Saturday, December 29, 2007

superbad...

... is really just super fucking bad. What the FUCK does everyone see in this? Not gonna bother with Knocked Up or anything else that comes from this camp. Seriously, if I was an 18 year old kid it might seem cool...

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Wow...

...I don't listen to NPR for a coupla days and all hell breaks loose in Pakistan. AGAIN.

Pakistan, Your hands in the toaster!
Pakistan, Your hands in the toaster AGAIN!!!


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/makingamartyrofbhutto

It's over, lets get on with it...

Christmas - mass hysteria of consumer libido fuckfest - oOover!!!

Here's what's been going on then, when not there:

Finished Deadwood - I WANT MORE!!! but I must say, Sara and I both felt that the show 'felt like it ended'. Could there be more? Of course. Does there have to be? No, defintitely not. Like Soundgarden and Faith No More, better to leave em wanting more than to milk the shit out.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Pretty fucking good post  modern deconstruction hoo-ha of the slasher genre. I didn't like it at first. Liked the idea, but not the delivery. Esp. Leslie. But once You get through to the end it really balances it out and makes for a great 'whole'.

Just re-read Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory maxi series. I had read it monthly as it was published originally and then started re-reading a large chunk of it waiting for the final bookend title Seven Soldiers #1 - but then that took fucking forever to come out and by the time it did I had lost most of the urgent intricacies of the story, of which, of course with Morrison, there are many.

I still don't know what to make of the thing as a whole. The finale seemed rushed, but Morrison is like that sometimes, and as I always say to those that nay-say based on that, if you liked the ride there, who cares?

But I feel like even in re-reading this tightly knit, over about the course of a week, a lot of little things get lost in the mix. I get the feeling that Seven Soldiers is to the superhero genre what the Invisibles is to the Occult genre. So many bits and pieces that drift backwards and forwards through the timeline of the series, repeating or rearing up from different characters perspectives. I'll probably try to analyze this more later.

Gearing up to watch the Coen Brothers back catalogue, prompted by No Country for Old Men still resonating with me (my pick for film of the year, but that's another post)

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Fanotmas...

Fantomas' Delirium Cordia just may be my favorite piece of music of all time. I've used it to accidentally induce lucid dreaming, something that may have been astral travel, and when I turn it up and open the windows all the neighbors gather their loud, screaming brood from around our place and, I'd hope, warn them to never play near here again.


Monday, December 17, 2007

legalese

Decades ago a demon infested the world of man. It was a demon well versed in the practices of deceit, trickery and illusion. It garnered its strengths at man's expense, living in his words, moving from ear to ear, lending power where it willed and tipping otherwise balanced scales to those who worshipped it, learning its language and voice to hail it as master of all reality.

Melodramatic? 

Sure. 

A lot has been written or performed now, by 2007, with this basic idea in mind. 'The devil hides in the law' or 'lawyers are evil'. Whatever. First, I don't believe in the devil, not the one so many people are so frightened of anyway. But I do believe in demons (again, not in the way most do) and so I'm interested here in tightening up some of these ideas, if for no other reason than to get me through my first legal experience in screenwriting, which combined with the hangover of a weekend of sick cat-scares and little or no sleep, not too mention a raging sinus infection, is currently making me want to throw something with a decent amount of weight to it through a window for no other reason than to hear the sound of breaking glass somewhere outside my fucking head for a change...

Looking back at forbidden or sacred rites of the past; ceremonies and rituals and the languages they were written in, Law definitely appears to be a continuation of that tradition in the modern age. In these past times, in many instances (even holy fucking christendom) Latin was the language used, so as to exclude the everyday people from having any part in what the priests of the various faiths and cabals were up to. The 'common folk' were not trained in this language, and so the ideas and operations those that used it were pursuing were veiled from the scrutiny of society. The lairs of sacred orders and black rites were hidden. 

Now, think about it, might a metaphor to Hollywood not be made?

Stretch with me...

As a future generation of these 'common folk', many sit back and consume what is offered, via HBO, Miramax, NBC, whatever. These are the representatives of a reality we imagine as so grand and unattainable it seems the literal other side of the rainbow. Most people would never dream of entering the 'know' of the machine that is the grand temple of celebrity, because either A) they have no interest in participating or B) it seems like a dream and what do most adults tell children? Abandon your dreams, get a normal job, etc.  Now, among the aforementioned people who 'have no interest' I would argue a fairly large percentage of them actually do, thus explaining why magazines such as People, Heat, Us, Star and all the other celebrity rags inspire so much reading. People find stars they are attracted to for one reason or another, joining the ranks of their fans* and living vicariously through them. Let's face it, everyday life for many must seem pretty boring, otherwise how the fuck do you explain people watching things like Dancing with the stars or walking around and shooting each other because of the colour of their skin, clothes, boots, whatever.

