"In this game"

I was listening to Bert Jansch.

Palace of Necessity

The Three Bares by: Robert W. Service

Ma tried to wash her garden slacks but couldn't get 'em clean And so she thought she'd soak 'em in a bucket o' benzine. It worked all right. She wrung 'em out then wondered what she'd do With all that bucket load of high explosive residue. She knew that it was dangerous to scatter it around, For Grandpa liked to throw his lighted matches on the ground. Somehow she didn't dare to pour it down the kitchen sink, And what the heck to do with it, poor Ma jest couldn't think. Then Nature seemed to give the clue, as down the garden lot She spied the edifice that graced a solitary spot, Their Palace of Necessity, the family joy and pride, Enshrined in morning-glory vine, with graded seats inside; Jest like that cabin Goldylocks found occupied by three, But in this case B-E-A-R was spelt B-A-R-E---- A tiny seat for Baby Bare, a medium for Ma, A full-sized section sacred to the Bare of Grandpapa. Well, Ma was mighty glad to get that worry off her mind, And hefting up the bucket so combustibly inclined, She hurried down the garden to that refuge so discreet, And dumped the liquid menace safely through the centre seat. Next morning old Grandpa arose; he made a hearty meal, And sniffed the air and said: `By Gosh! how full of beans I feel. Darned if I ain't as fresh as paint; my joy will be complete With jest a quiet session on the usual morning seat; To smoke me pipe an' meditate, an' maybe write a pome, For that's the time when bits o' rhyme gits jiggin' in me dome.' He sat down on that special seat slicked shiny by his age, And looking like Walt Whitman, jest a silver-whiskered sage, He filled his corn-cob to the brim and tapped it snugly down, And chuckled: `Of a perfect day I reckon this the crown.' He lit the weed, it soothed his need, it was so soft and sweet: And then he dropped the lighted match clean through the middle seat. His little grand-child Rosyleen cried from the kichen door: Oh, Ma, come quick; there's sompin wrong; I heared a dreffel roar; Oh, Ma, I see a sheet of flame; it's rising high and higher... Oh, Mummy dear, I sadly fear our comfort-cot's caught fire.' Poor Ma was thrilled with horror at them words o' Rosyleen. She thought of Grandpa's matches and that bucket of benzine; So down the garden geared on high, she ran with all her power, For regular was Grandpa, and she knew it was his hour. Then graspin' gaspin' Rosyleen she peered into the fire, A roarin' soarin' furnace now, perchance old Grandpa's pyre.... But as them twain expressed their pain they heard a hearty cheer---- Behold the old rapscallion squattinn' in the duck pond near, His silver whiskers singed away, a gosh-almighty wreck, W i' half a yard o' toilet seat entwined about his neck.... He cried: `Say, folks, oh, did ye hear the big blow-out I made? But now I best be crawlin' out o' this dog-gasted wet.... For what I aim to figger out is----WHAT THE HECK I ET?'

SPECTACLE ON SACKCLOTH

Movie Posters of Ghana

"Cinema-going was long a popular activity in Ghana. The large towns, particularly the capital, Accra, inherited magnificent cinemas from the British colonisers, but over the years, faced with the difficulty of finding spare parts for their large 35mm projectors, these establishments closed down one by one.

As video became more widespread, the void was filled by a group of entrepreneurs who created small, mobile film-distribution empires. Armed with videocassettes, television monitors and portable gas-powered generators, they brought movies to towns and rural villages. At the same time, video clubs sprang up, offering Hollywood B-movies, Asian action films and Nigerian horror movies. Rooms equipped with televisions and video recorders became picture houses with wooden benches where films could be viewed for a modest sum."

from Raw Vision #60

PICTURES MUSIC

At the very bottom of this page, I added some links to my favorite photo blogs, websites and music/audio-related sites (streaming audio).
Meanwhile, I want these albums.

