Observation

Perfume smells wonderful, but tastes awful.

Notes Found in the Margins

Suicidal Art - Protest of Silence

Exhibition of World - Production of Earth

It was a sign, of course it was, it just was and that's true.

This art?

We're all recyclable.

Great Pun is Dead!

The only conspiracy is to make you beleive there's a conspiracy.

Spock/Kirk - Apollo/Dionysus

Hey, what's with the gravity?

hey-hey, ho-ho
this protest chant has got to go (repeat)

Coming of Age

When did you first start to notice that newspaper comics weren't really that funny?

Kill Bill - 5 minute review

One of my 5 minute reviews from 2003. These are reviews that I write in about 5 minutes, as soon as I get home from watching the movie.

Kill Bill is the best made, most technically skilled and most exciting action film that I have ever dis-liked. This is a film that is a step back for Tarantino as an artist. While it is true that he displays a very impressive mastery of the chosen genre it is also true that he disappoints in the paucity of any another dimension beyond style. This is a Bacchic feast of form but it lacks even a side dish of substance and what substantial content it offers is drowned out and made dysfunctional by the form.

After a brutally violent wedding murder scene, Uma Thurman's character wakes up after a lengthy coma to discover that her baby has been lost. A long and sympathetic camera lingers on her as her sorrow and rage pours out of her. The problem is that because of the onslaught that has just occurred we cannot really feel for her. Such an emotionally powerfull scene is reduced to being perceived as a drawn-out filler until more cartoonish action can be served up.

As it turns out, the actual cartoon segment in the film works really well. The Japanese style anime is very stylishly done, with excellent movement of perspective. Many of the other segments of the movie which can also be described as cartoonish also are technically successful. I understand that it is an exercise in referential filmmaking, an homage to various genres and it succeeds as a tour de force of an action martial arts film. There is however the odour of American over-acheivement. It is as if Tarantino is trying to prove that he can out-do the genre and bring it to some ultimate conclusion. The goal it seems is to make something that teenage boys can argue is the last word in a martial arts action film. It is as if we are to be awed and humbled and dared to make another film of this genre after seeing Kill Bill.

The intent itself seems unable to overcome the boyish fight fantasies it portrays. Tarantino throws down the gauntlet in some imagined competition to be crowned the uber-geek. He might win that contest and be awarded such laurels by the academy of cinema geeks but he has brought himself down a rung in the pantheon of auteur filmmakers. What has he really done that could not be achieved by countless other directors given enough time and budget to do so?

This work is not produced through the subtle insights of a talented director - and talented he surely is - the kinetic overabundance is mainly the result of having enough time and money to out-do other filmmakers. Perhaps Tarantino was stung or even ostracised by the members of that diaspora that I call the Academy of Cinema Geeks after he made Jackie Brown. Perhaps he felt that he had lost their respect and wowed to win them back. In many ways Jackie Brown is better at showcasing those more rarefied directorial talents. The ability to invent a sympathetic soul with whom the viewer can empathize is more difficult than throwing enough money at an action sequence to numb the senses. There are those who will say that my estimation of this film is really beside the point, that Tarantino intended it to be just such a movie. With this I would agree. He has indeed succeeded in his aim. My disappointment lies in the fact that he is capable of so much more and I wish he would draw again and re-aim.

Girls On A Beach... dude

While reading at the beach on Comox Lake, two young girls stepped out of a small jeep vehicle and set up their tanning towels in front of me. This is the conversation that was overheard:

Girl1: Oh Dude, I've had like the best summer ever.

Girl2: I know. It's been like so awesome.

Girl1: Dude, yeah just me and you, its been so Gong Show.

Girl2: Yeah, like sooo Gong Show.

Girl1: Just doing random shit.

Jakes On A Plane

I just landed in Northern BC for a couple of weeks.

I plan on continuing my research into the Bigfoot legend. Next week I have an interview lined up with someone who not only claims to have personaly known the famous Sasquatch but also claims to be related to him.

My results will follow soon.

Crazy Cat Lady

Everyone has heard of those crazy cat ladies. They are those eccentric women who live in unkempt houses with their dozens of cats who can be seen eating and pooping all over the place. Well it turns out that she may have been made crazy by the poop.

Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that lives in cat feces and can be transmitted to humans who come into contact with it. It can cause Toxoplasmosis that can make one ill or in rare cases be fatal. It is thought that about half of the world's population may be latently carrying it. What is interesting is that some studies seem to indicate that even when latent the parasite may have effects on human behaviour.

Could it be that the world is becoming ever more insane not because of any large social or economic developments but because of our affection for our feline friends?

Toxoplasmosis

Cuba Libre (Cuban Rum + Coca Cola + Lime)

Ever since Fidel was said to have passed on the leadership to Raul I have had the suspicion that he may have actually died. I don't find the photos very convincing. Regardless, the effect has been a greater affection for Fidel from the people.

But then again, I always thought that Coca Cola planned the New Coke fiasco to redouble the loyalty of Coke drinkers.

Meanwhile about 90 miles from the Florida Keys (where key lime is grown) Sheritt International is pumping about 20,000 barrells of crude oil.

The corporations have been licking their lips, waiting for a sip of a Cuba Libre, but they may go unquenched if the Cubans are able to pull off a smooth transition when Fidel passes on.

Random Musings

Bigfoot is a big-footed creature.

Bunker Palace

Kinder Fassbinder

Undemanding Slaveowner

Eat This Book

Out-Neil Neil

Abortion Distortion

Duotang

Monkey Scary

Where did the future go?

Tickle Me Emo

Spotted Leper

Mercury Headgear

Heidegga Ma Nigga

Wikimania

Last night I innocently read the featured article on Wikipedia:

I noticed that there was a dispute about the content so I clicked on the discussions and found myself again only several hours later.

Holy cow! I don't know what to think. I was impressed by the determination of the several contributors who seemed to have been carrying out a heated debate. It really brought home the amount of effort that goes into this open source project to build a comprehensive free encyclopedia. I'm thankful that so many people feel the spirit of voluntarism. I read about a guy last week who had contributed thousands of articles. This on top of his regular day job.

