I decided since I haven't touched this blog in ages, and have been trying to post more online at my livejournal regarding my current studies on myth, symbol, and ritual for school that I really should just start another "real" blog.
So I direct anyone who stumbles here to...
The Absent Narrative
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Monday, January 23, 2006
playing to win
Pittsburgh’s going to the Superbowl, crushing the Bronco’s 34-17! If someone asked me a year ago if I cared I would have said “hardly.” After all, I’ve never paid too much attention to sports. Growing up I played a bit of soccer or touch football on the elementary school playground, but with artistic parents was encouraged more in the direction of music and the arts, and whatever playing I did was left up to the imagination and video games. The further the playing fields and blacktops of my youth receded the more I suspected organized sports a sham much like the ancient Roman hand outs of bread and circuses, vicarious entertainment set up to remove agency from the passive spectators and distract them from any real events that might be occurring, like wars or natural disasters. Or their own creative abilities.
Of course, if I’d grown up in a city that’d actually cared about its sports team, D.C. barely bares the Redskins, if I’d gone out to games as a kid and had that as part of my own enculturation I might have formed a different opinion sooner, especially considering the historical impact of sports and gameplaying on society and culture.
Last year, or should I say, last season, as the Steelers were approaching the Superbowl, I began to notice the effect the games have on the population of Pittsburgh. After a win the streets felt lighter, smiles and greetings graced people’s lips, and once they lost for good it was a black Monday, the city crying and drinking itself down as if the President had died, or their beloved coach Bill Cowher, who I imagine the citizens of Pittsburgh respect more than any two-timing politician.
It isn’t so surprising that the outcome of a football game could affect people this strongly, in a town where the major industry died thirty some years ago and many feel they no longer have anything to live for, rooting on the team has become one of the few collective passions left to bring people together and give hope and meaning to their home and their lives. It is not uncommon, even through the off-season, to see yinzers dressed up constantly in black and gold. And as the big day approaches they break out the silly hats and fight songs, car pennants and terrible towels and you’re hard pressed to find someone who’s not intimately hinged on the results of the next game.
To an outsider this bizarre social ritual might seem generally annoying if not down right absurd, but to the fans they know it’s precisely their camaraderie and excitement that will drive the team on to victory, the players’ abilities a reflection of the city’s self-pride. Intrigued by this phenomenon, at the beginning of the season I decided to get in on the game myself and root on the Steelers, immersing myself in the local customs and measuring the effects of a small subset of the population on the game, and the game’s effect on them. Throughout the season I found the turns triumphs of each game often followed the focus and excitement the fans in our small living room group put into watching the game unfold. The way the wind from several twirling towels could cause the opponents’ kicks to mysteriously go astray. I can only assume that interaction between crowd and players is even more dynamic at the game itself. Perhaps next year I’ll have a chance to find out. After every loss or win the moods of my friends and the city changed accordingly, especially in the last few games when the Steelers started to play to their peak. I found myself becoming emotionally involved, and acquiring a Terrible Towel and Steelers hoody to bring whatever luck I could to the outcome of the game.
After last week’s tense and necessary win we went to Max and Erma’s in Shadyside for Black and Gold Burgers and people were out cheering each other on in a victory flush and almost breaking into spontaneous singing of the fight song.
Yesterday we did. Walking down Liberty waving our towels, passersby cheering, all the cars honking and waving. Even a cop car booped his sirens for the Steelers before a more intimidating squad of paddy wagons rolled by. Apparently they blocked off the Southside for all the reveling when some of the Steelers showed up. More singing in the bar, non-stop toasts to the team, and last call around ten when all the bear ran out. Could imagine this scene playing in all the dives across Pittsburgh, all the Steelers’ bars across the country. Four in Denver alone, how many Bronco’s bars here? None.
