Chris Von Steiner
www.chrisvonsteiner.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 08, 2009
Part Won-Nain
A critical look at American ideology regarding war photography.
Photographs objectify.
They turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed. Often something looks, or is felt to look, 'better' in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things. (Hence, one is always disappointed by a photograph that is not flattering.) Beautifying is one classic operation of the camera and it tends to bleach out a moral response to what is shown. Uglifying, showing something at its worst, is a more modern function: didactic, it invites an active response. For photographs to accuse, and possibly to alter conduct, they must shock.
Pictures of horribly disfigured First World War veterans who survived the inferno of the trenches, faces melted and thickened with scar tissue of survivors of the American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, faces cleft by machete blows of Tutsi survivors of the genocidal rampage launched by the Hutus in Rwanda - they will always testify to a great iniquity survived.
The familiarity of certain photographs builds our sense of the present and the immediate past. Photographs lay down routes of reference, and serve as totems of causes: sentiment is more likely to crystallize around a photograph than around a verbal slogan. And photographs help construct - and revise - our sense of a more distant past, with the posthumous shocks engineered by the circulation of hitherto unknown photographs. Photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about. It calls these ideas 'memories', and that is, over the long run, a fiction.
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory - part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt. But there is collective instruction.
All memory is individual, unreproducible - it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds. Ideologies create substantiating archives of representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings. Poster-ready photographs - the mushroom cloud of an A-bomb test, Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at the Lincoln Memorial, the astronaut walking on the moon - are the visual equivalent of sound bites. They commemorate, in no less blunt fashion than postage stamps, Important Historical Moments: indeed, the triumphalist ones (the picture of the A-bomb excepted) become postage-stamps. Fortunately, there is no one signature picture of the Nazi death camps.
As art has been redefined during a century of modernism as 'whatever is destined to be enshrined in some kind of museum', so it is now the destiny of many photographic troves to be exhibited and preserved in museum-like institutions. Among such archives of horror, the photographs of the Holocaust have undergone the greatest institutional development. The point of creating public repositories for these and other relics is to ensure that the crimes they depict will continue to figure in people's consciousness. This is called remembering, but in fact it is a good deal more than that. The memory museum in its current proliferation is a product of a way of thinking about, and mourning, the destruction of European Jewry in the 1930s and 1940s, which for the United States of America came to institutional fruition in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Photographs and other memorabilia of the Shoah have been committed to a perpetual recirculation, to ensure that what they show will be remembered. Photographs of the suffering and martyrdom of a people are more than reminders of death, of failure, of victimization. They invoke the miracle of survival. To aim at the perpetuation of memories means, inevitably, that one has undertaken the task of continually renewing, of creating, memories - aided, above all, by the impress of iconic photographs.
Even in the era of cybermodels, what the mind feels like is still, as the ancients imagined it, an inner space - like a theatre - in which we picture, and it is these pictures that allow us to remember. The problem is not that people remember through photographs, but that they remember only the photographs. This remembering through photographs eclipses other forms of understanding, and remembering.
Probably, if you are American, you would think that it would be morbid to go out of your way to look at pictures of burnt victims of atomic bombing or the napalmed flesh of the civilian victims of the American war on Vietnam, but that you have a duty to look at the Holocaust pictures. Yet, the Holocaust Memorial Museum is about what didn't happen in America, so all that memory work doesn't risk arousing an embittered domestic population against authority. Americans prefer to picture the evil was there, and from which the United States - an unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history - is exempt. That the United States of America, like any other country, has its tragic past does not sit well with the founding, and still all-powerful, belief in American exceptionalism. The acknowledgment of the American use of disproportionate firepower in war is very much not a national project. A museum devoted to the history of America's wars that included the vicious war the United States fought against guerillas in the Philippines from 1899 to 1902, and that fairly presented the arguments for and against using the atomic bomb in 1945 on Hiroshima, with photographic evidence that showed what those weapons did, would be regarded as a most unpatriotic endeavor.
However, now there exists a vast repository of images that make it harder to maintain this kind of American moral defectiveness. None of us can afford it anymore. The images say: "This is what human beings are capable of doing - may volunteer to do, enthusiastically, self-righteously. Don't forget." Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. But history gives contradictory signals about the value of remembering in the much longer span of a collective history. There is simply too much injustice in the world. And too much remembering. To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it is necessary that memory be faulty and limited. That is it only a photograph.
If the goal is having some space in which to live one's own life, then it is desirable that the account of specific injustices dissolve into a more general understanding; that human beings everywhere do terrible things to one another.
Photographs objectify.
They turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed. Often something looks, or is felt to look, 'better' in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things. (Hence, one is always disappointed by a photograph that is not flattering.) Beautifying is one classic operation of the camera and it tends to bleach out a moral response to what is shown. Uglifying, showing something at its worst, is a more modern function: didactic, it invites an active response. For photographs to accuse, and possibly to alter conduct, they must shock.
Pictures of horribly disfigured First World War veterans who survived the inferno of the trenches, faces melted and thickened with scar tissue of survivors of the American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, faces cleft by machete blows of Tutsi survivors of the genocidal rampage launched by the Hutus in Rwanda - they will always testify to a great iniquity survived.
The familiarity of certain photographs builds our sense of the present and the immediate past. Photographs lay down routes of reference, and serve as totems of causes: sentiment is more likely to crystallize around a photograph than around a verbal slogan. And photographs help construct - and revise - our sense of a more distant past, with the posthumous shocks engineered by the circulation of hitherto unknown photographs. Photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about. It calls these ideas 'memories', and that is, over the long run, a fiction.
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory - part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt. But there is collective instruction.
All memory is individual, unreproducible - it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds. Ideologies create substantiating archives of representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings. Poster-ready photographs - the mushroom cloud of an A-bomb test, Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at the Lincoln Memorial, the astronaut walking on the moon - are the visual equivalent of sound bites. They commemorate, in no less blunt fashion than postage stamps, Important Historical Moments: indeed, the triumphalist ones (the picture of the A-bomb excepted) become postage-stamps. Fortunately, there is no one signature picture of the Nazi death camps.
As art has been redefined during a century of modernism as 'whatever is destined to be enshrined in some kind of museum', so it is now the destiny of many photographic troves to be exhibited and preserved in museum-like institutions. Among such archives of horror, the photographs of the Holocaust have undergone the greatest institutional development. The point of creating public repositories for these and other relics is to ensure that the crimes they depict will continue to figure in people's consciousness. This is called remembering, but in fact it is a good deal more than that. The memory museum in its current proliferation is a product of a way of thinking about, and mourning, the destruction of European Jewry in the 1930s and 1940s, which for the United States of America came to institutional fruition in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Photographs and other memorabilia of the Shoah have been committed to a perpetual recirculation, to ensure that what they show will be remembered. Photographs of the suffering and martyrdom of a people are more than reminders of death, of failure, of victimization. They invoke the miracle of survival. To aim at the perpetuation of memories means, inevitably, that one has undertaken the task of continually renewing, of creating, memories - aided, above all, by the impress of iconic photographs.
Even in the era of cybermodels, what the mind feels like is still, as the ancients imagined it, an inner space - like a theatre - in which we picture, and it is these pictures that allow us to remember. The problem is not that people remember through photographs, but that they remember only the photographs. This remembering through photographs eclipses other forms of understanding, and remembering.
Probably, if you are American, you would think that it would be morbid to go out of your way to look at pictures of burnt victims of atomic bombing or the napalmed flesh of the civilian victims of the American war on Vietnam, but that you have a duty to look at the Holocaust pictures. Yet, the Holocaust Memorial Museum is about what didn't happen in America, so all that memory work doesn't risk arousing an embittered domestic population against authority. Americans prefer to picture the evil was there, and from which the United States - an unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history - is exempt. That the United States of America, like any other country, has its tragic past does not sit well with the founding, and still all-powerful, belief in American exceptionalism. The acknowledgment of the American use of disproportionate firepower in war is very much not a national project. A museum devoted to the history of America's wars that included the vicious war the United States fought against guerillas in the Philippines from 1899 to 1902, and that fairly presented the arguments for and against using the atomic bomb in 1945 on Hiroshima, with photographic evidence that showed what those weapons did, would be regarded as a most unpatriotic endeavor.
However, now there exists a vast repository of images that make it harder to maintain this kind of American moral defectiveness. None of us can afford it anymore. The images say: "This is what human beings are capable of doing - may volunteer to do, enthusiastically, self-righteously. Don't forget." Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. But history gives contradictory signals about the value of remembering in the much longer span of a collective history. There is simply too much injustice in the world. And too much remembering. To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it is necessary that memory be faulty and limited. That is it only a photograph.
If the goal is having some space in which to live one's own life, then it is desirable that the account of specific injustices dissolve into a more general understanding; that human beings everywhere do terrible things to one another.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Part Won-Toe
He knew he was faltering, trying to keep his footing. Everything in his life was temporary, ungrounded. Language itself had lost its solidity; it had become thin, contingent, slippery, a viscid film on which he was sliding around like an eyeball on a plate. An eyeball that could still see, however. That was the trouble.
He remembered himself as carefree, earlier, in his youth. Carefree, thick-skinned, skipping light-footed over the surfaces, whistling in the dark, able to get through anything. Turning a blind eye. Now he found himself wincing away. The smallest setbacks were major - a lost sock, a jammed electric toothbrush. Even the sunrise was blinding. He was being rubbed all over with sandpaper. "Get a grip," he told himself. "Get a handle on it. Put it behind you. Move forward. Make a new you."
