get involved with matters SS/h3o/any other acronym you like. an opportunity to build and investigate without merely collecting "information." be bold! be alert! be aloof! but preferably a lert, because we have enough loofs already.
being some blether about internal and purported external goings-on within the hallowed walls of Simply Superior and its inhabitants.
Showing posts with label The Hafler Trio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Hafler Trio. Show all posts
Friday, December 4, 2020
something happening or close to that.
Saturday, July 18, 2020
what's so funny 'bout peas, gloves and multiple identity?
CAVEAT EMPTOR etc, cont. pg. 93
a few brave souls have breached a certain subject recently, and it seems appropriate to post this in answer to them, but also for those other very few folks who might be interested.
in 1997 tor hereabouts, I was involved with the phenomenon (and truly, it deserves this appellation) known under many names, chief of which are/were antiorp/integer/netochka nezvanova. there were others. part of that project directly and indirectly and in several other ways addressed the whole notion of identity, and in many cases, "online" identity as it was becoming known. far too in-depth for a post such as this, it nevertheless, at its termination or more correctly, fizzling out, left a few stones unturned, at least as far as I was concerned. "Simply Superior" was a name taken from that project, by the way.
and so, and indeed, following on from the grand tradition of The Hafler Trio and their references to such things beginning in 1981-82, and still not actually investigated properly (or - perish the thought - understood!) Simply Superior, I decided in my lack of wisdom, should Carry On Up The Identity. oo, errr, missus.
so: on its inception, 7 people were given passwords and authority to act on social media through Simply Superior accounts. over time, a few people dropped out, but some remain, and some passed on these credentials to others. these people in most cases do not even know each other, and for some of them, what I write here will actually come as news. this means that anything you might see within the confines of those domains (if they warrant such terminology) may or may not be written or posted by one of no less than *at least* 7 people (that I know of). and this is exactly as it should be; these posts will be, from time to time, "challenging" to me and just about anyone else. I am glad that it is so. quite a few have given me pause for thought in the most healthy of ways. some are silly. and this is just as important. some demonstrate principles I might not agree with but nevertheless encourage other perspectives I believe valuable to at least temporarily entertain. and some are working hypotheses that may or may not stand up to scrutiny.
all of this is directly related to the very spirit which led to initiating Simply Superior in the first place.
this means, gentle reader, that if you take umbrage or wish to know more about some snippet posted under the SS moniker, or indeed, which to check validity, all email addresses are handled alone by that flesh suit masquerading as a person labelled A.M.McKenzie, and everything else is, well, putting it kindly, a collective emanation.
so if you need to know, ask a policeman's son directly. if you would rather believe that everything that goes under a particular name is from the same individual, then please continue to do so in good health.
be seeing you.
p.s. the antiorp/integer/netochka nezvanova archive is for sale. get in touch if interested.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
ashes to make scuptures to praise dead gods.
 |
| ...and now.... |
please, be advised that video monstrosities are arising, and may be accessed here:
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
the artefacts are commensurate to our level of application.
things to wonder at! things to look at! things to have and hold from this day forth!
works on paper by The Hafler Trio: originals, unique and unrepeatable. I’ll say it again, unrepeatable!
hie thee hither, gawp and be aghast, and *please* send this on to as many mortals as possible. really! REALLY!
go forth and spread the delightful and joyful message far and wide! yes, indeed.
view the trailer HERE!
the delights await you HERE, dear reader!
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
ask not for whom the matter is resurrected in spite of the spirit.
and LO! it came to pass:
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com/album/god-blind-me
approximately 2 hours and 40 of your Earth minutes of misfits, idiotically neglected and unborn matter, from the entire span of the activity of that entity known as The Hafler Trio, notes, images, remastering, fiddling, nudging and coercing.
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com/album/are-you-aware-of-that-which-you-have-forgotten
from something that did not happen to something that now is.
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com/album/negentropy
the collectors' item long unavailable, startlingly and most pleasingly resurrected and now revealing it's prettiest features unavailable even on the original vinyl release.
please indulge!
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com/album/god-blind-me
approximately 2 hours and 40 of your Earth minutes of misfits, idiotically neglected and unborn matter, from the entire span of the activity of that entity known as The Hafler Trio, notes, images, remastering, fiddling, nudging and coercing.
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com/album/are-you-aware-of-that-which-you-have-forgotten
from something that did not happen to something that now is.
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com/album/negentropy
the collectors' item long unavailable, startlingly and most pleasingly resurrected and now revealing it's prettiest features unavailable even on the original vinyl release.
please indulge!
Friday, January 31, 2020
that which will probably outlive us all reading this now.
editing block, single-edged non-magnetic razor blades, joining tape, chinagraph pencils and a small amount of leader tape = the editing equipment for every single analogue tape splice used on a Hafler Trio release. and no, cross-fading is *not* the same as a 1/4 inch 45° splice. sorry. it isn't.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Thank You for Arguing, Swine Optional Extra.
This is Our Problem: What WIll Our Joy Be Then?
for the first time, The Hafler Trio’s rejoinders to the first three Fovea Hex EP’s available to download.
1.
The Explanation. 23:28
2.
The Discussion. 21:56
3.
An Answer. 59:54
on re-examining these artefacts, originally intended to bolster the then new and lovely EP’s by Fovea Hex (erroneously described as “reworkings” of that material - they are not), they emitted coherence and internal integrity to an extent that it was revealed; they no longer were needed or even required to support other artefacts, and now their own allotted span might now be permitted to commence. these recordings were not accompanied by texts or other artwork, and were designed to be heard on CD. therefore, in contrast to 90% of other Hafler Trio recordings, they can be presented here without loss of quality or omission of non-audio content. as it is highly unlikely that anyone would release these in any other form, here we go. the material here has been carefully remastered from the original constructions at he highest quaility technically available to Your Humble Narrator at the present time, and this is actually in excess of that of the CD releases: many details are now audible which were somewhat subdued in the originals. In Dulce Jubilo, and may all your Solstices be bright. roughly 2 hours of material.
released January 29, 2020
all material made un-catatonic and resurrected by that entity we know and do not love called The Hafler Trio in the first gleamings of the Year of Our Lord 2020. may this new marriage inspire countless others.
all titles published by Freibank.
© 2005/2006/2007/2020 all rights reserved
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
authentic inauthenticity. with added number.
this image is a version of the new (or recent) h3o seal, used for physical visual works. it was constructed using a modified version of a script called 'phags-pa. it reads (top to bottom) "h - 3 - o." more of this sort of thing will be forthcoming. purchases will be possible. this stems from a great interest and now prolonged and intensive research into and practice of Tibetan calligraphy and scripts. please contact if you have any interest in this.
Thursday, November 7, 2019
forthcoming atractiveness guaranteed but not ensured.
soon to be of considerable availability in some ways, and possibly for all wayes. verily.
[edit]
this has NOTHING to do with any (sonic) release. these are ENDED, unless some benefactor with questionable taste funds such a thing. the readers of this blog are apparently not in this particular demographic.
