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Barriminge
Rank: Jasper |
Hint(on)s and glimmers and possible implications
replied on: 1/12/2007 9:46:32 AM quote:quote: Charlie tells me that he was browsing in the library yesterday, having been reflecting on how reference to 'De Occulta Philosophia' by a patron of the black arts called Cornelius Agrippa had found its way into a doctor's bag owned by Bill Drummond in 'Bad Wisdom'(p.217). Without recourse to algorithms he found that four books just leapt out at him. They were something on the Knight's Templar and an island, how the universe could be seen as one big computer (couldn't agree) and 'A Dummies Guide to the Kabbala'(not sophisticated enough). The last one he found though sniffed of serendipity, it was Frances A. Yates' 'The Occult Philosophy of the Middle Ages'(mentioned by Sinclair in 'Radon Daughters').Clues to John Milton and 'puritan occultism', Shakespeare's posing as Prospero as Dr. John Dee in ''The Tempest'.All relevant stuff!! It of course seems absurd that people in the 20/21stC should be interesting themselves in the arcane dark stuff of John Dee and his ilk. There was however another, a Spanish one called Ramon Lull who was particularly interesting. He was writing in Spain at a time when Muslim, Christian and Jewish mystics for one time in history swapped ideas.It was all put paid to in 1492 when the Moors and the Jews were kicked out and coincidentally Columbus sailed off to supposedly discover America.How could people think that the basics of life were earth, fire, air and water with conditions summed up by hot, cold, dry and moist.But then it did occur to me that modern scientists, despite all their complicated equations to find ultimately final theories, are held up by unfortuneate asymmetries and they are desperately trying to restore symmetry. Equally the convoluted mumbo-jumbo of the occultists could be construed as eventualy striving for something similar. Both, I guess, are forms of mystery but the one I guess suggests the taboo notion of 'magick'. Which takes me back to Lull who Frances Yates says: "There are two salient characteristics in the Lullian Art, its basis in the names or Dignities and its technique of letter combinations" or: "Its combinations of letter notations almost suggest a kind of algebra. There is a kind of geometry involved" She tells was insrumental in creating a kind of 'Christain Cabala' which employs an acausal use of names and numbers.Perhaps that's a way into or geometry of names and numbers including the 23 Enigma instigated by William S. Burroughs. |
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KingoftheHeath
Rank: Jasper |
Photon Hex
replied on: 1/12/2007 3:14:00 PM Photon Hex presents Bodies of Water Bodies of Water is an evening of image and sound focused on alchemical transformations presented by Photon Hex as part of the Flatpack Film Festival (Birmingham, England) organised by 7 Inch Cinema. Photon Hex utilise an eclectic selection of instrumentation (including laptops, electronics, double bass, trombone, guitar, tabletop guitar, percussion and amplified objects) to create hypnotic real-time improvisational sound responses to film. The Bodies of Water programme features live sound responses to 4 key experimental films: 'L'Etoile de Mer' (d/ Man Ray - 1927) 'La Cartomancienne (The Fortune Teller)' (d/ Jerome Hill - 1932) 'Aleph' (d/ Wallace Berman - 1956 to 1966) 'Early Abstractions - 1 to 5, 7, 10' (d/ Harry Smith - 1946 to 1957) The live performances are complemented by showings of 2 films which focus on transmutation and include soundtracks as an integral element: 'Iro (Colours)' (d/ Takahiko Iimura - 1962 to 1963, with soundtrack by Yasunao Tone) 'The Way to Shadow Garden' (d/ Stan Brakhage - 1954, with soundtrack by Stan Brakhage) The Electric Cinema Curzon Street, Birmingham Sunday 4 February 2007 6.30 pm to 9.00 pm 7 Inch Cinema http://www.7inch.org.uk/ Flatpack Film Festival http://www.flatpackfestival.org.uk |
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Barriminge
Rank: Jasper This message was updated on 1/23/2007 9:10:36 AM by Barriminge |
Synchromeshed
replied on: 1/13/2007 9:04:34 AM quote: Koth reminds us of our other voices and presences and just as the 23 becomes excited mathematics. F.David Peat in 'Synchronicity. The Bridge between Mind and Matter' mentions the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli who once wrote: " Division and reduction of symmetry, this then is the kernel of the brute! The former is an ancient attribute of the Devil....If only the two divine contenders - Christ and the devil could take notice that they have grownso much more symmetrical. (p.26) For Peat a first mark in the void has to be made to generate a universe of possibilities. What we have in these web threads is a potentially endless seies of possibilities generated by Ariel's first mark or distinction. These marks are our base metals. These disembodied voices however become our geometreecal points.One such is King of the Heath. The 'Brakhage' reference is telling in our alchemy. KOTH is someone who had to be there. A man of arts events - the announced against the unannounced. M8e recalls KOTH's own performances.Matey eventually comes to term Mitty's acts 'performances' as Mitty himself for the first 6 months of 2006 thought that there was a performance festival going on in Brum. Matey tells of an unnanounced woman turning up on the steps of the Central library and Mitty sees a man dressed as a soldier lying on New St.. KOTH appears at the Custard Factory,Home of Birds.Mitty performs at the Rooty Frooty Bar in his own absence, accused by police of breaking in through a l'age'or.The charge is dropped.They tried the logocentric hard evidence of fingerprints but it couldn't stick.The Mittonian Strange Attractor had to drag in another charge for thesake of asymmetry.It's now sub-judice. In the Age of the Floating Signifier, things are not always what people say they are. Likewise KOTH once again brings up a commisioned arts event, a Brakhage film. He has done it before. This has been his existential role in the performance. Sinclair writes of Brakhage in the Lud heat/Suicide Bridge template.Brakhage merges autopsies and coroners offices with the Egyptian mythology.The magic of Brakhage's work is said to be white (like Dr.Dee.s). Then there was Brakhage's 'Dog Star Man' Sirius.Dog as totem like in 'Landor's Tower'. A sacrifice like bluesman Brian Jones, a ghostly presence behind 'Performance'.'The Dead' filmed at Pere Lachaise in Paris -cemetary of the East. Home of that other sacrifice, Jim Morrison. Brakhage is like Joblard and Mitty, the orphan or adopted son. Mitty's 'Birmingham Triangle' - St. Phillips Catherdral - St. Martin's Church and St. Thomas, Holloway Head.An Enclosure of Force. Brakhage cuts a strata through the city like Ed Dorn. Hospitals - football -City Hall. There is once again a coincidence of asymmetries. The Seen and the Unseen. Autopsy - the act of seeing with one's own eyes.Brakhage is in Pittsburgh, metal town. Like ourselves. Brakhage we are told is becomong the Cursed Man, the Mystery Breaker. The RCA students 'refuse to confront the thing further' (P.58), 'return to their sponsored strategies' The Cursed Man - The Hanged Man - number 23- the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. 'The eye is Thine, Horus.'[ |
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H.J.