Such positive slogans. Such bland inspirational promotions vomit. What he really wanted was revenge. But against whom, and for what? Even if he had the energy for it, even if he could focus and aim, such a thing would be less than useless.
Then he'd stay up too late, and once in bed he'd stare at the ceiling, telling over his lists of obsolete words for the comfort that was in them. But there was no longer any comfort in the words. There was nothing in them. It no longer delighted him to possess these small collections of letters that other people had forgotten about. It was like having his own baby teeth in a box.
At the edge of sleep a procession would appear behind his eyes, moving out of the shadows to the left, crossing his field of vision. Young slender girls with small hands, ribbons in their hair, bearing garlands of many-coloured flowers. The field would be green, but it wasn't a pastoral scene: these were girls in danger, in need of rescue. There was something - a threatening presence - behind the trees.
Or perhaps the danger was in him. Perhaps he was the danger, a fanged animal gazing out from the shadowy cave of the space inside his own skull.
Or it might be the girls themselves that were dangerous. There was always that possibility. They could be a bait, a trap. He knew they were much older than they appeared to be, and much more powerful as well. Unlike himself they had a ruthless wisdom. The girls were calm, they were grave and ceremonious. They'd look at him, they would recognize and accept him, accept his darkness. Then they would smile.
Oh honey, I know you. I see you. I know what you want.
He remembered himself as carefree, earlier, in his youth. Carefree, thick-skinned, skipping light-footed over the surfaces, whistling in the dark, able to get through anything. Turning a blind eye. Now he found himself wincing away. The smallest setbacks were major - a lost sock, a jammed electric toothbrush. Even the sunrise was blinding. He was being rubbed all over with sandpaper. "Get a grip," he told himself. "Get a handle on it. Put it behind you. Move forward. Make a new you."
Such positive slogans. Such bland inspirational promotions vomit. What he really wanted was revenge. But against whom, and for what? Even if he had the energy for it, even if he could focus and aim, such a thing would be less than useless.
Then he'd stay up too late, and once in bed he'd stare at the ceiling, telling over his lists of obsolete words for the comfort that was in them. But there was no longer any comfort in the words. There was nothing in them. It no longer delighted him to possess these small collections of letters that other people had forgotten about. It was like having his own baby teeth in a box.
At the edge of sleep a procession would appear behind his eyes, moving out of the shadows to the left, crossing his field of vision. Young slender girls with small hands, ribbons in their hair, bearing garlands of many-coloured flowers. The field would be green, but it wasn't a pastoral scene: these were girls in danger, in need of rescue. There was something - a threatening presence - behind the trees.
Or perhaps the danger was in him. Perhaps he was the danger, a fanged animal gazing out from the shadowy cave of the space inside his own skull.
Or it might be the girls themselves that were dangerous. There was always that possibility. They could be a bait, a trap. He knew they were much older than they appeared to be, and much more powerful as well. Unlike himself they had a ruthless wisdom. The girls were calm, they were grave and ceremonious. They'd look at him, they would recognize and accept him, accept his darkness. Then they would smile.
Oh honey, I know you. I see you. I know what you want.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Part Tree
It doesn't mean you won't get any sleep, actually you'll sleep more. Fall asleep in the couch, sleep until noon, feel tired even when you're washing dishes or when you're talking on the phone. You will feel numb. Flat. When something doesn't go your way, you'll just shrug and think that was the way it was supposed to go, that you deserved it. Determined fatalism. You will start losing time, get used to it. There will be hours in the day unaccounted for. You won't remember what you did or where you were, they are just blank spaces of time. When people ask you how you are, you'll respond only with 'fine', 'much better, thank you' and 'I'm doing alright.' A soft, yet distant smile will accompany these answers. It won't stop people thinking you're weak and pitiful, but it will stop them asking questions. You don't have the energy to get into that. You will stop having dreams, making plans, enjoying a good time. You will lose interest and soon enough you will be alone.
Filling space, everything on repeat. You'll probably develop habits such as peeing in the shower, brushing your teeth everyday precisely at nine, writing letters to yourself, buying a cage-held pet, alphabetising your books, ... These are just examples, you're sure to develop your own. Odd details will grow in significance, holidays and important national events will be your guideline to order your life, put everything in place and perspective. You will find ways to justify your existence if you focus on little things. Television will be your window to the world of which you are a spectator. You'll be nothing more. You might try phoning in to one of their games which is on late at night or in the early afternoon, but they will never put you on. People will never meet your eyes or smile at you at the supermarket or in the post office. They will expect you to pay and leave. Any attempts to better yourself will fail. You know you'll never dye your hair, lose weight, buy new colourful clothes. Why bother thinking about it. If you live this way long enough, they will come to you.
