Friday, December 11, 2009

Moon Dandies



"Still others thrive , swaggering ex-pats of reality who work the export angle, crafting dreamland bric-a-brac for sale at a considerable mark-up. The oneiric carpet-baggers: artists, writers, sculptors, sorcerers.

Tycoons of fancy, speculating, long on made-up futures. Sauntering the silvery parades. A tall-tale aristocracy.

Moon Dandies with their pockets full of brushes, pens and fireflies. Plumes of imagery are kicked up from their spats at every step."


- from Alan Moore's Snakes & Ladders


Snakes & Ladders: Audio CD w/ Tim Perkins and Graphic Novel w/ Eddie Campbell

I also highly recomend the Disease of Language hardcover, collecting The Birth Caul, Snakes & Ladders and a fascinating interview of Moore by Campbell (edit: sadly it appears to be out of stock).

[actual bloggery will commence very soon I promise. I've been a bit distracted]

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Cheer - Troubadour 21















"The blistering sinus burn cuts briskly through the haze of afternoon cocktails. The new sense of clarity reconciles the sordid scene around me. A semi-posh men’s room, three lads wearing crumpled wool suits and inebriated expressions, all of us zipped up and jawing around the mirrors and inlaid marble. A horrific Lite FM version of The Most Wonderful Time of The Year wafts from the ceiling speakers, putting a tidy bow on the moment for me."

My new short story, Cheer, is live at the excellent Troubadour 21. It's a condensed slab of midnight black, holiday travel themed, humor. I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever written.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Rotten Leaves - Proud Music After The Storm













"I surrender my eyesight to the darkness and the engulfing low end rush. As my focus fades my gaze is locked deep within one of the dark obsidian walls. All definition of the world around me dissipates and the ethereal beings beyond the dark glass gain detail and distinction. Eventually I can make out each digit on each hand and the subtlest nuance of each facial expression. A nervous energy runs through the crowd as the music reaches a physical and emotional peak and one by one the ethereal spirits glide across the dark glass plane and into the three dimensional world of flesh and stone."



Rotten Leaves, a new literary outlet for the darker side of fiction and poetry, launched over the weekend. Co-founder Christopher Dwyer refers to RL as "A place where the cold meets the dark meets the fantastic." and their first issue delivers. The quality and variety of work is impressive. I like that they are using "dark" as a rather fluid editorial yardstick allowing them to play fast and loose with genre definitions.

My story, Proud Music After The Storm, is part of the inaugural issue. It's a taught little piece of atmospheric occult-noir set in a haunted Brooklyn after a series of hurricanes. It began as a test drive for some of the stranger ideas I'm working with in the current novel in progress, but quickly developed it's own frostbitten late night reality.

I would love some feedback, so if you have any questions, insights or gut reactions please drop them in the comments over at Rotten Leaves or right here. And check out the rest of the issue. It is chock full of night black wonders.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Merry Crowleymas



GOLD BRICKS
Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the
softness of their heads, I taught them Magick.
But...alas!
Teach us Your real secret, Master! how to become
invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all,
how to make gold.
But how much gold will you give me for the Secret
of Infinite Riches?
Then said the foremost and most foolish; Master, it
is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand
pounds.
This did I deign to accept, and whispered in his ear
this secret:
A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE


from The Book of Lies

Merry Crowleymas to you all! Though I'm not much of a Crowleyite or practicing Thelemist, I've always liked the idea of a holiday that celebrates the mad, deviant, paranoid and down right wicked aspects of our nature. I also like a bit of spooky Current 93 every now and again.

So lift a glass of Absinthe tonight for old wretched Al and maybe let those dark and devious demons that haunt the shadows of your psyche loose in the world if only for an evening.



















Suggested Crowleymas reading – Liber Al Vel Legis (The Book of The Law) as well as Crowleymas 1974 from RAW's Cosmic Trigger.

"why does the gnosis always get busted? Every single time the energy is raised and large-scale group illuminations are occurring, the local branch of the Inquisition kills it dead. Why, why, why?"

from Crowleymas 1974

To quote Unkle Dick: "May your Crowlymass be filled with good strong wine, an opiate or three and some good old fashioned buggery!"

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

think-make-think



Artist Clifton Burt's riff on a John Maeda blog haiku, its creation a direct extension of its message.

I'm going to take this as my mantra and statment of purpose through the dark months.

Monday, October 5, 2009

High End Contrast - Murakami and Anslem Reyles



Gagosian's 24th street gallery is currently host to a striking contrast in contemporary art styles. The majority of the gallery contains a solo show titled Monochrome Generation by German artist Anselm Reyle. The show contains many over-sized, expensively fabricated sculptural elements made of shiny chrome and affixed with led lights. I'm sure are these destined for a life sparkling up the lobby of some faceless multi-national finance company.

The wall pieces created from found objects are slightly more inetersting but the selection of objects, bits of machinery, chain linkage, and bottle caps, is pretty uninspired and the homogenizing nature of the monochroming process removes any of their life and interest. The uninspired spectacle is capped off with a haphazard pile of hay bales constucted of silver tinsel that appear to have escaped from the Christmas party in Less Than Zero. Though Calrygirl and I did get a kick out of the lone bale found in a separate room under plexiglas as if it had to be quarantined from the others for anti-social behavior. Over all the collection yields little more than a cluttered gallery full of tired design objects whose only remarkable features are gloss and scale. The experience left me not only unengaged and uninspired but repulsed and in a strange way personally offended.



Tucked away the gallery's front room, in striking contrast, is Takashi Murakami's Picture of Fate: I Am But a Fisherman Who Angles In the Darkness of His Mind, a large enchanting mural based on the China-Lion mythology of Japanese Buddhism. Murakami is no stranger to audacious fabrications with big price tags. He is one of the most succesful artists in the world has over the top shows up in seemingly every major city at the moment. But in contrast to the pop and shine of Reyle's work this single painting, given a room of it's own to breathe, is intimate and inviting.

The layered detail work of the painting's background, the result of the melding of classical techniques with cutting edge technology, would be remarkable on it's own. The color pallet is soft but vibrant and closer inspection yields meticulus detail. The main image does what Murakami does best, entangling the adorable with darka nd severe. It teases our intimate reactions and desires until we are left pondering the sublime. The cartoon skulls, a hallmark of the Murakami visual lexicon, here in a massive pile carry both the weight and comical inevitability of our mortality. Their comedic/grim dicotomy as striking an image of death as the fierce/adorable lion cubs are symobls of youth and rebirth.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Double J Guest Post



While most contemporary conceptual art has as much connection to the old masters as a Hannah Montana pop hit has to Beethoven, many of the young artists in the underground draw inspiration from the history of western figurative painting not simply in content but with the fine attention to detail and composition the arts establishment has typically rejected over the last few decades.


I have a guest post up at the fabulous Just Jen blog wherein I riff on underground art and the work of Simpkins, Early and James Roper.

If you are not reading Jen's blog on the regular I suggest you remedy that sharpish, especially if you, like me, enjoy a little smart discussion on art and culture but don't have the time for snobbery and ego stroking.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Diego Velazquez - Portrait of Pope Innocent X (Francis Bacon remix)



"Bacon’s scream is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth." -- Gilles Deleuze

Between 1949 and 1964 Francis Bacon created a series of some forty five paintings that remixed and versioned Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Of these many variations on a theme, 1953's Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is perhaps my personal favorite. It sits early enough in the series to channel the power of Velasquez's portrait yet far enough along to have as much connection with Bacon's earlier versions (Head VI in partuicular) as with the original.

