one man in one lemonsuit.

[Untitled Post]

Whispers of Ought Five

Below are links to two out of a series of tracks that I worked on up until early September 2005. EYE (Guido Flichman of Buenos Aires, Argentina) sent me a batch of solo recordings of voice, guitar, and general mayhem sometime around April, which I processed, sequenced and added my own recordings to. I was just at the point of playing some of the files to my collaborator, when my computer's hard drive burned out, and I lost a significant portion of my work (including the lengthy "Fnoife" suite--now gone for good). I recently found these files in a computer mail cache, and they seem to be the condensed halves of the first track for the proposed album. Had I not lost everything, EYE and I would have gone on to mix the tracks via internet and hopefully turn them into something more satisfactory. Needless to say, that did not happen, so here are links to the rather flawed demos (with rather unfortunate titles of my creation) that remain.

1a Blamblamblam (steroids)
1b Accupowder

A few months ago, EYE and I spoke for the first time since my hard drive took matters into it's own hands. After some discussion, we agreed that someone else might better know what to do with this material. Just last night, EYE and I spoke agian, this time with the update that a new third collaborator had been found. Ctephin, who runs the Umbrella Noize Collective (a truly philanthtropic online label where one can access full albums by EYE, Ctephin, and many others in the internet noise community for free), is someone who I feel utter confidence in when it comes to these recordings. This is the Umbrella Noize Collective's mission statement:

"We aim to find and host for free download some of today's best experimental / noize artists.We hope that by hosting unsigned artists music that it will be downloaded and shared by all and possibly get heard by someone who might give them a physical release."

How could one argue with such aspirations?

EYE, Ctephin, and myself share similar views on the commodification of music {read: SOUND}, so I would naturally hope that when the time comes, the finished recordings themselves will be available for free download. For now, be content with some links to Ctephin and EYE's free online output:

EYE:
Mechanical Masturbation
Anal Logic #1
Beyond the Limits of Vision
IDX1274 vs. EYE - Bizarre Insertions
EyeNoiseProject - Official Site

Ctephin:
Colors
Limitation ov Tone Vol. 1 - Conversation with the H.G.A.
The Shadow Clock
Limitation ov Tone Vol. 2 - The Oklahoma Sky
Limitation ov Tone Vol. 3 - Annapurna

Teacher's Prayer

In a country like the United States of America, where supposedly one can pull oneself up by the boot-straps to become a solvent and prosperous individual, ideas are the commodity by which such a upward mobility is made possible. Thus, the means by which those in power can best keep the money to themselves is by creating a sense of bafflement: that the individual has no power, and that his/her imagination should not be nourished. This disenfranchisement of the thought-power of today's youth is only further enhanced by job outsourcing to foreign countries, adding to the unemployment and depression (also fueling this country's armed forces by creating a new section of the lower class which must enlist or face destitution). Taking control of one's imagination is the first step towards a reclamation of one's own national liberty. Ideas are very powerful things: they can enhance our world in just as many ways as they can destroy it.

"Order is the order of the day
With chaos never far away
But fear lurks in the teacher's soul
Ask no questions as long as they're quiet
But place is better than a riot
The shame of losing your control

Fear lurks in the teacher's soul
The shame of losing your control
Encouragement is a golden star
Verbal abuse doesn't show a scar

Living is learning, answering questions
Don't make problems, just suggestions

Choose your teachers from everywhere
It might be next door on on the air
The old have a lot of time to spare
You can teach yourself if you care

Open up their minds but not too far
Or they might ask questions that
Are not in the books
Some imagination is all right
Until the point when you take fright
And ordinary gets bizarre

Asking questions that aren't the book
Ordinary levels get bizarre
Encouragement is a golden star
Verbal abuse doesn't show a scar

Living is learning, answering questions
Don't make problems, just suggestions

Choose your teachers with great care
Brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends, whoever's there
The old have a lot of time to spare
You can teach yourself if you care

Conscientious worker needs to give
His full attention to his attitude
And to his whole approach
Should do well but could try harder
Easily distracted but he is a helpful
Member of the class
He lacks interest and is lazy
Disrespectful hold him back for arrogance
And wit won't get him far
Some improvement quite good progress
He can see the need for effort
If he wants to earn himself a star

School teaches us that we all must learn our tables
But not how to turn the tables
We could turn them 'round
Get accustomed to a five-day week and
Praise for being nice and meek
And keeping your eyes on the ground

You could turn the tables 'round
Pick your eyes up off the ground
You could turn the tables 'round
Pick your eyes up off the ground

Living is learning, answering questions
Don't make problems, just suggestions

Choose your teachers with great care
Brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends, whoever's there
The old have a lot of time to spare
You can teach yourself if you care"

Desperate Bicycles - "Teacher's Prayer"
(lyrics printed without permission, to be taken down if requested)

Three Variations on (or Further From Nature) Abstraction

Ruptured Pan-o-Ramalama

No Longer the Sound of Fascism

The sound of jackboots marching in time down the boulevard is no longer the sound of Fascism. It is the sound of Steven Speilberg, making a cool trillion with his next family friendly Nazi film.

The new fascists are shaking our hands, smiling because they absolutely have no interest in promoting fascism--there is no need to spread what already exists everywhere; no need to promote what they freely exercise.

cogito ergo slug

At the very most, 28% of all thought is fact. Of course, this is only because the remaining 72% of thought cannot be logically substantiated. The process of substantiation¹ itself carries a bias with it to such an extent that by taking part in it, one's point loses all factual relevance (if, indeed, there was any to begin with). With a 28% probability of a factual outcome from applying "rational" systems of thought, a greater payoff is ensured by putting faith in the greater common irrationality. Thus the means by which "truth" (read: greater factual information of a philosphical nature, covering the entirety of one's life-centering belief system) can most easily be attained is by the paradoxical acceptance that it, in fact, can not be attained at all.

¹(the process of substantiation being contextualization, mostly--since stated contextualization in fact relies upon the pre-existence of a mode of thought, while in fact the realm of thought is expanding in such a manner as to encompass an exponential amount of information in comparison to that which it is now considered to be. Since what is perceived as rational thought in this day and age is vastly different from that of, say, fifteenth century, A.D. France, and since the rate of rationalization has greatly increased in the intervening centuries, one can only imagine the effect that this will have on the future context for thought's rationality--if the bulk of current rational thought is seen as nearsighted in retrospect from a future standpoint, then there is little point in embracing the current modes. Of course, thought and action being different things, dismissing logic as a system based on fact is very different from dismissing sanity or endorsing anarchy)

- 10:34 AM EST 5/4/06

Muso-pukle

From the article "History of Experimental Music in the United States" published in 1959 (pp 71-72):

"[...] in connection with musical continuity, Cowell remarked at the New School before a concert of works by Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, and myself, that here were four composers who were getting rid of glue. That is: Where people had felt the necessity to stick sounds together to make a continuity, we four felt the opposite necessity to get rid of the glue so that sounds would be themselves.
Christian Wolff was the first to do this. He wrote some pieces vertically on the page but recommended their being played horizontally left to right, as is conventional. Later he discovered other geometrical means for freeing his music of intentional continuity. Morton Feldman divided pitches into three areas, high, middle, and low, and established a time unit. Writing on graph paper, he simply inscribed numbers of tones to be played at any time within specified periods of time.
There are people who say, "If music's that easy to write, I could do it." Of course they could, but they don't. I find Feldman's own statement more affirmative. We were driving back from some place in New England where a concert had been given. He is a large man and falls asleep easily. Out of a sound sleep, he awoke to say, "Now that things are so simple, there's so much to do." And then he went back to sleep."

- John Cage (1912-1992)

MUSIC (aka sound is not a commodity. Obviously, the world at large does not work in accordance to this principle. Despite this minor hindrance to any argument based on the former statement, one can trust that the principle remains true. Thanks to the internet for the volume of free advertising and ease of involvement on the part of the supplier and consumer, respectively, it is possible to put text, image, audio, and video files into a public domain with none of the cost and few of the time requirements previously necessary for such a thing. Certainly there are price restrictions in the materials required for such an endeavor (a means of producing audio or video, not to mention the computer equipment itself), but if met, they are a fraction of those of even ten years ago, as well as usually being one-time expenditures (e.g. a digital camera can transfer pictures directly to a computer, as opposed to needing to get film developed at cost repeatedly).
Of course, none of this seems like that much of a big deal. Technology has become so integrated into everyday life that it's hard to notice the rate at which it increases. However, it is a far cry from what an individual was capable of just ten years ago. Now the internet is an ideal forum for the distribution of almost any form of media. Thankfully one can find free resources online to help oneself along in starting an outpost of personal culture. I cannot dictate what is right for everyone, but I find sending these missives out into the aether to be much like some sort of prayer. Not to a higher being, but to the exact opposite: the collective subconscious.

Vision of Beauty

Now that all is said and done, I'd like to share a vision of beauty:

If you think it's crappy, then perhaps take a moment to consider this:

Just how good can a picture of crap really get?
Especially when said picture has been taken through a chain link fence.

No, no, no.

For a picture to be really good,

it has to contain at least
something
having to do with former President Richard M. Nixon.