Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. New York; Semiotext(e), 1983
Barsam, Richard. Triumph of the Will:A Film Guide. Bloomington; Indiana University Press, 1975
Bramsted, Ernest. Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda Michigan; The Cresset Press. 1965
Cohen, Leonard. Democracy. Cohen, Leonard. Future.
Cuddord, JVA. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Term and Literary Theory. London;Penguin. 1991
Saul, John Ralston. The Doubters Companion:A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense. Toronto, Viking. 1994.
Sontag, Susan. Under the Sign of Saturn. New York; Farrar Straus Giroux. 1980
Triumph of the Will. Dir. Riefensthal, Leni. Connoisseur/Meridian Films . 1934;1993
Olympia. Dir. Riefensthal, Leni. Home Vision Entertainment. 1936;1997
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Triumph of the Will, the 1934 film directed by Leni Riefensthal, works not only as a propaganda film about Hitler and those who followed him but a guide to codes of masculinity, the nature of spectacle, how the then nascent medium of film could be used to manipulate audiences, how fascism was beautiful and how that beauty led to both the contemporary cult of male athleticism, and the industries of advertising and public relations.
Perhaps it would be helpful to clarify terms and positions before we get to the meat of this paper. I use code as defined by Barthes, and explained by JVA Cuddon, in the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory, namely that it is "a cultures system of signification through which reality is mediated" (143)--here I would argue the reality mediated depends less on time and place, and more on audience intention. It cannot be denied that that the authorial intentions of this text were in line with the intentions of fascism, namely power, order, control and the elimination of a dissenting other, and in some ways these intentions are determined by time and place, but this does not mean that the text has not been used in other places, for other purposes.
There are no dead texts, or to put it another way, a text can be revived when it needs to be, for a variety of aesthetic and political purposes. When a text is revived outside of its specific location it mutates. With this film, it is impossible to revise it straight, the Nazis are so evil, its functional lessons are extracted, and the movie can not quoted directly. This essay then has two parts, the first is a discussion of how the film was made, its purposes and intentions, and its history in a context of Third Reich Germany. The second is an exploration of the history of the film after it left the Nazis hands, and how it's themes and meanings have broken with the past and moved into present day spheres.
The background to film in the Third Reich is a good window to the specifics of Refiensthal's films. Josef Goebbels was given permission by Hitler to deal with the raw work of propaganda from music to art exhibits to posters to radio broadcasts. He especially enjoyed film, and made a point of visiting movie makers, watching the productions of his film studios, and even editing the news reels that were required by law to appear before every film projected. This does not mean that Hitler did not know the power of film and did not attempt to control it through Goebbels. Ernest K Bramsted's exhaustive study "Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda" elucidates the four goals that Hitler had for film, saying that "Hitler looked upon the film as a major instrument of effective propaganda because of its four specific qualities: 1) subjective emotional appeal; 2)limitation of contents; 3) possibility of using it through out the world to illustrate the fighting attitude and 4) continuous and uniform repetition" (66), these four points could very much be considered a guide to the structures of Riefensthal's film: the movie has no narrative thrust. There is rarely a shot that is longer then 12 seconds. The whole film is intended to rise emotionally to a kind of mania. There is no time or space made for emotion to be replaced, and no engaging of the intellect. As well the film is a closed text, with no ambiguity in the symbolism or intentions. For example Hitler, is put behind a series of clouds, fogs, mists, and filmed so that he towers over the audience---there is only one way of looking at Hitler except as a Nietzschean Superman, a minor god that will bring all that is good about Germany back from humiliation and shame. Triumph of the Will was shown mostly with in Germany, but her next film Olympia, made of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and nearly 4 hours long, was used as a demonstration throughout the world as an example of the strength of Aryan Will. The last element on Bramsted's list is patently obvious. There is much repeating of abstract pattern (for example: soldiers goose stepping, boys at play, close examination of uniforms, panning across rooftops, and early morning callaesthetics ) that is often connected as imagery but rarely connected narratively.
The power of her work might have taken over Riefensthal herself. She claimed that she did nothing wrong, that she would have done anything to maintain her role as a film maker, that she did not know what was happening in the concentration camps, and all that she made was documentaries. She also claimed that she was cleared from any wrong doing in denazifaction hearings, done by the americans in 1948 and 1952. She also has said that Olympia was not commissioned by the Nazis, that Goebbels hated her, and that all she ever wanted to do was make beautiful films. All of this was placed in context by Susan Sontag, in her essay, Fascinating Fascism, for the February 6, 1976, New York Review of Books, and later collected in Under the Sign of Saturn.
Is it possible that Triumph of the Will was so seductive that it convinced not only the viewers in Nazi Germany, but the creator itself ? It is possible that she did everything she could to make her art and she might have been blind in that way. But she did order Romany prisoners to work as extras in Triefland, her romance completed after the war. She was only partially cleared in the 1948 hearing, and she asked for the 1952 hearing so that she could work again. The claims about beauty and documentaries are more difficult to parse.
The problem of calling this documentary is that this is a filmed spectacle, accurately reflecting the purpose of the event. The event was stage managed, with sets constructed by Hitlers architect Alfred Speer, and featuring mass seduction. Her depections of this are similar to the words of the SS commanders, she was only following orders. How could she have opened a set of symbols, that was closed by everyone else involved, from the soldiers on up to the chief commander himself. The whole event is managed like a Hollywood set and so it becomes an accurate depiction of a gross simulacra. The kind of film making that Riefensthal does is similar to the work of DW Griffiths and Cecil B. DeMille. They gave the audience what it demanded, they hid politics into films that had casts of thousands, and they used the founding myths of nationhood as fodder for public entertainments. In the case of Griffiths, there is the additional similarity in terms of racial politics. .
In a 1964 Cahier du Cinema article , quoted by Sontag, Riefensthal says "I can simply say that I feel spontaneously attracted by everything that is beautiful. Yes beauty, harmony... it comes from the unconscious and not from my knowledge." The film is gorgeous and harmonic. If this was her stated goals, and if the movie was not about Nazis, then it would be viewed as a piece of unmitigated genius. That the work can be clearly formalist, and away from any sort of content is a lesson that will come in handy for other sources.
There are other matters that make the film beautiful--there is the cult of male beauty and athleticism, the cult of authority, the harmonics of order and power, and the nature of spectacle to entertain rather then give specific information. There are very few shots of speeches, even though the work is about a rally--there is no long medium length shots where Goebbels or Hitler or Goering tell people about chickens in every pot or the devolepment of the autobahn. What is shocking about this film then, is that for a movie about Fascism is the lack of demagoguery.
The beauty comes from somewhere, and goes somewhere. It is meant to be aspirational, and to reflect moral goals. To be beautiful in this film is to be a solider, or to be prepared to be a solider. To be a solider is to be obedient, to be good, to be clean, well pressed and ready to give ones life for a cause. It is also to be a cog in a machine, part of a larger whole. Aesthetic order is a good indication of moral order, and to be a good citizen is to be a good son, a good German, a good Christian and a good member of the populace. In the third scene of the film shots of roofs of houses, all in a row, and all immaculate--are quickly cut to show men at work. All of this is holistic. Those who cause disorder are made ugly--not in this film, but the goal of Nazi Propaganada is to work together, for example the rally is made to work with the film, the radio broadcasts are used to advertise both. There is synergy. So that the jews are depicted as grotesque, as filthy, as improper, as bad citizens, bad fathers, bad children and ugly to boot.