Bacon claimed never to have seen the Velasquez in person and judging by the books in print at the time it is assumed that he may only have seen the painting in mono-types (supposedly this is how he mistakenly used purple for the pope's robes). As common practice Bacon would take photos or prints that he used as reference and tear, cut and paint on them. He used these modified copies as a more traditional artist would use preliminary sketches.



In electronic music a good remix is one that takes a small sound or moment of the original, a drum fill or synth hook, and draws it out, expanding it into a entirely new piece of music while often re-editing or dubbing out those features of the original that are most prominent. In Study after Velasquez Bacon takes some of the original paintings traits, most prominently the geometric composition of the chair, the sitting pope's posture and the remarkable use of light. He then blurs and removes, dubs out, the figure's engaging if cool gaze and expressively clenched hands. Even to a viewer who has never seen the Velasquez these omissions draw immediate attention. Traditional portraits not only have eyes and hands but they are normally the vehicle through which the painter presents the inner life of the subject. Here they are erased and the viewer is instead presented with a jarringly expressive mouth in full shriek.



This leads us to the often cited Deleuze quote above. What happens when a screaming mouth repalces the eyes as the entrance to intimate knowledge of a subject? (As an interesting aside the scream here is understood to be referenced from the nurse's primal scream in the film Battleship Potemkin an recurring image used by Bacon.) This replacement of organs results in a type of inversion to how the work is viewed. Through the eyes a viewer can glimpse the intellectual life of Velasquez's pope. She can see the wheels turning in his head as the cliche goes. This interacation draws the viewer in to the image, engages her. In Bacon's painting the eyes are blurred beyond recognition and instead the viewer is challenged by the bared teeth and impenetrable emptiness of the screaming mouth. Instead of being drawn in we are repulsed. Instead pondering the intellectual intricacies of the pope's conscious mind we are attacked by the primal nature of an extreme physicality. The eyes are instruments of removed perception, they do not physically effect the outside world. The mouth however is an instrument of consumption that can have a destructive effect on the world outside the body.

Through his act of erasure and reconstruction, Bacon takes the intellectual piety found in Valesquez's original and replaces it with a much more animalistic view of human nature. That the pope remains dressed in all his regalia makes this contrast all the more immediate. He further tranforms the orginal image by flattening the scene down in to only two dimensions. Where in the Velasquez the precision of perspective highlights the otherness of the subject, in Bacon's version all perspective is flattened and compressed. The background curtain, the foreground chair and the pope himself exist on the same plane. The hierarchy that places man above his surroundings, let alone pope above his subjects, is destroyed. Instead all things are portrayed as interconnected equals.

To return to my example of the remix in music, in dub reggae it is a common technique of the producer to load several distinct parts of a song on to a single channel on the mixing desk. The lead guitar, keyboard, bass, etc. are no longer kept separate in the mixdown. The result is an over-saturation of the sound. Paradoxically this technique does not leave the arrangement sounding crowded but instead opens up space within the song giving it extra dimension. In Bacon's Study after Velasquez, he takes the background and foreground components and compresses them on to a simgle plain. Instead of giving the painting a cluttered or crowded composition the technique opens up a dark void within the painting that is nowhere in Valsqeuz's original. In Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent Bacon fills this viod with an arresting primal scream.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

End of Summer Mixdown

Here's a little mix to soundtrack the final summer roll out. I tried to capture some of the fresh sounds that have been so exciting over the past months. UK Funky and House music with a emphasis on lively swung percussion and serious BASS weight.

End of Summer Mixdown (Sept 09) by kelcey

(00:01) Little Dragon - After The Rain (floating points remix)
(01:00) Karizma - Neccessarry Madness
(04:10) Rudenko - Everbody Everybody (fingaprint remix)
(07:30) Untold - Just For You (Roska Remix)
(10:00) Afefe Iku - Bodydrummin'
(13:20) Ill Blu (feat. Hoodzee) - Rider
(17:20) Martin Kemp - No Charisma
(20:20) Geeneus - Yellowtail (VIP)
(22:25) Eve/Benga/Salaam Remi - Me-n-My (Up In The Club)
(24:10) Cooly G - Oh Boy
(26:00) Cooly G - Him Da Biz
(28:45) Roska - Pyramids
(31:15) N.B. Funky - 2nd Strike (VIP)
(34:45) Loco Dice - Pimp Jackson Is Talkin' Now!!! (luciano remix)
(39:30) Hot City - Hot City Bass
(42:55) Felix Da Housecat - Kickdrum
(45:05) Basti Grub - El Gitarrro (M.in remix)
(48:45) Kode 9 - 2 Far Gone
(52:30) Sideshow (feat. Paul St Hilaire) - If Alone (appleblim and komonazmuk dub)
(55:11) End

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Plastic Moment #7, September 2, 2009, 2:25:22PM

United States Court House, New York, NY
(40.713758, -74.001392)

"please check your cellphone in at the security sir"

"of course", my weary tone implying my familiarity with this particular routine. I'm in post metal detector reassembly mode. Scooping up all of my personal effects from a gray tupperware bin and redistributing them to their proper place and pockets. As I finish up I pat myself gently on the thighs and smooth my slacks out in an exaggerated fashion. Then I head in to the security office. As I enter I can't help but eavesdrop a bit of peculiar conversation between security officers.

"...it's just that they could be transmitting from inside here, covertly broadcasting sensitive details of our operation, is all." Security Guy #1 explains nonchalantly.

As I reach the desk Security Guy #2 is trying hard not to give his colleague an "are you fuckin' kidding me?" look but it's pretty obvious that's what he's thinking. There is a lengthy uncomfortable pause as the two men search for a way to change subject while avoiding eye contact. But then they realize that I'm standing over them with my blackberry held extended in a surrendering fashion, and they take the opportunity to let the uncomfortable conversation die.

"you've turned it off sir?"

I nod affirmatively and contemplate what I'm going to do with all of the covert transmissions containing the essential details of their security operation. SG #2 takes my phone and turns to retrieve a numbered token in exchange. Just then a third Security Guy emerges from a back room coming around the desk toward the door.

"Jimmy remind me to take my gun home with me tonight.", SG #3 declares without looking at anyone or giving up a hint as to which of the two is Jimmy.

"What am I your fuckin' mother?", responds SG #1 (possibly Jimmy)

"What the hell you need your gun at home for man?", questions SG #2

"Yeah, you live in fuckin' suffolk county, nothing ever happens out there, what do you need it for to commit suicide or something?" Possibly Jimmy's gallows humor yields a sly chuckle out of SG #2 and a nervous smile from me. But just as he's about to reach the door out in to the corridor SG #3 turns slowly around and glares back at his mocking compatriots.

His eyes are dark and lifeless. I swear I see the abyss reflected in their clouded liquid sheen. His eyes have obviously not seen sleep for sometime. They have not rested as he's spent long cold nights awake planning and un-planning existential escape routes from some unknown personal situation. The air in the tiny security office goes cold and silent as each extended second passes with a cold deliberate tick. Each of us are trying to avoid the crushing twilight gaze of SG #3 that is locked on to some distant unseen point off in the distance. And then he simply shrugs, his shoulders rising slightly followed by his arms dropping like beef slabs at his sides. He wordlessly turns and walks out in to the corridor.