At first a haunting silence. The refrigerator will stop making noise, the clocks will stop ticking and no more cars will drive by. Then at night, the voices will come. You won't understand them at first, but give it time. You should understand that they have chosen you. They waited for you to be ready. They want you to be quiet and to stay away from other people. They need you to be detached. Mentally blank. No needs or desires.
If you're ready, they will start showing you things.
Filling space, everything on repeat. You'll probably develop habits such as peeing in the shower, brushing your teeth everyday precisely at nine, writing letters to yourself, buying a cage-held pet, alphabetising your books, ... These are just examples, you're sure to develop your own. Odd details will grow in significance, holidays and important national events will be your guideline to order your life, put everything in place and perspective. You will find ways to justify your existence if you focus on little things. Television will be your window to the world of which you are a spectator. You'll be nothing more. You might try phoning in to one of their games which is on late at night or in the early afternoon, but they will never put you on. People will never meet your eyes or smile at you at the supermarket or in the post office. They will expect you to pay and leave. Any attempts to better yourself will fail. You know you'll never dye your hair, lose weight, buy new colourful clothes. Why bother thinking about it. If you live this way long enough, they will come to you.
At first a haunting silence. The refrigerator will stop making noise, the clocks will stop ticking and no more cars will drive by. Then at night, the voices will come. You won't understand them at first, but give it time. You should understand that they have chosen you. They waited for you to be ready. They want you to be quiet and to stay away from other people. They need you to be detached. Mentally blank. No needs or desires.
If you're ready, they will start showing you things.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Part Won
"Hopefully you'll make something out of your life."
Then how much is my life worth right now? Is it measured by what I contribute to society? How much money I make, what great things I have accomplished? How much I give to the poor or how I help others?
Is it measured by my health? Should I be strong and lively, full of energy?
By what I know perhaps? By books and theories, streetwisdom and empathy?
By friendship? How many friends I have? How quickly I come to their aid? How much I give them and how grateful I am by what is given back? By how much I care for my family?
Or is it measured by love? How much love and sacrifice I give, equally measured by what's given back. How much he wants me, wants to kiss me, dreams of me.
Or all of the above?
How much is it worth right now?
Then how much is my life worth right now? Is it measured by what I contribute to society? How much money I make, what great things I have accomplished? How much I give to the poor or how I help others?
Is it measured by my health? Should I be strong and lively, full of energy?
By what I know perhaps? By books and theories, streetwisdom and empathy?
By friendship? How many friends I have? How quickly I come to their aid? How much I give them and how grateful I am by what is given back? By how much I care for my family?
Or is it measured by love? How much love and sacrifice I give, equally measured by what's given back. How much he wants me, wants to kiss me, dreams of me.
Or all of the above?
How much is it worth right now?
Monday, October 13, 2008
Part Tree-Tree
October 14th, 2008 is a day where a 'channelling medium' called Blossom Goodchild (of all names) predicted that a large alien spacecraft will appear and will be remain seen for 3 days, while radiating an extraterrestrial love-pulse throughout the globe.
Goodie.
She already has quite the following, and the fun part is: tomorrow we know if it's true.
I've been reading about it online, and this anonymous post was the best one, I swear:
Whether or not there is a sighting on October 14th, we are very close to the Day of Declaration, in which these "aliens" reveal themselves. There have already been increased UFO reports around the CERN collider.
I have had a lifelong interest in UFOs, but eventually came to recognize that while these beings claim to be benevolent, they have other motives. Even before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I saw the usefulness of the "What Would Jesus Do?" test. UFOs do not pass this test. Would Jesus kidnap people and experiment on them without their consent, justifying such behavior by saying how bad humanity is? No, He would not. These beings claim to be loving and kind, but they have been here for a long, long time and have waited around to be useful until right now. I don't buy it. The Bible refers to an end times deception that will be so believable that the Elect would be deceived, if it were possible. These fallen angels/Nephilim will present all sorts of reasons why we should follow them (they will say that they don't want to be worshipped and that all religions are just misunderstandings of their messages, yada, yada, yada). Arm yourself now. Read the Bible. Pray to the God of the universe, Who died and spent three days in hell so you can spend eternity with Him. If you surrender to Jesus Christ, you will not be deceived by Satan's End Times lie.
Remember: If Satan showed up and said, "Follow me and burn in hell," he would not get many takers. Instead, he will pretend to be an "angel of light" and will say that he's all about peace, love and happiness--yet without worshipping Jesus Christ as Lord. Choose your allegiances wisely. God bless you!
What's wrong with people?
Goodie.
She already has quite the following, and the fun part is: tomorrow we know if it's true.
I've been reading about it online, and this anonymous post was the best one, I swear:
Whether or not there is a sighting on October 14th, we are very close to the Day of Declaration, in which these "aliens" reveal themselves. There have already been increased UFO reports around the CERN collider.
