Hope

Image by Shepard Fairey.

Here is a link (posted without comment) to a Wired feature on street artist Shepard Fairey, who has been hired by the Obama campaign to create images for their theme "hope."

The Return of History

Commentary by Richard Estes on the recent, unsanctioned market interventions by the US govt:

the global neoliberal era that commenced in the late 1970s, implemented by figures like Reagan, Thatcher, Pinochet and Deng Xiaoping, among others, is now officially over

in the short term, investors and the financial sector will be winners, having pocketed outsized returns, bonuses and transactions fees, with a government backstop, but, in the mid to long term, they will be losers, as the consequences of their actions are visited upon us

it might be called, "The Return of History", in juxtaposition to Fukuyama's famous declaration, "The End of History", in the early 1990s

class conflict is going to return with a vengence, when people realize that they are being brutally subjected to the discipline of a market administered by politicians and corporations that not only exempt themselves from it, but require everyone else to pay for their mistakes

You can read more of Estes' commentary at his blog American Leftist.

Looking for a New York Reading!

One of Harold Jaffe's scheduled readings in NY, at the Brooklyn Public Library, had to cancel because of withdrawal of city funds!

He will be in NY between Oct 8-13, reading at the KGB Bar on October 10, but he's looking for another reading venue to replace the cancelled Brooklyn Library reading. Can any NY fans help?

SARTRE ON LIVING IN NAZI OCCUPIED FRANCE

WE HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FREE AS UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION.  We had lost every right, and above all the right of speech:  we were insulted every day and we had to remain silent;  we were deported as laborers, as jews, as political prisoners;  everywhere, on the walls, in the newspapers, and on the screen, we saw the foul and listless face which our oppressors wanted to give us.  Because of all of this we were free.  Since the Nazi venom penetrated our very thoughts, every true thought was a victory.  Since an all powerful police tried to force us to be silent, each word became as precious as a declaration of principle.  Since we were hounded, every one of our movements had the importance of commitment.  The often atrocious circumstances of our struggle had at last put us in a position to live our life without pretences--to live in this torn, unbearable condition which we call the human condition.  Exile, captivity, and above all death, which is ably disguised in periods of happiness, became the perpetual object of our concern; we discovered that they were not inevitable accidents or even constant but external threats:  they had become our lot, our destiny, the source of our reality as men.  Each second we fully realized the meaning of that trite little phrase "All men are mortal."

--Jean Paul-Sartre.  From his essay, "The Republic of Silence."

Harold Jaffe San Diego U-T interview

Hal's interview (published Sunday, 9/7/08) can be found online here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080907/news_1a07view.html

Always war

As a preliminary contribution:

"There is a War" by Leonard Cohen

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn't.

Why don't you come on back to the war, that's right, get in it,
why don't you come on back to the war, it's just beginning.

Well I live here with a woman and a child,
the situation makes me kind of nervous.
Yes, I rise up from her arms, she says "I guess you call this love";
I call it service.

Why don't you come on back to the war, don't be a tourist,
why don't you come on back to the war, before it hurts us,
why don't you come on back to the war, let's all get nervous.

You cannot stand what I've become,
you much prefer the gentleman I was before.
I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control,
I didn't even know there was a war.

Why don't you come on back to the war, don't be embarrassed,
why don't you come on back to the war, you can still get married.

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the left and right,
a war between the black and white,
a war between the odd and the even.

Why don't you come on back to the war, pick up your tiny burden,
why don't you come on back to the war, let's all get even,
why don't you come on back to the war, can't you hear me speaking?

What type of "Artist in Wartime" are you?

Traditional Battlefield-Style Warfare?


War Re-enactment?


War metaphors?


Cold War?


Guerilla War?


War of Words?

War of Wills?


War as "hot, man-on-man action"?


Submissions are now being accepted for Fiction International's "The Artist in Wartime" issue.

Guernica

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who, if he is a painter, has only eyes, if he's a musician has only ears, if he's a poet has a lyre in each chamber of his heart, or even if he's a boxer, just muscles? On the contrary, he is at the same time a political being, constantly alert to the heart-rending stirring or unpleasant events of the world, taking his own complexion from them. How would it be possible to dissociate yourself from other men; by virtue of what ivory nonchalance should you distance yourself from the life which they so abundantly bring before you? No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It is an instrument for offensive and defensive war against the enemy.

Pablo Picasso, Les Lettres Francaises, March 1945

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle

General, your tank
is a powerful vehicle
it smashes down forests
& crushes a hundred men.
but it has one defect:
it needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful
it flies faster than a storm
& carries more than an elephant.
but it has one defect:
it needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly & he can kill.
but he has one defect:
He can think.

Bertolt Brecht (February 10, 1898 – August 14, 1956) was a Marxist dramatist, stage director and poet.

Post via erasmuspc

I have been here

The following photographs are the work of Iranian artist Tooraj Khamenehzadeh, from his series, I have been here.

Art of the First World War

Otto Dix, Selbstbildnis als Soldat (Self-Portrait as a Soldier), 1914, ink and watercolour on paper, on both sides, 68 x 53.5 cm, Municipal Gallery, Stuttgart.

The aim of this exhibition is not to review the facts of the war, but to show how they were portrayed by artists on either side of the front line, and indicating the difficulties involved. Amongst the millions of conscripts there were painters of every nationality and every school of painting. Those who were born around the year 1880 belonged to the generation that was called up immediately on the outbreak of war. The war held no secrets for men such as these – they were the ones who did the fighting. Boccioni, Macke, Marc, La Fresnaye and Gaudier-Brzeska died during, or as a consequence of, the war. Only the citizens of neutral countries (for example the Spanish nationals Picasso and Gris) were not called up. Many enlisted out of patriotism or because they could not bear to be away from the action. Until now, with very few exceptions, artists and writers had witnessed wars without actually becoming involved. In 1914, for the first time, they all had to take part: Germans, Britons, Italians, Austro-Hungarians and Frenchmen. Léger became a stretcher-bearer, Kokoschka a cavalryman, Beckmann a medic, Derain an artilleryman, Camoin a camoufleur, Dix a machine-gunner. Many of them drew and painted what they saw and lived through. From the sketchbooks of pencil drawings done at the front to the canvases painted on returning home, theirs is an intense and accurate testimony.

And yet, many of these works have been little researched, if not altogether forgotten. Because they recalled painful memories they were not much looked at once the war was over. Even the men who painted them - with the crucial exception of Otto Dix - had grown away from their work, and made no attempt to exhibit them. For example, Beckmann and Léger were no sooner demobbed than they set to work painting very different subjects, such as contemporary life and the city. Others went even further in making a fresh start. Among those who were called up were Braque and Derain, who left Avignon station together on August 2nd 1914 to join their regiments, accompanied by Picasso. Braque took part in the fighting during that autumn and winter. He was seriously wounded on May 11th 1915, was trepanned and, after a long convalescence, returned to his workshop a year later. He left not a single drawing or canvas alluding to what he had been through and no representation of the war is present in his work. Derain was attached to an artillery unit and served in the Champagne region, at Verdun, on the Somme, and on the Chemin des Dames until 1917. He was not demobilised until after the armistice. Of this five year period there remains no trace, apart from the title of one painting, the Cabaret on the Front seen by André Breton in Derain's studio in 1921, but which disappeared and was probably destroyed. Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff and Kokoschka also refrained from painting what they had seen and experienced...

Nevertheless, new art works did appear, and in larger numbers than might be expected. They expressed violence, fear, exaltation, suffering, pity and disgust. They appealed to the persistence of the human conscience at a time when it was being enslaved and ignored by war. Some of the older ones, those most set in their old ways, tried to do this with the tools of pictorial realism handed down from the previous century. They observed biplanes, artillery guns and soldiers in close detail, and equally methodically reproduced what they saw. Illusion and illustration were their main resources. However, their themes, being all about movement, speed and the instant, were bound to suffer from being fixed as if suspended in a still picture. These works still have their documentary value however, which today is heightened by their picturesqueness from another age.

Younger painters trained during the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, attempted combinations which nowadays we find surprising, such as bright, sharp colours and macabre subjects, or cut-out shapes and white light. Whether they were painting the ruins of a bombed-out church, a mountain artillery post or two bodies lying forgotten in a trench, Vallotton in Argonne, Horovitz in the Alps and Orpen on the Somme introduced purple shadows, sinuous lines and Japanese-inspired flat tints - as if it were still possible, a quarter of a century on, faithfully to apply the lessons of Gauguin and the Nabis...

The artists belonging to the European avant-garde movements - the German Expressionists, French Cubists, Italian Futurists and British Vorticists - rejected once and for all the rules which had previously governed the painting of battle scenes. They worked to overcome the difficulties involved in devising new themes and methods suited to the monstrous new reality. Those methods were largely those of Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism and Abstract Art. In May 1915, Léger was in Argonne from where he wrote to a friend: "All the same, it is a funny kind of war (...) This war is the perfect orchestration of every means of killing, both old and new. It is intelligent to its fingertips, which actually makes it damned annoying as there are no more surprises. We are controlled on either side by very talented people. It's as linear and as arid as a geometry problem. Such a large number of shells in such a short time over such a surface area, so many men per metre and in order at the specified time, it is all triggered off mechanically. It is pure abstraction, much purer even than Cubist Painting "itself". I can't deny my allegiance to this method (...)" (6). In devastated Verdun, he discovered "completely unexpected subjects to gladden (his) Cubist soul" (7). Drawings and watercolours are the satisfactory result of these new contacts. Léger portrays dehumanised automata serving the machines that crushed them. He brings out the collapsed shapes of his ruins and the broken lines of a shot-down plane.

Dix, Nevinson, Severini, Wyndham Lewis, Nash and Grosz also came to understand that modern warfare needed to be painted in a modern way. The time for heroic realism and patriotic allegory was up. To interpret the explosions of shells, the all-powerful artillery and total war demanded transcripts and not imitations. In order to convey a feeling of its inhuman violence, rather than represent the particular details of the battle, lines had to be broken, and colours had to burst out.

From the website The Art of the First World War

Harold Jaffe, in Rain Taxi

Author Harold Jaffe just posted an interview he did with Larry Fondation for Rain Taxi, which is being published Summer 2008. In it he defines 'docufiction,' discusses his newest docufictions, and offers observations about contemporary society. An excerpt:

Official culture's facility to deceive is infinitely more advanced than in the Sixties. Successful revolutionary models are either not represented or brazenly misrepresented. And Americans are trained to rely on official representations far more than on their unmediated experiences.

Among other lies, we are told that the worldwide student revolt in '68 was a failure, that revolution as such has lost its purchase, when in truth revolution and the ethical dissent which leads to revolution are ongoing, perennial.

Pornography... and Censorship

Editor Harold Jaffe just posted a 1992 interview he did about Fiction International's Pornography & Censorship issue. The interview, conducted by Janice Wynborne of KPBS Radio, highlighted the difficulty of conducting an "adult" conversation about what consitutes pornography in our society.

The issue is still for sale - and, in fact, is now 50% off. See http://www.fictioninternational.com for more details.

Harold Jaffe's "Revolutionary Brain"

Here's another docufiction from Harold Jaffe's latest collection, Orfeo, called "Revolutionary Brain":


It has emerged that the brains of three leading members of the violent revolutionary group, the Red Army Faction (RAF), including its co-founder, Andreas Baader, have disappeared after being preserved for scientific research.

*

The grisly revelation comes just days after the twin daughters of Ulrike Meinhof, the other RAF founder, finally won permission to have her brain returned for burial.

*

Meinhof's brain was extracted after her alleged suicide in jail in 1976, but for years its whereabouts remained a mystery.

*

Last month it was revealed that the brain had been secretly preserved in a scientific laboratory in Frankfurt.

*

The RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, began a campaign of political killings and kidnappings of senior business leaders in the 1970s aimed at overthrowing the German state which they called "Nazi capitalism."

*

Meinhof allegedly hanged herself in her cell in Stuttgart's Stammheim Prison on May 9, 1976; her comrades Baader, Ensslin and Raspe were found dead in their cells in Stammheim Prison on "Death Night," October 18, 1977.

*

The official report states that Baader and Raspe shot themselves to death and Ensslin hanged herself.

*

The Red Army Faction cell block had been touted as the most secure prison block in the world; the press was filled with accounts of lawyers interrogated and searched for an hour or more before being admitted to visit their clients.

*

When it was announced that Baader and Raspe shot themselves with guns smuggled into their cells, it was cynically assumed that the authorities assassinated them, as well as Ensslin and very possibly Meinhof the year before.

*

Their dead bodies were promptly autopsied and their brains extracted and donated to "Science."

*

Gottschalk König, CEO of the Neurological Research Institute of Heidelberg University where initial tests were done, admitted that he could not account for the whereabouts of the brains.

*

They might have been moved to make way for other organs and finally burned, he said, but he would not rule out theft.

*

Now Ulrike Meinhof's brain has suddenly reappeared, in the possession of a medical pathologist who insisted on anonymity.

