For my Valentine:
Werckmeister Harmóniák by Béla Tarr
This is lovely, and I want to share it with you–the artful marriage and apex of cinematic beauty, poetry and emotion:
—(For those of you lacking patience or time, please skip ahead to 4:55)—
A thread of pearls
No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s eyes.
Your eyes show the strength of your soul.
We are travelers on a cosmic journey,stardust,swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.
He knew one of the women well, and had shared his universe with her. They had seen the same mountains, and the same trees, although each of them had seem them differently. She knew his weaknesses, his moments of hatred, of despair. Yet she was there at his side. They shared the same universe.
Ever since time began, people have recognized their true Love by the light in their eyes.
It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.
When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.
Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks.
When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World…. when you love someone with all your heart, that’s when you are transformed.
Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.
Then you came, and I understood all of this. You came to free me from the slavery I myself had created, to tell me that I was free to return to the world and to the things of the world. I understood everything I needed to know, and I love you more than all the women I have ever known, more than I loved the woman who, quite unwittingly, exiled me to the forest. I will always remember now that love is liberty. That was the lesson it took me so many years to learn. That is the lesson that sent me into exile and now sets me free again.
It’s only those who are persistent and willing to study things deeply, who achieve the master work.
Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
Dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice.
Warriors of light always have a certain gleam in their eyes.
That is why they are warriors of light. Because they make mistakes. Because they ask themselves questions. Because they are looking for a reason – and are sure to find it.
Magical places are always beautiful and deserve to be contemplated … Always stay on the bridge between the invisible and the visible.
If, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of the earth, and now there are so many, where did all those new souls come from? The answer is simple. In certain reincarnations, we divide into two. Our souls divide as do crystals and start, cells and plants. Our soul divides into two, and those souls are in turn transformed into two and so, within a few generations, we are scattered over a large part of the earth. We form part of what the Alchemists call the Anima Mundi, the soul of the world; the truth is that if the Anima Mundi were merely to keep dividing, it would keep growing, but it would also become gradually weaker. That is why, as well as dividing into two, we also find ourselves. And the process of finding ourselves is called love. Because when a soul divides, it always divides into a male part and a female part.
You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t a true love.. the love that speaks the language of the world.
Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.
We all live in our own world. But if you look up at the starry sky – you’ll see that all the different worlds up there combine to form constellations, solar systems, galaxies.
A man who seeks only the light, while shirking his responsibilities, will never find illumination. And one who keep his eyes fixed upon the sun ends up blind…
Some people appear to be happy, but they simply don’t give the matter much thought. Others make plans: I’m going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country. As long as they’re busy doing that, they’re like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is. They get their car, sometimes they even get a Ferrari, and they think that’s the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they don’t know they carry in their soul. Are you happy?
And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.
‘I’ve been through all this before,’ he says to his heart.
‘Yes, you have been through all this before,’ replies his heart. ‘But you have never been beyond it.’
Break the glass, I thought to myself, because it is a symbolic gesture. Try to understand that within myself, things were breaking of much more importance than a glass, and I’m happy for that. Look to your own inner struggles and break this glass.
Our parents taught us to be careful with glasses and with our bodies. They taught us that the passions of childhood are impossible; we should not remove men from the priesthood, that people do not perform miracles and that no one goes on a journey without knowing where he wants to go.
Break this cup, please, I thought to myself, and release of all these damn misconceptions, the habit you have of only doing that which everyone agrees with.
He’s seeing my soul, my fears, my fragility, my inability to deal with a world which i pretend to master, but about which I know nothing.
We can harness the energy of the winds, the seas, the sun . But the day man learns to harness the energy of love, that will be as important as the discovery of fire.
Life without cause is a life without effect.
NO!
Grammatically speaking, the negative, our capacity to say “No,” is one of the most impressive features of our language. The negative is our access to freedom. Only humans can say, “No.” animals can’t say, “No.” Animals do what instinct dictates. No is a freedom word. I don’t have to do what my glands or my culture tells me to do. The judicious, well-placed, “No” frees us from many a blind alley, many a rough detour, frees us from debilitating distractions and seductive sacrileges. The art of saying, “No” sets us free.
Discovered Together
That is the title of The Crayons’ latest cassette release, which can be purchased online by following the link provided below:
http://pr0gramma.com/shop.html
They sing and play without a persona. They don’t seek validation, and create art in its purest form, free from tainted agendas or an ignoble quest for fame. The Crayons’ music is born out of their love for one another, and that’s what makes it truly beautiful.
Discovered Together
Here’s a sampling of some of their earlier work from their album, Raised by Best Friends:
http://www.rackandruinrecords.com/releases15.php#album5
Raised by Best Friends
I’ve never heard anything quite like it.
Thoughts on Camus
He’s writing about “work.” What we “do for a living.” If our work is only defined as what we do “for a living,” then our lives are impoverished and, ultimately, meaningless. Why work at all?
“If our own well-being and the well-being of community are all there is to working, would not our working in some sense be like building sandcastles on the seashore? It is meaningful as long as the activity and its results last, but it’s ultimately futile. A tide comes and washes away all the hard work, leaving no trace of it. If there were no more to our work than the benefit to ourselves and our communities, rapacious time would swallow us and the fruits of our labor, and our work would remain ultimately meaningless.
How does one exist without any given purpose or meaning? How does one develop meaning? Le Mythe de Sisyphe addresses this directly in the retelling of the famous tale. Considering the plight of Sisyphus, condemned to roll a stone up a mountain knowing the stone will roll down yet again, it is easy to declare his existence absurd and without hope. It would be easy to believe Sisyphus might prefer death. But in Camus’ myth, he does not.
“Living the absurd…means a total lack of hope (which is not the same as despair), a permanent reflection (which is not the same as renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which is not the same as juvenile anxiety).
For Camus, Sisyphus is the ultimate absurd hero. He was sentenced for the crime of loving life too much; he defied the gods and fought death. The gods thought they found a perfect form of torture for Sisyphus. He would constantly hope for success, that the stone would remain at the top of the mountain. This, the gods thought, would forever frustrate him.
Yet, defying the gods yet again, Sisyphus is without hope. He abandons any illusion that he might succeed at the assigned task. Once he does so, Camus considers him a hero in the fullest sense of the word. Sisyphus begins to view his ability to do the task again and again–to endure the punishment–as a form of victory.
“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. We have to imagine Sisyphus happy.”
The final argument in the Ontological question raised by the Greeks: Since life is absurd, where the meanings should be is a vacuum, and we desperately want meaning when we recognize our necessary death, then we are free to make our own meanings, and it is the making of meaning that is the point of living; that is, the growth of individual consciousness.
“The greatest good is the greatest consciousness,”
Camus regarded Sisyphus as a hero because every single time he toiled to push the rock up the mountain, there is one brief moment when he reaches the top that he is conscious of his task, and in this brief glance downwards, Camus feels that Sisyphus experiences a small degree of something close to hope. This realization defeats the gods who sentenced him because he finds consolation in his struggle. For Camus, it is the struggle that must occupy us. The difference between Sisyphus and a factory worker is that Sisyphus experiences the freedom to think and process what he doing. For Camus, this level of consciousness can free any of us from our everyday lives.
William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.”
If a statement is true, it is true for everyone, and if it is false, it is false for everyone. What about the statement John likes Coke better than Pepsi? Surely that is not true for everyone, but just for John. No. That statement, in its entirety, if true, is true for everyone, and if false, is false for everyone. If it is true that John likes Coke better than Pepsi than it is true for you, too, even if you like Pepsi better than Coke, or despise them both.
-Not me-
To Fear or Not to Fear?
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” – Proverbs 9:10
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”-I John 4:18
God is Love, but perfect love casteth out fear, which is the beginning of wisdom.
My deck is now a dock!
“Come on over. We can go fishing from my deck, which, by the power of God Almighty, I have recently converted into a more convenient dock.”
I dressed in a skirt, leapt off the railroad track bridge and into the muddied floodwaters to float downstream on my back like the Lady of Shalott.
Unfortunately, no photographs were taken of this majestic phenomenon.
Cinematic Vicariousness
Have you ever watched a film in which you felt those around you–acquaintances, family and friends alike–would understand you better, or on some more profound level, after having watched it? And have you ever felt as though a film has portrayed, or layed bare, the innermost recesses of your core of consciousness–your wants, needs, desires, raw emotions, motivations, aspirations, fears, joys, disdains, hypocrisies, duplicities and inner turmoils?
For me, there is, at least, one such film–Lawrence of Arabia.
I am T.E. Lawrence.
I am Florence of Arabia.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
“To rid a patient of an overindulgence in fantasy, a seventeenth-century treatment called for heating the head in a furnace. It is easy to understand its effectiveness in squelching bouts of reverie.”
A magician told me, Saturday, it’s all illusion. Another man, on Sunday, miracles don’t exist. A learned PhD, Monday, knights, ladies and the high way of love are dead. And before the evening’s through, my fiction professor tells me my diction will not do: “No more than four words of three syllables or more per page!” I am not Don Quixote. I am Alonso Quijana. And I’m starting to believe them.
All that Glitters
Curious to know what this golden treasure resting at the bottom of the icy lake is?
You’ll just have to wait for filming to finish.
…and pray no lives are lost during production.
That’s all I can say for now, but trust me, you will want to see this.
Food for thought!
This post is from @NevineZaki from Twitter:
”A pic I took yesterday of Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers”
Check out the direct link! —> http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj
The Sight of the Blind
Two years ago, an 83-year-old blind woman approached me to tell me that I was beautiful. This semester she’s in my class, and today, she sensed my pain (from my broken clavicle) without my mentioning it, and offered to make me a sling and bring me topical-pain-relieving ointment. Before we parted ways, she told me that I am still beautiful.
Clavicles hurt when they break!
I was defending Fort Meigs, the Aqaba of Perrysburg, with a soaped sled while simultaneously testing out my human flight theory.
Hypothesis confirmed.
What actually happened: I sled down the steepest side of the mound atop which Fort Meigs sits, and between Blockhouse 1 and 2, I flew. I flew for several seconds before smashing my head against the icy ground and cracking my clavicle by essentially landing in such a way that my neck absorbed most of the impact. After assuring my comrades I was quite all right and they needn’t worry, we went out for an Indian feast and contemplated the mortal soul.
Eye Tech
How many times have you been in a conversation with someone, and struggled to get across a particular idea or concept, only to have the other well-meaning person cock his head and ask you a barrage of questions in hopes of understanding exactly what you meant?
We make a serious error — a confusion of domains — when we project something of ourselves onto a set of marks or sound waves, and treat those marks or waves as if they were objects having properties of their own. Yet this is exactly what Saussure was doing when he said that “language is not an entity, and exists only within speakers.” He was right.
Saussure also had the idea that there were such things as signifieds, signifiers and referents. A referent would be an actual concrete manifestation of a thing the speaker is talking about. The signifier would be the word or indicator of the thing the speaker uses to convey his meaning. And the signified would be the image created within the mind of the receiver.
If you think about it, the only real way to truly understand what someone is saying is to inhabit their core of consciousness and experience all that he or she has experienced in life up until the present moment. Then, and only then, will you be able to fully comprehend what each word a person uses to convey meaning in a conversation.
They key, then, to true understanding lies in syncing up the signifieds.
~
This is a concept design for the Eye Tech, which has a projected time of completion set for 2107 AD.
- At all times, it will permit its user the access to the sum total of human knowledge, similar to the modern-day Internet.
- It will act as a sort of external brain, the weight, size and appearance of a mere contact lens, and contain unlimited storage.
- It represents the interim phase between telepathy and the standards used for modern-day information exchange. In other words, the brain will be signaling information to appear on the lens display at will, as the Eye Tech is highly sensitive to the electrical impulses being sent from one neuron to the next within the brain.
- Eye Tech can also, simultaneously, intercept these impulses and reconfigure the actual thoughts in one person’s mind to another’s, carrying with it, particles of the subjectivity inherent in all humankind.
Modern day communication is inefficient. People try to connect using words, and not only words, but the number of words that can be bound within a book. A single book. How can you possibly communicate and confine the human experience with what is available to you in a book? It’s absurd. The Eye Tech will revolutionize communication.
But the implications of such technology harbor dangerous consequences, and the potential risk of brainwashing seems inescapable.
Desensitization
Nowadays, it does not satisfy. I feel–yes, feel–compelled to understand everyone on a more intimate level. I need to know what makes them tick. I need to probe their minds and hear their stories. I need them to fill me with inspiration. They’re all such beautiful creatures. Some misunderstood. Some shy…painfully so, as I once was. Some too gregarious for their own safety. Some insane and others hypocritical. We’re all Adam and we’re all Eve.
I love them. I love them all. I love the almost-clothed prostitutes and the morally depraved men who frequent their quarters. I love the friends who don’t bring me anything but down and the enemies who fire their cannons at my fortress. I love their funny madness mixed with sanity. I love the weak and downtrodden, the poor and destitute. I love the virtuous and affluent, the pious and the pompous. The heartbreakers and the heartbroken, the reserved and the outspoken. I love culture and its counter. Kings, queens, saints, prophets, oracles and anarchists. Democrats, Republicans, Anglos and Americans. Sikhs, Sunnis, Somalians and sadists. I love them all in their harsh brutality. I love them in their horns and in their halos, in their robes and in their rags. But they could never love me as I love them. I am so empathetic, I don’t even know what empathy feels like anymore. I’ve desensitized myself.
Kösz
Receiving a 7lb mammoth, resplendent bouquet of your favourite flowers from a friend: Indubitably pricey.
A bottled assortment of acrylic paint: $6.75. One frayed and paltry paint brush: $0.75. Time spent painting still life: 30 minutes. The moment you realize you just swallowed a mouthful of dirty solvent water after completion? Priceless.
Merry Christmas, Humanity.
- “God is love and love is real, but the dead are dancing with the dead. And whatever’s charming disappears, while all things lovely only hurt my head.”
Cataclysmic Romanticism
Our love is like the border between Israel and Palestine,
What’s rightfully mine belongs to you;
I am your bruis’d and batter’d Israel,
My skin, a tabula rasa for you to paint with clean fingers,
Purple and blue.
Your eyes cauterize me like a disk of clear ice concentrated on a powder keg.
My morality is the wall of Jericho between us.
Around me, you trumpet your chiseled cheekbones, soft ivory skin of porcelain,
Honey-gold hair and algae eyes.
You march around my wall with your Trojan mouth,
Catapulting inveiglements over the vallation of my virgin city
‘Til my heart bursts from your illicit lytic stratagem,
And my hand is benignly holstered in your own.
I’ll make you bleed a Red Sea from your geographer’s tongue
As it surveys the uncharted territory of my oral cavity,
And I will lap up your life-force like a lamprey,
Saying I’ll cure your sickness.
You needed an anti-body,
Now I’m against your body,
Immobilized by your rigor mortis embrace
And I hope you die. I hope we both die
In a nuclear explosion from a Soviet Tsar bomb,
Which fuses the shards of our hearts into fractals,
Infinitely complex. More exquisite than a diatom skeleton.
Our sarcophagus, the warmth and light of ten thousand suns.
You’re a sinking ship, and I’m going down with you.
The Sins of Virtue
Pharisees and Sadducees of the 21st Century, listen to me:
“‘Tis profitable, to seem foolish, if one is wise;
Thomas was blinded by his seeing eyes;
The Gentiles felt their unfeeling,
Lived to die and died to live;
And like the Son of Man,
Removed their masks to reveal their disguise.
The Apostle Paul lusted for Truth,
Followed in the grooves of Ruth,
Found Mecca at his Master’s grave;
Then there was the Samaritan who greedily gave.
These antiquated saints were drunk on hope and high on love,
During the flood, placed the faith of a mustard seed in a dove.
Scrubbed inside their whitewashed tombs,
Forwent the bow for five smooth stones,
Emasculated their hate for the Savior’s sake,
Fertilized their mercy in Eve’s fallen Eden,
Removed the implants of piety and finite reason,
To win the gamble on eternity,
And thus behold the Trinity’s divinity.
We are crucified by Christendom;
And like a cordyceps fungus,
Sovereignly brainwashed into innocence,
Abram becomes Abraham
And we, like Adam, die
For eternal life.”