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Photon Hex
replied on: 1/14/2007 1:48:06 PM If Ive got it right what you mean that is that there is a proof of something taking place in the chance matching up of all the points or names or bits of information which form correspondanes. If there is this multiplicity of them then the chances are that they cannot be just be happening by chance.Actual scientists could not carry out an experiment to prove this by initial conditions because they could never know what they are. It follows that it is important the the actual identities of the people involved are not really important. It is only the way that their actual utterances marry up with each other. The more it happens the more valid it is. Hope that's right! |
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Derradah
Rank: Toyah This message was updated on 1/16/2007 4:30:27 PM by Derradah |
Origins of Tree Worhip
replied on: 1/15/2007 9:22:23 AM It must have occurred to you all out there that there has been a code written into all this and that a magical network has emerged. It has happened by chance and necessity and on Saturday another magickal synergy came about. Realizing that this 'Tree of Life' stuff had steel wheels and also bearing in mind Iain Sinclair's 'Bad Magic Bad Noise' section in 'Suicide Bridge' a pattern emerged from the aether. It concerned the Rolling Stones playing in Hyde Park in 1969 after the death of Brian Jones, the man who gave the name to the band. Jagger read from Shelley who died in his twenties from drowning. Tyburn was of course situated at what is now Marble Arch, just by Hyde Park and Sinclair talks of a suicide tree where many died by hanging. I decided to research into 'The Tree of Life' and came upon a book in the Central Library called 'The Elements of Qabala' by Will Parfitt which told how the concept of the 'Tree' was malleable and could be adjusted to fit different times and different people. I knew that the Kabbalah ( the name can change) was central to the mystery traditions and could even be seen as a halfway house between Thoth and Bill Drummond. I had come to know that they were all linked and that Sinclair was bringing into a 'postmodern context' and that his most important floating signifier was 'stone' or 'stones' and that the 'neoplatonic' tradition could indeed be seen as an underground trunk or stem emitting shoots and roots. Bearing all this in mind, when I looked at Parfitt's 'Tree of life' I saw that at the top was 'Keter'(a divine spark) and at the bottom 'Malkuth'( the material world, earthiness). I recognized that i discerned Keith' and 'Mick' straining through the veil of these words and it made sense. The divine spark of the blues or real r 'n' b at the summit and the provocative earthiness that was Jagger's threat to society in the 60's at the bottom line. The 'tree' is futher supported by two pillars at the head of which are two spheres bearing the names 'Binah' and 'Chockmah' and in another version based on the chakras the former mutates into 'Briah'. For me the the names keith, Brian,Mick and Charlie stood out like beacons. The real quaternity that was the Stones since Bill was a hired hand and left without persuasion. In another version of the tree, there is another cental sphere called 'rainbow bridge' so we can throw in Jimi Hendrix for good measure. And then I looked at the numbers of the paths leading to the spheres and looked for 23. It was 'The Hanged Man'.I remembered the plane tree mentioned by Sinclair where people hung and when I consulted the poem I found the words 'the hanged man's marionette dance' and then, we might think,there was death by water. The Serpentine and the River Tybern. Anyway(aporia)I left the library and was proceeding down New St. when I came upon someone I knew, a lost rocker called Robert. I stopped to chat to him and he bummed a cigarette off me. He was broke and offered to sell me a lighter. Suitably it was a Zippo with none other than a Stones logo on it. The hanging lascivious tongue so suggestive of 'stay cat blues', 'hound dog rock 'n' roll and '69' (3x23).I bought it and said 'thanks, Robert, I'll treasure it'. That night I slept early and was up in the early morning darkness and did some reading once more of Parfitt's book which I had borrowed from the library.KETER, BRIAH, CHOCKMAH and MALKUTH.It really did grab me like sticky fingers. FIRE, WATER, AIR, EARTH. The elements in balance. The pre-Lucifer bluesman trad Stones.Stoned Alchemy.I thought that I'd touched on an anti-particle of the Kabbalah here through an occult grammar of names where 'accidents occur'. A Qabalistic anti- embodiment.And then I came upon one of those numinous resonances which bring epiphany. I switched on the T.V. at abuot 5.30 and Countdown was on in the course of which a list of letters appeared which jolted me from my reveries. They read S- E - N - O - T - S. That's it - Stones backwards. An amazing anti-particle of six letters. I waited for the contestants to give their answers and the one guy had beat me, he had seven. They read....T - O - N - G - U - E - S. Shit!! TONGUES again. It was almost as though it was a message from Brian himself, As Whitehead said 'coincidence is reicarnation'. Some people might think I'm talking outta my head but _ It makes sense. Stoned again. |
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Derradah
Rank: Toyah This message was updated on 1/16/2007 4:32:23 PM by Derradah |
Origins of Tree Worhip
replied on: 1/15/2007 10:37:50 AM And so as we move into page 23 we are reminded of the other voices and presences on these threads. The Frances A. Yates book, I have discovered, tells us how Prospero in 'The Tempest' is based on Dr. John Dee but Dee, we are told, is a white magician as was Agrippa. So back to Shakespeare and the spirit of Ariel who made the first distinction in our void which kicked of these Books of Mitton. The Hermetic Tradition goes back to the Greeks and the mythical figure of Hermes who, like the Kabballah ,started, it is said at about the same time as Moses and Hermes was of course based on Thoth after the Greeks conquered the Ancient Egyptians. I'm glad you brought up Peat, Barri. David Peat, in 'Synchronicity - The Bridge between Mind and Matter' also tells how the Egyptian creation myth is based on the rising of Atum-Re out of chaos and who is responsible for generating the first dualities. These can be seen to parallel new theories about the nature of reality: "...The idea of an enfolded implicate order implies that the whole of reality is enfolded within each individual. In this way the microcosm can stand as an endless series of analogies of the entire universe which includes and goes beyond consciousness and matter."