This comes close to home, all of what has been written about Triumph of the Will can be written about today's commercial culture. There is today still a cult of male beauty and athleticism, the cult of authority, the harmonics of order and power, and the nature of spectacle to entertain rather then give specific information. But it is intended to sell late capitalism, rather then fascism. John Ralston Saul talks about it in his entry on the film in The Doubters Companion:A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense saying "Calvin Klein sells underwear with muscular young people who aren't wearing any. Diet Coke shows their bottle against the photo of a crowd of intense marathon swimmers about to race way. The only words are "TASTE IT." As with the Brownshirts having boyish fun, the product, the images and the words have no relationship. The non-linear suggestion, which avoids all the burdens of proof and argument is that , is that wearing Calvin Klein underwear will make you beautiful..." (295)
There is truth in what Saul says and one can note that truth with a simple look at examples from our culture. We worship the athlete, note every statistic, take over large sections of the newspaper and television for them. The athletes play for us. Although there may be precedents in Roman gladiatorial Combat, making the athlete the center of our cults comes very much from Riefensthal. Look at her Olympia of 1936 was the first harbinger of the Olympics today, with the massive bureaucracy hidden by spectacles of opening and closing ceremonies, of world cities begging to host these things, of public stage sets being built to house them. They wear Nike, the classical fetishization of Hitler being recast. She is our godess, but the victory in question is one of commerce.
This commerce is also built around the cult of male beauty. Saul mentions Calvin Klein, with his men that have perfect lines, and no voices. They are often "rescued" from the working classes, one can think of Mark Walhberg, from South Boston who was unconnected to any talent, but who was was so beautiful that he deserved a billboard in Times Square. There are also the ads for Abercrombie and Fitch, shot by Bruce Weber, who has never met an Ayran frat boy he didn't like. His images of leisure do not sell clothes, but the idea that one can have or be the frat boy in question, with the correct outfit. There is no ideology to these texts, no content at all. There was an ideology, however negative, to the cult in Triumph of the Will, the abstraction of meaning was made for a purpose.
The authority mentioned in Triumph of the Will was one that attempted at political legitimacy. Think of it as a promotional video to sell a war, without mentioning the natural consequences---from dead bodies to economic feasibility. In his 1983 book Simulations, Baudillard talked about a world that had copies but no models, and how we view war combines Riefensthals poetic avoidance of violence with Baudillard's discussions around the lack of models. Look at the latest war we are mired in--Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction--but George W. Bush has said they might have. Iraq did not fund Al Qaeda, but Bush keeps telling us he did. The president was disciplined for going AWOL on a National Guard base in Texas during Vietnam but he flies a fighter plane onto an air craft carrier to announce that the war is over, when it obviously is not. All of these heavily staged media events hide big lies, a lesson that Triumph of the Will teaches well.
The harmonics of order in Triumph of the Will, relate to contemporary aesthetics as well. Nothing is out of place, there is no chaos, and there is nothing that deviates from standard lines. Think of Disney World, with its elaborate musical numbers on pristine stages directed by people called cast members. Or pop music where sex, death, love, destruction, and chaos are excised, replaced with a template of proper movement. We have given up our lives to spectacle, to the image of the thing rather then the thing itself. We watch television that fakes documentary as much as well as Riefensthal did, we eat food that has not seen a farm for most of its production. We live in a service economy among the ghosts of mechanical and industrial production.
Triumph of the Will was created to ignore the realities of the day, to ignore that loving Hitler made you complacent in the destruction of jews and other undesirables, that soldiers were not only handsome men that gave a sense of order but were trained killers and to worship them was to worship destruction and death. She did not note that people were starving, that they were suffering. She did not note that German Culture was more then Wagner, that the Weimar republic was as close to a workable socialist state as twentieth century humanity had come. She had no content, because the minute that content was introduced, then the text becomes open, and people can use it for themselves.
As Leonard Cohen says in his song Democracy, "It's coming from the feel that this ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there". There is nothing real in Riefensthal, because having something real means having something that people can hold onto. If you are promised food or shelter or something else tangible then when you are not delivered it, you can rightfully be disappointed. It is not your fault. If you are promised something abstract, like honour or nationhood or love then the dissonance that occurs in translation can be explained by a lack of general understanding.
I do not want to suggest in this paper that we are now fascist or that Coca Cola and Calvin Klein are about to round up their competitors in box cars, but Reifensthal developed a new language that did not depend on any of the old forms. Her techniques are used because they are convincing. They require no thought, no ambiguity and no complexity. She replaced German folk culture with a new kind of mass media, a heavily mediated series of imagery that told the people what they wanted rather then vice versa. Popular culture then became more serious then a series of entertainments, it became a series of indoctrinations. There can be no audience participation, no burrowing under the meaning proscribed. We are sold to, and watching the film now, with knowledge of exactly what joining those crowds means, there is still seduction. There is a desire to be that handsome, that stalwart, to follow something so closely and believe in something so strongly. It is seductive. Popular Culture is seductive, it grabs the viewers heart, and genitals, and with those two safely in grasp it avoids the brain. To be aware of its machinations is to be aware of the consequences that follow.
Perhaps it would be helpful to clarify terms and positions before we get to the meat of this paper. I use code as defined by Barthes, and explained by JVA Cuddon, in the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory, namely that it is "a cultures system of signification through which reality is mediated" (143)--here I would argue the reality mediated depends less on time and place, and more on audience intention. It cannot be denied that that the authorial intentions of this text were in line with the intentions of fascism, namely power, order, control and the elimination of a dissenting other, and in some ways these intentions are determined by time and place, but this does not mean that the text has not been used in other places, for other purposes.
There are no dead texts, or to put it another way, a text can be revived when it needs to be, for a variety of aesthetic and political purposes. When a text is revived outside of its specific location it mutates. With this film, it is impossible to revise it straight, the Nazis are so evil, its functional lessons are extracted, and the movie can not quoted directly. This essay then has two parts, the first is a discussion of how the film was made, its purposes and intentions, and its history in a context of Third Reich Germany. The second is an exploration of the history of the film after it left the Nazis hands, and how it's themes and meanings have broken with the past and moved into present day spheres.
The background to film in the Third Reich is a good window to the specifics of Refiensthal's films. Josef Goebbels was given permission by Hitler to deal with the raw work of propaganda from music to art exhibits to posters to radio broadcasts. He especially enjoyed film, and made a point of visiting movie makers, watching the productions of his film studios, and even editing the news reels that were required by law to appear before every film projected. This does not mean that Hitler did not know the power of film and did not attempt to control it through Goebbels. Ernest K Bramsted's exhaustive study "Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda" elucidates the four goals that Hitler had for film, saying that "Hitler looked upon the film as a major instrument of effective propaganda because of its four specific qualities: 1) subjective emotional appeal; 2)limitation of contents; 3) possibility of using it through out the world to illustrate the fighting attitude and 4) continuous and uniform repetition" (66), these four points could very much be considered a guide to the structures of Riefensthal's film: the movie has no narrative thrust. There is rarely a shot that is longer then 12 seconds. The whole film is intended to rise emotionally to a kind of mania. There is no time or space made for emotion to be replaced, and no engaging of the intellect. As well the film is a closed text, with no ambiguity in the symbolism or intentions. For example Hitler, is put behind a series of clouds, fogs, mists, and filmed so that he towers over the audience---there is only one way of looking at Hitler except as a Nietzschean Superman, a minor god that will bring all that is good about Germany back from humiliation and shame. Triumph of the Will was shown mostly with in Germany, but her next film Olympia, made of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and nearly 4 hours long, was used as a demonstration throughout the world as an example of the strength of Aryan Will. The last element on Bramsted's list is patently obvious. There is much repeating of abstract pattern (for example: soldiers goose stepping, boys at play, close examination of uniforms, panning across rooftops, and early morning callaesthetics ) that is often connected as imagery but rarely connected narratively.