*

The anonymous pathologist said that Meinhof's brain surgery in 1962 in which a benign lesion was removed very likely contributed to her becoming one of Europe's most feared urban guerrillas.

*

Her slide into "terror" would then be explained by her brain illness.

*

Moreover, the anonymous pathologist claimed that clinical tests on Ulrike Meinhof's brain soon after her death cast doubt on her fitness to stand trial.

*

Meinhof was considered the intellectual head of the Red Army Faction, a left-wing revolutionary group that spread fear across West Germany in the 1970s and into the 1980s, after her death.

*

The anonymous pathologist confirmed that he carried out the research on Meinhof's brain over the last ten years primarily in a laboratory in Frankfurt.

*

He told a news conference on Tuesday that he gained possession of the brain in 1997 after applying for permission to examine it.

*

Previously it was held by a Stuttgart neurologist named Muehl who had conducted the autopsy after her suicide.

*

The anonymous pathologist said that although there may have been other factors, the brain surgery in 1962 could have led to behavioral changes that turned Meinhof from a talented and ambitious journalist to co-founder of the revolutionary Red Army Faction.

*

The RAF carried out a campaign of killings and bombings against leading industrial figures beginning in the 1970s.

*

Many of those figures had been influential Nazis in the Third Reich.

*

The anonymous pathologist’s involvement came to light last week, when Meinhof's twin daughters, in a law suit, insisted that her mother's brain was removed without the family's permission.

*

Meinhof's twin daughters have also filed a criminal complaint against the anonymous pathologist, accusing him of disturbing the peace of the dead.

*

They are seeking to have the brain buried with their mother's remains in Berlin.

*

But the latest revelations indicate the medical authorities also had a morbid fascination with the revolutionary killers.

*

An unauthorized plaster death mask of Andreas Baader had evidently been made by one of the anonymous pathologist's medical team who had mixed his own semen with the plaster.

*

The anonymous pathologist claims not to know who was responsible.

*

German authorities were said to be conducting DNA tests to uncover which of
the anonymous pathologist's medical team's semen was involved in Baader's death mask.

*

Andreas Baader was a telegenic Brando-type bad boy who had turned to political terrorism for the methamphetamine-like rush it gave.

*

The news of the plaster and semen death mask of Andreas Baader comes amid official concerns that a series of recent videos about the violent 1970s have portrayed the terrorist killers as pop icons.

*

Celebrations of revolutionary violence unsettle German authorities who are always on the lookout for a resurgence of Nazism.

*

Prosecutors are now examining documents from the time of Meinhof's death to establish how her brain came to be preserved for 30 years and whether any offence was committed.

*

After the Revolution

MLF With Bad Nosejob Gets Huge Cum Facial 3 Blow Job WMVs
Teen Slut Swallowing Globs Of Hot Nut Butter 4 Latina MPEGs
Blonde & Jap Swap Ass Cum 3 Anal And Ass MPEGs
Vintage Sex Vids & Big Hairy Bushes 3 Amateur MPEGs
Pee Lovin Chick Asks For Mo' 4 Piss WMVs
Mex Babe Spreads Pink & Gets Meatstick 3 Hardcore MPEGs
Kinky Shaved Chubber Whips Her Whip 6 Big Tits WMVs
Thick Latina Pissed Then Boned 3 Hardcore MPEGs
MILF In Pantyhose Gets Phat Ass Stuffed 4 Mature Ladies WMVs
Big Mamma Wraps Her Boobs Round A Stiffy 6 BBW WMVs
Shaven Head Babe Takes Cock for the Rock 4 Hardcore MPEGs
Cougar Stalks Son's Pal & Fucks Him With Strapon 5 MPEGs
Hardcore Electrical Lesbo Bondage 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Dominatrix Drills Fem Slaves Snatch 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Bound, Gagged & Helpless 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
2 Young Cunts A'Cookin In The Kitchen 6 Fetish/Bizarre WMVs
Texas Twins Dip Their Honeypots in a Bubble Bath 2 WMVs
Babe Tossing Her Man's Salad 3 Fetish/Bizarre MPEGs
Samantha Slurps Every Last Drop Of Goo 4 Porn Stars MPEGs
Tiny Titted Megan Takes Two Big Dicks In Pooper 3 Latina MPEGs
Bianca Pornstar BJ, Piss & Browneye 3 Porn Stars WMVs
Lesbo Amateurs Squirm In Threesome 4 Lesbian MPEGs
Fisting Hard A Shaved Wet Puss 4 Fetish/Bizarre WMVs
Slutty Granny Does Herself With Baseball Bat 4 WMVs
Twelve Dudes Jizz On Blondes Face 3 Cum Shots MPEGs
Cheating Wives Do It For $$ 4 Amateur WMVs
Monster Black Cock Gives Pearl Necklace 3 Inter-Racial MPEGs
Mature Brit Bitch Milks Black Cock 4 Inter-Racial MPEGs
Lesbo Threesome Chain Pussy Licking 4 Lesbian WMVs
College Babes Fucking Sex Machines 3 Young Ladies WMVs
Two Muscle Bears Eating Each Other's Ass 5 Gay MPEGs
Horny Tranny Pleasures Two Studs 4 Trans WMVs
Roughneck Irish Man Jacks His Cock 6 Gay MPEGs
Naive Blonde Giving Backseat Blowjob 4 Cum Shots MPEGs
Ebony Plump Rumps Getting Humped By Horsedick 8 MPEGs
Phat Slut Tugs On Cock Till She Gets Her Face Painted 3 MPEGs
Stranger Licks Granny's Snatch In Graveyard 4 Hardcore MPEGs
Phat MLF Boned Hard On Bar Stool 6 Mature Ladies MPEGs
Cutie Daphaney Gets A Long Hard Bonin 4 hardcore WMVs
Tiny Asian Girls Smoke Huge Cigars 4 Inter-Racial WMVs
Kinky Lesbo Powerplay 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Uh-Oh A Dominatrix Wearing Glasses 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Chick In Chains Gets Her Snatch Stretched 6 Fetish WMVs
3 Young Babes Play With Mud 4 Young Ladies MPEGs
Tranny Porks Her Eager Boyfriend 6 Trans WMVs
Brunette & Redhead Trade Anal Creampie 5 Anal And Ass MPEGs
Wifey With Huge Melons Facialized 3 Big Tits WMVs
Skinny Goth Does Gloryhole In Raunchy Loo 2 Blow Jobs WMVs
Kristina Flashing 32ddds In Convenience Store 4 Big Tits WMVs
Asian Beaver Balling Big Dick 9 Asian WMVs
Anime Hardcore Action 6 Anime MPEGs
Milf And Young Hottie Share A Big Cock 3 Hardcore MPEGs
Hot Pigtail Pisses Boyfriend 3 Hardcore MPEGs
White Boys Work Over Busty Nubian 3 Inter-Racial MPEGs
Nice Nanny Gets Rammed In The Browneye 5 Hardcore WMVs
Wrinkly Phat Granny Drilled On Barstool 3 Mature Ladies MPEGs
Mesh Covered Ebony Gangbanged By Rednecks 3 Black MPEGs
Tiny Little Ripe Rump Slathered In Cream 3 Young Ladies MPEGs
Indian Chick Gobbles Three Dudes Creamy Curry 4 Asian WMVs
Twink & Bear In Raunchy Suck N Fuck 6 Gay WMVs
Busty Pregnant Babe Gets Her Milk Pumped 4 Fetish WMVs
Sperm Spitting Bukkake Fetish Panic 4 Asian WMVs
Euro MMF Cumshot Extravaganza 3 Group WMVs
Hot Brunette Gets Nasty Rimjob 3 Anal And Ass MPEGs
Blonde Pigtail Chick Getting Monster Facial 4 Young Ladies WMVs
Mature Street Skank Plays Suck And Tell 3 Hardcore WMVs
Slave Slut Gets It In Bdsm Dungeon 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Chubby Using Toes To Diddle Hard Cock To Cum 4 BBW WMVs
Asian Squatting & Peeing 4 Fetish/Bizarre WMVs
Dutch & German Milk Enemas 5 Fetish/Bizarre WMVs
Naughty Girl Spanked & Pissed 4 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Big Breasted Jane In Titty Torments 6 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Wrestler Gets Cameltoe Puss Licked 6 Lesbian WMVs
High School Hotshot Bones Bubble Booty Cheerleader 5 WMVs
Petite Lisa Loves Black Ghetto Cock 3 Inter-Racial WMVs
Preggo Babe Squirting Hot Milk From Nips 4 Amateur WMVs
Poon Hounds Jacking Clits And Puss Squirting 4 Lesbian MPEGs
Peeing Amateur Filmed By Voyeur Cam 4 Voyeur MPEGs
Crazy voyeur Creaming On Sleeping Girl Boobs 5 Voyeur MPEGs
Hentai Girl Getting Pussy Hammered 4 Anime MPEGs
Natasha 3 Porn Stars MPEGs
Cute Redhead Jerks Sperm From A Cock 4 Cum Shots MPEGs
Zitty Bitch Rides The Sybian 4 Amateur MPEGs
Exploited Chick Forced To Swallow Monster Dong 3 Cum Shots MPEGs
Hairy Bus Driver Gets Good Student Pussy 3 Young Ladies MPEGs
Goth Babe Gets Ass Slammed And Gaped 4 Anal And Ass MPEGs
Naughty Blonde Licks Black Guys Ass 4 Inter-Racial MPEGs
Ass Worship Facesitting 3 Fetish/Bizarre WMVs
Lady Sonia Ass-Smothering 5 Bondage/BDSM WMVs
Sweet Tiny Pornstar Monalisa Doggiestyle 4 Young Ladies MPEGs
Creamy Nurse In Homemade Hardcore 4 Amateur MPEGs
Petite Chicks Swapping Cum 4 Blow Jobs And Cum Shots MPEGs
Young Cutie Gets Double Dicked 7 Anal And Ass WMVs
Milf Double Penetrated In A Threesome 4 Mature Ladies MPEGs
Blonde Cougar In Hardcore Threesome 3 Mature Ladies MPEGs
Cumaholic Babe Doing Deepthroat 5 Fetish/Bizarre MPEGs
3 Jap Chicks Assboned & Creamed 4 Group MPEGs
Housewife Taking A Huge Schlong In Butt 6 Inter-Racial WMVs
First Gay Experience 4 Gay WMVs
Lola Sucks A Priests Holy Rod 3 Porn Stars MPEGs WMVs
Guy Eating Carrot Out Of Her Ass 4 Asian WMVs
Petite Blonde Chewing Mandingo Nuts 4 Inter-Racial MPEGs

Video Writing

Writers, take note -- here's some kick-ass art:



Watch him make his point in 2:20. Notice the quick-cuts which simulate a too-slow-internet-connection effect. Observe his hip-hop presentation -- poetic, with a beat.

Observe, too, how the 2:20 is a complete story, as it is divided into scenes by: 1) a change in camera angle; and 2) Jay Smooth's change in body angle (turning to presumably work on his computer).

All the result of good and thoughtful writing. Genius!

See more at illdoctrine.com.

Herbert Marcuse Documentary

This documentary examines the turbulent life in California of political philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), author of One-Dimensional Man, Reason and Revolution and Eros and Civilization, among other books, professor of philosophy at the University of California San Diego, and a visionary and influential force for the student movement worldwide during the Sixties and Seventies. Blending archival footage, interviews, re- created scenes and voice-over narration, the video profiles not only the life of Marcuse but also the history of student protest and social activism. The video features interviews with Marcuse's student Angela Davis, former UCSD Chancellor William McGill, colleagues Fredric Jameson and Reinhard Lettau, and rare footage of Marcuse and former California Governor Ronald Reagan. Directed by Paul Alexander Juutilainen.

Makes "Reefer Madness" Look Intelligent

Take a look at the government's latest attempt to scare children away from cannabis: http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/stoners/.

The site does convince one that marijuana decreases intelligence -- in drug haters.

Please, send every American to this site. After all, it was paid for entirely by your tax dollars. Remember that the next time you vote for someone like Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens or California Rep. Randall "Top Gun" Cunningham, who treat our government as their personal cash cow and set up fake "wars" so their friends can also enrich themelves at our expense, this is what you are getting for the money.

"Hijab," by Harold Jaffe

Here's a docufiction from Harold Jaffe's latest collection, Orfeo:


French bureaucrat and Muslim teenager at the entrance to the lycée outside Paris.

     Bonjour Mlle.
     You are required to remove your headscarf.

     Bonjour Monsieur.
     I never remove the hijab in public.

     This is a state-supported lycée, Mlle.
     It is not a mosque.
     It is not a souk.
     In France we maintain separation of church and state.
     That is the established policy.

     We understood the established policy to be cohabitation.
     Former colonies are encouraged to cohabit with their benefactors—you white French—with their native customs intact.
     Cohabitation you virtuously opposed to assimilation, such as the United States promotes, where everyone is expected to suppress their native language and staple the American flag to their forehead, indistinguishable one from the other.

     Mlle, the correct opposition is not between cohabitation and assimilation but between a secular state such as we have in France and a theocracy.

     Is the US then a theocracy?

     Without question.


Two global reprobates slouching outside the Bourse, in Paris.

     Who set the Reichstag fire in 1933 and as a consequence facilitated Hitler?

     The Jew.

     Who toppled the World Trade Center in 2001 and as a consequence facilitated Bush?

     The Muslim.

     Who "emigrated mentally" while living unmolested in Nazi Germany and Austria?

     "Aryan" intellectuals and artists.
     With the exception of a very small minority.

     Who, post 9/11, duct-taped US intellectuals and artists into the condominiums of their minds?

     The crusading US government.
     Taking a page from the Red-baiting McCarthy era.
     Even as the US government was apologizing for actual McCarthyism as a shameless departure from capitalist democracy's firmest values.

     The US also apologized for interning Japanese-Americans, then did it all over again with Muslim-Americans.
     9/11 gave them the excuse to reinvent history.

     As farce.

     Farcical genocide.


French bureaucrat and Muslim teenager at the entrance to the lycée outside Paris.

     Mlle, the ordinance is in place.
     Nor does it refer exclusively to Muslims.
     Conspicuous religious items of various kinds are prohibited.
     Jews are forbidden to wear skullcaps.
     Hindus are forbidden to paint their faces.
     Christians are forbidden to wear visible crosses larger than three centimeters.

     Are Catholic nuns forbidden to wear head coverings?

     Catholic nuns would have gone beyond the lycée, Mlle.
     The ordinance does not apply to education beyond the lycée...

     Why not?

     That should be self-evident, Mlle.
     The intention of the ordinance is to instill the ideal of secular education in the young.
     Before religious habits or customs become irreversible.
     Our obligation is to attend to children who enter the French public school system, and the fact is that young Muslim females are often coerced into wearing the headscarf.

     Wearing the hijab is a fundamental principle of Islamic teaching, Monsieur.
     To assert that the hijab is forced on Muslim females is both ignorant and paternalistic.
     The "secularism" you are attempting to impose is to us another sign of intolerance towards the growing Muslim community.

     I refuse to engage in an argument about semantics, Mlle.
     That is the way the ordinance reads.


Two global reprobates slouching outside the Bourse, in Paris.

     When I say hijab what comes to mind?

     The veil.
     Taking the veil.
     Entering the convent.
     France, for example, is proud of its various orders of nuns, "les bonnes soeurs."
     The sisters are picturesque; they don't disrupt the body politic; they have an esthetic dimension.

     Gliding about in their habits noirs.
     Esthetic, bien sur.

     I think too of raising the veil, uncovering.
     Which invokes the practice of clitorectomy or infibulation.
     What percentage of Islamic females worldwide are subjected to this practice?

     Legitimate numbers would be hard to come by.
     I wouldn’t trust whatever estimates the "First World" puts out there.
     What percentage of males worldwide are subjected to circumcision?

     Are clitorectomy and circumcision comparable?

     You tell me.

     Couldn't the veil also be identified with movement induced by natural forces.
     The aeolian harp stroked by the wind.
     Creative imagination without artifice.

     There is artifice in the construction of the harp.
     Winds are increasingly produced by global warming disruptions of the weather cycles.

     What does hijab signify to you?

     The sacred prepuce of its white male leaders.


French bureaucrat and Muslim teenager at the entrance to the lycée outside Paris.

     France--before Sarkozy--officially objected to the invasion of Iraq.
     France objected to Israel's violent annexation of Palestine.
     But what France is doing in its own country to its female Muslim minority is no less prejudicial.

     One thing has nothing to do with another, Mlle.
     The ordinance is unambiguous.
     Islamic females of lycée age are required to remove their head and face coverings while in the lycée or on the grounds of the lycée.
     Once you leave the lycée you may dress and do as you please.
     So long as it is within the law.

     Senegalese and Ivory Coast former subjects of lycée age are not required to remove their dashikis and bubas.
     Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan former subjects of lycée age are not required to remove their kaftans and jubbahs.
     Caribbean former subjects are not required to undo their dreadlocks.
     It is just your orthodox Muslim females of lycée age who are required to remove their hijabs, correct?
     What is it about young Muslim females that intimidates their former colonial occupier?

     You are imagining things, Mlle.
     The official ordinance reads as I indicated.
     I do not propose to argue with you over niceties.


Two global reprobates slouching outside the Bourse, in Paris.

     Except for its Muslims and Jews, France is officially uncircumcised.

     What if someone not Muslim or Jewish elects to be circumcised?

     Unless for reasons of health, which must be officially vetted, he will have to do it outside the law.
     Hijab—as a so-to-speak implied prepuce--can also signify the formal body coverings of its political leaders, graduates of the same elite écoles.
     Have you noticed how indistinguishable France's presidents and prime ministers--Giscard, Pompidou, Mitterand, Chirac—look in their somber double-breasted suits?
     Pale, stiff, fastidious, marmoreal.

     Sarkozy isn't marmoreal.

     Sarkozy is arboreal.

     Was it William James who remarked that the sheerest of veils separates the mundane, agitated, war-making world from the world inhabited by the higher spirits?
     Yet this sheer, transparent veil is so infrequently parted.

     William James was American.
     I don’t read Americans.

     William James's younger brother Henry's platonic version of himself was as un Francais de plaisir.
     The father, Henry senior, was an internationalist and a Swedenborgian.
     Alice James, like Proust, was bedridden.
     Why don't you read Americans?

     They are without history.
     Virtually no lived history from which to draw.

     Is that less privileged than having a long history but drawing the same opportunistic conclusions?

     You mean the French?

     Not exclusively.


French bureaucrat and Muslim teenager at the entrance to the lycée outside Paris.

     Mlle, I will not stand here arguing with you.
     The ordinance is clear.
     If you or any among you wish to dispute it, that must be done formally and lawfully.

     You've repeated lawful several times.
     To you, law precedes justice; to us it is the other way round.
     Isn't it a fact that you formulate then implement laws as you choose, according to your own advantage?
     All the time professing that these laws are immutable, engraved in stone by your Christian god?

     Mlle, I have done my best to be courteous, even as you have insisted on arguing.
     Now you have come dangerously close to blasphemy.
     I hereby terminate this discussion.
     Good day, Mlle.

     You white French fuss about courtesy, which you use to mask your hypocrisy.
     We wonder whether you've considered the repercussions your anti-Islamic ordinance might produce.
     Good day, Monsieur.


Two global reprobates slouching outside the Bourse, in Paris.