Sat. 18, 2007

Recreation Acres

Alike Day

BLESS THIS MESS (sense of humor, prerequisite)

Last week, I scribbled out a little treaty while my students did a stack of puzzles. I enthusiastically and pre-orgasmically entitled it:

Notes about Detritus, Aesthetic Arrangement, and the Relative Luxuries of Aesthetic Choice in Developed and Developing Landscapes

Don't get to excited, if anything its just a glimpse into a headache, a raging thought that never really jells. It shows me that I tend toward theoretical before I am concrete. That's bad.

Arrangement as Code (Intimate Scales)

I see arrangements of objects, whether careless or intentional, in any form as an expression of behavior. Attempts at aesthetic arrangement, for instance that of furniture in a room, textiles, books, people’s bric-a-brac, etc are trials in visual communication. This is called design. But messes contain to the same extent certain hints as to the character of the person. This is also widely accepted. An organized person communicates that they are under some measure of control, where as the opposite might connote either an indifference to certain standards of personal orderliness that are essential to a impeccably tidy person. Or it connote a higher sensitivity to the scales of orderliness.

Scales of Orderliness: Resolving Powers of Order:

A tidy person might have a lower resolving power when it comes to seeing organization. The recognition of the system of order must be able to be taken in a one fell swoop. User-friendly, and accessible. A color code, a designated place, etc. Whereas a messier person, I enjoy arguing, can resolve systems of order in much more detail; and at psychologically complex scales, up to a point.

CONCLUSION:

MESSY PEOPLE = higher resolving powers for systems of order

TIDY PEOPLE = lower

Socialized Carelessness and the Opposite of Carelessness.

If behaviors are socialized and arrangement of objects is a form of behavior than arrangement, aesthetic or not, is to some extent a phenomena imposed by a social norm, or at least a household, and the value localized. For instance, parents who value orderliness will actively teach this behavior. It will become apart of the household ritual. Whereas a parent who tolerates certain scales of disorder might not value these ordering systems to such extent. Instead they might passively encourage a child to prefer order to a slightly higher degree than is accepted by the parents.

The reverse can become true in a situation when a child grows up to resent the ordering system imposed on them; and, in turn, embrace the independent opposite. Mess as rebellion against impeccable tidiness; or neatness as a reaction to stifling clutter.

But in all this there is a economic lower limit under which apparent systems of “aesthetics and order” become less a matter a choice. Arguing, however that aesthetics doesn’t exist at subsistence level, would be ignorant. When in fact much the innovation in texture and color of a Eclectic Age are indigenous in nature. Indigenous aesthetics have been appropriated and reformed for mass consumption, but this extends beyond the thoughts of these scribbling hurried notes.

Nostalgia and Mess

There is a sense of nostalgia and familiarity than can be curated in the objects and litter that we call mess, or disorder. For instance, I find that the arrangements of my own personal space will tend toward the resemblance of my mothers and grandmothers. (MORE HERE)

Personal arrangements of objects> yields a Community texture> to City identity> to National scales of order, which reinforce each other.

Personal Arrangements yield a visual order than transfers to scales of homes, then to scales of cities, and to a broader landscape of order that we recognize as a cultural landscape. I want to assume a definition of the “built environment” that strongly incorporates the vernacular texture of trash, and waste. Tolerances of trash and waste, or the lack there of can say as much about the cultural landscape about its codes of order. Landscapes are just as much about careless arrangements than they are about purposeful ones.

(INSERT GRADIENT, BAR GRAPH, SPECTRUM OF PURPOSEFUL ARRANGEMENTS VS. CARELESSNESS.)

BLESS THIS MESS.

Taking pictures to sleep.

24 Exposure Flash MIRACLE: Day 1

I walked down the mountain tonight in my chalkboard residual cottons. I thought about a man. I saw a grumbling black puff course with lightening. Its windy, especially here. I looked through the Flash Miracle viewfinder. I looked at the pastel gradient of a flood light cast upon the side of a tin shack. Security tin shack with the security flesh man watching TV inside. I thought about a man. I walked in a humid unselfconscious lustiness. It's humid at the tree line and below, past the chicken coop. Humider and humider. I saw the rearing neon sign. Heard a dog barking. Trees whisping. Nothing was a picture. Saw the sign rearing...

my Air Singing is the quietest

“We came from Beijing for different reasons. Wang is here to escape his parents and the pollution. I, however, have come to perform. It makes me proud to be an air singer. Air singing has been popular in China for many years. We believe that sound influences the harmony of the universe, and so we provide beautiful sounds at low volumes so as not to disturb or add to noise pollution. I feel that noise pollution has been overlooked by many places, including Vörland, and that it is the biggest problem we have yet to tackle collectively, to assure a better quality of life. In most of China it is hard to find a very quiet place. But in Beijing we are doing well in leading the silent fight. I am a soldier. A peaceful one. I belong to a very successful and popular air singer’s choir Groan From the Sick. Tonight I will perform solo on Karl Gustaf promenade. I will place my lucky cap on the ground. Pay me if you like, or don’t pay me if you don’t like. But I know that you will, because my air singing is the quietest you’ve ever heard.”
Sheng Di, 32

from COLORS71 "Welcome to Vorland" an issue exploring an imagined Scandinavian tourist destination, circa 2057, in an adjusting post-extinction global warming climate.

"For centuries Vörland was thought of as a freezing, inhospitable island. But it not only brilliantly survived the hard times at the end of the Petroleum Era and during the Sixth Mass Extinction, due to global warming, it has also become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Here the temperatures are mild, vegetation is lush and the beaches are wide and sandy, a far cry from the torrid summers of Southern Europe."

supermarket swept

Cute intaking while coasting on the fumes of exhuastion

parachute and a laser gun.

This is a lot of work here. I am pretty tired. I can't wait to be home.

BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER

This wonderful man, everyday hero, and artist Michael Julius made this for me. Welcome to my new clean and professional looking website for my photography. hannah.myopicpictures.org It's beautiful, and even still a work in progress. I love it, THANK YOU, AGAIN AND AGAIN, Michael!

China Archives

'04 Part One

AN EVERYDAY MAN'S ITINERARY FOR FUN IN THE SUN.

11:22:03 I was going to get up and pull my senses through the new armholes I cut out with scissors the night before, I made heat waves with these stylized t-shirts last year, We’ll just see about these new models, We’ll just wait and see about their success in these times of hysteria and melanoma.

11:23:46 Notes: Self-tailored t-shirts to wear on the beach:Bonuses: Short sleeves evade heat waves. Subtractions: Tan lines irregular across the nape of the neck and around the armpits.

11:25:53 I wake up to those south wall-leaning amps still pounding as if from neurologically, inside some kiddo taped the knob set on “fun-loving,” (some kid with a fun-loving hairdo), erstwhile

11:26:12 My hair is on vacation.

11:26:45 I am unpacked and disheveled in the motel corner, but plugged up ready to implode.

11:27:01 There is darkness in the bathroom, the shower in particular, there is a dank and fetid monument erected in the tub, and more gruesome of a detail, shameful, there is this man in the mirror who holds a grimace as if manically stapled across a

wind-beaten,

red-hot face,

a Picasso shell-shocked

mid-life cliché face.

11:30:53 I stand in the kaleidoscope of this image.

11:31:46 There is a lurch to the toilet.

***

i go to this window

i hung up and stood in front of the open window, originally uploaded by gofeetgo.

"i go to this window

just as day dissolves
when it is twilight(and
looking up in fear

i see the new moon
thinner than a hair)

making me feel
how myself has been coarse and dull
compared with you, silently who are
and cling
to my mind always

But now she sharpens and becomes crisper
until i smile with knowing
-and all about
herself

the sprouting largest final air

plunges
inward with hurled
downward thousands of enormous dreams"
-E.E. Cummings

Empty Entertainment Rooms

I've been into Seoul once on this 1 month stint in Korea. The next time I get off this mountain I will be in pursuit of more empty parlors, PC clubs, and karaoke rooms.

Ineffables

Myburbia