Monday, October 28, 2019
I was asked about this, and so here is my reply. taken from the ill-fated Dreamachine project booklet (which I have still yet to see a copy of). if there is any reaction of encouragement (I respond to enthusiasm) I will post the entire contents. for your information, a disk image of the DVD itself is floating around what we laughingly refer to as "the internet," and for once, I care not one whit, as I will never see any money from this project anyway. do not ask me where it is, go and look for thy very self.
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SOME OF THE WORDS THAT COME OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF GIFT HORSES
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It is over 20 years since the original version of this release came into being, much has happened in the period since then, and perhaps addressing some of these manifestations would not be out of place here.
It is desirable that a misconception and misinterpretation of intent of this project be addressed from the outset, and forcefully: this is documentation of a specific part of the Dreamachine history, and not a biographical project concerning the life of Brion Gysin. Originally, some material was included that did in fact touch on this via personal anecdote unrelated to the Dreamachine. This has been removed in the present edition. The work of historical research, the onerous task of sorting out the wheat of the truth from the chaff of the lies (of which there is a massive amount more than of the former), is not being attempted here. That task has been, and quite possibly will be attempted again, by others more qualified and with greater motivation to carry out such activities. It is our sincere wish that those embarked upon, or due to do so, such projects succeed with the greatest of possible outcomes and the greater good of all concerned.
Having said this, we move on.
Here, we are concerned with the possibilities and applications that the Dreamachine allows to enter the picture, and how they have affected and can further affect a particular current of creative endeavour.
The principal reason this edition - which we regard as definitive - has been carried out, is to allow the realisation of the core meanings of the Dreamachine experience to be separated from issues of personality and possessiveness, and at the same time, to present the Dreamachine as it was in the last plans drawn up under the auspices of Carl Lazlo for Brion Gysin himself. In this way, the object itself can be rightly associated and credited to its inventors in the way they envisaged it. This is not to say that there are no other versions possible, with different effects, configurations, implementations, uses and presentations. This is Brion Gysin's Dreamachine as it was, at a certain point in time, considered to be canonical by Gysin himself.
The experience provided by the Dreamachine is not objective. Indeed, It cannot be reproduced exactly twice in the same manner; there are simply too many variables for this to be possible at the present time. It is the contention of this project that the collective experience itself is subject to change as a whole. This is a very strong claim, and some arguments will be presented to support this notion. None of them are "proven" - they are conjecture. Informed conjecture, based on nearly 30 years experience with the Dreamachine, but conjecture nonetheless.
In addition, and what is perhaps even stronger an idea, what the Dreamachine suggests is a way of approaching a number of interlocking ideas that refute scientific examination, and indicate that the subjective judgment is more in tune with a True Science than that conventionally used as a way to examine the world for the last 300 years.
The ramifications of such ideas are large. However, we believe that still, after all these years, they have not yet been seen clearly, precisely because of the attempts to see the entire scope as limited to detection with the methods currently available. There are many examples of things which are considered to exist today that cannot be seen or experienced, and yet it is believed that they are there on the evidence of ever-changing and developing technologies. The Dreamachine's effects can be examined internally, but the last contention that will be made here is that the experiences' contents are in fact external.
All these ideas will be described and presented not only by new text material but by additions and revisions of the republished material. This will encourage comparative reading and thereby illuminate one method in action of how history evolves, as mentioned previously, while suggesting a method for use in other areas.
The original exposition touched on some of these points. However, virtually no feedback was received from anyone regarding these matters. The original request for feedback is now rescinded, and this version will remain what it is. Should the need for dialogue emerge, it is trusted that it will emerge elsewhere as and when required.
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THIS IS NOT A PIPE
The urge to categorise and make sense of the experience that arrives through our sensory apparatus may be considered to be a relatively recent endeavour, that is, without the idea that purpose is involved. The ambiguity of the "is" of "existence" in one branch of the tree of languages leads to assumptions that cannot be seen to be of substance. General Semantics, of which both Gysin and Burroughs were aware, is not the only way of approaching this situation. Perhaps not coincidentally, something of the mechanisms - for they are truly mechanical - become revealed in the way computer language operates. The notion of binary calculation based on the idea of an circuit being ON or OFF, on which all computers are based, harks back to Ancient Greek ideas of the duality of nature - that something is, or is not, which leads to the idea that things can be equal or compared, and this can be used as "proof" of something else.
In many computer systems, the sign '=' does not mean 'equals to', as many people might think (and is a common source of mistakes by novice programmers) - it *assigns* a value (normally that on the right-hand side) to another value or symbol on the other. To test for the equivalence of one symbol to another, in many systems, the operator '==' is used. Thus, in this realm, something can be evaluated to "be" the "equal" to something else, just the same as something can be made "to be" something else. One look at the world, and we may observe that this has no correlation in the physical world (leaving aside the semantics of the proposition that a computer also exists in the physical world).
As we should know, our reality is built on symbols (which are themselves metaphors) which we use to represent the external world within our inner world and we live through these filters, being unable to sense reality as a total. However, the law of habituation tells us that whenever something is constant - the humming of an electrical appliance, the regular motion of a vehicle, the pressure of the clothing against the skin, we cease to notice it. It is only by *difference* that we notice. The brain is drawn to similarity, but learns by difference.
The urge to quantify by means of throwing experience, or set of experiences, which are by their nature are symbolic, into *another* set of symbols so that they may be assimilated and reduced to support arguments constructed back-to-front, will, of necessity, result eventually in 'success'. Eventually, in contradiction to the oft-quoted Hassan I Sabbah, nothing will be permitted, because everything will be true. Ironically, the "burden of proof" which is at the time of writing much more prevalent and aggressive than when this project was first realised, actually creates the idea that there are answers at the back of the book - which in turn creates the possibility of "solutions", "escape", and all the rest of it. This is perhaps surprising, when we notice that proponents of anti-authoritarian attitudes constantly use the word "freedom", when in fact the whole of the presuppositions in their language contains the end of freedom - even as they define it. This is largely because they do not see that their language controls them.
"...what was thought to be hitherto incalculable can be calculated, then there were seem to be a programme. And if there is a programme, there would seem to be a programmer... and this programmer is hiding behind the name of 'Control'..."
'Control' is not some external force, some dark janitor of the underworld who conspires to enslave the world, but a force of self-ignorance that is the natural state of those that will not examine themselves. At the moment when "this *is* this", worlds disappear.
INTO IS NOT OUT OF
Small wonder that Gysin was torn between the two worlds of being and not-being, and was so taken with "I AM THAT I AM" and its permutations, while at the same time using his initials as the main base of his calligraphic paintings. It expresses perfectly the dichotomy inherent in experience, and the Dreamachine perhaps its clearest manifestation. And yet, it is The Elusive Obvious: something that we cannot recognise because we have it as a constant running through the whole of human existence. *This* is how one disappears; *this* is how the invisible is created. As stated above, the brain is drawn to similarity, and what could be more constant and reliable than the invisible?
The Dreamachine brings the constant into the realm of difference, and the conflicts which necessarily arise because of this are hard to bear for anyone not prepared for this. One of the most consistent criticisms of what has been claimed by Gysin and associates for the device is that the effects are not as spectacular as those texts indicate. This notion is worth exploring for a moment.
"Navigare necesse es. Vivare no es necesse."
The internal world is only able to represent external experience; a map must be made in order to navigate the being through the terrain. To refer to General Semantics again, "the Map is Not the Territory". A perfect map would have to include the map itself, and so on ad infinitum. What was claimed out of historical necessity to publicise and perhaps sell and market the Dreamachine, cannot but fail when the real experience is encountered. The very attempt to describe the experience in the way it has been in the texts by Gysin and Sommerville (included elsewhere here in this publication) do what the Scientologists refer to (and expressly forbid their instructors from doing) as "pre-judging for the pre-Clear". Gysin, Burroughs, Sommerville and Balch were all involved with Scientology, and would have known this phrase, as it is one of the central tenets, met early on in any study of the "religion".
The rate of our exposure to images is increasing rapidly; even in the 1950's, television, film, photographs and other visual art were not things that were taken for granted. At the time of writing, the average Western modern city dweller is exposed to literally thousands of images in very short periods of time - more than the entire life's quota for the equivalent person living say, 200 years ago. One of the most significant differences between 50 years ago and the present day, is that the internal world has been invaded. To understand this, means to say that the media used are now personalised, in most cases. Images are largely encountered as a private experience - under the control of the person viewing them. That is the illusion, however, and it is bound up by the means the technology that "allows" them this "freedom" operates and is predicated on.
So: not only is the map already created internally, in a way that was not so in the first days of the Dreamachine, but the expectations for *all* experience are filtered though the expectations that say that an experience must amaze and delight from outside inwards, in a didactic manner. What is also highly relevant is that all images - as the term is usually and commonly understood - have, by implication, at least one kind of frame. What initially disorients and 'disappoints' is that the experience afforded by the Dreamachine cannot be said to so have such. The internal image has no frame, and this is bewildering, and outside the realms of previous experience - leading to a huge effort to find a way to categorise what has taken place in the individual. So habituated we are to doing this with whatever happens, as a result of the searching for sameness. That one cannot make an accurate representation of the Dreamachine externally either pictorially or in terms of language is the source for yet more frustration. We *need* to contain and label our experience, otherwise we do not know how to refer to it - and it is then lost (we assume). Thus, even the inventors of this device were constrained by the need to translate something that cannot be translated.
The requirement that the Dreamachine has of the self opening up as a "payment" is anathema to the entire structure of communication as it is utilised in modern communication systems. The Idea of "Open Bank" was a dim grasping for a way to describe what the Dreamachine shows, but does nothing but graze the surface of what actually lies there.
SCENIC TOURS BY APPOINTMENT
The idea of the infinitely recurring map is paralleled by the old conception of how life exists: how does an acorn know that it must grow into an oak tree? The old way of dealing with this question is to say that the acorn contains a copy of the oak tree in miniature, and follows that. We know that no such mini-tree exists within the seed; for that to be so, that tiny replica would also have to contain its own oak tree, and so on.
When we realise that when viewing the Dreamachine, we see archetypal symbols - as mentioned by many - the same question arises: where are these symbols? The standard answer is, just as it is now said that the acorn contains in its DNA the "programme" for the full-grown entity, that the symbols and experiences are a program in our (human) DNA. However, these theories were developed when the mysteries of DNA were still that: mysteries and theories.
It was predicted that many of the world's problems would vanish when the "strands were unraveled". This has proved not to have been the case, and untold failed investments by financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies bear witness to this. Unfortunately, the theories are still largely in place, revealing that the knowledge of how things are generally accepted to work persists even when evidence to refute it has long existed. DNA and RNA are linked to the sequence of amino acids in peptides, and a few more of the basic building-blocks of physical human structure. However, the manner in which these are folded up in order to give the structure of proteins is nowhere contained isomorphically within the "data" of DNA. If the genetic programme were contained in the genes, then all the cells of the body would be identical, because in general, they contain exactly the same genes. The cells of the arms and legs are identical, for example, and yet they are different shapes, to give but one comparison. Obviously there must be another reason: one of these might be formative changes as the cells develop - different changes for different ranges of cells. However, if this is so, then the "programme" cannot be contained in the genes; they extend over entire tissues and organs.
The idea that existence or experience is programmatic is misleading, because for a phenomenon to be programmatic:
"it is a necessary condition that in addition to the phenomenon itself, there exists the programme,
whose structure is isomorphic with, i.e., can be brought into a one-to-one correspondence with,
the phenomenon."
Obviously, many feel that there is a great need to have such an explanation, hence the idea of "a programmer hiding behind the name of 'Control'", and the resultant extrapolations of conspiratorial occurrences that follow from it. Theism, which is what such paranoia is, in disguise, is not necessary here. Rather, the Dreamachine itself provides valuable clues as to the nature of what is in fact occurring - and the continued experiences over the years seem to be pointing in the direction that this is being modified in just the way that the "mysteries" of DNA operate.
NOTHING IS PERMITTED - EVERYTHING IS TRUE
When a radio or television broadcast is emitted, it is invisible unless it is received by whatever means, into an apparatus that can decode it in some fashion. Noises made by bats cannot be heard by humans, unless they use equipment that can sense these squeaks, and bring them into the range of human hearing. One cannot understand a spoken language received only by the ears if one does not know that language, or have an interpreter or teacher. In the case of a radio or a television, there are many channels. Each of these has a sequence of data which are called "shows", or even "programmes", the sequences of which are themselves programmed. One may "tune in" to a channel by adjusting the particular frequency that the receiving apparatus is set to accept, process and reproduce. When one channel is being accepted, this does not mean that the others cease to exist. Neither is it so that the channels, or their content reside *in* the receiving apparatus. Colour television transmissions were being made long before the majority of television owners had colour sets. And further, when the apparatus malfunctions, the channel's signal is not at fault; it is the direct result of a local error. In the same way, bats continue to make noises; it is not "their fault" or that "someone does not wish us to hear them", and this is true of much of our experience. We even use the metaphor "in tune", or "we're on the same wavelength", to say that someone has rapport with another, and so on.
The Dreamachine, as has been explained and noted many times, operates on a specific range of frequencies, those said to correspond to the alpha waves of the brain. As yet, there has been no explanation of where these waves originate. However, by viewing the Dreamachine, the brain is induced into "tuning in" to these frequencies - that is, accepting information carried within that band of wavelengths, and ignoring those of others. The operative word is "carried". In all transmissions and emissions, there exists the principle of the carrier wave and the modulation frequency. This gives us different "frequency bands", which are then subdivided into channels or stations or broadcasts.
The central point that concerns us here is that there is not one but *two* forces at work - without the modulation, no signal is received. In fact, the result is neither one, nor the other, but the delivery of a message of which both waves are 'ignorant', so to speak. This has profound implications, because it reveals the "third" to be *that which mediates the behaviours of the other two so that manifestation may occur*.
Researches into the working of the mammalian brain have revealed much in the last 50 years, not the least of which is confirmation that some significant earlier suppositions and inferences drawn from rat and ape brain research are also valid for that of homo sapiens. In particular, the old notion that certain parts of the brain correspond to certain faculties is by and large discounted - a notion that many people are currently unaware of, and was taken for granted 50 years ago and before. The original "accident" that provoked the discovery that electrical stimulation of the brain produced the re-living of long-forgotten memories ignored a crucial factor: that if that section of the brain were to be removed or damaged, the rest of the brain would eventually replace that facility in a very large percentage of cases. Up to 85% of rat's brains can be removed, and their motor functions will still operate, after a period of recuperation. And most startling in contrast to the previous theories, where physical regions of the brain are locations for specific items of faculties, learned behaviour will also be recovered. Therefore, memories are not located in a specific physical part of the rats' brain. The same experiments have been carried out with apes, and again, it is revealed that the brain can be severely truncated, and yet it can recover 'information' that by all previous scientific premise should be lost. With the advent of modern medical 'brain machines' - scanners of various descriptions that aid in mapping out a picture of the inside of the heads of living humans - the same has been seen to be true of them, too. The clear indication here is that the brain does not "store" "data" or "programmes". Rather, it can be likened to a sophisticated and extremely flexible receiver, capable to a remarkable degree of self-repair in a way that cannot be explained by the current model that posits that experience occurs inside the brain, its 'information' is obtained via the sensory imputs, and it is pre-programmed with "code" that enables it to *somehow* make sense of it all.
- who is hiding behind the name of Control? You are.
"...and who are you?"
And so it is with the subject of this project. The content is not in the Dreamachine, nor is it in the brains of the people viewing it. Experience is not isolated, but the tuning in to a select group of frequencies, while temporarily excluding others, or limited to them by reason of limitation of the receiver itself. Consciousness, which has never ever been close to being explained by science, is the interaction of the receiver with the channel, and the mediation of those two factors by the "third". This is the "third that walks behind you", this is "the third mind". And who is that? well, this question has been answered here already.
"How do we know what we know?" We remember things that we do not know, and we justify this by saying we had obviously forgotten. But we are forgetting to remember that we had forgotten. And didn't know that, either. Memory is not data, rather, a resonance.
There is a reason Gysin said that the Dreamachine contains all the pictures in the world. There is a reason that all the symbols are "in there". And the more people look into it, the more there will be to see of everything.
"Control" is an invention to explain away responsibility; as we are told, in dreams, there responsibility begins. The Dreamachine allows a glimpse behind the curtain, to notice, perhaps dimly, that just as in all mirrors, there is something that can only be apprehended when we stop looking for something, and allow that something to find us.
WHO READS MAY RUN
The Dreamachine is a worthwhile endeavour because it reaches further than the stretch of its originators - places they may not even have wished to apprehend. The wish is that this principle, without the requirement of results, be applied as far as possible to as many acts that would attempt to deal with that which we call "creative" as is appropriate, for this is what brings the light down into the frequencies where we can perceive it.
A comparison may be made between a new idea and a Christmas tree. The tree is chopped down in a forest, driven to the city, sold, taken to a home, put in the best corner of the room, given lighting to make it as attractive as possible, and finally, decked with lights and other shiny, colourful decorations - the most spectacular placed at the apex - while gifts are assembled underneath at the base. The tree is dying, and it is only a matter of time before it will dry out, and the branches will become bare. The tree has a limited period before it will be thrown out, and a new one bought for the following year. The tree has many branches, and the lights are woven around them, making a continuity where there was none before. The comparison can be pushed much further, but for our purposes here, it suffices to point out that, with skill and care, a cutting taken from the tree as soon as possible can be rooted and grow into another, living tree - which will be without the decorations, but be capable of further growth.
The mechanistic metaphor that has been prevalent for roughly the last 300 years is inadequate to express how human life really is. In fact, that it is found so wanting is the basis for the construction of "thinking machines", which, we are promised, at some unspecified point in the future but not 'yet', will be able to replicate human 'intelligence' (which is not defined, but leave that aside for the moment). This will "prove" that we are *just like machines*. It is one of the contentions of this work that this metaphor, even if used ironically, is inappropriate, and destroys, as well as hypnotises in a non-therapeutic way.
We *may* behave like machines, but we are most certainly *not constructed in order to do so*.
How apt, then, that 'machine' should be welded to 'dream' here, where the latter is something we should wish to wake from, rather than allow a machine to envelop us with a 'programmed' version of something that *cannot be programmed*. The limitations in this respect are not useful except to the furtherance of enslavement to both dreams and technology, and the stagnation, decay and atrophy of real capabilities and faculties that will result may be avoided by replacing it with something else; mere negation will simply reinforce the damage process. How Cartesian dualism can coexist with the development of technology of increasing complexity and *not* create mutual destruction is not now, and quite possibly never will be, clear.
You may allow that the previous ways of thinking are inappropriate, just as most eventually are. If you can see this clearly, you will know that what is presented here may also not survive and yet, might well be seen to be appropriate. But the application, and the benefits can be applied now - and if the shoe fits, we can let the other one drop.
The task is, as always, to get closer to the experiencing of the terrain, and not keep thinking that the map is a substitute. Perhaps, like the old cliché, a man will keep on trying to calculate the directions from the map, while a woman will get out and ask someone the way.
There really is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Andrew M. McKenzie
Tallinn
May 2008
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SOME OF THE WORDS THAT COME OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF GIFT HORSES
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It is over 20 years since the original version of this release came into being, much has happened in the period since then, and perhaps addressing some of these manifestations would not be out of place here.
It is desirable that a misconception and misinterpretation of intent of this project be addressed from the outset, and forcefully: this is documentation of a specific part of the Dreamachine history, and not a biographical project concerning the life of Brion Gysin. Originally, some material was included that did in fact touch on this via personal anecdote unrelated to the Dreamachine. This has been removed in the present edition. The work of historical research, the onerous task of sorting out the wheat of the truth from the chaff of the lies (of which there is a massive amount more than of the former), is not being attempted here. That task has been, and quite possibly will be attempted again, by others more qualified and with greater motivation to carry out such activities. It is our sincere wish that those embarked upon, or due to do so, such projects succeed with the greatest of possible outcomes and the greater good of all concerned.
Having said this, we move on.
Here, we are concerned with the possibilities and applications that the Dreamachine allows to enter the picture, and how they have affected and can further affect a particular current of creative endeavour.
The principal reason this edition - which we regard as definitive - has been carried out, is to allow the realisation of the core meanings of the Dreamachine experience to be separated from issues of personality and possessiveness, and at the same time, to present the Dreamachine as it was in the last plans drawn up under the auspices of Carl Lazlo for Brion Gysin himself. In this way, the object itself can be rightly associated and credited to its inventors in the way they envisaged it. This is not to say that there are no other versions possible, with different effects, configurations, implementations, uses and presentations. This is Brion Gysin's Dreamachine as it was, at a certain point in time, considered to be canonical by Gysin himself.
The experience provided by the Dreamachine is not objective. Indeed, It cannot be reproduced exactly twice in the same manner; there are simply too many variables for this to be possible at the present time. It is the contention of this project that the collective experience itself is subject to change as a whole. This is a very strong claim, and some arguments will be presented to support this notion. None of them are "proven" - they are conjecture. Informed conjecture, based on nearly 30 years experience with the Dreamachine, but conjecture nonetheless.
In addition, and what is perhaps even stronger an idea, what the Dreamachine suggests is a way of approaching a number of interlocking ideas that refute scientific examination, and indicate that the subjective judgment is more in tune with a True Science than that conventionally used as a way to examine the world for the last 300 years.
The ramifications of such ideas are large. However, we believe that still, after all these years, they have not yet been seen clearly, precisely because of the attempts to see the entire scope as limited to detection with the methods currently available. There are many examples of things which are considered to exist today that cannot be seen or experienced, and yet it is believed that they are there on the evidence of ever-changing and developing technologies. The Dreamachine's effects can be examined internally, but the last contention that will be made here is that the experiences' contents are in fact external.
All these ideas will be described and presented not only by new text material but by additions and revisions of the republished material. This will encourage comparative reading and thereby illuminate one method in action of how history evolves, as mentioned previously, while suggesting a method for use in other areas.
The original exposition touched on some of these points. However, virtually no feedback was received from anyone regarding these matters. The original request for feedback is now rescinded, and this version will remain what it is. Should the need for dialogue emerge, it is trusted that it will emerge elsewhere as and when required.
**********************************************************************
THIS IS NOT A PIPE
The urge to categorise and make sense of the experience that arrives through our sensory apparatus may be considered to be a relatively recent endeavour, that is, without the idea that purpose is involved. The ambiguity of the "is" of "existence" in one branch of the tree of languages leads to assumptions that cannot be seen to be of substance. General Semantics, of which both Gysin and Burroughs were aware, is not the only way of approaching this situation. Perhaps not coincidentally, something of the mechanisms - for they are truly mechanical - become revealed in the way computer language operates. The notion of binary calculation based on the idea of an circuit being ON or OFF, on which all computers are based, harks back to Ancient Greek ideas of the duality of nature - that something is, or is not, which leads to the idea that things can be equal or compared, and this can be used as "proof" of something else.
In many computer systems, the sign '=' does not mean 'equals to', as many people might think (and is a common source of mistakes by novice programmers) - it *assigns* a value (normally that on the right-hand side) to another value or symbol on the other. To test for the equivalence of one symbol to another, in many systems, the operator '==' is used. Thus, in this realm, something can be evaluated to "be" the "equal" to something else, just the same as something can be made "to be" something else. One look at the world, and we may observe that this has no correlation in the physical world (leaving aside the semantics of the proposition that a computer also exists in the physical world).
As we should know, our reality is built on symbols (which are themselves metaphors) which we use to represent the external world within our inner world and we live through these filters, being unable to sense reality as a total. However, the law of habituation tells us that whenever something is constant - the humming of an electrical appliance, the regular motion of a vehicle, the pressure of the clothing against the skin, we cease to notice it. It is only by *difference* that we notice. The brain is drawn to similarity, but learns by difference.
The urge to quantify by means of throwing experience, or set of experiences, which are by their nature are symbolic, into *another* set of symbols so that they may be assimilated and reduced to support arguments constructed back-to-front, will, of necessity, result eventually in 'success'. Eventually, in contradiction to the oft-quoted Hassan I Sabbah, nothing will be permitted, because everything will be true. Ironically, the "burden of proof" which is at the time of writing much more prevalent and aggressive than when this project was first realised, actually creates the idea that there are answers at the back of the book - which in turn creates the possibility of "solutions", "escape", and all the rest of it. This is perhaps surprising, when we notice that proponents of anti-authoritarian attitudes constantly use the word "freedom", when in fact the whole of the presuppositions in their language contains the end of freedom - even as they define it. This is largely because they do not see that their language controls them.
"...what was thought to be hitherto incalculable can be calculated, then there were seem to be a programme. And if there is a programme, there would seem to be a programmer... and this programmer is hiding behind the name of 'Control'..."
'Control' is not some external force, some dark janitor of the underworld who conspires to enslave the world, but a force of self-ignorance that is the natural state of those that will not examine themselves. At the moment when "this *is* this", worlds disappear.
INTO IS NOT OUT OF
Small wonder that Gysin was torn between the two worlds of being and not-being, and was so taken with "I AM THAT I AM" and its permutations, while at the same time using his initials as the main base of his calligraphic paintings. It expresses perfectly the dichotomy inherent in experience, and the Dreamachine perhaps its clearest manifestation. And yet, it is The Elusive Obvious: something that we cannot recognise because we have it as a constant running through the whole of human existence. *This* is how one disappears; *this* is how the invisible is created. As stated above, the brain is drawn to similarity, and what could be more constant and reliable than the invisible?
The Dreamachine brings the constant into the realm of difference, and the conflicts which necessarily arise because of this are hard to bear for anyone not prepared for this. One of the most consistent criticisms of what has been claimed by Gysin and associates for the device is that the effects are not as spectacular as those texts indicate. This notion is worth exploring for a moment.
"Navigare necesse es. Vivare no es necesse."
The internal world is only able to represent external experience; a map must be made in order to navigate the being through the terrain. To refer to General Semantics again, "the Map is Not the Territory". A perfect map would have to include the map itself, and so on ad infinitum. What was claimed out of historical necessity to publicise and perhaps sell and market the Dreamachine, cannot but fail when the real experience is encountered. The very attempt to describe the experience in the way it has been in the texts by Gysin and Sommerville (included elsewhere here in this publication) do what the Scientologists refer to (and expressly forbid their instructors from doing) as "pre-judging for the pre-Clear". Gysin, Burroughs, Sommerville and Balch were all involved with Scientology, and would have known this phrase, as it is one of the central tenets, met early on in any study of the "religion".
The rate of our exposure to images is increasing rapidly; even in the 1950's, television, film, photographs and other visual art were not things that were taken for granted. At the time of writing, the average Western modern city dweller is exposed to literally thousands of images in very short periods of time - more than the entire life's quota for the equivalent person living say, 200 years ago. One of the most significant differences between 50 years ago and the present day, is that the internal world has been invaded. To understand this, means to say that the media used are now personalised, in most cases. Images are largely encountered as a private experience - under the control of the person viewing them. That is the illusion, however, and it is bound up by the means the technology that "allows" them this "freedom" operates and is predicated on.
So: not only is the map already created internally, in a way that was not so in the first days of the Dreamachine, but the expectations for *all* experience are filtered though the expectations that say that an experience must amaze and delight from outside inwards, in a didactic manner. What is also highly relevant is that all images - as the term is usually and commonly understood - have, by implication, at least one kind of frame. What initially disorients and 'disappoints' is that the experience afforded by the Dreamachine cannot be said to so have such. The internal image has no frame, and this is bewildering, and outside the realms of previous experience - leading to a huge effort to find a way to categorise what has taken place in the individual. So habituated we are to doing this with whatever happens, as a result of the searching for sameness. That one cannot make an accurate representation of the Dreamachine externally either pictorially or in terms of language is the source for yet more frustration. We *need* to contain and label our experience, otherwise we do not know how to refer to it - and it is then lost (we assume). Thus, even the inventors of this device were constrained by the need to translate something that cannot be translated.
The requirement that the Dreamachine has of the self opening up as a "payment" is anathema to the entire structure of communication as it is utilised in modern communication systems. The Idea of "Open Bank" was a dim grasping for a way to describe what the Dreamachine shows, but does nothing but graze the surface of what actually lies there.
SCENIC TOURS BY APPOINTMENT
The idea of the infinitely recurring map is paralleled by the old conception of how life exists: how does an acorn know that it must grow into an oak tree? The old way of dealing with this question is to say that the acorn contains a copy of the oak tree in miniature, and follows that. We know that no such mini-tree exists within the seed; for that to be so, that tiny replica would also have to contain its own oak tree, and so on.
When we realise that when viewing the Dreamachine, we see archetypal symbols - as mentioned by many - the same question arises: where are these symbols? The standard answer is, just as it is now said that the acorn contains in its DNA the "programme" for the full-grown entity, that the symbols and experiences are a program in our (human) DNA. However, these theories were developed when the mysteries of DNA were still that: mysteries and theories.
It was predicted that many of the world's problems would vanish when the "strands were unraveled". This has proved not to have been the case, and untold failed investments by financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies bear witness to this. Unfortunately, the theories are still largely in place, revealing that the knowledge of how things are generally accepted to work persists even when evidence to refute it has long existed. DNA and RNA are linked to the sequence of amino acids in peptides, and a few more of the basic building-blocks of physical human structure. However, the manner in which these are folded up in order to give the structure of proteins is nowhere contained isomorphically within the "data" of DNA. If the genetic programme were contained in the genes, then all the cells of the body would be identical, because in general, they contain exactly the same genes. The cells of the arms and legs are identical, for example, and yet they are different shapes, to give but one comparison. Obviously there must be another reason: one of these might be formative changes as the cells develop - different changes for different ranges of cells. However, if this is so, then the "programme" cannot be contained in the genes; they extend over entire tissues and organs.
The idea that existence or experience is programmatic is misleading, because for a phenomenon to be programmatic:
"it is a necessary condition that in addition to the phenomenon itself, there exists the programme,
whose structure is isomorphic with, i.e., can be brought into a one-to-one correspondence with,
the phenomenon."
Obviously, many feel that there is a great need to have such an explanation, hence the idea of "a programmer hiding behind the name of 'Control'", and the resultant extrapolations of conspiratorial occurrences that follow from it. Theism, which is what such paranoia is, in disguise, is not necessary here. Rather, the Dreamachine itself provides valuable clues as to the nature of what is in fact occurring - and the continued experiences over the years seem to be pointing in the direction that this is being modified in just the way that the "mysteries" of DNA operate.
NOTHING IS PERMITTED - EVERYTHING IS TRUE
When a radio or television broadcast is emitted, it is invisible unless it is received by whatever means, into an apparatus that can decode it in some fashion. Noises made by bats cannot be heard by humans, unless they use equipment that can sense these squeaks, and bring them into the range of human hearing. One cannot understand a spoken language received only by the ears if one does not know that language, or have an interpreter or teacher. In the case of a radio or a television, there are many channels. Each of these has a sequence of data which are called "shows", or even "programmes", the sequences of which are themselves programmed. One may "tune in" to a channel by adjusting the particular frequency that the receiving apparatus is set to accept, process and reproduce. When one channel is being accepted, this does not mean that the others cease to exist. Neither is it so that the channels, or their content reside *in* the receiving apparatus. Colour television transmissions were being made long before the majority of television owners had colour sets. And further, when the apparatus malfunctions, the channel's signal is not at fault; it is the direct result of a local error. In the same way, bats continue to make noises; it is not "their fault" or that "someone does not wish us to hear them", and this is true of much of our experience. We even use the metaphor "in tune", or "we're on the same wavelength", to say that someone has rapport with another, and so on.
The Dreamachine, as has been explained and noted many times, operates on a specific range of frequencies, those said to correspond to the alpha waves of the brain. As yet, there has been no explanation of where these waves originate. However, by viewing the Dreamachine, the brain is induced into "tuning in" to these frequencies - that is, accepting information carried within that band of wavelengths, and ignoring those of others. The operative word is "carried". In all transmissions and emissions, there exists the principle of the carrier wave and the modulation frequency. This gives us different "frequency bands", which are then subdivided into channels or stations or broadcasts.
The central point that concerns us here is that there is not one but *two* forces at work - without the modulation, no signal is received. In fact, the result is neither one, nor the other, but the delivery of a message of which both waves are 'ignorant', so to speak. This has profound implications, because it reveals the "third" to be *that which mediates the behaviours of the other two so that manifestation may occur*.
Researches into the working of the mammalian brain have revealed much in the last 50 years, not the least of which is confirmation that some significant earlier suppositions and inferences drawn from rat and ape brain research are also valid for that of homo sapiens. In particular, the old notion that certain parts of the brain correspond to certain faculties is by and large discounted - a notion that many people are currently unaware of, and was taken for granted 50 years ago and before. The original "accident" that provoked the discovery that electrical stimulation of the brain produced the re-living of long-forgotten memories ignored a crucial factor: that if that section of the brain were to be removed or damaged, the rest of the brain would eventually replace that facility in a very large percentage of cases. Up to 85% of rat's brains can be removed, and their motor functions will still operate, after a period of recuperation. And most startling in contrast to the previous theories, where physical regions of the brain are locations for specific items of faculties, learned behaviour will also be recovered. Therefore, memories are not located in a specific physical part of the rats' brain. The same experiments have been carried out with apes, and again, it is revealed that the brain can be severely truncated, and yet it can recover 'information' that by all previous scientific premise should be lost. With the advent of modern medical 'brain machines' - scanners of various descriptions that aid in mapping out a picture of the inside of the heads of living humans - the same has been seen to be true of them, too. The clear indication here is that the brain does not "store" "data" or "programmes". Rather, it can be likened to a sophisticated and extremely flexible receiver, capable to a remarkable degree of self-repair in a way that cannot be explained by the current model that posits that experience occurs inside the brain, its 'information' is obtained via the sensory imputs, and it is pre-programmed with "code" that enables it to *somehow* make sense of it all.
- who is hiding behind the name of Control? You are.
"...and who are you?"
And so it is with the subject of this project. The content is not in the Dreamachine, nor is it in the brains of the people viewing it. Experience is not isolated, but the tuning in to a select group of frequencies, while temporarily excluding others, or limited to them by reason of limitation of the receiver itself. Consciousness, which has never ever been close to being explained by science, is the interaction of the receiver with the channel, and the mediation of those two factors by the "third". This is the "third that walks behind you", this is "the third mind". And who is that? well, this question has been answered here already.
"How do we know what we know?" We remember things that we do not know, and we justify this by saying we had obviously forgotten. But we are forgetting to remember that we had forgotten. And didn't know that, either. Memory is not data, rather, a resonance.
There is a reason Gysin said that the Dreamachine contains all the pictures in the world. There is a reason that all the symbols are "in there". And the more people look into it, the more there will be to see of everything.
"Control" is an invention to explain away responsibility; as we are told, in dreams, there responsibility begins. The Dreamachine allows a glimpse behind the curtain, to notice, perhaps dimly, that just as in all mirrors, there is something that can only be apprehended when we stop looking for something, and allow that something to find us.
WHO READS MAY RUN
The Dreamachine is a worthwhile endeavour because it reaches further than the stretch of its originators - places they may not even have wished to apprehend. The wish is that this principle, without the requirement of results, be applied as far as possible to as many acts that would attempt to deal with that which we call "creative" as is appropriate, for this is what brings the light down into the frequencies where we can perceive it.
A comparison may be made between a new idea and a Christmas tree. The tree is chopped down in a forest, driven to the city, sold, taken to a home, put in the best corner of the room, given lighting to make it as attractive as possible, and finally, decked with lights and other shiny, colourful decorations - the most spectacular placed at the apex - while gifts are assembled underneath at the base. The tree is dying, and it is only a matter of time before it will dry out, and the branches will become bare. The tree has a limited period before it will be thrown out, and a new one bought for the following year. The tree has many branches, and the lights are woven around them, making a continuity where there was none before. The comparison can be pushed much further, but for our purposes here, it suffices to point out that, with skill and care, a cutting taken from the tree as soon as possible can be rooted and grow into another, living tree - which will be without the decorations, but be capable of further growth.
The mechanistic metaphor that has been prevalent for roughly the last 300 years is inadequate to express how human life really is. In fact, that it is found so wanting is the basis for the construction of "thinking machines", which, we are promised, at some unspecified point in the future but not 'yet', will be able to replicate human 'intelligence' (which is not defined, but leave that aside for the moment). This will "prove" that we are *just like machines*. It is one of the contentions of this work that this metaphor, even if used ironically, is inappropriate, and destroys, as well as hypnotises in a non-therapeutic way.
We *may* behave like machines, but we are most certainly *not constructed in order to do so*.
How apt, then, that 'machine' should be welded to 'dream' here, where the latter is something we should wish to wake from, rather than allow a machine to envelop us with a 'programmed' version of something that *cannot be programmed*. The limitations in this respect are not useful except to the furtherance of enslavement to both dreams and technology, and the stagnation, decay and atrophy of real capabilities and faculties that will result may be avoided by replacing it with something else; mere negation will simply reinforce the damage process. How Cartesian dualism can coexist with the development of technology of increasing complexity and *not* create mutual destruction is not now, and quite possibly never will be, clear.
You may allow that the previous ways of thinking are inappropriate, just as most eventually are. If you can see this clearly, you will know that what is presented here may also not survive and yet, might well be seen to be appropriate. But the application, and the benefits can be applied now - and if the shoe fits, we can let the other one drop.
The task is, as always, to get closer to the experiencing of the terrain, and not keep thinking that the map is a substitute. Perhaps, like the old cliché, a man will keep on trying to calculate the directions from the map, while a woman will get out and ask someone the way.
There really is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Andrew M. McKenzie
Tallinn
May 2008
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
a gaggle of rubbernecking and other appendages.
took a long time, but finally:
https://belairclassiques.com/film/the-art-of-ohad-naharin-batsheva-dance-company-sadeh-21-young-ensemble-dvd-blu-ray?lang=en
not an endorsement, merely a notice.
https://belairclassiques.com/film/the-art-of-ohad-naharin-batsheva-dance-company-sadeh-21-young-ensemble-dvd-blu-ray?lang=en
not an endorsement, merely a notice.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
finally, and in conclusion, chapter No. 296.
so the thing finally sees the light of day. here, originally from 2003, is some information which has in the last few days become more relevant, or indeed, relevant again. presented for completion's sake, and because a few people actually asked me, again, about all this. good that it's out, though.
also see: https://simply-superior.blogspot.com/2017/02/oh-ye-of-little-faith.html
"background: the "Alan and Sylvia" mentioned in this letter are Alan and Sylvia Cook, friends of both Chris Watson and myself. Alan is one of the great unsung heroes and influences on parts of the "industrial sheffield scene", as well as being on several h3o recordings. I used to regularly visit them, and on one occasion we were in the vicinity of Western Works, the (now demolished) Cabaret Voltaire recording studio, and decided to drop in. Richard H. Kirk and Steven Mallinder, the two remaining members of the group were not only long standing friends of Alans, but acquaintences of mine. I can't say I was ever close to them, but I knew them, and had done ever since Flesh had played support to them in Newcastle (poster etc elsewhere on the brainwashed/h3o site, now at archive.org).
I had been petitioning all three of them, mainly through Chris, to agree to the release of "Chance Vs. Causality", the long-lost Cabaret Voltaire soundtrack to a film of the same name by Babette Mondini (as she was called at the time), of which a fragment of the audio was released on a 70's b-side. it is a stunning piece, and deserves release. at the time, the best possible solution would have been to do this on Touch, being, as it was then, pre-eminent in the field of sophisticated packaging and attention to details. I had located the film maker (which none of CV had been able to do), and all the machinations were arranged to effect what would have been a very fine release. but Chris kept dragging his heels...on, and on...which was the case with everything one tried to get him to do. and still is.
so, when passing the the studio and deciding to drop in, I casually asked if Richard & Mal had thought any more about the proposal. Richard replied that they had their own Doublevision label, and that if it were to see the light of day, that is where it would emerge from. no tensions, no demands, nothing untoward. just a casual enquiry and casual answer.
this document is the result of Chris being told of what I had "done" (whatever that is), and is presented here to clear up questions I am regularly asked, and to publicly show the levels of engagement that he states himself as applicable to his involvement with The Hafler Trio. the rest speaks for itself."
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
my voice will go with you. most likely.
and LO! the clouds parted, and the dulcet tones of Your Humble Narrator arose for the edification of the Chosen Few.
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com
voice material only, much more to be added, all proceeds to the Golden Medical Fund of Bottomless Need.
always at your servile.
not a single purchase.
https://simplysuperior.bandcamp.com
voice material only, much more to be added, all proceeds to the Golden Medical Fund of Bottomless Need.
always at your servile.
not a single purchase.