The power of her work might have taken over Riefensthal herself. She claimed that she did nothing wrong, that she would have done anything to maintain her role as a film maker, that she did not know what was happening in the concentration camps, and all that she made was documentaries. She also claimed that she was cleared from any wrong doing in denazifaction hearings, done by the americans in 1948 and 1952. She also has said that Olympia was not commissioned by the Nazis, that Goebbels hated her, and that all she ever wanted to do was make beautiful films. All of this was placed in context by Susan Sontag, in her essay, Fascinating Fascism, for the February 6, 1976, New York Review of Books, and later collected in Under the Sign of Saturn.
Is it possible that Triumph of the Will was so seductive that it convinced not only the viewers in Nazi Germany, but the creator itself ? It is possible that she did everything she could to make her art and she might have been blind in that way. But she did order Romany prisoners to work as extras in Triefland, her romance completed after the war. She was only partially cleared in the 1948 hearing, and she asked for the 1952 hearing so that she could work again. The claims about beauty and documentaries are more difficult to parse.
The problem of calling this documentary is that this is a filmed spectacle, accurately reflecting the purpose of the event. The event was stage managed, with sets constructed by Hitlers architect Alfred Speer, and featuring mass seduction. Her depections of this are similar to the words of the SS commanders, she was only following orders. How could she have opened a set of symbols, that was closed by everyone else involved, from the soldiers on up to the chief commander himself. The whole event is managed like a Hollywood set and so it becomes an accurate depiction of a gross simulacra. The kind of film making that Riefensthal does is similar to the work of DW Griffiths and Cecil B. DeMille. They gave the audience what it demanded, they hid politics into films that had casts of thousands, and they used the founding myths of nationhood as fodder for public entertainments. In the case of Griffiths, there is the additional similarity in terms of racial politics. .
In a 1964 Cahier du Cinema article , quoted by Sontag, Riefensthal says "I can simply say that I feel spontaneously attracted by everything that is beautiful. Yes beauty, harmony... it comes from the unconscious and not from my knowledge." The film is gorgeous and harmonic. If this was her stated goals, and if the movie was not about Nazis, then it would be viewed as a piece of unmitigated genius. That the work can be clearly formalist, and away from any sort of content is a lesson that will come in handy for other sources.
There are other matters that make the film beautiful--there is the cult of male beauty and athleticism, the cult of authority, the harmonics of order and power, and the nature of spectacle to entertain rather then give specific information. There are very few shots of speeches, even though the work is about a rally--there is no long medium length shots where Goebbels or Hitler or Goering tell people about chickens in every pot or the devolepment of the autobahn. What is shocking about this film then, is that for a movie about Fascism is the lack of demagoguery.
The beauty comes from somewhere, and goes somewhere. It is meant to be aspirational, and to reflect moral goals. To be beautiful in this film is to be a solider, or to be prepared to be a solider. To be a solider is to be obedient, to be good, to be clean, well pressed and ready to give ones life for a cause. It is also to be a cog in a machine, part of a larger whole. Aesthetic order is a good indication of moral order, and to be a good citizen is to be a good son, a good German, a good Christian and a good member of the populace. In the third scene of the film shots of roofs of houses, all in a row, and all immaculate--are quickly cut to show men at work. All of this is holistic. Those who cause disorder are made ugly--not in this film, but the goal of Nazi Propaganada is to work together, for example the rally is made to work with the film, the radio broadcasts are used to advertise both. There is synergy. So that the jews are depicted as grotesque, as filthy, as improper, as bad citizens, bad fathers, bad children and ugly to boot.
This comes close to home, all of what has been written about Triumph of the Will can be written about today's commercial culture. There is today still a cult of male beauty and athleticism, the cult of authority, the harmonics of order and power, and the nature of spectacle to entertain rather then give specific information. But it is intended to sell late capitalism, rather then fascism. John Ralston Saul talks about it in his entry on the film in The Doubters Companion:A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense saying "Calvin Klein sells underwear with muscular young people who aren't wearing any. Diet Coke shows their bottle against the photo of a crowd of intense marathon swimmers about to race way. The only words are "TASTE IT." As with the Brownshirts having boyish fun, the product, the images and the words have no relationship. The non-linear suggestion, which avoids all the burdens of proof and argument is that , is that wearing Calvin Klein underwear will make you beautiful..." (295)
There is truth in what Saul says and one can note that truth with a simple look at examples from our culture. We worship the athlete, note every statistic, take over large sections of the newspaper and television for them. The athletes play for us. Although there may be precedents in Roman gladiatorial Combat, making the athlete the center of our cults comes very much from Riefensthal. Look at her Olympia of 1936 was the first harbinger of the Olympics today, with the massive bureaucracy hidden by spectacles of opening and closing ceremonies, of world cities begging to host these things, of public stage sets being built to house them. They wear Nike, the classical fetishization of Hitler being recast. She is our godess, but the victory in question is one of commerce.
This commerce is also built around the cult of male beauty. Saul mentions Calvin Klein, with his men that have perfect lines, and no voices. They are often "rescued" from the working classes, one can think of Mark Walhberg, from South Boston who was unconnected to any talent, but who was was so beautiful that he deserved a billboard in Times Square. There are also the ads for Abercrombie and Fitch, shot by Bruce Weber, who has never met an Ayran frat boy he didn't like. His images of leisure do not sell clothes, but the idea that one can have or be the frat boy in question, with the correct outfit. There is no ideology to these texts, no content at all. There was an ideology, however negative, to the cult in Triumph of the Will, the abstraction of meaning was made for a purpose.
The authority mentioned in Triumph of the Will was one that attempted at political legitimacy. Think of it as a promotional video to sell a war, without mentioning the natural consequences---from dead bodies to economic feasibility. In his 1983 book Simulations, Baudillard talked about a world that had copies but no models, and how we view war combines Riefensthals poetic avoidance of violence with Baudillard's discussions around the lack of models. Look at the latest war we are mired in--Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction--but George W. Bush has said they might have. Iraq did not fund Al Qaeda, but Bush keeps telling us he did. The president was disciplined for going AWOL on a National Guard base in Texas during Vietnam but he flies a fighter plane onto an air craft carrier to announce that the war is over, when it obviously is not. All of these heavily staged media events hide big lies, a lesson that Triumph of the Will teaches well.
The harmonics of order in Triumph of the Will, relate to contemporary aesthetics as well. Nothing is out of place, there is no chaos, and there is nothing that deviates from standard lines. Think of Disney World, with its elaborate musical numbers on pristine stages directed by people called cast members. Or pop music where sex, death, love, destruction, and chaos are excised, replaced with a template of proper movement. We have given up our lives to spectacle, to the image of the thing rather then the thing itself. We watch television that fakes documentary as much as well as Riefensthal did, we eat food that has not seen a farm for most of its production. We live in a service economy among the ghosts of mechanical and industrial production.
