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Exponentiation 01
n
E exponentiation ezine [2.0]
http://www.anus.com/zine
Modern society conforms us with bureaucratic linear thinking, contents
us with sanitized entertainment, pacifies through meaningless wealth
and plastic rewards, domesticates with democratic and moral rhetoric,
destroys irreplaceable environments and ecosystems with a blind lust
for wealth. We have "rights" and "freedom" but only in the context of
such a society; we are not free to live apart from it. Where did
meaning go? Heroism? Great art, not pop culture? We throw our bodies
onto the fire to keep society running just long enough for the next
generation take over. And they, through "youth culture" and media
values, rebel against the impossible, fail, and are drawn in to the
same servitude.
It is an invisible slavery that is enacted over us, and its method is
a loss of values and a replacement of those values with materialism
and an ever-expanding, "unique" human population. Where the ancients
saw a world in three dimensions, we see a line stretching from
atechnological poverty to wealth and independence in an age of
machines; it is a footnote that these same machines chew up our world
and leave poisons behind, as well as people whose evolution in this
system has made them dependent upon these machines. The future is a
few who crawled up from the ruins, and then an endless sea of
lumpenproles. How can one escape?
We must willfully step outside, above, beyond the linear mindset if we
wish a future. Revolutions murder and replace one elite with a new
one, much as economic competition takes the servants of yesterday and
makes of them equally oppressive elites today. If we take to heart
what is manifest in the natural world and discover what is significant
about life, and what has meaning to us as beings, we have discovered a
greater "freedom": an independence from the illusion that is
modernity. Finding this autonomy requires no allegiance to any one
particular doctrine, or manifesto, or political stance. It is simply
embracing what makes life both joyful and terrifying; it is accepting
that what was true in ancient times is also true now, and it concerns
our souls and hearts and minds more than our physical sustenance and
political equality.
The goal of exponentiation ezine is to restore this vision of infinity
through nature, to rid ourselves of the mundane, and to welcome the
possibilities of the eternal.
CONTENTS
I. News
II. Culture
III. Features
IV. Literature
_~= News =~_
Corporate Scientists say Refuse is Good for Wildlife and Environment
August 23, 2005
BENTONVILLE, AR - In an unprecedented study, scientists have concluded
that the refuse created by disposable products is in fact helpful to
the environment and its creatures, reversing a previous assumption
that toxic byproducts and non-degradable waste were harmful.
The six-month study, sponsored by the Corpoate Ethical Research
Society, analyzed the behavior of wildlife in environments saturated
with corporate waste. "Wildlife find homes and improved lifestyles in
the landfills," scientist David Lyons stated. "Many cute furry
animals, such as the chipmunk, attain superior shelter from the harsh
natural environment and its amoral predators."
Fellow researcher Danica Weathers agreed. "Our negative view of trash
is out of date. These animals would otherwise be left in the rain and
snow, where predators can find them, but now they are protected by
quality homes such as this box from a Toshiba 24-inch LCD TV. Besides,
about the only open space left for animals is landfills and
trash-strewn ghetto lots."
Lyons, sponsored by the Wal-Mart corporation, said the research was
groundbreaking. "It proves that chemicals leaking from this waste are
killing off the weaker and excess members of each species, making each
animal stronger over time. Also, by making larger predators extinct,
it guarantees these creatures long and happy lives not unlike our
own."
The study found that the only species eliminated by trash are the ones
we would like to see less of. "Primitive species such as rats and
cockroaches survived the plagues and famines of a less civilized
time," said Weathers, "but now they are obsolete. They had their day
in the sun, and it's time to move on to a better future through
technology."
When Citizens for Ethical Animal Consumption, a grassroots
environmental preservation organization, was contacted for a comment,
spokespersonn Erika Richards said trash was a low priority. "The Kraft
Food Corporation is re-releasing Roadkill brand fruit snack candies,
telling youth that wildlife is edible. Trash can wait until we have
addressed this crisis," she said, returning to a McDonalds hamburger
and large strawberry shake.
-=-
New Scholarship for Americans Gifted in Trivial Ways
October 13, 2005
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (FNN) - President Bush, in an early-morning ceremony
attended by fewer than three of those honored, promoted
multiculturalism and equality with a new scholarship for Americans
with unconventional gifts.
The new federally-funded scholarship, Opportunity for Americans Gifted
in Trivial Ways, goes into effect next semester, providing funding for
those with skills not conventionally recognized as important. "These
are America's heroes, too, and they're helping us defeat terrorism,"
said Bush.
Recent nominees for the scholarship included a suburban kid who
figured out on his own how to clean a toilet; an inner city dweller
who refused to spraypaint obscenities on the project walls; office
workers who have made fully-functioning neck supports entirely out of
paperclips; rural slackers who lack a single rusting automotive object
stored on the premises.
2004 nominee Fuzzy Jackson, who was recognized for having sold a 2003
HP laptop without lying, inflating the price, or exaggerating its
specifications, said he believed the award celebrated America. "It's
what makes this country great," he said. "You go into some job, and do
less than absolutely failing it, and they give you a medal. I love
America!"
-=-
Al-Qaeda "Chronic Marijuana Abusers" says CIA
October 24, 2005
LANGLEY, VA (NNN) - Most Americans see Osama bin Laden as a
diabolical, Hitleresque character with malevolence on his mind. Not
so, says a recent CIA report, which construes bin Laden as being more
like a neighborhood criminal: destitute, watches bad TV, and
chronically addicted to the drug marijuana, which is illegal in
America.
The CIA's Rosenberg Research Center released the report,
"Psychological Analysis of Al-Qaeda Leadership," on Monday, citing a
number of sources throughout the middle east and America which have
studied the terrorist leader and his murderous brethren. "A typical
day for bin Laden starts with a heaping bowl of some fine indica,
perhaps sprinkled with tobacco," said William A. Rauschweig, leader of
the think tank's middle east study project.
According to the report, bin Laden was unaware of the success of the
September 11 attacks because he did not wish to be disturbed during a
massive drug bash in which he and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, his
second-in-command, smoked more than a kilogram of Indian sinsemilla
and Nepalese hashish while playing consecutive games of "Grand Theft
Auto." While the CIA report does not state this, a highly-placed
anonymous source near the top-secret Pakistan hideout of al-Qaeda
reveals that al-Zawahiri won.
"For some time, we've been baffled as to the leader's choice of
reclusive hideouts and random activity," said Marshall A. Redstone,
with the Middle East Peace Policy Project, a non-profit corporation
devoted to solutions to earth's longest running conflicts. "While
we've been trying to find a guerrilla fortress, what we should have
been looking for was a dark, smoky room with a Nintendo."
The report details al-Qaeda's habits, including vast binges on
marijuana, massive expenditures on snack food and videogames, and
hating our freedom. Brent Hubbart, chairman of the Washington-based
Media Bias Foundation, explained. "It shows us that these people are
motivated more by laziness and drug addiction than Islam. It must be
accurate because our press always is, and is never, ever influenced by
hidden oligarchies of government or business. Right?"
-=-
Stricter Environmental Regulations in New York
September 19, 2005
NEW YORK, NY (FWN) - At a groundbreaking ceremony for the city's new
$4.6bn water and sewage treatment plant, Mayor Bloomberg announced a
new initative to clean up New York's environment.
Straining his voice to be heard at the waterside ceremony, Bloomberg
elaborated. "Unlicensed cigar smoking contributes over forty metric
tons of carbon dioxide to our atmosphere. We're also cracking down on
excessive methane from unsanctioned bean consumption, and the use of
toilet flushes to dispose of condoms."
According to Bloomberg, the new regulations are tougher than those in
any other major city in America and represent a "major boost" for
environmental efforts. "In this city, every year, public urination and
spitting creates 300,000 gallons of ammonoid waste," he said.
At times Bloomberg was nearly drowned out by the roar of passing cars,
but he expounded upon the need to cut back on waste in many ways. In
the background, the deep-sea tanker Marie Belle, skippered by some guy
who'd be making twice as much doing something else if it weren't for
his alcohol problem, ran aground, releasing six million gallons of
dioxin.
Bloomberg cited dripping faucets, CD players left in "pause" mode,
electric razors and security lights. His speech was momentarily
interrupted by trucks loaded with plastic souvenir Statues of Liberty
drag-racing down the Long Island Expressway.
"These actions are weakening America by polluting our environment and
leaving us open to attack by Islamic fundamentalists and Nazis," he
said. "They're now banned, and it's up to you underlings to enforce
it." He then exited the podium, leaving behind a styrofoam cup
half-full of coffee and two pages of notes.
-=-
Child Abuse Major Factor in Success of CEOs
August 11, 2005
CHICAGO, IL (FWN) - A new study from The Thinking Group, Inc. reveals
insight into the complex world of the psychology of America's leading
CEOs. "The good news is that the people who keep this nation the
wealthiest on earth are not driven to succeed by soulless material
lust," said Dawn Montpellier, project manager.
Montpellier showed members of the press a video of one of America's
most famous CEOs. "At first I wanted to succeed so I wasn't a
failure," he said. "Then I realized, the only reason I did not want
to fail was that my father might come back for my nightly beating,
cigarette-burn torture and rape."
Montpellier said it was unusual that over 92% of the subjects
surveyed displayed clinical signs of child abuse such as twitching
when touched, screaming at the sight of parental photographs, and
sodomizing their own offspring.
"Twenty years ago we thought CEOs were either Jesus figures or
megalomaniacs, but now we have a better understanding of the
psychology of success," said Madelaine von Savant, a
professional psychic and intelligence consultant in the New
York area.
The CEO continued, "I've done some soul-searching and where I once
wanted a big house and car, now I realize all I want is a house
and car with impenetrable locks."
von Savant said that adversity was a "healthy, nourishing" factor
in the development of the children of today's CEOs. "Busy modern
lives are full of terror of failure and empty rewards," she said.
"A common response is to rape a child, which gives them a chance,
through modern psychology, to overcome this adversity and see the
beauty and tolerance in all of us, no matter how scarred by anal
violation."
The anonymous CEO was not so sanguine about the situation. As our
interview team left the building, he grabbed the hand of a cameraman
and begged for a candy bar wrapper the man had tucked in his pocket.
"It's the last thing my father gave me," he wept. "He would always
bring one upstairs before beating me senseless and raping me."
_~= Culture =~_
MUSIC
Karjalan Sissit: Karjalan Sissit (Svartvintras/Coldspring 2001)
The name of this act is in Finnish although the composer is Swedish.
The reason for this is that he was born in Finland, and his uncle who
died in the war was part of the Karjalan Sissit, "Karelian Elite" in
English. The music on this album is a sinister ambient soundscape of
the bleakness of the reality on the field during the war between
Finland and Russia. Often bombastic with ferocious drumming, sometimes
eerily calm, the unrelenting desire for victory in the surrounding
wasteland of shrapnel and corpses just radiates from the music. The
desire isn't arrogant or pompous but the silently strong will of men
made from stone. There are also two old Finnish songs, track 4 "Suomi
Marssi," an old march song, and "Säkkijärven Polkka," another
traditional song. Both have a scratchy sound as if played through a
gramophone, and they fit very well in the overall context of the
album. A worthwhile representation of the Finnish 'sisu', or 'guts' in
English, at the least. - frostwood
-=-
Fripp and Eno: "Evening Star" (EG Records, 1975)
Unassuming at first yet building itself from a simple arpeggio or
shimmering tone cluster are the sublime melodic narratives that
envelope the listener, providing, like ambient music was intended for,
either pleasant background music or an immersive experience, depending
on the degree one wants to devote their attention span to perception
of such a form. At the time, ambient may have been seen as some new
kind of avant-garde music that could barely be recognized as such, but
going against the grain of other blues-slasher contemporaries, Robert
Fripp helped advance a language of musicality outside of pop-based
forms with of all possible instruments, an electric guitar. Fripp
meanders but works within a loose collection of ideas, while layering
occasional counterpoints to keep coherence.
In contrast Brian Eno stays within more controlled territory playing
simple piano lines in between lead guitar as heard in "Evening Star".
Both complement each other nicely by providing musical adventurousness
with a stable foundation to work against. Upon getting to "Wind on
Wind", the listener may realize how well this duo can shape atmosphere
itself to create the kind of amorphous melody that, while impossible
to hum, is just as musically profound as anything made by a master
composer. In this case, Fripp is one of those contemporary masters in
the world of guitar music.