I suppose Pittsburgh takes victory seriously. We do have a lot of bad rep as a burnt out steel town. I mean, you’re not going to get any recognition if you don’t set out to win. I don’t think I’ve ever taken this seriously enough, raised to choose collaboration over competition, but in the age of rampant cutthroat advertising you’ve got to have an edge if you’re gonna get up. Being involved in the music industry has taught me that. There’s thousands of bad second-rate punk bands out there for every one that comes up with an innovative new riff or rhythm. I used to book shows and never got anywhere with it, not wanting to deal with the headache of hooking and booking the latest bands before someone else does. I’ve always preferred just performing myself, but at the time no one else was really booking certain acts in venues like Project 1877, except maybe Marry Mack or Manny Theiner, and I felt I was doing what I had to to keep the scene going. Now seeing what my compatriots at TBA Records are doing to promote shows in this town makes we proud. They know how to play that game; solid variety of acts and venues, persistent flyering, the My Space account. Their shows so far show they want to win, and are looking for everyone else to win too. Great for starring underground artists like myself to get noticed, get published or recorded, make a name for ourselves.
At one point in time I’d have laughed at this, but the act of getting up seems an integral part of the human spirit. From arts and literature to science, sports, politics, religion. Getting known, getting ahead, whether desperate urban youth spray painting the back alleys to whole nations waging war for pride, protection, and natural resources. Even the personal interactions we have with each other play out a game of learned scripts and cultural desires that affect who with and how we choose to relate. And for what purpose: Sex, money, attention, respect, whatever we can get away with. Anyone whose fucked with the fickle dramas of dating knows what James Joyce meant when he said “All’s fair on all fours.” Like a nasty shove in a game of Twister.
Humans have always been playing games, both innocent and vicious. Before Sunday’s game, a friend told me about this movie “Rise” which documents a new phenomenon in CA called “churling” which is a sort of fast paced competitive dance used to replace gang fights, reminiscent of 80’s breakdancing and the more ancient dance-combat tradition of Capoeira. I recall from brief college studies that ancient cultures such as the Mayans would use their sports as a replacement for all out warfare, teams representing armies and letting the game decide the battle’s victor. Sure people still got killed for breaking the rules, and the looser’s players got sacrificed to the vanquishing gods, but their was much less wholesale slaughter and cultural destruction that marks traditional warfare. When I was a kid there was this meme going around that instead of fighting wars the opposing generals would have a boxing match, or at the very least a virtual simulation of the war so no one would have to die. If they have the capability of rendering and tracking he moves of thousands of individual agents necessary for the fight scenes of some computer animated movie like Lord of the Rings they should at least be able turn that technology to the good of mankind (assuming mass death isn’t a necessary move in the global game of survival. Overpopulation could be just as fatal).
Of course, all this doesn’t address the need for personal agency in one’s own life, perhaps responsible for the desire to get up, behind all the game playing, the tools and the techne. The visceral satisfaction of having done it with one’s own hands, in actual contests of real wills not merely reduced to a spectacle of passive entertainment. Certainly I’d rather be amused than dead, but creating my own forms of excitement is always the preferred alternative.
Walking down the street exciting the city into wild howling with a towel-twirl of the wrist, I remark to S. it would be that easy to incite the people to riot, enticing their mutual love of the football game into an uncontrollable frenzy. In the height of last season a bunch of anarchists dressed in black and gold and with a brass band playing modified fight songs went down to the stadium tailgate parking lots to drum up support against the war. With the state of the city now they wouldn’t even need the message. “Don’t worry,” S. says, “whatever the outcome of the Superbowl, the Southside will burn. Just direct everyone away from the bars and local stores towards the Southside Works, and light up a couple dumpsters.” Of course, chaos may not be called for, and Revolution’s just another game too, with its own rules of engagement and prerequisites for victory. Another game we play to win.
Of course, if I’d grown up in a city that’d actually cared about its sports team, D.C. barely bares the Redskins, if I’d gone out to games as a kid and had that as part of my own enculturation I might have formed a different opinion sooner, especially considering the historical impact of sports and gameplaying on society and culture.
