging the very definition of the word cake. I was very pleased. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet, and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker Bake-Off.

November 30
Today was the day of the Bake-Off. Alas, things did not go as I had hoped. During the judging, the beaver became agitated and bit Betty Crocker on the wrist. The beaver's powerful jaws are capable of felling blue spruce in less than ten minutes and proved, needless to say, more than a match for the tender limbs of America's favorite homemaker. I only got third place. Moreover, I am now the subject of a rather nasty lawsuit.

December 1
I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week for two months, and I am now experiencing light tides. It is stupid to be so fat. My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less. From now on, I will live on cigarettes and black coffee.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 1 reply

I Heart Huckabees

2006-05-08T19:48:54Z

Is this tribe based on dat movie? It's my fav movie of all time other than Harold and Maude.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 2 replies

NO excuse

2006-05-03T23:35:09Z

"Since nothing has been imposed on me from outside, there are no excuses for what I am."---Sartre

http://tribes.tribe.net/existentialdetectiveagency/photos/874384eb-d52a-447f-9801-4f08f261fd72

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 0 replies

Strindberg and Helium

2006-04-19T14:53:36Z

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ritilan.com/archives/images/blogimages/082204_strindberg_helium.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.ritilan.com/archives/2004/08/&h=207&w=350&sz=13&tbnid=GdsLFeyrN7nK3M:&tbnh=68&tbnw=116&hl=en&start=32&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dexistential%26start%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 1 reply

Iona

2006-04-18T23:09:06Z

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.theesecondcouming.com/RANDOM%2520Order%2520Revisited_files/image018.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.theesecondcouming.com/random.html&h=288&w=216&sz=45&tbnid=Fqw_fftArmx__M:&tbnh=110&tbnw=82&hl=en&start=699&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dexistential%26start%3D680%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 1 reply

Why behave ourselves?

2006-04-18T21:04:01Z

Why behave ourselves?
I use to think it was to fit it, to be accepted by a peer group or avoid problems that one may cause oneself.

That type of thinking is why so many become rebels, because they don’t want to be stereotyped as one group or another and they think that they are strong enough to accept whatever criticism may come their way.

But that is not the real reason why we behave ourselves.
Consider, the children of a divorce, they invariably blame themselves for the divorce, even though it was not their fault. People are always blaming themselves for everything around them. If you are grieving, sulking, angry, happy, each of the people around you is in some degree taking responsibility for your actions.

Therefore the real reason that we do behave ourselves is to spare those around us, the guilt and self inflicted pain.

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 2 replies

am i just a demographic?

2006-04-18T18:20:42Z

the ad caught me
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CP7d7sjRsbf-

but really, how did i end up here? and at that, this clever parody of a film i admire? did i just let the cat out of the bag? would i even be having this conversation if the ad didn't strike a nerve?

yeah, i may have made these connections myself, but don't you want to? sorry, i'm new here (meaning the site)

posted in Existential Detective Agency - 5 replies