A Science of Living

If you were dreaming all the time & never woke up eventually you'd forget that you were dreaming... & the concept of dreaming would decay & turn into something else entirely. &, if we could live in our dreams we'd be far more capable of accomplishing a whole myriad of tasks that we find impossible to even fathom in our 3D plane of existence.

Now, let's say one day you stream some of your/this 'dreaming' inside of human bodies, a blade of grass, a sun, plasma, matter in the galaxy, etc - etc - ad infinitum - & introduce it to a myriad of stimulus.. This would be good, because you could accomplish tasks & have experiences on a 3D plane that you can't really have when you are limitless & multidimensional.. Then, you can not only be limitless, but you can also embody & experience what happens when helpful limitations are imposed on your limitlessness. & most importantly placing your 'dreaming' into evolving matter on a 3D plane prevents any unnecessary excess entropy that might occur when your 'hyper-dreaming' is a process of expansion in time & space. http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_liqksdLNGF1qc0s10o1_500.gif

Liu Xiaobo Discusses Freedom of Expression in China

"We will maintain the spirit of the freedom of writing."

(CLICK ON LINKS IN BROWN- FOR MEDIA)

Timothy Cheek - Why did Liu Xiaobo receive the Nobel Peace Prize? "representative of human rights activists in China"

Relationship between Chinese intellectuals & the state.

Who is Liu Xiaobo and what is he about? Writing about public issues.

Why is Liu Xiaobo in jail? Charter 08.

The effect of the Nobel Peace Prize on Chinese politics.

STALKING, & ABUSES OF POWER-

I wish this post was about the brilliant Tarkovsky film Stalker- but it's not..

Stalking is a serious issue that I am going to write about in this post & I will also share my experience.

I know & I've gotten to know a few people who have suffered the abuse of stalking & stalking is a far more common problem than I realized.

A friend of mine who is very dear to me recently won a court case against their stalker & I am glad that for the first time in many years that they have some relief & that the law worked in their case & that justice was brought.

It's going on ten years that I have had to deal with a stalker, more on this later.

First I'd like to discuss the importance of a social code in our relations with other people that most of us understand.

In our lives we get to know & befriend others & a myriad of possible events occur in which we no longer wish to be in contact with another person or have them in our lives, or vice versa, to discontinue contact with others & move on with ones life is a basic human right-.

Generally, after such a dissolution of contact has occurred it is up to the parties involved to responsibly deal with any emotions they may have & respect the life, freedom & privacy of the other person.

I think that the most important part of the process of the maturation into adulthood (which I honestly think only happens in ones late 20's-) revolves around dealing with rejection, which all of us have experienced at one time or another (& likely will for the rest of our lives) & also, that one can never judge the life circumstances of another human being.

I think that perhaps the corporatization of our culture into irrational & consumptive ways of thinking- & relating to others ( materialism & 'the age of the thing', the objectification & abuse of men, women & children in the sex industry & the paparazzi/Tv/junkfood & commercial media/culture, etc) is at least partly (if not entirely) responsible for the rise in stalking & harassment incidents.

The UN is well aware that stalking is a serious issue as stated in this paper -

"Defining and measuring violence against women: Background, issues, and recommendations" from a meeting that took place in Geneva Switzerland- in April 2005:

"Specifically, future violence against women surveys should be designed to collect information not just on violent acts, such as physical assault, sexual assault, and threats of physical and sexual assault, but nonviolent acts, such as stalking and psychological and emotional abuse.

Information generated from the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) shows that stalking is much more prevalent than previously thought; and that victims of stalking suffer serious psychological and social consequences as a result of their victimization (Tjaden and Thoennes,1998)." Link (PDF)

My stalker is aware that my local police have an ongoing file on him & still he refuses to leave me alone.

I've been told to get a restraining order & I should- but it's legally complicated because my stalker has small children & I am certain that a restraining order & a case in court might result in his losing his children. So one obviously serious issue is I would be unintentionally intervening in the welfare of his children by protecting & defending myself.

So, I have a dilemma on my hands & this choice to make in that my stalker has twice used his small child to leave me messages in order to bait a response & is thus training his child to stalk me.

I had not contacted my stalker in over 9 years (you are understandably not- supposed to contact your stalker & I obviously never had the desire to) & recently tried to give my stalker the opportunity to stop infringing on my human rights. When I received a second message from his child I was positively fuming. I dialed his number, he answered in a warped tone of voice, & screaming- I told him that to use his child to get my attention, to stalk me- is wrong & that "it makes my blood boil" & that he should be aware that the local police have a file on him & that I obviously want nothing to do with him if I have not contacted him in almost ten years & I hung up. The call was a few seconds in duration.

I thought that perhaps this would bring him to his senses that he is not only abusing me but his child.

I had not been contacted by my stalker for a long period of time after this call & was finally able to forget my stalker & glad that perhaps- I would not have to get a restraining order & take my stalker to court.

I wonder, what it is that leads stalkers to create a delusional version of you, & what leads them to such abusive & irrational behavior.

It's obviously obsessive behavior & I am not unfamiliar with it.

I have also dealt with being harassed, bullied & abused on the net by someone in the arts scene here who has never seen my work in person & who I only had limited contact with.. I stopped posting at any Chicago arts blogs after 2006 - 2007 & am thus censored from my opinion as a way to avoid abuse & quite honestly to not involve myself in a majority of poorly monitored Chicago arts blogs that are rife with tacky & pleonastic gossip.

I was contacted by some of these blogs a few years later & told that my name would be removed from abusive & paranoid tangents made by this person, &- paranoid & abusive tangents projected towards me- yet, onto people who were not- me. I thought this insane, terrifying & obsessive. That someone would assume that everyone who disagreed with them was me & thus abuse my name & integrity further-.