(p.189) For Peat 'a first distinction' is like the creative germination of Atum-Re and has to be made to generate a process in time. What we have on the web threads is an endless series of seemingly random encounters in a set-up which, unlike a closed book or system, is able to generate voices, characters and stories bouncing off each other but emanating from the first distinction in an uncertain 'first condition'.Our first mark in our void was made by Ariel and was not particularly 'complimentary'. It was supported by other voices in criticism of an object or essence that they each constructed out of another person. To that other person the web thread first distiction became an object in his own subjectivity with its own potentially infinite refences. It has been therefore possible to construct a phenomenology of the process which evolved out of this first duel. I would contend that if we take the premise that Mitton is a site of synchronicity then the perjorative aspects of the initial postings is eaten up by this rapidly expanding synergetic system which is pointing to something far more important and some might say devastating.It was very like matter and anti-matter which instead of cancelling each other out instead evolve into various asymmetries. It is from that which the GEOMETREE has grown. Ultimately the seemingly teleological nature of the synchronicities, like the 'Stones' one, is pointing to some kind of 'phenomenon'. At this point we have come full circle as we discover from the Yates book that Prospero is based on Dr. John Dee since we have good evidence that the template that Sinclair has laid down is related to these mystery traditions. Dee, of course is said to be an exponent of 'magick'. Ariel' is not only a motorbike but a 'spirit' in the Shakespeare play and in terms of these threads a disembodied sign which also includes a man's life.. It has been by other acausal connecting voices that a structure has grown which demonstrates its own logic. At this point, because of what is at stake I think it's a good idea to disregard the actual or 'real' identities of those involved and look more closely at this logic. |
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Barriminge
Rank: Jasper This message was updated on 1/23/2007 9:16:31 AM by Barriminge |
Synchromeshed
replied on: 1/16/2007 9:03:36 AM Well done Jack. Our geometree on the Web threads started when Mitty by chance did a search on his own name and then discovered it. At the same time also by chance Matey found that he actually knew who Ariel was. Had that not been the case then the whole thing could not have unfolded from our implicate order. It came to mimic the outward explicate order, the real universe which itself was dependent on a whole series of coincidences to form. As the first thread developped something which is strikingly synchronous occurred when we found a website which described Ariel ( in the Shakespeare play) as a site of coincidence.Odd because that is exactly what he became as the synchromesh grew. When the discussion of Sinclair had begun he found a copy of 'Landor's Tower' in a location where it shouldn't have been - as if it was meant to be there. As events unfolded another voice emerged - that of Racheymaus and it became clear that she was in some way related to Ariel. Matey again purely by chance had met the person who we came to suspect was the source of the propoganda against Mitty(who shall remain nameless) but was convinced that it was not her but a third party. Mitty, meanwhile, the seeming source or attractor of the ACOPs (and the barbs and brickbats) knew that the information was thirty years old and that it had to be countered.He had in fact come to some change in his philosophy of reckless behaviour to this 'guided by synchronicity' philosophy. Meanwhile Ariel compounded things by referring to Bill Burroughs, the origin of the 23 Enigma but supposed by Ariel to be a source of Mitty's degeneracy.He was to know nothing of the role of Burroughs in Sinclair's life (the source of the name of the character Norton) or in fact Sinclair's relevance to all this. Ariel however did seem eventually convinced enough of it all that he changed his original posting. Meanwhlile Racheymaus seemed to drop out. Her early postings gave clues to her identity when she said that her 'mum' had told her 'not to speak to him'.This girly attitude however did reveal things about her that were pertinent, not necessarilly as ammunition against her personal attack but about certain literary notions of which she seemed keen to show herself as having good taste concerning. Mitty's attitude over the years though had exhibited the residue of the post- Beat excesses of his generation. The Rimbudesque derangement of the senses. The street life of drugs and alcohol which had taken its toll as it had on so many others.Rimbaud was a poet of deliberate suffering which could be linked to an occult system influenced by Eliphas Levi which is basically of those 'mystery traditions' of which we have spoken.Rachey liked to make jokes about how places in Brum recall plays from Shakespeare but the Shakespeare trope would produce another synchromesh which would demonstrate our template as it emerges through 'The Strange Attractor'. What's more later she decided to show off her love of graphic novels by setting of a thread about Alan Moore.Once again this was gloriously opportune since Moore is not only a satellite of Sinclair but one of those most overtly interested in the occult implications. And then by some weird chain of acausality it was discovered that he had done a work (From Hell) which dealt with the William Withey Gull nexus> WCST> Hinton etc.And then the name 'Gull' appears as do permutations of Nicholls,Stevenson and Knight with relation to Ipswich which as a signifier strangly recurs in WCST. This demonstrates eerily a system of tentacles which imexorably claw things in but also relate everything to everything else. If we accept this as a kind of magic and that John Dee was the inspiration for Prospero (re: Frances Yates), then given the links mentioned Mitty himself assumes the mantle of Prospero. He becomes in our metatext the magician. This fits with the Sinclair thesis that all the characters can be viewed as post-Jungian archetypes in a system which suggests a union of esoteric science and literature. For Racheymaus and Ariel however the following from 'Landor's Tower' seems powerfully prophetic: "Bad News had been right about one thing, the Landor novel was a disaster. Landor with his senatorial fantasies, his withdrawal from the world, with a few books and a stout stick was a kind of Prospero. Llanthony was an island with plenty of aboriginal Calibans to provoke him.Prudence, if I had more wit should have been presented as an elective daughter, a Miranda. Instead, through her repeated disappearances, she was revealed as a literary device; a figure that symbolised virtue in an anaemic masque" (L.T.P.289) |
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Barriminge
Rank: Jasper This message was updated on 1/16/2007 9:25:34 AM by Barriminge |
Synchromeshed
replied on: 1/16/2007 9:24:50 AM Meanwhile Gravy Hole might like to know that on the T,V. today they were talking of a village in Shropshire called 'Minton'. Bearing in mind what has been said I think that the relevance of him noticing a reference to Thoth on t.v has been amplified exponentially. The Following quote from Peat's book on synchronicity testifies to the fact: " meaningful coincidences are unthikable as pure chance - the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondance is....they can no longer be regarded as pure chance, but for the lack of causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements." That quote was from C.G Jung's 1952 essay on synchronicity and is found quoted on p.23 of Peat's book and p.23 of this thread. |
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Derradah
Rank: Toyah This message was updated on 1/16/2007 4:38:15 PM by Derradah |
Entropy
replied on: 1/16/2007 4:28:54 PM well, yes Barri I think the time has come to assess what exactly has taken place.The last few rounds of K -flow and 23s have demonstrated that they do seem to appear more than is likely by chance. I'm glad we're both acquainted with Peat's book since just browsing through it today I noticed a couple more 'K's. The person who first noticed and wrote scientifically on patterns in coincidental events, Paul Kammerer and the author Arthur Koesler who took an interest in his findings. Then when I consulted the 'JK' diagram in WCST(p.188) I noticed the word 'Kyot' which I presume to refer to Kyot of Provence 13thC philosopher who wrote on the Holy Grail. It seems from our research that many of these traditions have common origins. The theme of linking it to modern science though was extended for me when I consulted once more Coveney and Highfield's 'The Arrow of Time'. Another phenomenon noted is the K-model which appears on p.200. It is one of those reactions which produce unexpected results and we can place it alongside K-flows. Jung and Pauli extended the serialities in time of Kammerer and added the notion of meaning. Our own synergetic system of 'K-models', I believe, may be of some scientific interest and I would be pleased to hear what Boffin makes of it. Now that we have extended our examination to the voices on the Mitton threads I would like to extend it from a scientific point of view to the appearance of Trystero. The Trystero system as it appears to Oedipa Maas in 'The Crying of Lot 49' excites all sorts of questions about enropy and information theory which we discussed in the 'Synergies', a suitable corridor of exploration Barri.I do believe that we have studied how Mitty arrived acausally at various manifestations of 'entropy' which related back to the work of Ludwig Boltzmann and so the appearance of Trystero on the thread had about it our correct balance of chance and necessity. This is all becoming very complicated but I do hope at this point we can recall as cogently as possible the now myriad links which have emerged |
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m8e
Rank: Ozzy This message was updated on 1/16/2007 5:14:39 PM by m8e |
Synchromeshed
replied on: 1/16/2007 5:07:29 PM quote: Regarding Jung's model of synchronicity, here is Terence McKenna's take on the matter (quote) - "One way of thinking of this is to suppose that the laws that operate in the dream, the laws that operate in hyperspace, can at times operate in three-dimensional space when the barrier between them becomes weak. Then one gets these curious experiences that always have a tremendous impact on the experient because there seems to be an exterior component that could not possibly be subjective. At such times coincidences begin to build and build until one must finally admit that one does not know what is going on. Nevertheless, it is preposterous to claim that this is a psychological phenomenon, because there are accompanying changes in the external world. Jung called this "synchronicity" and made a psychological model of it, but it is really an alternative physics beginning to impinge on local reality." - Terence McKenna, New Maps of Hyperspace. Of course these curious clusterings of coincidence also call into question our conventional notion of free will. For all that one feels that the sequence of choices leading up to a synchronicity are being made freely, when the synchronistic event actually occurs it seems to cast a shadow back in time over those choices, as if it were some kind of trans-temporal attractor pre-determining them. There is in any case good reason to suspect that free will is an illusion, following a series of fascinating experiments conducted by the neurosurgeon Benjamin Libet. These involved asking subjects to note the exact position of a revolving spot on a clock face whenever they chose spontaneously to flex their wrists. The flexing action was electronically timed, along with the start of a particular brain wave pattern called a "readiness potential" which is seen just before an action is performed. Intriguingly, Libet found that the readiness potential appeared nearly half a second BEFORE the moment of conscious decision, implying that what we take to be our action-initiating conscious choice is no more than a derivative after-impression arising from action already under way. In other words, our actions have already started WITHOUT us. (For more on the implications on Libet's work, and for a cogent critique of the notion of free will in general, see "The Meme Machine" by Sue Blackmore) |
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KingoftheHeath
Rank: Jasper |
Behind the Mirror...
replied on: 1/17/2007 4:22:06 PM F.David Peat is astute to recognise the essentially Hermetic nature of the Egyptian creation myth, particularly the reference to “the microcosm can stand as an endless series of analogies of the entire universe, which includes and goes beyond consciousness and matter” which is itself a suitable paraphrase for the Great Work of the Alchemists: As Above – So Below… Alchemical work: the references to Dr John Dee (the White Magician) who resided at Mortlake (the confluence of death and water)...Dee’s influence on later generations of seekers cannot be underestimated: for example, Derek Jarman’s annotated notebooks from the early 1970’s demonstrate a preoccupation with arcane knowledge, particularly using the figure of Dee as a touchstone. He included Dr John Dee as a character in his film ‘Jubilee’ (inspired by Punk Rock in England) where Dee accompanies Elizabeth the 1st on a tour between time frames (patently echoing ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf). Dee’s conversations with the Angels form an oblique inspiration for Jarman’s film ‘The Angelic Conversation’. The film (a version of the ‘Trance Film’ delineated by P. Adams Sitney in his book ‘Visionary Film’ which takes as its model the ‘Quest’ myths popular in a wide range of cultures) also features readings of the Sonnets by Shakespeare (the link to Ariel) and a soundtrack by the English musicians Coil, themselves serious students of Magick and the Hermetic Tradition… Jarman had a keen interest in esoteric knowledge (Egyptian rites, Alchemy, and the Hermetic Tradition) which particularly manifested itself in his early Super 8 films (such as ‘Garden of Luxor’, ‘The Art of Mirrors’ and his unrealised filmscript ‘Neutron’). The early Super 8 films later formed component elements of his ‘home gauge’ Alchemical opus ‘In the Shadow of the Sun’ (with music by Throbbing Gristle who later splintered to become Coil). He also makes reference to the symbolic value of Gold in the phrase ‘Gold is the Metal’ (which re-surfaced as a title for a collection of Coil pieces in the late 1980’s)… Jarman’s use of multiple overlaid images is explicitly influenced by Brakhage’s work, particularly ‘Dog Star Man’ (a work in 4 parts corresponding to the 4 elements). Brakhage ties his exploration of vision to a form of return to magic through the appearance (albeit fleetingly) of the image of Kenneth Anger embedded in the celluloid of the film ‘The Dead’ (filmed during Anger’s sojourn in Paris). Kenneth Anger – the Magus, member of the OTO, student of Crowley and Thelema…and now Brakhage screening next to the San Francisco Beat artist (and lifelong student of the Qabbalah) Wallace Berman and the visionary Harry Smith (Heaven and Earth Magic) as part of the Photon Hex séance… The psychic topography leads to Hyde Park (created for the purpose of hunting by the Royal overseers) and entered through the double columns (echoing the 2 pillars which support the 2 spheres on the Tree of Life) of the Grand Entrance. The park situated itself as an element within the Smokescreen of the 1960’s: concerts by (among others) the Rolling Stones and Hendrix (the rainbow bridge central sphere)… Of course, the Beatles had been there first (as always) with ‘Beatles for Sale’…The proposed breaking of a butterfly on a wheel became a reality of lepidopterean genocide when Jagger celebrated the execution of Brian Jones (the drowned man) as a representation of the triumph of Mammon over Mystic). The act was one of a number designed to ensure the completion of the Synaptic Smokescreen which characterised the 1960’s and culminated in the sacrifice of an African American (the Black–Faced Man of Mumming plays) by Hells Angels (fallen angels) as part of a Black Masonic ritual designed as a form of vampiric osmosis of the energy of the decade… The duality of the decade finds an expression in the name of the park itself: the Northampton mystic Alan Moore (another conduit recognised by Sinclair) asserts that the name of Hyde Park is taken from the name of Edward Hyde (the indicator of duality existing within one body)… And, inside the park, a tree: the ‘upside down tree’ (mirrored by certain trees in Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham)… The idea of the Tree of Life is indeed malleable: it moulds itself to a globalised vision (and expresses itself in many ways in both the pagan and Hermetic traditions)… Yggdrasil (the world tree of Nordic mythology) is also known as the Tree of Time or the Tree of Life (echoing the Qabbalah). The tree operates as a unifying element between the 3 levels of creation with each of its 3 roots connected to 3 kingdoms and fed by 3 wells… Ymir the giant (originally created from the meeting of fire and ice) was killed by Odin in order to create Midgard from his body: hair as trees, blood as sea, and his eyebrow (Odin’s eye / Brakhage) delineated the area where mankind would exist… Water is a consistent motif: Midgard was surrounded by ocean waters which fostered a serpent (the Serpentine memorial to Diana – the goddess of hunters – in Hyde Park). 3 wells nourish Yggdrasil… Odin gave his right eye for a drink from one of the wells (in order to initiate the act of seeing with one’s own eyes as suggested by Brakhage)…the dragon Nidhog (darkness) lies at the bottom of one of the wells (water) and gnaws on the roots of the tree (life beneath the roots of the Ash tree as reclaimed by M.R. James in the short story ‘The Ash Tree’ where the tree secretes arachnoid beings from beneath its roots)… Ymir’s body also formed the seedbed for the growth of Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil is believed to be an Ash tree, a tree of a certain potency in Greek mythology – the tree of the Meliai nymphs created at the time of the victory of Kronos (Saturn – the ‘Old Man’ of Alchemical symbolism)… Just as the Nordic peoples believed that Yggdrasil succoured both Odin’s goat (who produced Mead) and the 3 stags (whose horns dripped honey-dew drops), the Greeks believed that honey fell from heaven in the form of a dew (as Pliny the Elder noted), a dew known as ‘manna’…Pliny believed that it was particularly formed at the time of the rising of the stars, especially the dogstar (Brakhage). Similarly, the Vedas makes an explicit connection between Soma (the divine intoxicant) and honey which falls from the skies as does the Prose Edda of the Northern Germanic peoples. Ash trees secrete a sweet and sugary viscous fluid from their bark and foliage: even until the earlier part of this century, it was harvested under the name ‘manna’… The Shamen of the Finno-Ugric peoples would climb the boughs of the Lime tree to symbolically commune with the different stages of creation. The Lime Tree exudes a sweet substance linked in folklore and literature to bees and honey. The Lime tree is known in England as the Linden Tree (the Ash tree). The Linden tree was used to aid sweating - the sweat from under Ymir’s left armpit made the first man and woman while he was asleep. The flowers of the Lime tree were traditionally used as a tranquiliser – a form of Soma… The tree holds the Hanged Man: the internalised Tarot card… The Hanged Man upside down like the tree in Hyde Park, leg folded into the number 4 to represent the 4 elements, and symbolised by the Hebrew Mem and Neptune (water), and by the number of this page with an ultimate value of 3… The fool gaining a space between worlds (like the Finno-Ugric Shamen), and reflecting the story of Odin who offered himself as a sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. Will Mitton be a sacrifice to the gods of spring? Make of it what you will, Non-Obsidian Panopticon… |
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H.J.
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Behind the Mirror...