Traditional encyclopedias were written by people who we assumed were experts on the entries that they produced. We didn't really know who these contributors were but we knew that if their words were printed in the book then it must have had the authority of truth. Wikipedia allows you and I to write the entries and others to change them. There is still some notion of authority since we assume those contributing must know a great deal about the subject but the traditional power of the authority of knowledge is out the window. You are allowed to scrutinize the information, make suggestions, and ultimately rewrite the entry altogether.

Ideally, one would think that this process would bring us ever closer and closer to the truth. I will suggest that this is correct but not in the way one might suppose. The ideal of truth is an old Platonic notion that envisions truth as the ultimate reality that we only catch glimpses of in our progression towards it. If you subscribed to this approach then as long as all the contributors acted honestly then we would get closer and closer to the ideal of the truth of the matter. But I don't buy this approach to truth.

Truth can also be seen to be something less stable than a perfect ideal. It can be thought of as something that is more pliable, morphous, and temporal. It can change, be willed to change, and change over time. Truth can also be thought of as a social construct. Some things are true by consensus. If a group of people in a certain area of the world consider themselves to be of a certain ethnic variety then that is true for them by their social act of collectively saying that it is true. The notion of race is one of those ideas that are much more slippery, morphous and temporal than one would assume. I think if we think deeply about it, the idea of race seems to slip away perhaps entirely.

If you find yourself reading any Wikipedia entry at any time I would argue that you are always reading the truth... as it has been agreed upon by the consensus of those who can contribute to it. Since we can all contribute to it, that entry may be the closest thing we have to truth. It is a wonderful mix of authority and consensus.

Irresistable Force vs The Immovable Object

Jake to Universe

conditioned to push
afraid to pull
push past and pull again

The Wisdom of Silenus

What occurred to me at the funeral of a young man who was to be married in two weeks:

Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is -- to die soon. (BT:3 [Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, 1224ff])

Now it became possible to stand the wisdom of Silenus on its head and proclaim that it was the worst evil for man to die soon, and second worst for him to die at all. (Birth of Tragedy vi-xv, Nietzsche's 1887 preface)

Private Language

In my language the words for "music" and "tickle" would be cognates.

Positive Thinking

I had a basketball coach in high school who was always trying new and experimental things to improve our play. Some were terrible failures. He decided that french fries were the perfect food for us and encouraged us to feast on them before games. He decided that if we all wore the same shoes we would all coalesce into a single-minded machine. These didn't work. We continued to lose as we sluggishly tripped over our identical 20 year-old Converse shoes that were all the rage when he used to play.

One day he told us that he had just read about some recent research and was ready to put it into action. He made us line up at the foul line, close our eyes and imagine shooting perfect foul shots... over and over again. The boys naturally began to giggle, crack jokes and erupt in fits of laughter to which the response was to force us to do hours of wind sprints.

That was my first experience with positive thinking as a strategy for success. He was probably right - a little visualization could positively develop your follow-through. I have since come across other people who seem to take this idea a little too far. Sure, you could visualize yourself in healthy positive situations and you might be able to more easily achieve some of these end results. But does this mean that if I visualize myself winning the lottery, I will have a better chance of winning the lottery? If I visualize Trezeguet scoring on a penalty shot does that mean he will be more likely to score? (apparently not)

It seems to me that positive visualization will only work if you had the power to affect the outcome in the first place. I have the power to improve my free-throw so visualization could work. I have no control over the balls inside a lottery bubble so I could visualize all I want and no different result will come of it.

Some people not only subscribe to this irrational over-exuberance but also to it's converse. I had a business partner who always insisted on thinking about what could go right but he never wanted to hear about what could go wrong. He assumed that even thinking about the negative would bring it about. This is particularly dangerous and doomed to failure. It is in our arsenal of useful evolutionary traits to worry about what could go wrong. Not taken to excess, this is what allows us to avoid terrible outcomes simply by visualizing their possibilities. To ignore those and to only focus on what could go right is just asking to be sucker-punched.

Remember to visualize positively about those things upon which you could have some effect and not on things that you could not possibly have any effect. Also remember to carry an umbrella if you don't want to get wet and if you think it might rain. Bringing the umbrella will not make it rain.

Conversations

Boy: Well, you have to believe in something!

Girl: I believe in hats.

Rebel Hair

It seems teenage boys will groom themselves in a fashion that they perceive is most likely to scare their parents. This might be why suburban white kids tend to look like inner city black kids. So why do so many young men seem to be growing beards these days? Is it part of this hick-chic movement or is it because with their bushy beards they look like they could be members of Al-Qaida?

Moire Patterns

These Five Video Stills (1990's) are some of the most accessible works created by Sternime after his resurfacing from the dark decade of the eighties. After creating such foreboding works as the Blackened Life series and photo essays like Grey Matter (1988), he turned to a more colorful approach and wholeheartedly began his study of popular culture, in particular the world of Advertising and Television. The perfect fusion of the heightened elements of these worlds is manifested in the Infomercial and an exploration of this is presented in I'll Cut Off Their Heads and Charge it To The Corporation (1990's)

When studied closely many of his photos appear to have moire patterns - the visual interference patterns that can appear if one takes a photo of a video image. They also frequently reveal pixelations. Occasionally he would glean a few images from hours of random television video recordings and then photograph them at precisely the chosen moment without pausing the image. But many of Sternime's photos were actually photos of a video screen displaying scenes that he had previously shot on traditional film. Having gone through these several transformations they begin to reveal some imperfections. These interference patterns are a welcome and intentional aspect of the final image presented by Sternime.

The scientific explanations for these patterns are clues to the role these interference patterns play in Sternime's study of popular TV culture. If one stands close to a television while it is displaying an image, one notices that the seemingly smooth contiguous images are in fact composed of a series of grid alternations of a few primary colours. The screen constantly refreshes itself several times per second. It does not do this all at once, but by alternating every other line across the screen, then it refreshes the missing lines right before beginning again. The human mind simply fills in the missing lines like it fills in the missing movements in a projected reel of film. The photo image sometimes catches it in the process of refreshing so that every alternating line is out of phase. Every alternating line is actually from the previous refresh wave right beside a line from the next refresh wave. The moire pattern is an interference of these lines.

What seemed poignant to Sternime was that "the interference results from the interaction of the past wave with the future wave and what we are left with is the present image - a clearly imperfect record of the marriage of what has already occurred to what has yet to happen."