I have had a lifelong interest in UFOs, but eventually came to recognize that while these beings claim to be benevolent, they have other motives. Even before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I saw the usefulness of the "What Would Jesus Do?" test. UFOs do not pass this test. Would Jesus kidnap people and experiment on them without their consent, justifying such behavior by saying how bad humanity is? No, He would not. These beings claim to be loving and kind, but they have been here for a long, long time and have waited around to be useful until right now. I don't buy it. The Bible refers to an end times deception that will be so believable that the Elect would be deceived, if it were possible. These fallen angels/Nephilim will present all sorts of reasons why we should follow them (they will say that they don't want to be worshipped and that all religions are just misunderstandings of their messages, yada, yada, yada). Arm yourself now. Read the Bible. Pray to the God of the universe, Who died and spent three days in hell so you can spend eternity with Him. If you surrender to Jesus Christ, you will not be deceived by Satan's End Times lie.
Remember: If Satan showed up and said, "Follow me and burn in hell," he would not get many takers. Instead, he will pretend to be an "angel of light" and will say that he's all about peace, love and happiness--yet without worshipping Jesus Christ as Lord. Choose your allegiances wisely. God bless you!
What's wrong with people?
Monday, October 06, 2008
Part Tree-Won
I want to hear your voice. Your voice.
I want your voice that roots through the volatile carats
of playing clouds and children,
your voice who will sow the stars to my lips,
will steal the ground from underneath my feet,
your voice which hurts if happiness comes over me,
like a long sleep,
your voice which comforts when I have none.
I want to hear your voice. Your voice. I want your voice
of spinning cities filled with sun-less courts,
your voice which dresses me and quenches my old thirst
and your voice which stoned all the coolness out of me,
your voice which has cut me, man, as bread
and your voice who will salt my throat,
will pepper my puny mind with desire,
your voice which will tear open my lungs
and will waste the rotten gold of this tongue to passers-by,
yes, your voice which has collected bright lights
in this simple man, your voice which sings
or cries, your voice which teases
or loves, but still your voice, your voice, at least
a voice.
I want your voice that roots through the volatile carats
of playing clouds and children,
your voice who will sow the stars to my lips,
will steal the ground from underneath my feet,
your voice which hurts if happiness comes over me,
like a long sleep,
your voice which comforts when I have none.
I want to hear your voice. Your voice. I want your voice
of spinning cities filled with sun-less courts,
your voice which dresses me and quenches my old thirst
and your voice which stoned all the coolness out of me,
your voice which has cut me, man, as bread
and your voice who will salt my throat,
will pepper my puny mind with desire,
your voice which will tear open my lungs
and will waste the rotten gold of this tongue to passers-by,
yes, your voice which has collected bright lights
in this simple man, your voice which sings
or cries, your voice which teases
or loves, but still your voice, your voice, at least
a voice.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Part Toe-Nain
Random Facebook status of some friends
... dead and broken
... is trying hard not to revert to zombie mode..braaaains
... is in 2.0
... needs a fucking cigarette
... is putting a hand out to people he lost in the past
... est à Paris
... is baking Kerupuk
... seems to be broken. Please contact manufacturer.
... told you so
... thinks there's love in the bodies of elephants too
... touched God in full explosion
... is looking for inner fucking peace
... is fucked
... is hungry for brainfood
... is in Lana Turner's villa enjoying Liz Taylor's company
... has issues with 'patience'
... thinks that life is great
... dead and broken
... is trying hard not to revert to zombie mode..braaaains
... is in 2.0
... needs a fucking cigarette
... is putting a hand out to people he lost in the past
... est à Paris
... is baking Kerupuk
... seems to be broken. Please contact manufacturer.
... told you so
... thinks there's love in the bodies of elephants too
... touched God in full explosion
... is looking for inner fucking peace
... is fucked
... is hungry for brainfood
... is in Lana Turner's villa enjoying Liz Taylor's company
... has issues with 'patience'
... thinks that life is great
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Part Toe-Sephenn
I'm dancing with the pink-lipped harlequin. We're in a field of poppies, burning bright. Sometimes he bites, he growls, he snorts haughtily, but I cling to his shoulders and try to keep in rhythm. In his diamond-patterned costume I assume he has knives hidden, but that's only a thought, we're swirling so fast I could never check. We stop. We step apart and look at each other. His disapproving glare puts tears in my eyes. I'm not a very good dancer, I'm not fast enough for him. I show him my picture of Madame Blavatsky and for a moment I seem to have his attention.
'Stand your ground chief,' the phantom ape says, 'stand your ground.'
He takes a knife out of his vest pocket and throws it at my feet.
'I'm not a saint', I say, 'and I can be a coward at times, unable to move.'
He looks at me, puzzled. I keep talking.
'I can be very forgiving, but I don't easily forget. And I'm edgy. I'm too sensitive. I pick up other people's moods too easily. I require lengthy explanations for things that shouldn't be explained in the first place, and yet I still wonder what is going on. I hear something, twist it around and then twist some more until I can't sleep at night and start shaking. I'm not acting very confident. My brain doesn't function like other people's, and that I experience things differently, so naturally I turn to others for guidance, and I trust, I believe, I dive in, but what if they're wrong? I'm a taciturn man, I'm an observer. I notice little things and changes around me. I skip the bigger picture and focus on the details. I'm mindful of the way things are said. The tone of voice, the matter in, the choice of words, details that are left out, but I can't trust my observations. They're coloured, I project too much into them, it all turns out clumsy and ambivalent. There's no more black and white left, everything's gray and shrouded. No more clear options, just choices you make to get to the next day. The grounding's gone. No words etched in stone, just acting on impulses and spilling out random thoughts. By every choice I make right now, my entire life changes. All I have is myself to rely on ultimately, and I can't trust my own twisted version of subjective reality. It is your fault, isn't it? You are doing this to me. These little games you are fond of playing.'
The pink-lipped harlequin takes the picture of Madame Blavatsky out of my hand .
'Are you going to take that away from me? You can't, you see. I need that picture. I was just showing you so you would understand. So you would see her eyes and understand. She knows and she's always looking. She can see right through all the chaos and nonsensical rubbish. Without her looking I'd be lost.'
He grins, folds the picture and puts it into his vest pocket.
'Naturally. It's all variations to the same theme. I'm going now, someone's waiting for me at the edge of the field. At least, he said he would. I sometimes doubt he will, but that's another story. I'm still going. Please give back the picture.'
The pink-lipped harlequin turns away his head and I silently start marching to the end of the field.
'Stand your ground chief,' the phantom ape says, 'stand your ground.'
He takes a knife out of his vest pocket and throws it at my feet.
'I'm not a saint', I say, 'and I can be a coward at times, unable to move.'
He looks at me, puzzled. I keep talking.
'I can be very forgiving, but I don't easily forget. And I'm edgy. I'm too sensitive. I pick up other people's moods too easily. I require lengthy explanations for things that shouldn't be explained in the first place, and yet I still wonder what is going on. I hear something, twist it around and then twist some more until I can't sleep at night and start shaking. I'm not acting very confident. My brain doesn't function like other people's, and that I experience things differently, so naturally I turn to others for guidance, and I trust, I believe, I dive in, but what if they're wrong? I'm a taciturn man, I'm an observer. I notice little things and changes around me. I skip the bigger picture and focus on the details. I'm mindful of the way things are said. The tone of voice, the matter in, the choice of words, details that are left out, but I can't trust my observations. They're coloured, I project too much into them, it all turns out clumsy and ambivalent. There's no more black and white left, everything's gray and shrouded. No more clear options, just choices you make to get to the next day. The grounding's gone. No words etched in stone, just acting on impulses and spilling out random thoughts. By every choice I make right now, my entire life changes. All I have is myself to rely on ultimately, and I can't trust my own twisted version of subjective reality. It is your fault, isn't it? You are doing this to me. These little games you are fond of playing.'
The pink-lipped harlequin takes the picture of Madame Blavatsky out of my hand .
'Are you going to take that away from me? You can't, you see. I need that picture. I was just showing you so you would understand. So you would see her eyes and understand. She knows and she's always looking. She can see right through all the chaos and nonsensical rubbish. Without her looking I'd be lost.'
He grins, folds the picture and puts it into his vest pocket.
'Naturally. It's all variations to the same theme. I'm going now, someone's waiting for me at the edge of the field. At least, he said he would. I sometimes doubt he will, but that's another story. I'm still going. Please give back the picture.'
The pink-lipped harlequin turns away his head and I silently start marching to the end of the field.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Distant Voices: Friedrich Nietzsche
Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live. “Neither by land nor by sea will you find the way to the Hyperboreans"—Pindar already knew this about us. Beyond the north, ice, and death—our life, our happiness. We have discovered happiness, we know the way, we have found the exit out of the labyrinth of thousands of years. Who else has found it? Modern man perhaps? “I have got lost; I am everything that has got lost,” sighs modern man.
This modernity was our sickness: lazy peace, cowardly compromise, the whole virtuous uncleanliness of the modern Yes and No. This tolerance and largeur of the heart, which “forgives” all because it “understands” all, is sirocco for us. Rather live in the ice than among modern virtues and other south winds!
We were intrepid enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others; but for a long time we did not know where to turn with our intrepidity. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatum—the abundance, the tension, the damming of strength. We thirsted for lightning and deeds and were most remote from the happiness of the weakling, “resignation.” In our atmosphere was a thunderstorm; the nature we are became dark—for we saw no way. Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.