replied on: 1/18/2007 12:01:35 PM quote: I hope Charlie's not the hanged man but this is all very symbolic stuff about a lot of hidden knowledge. Its true that this big strange cluster of coincidences has really taken place and then the world should know about it.Ive been taking a closer look at whats been said all thru the threads as regards these synergies and think they are compelling.If, as King says they are foreboded by the interest in the occult by a load of art people then maybe the visionaries of our time are coming out of the woodwork and cast a spell on thedunderheads. Sinclair is the mystic and our own people the magicians. Ive read these'Synergies' and Charlie's account of his B'ham Triangle' and this is what I think.Sinclair is a bloke writing at first in the early 70s who came from the Beat tradition and his ideas are weird. He claims there are lines of force between churches that enclose energy and also things like hospitals, football grounds,mortuaries and prisons all have some energetic aura. Things happen near these areas that are bad and in his one book he talks of tramps and winos as fire/alcohol devotees. I think chaz recognized these people and it inspired him to make a triangle between places in Brum in imitation. When he visited the last one, St.Thomas's, Holloway Head, he found inscriptions and the Peace Garden and remembered the Accident Hospital. He then read Sinclair's 'Downriver' and read a part where sinclair and an artist friend go on aquest where they visit a church, there is an abandoned hospital and inscriptions. What he told me though was that the story was about the artist Brian Catling's search for his mother who had been 22 when he was born. He had been an adopted son and so Chaz.And his mother had been22 - the number of the main Arcana of the Tarot which Catling had been seen dealing in a film. Kreepy.Also by weird coincidence the two churches were both called St. Thomas and the Brum one had been bombed during the war recalling Sinclair's saying in a poem that areas of bombings and great fires left residues of occult power.Very strange synchronicities by any standards but all this was compounded when shortly after Brian Catling came to Brum to do a talk and exhibition on 'artists and the paranormal'.What's more I found out that in the light of the recent 'Freemason comments an inscription at the St. Thomas's Brum is from one Ernest Mason. Knowing Sinclair's playing with names it is worth mentioning that William withey Gull' so I'm told in WCST is incarcerated in St. Marys Islington under the name of Thomas Mason. Mantic Tremblings!! Andso we have strong meaning as well as seriality, fullilling Jung's definition of 'synchronicity' over the 'seriality of Kammerer. The plot however thickens during thecourse of these threads. It really is as though a Maxwell's Demon is at work putting all of this together.He says 'well, if you don't believe all that, well how about this!!. In the 'St.Thomas' happening the meaningful event is the 'message from the deceased adopted mother.Crucial. Well let's face it. It happened again. Sinclair in nWCST talks of how certain authors, Rimbaud, Blake, Conan Doyle, Stevenson were able to forebode dark events. And then the Ipswich murders happened. There are five victims, one called Nicholls, another called Nicol(fulfilling the asymmetry of names just talked about). A Stephen and a Stephens (Stephenson). A Nicholls sent off playing football(bizarre - football grounds as energy centres). And the of course a detective called 'Gull'. In WCST there is a reference to Colchester where one of the victims caught a train to and then to cap it all theauthor speaks of an appointment in Ipswich that he 'cannot abandon'. But then I was told that in Downriver the same author has a deranged character called 'John Millom', as seedy and manic as 'Bad News Mutton'. He has atext for our protagonist which thescribeseemsunwilling to accept It is saidto contain communication from the dead.We later find that he hasrewritten WCST and that the text contains a key. This is precisely what we have now done in these threads.He says that he needs to pressgang Millom into his books as a 'prime freak'. In thissense 'White Chappell' and 'Downriver' have become prophetic texts in types of dream fashion which undoubtedly would have appealled to Terence McKenna. We become as Millom says 'in possession of prviliged information'. This can never have been done before. Peoplewould have been burnt at thestake for less never mind hung. So when I came to areference to'navel fluff rambling' from someone called Niccolomac when I did a google search on Charlie's name I knew that there are a few gross people abroad.Well done Chaz, Im with you to the gallows. J. |
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Boffin
This message was updated on 1/30/2007 5:00:49 PM by Boffin |
M8e
replied on: 1/22/2007 9:41:30 AM Having read all the texts concerned and with the final 23 pressing I guess the time has come for me to give my final account of the kettle of fish displayed within these threads. I had been amused to find that the Triad, in coming to their weltanschaung seemed to be helped along by the coincidental appearance of certain helpful books and articles as well as certain not so helpful ones which however provided a negative which our positives could energize. So was produced a quaternity of performance texts which develop the thesis set down in Mitty's novel which is basically the story of how that story had magically written itself and in so doing demonstated its own thesis. This was done by showing that texts could magically appear when required - as though there was an intelligence at work in nature which was helping along the thesis. I was paricularly interested in Charlie's story of how he came to be aware of the subject of entropy and its implications. He had developed a publically entropic personality that through synchronicity reversed itself through a 'phase transition'. Books concerning the work of such as Weinberg, Osserman, Peat, Prigogine, Sheldrake, Bohm, Gooch etc. would magically appear in discard bins and inform him of their existence. This led to certain conclusions which brought about a self-fulfilling prophecy about Western metaphysics (re. his blues CDs). The notion that this spreads out into the world actually happened to me last week after I had been mulling over these matters.I happened to attend a car boot sale and was not finding much of interest when I came upon a tome entitled 'The Whole Shebang' by the scientific journalist Timothy Ferris. It answered some of our questions with numinous resonance. Firstly the idea of the book as physical object containing information which has in turn by some been descibed as the opposite of entropy. Charlie had told the story of how certain texts concerning entropy had, as if by divine bidding been brought to his attention in the late 90s. Sinclair and his cohorts had contributed to a magazine called 'Entropy'; there was a review of of a book on the matter in the London Review of Books (by Simon Schama) and then a radio programme on the life of Ludwig Boltzmann which brought to his attention parallels between lives lived and the process itself i.e. Boltzmann's own - he hung himself. It was broadcast on the very day of the funeral of a fiddle playing friend who had coincidentally... hung himself. The general notion of entropy in turn led to an awareness of the work of Prigogine who was also mentioned in the review. His work on how dissipative systems can suddenly for acausal reasons display utterly original phase states (which in Mitty's case was of course the synchronicity) seemed crucial. And then there was the fact that Boltzmann's work of on probabilites anticipated the quantum effects of all this and also the fact that probabiltes are extremely relevant to the question as to whether this 'whole shebang' could possibly be all 'by chance'. Peculiarly from the Ferris book I was able to build on this train of events. Questions of self-similarity and sensitivity to initial conditions seem to be qualities of 'strange attractors' which have some relevance to these BINS threads. The letter 'K' does seem to have had some relevance to earthly physics especially in the case of m8e but '23' does seem to have produced itself in seemingly relevant places even on a cosmic scale. I noticed in my copy of 'The Whole Shebang' that an Irish bishop has been of the opinion that the universe was created on the night before the 23rd October 4004, as if to form an asymmetry with the Mayan prediction of the earth finishing on 23rd December 2012. Although both events seem unlikely they both seem to give weight to the 23 Enigma.Ferris does tell us that: "As such surveys continue, its possible even larger levels of hierachy will be found. Certainly there is displayed a self-similarity on many spacial scales.As the physicist Philip Morrison of Mit points out, ' if we span the universe from nuclear to intergaqlactic dimensions we encounter a two-beat rhythm. Areas of emptiness - the voids between the nucleus and the electron shell of the atom, between stars and their planets, between galaxy clusters and so forth - are interspersed with high density regions, like atomic nuclei, molecules in crystals and galaxy clusters and walls." Pp.155/156. On further scouting through the Ferris book I found that in a chapter on dark matter, an x-ray image of a gaggle of galaxies called NGC2300 had been a significant landmark in leading up to observations which called the conventionally accepted 'cosmological principle' into question and which eventually led to the work of Alan Dressler and others who posited the idea of something called the 'Great Attractor'. The existence of the G.A. and dark matter throw uo some important questions eg. whether the dark matter might consist of baryons forinstance or perhaps neutrinos. And coincidentally it was Wolfgang Pauli who first theorized the existence of the neutrino long before it was first observed and he was the man who worked with C.G. Jung on synchronicity so there's a connection. Strangely enough then that we learn that a significant observation of neutrinos from an exploding star was made on February 23rd 1987. What's more on p.156 the relevant question of self-similarity is raised and how fractal geometry plays a role. The Koch curve, due to work by Felix Hausdorff and later Benoit Mendelbrot, has been said to have fractal dimension and how like our coastline,we might see it as of infinite length within a finite area, a bit like a computer generated web thread displaying ACOPs. Robert Osserman in 'The Poetry of the Universe told how the fractal dimension of the Koch curve relates also to the cosmological phemenon of the 'Great Attractor'. The fractal geometry of the galaxies is said by Ferris tio be 1.23 dimensions which is very close to the Koch curve.These findings would seem to represent anomalies acaualities etc. which scientists and mathematicians find difficult to accommodate with accepted paradigms. Mandelbrot meanwhile related these self-replicating structures to such things as cloud formations and quite aptly for ourselves to the shapes within a tree. Root, branch and leaf formations replicate a forked geometrical shape which one might suppose could replicate ad infinitum. On page 166 of 'Shebang' evidence is detailed concerning the discoveries of quantum fluctuations in deepest space and relates to Dressler and his work on the ' Great Attractor'. We learn that on April 23rd 1992 there was evidence from the COBE satellite which was said by Michael Turner of the University of Chicago to be the Holy Grail of cosmology and was equally lauded by Stephen Hawking as ' the scientific discovery of the century - if not all time'. It was about how 'cosmic structure formation... resulted from random quantum flux, the smallest phenomenon in nature' (p.167). There are implications here for the Bins thesis which are of some magnitude if we collapse them with 10 to the power of 23 molecules of gas quoted by F.David Peat in his book on synchronicity and Penrose's quoting of 10 to the 10 to the 23 chance of a 'Creator' finding the spot in phase space that would accommodate a universe or the 23 chromosomes from the female and 23 from the male that forms the basic structure of that weird phenomenon of self-reflexive life itself. So, yes, Sinclair with his connection to Burroughs who kicked of the '23'Enigma should, I think, be interested. It may be that 23s replicate in ways that we don't understand.Anyway I've learnt that it was originated by the Beat writer William S. Burroughs with whom Sinclair communicated when he was a callow youth. 'Shebang', in a chapter on the 'shape of space' discusses certain cutting edge theories about the relationship between entropy and black holes. It poses the question of what happens to the information contained in an object dropped into a black hole. It tells of how some theorists have opposed the notion that it is lost forever (as in Hawking) by opining that, according to quantum dynamics, there must be some way of recovering it. There is a Dutch researcher called Gerard t'Hooft who believes that information is contained in the very particles that radiate from black holes according to Hawking's own discoveries. Another proposal was that there was a particle that might be produced that was called .....a 'boltzmon'! and each would be unique in the universe and bundled inside it would be all the information, whole libraries of it, that had fallen into the black hole. This perculiarly re-inforces speculation concerning the validity of 'Mittonian Synergies' and perhaps provide an explanation of how names as particles re-appear as if from nowhere and that echoes previous constructions such as the 'White Chappell/ Ipswich' phenomenon. I would suggest that the synchronicity itself of the information and the event could even be construed as emanating from the final results of each involved individual's personal entropy. However strange this may seem, the acausal juxtaposition of these effects reveal something out of the ordinary and worthy of further investigation. Secondly though, another scientific question emerged in the Ferris book which synchronizes again our own ruminations. It would seem to me that what has occurred brings up the question of 'multiple universes'. The notion that within each individual is an entire univese is mentioned by KotH (Re. as above, so below). It could be suggested that we have undertaken a kind of 'course graining' in which the cosmic past is viewed from the point of view of one of many pasts. Each course-grained history represents branches on the tree of cosmic history. Again a theory of retrodiction is invoked which is based on probabilites and recalls our 'origins of tree worship'. Such ideas are associated with Hartle and Gell-Mann. The third point recalls the 'anthropic' principle and I looked back in amusement at how Charlie was once mentioned in articles in the Times and the Guardian concerning Beryl Bainbridge and drunken behaviour. Some time later he came up with a book called 'Uncle Mort's North Country' at exactly the right page which mentioned none other than Beryl Bainbrindge through a question by a character called Carter Brandon. You must know of course that the man who coined the term 'anthropic' principle was called Brandon Carter. Perhaps the a quote from aforesaid might be of interest: "The universe must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it...what we can expect to observe must be resricted to the conditions necessary for our presence as observers" P.299. 'The whole Shebang'. Seems sensible to me. Hence, if as observers, you see things through a geometry of dates, names, artifacts, literary texts etc., so be it. If your course-grained cap of logic fits then wear it!! Is that of any help? |
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Boffin
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Behind the Mirror...
replied on: 1/22/2007 1:43:19 PM "At the end of chap.1 Oedipa despairs when she sees her life as trapped in entropic drift. The more information she gains concerning Tristero, however the more her choices proliferate beyond the limited binary alternatives of assimilation or solipsism thus offsetting personal and potentially cultural entropy" (P.74. Understanding Thomas Pynchon. Robert D. Newman. The above quote might interest you Boffin and also Derek Littlewood and Peter Stockwell of the U.C.E. (formerly) who dismissed Mitty's story of post-Prigoginian negentropy in their book about new directions in literature using the 'new technology' which was of course brought up by our own 'Trystero' on the BINS thread. Magic (realism). By the way Boffin, have you heard of Andrei Linde the cosmologist who also believes in multiverses and uses the image of the tree as well. He knows that an overabundance of knowing on the part of physicists can be a bad thing. Linde compares the universe to a painting by Kandinsky. Anyway, thank you Boff. we know know that we have some illuminati amongst the scientific community. I think I should know speak up for all 'floating signifiers'. It is clear that the two main binaries that we have employed have been that of the Birmingham Group and the London Mob and everything has been done in the name of creative evolution. Have you heard of Zennard Koan the 60s singer who based his name on an asymmetrical version of the long-lived kaon that proves objectively the arrow of time and in the process caused Roger Penrose to speculate that its discovery must be trying to tell us something. Also of course a kaon and an anti-kaon can metaphorically carry either the +1 or -1 label on their baggage. It is this quality that is preserved when they die. It happens that a single pion, or any odd number of pions, carry always the label -1, whereas even numbers carry the +1. If CP is indeed a true symmetry of nature, this number will be retained forever such that even or odd numbers of pions are formed when a kaon with CP of +1 or -1 dies. A kaon cannot turn into a single pion alone (energy would not be conserved), so three would be the minimum number needed for the CP=-1 mode. Making three pions is harder than two and so the CP=-1 mode resists decay longer than the CP=+1. Thus the story of the short- and long-lived Kaons. 2 and 3. 23. SIMPLE. It arises along the quantum-classical frontier , when we try to reconcile quantum mechanics with the characteristics of the macroscopic world - to confirm quantum phenomena to a more general philosophy that would satisfy what Vladimir Nabokov called the ominous and ludicrous luxury... of human consciousness'. Limited though they may be, these border skirmishes raise questions sufficiently baffling as to constitute the scientific equivalent of a Zen koan. Did you know Boffin that this Gell-Mann guy named the quark after something in James Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake'. Gell-Mann named his approach the Eight-Fold Way after Buddhist precepts but it at first seemed flawed and his octets revealed a complex triplet. "Three quarks for Muster Mark". Entropy, particle physics and we are back to James Joyce and the Zen Koan. I rest my case. |
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Barriminge
Rank: Jasper This message was updated on 1/23/2007 12:24:59 PM by Barriminge |
Behind the Mirror...
replied on: 1/23/2007 9:03:00 AM quote: Absolutely splendid.So a 'Zen Koan' is the anti-particle of the 'long-lived kaon'. A bit confusing but a quick internet search has revealed to me that a 'Zen Koan' is a 'transcendance of dualities', that makes sense. Well that seems to have answered a good deal of our musings from a scientific point of view. That was none other than Mad Sir Jack Boffin, the poststructuralist physics professor who has obviously been influenced by the now deceased (again) Jack Derradah. JACKS MEN CAME. It all makes sense now and so I think I can retire for awhile to The Dirty Duck in Stratford-On-Avon for a bevvy. It seems that a reconstuction of western metaphysics has been necessary after the initial rather labyrinthine deconstruction. This story all seems to have started with a bad case of 'hourglass stomach' which our hero found diagnosed in a novel after numerous quacks had been unable to find anything wrong. The 'Curse of the Hourglass Stomach' had got him into many scrapes, hospital jobs and time spent in lock-ups for crimes of emission from orifices in unappropriate places. All the time though Mitty fought against the castigation of the world and seemed to be helped along by a whole panoply of helpful ACOPs. Let the Force be with him especially in his present dealings with the law. Our story is indeed not complete. To know the end of it you will have to by a copy of his second autobiographical novel 'The Postmodern BINS Prophecy' subtitled 'How I was Binned but lived to tell the Tale'. Which takes us back to the blues. We actors love to listen to a bit of jazz and blues.Little Walter, Muddy Wasters, Madeleine Peyroux, Benny Spillers, anything like that. Well Charlie's blues gal (park bench girl) has her birthday today. It is the 23rd but by some strange attractor she has something troubling her. In true Billie Holliday style she has been arrested. Funny thing is though that she has been charged with the same offence as Chaz. But what's more, by some acausal connecting phenomenon they are both to appear in court on the same day. She's a real Balsall Heath gal. All her Creole children have had to be adopted or are in care and she is a binge drinker. She dances all night to Bluebeat music and is sometimes done for criminal damage. She is lucky to find herself with a deranged floating signifying existential psychiatrist like Chaz. Well, this is the story so far. B. is a hypochondriac with a bad 23 chromosomes from her mother who is a fire/alcohol devotee from the Manzoni Gardens c.1965, about the time that Brian Jones was just a libidinous bluesman and so Nicholas Martin Stone. We all went a bit wrong, it was a sign of the times. Last year the bluesman connection seemed to be made explicit by an interesting synergy. When there was the premiere of the Brian Jones film in Brum of all places at about the same time Chaz found a review in the Guardian of a book called 'In Search of Mitochondria' by one Nicholas Lane who in our London text was a man who nearly replaced Brian Jones in the Stones. The Drowned/Hanged Man. Number 23. Mitochondria are molecules that are passed down and which have been essential to our development but they are only passed by the mother. Interesting, hypochondria as well maybe. Charlie tells me that he has a book at home which more or less says that Brian was murdered. In the book is a letter from Brian to his real teenage love, Brenda, who married Donovan - the inspiration for 'Legend of a Girl Child Brenda' and in turn it was Don that inspired the 'The National Assistance Blues' (the tramp/beatnik tale). Just think though if it had all never happened. Society would have been completely different and the young Brian would have married his teenage sweetheart Brenda and she would have become ...BRENDA JONES. Happy birthday, Brenda!!! Anyway I think this performance will blow over. The theatre will become empty but the GEOMETREE will stand. It's in the writing as Jack would have said. We've found the absent presences, filled over the erasures and played in the space of ontological doubt. Not so much a deconstruction as a reconstruction. In the Age of the Floating Signifier things are not always what people say they are. That's about all to be said. |
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