Wørd VI: television
n. a psychotronic device that emits energy in the form of sound and light waves for the purpose of programming human perception, consciousness, and behavior.
Predefined bundles of television energy, which can range in duration from seconds to hours, are called programs.
see also: mass hallucination, ray gun
Wørd V: history
1. written by Hollywood; written by victors
2. too important as an agent of change to be left in the hands of the truth
3. something to be on the right side of
4. not what you think it is
5. too emotional to be questioned
6. con$en$u$
Inversion
Jamming signals. Radio. Television. This is the etiology of culture jamming. But everything in our information saturated world is ripe for jamming. Culture. Constructs. Assumptions. Images. Introduce a different color of noise into the system. Tool of revolutionaries, but better yet, tool of counter-revolutionaries. Pun. Play. Invert image. Invert meaning. Deeper truth through absurd juxtapositions. Subliminal sandwiches.
Presumably in London, I'm not quite sure where these two works from Bansky are, or if they're in any spatial or temporal relationship with one another. They're both inversions. The cop frisking the necessarily darling girl, replete with teddy bear inverts notions of the police being guardians of peace into being robbers of peace. In the second picture, the girl then turns the tables on the soldier and exerts power and authority over him.
In the second half of the 20th century, institutional structures were deemed oppressive. They were subverted and dismantled. Then in their place, and supposedly as a remedy, new institutional structures were erected. These were often just as oppressive. Culture councils that wreck and homogenize culture. Human rights tribunals that take away human rights. Policies of choice that destroy choice. It's time to turn that inversion on its head.
Artist Draws 'Clean' Graffiti from Dirty Walls, which reminds me of a time when I sprayed the perpetually half-clothed, shoeless, grubby neighbor kid with the garden hose. His grandmother came running out of their house screeching, "Don't get clean spots on him. I'll have to wash the whole kid."
The Stranger
standing on the beach
with a gun in my hand
staring at the sea
staring at the sand
staring down the barrel
at the Arab on the ground
I see his open mouth
but I hear no sound
I'm alive...I'm dead
Part I: what a strange man
Meursault, schizoid personality, misanthrope? No, perhaps not, he's a stranger to this world. He's totally honest, cordial, a hard worker, and not at all devoid of virtue. His ways and motives are not the same as what's deemed or conditioned as normal or expected.
Meursault seems limited largely to his sense perception, and operates daily (and in his usually fond memories) on the level of how things taste, smell, look, sound, or feel to him. He seems to take these things as well as relationships quite simply as they are without interpretation, attaching any additional significance, or deriving any particular or expected meaning from them. Meursault can also find himself oppressed by his senses at times. Too much wine, bright sunlight, and heat in particular can prove difficult.
Meursault's neighbor Salamano beat and cursed his scabby old dog for years, but when the dog disappeared, Salamano was concerned of his whereabouts, and he wept. Meursault did not beat or curse his mother, and further acknowledged that he did love her, but when she died, Meursault didn't want to view her body, nor did he grieve. People called Salamano's relationship with his dog pitiful, but he is to be exonerated for his grief. Meursault had no judgement or feeling on the matter; he merely observed the sights and sounds of the situation. Meursault also had no particular judgement or feeling on his mother's death; he merely observed the sensory input of the vigil, procession, and funeral Mass.
I can turn and walk away
or I can fire the gun
staring at the sky
staring at the sun
whichever I chose
it amounts to the same
absolutely nothing
I'm alive...I'm dead
Part II: what a strange world
But that abstraction known as the French People convicted Meursault for the lack of grief over his mother's death, even though his crime was killing an Arab man on the beach.
From right after the killing, there was no doubt of Meursault's guilt; he confessed; his attorney plead guilty. Yet the resulting investigation and court trial were an object lesson in theater of the absurd, and Meursault observed that, "In a way, they seemed to be arguing the case as if it had nothing to do with me." Nor did the proceedings seem to have anything to do with the man whom he had shot.
