A Little Evil Goes A Lot Further Than A Little Good

Fig. 1. 'Don Draper' (John Hamm) - Mad Men

Power and agency are synonymous, but they are not isomorphic. At its worst, power is an end in itself, with the means to match; while agency, when it is predominantly benign, can never be utterly self-serving. Of course, agency without power, or power without agency, are rare. In order to set the two apart, we need to locate them within the matrix of human desire: agency is what we crave, power is what seduces us.


Addendum:

Nirvana -The Man Who Sold The World (click to watch music video)

Perfunctory Lessons In Advance Of The Kissing Hour

Fig. 1. Anca Daucikova - Kissing Hour (video), c. 2000

'I wasn't kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth.'

Chico Marx

It's A Friday Thing: This Is Not A Pain(t)hing - Oh, No!

Fig. 1. Hiraki Sawa - Going Places Sitting Down (video still), 2004

'Psychologists - and more especially philosophers - pay little attention to the play of miniature frequently introduced into fairytales. In the eyes of the psychologist, the writer is merely amusing himself when he creates houses that can be set on a pea. But this is a basic absurdity that places the tale on a level with the merest fantasy. And fantasy precludes the writer from entering, really, into the domain of the fantastic. Indeed he himself, when he develops his facile inventions, often quite ponderously, would appear not to believe in a psychological reality that corresponds to these miniature features. He lacks that little particle of dream which could be handed on from writer to reader. To make others believe, we must believe ourselves. Is it worthwhile, then, for a philosopher to raise a phenomenological problem with regard to these literary "miniatures", these objects that are so easily made smaller through literary means? Is it possible for the conscious - of both writer and reader - to play a sincere role in the very origin of images of this kind?

Yet we are obliged to grant these images a certain objectivity, from the mere fact that they both attract and interest many dreamers. One might say that these houses in miniature are false objects that possess a true psychological objectivity. Here the process of imagination is typical, and poses a problem that must be distinguished from the general problem of geometrical similarities. The geometrician sees exactly the same thing in two similar figures, drawn to different scales. The plan of a house drawn on a reduced scale implies none of the problems that are inherent to a philosophy of the imagination. There is even no need to consider it from the general standpoint of representation, although it would be important, from this standpoint, to study the phenomenology of similarity. Our study should be specified as belonging definitely under the imagination.

Everything will be clear, for instance, if, in order to enter into the domain where we imagine, we are forced to cross the threshold of absurdity, as in the case of [Bean Treasure] , Charles Nodier's hero, who gets into a fairy's coach the size of a bean. In fact, he gets into it with six "litrons" of beans on his shoulder. There is thus a contradiction in numbers as well as in the size of the space involved. Six thousand beans fit into one. And the same thing is true when Michael - who is oversize - finds himself, to his great surprise, in the house of the [Beggar Fairy], which is hidden under a tuft of grass. But he feels at home there, and settles down. Happy at being in a small place, he realises an experience of topohilia; that is, once inside the miniature house, he sees its vast number of rooms; from the interior he discovers interior beauty. Here we have an inversion of perspective, which is either fleeting or captivating, according to the talent of the narrator, or the reader's capacity for dream. Nodier, who was often too eager to be "agreeable", and too much amused to give full reign to his imagination, allows certain badly camouflaged rationalisations to subsist. In order to explain psychologically this entry into the tiny house, he recalls the little cardboard houses that children play with. In other words, the tiny things we imagine simply take us back to childhood, to familiarity with toys and the reality of toys.

But the imagination deserves better than that. In point of fact, imagination in miniature is natural imagination which appears at all ages in the daydreams of born dreamers. Indeed, the element of amusement must be removed, if we are to find its true psychological roots.

. . .

Representation becomes nothing but a body of expressions with which to communicate our own images to others. In line with a philosophy that accepts the imagination as a basic faculty, one could say, in the manner of Schopenhauer: "The world is my imagination." The cleverer I am at miniaturising the world, the better I possess it. But in doing this, it must be understood that values become condensed and enriched in miniature. Platonic dialectics of large and small do not suffice for us to become cognizant of the dynamic virtues of miniature thinking. One must go beyond logic in order to experience what is large in what is small.'

Gaston Bachelard

Please Be A Witness To Love As A Thing Of Wonder*

Fig. 1. Quadricycle for two, 1886

Valentine's Day May Mean More To Retailers Than Lovers

Some holidays know who they are. Thanksgiving is about giving thanks; Independence Day celebrates freedom. But other holidays contradict themselves, and none more than Valentine's Day, which has about as much to do with love as the Easter Bunny has with resurrection.

For one thing, it's named after a martyr, which isn't a very promising start for a holiday meant to celebrate passion, not punishment.

In olden days, a typical observance involved bachelors pulling maiden's names out of an urn like a raffle. Nowadays, Valentine's Day is a favorite of 8-year-olds who come home from school with more candy than on any day other than Halloween, though this, too, seems a little odd for a holiday that shimmies into view in a pink feather boa and high heels.

Children alone can't account for the fact that a billion cards are sent every year - second only to Christmas - and 85 percent of them by women. For this, we can thank Esther Howland, a 1847 Mount Holyoke grad whose father owned a stationery store and who came up with the idea of mass-producing Valentines. The mother of the Valentine never married, but she did get very rich.

I'm suspicious of any holiday in which the greeting card business and the diamond cartel conspire. Greeting cards have their place - congratulations on the new baby, joy and peace in 2009 - but surely love should sing harmonies only you can hear, not the tinny pipe organ of the Hallmark serenade.

As for the diamonds, I like them as much as the next girl, but especially in this economy it would be nice for love to be associated with something warm and soft and accessible, not cold, hard and exorbitant.

My main frustration is that Valentine's Day only pretends to celebrate what we like about love while more often undermining it. Love is hope and madness and generosity; it asks for nothing in return. Valentine's Day easily evokes dread and duty and devotion put through a metal detector.

A million Web sites instruct men on what to give, lest they send the wrong signal or are reduced to relying on drugstore chocolates. Restaurants cue the violins and raise their prices. You can find matching Snoopy Valentine towels on eBay, not to mention naked Cupid refrigerator magnets.

There's nothing wrong with reveling in romance, and honoring friendship, and pausing in the bleak midwinter to tickle the people we love, but it's also a good sign of the state of your relationships if the day just saunters by and winks and you feel no need to pay much attention.

Love should fizz without champagne, should grow even in hard soil. The minute its expression feels like a duty, it has lost its bearings. "Love sought is good," Shakespeare observed, "but given unsought is better."

Nancy Gibbs (Time/PBS)

* 'I have always felt that there is a triangular quality to every love affair. There are two lovers and a third element - the idea of being in love itself. I wonder if it is possible to fall in love without this third presence, an imaginary witness to love as a thing of wonder, cast in the glow of our deepest stories about ourselves,' (Siri Hustvedt)

Addendum: Smoke Me Down To The Butt, Baby

My Bloody Valentine - Cigarette In Your Bed (click image to watch clip on YouTube)

A Noble Dream - But Can The Dream Survive Reality?

Fig. 1. Robert Frank - Parade (Hoboken, New Jersey), 1955


Aboard At A Ship's Helm

Aboard at a ship's helm,
A young steersman steering with care.

Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
An ocean-bell - O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.

For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition,
The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails,
The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds
away gayly and safe.

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

Walt Whitman

Addendum #1: The Torch And The Task Have Been Passed To A New Generation

Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech (in full), August 28, 1963

Addendum #2: Ms Tanya Walters And The GYO (Click image to visit the GYO website.)

Addendum #3: A Rock Anthem Turning Twenty-One At, Surely, The Perfect Time

The Patti Smith Group - People Have The Power, 1988

Ode To Those Who've Heard The Barmaids Singing*

Fig. 1. Édouard Manet - Un bar aux Folies Bergère, 1881-2

Fig. 2. John Brack - The Bar, 1954

Fig. 3. Yasumasa Morimura - Daughter of Art History: Theatre B, 1998

'An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.'

Dylan Thomas

* 'I have heard the mermaids singing each to each / I do not think that they will sing to me.' The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917) by T.S. Eliot

Addendum:

Leonard Cohen - Closing Time (click image to access clip on YouTube)

Obituary: Lost in Space actor Bob May dies at 69 in California (CDT, 18.01.2009)

Fig. 2. The Lost in Space (1965-68) cast: Mark Goddard, June Lockhart, Guy Williams, Billy Mumy, Angela Cartwright, Jonathan Harris, Marta Kristen and Bob May (as "The Robot").

Truth Is, Everybody's Got A Recipe For Lemonade

Fig. 1. Giovanna Garzoni - Still Life with Bowl of Lemons, late 1640s

'An easy task becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance.'

Terence

Addendum: When The Only Way Is Up, Grab A Shovel And Start Digging

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Digg!!!

Staging The Delicate Ecology Of Our Delusions*

Fig. 1. Angels in America (still), 2003 - d. Mike Nichols

'I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired. Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so.'

"Harper Pitt" (Angels in America by Tony Kushner)

* 'Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.' "Mr. Lies" (Angels in America)


Your Ears Will Orgasm #24: CocoRosie (MixPod Player)

1. Rainbow Warrior
2. Werewolf
3. Jesus Loves Me
4. South 2nd
5. Good Friday
6. Noah's Ark
7. Animals
8. Japan
9. Beautiful Boyz
10. By Your Side
11. Not For Sale
12. Raphael
13. Terrible Angels
14. Armageddon
15. The Sea Is Calm Again


Links:

CocoRosieland (Website)
CocoRosie (MySpace)
CocoRosie (Wikipedia)

Addendum: Kooky, Cute, And Completely Cool

CocoRosie - Rainbow Warrior

I Am Floating Free - Like A Drunk In A Midday Choir*

Fig. 1. Henri Matisse - Le bonheur de vivre, 1905-06


'I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.'

Henri Matisse

* 'Like a bird on a wire, / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free.' (from Bird On A Wire by Leonard Cohen)

Addendum: At First Because I Had To Be - Now Because I Want To Be

Johnny Cash - Bird On A Wire (1994)

The Exact, Elegant Arithmetic Of Artificial Sounds*

Fig. 1. J. W. Waterhouse - Saint Cecilia, 1895


'The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes." And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be, "No."'

Aaron Copland

* 'Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.' Claude Debussy

Your Ears Will Orgasm #19: Debussy - String Quartet (MixPod Player)

Addendum #1: So Much Better When She Was Being Bad

Eartha Kitt (1927-2008) - C'est Si Bon (Live Kaskad, 1962)

Addendum #2: So Much Clearer When You Think About It

The "magic mirror maze" sequence from The Lady from Shanghai (1947) - d. Orson Welles (who, in 1950, gave her her first starring role, as "Helen of Troy" in his staging of Dr. Faustus)

And The Lord Said, "Let There Be Lego": Part Two

The Brick Testament: "Jesus Is Born"

Fig. 1. Being an upright man, and not wanting to disgrace her in public, Joseph had decided to leave Mary quietly. Matthew 1:19

Fig. 2. But as he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The child in her is of the Holy Ghost. She will give birth to a son. You will name him Jesus.' Matthew 1:20-21

Fig. 3. About this time, Caesar Augustus ordered a census of the entire Roman Empire, and so everyone went to their own towns to be registered. Because he was a descendant of King David, Joseph set out from Nazareth to the town of David, called Bethlehem, to register with his pregnant fiancée Mary. Luke 2:1 & 3-5

Fig. 4. It happened, while they were there, that the time came for her to deliver her child, and Mary gave birth to her firstborn son. Luke 2:6-7

Fig. 5. She wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn. Luke 2:7

Fig. 6. There were some shepherds out in the nearby fields, keeping watch over their flock at night. Luke 2:8

Fig. 7. An angel of the Lord appeared before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. The shepherds were terrified. Luke 2:9

Fig. 8. But the angel said, 'Don’t be afraid! Listen, a Savior has been born to you today who is Christ the Lord. Here is your sign: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.' Luke 2:10-12

Fig. 9. Suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host was there with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men he favors.' Luke 2:13-14

Fig. 10. So the shepherds left in a hurry. Luke 2:16

Fig. 11. And they found Mary and Joseph, and the baby was lying in the manger. Luke 2:16

Fig. 12. Having seen the baby, the shepherds made known what they had been told about this child, and all who heard it marveled at the things that the shepherds told them. Luke 2:17-18

Fig. 13. After eight days passed and it was time for the child to be circumcised, he was given the name Jesus. Luke 2:21

Fig. 14. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the days of King Herod, some magi from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose, and have come to do him homage.' Matthew 2:1-2

Fig. 15. When Herod the king heard about this, he was disturbed, as was all of Jerusalem with him. Matthew 2:3

Addendum: Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas (1968 Comeback Special)

The Fulsome And Final Missives Of Those We Miss

Fig. 1. Le Testament d'Orphée (still), 1960 - d. Jean Cocteau

'After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.'

Jean Cocteau

Your Ears Will Orgasm #15: Cello Concerto (Farewell to Philosophy) - Gavin Bryars (MixPod Player)

Addendum #1: The Delicate And Precarious Tact In Audacity*

Klaus Nomi (1944-1983) - 'The Cold Song' from Henry Purcell's opera King Arthur (Munich, December 1982)

The Cold Song

What Power art thou,
Who from below,
Hast made me rise,
Unwillingly and slow,
From beds of everlasting snow!

See'st thou not how stiff,
And wondrous old,
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold.

I can scarcely move,
Or draw my breath,
I can scarcely move,
Or draw my breath.

Let me, let me,
Let me, let me,
Freeze again...
Let me, let me,
Freeze again to death!

Henry Purcell (music) & John Dryden (lyrics)

At the time of this performance, Klaus' audience was unaware of his HIV-positive status. Although frustrated with shortness of breath and fatigue, he was determined to perform to his home crowd. Six months later, Nomi died. He was thirty-nine years old.

* 'The tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.' Jean Cocteau

Addendum #2: This Strange Weimar Version Of Mickey Mouse*

Klaus Nomi performing 'Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix' from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns:

* 'Toward the end of the show, the lights dimmed and the room was filled with a thundering musical ovation. The curtains opened and the spotlight fell on a strange, unearthly presence wearing a black gown, clear plastic cape, and white gloves. As the orchestral refrain from Saint-Saëns' Samson and Dalila was played, this strange Weimar version of Mickey Mouse began singing in an angelic voice. "I still get goose pimples when I think about it," remembers Joey Arias, who was in the audience that night. "Everyone became completely quite until it was over."'

Steven Hager (Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene)

Everything That Is And Isn't In A Name, Idea Or Thing

Fig. 1. Joseph Kosuth - Titled (Art as Idea as Idea, Nothing), 1967


'Singularities are the true transcendental events. . . . Far from being individual or personal, singularities preside over the genesis of individuals and persons; they are distinguished in a 'potential' which admits neither Self nor I, but which produces them by actualising or realising itself. . . . Only a theory of the singular point is capable of transcending the synthesis of the person and the analysis of the individual as these are (or are made) in consciousness. . . . Only when the world, teeming with anonymous and nomadic, impersonal and preindividual singularities, opens up, do we tread at last on the field of the transcendental.'

Gilles Deleuze (The Logic of Sense)

Addendum: Coup de Silence (or, The Dictatorship of Dumbness)

John Cage - 4'33", 1952 (BBC Symphony Orchestra - c. Lawrence Foster, 2004)

‘The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these, is composing. I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.’

John Cage

When Words Leave Off, Music Begins*

Fig. 1. Jan Brueghel the Elder - The Sense of Hearing, 1618

'Music is the best means we have of digesting time.'

W. H. Auden

Addendum: György Ligeti - Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes, 1962

* Heinrich Heine