exponentiation ezine: issue [4.0: culture]
Music
Maeror Tri - "Myein" (1995 ND)
Slow, vibrating key strokes piece together these extremely drony landscapes, shaped by ambient masters Maeror Tri - now hailed as cult legends within the ambient/drone genre.
A dark layering of sound begins the album and is used efficiently by improvising the sound of a guitar string that's constantly pulled and later into the music the dark layered sounds are accompanied by several extended key tones that overlap their forerunner. Like diving into an unexpected void of emptiness, the music becomes more intense, more drony, the longer it goes on.
At a certain point, strange sounds start to appear as rythmic inducers, hypnotizing the mind into a state of total esoteric mindexploration. What follows, is an openedness into soundscapes totally unknown. The monotone and persistent vibrating sound in the background becomes the basic structure, and disorted and dissonant noises become leaders, dictating where each song is going.
Almost like living inside an airdrum, these noises eventually build up into an intense tribal dance and become harmonies against beautiful melodies, similar to the music of Autechre or Beherit's later ambient works. This is a welcome experience and Maeror Tri proves its undeniable artistic brilliance when the second movement of this album begins. A calm ambient key stroke is introduced as a basic structural layer, and placed on top of it is a highly emotional and almost epic vibrating drony key stroke. It may be compared to a leaf slowly flapping in the wind, or streamlined thoughts colliding between two lonely individuals in a room of emptiness.
Maeror Tri uses the notion of singularity to enhance and provoke awe and love to what they wish to present; around these gently droning soundscapes exist nothing, and as such, "Myein" is well balanced and easily projected into the mind of he or she who wishes peace, but peace found within brainstorms of thoughts, memories and old wisdom. Certain points of these drawn-out keystrokes beckon to the listener and become enhanced, as found in the way the music is built up: harmonies range from dark and low, to relatively high - and when the key note has reached its peak - it brings forth a gentle resounding. Profound is the one and only word to use here.
After having built up a general mood of unknown epic and strange but emotional feeling, the almost fifty-minute opus begins. Hardly expected, it starts with a myriad of melancholic and deranged noises, like twisted illusions of a dream never before experienced. A slow, dark, eerie ambient texture lies beneath it, sometimes interfering with the process of compressing massive amounts of energy into a limited space (expression), other times relying completely on the roar, and from there going back to its original state. Here we find the basic technique of "Myein," in its way of letting different drony keynotes interact as a roleplay between the dark, the high, the noisy and the disturbingly clear.
Unsettling, this listening experience suddenly loses its rushing atmosphere and instead continues forward through its basic dark key notes, putting the focus on itself. Although it for a while stands on its own, it quickly becomes acquainted with overlapping synth-layers that sound like processed guitars, until the harmonies transpire into an expression of the organic and wordly: suddenly it is the all. Twisted and dissonant, these drone-driven sounds eventually imitate that of an electronic flute player beyond space and time. Maeror Tri uses this function to its advantage: it removes all outside contact with reality, and instead builds up a whole new one, only to tear it down and replace it with singularity - somethingness surrounded with nothingness.
Further into this unimaginable journey, the ambient layers suddenly stop their diverging evolution and instead become two single key drones, affecting one another by what feels like ritualistic and evergrowing knowledge of something left far behind. The music therefore becomes more reflective, more certain of a way than before there was either total chaos or total emptiness. Surprisingly, this journey is concluded by a cold and desolate key tone, opposed to the warm and gentle breeze of different harmonies experienced before.
It is not without reason that works by this trio of German dronists have become intensely sought after by virtually all serious ambient music lovers; their music is affectionate, careless, desolate, warm, epic, timeless, droning, disturbing - all compressed into a a single unit. While it in many ways is fit for the esoteric mind, and in most ways is too far out for most mainstream ambientists, "Myein" reflects the internal mechanisms of Universe; opposites fulfilling eachother by co-working and creating a relevant whole. Like no other ambient artist, Maeror Tri succeeds in pulling the listener deeper and deeper down until it becomes suffocated by its visions - only to discover a new world beyond the subtle ways of watching the surface, but never touching the internal and unexplored. As such, "Myein" is a daring journey into what the inside can create by itself as single influence.
