the new place has worlds of goodness about it, and this is one of them. even better at night.
the new place has worlds of goodness about it, and this is one of them. even better at night.
... and the cigarette as civilisation.
A cultural history of the Cigarette, written by someone trying to give them up, 'Cigarettes are Sublime' by Richard Klein, is also a plea to see the current campaign against cigarettes (given the cheeky moniker of 'Antitabagism') as part of a broader campaign of 'censorious moralizing'. This last phrase might have rung in my head more before the days of K-Rudd and Obama ... but is in the mumblings against binge drinking---
The rising tide of hysterical overreaction, by its stridency, has succeeded in drowning voices raised to recall the social and cultural benefits of cigarettes--- the mystery of their having conquered the world, as Cocteau said. It is after all a world in which, for almost a century, a third (at least) of all adults have smoked billions of cigarettes a day.
I was surprised to find that-- in contrast to current efforts to remove smoking from pub-cafe-street ... public-- that smoking was an actively encouraged past-time, even a patriotic one through all the trials of our capital 'H' History. During all our wars, during all revolutions. The ever-present accessory of the soldier, the revolutionary to say nothing of the poet. As a war good, they were thought more important than food-- the humble cigarette's power and potency to deal with the anxieties of great change, great risk, and great romance, even with death itself, have played a central role in the great drama of the west.
I was also surprised by this obvious fact: that the cigarette is American, because tobacco is.
As the title goes, Cigarette smoke is sublime -- the stuff of dreams -- and that in war, revolution or great romantic trial, a brief escape can be found in smoke, and smoking: In the pause that it places on real time; the painful pleasure that is the act of smoking; 'for the dark beauty they bring to the lives of smokers.' In this, to see the cigarette as a prayer for our times.
Paul reflects: "And around us the prairie flowered. The blades of grass bent in the soft warm air of the late summer; we read letters and newspapers and smoked beatifically. . . It would have been easy not to have been sitting on those boxes today; we barely escaped it. And that's why all sensations today are new and strong: the red poppies and the good food, the cigarettes and the summer breeze" (Remarque 13) For Remarque's narrator, it is as if having barely escaped taking a hit was equivalent to haveing taken it; life after is like afterlife. Reborn, as if he had died and gone to heaven, lying there in the warm sun smoking "beat-iffically," the soldier is raised up and blessed amongst the saints, with what seems like and eternal life in which all sensations are new and strong; at that moment, he is also Kerouac "beat"-- very high, very real, very free. Once again able to taste and feel and smell, the parataxis of his language, the adding up of elements, things, and pleasure, enacts the return of his capacity to respond to stimuli other than those connected with survival; born again, he begins to discriminate between this and that, to sense the quality of the moment, to rediscover ephemeral beauty, the beauty of ephemera-- smoke vanishing in a summer breeze.
The most astonishing thing was this concrete moment, because I didn't know how politically important Casablanca was to our success in the Second World War. For a film where everyone smoked ... and that was shown to Franklin D. Roosevelt weeks before the United States made it's final commitment to join the European land war ... not that these two things-- smoking, and american intervention-- are connected obviously, but that they were connected by more than mere fiction through the romantic character of an (american) Rick... A character who prevaricated about his own commitment to europe, france and freedom at the very same time that FDR, America's Generals, and America in General were prevaricating themselves ... and whose trial through the movie-- a silent trial mediated continuously by smoking, and one that concluded (infront of Roosevelt himself, and the rest of america shortly after) by finding the courage to put the political needs of a foreign people above the immediate desires of the self; to put the bitter fight for Civilisation first, with a bitter drag from a smoking cigarette.
This is a great book. I'd recommend it to any smoker. I wish i could furiously demand all non-smokers read it too.
A friend texted me, confessing that they were in tears while he delivered his speech. I wish i'd caught the beginning so i could have enjoyed the catharsis. I found a full text of the speech, and picked out my favourite passage. After some rousing passages on Universal Healthcare and Education, came this. I think he'll make a fine president.
"The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon - that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonise. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first." (emphasis his)
Though i missed the CNN of this speech, i did get to switch over to Fox News. It was instructive. Their hand wringing either pathetically weak, or downright mutinous. Their talking heads were so moved by Obama's speech, and were so ready to concede this, rather than their usual 2c hack job, that Brit Hume crossed to a different (and totally unprepared) studio... the new host confessing his surprise that he was suddenly on the air before trotting out Karl Rove (the architect of the Bush Campaign) ... and the best part was that even he was stuck with a measly handful of terribly weak comment. e.g.
So he wants to pay teachers ... as far as i know how this is the first time that the federal goverment has gotten involved paying local teachers, how exactly is he going to do this?
... which hardly sounds like an attack ... and nor does:
... again ... not exactly an attack. Though Karl (as a major shareholder in Big Oil) put on quite a 'shocked' face while he was being so deliciously unconvincing.He says that he wants to 'make the oil companies record profits to provide a clean energy future' ... so he wants to tell the Oil companies how to spend their money?
Over coffee, Al and I got to talking about taking a Cadillac roadtrip down the campaign trail come september... doing a Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail ... i think that it's too perfect and too historic a campaign to miss. Al is keen to follow McCain as he slowly falls apart, and to document - film verite for youtube - the paid rent-a-crowds ... i'm keen to use it as an opportunity to be terrifically Australian (they LOVE us over there), and charmingly american kitsch in 10 gallon hats, stetson boots ... maybe even six shooters ... vox-popping our way along the campaign trail and through the contradictions of neo-conservatism. I.e. this strange alliance between the radical Libertarianism of Poor White Rural America, and the egregious Plutocracy that the Republican Leadership not only represents, but IS.
We could us the charming wild-west hick image that the american's have of us to totally disarm them, and as a humourous wedge to open the door to some biting irony and mock-surprise on our parts.
Al came up with the title "Shock and Awe"
... so tempting. Anyone else wanna come?
you sigh
and i
hold my breath
desperate to take all of it,
to hold every last piece of it.
you sigh
and I breathe in
and I feel you
You are my held breath.
we are by the sea in a car
it is dark.
time is slow.
every moment is full.
we are close and we are alone.
huge black waves crashing on the rocks of our night.
(i'm in the process of turning an old memory into a great long piece of concrete poetry.
This cold stormy night reminds me of an exquisite pain.
I might post more of it here. I might not.)
This post was turned into the manifesto at www.speciousmedia.com
Motivation
First and foremost, we all love mixtapes.More than this, we also think that they can be a powerful force for change because they capture so many powerful concepts at once.
A mixtape is at once an object and an idea, simultaneously filled with personal emotion, and radical intent; an object of passion (yes) but more often a softer sentimentality, one that reflects something other than the glamorized exterior of the plastic palace of celebrity. We think that Mixtapes are at the grass-roots of all music, and of change. They're the real object that recalls a lover, embodies a friendship, that introduced you to your favourite band, that saw you through that dark night of the soul... Perhaps most radically of all, a mixtape is always a gift. You can't buy a mixtape.
Historically, they've been at the core of every revolution in music since they were invented. The centre of cool in every musical sub-culture from Hip Hop to Punk, Heavy Metal to Folk, friend of every House DJ in between.
They are arguably the most democratic of all art forms. An art form that almost everyone has participated in. A truely social medium. One with history.We live in an age of new Social Media, where the internet, and mobile phones, have radically interconnected youth to communicate outside the traditional channels provided by broadcast media. Though worth billions of dollars to the shareholders of Facebook and MySpace, the changes made by this radical shift are still in their infant stages, and have yet to fundamentally change any of the traditional broadcast media-- i.e. the big money or institutional media-- except for music industry. Here, downloading has changed the whole economy, all the business models and most of the rules. Elsewhere, Youth remain subjected, forced to be mere spectators. Never actors.
Music, and the humble mixtape, stands opposed to this, and have always been a beacon of light for the initiated.We believe that we have a simple model of how the status-quo can be challenged. In Radio. we believe we can offer a truly networked, open and democratic radio experience. Using simple technology, and existing social networks, we think it is now possible for young people to do this themselves.That said, our motivating force might also be stated in quite negative terms.We share a distaste that payola based play listing dominates today’s radio— where the four 'major label' record companies control most of what we hear, and channel the audience artificially away from what is available, routinely resorting to bribery in addition to the softer power of their Oligopoly (see a ~recent US judgement here). This point is so well accepted that it is almost banal. Like gravity, it's invisible, and is the centre about which any conversation about music must revolve. Often it's too cliché to even talk about, but like the mass of the earth it still affects us.
Inevitably alienated not only young listeners, but also the industry itself from creating any new or evolved programming. Certainly nothing so democratic, open or - dare I say it - free as what we propose.The statistics in this area are even more sobering. Finding that in any given year ~82% of album sales globally are are from only 4 companies, and made up of only 10 different albums. The market's size is estimated at US$33 Billion dollars.
This is to say, we pay the equivalent cost of implementing the first UNDP Millennium Goal of ending extreme Poverty and Hunger ... Worldwide ... four times over ... in order to support an industry whose function is to restrict the sum total of new music to just 10 CDs a year.We want to change this.
Project Description
To invert the nature of traditional broadcast radio by playing only listener contributed media. Empowering the audience to ‘be the media’ in a unique way.Using the readily available (though not well publicised) ‘Special Event Narrowcast License’, and cheaply available self assembled transmitters, It is possible to start suburb-sized radio stations for periods of up to three weeks, at minimal expense, and with minimal lead time.This license type has been used to start a station in Sydney before. WILD fm (1996-2001), a dance music station that ran for years, and which expanded into three cities, by acquiring repeated short term licenses like the one we will use.Our group intends to collect a range of mixtapes through our online networks, and a poster campaign, and then to broadcast the contributed tapes/cd’s on our station.Essentially we follow the model of wikipedia. We break down the large problem (i.e. that of writing an encyclopedia) into small sections (i.e. defining a word at a time) and share the workload freely amonst the community. For our project this means, breaking down the monolithic problem of programming 168 hours of radio a week into easily digestible chunks (e.g. a tape or CD long, an hour or so each) and ask the community to contribute.Using the internet to help collect and collate the 'tapes', (which come as burned cd's, minidisks and virtual tapes, DVD-R ...) we minimise the cost and complexity of administering the project.This process is simple enough to be repeatable, and has the potential to be expanded in the future.
Lately, I've been surprised and impressed by a massive Action that I felt
was gesturing to the future of e-democracy, not to mention, a real sign of the times. It's fascinating (and equally hilarious) because it was organised
entirely online, and entirely by youngsters who have grown up taking the
interenet for granted-- many of these kids participating in a public
act for the very first time. Starting online, and rapidly taking on a
global real-life presence picketing, in some 40 different
countries, and some 120 locations. This all in less than three weeks since the
above words were uttered.
I'm speaking of Anonymous, and their campaign against Scientology known around the nets as Project Chanology.
I don't know how you feel about this kind of political action, or Scientology for that matter, and I'd be interested to hear
other peoples thoughts. Is this e-democracy? Some early form of things
to come?
I was interested in them, Anonymous that is, as a political
phenomenon. They're a unique kind of protest movement-- as it's a
global protest organised entirely organically, without leadership,
entirely online, by kids almost all of whom are under 18. Young kids who before their protest didn't know each other except
for myspace, bulletin boards (notably the most popular and perhaps
foulest imageposting boards on the internet, 4chan.org) and other bits
of the internet.
... and with a tone and humour completely unlike anything i've seen in all my years of activism.
For those interested, the primary sources are all online (in large
part thanks to Anonymous itself) and can be found in these four
locations.
For fairness, i'd include some statement by Scientology itself. But fuck that.
The movement first coalesced around the issue of censorship -
internet censorship - when Scientology lobbied for, and successfully
removed from YouTube an internal propaganda video of Tom Cruise at his
disturbingly inspired best. These kids thought it was hillarious, and
were initally pissed off that they were being denied legitimate LOL (or
'lulz' as they say) Taking on an indignant tone, with tongue placed
firmly in cheek, they started a campaign against the 'Church'.
Their first act was to take down the Scientology website. This was done with a kind of internet picketing. Variously described as 'hacking' or 'vandalism' by it's detractors, a DDoS is actually far from an secret or underground act. Details of how to do this yourself can be found in the archived discussion linked above, alongside the exhortations that sparked Anonymous to do so. Simply put, a DDoS involves getting a bunch of friends to block the gates to Scientology.org-- having each protester start
mass downloading of all the images of the site,
hogging the targets bandwidth, and thereby denying access or
'service' by the public. I large number of individuals are required to
participate in such an act, and this makes it inherently political. Those that describe it as 'hacking' deliberately misleading by adding connotations of criminality and (in this case) literally calling them terrorists.
This online act quickly evolved into a series of real life protests that drew
from an astonishingly wide variety of inspiration, history and
tradition of protest, taking on a character that - to me at the least,
and to them most certainly - was hillarious, and hillariously
irreverant.
The real life protest that I went to in Sydney, focused on being funny. The
chants were themselves highly ironic: parodies of traditional leftist
chants, done in fancy dress outfits replete with pop-culture references,
and a heavy dose of internet in-jokes to polish things off.
Yes, everyone was in fancy dress: Xenu inspired Alien masks, V for Vendetta outfits, and Matrix style 'Agents' abounded. WWII Gas masks and surgeons masks worn in the asian style thrown in for good measure.
The chants tended, when more serious, to gravitate around cheers such as "tax the cult", but more often were funny "show us your thetans (clapclap, cla-clap clap)" with by far the most popular item being a poster "HONK if you think SCIENTOLOGY is a CULT"-- which was very popular with passers by, even with the authorities: the fire department took their trucks around the block to drive their especially loud truck horns past ... twice!) ... huge cheers erupted from the crowd ... huge cheeky smiles written across the faces of protesters and fireys alike.
So, my question is this: Should we see this a sign of things to
come? If so, what? It's hard to draw concrete political conclusions
from a process that is still building itself and gaining
consciousness-- and i'll refrain from doing so here ... but perhaps we
can see something of a less apathetic generation growing here. Their
tastes, and there quite remarkable ability to organise, all on their
own.
An open letter to Pastor Vernon C. Lyons, Ashburn Baptist Church, and a response to this article "America, A Christian Nation?" that appeared in the 27th September last year. A more ridiculous article appeared last week that began with the sentence 'Many identify the Christian faith with the United States of America' ... Enough said. For a laugh see it here.
I can't help but notice some very dangerous trends in your sermon... I agree with you that one of the great civilising forces of the modern age has been America's religious freedoms. The pilgrims fled religious persecution in Europe, and founded their states, and their nation on a respect for different religious beleifs that they found so lacking in 17th century Europe.
You, Pastor Lyons, far from defending this proud tradition are giving into the selfsame feelings that the Inqusitions of that time gave into while searching for their own "true christainity".
You make an identification between Christianity and Freedom and America, and i think this is the most dangerous, precisely because it is so comforting.
You argue that freedom of religion is Christian and American. But, It appears that you also think religious freedom is a Uniquely Christian, and Uniquely American. At the very least, you imply it heavilly, knowing that your audience will enjoy the comfort, and accept the claim without you having to state it directly. This is dishonest.
You argue for Religious Tolerance, yet you fail to recognise that this is a claim made by all religions. Infact, you single out four (4) other creeds as against this freedom. Your tone in a time of war implies you agree with certain acts of force between the faiths and nations. Aside from the fact that this is itself exactly the religious intolerance that you claim Free Christian America defends against, It is also completely untrue.
Before we single out other nations, and seek comfort in our own warm thoughts, we should remember that religious intolerance is a common, and great failing of all men, in all nations. To face such a thing in others, for indeed it is a great evil, and indeed we must face it-- we must face the same evil in ourselves. A short list should remind us. Inside America the Salem witch trials, the systematic eradication of heathen indian tribes in the North and South Americas, the eradication of the religions of west africa amonst slaves, to say nothing of the on the street racism in a post 9/11 world.
Before we become too rash, and paint some 1 billion human muslims with the same brush, we must also remember some great things about our Muslim brothers. Putting dictatorship in Saudi Arabia aside in the same way that we put Salem or the Mohicians for ourselves, the vast majority of ordinary man-in-the-street Muslims do not practice systematic religious intolerance. I've heard them argue, using almost the same words as you: that is, your "true christianity" that does not use force in such matters. They say that "real islam" does no such thing either.
I reccomend any Christian to travel through the muslim world. There you will be greeted warmly, and told that you must be friends because you are both "people of the book" ... I look quite Jewish you see, with my dark curly hair, dark eyes, and olive skin (which are actually from Ireland) Quite apart from being singled out, I was often greeted in Hebrew while i was in Egypt, and far from being attacked, or fearing for my life because i was part of some infidel nation, was treated with special a special warmth everywhere I went. Hospitality, and care for travelers in particular is not good manners in Islam. It is a duty, and a point of personal honor. Because if this, i have scarcely felt more safe anywhere i have travelled.
I felt much more scared on the streets of New York City.
My many companions in Cairo's coffee shops, museums, parks and streets made a point of this: That we were all "people of the book". They also pointed out that there are important and proud moments in the Koran, and early Islamic history, where the great leaders of their faith insisted that they not push their military advantage because of this: "force will cary no weight in matters of faith." The recent film "Kingdom of Heaven" shows the Righteous Caliph Saladin, with his clemency for the crusaders in Jerusalem. I recommend this film to you, and also the passages from the Koran about Muhammad's proud and passionate orders not to kill after the battle for Medina. It was this holding back of force, and a kind of proud, chivalrous sense of honor that characterized early Islam. I would say that it's a surviving constant among muslim peoples.
One might remember Lawrence of Arabia's diaries, where a christian, while liberating the same people some 1300 years later remarked often of their generosity, and this proud withholding of force. He held it in great admiration, and dedicated some beautiful prose in his "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
What is important to remember, is that all people feel the temptation to force their views. The passionate amonst us fail most often. It is an evil which we must all guard against. Sometimes passion is a virtue. Not on its own, not in and of itself. It is no virtue without reflection, no virtue without knowledge, and no virtue when it is used to cover important facts.
Yours Sincerely,
Benjamin George Griffin
(P.S. You should also loose the toupee. It makes you look dishonest and creepy. Someone should make a poster with "would you trust this man with your children.")
subtitle: "waking up at midnight feeling hungry and angry"
In the interests of this post not being filled with heavy political comment that neither my Socialist friends nor my Liberal Voting ones will enjoy-- and which will simultaneously bore/irritate/turn-off all my apolitical friends. *ahem* In the interests of avoiding said, I'm going to do the thing that everyone can agree to hate on: blog posts about dreams.
Think of it as a Jungian version of the classic diary entry of the form that begins "I love John so much..." (allusions intended.)
After this positively terrifyingly personal digression i'll tell you about three awesome things i saw today.
So, "Waking up at midnight feeling hungry and angry" ... i had a nightmare where i was protecting a lake in a pristine island hideaway from the construction of a series of cascading tailings dams for a iron ore smelter they were building at the holiday resort (to support and subsidise the eco tourism of course - god only knows why my dreams contain so much spin at this time of year) But also from some kind of evil flying dophin-swordfish-dinosaur thing that had the power to levitate and skewer us all to protect it's investment interests.
I woke up just before the action started. It's always like that, and it blows: you get all angry, and then the adrenalin knocks you back into reality. Which sucks because I was really looking forward to fighting the flying dolphin investor. Anyway the psychological preparations for battle left me hungry, so i had to eat- and woke up feeling hungry.
I'm not going to decode it, thought it's obviously an expression of my political thoughts and feelings. And for those of you that know me a little better-- something a little more immanent that is clashing with them.
------------
Hope you all have a nice day, wish me luck with the postering, I think I've either scared off, insulted, or not-been-cool enough for someone in the grand old process of it all.
----------
I also thought these three things were cool today: interestingsouth and encyclopaedia dramatica and this short story
interestingsouth is... a meeting ... about a bunchy of interesting things presented in an ad-hoc nerds and genii. Think modern art and wifi, free hugs and electronics ... because they met on a Web2.0 site. Interesting? yes. Me going? yes.
Think of it as the inflamatory, biased, frequently libelous and defamatory version of Wikipedia, compiled by a bunch of genY kids that express themselves with all the shrill delight of net culture (often at all that is awful and wrong in net culture) and do it all in IM-- i.e. with the frantic verbal ranting that makes up MSN-english. I think it's fucking fantastic. I also things that it's a fine espression of netculture, and the generation that has always been wired's mindset and humour. More simply: GenY at it's best. Encyclopaedia Dramatica ... the page that i'm linking here is a net tragedy, and an example of how ... well, i could say something about how young people process their own tragedy, but you should probably just read it. Also check out the page on the "An Hero" (sic) Kurt Cobain which begins with:-
"Formed sometime in the 80s by hack, no-talent wannabe punk pussy Kurt Cobain, Now more commonly known as Kurt Go Bang. Nirvana epitomized the "alternative rock" and "grunge" movements of the 1990s, making them directly responsible for most of today's shit bands. Cobain was dirty, smelly, wrote horrifyingly terrible songs, and sounded like he went over his voice box with sandpaper every night. Naturally every teenage stoner moron adores him. He also killed himself, becoming the VH1 equivalent of Jesus Christ, after spending an afternoon getting drunk alone and listening to King Crimson. As for the other members, who the fuck were they?
"It's better to burn out than to end up a failure like that Kurt Cobain." -Neil Young.
Like i said, fncking gold.