I turn and silently take the token for my phone from SG #2 and follow the third man out. As I emerge in to the cool marble corridor I can hear the two men returning again to their conversation as if nothing had ever happened.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

SkatePunk: I Don't Wanna Live to be 34

SkatePunk was the first music growing up that I could truly call my own. Distributed through cheap Realistic Concertapes, via skateboard kick & push, peer to peer, hand to hand, it had fuck all to do with my hip parents record collections and even less in common with pop radio or a nascent Mtv. It was instead the product of a particular subculture of skateboarding in the late 80s. A time when the now multi-billion dollar international industry was not only a really fun hobby but a de facto statement of social defiance and in many small towns an act of civil disobedience. It was a strange experience as a young kid to have your favorite past time become a minor criminal act but it totally amped up your inherent youthful rebellion and the music kicked in hard and fast to soundtrack it all perfectly.

Unlike previous post-atomic decades, in the 80s we came to a peculiar acceptance with our own imminent nuclear annihilation. This rather mad respect for the world ending at any moment fed the aggression, urgency and uniquely perverse optimism of SkatePunk. If we didn't have long to live there was no time to learn more than a few chords, no time to wait for a record deal or spend a year in the studio honing your magnum opus. Hell there wasn't even time enough for me, as a listener, to sit through a drum or guitar solo. If you were going to fiddle about prog rock style on the guitar I was out of there. I had girls to snog, ramps to ride, curbs to grind, fights to start. And always there was the feeling that time was running out, that dark international forces were out there working hard against me seeing my 21st birthday. I sure as hell didn't have time for 12 minute songs or three hour concerts sets.

SkatePunk was political in that all powers of authority, institutional or otherwise, were to be rejected and should go fuck off! It was dystopian in that the total collapse of society was taken as a given and therefore we should live for today and for each other and the rest of the mess could go get lost. It was about love and loss in so far as those things consumed with such force that the only remedy was to found in a primal shout, a shower of guitar feedback and a good violent dance. But most of all SkatePunk, unlike Punk's first wave, was constantly in motion. There was no vamping it up on the high street in Vivian Westwood, or wasting time eating White Castle and scoping girls draped in heavy leather. We had something to do, skate, and we did it with the same urgency and abandoned with which we danced, loved, shouted at the night and ran from the cops. You can hear it in the music but the songs are only 2 minutes long so listen sharp.






















SkatePunk Vol. 1: I Don't Wann Live to be 34

1. Dead Kennedys - Police Truck(1980)
"Dispatch calls are you doin something wicked?, No siree, jack, were just givin tickets"
2. Circle Jerks - Live Fast Die Young(1980)
"I don't wanna live to be 34, I don't wanna die in a nuclear war"
3. Dickies - Gigantor (1980)
"Quicker than quick, Stronger than strong, Ready to fight for right, against wrong"
4. Agent Orange - Bloood Stains (1981)
"Someday i'm gonna change my mind, Sometimes I'd rather kill"
5. Minor Threat - In My Eyes (1981)
"You tell me you want to be different, You just change for the same"
6. T.S.O.L. - Abolish Government/Silent Majority (1981)
"Wake up to the same old shit, Live your life to suit their fit"
7. Bad Brains - Big Takeover (1982)
"So understand when I say, there's no hope for this U.S.A"
8. The Faction - Skate and Destroy (1983)
"The cops are coming after me, their sons are BMXers, They always try to stop me but urethane is faster than boots"
9. Social Distortion - Mommy's Little Monster (1983)
"Her eyes are a deeper blue, she likes her hair that color too"
10. Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized (1983)
"All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me."
11. Black Flag - Slip It In (1984)
"You're getting around, I'm not putting it down, It's just what it is, Getting it while it's around"
12. Butthole Surfers - Wichita Cathedral (1984)
"Wiped out wasted Wichita, Cathedrals on my mind, Last time I got wasted there, My poor dog just went blind"
13. JFA - Pipetruck (1984)
"dumdum dada dumdum"
14. Drunk Injuns - She's Gots A Gun (1985)
"Thoughts of tomorrow, Tear me apart, I think of the past, You’re the pain of my heart"
15. D.I. - Johnny Has A Problem (1985)
"Chippin' every day chipin' for the gipper, Chippin' on chippin' on down the line"
16. Toy Dolls - My Girlfriend's Dad's A Vicar (1985)
"He's a Vicar ya know, works in a church"
17. 7 Seconds - Walk Together Rock Together (live) (1987)
"Why don't I buy you a beer? Because I'm not old enough"
18. Dag Nasty - Excersise (1987)
"I'm irresponsible, I'm irrational, it's irreversible, what are you gonna do?"
19. Descendants - All-O-Gistics (live) (1987)
"Though shalt not partake of the dreaded decaf"
20. G.B.H. - Makin' Whips (1987)
"But you're going nowhere ya missing the whole damn point, lighten up, lighten up and we'll rip the joint."
21. McRad - Weakness (1987)
"My weakness is I can't say no, My weakness is I can't let go, So stay with me I'll let you know that love is something I can show"
22. McRad - McShred (1987)
"McSHRED!!"

I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch of great bands and tunes so drop your faves in the comments box. Vol. 2 will be up in a couple of weeks. I just need to track a few things down.

NJ crew - check out Randy Now's excellent collection of old school City Gardens photos & flyers here.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Plastic Moment #6, August 17, 2009, 07:23:00AM

Home, Brooklyn, NY 11211 (40.675234, -73.971043)

Years of habitual repetition carry my exhausted body forward. I stumble through the dark, windowless living room and into the harsh bathroom light. Door closes solid behind me the towel is hung firmly on a hook. I turn to face myself in the mirror and am greeted only by noise. A swirl of distorted images punctuated by the staccato echo of my alarm clock, shut off some time ago but still rattling around my head-space along with the swirling remains of abandoned dream time conversations. There is a Cronkitesque news caster's voice, and another that speaks the gibberish of imaginary Russian. Severed from context they are unintelligible now and left to battle the petulant shrieking of non-existent child. All these words and sounds are echos within a cavernous subconscious, all carrying on beyond their usefulness and refusing to be placed back in to the toy chest where they belong.

I rub violently at my sore eyes and stair out again towards the mirror. This time the visual flotsam and distortion has settled a bit. Looking back at me now, is the contorted and mangled flesh of Franicis Bacon portraiture. A slab of day old flank steak run through a cubist machine. Twisted and abstracted, the horrid pink of my skin under the fluorescents barely signify flesh while outlined grossly accentuated by cold gray stubble and blackened rot.

How to shave a face like this? How to shave in a state like this? Best to leave the sharp blades alone this morning. No great crime committed by wearing a bit of cheek shadow to the office. Turning away from the devious mirror, I summon just enough reason to get the knobs turning and the water flowing. I wrestle off the sweat drenched clothes and toss my body around the curtain and into the scalding shower. The sudden movement throws my balance and I end up slumped forward with my cheek pressed against the wall's cool white tile.

For a moment the tiles dance, fluttering across the wall in waves. Blown by an unseen oceanic breeze, they move with a dainty flutter that betrays their ceramic rigidity. The fiercely hot water brings a touch of sanity with it. The swirl of voices begins to coalesce, begins to sound familiar. Soap in hand I begin to scrub vigorously at my flesh. Beginning with the back of my neck and then proceeding over the skull and down around my ears. The thick viscous film of dream-stuff comes off my body in sheets. Making a loud slapping sound as it hits the shower floor, it begins to pool up around the drain in a swirl of luminous pink and blue. I blow long strings of plasma from my nose and tear ribbons of gelatinous matter from my eyes.

