Sleep, Sweet and View

Here is a photo for Ink Casualty. How cool are these pillow cases? We just found them wandering around record stores, I love them so much, they are the shit. Sublime is my side of the bed, the Misfits is Staggs side of the bed. My sister has some great cake photos up today and Stagg has more art on view.

Angels and Devils

A guardian angel was looking out for Chris Cornell when a truck hit him on his motorcycle yesterday. If you ever get a chance to see Audioslave, do it. They are like seeing three bands in one. Chris Cornell is not only one of my favourite singers ever, he is a total hottie and seeing Soundgarden back in the day is one of my badges of honour. Cornell is also 6'3" which is wild for a rock star as they are rarely taller than 5'7". I present that factoid for Tiffo or Ian's mum who are height obsessed :)

Chris Cornell, please take care of your self. You have given me so many hours of happiness, either laying in bed staring at the ceiling listening to your incredible voice and poetry, or drinking around a bonfire with friends or dancing dancing dancing. You make the world a better place. If visitors are afraid of the rock, you can enjoy a massive wicked interpretation of Soundgarden by Johnny Cash who lives Rusty Cage.

I love the new Bond song. The lyrics are so perfect, "you know my name".

After a rather crazy day yesterday, so crazy, I missed my bus stops, got lost, thought the world was insane, and learned that evil can manifest in the oddest forms, like that of a chubby old lady with a fluffy cat, my wonderful boyfriend noticed an ad for The Rebirth Brass Band playing in town. Not only were they playing in town, they were in our hood! I wrote about their movie we saw at The Gene Siskel Film Centre last spring, God, Guns, Crack, Kids and Rebirth. What a wonderful way to end a long day battling the criminally insane by dancing for a couple of hours to this awesome New Orleans energy! ( I forgot my camera, so we might go back again to night, see how fucked up the crazy day was, I forgot my camera!)

Pranam, Thank you goddess for music!

Urban Jungle: 5 Photos, 7 Phases & 1 ?

Drawing of Plato's Cave.
Ride The High Country is one of my favourite movies. It was made in 1962 by Sam Peckenpah and it would make a wonderful double bill with Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Although, I was crying so hard during Ride The High Country, I'm not sure my eyes would be able to handle both twilight westerns at the same time. Wanna know what made me onion eyed? These very lines here: "Let's meet 'em half way -- head on. Same as always." I swear, just typing them here, makes me tear up.
Online Script for movie.


Last night we went to a local library that was featuring a philosophy lecture. It was so much fun. The topic was From Plato's Cave to Neo. There were about 60 people at the lecture and the speaker teaches philosophy at a nearby adult education facility. She was very charming and before we got there we were wondering what will this be like, obviously joking about all the shut-ins and fellow geeks that would be there. Yep, we were a nerdy geeked up bunch(mostly males, duh!)...it was a really fun lecture and way to spend an evening. The instuctor walked us through the seven classic phases of all quests, teachings,religions and philosophy stages of learning. All teachings and denominations have the same structures for enlightenment/knowledge and she used several scenes from the first Matrix movie to demonstrate these stages. Platos' Cave is a fabulous metaphor for understanding our processes in becoming fully able and practiced animals. (how fun to find a rabbit in our courtyard after discussing falling down the rabbit hole!)

The gist of Plato's Cave is that imagine a group of people chained inside a deep cave. They are all facing a wall in the cave and can see shadows and sillouettes. People moving walking and their casts are to the people chained on the floor for their whole lives, the definition of life.

What happenes if one of the prisoners gets moving and becomes loose? They Walk around the cave towards the entrance/exit, and find a burning fire. On the other side of the fire are actual bodies and other people. The prisoner realizes that the shadows they had seen all their life were actually an illusion, not the real world and not the full life experience. What next?

By discussing the allegory of Plato's Cave interspersed with a few scenes from The Matrix, which used Plato's allegory in it's premise and structure, the instructor made a list of phases the awakening prisoner to life passes through.

CONTROL
IGNORANCE
INSTRUCTION
FORMATION=TRAINING (practice)
INVESTIGATION
MASTERY
SERVICE

The most intensive discussion regarded the first phase of CONTROL. Maintaining control occurs because change is uncomfortable and frightening, for many reasons. Some of which include, feeling fear, not fitting in. It is painful to realize what we thought was life and people was actually shadows on a wall. This scares us because we feel what we were taught and what we know is slipping away, painful because we feel we were deluded, and because we feel foolish and stupid for being fooled bya false perspective on reality and the nature of life. The truth can be painful. We encounter different forces. Impedeing factors: prevent us from going through the stages. Awakening factors: things that speed up our self awareness. The instructor shows examples within the movie Matrix of Neo (new) having fear as underlying his sense of responsibility, the urge to return to the familiar is strong, just as it is for most humans experiencing change and facing new knowledge and learning.