I am truly grateful that these art blogs took the time to realize that this is intolerable, unacceptable & abusive behavior.

This person has since painted themselves into a corner as I am not the only victim of their abuses, I am on a long list of arts professionals who have been a victim of this person.

I also recently blocked them from my email because they emailed me out of the blue with bizarre threats as if I- am somehow responsible for their abusive behavior towards others & the fact that others have become fully aware that this individual is incredibly & consistently abusive towards other artists & individuals.

My stalker of almost ten years also stalks me on the net & after his mails I block him, I have all his emails saved for the police records/file on him.

He has also left me long messages on my answering machine & the police told me several years ago to save all his messages & they visited to listen to all of them, including the ones of his child asking me to contact my stalker & they made a record of them. The police were disgusted, had a lot to say, incredibly helpful, concerned about me (& as I, that child) & once again they tried to push for a restraining order & case against my stalker (at this point there is a surplus- of tangible evidence created by my stalker).

I write about & raise this issue now- because my stalker contacted me again today, via an email account through one of my online art files & of course this too will go to the police. I am mortified & appalled at my stalkers carelessness & immorality.

At this point in my life- this post is also a necessary & a cathartic expression of what many of us suffer not only randomly but for some of you on a day to day basis.

Stalking is treated as a taboo subject & it should not be, it is a selfish, sadistic & dangerous behavior, it is also dangerously misrepresented & stigmatized by corporate entities via products, advertisements, commercials & on social networking sites.

It is never- appropriate to stalk &/or harass another human being, to limit them, disrespect them, abuse them & control them- impinge on their privacy & rights. It is against the law-...

& now I have to spend time & energy seriously considering putting a restraining order on my stalker of almost ten years.

This will seriously & negatively impact his life.

I am not a revengeful person, I am respectful & discreet towards all people.

But- I do stand up for myself & though I am a stolid atheist, I do- believe in karma.

& compassion.

So- I copy & paste the message (name redacted) I received today from my stalker & answer it here, as a last chance for my stalker to go & get some help & see a psychiatrist, get appropriate care & attention for their problem & avoid an extremely damaging restraining order & prosecution- & to leave me alone as I asked almost ten years ago.:

"Message:

I am sorry
can we talk, please."



NO.



-

Links:

Stalking Resource Center- The National Center for Victims of Crime

Stalking Help

Cyberstalking The National Center for Victims of Crime

"Two Communities Respond to Stalking" - (video)

"SVS found that, within a 12-month period, approximately 3.4 million U.S. adults were victims of stalking. Of these victims:

* 11% of victims were stalked for 5 years or more
* Approximately 25% experienced some form of cyberstalking such as email or instant messaging
* 66.2% of stalking victims experienced unwanted phone calls or messages
* Nearly 75% of stalking victims knew their stalkers in some way

During the 12-month survey period, 14 of every 1,000 adults were victims of stalking."

Stalking

Support Group


"Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do."
&
"And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Nelson Mandela


(Thank you to my dearest friends for your love, wisdom & support...)

THE 'CHICAGO ART SCENE'

A long over due letter to the (Chicago's) 'artistic ethersphere',

-

"Postmodern irony, hip cynicism, a hatred that winks & nudges you & pretends it's just kidding." - David Foster Wallace


THOUGH I AM ALLIED WITH SOME TRULY BRILLIANT LOCAL- ARTISTS & WRITERS, I HAVE NOTHING TO DO- WITH 'THE CHICAGO ART SCENE' IT'S FAR TOO GOSSIPY-, SHOCKINGLY ABUSIVE (CRIMINAL..), HYPOCRITICAL-, SADISTIC, ELITIST, INSENSITIVE, SELF ABSORBED, IGNORANT, IRRITATING- "we can have critical discourse on Lady Gaga as performance art." COMPETITIVE, BACKSTABBING, IMMATURE, DISRESPECTFUL-, NAUSEATINGLY FULL OF USELESS FACTS (& non facts) & RHETORIC-

&, FAR TOO NIGHTMARISHLY TRENDY FOR ME TO STOMACH.

WITH THIS IN MIND- ANYONE FROM THE 'CHICAGO ART SCENE' WHO CLAIMS SOME KIND OF 'AWARENESS' OR 'SOME SORT OF ASSOCIATION WITH ME'- HAS LIKELY NEVER SPENT MORE THAN AN HOUR IN MY PRESENCE & THEREFORE IS PART OF THE 'ONE DIMENSIONAL- SCENE' (MARCUSE) OF VICIOUSLY SUCCESS OBSESSED SCENESTERS OR BULLYING MANIPULATORS & LIARS AS OUTLINED ABOVE-.

MOST IMPORTANTLY- THIS 'CHICAGO ART SCENE' IS SORROWFULLY ARTLESS, BUT THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'VE GOT HALF CONSCIOUS & VIOLENT ATTILLA'S CALLING THEMSELVES 'ARTISTS' AS THE 'STASI OFFICERS' OF THE 'CHICAGO ART ($$$) SCENE'.

ANY- IN DEPTH, RATIONAL & FACTUAL INFORMATION ABOUT MY INTERACTIONS WITH OTHERS & OTHER ARTISTS/FRIENDS WHO I RESPECT & ADMIRE (PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHO- I AM, PRESENT & FUTURE CONTEXT_
) CAN BE FOUND AT http://artvolume1.wordpress.com/.

I POST THIS BLOG/INFORMATION BECAUSE IT'S THE TRUTH, & BECAUSE ENOUGH OF A DECADE HAS PASSED FOR THE MAJORITY OF 'CHICAGO ART SCENE PEOPLE' TO KN0W THAT WHAT I SAY IS UNFORTUNATELY, A WELL KNOWN FACT- & BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE SAID, EVEN IN A RESPECTFULLY VAGUE SENSE.