This ethereal work stands on its own: A masterpiece. -Alexis
Robert Fripp - Exposure
Like William Blake, Robert Fripp is one of those figures in art who contribute so much they're constantly overlooked, in part because what they create is inscrutable to a wider audience. Together with Black Sabbath, Fripp invented what heavy metal would become through his abstract but dissonant symphonies and knotted song structures which like demi-operas navigated a course of story to arrive at sense. He is most famous for his work with prog-rock band King Crimson, but it is foolish to overlike his modern chamber music made on sustain-boosted guitars.
"Exposure" was a Frippian attempt to both join and comment on music of his time, as if chronicling a history of it, and while it scrambled for that difficult beachhead -- less repetitive than rock but too repetitive for classical, mixing progressive stylings and retrofitted cliche to be postmodernly both self-critical and creative of a future -- it makes great listening for those not seeking consistency. This album sounds more like a summary of learning so far, a philosophy of beauty within tortured sound and clarity within noise culminating in spiritual peace within a chaotic and lost time, more than it is meant for casual listening; it is an event. It is not the type of album one sits down to for a simple experience, but almost has to be hoodwinked into and ends up better for it: this album grows on the listener like a routine passage to work on which dailyl noticed is newly proliferating detail.
To the dismay of many it is avant-garde art with two capital A's, quirkily restless in its desire to incorporate sounds which would later find their way into other compositional styles. Its voice compositions in particular would find counterparts on middle-period Ministry albums, as its many licks and detours would be appropriated by any of a number of rock and pop bands. Although the music is softer, comparisons to punk are valid here because like hardcore punk bands, this album takes a dim view of our society's "progress," likening it via music to extraneous noise that because of its outer shell is unrecognized as valueless, since it sounds like it might be meaningful, even if it is repetitive. Fripp takes that style of sound and explodes it outward, steering the directionless time-filler toward unsettling conclusions, like a G.G. Allin of the artrock movement showing us a mirror of our empty souls, in the depth of which something -- serpent or angel or both --begins to stir.
The weakness of this album, like many forms of demonstrative protest music, is its tendency toward the outlandish and gesture-heavy, which interrupts listening with drama that does not find beauty in life; Fripp is more successfully when instead of pointing out the dischordance, he uses it to make higher creations which incorporate beauty and darkness into clarity. Yet despite these jarring aspects, the music expands its depth as it is inspected, creating a tunnel into the mind of one of the 20th century's most uncorruptible advocates of Art. Two versions of the CD are included here, the original and a modern remix including tracks dropped for contractual reasons, but this reviewer prefers the first disc for its clarity of delivery. -vijay prozak
Dead Can Dance - Serpents Egg (1988 4AD)
A trip into the mystical world of the medieval orient is the ticket offered in "The Serpents Egg" by this groundbreaking duo consisting of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry.
Organs create an ambient undertone at the beginning of this album, while Lisa's voice provides an emotional overscoring, leaning towards the suffering, but at the same time upholding the reactionary opposite. Continuing on this journey, voices of different tonal levels masterfully work together in both homophonic and monophonic textures and manage to create an ultimately interesting piece of medieval spirit rarely found in other artists of similar stylings.
Brendan, although in many ways fond of the positive and optimistic, surges forward with a calm exclamation of the fatal individualism that splits and severs the ties that create a strong and unified people. His recognition of this in "Severance" is clear and profound, and it is not without a sprinkle of sadness that this song ends with an emotional violin as a reaction to the problem.
However, it is Lisa's performance that mostly impresses this listener - as in songs like "The writing on my father's hand", where total sorrow and hopelessness is upheld and taken to its emotional extreme - without losing its musical honesty and integrity. A background harp that leaves a small gap in its playing for an echo plays the dominant melody of the song and imaginatively seems to suggest a closed and distant room in the tower of a castle, where feelings and wishes are repressed - both physically and mentally.
At an interval no longer than the despondent feelings can soak into the heart of the observer, Brendan immediately presents a reactionary piece where the modern ignorance is replaced by tolerance and an opened mind, freed from the sins imposed by those with God but without eyes to see the beauty of life. These feelings and counter-feelings are some of the things that give this album a balanced picture and leave it more in the space of dynamic change, rather than linear thinking.