- The Antichrist
This modernity was our sickness: lazy peace, cowardly compromise, the whole virtuous uncleanliness of the modern Yes and No. This tolerance and largeur of the heart, which “forgives” all because it “understands” all, is sirocco for us. Rather live in the ice than among modern virtues and other south winds!
We were intrepid enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others; but for a long time we did not know where to turn with our intrepidity. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatum—the abundance, the tension, the damming of strength. We thirsted for lightning and deeds and were most remote from the happiness of the weakling, “resignation.” In our atmosphere was a thunderstorm; the nature we are became dark—for we saw no way. Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.
- The Antichrist
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Distant Voices: Ophelia
You must sing 'A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.'
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.
This nothing's more than matter.
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.
There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when ... they say he made a good end. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy!
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.
This nothing's more than matter.
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.
There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when ... they say he made a good end. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Part Toe-Siks
How horribly unjust of me would it be to categorize a man who crosses my path called Doctor J. I wish I was more like Lord Henry who said; "I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their characters and my enemies for their brains, and consequently they all appreciate me." Let's say he's a kindred spirit, very much different from myself. We met online, myspace I think, which leads to an interesting train of thought. It often happens that the real chances in life occur in such an inartistic manner that they almost shame us by their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of emptiness, and we revolt against that by charging it with meaning. Sometimes, however, a chance encounter that has artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements are true, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. It becomes a play, and we are both spectators and players. We watch ourselves being watched by the other and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthrals us.
We risk reducing our friendship to the memory of a single encounter. It could become stout and tedious, and all talk could go at once into reminiscences. That awful memory! It's a fearful thing, and it can only reveal an utter intellectual stagnation. We should absorb the colour of life, but never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
Put in a crude way, it's all in the bigger picture.
Jason, cheers.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Part Toe-Won
Ba.Sha's Heresiological Cabinet
Ba.Sha. is an artist's duo consisting of the two young Belgians Noah Aspen (25) and Esther Staubach (24). During the summer of 2008 they decided to start a small artistic project together. Although they both have a literary background, they decided on putting their hands to use, handling objects to infuse them with their own ideas, meaning and by their own words 'pimp' them. Their objects of choice at the moment are items of by Catholicism inspired 'kitsch'. Religious paintings, crosses, statues of the Virgin Mary, and so on. They plan to form a collection embracing a common theme among the transformations, calling it 'Ba.Sha's Heresiological Cabinet' . Current pieces (in progress) include titles such as 'The Worshipping of an Unknown Infant, accompanied by St. Joan and St. Butch', 'Neustra Señora de Hollanda' and 'St. Barbie Crucified'. It could be seen as a form of mockery of Catholicism, which it is, but as the artists see it, it is also a higher and lower form of producing art. They say it's not meant to be seen as art, it's just a lark, but also that their almost intuitive transformations of the objects are of consequence. It is what happens when two atheists are charged with bringing meaning to religious artefacts. It is seen as a great distrust in religion and radical doubts of the knowledge of what is traditional. They create a new aesthetic code for these pieces, derived from the fleeting culture of modern day consumption, academic knowledge and mythology, technology and craftsmanship.
Although it's highly unorthodox, they allowed us to take a picture of a work in progress, for which we are granted permission to publish. Although it is expressed that it is not nearly finished.
Ba.Sha. -The Revery of an Unknown Infant, accompanied by St. Joan, St. Butch and St. Barbie
Ba.Sha. is an artist's duo consisting of the two young Belgians Noah Aspen (25) and Esther Staubach (24). During the summer of 2008 they decided to start a small artistic project together. Although they both have a literary background, they decided on putting their hands to use, handling objects to infuse them with their own ideas, meaning and by their own words 'pimp' them. Their objects of choice at the moment are items of by Catholicism inspired 'kitsch'. Religious paintings, crosses, statues of the Virgin Mary, and so on. They plan to form a collection embracing a common theme among the transformations, calling it 'Ba.Sha's Heresiological Cabinet' . Current pieces (in progress) include titles such as 'The Worshipping of an Unknown Infant, accompanied by St. Joan and St. Butch', 'Neustra Señora de Hollanda' and 'St. Barbie Crucified'. It could be seen as a form of mockery of Catholicism, which it is, but as the artists see it, it is also a higher and lower form of producing art. They say it's not meant to be seen as art, it's just a lark, but also that their almost intuitive transformations of the objects are of consequence. It is what happens when two atheists are charged with bringing meaning to religious artefacts. It is seen as a great distrust in religion and radical doubts of the knowledge of what is traditional. They create a new aesthetic code for these pieces, derived from the fleeting culture of modern day consumption, academic knowledge and mythology, technology and craftsmanship.
Although it's highly unorthodox, they allowed us to take a picture of a work in progress, for which we are granted permission to publish. Although it is expressed that it is not nearly finished.