This deconstructive view of a video image is richly filled with evocative symbolism. By bringing this process to light Sternime is playing with the notions of temporality, reality, appearance and memory. In its most basic definition, all art is merely some form of reflection. The manifestation of this reflection is also recorded in some physical form. It can be said that reality or truth is reflected in a work of art such that the truth of a peasant's life is in some respect reflected and recorded in Van Gogh's painting of a pair of torn and tattered slippers that have been flung upon the floor.

But what could be said to be reflected in a work of art that records examples of advertising? Sternime's answer is rich and layered. The first thing to consider is that Sternime's definition of art would be much more inclusive than one might find in any academic theory. For him, art can be present in just about any reflected medium. The ever-present media of Television can be home to art. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that the advertising commercials sandwiched within the shows can also be home to art.

Sternime makes no effort to present examples of art in advertising. What is revelatory for the viewer of Sternime's work is that by studying the processes of advertising one reveals a deeper understanding of the nature of art. For Sternime, Art and Advertising are both activities that seek to exploit a particular medium or media to invoke a powerful effect upon the viewer.

Nietzschean aesthetics speaks of forces of artistic nature that align themselves in an opposing duality. There is the orgiastic random passion of the Dionysian opposed to the organizing structured regularity of the Apollonian. A similar duality is explored in Sternime's own meditations on Art. He touches on the opposition of the individual with the collective and the varying perception and understanding of the same world when viewed at the micro or macro levels.

The question asked by Sternime is "what can we come to know of the whole by studying the parts, and what do we come to know about the part by studying its whole?" The locus of the experience of art begins with the reflected image, but the image exists as both an interesting physical process of perception and a more interesting mental process of appreciation. The experience of art begins with something that is perceived and something that is appreciated through that perception. In these Five Video Stills Sternime reminds us of the reflective nature of the perception.

... - to be continued.

Out of Touch

Jake to Universe

I've been in the northern parts of the Islands in B.C. this past week. I'm a million miles from home. No Globe and Mail, no TV, no computer, no problem. I don't seem to miss those things even though they seem indispensible in my life back in Toronto.

I've started reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez. I'm impressed with the first 70 pages. I wonder what it's like in Spanish? Literature should be read in the original language whenever possible but better to read it than not at all.

God versus Santa

Some religions seem to want to make God the Santa Claus for adults.

Checking lists, rewarding those who behave and an eternity of coal blackness for those who don't.

Steeple

Primeval

Universal Standard

In this peice entitled Universal Standard (1990's) Sternime plays with the stereotypes of what he called "the average nuclear family complete with all the toxic sludge one would expect".

Sternime had little opportunity to experience a childhood that could remotely be considered normal except for the brief span of a few months when his Mother Gloria moved in with a policeman and his daughter. This rigid and authoritarian man "was obsessed with all the outward appearances of normalcy, set up mainly as a subterfuge for his true psychopathic nature".

Later his mother would admit to him that this episode was her attempt to sacrifice her happiness so that little Sternime could "have a normal family setting within which he could hopefully become more normal". It turned out to be a horrible experience for both he and his Mother until the policeman died under suspicious circumstances while allegedly cleaning his gun.

Monster Devour

From the Monster Series (1990's) another example where the filmic and the photographic were combined to create a gallery piece of strong kinetic intensity. In these works Sternime explores his almost pathological unease with sexuality. He claimed that the feelings associated with sex would nearly overcome him. He likened those emotions to "having feelings of motherly love and comfort suddenly torn asunder when your mother turns and decides to devour you whole". Sexuality for Sternime was a nexus of comfort, coersion, and cannabilism.

He admits to having watched several horror B-movies with his mother as a young child. Sternime's mother Gloria was an independant minded single mother who never married and had a series of men revolve through their lives. Little Sternime would often find himself at the drive-in movies with his Mother and her date. After being lovingly tucked in to sleep he would recall often waking during his sleep to the shrilling screems of the movie. He wasn't sure at the time whether he was dreaming but would be startled to find that in addition to seeing and hearing someone being hacked and slashed to death on screen he would peek open his eyes to see what appeared to be his mother "savagely and with hungry desire cannabalizing this poor man who was lying on his back and writhing in pain".

The stylized representation of the act of fellatio plays prominently in many of his films and display pieces. He considered it to be "at once the most giving and most debilitating act that one can perform on a lover. It is an association between two people that requires the greatest of intimacy because it prioritizes the the need for trust over and above the fear of being castrated". The fear of cannabilistic castration seems to have won out for Sternime since the fellators represented in his works tend more often to be depicted as monstrous.

Grey Matter

Although Sternime is best known for his films, he is regarded by many to be a photographer first. His cinematic shots were painstakingly researched and planned. Sternime insisted that each of his scenes could be frozen and be taken for photographs in their own right. While planning his shots for a film he would spend months taking photos and developing his visual ideas so that they could stand alone and be appreciated. These recently discovered stills taken by Sternime in the eighties reveal a darker tonality of subject matter. They were undoubtably taken with some cinematic idea in mind. Sadly, these were never developed into any film he made. So they stand soley as a photographic representation of a cinematic project that never occurred. Struggling through his depression and solitude he continued quietly to work through his personal troubles by externalizing what he called his "overbearing dark nothingness within the geography of my mind".

This series of photographs is titled Grey Matter (1988). They were titled and sub-titled by Sternime but were not numbered as they appear here. They were meant to coexist in a group but not within any order. As the name would suggest, they are meant to somehow externalize the psychic dread into the physical world. He invites the viewer to enter his mental blackened psychological realm. Sternime often struggles with the intertwining connections between the physcial and the psychical in his works. Fully aware of his embodied physical existence, Sternime commented "at this one level I know I am comprised of physical elements that determine 'how' I am. Yet I am also certain that 'how I am’ psychically determine my physical existence." Grey Matter is an apt title, referring to the physicality of the "stuff" or "matter" of the brain while also referring to the more abstract "greyness" of his emotional being, "the matter of greyness in my life"

Photo 4 (Amongst Tendrils). A powerful evocation of forlornness, it presents a young man visually overpowered by the complexity of a forest of "tendrils". He is lost within and overwhelmed by the barren dusky greyness of the steep forest of the visually interconnected branches.