IS ED PASCHKE TURNING IN HIS GRAVE?

IT'S LIKELY.


-


"I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy people who want to be liked by all the people around them.

I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it.

My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits."

- William Seward Burroughs

“The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it.” - Marcuse

Humanity is the manifestation of an insatiable hunger for a variety of assimilations - you are only dangerous, simply, because you are real. - A.M.D

-

NOTHING

An excerpt from a short story by A.M.D.



☎ "What is her film about??"

"It's a 3 hour- time lapse film which is filmed from the roof of a building, a mosque actually- in Baghdad, in the center of war torn Iraq..."

( NOTE: "General David Petraeus, is said to be a “big supporter” of bringing Disneyland to Baghdad." )

"What happens??"

"There is no sound- except for when something violent occurs the film returns to a normal speed, for example a boy got shot in the head riding his bike into spontaneous cross fire, then you had sound.. When soldiers die the film slows to normal speed as well.. But then after the violence quells, it speeds up again.."

"Who shot the boy??"

"U.S soldiers... & it's a bit shocking how quickly the 'situations', or injuries & deaths, get 'cleaned up' with the film returning to its rapid fast forward pace.. I saw two people die in exactly the same spot & I don't think anyone would have realized this if it were not for her film.."

"What is it called??"

"Nothing."

"??? What a title.."

"In her interview, what did she say it was about??"

"Nothing.."

"Who did she say was in the film??"

"Nobody.."

"??? - Did you watch the entire film??"

"Parts of it.. For some reason, right now at least- it can't be a full screening.."

"- h u hm -"

"Does it have an ending, did you get a sense of the ending??"

"I've heard from others that at the end of the film all there is- is a long written message to the Iraqi people, it glows on the screen for about 10 minutes & in complete silence.."

"What does it say do you know?? "

"I've got it partially written down on notes at home, taken from the interview- funny thing about memory, anyhow- something along the lines of "we never should have been there - or attacked your country, invade you for oil", blah, blah to the world & more horrible facts & so on....."

"What did you think of the film, the parts of it that you watched??"

"It scared the shit out of me- .."

"Why??"

"I don't know - why do you think, perhaps the surprising number of innocent people on 'both sides' whatever than means- who die right in front of your eyes??"

"How was she able to film it??"

"She robotically controlled a camera from the top of a mosque - & it was filmed over a four year period leading up to now.."

"Must have been hell to edit!"

"She says that nothing is cut out.. It's fast forward- time lapse - it gets blurred & frantic, in its moments of slowing down you get an increasingly nauseating inkling that soon it will stop.. The majority of the film is when it stops & that is too many times to count.."

"What is too many times to count.."

"I told you... - All the people that get murdered in front of your eyes.."


( 5 - 17 - 2010 )

- - -

Once Again for The Possible Worlds

- - -

“The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it.”

“Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its own morality but to those of another.”

Herbert Marcuse

Peter Orlovsky - R.I.P - July 8, 1933- May 30, 2010

FRIST POEM

A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified.
Songs burst from my breast, all my crying stops, mistory fills
the air.
I look for my shues under my bed.
A fat colored woman becomes my mother.
I have no false teeth yet. Suddenly ten children sit on my lap.
I grow a beard in one day.
I drink a hole bottle of wine with my eyes shut.
I draw on paper and I feel I am two again. I want everybody to
talk to me.
I empty the garbage on the tabol.
I invite thousands of bottles into my room, June bugs I call them.
I use the typewritter as my pillow.
A spoon becomes a fork before my eyes.
Bums give all their money to me.
All I need is a mirror for the rest of my life.
My frist five years I lived in chicken coups with not enough
bacon.
My mother showed her witch face in the night and told stories of
blue beards.
My dreams lifted me right out of my bed.
I dreamt I jumped into the nozzle of a gun to fight it out with a
bullet.
I met Kafka and he jumped over a building to get away from me.
My body turned into sugar, poured into tea I found the meaning
of life
All I needed was ink to be a black boy.
I walk on the street looking for eyes that will caress my face.
I sang in the elevators believing I was going to heaven.
I got off at the 86th floor, walked down the corridor looking for
fresh butts.
My comes turns into a silver dollar on the bed.
I look out the window and see nobody, I go down to the street,
look up at my window and see nobody.
So I talk to the fire hydrant, asking "Do you have bigger tears
then I do?"
Nobody around, I piss anywhere.
My Gabriel horns, my Gabriel horns: unfold the cheerfulies,
my gay jubilation.

Nov. 24th, 1957, Paris
SECOND POEM

Morning again, nothing has to be done,
maybe buy a piano or make fudge.
At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I've done flick
the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor.
But frist of all wipe my glasses and drink the water
to clean the smelly mouth.
A nock on the door, a cat walks in, behind her the Zoo's baby
elephant demanding fresh pancakes-I cant stand these
hallucinations aney more.
Time for another cigerette and then let the curtains rise, then I
knowtice the dirt makes a road to the garbage pan
No ice box so a dried up grapefruit.
Is there any one saintly thing I can do to my room, paint it pink
maybe or instal an elevator from the bed to the floor,
maybe take a bath on the bed?
Whats the use of liveing if I cant make paradise in my own
room-land?
For this drop of time upon my eyes
like the endurance of a red star on a cigerate
makes me feel life splits faster than sissors.
I know if I could shave myself the bugs around my face would
disappear forever.
The holes in my shues are only temporary, I understand that.
My rug is dirty but whose that isent?
There comes a time in life when everybody must take a piss in
the sink -here let me paint the window black for a minute.
Thro a plate & brake it out of naughtiness-or maybe just
innocently accidentally drop it wile walking around the
tabol.
Before the mirror I look like a sahara desert gost,
or on the bed I resemble a crying mummey hollaring for air,
or on the tabol I feel like Napoleon.
But now for the main task of the day - wash my underwear -
two months abused - what would the ants say about that?
How can I wash my clothes - why I'd, I'd, I'd be a woman if I did
that.
No, I'd rather polish my sneakers than that and as for the floor
its more creative to paint it then clean it up.
As for the dishes I can do that for I am thinking of getting a job in
a lunchenette.
My life and my room are like two huge bugs following me
around the globe.
Thank god I have an innocent eye for nature.
I was born to remember a song about love - on a hill a butterfly
makes a cup that I drink from, walking over a bridge of
flowers.

