GAZPACHOT

Rock and River...

2012-01-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

What kind of dialogue can they have?

I'm still afraid, but it's ok now...

2012-01-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

It's political season, which means the ethers are crammed with lies and hidden agendas and words and gestures some people think other people want to hear and see. Around this time, I start to get a creepy feeling that the world is actually filled with Nazis and pedophiles who have mastered the art of smiling for the camera and shoveling out sanctimonious proclamations and actions born of guilt and self-loathing. The Cove, in particular, was a movie that really illuminated this for me. Can those dolphins lobby for better human champions? Hope so...

The way we're wired we can't really know what's going on in the world. Isn't it wonderfully maddening? There's a performative surface and 7 billion bubble worlds beneath this, burbling in various uncensored degrees, complicated and embarrassing spaces that curious thinkers and artists strive to tap and/or exploit while the rest of us broker in pantomime and shame.

"Forget voyeurism and fetishism cliché... It is about what people hide inside themselves. In their inner space full of opinions, attitudes, thoughts, dreams and taste."

(quotation and photo by Dany Peschl)

Leap into art...

2012-01-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

Yup. Maurizio Cattelan... all that work hanging from the ceiling... 24 bolts holding so many tons of stuff... playful and provocative, bla bla bla... But what I really want to know is how many of you have tried (or considered) leaping to your death as you climb Frank Wright's spiral art walk to its dizzying heights? Can't find record of a single suicide or attempt. The Guggenheim must really have some clout in hushing such things up, cuz I can't believe that this fall remains unexplored by such a creative clientele for half a century.

The heart chakra is massive...

2011-12-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

Up the spine you go. From the coiled kundalini in the root of your pelvis to the thousand petalled lotus of your divine crown, these timeless chakras are excellent compartmentalized metaphors for various aspects of the psyche as well as our experience of life. Devout Hindus spend much of their lives exploring and ultimately transcending each chakra on their personal journey to enlightenment. Very few ever get past the heart chakra. It is simply too big, too complex, too flammable for most of us to transcend. When we "follow our hearts" we are acknowledging a pathway that comes from our higher self, i.e. messages intuited via the heart from the higher chakras, the extra-karmic realms, the ones we may never get to.

People get down on this enlightenment stuff, and yeah, I can see why. It's vertically integrated, heavy-handed, and woefully unscientific mysticism. But without a doubt, I do notice progress, growth, and even a kind of elevation of spirit as I age. Call that what you will. I'm game for these "higher" levels of existence. I'm game for the churning ride of the heart. A muscle you must explore but mustn't explode.

Futurizing...

2011-12-20T12:24:00.000-08:00

Someone mentioned that humans experience the present in six minute intervals. That is, any given moment contains about four minutes of short term memory from the immediate past mixed with a general sense of what we can expect internally and externally for approximately two minutes into the future.

This futurizing is very interesting stuff, for there are all sorts of ideas and emotions we might project onto the immediate future before we arrive there. We might psychically predetermine a negative or a positive future, a simple or a complicated one, one that brings excitement or anxiety. Of course the future doesn't contain any of these things - we conjure these adornments unconsciously in order to set a stage for ourselves so that we might find ourselves in the kind of future we vaguely expect. Perhaps the function of our present is to generate a six minute window of narrative continuity through a string of psychic environments we've spun together in the time leading up to our experience of a present moment. It follows then, that actual present remains a mystery shrouded in our comfy projections. Unless that actual, external present radically alters the storyline for us.

When ordering helium balloons the other day, Sarah and I noticed that they line each pre-inflated balloon with a strange jelly-like substance that when dried is said to fortify the balloon and make it last longer. In the same way, we too might line our imagined future with all sorts of advance notions that act as a filter or lens which makes the actual future more familiar to us when it arrives in the form of the perceived present. Does time endlessly fill a succession of psychically generated future balloons that fulfill our predestined allotment of dismay or delight?

("Tons of Balloons" by Mary Fagot)

Propulsive and Repulsive...

2011-12-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

If you know something scares the shit out of you, long term avoidance is the equivalent of bad constipation. Pretty soon your whole being takes on the shape of non-shitting. A stooped question mark of impacted fecal back matter.

Let go. Unclench. Float in a most peculiar way. Drop the kids into the pool. Get jelly legs. Scare yourself horny.

No, I wouldn't be the first to encourage you to face your fears, but I might be the first to do it in such a scatological way. Moral fiber, yes, but also, prune your hedgings.

Dark coffee, light vexation...

2011-11-24T12:59:00.000-08:00

Maintaining the right mix of darkness and light for your soul is an essential part of any good transcendental hygiene regimen. Johnny Cash, Jesus Christ, Joe Coleman. Layers of black, beams of white light. Get it right!

You make art happen...

2011-11-21T22:37:00.000-08:00

The more I live the more I'm convinced that art is a reflection of the consumer, not the producer. We fetishize/project all kinds of things onto creators, and I'm down with that as a phenomenon. I often find the artist more interesting than their art. When it comes to leaning on the artist for extracting a meaning, I generally call foul. I'm not saying that artists' intentions are unimportant, I'm saying that one's experience with an artwork is ultimately more personal than code cracking.

Most art is meaningless to me and I'm ok with that. I'm not really interested in contextualizing at this stage. Too cerebral, too distracting, a quagmire I'd rather avoid. The stuff that stronks my neurons gets absorbed, and the stuff that successfully ignites two or more chakras gets my allegiance. The stuff that arrests me in my tracks, that hijacks and derails my own inner art show, well that's really what it's all about now isn't it...

(Adam Eckberg)

Medium is the massage...

2011-11-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

The state of beige is a little frightening. But you know what? That's just the initial non-shock of it. When your world has been all scarlets and aubergines well, that tan tonality might just seem a little empty. Really though, it is its inherent neutrality, its medium grade, that makes beige the perfect canvas color on which to paint a life. That something can be ordinary and extraordinary at the same time is worth remembering. The extremes have (had) their place, and one can grow to find comfort in their drama, but the calm mediums, the relaxed schemas, are where the real action takes place. In other words, when your insides are a swirling samovar of psychedelia the material world doesn't stand a chance. Come to think of it, I've always liked the combination of tan red and black. I suppose there's some B.L. Montgomery in me ready for a campaign in the beige desert.

Assassination vs. murder...

2011-10-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

The cold compress character of mad men who do big business, making murders happen, making money, making history, a desk at the Rand Corporation, debating language, dubious plan: funnel art as opium, masses of flesh, stuffed into white shirts, think tank tops, denying bob cratchits raises, razing cities, call me al capone, corrupt, fun fun fun, a lot of people hate me, keep the bandwidth narrow, silos of conscience, duty-bound, the mafioso doing it for his family, manifestos and mantras, the ethical greed, the gonads of good, the 1%, tiny tims of the elite soldier, strangling mothers, burning fields, in boxes, out houses, sunsets in the Pacific, surf tunes, tin radios, drink the day, your spineless sons, testosterone rivers, blue danube, waltzing daughters pressed between glass, devoured and shat in the hallowed hallways of a 10 million dollar mansion in Aruba, moguls, baby tossers, beach vultures, Mars rovers, all of this and more can be yours if only you close your eyes and open your mouth and swallow the regurgitated tapeworms of articulated eagles tethered to bakelite recording devices that skate on tracks over coagulated seas of hot vomit. And I have understood, in this, but not of this, that I love you. A present beyond. Inversions of horror, warm universes spun from the echoes of a beautiful music jointly composed in all the happy suicide falls of the romantic emperors all the clairvoyant quilties, sewing flags for a space program worth inhabiting.