Meursault is put on trial for all manner of things. Drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette during his mother's vigil. Not crying during her funeral. Premarital sex. Being intelligent. Not having a soul, which somehow the prosecutor contends also implicates him in another murder case going on at the same time...an odious patricide. Everything but the dead man on the beach. Ultimately he's tried and condemned for not attaching the same interpretations, significance, meaning, and emotions to things as others do. Sentence: his head.
I feel the steel butt jump
smooth in my hand
staring at the sea
staring at the sand
staring at myself
reflected in the eyes
of the dead man on the beach
(the dead man on the beach)
I'm alive...I'm dead
Redux
In The Stranger, Camus explored what he called the nakedness of man when faced with the absurd. If you find philosophical absurdism (or its cousins existentialism and nihilism) lacking, don't fret. One can still learn from Meursault even if his radical simplicity is a path far more than one could ever be capable of taking.
We need to learn that things are as they are, which is not always the same as the interpretation, significance, meaning, or emotions attached to them. Perhaps too, we'll need to accept the injustice of men for our non-attachment. Nonessentials are frequently decreed as essentials in religion, science, culture, society, and relationships. We're constantly being required to offer a pinch of incense at the altar of the accepted meaning of these things, and these are jealous gods.
Wørd IV: metaliteral
0. a neoglism
1. beyond literal: the meaning is something beyond but yet accessed through the literal meaning of the word or symbol.
2. metaphorical+literal
metaphorical: adj.
1. expressing one thing in terms normally denoting another
literal: adj.
1. being in accordance with, conforming to, or upholding the exact or primary meaning of a word or words.
2. word for word; verbatim: a literal translation.
bicycle, bicycle
Twin Cities Streets for People: envisioning a more sustainable and people-oriented mobility and transportation framework for our region.
Remember that 4 cyclists were killed last year in MSP due to the unmindfulness of motorists.
Yet those at Mpls City Hall have allowed the traffic engineers to eliminate the the Marquette/2nd Avenue bike corridor.
Ride Boldly! Bikes, bicycling, and road safety.
Minneapolis Bike Love: forums and discussion for Twin Cities bicyclists.
Theo Wirth Park Off-Road Cycling Pilot Project: the most fun you'll have trying to stay on your bike and not getting impaled on a tree. Mpls Parks. MOCA.
Midtown Greenway is a handy crosstown corridor. Plusses are minimal contact with motorists. Minuses are getting mugged at gun point.
Minnesota Off-road Cyclists is a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to safeguarding the future of mountain biking in Minnesota through the promotion of responsible riding, establishment and maintenance of mountain biking trails, and preservation of Minnesota's natural resources.
Mountain Bike Trails in Minneapolis-St. Paul
Urban Assault Bike Ride: the pedal powered urban adventure
The brown shirts at Critical Mass don't deserve a link.
PS: the Alt, these guys will hook you up.
Wørd: Leave a message after the beep. Beep, beep, BEEP!
So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.
—Genesis 2:19-20
First came things, then came man’s names for things.
Recent redux:
He realized that the names of things are not what they are. There is what there is, without being called 'this thing' or 'that thing'. There is no 'Thing'.
—anonymous
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
—William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
What matters is what something is, not what it is called.
Dr. Pulaski: Datta, look at this.
Lt. Data: Dayta
Dr. Pulaski: What
Lt. Data: My name. It's pronounced Dayta.
Pulaski: Oh, what's the difference?
Lt. Data: One is my name, and the other is not.
—ST:TNG #201 "The Child"
...or, sometimes what a thing is called is what it is.
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.
—wikipedia
File under: the map is not the territory.
twofer
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A Cup of Tea
Nanin, a Japanese master during the Meiji Era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nanin served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nanin said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" |
The Stone Mind
Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves. While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: "There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?" One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind." "Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind." |