That was Interesting....

Principa Discordia

Malik: Mal2 once told me that pacifism was a dilemma. If everybody was a pacifist then everything would be perfect. But nobody is going to be a pacifist unless I am first. But if I am and somebody else is not, then I get screwed. He said that there were five choices under that circumstance. The first was napalming farmers and the second was executing your parents. The third was hypocrisy, the fourth was cowardice, and the fifth was to swallow the dilemma. Zenarchists are trained in dilemma swallowing.

 Well, take a collage for example. Like the early one on page 36 of the PRINCIPIA. Each little piece was extracted from some larger work created by some other artist and published and maybe copyrighted. I find them in newspapers and magazines mostly. Often from ads. With a collage you select and extract from your environment and then assemble into an original relationship.

HE PURPLE SAGE
HBT; The Book of Predictions, Chap. 19

Heaven is down. Hell is up.
This is proven by the fact
that the planets and stars
are orderly in their
movements,                                      IGNOTUM PER IGNOTIUS
while down on earth                     The meaning of this is unknown
we come close to the
primal chaos.
There are four other
proofs,
but I forget them.
 
        -Josh the Dill
         King Kong Kabal
 
                                IT IS MY FIRM BELIEF THAT IT IS A MISTAKE
                                TO HOLD FIRM BELIEFS.

Check out more of the absurd fun at  Principa Discordia

Interpreting The I Ching - Hexagram 23 Po

---

having found the thoughts of Chairman Mao of little avail, throws the I Ching sticks and looks dismally at Hexagram 23. pg 137 Eye in the Pyramid.

I Ching Hexagram: 23 Name: Po.
Keyphrase: Splitting apart.
Formed By The Trigrams: Mountain over Earth.

General: Before beginning a new enterprise you should wait for the collapse of the old one.
Love: Your current relationship or an issue within your relationship should be abandoned.
Business: Your current business direction has become difficult and it should be revised at the very least, or abandoned if revision is not possible.
Personal: Serious thought should be given to backing away from any situations that are troublesome.

Overview: Po is a reminder that no matter how strongly something was originally built it will eventually disintegrate with time. Once the "foundations" have been undermined it is only tenuously held together. Such a situation is no longer worth trying to save. Although it is always difficult to give up on a situation do not waste time on formulating a new plan and direction. The disaster implied by Po is not the situation itself but the failure to react to it and regain your balance and direction. From the Psychic Revelation Website 

Poetry Museum

The Centaur by Clark Ashton Smith

I belong to those manifold Existences
Once known, or once suspected,
That exist no more for man.
Was it not well to flee
Into the boundless realms of legend
Lest man should bridle me?
Sometimes I am glimpsed by poets
Whose eyes have not been blinded
By the hell-bright lamps of cities,
Who have not sent their souls
To be devoured by robot minotaurs
In the infamous Labyrinths of steel and mortar.
I know the freedom of fantastic things,
Ranging in fantasy.
I leap and bound and run
Below another sun.
Was it not well to flee
Long, long ago, lest man should bridle me?

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty by P.B. Shelley

III No voice from some sublimer world hath ever	25
To sage or poet these responses given—
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see,	30
Doubt, chance, and mutability.
Thy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,	35
Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.

Creative Meditations

Open your history of sculpture, and dwell upon those illustrations which are not the normal, reposeful statues, but the exceptional, such as have been listed for this chapter. Imagine that each dancing, galloping, or fighting figure comes down into the room life-size. Watch it against a dark curtain. Let it go through a series of gestures in harmony with the spirit of the original conception, and as rapidly as possible, not to lose nobility. If you have the necessary elasticity, imagine the figures wearing the costumes of another period, yet retaining in their motions the same essential spirit. Combine them in your mind with one or two kindred figures, enlarged till they fill the end of the room. You have now created the beginning of an Action Photoplay in your own fancy. Vachel Lindsay. The Art of the Moving Picture (Kindle Locations 1083-1088).

Teachers exploring literature can do this activity of creating statues to commemorate scenes in a novel.  Groups of students (3-4 is optimal) pose as a sculpture/sculpture.   The teacher than can take a digital picture and have a gallery of scenes.  The scenes will help students visualize the book they have been working through. 