Some who are to used to worshipping over-hyped heroes that build
entire songs from recycled blues licks may not understand what the
fuss is about. After all, there are no flashy solos or accessible
riffs. Though Fripp is certainly esteemed in his respective niche,
most people prefer the smash appeal of an AC/DC or Eric Clapton; not
many rockers have the ability of Fripp to holistically compose
distinctive compositions conveying a variety of moods with more depth
than one might find in the average food court's sampling of 'ethnic'
cuisine. Each track is solid in its own way, and if these two
musicians are to be lauded for anything associated with this project
it should be for the enlightened and creative use of shifting melodic
layers over simple ostinatos to create a sublime tension between
divergent themes while maintaining a consistently satisfying mood. -
sothis
-=-
Arcana: Cantar de Procella (Cold Meat Industry 1997)
Melancholic, brooding, epic, and sweeping are all words that come to
mind to describe this wonderful album. Cantar de Procella, Arcana's
second full-length album, is one of might and melancholy; it creates
both intense and bombastic atmospheres alongside subtle and gloomy
ones. Arcana build their songs on this album slowly as this is a band
that loves to dwell in atmosphere created by looping harmonies and
melodies along with ethereal vocals. But make no mistake Arcana is
not really what one would call a minimalist band, though they are
minimal. Arcana are fanciful, epic, and dim and they are capable of
subtle shifting between these moods within songs. The music on this
particular album can be labeled medievalist darkwave as there are many
medieval styled melodies and structures to be found on this album
while the mood and atmosphere of the music itself is firmly in the
darkwave camp. The songs are also composed with a lot of reliance on
electronic sources, but organic instruments are also mixed in it, thus
making the composition approach akin to Dead Can Dance in those
respects. Overall the music found on this album is on par with
Arcana's first release, Dark Age of Reason.
Arcana can often sound similar to soundtrack music as the atmospheres
they create can be complimented very elegantly with visuals and the
songs easily fall into the background to create an ambiance for scenes
in an epic film or game. At times it seems appropriate to compare
Arcana to the darker side of Dead Can Dance, as Arcana's compositional
approach can be very similar to that of DCD, though Arcana does not
stray far from the minimalist approach. Arcana aren't as varied as DCD
in terms of moods and sounds, but nevertheless a DCD direct or
indirect influence can be picked up and traced through many of the
songs on this album.
The electronic and organically created melodies that lace this album
weave together to carry across the spirit of a murky forest in the
evening, as they can be soft and subtle, but also quite brooding. The
atmospheric hums, the sequencers, violins, vocals and flutes are at
times reminiscent of the winds when rushing through the trees. Horns
sound, choir vocals echo and flutes softly resonate as electronic
drums pound a soft funeral hymn or powerful war march; it's as if the
music were at times written for the great gasp before the storm of war
where peace and violence reside side by side. The melodies are
brooding and the atmospheres shift like the waves at night. Arcana
have masterfully crafted a soundtrack to be played at ancient moors,
near arcane ruins in the forests and on cliffs overlooking the ocean
at dusk. Arcana stand as atmospheric masters in a genre known for
atmosphere, and that is a testament towards the bands strength. The
weakness is that at times the band can lose focus and become too
repetitive or lack creative focus by creating moods that are too deep
and never lighten to express the completeness of a moment. This
fault, however, is not detraction from the beauty of this music as a
whole.
This album is for those who have a taste for brooding, ethereal music.
Highly recommended for fans of darkwave, medievalist, dark ambient or
dark industrial music. - phantasm
-=-
My Bloody Valentine: "Loveless" (Sire, 1991)
My Bloody Valentine were placed at the forefront of the so-called
"Dream Pop" movement in 1991 when this classic came out. Utilizing
layers of atmospheric keyboards, overdriven guitars and eerily
delicate singing, this band creates a massive wall of often discordant
but harmonious sound that could only be the result of studio wizardry.
Although this album is considerably rock-based and heavily harmonic,
it also possesses a sense of melody natural and profound in
construction that makes it alien to the scope of most pop recordings.
While most songs in the Top 40 rely on inoffensive chord progressions
and mildly catchy hooks, frontman Belinda Butcher and co. whisper
melodies that seamlessly flow together in steady cadence as if leading
the essential song structure by themselves. The result is something
appealing but much emotionally deeper than most bands in pop and rock.
I would recommend this album to anyone with a half-decent musical
taste but especially to those practitioners in the realm of black
metal who could learn from this album. In the musical aesthetic they
were seeking, My Bloody Valentine were not that far off from classic
Burzum. Album highlights: Loomer; To Here Knows When; What You Want;
Soon. - sothis
-=-
Niccolo Paganini: The Best of Paganini (Naxos)
This Italian violinist revolutionized violin playing in the early 19th
century, placing himself at the horizon of the forthcoming Romantic
movement and personifying that era's unique emphasis on the musician
as deeply self-conscious artist rather than mere musical craftsman for
royalty. Indeed, true to this non- conformist spirit, these works
remain some of the most difficult and challenging pieces ever written
for violin.
Although Paganini is most known for his 24 caprices, he also wrote in
a variety of other forms ranging from symphony and guitar/violin
concertos to even solo guitar pieces. On this outing, Naxos has put
together a decent introduction to the artist showcasing his various
works including 6 of his 24 caprices as performed by Russian violinist
Ilya Kaler.
It becomes evident after a few listens why his caprices are as famous
as they are. Each are furiously technical but spirited pieces that
work through one or two dominant ideas crafted from a flurry of scale
runs, arpeggios and wide intervallic leaps that bounce around to a
steady rhythmic pattern. His visually compelling use of chromatics
gesture towards future developments in tonality as the Romantic era
wore on but like Beethoven stays mostly to a Classical ideal of
consonance while aiming for melodic complexity.
Kaler is no doubt technically proficient, but with maybe some
understanding of his plight of having to learn these inhumanly
difficult pieces, I have to say I was left a little disappointed in
his performance. It could be just my taste, but I found his tone to be
forced, brittle, flat and sometimes noticeably offkey. This man won
gold medals at three of the most prestigious competitions, but at
least from what I can tell on this recording, I do not understand what
the enormous accolades are for.
The guitar with violin compositions are pleasant if sometimes
simplistic and predictable works that aim for melodic accessibility.
These songs are broken up by soft periodic lulls that pick up with
return of motif. In his concertos, the violin not surprisingly takes
the spot light after sufficient staging with orchestral instruments,
by gradually unfurling and leading off from the instruments only to
unite with them again with each dynamic peak. The orchestrations gave
way to a single thought: Beethoven-lite. They are mainly there to
support Paganini's virtuosity.
Overall, this CD is a good and cheap introduction to this musician but
noting the deficiencies of Kaler, there are probably better disks out
there for the same purpose. - sothis
-=-
VNV Nation: Matter and Form (Metropolis Records, 2005)
If you are a latecomer to the world of electronically-produced music,
getting your feet wet in the wide expanse of artists and styles found
within this spectrum can be a daunting task. It's very easy to dismiss
this style as cold and lifeless, since attempting to find a human
presence - be this emotion, passion, or "soul" - in such a ruthlessly
technological aesthetic is oftentimes hopeless. It seems to be a
habitual staple of most electronic acts to desire only to produce the
type of brash, saccharine, repetitively rhythmcentric tripe that is
pounded through the speakers of nightclubs the world over, as opposed
to an exploration of this medium for the artistic potential it could
conceivably unlock within the creator. As in all things though,
exceptions to the rule are out there, and these exceptions have
discovered that great art can be made utilizing a technological
framework of abstraction and mechanized sound to elucidate a
distinctly organic vision of reality and our place within it. VNV
Nation has successfully transcended the one-dimensional expectations
of this musical avenue to produce a work of intellect, zeal, and
morbid optimism in the face of a world gone mad.
A certain innocent hopefulness ("Arena") intertwined with an
assertiveness defined by its resilience ("Strata" "Interceptor") and
underscored by occasional solitary introspection ("Endless Skies")
paint a picture of an enduringly pragmatic yet personalized idealism
bound within every note and theme of these rich and darkly sonorous
tracks. Most likely due to preconceptions of the vapidity of most
writers in this genre, the lyrical content is surprising, and
self-aware, while at the same time marred by an infrequent moribund
reliance on sentimentality to convey its sense-impressions. Vocals are
recognizably human in tone, lending an immediacy to the overall
impact, in direct contrast to the distancing which can be observed in
the over-industrialization of most vocal patterns found in this music.
The final track "Perpetual" is a summation of the several different
moods found within the album, with strong development of central
themes and concepts beyond the limitations of its outward form through
a calculated repetition of its sonic palette into a dissolution of
naked synth-derived atmosphere. It serves as a fitting conclusion to a
highly recommended album for those disgusted by the scarcity of
worthwhile music to be found in a modern era. - blaphbee
BOOKS
Absolute Friends, by John Le Carré. 455 pages, Little, Brown and
Company, New
York (2003).
Former British Foreign Service officer Le Carré is famed for his
cynical portraits of spycraft: the corrupt local governments, the
political infighting that hobbles each side, and the creeping
bureaucracy that takes the highest ideals and turns them into bumbling
administration which accomplishes its task in name and not ideal. With
his latest, Le Carré strikes for a more philosophical target, and
turns not from the methods of spying but to its justifications, or the
ideological underpinnings of political ideals themselves.
No one but an enigma like Le Carré could write this. Rejecting and
rejected by right and left alike, he inhabits the middle ground
favored by those who, having seen the mechanism of government, are
perpetually distrusting of loyalty to abstractions which hover above
that which we call life, the everyday process of being able to live
and eat and have families. Previous books touched on this topic by
showing the sacrifice of individuals and normal life for political
means, and offered solutions that even if tainted, suggested an end
was at hand. In "Absolute Friends," the writer brushes beyond the
everyday and offers us a big picture that is an alarm cry screaming
from Hell.
The story is convoluted, mainly through its disorienting telling which
flits from present tense to past, establishing connections and then
taking the reader on backfill within recollections. Its core however
is simple: a young man meaning well stumbles into leftist ideology and
makes a friendship that lasts a lifetime. His new partner in crime, an
enigmatic revolutionary named Sasha, becomes his guide and ally. Sasha
goes farther into extremes than our main character, a hapless everyman
named Mundy (perhaps contraction of "Mundane"), and defects to the
Communist state of East Germany. Over time, he finds that much as the
capitalist West was to his mind oppressing its people, the East does
the same, in a different variation.
From this point on, intrigue and deception, for which Le Carré is
perhaps the most able writer in the English language, take over,
leading Sasha and Mundy through various paths which do not turn out,
bringing the narrative to the present tense. What we the readers see
at this point is a solidity of experience in these men's lives, by
which different central powerful agencies exploit people for money and
political gain, and despite often finding them pedantic and
disorganized as people, the reader is shown an honest reaction to the
tragedies of their lives. Mundy grew up in British-occupied India, and
sees in the Faulknerian dissolution of his family a metaphor for
occupation as a whole, where Sasha grew up in the dying days of the
Nazi regime, and became opposed to Nationalism as a result.
As a result, these two ideologues are convinced of an absolute
reality, one in which fascism threatens a goodwill toward all humans
and a brotherhood of humankind. Without ever clearly meaning to, they
devote their lives to this belief, and gradually discard all past
assumptions of what will make their Utopia coming to pass. Every stage
of life seems to fail these men, from their student rebellions, to
their work with governments, to finally, their activism as writers and
members of local communities. Eventually, with all options exhausted
and their lives expended in activism, they turn toward a final hope
which transcends politics, nationalities, and specific ideologies. If
such a thing would betray them, they reason, there might be no hope in
absolute belief at all, and no clear path to salvation.
It is with ironic mastery that Le Carré brings this to pass, as he
shows us humanity with warts and all. Mundy is pathetic, but
well-meaning. He partners up with a Turkish whore out of what the
reader cannot feel is cynically revealed as pity; he lives humbly and
wears his politics on his sleeve, even to the point of seeming, like
the limousine liberals of America, to be constructing his self- image
entirely from it. Sasha is shown as a half-crippled, pathetic man
empowered sexually and socially by his political vision, and when
social approval goes away, he becomes only a shrewd but heartless
implementer of ideas too abstract to exist as examples in daily life.
Governments both left and right are pictured as oblivious to anything
but bureaucracy and function, the blind leading the blind.
The book concludes dramatically but in sparse detail, contrasting the
obvious conclusions with the muddle of human drama that comprises the
buildup to that point. Although it hammers out in detail many previous
themes from this author, there is a new and almost paranoid, but
realistic, distrust of something that is not manifested by a side or
character but by all actors in this drama. In a time when we are led
off to war by high-flying linguistic acrobatics about the importance
of democracy, or crushing fascism, or the rights of X or Y ethnic or
gender group, Le Carré is reminding us that words are just words, and
if we take them as absolutes, we risk being misled - to our collective
doom. - vijay
-=-
"Hooking Up" by Tom Wolfe. 293 pages. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New
York
(2000)
Literature is paradoxical because, in going into the world of fantasy,
it seeks out meaning, and in doing so, denies illusion. Tom Wolfe
approaches literature much like Hemingway did, as a journalist of his
time and a demi-philosopher of values, and thus sets forth on a war of
invective unparalleled in print at this time. His target: the "new"
America and its steady replacement of values and character with
external machinations including sex, money, digital computers,
psychology, and biology - in short, anything that lets us off the hook
(plea of woman in final chapter of Ulysses) from the task of having to
shape our own futures, gives us something to blame and to justify our
regressive behavior.
And with his classic deep-research style, Wolfe points out just how
regressive our behavior is, while simultaneously damning with
superlative praise our "freedoms" and "progressive" society. This is a
book of essays, some from early in his career but the most influential
ones from recent times, named after the first in the series, an
analysis of modern sexuality as a "liberation" that has in fact numbed
us to all subtler things. "Hooking Up" looks at the degeneration of
courtship into fornication as a result of our desire to "empower" our
young ladies, and points out that the discipline which raised us from
the level of animals is now dissipating. The effect, as Wolfe
concludes, is to make us numb and distant from one another. No more
devastating seventeen pages has been levelled at this aspect of
modernity.
Additional essays provide bounty: his analysis of the goldrush
mentality at the founding of the semiconductor industry, and how it
created a hybrid of liberal values and conservative finance, providing
a new culture within America's culture based around a public image
designed to justify the empty pursuit of wealth behind (Wolfe is too
deft to spell it out in such easy terms, but for the sake of a book
review, such things are required). Another article bites into the
question of biological determinism, and its heavily politicized
opposition, casually taking a stand in the middle suggesting that
perhaps, until we understand more, we should stick to our guns and
believe we have some control over our own character and actions. The
excellent short essay "In the land of the Rococo Marxists" analyzes
Superpower America as a falling empire, collapsing from within for
lack of ideological vision.
Each of these essays includes a classic sense of humor and sharp
vision of the human soul behind these political and technological
developments, but reveals in the margins a growing sense of unease
within this author regarding his predictions for a human future. "The
Great Relearning" is a mockery of our desire to return to an original
state, illustrating that as we peel back the layers of social
assumptions which our politics tell us are "bad," we are devolving to
a state where we must relearn the basics of living as herd animals.
Its refulgent metaphor is that of the hippies in San Francisco who,
upon going to a simpler and more communal way of life, literally
reintroduced ancient diseases to modern medicine through sheer lack of
accepted hygenic practice. It's a barrel of laughs.
Arguably the high point of this book is "Ambush at Fort Bragg," a
novella which describes the ambitions of a fat, frumpy, ugly Jewish
journalist and his vapid blond companion as they attempt to entrap a
group of soldiers responsible for beating up a gay colleague. Having
read his Nietzsche, Wolfe takes an ambiguous moral point of view, and
illustrates how the impulse that seems to be "for the good" can have
the same impetus as the "bad" against which it crusades. In a time of
wars for moral absolutes and hyperbolic political ideals like
"freedom," it's a worthy lesson. The volume then closes out with some
works from early in Wolfe's career, mostly notably a satire of the New
Yorker which was so dead-on that it didn't come across to this
reviewer as satire.
Like most books of assembled pieces, "Hooking Up" requires a quiet
moment and a cup of coffee, but rewards the diligent reader.
Interestingly, one can see the history of Wolfe's research and novels
here, in that "The Great Relearning" hearkens back to "The Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Test," the essays on semiconductors and politics in art
suggest background to "A Man in Full," and clearly "Hooking Up" was a
precursor to "I am Charlotte Simmons." Wolfe writes to point out
reality to us, differing quite clearly from the trend of the last
fifty years toward symbolic and abstract detachment from reality for
the sake of unanchored, hyperbolic emotion. In this he is still a
journalist, but by bypassing such "literary" ambitions, he returns to
the function of literature: to praise life and analyze life. "The
Invisible Artist" gives us a glimpse of his thinking here. For those
who haven't yet discovered this writer, he represents the next era in
literature, which will be a brushing-aside of our imaginary worlds and
a return to realism of a pragmatic yet idealistic type. Nietzsche
would be proud. - vijay
-=-
The Iliad, Homer. Translated by Robert Fagles. 683 pages, New York
(1990)
This Greek epic poem about the Trojan War sings its tale of pride and
conflict as nothing else can. Homer's work fully envelopes its
listeners into both a world of warring personalities and warring
nations, and into the prideful warrior psyche that values honor over
just a simple existence. Robert Fagles' translation of The Iliad
eschews demonstrating the author's vocabulary in favor of presenting
Homer's poem in a powerful manner.
Fagles' translation does not attempt to impress the reader through
obscure and archaic English. He uses conversational language, and
uses it well enough to paint the full picture of the war in vivid
detail. The death of a warrior is presented with an amazing
description of the gore, which allows the reader to imagine exactly
how it would look and feel for the cold, sharp point of a spear to
tear through their flesh. The dialogue has a passion and urgency
fitting a commander appealing to the man who was once his friend to
forget that he has been slighted and to join the war effort.
The lust for glory and asserting oneself onto the world drives this
work. It is what caused Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army to
steal a slave girl from the Greek's greatest warrior, Achilles, when
he had to give up one of his in order to appease Apollo. This
unquenchable fire is what the Trojan archer Pandarus felt when he
foolishly fired the arrow that would shatter the truce and ultimately
cause his city to erupt in flames as it was ransacked by the Greek
army. When the Trojans sought to set the Greek fleet ablaze and ruin
their forces, they were inspired by that same lust, as was the best
friend of Achilles, Patroclus, as he tore through ranks of Trojans
after witnessing the Trojans nearly succeed at their goals. When
Patroclus' death allows Achilles to forget his rage at Agamemnon, and
the greatest Greek warrior challenges and defeats Hector, this is what
spurred him on. This lust even held sway over the men outside of war;
at Patroclus' funeral games, the Greek captains Ajax and Odysseus
strain against each other in a wrestling match, neither wrestler
giving way to the other. The end of this tale is known to nearly all
potential readers, however this strengthens it, rather than weakens
it. As Achilles and Priam, king of Troy, embrace, each weeping over
the fate that they know awaits them, this element of inexorability
allows the reader to empathize with the two characters struggling with
their own mortality more profoundly than if this fated end had come as
a surprise for the reader.
Even though The Iliad was written over two thousand years ago, it
remains current even today. The basic realization of death, and the
resulting struggle to make one's time have meaning, is familiar to all
people. It is strongly recommended by this reviewer for upholding
heroism rather than comfortable passivity. - cynical
-=-
"I am Charlotte Simmons," by Tom Wolfe. 676 pages, Farrar, Strauss,
Giroux, New
York (2004).
Literature aims to render a song of reality, describing it as it
exists outside of the small worlds in our own heads, but part of that
process is singing: bringing to light the mundane and showing it as
the conflict between ideals that in human terms it is. Set in a
fictional Ivy League college called Dupont University, Tom Wolfe's
latest book, I am Charlotte Simmons, is a careful exploration of the
reality faced by college students, during what one might presuppose to
be the most idealistic time in a young person's life.
Turning his back on current literary convention, Wolfe does not use
any grand- sounding metaphorical or scientific allusions to make his
point, as a Pynchon or DeLillo might, but creates instead a literal
story, and from within it alludes to the ideals that are being
manifested in the path of his protagonist. Eighteen-year-old Charlotte
Simmons is a prodigy by our terms, having proven herself in education,
but is an everyperson in her confusion regarding social and moral
issues. This confusion is deepened when she goes to Dupont, in which
the elite of our nation's learners demonstrate an aptitude for lust,
degeneracy, sloth, filth and illusion - in short anything but
learning, which one might assume is the process of compiling knowledge
about reality.
Wolfe crafts his story in a flexible hand, borrowing freely from the
past century of American literature as well as classic Bildungsroman
archetypes, but his style is determined by what he portrays, and like
a good journalist he is an able chameleon. Charlotte is portrayed in
the primary color absolutes of childhood mixed with the dense greys of
abstract concepts applied without the context that adulthood patiently
teaches. While not perhaps as exactingly pure in voice as a character
study would be, her language captures the conceptual conflict of her
age and the time in which she lives. Much as in the literary heritage
of F. Scott Fitzgerald, characters merge the allegorical and the
organic into a portrayal of experience as if contemplated in the small
hours of a dying day. They are important as much for what they do see
as what they do not, but we as readers divorced from any particular
individual, can infer from the whole of the situation.
What is gratifying about this approach is its reality. Contemporary
literature has deviated into an almost entirely symbolic realm at this
point, as if deluded by its own power of metaphor into confusing
language with reality, and Wolfe yanks us back from that not as much
through the gritty elements of the story - Charlotte's paranoid and
delusional deflowering, or the fistfights of drunken college males, or
the excreta and pathos of young people aping in extremes an adult
world they cannot understand - but through his attentive eye to the
images and concepts of areas in which we have no experience after
which we pattern our behavior. He connects impressions to action, and
shows the reader how despite our most animal impulses, we are
creatures of mind who program ourselves according to what we have
learned.
This literal story, like the most epic of literature, has a basic
structure wrapped in a proliferation of detail through its unfolding
plotline, but its theme sounds consistently throughout. Where Wolfe is
most deft is his ability to nudge a concept into every scene by not
mentioning it explicitly, letting the action conclude and the
characters then contemplate where they have arrived and what it means,
in contrast to what they expected. Although Charlotte is a vivid flesh
and blood character, her struggles mirror those of the society around
her, and through that device Wolfe peers into the evolving psyche of
our society, much as "The Great Gatsby" chronicled the outlook of its
time so well as to be emblematic.
Fitzgerald provides an interpretive starting point that gives us some
clue as to what this book is about. Much as Gatsby was an allegory for
"ambition," as the author revealed in later interviews and critique,
"I am Charlotte Simmons" is about a similar phenomenon, but at a more
fundamental level of psychology. Where in the 1920s ambition to
succeed financially dominated all else, and Fitzgerald's backward
warning was to the American establishment that it would soon be
replaced by more aggressive newcomers, since it had lapsed into a lack
of values, Wolfe tackles the lack of values by showing us an unreal
situation of sublime but not obvious danger. This allows him to point
out what replaced our values, and what obsession obscures our desire
to rise above.
Looking at this through the allegory of Charlotte Simmons, we see a
young girl who wants to rise above the world, represented by her dingy
and impoverished hometown with its hopeless and fatalistic local
culture. She goes to a place she sees as a gateway to knowledge, but
out of need for personal growth in a sexually aggressive and socially
elitist climate, becomes displaced, and spends much of the book trying
to get back on track. Wolfe raises the question, however, of an
invisible mental infection that cannot be described by the morality of
her God-fearing mother, the love of knowledge of her professors, or
the polyglot of political attitudes that encrust the campus. Using
literary negative space, he shows us what's missing, and like a mirror
reveals the attribute of the world we cannot normally see and thus do
not attribute to our actions as cause or fixation.
Where "Gatsby" was about ambition, the unstated theme of "I am
Charlotte Simmons" is the first word in the title. No matter how much
we wrangle over the named institutions and concepts of society, the
book hints, we cannot overcome our fascination with ourselves, and our
habit of constructing our worldview around our self-image. Characters
of all stripes in this book become misled by not their egos per se,
but their social desire to be seen as having certain "good" or
powerful motives; what they cannot see is the situation as a whole. We
can hear in this an echo of Nietzsche's warning against "grand
statements" of emotional meaning, but little pragmatic value. From the
yuppie fratboys to the academically amotivated athletes, this book
abounds with characters myopically blind to all but themselves as
constructed, externalized image.
As a result, this is a highly subversive book, and not only for its
frank treatment of disposable sexuality, racial recognition politics,
academic Marxist groupthink and excessive use of alcohol and drugs.
Its assault on us is cordial, but it bears the emblem of death as a
warning, revealing a worldview which defeats us in every form because
of its hook into our brain at a level we cannot even detect. Wolfe
avoids battering us with this as a dominant metaphorical structure but
lets it ring out in the soft spaces between action and the
unarticulated but visible emptinesses characters encounter even when
succeeding. On the surface, "I am Charlotte Simmons" shows us a young
woman attacked by the world, but when we read below the surface, it
shows us a species decimated by its inability to distinguish the small
worlds within individual minds from the larger world beyond. - vijay
-=-
FILM
Un Chien Andelou (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1929)
Un Chien Andelou is a film of dreams and tantalizing irrationality.