Soon my vision begins to clarify. The voices become singular and then the singular voice my own. I stand up and arch my back in an exaggerated stretch. I tip my head back and let the last of the soap suds slide off of me. The soapy bubbles join the remaining bits of the iridescent dream-stuff and together they disappear down the drain. I turn off the water and pull aside the curtain. I'm ready to begin another day.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Filmstrip Day

My apologies for skiving off and forsaking my blogerating duties. I have some great posts in the pipeline but need to string together a few moments to tidy them up and that probably won't happen until the weekend.

Until then I'll make like a 2nd grade teacher with a hangover and post a film to keep the kiddies quiet while I try to nap it off in the back of the class.

Instead of Gus the Mule Who Kicks Field Goals, I'm playing the rave episode from Spaced which makes me laugh so hard that I fear bodily injury.


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Gonzo Shaman Kelcey



by the wonderful RaeFox, go there now and bestow your praise and cash offerings on her.

Edit: Rachael has a piece in the finals of a Brookyln themed photo contest. It's neck and neck last I checked so go and VOTE (early and often as the saying goes).

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Plastic Moment # 5 July 29, 2009 05:55:55PM


Union Square Station, New York, NY
(40.7359796, -73.9893249)

My after work errands sorted with efficiency, I hit the stairs to the subway in the hope of getting home before the darkening sky opens. I've left home without my umbrella and now will need to to be quick and lucky to avoid getting soaked. On the last step I turn an ankle. Tripping awkwardly, I quickly find myself belly to pavement and my groceries and other items scattered across the grimy station floor. Shaking off the fall I begin to frantically scoop my belongings up off the pavement. As I do so I can't help but notice a peculiar foreign item among them. It is the size and shape of a standard promotional flyer, as would advertise a club, bar or website, but the paper and printing are of a distinctive quality.

One side of the card bears a peculiar geometric symbol consisting of a twisting unbroken line with many angles yielding six distinct points and having no discernible beginning or end. The symbol is etched deep into the paper and outlined with a metallic bronze ink. The other end of the card is filled with fine detailed calligraphy whose symbols are completely foreign to me. The item has a strange hypnotic pull to it and I find myself standing among the rush hour crowd idly pondering its origin and meaning. Then a huge crack of thunder echoes down the stairway from street level and the trance is broken. Remembering that I am in a hurry, I toss my found treasure in my front shirt pocket, gather up my bags and make for the turnstile.

At the turnstile my metro-card, the one I had used an hour earlier, does not work. No matter how frantically I swipe it through the reader the response it continually the same. "SEE AGENT". I spin around out of the turnstile area fighting my way through other impatient strap-hangers to the ticket booth. Sliding my busted card through the slot I state my case with as much urgency as I can muster. The clerk does not look up. He slides the card lazily through a reader of his own and taps a few keys on an ancient keyboard, mumbling incoherently as he does so. Not being able to construe whether the mumbling is directed at me I simply stand there tapping my fingers impatiently. When the ticket agent finally looks up from his keyboard however, his expression changes instantly. His eyes perk up and a polite smile forces its way across his tired jowls. "Well my apologies sir" he says crisply, his eyes not quite meeting mine through the thick glass. "We should be able to fix this up for you here and now but I'm afraid it will cost you six dollars" there is an odd nod and wink in his tone and I realize what he's staring at is the card peeking out of my front pocket, the peculiar geometric symbol on display like a badge. I consider protesting the fee, but my sense of urgency overcomes my thrift and I pull a twenty from my wallet and stuff it hastily into the slot.

The attendant then slides me a new card and my change. The card and bills feel oddly heavy and cool to the touch, as opposed to the usual wet heat of over-handled currency. In any event I jam the bills in my pocket and make for the turnstile which, with a reassuring thunk, finally allows me access. Once through I go to tuck the new metro-card into my wallet but end up examining it in detail. It looks like any other metro-card but it feels heavier and the logo across the front seems more detailed, the letters appear to be drawn at an odd perspective with hints of metallic fleck shimmering from the shading.

The rush hour crowd presses me forward and I shake off the odd feeling again and slide the card into my wallet. I take a right turn down a half flight of stairs onto the catwalk the runs above the 6 train platform, as per usual, but after a short time walking I realize something is odd. There is no second set of stairs down onto the platform. In fact as I look over I see another caged in catwalk running parallel to the one I'm on. This passageway is the one I should be on. I see the stairs descending to the platform and the train coming into the station but it is all on the other side of a wire mesh divider. I must have taken the wrong stairs. This hallway and catwalk must lead to another train, perhaps the uptown track. Not wanting to retrace my steps I keep walking forward. Its feels like quite a long way but I soon notice another platform and track to my right and eventually there are stairs leading to them.

As I reach the platform a sense of disorientation nearly overcomes me. Though I had been watching the platform to my right from the catwalk, here the platform ends just behind the stairwell and instead stretches out in front me far enough that I cannot make out the end. I take a few uneasy steps and then collapse onto an empty bench. The station seems deserted though I can here the distant sound of rhythmic drumming laced with the penitent cry of a subterranean saxophone. My head is beginning to swim with confusion. I pull the mystery card out of my front pocket and inspect it, making sure to turn it over gingerly and not focus on it for too long for fear of becoming entranced. There is still nothing I can decipher from the peculiar symbol and accompanying glyphs so I throw it back in my pocket for safe keeping.

I pull out the bills received as change from the attendant. Much like the peculiar metro-card, they looked nearly normal but yet a strange suspicion rise in me that they are not as they appear. There are Messieurs Hamilton and Washington certainly but the images seem to move into my view as if in 3-D and the finely detailed borders twinkle and glisten with light even though the station is dimly lit and the air thick with dust. In a moment of bizarre compulsion I lift the folded bills to my nose and sniff them as if they were fresh cut flowers. My nostrils fill with the heavy scent of incense. The smell of a downtown head shop and uptown's open market makes my head swim. My eye lids grow heavy and I nearly drift away until I'm suddenly stirred from my reverie by the rumble and rush of an incoming train.

My commuter's instinct takes over and I stumble to my feet leaning in against the torrent of air as the train enters the station. The train design is old, like the redbirds of my youth, but without the inches thick build of horrid crimson enamel. Instead the cars have a cool luminous metallic finish. the station is silent save the rhythmic slowing of the wheels. The brakes do not squeak or squeal as the train gently comes to a stop. A man pulls open the car doors by hand and emerges onto the platform. He is tall and sleek with dark skin and blue tinted glasses that seem to glow in the dim station light. He is dressed in a black high collared jacket, smartly buttoned and descending nearly to the floor. He has the peculiar appearance of both a priest and a body guard so it is not strange that when , with a silent open handed gesture, he bids me enter the train I follow his instructions.

Inside it is empty. The lighting is soft and the temperature is cool. I fall into an immaculately upholstered seat and try to acclimate to the strange yet familiar surroundings. The train effortlessly glides back up to speed leaving the station behind. As we depart the distant percussion fades but I can still hear the far away sound of the saxophone. I look around for a sign or direction and find the route marker above the window filled with obscure glyphs that I cannot decipher. I pull the mystery card from my front pocket and hold it up in comparison. The writing both on the train signage and the card appear to be of a similar type. Put the observation yields me little information. I put the card away and try to relax. The air is full of incense, the same fragrance as the bills in my pocket. I breath it in deep and let my eye lids again grow heavy. I give over to the knowledge that wherever the train is taking me there is little I can do to change it's course.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Pixu: The Mark of Evil

From the team that brought us the Eisner winning "5" (sans Rafael Grampá, whose Mesmo Delivery for Adhouse is an absolute must read) comes the captivating horror comic Pixu: The Mark of Evil. I fell in love with this book in its original two volume, self published format but I have to say the people at Dark Horse have done a wonderful job with the new hardcover collected edition. As an art object it is a thing to behold.

Pixu is set in an ageing apartment building that is infested/inhabited/possessed by a mysterious demonic force. Each of the four creators takes tells the tale of one set of tenants whose lives begin to weave together as the action progresses. As a work of horror Pixu is more in line with an atmospheric Asian horror film than a classic all American slasher. There are gore and guts here but they are abstracted and not the primary source of terror. Instead Pixu revels in the unseen. The "mark of evil" from the title is just that, a spreading amorphous void, an erasure, that creeps across walls and seeps through floors, an unintelligible abstraction that appears to both nurture and be nurtured by the dark secrets held by the buildings inhabitants.

The real strength here is a delightful lack of explanation. Pixu has no mad doctor to soliloquise about the specific details or archaic history of whatever demonic force is at large. There is no Rupert Giles, no recordings from Prof. Knowby. In the end it is only the confused and convincingly imperfect characters who drive the story. It is their downward spiral of frantic irrational behavior and horrific violent actions that gives the story its bite.

With all four creators primarily known as illustrators the visual storytelling on display is a cut above. Though each artist has their own distinctive style there is a very cohesive aesthetic sto the book as whole. A serious emphasis is placed on mystery and atmosphere in the the heavily shadowed and textured panels. This is heightened further by a very deliberate pacing that subtly builds suspense toward a nearly over the top climax. One of the best parts about Pixu is that though it is akin to some of the great Asian suspense and horror films one could not imagine it in any other form than comics. In that these young artists have done something a bit special in a time of comics for the sake of hollywood hysteria.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Plastic Moments #4: July 4, 2009 09:53:17PM


Asbury Park Boardwalk, Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ
(40.2191623, -74.0007582)

Gloriously blinding light, vibrant swathes of color layered over the black horizon, the ground quakes with the report of gunpowder, July the 4th and the pyrotechnic spectacle that is its ritual are spiraling upward toward a grand climax. From the outdoor lounge above the boardwalk the scene is laid out in dynamic tableau. The mass of spectators are silhouetted by the slashes of light and color that slice through the liquid black horizon above the sea. The gasp, awe and spontaneous applause of the crowd punctuates the performance with touches of reverence and nostalgia laced with the primal glee of destruction.

The Grand moment reaches its zenith as eyes shudder from frantically flickering light, ears ring with the cacophony of dozens of chaotic explosions and nasal passages fill with the thick aroma of black powder. The senses, pushed beyond their limits, begin to bleed the confusion taxes the mind of rationality and sends vibrant tremors of excitement through the body. The sensory overload reaches a pitch that is nearly unbearable.

And then it all abruptly ends. There is a moment of overwhelmed silence as thick smoke drifts back from the water's edge over the appreciative spectators standing along the boardwalk, eyes fixed up at the sky. A few small fires are seen burning themselves out along the beach. Applause erupts from the beach, the boardwalk and surrounding area. Somewhere beyond the smoke the unseen pyrotechnicians must be proud.

The applause and smoke dissipate as awe struck silence gives way to conversational chatter and the crowd begins to disperse. But peculiar outbursts begin to rise from those onlookers who have been caught staring listlessly out to sea. The orderly exit is cut short as individuals stop in their places and look about in confusion. The half dispersed crowd begins to ripple with a flurry of shouting, pointing and frantic gestures toward the sky.

Following outstretched fingers one finds an otherworldly sight emerging from the smoke. A massive vertical swathe of black sky has seemingly been torn away and in its place daylight shows through. While the rest of the heavens remain impenetrably black, between the uneven edges of this striking tear a sky of peculiar pink glows with the light of a violet sun and waters of luminous turquoise mingle with the ebony ocean. A flock of iridescent birds, feathers brushed with hues of crimson, bronze and violet, fly across the threshold of the bizarre day-lit dimension and into our night shrouded reality leaving trails of startling color across the horizon as they glide.

The initial panic of the crowd dies down quickly, settling into a peculiar peace that can o found only beyond shock and fear. Every single onlooker is still, neck craning, eyes straining, transfixed. Not knowing what else to do I go back to the bar for another round of drinks.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Cory Doctorow's Makers to be serialized on tor.com























"We’re not the only ones. Technology has challenged and killed businesses from every sector. Hell, IBM doesn’t make computers anymore! The very idea of a travel agent is inconceivably weird today! And the record labels, oy, the poor, crazy, suicidal, stupid record labels. Don’t get me started. "

“Capitalism is eating itself. The market works, and when it works, it commodities or obsoletes everything. That’s not to say that there’s no money out there to be had, but the money won’t come from a single, monolithic product line. The days of companies with names like ‘General Electric’ and ‘General Mills’ and ‘General Motors’ are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.


from chapter one of Makers by Cory Doctorow



Cory Doctorow's next novel, Makers, is being serialized on Tor.com ahead of it's publication in October. The first of the novel's three originally appeared in serialized form on Salon in 2005 under the title Themepunks . Tor plans to re-post those chapters followed by the rest of the novel three days a week starting yesterday and continuing in to the fall. They have also added very cool illustrations to each chapter from the folks at Idiot Books that will combine in the end to form a giant mosaic.

I absolutely loved the novels first section when it was up at Salon and am looking forward to reading the rest of the book in this serialized format (and than most likely re-reading it as a novel). The novel, or at least the first section, follows a team of hardware hackers immersed in a sort of makers' revolution along with the journalist who finds herself caught up in the events. This post-industrial revolution is comprised of lone cells of entrepreneurs re-purposing the cast off remains of a waste heavy consumer society into new, wonderful and obscure inventions and possibly reigniting the innovation and manufacturing spirit of American society in the process. The driving engine for this change is a rogue CEO, Kettlewell, who delivers the quote above and is determined to retool global industry by micro-funding thousands of individual teams of inventors across the country.

In 2005 the themes and setting of the book were the product of squinting in to a desperate near future. In the current cultural and financial climate however, the story should read as reports from an optimistic version of the present. As always Doctorow shines in making tech/geek gibberish enjoyable to those less fluent in its vernacular. Here he manges again to create a fiction based on complex and serious serious ideas that has at its heart wonderful characters and their very real struggles and triumphs in an age where technology and its effects on daily life are in a maddening state of flux.

It will be interesting to see how the serialization of the book will go over. There have been a few flavors of this return to the dickensesque serial and to my knowledge none have met with massive success. However, the synergy between the themes in the work and the innovative way its being promoted and published make this a perfect candidate for this new twist on a very old format. It certainly doesn't hurt that its written by one of the pillars of the commons and the internet.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Stray Thoughts: Dad Sold Crack Here






















The standard image of New York City is of a buzzing hive filled to bursting, sidewalks full of bustling humans and streets clogged to capacity with honking stop/start automobiles. These are, to honest, very genuine urban experiences but there are many others. There is a very special flavor of meditative solitude that comes from discovering a place or a moment that the city dwellers have abandoned or discarded even if momentarily. Walking an empty Brooklyn street alone near dawn can be a singular experience. A moment shared with the sleeping masses tucked away in the surrounding buildings but simultaneously yours alone. In these moments a trick of the light, an odd angle or viewpoint, an introspective state of mind, can unearth peculiar details and hidden treasures from the detritus of a landscape you may travel through every day. To me Rachael Noel Fox's photo book, Dad Sold Crack Here, captures these moments with a revelatory eye for their bittersweet beauty.

There are very few people in the photos Rachael's collected here and they are rarely the focus of the image. The people that do appear are often distracted, asleep while endlessly waiting or walking speedily out of the frame. Instead what is on display are the remains and resonance the city's inhabitants leave in their wake. Skillfully captured here they are perhaps more revealing than portraits could ever be. Here imperfect patterns rise from the faces of apartment buildings and strike out against the starkness of the sky. Worn brickwork, asphalt and concrete all track the movements of their inhabitants and the passage of time in delicately etched abstractions. Entrance ways for churches, hospitals and nightclubs stand un-entered, there haunting memories and kinetic potentials left intact. Common sights of industrial warnings, forgotten advertisements for phantom products, graffiti both intimate and magnificent all co-mingle across the landscape. Each is reshaped in equal measures by the ware and grind urban progress and reborn in equal glory by the gentle touch of the camera lens.

Some of my favorite images in the book are of alleyways, narrow crevices, forgotten corners and other abandoned spaces that have been reclaimed by a resilient natural element whether it be water, plants, flowers or of course cats. The various cats, along with one rather brazen pigeon, are the primary visible animal presence in this collection. This seems rather fitting to me, as I have always felt that city cats, particularly bodega cats and strays, are really the keepers of the forget places. They know of secret spaces and hidden treasures that, lost in the steam and noise of progress, may have gone untouched by humans for generations, at least until someone with an inquisitive eye and camera at the ready follows one down an alley and into the cities neglected heart bring them back for us all to see.

Buy Dad Sold Crack Here.

Also check out the Rae Fox tumblog for a daily fix.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Stray Thoughts on Rebirth of a Nation




















I finally manged to catch the theatrical version of Paul D. Miller / DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation at MOMA last night and at the end of the day it seems like a missed opportunity for Miller. To be fair I'm going to assume that the performance piece is significantly more free and interesting then the stultified for dvd version we saw. The inane voice over and ham-fisted introduction and prologue sections really hurt the overall product. The narrator is either pointing out what is blatantly obvious or making intelligence generalities or overreaching inferences. The project was to remix the original silent film in order to draw out and deconstruct the racial supremacist imagery and ideology embedded in it. If you need to explain to the viewer what they are seeing, or draw out connections to the present day, then it project has failed and should have been taken back to the editing room. I'm not certain Miller's film isn't capable of standing on its own feet, it probably is, but in this presentation it's never given the chance.

Once you get through the intro and tune out the intermittent narration things get better. The score, the work of Spooky in collaboration with Kronos Quartet is pretty haunting and subtle. It works best when it is counteracting the action on the screen, creating moments of still anticipation where there would be dramatic builds and feelings of emotionless syncopated progression where the original film would have crescendos. That said, I really wanted there would be more slicing, dicing and re-contextualizing of the original film. I wanted further use of the digital effects which appear so sparingly and with such little conviction or courage as to render themselves ineffective. It's only in the climatic five or so minutes that the "DJ as Director" lets rip and begins using focusing and perspective effect in connection with the inserted digital graph lines to deconstruct the nuanced textures of race and power at play within the scenes. If the entire piece was worked over in this manner I think it would be much more provocative and insightful. Instead the film reads more like a paired down and re-scored version of the original than a insight fueling deconstruction.

What's most interesting to me about Griffith's original Birth of a Nation is that it's really the first American movie blockbuster. the film is encoded in to the very core DNA of the US Summer Blockbuster and main stream film as a whole. Griffith's stylistic tricks used to elicit extremes of emotion in large audiences are part of movie history and I don't believe you can separate those theatrical devices from the sexist, racist and classist ideologies that underpin the film. I wish I had and encyclopedic knowledge of film, because I'm certain one could trace many of the racially charged shots in Griffith's film throughout the history of movies. That idiotic/menacing black-faced grin repeated endlessly throughout Hollywood's cannon right up to the present day. I think that would be more telling, more informative to the present moment, than the timid deconstruction that has ended up on the Rebirth DVD.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

MoCCA Treasure: Sofia Falkenhem's Fågelhjärta


So I originally intended to do a full write up on MoCCA Fest but I got distracted and now enough time has past that it seems unnecessary. However, I do want to throw up a quick post about my surprise favorite score of the show.

Swedish comics creator and illustrated Sofia Flakenhem is a new name to me. We were drawn to her table by a gorgeous postcard and on a delighted by the wonderfully crafted items there we also purchased a neat three fold comic that was tied in a handsome ribbon and gorgeous little mini-comic titled Fågelhjärta (which i believe translates to Big Heart). As you can see the postcard is gorgeous and the dark anthropomorphic three fold has a wonderful manga by way of Europe feel that really resonates for a piece so short. Conveying an atmosphere of unease and melancholy instantly, It leaves you seriously primed for more.

But it was the wordless mini Fågelhjärta that really blew me away. The seemingly simple story of a little girl who lives with a family of foxes is in the wood, it feels like a piece of folklore, and may well be. It appears to be a thematic continuation of two short comics on her website, Fox Spirit and Walk in The Woods but takes takes the story and imagery to the next level. The pacing, touch of macabre storytelling, and perfect use of thick black lines on an un-blemished white work to create an enchanting and mysterious tale. The silent presentation coupled with the stark pallet perfectly captures the sensation of being lost int he wood and the young foxes are endearingly adorable in the way that only illustrated critters that disarm while piquing ones suspicion can.

Now i just need to see if i can track down some more of this woman's amazing work. I'll report back on my finds.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Rainy Daze Playlist


It has been raining in the North East for what seems like solid month which has really preempted the kick off of summer in the city. The one bright side is that I have managed to perfect my rainy day play list so I thought why not share it with the rest of the class. Its split evenly between new stuff and storm tested classics with a nice mix of melancholy instrumentals, deep dubbed out rollers, and bitter sweet vocals. If you have a rainy day tune or album of your own please drop it in the comments.

