youtube footage of several speakers at Lincoln Center. I'm the third speaker in [2:41].

LIBERTY SQUARED

OCCUPY TRUTH-FORCE

LOU REED, LAURIE ANDERSON, PHILIP GLASS AND SCORES OF PROTESTERS OCCUPY LINCOLN SQUARE, NYC

Tonight was my first encounter with the OCCUPY movement. Tonight I had a chance to contribute my voice along side the likes of Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, and scores of other concerned peaceful protesters. The general assemble of the OWS had placed a call for the peacefull occupation of Lincoln Center to coincide with the closing performance of Satyagraha, an opera about the life of Gandhi and detailing the very causes of what the OCCUPY movement has come to represent. Upon arrival at the square I am immediately confronted with police barricades and officers cordoning off access to the square from the street. The irony here is somewhat infuriating for the crowd, as what was hours ago a public space, is now an offensive police strategy to disenfranchise, intimidate, and even taunt protesters. As the crowed gathered momentum there was a visible tension between the police and the crowd, which makes its intention of PEACEFUL PROTEST quite clear.

What happened next was nothing short of what could be called the 'miracle' of the manifestation of intention. Even though we were physically barred from entering the square protesters call out to the steady stream of Opera goers now exiting the center to join our cause. To the astonishment of some patrons of the Opera, they are met with resistance by the police as they attempt to cross the plaza to where the protesters are gathered. I witnessed a few confrontations with very angry, shocked and surprised patrons and the police. One man actually laid down on the ground in blatant defiance (mind you these are up to $400 a seat ticket holders - the spectacle was beautiful!). During this time Philip Glass the composer (on our side of the line) begins to address the crowd - and this is where the 'miracle' kicks in - in a kind of critical mass Opera goers just overwhelm a-sort-of scattered and confused police presence (on their side) and flock to the barricade - where they join us on the other side.

At this moment Lincoln Square had been peacefully occupied by two separate bodies of people each on opposite sides of a police barricad! For about two and a-half hours the mass huddled. People took turns speaking in the cold, of which I was one. The validation of what this idea is about becomes ever-clearer.

TRUTH-FORCE!

this from the perspective of an exiting audience member of Satyagraha!

the bicameral mind Pt. 2

Monday night August 1st, 1997 I had a bizarre dream. The imagery and dialog was so vivid and remained so intact in my memory that after awakening I remember feeling somewhat displaced in a somewhat disturbing yet very euphoric state of remembering. This dream's unrelenting visual narrative prompted me to seek pen and paper. The manuscript is written on 10 pages of of white lined paper in a spiral bound notebook. I can visualize these pages in my indecipherable  handwriting as they exist somewhere collected in the debris of my life. This moment is more poignantly remembered as a time I spent in late summer with my lover, David Ford, in a small summer cabin in the backwoods of Thetford, Vermont. A few days later I learned William S Burroughs had died on the morning of August 2, 1997. I cannot explain why, but the idea that I would travel to Lawrence, Kansas upon notice of the death of WSB had been a priority on my mind for several years. Likewise, I cannot reveal the exact rational that kept me from fulfilling this quest, yet I suspect it was influenced by the practical inflammatory need of acquiring non-tangible capital.  A secondary and most troubling concern was the manuscript that was written in haste days before. At the time, my compounded unease was not the statistical improbability of interpersonal knowledge, far from it. I had received some remnant, some last fluctuation of a holy enlightened  mind's bicameral function. I have never uttered or expressed these words before, and i cannot recall the exact impetus today, compelling me to write this.

Details Around the Crash

A Comparative Study: Chaos and De-construction

David Fairbanks Ford's dealings with the aftermath of the destruction of hurricane Irene and Mark Ezra Merrill's avoidance of the initiating the construction. Conclusion: Nature reigns supreme.   