So anyway, here we are then with this grand temple of 'Celebrity' (again, etymologically speaking, celebrating - an idea steeped in divinity). So the whole world lays at its gates and waits for glimpses from behind the temple curtain, just as in religion, whatever form these glimpses take. What is the medium between the two worlds? What navigates and calculates these glimpses? Why? the Priest of course, the speaker of the divine and celebrated tongue. How can they navigate this temple of celebrity, with all of its wants, needs, snooks and crooks? The answer of course, is by speaking its language, the language of legalese.

I received this contract yesterday and in looking at it found that even though the words were steeped in an alphabet I had known all my life, they were in many cases nearly unintelligible to me. Some of you out there will have had experiences reading contracts - they are actually everywhere now, and in fact do not only guard the sacred temple of celebrity but permeate our world in more places than not. Sign up for an email account lately? Chances are the last step was the ol' 'Agree/Disagree' terms and services piece that you probably zipped the scroll bar past to check the 'Agree' button. Why? Because if you tried to fucking read half of what it says you'd collapse in frustrated bewilderment. Now, in terms of this contract in front of me, how could I not be overwhelmed by the type of language we're talking about when it's something I've created on the line?

Of course part of this is laziness, admittedly. Just as ancient conjurers, sorcerers and priests had to meditate and hone the attention and powers of their minds in regards to learning cryptic languages, bolstering their concentration (something we all lack more and more of these days) and performing their sacred initiations and rites, I realize full well I should, at the outset of attempting to enter this grand, modern Otherworld I could, nay should set about learning the attributes that will make me one who can traffic the tricky and perhaps even perilous dimensions of it. But, laziness. Do I really want to take the time away from my writing, my art, my life in this world, or investigating any of the others I've encountered to now start at the ground floor of this new one?

Maybe some day, but not now. I'll just do like all the others and hire me one of these priests to navigate it for me.



........................
* Fan, from Fanatic. Look fanatic up on Merriam-Webster online and you get etymology for fanatic: Latin fanaticus: inspired by a deity, frenzied; or also from the Latin fanum: temple.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

talking just to hear myself talk...

... is what this comes down to on some level. But with caffeine flowly steadily through my blood now this will get me going.

I watched a Hungarian film entitled 'Kontrol' last night. Awesome visuals at times and awesome music, to the point that I would say its worth a watch, but the writing was fucking abominable. The story was centered around one guy really, but they gave him a supporting cast that was, I guess, supposed to come off quirky and edgy, like say in Trainspotting. IT DID NOT WORK. Ongoing scenes of the same befuddlements befalling these guys as they move through the trains and check people's tickets lasted WAY the fuck too long. They could have edited this down to a short film and it would have been perfect. In fact, if they had just not given the lead the job he had as a ticket counter and just had him as a homeless guy living in the subway system that would have been great. Oh, well, again, visuals, and the music are worth it on a night (definitely watch it at night) when you have a strong attention span.

Did I already write up the Holosonics company Audio Spotlight? Oh man, this is the exact thing I have been trying to figure out how to do. Imagine being able to aim certain sound frequencies at people? Unfortuately the size is to the point that it cannot be interpreted (yet) into a nice handheld, pistol-type shape, but I'll take what I can get for now. 

 

Thursday, December 13, 2007

INRI

I've started editing my first (and only completed of three) novel. Again. I've been writing this thing in one form or another since 2001 I think. It was the first real step on my path as a writer. Before that I was much more oriented as a musician. I miss that, especially the comaraderie of a band of friends, but in the end it is simply easier to rely only on yourself for follow through, follow up and outcome.

That being said, there are strange, abstract elements of my life as a musician in the book. Nothing overt. No rock star characters or anything like that. But there's this certain feeling that occurs when you strike that stride with a room full of mates on instruments, and it seems to happen in moments with the characters, like you're all performing the same magnum opus at times.

I've mentioned it before on Elsewhen, but I have for some time known I 'suffer' from the phenomenon known colloquially as Synesthesia. This, I believe, plays the most important role in all of my creating, essentially making all of it, the writing, the music and the painting (if you can call it that. I need to come up with a better term for running colours together on a canvas and then ripping-rending-accenting it with bits of odd detritus from around my life) the same process in a weird, extra-dimensional way.

It's something like 630 pm and I've been up since about 130 or 200 AM, after sleeping really only 2 or 3 hours. I need to sleep.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

the Nite club in my dreams...

I originally 'published' this one the other morning on theirspace, anxious just after awakening to streamline the swirling chaos of the dreaming into something someone could help me understand.


I just woke up a bit ago from one of the best sleep's I've had in I don't know how long. Woke up once at 9:53AM, still so full of the dream I was having I almost killed myself trying to stand and run down the stairs to make a dentist appointment I was subsequently A) pleased, B) relieved, C) grateful Sara had canclled for me (thank You Sara!!!) Went back to sleep and resumed the dream, or more appropriately returned to the location of the previous dream, as, You see, I believe I have located a niteclub in the vast land of dreams.

Let me explain.



I have long thought, due to various reading I have done and things I have experienced, that the place we go when we dream is a sort of vast uber-world all of us have access to. You know Jung's Collective Unconscious? Same kinda thing. It's a world made out of bits and pieces of this world, as translated there by the impressions and meanings of the dreamer bringing them over, plus imagination, various frequencies of thought and maybe even action (remember EVERYTHING is energy, and energy has a wavelength, even if we can't detect it, and of course, everybody now, Energy Cannot Be Destroyed. Things we do say and think travel in invisible patterns all over the place, and since they're invisible, it would make sense that they would have access to the invisible realms) and a bunch of stuff we don't (or I don't at this point) know about. So, based on that assessment of dreams and the 'dreamland' it makes sense that you would be able to, if you could continue rational presence of mind while there, map the place, or at least parts of it, through experience.

Part of the problem with this mapping idea of course is because it is such an endless place, and because there are none of the dimensions man has made to map (and ruin) this world I'm writing from, how does one apply any degree of quantification to its terrain, if you will? Also, its not like a state or a house or a backyard where you enter it from a certain fixed point, or points, everytime. In your dreams you might be in bangladesh one night, Palos Park the next and venus the following two. We enter based on something we don't understand. Mind frame at the time of sleep onset? REM frequency pattern at the point of access? That bean and cheese burrito you ate before bed? Point is, we do not know. 



Okay, I'm going somewhere I swear.



Reading Daniel Pinchbeck's 2012 The Return of Quetzacoatl last night I came into a lot of dissertation on the Mayan scholar Jose Arguelles' theories of Harmonic Resonance - basically when the energy vibrations that comprise 'us' synch with other, cosmic frequencies and something bigger than ourselves occur. This could be a moment of insight, ecstasy or, perhaps, entering the land of dreams. 

So we harmonize with whatever ineffable property gains us entrance to whatever particular 'area' of the dreamscape. Now, if we could do that again, learn how to 'tune' ourselves before sleep to hit that same invisible pitch, well, theoretically we could re-access that same 'area'.



Okay, with all that in mind, here's my tale.



First dream I awoke from was one that combined a sense of the hotel I used to bartend at, people I worked with or waited on there, and, amusingly, the Sopranos cast. I was bartending, I can still picture the lavish layout of the bar as juxtaposed with the staqe for the entertainment, the foyer, the stockroom, kitchen and lobby complete with grand open wooden staircase curving up to the first floor. It was all dated, as if it had been built in the 1950's. My activities are pointless to the plot of this, suffice it to say as tending bar for the myriad of guests (Sopranos included. Lotta manhattans where I'd have thought it'd be cognac) my duties took me all over this place. Then something happened to upset me in the dream and suddenly, and I remember this plain as day, my dream self became somewhat lucid and actually thought, 'why continue to be upset. Just wake up and leave it lay'. 

I did.

And I after the aforementioned running around I returned sleepily to bed and began to think about what had just happened. I realized that for someone who can remember lucid dreaming all of two times in his life, this sense of being able to 'just wake up' had been present in my dream self often - like a fail safe.

I also realized I had been in that same nite club before, working. The same place.

Before I had gone to bed in the first place my mind had been sparkling with ideas of that harmonic resonance - perhaps tuning me to a certain frequency. As I thought of these things I drifted back to sleep, apparently still in tune, and re-entered that nite club again. Not really a continuation of the last dream, but a re-visit to what sure as shit seems to me to be an actual 'place' in the vast and amorphous land of dreams. Far from a map, or even the tiniest segment of a map, but a point. And that's how all maps begin, at one place or another, and the rest is discovered relative to that starting point.

Guess where I'm going tonight when I sleep? I'll be thinking, literally, along the same lines, or lengths (wave) and if I get back to my nite club, I guess I'll try to walk out the front door and see who the neighbors are.

First.

I have previously utilized Myspace for an ongoing exploratory/soapbox auditorium from where I subject any and all to my opinions/experiments. Part magickal diary, part tyrade, this has been my way of foisting my Will upon the world. Myspace is a giant corporate mega-whore, but having moved 3000 miles from all of the family and friends I have enjoyed for the first 30 years of my life, it has been a consistant point of interaction. They are mostly all on it (well, not my parents, but that would be weird, right?) and so it is easy for them to check in. However, I have wanted to branch out and find a space that is a little more 'mine' and a little less Time Warner Murdock, or whichever of the 6 major cluster-fuckers that own it now. This then is me, Shawn, my brain in print. Like I'm wiring up my fucking head and burning my most insightful, acidic or stupid thoughts into the electrosphere of this fledgling Universe we've created called the Internet. You'll laugh, You'll cry, You'll either ignore me or You won't, but over the previous two years since moving I have completed a transformation I began probably almost ten years ago - I have become a writer. Not someone who writes, no, I have always written. And I don't mean someone who gets paid to write (although that is the overall goal, right?) but someone who writes all the time. I wake up and I write. I sit down and I write. I stand up and I write. I help an ignorant douche bag customer at the bookstore where I work and while I'm putting the newest Janet Evanovich in their hands and listening to them prattle on about how life changing James Patterson has been I write in my head - burning situations and characters, words and worlds out of my synapses so I can go home and vomit it all back out into some form someone else can look at and say either, 'fuck him' or 'right on'.

Read if You like, otherwise piss off.