Dec. 27th, 1957, Paris
My Bed is Covered Yellow

My bed is covered yellow - Oh Sun, I sit on you
Oh golden field I lay on you
Oh money I dream of you
More, More, cried the bed - talk to me more -
Oh bed that taked the weight of the world -
all the lost dreams laid on you
Oh bed that grows no hair, that cannot be fucked
or can be fucked
Oh bed crumbs of all ages spiled on you
Oh yellow bed march to the sun whear yr journey will be done
Oh 50 lbs. of bed that takes 400 more lbs-
how strong you are
Oh bed, only for man & not for animals
yellow bed when will the animals have equal rights?
Oh 4 legged bed off the floor forever built
Oh yellow bed all the news of the world
lay on you at one time or another

1957, Paris
Snail Poem

Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired
& handsome felt,
Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at
blown up clowd.
Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound
of rain dribble thru this layer
down to the roots that will tickle my ear.
Hay grave, my toes need cutting so file away
in sound curve or
Garbage grave, way above my head, blood will soon
trickle in my ear -
no choise but the grave, so cat & sheep are daisey
turned.
Train will tug my grave, my breath hueing gentil vapor
between weel & track.
So kitten string & ball, jumpe over this mound so
gently & cutely
So my toe can curl & become a snail & go curiousely
on its way.

1958 NYC







- PETER ORLOVSKY

MICRO INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL STEVENS OF SUICIDE PRESS

Image: William Burroughs beside Sphinx, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fall 1953. Copyright Allen Ginsburg Trust.

-

MICRO INTERVIEW IN THREE QUESTIONS, WITH BIBLIOGRAPHER, AUTHOR & FOUNDER OF SUICIDE PRESS.


I. You are right that people's quotes from Burroughs tend to be tired, overused &/or become cliche- what are some of your more unheard of Burroughs Quotes???

Michael Stevens: I have three for you,"Only those for whom the knowledge is intended will find it."

"Watch what everyone else is doing and don't do it."

"To speak is to lie."


II. You & Burroughs exchanged letters & then eventually met.. What was your first impression of Burroughs?

Michael Stevens: We exchanged letters concerning the Stendhal Syndrome, & then out of the blue he told me how to get rid of a headache by using acupressure on your pinky finger... My first impression? I don't really know how I felt, I was overwhelmed.


III. Where can we find your amazing book?

Michael Stevens: SUICIDEPRESS.COM


THANK YOU FOR THE MEMORIES MICHAEL.



( Image of Stevens )
Michael Stevens: The pleasure was all mine.


Look forward to a future & extended, interactive interview with Michael at ARTVOLUME1.ORG


© MICRO INTERVIEWS 2010 - by, Amy M Denes

COMMISSIONER OF SEWERS

( TANGIERS )

( CLICK ) ABOUT CUTUPS IN LONDON

( CLICK ) WILLIAM SEWARD BURROUGHS

WOMAN DEPICTED AS SERPENT

OUROBOROS -

Antiheroine -



Future of the Universe and Possible Death -

KAFKA LAUGHED SO HARD WHILE WRITING, IT DISTURBED HIS NEIGHBORS

Supporting the Intellectual Life of a Democratic Society -

The Orinoco Eel

Gymnotus
from your arching back
springs a tactile & invisible scatter
spreading phosphene webs
shattering & striking coals of dreaming with silver

Have you touched the chimney
Brought your eyes to fill with smoke?

Spike your head above
winding Orinoco
oxygen to nourish your charge
sachs to spit
unheard
Sensing spines that drive & surround
you are kept & bolt to & fro
while a watch cannot keep up
with its ticks & its refrains

& none can explain.






Short poem from a 2005 Catalogue, by, Amy M Denes.

The Orinoco Eel.

EMPIRE OF ILLUSION- DARK VOYEURISM & THE OBAMA BRAND

Chris Hedges: Empire of Illusion



"The greatest danger that besets us does not come from believers or atheists; it comes from those who, under the guise of religion, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species."
(From: I Don't Believe in Atheists)



"In the beginning war looks and feels like love.

But unlike love it gives nothing in return but an ever-deepening dependence, like all narcotics, on the road to self-destruction.

It does not affirm but places upon us greater and greater demands.
It destroys the outside world until it is hard to live outside war's grip.

It takes a higher and higher dose to achieve any thrill. Finally, one ingests war only to remain numb."
(From: War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning)



"Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance.
Their attitudes need correction.
Once we adopt an upbeat vision of reality, positive things will happen.

This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings. These specialists in "happiness" have formulated something they call the "Law of Attraction."

It argues that we attract those things in life, whether it is money, relationships or employment, which we focus on.

Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity.

The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress.

And many of us have internalized this pernicious message, which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair, passivity and disillusionment."



"There are always people willing to commit unspeakable human atrocity in exchange for a little power and privilege."



"The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic."
(From: American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America)


"Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers."
(From: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle)


"The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living."
(From: War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning)



"Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause. "

All quotes by — Chris Hedges

& - Arthur Miller Quote on Suffering and Psychoanalysis: ‘My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness.