Further, it seems like the album itself is unconsciously divided into two separate chapters; one of suppression and reflection, and one of spiritual enlargement and celebration. Songs like "Mother Tongue" affirm this idea, as the album suddenly takes a different turn in which multiple layers of rhythmic drumming enter the music, sounding similar to bells of crystal ice blowing in the wind, and then seducing, mystical and monotone ambient tones wave the sounds into a blurred vision of a forest undergoing a magical change - all of this is later accompanied by the sound of a secret waterfall somewhere deep into the mouth of Mother Nature.
"The Serpent's Egg" ends with a hopeful and optimistic vision of the future, something which probably should be seen as the underlying motivation behind this album; the pieces of sorrow and pain are included in the music to strengthen the message of the problems being addressed. The sadness on the album stems from the negative forces circulating around the medieval times, but it is reconditioned into a comment upon the modern times.
What makes "The Serpent's Egg" so beautiful - apart from the well arranged musical structure and use of strings and ambience -is its profound and honest aesthetic, as well as its way of handling emotive situations, the historical past and the philosophical future. While Lisa focuses on scrutinized sorrow, pain and spiritual mystique, Brendan thereafter lifts the mood up by addressing the ignorance inflicted upon the modern soul, and instead announces a new way of living - a new life, where the past is unified by the future. -Alexis
Books
"Beowulf." Translated by. Kevin Crossley-Holland. 128 pages. Oxford University Press (1999)
"Beowulf", regarded as one of the most important texts within Indo-European literature, is a vast Anglo-Saxon poem of epic proportions, set in a half-historical, half-mythological Germanic past. The events portrayed are located at what now is the south of Sweden and north of Denmark.
"Beowulf" is the story of a man with the same name, who lives among the people of the Geats. There, his father Ecgtheow is a powerful and noble leader, son to Hrethel. One day Beowulf hears of the misfortunes that have struck the Danish ruler Hrothgar, and thereafter decides to bring some men with him, to help Hrothgar in need. It turns out that the mighty Danish hall Heorot has been under attack by a fierce monster named Grendel. This beast of nature has slain many of Hrothgar's men, and he now cries out for help. Beowulf comes to Hrothgar's rescue and manages to kill the monster with his might, strength and bravery in fight.
However, not a long while after this deed, a new monster shows up in Heorot and continues to unmercifully take the bloody life of a man very close to Hrothgar. In time, he finds out that this is Grendel's mother, acting out her revenge on the mortal foes that killed her son. Beowulf sets out to slay Grendel's mother as well, which he also does. The last deed told of in the poem, is when a cruel dragon attacks Beowulf's own kingdom, Geatland. This monster spits fire across the land where Beowulf now is king, and the only chance for his people to survive, is for him to prove his bravery in a last life-threatening battle. So he does, and it is here that he finally dies in the arms of a friend in war.
"Beowulf" is a very beautiful and immersive poem. Lengthy and descriptive, the adjectives are often those of celebration of the life as a hero. The poem itself could best be described as an archetype of Indo-European culture. These three events that together make up for the reading experience as a whole, set the reader into an epic past where civil wars, monsters and vengeance are part of the daily life as a warrior under the rule of a leader. The poem celebrates, not only Beowulf, but the men that travel with him and the men he helps. Hrothgar, although seemingly in a desperate need for help to save his people and kingdom from Grendel and his mother, is still described in the book as a heroic and brave man, where his old age has set in and prevented him from acting out his anger and sadness toward the threat.
As such, "Beowulf" is not merely upholding one man, but instead tries to explain and have the reader engage in values that are eternal to Indo-European culture. Self-sacrifice, bravery in war, love and hate, vengeance and despise, mockery and laughter; all of these feelings and values define a period of time where people transcended their human state and sought to reach for things higher than personal comfort and material wealth.
This is experienced in moments like when Beowulf and the dragon are dead, and the Geatish men take the gold from the cave where originally the dragon safeguarded it, and bury it deep down under the surface of the earth. Having seen their king sacrificing his own life for glory and heroism, they regard the treasure as mere material objects with no inherent value, and from there decide to instead honour Beowulf by building an enormous barrow on the headland to his name. As much as this is breathtaking, it is also saddening and emotive.
There is a more emotional side to this poem, especially at the end when Beowulf slowly is bleeding to death, and he makes his last request as the bravest man ever to have walked the Earth, to have his men build a barrow to the memory of his deeds. One cannot hold back the strong emotions afflicted by such intense events, notably as a result of a past that the reader engages in. The fact that this epic poem can induce such strong feelings for the people involved in the text, is both amazing and understanding. "Beowulf" is written, not as a cold and pale description of suffering and death, but as an oftentimes warm and celebrative way of upholding forces of good in a time when evil forces were trying to take over.
In relation to this, it might be worthwhile to mention the notable Christian influences found throughout "Beowulf". Many heroic deeds are concluded as influenced by God, and more celebrative feelings and joys go out to the same. However, as one could guess, this is not something that produces an overall negative reading experience. Although there is a certain presence of dualistic notions of good and evil, these two are defined from the aspect of Indo-European culture. Where goodness is heroism, self-sacrifice, generosity, bravery and thankfulness, evil is most often defined as destructive forces upon a people, such as inhuman monsters representing plagues or manslaughters of innocent men. However, something that should be mentioned, is that the old heathen (pagan) religions from the past are viewed by the characters in "Beowulf" as evil and up roaring against God and His kingdom. Found only as small traces from larger criticism, this fact can easily be overseen as a mere result of the belief and history of the time this poem was written.
Another thing which is reoccurring throughout "Beowulf", besides the beauty and expressiveness of intense moments, is the despise for cowardice and fright instead of immediate action. Where gratitude for war gear is given, the use of and return for it, are less given. Beowulf at one point hands over parts of the gifts received by Hrothgar, to many of his closest men. However, as he will see, this is a favour not entirely to rely on being returned and taken use of. "Beowulf" condemns the treachery where men fail to oblige their heroic life and instead relapse into passiveness. Also, experienced later into the book, this is one of the main causes that lead to the tragic end for our hero.
There is much to analyze and regard as beautiful in "Beowulf", as well as there are moral and cultural lessons to value and uphold for future European generations, hence its priceless value as art, historical document and living proof of times once so great and rich on human, as well as natural, understanding, that now have degenerated into passiveness, cowardice and material comfort. Where it is vague, it nonetheless achieves clear conclusiveness and self-reflection. It remains as one of the most important Indo-European literary works, and to this day baffle its vivid and curious readers with stories of unimaginable heroism, human vengeance and a strong will to live. Timeless. -Alexis
Aldous Huxley: A Biography by Sybille Bedford (1973, Alfred A. Knopf/Harper & Row, New York)
Biographies are summations of lives; lives include ideas; thus biographies of great people are a mixture of travelogue ("and then he went to, and then she went to") and idea analysis. Sybille Bedford, while dramatic in the way most English women drive English men to homosexuality, is a talented writer and had a second-row seat to the drama, thus gives us a nicely factual biography divided by the progression in idea-scope of the writer Aldous Huxley.
The 730-page behemoth is nearly comprehensive but one can tell the writer agonized over what to leave out; a full life, after all, is rarely simple and Huxley's was more of a journey than most, from middle class "post-aristocratic" origins to the disease that nearly removed his sight to a series of ideological problems as he analyzed the major source of study in his life: the future of twentieth-century humanity. While Huxley is a mixed bag, ideologically, and often failed to leave us clear statements of belief on certain ideals, he is alone with the greats (Conrad, Melville, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Mencken, Hemingway) in believing that we in the West as a meta-culture have lost our way and are heading for disaster.
Huxley is best known for his apocalyptic "Brave New World," a novel of the future in which the pursuit of individual pleasure has replaced rationality and through that, created a "fair" but tedious and empty world in which characters surfeited by pleasure cannot find moral or intellectual significance to any act -- a world that, to this reviewer, scarily resembled my own or at least the destination it seemed to seek. That book, written during his 38th year, defined the rest of his career as he tried to posit a Utopia to counter the Dystopia he had not just conjectured but saw arising around him. One of Bedford's greatest strengths is that she does not characterize him as backing away from the ideas of "Brave New World," but for expanding on them, even if sometimes he has said the opposite.
Unlike most writers both then and now, Huxley did not believe that greater distribution of wealth and political power would dramatically solve the problems of humanity. Although he spoke in the tokens of power manipulation common to democratic societies (Bedford gives us linguistic analysis indirectly as chapters pass, attempting to define these terms outside of their assumed meanings) Huxley had a more existential view of the human purpose and thus was not confined to either material or spiritualist viewpoints, solely; his seemingly paradoxical approach is that of a scientific mind which sees beyond the manipulation of matter, as have most of the greatest thinkers. "All that is being maintained here is that progressive science is one of the causative factors involved in the progressive decline of liberty and the progressive centralization of power, which have occurred during the twentieth century" (450) he wrote. Bedford's triumph as a biographer is making the balance of Huxley's ideas despite the ease in which they could be assimilated into the dominant trend of liberal democratic thought.