Breaking the reality spell...

2011-10-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

It's funny the things you pick up over time. I haven't been listening to a lot of music lately. It just seems - extra? Distracting? Lack of headphones? Unreal? I can't quite articulate the relationship. Generally, the focus has been on the here and now, the big present, not fearing futures that haven't happened or lamenting pasts that can't be controlled. It's been good. I like this approach.

Last night, I put on some new music, crappy iPod headphones and all. It was the sort of yearning ecstatic music that strives to stretch your innards into silly putty. Echoes of soundtracks of a former lives. Aural dope.

The effect was shockingly immediate. The rich and fulfilling present I'd been inhabiting disappeared, and a micro-depression set in: All the things I don't have, all the regrets of days gone by and out of reach futures. These came rushing in, reverse osmosis style, tsunami on my being, the mood power of the music colonizing me and enforcing its demands like an emotional legal system. Manufactured melancholy borne of synthetic sonic yearning. I'm ok now, but golly. Altering stuff that music. So much power in the hands of so many dopeheads.

So now you know...

2011-10-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

"Shoppers looking for the cheapest airfare online can learn something from stand-up comedians: It's all about timing. Ticket prices are highest on weekends, on average, according to online travel agencies, fare trackers and airline pricing executives. When's the best time to buy? Travel experts have long said Tuesday is when sales are most often in place, which is true. An analysis of domestic fares shows that Wednesday also has good—and occasionally better—ticket prices..."

(WSJ)

The wisdom of the cranky creative...

2011-10-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

(more about this)

Can you handle not knowing?

2011-09-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

Dwight D. Kronersveld had spent most of the night putting cigar bands around the larger, errant dog turds around town again. And I had to decide whether what meaning, or barring that, what emotion, I was going to assign to this. I filled a large scientific beaker to the top with explanations and drank it down. Immediately the back of my head began stinging as if the tentacles of a Portuguese Man of War were tangled in my medulla oblongata. I rinsed out the beaker and topped it off with a boiling mass of fresh anxiety. Down it went. Naturally, I sweat it out over the course of a most unpleasant hour. I had some old depression lying around, so I put that in and mixed it with some furtive paranoia beads I found rolling around behind the couch. Boy was that a mistake. I spent two days on a step ladder watching my neighbor make some kind of dark red jam through a dirty window. In time, it became abundantly clear that if I was going to live with the elusive Mr. Kronersveld's actions, I would have to accept their mystery. I left the beaker empty on the table. A family of spiders moved into it.

(Untitled watercolor. Robert H. Cumming)

Awoken to truth, the day dreams...

2011-09-20T23:04:00.001-07:00

Let a splinter work itself out (rather than digging around in there for it and causing all kinds of undue suffering). Magic!

("Maiden and Unicorn" Domenichino, 1602)

Taking Shit Mountain by Stradivarius...

2011-09-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

This morning one man in a shit brown shirt
walked home with his shit brown coffee
and a roll of toilet paper for his love's
shit brown asshole.

Some shit brown road workers
hollered at him
pointing out the timely links
that connect coffee to TP.

A parrot vomited behind a bush.
a noise that could vaporize the bones of a condor.

Upon arriving home
he realized that the shirt
was chocolate
the coffee
was delicious
and his love's asshole
was a rose...

He handed her the tissue
and they smiled kindly in the Monday
Cauliflournia
sun.

You dig?

2011-09-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

CG Jung had a fine-sized mid-life crisis without which the world could not possibly have embraced the stone-cutting, shadow-loving sage we know of today.

"The focus of these critical years," said Carl, "simply had to be a struggle with my narcissism: the loss of idealized others and the absorbing of surrogate selves, the pride and grandiosity in the sphere of the self, and the resulting periods of narcissistic rage."

Only by entering the psychic labyrinths where his buried narcissism lived and ruled, by poking holes in the resistant crust around his own blind spot, and seeing the beast at work, could that alchemical process occur by which Jung taps into his most vital essence and emerges as a truly independent theorist (and human being).

(Herzog: Lessons of Darkness)

See Papa G's sculptures in action...

2011-09-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

Papa Gazpachot has an art show of his animated found object sculptures up now. If you're in NY, find your way to ALLI. It's definitely worth the trip!

(Richard Gachot's "Ice House" studio in New York).

Fimping...

2011-09-05T13:08:00.001-07:00

I've invented a new form of advertising. It's called "Fimp Advertising" which is of course a contraction of "First Impression." How does "fimping" work? It's all about empowering the individual to choose their own brands and to advertise in the intimacy of their own homes. Their own beds actually. The "fimper" signs up with a brand of their choice and is sent a pair of little logos or ads mounted on cardboard, each about the size of a large postage stamp.

Keep these "fimp cards" by your bed and then in the morning when you wake up next to your sleeping beloved, hold the fimp cards about two inches from their sleeping eyes. Then with your elbow, knock the side of their head. Upon opening their eyes the first thing they see will be the fimp cards. Bingo! We all know how important first impressions are! Your beloved is guaranteed to think about the brand in a strong new light. Mission accomplished!

RIP Graham Leggat...

2011-09-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Friend, mentor, catalyst, film champion, suave man of mystery, and science fictions. You will be missed.

Pretty, but too many notes...

2011-08-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

After all, isn't cynicism just a way of expressing a desire for purity and a disappointment with the evident compromise?

(idea by Ross Lipman)

Walk in truth, fly in hot pants...

2011-08-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know... it's been a little earnest around here lately. I guess there's been a tendency to dig deep and look around with serious awe, and to walk in the overlaps of inner and outer, dreams and materiality. Still though, as ever, I love to ride the waves of the present, the surface, the fun, the people, that. But not as a fear-born substitute for depth, and not to undermine the good stuff that's underway.

The bell-curve of any arc-like journey returns. Zarathustra came down from the mountains, Jacques Cousteau swam up to Calypso, and little ol' me will climb out of my rabbit hole.

Complements are what I'm after. Worlds that work together without over-thinking or queasy consequences or the need for shattered safety-glass goggles.

Let's get airborne...

Prune your dendrites...

2011-08-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Your postnatal mind developed, your synapses laid down connection chains, your recurring habits and thoughts created solid dendritic branches, thoroughfares of behavior, while other neurons didn't interconnect and therefore atrophied or were 'pruned' out of the network. This natural pruning phenomena suggests to some that bad habits and thought patterns can be pruned away by laying down new ones. How do you create new and preferable dendritic superhighways and let the old and undesirable ones wilt away? I'll let you know when I've got a real answer.

(Rivers of the world straightened and sorted)

Glass eyes...

2011-08-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

You paddle strenuously through yourself through rapids and unseen obstacles beneath the surface. Growth doesn't happen in your bones while you sleep anymore. You believe that you'll know what to do when your boat tips and drops you into chaos. And sometimes you do.

You cannot fix good feelings in time. You can not nail your hand to a breast. You can not spare another from the suffering that leads to growth. Though you will want to sometimes.

You can try to curate your life in bits and pieces. You may go to great lengths and subtractions to avoid suffering. But the gods offer a full spectrum of experience from dust to glory. Ignore one god, chthonic or Olympian, and they will become offended and knock you off balance in a way in you that you may or may not recognize.

What are we asking others for that we need to be doing for ourselves? And what should we be asking for that we can not give ourselves? Solve that with your partner and you've got yourself some true love bub. Given the brevity of the ride, and the chill of the night, it seems worth the effort.

Leo month continues...

2011-07-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

LIfe expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage.

- Anais Nin

Who made it?

2011-07-08T08:56:00.001-07:00

"I don't believe in art. I believe in artists."