Photo 1 (Innocent Beauty) reflects his early childhood memories growing up in an industrial town. Sternime had never been able to shake the effect of the industrial landscape on his imagination "beautiful and horrid in the same billowing plume". Industrial architecture conveyed to Sternime "a solidity of purpose, an economy of design that purely follows function without any need for artifice" The magnificent smokestacks seem to spew toxic smoke to some but soft puffy clouds to the mesmerized child. The innocent seagulls fly about in the foreground of the factory. The moniker of innocent beauty is perhaps more attributed to the factory than the birds. The factory is built with no regard for beauty yet to Sternime it is unconciously or innocently beautiful. The forlornness shown in # 4 is counterposed to the iconic representation of homecoming.

In photo 2 (Dwelling) an estate is enshrouded in a misty haze. It is an ideal home setting of a beautifully landscaped property. Despite such perfection, it is abundantly clear that little life is revealed in the shot. The imagery is more funereal than domestic. One’s lifelong homesickness can only be satisfied with the ultimate blackness of death. So it is here we see Sternime working out what was to become one of his cinematic motifs: that a constant estrangement with the everyday cannot ultimately result in any satisfaction.

In photo 5 (Grounded), a seagull is shown at the foot of the photographer. After a life of flight - a life of ethereal imagination - we are reminded that we will be grounded by the physicality of the everyday world. "After dancing with the stars, we fall back to the ground which is our dwelling".

Photo 3 (Corridors) once again returns to the internal tendrils of the imaginative experience. Black and white photography became much favoured by Sternime during the eighties. "Two colors in opposition, yet together they produce infinite shading." This perfectly symbolized the central opposition in human imagination for Sternime. Human experience is at once capable of the highest highs and the lowest lows. The checkerboard pattern of the floor as well as the alternating pillars revealing light and casting shadow are clues to Sternime’s revelation of this infinite opposition. Yet in the corridor of black and white there grows an organic branching of tendrils again defying the sterility and thriving in spite of the shade.

Empowerment

I'll Cut off their Heads and Charge it to the Corporation was a departure for Sternime. It appeared as part of the Schwarzes Leben series created in the early nineties. Despite his advanced middle age, he successfully transferred his angry detachment to the medium of visual arts. Having enjoyed a medial success in the art circuit cinemas of Europe and North America, he had sunk into a protracted depression and produced little in the eighties, often characterized by him as "my personal dark ages".

He sprang to the fore once again with his Blackened Life outpouring that garnered as much confusion as praise. Those familiar with Sternime's work quickly realized that there was much consistency of purpose in his newly chosen medium with his cinematic works. Sternime had become somehow more youthful in this example of externalized anger at those "who peddle self-induced spiritual lobotomy". He seems to poke fun at the entire culture of crass capitalism that had begun to pervade the seemingly unconnected realm of the religion. It occurred to Sternime that there had been a blurring of the realms of Capitalism and spiritualism. Tony Robbins merely served as a personification and an embodiment of this newfound "Salvation for Sale" that merely seemed to carry on the ancient strategy of charging a fee for enlightenment. These new cultural developments however were much more likely to succeed according to Sternime simply because religion finally fully appreciated and exploited the realm of advertising and promotion. As is the case with the world of advertising, much is highlighted and much is left out of the message.

These self-help strategies espoused by Robbins et al refer to "the power within" that needs to be unleashed (intentionally mis-spelled as "unleased"). It implies that the secret to success simply lies in unbridling those powers that surge within us. Sternime referred to this new spirituality as "a turning on its head of two thousand years of Christianity". It lays religion topsy-turvey because instead of encouraging the repression of "the power within" it encourages an unleashing. What is reprehensible to Sternime is that this strategy ignores the true force of this unleashing. It disregards that true self-awareness must involve a full acceptance and recognition of all the "leashed powers within us" including the unpleasant ones such as the need for domination, sexual savagery, and presence of overwhelming anxiety.

Millions of years of savage existence cannot be repressed that easily, especially after unleashing the powers within. We cannot simply choose to retain some of these leashed powers while picking over those unpleasant powers within. Learning about and addressing what you really want will inevitably make you dirty. As he said in an oracular manner in a 1981 interview, "When we stand too close to the fire of our desires, we are blackened by the soot of the ember of our ancestors"

MWAA

In this memorable scene from Mother Was Always Angry (1972) Sternime uses an intense blue filter to coincide with Drago's barren maternal environment. A montage of images from his most distant memories, it displays a series of closeups of his mother and father from the vantage of a child looking up. The coloring of Drago's memory - now grown - reveals in retrospect that there was no love in his early life.

Last Days

Last night I watched Gus Van Sant's Last Days. It is a movie with even less dialogue than Ceylan's Uzak- at least discernible dialogue since the main character played by Michael Pitt mumbles unintelligibly throughout much of the film. It clearly did not have the same effect that the Turkish film was able to achieve. In Van Sant's defense it was 3am when I started watching it and I was a little anxious so I might not have been able to let it wash over me or more accurately seep into me as such movies must do to be successful.

In Ceylan's film the characters don't do much on screen - a great deal of the film is spent by us watching them watch TV. In Last Days the rock-star character (largley based on Kurt Cobain) mumbles and stumbles as he tries to make Kraft Dinner. He sleeps on the floor as we watch the TV in the room displaying a nearly complete Boyz to Men music video (which I thought was a parody video for the first 2 minutes).

Ceylan's characters slowly grow on you and you begin to care for them. I simply couldn't bring myself to care for Van Sant's characters. They are largely spoiled, self-absorbed and drunk/stoned young people who are sleep-walking through a self-destrcutive haze. The Cobain character's predicament is completely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It's hard to feel for a millionaire who has every option in the world open to him and chooses to blow it and himself away.

The best part of the movie for me was when they played a Velvet Underground song on vinyl.

I'll watch it again when I'm in a more receptive mood. And I also intend on seeing Gerry.

Strangers in Transilvania Restaurant.
I don't know their stories.

Retro Schmetro

Whatever happened to Dalek I Love You?
Or for that matter; Classix Nouveaux or Visage?

Those were some of my favourite bands from the 80's. Yet I never ever get to see them during those retro video shows.

