This is Not a Dream, It's an Outburst

Picture from www.auldedinburgh.co.uk

What tired string do we dangle from which prevents us from getting angry; requires us not to complain; makes it a weakness to be unsatisfied with all the shit that’s going down around us?
Unsatisfied with customer service; management and managers; lawyers and accountants; politicians and megalomaniac businessmen.
Why shouldn’t things be better?
To say things could be worse is to will that worse upon us.
Why should it be too late to change ourselves; to change the way we live within our families; to change the way we deal with authority; the way we create authority?
To say that it is too late is to surrender the very thing that keeps us stumbling on; wounded and jaded.

Hope.

We hope our way through life anyway… hope I get that game for Christmas; hope I pass my exams; I hope I see her again… you get the picture.
We can make things better.
By better I don’t mean more: more money more technology more horsepower; more bathrooms more bedrooms more sugar more pleasure more thrills and excitement more fast food faster bigger bigger more more…
I mean better.

Don’t believe the message ingrained in every advert; every political soundbite; we can make things better.
Better equipped to deal with life; better equipped to deal with those who would exploit; not to live in fear of losing everything; not having to swallow the crap handed down by people with no skills other than the vertical climb into positions of control where no control is required.
Not to do better is to lose everything; to lose ourselves, that which makes us human in a very positive way: our sense of self.
That self that we are so afraid of exposing to the light, that unique collection of hurts and joys; words and gestures – that educated being.
Better education. Yes. Continue with the science stuff; the maths; the languages. But. How about adding lessons on constructive thought at school level, elements of philosophy; questioning and how to reason your way through argument. Doesn’t have to be at school – do it at home, take the time, work less.
Better education means less mass control, more self control.
Better educated to understand ourselves; our motivations; our place in the world.
Better able to appreciate what we have inside and what we can get from the world without taking.

We labour under a yoke which disguises itself as progress; with achievement. The yoke is painted in widescreen surroundsound splendour; telling us we never had it so good; progress and democracy will make it all right.
Where is progress in Africa? Where is democracy in the US and Europe?
When will the images of skeletal children with dead eyes and open hands cease to be associated with our charity?
When will the bullet-holed cars and blood spattered walls; floors littered with childrens’ shoes be faced up to as crime?
When will the war on terror; the war on drugs; be exposed as lies?
When will non-consential global pharmaceutical experimentation be outlawed?
When will corporate politics be exposed as gangsterism?
When will the stolen property be returned?
If we pull on the string from which we hang, will it pull back?

The yoke of achievement, the house and shiney car need not disappear altogether, but greater achievements may be found in working in that house to make it good and warm; a nest. Or in creating some thing for yourself.
Even if you do believe in a god then surely the act of creating something is the highest tribute to that which you believe created everything.
The act of creating is not some occult or specialised talent. The act of creating begins when we create in our children the will to say their first word.
Create a nest for yourself.
Create an arrangement of furniture in a manner that pleases you; that makes your environment just that little bit more pleasing.
Create a conversation that talks directly to another person on a level deeper that the weather or facts and figures.
Wake up!

Pull on the string.

Dreamechanismo

Brion Gysin's Dreamachine

Fractal patterned sunlight through leaves and blinds, reads red on the inside of your eyelids like code for a morning wasted.
Warmth cocooned in silence hum until music rises to bloom in the room and lift your heart above the parapet of morning melancholy.
And down the hill through ill-named streets the town goes about its business regardless – the traffic roars to what destination? To what end?
Petrol fumes and fuels the frenetic tempo of commerce; retail ragtime; runs shop floor assistants ragged on varicose veins while dancing middle managers feel the fear of discovery breathing rhythmic cold shivers down the backs of their necks.
And pumping the heart drum beat; restless lunchtime shoppers on the hop for replacement ink cartridges and synthetic sandwiches washed down on the run with effervescent coloured water or korporate koffee to up-tempo that beat and elevate blood pressure.
Or for the more driven: a stolen gym half-hour spent walking on the spot; Sisyphean endeavours to keep head above water.
On the edge of the land the surf roars in wintertime solitude; mist from wave crests paint concrete promenade cracking where grey headed time keepers spend spare change hours marking time before inevitable demise.
And out beyond the last roller; where the heart flat-lines on the horizon’s cold rim; the edge of the world loiters for no one to see.
Dragons and sea-serpents wait in vain anticipation for those travellers who no longer dare to venture forth beyond cushioned comfort zone.
The earth is flat you see.
Or so proclaims the cabin boy; last one standing on the dead galleon that drifts crewless and clueless to the demise of its captain whose empire is now nought but a layer between ice age and adage; fossilised folly; carbon dated catastrophe for carbon based dynasty – his Marie Celeste dinner waits deliciously cooling for his ghost to complete the duties that compound and proliferate in dust and in cobwebs.
Cobwebs constructed by ancient time travellers and dream reapers to harvest the energy expended by stars falling between Eurydice and your eyes.
And your eyelids flutter at the approaching sun’s presence, bringing life to the room where you doze in a reality whose waters lap quietly at the edges of your awareness.
The bathroom tap drips in the silence of a house so recently vacated by music.

The Poison that in Measures Brings Illumination*

Part 1 - The Movie



I took the advice of RC over at Strange Culture and watched Everything is Illuminated.

WARNING: Little 'spoilers' follow

Directed by Liev Schreiber
Starring Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin, Laryssa Lauret

It seems that the Americans are finally ‘getting’ European movies.
Here’s what I liked about it:

• Elijah Wood doing a Johnny Depp stranger in a strange land thing.
  (Those fish-tank-lensed-glasses must have given him a few headaches)
• Subtitles; Ukrainians speaking their own language – giving us an excellent view on what was being lost in translation.
• Poetic imagery used in the execution scene – Yellow Star of David cut to view down gun barrel cut to close up of eye cut to clap of thunder.
• Scenery; The surreal field of sunflowers with the house at the centre; sheets drying on numerous washing lines.
• Wry humour: there’s a scene where they pass a rundown Soviet era building and Wood asks “What happened to it?” Hutz answers “Independence”
• Soundtrack - Score by Paul Cantelon; plus Russian and Ukrainian Gypsy folksongs from Leningrad, Arkadie Severmie, Csokolom and Tin Hat Trio; and gypsy punk from NYC's Gogol Bordello.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

• That schmaltzy ending. After steadfastly refusing to explain too much throughout the journey they cop out in the end and ruin all that story telling credibility.
  Sure, the grandfather's bitterness is explained by his having to deny his faith; but to then go on to have all the family's problems solved by this revelation and have them instantly converted back to Judaism is plain sentimentalism of 'Fiddler on the Roof' proportions.

That aside it is a movie well worth watching.



*The title of this post paraphases the line "It's the poison that in measures brings illuminating visions" from REM's 'Chorus and the Ring' on their beautiful album Reveal

Serotonin Ghost Dance

Wovoka

You may walk in the crowds in the city rush-hour and not see a soul.
You may as well be a ghost among ghosts.
You may stand on the top of the hill; alone in the night with the stars and the moon and be connected with everybody in the small town below.
Your trance will let you hear the sighs and the laughter of the nights passing lost in the haze of distance echo, your head full of cosmic dust.
You may look at your children and see yourself in them; you may wonder why they are not like you.
You may stand on the ledge in your Frankenstein body and hear nothing but your own voice across the chasm.
Your vertical descent may be conducted in rage and anger or yelling elation at the anticipation of answers.
Conform if you will; if you must. I don’t care if you don’t and don’t blame me if you do.
All I know is that from everyone I meet there shines a little something.
Connections are established beyond the weather; beyond your common ground.
Beyond:
- Postures and evasions
- Class systems and ego-fed self importance
- self consciousness and low self-esteem
- education
- your place in the hierarchy
- gold teeth or new age dream
- skin colour and ethnic origins
- the colour of your eyes
- the colour of your money
- your cellulite thighs
- what you believe in
- what I profess not to believe in
- the way that you dress
- your beauty
- my ugliness.
It all just gets in the way.
Do the lines around your mouth run inward retaining or outward entertaining?
Is the star between your eyes from concentration or concern?
Is that glimmer in your eye starlight or the oncoming train?
Is your quiet reflection sunk in sadness or nostalgic imagining?
Do you know where you’re at; are you at where you want to be?
Are you in or are you out, shaken all about?
Do you sleep fitfully in fear of the impending disaster?
Do you sleep through it all in blissful denial?
Are the voices in your head saying something new, or just telling you what you want to hear?
Do they laugh at your ignorance or wallow in its marshmallow familiarity?
The womb you create for yourself should be warm enough not to be distracted by environmental concerns but not so hot as to belay the need for consideration; for excess warmth brings sleep.
And when you sleep you are but a ghost in the crowd.

Don't Piss Down My Back and Tell Me It's Raining

(An Obscure Ode to Mr Potato Head)

He engineered his future with precise lack of care
for the Testosterone glut that caused the loss of his hair
He speaks at great length of his limitless knowledge
Stuff that he learned while drinking at college
Of pissing in the pool and dreaming of girls
Who averted their eyes while fondling his curls
He could drink any rag-head under the table
But do not suggest his thinking’s unstable
He argues that the world is meant for the white man
But does not question why his wife uses fake tan
He’ll leave the discussion with his bull neck bristling
When dissention is cast there is no way he's listening
to views that oppose his preconceived vision
You might have noted the scar where he made the incision
And removed the all bits where the tenderness breeds
And replaced them with ignorance and bitterness seeds.
Now his curls have all gone and he’s left with his hunger
Prejudice and bigotry are dragging him under
As he runs ever faster up the down escalator
His head casting shadow - an oversized vibrator

View From The Treetops (20 June '06)

30 Years Ago

30 years ago students in Soweto protested being forced to learn Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor – with fatal results.
30 years ago I was a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Durban ignorant of the events that were going on in my own country; ignorant of the lives being lost, Ignorant of what had gone before.
I was not to hear the name Nelson Mandela or the stories about Sophiatown, Sharpeville and Soweto until six or seven years later.
Ignorance is no excuse.

---------------------------------------------

Pattern Recognition

Illustration from Context Weblog

Propaganda + Science Fiction = Thought Control?

---------------------------------------------

More shouting in The Vacuum

Qadura Camp

Far off I hear the sound of John Pilger trying to be heard on Palestine.

---------------------------------------------

The Jacket



It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie this good.

Screenplay by Massy Tadjedin
Directed by John Maybury
Stars: Adrien Brody; Keira Knightley; Kris Kristofferson; Jennifer Jason Leigh
Score by Brian Eno
Filmed in Canada & Scotland

Shouting in the Void

Mysteries of the Organism

You may shout in the vacuum of space and hear no echo; fear no reprisal for your words; expect no criticism at all. The universe has no room for an ego.

I heard a report early on in the invasion of Iraq about how during attacks the boys in the armoured tanks played heavy metal through the vehicle’s computer (no doubt running on some military grade version of Windows), jacked into the killing machine; cyberkids in a science fiction war complete with soundtrack of your choice.

The moon’s gravitational pull, relatively weak as it is, may interfere with synaptic communication; planets and constellations may align to foretell your future; comets may roar parabolic or shatter on the face of Jupiter
But it will all take place in absolute silence; a mute drama on the grandest of scales; a silent movie without accompanying pianist.

They tell me that space is not a true vacuum, for a true vacuum contains absolutely no matter. I presume that if a vacuum contains no matter then it contains no light; that this is what a black hole is - an absolute vacuum? Perhaps my understanding is faulty, never mind, because space contains nothing that truly matters; nothing that can be contained within the black whole of the mind.
Theories and calculations may determine the velocity of our celestial path to oblivion, in ten billion years (or tomorrow morning). The probabilities may add up to zero, but it does not matter, we are not in control of the forces of the universe.
Their silence is testament to that.

We have enough to concern ourselves with from within our atmosphere; within our babbling little bubble.

Wind and rain; volcanos; earthquakes; tsunami; floods and drought; political idiocy; the American empire; the continual rape of Africa; the looming Chinese market; corporate war the end of oil. It’s enough to keep you up at night.
It seems that we are powerless and alone; there is little we can do - not everybody is able to hit the streets in protest or raise their voice loud enough to be heard - few of us would know where to start or what to say; most of us are just getting by; keeping our heads above water - many of us do not have the luxury of dissent.
Perhaps we who do should concentrate on what goes on around us; take back control of our personal space; the only thing we can call our own.

We have focussed too long on that pension plan; the housing market; Wall Street - those economic projections by financial astrologers; that old hard sell that levels its wolf-eye at your fear; emotional blackmail with insurance papers signed in the blood of your children's future; governments of lawyers and accountants with tax break bribes, empty heads and emptier hearts; billionaire faith healers with 0800 smiles; engineering futurists planning our evacuation to Mars or somewhere similar; managers; managers and more managers; customer service managers; public relations managers; health and safety conmen; spin doctors; sports philosophers and prozac evangelists; extremist pacifists and little boy soldiers with playstation reflexes.

Time to take back space – the space around your own heart and in your own head that knows that modern life is a big lie.
Time to stop listening to people who talk about the weather and wish they had a bigger car, a bigger house, bigger lips, breasts or penis.
Time to stop appeasing our conscience with band aid charity and middle class awareness.
Time for independant thought.
Time for thought.
Time to question what you're told; question the hand-me-down facts quoted by the spineless media.
Time to be angry.
Time to be sad.
Time to downsize your world.
Time to upsize your expectations.
Time for hope.

Time to realise that you can change the world – say something that doesn't agree with conventional wisdom or religious dogma; say something you haven't heard elsewhere; say what's in you heart; that which does not require statistical analysis to know it is right.
Time to stop being afraid of the wolf at the door.
Time to activate your viral self.
Even if you infect just one person with that something a little different; that bit of you that is not like anybody else.
That spark.
Language is a virus from outer space
Change is a cure from inner space.

Space Dust

So here is the map of your life’s lonely progress
written in square dreams of one syllable or less
painted with hope and the available options
punctuated daily with bland indoctrinations
of milestones and millstones and mild mediocrity
of labyrinths and labour and corporate calamity
“What will you be, when you finally grow up?”
“A corpse, dear teacher, if I remember to show up”
Cynicism reeks of defeat and despair
The box that you rupture seems wholly unfair
Time wasted running the maze of your striving
To live up to standards without ever arriving
at the moment you sit in the warm rays of sunset
and savour the moment that was yours from the outset
Through ratholes and mazes, over hurdles and fences
Up snakes and down ladders through dark mirrored lenses
In the eyes of your children and the cries of affection
Through the pages of books and the words of direction
that echo “turn right” as you head for the ditch
that paint you with labels: lazy son-of-a-bitch
that attempt to define your place on the board
from the moment they cut the umbilical cord.

So drench me in the rain of a new green dream
Short-circuit the graphics on the gunrunner screen
With Fern sprig sprockets photosynthetic timepiece
Let me run through the fields of Jungian release
Dressed in my armour of fragile dream glass
Intricately sculpted in the shape of an ass
And I’ll rise on the wings of self-satisfied outrage
Knowing that the words I’ve etched on this fake page
Will transform more quickly via electronic rust
Into telepathic waste more worthless than dust
To be held in the mind of one or two travellers
Stardust indeed for non-conformist revellers.

Chlorophyll Dreams

CHLOROPHYLL by Sven Geier

The trees will tell you that there are many ways to harvest light. Light is, after all, their field of expertise. They do not discriminate when it comes to method; they try everything; they work around obstacles; work through problems of access.
Some make a summer headlong dash; hundreds of branches heading straight for the sun with a crown made up of thousands of little leaves, the energy they expend requires them to sleep through the winter.
Others are more laid back; sending out five or six thick branches and dressing the ends with long blade leaves that harvest even the winter light.
Still others writhe in psychotic meandering; years of knotting and counter-knitting huge air compositions of bark, branch and leaf.

It’s a strong argument for evolution.

Yet as humans we develop homogenised minds; self centred self control, dogmatic and unwilling to learn. We head for the light of our own creation; moths with propaganda dust wings drawn to neon pornography.
We suck our nutrition from Petri dish preservatives and sterile milk.
We feed nightly on cathode ray tube; LCD or plasma ray trash, created by minds too lazy to challenge, digested by minds long sedated.
We travel on gym-strengthened legs between front door and 4WD wastage, throbbing ecological disasters on wheels; inefficient sculptures of pure egotism.

It's a recipe for extinction.

So before you take chainsaw to rare forest furniture or wonder why trees lift the concrete and tarmac at our foundations in slow-time chlorophyll subversion, cast a thought branch toward photosynthesis; for are not all things visible by the interaction of light on chemical?

Weather Vein

Beautiful Icelandic music on the stereo and a head full of steam. It comes from the north; off the sea; in waves of pale beauty; lashing the trees with wet surrender.
Rain
Wind
They unsettle the human heart in a fundamental way. They remind us of our frail hold on the control we presume to have over our environment. They tear branches from the waiting trees; disrupt our power supplies; whip round the corners of tall buildings and lift us bodily umbrella and all. And that is just the mild version.
I watch from my window as the weather stings the faces of the cowering houses and rips at the raincoat of fidgeting trees; shaking them around.
I remember that it’s best to be a reed, to bend rather than break.
I hold no political preference; wind or rain or sun beat harsh on a Biblical reference that contradicts the actions of those who claim allegiance to that particular set of beliefs.

Those who stand like pillars of steel; proclaimers of progress; unbending in their self belief; those who crusade for what they believe in. Those who know they are right; who earnestly want you to see their point of view; and those who are willing to enforce their point of view.

Those who blow in the breeze, attention distracted by magicians tricks; by neon lights and fireworks. Those who pledge allegiance without question. Those who have too much to lose; who live in fear of what they see around them.

And those who bend at the violence of authority; ever lower and stripped of all branches save the will to survive; to protect their loved ones from the greed and the hunger.

The wind is the messenger. The rain is the message.
Bend, perhaps in so doing you will not break.
Soak yourself in knowledge that goes beyond science or religion.
Put roots down deeper than the green surface of facts and figures.
My time is limited to that which I can grasp.
Do what you will; but be aware of the following: if you don’t want trouble then don’t be trouble. Find neither personal gain nor pleasure nor enjoyment at the expense of others.

And the oaks will cry chaos as the branches break at their fingertips; and the reeds will bend low in saturated fields of lessons learned.

But don’t take my word for it. I don’t care if you do, for to do so would make me into a zealot; a preacher or politician. These words are for my own digestion; thin leaflets on my mind’s bookshelf.
Take them if you want. Laugh at them or scoff at my naïve or pretentious worldview if you like.
I don’t care.

The rain has stopped now and the wind is taking a breather.
I leave my wet shoes and raincoat at the door; mindful of the carpet that develops stains at the slightest excuse.

Babylon Keyboard: Requiem Masturbation

Johnny - Jhonen Vasquez

This Babylon box of ethical tricks
This piglet’s house of digital sticks
Where nobody needs to look you in the eye
And the jokers cavort with linguistic cream pie

And the effort required to maintain egolibrium
Drains all the life, all the oil and Uranium
From the little black box at the foot of the bed
Where you stash all the stories from the top of your head

Laughter rebounds in the halls of the Far Queue
The lobotomised madman continues to review
His reasons for scribbling half-witted and untrue
Seven fifths of a moral and misguided haiku

Turning Point

Morpheus - Zdzislaw Beksinski

John wondered why people allow themselves to be dictated to; to have their lives planned for them by others – parents; teachers; employers and governments.
The enforcement of power with the use of violence is certainly a contributing factor to population control, but what defines the minimum requirement for people not to revolt? What line has to be crossed in order that the rumbling discontentment becomes full-blown uprising?
John wondered what part of him could not accept this, in many ways, idyllic life; wondered what events in his past life had formed this hard little core of discontentment that would not allow him to take the intentions of others on face value.
He wondered what inability to accept authority had driven his former life, since it was now obvious that this island existed was somewhere beyond death; some waiting room perhaps; some random arrangement of possibilities; some trinket on god’s charm bracelet; or just another place for people to exhibit their faults and prejudices?
He thought about how the others handled the situation; realising that perhaps many of them had similar problems. Shangaan certainly seemed to have an awareness that what went before was important; even Morose was suppressing his desire to be elsewhere, placating it with the spoils of his elevated position within the hierarchy and with delusions of his own importance.
He watched as they toiled at the nets, the gulls circling frenetic. People absorbed in their duties; he almost wished that he too could be that comfortable with his lot.
He realised that it is unreasonable to expect people to live up to his personal expectations, and that if he wanted things to change he was going to have to do it himself - he was going to have to go to the top.

Exerpt from 'Markov Chain'

Hold On...

By Meyrick Jones in Private Eye No.1155

Soup Revision

They rose before my Far Queue stare from filigree cloud on the thick surface hot from the pot - two inward facing profiles of serene contemplation. Turning with porcelain smiles to contemplate me and my raised spoon poised between bowl rim and pursed lip, they uttered a muse-trigger hardwired to my head - beyond image and word - that sent my mind down layered fields of circuit printed labyrinth. And would that they should sup from my fare with mouths articulated like ventriloquist dummies yet did they utter not a word. For it is with the words that we do create ourselves in images colourful and amazing for those around us to step into the light of our awareness and into the light of whose awareness we too might step. Labyrinths constructed from words do entangle. Turning left over left deft and deeper until images of beauty from thought alone constructed did expel the breath held so long in lungs forgotten, all for the purpose of cooling my homemade onion soup.

View From The Treetops (2 June '06)

Brian Haw

This man has been protesting US/British actions on Iraq non-stop since 2001
He has been beaten, harassed by police, charged with ‘crimes’ made statute specifically for him (commonly known as Haw's Law) - he is a thorn in Tony BLiar’s side.
The man is a war hero.

Read Michael Dickenson's update on this story.

------------------------------------------------------

Timor

Australian peacekeeping force deployed in Timor after violent unrest after Prime Minister sacks soldiers?

For another layer of the events read Maryann Keady's report.

-----------------------------------------------------

Ahmadinejad's Second Letter

Why aren't the major networks reporting this? Oh hang on... what am I saying?

CORRECTION: THIS WAS REPORTED, JUST NOT VERY LOUDLY