Ba.Sha. -The Revery of an Unknown Infant, accompanied by St. Joan, St. Butch and St. Barbie
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Part Toe-Zewo
I'm on a field covered in poppies, burning bright. I'm walking through it, on my bare feet, hoping that a snake won't bite me. By hoping I mean saying to myself that if there would be a snake, the chance of it biting me in the toe would be minimal. Contrary to Eurydice, I don't look back. If I move forward just a bit, past the scarecrow, I'm in the clear end where the farmer already collected his crops.
- rent
- new address
- scholarship
- pharmacist
- optometrist
- paint & brushes
- writing room
- meeting for novel
There is no hat on my head. No protection against sun, wind, bad hair and various hair-loving bugs. I'm domesticating. I wake up every day at sephenn, take a shower, brush my teeth, pick out clothes and read the newspaper (now the news is mostly about our failing prime-minister and tensions between two parts of the country) while I'm eating cereal. I feed the kitten, pet her a little bit, kiss my sleeping prior goodbye and I'm off to the factory. My mornings are variations to the same theme. I need reassurance, a pet on my back and someone saying; 'well done boy, welcome to the fold.' Why don't you go clean his socks and smile while you're at it. He deserves a pillar, a warm blanket and his martini.
I'm not very good at this.
The words gulping out of me are not my own. I speak blandness. I'm a bore. I snicker and snatch, no fun at all.
I apologize for having an opinion, I try not to.
- rent
- new address
- scholarship
- pharmacist
- optometrist
- paint & brushes
- writing room
- meeting for novel
There is no hat on my head. No protection against sun, wind, bad hair and various hair-loving bugs. I'm domesticating. I wake up every day at sephenn, take a shower, brush my teeth, pick out clothes and read the newspaper (now the news is mostly about our failing prime-minister and tensions between two parts of the country) while I'm eating cereal. I feed the kitten, pet her a little bit, kiss my sleeping prior goodbye and I'm off to the factory. My mornings are variations to the same theme. I need reassurance, a pet on my back and someone saying; 'well done boy, welcome to the fold.' Why don't you go clean his socks and smile while you're at it. He deserves a pillar, a warm blanket and his martini.
I'm not very good at this.
The words gulping out of me are not my own. I speak blandness. I'm a bore. I snicker and snatch, no fun at all.
I apologize for having an opinion, I try not to.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Distant Voices: Ophelia Benson & Jeremy Stangroom
Catastrophism
A theory describing what occurs when we're asked to explain our ideas clearly.
Dream
Freud explained them. Whatever they seem to be about, they're about sex and wanting to kill people really. Except they're also messages from the Beyond or from extra-terrestrials.
Edge
A thing it is necessary to be on the cutting part of.
Education
Brutal, violent intrusion of arbitrary material into the clean innocent heads of children, which should be left empty.
Fashion
Important ethical principle. Something that is behind the times is very wrong indeed.
Force
A thing you want with you.
Human Gnome Project
Most likely something to do with genetic engineering. Probably the idea is to create a new race of tiny human beings.
Quantum
First name of various ideas that no one understands, least of all scientists, so it makes a great metaphor for chaos, complexity, relativity, randomness, Postmodernity, and just about anything one needs a metaphor for.
Relativity
What Einstein had a very special theory of, which means that it's all, like, relative.
Spiritual
What to call a belief that perhaps is not terribly plausible or even possible but makes people feel special and magical.
Truth
A quaint, old-fashioned word, like bustle or barouche-landau or button-hook. No longer needed.
- Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense
A theory describing what occurs when we're asked to explain our ideas clearly.
Dream
Freud explained them. Whatever they seem to be about, they're about sex and wanting to kill people really. Except they're also messages from the Beyond or from extra-terrestrials.
Edge
A thing it is necessary to be on the cutting part of.
Education
Brutal, violent intrusion of arbitrary material into the clean innocent heads of children, which should be left empty.
Fashion
Important ethical principle. Something that is behind the times is very wrong indeed.
Force
A thing you want with you.
Human Gnome Project
Most likely something to do with genetic engineering. Probably the idea is to create a new race of tiny human beings.
Quantum
First name of various ideas that no one understands, least of all scientists, so it makes a great metaphor for chaos, complexity, relativity, randomness, Postmodernity, and just about anything one needs a metaphor for.
Relativity
What Einstein had a very special theory of, which means that it's all, like, relative.
Spiritual
What to call a belief that perhaps is not terribly plausible or even possible but makes people feel special and magical.
Truth
A quaint, old-fashioned word, like bustle or barouche-landau or button-hook. No longer needed.
- Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Distant Voices: Jack Kerouac
Give me another slug of that jug. How! Ho! Hoo! I've been reading Whitman, know what he says, cheer up slaves, and horrify foreign despots, he means that's the attitude for the Bard, the Zen Lunacy bards of old desert paths, see the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn't really want anyway [...] I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young people wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.
- Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, chapter 13
- Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, chapter 13
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