To me the music of the eighties isn't properly represented by the irritating and predictable songs of Bobby Brown, Sheana Easton or Phil Collins. That era's genius is reflected in those endearing bands with the overbearingly serious poses and goofy haircuts.

Secret Rendezvous

These pictures were taken in May of 2003. There used to be a website that allowed you to remotely control a camera that was installed on the roof of a 50 storey building in Toronto. I trained the camera on the people talking on the patio of the restaurant one level below. I wonder what their story is?

My guess is that the one on the right is a tourist visiting from Warsaw. The one on the left is from Prague. They met the previous summer during world youth day when the Pope was visiting and agreed to meet again in Toronto the following summer. Being strictly devout Catholics they are somewhat confused and exhilerated by the intensity of their feelings for each other. They are meeting at this sky-high restaurant where no one who knows them could possibly be expected to see them together and guess their secret feelings for each other.

Or maybe they're just a couple of guys from Mississauga.

Less is More

I watched a Turkish film called "Uzak" or "Distant". It was one of the most sparsely dialogued movies I’ve seen in a while. It’s surprising how something so sparse and subtle can sneak up and effect you.

Only in low budget markets can you make such a movie these days. Antonioni made some great films in which hardly a word was spoken. Maybe Jim Jarmusch or Gus Van Sant can still get away with it today. It would be very difficult to convince someone to let you spend millions of dollars to make a film with so little dialogue.

Such a work is really a kind of Rorschach test. The less is said the more interpretation is required from the viewer, having different effects on different viewers. It’s an interesting strategy for art because it can be difficult to determine the virtuosity of the artist. People will argue that Antonioni is brilliant or an over-rated charlatan.

Life is Funny

I'll make a joke on my deathbed.
People will say "he was funny, but he still died".

Happy Mother's Day

Don't forget to call your Mom or "Mom-like" person in your life.

In the Moment

I once saw Bob Costas bragging that he does his own stunts including the tongue-twisters. He then very impressively gave an example of a lengthy, complicated and convoluted string of words and effortlessly continued to introduce the next segment of his show. I wondered if multiple takes were required. I would guess that he was able to do it in a single take. Some people are good at that sort of thing.

I have been on Radio and TV a few times and I've had to make presentations in front of large classes and audiences. I find that if you stumble and make a mistake, the natural tendency is to dwell on it internally even as your mouth has already moved onto the next sentence. While you try to contemplate the error, react to it, or learn from it, your mouth has already moved on and you find it very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.

Sometimes when you're humming along nicely and everything is going smoothly you might start to think about an important point that you are about to make. Internally you are already planning out the next segment but out of your mouth is flowing the segment at hand. You will likely have trouble with it.

Those who are best at this sort of thing will be the people who can block out both the past and the future as they move in the present.

Tripped up by the words that came before and those to follow.
I talk today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.

Paul 101, Paul 101

I wrote this 3 years ago when I tried spending some time in an office pretending to work.

----------
The rumbling hum of an aging air conditioner that rattles the floors when it turns on or off.
The ziggity-zag of a printer well past its prime - on loan from the museum of antique technology.
The seeking whine of a dial-up modem negotiating a connection.

Peppered with the random musings of bitter mid-level so-called professionals.
The din and cacophany shoots over and through me.
I am surrounded by noise and startled by P.A. announcements too loud so it can be heard over the chortling air conditioner.

"Paul 101, Paul 101"

The phones don't stop ringing.
The chit-chat chattering.
This place is too cold, turn off that damn air conditioner.
Someone please find Paul and tell him to pick up 101.
If I hear his name again that motherfucker is done.
Paul's not here, just take a damn message, he'll call back when he's done recovering.

Spend time in coal mine and you'll become dirty.
The soot will find your skin wherever you've left it exposed.
I want to remain clean,

Adopt a tree

While walking around my neighbourhood these last few days I have come across these beautiful blankets of colours lying beneath certain trees. Some are pale green, some are yellow and some are vibrant hot pink. It is especially pleasing when two or more of these trees are next to each other. They steal all attention away from their surroundings.

Most of these castings end up stillborn on cars, sidewalks, on the road and finally in the sewer. Today I stopped, picked up a handful and buried them under some dirt on a front lawn. It's easier to save a baby tree than a baby racoon.

Is this a fetish?

Women who yawn or file their nails or read a book or engage in some such distracted activity while having sex.
It might have something to do with male selfish sexuality. "She's so devoted that she'll do it just for me... even if she isn't particularly interested in it at that moment".

Baby Mammals

Is there anything cuter than baby mammals? And furry baby mammals are surely the most adorable. Yesterday I drove into a very tight laneway to help a friend pick up a used BBQ. I had to brake suddenly because someone was using a spade to push a litter of baby racoons under a fence from their backyard into the laneway. They were able to scurry away.

When I got through to the clearing in front of the row of garages there were several neighbours out in the laneway and none of them seemed to care a cent for those frightened little bandits. The man with the BBQ said "yes but they'll grow up and shit everywhere and tear everything up" I doubt they'll make it into next week. It's a cruel world isn't it?

Zipper in the Fabric of Spacetime

I have owned a backpack style carrying-case for close to a year. Today I noticed a zipper and pocket on top of that bag. I could swear no such zipper was there yesterday. I am afraid to open it.

We Exceed Standards

I've seen these full page ads the last few days in the Globe and Mail. I can't even remember for which company they were pitching; I think it was a petroleum concern. In the ad they claim to not just meet standards but to go further and exceed them. Isn't it always the case that when you meet a standard you exceed it. If you're given a minimum standard of n, you need to exceed n in order to meet it.

Cruise out of Control

Since when are Hollywood stars required to be sane and uncontroversial in order for their movies to be successful? Apparently Tom Cruise has become somewhat crazy and this might explain the less than expected receipts for his new movie. I keep hearing this repeated and seeing titles such as the one I've used to head this entry. One is tempted to suspect a conspiracy.

OK, Scientology seems somewhat wacky but no more than most other religious sects. Maybe Cruise's rant against pharmaceuticals like prozac are making some people angry. Maybe these angry people who spend billions advertising such pharmaceuticals would like to see dissenters like Cruise discredited as frothing nutjobs.

I will not defend Scientology's theologies or methodologies but maybe they're onto something here.

Brave New World

I recently attended a 30th birthday celebration for friend "A". He had attended my 30th birthday gathering nearly a decade before. I gifted him with a dvd of "Logan's Run". We had called my party a Logan's Run party because in that movie the people of a future society, when they turn 30 are recycled at a "Carousel" ceremony.

A began to relate to me the significance of that night a decade before. He came to my party with my girlfriend's cousin. She was his girlfriend at the time. He was very young, visiting the big city, at a party in a high-rise with older people. That night was a night of many firsts for him. He recalls seeing the internet for the first time as I demonstrated eWorld to him on my Mac and he was "blown away" that you could chat with people from all over the world in virtual rooms. We scanned through several of those rooms that night and more than one of them were very peculiar to him. There were "man-to-man" rooms in which men could anonymously chat with other men in a provocative and sexual manner.

He told me his mind was set spinning that night and a whole range of possibilities seemed to be opening up to him. He soon moved to Toronto and came out about a year after that night. He is now happily partnered with a nice medical professional.

What I remembered as a boring and lame evening of pizza and videos was to someone else an earth shattering event. It was for him a wedge that drove right into his brave new world.

Psychic Goat

Jake to Universe

When I was 5 years old we would visit a relative who kept a goat in their back yard. I would spend a lot of time looking at him and he would stare back. I imagined that we communicated psychically. He would mess with my head by telling me that he was really God in disguise and that he was testing me. Then he would point out that this is precisely what he would say if he were in fact the devil, to confuse me. Then he would say that he, as God, would say precisely that, to test me even more... and on and on...

I think they ate that goat.

DNF

30 year old race car driver Paul Dana was killed today. I don't follow racing like I used to. I was a fan of Formula racing until 1994 when Aryton Senna, my favourite driver died in a race on May 1st. A few weeks before on April 8 Kurt Cobain was found dead in his house in Seattle. Senna was 34 and Cobain was 27. Both of them were at the very pinnacle of their chosen arts and both of them seemed capable of more great things.

I was teaching an introductory Philosophy class that spring at the suburban campus of the University and I recall the typical brutally cold Great Lakes winter. The term was just about done. It was perhaps the first really bright warm day of the year which made even more cruel the news to come. I was driving to get some lunch when I heard of Cobain's death on the car radio. The first thing that came out of my mouth were the words "you fucking idiot!"... said not with malice but with the realization of the great waste of a life. I am of the opinion that anyone in a suicidal tailspin with some perspective would realize that it is not really as bad as it might seem.

A few years before these deaths I was in such a state when it seemed futile and painful to carry on. The curious thing is that I decided then that instead of ever contemplating taking my own life I would instead feel free and unafraid to pursue such dangerous activities as mountain-climbing and race-car driving. I wonder if the Aryton Sennas of the world have made a similar pact with their inhibitions. I wonder if the Kurt Cobains of the world are perhaps in a similar nihilistic death spiral facilitated by their high risk lifestyles.

If you look at the results listing of a car race you will note that after the numeric ordering of the leaders there are a number of entries at the bottom of the list with the leters "DNF" beside their names for "Did Not Finish". Paul Dana, Aryton Senna as well as Kurt Cobain and any other young person who takes their own life are all DNF in more ways than one.

Chasing Amy's Blog

Jake to Universe

My friend read one of my recent blog entries. Over dinner he commented that he had never come across the word "limning" before seeing it in the title of my entry. Duh. Where ya been? It was the word of the day on dictionary.com on February 2, 2001.

I did a search for other blogs that used the word "limn". I came across several but I started reading one written by a charming girl from California. It's almost heartbreaking to come across people like her. Where were girls like her when I was a younger man?

They were probably sitting next to me in French class but there would have been no way for me to know. Maybe that girl in my French class maintained a diary, scribbled her poems within it... made observations, confessions and declarations that I would have found charming and fascinating. But unless I happened to find that well-worn and colourful testament to her love for words I would probably never know about that side of her.

I know that blogs aren't necessarily diaries but through them we are given access to the personal world of friends and strangers to an extent that we could never have dreamed possible only a decade ago. So I found myself checking each day to see whether Amy had updated her blog. I was curious how she was doing in Ithaca and whether she would decide to choose Cornell over Berkeley. To my disappointment she didn't submit an entry for over a week.

Isn't it odd that you can follow the life of another person without their knowing? Maybe I should send her this link. That would mean that I'm not technically being a stalker right?

Mathematicians, Philosophers, Filmmakers

Jake to Universe

It's journalistically irresponsible for me to comment on a story I only skimmed over this morning... but I'm not a journalist.

A Mathematician recently won a science prize that is slightly more monied than the Nobel. It is given out by a mutual fund company owner. The winner expounds what appears basically to be the original intelligent design theories as set out by some mediaeval and renaissance philosophers. What's somewhat risive is that these theories are celebrated as being brilliant and original when they are really Philosophy 101 material that freshman get to ponder anew each September.

The gist of the stance can be spelled out in the following three points:

1. The Universe is so impressively complex that it must have been designed.
2. Since the Universe had a beginning and could not create itself, it must have had an outside cause.
3. The Universe is perfectly suited to spring forth Human life so it must have been designed to generate Human life.

The last point is the Goldilocks approach - Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. It considers that if the galactic or planetary or environmental situations had been even modestly different than they had been in the past then Human life would not have been possible. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that there is some inherent intentional design.

There are many many ways to poke holes in these arguments but that is not my intent here. I'm not sure what my intent is here except to bitch about Mathematicians who engage in amateur Philosophy and are rewarded for their unoriginal efforts. I don't recall a Philosopher lately receiving a prize for his ideas about how the the length of the radius of a circle is related to its circumference. These ideas are of course known to freshman Mathematicians to be fascinating but hardly groundbreaking.

I'm reminded of a conversation I overheard on a train from Montreal to Toronto many years ago. An unlikely couple of people seemed to hit it off in the seats across the aisle. A stylish and beautiful young woman in her late twenties was being enthusiastically engaged by a chubby geeky teenaged boy. He looked like he clearly needed to spend less time in front of the Playstation and more time grooming. The first Matrix movie had been released that year to great success. The young man began to discuss this movie at length, whether she wanted to hear about it or not. It was hard to tell if she was just being polite or was genuinely as fascinated as she claimed to be by the conversation.

He began to "blow her mind" by the notions presented in the film. That you might actually be living in a virtual world would be near impossible to determine if you had been trapped there from birth. Your entire body or perhaps just your brain might actually be stored in some vat and you might be fed the contents of your experiences without your knowledge. They both marveled at how brilliant the entire notion was and how brilliant the Wachowski brothers were for coming up with such a mind blower.

Those notions are of course brilliant and mind blowing but sadly they are not the product of these talented filmmakers. Descartes five hundred years ago and Plato two thousand years before him wrote of such things. It's sad how little recognition these philosophers receive and how limited a historical sense we seem to have outside of our specialties.

I wish that Mathematicians, Philosophers and Filmmakers knew more about the respective histories and developments of each other's fields of knowledge. Of course, this has probably become by now, just another lament about the lack of exposure to a quality liberal education in our North American culture.

Limning a House

My architect friend Paul opened an exhibition this evening. Two artists from Berlin were invited to join Paul and his friend David to present and discuss their respective partnered works. Paul and David had created a multi-media project 10 years ago by slowly deconstructing a dilapidated and condemned house. They filmed and photographed the project as they cut out pieces of the walls and floors eventually causing one half of the house to fall into the other. The two Berlin artists were sent photos of a local Toronto office building and they used these to create a virtual exploding, fragmenting or splintering of the building running in an animated loop.

The two projects ostensibly meet at the nexus of the concept of deconstruction. Derrida was of course mentioned and discussed by the panel and audience. Deconstruction is a parasitic act in that it requires something constructed upon which one can perform the act. Most art is of course considered to be of a creative and constructive nature, requiring no such beginning point. In this sense it seems that only the Canadian project was a deconstruction since the virtual rendering was not an unraveling of anything at all but a creation from start to finish.

Can the physical unbuilding of a house be considered an act of deconstruction in the Derridean sense? Only metaphorically it seems and only as a way of limning the way in which something can be laid bare and brought closer to its so-called essense by peeling away its surface layers and breaking it into pieces. The whole is often said to be greater than its constituent parts but these projects highlight the possibility that something can be invested with even more value in the process of its unravelling. The surprising perspectives afforded by each cut of a wall or ceiling help to bring forth or un-cover the being of the house. These hidden aspects are revealed and released from the constancy of the seemingly soldified being of the house.

Through this process of unbuilding we can catch glimpses of what it is essentially to be a house. By removing a piece of the roof we are brought face to face with one of the essences of a house: that of shelter. Partially collapsing a room results in one wall remaining 8 feet high while the oppsosite wall shrinks and disappears. What does this inform us about the intended functionality or purposes of spaces?

This unbuilding house works as a form of performance art for those who happen upon the project during its progress. The person who randomly happens upon the house in one of its progressively slanting states is treated to a delightfully disorienting image. The neighbours have a different experience. They can follow the process over a more protracted timeframe. As the house is slowly moved closer to oblivion the passerby acknowledges more fully the existence of the house. Ironically they come to acknowledge its existence as it is moving through the process of ceasing to exist. What may have been mostly unnoticed by the neighbours over the years comes startlingly to the forefront as they pass by each day to note a new development in it's demise.

Blood, Fire, Water

Jake to Universe

Blood, fire, water. You have 15 minutes. Begin.

Steve skillfully slides the contents of the frying pan to one end and tosses it into the air. The diced onions and zucchini slide with ease as a single wave and rise up to a crest as they flow out of the pan and into the air. The wave curves back onto itself and crashes back into the pan where it is brought to meet the airborne flow. The onions are starting to caramelize nicely. Sizzling, some of them are richly brown or burnt. The zucchini was just added, releasing their invested moisture into the mix and making the sea harder to launch into the air. Then small plum tomatoes - blood red, short cylinders - not possessing much flesh. The larger tomatoes are meatier. They are added to the mix to give the sauce more substance while the smaller tomatoes are there for colour and taste.

He begins the motion that gives birth to another tsunami. This time red, brown and green, like a fresh grave which has been churned by torrents and hurricane winds. Briefly thrown up high then crashing down again. From this jumble the parts are now reformed where they began their journey. Flesh and grass uprooted, it's too heavy and comes crashing unto itself with additional force.

A splinter splash from this wave lands on the web of skin between Steve's thumb and forefinger and he jerks his hand back before even feeling the stinging of his skin. He had been admiring his skills to this point but now finds himself cursing his bravado. The kitchen is where he can relax and reflect but this is proving to be a most unrelaxing evening. The afflicted skin is firey red as blood rushes to heal the scorched thin membrane. The faucet nearby is turned on and he puts his hand underneath to ease the pain. He stares ahead and thinks of Susan.

It would take a thousand Niagaras to wash away the pain.

The Human Virus

Jake to Universe

Helen's comments on the Exophilosophy posting started me thinking.

There is an old tradition of considering the Earth to be a living entity in its own right (Mother Nature, Gaia etc.) This seems perfectly reasonable to me. Within this perspective it is true that Humans would seem to be a type of virus or perhaps parasite. It is a micro-organism within a larger system that feeds off of that host. This is not a very flattering portrayal of humanity but it may not be as bad as it seems.

It is true that such microrganisms may in fact feed off of the host to such an extent that it may end up killing it. A virus that kills will not be as successful as one that doesn't kill since the less lethal one will have a greater chance of passing on its DNA and sending forth its progeny to other hosts if it can hang around long enough.

So we the Human Virus need to realize that we cannot hope to continue to procreate successfully if we kill our host. I believe that our selfish genes will eventually bring us to realize this on a larger scale. So perhaps we may survive long enough to one day infect another host (settle on another planet) and also not kill that one.

We have perhaps been too harsh on the Viral form of life. They have the same bad rep as the so-called weed. Why would one prefer the green grass to the yellow dandelion? The dandelion is just trying to be fruitful and multiply... just like the green grass, also like the virus and parasite and very much like humans.

Kotter Matrix

I just saw an episode of Welcome Back Kotter. I remember enjoying that show as a child but I was surprised by how cheesy and unfunny it actually was. I don't recall the production values being so low. It looked like a weekend project conceived and shot by your high school's AV club in the school gymnasium. As a child I thought Barbarino was pretty cool and I liked to think that I most resembled him owing to our shared possession of charm with the ladies. The years have given me fresh perspective so I now realize that I was probably 40% Barbarino, 30% Epstein, 18 percent Washington and about 12% Horschak.

Applied to Seinfeld I would be about 40% Jerry, 30% George, 18% Elaine and about 12% Kramer.

On the Sex and the City Matrix I'm not sure if I would qualify but I'd have to say that I was about 40% Carrie, 30% the Brunette, 18% the Redhead and about 12% the Slut.

But I have asked women which character they most resembled and all of them said they most resembled Carrie as played by Sarah Jessica Parker. Given the benefit of perspective I believe these women will one day be watching a rerun 20 years from now and realize that they weren't really 100% Carrie but some alchemical mixture of all 4 of the main characters in varying percentages.

Fellini on Ice

My mother was visiting the other day so I ended up watching some of the closing ceremonies for the Winter Olympics from Torino. What were they thinking? Answer: Fellini meets Cirque the Soleil and they decide to go skating.

Perhaps such spectacles are meant to be viewed from a good stadium-sized distance because it looked positiviely silly up close on the TV screen as countless pseudo Florentine/Swiss guards skated about in seemingly random and puzzling movements. This was followed by some bombshell Italian actress who engaged in her own non-sequitor gesticulations. All the while some other beautiful people seemed to be flailing while hanging from rings or ropes high above the stage. Surely Italian culture has more to offer than this. But then again, have you seen some of their variety shows?

Exophilosophy

I have thought long and hard about what it would be like to be an alien. I am of the opinion that they would be so entirely unlike us that this thought experiment is much less effective than you might guess. We have access to the world through our senses and much of it is arbitrarily so. We see a certain range of the light spectrum, we hear a certain range of audio frequency, we touch, taste and smell according to reactions to our environment and our survival tendencies over many millenia.
An entity on another planet whom we might consider to be living would have to exist in harmony with an entirely different environment such that they might be as physically different from us as fungus is from a cocker spaniel.

It is not really that uniquely interesting to consider all of the different life-forms there might be on other planets. The diversity on Earth is astonishing enough. What is interesting is to consider how a so-called intelligent life form might look and move and act. Could we assign the act of thinking to any intelligent being? What essentially do we know about thinking so that we can definitely say that another life form thinks? How do these beings interact with each other? What of socialization? Individual identity? Is individuality something unique to our particular condition in our particular environment? Would these creatures be a collection of individual creatures or one single creature? Must intelligent beings be evolved to a state that possesses a sense of self?

Ask yourself what it is about being human that has brought us to where we are and how we are. You are left with certain aspects that we would call particularly human. These traits and tendencies are alien even to other life forms here on earth. Think of how much we would need to have in common with a being in order to communicate with it. Over 20 years ago we sent out an intergalactic message in a bottle on the spacecraft Voyager. How similar would we need to be with the recipients in order for them even to consider our message to be something of importance worth investigating? Could there exist an highly advanced being that never looks out above the surface of it's planet? Could they even see? If they could detect the existence of Voyager would they even care? What is it to care? Must an intelligent being necessarily be curious?

Ping

Ping set out from his submarine home one day for a swim. He bumped into a boat and was forever changed. When he returned, he was hardly recognizable. He had become a Pong.

Punch Drunk Love

I rememeber that as a child the process for deciding which cereal to buy involved a complex formula that tried to balance the relative value of the cereal with the value of the free gift inside. "I prefer Shreddies but that free hockey card inside the Frosted Flakes makes me wonder".

Last week while shopping for groceries I noticed that a brand of cereal was on special for $3.99. I don't much eat cereal any more expect for this kind which is of a particularly adult variety. So I put one in my cart. There was a splash on the front of the box that indicated there was a bonus to be found inside. Each package contained a free movie pass. I go to the movies all the time so I know that a movie ticket costs about $10. Two more boxes went into my cart.

The next day as I passed the store I rationalized that I forgot to buy some water the previous night. But really I was curious to see if there were any more of those special boxes. There were, and eight more boxes went into my cart. I've been there two more times and I'll be going to the movies for free until July.

So I went to see Capote the other night. Philip Seymour Hoffman was quite good in his role as a reserved yet flamboyant and seemingly always somewhat drunk effete Truman Capote. I first noticed him in P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights as the pathetic effete schlub who has a puppy dog crush on Dirk Diggler. He also played opposite Bobby Deniro as an effete crossdressing singer in a not-so-good movie. I wonder if he's gay because he's in danger of being typecast as such.

He seems best directed by Anderson as he was in Magnolia playing the palliative care nurse and as the slimebag 1-976 pimp in Punch Drunk Love. In that movie Adam Sandler's character discovers a pudding cup bonus promotion that he can use for free air travel. He then spends a significant portion of the movie shovelling pudding cups into his shopping cart. I now feel a special kinship with that character.

Fishbike

It was well past midnight when I heard someone say "I need that like a fish needs a bike" and I immediately thought that "Fishbike" would be a good name for a band. I emailed Bob with the subject heading "Band Name" and simply wrote "Fishbike" in the body of the message.
The next day I received a reply with various references to "Fishbike" that he had found on the net. We have arrived at a stage in language and communication in which it has become increasingly difficult to coin new and original words.

Many many years ago I went on a cross-country road trip with Bob. While travelling somewhere along the flat Plains, in a near-catatonic state I began blurting out seemingly random words or phrases that Bob copied into his notebook. We called this a list of band names. I remember laughing hysterically years later when we read them over a coffee. I remember one of those band names "Phasers on Marmalade". I'm pretty sure I coined that one. I just googled it in another window and there were no matches. There are however 833 pages on which the word "phaser" appears along with the word "marmalade".

After the success of "The Police", "The Clash" and "The Knack" people soon ran out of single concept names and bands were forced to come up with more clever multi-concept names like "Dalek I Love You", "Porno for Pyros" and "Dayglow Abortions".
Two other creations that came in quick succession in my stream-of-conciousness band naming that day were "Jesus Fonzarelli" and "Elvis Hitler". Two quick Google searches reveal that there are actually bands that are so named.