Tuesday, September 06, 2011

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.   

Saturday, August 20, 2011

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.  

Sunday, August 14, 2011

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.

(discussion of Julian Jaynes begins halfway through the recording)

MEM

Thursday, August 11, 2011

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

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

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

Saturday, July 30, 2011

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

Friday, July 29, 2011

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



Thursday, July 28, 2011

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