Open Thread - Friday, December 21, 2018
Submitted by NCTim on Fri, 12/21/2018 - 3:20am
Consumerism is so weird. It's a sort of conspiracy we collude in. You'd think shoppers spending their hard-earned cash would be highly critical. You know that the manufacturers are trying to have you on.
- J. G. Ballard -
There's a logic today that places a greater value on celebrity the less it is accompanied by actual achievement. I don't think it's possible to touch people's imagination today by aesthetic means.
- J. G. Ballard -
'Crash' is a metaphor for what I see as the dehumanizing elements that are present in the world in which we live. We're distanced by the nature of the society we inhabit from a normal human reaction.
- J. G. Ballard -
I admired anyone who could unsettle people.
- J. G. Ballard -
I was terribly wounded by my wife's death.
- J. G. Ballard -
Even one's own home is a kind of anthology of advertisers, manufacturers, motifs and presentation techniques. There's nothing 'natural' about one's home these days. The furnishings, the fabrics, the furniture, the appliances, the TV, and all the electronic equipment - we're living inside commercials.
- J. G. Ballard -
I take for granted that for the imaginative writer, the exercise of the imagination is part of the basic process of coping with reality, just as actors need to act all the time to make up for some deficiency in their sense of themselves.
- J. G. Ballard -
I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.
- J. G. Ballard -
Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.
- J.G. Ballard -
The human race sleepwalked to oblivion, thinking only of the corporate logos on it's shroud.
- J.G. Ballard -
Happy Holidays! The thread is OPEN.
Comments
Rain
It has been raining for the past day and my Internet service comes and goes. I have to constantly reset the router, limiting my ability to participate in today's festivities.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Good morning, Tim. I've been up since about 1 am, dealing with
too much stuff. The tangible kind. And while I do that, too much stuff--the intangible kind-- goes on in my head. Sometimes, ADD is harder to live with than wasps. I can say that only because I've never had to live with wasps
I may be more tired this minute than I have ever been in my life. Normally, I have an amazing amount of stamina, even with little to no sleep. That changes, however, if I am trying to beat a deadline, as I have been since I woke up at 1 am. Ah, well, nobody needs whine.
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
I've always thought that ironic since he didn't follow his own advice when writing that. For example, this paraphrase is so much simpler than Thoreau's original:
Detail fritters our lives away. Simplify! Let your affairs be two or three, no more. Instead of a million, count six; and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.
Anyway...
Speaking of too much stuff: Hanukkah is over and we'll have another of NCTim's wonderful Funkin' Friday Open Threads before New Year. So, all I can do is wish Happy Holidays to all those offended by "Merry Christmas;" and wish Merry Christmas to all those offended by "Happy Holidays." Me, if someone wishes me ill, I may get offended. However, if anyone wishes me happy or merry anything, I appreciate it and say "Thank you. And to you as well."
Two of the best musical artists of all time--which is what I would say about Holiday and Fitzgerald, if I were familiar with the song stylings of anyone who sang before the invention of recording. They certainly are two of the best artists I've ever heard. Please enjoy.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVW7tECW-ZA]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPQ4nnvurpg]
4 AM
… for me. No deadlines, just can't sleep. I think it is a legacy of caregiving and symptom of aging. I rarely sleep more than four hours, and will catch another hour or so, during the day.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
I have no doubt that you subconsciously
trained yourself to sleep little because you were taking care of Sue--not to mention that stress keeps us awake. As I am sure you know, caregivers often pass before the patient. Johnny Cash's wife was but one example. That must be so awful for the patient. In addition to everything else that you did for Sue, you spared her that. You were both blessed.
Cuba: Rights and Reds
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obydnxrIaXU]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Merry Solstice, get your troll on
The wheel turns, yay. It's still dark but I couldn't wait and already read "Why Hummingbird Has A Red Throat" (from The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice, by Carolyn McVickar Edwards). sunrise woo
also from the book:
peace
P.S. troll as in 3b:
3. Music
a. To sing in succession the parts of (a round, for example).
b. To sing heartily: troll a carol.
Funkin' 'eh
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Hola, compadre! Another day, another Friday and drizzle
here: Awake for hours (is this a thing today?), and finally dragged my self out of bed to greet the morning coffee.
You may add to your list:
Reprising, in a different vein, the old master himself:
But, I've always been there, so I'm either prejudiced, jaded, or both. How many shrinks would've lobotomized Gautama Buddha, or Dipkanyara? How many shrinks actually did lobotomize how many buddhas and boddhisatvas? Ginsberg's howling continues to echo down through the corridors of time.
Thanks for all the tunes and wisdom, the morning mood and 'tude.
Have a great one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
xsnow
good morning el, my vlc media player icon has a little santa cap now. heh
xsnow is a little program that comes with Slackware Linux, maybe Ubuntu too? I don't know. Typing the command: "xsnow -sc yellow -bg black" it starts up with "Warning: don't eat yellow snow!" as a tribute to Frank Zappa I guess. lol right on. Green trees and yellow snow looks pretty good piling up on a black background while listening to the tunes.
Now I am wondering if there is some Zappa holiday music somewhere. Thanks a lot.
cheers
Happy Friday, eyo, no such application for ubuntu or in the
usual repositories it normally draws from. Thanks for the suggestion all the same.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Hola
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Oh *yeah.*
Gilmour, one of my favorite guitarists.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Did they think that writing a song about him
writing a song about him make up for what they did? I hope they at least shared some of their riches with him. Did the Beatles with Peter Best, I wonder?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EoflU9Lo3I]
It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm much obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here.
And I never knew the moon could be so big And I never knew the moon could be so blue
And I'm grateful that you threw away my old shoes
And brought me here instead dressed in red
And I'm wondering who could be writing this song.
I don't care if the sun don't shine
And I don't care if nothing is mine
And I don't care if I'm nervous with you
I'll do my loving in the winter.
And the sea isn't green
And I love the Queen
And what exactly is a dream?
And what exactly is a joke?
Morning, everybody!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Morning, CSTMS, hope you're having a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I've been doing yoga and my heater is fixed
So I'm feeling better on all counts, thanks!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
How you funkin' been?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Bit overwhelmed with life, but some things are looking up.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
So good.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I don't agree with this at all:
I don't think it's possible to touch people's imagination today by aesthetic means.
Of course it is. That's why the DoD spends so much money on films and TV shows. That's why organized troll brigades come about as close as one can to controlling the Internet...I mean, that's why they're *there*. That's why David Brock gets a million bucks. That's why our most beloved cultural artifacts from the past (whether you think they're any good or not) are getting rewritten. That's why history itself gets rewritten, or erased. The power of imagination in homo sapiens gets activated by storytelling. It's vitally important to fascists and other authoritarians to control this process and its outcomes. That wouldn't be true if it were no longer possible to touch people's imaginations by aesthetic means. Unless he's defining "aesthetic" differently than I do.
I agree with every other statement you quoted. This must be a highly intelligent guy, good at expressing the obvious in the Orwellian sense:
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I get what Ballard was getting at
Some people think mineral extraction for ANWAR or Bear's Ears is sound policy.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
I hope you have a good first day of winter!
....and you are all warm, happy, and healthy.
Those mythologists among us know this story of eternal conflict...
However, I enjoyed this new take with the addition of global warming included
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/oak-king-holly-king
Lots of music this week, and I'm a little weary of partying. One more session tonight and it should calm back down again. Rain, rain, and more rain here in the subtropics.
Wishing you all a sublime solstice!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good solstice to you as well, Lookout. :-)
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Happy Winter
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Here ya go, enhydra
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Heh, nice work there. And poor Paul Simon "walked off
to look for America" and found myriads of others doing likewise:
while all the time it was there all around them, as Marlow's Mephistopheles noted
and Ginsberg had long declaimed its description to the entire world that mostly remained to deaf to hear and too blind to see.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Nice...
Of course, I see this a bit differently, but we'll have plenty of time for that and many other discussions...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good Morning & Happy Solstice ...
Thanks for the J.G.Ballard quotes.
I'd never heard of him.
Predicted high of 77° here in the Old Pueblo today.
We'll be dining al fresco this afternoon.
I almost feel sorry for this guy: Veteran who served in Tucson draws millions in donations for Trump's border wall
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Happy Friday
Thanks for stopping by. Pull up a stool.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
The true cost of America's wars
Looks like he adapted well enough, but I'm wondering how he feels behind his smiles?
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
Happy solstice, Tim
In our third year of anti-consumerism.
Instead of buying little gifts for our Christmas dinner guests (adults), we are packaging scratch-off tickets in little re-useable boxes.
The ticket revenue supports the State Parks and schools. Last year, one of our guests won $45. And it's a lot fun sittin' around scratching off tickets laughing and waiting for dinner.
The kids get durable clothing or coats.
Neighbors get fresh homemade banana bread.
The SO and I combine our gift to each other (since we both have everything we need to be content) and make a pilgrimage to our local Humane Society and prepay the adoption costs for the longest residing dog or cat.
We usually add a $50 gift card from a local pet food store.
We travel and hike to much to have a pet.
Someday though.
And I usually get her some flowers, the smoking kind, and repackage them in a little vase.
Thanks for the great tunes, Tim.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Thats
so cool.
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march