SI COMPREHENDIS...NON EST DEUS

For if you comprehend, He is not God. Be there a pious confession of ignorance, rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To reach to God in any measure by the mind, is a great blessedness, but to comprehend Him is altogether impossible. — Augustine, Sermo LXVII

That is why the Zen Masters say: "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." Here we must be very circumspect. The "Holy Object" must be destroyed in so far as it is an idol embodying the secret desires, aspirations and powers of the ego-self. — Thomas Merton

Varia: IV

What does that have to do with the price of rice in China?

Wørd I: transgress

§: the revolution would not lie

Transgress means to violate or to go beyond a boundary or limit, and transgression...breaking down old boundaries...is the current fashion in leading cultural, artistic, and political expressions. It is a violation that is applauded...if the correct boundaries are transgressed. Otherwise there is a built in double standard...if the incorrect boundaries are transgressed.

transgress the paleo-orthodoxy = courage
transgress the neo-orthodoxy = hate

so this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause

Wørd: anthropology: n. the study of man

In the anthropology program in college we studied Boaz, Benedict, Mead, Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, Radcliffe-Brown, Durkheim, Mauss, Evans-Pritchard, and Leakey. We framed thought through structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxism, multiculturalism, etc. Ironically though, the question that was never asked there was who and what was this “man” we were studying.

Perhaps such a question is best delved into in a philosophy of anthropology forum, yet it is such an elemental, basic question, and it was a question that was totally avoided. So it seems that the unacknowledged bias/lens through which this whole field of study is processed is totalistic materialism.

with no purpose
no design
with no purpose
no design
with no purpose
no design

Uh, no. Still, my interest lies in understanding the origin, nature, and destiny of human beings…holistic anthropology. Time to unlearn…time to understand the focus of the lens.

Anger: Fireworks

In Fireworks I released all the explosive pyrotechnics of a dream. Inflammable desires dampened by day under the cold water of consciousness are ignited that night by the libertarian matches of sleep and burst forth in showers of shimmering incandescence. These imaginary displays provide a temporary release. — the anger

Prologue:

antipieta of sailor and the anger in storm

Act I: Preparation for the Dream

the anger comes awake to prepare for his dream

broken idol hand

idol of desire revealed

photos of antipieta scattered on floor

the anger begins vesting…casts photos…continues vesting…parallel life sized idol

the anger casts off empty institution and authority

door marked GENTS

Act II: Enter the Dream

the anger awakes into his dream…darkened…in storm

sailor…beauty…desire

the anger produces cigarette…fumophobic aggression

roaring fireplace…sailor produces bundle of sticks…alights from fire…proceeds to light the anger’s fag…with flaming bundle of sticks

sailor tosses sticks into fire…leaves the anger to smoke

storm

the anger alone with his forbidden pleasure…advanced upon by gang of menacing, fumophobic sailors

sailor…institution…authority

repression…violence

milk smashed…desire unleashed aggression

the anger eviscerated…pressure gauge

milk poured…desire unleashed enjoyed

the anger is left on floor…capped…conquered or conquering?

Act III: Return from the Dream

GENTS door opened from bedroom…from the fly of sailor…sparks of one tradition fly

another tradition held aloft…ignites…moves toward babe lord of the dance

tradition hurled into fireplace with burning photos

Epilogue:

the anger asleep…repaired idol hand…falls

Wørd

Wørd is a series to explore semantics, hermeneutics, and memetics.

because social, cultural, and political discourse is a train-wreck...a train-wreck that is gaining momentum rather than slowing down.

because dialogue entails 'two words', not just one.

because a meaningful dialogue can only take place when its participants speak the same language.

because speaking the same language entails

• having a common and contextual understanding of what words mean
• having a good faith interpretation of others
• having the ability to disentangle narratives

PST: BS: III

The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness.

Feeds Performance
William Burroughs' cut-ups
Old Man of the Mountain: Hassan ibn Sabbah: Alamut: Paradise: Persia: Hashish: Hashshashin: Assassin: Marco Polo
Mick Jagger: Blues: Rock
Anthology: Jorge Luis Borges

Eats Performance
Coil: Love's Secret Domain: Further Back and Faster
Big Audio Dynamite: This Is Big Audio Dynamite: E=mc2
I like that, turn it up...It was Mad Cyril...We have been courteous...I need a bohemian atmosphere

Performance tastes like
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
You must merge gentlemen.
What's been puzzling you is the nature of my game.

‘Merger’ is heard repeatedly in the dialogue, and Mick Brown points to Borges’s theory that “every man is two men,” realized at the end upon the fusion of Chas (the personification of violence) and Turner (pacifism). In the first half of the picture, gangsters (seen reading Borges on their coffee break!), businessmen and lawyers are so utterly lost in their oppressive performance that single-mindedness has left them homosexual. In the second half, Cammell examines what he called “the interchangeability of gender,” via Chas’s overbearing manliness, Pherber’s domineering femininity, and Turner and Lucy’s androgyny, narcissistic characters approaching the liberation of the female-man and the male-woman, a ‘complete’ individual. — Ray Young

Varia: 2_12

Adventures in Success…the NLP Way

...the 1st adventure…
It were pretense sir…and the hysteria that resulted was very real…Mary Warren, you little minx.
Yeah sure, it turned out poorly for Salem, but it needn’t. Better living through pretense…not pretentiousness.

…the 2nd adventure…
Societies of Creative Anachronism…who’s to say that I’m not the king and that I shouldn’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at me…even if she didn’t…
…yet anachronisms can be a bit retrogressive, and time isn’t the only limitation to creatively transcend.

…the 3rd adventure…
You've always had the power to go back...
...close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself. There's no place like Oz. There's no place like Oz.

Mmmmm…garbage wigs

…not in focus? Then you’re not using the right lens.

Varia: II

eat this fruit mind your step __________ sin | dios __________ people are people so are people so people people so people are so people are people

Have you ever seen fire in zero gravity...it's beautiful...it's like liquid...it slides all over everything...comes up in waves.

PST: BS: II

Varia: I

xyz = 1

The Genealogy of Morals…or…Nietzsche, Still Dead. How about the Genealogy of:

relativism
reconstructionism
nihilism
death culture

Do you need rooting powder to propagate a meme?

René Girard’s anthropology…by Allison & Wiki…the jury is still out…also, the three modalities in Thomistic anthropology.

the body reveals the person
out of harmony
out of our minds
out of control

elastic love in NoWay Valley

Springmatic

PST: Nathan Fake: I

scared weird little guys
who don't know why
they do what they have to do

darkened two way mirror mind
Garden of Maya exalt Eve
caring sells

Who are you?

It is human to receive an impression of something, but it is doubtful if anybody ever received a post-impression of anything. —Chesterton

An impressionist painting is a composed of a multitude of colored dots and smears (the metaphorical trees), and when the viewer takes a step back he’s able to see the impression, whether portrait or landscape (the metaphorical forest).

It’s all very beam me up Scotty

First comes the internal impression, then the constituent parts that compose the impression are organized, and then the external impression is conveyed.

Have you seen the hideous results when the transporter malfunctions?

But is it art? No, it’s not just art; it’s all communication

Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole

Who are you?

Some of your parts
The sum of your parts
Something beyond the sum of your parts

PST series Bumper Stinkers…a.k.a…BS

Bumper stickers…buttons too…are insidious. They are iconic and viral bites of political and cultural manipulation. As forms of speech, they are free, but not freeing. Their messages frame debate in rigid and narrow ways…that stunted debate in turn sets the mind in rigid and narrow ways, and keeps public discourse in bondage.

The BS series is intended to point out the absurdity of stunted speech and thought, especially by inverting it…to document examples……to show how thought is framed…to question the internal authority of the statements…to have fun.

PST:BS: I

“=” is a bold declarative statement, but what…exactly…is being boldly declared here? This work aims to encourage people to be critical of the implications and inferences of the original HRC bumper sticker. What are the differences in meaning between equality, equal, equivalent…sameness? What is being declared as “the same as”…innate humanity, subjective identities, objective behaviors…being versus doing? The ontological and anthropological debate gets framed inversely, and a questioning of the results of that is then framed as a shutting down thought and expression instead of the opening up that it is. Is there a correct answer to "="? Is that answer a dogma? How are dissenters to this dogma misunderstood, marginalized, and demonized? In a larger Dadaist exposition, any combination of mathematical operators and/or punctuation marks will do…more or less…

But is it Art: III

Premodern art portrayed objects and subjects. Early modern art began the process of deconstructing and abstracting so as to portray the essences of objects and subjects. Later modern and postmodern art then portrayed interpretations of objects and subjects as well as to construct narratives. The meaning became separated from the portrayed form at times to such an extent that an explanation of the work became integral to an exposition of the work.

Enter Transmodern Art

Since it appears that content and form are separable and not dependent on one another, then why have form at all? Let's call it transmodernism, and is it the new direction, or is this merely life imitating artist (simulated reality becoming reality)? Is choosing necessary?

By Way of Introduction

PST, inspired by Mel Gibson and the Pants, is born from the break up of The Three Cocqs on this day...last Friday actually. PST is intended to be a band in the sense that it will produce lyrics, but unlike a traditional band, it will be unlikely to produce music or to perform. It is also envisioned that PST will employ multimedia, where necessary, as an integral rather than supplementary part of its output...essentially a multi modal vehicle.

transcend conditioned limitations
memetic examination
transgress the vogue transgressions
counter revolve…or…re-evolve
frame/unframe : focus/unfocus : filter/unfilter : mask/unmask
mjollnir...the indigo tool

It Begs the Question: I

It Begs the Question: I

Who are you? What do you want? These are fundamental and unwittingly binary questions…light & dark, yin & yang, ping & pong. My thanks to the Vorlons & Shadows.

Frame It Up

What do you want? Do you determine first what your desires are, and then shape your identity accordingly?

Who are you? Do you determine first what your identity is, and then shape your desires accordingly?

Which question you ask will determine your life paradigm, will frame your mindset, and will map your fate.

PST: I

direct potential
fun delusion
hypnotic operator
dressing up

Ivy Tower

Enjoy the silence...

Cremaster 2

cre·mas·ter

1. n: a thin muscle that serves to raise and lower the testicles in response to temperature and other stimuli.
2. n: a hook-shaped protuberance from the rear of the chrysalis casing, by which the caterpillar fixes itself to the pad of silk it has cemented to the underside of a perch.
3. n: a film cycle created and executed by Matthew Barney that has been described as self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five feature-length films that explore processes of creation. The cycle unfolds not just cinematically, but also through the photographs, drawings, sculptures, and installations the artist produced in conjunction with each episode.

Based on the original meanings of the word cremaster, processes surrounding sexual generation, metamorphosis, and continual differentiation are central to the series concept. In this 2nd in a series of 5:

The episode focuses on Gary Gilmore, his girlfriend Nicole, his parents' meeting with a fortune teller, his final homicide at a gas station, and his execution symbolized by a rodeo on the Bonneville Salt Flats. A phone call is made to Gary by the lead singer of Morbid Angel in a studio with Slayer drummer, Dave Lombardo, playing to the drone of bees, a scene said to refer to Gilmore's last phone call from Johnny Cash. The film also connects Gilmore to Harry Houdini (played by Norman Mailer, writer of Gilmore's story The Executioner's Song) and his meeting with Baby Faye Lafoe (represented as Gilmore's grandmother and supposed spiritual medium).

No way, that was not Johnny Cash...never has a film been so inaccessible. If it hadn’t been for the Walker film curator who set up the film, the experience would have been completely unintelligible. Within the framework of Barney’s narrative, the various visual metaphors take shape. It’s really only these metaphors...and the cinematography...that I can speak to.

the metaphor of the metamorphose

I’ll limit my self to recounting bees and execution. Bees, beeswax, and hexagons are everywhere, as well as conceptually, masters and drones. This symbolism points to biologic as well as social differentiation. Execution also deals with such differentiations. Gilmore’s execution...in actuality by firing squad...is depicted as a rodeo bull ride. The sequence was brilliant.

The bull funneled through the chutes was very evocative of guiding the condemned to their execution...
...reminded me of Selma’s execution played by Barney’s wife Björk in Dancer in the Dark.

Barney/Gilmore in a prison stripes rodeo/prison jumpsuit bound to his bull...
...Björk/Selma hooded and strapped to the board at the gallows.

Released from the gate...lurched out of the chute...slowly succumbing to weight and to death...
...released from the gate...lurched through the trap door...immediately succumbing to weight and to death.

Gilmore metamorphosed...
...brown paper packages tied up with strings; these are a few of my favorite things.

panning this film

Clever or not, I’m not sure whether it is I who’s panning this film. Ultimately, it was simply too obtuse, which apparently a saying a lot for me, but it has proven fodder for discussion ever since. It is Barney himself who pans...in, out, over...all so slowly. Whether, this technique was supposed to have had any significance to the story telling is uncertain, but it became intrusive. Otherwise, there is a simultaneous quality of lucidity and dream. Hard focus of surreal sequences and soft lighting of the immovably real.