     We were discussing the images invoked by the hijab, or veil.
     We've cited nuns; prepuces; the somber formal wear of our leaders; music stirred by the wind; clitorectomy and circumcision; the sheer veil which according to William James separates elevated vision from the every day.
     What about the now-defunct Red Chinese and their Bamboo Curtain?
     The now-defunct Soviets and their Iron Curtain?
     The privileged quartiers of Paris?
     The gated communities globally, with its tiny minority of nervous rich?

     And with its exponentially multiplying oppressed Muslim underclass.
     Enraged and desperate behind their Muslim curtain.
     Which could end up being the most horrific "veil" of all.
     Agreed?

     No.
     I believe the greatest horrors will be inflicted by the other side.

***

A French woman who alleged she had been the subject of an anti-Semitic attack invented the story, police sources now say.

The admission came shortly after the she was taken into custody--four days after the alleged assault on a commuter train south of Paris.

The 24-year-old woman claimed six men accused her of being Jewish, then forcibly cut off her clothes with sharp, long knives and spray-painted swastikas on her nude body.

The woman, who is not Jewish, has been detained for falsely reporting a crime, state prosecutor Didier Merleau-Ponty told AFP news agency.

She could face up to six months in prison and an 8,000-euro ($13,000) fine if convicted.

The case has sparked widespread condemnation amid concerns that anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in France, which of course has a long and sordid history of anti-Semitism.

The men, described as of North African appearance and indeterminate age, are also said to have deliberately upended the woman's 8-month-old infant from its stroller.

The child fell on its head but was reportedly uninjured.

The woman claimed that about 20 people witnessed the attack but that nobody offered her support.

However, investigators, studying footage from surveillance cameras at the Gare d'Austerlitz station where the six alleged North African attackers were supposed to have exited, found no evidence to support the woman’s claim.

Nor has a single witness come forth even after urgent appeals in the newspapers and on television.

Now police sources who requested anonymity say that under "firm questioning" the woman has recanted her accusations. She has admitted cutting off her own clothes and spray-painting the swastikas on her naked body with the help of her boyfriend who is also in custody. Like her, the boyfriend is neither Jewish nor North African, but French and white.

Le Monde, the left-leaning French daily, reports that the same woman had filed several complaints in the past about being the victim of racist or fascist violence.

The reported brutality of the attack on the woman, its anti-Semitic character and the fact that no one came to her help provoked outrage.

It also added to the growing concern over racist and anti-Semitic attacks.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, who condemned the alleged assault as "pitiless and reprehensible," said he would deny clemency to any prisoner serving a sentence for a racist or anti-Semitic crime.

Government spokesman Jean-Francois Irigaray told RTL radio that the rising trend of anti-Semitic attacks was "a genuine evil" in France, even though the woman's case "proved to be imagined rather than real, as such."

JG Ballard Exhibition in Barcelona

Heads up from Boing Boing.

Mark Twain and the (Spanish-American) War

Finally -- nearly 100 years after his death -- the MSM feels brave enough to acknowledge "the man Ernest Hemingway said all of modern American literature could be traced back to," Mark Twain, and how he utilized his art (writing) to thwart war and oppression.

His humor, Arnold sniffed, was "so attractive to the Philistine." It would be truer to say it was attractive to anyone who valued plain speaking and the kind of deadly wit that could cut through the cant and hypocrisy surrounding any topic, no matter how sensitive: war, sex, religion, even race. Twain was righteous without being pious, angry for all the right reasons and funny in all the right ways. You might say he gave virtue a good name.

Contrast this now-reverential endorsement of Twain's wit with NPR's and Fox News' reaction to comedian Al Franken's run for Senate.

Just as in Twain's time, conservatives have a love-hate relationship with artists (love making money off their product, hate their unconventional lifestyles). When it comes to art and politics converging, Americans have always hated the left-of-center artist who becomes involved in political campaigns or causes but love, and even elect, conservative "artist"-politicians.

"Orfeo" by Harold Jaffe

Image via bldg blog

The following is from Harold Jaffe's forthcoming collection Orfeo:

Orfeo
I am of the race that sang under torture.
--Rimbaud

I was about to exit when I felt the heavy hand on my left shoulder.

I knew it would be the left shoulder.

I’d been caught shoplifting the electric razor from WAL* MART.

I was handcuffed then maneuvered through the dazzlingly illuminated aisles, a burly plainclothes security guard on either side.

Shoppers turned to look, perfunctorily.

I caught the eye of a shopper’s child, a small dark-skinned girl.

She gazed at me, alarmed at what she took to be my plight.

Not wanting her to see my manacles, I didn’t wave but winked at her.

She looked uncertain.

I was led into the vast warehouse-like back area.

Seated on the straight-backed aluminum chair with my hands cuffed behind me under the glaring fluorescent light.

The security guard who’d put his heavy hand on my left shoulder wore a large heart-shaped orange nametag on his chest which said WAL* MART.

His head was shaved and he wore a musk-based cologne.

He turned his back to me and spoke into his cellphone.

I heard him say “shoplift.”

He slipped the cell in his pants pocket, turned toward me and held out a wide palm.

“Identification.”

I shook my head.

“Driver’s license, social security card, credit card, something with your contact information?”

I shook my head.

“US citizen?”

I nodded.

“Born in the US or green card?”

I nodded.

“Which is it?” he said.

“Your call,” I said.

He shrugged his heavy shoulders.

“You have a salt and pepper beard.

“That’s what it’s called, right?

“Salt and pepper?

“It’s all over your damned face.

“That’s green card, okay?

“What I want to know is what’s a salt and pepper bearded green card planning to do with a WAL* MART-brand electric razor?”

He took out a toothpick from his shirt pocket and picked at a tooth.

He put the toothpick back in the same pocket.

He said, “You’re not a salt and pepper terrorist, are you?”

I looked up at the sardonic flat face.

“I’ll tell you,” I said.

“If you tell me.”

He rubbed his thick palm on his beardless face, grinning.

“No salt and pepper here, bro.

“Smooth all over like a baby’s ass.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“I’m guessing you’re a baby’s ass who carries a sidearm, right?”

He glared at me then raised his right pants leg just high enough for me to see the ankle holster and semi-automatic.

It looked like a new-model Glock.

I said, “If I tell you I was planning to transform the stolen electric razor into a smart bomb and blow up WAL* MART would you unload on me with your Glock?”

He narrowed his gaze.

“Even a green card shit-eater would know not to even think of stealing from WAL* MART.

“Our security is flat-out number one in the free world.”

“I understood that Target’s security was flat-out number one in the free world,” I said.

“With Costco firmly in the number two slot.”

“Okay. Enough jerking off,” he said.

“You’re in deep shit, green card.

“I don’t think you realize how deep the shit you’re in is.”