Library Notes

One can watch a number of the silent films mentioned in Art of the Moving Picture by Vachel Lindsay; thanks to the Internet Archives.Here are the links to enable your study.   I recommend watching the movies with your favorite electronic track (e.g. something from EXFM).
D.W. Griffith's: Birth of a Nation  ; Enoch Arden
Thomas H. Ince: Grandad; The Return of Draw Egan 
Giovanni Pastrone:  Cabiria

Poetry Museum

The old lady said to the cat:— "Cat, cat, kill rat. Rat will not gnaw rope, Rope will not hang butcher, Butcher will not kill ox, Ox will not drink water, Water will not quench fire, Fire will not burn stick, Stick will not beat dog, Dog will not bite pig, Pig will not jump over the stile, And I cannot get home to-night."
The rat began to gnaw the rope, The rope began to hang the butcher, The butcher began to kill the ox, The ox began to drink the water, The water began to quench the fire, The fire began to burn the stick, The stick began to beat the dog, The dog began to bite the pig, The frightened little pig jumped over the stile, And the old lady was able to get home that night.

Vachel Lindsay. The Art of the Moving Picture (Kindle Locations 576-579).
Vachel Lindsay. The Art of the Moving Picture (Kindle Locations 571-574).

Listen on LibriVox

The Art of the Moving Picture

Saloon Magazine Wrote of the book:
"This (1915)1922 book by poet and sometime cultural critic Vachel Lindsay might have been the first to treat the then-new medium of moving pictures as an art form, one that was potentially as rich, complex, mysterious as far older ones, and whose physical and aesthetic properties were only starting to be understood. The highlight of the book might be “The Motion Picture of Fairy Splendor,” which examines the relationship between film storytelling, magic, myths, legends and bedtime stories. It’s discombobulating, in a good way, to read Lindsay’s attempts to grapple with what, precisely, cinema is. Being supposedly sophisticated 21st century people, we all feel as though we know what cinema is, and don’t need to have the basics explained to us, but this is really just vanity and ignorance talking. Bottom line: You haven’t really, seriously thought about movies — what they are, and what they can and cannot do, and become — until you’ve read this book."< (Salon.com)


Listen on LibriVox

One historical significance of the book is the topic of mob mentality. The people of the early twentieth century feared mob riots (we hold these fears as well). They feared that the mob would be greatly by movies as to act out against the civilized world, and take the violence portrayed on the screen into the streets.   Lindsay felt that crowds had the ability to become a wave of destructive force, and that movies could motivate that force.   Films let the emotional catalyst of the crowd. He posed the question:  Can the wave become sacred or is  it bound to hell furry?  Who will strike out when they get emotionally hypnotized by the scene portrayed on the screen.?

  A clip from Dracula by Bram Stoker gives credence to these questions:

Listen On Librivox

The Tale of the Night of the Long Knives by Fritz Leiber is a tale of men and women at the end of the world.  (The book was written in 1960 and published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories.)   The story takes place in a  world remade by Nuclear Holocaust.  
"I was one hundred miles from Nowhere—and I mean that literally—when I spotted this girl out of the corner of my eye. I'd been keeping an extra lookout because I still expected the other undead bugger left over from the murder party at Nowhere to be stalking me."
The main character, Ray Baker, is a self justified murder and survivalist in the anarchic land.   His weapon he relys on he has named "Mother." He walks in a land where only the strong will survive.   Baker's philosophy is that there is aesthetics in homicide."we talk, mostly to ourselves, about the aesthetics of homicide; we occasionally admit, but only each to himself alone, that we're just plain nuts." Fritz Leiber. The Night of the Long Knives (Kindle Locations 129-130).But then he finds a beautiful girl and the  urge for sex is driving him in new directions.
Leiber asks the reader to consider: "Is murder ever justified?" "Where is civility when the civilized institutions have been destroyed?" "Where is the higher level of self in a land gone to dandelion fluff?"






One can listen to this tale from Libri Vox (The Cast of the Production Are:)


Total running time: 3:20:23
Read by Phil Chenevert

In addition to the reader, this audio book was produced by:
Dedicated Proof-Listener: April Gonzales
Meta-Coordinator/Cataloging: Phil Chenevert

50 States of Reading Iowa

Iowa is Represented by The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
by Bill Bryson

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson is a memoir of growing up in Iowa, during the 1950's.   The memoir was classic fun and an exploration into memories of growing up in the middle of America in the middle of the twentieth century.   The book begins with a panoramic point of view on what the 1950's were about, and then Bryson gets closer and closer into his personal life.   He masterfully pens his memories of pranks, jobs, candy, sex, politics, main-street, with a well crafted efficacy.  So many memories of growing up in Longmont Colorado in the 1970's bubbled up.   A fun listen.