All the World's a Stage

New Year's Eve 2011 is but a day away.  There were a lot of political things that happened this year, things which set the drummer's drumming in their paper spinning rooms.  Inklings of tomorrow's work already staining their hands, and yet always new and different, even to them.  Industry, ho!!

I wanted to touch a little on a phenomenon which has been going on for a long while and will continue to happen in an unexpected way into the future.

Evolutionary stages.  Big, boggy words there.  Going back to the "Big Bang", forward through time towards us, there are a string of ever-shrinking evolutionary stages.  The first stage, way, way back, was several billion years long. The next, very long as well, but shorter.

Follow the stages along up to the appearance of earliest humans, 2 million years ago.  After this appeared the various stages of man.  Off this diagram, then, are the stages closer to our own time.  Anyone in anyway familiar with anthropology and human history will know modern, "civilized" humans have only been around for the last several thousand years.  There have been evolutionary stages as well since the beginning of civilization, not only at geological and biological levels, but also socially/culturally -- a clock melting and waning sweetly away.  In the last several hundred years have been increasingly smaller  and smaller evolutionary periods.  In the last half century evolutionary stages are short enough in duration to happen within an individual's lifetime.  These stages continue shrinking.  Where does this lead?

Mayan Cosmogenesis.  December, 2012.  The increasingly shrinking evolutionary periods will reach a point - a point at which shrinkage will no longer be possible, and then "flip".  Evolutionary periods will start to slowly - slowly, but Shirley - start growing in size.  It will be as if a higher being held a mirror to our history and reflected in that mirror our future. Slowly, our evolutionary stages will take longer and longer.  I imagine some of us who live long enough will eventually find evolutionary periods extending past a lifetime's length.

Most noticeably, this change will influence the speed of progress, the incessant hammering away of technology with its insistent, feverish pitch of capitalistic innovation. I think the harried pace of life in general will slow. We may look back on our lives of this past century, and wonder how we handled the frenzied buzz of everyday life.

No doubt, I could be wrong. I have nothing to prove anything I have to say.  It is just a hunch, a hunch which I am loathe to admit I have not entirely a total faith in.  So, it can come across as dinner table banter, or some such, and will have to go that way:

"Oh, look, we've said our part -- How time flies!"

One Dark Second

Watch any movie nowadays and you’re likely to see somewhere along the line a zoom.  The zooming technique in movies nowadays is as ubiquitous as any other camera trick, such as pans, fades or editing cuts.  Zooms weren’t always so prevalent, though.  In the annals of experimental cinema (that almost mythical species of film that the average cinema goers will have as much a shot of seeing in their lifetime as spotting a Sasquatch), a film made in 1967 by Canadian Michael Snow called “Wavelength” was the first overt and most single-minded zoom to date (i.e. "Wavelength" is a movie composed entirely of one long zoom).

A zoom is made by changing, smoothly, the focal length of the camera lenses while the film is running. The camera's subject appears to grow, or shrink, continuously in the frame.  Though the zoom was around for decades before “Wavelength” it had never been used as the focus of a film.  “Wavelength”, being an experimental film, has not much in the way of a story.  The setting is an apartment, empty for the most part.  The movie starts with the camera, which one might infer is on the one side of the apartment facing the other.  Over the 43 minutes of the film, the camera slowly zooms into a photograph on the other side of the wall until it fills the frame.  The photo is of rolling waves on a lake or sea.  Initially, Snow had wanted to use a picture of the room itself, a kind of repeating, fractal effect.  He didn’t, however, and the film stands as it is (with the exception of some tinting of the film stock, and the entry of a few people – some being other experimental filmmakers who play a snippet of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”). Overall, however, it is excruciatingly boring to watch.

That very boringness –prompts me to guess at the meaning of the film, and I feel considering the ‘openness’ of the text, that any reading is legitimate.  The time the film was made in was an era fixated on space travel.  The trip in this apartment from one side to another is akin -- to me -- of a spaceship traveling to, and landing, on the moon.  A wavelength is a measure of distance not a measure of time. Because the moon is one light second from our planet (or 300,000 m), I'm tempted to say it suggests a kind of base unit (since the speed of light is 300,000 m/s).  The moon's  presence is also referred to most obviously by the waves and tides (i.e. the photo at the end of the zoom) on our planet.

  

"Wavelength" is about sight, about the moon, but also about space travel  - that is, travel across one room or between two heavenly bodies.  While it may be  too conceptual to be enjoyed by the average person, the film does make for some interesting readings, nonetheless. 

DE-heehee-MONS!?!??

Ever feel yourself couched before a TV and feel something kind of suck into you,  like a something or other (demon), and enter you so you become that person on the TV in a way, briefly?   I sometimes believe the television/computer projects beings into us.  Wait until we get better than this.  What happens when we have full, overwhelming possessions?  How long before one man or woman steps forth and projects their being into everyone watching and thereby creates a whole army of the damned & possessed? (Heehee?!?***) And how the hell do we get rid of these things, now?    

                                       

-          It’s possession by random demons all passing through the electrified air and sucking in into your very nervous system

-          They’re in there, there, where it’s warm, controlling you

-          Total possession is oneday expected, the oneday puppets

-          ***Why is It so hard to talk about this stuff seriously?!?  

HYPERLINK: See Spot Run

A
black
dog
running
in
water
fetches
the
bone.

Tragedy, Writ Large

Art used to be about stuff.  The role of art was once that of a sage, explaining what it was to be human, imparting wisdom, inspiring.  Art and its movements were the province of rebels; an artist expressed him/herself by abiding by tradition but doing something new as well.  It was violent and large.  Since the advent of the current age, this past quarter-century, we’ve gradually lost that presence in art.  It seems art today should be light-hearted and bold and play the role of a court jester, like Lear had with his Fool.  We can't seem to handle big ideas, big statements anymore these days.  Our consciousness of the world around us has shrunken to the size of the head of a pin.  McLuhan said we live now in a Global Village; maybe that village needs a Town Crier, or maybe that village needs a Town Drunk.  Maybe a bit of both.  Haha - I find myself slipping into the old "Artist" modalities again.  The art world has had enough with "booming voices from on high" as well as with drunkards and junkies.  We need a slippered mensch. A good soul. A modest soul.  Someone who could approach a subject playfully and gently -- however you put it these days, it should be put in a soft, small box.  If we can’t have art and artists as they used to be, we should receive truth by some other means, such as from funny-people and the universe of cartoons. We need good bomb-defusers these days; we need tonics for the bile.  More than anything, the age demands ticklers of funny-bones rather than slappers of faces!

Word Associations

I'm thinking of a game where people have to make up a chain of associations.  Each word leads to another which in turn leads to another, until you find yourself at the end of the chain, with a couple words you must fit between another word that connects them both.

First word – ‘Dracula”                                      
Last word: “The Pacific”

e.g. Dracula – vampire – blood – bloody Mary – drink –water--ocean –the Pacific

I have no idea how this would be played out.  It's an interesting game that I - err, I mean 78, 190 people - just thought of.  (Unlike the game, I know how playing with myself will pan out!?)

Johann Wolfgang von Grrrr-DUH

1  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt, Germany in the middle of the 18^th century. Goethe, was a poet, a playwright, a novelist, a philosopher, a scientist.

He was a Renaissance man more than a century after the Renaissance ended, during that tentative time when the European Novel was struggling to be born.  “The Sorrows of Younger Werther”, written when Goethe was  young and bold , and autobiographical – was  composed in a wild, suicidal clamor after being rejected by Charlotte Buff;

the novel’s protagonist, “Werther”, mad with heartache, commits suicide at the end of the book. An early example of the German “Sturm and Drang” movement,

(which translates as “Storm and Stress”), the novel shot Goethe to fame at an early age, planting the roots of the Romanticism of the early 19^th century, when Keats, Shelley, and Byron  had not even been born yet. 

2  “The Sorrows of Young Werther”
“The Sorrows of Young Werther” is a story told through a series of letters written between friends, Werther and Wilhelm. 

Werther is staying in a fictional little town, where he meets a peasant girl named Lotte (modeled on Goethe’s real-life love, Charlotte Buff -- note the corruption here of the name “Charlotte”), who takes care of her siblings with no help.  She is to marry a man 11 years her senior, Albert.  Werther, in what seems like a swoon of passion similar to Frederic’s near the beginning of Flaubert’s “Sentimental Education”

(although the books were written a century apart, this way of how young men fall in love does seem eternal), falls in love with Lotte.  In spite of these emotions, he resigns himself to trying to make a strong friendship with her. This causes him great longing and pain, which nosedives when Lotte marries Albert.  Werther must cut back, must strenuously cut back his visiting.  But one last visit? (Lotte and Werther kiss!).  But in his young and mad way, Werther realizes someone - Albert, Lotte, or Werther – must die.  He can’t bring himself to murder, so he kills himself! -- and he dies alone; buried with no service, no one, not even her to visit, under a linden tree.

3  Epistolary Novel
“Werther” was also an innovative piece of work, stylistically.  The book is entirely composed of letters - as such, it is considered the first ‘epistolary novel’ (literary work told through letters).

 There are many other epistolary novels -  everything from C.S Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” to Dostoevsky’s “Poor Folk” to other works that employ the epistolary device but mix it up with other sorts of narrative devices.  Goethe’s novel had a special relevance, though – people actually wrote to each other, communicated, back and forth with letters in his time. Today, the practice is outdated and practically replaced by email, Skype, telephones/cell phones, texting, etc.  There is something of lasting physical value to a letter.  Something to be said for the composition and careful work put into a hand-written letter.  Something you can hold in your hands.


4  Handwriting
There is something to be said about hand-writing, too.  Just as an epistle itself is a work of individuality and personal expression, so too does the very handwriting itself, a style nearly as unique and identifiable as a fingerprint, reflect a person’s personality.

 The size of the letters, spacing, slope,  roundness, size,  slashes, pressure of the pen on the paper -- all are elements of handwriting that contribute to the ‘voice’ or  identity of the hand-writing and, hence, the identity of the author.  The field of Graphology -- this is the study of handwriting as it relates to the psychology of the author.

It is used in law enforcement; as well, the medical field employs Graphology to determine diseases of the brain and nervous system.  As such, writing that might be termed “bad” can lead to a diagnosis of a brain disorder.  A writing style that might be termed “good” could point to something like goodness, health, even saintliness.  I wonder what graphologists might say of the writing of calligraphers? – “These are the souls of angels!” perhaps?…

5  Calligraphy
 Calligraphy, or etymologically “beautiful writing”,   is an art form wherein the letters being carefully written are made to be expressive and harmonious.

Today, the practice of calligraphy can be found in hand-lettered inscriptions and designs, and sometimes goes to the extent of becoming abstract lettering  that can be barely legible – art for art’s sake. 

Calligraphy differs from typography in that it is not as formally rigid, is more spontaneous and naturally expressive, and doesn’t conform as much to the lines of uniform print that are one of the hallmarks of typography.  For these reasons, calligraphy has always been a script of choice for religious works – primarily for its decorative appeal.  A great deal of calligraphy has been used in religious art, specifically in Illuminated Manuscripts, where artistic images are combined with the fancy lettering.
 

MORE Johann Wolfgang von Grrrr-DUH

Illuminated Manuscripts
Often religious in nature, illuminated manuscripts were also historic records.  The majority of the known manuscripts were created in the middle ages, and the artwork done in these manuscripts stands out as the best surviving paintings of the middle ages.  They are also the only surviving paintings for many periods of the medieval ages. 

Until the 12trh century, most of the illuminated manuscripts were created in monasteries. Some monasteries had separate areas specifically for the painting and calligraphic work used for the manuscripts, called “scriptoriums”.  Monks were isolated from their cloister here, and could work in on the manuscripts without being distracted or interrupted by a fellow monk.

Throughout the ages, entire Bibles, massive with the many pages and illustrations within, have been illuminated.  There is an illuminated Bible in Sweden so large it requires three librarians to lift it.  There have also been illuminated manuscripts from the Renaissance, which are rare since the invention of moveable type by Gutenberg brought the practice of illuminated manuscripts to an end. 

Hell
As they were religious in nature, many illuminated manuscripts depicted pictures of heaven and hell, of saints and other, mythical figures.  A major pre-occupation of the Anglo-Saxon church was with the torturous lives of evil men and sinners in the afterworld.   As such, many manuscripts do contain depictions of Hell, the experience of damnation. 

Medieval concern about Hell was also sparked by events in the world around the monks.   Some of the religious self –righteousness was ignited by the popularity of paganism.  Viking hordes brought with them into England their practice and belief in paganism, which was seen as punishment from God for the sinfulness of the people.

Satan
Of course, key to this sinfulness was Satan himself, who many considered not only God’s test of the faithfulness of his subjects as also the leader of the rebel angels in Hell.  He worked through the serpent in the Garden of Eden;  he was the tempter appointed by God to try to destroy Job’s faith, to test the strength of Christ in the desert. In literature, too, the lure of Satan’s temptations can be enough to corrupt and destroy.

 Witness “Faust”  - the popular myth, retold in many ways –a successful scholar becomes tired of his life and makes a deal with the devil to have omniscience and worldly pleasure.  He turns away from the divine, and turns his focus to the things of the world. 

The story was retold many times, particularly by Christopher Marlowe in the 16^th century and two centuries later, by Johann Goethe.

Faust
 “Faust” was an intellectual sick of earthly meat and drink.  Mephistopheles (Satan) made a deal with Faust to take his soul, in exchange for unimaginable glory and success, at the apex of his happiness.  That moment almost comes but God’s angels intercede and take Faust to heaven.

 Goethe worked on the play/poem over decades and it was published completely only after his death. The idea of ‘selling one’s soul to the devil” has a very deep resonance which inspired books, (e.g.  Thomas Mann), music (i.e. Wagner, among others), theatre (i.e. Orson Welles, etc.).  “Faust” reminds us of feelings we all have experienced in our lives, all of our temptations, our yearnings for worldly glory and power. 

Goethe’s “Faust” is a great exposition of the human soul and one of the greatest of the many versions.
  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The fame accorded the book,”Werther”, brought interest to its author Goethe from the court of  Carl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.  While living in the Duke’s court, in 1776, Goethe began a relationship with another Charlotte, Charlotte von Stein, a somewhat older, married woman. The bond they had lasted for a decade, but Goethe suddenly decamped to Italy, ending things. 

Goethe toured Italy for a couple years, writing about his experiences, in much the same way his father had.  Half of Goethe’s journey was recorded in his diaries, which later became his book, “Italian Journey”.  Many young Germans were inspired by Goethe’s book to travel there, too.  

But a near fatal heart attack and then, upon recovery, falling in love with Ulrike von Levetzow whom he wanted to marry, but his mother refused to let him was too much, perhaps.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died in Weimar, Germany, in 1832.  He outlived all of the Romantic poets – Byron, Shelley, Keats - so influenced by his work.   Posthumously, the second half of Goethe’s Faust was published. 

“Faust” would later be seen, Part I and Part II, as a monument of European Literature.

Faces

Post-modern Language

The thing about the post-modern age we’re living in, and have been living in, for the past 30 years or so, is that we all want to see citations and references - -we want to see familiar images and hear familiar sounds.  We want movies to either have videobits or audiobits (clips from movies/music/TV we all remember ) and we use these as commonly and ubiquitously as words or even letters.  We live in an age of reproductions and copying and citing and so on - - we want familiarity in our entertainment and in our culture.  And these ‘bits’ operate no less and no more than letters  (or perhaps words) in an increasingly complex video/audio language; in some ways, the new language is quite logographic (writing system that often pairs visual image with sound-based characters).  In some ways, we are becoming more Chinese, if the logographic writing system has any influence on the culture – which McLuhan would, of course, strongly argue for.  (I feel like I’ve written this all before, curiously enough, at the end of University, I think).  Most young people feel the world is devoid of originality because so much of it is familiar and cliched.  But people never say the English language is cliched, or the English alphabet is unoriginal.  Everyone uses them, either words or letters, freely and we treat them as free and open to creative use, or even dull use – but no one ever says, “Oh, you used the word “the” again.  Get a life!  Say something original!  Have an original thought!”  We should treat the post-modern age we live in as the incipience of a new language, whether they take the form of words or individual letters remains to be seen, but it is a new language, more complicated by far than the poor alphabet or English language.  Our discomfort and cynicism with the world and artistic cultures, of the state of being unoriginal and totally incapable of originality, is childish and ignorant.  We are living in the age of Cadmus - -maybe that’s why I wanted to do a short movie based on the myth.  Anyways, quote freely and use the images of the culture as openly as one uses their own mother tongue. You are part of a revolution in language!

Drunken Mr. Thomas by Drunken Mr. Moore

Alan Moore

The night Dylan Thomas died, he bragged to his wife he had had 18 shots of alcohol in a row -- everything is a test of man-strength and man-constitution. But that’s alright.  (It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall of that pub that night; but I doubt the bar even had a little picture on the wall serendipitously celebrating his achievement. Maybe, though- a Turner, a landscape?)

Dylan Thomas

Here, here now! Prince Charles , with his protuberant ears, might say something of Turner, as the Prince dabbles in watercolour painting. 

Hmm, don’t believe Turner ever painted in watercolours.  No, there was no painting in the bar when Dylan Thomas entered, unphased.  .A head goes ahead however you mind it.  So he downed the dreadful elixir and did some more merciless damage to his inner worlds and his disease was blackness inside him, black, black, Bible-black; why kill himself? Mandela said about hate – it's like drinking poison to kill someone else. But what if the poison is to kill you, a big chunk of you, that the rest of you can't even tolerate?

He only wrote when he was drunk.   He died for writing, didn’t he?  Somehow, Dylan Thomas figures for me his way into a “graphic novel” I wrote, called “From Hell”. All about Jack the Ripper.  

We know the culprit early on, so the story isn’t so much about who did it, but more why the hell is he doing it, and gives us a glance into the mind of a psychopath.  But everywhere in the novel, do the English seem drunk and miserable; if you’re from the working class (or from Northampton, as I was), you know what they lived like.  I can’t imagine Dylan Thomas was a very happy man most of the time.  Even some of the time.  And so the murderees of “From Hell” too carry themselves about. As  D.H. Lawrence coined the term, a “murderee”  is someone who is almost born to be a victim - fodder for murder, with inherent weaknesses, useless martyrs,  killing themselves through a whole gamut of possible tortures; some liveable, some a kind of romance with death.  Dylan Thomas was a murderee, an Icarus; he 'drowned' dedicated in his bed, I guess; in his house, I suppose; in his underworld – hmm.

I wonder , Watchmen-esquely,

if Thomas would have made much of a post-modern superhero.  Some people would call him that already, the Welsh son, a great, sloshing poet.  He would probably be given wings, like an angel, but he would learn to use them eventually so well he could go off the cliffs of Dover, and find his way through the huffing of the spirits swimming in the air up there, before being rescued by his reason and bravery to return and set foot on the soft grass on the cliff-top. 

He, too, would travel to various engagements – where locals had gathered to hear him speak, even off the cuff; let him compose in place, follow where he was leading them, and before he got too sloshed, take to the air again and bust a hole in the nightsky,

destroy a spy satelite, (shards clattering down into the sea). And then he would die and sleep, to gain his strength and mind to face the trials and shots from the enemies/miracles below, him needing just a quarter of an hour to pace it out and turn over another gem and start them thinking, start to placate all the murderers, all of them, which lurk in everyone, everywhere, good or bad.