The film title translates to "An Andelousian Dog," and it's the first
example of a surrealist film. This is also surrealist Luis Bunuel's
first film, thus beginning the start of an iconoclastic and wild film
career for Bunuel. The 17 minute short was co-written with fellow
surrealist great Salvador Dali. This is one of the most notorious and
well known short films in existence, in part because of its shocking,
disjointed and dreamy imagery which remains potent to this day.
The film opens with one of the most memorable sequences in film
history. A tango plays as a man (Bunuel) is sharpening a barbers
razor. A thin veil of smoke from his cigar dances around his head as
he pears into the moon. The shot switches to the inside where a woman
is sitting down in a chair and looking forward. The Bunuel character
approaches her and takes the razor to her eye and slices it open. The
sequence then ends and the meat of the surrealist short begins.
The film takes us on a seemingly incoherent ride as if we are in a
dream, experiencing these phantasm's first hand. The plot circulates
around a young man and a women whom he desires but cannot obtain. The
two challenge each other while strange things happen and scenes just
mysteriously change before our eyes. One sits in wonder taking in all
the dream like imagery of this short film.
There is an undeniable passion in the method and work of Bunuel. His
iconoclasm as a film maker is unrivaled and his willingness to push
the boundaries is applauded. Un Chien Andelou is a short that attacks
rationality, Catholicism and the bourgeoisie. The film expresses the
desperation of a man who can never truly have the woman he seeks.
Bunuel seems to portray the underlying beast behavior of the
bourgeoisie who have come to believe they are no longer an animal but
something outside of nature. These are common themes that would
follow Bunuel throughout his career. While Bunuel would later say in
an interview that the film had no meaning, it was just a poke at the
avant-garde cinema of the day that relied more on form than substance,
it is apparent that there are some themes presiding through the film.
Bunuel was known for being an iconoclast, often threatening to burn
his films and making rash comments for effect; it is quite possible he
did so by denying the film had to say anything at all. Bunuel was a
true surrealist after all (except for a brief period in the 30's where
he was under the influence of Communism, probably in part because it
was a radical idea. Bunuel later revoked and vehemently condemned
Communism and throughout his career there exists anarchistic
sympathies and an attack on snobbery). This is a piece of cinematic
history that should not be missed by anyone into this medium. This is
a pure work of surrealistic iconoclasm.
At its very base Un Chien Andelou is a trip through the seemingly
incoherent world of dreams and nightmares. Love for the irrational
was a cornerstone of the surrealist style and this is apparent from
the beginning to the end of this brilliant short film. Bunuel manages
to create something hauntingly memorable by shooting this film with
such bravado and charisma. - phantasm
Download the film here:
http://epc.buffalo.edu/sound/mp3/sp/bunuel_luis/UN%20CHIEN%20ANDALOU.m
pg
-=-
"Triumph Of The Will" (dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 1935)
In the first decades of the 20th century, some nations adopted
political regimes which were brought forth by theories and
philosophies that constituted a complete renewal of the system
previously in vigor, most notably fascism and communism. In order to
strengthen their political base and gather more adepts, the rulers of
those countries used some types of propaganda to spread the word,
including cinema, which was at the time a relatively new and powerful
art form. Nevertheless, there are at least two examples, one from each
of the two regimes mentioned, of films that had initially mere
propaganda purposes but turned out to be true masterpieces: The
Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin, 1925), directed by Sergei
Eisenstein and filmed in the Soviet Union, and Triumph Of The Will,
directed by Leni Riefenstahl and filmed in Nazi Germany. Due to the
efforts of the media and western governments to condemn and boycott
things that are connected to National Socialism since the end of World
War II, Riefenstahl's picture is not remembered by critics as often as
Eisenstein's piece is, despite the fact that it was one of the most
groundbreaking movies of its time.
The film depicts the Reich Party Congress which took place in
Nuremberg in the year of 1934 and the events connected to it. At the
beginning, after a brief explanation of the context that led to such
celebration, there is a display of beautiful images of the city and
scenes of Adolf Hitler being enthusiastically hailed by a devoted
crowd as he arrives at the airport and goes on to his destination in
his car. What follows afterwards are the Führer's inspections of the
national army and workers, political rallies, military parades and
speeches of members of the government. Considering its content, the
movie could have been just an ordinary political documentary, but it
achieves a great deal more than that not only because of the unique
nature and magnificence of the Reich, but also due to the incredible
talent of its director, as Triumph of the Will is, indeed, technically
irreprehensible. Innovative techniques such as multi-angle camera
shots, cranes and tracking rails were utilized and the result is
nothing less than spectacular. From the beginning till the end, there
is a succession of masterfully edited and beautifully photographed
scenes which at the same time capture the essence of the events in a
realistic way and exalt their grandeur.
Ultimately, this documentary is highly recommended to anyone who is
interested in modern history and to those who would like to see rare
images of a nation united under the banner of heroism and ancient
symbols of might, as if in a fortified island surrounded by a world
where industrialism and conformism had long swallowed honor and pride,
in a time where such things were already practically nonexistent. -
monolithus
-=-
"Apocalypse Now" (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Why people love this movie: it puts into poetry a song of the decline
so vast, so carefully considered, that it does not register as
propaganda as much as honest emotion. It leaves aside social
considerations, such as what might or might not offend, and supplants
them with a view of the world in which we find ourselves, as if
crafted from the inner self we all nourish and hide away from the
uncomprehending, thickly vengeful world out of outer society. In
brief, it is a synthesis of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" and Joseph
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," both poems that deal with the collapse
of the West through an inward lack of will and spirit that corrupts
all things and cannot be addressed by ordinary political means.
Modernizing it somewhat, the directors set this descriptive fantasy in
the jungles of Viet Nam, and add to it period pieces of music and
culture and language, showing us how much the safe world of television
and plastic-sealed products cannot change the beast within.
Our perspective follows that of a military man sent up a long river
deep into the jungle, having been given instructions to eliminate a
man superior to him; our protagonist is recovering from his own
failures, and is expected to restore himself to good graces with this
mission. Over this creepy narrative line is woven an elaborately
detailed simple story of a team of people fighting their way into a
war-wracked, disorganized territory in which every "official" reason
is supplanted by a darkly subconscious actuality, one in which
predation and profit obliterate all idealism. To understand this
movie, realize that it is not a war movie; war is one of its
metaphors, but specifically, modern war is, in that it shows us the
pretense of an organized society in a disorganized, manic pursuit in
which all intentions are hidden behind layers of starchy bureaucratic
justification.
"Apocalypse Now" is anything if not lavish; A-level names from its
era, magnificent battle scenes that replace special effects with the
guaranteed effect of simply blowing up huge things in coordination,
and excellent cinematography highlight its passage and make a linear
storyline come alive in depth if not permutation (fortunate, since the
latter is destructive to emblematic themes as used here). In this
light, the movie is a strike against not only the mentality it
describes, but the artistic community that, drunken on the same
mentality, refuses to produce honest work describing it. While it is
mainly a work of overbearing mood, this movie is lightened by humor
and the pathos of human real-world survival in illogical circumstance,
touching on French existential philosophy as much as proto-modernist
realism. For all of this it is a great work of filmmaking, but what
makes this movie a form- independent great work of art is its
articulation of finely observed reality in poetic form, looking beyond
the temporal to see the spiritual, philosophical and psychological
dilemma of this cycle in our Western civilization. - vijay
-=-
FOOD
"Chicken and Forty Cloves"
This is simultaneously the easiest and best dish you could ever cook.
It requires one pan (more or less), it makes one of the lesser
utilized cuts of chicken shine, fills your home with an absolutely
heavenly aroma, and the flavour is incomparable. You will never have
better chicken in your life, unless of course you brine the chicken
first, which carries this dish right over the top.
1 dozen chicken thighs skin removed, or one whole chicken, split into
eight pieces
Salt and pepper
3/4 to 1C extra virgin olive oil, plus three tablespoons
40 peeled cloves of garlic (this amount can be reduced serviceably to
ten if you feel squeamish, but it is traditional to use forty)
Several sprigs of fresh thyme
6 bay leaves
Optional ingredients: halved Yukon Gold potatoes, cored quarters of
apple or pear, whole peeled shallots, chili peppers, olives, grapes
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Season the chicken very liberally with salt and pepper, and toss
with three tablespoons of olive oil. Brown these pieces in a hot
skillet over high heat until caramelized all over.
3. Add the chicken to a casserole dish large enough to accommodate the
chicken in one layer, and scatter the garlic and herbs over top. This
is also where you would add any of the optional ingredients mentioned
above. Add the remaining oil, cover tightly and bake for one and a
half hours.
4. Allow to cool slightly before consuming, as you have basically just
finished slowly deep-frying the chicken; it will be quite hot. You can
stir some of the poached garlic into mashed potatoes, and the
resulting oil can be used in any application requiring that a
flavorful fat be incorporated - salad dressings, sauteeing meats and
vegetables, pastas, etc. - hieronymous botch
-=-
Gnocchians
In philosophy, we often deal with abstract notions, which prompts a
desire for something tangible, perhaps even soft and easily
digestible, causing us to desire a simple but delicious recipe such as
the following. It is based on the ancient Italian food "gnocchi," or
potato-flour dumplings, which may have even been served to such
luminaries as Virgil and Marcus Aurelius.
Ingredients
2 lbs potatoes (bonus for sticky ones like Yukon Gold)
1 tsp ocean salt
1/2 stick butter
1 tbsp cracked pepper
1.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Boil these potatoes gently; you don't want to roast the damn things
into tastelessness. This usually takes an hour on medium heat, but can
be done in a half hour on high if you rotate them so they do not burn.
When they're boiled, set them aside to cool, then peel them and mash
them into paste.
Slice butter into small saucepan, add pepper, and melt. Pour into the
potato mash and knead thoroughly. Form a small "mountain" of the
resulting greasy substrate, and poke in the top so that it creates a
cup. Beat egg and dump into this cup, then follow up with salt. Knead
this mixture.
Surround this mound with flour on a clean surface, then dump the
required flour into it and knead. It will gradually take on a doughy
texture; massage this into a uniform consistent and then divide it
into four equal parts. With your clean hands, roll these over flour,
adding more if the mixture is sticky (potatoes vary in consistent with
ethnicity, breed, season and shelf life).
Roll each part into a rope about one inch in diameter, and then cut
into one inch pieces. You can imprint these with a fork to give them
the "classic gnocchi look." Boil water and drop these in carefully,
stirring water to avoid their sticking to the bottom of the pot and
resulting carbonization.
When done, serve with shredded parmesan cheese and/or tomato sauce.
Here's a quick tomato sauce recipe.
Ingredients
24 oz crushed tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
1 tbsp olive oil or 1 tsp olive oil and 1 pat butter
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp oregano, dry
1/2 tbsp basil, dry
1 tbsp vinegar
Fresh ingredients work even better than what is listed above, but most
of you have oregano and basil in your spice cabinets (if not, consider
it; the first thing the FBI will check to make sure you're a loyal
American is your spice collection). Put a saucepan on the stove, chuck
in your oils, crushed peeled garlic, and red pepper. Simmer on medium
and add finely chopped onion.
Cover, adding water if the mixture is dry, and uncover only when onion
is visibly carmelized (shiny, translucent). Dump in vinegar and tomato
puree, then stir in spices. Cook for another five minutes on medium
and you've got a quick and dirty sauce. You can add green peppers or
other vegetables for texture and flavor, but they will take longer to
cook.
Gnocchians and sauce should serve 4-8 people, depending on size,
ethnicity, season and shelf life. Most philosophers tend to favor this
dish with red wine. - vijay
-=-
"Parsnip and Arugula 'Tagliatelle'"
This is a great vegetarian dish to serve to anyone still braindead
enough to disregard all sensible nutritional advice to the contrary
and follow the Atkins diet. Makes a killer side dish to heartier
meat-oriented fare, as well.
1 bunch arugula, cleaned and hard stems removed
3-4 medium size parsnips, outer layer peeled
1 medium sized carrot
1 green zucchini
1 C cooked or canned white beans, drained
1/2 C Vidalia onion, thinly sliced
3-4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp wine vinegar, the kind does not matter (sherry is particularly
nice though)
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp chili flakes
1. Using a mandolin or hand peeler, shave thin lengthwise strips of
the parsnips, carrots and the zucchini until no more decent
"tagliatelle" can be peeled.
2. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat. Add the olive
oil, and begin sautéing the onion for two minutes.
3. Add the carrots and parsnips, and continue to sauté briskly for
another minute. Then add the zucchini, and season this mixture with
the salt, pepper, and chili flakes. Allow 1-2 minutes for this mixture
to reduce in volume and cook through.
4. Add the white beans, arugula leaves and the vinegar, toss
everything together, and cook just long enough for the leaves to wilt.
Serve immediately.
You can go wild and add any fresh herbs you have handy to this; I
wouldn't recommend rosemary unless it's used very sparingly, but
anything else would work. - blaphbee
-=-
"Mediterranean Cornucopia"
This is a take-off on the legend of the Horn of Plenty, one I serve in
my restaurant as a side dish to meat-oriented dishes, or else as a
dish of its own with other small accompaniments. It never fails to win
them over.
For the pastry cornucopia:
1-2 sheets of store-bought puff pastry (depending on size) a
six-to-seven inch wide soup bowl four six-to-seven inch wide circles
of thin cardboard (old cereal boxes work great for this)
aluminum foil
aerosol spray fat
For the ratatouille:
extra virgin olive oil
8oz of canned whole tomatoes, roughly crushed by hand
2 medium white onions, diced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
A healthy pinch of saffron
3 red and 3 green bell peppers, diced 1/4" pieces
1 large eggplant, diced 1/4"
2 green and 2 yellow zucchini, diced 1/4"
Possible additions to the ratatouille: halved olives, artichoke
hearts, mushrooms, etc.
1. Take the cardboard circles, and grab an exacto knife. Find the
center of each circle, and cut a radius on all four. Fold these
circles around so that you end up with four distinct cone-shapes, each
with a 3-4 inch wide mouth. Seal this with two staples across the
overlapping seam. Take some tin foil and cover the outside of the
cones over tightly, and try to keep the foil as smooth as possible
(this will only benefit you in the long run). Spray these lightly with
the aerosol fat, and set aside on a baking sheet. Set your oven to
400F.
2. Roll out the puff pastry to an eighth of an inch thickness, and set
the bowl mouth over it so that you can either end up with four circles
of pastry per sheet, or two circles, depending on the size of the
sheets. Cut around the circumference with a knife. Once done, cut out
one quarter of the pastry circle, and drape these circles lightly over
the foil cones (the top of the cones could puncture the pastry, which
isn't necessarily bad, but be careful all the same), and smooth the
wrinkles in the dough out so that a homogenous exterior surface is
achieved. Spray the outside of the cones with fat, and place in the
middle of the oven for 14-17 minutes - this may take longer or shorter
depending on the unreliability of your oven. You're looking for a
golden brown, puffed appearance. If you wish, spray the scraps of puff
pastry you have left with the fat, lightly sprinkle on some sugar and
bake along wit
h the cornucopias for about the same time, for a snack
while you prepare the rest of the meal. Once they're out, give them
two minutes before you attempt removal from the cones (this can be
tricky, but the necessary technique is to lightly hold the pastry
itself while gently twisting the cardboard slightly. It will
eventually give way. You will appreciate the care you took in
smoothing the foil at this stage, I'm sure). Set these aside until you
plate the meal.
3. The ratatouille: Put a medium soup pot on high heat, and a medium
sauté pan on high heat (Non stick sauté pans work tremendously well
here). Add two tbsp of the olive oil to the pot, and add the onion and
garlic. Season with salt and pepper and sauté these for five minutes.
Add the crushed tomatoes and saffron and a touch more salt (not much),
and lower the heat to medium low. Simmer this concoction for twenty
minutes. Once the pot is turned down, take the by now smoking pan and
add 2 tbsp of oil. Add the zucchini BY ITSELF, season with S&P, and
sauté quickly for two minutes, stirring the whole while. Don't let the
heat scare you. After two minutes, these should be just cooked
through. Remove from the pan, and place it back on the heat until it
smokes again. Repeat the process with the peppers, and then again with
the eggplant (however, you will find that the eggplant absorbs all the
oil immediately - just keep adding oil so that it sautés, instead of
dryly burning.).
4. Once all this is done, combine the sautéed vegetables with the
sauce, and remove from the heat. When ready to serve, hold the pastry
in your hand with a towel, just in case any hot liquid splashes, and
spoon in enough filling to come to level with the opening. Place one
on each plate so that the cornucopia rests on it's side, and the
ratatouille spills out onto the plate. Repeat for the rest of the
plates, and spoon the remaining ratatouille on top of what's already
spilling out so that it looks as though it truly is filled to
bursting. Garnish as you wish, with a sprig of rosemary, an edible
flower, anything at all.
Serve with simple roast chicken, grilled lamb, or for that special
vegetarian in your life. - blaphbee
_~= Features =~_
Opposing Angel: The Metaphysics of Averse Sefira
Averse Sefira exemplifies the paradoxical nature of black metal. The
meaninglessness inherent to modern society wars against the Romantic
desire to give wings to the soul, to restore once more the spirit and
vitality claimed by ancient humanity. These artists balance these
factions in an occult esotericism by sublimating themselves into an
Idea, bringing that Idea into action and then reality. They unify the
physical world with the aesthetic of the infinite and otherworldly
such that both threads of being, through this, become one.
According to vocalist/bassist Wrath, Nature "is a presence in all
things, one which we as humans have wronged egregiously. Nature is
that which we cannot deny, be it in ourselves or the world around us."
The natural world employs an evolutionary mechanism in its
construction and continuity of life through time; as each generation
turns, organisms spring forth and pass away, leaving those which were
better-adapted to the requirements of survival as the shapers of the
future development of the species.
"Nature creates things to serve purposes, to fill voids. Everything we
have ever seen that naturally occurs has some specific role to play,
however unwitting. By comparison art is part of justifying an
existence, not serving one." Within the human sphere, civilizations
throughout time have arisen, flourished and perished as the organisms
which comprised them ascended from birth into their inevitable deaths
as all things which live must; many cultural achievements are still
visible to us through the mists of time - the relics of those once
mighty empires, the accumulated wealth of knowledge, and the artistic
works which shaped and defined culture remain for us to contemplate
the boundless energy and creativity it took to create them.
Art is a different form of communication than that of direct speech or
experience. It is created through the willful abstraction or
metaphoric symbolization of what are otherwise concrete ideas,
presented through a certain aesthetic filter for consideration by
others who are capable of reassembling the conveyance locked within
the puzzle. When the message is found, it is judged by its perceiver
on the scale of its worthiness to their world, and the meme is adopted
into their outlook, oftentimes unconsciously.
"I think art is a human device in that art comes from intent, a
decision to communicate an idea," says Wrath. "Life is a situation
foisted upon each of us against our respective wills. The question
then becomes what is it worth and how is the time best spent?"
Although many people have attempted to find such an answer through
their work, thought, or art, even more have turned to God in
resolution of this problem.
Wisdom, and God by extension, were states of mind achievable through
hard diligence and deep thought turned toward comprehending the vast
esoteric depth of meaning rooted in this concept. As time passed, and
we arrive again in the modern day, the masses have thrived, a status
quo of mediocrity prevails, and God has been sublimated into a
marketable caricature of Its former meaning to placate those masses.
Not before the damage was done to our spirits and values, however; we
now understood God as outside of our world, unknowable, and thus we
have been left to our own materialism.
Certain individuals in ancient and modern times have stood against
this rising tide of spiritual nihilism. Black metal was an artform
which coalesced in opposition to the values which characterize mob
rule: "I stand for support of the vital and productive, I stand for
art over entertainment, I stand for acknowledging female contributions
to said art, I stand for quality over quantity, I stand for achievable
goals, I stand for consistency, I stand for directness, I stand for
lack of compromise in the face of mediocrity and enclavishness, I
stand for the eradication of YHWH, his flock, and the according status
quo."
Black metal stood for, in the eyes of its originators, ascendancy in
the face of stagnation, for warlike honour and integrity of artistic
vision, and a rejection of the plastic culture which had robbed the
world of vibrancy and meaning. Uncomprehending imitators and social
outcasts have since turned it into a gross parody of what it had
uncomprimisingly decried. "One element that sets us apart from many
bands in this genre is the amount of time and thought we invest in
every aspect of our work. Too many bands think that the way to create
Black Metal is to just pick up instruments and just bang it all out.
That to me is the recipe for hardcore/punk, old Discharge stuff. In
that case I don't think it is so much a preferred method as it is a
way to avoid learning how to effectively write music. Nobody can
accuse us of not investing any effort into Averse Sefira, whether or
not they like us."
"...Our message is paramount to our content, to the point where we
cannot write music without first finishing all the lyrics. We avoid
single-mindedness in that our mythos is in large part about tapping
into the infinite, and accordingly there are many story arcs we
address between the songs and albums. That said, everything is still
connected but it is a considerably large area to cover, and even then
it is but a microcosm, an overview of the ideas in question." The
conception Averse Sefira seeks to impart is the effort to reincarnate
God within Man, to reconcile the separation which has occurred via
religious and secular dualism. This is conveyed by their artistic
works, in which they represent themselves as the conduits of the
Sephiroth, a group of extracelestial beings who, having previously
served underneath its yoke, now find the concept and manifestation of
Jehovah to be a mirror image of the modern psychology of its creator -
bitter, resentful, materialistic, stagnated beings with no ability to
dream - and they correspondingly find this situation repugnant.
The Sephiroth see divinity as not outside the realm of Man, but a
fundamental structural facet of Man that can only be grasped when the
exterior mental dominance by a spiteful deity and its inherently
limiting values are removed from Man and destroyed utterly, to allow
that divinity opportunity to reveal itself, and guide us anew. The art
and music serve as the conduit for this storyline and idea; in terms
of artistic image-representation, Averse Sefira resurrects out of the
degraded farce of black metal's original usage of "corpse-painting" a
certain obligation or necessity to adorn themselves in their occult
armor and demonic facial visages, which have been altered to take on a
certain regal nature: it is a fundamental component of the
presentation of their art that they appear otherworldly - they are the
creators of the art, yet the art and message underlying it is what
impels them to act; a grand reciprocal synthesis of the two merges and
becomes a phenomenon greater than its individual parts.
"I would say my strongest area would be my imagination. It is the
touchstone of everything that motivates me. Second to that would be my
sense of determination. When I truly feel strongly about something I
tend to see it though unwaveringly. I don't know if I can say this
connects mind and body in that I am ultimately a cerebral person and
not a physical one." As "regular" beings of this physical world - "I
am no different than many Hessians in that I wear black army pants and
band shirts almost exclusively, but at this same time this was the
case well before I became embroiled in the Black Metal subculture"
they of course have thoughts on what occurs within it: "for the record
I strongly disagree with this war and I abhor our government,
particularly the current administration," says Wrath.
"In western nations it is christianity that tells us that it is
'right' to breed endlessly. In regards to other nations such as India
and Africa, it is christianity that says to intervene and implement
some kind of hard-line population control is 'wrong.' Maybe we should
go to war with more populist nations? None of these of course are
plausible solutions; it seems that when it comes to mankind the time
of plausible solutions in general has long past," he adds. "If I may
adopt the posture of Sun Tzu for a moment, I will say that [the USA
is] a threat to the world the way a clenched fist threatens a hornet's
net. The first strike causes great harm, but the survivors will still
be many and attack the fist from all sides. The outcome becomes fairly
obvious past a point."
Their art is what motivates their most visible actions: "I have a
difficult time speaking in direct terms about such topics, as Averse
Sefira is not a political entity nor do we wish to be one." Their art
is merely one manifestation of who they are, a selective process of
action to bring about the recognition of a better reality than the one
we are currently shackled into. The thoughts which have shaped them as
men find their reflection in the art which they have created and
sublimated themselves within upon its manifestation in the world.
"...Averse Sefira members regularly abandon reasonably paying desk
jobs in the interest of touring various parts of the world. At this
point, I seek the glory of our art. Past that, I am not terribly
worried about what will befall me. It will take care of itself..."
These men actively seek to make choices in their art and in their
personal lives which deliver a non-insane, assertively-defined
reality, extended from the art they create to a life that is not
compromised by the pervasive virus of modernity. "Anyone who meets me
finds that I am outgoing and generally sociable, assuming the person
in question is someone I am interested in meeting. I am self-assured,
I am jocular, though even in my best moments of levity I am told I am
intense. I tend to leave little doubt that I like who I am and what I
am about. With all this in mind, there tends to be the polarized
perception that I'm either interesting and agreeable or arrogant and
insufferable."
It is rare to see such self-conviction found in a world dominated by
self-image and standards of political correctness.There is thus a
duality to the outside observer: the onstage or artistic
representation of these men seems far removed on the surface from how
they conduct a "normal" life outside of their artistic realm of
choice, where they are addressing concepts not rooted in the everyday;
on a deeper level, there is however no duality, as the root value
system which drives them as individuals is also the progenitor of the
art manifested through them. In this, one can begin to see the
incarnate divinity believed in and invoked through the hymns of the
Sephiroth, in an effort to readdress the concepts of evolution,
artistry, and ascendancy in man. - blaphbee
-=-
"German Expressionistic Cinema (1919-1933)"
In these times the entertainment money making machine (Hollywood) has
helped to destroy the capabilities for high art in the cinematic
medium. Too much time is spent trying to sell a story that will
appeal to the masses and too little time is given to those seminal
voices willing to guide the masses through an enchanted and artistic
wonderland. Unfortunately due to the required man power and high
amount of money it takes to create a film, this does not appear to be
something that will change in the future, at least not in our society.
An unwavering dedication to thematic and artistic expression is a rare
trait in the movie business these days which is full of money making
morons, pseudo-artists and over-socialized brats from the suburbs.
Very few good filmmakers are left (and perhaps ever existed when
looking back on film as a whole) and the new generation looks stale.
But for those who enjoy the cinematic expressions like the Greeks
enjoyed plays, there exists optimism yet! In these times there still
are seminal forces who have recognizable talent. But these forces are
not necessarily new, in fact the forces I'm referring to in particular
are old; the past is where the breadth of the beauty lay in film.
Great art is great art, it has no time boundaries, it matters not
whether it was created four thousand years ago or yesterday, its
transcendent greatness is a testament to its endurance. German
Cinematic Expressionism should be noted as a movement that deserves
special recognition for being an influential and more artistic
movement in film making that pushed out great works.
German Expressionist cinema was born out of the desolation of post-WWI
Germany. The cinematic movement created atmospheric pieces of
cinematic art which helped promote cinema as a medium which truly
could have artistic merit all while being entertaining (much like a
play). German Expressionism's greatest artistic value is perhaps in
its ability to create atmospheres that absorb the viewer and take them
into another world where the themes are made present in the actions
and environment of the characters; in essence Expressionism works like
fantasy in that it takes ones feet off the ground and places them in
another realm. The fantasy of German Expressionistic Cinema is very
Kafkaesque in nature as the stories which Expressionism revolves
around are often planted in complex environments which are full of
impending dangers and psychological distress which is all wrapped up
in a dream-like distortion of reality.
Expressionism portrayed all the feelings and sentiments of Germany in
the post war state. Germany in the post-WWI era was a land in turmoil
due to the loss of the war. The loss caused economic turmoil and a
radical change in life for the German people. This feeling of loss,
despair and uncertainty in Germany became evident in the expressionist
styled art forms that were popular during the 1920's. The emotional
state of Germany blended with cinema to create one of the most
unforgettable movements in cinematic history, German Expressionistic
Cinema.
Time line of German Expressionistic Cinema:
Arising during the post-WWI years when Germany was at an economic low
point, German Cinematic Expressionism ascended to prominence as an
artistic representation of the times. The film movement expressed the
feelings and sentiments of a war-torn Germany residing in a depressed
post war state. Feelings of loss, despair and uncertainty were high in
the German people and those emotional conditions were evident in the
expressionist style coming from Germany in the 1920's.
Expressionistic cinema also stands as a revolutionary force in
cinematic history. Many great films that have come after
expressionism was over as a movement have directly or indirectly been
affected and influenced by the cinematic changes imposed by
expressionism.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, released in 1919, is historically agreed
upon to be the start of the movement and the ending is usually agreed
upon to be sometime around the making of Vampyr or M, which was
approximately in 1932-1933. Some debate does exist, however, as to
the official ending time of the movement.
Dynamics and themes of Expressionism:
Reflections on objects, actions or emotions coming from the
perspective of the artist or the object itself are dominant narrative
styles in Cinematic Expressionism. An inward perspective on a moment
or theme is given though the expressions of characters and objects.
In this way it is an opposite of impressionism, which seeks to give an
outward impression of the object. This subjective or introverted
approach to explaining emotions, objects and themes almost likens it
to the Romanticisms sense of passionate ideals and love for the
irrational and subjective. The filming technique used to display the
scenes and objects are themselves supposed to represent ideals and
symbols of both broad thematic story elements and of the inner
emotions of the characters.
German Expressionism is a style of film that creates its atmosphere
using many influential dynamics such as high contrast lighting, sharp
camera angles and distorted set decoration. The expressionist's
objective was to paint symbolic pictures and expressions in order to
convey the deeper meanings of the film. These themes involving loss
and despair were greatly influenced by a Germany greatly devastated
and affected by Allied ultimatums such as the Treaty of Versailles.
Expressionistic cinema sought to convey the emotions of the times
through odd characters and radical set decoration. Every twisted
design, every ethereal shadow, and every dramatic character movement
was designed to express interior motivation and thematic symbols.
Some expressionistic films, such as the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, drew
on budding sets that cut into the background like the artwork of Dr.
Seuss.
In many ways German expressionism rests on similar themes as Franz
Kafka's novels. There is a sense of loss and melancholy, need for
being and an eternal search for meaning. The characters are lost
effigy's in most cases, whose expressions and sentiments are expressed
though their surroundings and bodily actions more than their words.
In this empty world they live in where nothing is certain they are
granted obtainment or release, although the obtainment of something
greater is not always satisfied through heroic means; Nosferatu is
destroyed and set free by being burned in the sun, in Metropolis the
workers are freed from doing menial labor in an industrial system and
in M a child murderer is brought down by the criminal underworld in
Germany.
Feelings of displacement or not belonging are also very common themes
in German Expressionist cinema. Films like Metropolis reflect the
growing concerns of a people left dehumanized in the Industrial
factory fumes. An aspect of the films voice has an undeniable
relevance to today, a time in which we face the destruction of the
environment and culture in favor of a mass producing industrial system
where all that matters is that we are good consumers, feeding and
producing so that the system may roll on and continue focusing on the
lowest common denominator.
Influence:
The influence of German Expressionism could be seen far and wide. Most
directly, Expressionism was an influence on most all atmospheric
horror films to be produced since. The Gothic Romanticism undertones
of the plots and designs of the Expressionistic horror films such as
Nosferatu, Vampyr and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari served to influence
countless horror films, particularly the universal films of the
1930's. Expressionism also was very influential in film noir, the
style of film that took fruition in post-WWII America. Film noir made
stylistic use of many of the Expressionistic dynamics such as heavy
shadows, dark empty areas, alienation, and melancholic, distressed and
dishonest characters. Quite often the lead would be an anti-hero
stuck in a situation he couldn't control, often holding a dark secret
that would be their eventual downfall.
"Imagine we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly, we are told
that there is a corpse behind the door. In an instant, the room we are
sitting in is completely altered; everything in it has taken on
another look; the light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are
physically the same. This is because we have changed, and the objects
are as we conceive them. That is the effect I want to get in my film."
[1] - Carl Theodor Dreyer
This quote from director Carl Theodor Dreyer, director of Vampyr,
highlights some of the aims of expressionism and touches on the
dynamics of its influence. Looking deeper into Dreyer's quote we can
see that there is the very real possibility of expressionistic
influence on surrealistic cinema. Both blended the fine lines between
fantasy and reality into a cohesive whole in which one does not know
whether they are awake or dreaming. The environment and actions of
characters serve as symbols which convey deeper, more thematic
meanings. Other similarities include the common use of atmospheric
lighting for a dramatic dynamic which symbolizes the emotions of the
characters and helps to express the films theme(this is especially
apparent in the surrealist films of Jean Cocteau).
The film's of the Expressionistic era have even managed to poke their
influence into the present through film makers like Tim Burton whose
set designs and dark, brooding settings and tales of alienation are
straight from the Expressionists.
Common motifs of German Expressionism:
Thematic:
Displacement: A common theme in Expressionistic Cinema was feelings of
displacement. Characters often would be out of place in a setting and
objects would not be as they appeared. It was almost a direct
reflection of the psychology of the German people after World War I.
Characters are unsettled with society: Often the characters are
dissatisfied with the status of society. The have an inner longing
for more and they are fed up with the status of modernity.
Seeking meaning and a sense of being: The characters also have a
seeking spirit and wish to obtain meaning in a world that seems
meaningless. There are a lot of existential undertones.
The form represents the inside: The environments and the actions of
the characters represent their emotions. This is a much more thematic
(as in play) way of conveying the emotions of the characters and the
themes of the play. The characters exaggerate motions and actions in
order to convey what they were thinking (like a mime). The set
designs all played an integral part in the conveying of emotions and
themes as well. In Dr. Caligari the use of sharp, cutting sets was
used so as to convey the emotions and attitudes of the characters who
were lost and disjointed.
Technical:
High contrasts in shadows are a common theme in German Expressionistic
Cinema. Often times a chiascuro style of lighting is employed (heavy
use of shadows and controlled lighting which highlights very specific
points).
Sharp camera angles are used which adds a sense of distortion and
wackiness. It is done very purposefully to give more insights into
the characters and overall themes.
Often bizarre, sharp angled set designs are imployed which, like the
camera angles, are done to convey the emotions and thoughts of the
characters and overall themes of the film.
German Expressionist Films of merit:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) Dir. Robert Wiene
This is the film that started it all. Regarded by many to be the
first true expressionist film. This is the product of an era lost in
the despair of losing a war. Caligari is the manifestation of the
dark and bleak days that post-WW1 Germany found itself entangled in.
There was no other movie to come sense that had such sharp set designs
that rivaled the imagination's greatest endeavors. Dr. Caligari is a
stunning piece of visual art and it conveys the internal expressions
of a dark and macabre tale. It was films like this that influenced
some of the most influential horror films to come in the preceding
years. The dark shadows, the music, the methodical zombie like
behavior of the characters all served to present an atmosphere adept
at conveying the thematic elements of loss, despair, endless wandering
and Kafkaesque soul-searching.
Dr. Caligari's plot circles around a murder. Caligari gets sent to an
asylum, which happens to be the one he is the head of. The emotions
of the characters are understood though the creepy and demented set
designs and haunting makeup. This is expressionism in full stride.
The crisp contrasting lighting helps created effective shadows that
cast the viewer into the mind and world of the mad man. the film
teeters on the boarder of reality and fantasy as one knows not what
In terms of set design this film may have the most radical sets ever
created for a motion picture. The sharp wacky sets pop out of the
ground and resemble a Dr. Seuss book. The first modern filmmaker who
comes to mind who imposes a similar set design technique is Tim Burton
whose film making technique is extremely influenced by this era of
filmmaking.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors (1922) Dir. F.W. Murnau
F.W. Murneau's masterful horror film that remains an atmospheric
powerhouse to this day. This is often regarded as the most chilling
and haunting of all films done on Dracula. The shadows cast upon the
wall ravish the imagination and cast impressions inward that dwell and
claw themselves deeper and deeper with every passing second. The long
dangling claws of Nosferatu almost appear to lift themselves from
beyond the silver screen and into your heart. The film is chilling.
This is perhaps the most ethereal and haunting vampire film every
made.
Murneau was never able to gather the rights to Dracula so this instead
was his retort. Nosferatu is essentially the Dracula story retold
with the character of Count Orlok, the grim being who wanders his
cavernous castle deep in the woods of Romania. Orlock is the
manifestation of a dismal existence, a lost soul wandering in an
abysmal time, an introvert who's only satisfaction is derived from the
workings of his own mind but whose only ability to live is from the
taking of blood. This film goes beyond just horror and seems to
reflect the very real fears and alienation of the German people in a
time after war where their country was torn and economically battered
by the Treaty of Versailles. Beyond any subconscious sociological
reflections however, Nosferatu is at its heart a timeless, chilling
and atmospheric film; it's a piece of film making art.
Metropolis (1926) Dir. Fritz Lang
Often regarded as the highlight of German Expressionism and often
sited as the greatest picture of the silent film era. Metropolis is a
feast for the eye and an impressive artistic accomplishment. This
film is a look into the future where the world has become a
Metropolis. No more is there vast green fields to walk or mountain's
and forests to roam in, there is now only the darkened city with it's
bellowing alleys and sharp cutting features. The walls and buildings
are endless, representing the caged world of the Metropolis that lacks
any method of escape. The story circles around an upper class son of
a rich and ruthless capitalist who owns the city. The very situation
of Metropolis is at times hauntingly reminiscent of our present in
which we are consumed by capitalism and growing metropolises.
M (1931) Dir. Fritz Lang
Early Fritz Lang sound film about a psychotic child murder who wanders
the Berlin underground. The police crack down looking for the killer
and interupt the criminal underground instead. This prompts the
organized criminals to go on a hunt for the child murder themselves.
M is a chilling film that is one of the first sound films by Lang.
The common expressionist films of alienation and despair are present
against film noir backdrops. In fact this can be looked at as an
early noir film in many ways as it has a lot of the same locations
(dark city streets) and involves similar character struggles.
Vampyr (1932) Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
One of the last Expressionistic films. Vampyr is a Gothic tale that
plays like a dream. The set design is reminiscent of aspects of
Caligari as the two films share the same art director. A young
occultist goes to castle inn in which case he is confronted with
strange happenings. The film is an atmospheric piece of Gothic horror
that is remembered as another seminal moment of German Expressionistic
cinema. Like Nosferatu, the atmospheric qualities in Vampyr would go
on to influence atmospheric horror and fantasy films that would
proceed it. Some criticism comes in the area of sound as this was one
of the first sound films and thus lacks polish and is washed out in
places. - phantasm
Works Cited:
[1] http://silentmoviemonsters.tripod.com/germanexpressionism.html
[2] http://milgram.tripod.com/works/gefilm1.html
-=-
"Globalization and its Effects on the Ecosystem"
Before humanity invented means of traveling over oceans and to other
continents, animal life was isolated to their respective continents
or islands, separated by bodies of water. In these virgin ecosystems
everyone has a certain place in the food chain, from tiny insects to
gargantuan mammals, so a certain balance is maintained between them.
Insects, among others, are trying to adjust themselves to this big
world and some are inevitably killed, some are not, leaving the rest
to be bird's prey. Some birds starve, their corpses feeding the earth
and it's crawling inhabitants, reducing the number of birds eating
insects, who may once again gain in numbers in this fluctuating cycle.
Creatures whose main prey birds are may have to stalk upon other
animals to feed themselves, and the same chain continues ever round
and round, leaving even "the highest one" vulnerable and dependent on
continuous harmony.
Now, as globalization reigns, and every place on Earth is linked to
every other, species can find their way to ecosystems alien to them
via human transport, and cause much disruption there because of a
possible lack of natural enemies.
A good example of this is water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), which
wreaked havoc at Uganda's Lake Victoria. Originally a South American
waterplant, it was transplanted to Uganda, presumably as a gift of
some sort, and it spread quickly. This plant thrived in Lake Victoria
because the lake lacked it's natural adversaries, which helped to keep
the plant at bay in South America. The plant clogged the shores,
effectively halting transport across the lake, and eventually killed
the fish due to lack of oxygen. In addition to ruining a means of
transport and a bountiful food source wasn't enough, the plant
provided an excellent habitat to bilharzia snails and other pests by
forming zones of stagnant water near the shorelines. A document by
National Geographic discussed this subject, and it explained how a
cure against the water hyacinth was invented by bringing in the
natural enemy of the plant. These small insects were transported from
South America, after carefully examining them and thus making sure
that they wouldn't bring any further harm to Lake Victoria's
ecosystem.
The same document told of a mass extinction when two new, exotic
species of fish were introduced to Lake Victoria, Nile perch and Nile
tilapia. The results were devastating, as these two fishes ate most
species. The reason for this is that European sports fisherman liked
the idea of fishing there for Nile perch, which however had not
managed to swim into the lake due to various falls and cataracts along
the way. So, they were assisted to make that final jump. The same
document tells how the processing of the Nile perch's oily flesh
requires more firewood, and thus resulting in deforestation. "Before
the 1970s, Lake Victoria (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya) contained more than
350 species of fish from the cichlid family. Today over 50% of these
species are extinct or found only in small populations (92W1). This
was largely due to the introduction of two exotic species, the Nile
perch and Nile tilapia. By 1983 Nile perch made up almost 70% of the
catch, and the Nile tilapia and a native sardine made up most of the
balance (90A1)." [1]
Those were examples of what a simple human error or accident can
cause. It is a quite another thing with international ports, where
incoming ships introduce new species into the environment every day. A
prime example of this is the invasion of the San Francisco bay, which
has been dubbed as "the most invaded ecosystem". This is because
countless ships pass through the bay, possibly letting their ballast
waters to the bay, effectively transporting species to a foreign
ecosystem. Some stowaways prefer traveling within the cargo, packaging
materials and such. In the previously mentioned document, some
scientists examined the discs they had left in the water for two years
for accumulated sealife. Of all the species clung to the discs, 99%
were non-native. It has been estimated that over 234 nonnative plant
and animal species are now established at the San Francisco Bay. The
species attached to the discs are small forms of life, some not even
visible to the bare eye, but when thinking how the food chain is
built, for example, these seemingly small numbers are important as
well for sustaining a stable environment.
In the case of Hawaii, the trouble caused by an alien plant was quite
severe. Landslides would occur, when Miconia (Miconia calvescens),
later fittingly named "the green cancer", would overshadow other,
smaller native plants with it's large, up-to-80 cm long leaves and
take over. Miconia itself can grow even in dense shade needing as
little as 0.02% of full sunlight. It was originally from Central
America, and the man who found it was delighted by it's beautiful
purple-black leaves. He took a sample of it along, and researchers
were fascinated by it. In the 1960's, this plant was presented as a
gift to a research institute at Hawaii. It spread vigorously at the
islands, because the plant can bear up to 195 seeds per fruit, and 208
fruits per infrutescence, and it has at least three major flowering
peaks in one year. It grew over the smaller flora, as a fully mature
tree can have a height of fifteen meters, and as those original,
deeply-rooted plants died, landmasses became prone to slide, because
this new plant had quite shallow roots. It has become one of the most
invasive plants in Hawaii. Most of the alien species there are
introduced because of horticultural reasons, like ornamental purposes.
The plant is being uprooted now, though with slow success, because
people have realized the problems it causes, namely the landslides and
eradication of native flora, since they have been severe enough.
These examples show that ecosystems are far beyond our understanding,
and the simple thoughts of "repairing the world" and "human
superiority" appear very naive in the light of this. As with the case
of Lake Victoria, seemingly insignificant changes can have
unpredictable results. But "repairing" does sometimes work, as the
Yellowstone nature conservation area has shown us; humans hunted off
the wolves there, and because of this forests started to suffer,
because elks, deers and such were free to eat the growing trees.
Beavers lacked aspen, which is optimal for building dams, which then
in turn flood the land, helping more aspen to grow. But, in this case,
humans repaired what they had caused by replacing the missing block
they had decimated before to protect themselves.
However, there's much more to be "repaired", and it isn't practically
possible to undo what globalization has done to our world. The basic
"leftist green"- style of approach, which first and foremost values
human rights, doesn't work. While we trample around from one corner of
the world to another, we don't always see what it's doing to the
ecosystem. Totally unnecessary causes of alien invasion like
transplantation for ornamental purposes should be prevented
completely, that should be clear enough to understand, and while there
could be some trading, it should be reduced to only the necessary,
especially in the case of transcontinental trade, as ships and planes
can travel between very different ecosystems, and carry many of their
species along to all over the world. This is detrimental to human
development in the present sense of the word, but we must choose
between our desire for immediate welfare and a lasting way of life.
Simple pleasures aren't to be put first if we are to have a healthy
environment in which to live. - frostwood
This is a wonderful world we are of, truly.
Sources:
1. Bruce Sundquist - The Earth's carrying capacity - Fishery
degradation chapter 5
http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/fi5.html (2003)
-=-
"Analysis of Claude Debussy's - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"
Distinguished as the most daring and genuinely pioneering composer of
the 20th century, Frenchman Claude Debussy's music has also
undoubtedly composed the artistic peak and the triumph of the
Romanticist movement; not only has he revolutionized the technique of
piano playing, stretched the boundaries of tonal music with his highly
personal harmony and eloquent expression, but his attitude also gave
birth to the typical concept of the romantic musician; when he was
asked by one of his professors of what musical rules does he observe
in his music, he replied ''None, but my own pleasure''.
While most of his piano music, however subtle and graceful, in a sense
conformed to the libertarian-romanticist norm of a general lack of
structure and a rejection of the great achievement of German music,
the sonata form (exposition- development-recapitulation), it is his
symphonic music that should be considered his grand offering to the
tradition of great classical composers like Beethoven and Wagner.
Probably among equals, his ''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun'' is
the work that stands above all, being one of the most recognizable
orchestral pieces of all time.
Debussy was considerably influenced by contemporary artistic movements
of his time, and has irrevocably connected his name with Impressionism
at the exact moment he came up with the idea to base this particular
composition to the same titled poem of Staphane Mallarme, a prominent
poet and leader of the Impressionist movement who, along with other
painters and poets of similar inclinations, Debussy enjoyed the
company of. Though Debussy never fancied the title, his music was
possibly the closest musical incarnation ever of the aesthetic and
principles of the movement: the naturalist and sentimental themes, the
abstract structure, the liberating (for the romanticist aesthetic)
view of the world not as an absolute truth but as canvas painted from
the objective impressions of each man must surely prove this point.
This 9 minute instrumental opus attempts to enter into and depict a
world of fantasy: the world of neraids, fauns, spirits, gods and
goddesses, the primordial anthropomorphic and poetic metaphors of
nature's beauty and valuable fruits, in other words, a theme that has
offered some of the greatest pieces of european art ever, from Weber's
'Oberon' to Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Consequently,
the harmony that is being used by Debussy in the Prelude is of a
diatonic and chromatic nature, meaning that while the music is based
on relatively simple scales of a melodic character (though not always
of the usual minor-major type, since Debussy had a preference for
'unconventional' harmonies like ancient Greek scales, pentatonic and
whole-tone harmonies) their development and contrapuntal layering (the
melodies that are being played at the same time by different
instruments of the orchestra) results into a colourful, ethereal
harmony that often reaches the borders of a multitonality that
interpolates in between the basic notes of the scales without
betraying the solid tonal structure of the work; indeed, and unlike
modern 'avant-garde' music, the listener is at all times able to
follow the course of the music, without being able to guess of course
the next step (of all classical composers, the most unexpected and
surprising would be Debussy). The composer's already established
trademarks are obviously to be found again; namely the 7th and 9th
intervals of the chords that are not solved according to the
tradition, the parallel intervals and generally the bold and often
defiant of 'rules' instrumentation that gave his music such a
personal, lyrical and Dionysian character and was later 'borrowed' to
provide the basis of mostly jazz and generally modern music, from pop
to Hollywood soundtracks (just listen to the Star Wars soundtrack
shortly thereafter this work...)
Theoretically, the piece can be divided into three movements, although
the standard organization of a concerto or symphony is not to be found
and the structure is reminiscent more to a loose form of the symphonic
poem, a style introduced in the romanticist era by Lizst. The first
theme of the work is the most characteristic that could have been; a
flute introduces the theme of the faun, a slow chromatic melody that
from the very start gives away a direct impression of a vivid image -
one cannot help to imagine our playful hero and the magical
environment that surrounds him. The response to that idyllic theme is
given shortly afterwards by the orchestra with the ethereal glissando
of the harps and the anxious entrance of the other wind instruments;
the theme of the faun is replayed but now with the full support of the
orchestra. The theme begins to develop as the flute part moves on to a
soloist performance; the other instruments not only support the basic
melody harmonically in the background but add other melodies that
appear in the context of the whole synthesis. Debussy is a mood
painter, his music serves for the main purpose of aesthetical
influence and not as a mathematical construction of an autonomous
nature. In that manner he is at the same time distant to tradition but
loyal to the primordial and essential function of music, its impact on
the human psyche.
The second part of the synthesis consists of the cradle of the
impressionistic approach to music and one of most eloquent and
majestic orchestrations of all time. After the initial theme comes to
a halt, an abrupt and movement-indicating passage enters and begins to
expand itself by transforming it's somewhat lyrical sub-theme into a
grandiose melody executed by the wind instruments and soon followed by
the strings into the piece's first upcoming crescendo, the intensity
tends to waver back and forth for some seconds in an ironic hesitation
but finally reaches a loud climax with the horns and the strings
crying in surprising agony; but while the last notes of that theme are
repeated as if in a echoing, continually slowing down, fading, the
final prevailing chord will be not the one previously hinted, but
Debussy's all time favourite; the major with seventh, the equivalent
of triumphant, strengthful joy. At this point the listener would be
able to understand several things about the artist and his
personality, the most evident should be the determinative influence of
Richard Wagner into the core of Debussy's music; indeed the Prelude
owes some of it's finest moments to the latest and most adventurous
works (not only harmonically or structurally but also in spirit) of
Herr Wagner, even though he would "disown" him later in the future
because of his modest aversion to any, supposedly, superfluous and
conceited art (that could be also due to the fact that he hated the
over-blown forms and harmonic style of Post-Wagnerian romanticists of
his time like Mahler and Strauss). In addition, it should be evident
that the composer has raised the talent of surprising (not to say
shocking) the listener up into new heights; while most expectations
for the tonal direction of the synthesis are being triumphantly
denied, this is accomplished in an ingenious and not abrupt way, as
the listener feels not betrayed by the development of music but
impressed and aroused.
To illustrate this, that particular passage at the 3.30 minute of the
piece could be as well perceived as a 'pseudo-climax' of some sort, an
attempt of the composer to mislead us regarding the real core of the
synthesis, because shortly afterwards the music does finally seem to
walk a sure step forward. On 4.20 this is almost certain; the theme
that preceded the crescendo previously is represented, apparently with
different orchestration, the music again is beginning to grow in
intensity and expressiveness, the ascending and descending layers of
the instruments find a common tonal center, the crescendo begins
again, a double forte pre-climax breaks up and immediately fades out
as the final and devastating ascent begins... voila! The theme is
finally represented in all it's glory in a 'clean' and unembellished
form of the major chords; if Debussy himself once considered that
beauty lies in the simplest of chords imagine what message should be
passed over today to contemporary seekers of novelty and progression
in art... The third section is for the most part a deconstruction of
the piece so far. Having already reached such a high level of
complexity and intensity the composer decides to re-establish a state
of harmony into the mind of his listeners, kind of like holding their
hand while coming back from the enchanted woods of fauns and neraids
into the real world; all important themes are recapitulated and in a
way stuck out of the multitonal mass of notes to stand out in their
lonesome glory; the closing of the book and a song for goodnight.
Debussy had initially intended for this orchestral work to be
separated into three parts, Prélude, Interlude and Paraphrase finale.
In fact, he never succeeded to get past the Prelude, as all his
attempts to successfully develop the other two parts have proved in
vain, with the most apparent reason probably being that they couldn't
match with the quality of the Prelude. Still, even on it's own, the
Prelude had managed to make an unprecedented breakthrough at the
musical circles of Europe. Debussy's American biographer Oscar
Thompson compared it with the Prelude to Lohengrin , in the manner
that "at the time it was written nothing like it existed in music."
Since then, evolution in music has taken place and brought new
theories, new instruments, even new musical systems; but hardly will
another musical piece have a larger impact than the "Prelude to the
Afternoon of a Faun" to the musical world. - lycaon
_~= Literature =~_
"Apparitions of Darkness to Come"
The first time I had gazed upon you,
A figure bathed in black,
In shadows swept,
My heart and body were enthralled.
Your pearly flesh reminded me
Of snowcapped mountains:
Heavenly.
A river of hair flowed from your scalp,
Down your shoulders,
Down your back,
As long as the tallest mountain Alp.
Your eyes,
They showed the darkest light,
And it was from them, your eyes of ice,
They woke me from my lifelong plight
Into a world where darkness reigns,
The beasts of night supreme;
And from the Earth,
The darkness gave
You to be the Queen.
The second time I gazed upon you,
My heart arose to behold
It's life anew.
You, clad in black, with ink in arm,
Are the darkness in this light;
You, set upon this world so bright,
Can save us from this loveless blight.
My darkling dear,
My fallen angel,
Come, let your powers grow
To change our worlds,
All that we know. - hrothgar
-=-
"To Face the Night"
Pain and Death came calling
and the World turned away
to flee to the bosom of the Church
to the bottle
to the needle
to the safety of slave pens
One turned to face Them
to look Them in the eye
and found no wolves at his heels
nor enemies at his gates
but Life in the living
and Life to be embraced
not as a Martyr
suffering to suffer
but as a Hero
enduring to Live
"Apologies to Bill"
The mystery of the ages
not the void nor that beyond
nor the cool sleep of Death
but Life itself
and the Fates we forge
To be - That is the question!
"Silly Question"
A man once asked me
"Which lasts longer, the mountains or the sea?"
I thought it strange
that he should ask
to hear a story begun before
the first footfall of Man
and shall surely end
only after he has passed
"That's the World Talking"
Give up!
Give in!
Take your paycheck and run
Fill your life with plastic dreams
and soothe your heart with pleasant lies
"American Socrates"
It lay there
in the lengthening shadow of an ancient oak
no name
no words
just hand hewn limestone
1819-1872
a monument to a man who knew himself
What else even matters?
"Pride"
I slew Hector in the shadow of Troy's golden walls
and learned of duty from Krishna's lips
I've sailed with heroes
and dined with kings
I've stood alone amidst the trees
Cities rise
Kingdoms fall
I've tasted my own blood
and I have seen Death
but Truth remains
if I live, my people live
Truth shall never die, so long as we proclaim it
- planetary eulogy
-=-
"Estrella's Walk"
In due time, I heard through the scuttlebutt word of a most amazing
creature. An Indian Goddess. With iridescent beauty holding forth,
standing proud, high atop a lush green hilltop in Armuelles. Our
destination! And this Goddess's name was Estrella.
Estrella.
So this was what it was all about: Estrella. They spoke of her with
reverence. Beauty untouchable. Estrella's light feminine mannerisms
captivate. A ray of hope shines from above with the mention of this
Goddess. Genuine seven crowned Chiriqui. Her dimensions consummate
apparition like karat fixates diamond. Blameless vitality shifts
through spectrum. Bizarre shades of night. The earth, created for her
amusement; water conceived so she might have somewhere to walk. Well
formed bare feet, exquisite in their arch. She moves through dreams.
And upon them. Every ethereal grace rewards those touched by Estrella.
A glimpse of her as she wanders down toward the sea, on midnight
strolls with a sleek panther who comes in out of the jungle to nuzzle
against the firm of her thigh. Momentary pleasure indulges as they,
two together, amble along the noiseless depth of riverside's mist. As
if in dance, she'd sway; he'd stretch velvety paws of guile. Heel and
paw glisten over shiny slate, over garlands of flowers draped along
the bank, sashaying through low fronds brushing against the calves of
their legs. Touching the wily innocence of this night. Clinging vines
reach for river's succor. Before glowing orchids of Espirito Santo the
atmosphere smacks of forever. They absorb the water's babbling gurgle.
In plain sight. Reptilian alertness. El Grande Zappo. The sensitive
eyes of all God's creatures. Below nesting birds of paradise, the
cat's haunching vertebra slithers to the tickle of brazen fingernails.
Down to the river's mouth, they step, often carelessly setting foot
within the tempting flow, keeping clear of large round phosphorescent
boulders. Dappled moonlight gleams.
Down to the gushing mouth where white crests of algae-laden sea lap
against this peaceful flow, against these deep reflective pools which
began their trickle and fall from craggy mountains, clear as day,
rolling down through leafy hillsides to vast grasses, dipping to
banana plantations. Estrella's native land. Top soil takes on new
meaning. Still waters span loamy banks. Aqua elements meet, touch and
mingle. Rich dark silt sweats out nutrients. Shallow roots caress.
Palms touch the starry starry sky. Thin trees, overgrowth of vine.
Shoots and sprouts, scrubby bushes, blossoming bijous. Tiny, scurrying
things thrive here. Off to the side of the pummeled footpath, beneath
lush cover - small eyes blink. Noises coo. Magic escapes in
effervescence. Memory bubbles!
To a hallowed opening in this suffocating jungle flora. The melding of
fresh water and salt, a frothy bubbling point where the flow's clarity
is engulfed. Clouded. Enraptured. This land's sweet nectar gives way
to the sea's stiff breeze. Estrella bids the famished black cat drink.
Lowering its head, the panther dips its tongue into brackish liquid.
Slurping, lapping up juices of life. Sublime juices, pledging elusive
powers. His sleek black whiskered mouth stitched with incisors; nimble
pink lapper one notch above silence. Need pulsates like spanning
rings. Desire craves this vicinity.
Estrella parts with her midnight paramour. Puma, lord God of fear and
respect. She'll walk with him tomorrow night. And ever after. Her
ankles kick. Sand and salt sift through urging toes. Dry beach
luminescent against crashing waves. Frothing traces of brine. The wind
tugs her hair, a knowing smile glistens; she outshines. Her muscles
flex. Shadowy flanks curve. Eager feet prowl. In search of dawn.
Yes, this is what I overheard from the beaten and world weary sailors
as they made their ways back and forth from the meal table. I was
mesmerized. Stunned. My anticipation shot up through the overhead. All
I wanted to do was meet this woman. Yes. I needed a goddess like never
before. - skeeze whitlow
-=-
"The Hunters"
My eyes opened; the temporary blackness of a slumber caused by some
trauma faded and the world took its place. For some amount of time-
minutes, hours, I know not- my gaze was fixed upon the leafless
branches and the grey sky above, thinking that this must be a dream,
but it can't be; the burning cold sensation of freezing white flakes
on my face is too strong. The howling of the wind of this winter
storm, a beautiful but desolate serenade, haunts my ears, but no
feeling accompanies it; perhaps the stump of some tree that did not
survive the difficult test of nature's winter is shielding my face
from its bite. The sound is unusually high pitched...almost alive. As
the after effects of the trauma wear off and reality sets in, the true
situation is revealed; the howling is from a source much more powerful
than I, and death will beckon if I do not escape. Attempting to pick
myself up off of the ground yields no results; my body, like a statue,
remains motionless. At my side rests a large limb; seeing this, it
becomes apparent how I came into this plight, and what my fate is. I
scream in fear of the unknown, of the void that I shall soon know. The
limb fell on me, delivering a blow to my spine, temporarily cradling
me away from the awareness of this world, only to harshly drop me back
into reality with my limbs immobilized.
How foolish it was to go hunting on this winter day! Sprawled out
beneath the wrath of the storm, I reflect on the irony of the
situation; nature is a grisly joker, indeed, and now I am the butt of
her insatiable humor. I left my home for a bit of sport, and to kill
some animal to have a great meal on this winter night; however, now I
have been turned into the quarry, and the feast shall belong to those
creators of the howling, the masters of the woods, who are coming ever
closer to me.
As I lie here, time seems to stand still. How long have I been here?
Minutes? Hours? I know not. But now, the incisors of those grand
canines, the kings of the woods, are burying themselves into my body;
thanks to the spinal damage, I feel no pain, but scream in horror at
the visage of my body being ripped apart; the ground is spattered in
gore, the snow has become the juice from a strawberry, and the void is
calling me to where I was before birth...
* * *
Hunger is our company; it is time for our mother to administer her
cruel test which determines which of us will see the future seasons.
The cold wind deals death to her children who did not prepare their
winter nest, and those who are in their nests are unavailable to
sustain us. Two among our numbers have already failed this test; we
fear that none of us shall pass; our bodies are gaunt from this lack
of nourishment, and none is in sight. We cry out to our mother, and,
in response, hear a scream from a few minute's journey away. She
loves us; she has chosen to give us the energy that we need to see
another day.
Slowly, we stalk the prey that our mother has graciously given to us,
being careful that it is not just drawing us in. A few minutes later,
his form is revealed; soon, we shall be nourished by one of the two
legged weak creatures who carry a loud, lethal weapon, and who have
killed so many of us in the past. Our mother, in her infinite wisdom,
offers him to us as a way to continue the cycle between life and
death, and to strike a balance between the two of our types. Again we
cry out to her, this time in thanks for her gifts.
Soon, we are upon him; our bodies are invigorated by the energy that
we gain from eating his flesh. He releases a cry to our mother, a
shrill, piercing, desperate scream, but it does him no good; she has
decided to bless us with life on this day. - cynical
-=-
"Silence"
Silence
And calmly falling snow
Sun shines faintly
Through the grey clouds
Little creatures of the forests
Leave their tracks
On the everfalling
Snow
This will be always
And never again - frostwood
[ exponentiation ]
Published Quarterly
by the Center for Nihilism and Nihilist Studies
http://www.nihil.org/
With assistance from
The American Nihilist Underground Society
http://www.anus.com/
Managing Editor: Blaphbee
Culture and Features Editor: Phantasm
"When a place gets crowded enough to require IDs, social collapse
is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about
space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere."
-- R.A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love
[EOF]