Indeed, if praise for this biography has a rational basis, it is laudative of the way Bedford stitches together the scraps of Huxley-related material that remain, mating them to ideas from his books in a double helix of ideal and action. Its failing, by contrast, is in the history of the Huxleys, which is often wordy and gives us too much detail where a scene or two of profound demonstrative influence would do. Still, it's easy to forgive, since the author clearly has enthusiasm for her subject and if it's a rainy day, nothing feels better than a brick of seven hundred pages of which several hundred will contain provocative, succinct formulations of ideas. Some of this excess seems intended to balance out the explorations of Huxley's more provocative behaviors, such as his LSD-taking or perceived promiscuity or adaptation to his near-blindness, and in those difficult subjects Bedford succeeds in turning sensationalism into an exploration of the reasons Huxley indulged in such ways. She is also adept at revealing by omission the somewhat nerdly and world-confused outlook of her subject.
Where the writing of this book may be admissible of critique, the information it holds is so vast that one wants to suggest it as a textbook next to Huxley's cut-and-paste book of modern spirituality, "The Perennial Philosophy" (60% of the text was derived from historical sources of spiritual information; it does not so much present a perspective as the essential data for obtaining the grounding necessary to have one). Of interest to traditionalists are three major planks of idea. First, his approach to genetics. Second, his belief in coming ecological crisis. Third, his political assessment of our future, including his belief that Europe had not only depleted itself but bought itself a future of many enemies.
Huxley would be inscrutable to both a modern neo-Nazi and anti-fascist. Although he detested fascism, he also feared its opposites, both the overflowing death camps of Stalin and the pleasure-seeking vapid and tedious society of the imminent future portrayed in "Brave New World." Fortunately, this puts him in good company, since most of us both fear totalitarian regimes but recognize that since most people are airheads, totalitarian methods are necessary in some if not many cases. (It's another five years before you can say that in public, however.) Bedford expertly juxtaposes his fear for Europe, originating in his time living in fascist Italy, with his migration to the United States and the bizarre disposable culture he confronted, including its effects on his family and mental stability. This dual avoidance led him to seek a Realism that was praised his whole life, something formulated in a theory of genetic determinism: "Our fundamental physical pattern is something given and unalterable, something we can make the best of but can never hope to change" (428).
Unlike almost all writers and leaders of his day (notable exceptions for Hitler and Faulkner), Huxley saw an ecological crisis looming before the world even had three billion people upon it and wrote about it, although not unopposed by a string of editors who could not visualize what he saw. "Industrialism is the systematic exploitation of wasting assets. In all too many cases, the thing we call progress is merely an acceleration in the rate of that exploitation. Such prosperity as we have known up to the present is the consequence of rapidly spending the planet's irreplaceable capital. Sooner or later mankind will be forced by the pressure of cricumstances to take concerted action against its own destructive and suicidal tendencies. The long such action is postponed, the worse it will be for all concerned...Overpopulation and erosion constitute a Martian invasion of planet...Treat nature aggressively, with greed and violence and incomprehension: wounded Nature will turn and destroy you...if, presumptuously imagining that we can 'conquer' Nature, we continue to live on our planet like a swarm of destructive parasites--we condemn ourselves and our children to misery and deepening squalor and the despair that finds expression in the frenzies of collective violence" (465). Other than a failure to connect the "freedom" of most people with their low judgment as a motivic factor behind industrialization, the above could have been written by Ted Kaczynski, Adolf Hitler or Pentti Linkola.
Intelligently, Huxley was apolitical, or rather, he criticized philosophical trends and values instead of obsessing himself with the politics of the moment. World War II broke his heart in that while he wanted peace, he knew that the peace which was coming would not be a positive either, in that while he detested fascists they were taming some of the out-of-control aspects of English and American thought. Like most of the great thinkers, Huxley did not fit into a political category, and by freeing himself from such artifically polar allegiances, he was able to grasp that Realism which made his vision farsighted: "What we are paying for four hundred years of white imperialism --and how long, to all appearances, we shall go on paying! Asians and Africans do not forget and are so far from forgiving that, if they can thereby do some harm to the ex-imperialists, they will blithely damage themselves, even commit suicide. If I can spite your face I will cut off my nose. There is no appeal from these passions even to self interest...And the trouble is that these deep rooted passions can now be implemented in violent practice. The great truth enunciated by Hilaire Belloc: Whatever happens, we have got / The Maxim gun, and they have not -- has unhappily ceased to be true. They now have the Maxim gun -- and unless the West is prepared to out-trump the gun with atomic missiles, they will soon be in a position... to win all the "little wars." If I remember rightly, Nostradamus prophesied that in the year two thousand or thereabouts, yellow men would be flying over Paris. It may easily turn out that he was right" (608).
As one can easily see from these excerpts, Huxley did not offer a simple task to the biographer, and despite its failings, Bedford's lengthy tome avoids the critical error of leaving its subject unexplained. At a time when more and more people are suspecting that none of the multiple-choice options offered by a society in decline will reverse that decline, interest in Huxley is reviving, as he was one of the few who dared "peer behind the curtain" and examine the motivic forces of modern society. Patience is a virtue, and for those so virtuous, "Aldous Huxley: A Biography" is a circuitous but rewarding read. -vijay prozak
Cinema
Even Dwarfs Started Small (dir. Werner Herzog 1970 – B&W 35mm. 96 min.)
German New-Wave director Werner Herzog's comedy of the absurd proceeds from the simplest of premises: Eight wards from an isolated reformatory have rebelled against their head counselor and proceed to wreak havoc on the building's grounds. With one catch; each stands no higher than 4 ½ feet tall. The context of this element is decisive: The group is not interned because they are dwarfs. Awkwardly, they are not even supposed to be viewed as such; the entire cast, not just our rabble-rousers, is Lilliputian --completely out of scale with the material world around them. With this metaphor the film breaks from similar ventures like Todd Browning's "Freaks" to offer a prescient subtext to the debauched antics of its characters; whose struggle to attain independence ultimately collapses through base desires and interpretations of power.
Their tale begins in a chaos we're led to believe continues long after the camera stops. A mob scuffles with comedic impotence to free one of their own from the head-counselor's grasp. These efforts fail as their comrade is seized and then tied to chair in a prison cell / office occupied by only himself and the counselor for the duration of the film. The inmates, four male, four female are sick of their regimental lives. Sick of the health drills, powdered milk, grooming the animals, "...sick of mother nature". Now free, they wander around the complex, set on a desolate island capped by a distant volcano. Chastising one another as cowards while scrambling for a new course of action -- possibly deserting the area, the question arises, "Where would we go?" The greater idea of imprisonment is now primed for exploration through the remainder of the narrative. As the mania unfolds, the troupe will uproot the island's palm trees, slaughter a pig, set fire to the gardens, crucify a pet monkey, display a box of insects dressed as a wedding party and almost make it through a traditional family dinner ("your knife on the right, fork on the left"). While in between, blissfully rummaging through porno mags and parading on top of motorcycles in grotesque and hilarious parody of modern archetypes. The latter half of these offenses is the most poignant, exhibiting a ferocious cynicism of revolt still relevant today: that those seeking to overthrow the world in which they find themselves, ultimately do so through a deranged imitation of their masters.
An oft-repeated excuse for the pillaging of New Orleans during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina was that it was a way to "get-back" at the system. In a culture that presents material wealth as the apex of living, naturally the effect of "getting back" and by extension, assuming power, will be translated by some into crates of plastic, electronic equipment, guns and lots of beer, even as life itself is washed away. The future lost in the Lethe, the natural order of the world is magnified: People survive at the expense of one another. And so too, in one of "Dwarfs..."most stunning sequences, the gang happens upon a garage and at once hot-wires the car inside with the intention to finally ride off into town. For the next fifteen minutes, the automobile, without passengers, will drive itself in a circle on the lot (a chaotic theme central to the conclusions of other Herzog films like "Strozeck" and "Aguirre: The Wrath of God") before being shoved into one of the island's volcanic pits. Finally consumed by the situation, the counselor apparently murders his captive soon after emptying the contents of the office onto the roof-top, while shouting that he needs room! He will eventually escape and flee into the desert, provoking arguments with desiccate trees upon his exit; his former responsibilities continuing their revenge against the earth. In one of the greatest non-resolutions in history, the film ends with the gang's "leader" laughing hysterically at a camel shitting in front of him.
Not a political film per-se, "Even Dwarfs Started Small" was initially pegged as fascist cinema due to it's depicting such a failed uprising during the era of student revolutions and the Vietnam War. To this, not much more can be speculated as to the direct motivation for the film, which is, all told, shot brilliantly through the kinetic lens of camera-man Thomas Mauch. The shocks contained in "Even Dwarfs" have not worn over time because in them are the deeper insights to our mismanagement of civilization; seen as caution for the future, seemingly eternal. Although Herzog would later agree with his critics dismal view while expressing his own distaste for the socialist ideology at the time (though denying it as any kind of political statement) he would suggest, rather ironically, that what takes place in the film is not an actual defeat because, after all, "they're happy". Further underlining the unreason and perversion of this context, he noted that, had he returned weeks later to the spot of filming, "...they would still be there, the midget laughing away."*
*Herzog on Herzog. Edited by Paul Cronin: Faber and Faber, 2002 -Smog
Throne of Blood (dir. Akira Kurosawa 1957)
Throne of Blood is a generally regarded as the best screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth and it is one of the greatest literature to film adaptations ever accomplished. The film is a Japanese take on the classic Shakespearean tale of madness, deceit, fate and betrayal.
From the original Japanese title of Kumonosu jô, the title translates to "Cobweb Castle" as opposed to the American version of the film known as Throne of Blood. Both titles are fitting, but Cobweb Castle reaches into the heart of the film more than Throne of Blood does as this epic Kurosawa film is filled with webs of deceit and filaments of fate, which are strung out in a divine pattern.
Throne of Blood takes place in feudal Japan and follows the legacy of two feudal lords as they see a prophecy fulfilled which was given to them by a spirit in the woods. One of them, Taketori Washizu (the Macbeth character), is foretold that he will assume the throne as Emperor and the other, Yoshiaki Miki, is foretold that he will be the father of the line of the Emperor's who will come after Washizu. Both men discuss the meaning of the prophecy given to them and shun it off as lunacy, until the Emperor promotes them to higher positions upon their arrival back to the castle, which was prophesized by the spirit in the woods. This begins the fall into self-fulfilling prophecy, betrayal and deceit.
Kurosawa adds a slightly different touch to the Macbeth equivalent character of Taketori Washizu by making his ambitions for power very subtle in the beginning of the story. Through the first quarter of the story Washizu remains loyal to the Emperor and denies that he wishes to become Emperor himself. However his wife is cold, cunning and hungry for power and decides to use Washizu as her vehicle to obtain her own personal lusts. She is perhaps the vilest and most devious character in Throne of Blood - stoic in her expressions and cold hearted in her calculations. She, in essence, begins the long sequence of betrayal and deception by manipulating Washizu to kill the Emperor and take the throne. In doing so she betrays both her husband and the Emperor in favor of her own lusts.
The Macbeth character of Washizu resists disobedience more than Shakespeare's Macbeth. This is a strikingly Japanese element in Kurosawas story that is played masterfully to the point that it adds a whole other realm of complexity and depth of the character of Washizu as it exposes him as a man with hidden desires that even he denies or does not fully accept. It takes strong manipulation from Washizu's wife before his inner lusts for power really start to take bloom. Once Washizu is manipulated into killing the Emperor backstabbing, deceit and madness takes full stride in Throne of Blood and the pace and intensity of the film increases.
Friends turn their backs on each other, paranoia and madness causes massive blood shed inside the castle, Washizu begins to become tortured by the deeds he has committed and eventually the fates come to collect their hand as the power of Washzu's meets a fatal and tragic end. The final moments in Washizu's kingdom are some of the most powerful and stunning scenes put to film.
The laying of webs for other victims backfires on the spider when they become so greedy and zealous that they lay so many webs that they entangle themselves in a corner and suffocate. This is what happens to many of the characters in Throne of Blood. Their selfish ambitions become their own undoing and the trail of backstabbing eventually lands a knife right in their own back, where it belongs. The destructive nature of selfish ambition is one of the biggest themes that Throne of Blood spends time probing, along with the nature of fate and destiny.