- Marcel Duchamp

The thin strip of reality...

2011-07-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

The material world, aka "reality," is such a tightly regulated space, it can only take a sliver of us at a time. The vast rest of our self must sit and watch from the unearthly sidelines. And the things we put into this space are at best crude and fragile representations of abstract notions and cognitive or emotional constructs. Artists try to bring things into reality that remind us of the rest of being. Politicians try to own this narrow strip of experience. Kids are bored by it, and adults struggle to maintain their place in it. Crazy thing.

Dark knight of the poop...

2011-07-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

A friend tells me about his best moments of connectivity with his partner, and how strangely, in the rumpled sheet of afterlove, he sees a bright purple light in front of his eyes that is deeply pleasing. He's just been married. This is bliss. The light is not cause for alarm, it is a psychic aurora borealis celebrating the goodness. And then, as can happen, an iota of doubt enters his mind. Fear. Did I do the right thing? Suddenly the purple light turns brown. Shit brown.

And we carry brown around with us because it represents how we might be feeling about our days. Our actual days, the ones in reality, which are just a sliver of our personal internal experience at any given moment. Brown is honest. But brown is not the answer. One must strive to paint their days with other colors.

And walking home from the coffee shop I see people marching their brown about. I can see it in their body language. I can see it in their mood. I can see it in their feces.

(Gao Huijun, "Clouds on Jingting Mountains")

The road to Damascus...

2011-06-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

I've learned that yesterday was St. Paul's day. Who was he? I mistakenly remembered him as one of the original disciples but he was actually their enemy at first, before becoming an apostle. He was Saul before he was Paul. An angry, violent, worldly man who one day saw the light, so bright, he was blinded by it. He changed his name to Paul and became a great teacher and Christian leader and he wrote for the original bible club. He gained healing powers and performed miracles. He had a serious beef with St. Peter at Antioch over circumcision. Martin Scorsese chose Harry Dean Stanton to play him. What's in a name? Letters.

After the bloodletting...

2011-06-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

To the ferocious beauty who tore me to smithereens, I dedicate this rebuild to you.

Love and war...

2011-06-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

"In love the currency is virtue. You love people not for what they do for you, you love them for their values, the virtues which they have achieved in their own character." - Ayn Rand

"If Man is going to stay aboard our spaceship Earth, it can't be done by politics because politics is so inadequate. The Earth can not be commanded by politicians because they don't know about the Earth, they have to go on the kind of design we now have and so they can only give you war."
- Buckminster Fuller

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace...

2011-06-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

“It is fashionable to suggest that cyberspace is some island of the blessed where people are free to indulge and express their individuality. This is not true. I have seen many people spill out their emotions – their guts – online and I did so myself until I began to see that I had commodified myself.”

- Carmen Hermosillo

“On Facebook and Twitter, you are performing to attract people – you are dancing emotionally, on a platform created by a large corporation. People’s feelings bounce back and forth – happy Stakhanovites, ignoring and denying the system of power... I think sometime in the future people will look back at the millions and millions of descriptions of personal feelings on the internet and see them in similar ways. This is the driving belief of our time: that ‘me’ and what I feel minute by minute is the natural centre of the world. Far from revealing that this is an ideology – and that there are other ways of looking at human society – what Twitter and Facebook do is reinforce the feeling that this is the natural way to be."

- Adam Curtis

From her to eternity...

2011-06-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

(Windsor McCay)

Paraprosdokian...

2011-06-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end,
I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

- Dorothy Parker

(Harry Holland)

Bison bullies from New York...

2011-06-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Help?

Lost in found lexical ambiguity...

2011-06-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Binaural Beats on Kanye's Monster...

2011-06-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Let's wallow in our infantile "NSFW" culture today shall we? A world that treats human anatomy and sexuality as bad things that can get working people into serious trouble. How can we get on with the business of life, and by life I mean money, when it turns out that people might have squidgy erotic lives and ew-gross biological yearnings that transcend the safety of our work cubicles and our cool outfits. Impossible!

I want to also make a prediction for the Summer of 2011. I predict that members of the NSFW tribe (and the media-makers who feed them) will fill the airwaves with digital outrage when it is discovered that there are hidden evil messages in our pop songs. Let me clarify: I had a pretty awful experience with reigning provocateur of NSFW culture, Kanye West's new "Monster"" video yesterday... (seriously, listen at your own risk).

Visual content aside, three minutes in my heart was pounding and my head was throbbing. I knew at once why: binaural beats. Though I can't find anything to verify my intuition, I'm telling you the song is heavily laced with dark binaural beats, very likely lifted from the oddly expensive "Gates of Hades" by iDoser or other similar aural toxins. Seriously kids, I know you love a thrill but this stuff is dangerously potent at the emotional/neurological level. Must you?

My prediction is that the public will get wind of this "subliminal brainwashing" (via leak of course) and the fear will kick in. Binaural beats will be collectively demonized as dangerous and downright evil in some circles. And that would be a shame. Because like politicians, neckties, wines, jokes, and human beings, there are all kinds of binaural beats. Many are quite benign, palliative, and even uplifting, while others are hellbent on pushing the technology to its darkest most injurious extremes. And that's how we are in the NSFW age. Uninterested in the good, obsessed with the bad that is always a click away.

Torque...

2011-06-07T15:54:00.001-07:00

There are many words a guy like me could benefit from meditating on, and "torque" is one of them. In the metaphoric realms it represents both the power with which a core lifeforce spins and the internal mechanism that propels a life forward through space and time. Some are born with rich, beautiful souls but zero torque, and therefore little place in the modern world. Others born with unrelenting natural torque that drives a lifeforce lacking in depth and dynamism. Torque channels and regulates our personal force into precise real world action. Calibrate it wisely. The physical world loves momentum...

(Team Hot Wheels teaser by Bandito Brothers)

To boldly go nowhere...

2011-06-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

Frankly I'm shocked that no one responded to my rallying cry for a transgressive cat fiction (and non-fiction!) book club. What's wrong with people? Alas, chalk another one up for the visionary righteousness of the marketplace.

Lasers slicing chaos...

2011-06-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

The boiling, swirling soup of creative chaos. It's an eternal place. A confusing place. A hellish place. A place of infinite potential. A place of impossible progress. The romantic image of the genius magician who intoxicated by cosmic input miraculously orchestrates masterful worldly output. Ta Da!

In contrast to all that magnificent teen hippie shit, I was struck by Ingmar Bergman's assessment of the creative process in his autobiography The Magic Lantern.

"My rehearsals are operations in premises equipped for the purpose, where self-discipline, cleanliness, light, and quiet prevail. It is proper work, not a place for private therapy between producer and actor... I want calm, order, and friendliness. Only in that way can we approach a limitless world."

Timelines...

2011-06-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

At some point I would like to plot the days and events my life on a graphic timeline. The one seen here, a Victorian era wall chart of world history, starting with Adam and Eve (hmm...) was hanging on my wall as a kid. Loved it.

Hours shall pass...

2011-05-26T01:22:00.000-07:00

(Doxa Sinistra "The Other Stranger")

Two by Helen Sear...

2011-05-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Read Jason Evans' article on her in this month's Aperture...

"I am looking at a photographic image and what I see is a picture... Nowadays a lot of photographs look like photographs. Sear does not play into [this]."

(Helen Sear)

The External World...

2011-05-23T00:17:00.000-07:00

The External World, by David O'Reily, is definitely worth watching. Sharp and provocative madness...

Film is here.

Rapture me...

2011-05-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'd say this image pretty accurately captures everything that's not going on over where I just was in Santa Monica, where endless processions of physically fit, flabby-souled grotesques stagger in and out of cute boutiques and over-designed cafes hunting for bargains and sugar fixes. Please Jesus, take me with you.

Paws press play...

2011-05-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

Oh Mychtar, while I applaud any creative gesture that keeps human civilization in check with all life on Earth, your self-portrait in snow made my morning.

("Mychtar and his Snowdog" via Ferlinka Borzoi)

Closer to the stars...

2011-05-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

If fame eluded you in life, you can at least be very near it in death. Worth every penny to spend eternity inches away from that sexy pile of blonde bombshell ashes.

"I stuck!"...

2011-05-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

"I stuck!" says nephew Jack when he can't get what he wants or where he wants to go. At 3, he's not always making well-formulated plans that pan out to spec. To his credit, when he stuck, he knows it, he announces it, and he often gets some help that returns him to wonderful unstuckness.

Thanks to our caretakers' hard work, early life is full of favorable outcomes that just happen. The child expects this kind of magic to be around forever (and suffers upon learning the truth). How we mold this original clay of magical thinking is hugely influential upon our future. Discovering a material world, many of us develop policies of pragmatism and logic, from which highly functional systems of living and planning emerge. For many it's an addicting solution to the puzzle of being alive.

At some point though, the memory of that initial magic crops up. What has matched its power? What have we seen or done that tastes better than those ecstatic fruits of our initial life impressions? The ripe memories. The good feelings. The first pain. It's Rosebud. It's music. It's all the exquisite beauty and horror of the cosmos imprinting itself on the fresh senses of a child in an instant. It's gods and monsters. And those are just the low hanging fruits. What might we find higher up in that tree if we stopped navigating in the real world and returned to our seedling consciousness? Certainly rediscovering those sublime mysteries would become a total private obsession. Of course we don't do that. We can't. But we remember. And so you find expressions on midlife faces that clearly say one thing: "I stuck!"

(Ozant Kamaci)

The gong of memory...

2011-05-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

What is it about Mondays lately?

(Toby Coulson)

Nature's good humor...

2011-05-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Thank you well wishers. After several days of sad paralysis, Chi Chi is miraculously opting for more cat-like routines. She's eating, going to the bathroom, and best yet, trying to walk, a few steps at a time - wobbly like a town drunk, and toppling over frequently. But it's real progress and a fucking joy to see her return to the living after that scare.

We're not out of the woods yet. The steroids we're giving her are definitely not good for her already compromised heart. And yet they certainly seem to be putting those herniated discs in their proper place. One day at a time. She'll do what she needs to do on her end, and we'll tap some medical modernity on ours.

Perhaps nature puts up with some of our interventions, even sees the good in them, like a grandpa who let's his granddaughter put his hair in ribbons.

("Photogram Beneath the Stencil, Fall, Aomori Prefecture" by Jane Alden Stevens)

Good thoughts for Chi Chi...

2011-05-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Our little Chi Chi isn't doing so well. Compression in her spinal cord has left her back legs paralyzed. She's a fighter and a lover, but she'll be needing your good thoughts. She's not in pain, she just looks at us with her typically alert eyes that say, what's up with the bum hindquarters? I'd like to wander!

("Chi Chi in the Cone of Shame" painting by Hanna Williams)

Aesthetic camouflage...

2011-05-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

I say uggh to Monday funks where all the games and art come across as rotting denials of something heavier, more core, more brutal. It's such a plodding moralistic lens. Move on weightiness. I don't know what to do with you today...

Towing the line...

2011-05-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

The provincial Don Giovannis have no talent for original sin.
Or worse, they have no original talent for sin.

Happy Mother's Day!

Local Bubble...

2011-05-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

I'll bottle you yet, damned elusive sublime thing that climbs inside and mocks the day with immodest eyes and molten core. Mark my worms! Your camelback knife-edge prickling skin tricks are mine. I'm chasing those blue-green jackrabbits over blowing grass ridges, under clear lakes, splicing into electric braids of nerves and root hairs, end to end, tiptoe rib vistas, black jungle vines, bolting across a red-orange thorax full of neatly combusting suns. I'm bagging your rhythms, breathing your gasses, logging your architecture, jam jars of aerial ecstasy and subterranean secrets. All of it.

("Oil Spill #13" by Ed Burtynsky)

For something...

2011-05-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan once sang about serving somebody. Which body? The poor? The sick? The nerdy? I'll get there. For now, I'm just down with my girls, Sarah and Chi Chi. So I'll serve them... (with fava beans... mwaaahaahaaa!!)

No, as it stands, the doing has got to be for something. When so much is for nought, a falsetto impression mighty imply that nothing matters. Who can focus in a universe that keeps expanding into whimpering antimatter? But act for something and shit happens. The pieces fall into place. Alignment baby! The universe opens up with a bang!

Right. So then... Which something?

(MIchael Stevenson "Das Gift" from ‘Argonauts of the Timor Sea’)

A girl named Stanley...

2011-05-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing (Stanley), like that, in parentheses, before Obama mama Ann Dunham's name for years. I always just assumed it was the surname she was born with. Boy was I wrong.

"After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her father joined the United States Army and her mother worked at a Boeing plant in Wichita. Named after her father because he wanted a son, as a child and teenager she was known as Stanley. Other children teased her about her name but she used it through high school, apologizing for it each time she introduced herself in a new town. By the time Dunham began attending college, she was known by her middle name, Ann, instead."
(via Wikipedia)

Her life story is pretty extraordinary. She was tough. She was visionary.
She was Stanley.

some days it's hard to make music...

2011-05-02T20:50:00.001-07:00

Paging Noah...

2011-04-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

To watch Donald Trump's puckered ass face talk about how proud he is to have accomplished something really, really important today, is to highlight a particular national self-image that is coming more and more into focus... What is it? Is it famous, white, greedy, assholes who use bluster and sophistry to weave mass illusions of patriotic strength while feeding the vacuum of their own ego? Is it TV and junk-addled minds blindly demanding dominance for the dubious sake of being #1? Is it an addiction to supersized servings of confidence? Is it a collective "he ain't one of US so let's cut it and shut it" impulse? Is it fear of progress?

Our systems (social, political, economic, religious, psychological) are both fatally outdated and growing exponentially out of our control due to the blunt instructions we've fed our technology and our beliefs - make it big! The effects of this childish will to power are becoming steadily apparent. We're imploding.

And given the force of our stupidity, we may not be able to catch ourselves before we are sucked into all encompassing Trumpoid assmospheres. Sometimes when things get to this point, everything has to come down before it can be rebuilt. I guess that's what 2012 is for? (Oct. 28, 2011 I'm told actually).

Is Butoh a martial art?

2011-04-25T23:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry but, any culture with a default mode that squelches expressivity (and humiliates mimes) will positively drown screaming in a vat of Coors Lite.

Liminal Saturday...

2011-04-23T14:33:00.001-07:00

Today is Liminal Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Liminal refers to an in-between state, as in: Jesus sat around on Liminal Saturday since there wasn't much to do between crucifixion and the egg hunt.

I've been feeling in-between myself lately. There's dual fear and complacency that results in a kind of existential aimlessness. It is an unfamiliar psychic space for me. I've lost the thread of the wild creative schemes and urgent obsessions that have characterized my life for the last five years or so. The past and the future have collapsed into an ok-for-now present. Is this what they call aging?

Still, I look around and I see people doing everything in their power to not decide what life is for and how it should be lived. It's all just busy busy busy, and then you die. Given that, I can really admire a guy like Jesus who dedicated himself to articulating meaning and grand plans for living. My admiration falls short of taking up my own messianic complex at present. Napping seems more honest.

Coming soon...

2011-04-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

One big problem with film now is that we as moviegoers have accepted the mythology about where films come from and how they are made. We know too much about the endless struggle, the quest for money, the sacrifice, the horrible people and committees who kill creativity, and so on.

But when was the last time a film arrived that broke the mold? That made people stand up and say, "Where did this come from? This is not the kind of movie that was processed through an industry!" I know these films exist. I spent much of my youth searching for them (and occasionally finding one or two). The independent era had some promise, but it quickly bogged itself down in a mirror image of all the classic Hollywood trappings. Unfortunately, there's no democracy in cinema. Budgets and attentions are paid out according to the strictest dictorial systems and guidelines.

Cinema, your bottom line is showing, and yes, it looks big in that outfit...

Let's mess with this mess. Let's allow something that's not supposed to happen happen. Guaranteed that our next "Citizen Kane" comes out of left field. The technology and the delivery systems are in place. Geniuses start your engines.

"Crazy Wisdom"...

2011-04-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

A divine madness found in most religions to varying degrees. A manifestation of god-intoxication that releases one from the shackles of societal convention. As I see it, acute cosmic awareness reveals the insanity of our world and therefore makes the enlightened individual seem crazy by comparison.

This gentleman with a gun to his head is none other than the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a trailblazing Tibetan monk who traded his saffron robes for ugly ties and polyester office attire upon discovering the spiritual playground of USA. He was the original mad man.

Trungpa's crazy wisdom takes on a specific character: "He subdues whoever needs to be subdued and destroys whoever needs to be destroyed," he says. "The idea here is that whatever your neurosis demands, when you relate with a crazy-wisdom person you get hit back with that. Crazy wisdom presents you with a mirror reflection... Crazy wisdom knows no limitation and no logic regarding the form it takes." The key nuance he makes is that the practitioner must practice "crazy gone wise" rather than "wisdom gone crazy."

Methuselah, King Clone, and Pando...

2011-04-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've been operating under the belief that the oldest living thing on Earth was "Methuselah," a pine tree in the Inyo National Forest, said to be more than 4,800 years old, predating the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

So, we were in Joshua Tree this weekend and (outside the park) I stole a couple of small branches from the omnipresent Creosote Bush, which makes the desert smell so nice after a rain. (I've put one of the branches in our shower and yup, the Venetian homestead is flooded with amazing Sonoran scents.) I've long been drawn to creosote, don't know why. A little research shows that right there, where we were this weekend, just east of Old Woman Springs Road, there's a Creosote Bush that is estimated to be 11,700 years old! It's called King Clone, and I'm wondering why Methuselah gets all the press when King Clone beats it several times over?

The answer lies in the name. Clonal plant systems are colonies of genetically identical plants that may or may not be connected by a single root system. They reproduce continually so that while individual plants may die, the organism lives on for, well, a long time. The oldest clonal colony known is Pando in Utah, a single male Quaking Aspen covering 107 acres with over 47,000 stems (debate rages as to whether this forest can be considered a single tree). Pando's been spreading seed for a reported 80,000 years, which is about 13 times older than Utah's Mormons believe our Earth to be.

(Methuselah in action)

Where were you on the night of...

2011-04-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

The terrifying experience of meeting with good, old, sharp-witted friends and hearing about the things I said and did ten years ago. I honestly remembered a third of it at best. Terrifying to recall what passed for acceptable behavior then, and even more terrifying to not be able to remember the rest. Sounds like I'm painting myself out to be Keith Richards here, which I am not. My memory contains strange soil filled with bugs and black holes. Always has.

Two thoughts. One, my memory represses pain at low thresholds. And two, I think the beacon of my consciousness points forward, attempting to illuminate new and better futures. I remember the landscapes, the buildings, the music, the faces, the ideas, and the feelings I would want to fill those futures.

Keeping strict and readily available records of what was said or done in the past doesn't seem to be one of my brain's higher functions. While a penchant for doing incredibly dumb and embarrassing things, apparently is.

The moral of the story: read biographies, not autobiographies.

(Courtroom art by Gary Myrick)

Making time for shaking...

2011-04-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

"Guess I better know the ledge..."

(See the story unfold: FISH TANK)

Undoing photography...

2011-04-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

All the photographs ever taken have collectively taken something from the smooth operation of the universe: Light! We know the old saw about photographs stealing souls, but I'd like to add a more scientific impact analysis to our collective fear heap.

Just as a few carbon-spewing cars and factories seemed harmless to our global environment in the early 20th Century, what harm could the harvesting of light and its entrapment in silver particles on paper possibly bring about? Well, like all technologies that grow on an exponential curve, the potential for massive and unintended side effects is staggering.

Billions upon billions of photos, analog and digital alike, have carelessly interrupted the intergalactic path of untold numbers of light waves, effectively freezing them in a highly unnatural state for our gawking pleasure. And because we've essentially taken these light waves out of cosmic play, we're swiftly nearing a point where the interrupted flow of light throughout the universe is creating unprecedented light blights in both near and far flung corners of the cosmos.

What's to be done? Even if we were to entirely stop taking pictures at this moment, the damage is already well underway.

What we need to do is start systematically un-taking all the pictures that have ever been taken. This painstaking process involves first carefully re-creating the composition of each photograph and using as many actual elements as can be found. Then you'll need an nuclear powered anti-camera to produce matching lightwaves that can be focused back into the lightmosphere. Of course many of these new light grafts won't take, they'll be rejected by existing light waves for reasons we'll never fully understand. But still we must try. It's the only hope we have of partially restoring the light.

I don't want to sound the alarm too much here, but hey, people, we need to start mass developing and disseminating these anti-cameras to our children so that they can begin to undo the damage we've unleashed. As a model, I've included the above photograph as a sample re-creation that is close enough to the original to possibly, under optimal conditions, reinsert the lost light back into the compromised universal light system. Of course the anti-photo version would leave no visual trace.

Let's get un-snapping!

(from the "Back to the Future" series by Irina Werning)

Active living...

2011-04-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

My sense is that here in the Western world we've become passive managers of our plodding, practical modernity rather than full inhabitants of the life experience. The urge to get closer to the bone, to the electrical present, to the music and the source, has yet to meet its match in the world of money.

(Rimpa Siva, princess of the tabla)

Twins with Ornette...

2011-03-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

Just figured this was missing something...

("Ramblin'" by Ornette Coleman)

Understanding now...

2011-03-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Here's my problem... When Qaddafi started saying al-Qaeda was responsible for the rebellion, I thought, well you know, there is a possibility that they could be involved in some way. But the media played the "he's crazy" card and left it at that. Ha ha, he wears funny clothes, what a nutter... Maybe so. But it made sense to me that al-Qaeda (or some such organization) might jump on the overthrow bandwagon, post Egypt, and fan the flames on uprisings that would eventually draw large scale Western intervention into the region. Not that they started the rebellion in Libya, but, it seemed plausible that they might get involved in the unfolding chess game.

Now, the media reports that the US military thinks, "there were 'flickers' of intelligence suggesting that al-Qaeda or Hezbollah operatives were among the rebels fighting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi." So where does that leave the "he's crazy" analysis that we were all sold by smug snickering news pedalers in recent past? Look, I'm not saying that Col. Qaddafi is a lucid man or a saint by any means. I'm just saying, don't you know a sales pitch when you see one? Can't you smell the small-mindedness of a false expert?

I know it's all happening very quickly, and clarity isn't at a premium. Still, when will we be treated like adults about our collective understanding of unfolding situations, our national intentions, and our real interests? And more importantly, and what's really at the core of this post... Can anyone tell me a truthful, apolitical news source that won't defer to selling us quaint interpretive vignettes of "complex" situations we mere civilians just wouldn't understand?

3rd-eye workout...

2011-03-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

OK all you zombie people, get ready for this exhilarating 936Hz workout on your flabby old pineal gland! Let's get metaphysical! Besides lycra leggings and a matching stretch headband, you'll need a (good) set of headphones for this to work.

I've been experimenting with binaural beats lately, and I've had some rather profound experiences in doing so. This sample is a good introduction. Just a simple, fun, mind activator and the candy colored visuals (starting about 3 minutes in) in are pretty fantastic too. I recommend watching full screen.

Binaural beats are created when two slightly different sound frequencies are played simultaneously, one in each ear. In reading these two sounds, our brain combines them into a pulsing beat that matches up with a brain wave pattern associated with a brain state. This is a naturally occurring phenomena called the "frequency following response," in which the electrical activity of the brain begins to pulsate in syncopation with the frequency of the external stimulus. The "beats" are low in the slightly Yani-esque "ambient" mix here; you can hear many samples of unadorned binaural beats all over the web.

It's elementary that sound can make us happy or sad, contemplative or rowdy. It's called music. But binaural beats go deeper into the science of sound, attempting to isolate psychoacoustic responses. I find it a fascinating field. Of course there's the usual ladling of New Age fondue all over these "healing" realms, which is fine. Folk healing has always been a part of human culture, appalling aesthetics and all.

Worse is the whole digital drugs movement that as far as I can tell is simply trying to make money off of thrill seeking college kids. Stay away, some of those downloads are quite dark and disturbing. Not all brain states should be activated!

Hype aside... binaural beats are clearly up to something. Cautiously curious, I'm learning more and more about them. Used wisely, I can foresee wondrous, benevolent applications up ahead.

("Pineal Gland Activator" clip by Source Vibrations)

Proving grounds...

2011-03-28T12:05:00.001-07:00

One more way of slicing up humanity: People who have something to prove and people who don't.

This proving thing is fascinating. It's a kind of "closed-circuit" philosophy by which an individual constantly reverts his or her energies into achieving some ongoing ideal. Whether this ideal is truly desired by the individual or imprinted as an expectation from an outside force is a key factor that can be hard to discern. When I see someone living this way, I sometimes perceive it as a kind of reactionary existence - a code of living that is meant to prevent that person from becoming whatever they don't want to be.

People who don't have something to prove can seem a little lost by contrast. They tend to be confronted by broad existential quandaries. Since there is no fixed ideal, there is no rote pattern of behavior. Life is upon them. What to do? When one isn't obsessively compelled to be a hero or a real woman or a superstar or a bandit or a punk or an evil genius or a Muhammad, all of the magnificent and daunting stuff of life is right there in front of you. How you engage with it, if you engage with it, is a fluctuating mystery that can become an obsession in its own right.

Do your life...

2011-03-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

Ironically, not doing things because you worry about how your actions will be (mis)perceived by others is the single best way to be misperceived by others. Besides, isn't it better to be misperceived than to be missed altogether?

All of this will all be over one day soon. Why freeze your free will and stifle your best in the name of imagined second guesses? Who are you living for?

The Gray Cardinal...

2011-03-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

I know that angels are seldom found in high offices, but I have to say that Vladimir Putin's public bio reads more like a Qaddafi confession you'd find locked away in a secret diary.

(painting by Amey Fearon Mathews)

Luna Sea...

2011-03-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

Under a super perigee moon the superwolves come out to play.

Skeuomorphism...

2011-03-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

That tiny useless handle on your maple syrup jug, the fake spokes on your hubcaps, that shutter clap sound on your digital camera, and all the carefully rendered buttons and sliders on your computer and apps that reference the look of real-world stuff, those are skeuomorphs. In other words, "a derivative object which retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original." (via wikipedia).

Skeuomorphism is rampant in the digital world. The paperclip icon in email that signifies "attachment," even the whole idea of a desktop on which there are white paper documents and folders (depicted with those little extended tabs where you would write what's inside them) and pictures of the wife and kids. It's all visual metaphor, and it's all representative of some deep human need for continuity (and nostalgia) in technology.

Steven Poole has spoken out against this digital skeuomorphism. Personally, as retro as my aesthetics are, I'm in favor of new non-skeuomoprphic visual representations and haptic interfaces in the digital realms that are 100% intuitive to use.

Alf 'Freddie' Lennon...

2011-03-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

Anyone?

He sang and played the banjo but was not known for being very dependable...

"That's My Life" was Alf "Freddie" Lennon's attempt to explain his lifelong absence to his rock star son. I'm not sure it succeeded in doing so. But the voice is uncannily familiar. Alf died in 1976 having received a phone call from his estranged son shortly before he passed.

Mindsets: US vs. The World...

2011-03-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

Is the world cracking up or is this just normal? Without making light of the danger and suffering in Japan, I feel the need to report my observations (or is it paranoia?).

Have a look at these two images from the online edition of the NYTimes. The top image is from the US edition and the bottom image is from the global edition. These screen caps were taken a couple seconds apart. What do you notice? (Besides the fact that we get Vegas and the world gets Gucci)

Do us United Statesans need fear words in our headlines (failure, crisis, etc.)? Are we that programmed for doom?

Hang on...

Things that make me sad...

2011-03-12T12:30:00.001-08:00

Children and radiation. Horrible. Thinking good thoughts for you Japan.

As tomorrow looks...

2011-03-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

Something about yesterday...

Dreaming in public...

2011-03-10T09:30:00.001-08:00

The only thing that matters about writing is what's behind the words. OK, that's the kind of dramatic thing I say... As you know, the words are important too. But at the end of the day words are only symbolic reflections of invisible clouds on the outskirts of consciousness. Don't get stuck on the words. The map is not the territory.

Writing is the sport of trying to fix wordless emanations in public time. A communal clothesline for airing interpretations of chaos. And don't forget to factor in the radar jammer of a multilingual planet. Don't you wonder about what's hidden in foreign languages? They could be onto something that our symbols can't reflect.

Here's what I've learned: If we become our idioms, then choosing them wisely is one job that's always hiring.

Dalai Lama retires, blows lid on reincarnation...

2011-03-09T23:58:00.000-08:00

While I'm 100% certain that this quickly cobbled together image fails to include the proper levels of respect for a truly one-of-a-kind man/manifestation I admire, I'm pursuing a hunch that he might let it slide.

Besides, he's seriously busy tipping over 1000 year-old apple carts by just tossing out that whole reincarnation clause in the who's-your-next-Lama process. Regardless, I wish him well in whatever lifestyle or life form he eventually moves on to.

Closer to experience...

2011-03-06T10:31:00.001-08:00

Stepped away from politics and ideology for now. Too easy to define life by pointing at what you like and don't like and being a cheerleader for a conceptual system. Will get closer to the living part of living. Selfish? Short-sighted? Get the government you deserve? I suppose that's all true from one perspective. I just feel like civilization is a mind-bending drug we're all addicted to. But seriously, it's nothing a little nude camping couldn't cure.

Paths of Glory...

2011-03-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

The thing I have noticed about heroism in the actual world, is that it can fuel a lifetime of extreme behavior in the name of being perceived as a hero.

A hero needs cowards and laypeople and swooning admirers. A hero is defined by the honor bestowed upon them by others. Does the hero unconsciously seek a certain elevated place within a community (that might otherwise bore him or her to tears)? What is the sound of one heroic act unpraised? (I know there are many.)

Certainly, heroism is costly to the individual. A hero exhibits bravery and fortitude and endures agony and loss in the face of enormous obstacles long after the rest of us are in bed watching Fantasy Island reruns. Heroes have the will and the spirit to take on danger and chaos with total resolution. They do things that no one else can or wants to do. They win wars and save the innocent and the distressed from harm. They shape history and perform selfless acts. And it's that observed selflessness that leads to a mythological self that lives large in other hearts and minds, isn't it?

I don't want to say that there are no heroes. That there are no altruists. That Mother Teresa was a selfish cunt. The world needs heroes. And bad guys. They are archetypal jobs that need filling. We can define our heroes with our own yardsticks. And we can embrace broad metaphors, like facing life with one's sword ready to be drawn. And, thankfully, there are other metaphors too.

(Believe it or not) I have moments of clarity where I know that life should be lived without too many enhancements, formulas, or agendas. Its mysteries should not be abandoned or trampled on the search for a badge of honor. That kind of behavior leads to a culture of manipulation. Big plans need lots of expendable heroes. Medals are cheap.

In Los Angeles you get to see a vivid spectrum of heroes-in-progress. Are they living for the label, or are they truly brave? Either way, heroism is packaged and sold here as a force beyond scrutiny. I accept that some might attack me for these blasphemous observations. Oh you're just (fill in the blank). I boldly accept this risk of public ridicule with a stiff upper lip and a manly chest thrust in the general direction of my Kirk Douglas chin.

She saw me...

2011-03-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

Masculine...

2011-03-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

Logical Force Action Power Control Direct Angular Hard Authorative Aggressive Unbending Tactical Protecting Provider Stunted Empty Incorrigable Thinking Boyish Rough Stoic Brave Commanding Relaxed Confident Cool Wounded Stud Feminine Insistent Infantile Capable Heroic Enduring Ready Fit Fighter Wit Caged Rebel Coping Details Willing Sexual Cold Crass Bold Violent Dominant Outgoing Bristling Creative Planning Scheming Taking Giving Skilled Killing Ignoring Brinksmanship Dapper Dashing Debonaire Charming Visionary Genius Physicality Daring Dastardly Defiant Leader Loner Focus Sharp Cunning Selfish Distant Assertive Competitive Deciscive Forceful Independent Risk Adventurous Hearty Erudite Builder Mover Time Space Mountain Tree Horny Ownership Resolute Dismissive Intrepid Fearless Ruthless Demanding Vocal Handy Complexity Handsome Dark Brooding Standoffish Antisocial Impatient Observant Precise Context Concrete Versatile Technical Industrious Digital Guided Ego Muscle Maximum Extreme Blunt Exertion Effect Instrument Solid Forward Fixed Noble Dignified Jockstrap Audacious Lion-hearted Potent Ape Balls

Feminine...

2011-02-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

Sensual
Grace
Love
Form
Truth
Allure
Beauty
Upbeat
Brisance
Radiance
Effortless
Vivacious
Fascinated
Electrifying
Spontaneity
Complicated
Understanding
Phosphorescence
Pulchritudinous
Perceptiveness
Perspectival
Challenging
Fascinating
Emanation
Embrace
Calming
Wattage
Mystery
Reserve
Modest
Touch
Quiet
Visual
Charm
Languid
Aesthetic
Foresight
Luminous
Sociability
Masculinity
Fashionable
Abundance
Welcoming
Movement
Curvature
Constant
Internal
Warmth
Perfume
Delicate
Dream
Fertile
Faint
Fire
Soft
Layers
Offering
Abandon
Hypnotize
Callipygian
Joyfulness
Porcelain
Orgasm
Creative
Possibility
Intelligence
Concealed
Gossamer
Yearning
Balance
Wonder
Fullness
Expectant
Dangerous
Vulnerable
Contrasts
Presence
Magical
Dance
Dark
Fun
Sea
Sky
Star
Earth
Water
Humor
Intricate
Beguiling
Obscure
Natural
Lunar
Night
Cool
Pretty
Caress
Careful
Elegant
Fragrant
Authentic
Cultivated
Refinement
Illuminating
Unadulterated
Unconventional
Accommodating
Encouragement
Enthusiastic
Emotions
Caring
Pride
Pretty
Girlish
Fluidity
Laughter
Liberated
Fairminded
Lighthearted
Self Possession
Strong Softness
Dark Sweetness
Melancholic
Heartache
Tragedy
Solitary
Artful
Hurt
Shy
Full
Smile
Gloom
Intuition
Profound
Wholesome
Eroticized
Visionary
Ecstatic
Genius
Chaste
Whore
Open
Eyes
New
Now
Yes

("Purple Petunias" by Georgia O'Keeffe)

That spark of originality...

2011-02-27T13:09:00.001-08:00

...and the flames it spawned. Don't worry Melvin, it really is a form of flattery, (though I'm not exactly sure how sincerity factors into it).

We are well into the Post-Original era aren't we...

UPDATE: Oh my - the plot thickens... see more matches here and here.
(Good detective work Babycakes!)

("Isabella Match" 1960 Melvin Sokolsky; Salma Hayek/T Magazine 2011 Cass Bird)

App metaphors...

2011-02-25T10:40:00.000-08:00

Never were the differences between Social Democracy and Capitalism made more clear to me then after playing with Eno's freely interactive Bloom and Trope apps immediately followed by a competitive two-player game of Tap Tap Revenge. The first two apps were someone's thoughtful attempt to address the quality of my present where as Tap Tap's goal was to trap me in a fast, ugly, all-consuming pop nightmare - a flashy battle where winners and losers are determined in seconds before you even understand the rules.

In my own idealized cookie cutter mind I can't help but see a geographic question forming: Would I rather spend my days wandering in a soothing hypnotic wash of aesthetic fades (Europe) or tensely tending the blaring end of a never-ending conveyor belt that spits neon balls in your face at an electrifying pace (USA)?

Nasrudin DitchWitch...

2011-02-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

Something frightened Mulla Nasrudin as he was walking down a road. He threw himself into a ditch and then began to think that he had been frightened to death. After a time he became very cold and hungry. He walked home and told his wife the sad news, and went back to his ditch. His wife, sobbing bitterly, went to the neighbors for comfort. 'My husband is dead, lying in a ditch.' 'How do you know?' 'There was nobody to see him, so he had to come and tell me himself, poor dear.'

Jigger your thoughts. Admire the folds of reality. Stop thinking about money!
What are you doing?

The United States of Africa: A tragedy in many parts...

2011-02-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

This fantasy blockbuster scenario made some sense last night, but seems more embarrassing in the cold light of today...

2030. The United States of Africa ratifies its constitution, firmly cementing its place on earth as "The New USA" (aka USA2). The USA2 original founders have been exiled to Ireland after an ugly public showdown (and ensuing ponzi scandal) between Nelly Mandela, Bono, and Galyna Qadaffi. Chinese and Indian investors have swiftly moved in and established a political party based around their huge agriculture interests that dominate the center of the continent. They establish a new founding board for the fledgling nation. The cheap labor that was thought to be available to maintain their vast crops and other vertically integrated industries, has dried up in the wake of swelling African pride swells and a raising quality of life index. No amount of number games can generate the highly profitable bottom lines that have been promised by the new USA2 founders.

Meanwhile, Old USA has continued its downward slump. The major cities have been abandoned since they were declared living targets by the United States of Islam (USI). The heartland of the country is plagued by lawless, rival militias who have destroyed the agricultural landscapes unleashing an impenetrable Zone of Terror. Others have moved to the California and Nevada "countryside" only to discover that the polluted deserts are in no way arable and that an a-religious, playful Burning Man spirit of "endless creativity" can only sustain so much momentum. Hunger and turmoil rule the land.