When in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know, have come out of people’s suffering.

The problem is not to undo suffering, or to wipe it off the face of the earth, but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to “cure” ourselves of it constantly, and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call “happiness”.

There’s too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him – of defining him, rather than letting him go! It’s part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad!"

"THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES OF HUMAN LIFE ARE NON - RATIONAL, NOT IRRATIONAL , BUT NON- RATIONAL"

Author WARNS of pageantry's perils -

Chris Hedges, who wrote 'Empire of Illusion,' examines America's
identity crisis in an age of consumerism and spectacle.

By Brad Buchholz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, December 05, 2009

Chris Hedges sees, in America, a nation that has lost its way. He sees
a country that places prosperity above principle, celebrity above
substance, spectacle above nuance and introspection. He sees a "timid,
cowed, confused" populace disconnected from language, governed by
consumerism, ambivalent toward the common good, enamored by an
American myth that has no basis in the American reality.

"We are a culture that has been denied, or has passively given up, the
linguistic and intellectual tools to cope with complexity, to separate
illlusion from reality," Hedges writes in his new book, "Empire of
Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle." "We have
traded the printed word for the gleaming image. Public rhetoric is
designed to be comprehensible to a ten-year-old child or an adult with
a sixth-grade reading level.

"Most of us speak at this level, are entertained and think at this
level. We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of
Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of
no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys
— a symbol, in Italian culture, of ignorance and stupidity."

Hedges paints a bleak picture in this book — all the more sobering
when one considers that this Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist has
spent decades covering violence and war around the globe, in Africa
and the Balkans, South America and the Middle East. He states,
plainly, that the age of American eminence is over. Our standard of
living is going to drop. Our consumptive tendencies are going to
change. Yet the biggest problem, as Hedges sees it, is American denial
— an eagerness to cling to the good-times, anything-we-want illusion,
"the the dark message of corporatism," at the expense of this perilous
end-of-empire reality.

For all his years in journalism, Hedges has never been hesitant to
step outside the lines and draw conclusions in a pointedly
"progressive" point of view. He lost his job at The New York Times, in
fact, for speaking out against the war in the months before the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nationalism and myth were at the
heart of his breakout book, "War is the Force that Gives Us Meaning,"
which was a finalist of the National Book Critics Circle award for
non-fiction in 2002.

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Hedges attended divinity school
before embarking on a career in journalism. An avowed socialist, he
claims to have voted for Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic
presidential primary of 2008 and Independent candidate Ralph Nader in
the election. He does not associate the word "hope" with the word
"Obama." He does not own a television. As a gesture of protest, he
once wrote he would not pay federal income taxes in the event of a
U.S. invasion of Iran.

Last month, three days after the Fort Hood tragedy, Hedges spoke at
St. Andrews Presbyterian church in a program moderated by University
of Texas journalism professor and peace activist Robert Jensen. Fort
Hood didn't come up in the conversation, or the question-and-answer
session that followed. But these topics, from "Empire of Illusion,"
did:

American Illusion

"You strive toward a dream; you live within an illusion. And societies
that cannot distinguish between illusion and reality die. If you look
at the twilight periods of all great empires – Roman, Ottoman,
Austro-Hungarian — there is, in those final moments, not only a deep
moral degeneration but an inability to distinguish what is real from
fantasy."

"During the election between McCain and Obama, we were waging two
wars, pre-emptive wars that under post Nurmberg laws are defined as
criminal wars of aggression. We were running offshore penal colonies
where we openly tortured individuals stripped of all rights. We had
suspended habeas corpus. We had engaged in warrant-less wiretapping
and eavesdropping on tens of millions of Americans . ... And yet we
spoke of ourselves as the greatest democracy on Earth – and that as
the embodiment of the highest values, we had a right to deliver it to
others by force."



American Values

"We talk about (the importance of) American culture. (But in truth):
American culture was destroyed after World War I, with the rise of
Madison Avenue and the implanting of mass corporate culture which
sought to instill new values into the American consciousness. Instead
of the values of thrift, communitarianism, modesty (and)
self-sacrifice, we developed, courtesy of the advertising industry,
this cult of self — this deep narcissism and hedonism that
disconnected us from others and gave us mass corporate culture.

"So it's not American culture that we embrace for the moment. It's not
American culture we export. It's corporate culture. And I think that
altered situations will force us back into a moral system that defies
the dark ethic of corporatism. And hopefully reconnects us to those
values within our past that I think were brought us closer to
fostering the building of common good.

'Vocational America'

"Education in the United States has become vocational. ... Many of the
state universities, community colleges and online for-profit
universities — that are growing faster than any other university
sentiment — have no use for the Humanities, literature, history,
philosophy, classics, art. Why? Because the Humanities ask the kind of
broad questions of meaning that those systems that prize above all
else vocational workers do not want to ask.

"The problem with our vocational system is that it measures and
rewards a very narrow kind of intelligence, a kind of analytical
intelligence to create legions of systems managers — people who have a
drone-like ability to work for very long hours, and (have) a kind of
penchant or capacity for manipulation, but don't know how to question
assumptions or structures."

'The Liberal Church'

"I come out of a liberal church. The liberal church has failed us, and
they've failed us on two levels. (First), they have defined
spirituality as 'How is it with me,' which is a form of narcissism.
Martin Luther King preached a great sermon called, 'Jesus didn't come
to bring us peace of mind.' And secondly, they have failed us because
they did not stand up to the Christian right. The Christian right is a
mass movement, I think the most dangerous mass movement in American
history — and they are Christian heretics.

"They have acculturated the Christian Gospel with the worst aspects of
American imperialism and American Capitalism. Jesus did not come to
give us a Cadillac and to make us rich and to bless arm fragmentation
bombs being dropped all over the Middle East. It was an utter
perversion of the message of the Gospel. And because the liberal
church lacked the fortitude and the spine to renounce this movement —
leaving it to repugnant figures like Christopher Hitchens or Sam
Harris ... at a time when the culture so desperately needs a moral
voice, the church sadly to me has become in many ways morally
irrelevant.

Capitalism

"Capitalism is probably ingrained in human nature. But there are
different kinds of capitalism. The kind of penny capitalism that I saw
at the farmer's market in the town I grew up in is not a dangerous
form of capitalism ... but corporate capitalism is something else.
Corporate Capitalism is cannibalizing the nation.

"Karl Polanyi in 1944 wrote a brilliant work called 'The Great
Transformation' in which he talked about the inevitable
totalitarianism and wars and breakdown that was caused by a system
that permitted unregulated capitalists to flourish. When everything
becomes a commodity, including human labor, when the natural world
becomes a commodity that is valued only by its capacity to generate
profit, then you commit collective suicide, because you exhaust human
beings and human resources, you deplete them, until they die. And
that's precisely what's happening. Look at the oil and natural gas
industry, the coal industry, our permanent war economy. ..."






Capitalism and Celebrity

"The ethic of celebrity culture ... is the ethic of unfettered
capitalism. What are the values promoted on reality television
programs like "Survivor"? A capacity for manipulation. Building false
friendships (with) those you betray. A destruction of real community
and solidarity. Basically: the traits of psychopaths. And what do you
get in return? Fleeting fame and money.

"Well, that is the ethic of Wall Street. That is what allowed the
titans of large corporations to fleece their shareholders, people who
had put month by month small sums aside for their retirement, for
their college, destroy these institutions like Lehman Brothers, and
then like Richard Fuld did, walk away with a severance package of $45
million. The ethic of celebrity culture is the ethic of Wall Street.
And the crisis that faces the country at its core is not so much an
economic crisis or a political crisis as it is a moral crisis.

The Bankruptcy of Liberalism

"I fear more the bankruptcy of liberalism than I do the fanaticism of
the right. ... I think the book for our times is probably
Dostoyevsky's "Notes from the Underground," (1864) in which he writes
about a defeated dreamer, who becomes a cynic at a time when
liberalism is bankrupt and who descends into a state of moral nihilism
... which understood precisely where his country was going."

The Failure of Democrats

"Those of us who care about the working class in this country – and
much of my own family comes from the working class — should have
walked out on the Democratic party in 1994 when they passed NAFTA.
That thrust a knife in the back of the working class in this country –
followed by Clinton's so-called welfare reform, followed by a
Democratic party that quite consciously did the bidding of
corporations to receive (campaign) money. That was the intent. So by
the 1990s, the Democratic party had parity with the Republicans in
terms of corporate donations — and of course now they get more.

"The bankruptcy of American liberalism is that it continued to speak
against war, continued to speak on behalf of the working class,
continued to support constitutional rights, and yet backed the party
(the Democratic party) that betrayed all of these values. This wasn't
lost on the working class. The anger of the working class toward
liberals in this country is not misplaced, because liberals continue
with that type of hypocrisy. They continue to espouse values and yet
support political parties that tear down those values. And that's very
dangerous. . . .

"The progressive movements in this country rely on the working class
to propel our democracy forward. (But) our working class has been
decimated. It doesn't exist any more, because there are no jobs, no
meaningful jobs. And so that rage and frustration which you're already
seeing leaping up around the fringes of society — and of course
America is a very violent nation, that undercurrent of violence runs
very deep — is presaging, I fear, a backwash. But a right wing
backwash. And that is largely because the liberal class in this
country became gutless."

Health Care

"Any discussion of health care in this country should begin with the
factual acknowledgment that the for-profit health care industry is a
problem and must be destroyed. This is an industry that's not only
responsible last year for the deaths of 20,000 Americans who could not
get proper health care, medical coverage. But it (is) legally allowed
(to) hold sick children hostage while parents bankrupt themselves to
try to save their sons and daughters. This is a system, in theological
terms, of death.

"Our for-profit health care system makes money off of death, the same
way our arms merchants make money off of death. And the inability
within our country to face this reality, the inability in a
corporatized media to even have this discussion is, I think, evidence
of the power of the corporate state, which drives debate, which
permits institutions that are morally bankrupt to have a seat at the
table. And that is symptomatic of a society in deep decay."

Violence

"When you push a populace to violence, you unleash a poison that
infects everyone. I don't believe in the term "A Just War." ... And
the longer we continue to speak to those in the Middle East through
the language of violence, the more we empower those who are only
capable of speaking back to us in the language of violence. When you
look at 9/11: huge explosions and death above the city skyline,
nihilistic violence as a message. Where did they learn that from? From
(Secretary of Defense Robert) McNamara of '65, when he justified the
bombing of North Vietnam, which left hundred of thousands of
Vietnamese dead, (in the name of) delivering a message to Hanoi.

The perpetrators of 9/11 simply learned to speak the language we taught
them. ... You cannot promote a virtue through force. ... You cannot
implant democracy through force. Because once you use force, you speak
in a language in which the very concept of human rights is an
absurdity."

Faith

"I'm a Christian Agnostic — which means, and I think that's probably
biblically accurate, that I know nothing, and I believe I can know
nothing, about God.

"God is a human concept. God has been given by various theological
systems – our own and others – numerous attributes, some of which are
morally repugnant. But the reality of the transcendent is something
that artists and religious thinkers — who of course in early history
were fused into one — have struggled to document.