Last year, or should I say, last season, as the Steelers were approaching the Superbowl, I began to notice the effect the games have on the population of Pittsburgh. After a win the streets felt lighter, smiles and greetings graced people’s lips, and once they lost for good it was a black Monday, the city crying and drinking itself down as if the President had died, or their beloved coach Bill Cowher, who I imagine the citizens of Pittsburgh respect more than any two-timing politician.
It isn’t so surprising that the outcome of a football game could affect people this strongly, in a town where the major industry died thirty some years ago and many feel they no longer have anything to live for, rooting on the team has become one of the few collective passions left to bring people together and give hope and meaning to their home and their lives. It is not uncommon, even through the off-season, to see yinzers dressed up constantly in black and gold. And as the big day approaches they break out the silly hats and fight songs, car pennants and terrible towels and you’re hard pressed to find someone who’s not intimately hinged on the results of the next game.
To an outsider this bizarre social ritual might seem generally annoying if not down right absurd, but to the fans they know it’s precisely their camaraderie and excitement that will drive the team on to victory, the players’ abilities a reflection of the city’s self-pride. Intrigued by this phenomenon, at the beginning of the season I decided to get in on the game myself and root on the Steelers, immersing myself in the local customs and measuring the effects of a small subset of the population on the game, and the game’s effect on them. Throughout the season I found the turns triumphs of each game often followed the focus and excitement the fans in our small living room group put into watching the game unfold. The way the wind from several twirling towels could cause the opponents’ kicks to mysteriously go astray. I can only assume that interaction between crowd and players is even more dynamic at the game itself. Perhaps next year I’ll have a chance to find out. After every loss or win the moods of my friends and the city changed accordingly, especially in the last few games when the Steelers started to play to their peak. I found myself becoming emotionally involved, and acquiring a Terrible Towel and Steelers hoody to bring whatever luck I could to the outcome of the game.
After last week’s tense and necessary win we went to Max and Erma’s in Shadyside for Black and Gold Burgers and people were out cheering each other on in a victory flush and almost breaking into spontaneous singing of the fight song.
Yesterday we did. Walking down Liberty waving our towels, passersby cheering, all the cars honking and waving. Even a cop car booped his sirens for the Steelers before a more intimidating squad of paddy wagons rolled by. Apparently they blocked off the Southside for all the reveling when some of the Steelers showed up. More singing in the bar, non-stop toasts to the team, and last call around ten when all the bear ran out. Could imagine this scene playing in all the dives across Pittsburgh, all the Steelers’ bars across the country. Four in Denver alone, how many Bronco’s bars here? None.
I suppose Pittsburgh takes victory seriously. We do have a lot of bad rep as a burnt out steel town. I mean, you’re not going to get any recognition if you don’t set out to win. I don’t think I’ve ever taken this seriously enough, raised to choose collaboration over competition, but in the age of rampant cutthroat advertising you’ve got to have an edge if you’re gonna get up. Being involved in the music industry has taught me that. There’s thousands of bad second-rate punk bands out there for every one that comes up with an innovative new riff or rhythm. I used to book shows and never got anywhere with it, not wanting to deal with the headache of hooking and booking the latest bands before someone else does. I’ve always preferred just performing myself, but at the time no one else was really booking certain acts in venues like Project 1877, except maybe Marry Mack or Manny Theiner, and I felt I was doing what I had to to keep the scene going. Now seeing what my compatriots at TBA Records are doing to promote shows in this town makes we proud. They know how to play that game; solid variety of acts and venues, persistent flyering, the My Space account. Their shows so far show they want to win, and are looking for everyone else to win too. Great for starring underground artists like myself to get noticed, get published or recorded, make a name for ourselves.
At one point in time I’d have laughed at this, but the act of getting up seems an integral part of the human spirit. From arts and literature to science, sports, politics, religion. Getting known, getting ahead, whether desperate urban youth spray painting the back alleys to whole nations waging war for pride, protection, and natural resources. Even the personal interactions we have with each other play out a game of learned scripts and cultural desires that affect who with and how we choose to relate. And for what purpose: Sex, money, attention, respect, whatever we can get away with. Anyone whose fucked with the fickle dramas of dating knows what James Joyce meant when he said “All’s fair on all fours.” Like a nasty shove in a game of Twister.
Humans have always been playing games, both innocent and vicious. Before Sunday’s game, a friend told me about this movie “Rise” which documents a new phenomenon in CA called “churling” which is a sort of fast paced competitive dance used to replace gang fights, reminiscent of 80’s breakdancing and the more ancient dance-combat tradition of Capoeira. I recall from brief college studies that ancient cultures such as the Mayans would use their sports as a replacement for all out warfare, teams representing armies and letting the game decide the battle’s victor. Sure people still got killed for breaking the rules, and the looser’s players got sacrificed to the vanquishing gods, but their was much less wholesale slaughter and cultural destruction that marks traditional warfare. When I was a kid there was this meme going around that instead of fighting wars the opposing generals would have a boxing match, or at the very least a virtual simulation of the war so no one would have to die. If they have the capability of rendering and tracking he moves of thousands of individual agents necessary for the fight scenes of some computer animated movie like Lord of the Rings they should at least be able turn that technology to the good of mankind (assuming mass death isn’t a necessary move in the global game of survival. Overpopulation could be just as fatal).
Of course, all this doesn’t address the need for personal agency in one’s own life, perhaps responsible for the desire to get up, behind all the game playing, the tools and the techne. The visceral satisfaction of having done it with one’s own hands, in actual contests of real wills not merely reduced to a spectacle of passive entertainment. Certainly I’d rather be amused than dead, but creating my own forms of excitement is always the preferred alternative.
Walking down the street exciting the city into wild howling with a towel-twirl of the wrist, I remark to S. it would be that easy to incite the people to riot, enticing their mutual love of the football game into an uncontrollable frenzy. In the height of last season a bunch of anarchists dressed in black and gold and with a brass band playing modified fight songs went down to the stadium tailgate parking lots to drum up support against the war. With the state of the city now they wouldn’t even need the message. “Don’t worry,” S. says, “whatever the outcome of the Superbowl, the Southside will burn. Just direct everyone away from the bars and local stores towards the Southside Works, and light up a couple dumpsters.” Of course, chaos may not be called for, and Revolution’s just another game too, with its own rules of engagement and prerequisites for victory. Another game we play to win.
Friday, November 18, 2005
ten rules for being human
while digging through some old files for scraps of writing for the novel, I came upon this old list originally posted by metabloom on livejournal.
10 Rules for being Human
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life."
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is nopart of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you are alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Other people are merely mirror of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers tolife's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this. Isn't That Fascinating?!
Everything in Your Outer Life Happens Inside First.
Did you know that everything physical in your life is just a reflection of everything going on inside you? Your physical life is an "expression" or "pressing outward" of your inner landscape. Some people call this process "out-picturing."
It is the process of takingyour inner thoughts and feelings and making them real. If you are avoiding someone and hoping with all your heart that you do not run into that person, guess what? Chances are that youwill see that person. Why? Because it is an expression of the film that you have been playing over and over in your mind. So if you have a recurring problem on thephysical plane, do not try to fix it with physical solution. You won't get anywhere fast and it is hard work! Work on your inner landscape instead. Take a look inside...
What are your thoughts? What are your feelings? What are you chewing on inside? What are you obsessing about?
When you catch yourself obsessing about something, just smile and say to yourself, "You"re doing that thing you do again!" Keep catching yourself at your own game. Once you get through the initial anger andfrustration, you will find yourself amused athow often your mind will return to the same subject. Then the feeling goes from obsession to humor.
Once you can see the humor in the situation, your outer situation will change. When you can laugh at yourself, everything in your outer environment automatically fixes itself. You won't have to lift a finger. Fascinating, isn't it?
10 Rules for being Human
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life."
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is nopart of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you are alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Other people are merely mirror of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers tolife's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this. Isn't That Fascinating?!
Everything in Your Outer Life Happens Inside First.
Did you know that everything physical in your life is just a reflection of everything going on inside you? Your physical life is an "expression" or "pressing outward" of your inner landscape. Some people call this process "out-picturing."
It is the process of takingyour inner thoughts and feelings and making them real. If you are avoiding someone and hoping with all your heart that you do not run into that person, guess what? Chances are that youwill see that person. Why? Because it is an expression of the film that you have been playing over and over in your mind. So if you have a recurring problem on thephysical plane, do not try to fix it with physical solution. You won't get anywhere fast and it is hard work! Work on your inner landscape instead. Take a look inside...
What are your thoughts? What are your feelings? What are you chewing on inside? What are you obsessing about?
When you catch yourself obsessing about something, just smile and say to yourself, "You"re doing that thing you do again!" Keep catching yourself at your own game. Once you get through the initial anger andfrustration, you will find yourself amused athow often your mind will return to the same subject. Then the feeling goes from obsession to humor.
Once you can see the humor in the situation, your outer situation will change. When you can laugh at yourself, everything in your outer environment automatically fixes itself. You won't have to lift a finger. Fascinating, isn't it?
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
on the books
okay, I may be taking another short break from posting here, so I can work on my novel for National Novel Writing Month. so far I've got one chapter down and 48,000 words left to go.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Orwell Issues New Passports
All US passports to be RFID chipped [via american samizdat]
"All US passports will be implanted with remotely readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced.
Sweeping new State Department regulations issued on Tuesday say passports issued after that time will have tiny RFID chips that can transmit personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitised photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitised data such as "fingerprints or iris scans"."
I've been following the potential use and privacy abuse of Radio Frequency Identification chips for years now, ever since I heard that companies like Wal-Mart weave them into the hems of their clothes in order to track inventory (and deter theft). Also in the governmental works at one point was the idea of weaving the microchips into the new twenty dollar bills, so that companies can keep tabs on if you're likely to make purchases when you come into their stores. I don't think that actually went down, but sometimes I hear stories of Hollywood movie stars implanting them in their pets and children.
And my passport was recently stolen, so it looks like I've gotta get another real quick before this law goes into affect.
"All US passports will be implanted with remotely readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced.
Sweeping new State Department regulations issued on Tuesday say passports issued after that time will have tiny RFID chips that can transmit personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitised photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitised data such as "fingerprints or iris scans"."
I've been following the potential use and privacy abuse of Radio Frequency Identification chips for years now, ever since I heard that companies like Wal-Mart weave them into the hems of their clothes in order to track inventory (and deter theft). Also in the governmental works at one point was the idea of weaving the microchips into the new twenty dollar bills, so that companies can keep tabs on if you're likely to make purchases when you come into their stores. I don't think that actually went down, but sometimes I hear stories of Hollywood movie stars implanting them in their pets and children.
And my passport was recently stolen, so it looks like I've gotta get another real quick before this law goes into affect.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Shadow Culture Manifesto
Shadow Culture Manifesto.
(still) in progress:
[transcribed from Adbusters, #62, the Precarity Issue]
01 This time we’ll get straight to the point.
02 The act of asking for less, not more, is a radical act. It may be the most radical gesture of out times.
03 Even though, you know, it is usually overlooked.
04 Consumption is the foundation of civilization as we know it, far more powerful than, say, religious faith or political ideology. This society stands or falls on consumption. Consumption is our daily contribution and most intimate connection to a doomsday system.
05 Did we say a doomsday system? We did. Can anyone still fail to see that we live in times genuinely different, more fragile and uncertain than ever before? Human societies have faced terrible threats and instability in the past. But not every human society, at the same time, in every corner of the Earth.
06 In exchange for some of us living as the wealthiest and most privileged humans ever to exist, we have fettered ourselves to eye-poppingly complex systems that we depend on for our survival. Trouble being that these same systems are now failing or being actively withdrawn at almost every level. The degree of interconnectedness is incomprehensible. Imagine a castle somehow suspended in the air. It’s walls, floors, turrets and dome riddled with hairline cracks. Where will the first total failure occur?
07 This is the vertigo of collapse.
08 Anyway. Take away the endless growth of consumption and you need to come up with a radically different system. Do you see where each of us has a role in this?
09 On this point, nothing has changed. Certainly not since the day the President of the United States of America told his people to keep on shopping or the terrorists win.
10 (Don’t they seem to be winning? Or at least, not loosing?)
11 What is changing is the sense of urgency. We are in the process of imagining the next civilization while living within the existing one. Some came to this purpose because they felt disturbed or repelled by the culture that we live in. Many more, now, are just looking for a softer landing when we go spinning off the ragged-ass end of this falling star.
12 There’s a wild kind of energy to it, a tearing off in all directions. The proof is in, again, that the key component of advance in any sphere – innovation – has nothing to do with private interest or ownership or the exchange of paper money.
13 We are inventing a way of life with less. We are asking the following question: Take away consumerism. What does the next culture look like?
14 And? Are we finding any answers? Seeing any patterns?
15 Let’s be bold enough to say, yes.
16 We are finding a next culture that looks something like the barn-raising parties of our grandparents, the community canning kitchens of the Second World War, the quilting bee, the teach-in, the village shaman, the underground economy, the monastery, the potlatch, the agora, the cooperative, the commune, the squat.
17 Except different.
18 We have never had so many people with so much knowledge, so much power to share, so much longing to work toward a new and different purpose, and so much need to do exactly that. Those who ask less have more to give. The hunger to contribute and to learn doesn’t vanish as our own demands diminish. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.
19 If we went in for slogans, this might be the one:
20 Self-reliance and mutual aid.
21 Might we say this is what democracy looks like? We might. More than that, it is a kind of freedom.
22 But the pierogi-making party instead of the blockbuster Hollywood film? It sounds corny. It even feels corny. Then again, a lot of things are done in this world that seem strange when observed with the benefit of distance. Like spending 15 hours a day in front of different types of glowing screens. Like paying for food that would grow out of every crack in the pavement if someone would plant a seed. Like watching golf on TV.
23 Does this make us outsiders? Not at all.
24 We refuse to be outsiders because we refuse to cede the culture. Far more is at stake than following our bliss. Ours is not a lifestyle preference but a moral imperative.
25 Still.
26 We have the capacity, more than ever before, to decide our own terms. We can generate energy and treat our own waste. We can build homes, raise food, create new forms of community and family. If we choose, it is possible to design and produce any product we require. We may do so locally; we may do so globally. What we cannot do is do it all alone.
27 In every respect we are working to produce the impossible, prototypes of a parallel way of life. The working model looks something like this: a sphere composed of interconnected clusters. At any given moment, some nodes are forming, others are dissolving. Seen at the level of the individual, it is a galaxy of possibilities and a person might contribute to none, one, ten or an infinite number in series. At the system level, it is a network. More metaphorically, a net.
28 We are the people, sitting on the porch, sharing a meal at mid-day, asking more and more from each other but less and less from the earth and the state – less of its schools and shopping malls, its trade rules and tax regimes. We are the people who serve to remind that there are other ways to live, and that anyone can join in that imperfect search.
29 We are living from beneath, on the fringe, in the shadow.
30 A shadow culture.
...
Looks like the Ultraculture's got some competition, or more like some allies.
(still) in progress:
[transcribed from Adbusters, #62, the Precarity Issue]
01 This time we’ll get straight to the point.
02 The act of asking for less, not more, is a radical act. It may be the most radical gesture of out times.
03 Even though, you know, it is usually overlooked.
04 Consumption is the foundation of civilization as we know it, far more powerful than, say, religious faith or political ideology. This society stands or falls on consumption. Consumption is our daily contribution and most intimate connection to a doomsday system.
05 Did we say a doomsday system? We did. Can anyone still fail to see that we live in times genuinely different, more fragile and uncertain than ever before? Human societies have faced terrible threats and instability in the past. But not every human society, at the same time, in every corner of the Earth.
06 In exchange for some of us living as the wealthiest and most privileged humans ever to exist, we have fettered ourselves to eye-poppingly complex systems that we depend on for our survival. Trouble being that these same systems are now failing or being actively withdrawn at almost every level. The degree of interconnectedness is incomprehensible. Imagine a castle somehow suspended in the air. It’s walls, floors, turrets and dome riddled with hairline cracks. Where will the first total failure occur?
07 This is the vertigo of collapse.
08 Anyway. Take away the endless growth of consumption and you need to come up with a radically different system. Do you see where each of us has a role in this?
09 On this point, nothing has changed. Certainly not since the day the President of the United States of America told his people to keep on shopping or the terrorists win.
10 (Don’t they seem to be winning? Or at least, not loosing?)
11 What is changing is the sense of urgency. We are in the process of imagining the next civilization while living within the existing one. Some came to this purpose because they felt disturbed or repelled by the culture that we live in. Many more, now, are just looking for a softer landing when we go spinning off the ragged-ass end of this falling star.
12 There’s a wild kind of energy to it, a tearing off in all directions. The proof is in, again, that the key component of advance in any sphere – innovation – has nothing to do with private interest or ownership or the exchange of paper money.
13 We are inventing a way of life with less. We are asking the following question: Take away consumerism. What does the next culture look like?
14 And? Are we finding any answers? Seeing any patterns?
15 Let’s be bold enough to say, yes.
16 We are finding a next culture that looks something like the barn-raising parties of our grandparents, the community canning kitchens of the Second World War, the quilting bee, the teach-in, the village shaman, the underground economy, the monastery, the potlatch, the agora, the cooperative, the commune, the squat.
17 Except different.
18 We have never had so many people with so much knowledge, so much power to share, so much longing to work toward a new and different purpose, and so much need to do exactly that. Those who ask less have more to give. The hunger to contribute and to learn doesn’t vanish as our own demands diminish. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.
19 If we went in for slogans, this might be the one:
20 Self-reliance and mutual aid.
21 Might we say this is what democracy looks like? We might. More than that, it is a kind of freedom.
22 But the pierogi-making party instead of the blockbuster Hollywood film? It sounds corny. It even feels corny. Then again, a lot of things are done in this world that seem strange when observed with the benefit of distance. Like spending 15 hours a day in front of different types of glowing screens. Like paying for food that would grow out of every crack in the pavement if someone would plant a seed. Like watching golf on TV.
23 Does this make us outsiders? Not at all.
24 We refuse to be outsiders because we refuse to cede the culture. Far more is at stake than following our bliss. Ours is not a lifestyle preference but a moral imperative.
25 Still.
26 We have the capacity, more than ever before, to decide our own terms. We can generate energy and treat our own waste. We can build homes, raise food, create new forms of community and family. If we choose, it is possible to design and produce any product we require. We may do so locally; we may do so globally. What we cannot do is do it all alone.
27 In every respect we are working to produce the impossible, prototypes of a parallel way of life. The working model looks something like this: a sphere composed of interconnected clusters. At any given moment, some nodes are forming, others are dissolving. Seen at the level of the individual, it is a galaxy of possibilities and a person might contribute to none, one, ten or an infinite number in series. At the system level, it is a network. More metaphorically, a net.
28 We are the people, sitting on the porch, sharing a meal at mid-day, asking more and more from each other but less and less from the earth and the state – less of its schools and shopping malls, its trade rules and tax regimes. We are the people who serve to remind that there are other ways to live, and that anyone can join in that imperfect search.
29 We are living from beneath, on the fringe, in the shadow.
30 A shadow culture.
...
Looks like the Ultraculture's got some competition, or more like some allies.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Center for Tactical Magic
As opposed to the university-fed Emma Goldman Institute for Anarchy, we give you...
The Center for Tactical Magic! [via exploding ardvark]
"The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of the pragmatic system known as Tactical Magic. A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts. At the CTM we are committed to achieving the Great Work of Tactical Magic through community-based projects, daily interdiction, and the activation of latent energies toward positive social transformation."
Blurring the border between art, shamanism, and activism, the CTM's actions include everything from agit-prop seminars to free occult clinics to passing out donuts at protests to both protesters and police officers alike!
The Center for Tactical Magic! [via exploding ardvark]
"The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of the pragmatic system known as Tactical Magic. A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts. At the CTM we are committed to achieving the Great Work of Tactical Magic through community-based projects, daily interdiction, and the activation of latent energies toward positive social transformation."
Blurring the border between art, shamanism, and activism, the CTM's actions include everything from agit-prop seminars to free occult clinics to passing out donuts at protests to both protesters and police officers alike!
Emma Goldman Insitute for Anarchist Studies
Emma Goldman Institute For Anarchist Studies or, the capitulation of a movement into history.
$368 Million
Federal Grant Funds, & Gift from Securitas Inc.
from the official site:
"While the EGIAS exists only as a plan at the time of this writing, the positive impact such a center of study could bring to the world could never be more needed. Anarchist ideas influence our everyday life from peer relationships to modern business management theories to open source software development. Anarchist organizing for social change has brought about a more peaceful and just world while slowing the movements towards hegemony, violence, and injustice. For one, the Anarchist Institute will help clear misconceptions about anarchism. First and foremost anarchism's incorrect equation with violence and riots - as Emma Goldman said herself ""It takes less mental effort to condemn than to think." The EGIAS will also function in further advocating, promoting, and developing anarchist thought."
Once built, the EGIAS will house:
* The Chomsky Anarchist History Museum - Spanning from pre-columbian native precursors to anarchism up through the modern day peace movement and into the future of anarchism in our world. A hall of Anarchist fame will honor famous anarchists like John Cage, Mother Jones, Henry Miller, Utah Phillips, Mark Rothko, Joe Strummer, Henry David Thoreau, Emiliano Zapata, and the modern day Zapatistas.
* Birth control distribution center
* Bakunin Center for Applied Anarchist Research - An anarchist think-tank.
* Kropotkin Café - serving coffee and light meals into late night hours. Live music every Tuesday - Saturday.
* Goldman Dance Studio - adjacent to both the Kropotkin Café and Bakunin center for easy access.
* The Sacco & Vanzetti Memorial Learning Center will serve as a classroom for the departments of Peace Studies, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and Labor History.
as mutato nomine sez: to kill something, build an ivory tower around it.
$368 Million
Federal Grant Funds, & Gift from Securitas Inc.
from the official site:
"While the EGIAS exists only as a plan at the time of this writing, the positive impact such a center of study could bring to the world could never be more needed. Anarchist ideas influence our everyday life from peer relationships to modern business management theories to open source software development. Anarchist organizing for social change has brought about a more peaceful and just world while slowing the movements towards hegemony, violence, and injustice. For one, the Anarchist Institute will help clear misconceptions about anarchism. First and foremost anarchism's incorrect equation with violence and riots - as Emma Goldman said herself ""It takes less mental effort to condemn than to think." The EGIAS will also function in further advocating, promoting, and developing anarchist thought."
Once built, the EGIAS will house:
* The Chomsky Anarchist History Museum - Spanning from pre-columbian native precursors to anarchism up through the modern day peace movement and into the future of anarchism in our world. A hall of Anarchist fame will honor famous anarchists like John Cage, Mother Jones, Henry Miller, Utah Phillips, Mark Rothko, Joe Strummer, Henry David Thoreau, Emiliano Zapata, and the modern day Zapatistas.
* Birth control distribution center
* Bakunin Center for Applied Anarchist Research - An anarchist think-tank.
* Kropotkin Café - serving coffee and light meals into late night hours. Live music every Tuesday - Saturday.
* Goldman Dance Studio - adjacent to both the Kropotkin Café and Bakunin center for easy access.
* The Sacco & Vanzetti Memorial Learning Center will serve as a classroom for the departments of Peace Studies, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and Labor History.
as mutato nomine sez: to kill something, build an ivory tower around it.
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