Characters plot their own futures and seek to solidify their power through deception as the film progresses forward. The lords abuse their power and begin to plot against those around them in order to fulfill some aspects of the prophecy that suit them and prevent others which do not. The film brings into question the nature of fate and destiny as the characters have fate thrust upon them and at the same time self-fulfill many of the aspects of the prophecy. The nature of fate in the context of Throne of Blood is highly paradoxical and full of irony.
Tragedy. Melancholy. Fighting the currents of fate. Descending into madness. All of these are ripe in Throne of Blood. One of the great achievements of this film is that it manages to capture the spirit of its source and it does so precisely because it was not trying to be the source. Throne of Blood does not attempt to be a Shakespearean play played out on the screen, it instead seeks to be a Shakespearean tragedy interpreted into the language of film. As such it takes full advantage of the language that is unique to film: visuals, expressions, landscapes, atmospheres, silence, symbols and music. What has been a fatal flaw to many other Shakespeare to screen adaptations is that they have tried to be a play on the screen and as such they have neglected the unique language of film.
Perhaps one of the greatest Shakespeare to screen adaptations came from Japan due to the fact that the language barrier was broken and the Japanese did not feel obligated to live up to the exact words and formulations of a western literary giant. Kurosawa, by turning the symbols and themes of Macbeth into a uniquely Japanese context managed to liberate the themes of the Shakespearean tragedy from the over powering mythos of the western conception of Shakespeare and as a result he did the film, the topics and the themes the greatest of services. -phantasm
Food
Cold Plate Drop Candies
You may or may not have noticed that we live in a time where the most extreme evil consequences to our behavior are considered acceptable and in fact normal, since after all, we don't <i>intend</i> to be evil. However, we are on a sure path to tedious wage slavery, polluted air and water, overpopulation, resource depletion and race war. Luckily, you can strike back -- by making candies.
Especially if you have children, you may have found yourself studying the candy available in this society. Almost all of it has three major flaws: it's expensive considering the ingredient value, it comes in non-biodegradable landfill-swelling packaging, and it's full of weird chemicals that will probably turn your little darlings into bug-eyed mutants. We have a solution.
Ingredients Sugar Flavoring
Instructions:
1. Place 3-5 plates in your freezer 2. Heat pan on low 3. Add 1lb sugar, slowly. Stir constantly -- spoon always in circular motion --for about 15 minutes. This stuff burns faster than napalm, so no bathroom breaks. Your goal is to melt the sugar, but not caramelize it fully. It will melt into a thick liquid that is no longer gritty under your stirring spoon (it will become translucent). 4. Turn off heat, remove from flame and add flavoring, stirring madly. 5. Using stirring spoon, drop candy in whatever form you prefer -- here we sprinkle it randomly to make small candies -- on plates and return them to freezer. Using wax paper on the plates makes this job easier and cleaner. 6. After 15 minutes, remove plates and let them warm up slightly, then pry off candies. You should be able to store these at room temperature.
Flavoring:
Cinnamon
This is a favorite because it is blazingly easy. 3 tbsp of cinnamon to one pound of sugar produces a sweet candy; adding in 1/5 tsp of powdered red pepper makes cinnamon hots (stir thoroughly).
Lime/Citrus
Wash a lime with ScotchBrite or similar abrasive sponge to remove oils, waxes, coloring, pesticides, AIDS and other artifacts of industrial society. Using the fine mesh of your shredder, make powder of 1 tbsp of rind and then juice 2 tbsp of liquid on top of it. Mash, mix, pound until it's nearly uniform. Wait a few minutes for mixture to half-cool before stirring in.
Ginger
Use 2 tbsp of ginger; see cinnamon instructions.
Strawberry
Use wet towel under running water to remove seeds from 3 medium strawberries. Liquefy with blender and heat on low for 20 minutes, then add sugar as the original recipe calls for.
Your children will kvetch and bitch and moan because after all, these candies didn't come in plastic packaging with their favorite cartoon characters on it. Tell them this is candy for spirited people who would rather spend their money on trees than colored plastic garbage. In about 18 years, they'll get it, and you can look forward to seeing them blow up industry lackey scientists and burn down ecointrusive new subdivisions.
At the time of this writing, making the cinnamon version of these candies cost approximately 80 cents per pound, versus nearly five dollars per pound for off-the-shelf cinnamon candies. This is the perfect activity while waiting for the phone to ring or S.W.A.T. team to finalize entry. -vijay prozak