"Marcel Proust wrote that the real news of our lives never appears in
a newspaper. The most powerful forces of human life are non-rational –
not irrational, but non-rational: Grief, love, beauty, search for
meaning, struggle with our own mortality. You can't empirically
measure these forces. The Buddhists say you can memorize as many
sutras as you want, it will never make you wise. If you're not in
touch with these forces – and Paul Woodruff wrote a great book about
this, 'Reverence' – you're not a complete human being."

STRANGE BEFORE IT BECOMES FAMILIAR

" art has something to do with setting up a conversation between human beings "





INFINITE JEST


" we're really setting ourselves up for fascism "



" the nice thing about fascists is they will tell you what to think- they'll tell you what to do- they'll tell you what's important- "




Dialetheism - Double bind - Counterpoint

ANYTHING FOR THE LOVE OF A COW

I. LOVE

















II. SADISM









Slaughter of pregnant cows ( Cannot be embedded, click this brown link. )





Who are you? Really..

A lover or a sadist, conscious or in denial, humane or cruel? - Do you have a relationship with nature & with your food, or not? ( &, there is no neutral- answer. )



You do it to yourself, you do
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself
Just you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself


Earthlings
1:35:28 - 1 year ago
EARTHLINGS is a feature length documentary about humanity's absolute dependence on animals (for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research) but also illustrates our complete disrespect for these so-called "non-human providers." The film is narrated by Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix and features music by the critically acclaimed platinum artist Moby .

RADICAL CRITICAL EXPLORATION BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

BANG BANG

"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it."
BANG
BANG & BANG BANG “In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.”

& BANG BANG BANG

"Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing."

& BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG “Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”

EVERY MAN HAS INSIDE HIMSELF A PARASITIC BEING WHO IS ACTING NOT AT ALL TO HIS ADVANTAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BANG ?
"Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative."

"Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." W.S.B

SMASH SMASH
SMASH BANG

“Every human soul has seen, perhaps even before their birth, pure forms such as justice, temperance, beauty and all the great moral qualities which we hold in honor. We are moved towards what is good by the faint memory of these forms, simple and calm and blessed which we saw once in a pure clear light form, being pure ourselves” Iris Murdoch

BANG!!

Counterattack as author's memoirs speak ill of Dame Iris

By Chris Hastings

"In her defence ... Iris Murdoch and her husband, John Bayley.

The widower of Dame Iris Murdoch has launched an attack on one of her former lovers, who described her as an intellectual lightweight and lousy in bed.

Professor John Bayley, 80, said he was unable to recognise his wife in the autobiography of the Nobel Prize-winning author, Elias Canetti, due to be published in Britain next month.

Bayley, who is a fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, said the Bulgarian-born writer, who had a three-year relationship with Murdoch in the 1950s, was "pathologically conceited and jealous of her success".

"I do not think it is worth paying any attention to what this man says about Iris," he said. "I certainly do not recognise her from his description. I think people who know what sort of man he is will not be surprised by what he says about her."....

Cont'd

"There's no doubting Murdoch's mastery when it comes to portraying Arrowby's self-deceit. He is able to eloquently insist that he is acting for the good of all concerned while he manipulates and bullies Hartley."

Вы можете съесть ваши руки и выжить, чтобы сказать рассказ? Должны быть много историй, но увы, ничто, чтобы сказать рассказ.. Не ешьте ваши руки!!!

“Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.”

Iris Murdoch -

"Earth's Screams Recorded in Space

( Space.com )

Wednesday, July 02, 2008
By Robert Roy Britt

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, if they're out there."

B A N G.

"A photo can take your soul.. .. But I really- am frightened.."
"I come in their fucking lens "

"I can't on my own change the regime in South Africa or teach the Palestinians to learn to live with the Israelis, but I can start with me."

"Vegetarianism is a link to perfection and peace."

"We are taught to consume. And that's what we do. But if we realized that there really is no reason to consume, that it's just a mind set, that it's just an addiction, then we wouldn't be out there stepping on people's hands climbing the corporate ladder of success."

"When I was old enough to realize all meat was killed, I saw it as an irrational way of using our power, to take a weaker thing and mutilate it. It was like the way bullies would take control of younger kids in the schoolyard."



( A multidimensional interdisciplinary experience of relationships.. )

" Someone is alive. Someone returns. Someone cuts, belongs, erupts, escapes, begs, rejects, evaporates & bleeds. "


You are dangerous- because you are real.


by,

Amy Marina Denes

Social Neuroscience, Pattern Recognition, Naive Realism & Optical Illusions.

( Links in Indian Red, see images alone by clicking on them. )
I. Draft for a phenakistiscope disc representing a pirouetting dancer
J. Plateau, Corresp. Math. Phys. 1832 VII p.291.




In "Sur un nouveau genre d'illusions d'optique", Plateau describes the construction and the action of a disc with 16 slits and 16 intermediate sectors. When 16 identical drawings are put in the sectors, one sees a stationary image, when looking through the slits at the revolving disc in a mirror.
This is in fact the experiment of Faraday. The brilliant contribution of Plateau comes when in stead of putting 16 identical images in the sectors he draws 16 images, which change little by little.
Because of the visual persistence the images seen in swift succession will fade into each other and a suggestion of movement is created. It is for this reason that Joseph Plateau is cited as the precursor of the movie, more accurately he is the precursor of the animation film.

On 10 December 1830, Michael Faraday(1791-1867) gives a lecture at the Royal Institution. The publication appears in February 1831: "On a peculiar Class of Optical Illusions".

Continuing on what Peter Mark Roget (1779 - 1869) had published in the Philosophical Transactions, he describes two parallel discs, revolving on the same axis, in opposite directions, each having 16 cogs. When viewed in a mirror a stationary image is seen. He does not refer to Plateau's work, done before 1831 and which had been published in the Correspondance mathémathique et physique. Later Faraday writes that the honour is due to Plateau.