I hope you dig this:



Rainy Daze Playlist

1) Mount Kimbie – William

2) Clouds – Protecting Hands pt. 2

3) Falty DL – Meta-Cognist

4) Bloc Party – Where is Home (Burial remix)

5) King Midas Sound – Ting Dub

6) Modelselktor – Let Your Love Grow (feat. Tikiman)

7) Bill Withers – No Sunshine (Grievous Angel mix)

8) Miles Davis – So What

9) Kilimanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble – Parallel Corners

10) Breakage – Rain

11) Jamie Woon – Wayfairing Stranger (Burial remix)

12) Thom Yorke – And It Rained All Night

13) UNKLE - Heaven

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Plastic Moments #2: June 13, 2009 11:42:00AM


555 W 24th St New York NY 10011
(40.749045, -74.005378)

The building’s facade uncluttered by signage of any kind, the massive doors made of polished metal and frosted glass, the entryway thick with the leaden silence and oppressive climate control that only art galleries posses. Drastically high ceilings, sealed cement floors, pristine white walls hung with oversize canvases. Each canvas is covered in its own intricate and distinct pattern layered out across its surface in thick textures of iridescent paint. Interesting from an aesthetic point of view but nothing is really captivating. A handful of people circulate the vast open galleries with a casual air. Save for one woman. As I enter the second room she stands transfixed by one of the paintings. It has sweeping textures rushing from left to right in thick greens and golds. I stop next to her, attempting to mimic her gaze I stare at the massive textural surface until my vision relaxes and gently blurs. Suddenly, as I am about to turn and walk away, the canvas ripples, the textured pattern begins to undulate ever so gently, hypnotically, as if I am staring too closely at a taught ships sail or stranger still the hide of a great beast. I try to control my reaction, not wanting to make a scene I step back from the painting gracefully and turn away. Glancing back the illusion of motion, unmistakable just moments ago, is gone. My stomach settles and I continue on to the third room trying hard not to look too closely at the pieces.

The paintings all remain static and my nerves relax. I enter the fourth room. The gallery now seems a bit long for a Chelsea block. I can no longer see the entrance. My innate sense of urban space is set off kilter. In the fourth room there are no paintings. The lights are dimmer and shadows play about in the corners. In the center of the room is a white rectangular structure, with a simple door at its front. A room within a room? I walk around its circumference looking for some minor detail or subtle clue that will unpack its meaning. But there are none, only cheap construction, white pressboard walls, and exposed nails. Obviously this is some manner of slacker conceptual piece, a poor man’s Whiteread or hell maybe the gallery’s supply shed. I’ve been fooled by these things before. I turn to leave the dimly lit room when I’m turned out by a hushed but stern voice :”Psst, hey you …come here”.

It’s a rather large security guard. He motions for me back toward the structure. He’s talking in loud whispers on a cell phone, alternately nodding at the person on the phone and gesturing at me to wait just a moment. I’m off balance and a bit confused but politeness and curiosity leave me waiting patiently until he finishes his call. Straightening up he ask in an over the top voice. “Hello sir, how are you doing today?” I smile, say that I’m well and then wrinkle my brow inquisitively hoping I can get some information without asking an actual question. The security guard glances at his watch. “That’s about enough, time to let ‘em out” he proclaims to no one in particular. He throws open the door. Inside its black as night but from the darkness emerges a family of four, all blinking and rubbing at their eyes as they adjust to the light of the dim gallery. “Enjoy the show?” ask the security guard / barker. The family nods and mumbles in agreement as they stumble out of the back room toward the exit. “In you go!” declares the guard as he gestures with his hand like a high end doorman.

I step in and the door closes suddenly behind me. I find myself in complete darkness. A single incandescent bulb hangs from a cord directly in front of me. My eyes try to adjust to the darkness but there is nothing to focus on. The single light is joined by a dozen others slowly brightening in the dark, and then dozens more, followed by hundreds, until there is seemingly tiny flickering lights for as far in the distance I can see. The lights dance about flashing on and off in a rhythm of their own making that grows steadily faster and more frantic until things begin to strobe and my head begins to spin. I nearly lose my balance entirely and then everything descends again into blackness.

I catch my breath, my eyes begin to relax and then the single light reappears just as before it is followed by others growing in number and intensity until the field of lights returns. This time though the lights don’t stop at a low wattage but continue to get brighter and brighter still until I can feel the heat from the glow and a bead of sweat runs down the back of my neck. I turn around reaching for the door but find only light in every direction. Still the light grows brighter, until I’m unable to discern one light source from another. I’m drenched in sweat and panic but still the lights get more intense, hotter until there is no longer any distinction left, only blinding white light. White out.

I can feel my eyes blinking but it makes no difference all I can see is pristine whiteness. I stumble around feeling for a wall or door but nothing. I can feel the floor on my feet but when I reach down with my hands there is only empty space. I stumble aimlessly in one direction and then another desperate for some sense of direction. Eventually I collapse, alone in the most extreme sense possible, my thoughts elevate to a roar, the panic and paranoia feed on themselves until I’m lost deep in the labyrinth of my own mind where I chase childhood fears and real world terrors through the shadowless light. My mind is miles away, flying fancifully through the white out abyss when they come for me. I don’t notice the smell, and I can’t hear their sloughing footsteps. I don’t even feel the cold sandpaper flesh as half a dozen arms rap themselves around me. I don’t feel anything until the razor sharp claws pierce my ribcage and rend my chest cavity open to the blistering light.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Bloom's Day Cut-up


As Scores Perished In The Waters of Tomorrow:

Blooms Day Cut-up (June 16, 2009)


I first heard of the 23 enigma from William, the ferryman of the dead, Hermes of the Nova Express, etc.  

According to Burroughs, the souls of the deceased, he ferried them with Clark, around 1960 in Tangier.  

Hell, only the dead who are probably years without an accident have that very day silver coin enough for their passage, him and everybody else aboard.

Ancient Greek burial rights make the corpse a crude example of irony in the Church of 323 Sixth Street.

The Radio announced the crash of an airliner that will be found to have 1,000 victims, all welcomed by Capt. Clark aboard flight 23 this morning.

Fire Chief Croker shared love for me enough to have perished at 3:30 O'clock.

What, as they say, was the cause of 69 more bodies laid in the morgue? Just scandalous revelation and not a single lifeboat burned beyond recognition.

What I can't understand is how inspectors at North Brother Island can bring totals of straight talk from Mr. Crimmins about the disaster that stands unparalleled among those who are without doubt.

Well now, look at that, wiped out, in many instances a father is left smiling as his prick starts to twitch at him.

America, I said, quietly, just like that in the end, spread out on the floor, looking at every country even our own.

Isn't that knowledge? Cold cold water in the bowl. Well, of course there's money to be made all hours of the day.

And the old man smiled, I saw him looking at my frockcoat and dress.  

Women were roasted to death, their blood burning and turning as scores perished in the waters of tomorrow. Wondering from which table came their doom in the river after 23 years and a day.

Taking the heroic work of the waterman to Spain. Looking at coffins in a line.

The bombardment of machine guns and howitzers on the ground. Some Kildaire street club toff chops-off the prayers of the dying infantry.

She, the manager of the Hibernian Bank, she gave me a can whose pressure seemed inexhaustible to fellow knights of the road.

"Gentlemen... and Metzger" she moaned, and sank her teeth in to the high color, of course, laughing at his grizzled mustache made of sharkskin.  

Everything smelled like hairspray as she bore his stumpy body forward on spatted feet that bounced away, leaving silvery reticulate on Lambert's brother Sam before it all fell jingling into the sink.  

The windscreen of the motorcar in the sun has a flash just like that, like him, the Rev. George C.F. Haas with his vitals and his breath.

A good drop of gin in the morning for the pastor, in the sunshine of his fat strut, down there with two pilots and some of members of the Greasy Black Rope.

Dogs lick at the blood as the fire starts with an explosion from heaven's imperial state as attests the honor and custom of the cup.

Are the unhappy crew deprived of old sayings from the north wall and Sir John Charon, the buried host.

He sailed westward, sailed a skiff, a transport vessel, cross the waves of fairy wash. Elijah is coming Mr. Kernan.

Against your throat it could only be me. You will see.

Is he buried in Michan's or no? 