Jodorowsky Tarot

message in the falling leaves

The Perfect Day (Views of my Neighborhood)

Cops and Moon (shimmers of my reality)

discipline and the daily discourse

which text is this? O, right, not that one. the importance of being ernest someone once said to me. this all began believe it or not by a bee buzzing about a pomegranate. don't go back n spell check. screw that. leave all those words underlined in red. yea, break those memes mem. look-up the word later. find a better pseudonym sometime else. breathe deep inhale. listen. wait.  

the bicameral mind

"Heavy hung the canopy of blue

Shade my eyes and I can see you

White is the light that shines through the dress that you wore

She lay in the shadow of a wave

Hazy were the visions of her playing

Sunlight on her eyes but moonshine made her blind every time

Green is the colour of her kind

Quickness of the eye deceives the mind

Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned"

I am self aware as I understand self-awareness to be.

However there is something oddly troubling about this statement. I may also say I am conscious as I understand consciousness to be. Yet it has occurred to me self-awareness is only an aspect of consciousness, and perhaps to a lesser degree than I might wish. William Burroughs facilitating a classroom lectur on creative reading at the Naropa Institute in 1979 references the writings of Julian Jaynes speculating on the shape of an early consciousness Jaynes describes as the bicameral mind (which I mistakenly refer to as the 'precambrian' mind in the previous post). Understanding such a concept requires negotiating the same aspects which we use to identify self-awairness as well as consciousness itself.

In order to sense the frame work of the bicameral mind one must first deconstruct and then transcend the constructs of language. Yet this proves not to be an easy task, as the thought process is integral to constructs of self and awareness. The abandoning of the 'word' runs counter intuitive to and is in fact the antisisis of the thought process as it understood. Our contemporary understanding of experience, meaning, and progress is residual effects of an unspoken consensus lingering within a collective unconscious. Without the construct of I and without the linear limiting structure of ego, the function of the 'word' within language seems obscure or even unknowable.

Bicameral man was perhaps more conscious than is our construct of a modern self-aware self, as the limitations of his 'word' although generated from cultural mandates were ultimately dictated by the cyclical forces of nature. It is impossible to know what these experiences were, as we are not able to experience this modality of mind in the same fashion or timespace as bicameral man of pre-history did. It is not to assume the bicameral mind remains inactive or unused, however, the function of this aspect of mind I must believe, while similar in mechanism, will now take on a completely different purpose.

Today, a functioning bicameral man would not exist without his or her tribulations. In fact more completely one delves into this non-egotistical automation of mind, it seems the more one is separated or vanquished from the larger general population society. While the basic biological need remain equal (ie the need of food, shelter, and embrace) the every day to day skills of rationalization of the ordinary man in the street are here the just the tip of the ice-burg. Without ego there is no filtration of self. The distinction between 'my' voice and every other voice in the known or unknown universe seems now indistinct.

Here, to borrow a phrase, there is no recovery. Once the bio-chemical connection is made to the far reaches of a non-verbal prehistoric pictorial mind, one must reorient his or her position in the context of the perception of reality. As rite of passage, this experience is one of premature enlightenment. The elasticity of the mind, mostly controlled through cultural conditioning reshapes perception enough to regain its baseline the center of which however measurably relocated. The prolonged pull and sway of these divergent aspects of mind, I theorize, creates a permanent dislocation or mutability of its center ultimately acting a cross contaminator or interference feedback loop resulting in the distortion ones ability to effectively locate his or her position in timespace.

To be continued.

William S. Burroughs class on creative reading (August 10, 1979)

(discussion of Julian Jaynes begins halfway through the recording)

MEM

in anticipation of his master design

My thoughts are like that. Sometimes there're just lost. Or was it something I dreamt or read on facebook? That's surrealism for you, Baby! In the scheme of things it hardly matters. It's here and then it's gone. And after all what's the real difference between something and nothing anyway? Riddle me this! So, yea I had something - some matter of fact - to sit down and blog about. As my near and dear friend Jon Appleton would say, "Dog ass me, Cow shit I know!?" Sometimes it all comes back like I'm recalling a dream from the night before and it's like "O, yea that was it... transcribe, transcribe, transcribe..." So now what are my options? (please note I do, dear reader, hold the treasure of your interest, pleasure, and stimulation paramount in this pursuit) Let's see there's that discussion of what Burroughs calls the 'precambrian' mind I've been meaning to explore, my new paintings (see above), then there's that little thing with Steve K and I, hey did you know I'm actually seeing a Dentist? Finally gonna get that cracked tooth fixed! What else? I could access a thousand ideas along the curve of timespace. Explain the past by looking into the present. Predict the future. Complain about my failures. Allude to my accomplishments. Talk about the Weather. Cropcircles. Drug reference. Pontificate. Enunciate. Recall dreams from years past. Speculate on a variable Speed of Light. Converse with the Noosphere. Detail a Singularity. Supersymmetry isn't that Queer? Parallel Park in a Universe of Past Lives - or - Just publish the pic. Forget Everything. Come Back Later. My minds a blank. O well.

MEM

- Posted by mem using BlogPress from iPhone

Life Story: Abridged

I am born into the pagan rites of spring. Family goes fundamentalist wacko. Yet I can never help ponder the mysteries. I blow my cousin at 16. I fall in love at 21. I'm heart broken at 22. I move to the Frisco coast. I drop acid. Lovely Bohemia. Then at 27 I've got a habit. I kick and move back east. I fall in love again. I find an ego. I build a career. And it's really something now isn't it? I build another auxiliary career. I buy a real fixer upper. Both careers stacked firmly against the other tumble like playing cards. I struggle for an identity. I pick up the pieces.  

MEM

...And there's more to that story

One For the Time Being

For the Time Being, I'll do whatever I can do...

That night, I don't know if you knew.

I finish a few deep inhales on a joint...

Drifting in I hear this melody.

Peering into a darkened room...

Donna sitting on a cranberry-settee watching MTV.

It's the first time I see you...

I'm in the balcony at the ORPHEUM.

I sense the displeasure of the goths...

Next I'm up-front at the WARFIELD without any shoes.

Dosed on Peyote Buttons I travel 3 days... 

Much later I'm there at MAMA KIN'S another face in the crowd.

I throw a paisley shirt on stage which you promptly kick off...  

At the KNITTING ROOM I never said hello.

My brother and I stand in the background of that photograph...

On route to BOWERY BALLROOM I'm stranded by the side of the highway.

That night you weren't there...

I send a small black-n-white booklet of etchings to S.W. EDEN.

We're standing around chit-chatting at the PARADISE... 

At the IRVING PLAZA I find my way backstage.

At the 'after party' I feel so fucking lost...  

Outside the TUPELO you're legs are getting badly bitten by mosquitoes.

I travel east towards the ocean...

At the ARMORY I'm such a fucking mess.

  

I see the half-moon shining behind your silhouette...

We toke on another joint at the JUPITER LOUNGE.

And then drive a long way home...

MEM

ERE I AM J.H.

No body reads this shit anymore.

Oh, excuse me. I didn't mean you! Seriously, with all the shit you've got going on, man -- I'm referring to the generic you btw who I can spontaneously assume is -- you!! Because if that isn't true, I'd be inclined to get to know you... but then again that you isn't be reading this, now are you? I always imagined I'd be 'discovered' (and no ladies and gents I ain't willing to  throw in the towel on that one, sorry). For eleven years I sat in that studio covered in mineral spirits and toxic enamel oils completely despondent and absolutely elated with what I had accomplished (most likely in equal measures) and I could always see you walking through my studio door. The hushed silence. The nervous tension. The slow and steady acclimation. The sudden rush of awareness. The stunned look of amazement. The rapturous beauty. Another stunned look of amazement. More rapturous beauty, right down to the check being signed and the dinner plans penciled in.

Such a delightful fool am I. 

I cannot say that I haven't experienced success as a painter. As I recall there was a lot of clamor at 'Art School' about that word 'success' most if not all of those discussions I remember feeling were futile, pointless, or contrived. For something to make 'sense' to me then it had to be indescribable. It had to feel intense... There weren't many other descriptors other than 'cool' in my lexicon. And why should there be? After all IT is all intense and IT is all beyond description. What kind of ARTIST would I be if I expected anything less? I expect I should have no less remorse than the mother who spends the majority of her workday away from her child so she can, you know, earn a 'living' while along she knows the ends will never meet. And she like I have accepted our fate to a certain degree, yet we both still entertain the idea...  there's a higher purpose. 

I cannot expect that I would know...

...this purpose for myself is an abstract idea. The only context that I would assume it could be in is the context of a majorettive global collective identity!! But what does that look like?? Have you seen the Walrus? If you have, then think it could look something like that. If it has a form it could only be described by fractal geometry!? If it had substance or meaning then that could only be what it was imbued with?! I am sure this cannot be proven to be true. And I am sure I would have no better descriptor other than... cool!!

MEM

Homeward James

On way to work

When I think about all the 'things' that I am, I am grateful that I am really none of them. So, here I am the Nightwatchman with my watchful eye, watching the emptiness. Flashlight in hand I wander down dark hallways through spooky shadows and corridors keeping the perimeter clear. Nights move-bye quick. My ritual begins. Outside I ponder at stars remembering when I could locate Drako and Booties. I think of escaping through the woods, making it to the cost and then sailing to Costa Rica. There I would ingest Ayahausca and head South towards the temples. Meanwhile, I am back at my desk. I sip hot chocolate and then type letters out on a tiny handheld screen. Some of these words are finished for me, capitalization is a dream all my "i's" are now "I's" my punctuation more presentable to... who? Another round and few sarcastic remarks exchanged only those on graveyard will appreciate. But I am not this, either. Back inside I return to my desk, pulling out the larger machine I will compose a letter.

MEM

Location:James Terrace,Woburn,United States

Recycled Perspective

A virtual presence is better than no presence at all. Out here in the NETHERSPHERE I contemplate the meaning of meaning, 'good luck' with that some disembodied voice chimes in... 'exactly' i say... So the point for todays blog (btw ladies and gents I have every intention to re-engage blogging on a semi-daily basis and high expectations that i will fail so the chances for success are good!) is undifferention or undifferentiated space, the singularity, unified field... call it what you will, you see these concepts play an integral part in shaping our/my connexion to the greater good, the larger whole, the infinite, divine, the rapturous, even the melancholy and beyond...

Ok, so we're here today in the 21st century, it's a Tuesday, party sunny mid 70's -- the here n now, but look hard n long enough -- and this here n now will become undifferentiated, indistinct from any other here n now, for all time, for all centuries, for ever terrestrial being that has ever existed on Mt. Gia, we are the same... it's a tangible experience just beyond reach... it's a sensation, a beckoning to some higher plane of understanding... something every human is innately wired to understand -- yet not every switch has been flipped... Capacity will always exceed ability, the fundamental essence of the design code... contact that, identify with that... and ask yourself who's life means more than another life... right down the macro-cosmic slide passing every phylum and kingdom along the way...

Genetically human to human variation is less than 0.5% yet no two snow flakes are quite alike. Yet the cause or meaning of individuality must somehow not predominately be a factor of genetic differentiation... the odds would seem to suggest otherwise. So this innate similarity might suggest what?? A brotherhood between all men? A common collective experience? If so then we might expect to  observe cyclic nature, look at the Mayan Calendar... or the Zodiac... or the I Ching... or the TAROT... every system describes the same 'experience' in relationship to that system. If we existed at the hight of Mayan civilization - it is the parameters of experience that would shift, not necessarily the human experience...

MEM

Nethersphere

It's all neither here nor there. Here's my process: wake-up; goto sleep. wake-up; drive to work; drive home; goto sleep. There are subtle deviations, shades and sometimes even very bright variations to this routine, but for the time being that's it. And what's worse sometimes what seems to occupy the 'in-between time' of these varying extremes matters even less and less. Is this a problem? Let's say I manage to accomplish a shit-load of work and feel very grand or even a little inflated about what I've written or painted, blogged, designed, whatever - how does this contribute any more or less to my process? I'm sure the answer will come to me in my sleep.

postscript: the hunter-gather of antiquity may have not shared the same existential dilemma , although perhaps troubled by dreams of charging saber-toothed tigers, his/her bounty was measured by the warmth of the fire in his cave, and the bear meat in his belly.  Similarly, hearing myself vent all this pseudo-nonsense gives me ample insight into my own un-satiated needs and my somewhat desperate attempts of placing this all in the context of a 'higher purpose'.   

I can sit here and babble as long as I like, but the script is all linear. I believe a revolving pictorial symbolic-system is much more effective in communicating meaning. The abstract connection between non-pictorial language and that which it represents, I think is the basis for much of our species alienation from nature. It's like we're engaged in a constant game of Tetris - everything is always falling around us and we're desperately trying to stack it all up for time runs out.

The best example to describe the semiotic disparity I often feel trying to connected to this 'greater whole' is summarized best by the semi-inquisitive question knocked around, "Do you believe in God?" Of course my reply is always non-sensical, but profound (in as much as I believe it is): "God is a three letter word." To define its literal meaning reaching back to Catechism is helpful where 'god' is defined as all knowledge, all power, and all presence. So, it is clear from this perspective that a god cannot be devisable, there can be no 'thing', 'aspect' or 'position' which is not 'GOD' accordingly.

The essence of what I'm getting at here, is that we seek to understand understanding as we understand it. What's unseen or unrealized is not inherently embraced in our social or cultural paradigm by anyone other than those who dare peer behind the veil.

MEM

On the Cloud

"'Ere I am J.H." Know what it's like to get a song stuck in your head? I visualized the post hours ago driving home from 3rd shift - and it's maybe alright something to the effect absolutely nothing like what I had in mind. I've been off fuckin facebook (and I remember something about a new perspective enabling a less cynical bla bla bla) and for that matter off-line for about a year - and let me fucking tell you did that FEEL gooood!!! 

I'm on the cloud, man. And the cloud wants information to be free... dig it? 

What a trip. On the cloud you're like on 24/something. You could almost say it's a premonition - but hey I'm not that pretentious... So, yea fuck this is what happens give the boy an iphone... and LQQK... now if I can just stay off the porn...

Goddess Love & Goodness Bless,

MEM

Media Mind's Eye

MEM23

The collective conscious informs my meme; I shall need all things.

Corporate capitalism has deforested the garden; made sick oil slick seas.

Your technology is upgradable; on the cloud information wants to be free.

Even though I am still employed at $11.45 hr; I fear the root of all evil in a big way. My debt is always with me; Apple's iphone and ipod, they comfort me.

The drive-thru is open 24 hrs; despite my better judgement.

Verizon bombards my head with radiation, and I've gone over my minutes days ago.

Surely I will not out-live my student loans, and I dwell in this house until Bank foreclosure or tax sale.

Echo Lake

Our excursion through the Kangamangus Highway on Monday, June 29, 2011 began the day before, inspired by views of Lake Winnipesaukee. Riding North towards the Notch is like being inside some kind of a dream on this perfect summers day, in fact traveling this route of Northern New Hampshire is often reoccurring in my dreams.

[caption id="attachment_30" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Winnipesaukee"][/caption]

As we approach Franconia the terrane becomes more surreal, the trees greener and smaller, the sky deeper and larger. Turning of the Highway to the visitor center for the "Old Man of the Moutain" (which nature reclaimed May 3, 2003) we are pleased to discover the first of several memorial sculptures where dedicated only weeks before. The sculpture gives one the impression when viewed at a particular angle what the man himself looked like up there on the cliff before he slid down... The idea behind this memorial is very keen. There had been some talk of 'rebuilding' the man, as New Hampshire's identity was in crisis. The eight bevels align five or so miniature representations of 'rock' all of which culminate when viewed 'just so'.

The day finishes of with a sweet spot as we pull off for gas and are greeted with a small mural paying homage to Betty and Barney Hill, somewhat notorious abducties in the 1960's.

[caption id="attachment_28" align="alignright" width="150" caption="New Sculptures"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_25" align="alignright" width="179" caption="Old Man of the Mountain "Re-dux""][/caption]





[caption id="attachment_22" align="alignleft" width="143" caption="Myself, and my sister Stephanie"][/caption]


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone