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July 31, 2007
Goodnight Ingmar, goodnight Michaelangelo...
Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)
Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)
Sorely missed in this world of Bay and Brett Ratner...
DANER
Posted by dana at 08:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2007
Beeyouteefu
(or, lOOKa th Pretty lightssssss)
Check out this amazing light sculpture installation in London by United Visual Artists:
(via Audio Lemon)
XOX
DANER
Posted by dana at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2007
Culture is NOT your friend
Because that Sightings clip in the previous entry is so cheesy, I thought I'd post a more respectable Terence McKenna clip. I like this one way more anyway, as his oblique social critique is more my style. The "Timewave Zero" stuff is fun, but, well, you know.
"The culture is a perversion." Indeed. BTW, I think it's safe to say that he's speaking of popular culture. I think that's clear in his suggestion that producing art is one of the best ways to fight the dehumanizing (or Control) elements passed on via the culture.
Ah, and that's the trick, ain't it? Hm.
YOUR FRIEND,
DANA
Posted by dana at 03:02 PM | Comments (1)
July 22, 2007
How not to do it.
I was jus' thinking. Aboot the way time passes so quickly these days, like a wobbly old bike, downhill, no brakes. Like a theory on a slippery logarithmic slope:
Yet unlike McKenna's generation (and BTW, I think the dude's quite high, more on that in a bit), my generation appears either too confused or too comfortable to progress culturally with the same dread urgency. Or maybe it's just ME. Sometimes it feels to me like the cultural zero point was sometime shortly after the summer of '68 and that all we have to work with is like some shattered, mirrored, crashed-to-earth elevator where all you can see is just fragments of the same played out Self pushing the same played out buttons. "Were gonna bring a case of wine. Hey, lets go mess and fool around, you know, like we used to." Fucking cosmically, soul-ending-ly... boring.
Fuck you and your HTML skillz. Fuck your predictable capitalist ringtone optimism. Fuck your pharma-California. Fuck indie insecurity. Fuck the major pretense. And fuck sadness and the sad ones. BORing.
Anyway. Sorry.
Unfortunately, what I'm getting at is boring, too: that there is so little cultural progress, even as we speed towards some Kurzweil-style technological singularity. Think about what's happened since 1997. Besides the onset of endless war and apocalypse, of course. Since 1997: Google it on your iPhone if need be. When I think about all that Happened between 1965 and 1975, it's staggering. Maybe it's just the romantic.... wait, romantic's the wrong word... maybe it's the treacly perspective of the soon-to-be-middle-aged, but dang man, we haven't come so far since Alanis and Jewel and Titanic and Princess Di and Biggie. What? Hanson? Oh yeah.
God. I absolutely HATE cranky-whiny blogs, and here we are. Lemme try to reel it in, or exit before I bore you any further with this indulgent self-loathing.
So yeah, McKenna's high -- (Just not as charmingly as Timothy Leary was: I actually interviewed Leary on the phone once for this mag I used to write for and it was kinda terrifying. He cemented the word "luddite" into my vocab. Then he died a few years later and has since been blasted up into space or some other brilliantly egotistical bullshit) -- The world won't end on 2012, consciousness will not shift, nor veer, nor pass out on the continuum coffeetable. We're all tired of waiting. We'll just go on failing upwards.
YOUR FRIEND,
DANA
Posted by dana at 03:25 AM | Comments (2)
July 18, 2007
The Conundrum of the Workshops
When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art ?"
Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew -
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;
And he left his lore to the use of his sons -- and that was a glorious gain
When the Devil chuckled "Is it Art ?" in the ear of the branded Cain.
They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked and they fought in the West,
Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest -
Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art ?"
They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art ?"
The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.
The tale is as old as the Eden Tree - and new as the new-cut tooth -
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art ?"
We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art ?"
When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room's green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould -
They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,
For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art ?"
Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,
And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,
By the favour of God we might know as much - as our father Adam knew.
-- Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
Posted by dana at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)
July 07, 2007
Jam band fan? Or Taliban?
My new fave blog this second:
http://jambandfanortaliban.blogspot.com/
XOX
DANA
Posted by dana at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)