The old man smiled, just the same way as before, as the corpse was brought in through a secret way making his business neat and tidy now.

Went out in a puff. Well well, better turn away as the world ends with a whimper.

Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Guinness's visitor's waiting room.

- - -

The cut-up an amalgamation of Dadaist absurdity, occult ritual and high school slumber party collage.  My mind has always made peculiar connections between the Gen. Slocum tragedy of 1904, it's use in Joyce's Ulysses, the infamous tale of Capt. Clarke that was the catalyst for Burroughs theories on the 23 Enigma and Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 (as well as RAW's Illuminatis Trilogy but really what text does not have tangential connections to that work). So I decided to use these texts in a writing experiment using a variant of Burroughs and Gysin's cut-up methods. A favorite method that I have developed over the years uses the repetition of the number 5. This includes using five separate sources so along with the three main text I added a NYT article on the Slocum disaster and for bonus randomness a passage from Virgil in which he describes Charon the ferryman on the river Styx (see what I did there?).





There is always a moment when you are working with random chance that you question your sanity and become convinced that nothing of any sense is going to rise from all the gibberish. This experiment was no different but once I read the line, “Women were roasted to death, their blood burning and turning as scores perished in the waters of tomorrow.”, I had suspicions that it might all come together. In the end it’s a pretty fun piece of surrealist poesy with a few great lines, and yes some awkwardly formatted nonsense. I also like how there is just enough hint to some actual narrative, distinct from that of the component parts. I am certainly considering chartering a secret society called The Greasy Black Rope.

If your interested in cut-ups and other experimental forms of writing I highly suggest tracking down a copy of The Third Mind, its pretty amazing stuff and if anyone is interested in the details of the method I used here drop a note in the comments or send an e-mail, I'd be more than happy to share the technique with you

Friday, June 5, 2009

The June 4th Incident

Like many important events of the 1980s, my experience of the Tiananmen Square massacre results from news reports preempting my Saturday morning cartoons. I'm at my grandparents' house where I stay most Saturdays, it's a warm day in early summer and I probably have a million outdoor activities planned that will be postponed for another day as I sit unmoving, transfixed by the events unfolding on television in place of my beloved Kidd Video. I'm a middle class kid in the suburbs of New Jersey. I'm in no way ignorant of current events or other cultures but the world beyond my everyday experience, let alone my national border, is still distant and ethereal, unconnected to my daily life, but these images of horrifying, darkness shrouded violence will bring the reality of the outside world cascading in to my grandmother's front room.

The post-gulf war technology that journalists wield today didn't exist then so when the PRC cleared international press from the square and cut the satellite feeds the reporting was plunged into darkness. Frantic reporters shouted down scratchy telephone lines over shadowy pieces of smuggled footage and repeated images taken the weeks before of the young protesters, sunlight on their faces, with no knowledge of the horrors to come. I know that the image from the following morning of the brave solitary figure standing against a line of tanks is the iconic image of the massacre for a culture founded on the cult of the individual. For me, however, it was the images shot weeks before the crack down, of a group of people larger than any I had yet seen, all standing together, smiling in their conviction, making their mere presence a statement of political intent, their occupation of physical space a defiant gesture, locked arm and arm singing out with one voice a song I would later learn was The Internationale. These images locked in stark and tragic juxtaposition with the crackling telephone line reporting of violent repression, mass chaos and raging fires punctuated by automatic weapon fire and desperate shouting are the images that I carried with me from June 4, 1989 into adulthood.

My faith in governments to protect their people and to enact the will of those people above their own interests has never recovered from that day. It was torn to tatters not only by the oppressive acts of the PRC but by the pitiful actions of my own government which was willing to put its own political and economic gains ahead of the lives of young libertines who had naively looked to the US as a beacon of freedom and justice. I have since found myself in a number of strange and tense protest situations, from the pitiful group of fifteen that shouted in vain in the park against our university's inhumane treatment of animals, to the anti-WEF protests just after 9/11 where the percussive hum helicopter rotors drowned out the chanting and we all knew that we stood in the sights of a hundred sniper rifles; or the marches against invasion of Iraq that saw my girlfriend and I constantly scrambling from under the hooves of trampling horses. In all these mad and dangerous situations I've always found a strange calm of conviction and it may be that I believe that in my resistance I owe this much and more to a group of brave young students that I watched be massacred by their own government now twenty years ago.

I'm a pretty rational person, but I have a rather irrational faith in the power of of people united in spirit to stand up against the forces of oppression. The evidence that street protests in the Untied States are capable of effecting social and political change is not strong. The current political and media climates in this county do not suffer the street level activist well. It often appears that this form of political expression is antiquated and futile, but I have always held the conviction that for an individual to turn their physical presence into on a statement of conviction, to have their occupation of physical space be an act of resistance is an integral part of the democratic process and essential to the maintenance of liberty in a society. I think this conviction is grounded in lessons I learned sitting in my grandmother's front room watching a million brave Chinese citizens stand firm against oppression twenty years ago today.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

We Go To Work

"Use night to wake your clarity.

Darkness and the living water are lovers.
Let them stay up together.

When merchants eat their big meals and sleep
their dead sleep, we night-thieves go to work."

      from What Hurts the Soul by Rumi






"Not strong
Only aggressive
Not free
We only licensed
Not compassionate, only polite
Now who the nicest?
Not good but well behaved
Chasin after death
so we can call ourselves brave?
Still livin like mental slaves
Hidin like thieves in the night from life
Illusions of oasis makin you look twice
Hidin like thieves in the night from life
Illusions of oasis makin you look twice"

     from Thieves in the Night by Black Star

     

Unified Bass Theory (mix)

This is my first proper mix so please excuse a ham-fisted mix or two. I tried to keep the tempo up and the genre designations fluid, touching on a bit of bassline, breaks, grime, wonky hip-hop and several flavors of dubstep with a few vocals and cheeky remixes thrown in for good measure.

Unified Bass Theory:
1) Champion – No Heaven (ghislain poirier remix)
2) TRG – Horny
3) Wiley – Wearing My Rolex (agent x mix)
4) Hijack – Possessed
5) Sunship feat. Warrior Queen – Quits (sinden remix)
6) Caspa – Louder
7) Marlow feat. Bongo Chily – Everyday
8)Tes la Rok & Uncle Sam - Up in The VIP
9) Mr. Hudson & The Library – Ask The DJ (moody boyz remix)
10) Santogold – You’ll Find a Way (switch & sinden remix)
11) Flying Lotus – GNG BNG
12) Si Begg – Bangin’
13) Rustie - Just 4 Kicks (instrumental)
14) Lukid – The Now (hudson mohawke remix)
15) Starkey – Bounce
16) Matty G – West Coast Rocks (jeep mix)
17) 6Blocc feat. Big Daddy Kane – Rawer
18) Cease – Upper Left Side
19) The Bug feat Flowdan – Ganja
20) Blackmass Plastics – Do The Mash
21) Kromestar – Dot 2 Dot
22) Joker – Snake Eater
23) Cluekid – Hovercraft
24) Cotti - Calm Down (witty boy remix)
25) Alter Ego - Fuckingham Palace (modeselektor remix)
26) Adele – Cold Shoulder (rusko remix)


























d/l mirror



WARNING: Consumption of Unified Bass Theory at high volume may result in Uncontrollable Skanking, Irreversible Bassface, and in extreme case The Jimmy Legs (known locally as the Club Love Stumble).