It's only a matter of time before an amendment to the USA2 constitution is passed allowing for "a period of benevolent slavery lasting no more than 50 years," which is widely taken as just reparations for the Old USA's earlier and far more brutal foray into human trade and indentureship.

Zephir's holiday...

2011-02-18T22:20:00.000-08:00

If the moon is full and if the pirates have boarded and if music is over and if the pitch is perfect and if the computers are not ok and if the record is about a tree and if the world is rearranging its parts and if you can think about your hands instead of your head and if grapes stay round and if the beef is not sleepy and if the wheels stay hot and if the Bahrainis can channel the Bhutanese and if the turkeys are granted breast reductions and if the goodness and wonder of our best dreams keep seeping in and around the folds of shitty old reality, well then, this monkey just might start reeling in some mermaids. That's a lot of ifs, but what isn't?

Political evolutions...

2011-02-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

I had a dream in which the words "progressive conservative" were spoken. They echoed into consciousness and naturally, over coffee, into a Google search. I was sure that such a clear oxymoronic phrase would describe a whole bunch of older conservatives who were tired of the whole "hawk" thing.

Sure enough, I found this blog entry entitled, "Help! I'm becoming a liberal!" which is well worth a read. (Note - the phase 'progressive conservative' is appropriately invoked in a comment.)

Our political parties are based on broad cartoonish divides, when we know that the major issues of our day are apolitical and can only be distorted and rendered dysfunctional by sustaining these imaginary polarities.

It's a beautiful thing when people catch a glimpse of their mirror image and are suddenly confronted with the option of putting down their rocks. I wouldn't want to live in a world where opposition and violence weren't options. But I abhor a world in which they are the knee-jerk choice.

("Combat des amis avec pierres" by Malick Sidibé)

Was he jolly?

2011-02-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

Lately, while I should be doing other things, I find myself listening to old recordings of JFK giving speeches, or better yet, working the phone or talking into a dictaphone on his off hours. I can't explain it. It just makes me feel like there was once a better world. I know that's an illusion. Procrastination works in strange ways.

We all know that the Kennedys had that accent, but there was also a certain conversational cadence that men of the day had that fascinates me. This chat between Bobby and Jack could so easily be my father and his brother talking on the phone it's scary. Not the accents and not necessarily the word choices, but the cadences, and the attitudes, those were in the Northeastern ethers, in the men. And whatever it was, it has since moved on to another planet.

Here's Jack dictating a letter with some help.

Perhaps my favorite, here he is chewing some fall guy a new one for letting the press see a crazy expensive bed that was bought for Jackie to use on Air Force One. Silly bastard! The "Jordan Marsh" mentioned here is the name of a ritzy Boston department store that was bought up by Macy's at some point.

I wonder if JFK would let me run a cat house? Probably not. I don't have that relaxed command that only comes from Captaining PT Boats. Or was it the blue pills?

A pox of rocks...

2011-02-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

So you and thousands of your fellow citizens are angry at your government and you want nothing short of total regime change. Got it. An ouster!

So what's your strategy? You mean your best line of offense in achieving this epic goal is to gather up some small rocks and throw them at tanks and shielded riot police? And you're telling me that this actually works? Seems to be the case...

I know I'm simplifying things, and to be clear I love how fundamentally theatrical this all is. Sure sticks and stones do break bones, but given the array of powerful weapons that are available and used in other parts of the world by angry citizens, I'm just amazed and inspired by the power of symbolic force and relatively benign gestures of violence I've seen in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. In some ways the protests are for the camera; what physically happens outside the frame of the newsreel, doesn't matter so much. The protesters' real-world message lives or dies on its cinematic execution. Have I got this all wrong?

Trees lounge...

2011-02-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

Trees are. And that's enough, if you want to leave it there.

The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests. So use less paper and engage the trees in your life. They have a lot more to offer than mute witness to our folly.

(photo by Johannes Spalt)

Dialing in...

2011-01-31T10:46:00.000-08:00

People are like radios. We want to be tuned in properly. We want to broadcast important info. And we make an awful lot of ugly noise in the name of turning a buck. But if you turn the dial with care and discrimination, and dial into the right station, you can hear beautiful music, affecting news and other wonderful things.

("Sintonizando" by Fernando Vicente)

The Day the Earth Still Stood...

2011-01-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

I can confirm that spell check does not work in dreams.

I can confirm that I'm still pissed at the Taliban for blowing up those Buddha's.

I can confirm that colds are spread by anonymous sneezes and that that fact remains deeply disturbing and disgusting to me.

I can confirm that Brooke Shields' 1987 Princeton Thesis was entitled "The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, 'Pretty Baby' and 'Lacombe Lucien.'"

I can not confirm what Wikileaks and the US Government have to do with the riots in Egypt but theories abound.

I can confirm my own queasy feeling that ongoing plans are underway that will ultimately lead to the demise of radical Islamic power bases and the rise of new Democratic ones in their place.

I can confirm that the widespread pedaling of the 2012 end-times idea is useful to people looking to implement big changes now.

I can confirm that I am apolitical at this stage in my life.

I can confirm that I feel overwhelmed and powerless if I try to understand power and politics and that any ideas I might have about those things are only chimera born at the collision of my projections and my impressions.

(Swarovski Kristallwelten Fountain, Wattens, Austria)

Laugh riots...

2011-01-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

To be sure it's a violent bloody mess over there in Egypt. Still, I enjoyed this story in the Times today about Egyptian protesters who made nice with riot police in Alexandria for a short while this morning.

"In an incredible scene in Alexandria, the site of a more than two-hour pitched street battle ended with protesters and police shaking hands and sharing water bottles on the same street corner where minutes before they were exchanging hails of stones and tear-gas canisters were arcing through the sky. "

It recalls the "Christmas Truce" of 1914 whereupon front-line German and British combat soldiers in WWI left their respective trenches on Christmas Eve to gather on the muddy battlefields of Flanders to sing carols, exchange gifts, and play soccer.

It also recalls my own experience of being caught in a violent rock-throwing and tear-gas filled manifestation between students, anarchists, and police in Paris in the early 90s. While crossing the grassy battlefield of the Esplanade des Invalides, I was arrested by a young French officer for having a corkscrew in my pocket. I spent that day in plastic handcuffs in a Parisian police office with hundreds of protesters and innocent corkscrew bearers waiting to be "proceesed." The next day I returned to the scene of the manifestation and there behind a plexiglass shield I encountered the same young officer who had arrested me the day before. He lowered his shield, smiled, shook my hand, and offered me a cigarette. The sun was shining. I asked him if he had my (confiscated) corkscrew. He laughed and said I looked like I needed it. Looking around I noticed that many of the protesters were calmly, playfully talking to the riot police; actors on a stage just before the curtain lifts. All of us in our early 20's or thereabouts. Kids engaging, flexing coltish political muscles, new ideas, age old anger. And then a rock flew, and another, and another, the shields went up and the games began. Violent, serious games motivated by deeply heartfelt agendas - but games nonetheless.

(photo: A boy runs from a column of riot policeman during protests in downtown Cairo January 25, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

The slick clicks of the Phoropter...

2011-01-27T19:53:00.001-08:00

You've seen tens, possibly hundreds of these in your lifetime. And you do not know what it is called.

It is a phoropter. Now you know.

Fall ahead...

2011-01-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks Eleni for reminding me that achieving balance is one thing, an essential learning phase, but achieving imbalance is life that crackles and moves.