For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is – to live dangerously. - Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science, section 283.)

(From the Photographosophy files.)

There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender… identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results. – Judith Butler (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity)

(So I was thinking about Wordless Wednesday, and about how I can never, ever, eliminate words entirely from a Wordless Wednesday, which defeats the purpose entirely, and then I thought, why not just use the pretext of Wordless Wednesday – posting random pictures [in my case, of my children] with no commentary – and get around the whole ‘Wordless’ thing by using someone else’s words. You know, spirit of the law rather than the letter and all that. And! Because I have this whole academic background in philosophy, from an education that, according to some, is being egregiously wasted, why not just dredge up random remembered bits of philosophy and fling them at those photos and see if the resulting mash-up makes any sense. And if it doesn’t, all the better, because what’s philosophy for, right? Right.

I’ll call it Photographosophy, Kinder Edition – TM! – and it will be awesome, not least because it will justify the entirety of my education.)

My daughter on Saturday:

My daughter on Sunday: (continue reading…)

Shiny, happy, smudgy-faced baby, all jacked up on Disney’s Animal Kingdom safari. Kinda hard to be angsty and sad, looking at that face. This is, I suppose, the function and purpose of angels.

*More shiny happy faces can be found over at Happy Face Central.

**And also here, where maple syrup and skateboards collided to create an alternate parallel Tennessean universe of awesome.

***Not here, though, because it’s a discussion about parenting and judgment and nasty things like spanking, and I might have been called “disgusting” in the comments, so. Fill up on angel faces at the other links first, maybe.

The lesson here: the course of true love never did run smooth. That, and think twice before slipping the tongue to strangers that you meet in the Home Depot interior doors and closet fittings aisle.