II. Peter Mark Roget's 'Palisade' Illusion-.
Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), author of the famous Thesaurus, first described this illusion, hence known as the 'Roget' or 'Palisade' illusion.

His own explanation is not convincing from our current understanding. Essentially it is a sampling problem. Carpenter detailed a geometrical derivation in 1868, which was recently formalized by Jim Hunt (2003). The intersections of gaps and spokes over time indeed form curves. Due to the afterimage (“persistence of vision”) our perception connects these and we perceive the illusionary shape."

Praxinoscope:
"Praxinoscope"/" Roul'scope"


III. Hybrid Images.
Hybrid images change interpretation as a function of viewing distance. Hybrids combine the low-spatial frequencies of one picture with the high spatial frequencies of another picture producing an image with an interpretation that changes with viewing distance. In this figure, the people may appear sad, up close, but step back a few meters and look at the expressions again.

IV. The Gestalt Effect.



"Amodal perception is the term used to describe the full perception of a physical structure when it is only partially perceived. For example, a table will be perceived as a complete volumetric structure even if only part of it is visible; the internal volumes and hidden rear surfaces are perceived despite the fact that only the near surfaces are exposed to view, and the world around us is perceived as a surrounding void, even though only part of it is in view at any time.

Formulation of the theory is credited to the Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte and Fabio Metelli, an Italian psychologist, with their work developed in recent years by E.S. Reed and the Gestaltists.

Modal completion is a similar phenomena in which a shape is perceived to be occluding other shapes even when the shape itself is not drawn. Examples include the triangle that appears to be occluding three disks in the Kanizsa triangle and the circles and squares that appear in different versions of the Koffka cross."

V. Naïve Realism & Empiricism.

"Historical Context:

Europe had suffered from many centuries of abuse from a totalitarian regime that caused massive regression of the collective consciousness thus giving rise to what is often called “the dark ages”. This began when the Roman empire co-opted the mystic teachings of a small but powerful Christian sect and reinterpret their subtle analogies in purely naïve realist, materialist terms.

By taking certain analogies literally they created a fictional supernatural order that was only accessible via the Church. This was in order to create a politicized state religion to revitalise the crumbling empire and to defuse the growing mystic revolution that was under way. "

VI. Altered Consciousness.
The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art.

"When, in 1879, Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola discovered the astonishing paintings of bison in his cave at Altamira, his claim that they were of prehistoric origin was ridiculed. The breathtakingly accomplished images were impossible to square with the prevailing image of Ice Age ’savages’, and he died discredited as a hoaxer.

In the century since the cave art of the Palaeolithic has been accepted as genuine, it’s suffered the opposite fate. It’s clearly so important a clue to the origins of human culture that interpreting it has come to involve impossibly weighty questions. Does it reveal the first human religion and, if so, what was it? Was it an individual or communal enterprise? Was it devotional, ritual, practical, or ’simply decorative’ (whatever that may mean)?

Does it locate the roots of human culture in totemism, or sympathetic magic, or initiation rites? The cumulative effect of all the grand theories in the first half of the twentieth century was to turn the cave paintings into a kind of Rorschach ink blot test, where every theorist saw their own version of human genesis revealed.

Structuralism was the last grand attempt at a definitive decoding of cave art, but its overarching theory that the paintings mediated binary oppositions left many specifics and anomalies unaccounted for. Since then, scholars have tended to fight shy of the big questions, and limit their researches to accumulating ever more detailed analyses of paint scrapings and cross-hatching techniques. But David Lewis-Williams has had enough of this.

In his view, either there’s now enough evidence to interpret the images, or else there’s never going to be enough. In either case, it’s time to attempt another big theory, one which he compares in scope to Darwin’s: not a closed, provable theorem but an explanatory framework which accounts for multiple unrelated phenomena and opens up scope for further discovery.

Those familiar with his previous work on African San (’Bushman’) rock art and altered states of consciousness will have some idea of his basic trajectory, but in The Mind in the Cave he travels further and deeper."
Cave of Lascaux.



VII. Quantum Physics & Naive Realism.

The Observer effect.

"It is this reflection in the mirror of memory that gives us that sense of "I- ness" namely, a pattern of habits, a pattern of memories, patterns of the past, all of our meanings of "who I am" come from this mirror of reflection." "The illusion will only be cleared up when we are prepared to work a little, we have to work our way back to this freedom, to this consciousness....." Amit Goswami.



Jeff Wall.




VIII. Optical Illusions & Patterns.

















IX. Why Social-Cognitive Neuroscience?
"Social cognition and cognitive neuroscience are independent academic disciplines that interact sparingly. There are at least three reasons why neither discipline can afford this independence.
First, the brain is an evolutionary adaptation to a social environment and is best understood in that context. Second, human brains interact with other human brains in a complex social network that produces phenomena that cannot be reduced. And finally, complete explanations of behavior always require multiple levels of analysis."

X. Pattern Recognition.
"People love patterns. Our brains readily organize the stream of information from our senses to find pattern, structure and connections. Our pattern-finding ability lets us understand the world in front of us; sometimes it fools us with optical illusions.

For a growing number of researchers at UC Davis, pattern recognition is a fast-growing field of science where disciplines like computer science, statistics, biology and physics converge.

From genetics labs to astronomers' observatories, scientists are being flooded with data. There is a need to develop tools to process data very quickly, so humans can make use of it in real time, and to analyze it for increasingly subtle connections.

"We rely on pattern analysis so much as a society, but haven't stopped to think about its principles," said Nello Cristianini, associate professor of statistics at UC Davis."

Everything, is real.

"The world is merely fire reflected in our eyes."
Quote by, Amy M Denes.