Triumph of the Will was created to ignore the realities of the day, to ignore that loving Hitler made you complacent in the destruction of jews and other undesirables, that soldiers were not only handsome men that gave a sense of order but were trained killers and to worship them was to worship destruction and death. She did not note that people were starving, that they were suffering. She did not note that German Culture was more then Wagner, that the Weimar republic was as close to a workable socialist state as twentieth century humanity had come. She had no content, because the minute that content was introduced, then the text becomes open, and people can use it for themselves.
As Leonard Cohen says in his song Democracy, "It's coming from the feel that this ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there". There is nothing real in Riefensthal, because having something real means having something that people can hold onto. If you are promised food or shelter or something else tangible then when you are not delivered it, you can rightfully be disappointed. It is not your fault. If you are promised something abstract, like honour or nationhood or love then the dissonance that occurs in translation can be explained by a lack of general understanding.
I do not want to suggest in this paper that we are now fascist or that Coca Cola and Calvin Klein are about to round up their competitors in box cars, but Reifensthal developed a new language that did not depend on any of the old forms. Her techniques are used because they are convincing. They require no thought, no ambiguity and no complexity. She replaced German folk culture with a new kind of mass media, a heavily mediated series of imagery that told the people what they wanted rather then vice versa. Popular culture then became more serious then a series of entertainments, it became a series of indoctrinations. There can be no audience participation, no burrowing under the meaning proscribed. We are sold to, and watching the film now, with knowledge of exactly what joining those crowds means, there is still seduction. There is a desire to be that handsome, that stalwart, to follow something so closely and believe in something so strongly. It is seductive. Popular Culture is seductive, it grabs the viewers heart, and genitals, and with those two safely in grasp it avoids the brain. To be aware of its machinations is to be aware of the consequences that follow.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
When will republicans know not to touch things that arent theres.
worst burgaling since watergate has occured in the US Senate Judiciary Commitee computers
worst burgaling since watergate has occured in the US Senate Judiciary Commitee computers
Slug Sex is one of the strangest and most beautiful things i have ever seen, how they transgress gender and sex, how they merge as one---neat new photos
someone said to me, about the movies, that their were two racist films out, one about the 19th century and one from the 21st, talking about the last samurai and lost in translation... the gaurdian agrees about the latter
the photos themselves are banal, and often poorly shot, but in a collection, these group of brooklyn church storefronts, have a haunting, immediacy---the need of god is everywhere, and the harder, poorer, darker the world is, the closer she seems to be.
trenchart article on a recent crisis b/w sweden and israel, about an installation that featured a pool of blood, a ship, a picture of a suicide bomber and the title snow white.
Monday, January 26, 2004
my therapist is fond of qouting the last lines of becketts godot to me, and with how im feeling lately it seems strangely proper.
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on
she isnt really religous, but she uses words like suffering, and wounding---words that touch every catholic bone in my body.
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on.
she has got me on a new medication, an anti depressent that is novel in how it works with brain chemistry, and all i can think of is "we spent the whole session talking about the medical model; & you think remeron will make it all better.
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on.
she has castigated me for not going to group, and i havent really been going to church either---what is it about me and a community of anyone that scares me---why do i concentrate on the crufixion, and not the tomb
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on.
i need to research an essay for class, work specifics in, move a presentation from scattered to focus, in four days...i should go to the library today but i do not want to do anything but sleep. I've been up for 18 hours, 20 ?
I cant go on
I must go on
I will go on.
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on
she isnt really religous, but she uses words like suffering, and wounding---words that touch every catholic bone in my body.
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on.
she has got me on a new medication, an anti depressent that is novel in how it works with brain chemistry, and all i can think of is "we spent the whole session talking about the medical model; & you think remeron will make it all better.
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on.
she has castigated me for not going to group, and i havent really been going to church either---what is it about me and a community of anyone that scares me---why do i concentrate on the crufixion, and not the tomb
i cant go on
i must go on
i will go on.
i need to research an essay for class, work specifics in, move a presentation from scattered to focus, in four days...i should go to the library today but i do not want to do anything but sleep. I've been up for 18 hours, 20 ?
I cant go on
I must go on
I will go on.
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Helmut Newton died crashing his convertable into a brick wall, after leaving a party at the chateau maumont, he was 83.
i love his odd, freudian, gorgeous, images touch this reptilian place in my brain that responds to dark pleasures.
1977 Vogue Image.
i love his odd, freudian, gorgeous, images touch this reptilian place in my brain that responds to dark pleasures.
1977 Vogue Image.
Thursday, January 22, 2004
A Six Year Old Childs Back was Broken as a result of an exocorism.
This is not my Christianity.
This is Immoral and Wrong.
This is not Christs Christianty.
This is not my Christianity.
This is Immoral and Wrong.
This is not Christs Christianty.
UN works against Child Solidering in Sri Lanka and Uganda.
(they do so much good, if they had been given the money and oppurtunity)
(they do so much good, if they had been given the money and oppurtunity)
Wal Mart Fucks over Labour
(including locking in workers over nights, which means they cannot really have lunch breaks, and which includes a story about a man being caught underneath a peice of heavy machinery for an hour while they scurried arround looking for the keys.)
(including locking in workers over nights, which means they cannot really have lunch breaks, and which includes a story about a man being caught underneath a peice of heavy machinery for an hour while they scurried arround looking for the keys.)
Long Article on Judd
(Andrew, thats the box componet of the bricks and light tubes show you saw)
gaurdian
(Andrew, thats the box componet of the bricks and light tubes show you saw)
gaurdian
Black is fired by
Hollinger
god do i love to see that corrupt motherfucker fall, and fall hard.
gaurdian
Hollinger
god do i love to see that corrupt motherfucker fall, and fall hard.
gaurdian
World Health Org. is bungling Malaria treatment in Africa, according to a group of critics who published their stinging rebuke in the Lancet (cheaper drugs are easier for the body to resist)
bbc
bbc
Subsidised drugs for HIV/AIDS in Nigeria are running out, and are not going to be replaced any time soon.
All Africa
All Africa
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Skin Flick is about a group of Neo-Nazi skinheads who break into the house of a mixed race bourgeois gay couple and sexually terrorize them. It's an investigation into the way that homosexuality has traditionally fetishized images of cruelty, domination, authority, and power, including the military, police, and fascist figures, and at the same time comments on the phenomenon of homosexual behavior occurring in extreme right wing and paramilitary organizations which is not identified by its participants in any way as being "gay" or part of "gay culture." It also functions as a straightforward fuck movie.
'I prefer beautiful things and people, I do not enjoy photographing ill
people, not because I don't like them as individuals, but I think that
beautiful people can give joy to everybody. this is what I want to
do, give pleasure to people.
when I say I only photograph beautiful people, everybody gets upset
about this, but michelangelo and raffaello did this, they portrayed
beautiful figures from their historical period in order to define 'beauty'.
when I watch 'olympia' or look at the photos, what have I done is this:
I didn’t change them, they are who they are, but I saw them from a
different angle, I took my pictures from a very high or very low point
of view.
when I saw an athlete with a 'nervous background', I changed my
position in order to eliminate everything redundant, not important.