This was just such a fun event and we even found a few new tidbits about The Matrix we didn't notice, it is such a strong visual and philosophical set piece, and it is really holding up to time passing. (Stagg and I watched all three movies on the weekend to prepare for this library lecture, and because we are supergeeks. He had never seen the sequels) Some other interesting notes from the evening: The INSTRUCTION stage of change incorporates failure and mistakes( when Neo falls instead of jumping to the building first time he attempts). We see him wanting things to be a specific way for fear of change. Attachemnt to past lifestyle for same reasons. The variety of numbers appearing within the movie. Room 303 may indicate the tradition of number 3 within so many cultures as a highly spiritual or important number. The word courage is associated with INVESTIGATION stage. The Latin word courage is using the root cour=heart. So to practice to become skilled at something one must use the heart, bravery to take the risks involved, and to "know thyself" is the stage of MASTERY. And finally, once one has attained skills, one is confident and the final stage is to help others by performing service.

I found the instructors break down of the facets of learning very cool, and their universal application with all practices, from religion, to sports, to technical virtuousity, spiritual quests, music and art.

One of her main arguments was that more and more philosophy was being incorporated into daily life and many social structures. Basically, the mainstream has been benefiting from philosophy and accepting it's personal and social importance.
Do you think there is a limit to INVESTIGATION and MASTERY in one's life?

The Allegory of The Cave

If you came here from Wikipedia, I Love You!

Sunset Limited (play) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yesterday I noticed I have been linked to two Wikipedia pages. I am so thrilled because one of them is my review of Cormac McCarthy's play The Sunset Limited. I'm feeling pretty fancypants right now. I sure hope technorati counts these links. Eat that Guy Kawasaki! The other link was to David Moos.

Wikipedia on Wikipedia.
Guy Kawasaki on Wikipedia
I am still aiming to beat Guy Kawasaki to technorati top ten. His technorati rank is #46. Mine fluctuates between 28,000 and 32,000. Here is his portrait listed on eBay. I painted his portrait to demonstrate my powers to Kawasaki and intimidate my opponent. Shake Kawasaki, shake! I am still going to donate half the profit to a charity of his choice when this portrait sells.

Paint!!!

Afraid to buy art? Check out this new book, The Intrepid Art Collector. I haven't read it yet, but I have a fair bit of trust in Edward Winkleman, a blogger and art dealer I've been reading for a few months. The book is written by Lisa Hunter who lives in Montreal, and Winkleman must enjoy the book because his gallery is hosting a book launch this week in New York City. Both these blogs consistently have interesting posts for art lovers. You can read an excerpt here at Amazon. More than anything, I think this is a really good idea for a book. I only hope that for once, when someone is talking about buying art, they discuss passion and love of the pieces they are collecting...hmmm....just for a change?

Art for sale on eBay, including Kawasaki Krump and Insulin.



Check out the link to the hilarious Toronto Star article on tired artists trying to produce enough art for the demands. Click the link on the bottom of this linked page if you want a belly laugh. Artists on an assembly line!

The Spirit, LSD and Cormac McCarthy

An excerpt from a rare interview with Cormac McCarthy follows. Garry Wallace along with Betty Carey, Frank Morton (another gambler) met with McCarthy over a
three day period in March 1989 in El Paso.

"...Frank related a number of personal religious experiences that he had had over the years, pointing out the flaws in other people's lack of faith. I [Garry Wallace] challenged him, saying that one day science would understand these unexplained phenomena for what they really were.

McCarthy commented that some cultures used drugs to enhance the spiritual experience, and that he had tried LSD before the drug was made illegal. He said that it had helped to open his eyes to these kinds of experiences. Betty recounted having seen the image of Christ on a bus while in Costa Rica. This had been at a time following the casino scam when Betty had
been on the run. She said that her experience was a real as our sitting together in the motel room. It had not been a dream or hallucination.

Always the skeptic, I said, 'But how does that prove Christianity? Why not Buddha or Allah? You saw Jesus because you were raised in Jesus-land.' I looked to Frank and McCarthy. Their expressions were sympathetic.

McCarthy was slumped into one of the chairs with his left leg slung over the arm rest. He appeared a very patient listner. He said that he felt sorry for me because I was unable to grasp this concept of spiritual experience. He said that people all over the world, in every religion, were familiar with this experience. He asked if I'd ever read William
James's THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. I had not. His attitude seemed to indicate that in this book were the answers to many of the questions posed during our evening discussion. I was nonplussed"
(p. 138). Wallace, Garry. (1992). Meeting McCarthy. The Southern Quarterly, 30(4), 134-139.
Painting, The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Carravagio. 1601.

Whales, Gods and Anarchy: Who Needs Drugs?

Don't have time to read the book?

I just watched Moby Dick for the first time. I've read the book a couple of times, it is one of my very favourite novels. Moby Dick is not an easy book especially for contemporary readers accustomed to novels published today that generally clock in around 230 pages. Mister Anchovy and his book club hated it, if I recall. Oops, and I had recommended the novel as a must read.

A couple weeks ago, I tripped over Moby Dick in the tv listings. It was a quiet Sunday morning. I'd never seen any movie version, I think there are three or four film produced. Gregory Peck stars in the 1956 John Huston directed Ray Bradbury script. Every bit as good as the book. The hunting and ship action scenes were jarring and exciting. Peck is amazing and grim as Ahab. It took me a few minutes to get my head around the shiny pomade Richard Basehart as Ishamel but all the casting turned out to be wonderful. You can find several reviews that nitpick about the mechanical whales, but overall, once you let go to the adventure, both emotionally and philosophically, it is a delightful way to spend a Sunday morning. Definitely a lot more accessible than ten days of reading.There is also plenty of real whale footage to commpensate for any special effects flaws. Really though, I just got right into the whole chase and pathos. Moby Dick is a story that has always made me strain at understanding the human condition, about what is the right thing to do and how to live. I love it. And I'm very happy to finally find out that I can wholely recommend the movie instead of the book.

Starbuck, first mate: To be enraged with a dumb brute that acted out of blind instinct is blasphemous.
Captain Ahab: Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The white whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

On a morning talk show a new Broadway musical was being promoted that was based on a documentary about a reclusive mother and daughter. Something about the talk show chit chat grabbed my attention, and the hosts pointed out that this documentary was going to be airing on televison. I set my DVR. The movie was Grey Gardens. The directors are most famous for stumbling into the Rolling Stones dressing room and ending up following them on tour the year Altamont murder in their concert occured giving us a definitive rock and roll concert movie Gimme Shelter. The Mayles brothers heard about two relatives of Jackie Kennedy who were about to be evicted form the East hapmton mansion because they were in such squalor the neighbours called the health board inspectors. This 1976 documentary spends several weeks inside the house and world of two of the most fascinating people ever to be filmed. I can not believe I had not only not seen this movie before, but had never heard of it either! Turns out, it is a hugely popular cult movie. Every gay friend of mine has to give back their card for not telling me or knowing about this movie.

Watch Grey Gardens. It has been described as a love story and anarchy unleashed. One of the best movies I've seen in years.

Stagg really likes Salvador Dali. He is pretty well read about a lot of artists but he didn't know that Dali had made a film set for Alfred Hitchcock. I was very excited to find Spellbound on the movie channels recently and to watch it with him.I have seen Spellbound a couple times before, but I hadn't really noticed how good looking Gregory Peck is in this movie. He is gorgeous! Especially against his playing Captain Ahab. I couldn't believe it could be the same actor and Peck might just be my new favourite actor. I am going to go out of my way to watch for his movies. Like so many of Hitchcocks movies it is about the redemption of love. The main characters are both too old to be still single, another Hitchcock trait, and their instant love for each other is both comical and sexy. Stagg was thrilled by the dream sequence created by Dali and it really adds to the charm and mystery of this film.

South Park has just gotten better and better. Is that possible? How could one of the most rigid and static animations in art history continue to be not only relelvant but insanely funny and entertaining. The animation has always been a kind of collage and anti-cartoon and technical statement, yet, the artists are very innovative especially as years go by. The last few episodes have been part of a continuing story of atheism versus faith. South Park has really nailed the issues and made me fall down laughing at the same time. Long live South Park!

Starbuck, first mate: It is our task in life to kill whales, to furnish oil for the lamps of the world. If we perform that task well and faithfully, we do a service to mankind that pleases Almighty God. Ahab would deny all that. He has taken us from the rich harvest we were reaping to satisfy his lust for vengeance. He is twisting that which is holy into something dark and purposeless. He is a Champion of Darkness. Ahab's red flag challenges the heavens.
Stubb: Well, sir, if it's like that, I don't wonder that you, a religious man, might be a bit downcast. But I don't much see what you can do about it.
Starbuck, first mate: Listen to this.
[He goes over to a bookshelf, picks up a heavy book, opens it, and reads aloud from it]
Starbuck, first mate: "A captain who, from private motives, employs his vessel for another purpose from that intended by the owners, is answerable to the charge of usurpation, and his crew is morally and legally entitled to employ forceful means in wresting his command from him.