“You married?” the other plainclothes security guard asked me unexpectedly, in a loud voice.

He wore a close-to-the-scalp crewcut and WAL* MART nametag and stood behind and to the left of the first guard.

“You have a wife and shit?” he said loudly.

“You look spooky with that beard sticking out your face but you don’t look gay.”

“Are you saying I look gay?” I said.

“I’m saying you look like a freak,” he said.

“A little crazy.

“My guess is you’re married with kids.”

I nodded vaguely.

“Well, congratulations, you just fucked your life up,” the first security guard said.

“How does it feel?”

“You want to know how it feels to fuck my life up?” I said.

They both glared at me.

“Give me your cellphone number and I’ll get back to you.”

“There won’t be any getting back, freak,” the first security guard said.

“Not where your green card ass is going."

They separated me from the chair and marched me, still cuffed, through the back area and outside to one of a series of unmarked orange customized SUVs parked abreast.

It was raining lightly, which for some reason surprised me.

I smelled the ozone.

With one hand on the top of my head I was pushed into the rear of a vehicle.

That was how it was always done on cop TV programs; I never understood why.

The rear was un-windowed and barred with low wooden benches on either side.

They sat me on a bench with my hands cuffed to a steel pole that ran above the bench from front to back.

Whichever WAL* MART security male drove, drove very fast.

I could hear them talking on their cells or listening to talk radio and wisecracking.

After about an hour the SUV stopped and they got out.

Ten minutes later they were back with fast food; I smelled the burgers and fries and heard them eat.

Even eating they drove recklessly fast, veering from lane to lane on the freeway.

After some time the driving changed and it felt like we were out of the city.

After another hour or so they stopped.

One of them separated me from the steel pole, relocked my cuffs and pushed me outside.

It was dusk, raining harder.

We were in front of a bunker-like concrete structure, in what looked like a deserted lot with tall weeds and rocks.

I couldn’t see clearly in the rain, but the structure looked as if it was built into the ground.

Two burly males in uniform grey shirts, pants and caps emerged from the structure.

They weren’t wearing nametags.

No words were exchanged between them and the WAL* MART males, who backed up then drove off rapidly

The two uniform males said nothing as they transported me in a freight elevator underground.

The elevator traveled slowly and I felt the air changing.

When the elevator opened, they put leg-irons around my ankles.

“Aren’t you going to remove my shoelaces?” I said.

“I tried to shoplift an electric razor from WAL* MART.

“I might want to hang myself.”

They ignored me.

They pushed me through a narrow corridor of cave-like cells which may or may not have been occupied.

They locked me in a small, low-ceilinged cell at the end of the corridor.

All around was the damp sweet-sour stench of earth.

“Have to pee,” I said as they were leaving.

“Your prob,” one of them said over his shoulder.

I shuffled to a corner of the cell and peed.

Then I removed my shoes and sat semi-cross-legged (the leg-irons impeded me) on the dirt floor against the wall in the opposite corner.

After a time I slept.

I dreamed of eight bighorned sheep-like animals cropping--or trying to crop--the hardscrabble grass.

The horned sheep moved with extreme caution even though no hunters were in sight. Close-up, the animals’ faces were bruised, even torn, with caked blood and what looked like rough sutures .

I was thinking--in the dream--about the number eight.

Why were there precisely eight of the gentle beasts?

I was awakened by a female voice haranguing me through the bars of the cell.

It was my wife; I wondered how she knew I was here.

I opened my eyes partially and rattled my leg irons but otherwise didn’t move.

She demanded why I would try to steal an electric razor from WAL* MART.

She said the cell stank of piss.

She demanded again why I would try to shoplift a razor from WAL* MART.

She seemed more chagrined than angry.

She said despite my “background” and education I’d always been a loser, but this was the last straw.

This was the lowest I could sink without being in hell.

She’d consulted an attorney and now she would sue me for divorce and custody of our daughter.

She said I’d dug my own grave and as far as she was concerned I could rot in it.

A grey-uniformed guard looked on expressionless.

After she left I closed my eyes.

I slept.

I dreamed of eight large pelagic, albatross-like birds with their majestic wingspan flying in formation, not over ocean but desert.

Moreover the desert seemed to be on fire, or blazing fires were scattered over the desert.

The birds would gaze down occasionally but kept flying because there was no habitable place to land.

From where I was located below I could see the great birds’ faces which weren’t the faces of pelagic birds but rather the round faces of infants such as barn owls resemble.

I was awakened by someone rattling the bars of my cell.

He spoke my name.

I opened then closed my eyes.

He was an administrator from the company where I worked.

A small, pale male, vaguely rat-like: I didn’t remember his name.

I remembered that he always seemed to be sweating.

As with my wife, I had no idea how he knew of my whereabouts.

The message he delivered was brief: the company would not employ thieves who attempted to steal from WAL* MART and so I was thereby terminated.

Whatever salary was owed to me would be transferred to my wife.

Then he left along with the expressionless guard.

I shouted after the guard: “Toilet.”

He didn’t respond.

I struggled to my feet and peed again in the far corner, though in truth there was no far corner since the cell was cramped.

I had to squat so that my head didn’t hit the ceiling.

Because the floor was earthen the pee soaked into the hardened dirt.

I noticed a soiled straw mat rolled up against the wall.

I unrolled it and lay down on my back gazing up at the low ceiling.

From every side the damp earth was palpable.

Occasionally a sliver or even small clod of earth would fall from the ceiling.

Moreover there was vermin, and why shouldn’t there be?

Neither the wrist nor the leg manacles hindered me overmuch.

I was having a small problem drawing breath.

I thought I could hear cell doors clanging open and shut down the corridor and on the floor above.

Maybe it was the floor below.

I think it was below.

Which would make it Hades.

Where Orpheus descended.

I will miss my daughter.

Paris 60

Excerpts from Harold Jaffe's new collection "Paris 60" have been posted at the Starcherone Books blog by publisher Ted Pelton.

Drag Your Boomer Parents Into the 21st Century

Tired of listening to the same pathetic, decades-old music options from your Boomer -- or Gen Xer -- parents? Technology has several answers for you!

The article offers several possibilities, but I recommend Pandora.com. It's so easy even your parents can figure it out!

The Artistic Pirate

Anyone who has taken one of Prof. Harold Jaffe's classes is familiar with his motto: Find a seam. Plant a mine. Slip away. Repeated on his website, the motto exemplifies his commitment to the artist's role as society's Trickster-Hero. Why Trickster-Hero? Because the old images of the artist as Warrior-Hero, like Hemingway, or Romantic-Hero, like Marilyn, can be too easily faked or too readily co-opted. The Trickster-Hero can evade such capitalist traps -- for a while, at least.

The Trickster-Hero is the topic of Matt Mason's The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism. Mason's "pirates" -- graffiti artists, music and film samplers, information appropriators -- don't resemble Robin Hood or Captain Jack Sparrow. They are artists: their "thievery" consists of excluding those who would exploit that art for money. Hence, they "reinvent" capitalism.

Why do artists now live like "pirates"? Because they want to decide how their art is used. They have seen artists treated as product, overworked, used up and killed off by agents, companies and corporations created to maximize profits from that art. They have seen idealism being rebranded to sell erectile dysfunction remedies. They have seen "rebels" who became rich for being rebellious work to stifle that same instinct in their audience.

"We live in a world where things we used to pay for, such as music, movies, and newspapers, are now available for free. But things we used to reproduce for free, such as seeds and pigs, have to be paid for. This is a world where we need to understand the finer points of the pirate mentality...."

Mason's book contains useful how-tos for aspiring pirate-artists, plus bonus real-life examples of famous pirate raids on corporate culture, including describing how Madonna was punked. Yes, that Madonna, once celebrated for her ability to market rebellion, is now poster girl for a failed Warner Bros. pirate-squashing. When she f-bombed a downloading site, workers retaliated:

"Frustrated by a globalized music industry force-feeding them plastic pop music, hackers, remixers, and activists began to mobilize within hours against Madonna.... Days after the decoy files were released, new versions of Madonna's a capella outburst started springing up.... Madonna's official site was hacked and every track from her new album, the real tracks, were pinned to the home page free for anyone to download. Across the top of the page, the remixer posted a response to Madonna, the music industry, and everyone else threatening to stand in free culture's way: THIS IS WHAT THE FUCK I THINK I'M DOING."

Way to go, pirates!

Why We Fight: Three Artists in Wartime

Hear -- and read-- why the three producers of War, Inc. made their film.

Have you been --

Rick Rolled? Too bad if you haven't.

What I like about Rick Rolling is it's a meme but also an example of musical "stickiness" -- the tune, once heard, replays in your head for hours... days.. maybe even weeks. So by tricking someone into hearing it you have altered their mind for ... you know.

It's also a video by Rick Astley, who was hot-hot-hot on YouTube's progenitor, MTV, when it was the hot new thing. As such, the video is retro-geek-chic.

People send a Rick Roll by links because the "embed" function of this particular video is disabled. Usually the links don't tell you it's a Rick Roll (like the one in the first paragraph).

You are reading an innocuous-seeming blog entry, you come across a word or phrase that looks interesting, you click it, and --

Rick Roll!

So You Say You Are a Writer

Then you will laugh and say "ouch"!

Best Anti-Drug Film Ever

It's just over two hours long, but it is worth it.

Drive In Saturday, 4.26.2008

Bill Withers/"Use Me"

Gang of Four/"Armalite Rifle"

John Foxx/"Miles Away"

Discharge/"Does This System Work?"

X/"White Girl"

Geeks or Freaks?

This "quiz" emerged from the genius of Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City. He "thought it might be interesting to run a survey asking readers to identify" participants in an art fair versus fan of the New York Comic Con. Can you distinguish art geeks from comics freaks?

PUNK ROCK 2008/JAY REATARD

When Memphis Tennessee's Jay Reatard punched a drunken fan in the face a couple nights ago in Canada and then canceled the show only three songs in my initial reaction was:

"What a fucking hypocrite"

Jay Reatard's complaints were that the show was overcapacity, there wasn't any security staff, the crowd was spilling beer on  his equipment, and kids kept climbing on stage, messing up his performance.

How un-punk.

In Punk's beginning this type of phenomena wasn't just tolerated but encouraged.  The ethos behind the movement dictated that the barrier between performer and audience be smashed, all the rules of conventional performance be broken, and that anarchy prevailed.

Yet Reatard's reaction is totally punk:  heartfelt, spontaneous, and without consideration for established social norms.

Obviously the didacticism of the punk/un-punk debate is philosophically bankrupt, just as any argument that swings between the yes/no poles of a term that is essentially nebulous.

What's interesting here is the Reatard's desire to perform uninterrupted by the social qualities attributed to his genre, his territoriality over his place on stage, and his rage at being silenced by some dumb, drunk Canadian stage diver.

The music being good and the documentation of this whole event (thanks to the fact that every kid in the Western hemisphere owns a digital camera/cell phone) is really going to get his punk rock career moving.

Neu!

Here's some live footage of Neu!, making it happen. This is, I'm guessing, somewhat rare.

Neu! was very influential, as has been well documented. On their first two records you can hear much of what came later, in terms of underground music.

This footage, to me, is indicative of a sort of penultimate glam--fun, texturally interesting, uptempo, experimental and emotionally precise rock music.

Neu! also had the sense, at this juncture, of never not being current. Seeing them here, they might be representative on one of the more transparently compelling aspects of postmodern culture.

Trickster

Harold Jaffe's novel "Jesus Coyote" re-appropriates the Manson Family myth as proscribed by the official culture, and brings us closer to a kind of truth via his narrative innovation, the docufiction. Ambitious in both narrative form and imaginative range, "Jesus Coyote" examines the characters and events surrounding the Manson Family (culminating in the Tate-LaBianca murders) from a variety of perspectives, including the victims (envisioned by Jaffe with great clarity and compassion), the women members of the Family, and finally Manson himself. Cagey, defiant and manipulative to the end, Manson has the last word in the mock interview that concludes this morally courageous, intellectually daring and unflinchingly honest look into this revealing and recent chapter of American cultural/criminal history.

The book can be purchased here:
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Coyote-Harold-Jaffe/dp/1933293551

The publishers info is here:
http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/jesus.html

CAT PLAYS THEREMIN

Check out this Japanese cat playing a theremin.

Transmission

I bought a copy of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures a few months ago to replace my lost LP (the UK first issue vinyl with textured jacket). Mine is the US release, but I assume it's a first issue because it reads "Factum 1" on the matrix, the matrix being the blank section of a vinyl record, between the record's grooves (the songs) and the label. At any rate, while I was squinting at the matrix of my new LP to determine its authenticity, I found a statement scrawled into the vinyl, in the matix: "I'm looking for a guide."

It's appropriate, given their oeuvre--Factory Records; Post-Punk; their bleak prospects culturally, politically, economically. How difficult it was to get anywhere, meaningfully.

Do we look to a guide; should we, given the status quo?

The impulse tells us something about ourselves, our condition.

Joy Division, performing the song "Transmission" from their LP Unknown Pleasures: