i just saw island of the hungry ghosts. it is beautiful. i just want to say if you look it up and read the reviewer who says it's boring i promise you that person has no soul, perhaps that person's soul left has the body scratching its head, to wander, a hungry ghost.

the film reminds me of arnold toynbee's writing about the interregnum. that reminds me of the bardo, and now the island of the hungry ghosts. i think all of these are here on earth, and all about migration and the search for love and sanctuary in a world of waste and war.

 

head to tail.

We interact with an infinity of objects from birth to the grave.

Over time our ‘belongings’ become more steeped and resonant with memory and nostalgia.

In many ways, personal objects express aspects of who we are – our identity: our values: our statements and choices.

The passages of time through which we exist become defined by the objects with which we interact.

The artefacts contained within the earthen mound — partially buried — partially excavated — have all played a part in my life.

I have had a special connection to each item presented — a connection that has been hard to relinquish.

In time, we will all disappear from this earth.

This is our destiny.

What will we leave behind? Who will remember us — and for how long?

The mound is a glorious metaphor for the ultimate conclusion of all material manifestations.

We cling — consciously or unconsciously to ‘things’ that are endowed with emotional significance — keeping memories alive, while the uncomfortable awareness of the inevitable moment of departure is held at bay. 

annie lennox


* this is what reminded me of a show i saw long ago of a mother's apartment replaced in a gallery along with the artist's childhood room, as i recall. r. said my studio is like a museum of collected objects, and i've thought how moving so much as a kid conditioned my collecting as a groanup. 

you can see when peoples' spirits are clear or opaque.

or if you can't you, can watch how they respond to the clear spirit of a happy dog. 
that will clarify things.

i had this thought, probably just a passing fancy (all i have energy for!) of gathering up all my collections of things over there in my time capsule studio and putting them in a show.

oh, my dog! that sounds brilliant!

and i'll be there 
yes i'll be there 
bodhisattva 
bodhisattva 
bodhisattva 
look out.

is this the interregnum? are we interred in the hardened egg of this built space? what is the universal religion? there are still wars with flags and religions but these are wars for money water and oil, right? the universal religion is money, right? nothing is clear and nothing is clean, the taint is in everything. this religion engenders hate, does not unite, agglomerates in hate and war and if that is the universal mission it only uses money like flags and religions and prisons to establish the universal religion of species suicide in the cause of the deliverance of the planet from the cancer of human oppression and a return to adaptation and natural evolution. but this is only a passing fancy this morning, only speculation, you see. there is something we must figure out here.

The disintegration of a civilization involves a time of troubles, such as a time of wars between the nations which are parts of the civilization. This time of troubles is followed by the establishment of a universal state, an empire. The existence of a universal state such as the Roman Empire is evidence that the civilization has broken down.
Ultimately the universal state collapses and there follows an interregnum in which the internal proletariat creates a universal religion and the external proletariat becomes involved in a Volkerwanderung, a migration of peoples.
The universal religion and its philosophy are usually borrowed from an alien civilization. The development of the new religion reflects an attempt by the people of the internal proletariat to escape the unbearable present by looking to the past, the future (utopias) and to other cultures for solutions. The religion eventually becomes the basis for the development of a new civilization. Religion amounts to a cultural glue which holds the civilization together. There is thus a close relationship between religions and civilizations. 

-Arnold Toynbee
 

the books are coming too fast now and i'm a reader too slow. there's life i need to get from books. there's enough time but energy. time we have and energy but the limit is reached daily exhausted. i'm only halfway through dr. seuss, is it necessary to read the life of dr. seuss apparently i don't know but halfway is all the way. i left the besieged city, honestly i don't know about that one. now all the fierce tethers is waiting at the library and i also have invictus but that's just poems, a breeze, but in love with the world, a monk's journey through the bardos of living and dying is in transit. all we have is time and we are only one person, yet we are manifold consciousness, so who knows, read on, kids, read on.

it's funny to think of the disintegration of civilizations with mister. my eyes are itchy. it looks like rain again. i saw days of future past last night. we are precarious. the system we created overcame the need to adapt and separated us from the natural environment. in our control of nature we've lost the ability to survive outside of the precarious built space. the systems we created have to be fed fossil fuel, and we have become, with our consumption, plastic people. it's funny to think about these things with mister. nature is still so close by.

after

before

all the animals try and adapt to human control.

i always see sifu in the afternoon on the point doing walking meditation and i always want to draw closer and see and i dreamed of taking a picture with mister and this time somehow because of that annoying thing with charles it was just the right time and mister went directly to him like a light and he responded with a light and now i have pictures which i was afraid would be too dark as he is dark inside that white robe but in black and white i love it, just right, and now i know he is how i imagined or wished, grounded and ethereal, and a lover of dogs, and gritty as a city creature, with a cultivated city spirit. i'm very thankful to meet and so is mister and sifu too. he said mister is an enlightened soul and i agreed and told him the story of how we came to meet and how i recognized him and he me and sifu said i may have known him in another life and i said it feels like i always have.

i must say i like hersh muchly but charles is annoying. he tells dumb laborious jokes walks real slow says stuff about being lovesick and leaves poop. today a woman on her bike asked is that your dog and i said it's his and she busted him for leaving a fresh pile and he said i'll get it and she said you want me to show you where it is and he said i'll follow my nose and she said i have two dogs and i hate when people leave poop to step in and it was clear he was blowing her off and she knew it and shrugged and rode on i assume and i just kept walking faster wanting to distance myself as i have before but today i have to say it. i thought he left his poop before and i said something and he acted like he was getting to it sheesh. anyway then he caught us up when i was photographing sifu, a tall elegant fellow in a white robe, who you'll see in a mo. but then chas made a joke about his name and i scooted on again. 
btw dont worry he wont read this and wouldnt care anyways.

i did a people walk with lulu today. she did good! i even had her on a retractable lead which she thought was odd but it worked. she went to the end but when i said wait she waited and she pulled less than on the short lead. we came across essie's mom and i warned her lulu was a little nutty, not recognizing her. she mentioned essie and i remembered lu went bonkers last time. then we saw another doodle and she asked if lu was friendly and i said yes but a little crazy, but she wasn't that bad! she didn't go bonkers and then i felt bad calling her crazy. really for a boxer puppy she's remarkably good, except for recall. i've seen other boxers, older, going bonkers more. then we saw the second doodle with another doodle on a front porch and she started and then saw me and told the other doodle ma what i said about friendly-crazy. 
after seeing 3 identical strangers, about a really nasty psychological study conducted by some neubauer freudian in cahoots with a jewish adoption service where they separated twins and triplets and didn't tell anyone and subjected them to years of tests and in the end sealed the study until 2066 because it was criminal. anyway it was about nature and nurture which is a stupid thing, common sense tells anyone with brains and instinct both are factors but clearly nurture  is more important and the lack of it or neglect and abuse can really fuck people up. one of the triplets commits suicide. anyway dogs and people are alike in that they are full of genes but environment is what we are really made of. people especially are so porous, so influenced by society. you can see it with trump or obomba, people are utterly swayed by rhetoric and propaganda, especially hate.

did you ever have that feeling of deja vu and every thought after becomes  another layer of vu and then think the feeling of deja vu is just a feeling because everything repeats and you repeat it after it repeats and then you forget again until the feeling returns and you think finally again it's all just a feeling the thing they call deja vu all of this is here before

one way to play is to avoid the game.

corporate welfare cannot justify genocide and occupation as defense.

inthefuturwatevr.

in the future whatever 
focus will be on overcoming 
the forces that kill us and our freedom 
to live in the world
and leave it better than 
it was when we came

all we have everywhere we are.

me & my weather.

i should always change the last minute before i leave because i control the weather with my changes at the last minute.

i was worried a little and felt a little guilty i always feel a little guilty about something r. said did he get shorn and i said yea but i dint see yet and maybe if i'd a just bathed him more and brushed him a lot he'd a been allowed to keep his lush coat but today he was so sprightly and he dint seem embarrassed he was like hey look it's me! and i'm like it is! it's you! and he lost 3 pounds and 3 mental years perhaps though his body is still ageing like yours and mine.

something was on the tip of my tongue way in back of my brain and suddenly somebody finally said it.

admit it you like to here me cumplain it saves you the trubble no well never mind then it's my cuppa.

can anyone explain why this camera puts today's pictures in yesterday? probably not, nothing is ever explained.  be that as it may, this city is not happy unless it is tearing shit up, and when they tear shit up this city is unhappy until they tear shit up again. the potholes are a losing game, you can't tear up the street every other day, just throw some assfault that-a-way. this city that works, they like to make it work and work and work, they like to make them pay, they like to make more obstacles and watch the cityzens consternate, they like to make it work and work and work they like to tear it up each and every day.

 sometimes you're afraid of not doing the right thing

 or doing the wrong thing

 or getting fooled again

 you end up doing nothing but

rolling around in the grass.

we're not here to get bored
we are here to disrupt
to disrupt, to disrupt, to disrupt, to disrupt
to have the time of our lives

stereolab

heavy denim

it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

you see the recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry for things will look after themselves
it's alright recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry if things can only get better

there's only millions that lose their jobs and homes and sometimes accents
there's only millions that die in their bloody wars, it's alright

it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing

it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

don't worry be happy things will get better naturally
don't worry shut up sit down go with it and be happy

dum, dum, dum, de dum dum, de duh de duh de dum dum dum... ah ah
dum, dum, dum, de dum dum, de duh de duh de dum dum dum... ah ah

 

 

 

 

stereolab.

ping pong

 

Where it had been left
Hundreds of years ago
Extract from the depth
Is but a setting sun paradise is scarce
In this light that won't shine
What is our earthly task
But a worthy design?

Some held it in sight
For scattered it may have been
They're ready to fight
In a priceless inkling
The request is here
Ready to resurrect
What else can we do but recover the project

Our earthly design
Can be so detached
What crushes our desire
Not to be trapped
When the higher spheres
Tell us to and not to
Everyone agrees
Demanding more veto
Our earthly design
Can we be so detached
What crushes our desire
Not to be trapped?

 

 

 

stereolab

the free design 

 can you visualize peace?

 what would it look like?

 how would it be?

 if you could see peace?

oh, kid, just imagine,

try, and see.

of course he trembles, dude is taxed with reporting on war criminals, the thugs of the world, these guys kill children, they kill with impunity and taxpayers' money. they will kill or put away forever anyone who tries to stop them, or dares to live free, especially the messengers.

                                        HAPPY BIRD DOG DAY NICHOLAS. SORRY I DIDN'T GET YOU NOTHIN.