I focussed only on the subject, I enclosed it, that way everything
else was blurry, and disappeared...this gave it emphasis.
and I did this with people, animals, plants , this is my style
leni refinsthal
people, not because I don't like them as individuals, but I think that
beautiful people can give joy to everybody. this is what I want to
do, give pleasure to people.
when I say I only photograph beautiful people, everybody gets upset
about this, but michelangelo and raffaello did this, they portrayed
beautiful figures from their historical period in order to define 'beauty'.
when I watch 'olympia' or look at the photos, what have I done is this:
I didn’t change them, they are who they are, but I saw them from a
different angle, I took my pictures from a very high or very low point
of view.
when I saw an athlete with a 'nervous background', I changed my
position in order to eliminate everything redundant, not important.
I focussed only on the subject, I enclosed it, that way everything
else was blurry, and disappeared...this gave it emphasis.
and I did this with people, animals, plants , this is my style
leni refinsthal
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
basil told me that i was too forward, spoke too much, too atagonistic, etc in pop cult class, told me he was gay but wanted to concetrate on people being similar.
hes an arse, and his name is shawn, he just wants everyone to call him basil, and i do talk too much.
i ran a knife across my wrist yesterday, and it took all my effort not to push the blade in.
time to talk to hibbard again.
hes an arse, and his name is shawn, he just wants everyone to call him basil, and i do talk too much.
i ran a knife across my wrist yesterday, and it took all my effort not to push the blade in.
time to talk to hibbard again.
ok--i have questions, does adorno think it impossible to use popculture against itself, and does he think that people are so silly/blind/stupid/drugged to react to popculture in a critically aware, self reflexisve way.
and if this is the case how does he react to camp or pop art or culture jamming or post foccualdian readings of porn or any of the other ways that we have found to fuck with the dominant culture ?
and does he favour single authors over group efforts (does he not like movies/pop music out of some distrust of "work by committee", ie producers, actors, studio musicans(sp), etc ?
also, he claims that pop culture is not authentic folk culture, b/c it is not created by the people--if thats the case, then what is authentic folk culture in the age of mass retrival of information ?
one last thing, how does he place the creators of mass media in classical marxist settings ?
and if this is the case how does he react to camp or pop art or culture jamming or post foccualdian readings of porn or any of the other ways that we have found to fuck with the dominant culture ?
and does he favour single authors over group efforts (does he not like movies/pop music out of some distrust of "work by committee", ie producers, actors, studio musicans(sp), etc ?
also, he claims that pop culture is not authentic folk culture, b/c it is not created by the people--if thats the case, then what is authentic folk culture in the age of mass retrival of information ?
one last thing, how does he place the creators of mass media in classical marxist settings ?
Friday, January 16, 2004
e copy of cages indeterminacies, one of those books that will fuck with the way you think of poetry, music, art and language.
Stacy Doris makes ambigous, elegant, naughty and well constructed poems, and then gives them away for free.
silliman, thnx to chris for pointing them out .
silliman, thnx to chris for pointing them out .
Bush gives Breeders get Billions to hold up pair bonding
i didnt realize it was in so much trouble.
prev. 2 mefi
i didnt realize it was in so much trouble.
prev. 2 mefi
Texas A and M have disbanded their legacy program, due to public pressure
now we just need the ivy leauges to do this.
now we just need the ivy leauges to do this.
Reporters w/o Borders comission reportabout the deaths of some of their own, and how they treat the Americans and British shows a level amount of contempt (ie the yanks and poms really didnt care if these writers/photogs died, the reporters note that.
talk left
talk left
Gay Dad told stay in the closet in front of his sons, by judge.
Whats gonna fuck up a kid more, having a queer dad or having a dad forced to live in lies ?
Wisconson Senator attends conference on Homofacism
he chooses to stay anon...if you are doing something as a public figure that you do feel ashamed of, perhaps you should think again about doing it.
Whats gonna fuck up a kid more, having a queer dad or having a dad forced to live in lies ?
Wisconson Senator attends conference on Homofacism
he chooses to stay anon...if you are doing something as a public figure that you do feel ashamed of, perhaps you should think again about doing it.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Bush is pushing towards the election, but he does allow some undocumented workers to have documents, which is what he should do morally and ethically.
both bbc
both bbc
The World and European Jewish Councill has boycotted the EU for their lack of work against anti semitism.
defunct and bankrupt general culture magazine Lingua Franca threatens to sue freelancers to give their money back because they are unsecure creditors.
making light
making light
Nicholas Harris spent more then half his life in prison before being recently released on DNA evidence.
talk left
talk left
If Spalding Grey cannot surrive, thru his self reflection, thru drugs, thru ect...what hope do i have ?
there needs to be an awareness that depression kills... and that it comes over, regardless of income, habits, talents, or skill.
there needs to be an awareness that depression kills... and that it comes over, regardless of income, habits, talents, or skill.
Two Kids in Louisanna have been accused of planning to shoot up their school in a Columbine style shoot up, when will we realize that this comes from the social stratifications and destructive tendencies towards the other that american schooling creates ?
This violence comes as a resistence, like ee cummings says, "there is some shit I will not eat"
keep feeding and feeding and feeding these outcasts shit, and they break or they fling it back.
metafilter.
This violence comes as a resistence, like ee cummings says, "there is some shit I will not eat"
keep feeding and feeding and feeding these outcasts shit, and they break or they fling it back.
metafilter.
Radical and Nobel Lauerate Dario Fo has been sued for a million euros, because of a satirical play he created against Forza Italia.
Gaurdian
Gaurdian
Uganda is being supsended form UN treaties because it refuses to fulfill a report on torture.
all africa
all africa
MrAvantbyirkoz: Pan-frying (as opposed to broiling, which dries out the meatballs) is the best way to brown the meatballs, an important tip is to wait till the oil is quite hot before first adding the meatballs to the pan.
MrAvantbyirkoz: Sauce, of course, is an important part of a good dish of spaghetti and meatballs. My sauce is thick and smooth and can be made with fresh or canned crushed tomatoes (I recommend Progresso or Muir Glen), garlic, and basil. To capture flavor, cook the sauce in the same pan you used to fry the meatballs.
MrAvantbyirkoz: This streamlined recipe can be on the table in under an hour.
MrAvantbyirkoz: Meatballs
2 slices white sandwich bread (crusts discarded), torn into small cubes
1/2 cup buttermilk or 6 tablespoons plain yogurt thinned with 2 tablespoons sweet milk
3/4 pound ground chuck mixed with 1/4 pound ground pork or 1 pound ground chuck
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
1 large egg yolk
1 small garlic clove, minced (1 teaspoon)
3/4 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper
Vegetable oil for pan-frying (about 1 1/4 cups)
MrAvantbyirkoz: Simple Tomato Sauce
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil leaves
Salt and ground black pepper
PinkMoosePearl: cut and pasted
MrAvantbyirkoz: 1 pound spaghetti
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
MrAvantbyirkoz: Sauce, of course, is an important part of a good dish of spaghetti and meatballs. My sauce is thick and smooth and can be made with fresh or canned crushed tomatoes (I recommend Progresso or Muir Glen), garlic, and basil. To capture flavor, cook the sauce in the same pan you used to fry the meatballs.
MrAvantbyirkoz: This streamlined recipe can be on the table in under an hour.
MrAvantbyirkoz: Meatballs
2 slices white sandwich bread (crusts discarded), torn into small cubes
1/2 cup buttermilk or 6 tablespoons plain yogurt thinned with 2 tablespoons sweet milk
3/4 pound ground chuck mixed with 1/4 pound ground pork or 1 pound ground chuck
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
1 large egg yolk
1 small garlic clove, minced (1 teaspoon)
3/4 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper
Vegetable oil for pan-frying (about 1 1/4 cups)
MrAvantbyirkoz: Simple Tomato Sauce
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil leaves
Salt and ground black pepper
PinkMoosePearl: cut and pasted
MrAvantbyirkoz: 1 pound spaghetti
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
jenae jameson
(her face has become famous, and now she wants to be legitmate, w/o forgoing the porn star gaze, she makes sex on camera safe and here is porn gone legit, in the reclaiming of implicit female glamour (its a little ott, a little campy, like mansfield at whatever oscars where her tits fell out of her gown) (this comes from the avn awards, now w. red carpets)
sounds i'm enjoying lately
1 the steamy whistle/shrieking from the water coming thru my houses ancient pipes when i'm drawing a bath
2 the crackle/shatter of ice and snow under neath my big boots, that comes now because of the ice storm on saturday .
3 the bass heavy clunk clunk shank shank shake that my dryer makes when drying a load of jeans
4 the contraction of trolley lines, and the buzzing of power stations when i take the number nine bus downtown
5 how my roomies late 70s firebird growls and screams, racing thru the quiet streets, claiming ownership
6 the click tock tick that the 70s era ibm selectric clock marks time with, when i am aimlessly waiting for a class to be done.
7 how the sound echos in forward backwards up and then down waves, in the old power plant that serves as a student pub in uni.
8 the feline purr that accompanies most vowels, when my prof from latin american lit in translation is talking.
9 the almost obscene squlech, swish,thump that occurs when walking across lino or brick with my new boots.
10 kazoos
1 the steamy whistle/shrieking from the water coming thru my houses ancient pipes when i'm drawing a bath
2 the crackle/shatter of ice and snow under neath my big boots, that comes now because of the ice storm on saturday .
3 the bass heavy clunk clunk shank shank shake that my dryer makes when drying a load of jeans
4 the contraction of trolley lines, and the buzzing of power stations when i take the number nine bus downtown
5 how my roomies late 70s firebird growls and screams, racing thru the quiet streets, claiming ownership
6 the click tock tick that the 70s era ibm selectric clock marks time with, when i am aimlessly waiting for a class to be done.
7 how the sound echos in forward backwards up and then down waves, in the old power plant that serves as a student pub in uni.
8 the feline purr that accompanies most vowels, when my prof from latin american lit in translation is talking.
9 the almost obscene squlech, swish,thump that occurs when walking across lino or brick with my new boots.
10 kazoos
Bibliography
Los arrecifes de coral, 1901
El crimen del otro, 1904
Niños Historia de un amor turbio, 1908
Cuentos de amor, de locura y, de meurte, 1917
Cantos de la selva para, 1918
El salvaje, 1920
Las sacrificadas, 1920
Anaconda, 1921
South American Jungle Tales, 1922 (transl. by Arthur Livingston)
El desierto, 1924
"La gallina degollada" y otros cuentos, 1925
Los desterrados, 1926
Pasado amor, 1929
Suelo natal, 1931
El más allá, 1935
Diario de viaje a ParÃs, 1950
Obras inéditas y desconocidas, 1967-73 (8 vols.)
The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories, 1976 (transl. by Margaret Sayers Peden)
Cuentos completas, 1978 (2 vols.)
Novelas completas, 1979
The Exiles and Other Stories, 1987 (transl. by David Danielson and Elsa K. Gambarini)
Testimonios Autobiograficos De Horacio Quiroga. Cartas Y Diari, 1997 (ed. by Norma Perez Martin)
Compiled by Petri Liukkonen for www.litweb.net
The Decalogue of Good Writing from the Manuel of a Short Story Writer
1. Believe in the masters...as you would in God himself.
2. Believe that your art is an unreachable summit... When you are able to conquer it you will do so without being aware of it.
3. Resist imitation, but if you must imitate do so. The development of a personal style is a science.
4. ...Love your art as you would your lover, giving it all your heart.
5. Don’t begin to write without knowing from the first word where you are going. In a well-constructed story the three first lines are almost as important as the three last.
6. If you want to express with precision the idea that “from the river blew a cold wind” there are no other words than those to say so.
7. Use no unnecessary adjectives. Useless adjectives cannot enliven a weak noun. If you find the right word it will live. The trick is to find it.
8. Take your characters by the hand and lead them firmly to the conclusion without deviating from your path. Don’t be distracted by seeing what they cannot or don’t value. Do not abuse your reader. A story is a novel devoid of useless verbiage. Take this as absolute truth even though it may not be.
9 Do not write under the sway of emotion. Let it die then evoke it anew. If you can revive what was, in art that is half the battle.
10. Do not think about your friends when you write, nor on the impression your story will make. Write as if your story were of interest to no one but its characters, of whom you could have been one. There is no other way for your story t o truly live. In “La retorica del cuente’’ he discusses the importance of choosing and ordering words. It is the selection and ordering, he says that differentiate a great writer from a modest citizen. The art of writing consists of finding for each idea just the right words to express it. First a writer must have ideas, but a masterful writer must find the words which definitely express those ideas. Synonyms, he proclaims, are not. If a writer cannot see the profound difference inherent in any two words he cannot writ e effectively.
translated and abridged by Angel Flores in Appreximaciones a Horacio Quiroga
Time Line
1878 Born in Salte, uruguay
1897-1890--began with small local magazines in his hometown of Salte, Uraguay
1897-1899 Was the founding editor of Revista de Selto (ran from 1899-1900)
1900 Spent a few months in Paris, reading de de Maupassant and Chekov, which inspired him deeply.
1900-Returned from Paris and moved to Buenos Aires Aries, where he joined a group of intelligentsia called the anaconda
1901-His volume of poetry, essays and short stories--Los arrecifes de coral, aligned him with the Modernissmo movement.
1903 became a citizen of Argentina, participated as a photographer and diarist in expeditions to the Lagones.
1907-1917- Divided time between Buenos Aries, and his ranch at El Chaco, where he attempted to reclaim Argentine jungle for cotton farming.
1918- wrote Cantos de la selva para which has direct borrowings from Kiplings The Jungle Book
1917-1926- Returned to Buenos Aries to live full time, with only occasional visits to the San Ignacious jungle.
1937- Committed Suicide, after a long battle with cancer.
Themes :
His 200 short stories can be summed up in the title of his 1917 collection Cuentos de amor, de locura y, de meurte, or Stories of Love, Madness and Death.
His tales of the uncanny relate to Poe, who he revered and which he first encountered from the Modernissmo.
Although he tried poetry early in his life he, unlike most of the Modernissmo, decided against it.
His stories are often efficient, and have nature trusted on the character, rather then the character interacting with nature. In this way, in addition to writing that leans towards reportage, he could be considered the Jack London of South America. (interestingly enough, much of London's writing was easily available in cheap pulp.)
His concern for the reader, and his interest in telling a good tale above any larger literary goals, could be construed as coming from Kipling, who he read
extensively
He also cares deeply about how the human personality responds under stress, esp. the stress of nature and other humans.
Los arrecifes de coral, 1901
El crimen del otro, 1904
Niños Historia de un amor turbio, 1908
Cuentos de amor, de locura y, de meurte, 1917
Cantos de la selva para, 1918
El salvaje, 1920
Las sacrificadas, 1920
Anaconda, 1921
South American Jungle Tales, 1922 (transl. by Arthur Livingston)
El desierto, 1924
"La gallina degollada" y otros cuentos, 1925
Los desterrados, 1926
Pasado amor, 1929
Suelo natal, 1931
El más allá, 1935
Diario de viaje a ParÃs, 1950
Obras inéditas y desconocidas, 1967-73 (8 vols.)
The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories, 1976 (transl. by Margaret Sayers Peden)
Cuentos completas, 1978 (2 vols.)
Novelas completas, 1979
The Exiles and Other Stories, 1987 (transl. by David Danielson and Elsa K. Gambarini)
Testimonios Autobiograficos De Horacio Quiroga. Cartas Y Diari, 1997 (ed. by Norma Perez Martin)
Compiled by Petri Liukkonen for www.litweb.net
The Decalogue of Good Writing from the Manuel of a Short Story Writer
1. Believe in the masters...as you would in God himself.
2. Believe that your art is an unreachable summit... When you are able to conquer it you will do so without being aware of it.
3. Resist imitation, but if you must imitate do so. The development of a personal style is a science.
4. ...Love your art as you would your lover, giving it all your heart.
5. Don’t begin to write without knowing from the first word where you are going. In a well-constructed story the three first lines are almost as important as the three last.
6. If you want to express with precision the idea that “from the river blew a cold wind” there are no other words than those to say so.
7. Use no unnecessary adjectives. Useless adjectives cannot enliven a weak noun. If you find the right word it will live. The trick is to find it.
8. Take your characters by the hand and lead them firmly to the conclusion without deviating from your path. Don’t be distracted by seeing what they cannot or don’t value. Do not abuse your reader. A story is a novel devoid of useless verbiage. Take this as absolute truth even though it may not be.
9 Do not write under the sway of emotion. Let it die then evoke it anew. If you can revive what was, in art that is half the battle.
10. Do not think about your friends when you write, nor on the impression your story will make. Write as if your story were of interest to no one but its characters, of whom you could have been one. There is no other way for your story t o truly live. In “La retorica del cuente’’ he discusses the importance of choosing and ordering words. It is the selection and ordering, he says that differentiate a great writer from a modest citizen. The art of writing consists of finding for each idea just the right words to express it. First a writer must have ideas, but a masterful writer must find the words which definitely express those ideas. Synonyms, he proclaims, are not. If a writer cannot see the profound difference inherent in any two words he cannot writ e effectively.
translated and abridged by Angel Flores in Appreximaciones a Horacio Quiroga
Time Line
1878 Born in Salte, uruguay
1897-1890--began with small local magazines in his hometown of Salte, Uraguay
1897-1899 Was the founding editor of Revista de Selto (ran from 1899-1900)
1900 Spent a few months in Paris, reading de de Maupassant and Chekov, which inspired him deeply.
1900-Returned from Paris and moved to Buenos Aires Aries, where he joined a group of intelligentsia called the anaconda
1901-His volume of poetry, essays and short stories--Los arrecifes de coral, aligned him with the Modernissmo movement.
1903 became a citizen of Argentina, participated as a photographer and diarist in expeditions to the Lagones.
1907-1917- Divided time between Buenos Aries, and his ranch at El Chaco, where he attempted to reclaim Argentine jungle for cotton farming.
1918- wrote Cantos de la selva para which has direct borrowings from Kiplings The Jungle Book
1917-1926- Returned to Buenos Aries to live full time, with only occasional visits to the San Ignacious jungle.
1937- Committed Suicide, after a long battle with cancer.
Themes :
His 200 short stories can be summed up in the title of his 1917 collection Cuentos de amor, de locura y, de meurte, or Stories of Love, Madness and Death.
His tales of the uncanny relate to Poe, who he revered and which he first encountered from the Modernissmo.
Although he tried poetry early in his life he, unlike most of the Modernissmo, decided against it.
His stories are often efficient, and have nature trusted on the character, rather then the character interacting with nature. In this way, in addition to writing that leans towards reportage, he could be considered the Jack London of South America. (interestingly enough, much of London's writing was easily available in cheap pulp.)
His concern for the reader, and his interest in telling a good tale above any larger literary goals, could be construed as coming from Kipling, who he read
extensively
He also cares deeply about how the human personality responds under stress, esp. the stress of nature and other humans.
Saturday, January 10, 2004
ex libris book stamps from japan adding to my belief that the japanese do everything with an exact aesthicism, and this makes me deeply happy.
making light
making light
Laura Kipnis who defended the rest of the world from the sentimental tsumani of love, and celebrated porn at its best, has written this article for slate, about the pros of fucking profs.
the power difference is so strong, that it strikes me as a bad idea (sexuality emerges in the classroom though, i dont know)
via bookslut
the power difference is so strong, that it strikes me as a bad idea (sexuality emerges in the classroom though, i dont know)
via bookslut
abstience education is an ineffictive and costly waste, says minnesota.
when we will come to realise that denail does not make these things go away
when we will come to realise that denail does not make these things go away
the gvnt/biz cosiness does not only extend to cheny, but to rumsfield, who in 2000 got 200m to make nuke reactors in n. korea, 3 yrs later calling it the axis of evil.
fucking merceranies
fucking merceranies
In Brunudi Archbishop Simon Ntamwana was threatened w. death if he did not leave the country w/i 30 days. The national seceratary (sp) general has said they will be cautious, but will not give into terrorism...they are making change there, feeding the hungry, and providing comfort to the dying, making the comfortable uncomfortable, and providing resistince to the corrupt
i hope we dont have another martyr
i hope we dont have another martyr
huge, wonderfully informative and visually stunning sight on haitian voudan, here which fascainates me b/c of its resistince to colonalism, its syncretic use of native and imported forms, its connections to other afro american folk religions (even pentcostalism) and its use wht there is spirit.
speaking of imperalists, the american miltary is taking over fuel contracts from halliburton...they call it the miltary industrial complex b/c of shit like this (reminds me of beirces qoute--an alliance is "the union of two theives who have their hands so deeply in serted in each othes pockets that they cannot sepratley plunder a third"
except we have boeing ripping off lockhead martin, which rips off the pentagon, halliburton being run by the vp, which rips of the pentagon, who takes revenge by ripping off halliburton, and the aerospace companies....
its like a circle jerk with scuds
except we have boeing ripping off lockhead martin, which rips off the pentagon, halliburton being run by the vp, which rips of the pentagon, who takes revenge by ripping off halliburton, and the aerospace companies....
its like a circle jerk with scuds
Millitas, and other paramiltary groups of loyal americans, have produced acts of violent terrorism as shocking as 9/11...& they are planning to do more, for example the man in texas who's garage contained large amounts of high explosives.
there seems to be less effort in finding and prosecuting these indivduals, and more effort on running qausi legal wars in other countries, imperalism is easier then self reflection...
link via talk left
there seems to be less effort in finding and prosecuting these indivduals, and more effort on running qausi legal wars in other countries, imperalism is easier then self reflection...
link via talk left
today i went to shine, and i kneeled with my brothers and sisters, and i prayed for joy, and i realised that with all the pain i have been feeling and hate and depression and all that nonesense, never once had i gone to god.
i had begged him, fucked with him, yelled at him, sought his destruction, but never once in the last 6 mos had i gone
jesus
i am a sinner, i have committed acts of violence against you and your children.
i have not humbled myself in your presence.
or more simply
i have never said
christ this is for you
i can no longer do this.
christ
this is for you
i can no longer work alone
i had begged him, fucked with him, yelled at him, sought his destruction, but never once in the last 6 mos had i gone
jesus
i am a sinner, i have committed acts of violence against you and your children.
i have not humbled myself in your presence.
or more simply
i have never said
christ this is for you
i can no longer do this.
christ
this is for you
i can no longer work alone
Thursday, January 08, 2004
so we have a shit fight over pots, agreeing everyone should do their own, and tonight, when it was time to do the dishes, there were 8 pots.
our house is chaotic and filthy, i had to wash the floors, do the dishes, clean the bathroom, etc today.
sean yelled a string of invenctive at 7:30 am, and when i called him on it, he gave me the same excuses about sleep and lack of. Now Sean does three things--Works, Plays Poker and Sleeps. He lied to me about being up 36 hours, and i damn well know it, and even if he did. i asked him to pick me up a paper, and then change a 10, and the paper cost 54 cents, so he gave me back 9.46, accounting to the penny. I dont want him at my bday but i cant not invite him, and i would say all of this to him, but we never talk.
bryan and i havent done anything together since d left, i am scared to ask if he wants to take pictures and if so when, said he would be back at 9:30 and its 1:30, i owe him too much money, owe him too many favours, too much time. he snapped at me yesterday, yelling at me for really basic anxiety shit. he is never home, he seems to regert every second he spends with me.
patrick and i are close, but i am worried about wearing him thin, he called me high mateience (sp) yesterday.
i joined the ndp, and i think that was a silly move...hope is always dangerous, and i think for the first time i feel a hope for the synthesis of offical and unoffical dialectics of power.
i keep pretending that the depression has gone away, that everything will be ok, if i pop the pills and go to therapy. im as black as i was at the hospital...with all that entails, and home is getting worse.
i didnt do anything until 20:30 and then i :
edited the essay for tom
washed the floors
washed the dishes
plunged the toilet
did some reading
did laundry
saw homocide with pat
read a ss for my latin american lit in translation course
thats a days work isnt it ?
our house is chaotic and filthy, i had to wash the floors, do the dishes, clean the bathroom, etc today.
sean yelled a string of invenctive at 7:30 am, and when i called him on it, he gave me the same excuses about sleep and lack of. Now Sean does three things--Works, Plays Poker and Sleeps. He lied to me about being up 36 hours, and i damn well know it, and even if he did. i asked him to pick me up a paper, and then change a 10, and the paper cost 54 cents, so he gave me back 9.46, accounting to the penny. I dont want him at my bday but i cant not invite him, and i would say all of this to him, but we never talk.
bryan and i havent done anything together since d left, i am scared to ask if he wants to take pictures and if so when, said he would be back at 9:30 and its 1:30, i owe him too much money, owe him too many favours, too much time. he snapped at me yesterday, yelling at me for really basic anxiety shit. he is never home, he seems to regert every second he spends with me.
patrick and i are close, but i am worried about wearing him thin, he called me high mateience (sp) yesterday.
i joined the ndp, and i think that was a silly move...hope is always dangerous, and i think for the first time i feel a hope for the synthesis of offical and unoffical dialectics of power.
i keep pretending that the depression has gone away, that everything will be ok, if i pop the pills and go to therapy. im as black as i was at the hospital...with all that entails, and home is getting worse.
i didnt do anything until 20:30 and then i :
edited the essay for tom
washed the floors
washed the dishes
plunged the toilet
did some reading
did laundry
saw homocide with pat
read a ss for my latin american lit in translation course
thats a days work isnt it ?
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
two classes this semester.
theory and pop cult is paper heavy and a 400 level, scared of churchill and her obsession with macluanan/frankfurt...but it gonna be ok. (got a c+ in 201, cause of the 26 % midterm)
i missed latin american lit in translation, cause of a nasty stomach flu, have heard of 3 out of 10 writers (so little borges, no maarquez, no paz, no allende) and worried that the presentation will need me to speak spanish.
theory and pop cult is paper heavy and a 400 level, scared of churchill and her obsession with macluanan/frankfurt...but it gonna be ok. (got a c+ in 201, cause of the 26 % midterm)
i missed latin american lit in translation, cause of a nasty stomach flu, have heard of 3 out of 10 writers (so little borges, no maarquez, no paz, no allende) and worried that the presentation will need me to speak spanish.
Monday, January 05, 2004
Friday, January 02, 2004
sad and despearte photos of people risking death to cross the rio grande, what ever happened to the spirit of liberty that permated america, that gave birth to the lady with the lamp ? (yeah, i know if you ask the chinese or the indians it was a myth, but at least people used to belive it.
large collection of indian temple imagery fucking goergous, and holy and in a way some of the most pleased with its own pleasure.
most barbie art is dull faux shock, but at least it is now protected against the giants at mattel, which is a good step in the right direction
an art blog
an art blog
speaking of religous wars do you think that the religous predilcitions of bush&co helped jesuscolonials into iraq quicker and more efficently, cause there is a crew there hoping all of them were bombed enough to be ready to be born again.
telegraph via talk left
telegraph via talk left
Berscaloni claims to have heard reports of terrorist plans to crash into the vatican, and then qaushed them, not sure how much of it is true, and how much of it is ego, but if i was heading for a religous war, then the vr would be a good place to start.
Long Earth works, made by first nations in america abou tthe same time as the nazca lines, and the chalk horses in britian, have always seemed ritualized but mysterious, a huge site by the smithosnian, has wonderful info and many pics on them (the snake mounds in ohio have always had personal resonacne)
After Warhol died of heart failure in 1987, Sotheby's auctioned a Warhol android prototype that Warhol was developing to appear in his place on TV talk shows
mentioned by kaustenbam, and qouted here
mentioned by kaustenbam, and qouted here
Thursday, January 01, 2004
new years eve meant:
spending time w. fred. in which he admitted to being depressed, haaving trouble with the mission, being nervous about meeting me b/c i might hit on him (i was tempted, he was deeply attractive), then a dinner of salad, filet mignon, creme brulet and an excellent manhattan and a v. v. good pinot noir drinkwater, (70) and then drinking with a bunch of poms and aussies, where we had beer and then an elaborate drinking card game, then at queer club boyztown where i had two g and ts, one vodka tonic, one vodka orange. and then a small bottle of cali sparkling white, danced my ass off, talked some, had fun, spent too much money, got a little drunk.
calgary aint half bad.
(two thots: what does it mean that i found the graphix of the xbox better then any of the fine art ive seen in months.
freds mom is a pyschatric nurse who belives that pyshcosis may come from the war in heaven, and is nervous about meds, i gave her rd laing.)
spending time w. fred. in which he admitted to being depressed, haaving trouble with the mission, being nervous about meeting me b/c i might hit on him (i was tempted, he was deeply attractive), then a dinner of salad, filet mignon, creme brulet and an excellent manhattan and a v. v. good pinot noir drinkwater, (70) and then drinking with a bunch of poms and aussies, where we had beer and then an elaborate drinking card game, then at queer club boyztown where i had two g and ts, one vodka tonic, one vodka orange. and then a small bottle of cali sparkling white, danced my ass off, talked some, had fun, spent too much money, got a little drunk.
calgary aint half bad.
(two thots: what does it mean that i found the graphix of the xbox better then any of the fine art ive seen in months.
freds mom is a pyschatric nurse who belives that pyshcosis may come from the war in heaven, and is nervous about meds, i gave her rd laing.)
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