Monday, January 21, 2019
for those who do, and those who might. especially, for those that will.
be alert! no, be aloof. we have enough lerts already:
http://simplysuperior.org/ii/ii-1.html
will be added to as the archives are resurrected and dissected (which is in progress).
enquiries welcome, if nice.
http://simplysuperior.org/ii/ii-1.html
will be added to as the archives are resurrected and dissected (which is in progress).
enquiries welcome, if nice.
Saturday, November 10, 2018
neither here nor there.
some of the people who read these words will recall a name or two: Khari, Audrey Del Sol, dua42, Kandinskij, and a few others. this is to let you know that the picture above is of this person, who I have very recently learned is now deceased, five years ago. she would absolutely hate that her picture was now public. my feelings are incredibly mixed; I lived with this person for roughly 2.5 years, and we had a child together. this person, er, no - entity, calls up the following in me now:
provocateur privately (not seeking glory for it like so many others) / impossible / a pointed stick / too far (gone) to hold onto / the personification of someone lost in the "in between" / someone with a history which was denied but omnipresent / a social litmus test / sadness seeping from every pore / intelligence destroyed by choices based in imbalance and paranoia / almost there but turning back at the brink of discovery / the futility of the certain / potential dissipated and dissolved into the ether
I will no doubt add to this.
light and dark were all the same to her, so there is no use in asking for her to go towards anything at all.
sorry it took so long, and I really did forgive her. she never will do that for me.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Monday, February 19, 2018
finally, and in conclusion, again.
 |
| outside Desmet Cinema, Amsterdam, Feb 22nd 1986 |
 |
| Q&A session, Desmet, Dorothea Franck & Z'EV in front row |
 |
| Q&A session, Desmet, Dorothea Franck (obscured) & Z'EV in front row |
Sunday, February 11, 2018
is persistence everything? until it isn't.
I am in deep, deep shock that I am writing this; I really thought that Jóhann Jóhannsson would bury me. it feels completely wrong that these words are now being typed by me, having learned that he died a day or so ago, when we had been in contact less than a week ago. I feel compelled to say something no matter how ineffectual and paltry it will, of necessity, be. what good does it do? I cannot honestly say. at all. and yet these appendages affixed to my hands, indeed, part of my hands, if we have to define them as such, and not as "four relationships" as Bateson would have it, keep on making movements that result in characters appearing on a screen, that will ultimately find their way into the retinas and brain cells of others. but is that not putting to fine a point on it that Jói was part of that conglomeration of what I laughingly refer to as "my life?" no. he was part of me. and so, it seems, I was of him.Although I cannot be completely sure, I think we were first introduced when I was doing live sound for Unun, a group he played in for some time in ReykjavÃk, a few times. or maybe it was through Reptilicus. or maybe just generally being there in Iceland, as at that time, it was almost unavoidable not to meet everyone doing something in that time at that time, before it became the multi-cultural hub that I understand it now is, before the stag party weekends and gigantic spike in tourism. it seemed to me that if you walked down the main street and threw a stick, you hit three musicians, and possibly some more. later it would be artists. doesn't matter. Jóhann was cut from a different cloth to others I knew - no disrespect to them, at all - by nature of his upbringing, his education for some part being outside of Iceland, and some slightly aloof tendencies, which I later learned were shielding a lack of self-esteem. no, I really don't think he would mind me saying that now, since you ask.
over the course of a short time, we ended up becoming embroiled in a situation which was called "a studio" and that is being charitable, to say the least: it was a garage. and so it came to pass that we were basically in each other's hair (for we both had some at that time, gentle reader) a great deal of the time. after some rather terrible times on my part, I ended up living above this, and gradually, things started to get entangled in the way that cables do when left to their own devices in a box, no matter how carefully they are wrapped up. Jói was busy with several dextrous fingers in several warm-ish pies, and for a long time was not really putting his eggs in any one basket, although perhaps he would have had an easier time of it if he had. everything he was involved with came to the brink, and many times, several brinks of rampant success. but the brink, or brinks, they remained.
until one day. and this is real memory talking here. I remember when he brought in the tape his father had supplied him with of the "singing" IBM machine. it was impossible to ignore what this was. Jóhann had been swallowing material I fed or left around or suggested to him for a long time after we came in contact of the "odd" sort, and it is easy to say that his real vision (but I would be lying if I said I thought he owned that vision for himself at that point) to combine the considerable obvious musical facility he had with the strangeness and "otherness" of that which he digested from my crappy cassette copies of the classics of "weird music." the piece made him. and rightly so. it was the first really "him" piece. well, that's what I say. that was not the soul of the machine on that record; it was his. I begged him for years to let me mix it, and now, in retrospect (lovely thing that it is) I see why he wouldn't let me.when we worked together, on various things and in various roles, he drove me almost bonkers with his perfectionism. I would pass by the studio to see if the thing was being used (which it nearly always was), or to fix computer problems (my job) or chinwag about various abtruse philosophical ideas; and on one occasion, he was working on two bars of a rhythm track, I think, for a LHOOQ song. I came back two days later, and he was working on the same two bars. obviously, this had been more or less continuously chewed on in the intervening period, but I could not detect any difference whatsoever. I doubt, by this point, that he could. but he was hoping that it would perfect itself because of his persistence. and because I share that double-edged sword - the other edge of which is called "stubborness" - I understood.
Jóhann always wanted to be "the man behind the curtain," and finally, he wasn't. thank $DEITY for that. although you will not find our collaborations listed in many places, they exist, and quite intense they were and are, too. I was "consultant" on a few of his more recent projects, supplying him with input both sonic and literary. the reasons these things did not bear (public) fruit cannot be told at this time. but Jóhann was always generous in attributing infuence from my rather random input:
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-theory-of-everything-composer-johann-johannsson-picks-10-minimal-records/2/
https://grapevine.is/culture/music/2016/09/09/history-of-johann-the-composers-path-through-the-reykjavik-scene/?ref=gpv
and:
http://thequietus.com/articles/21216-johann-johannsson-composer-bakers-dozen-favourite-records-kraftwerk-nico-blade-runner?page=14
there are more if you care to go looking.
we did not do nearly enough together, and we did not see each other nearly enough in the last years. although we were planning to about a week ago. the new "secret" project he wished me to consult on would have been quite a mind-blower, and the correspondence was long and involved.
what he managed to do, in a relatively short time, is find his own voice and that, friends and listeners, is a truly rare thing in this day and age. naturally, you can hear his influences, of which there are many, but you will not, I dare say (I double dare) be able to deny on listening to his rather stupendous output that it has something unique about it, and I hope you wll pause to reflect on how he can, and does, and will continue to, touch the soul of the listener. you may not know exactly where, but it reaches in and does things. things that should be done. things he worked long and hard to allow himself to do. he overcame something that many people cannot, and to a large extent as far as I can see from this insane distance with which I am now faced, found something that is so human that it can frighten most people away never to return.
Jóhann Jóhannsson, you taught me that persistence is something not to be afraid of, but a tool to be used until it no longer becomes necessary. I wish I could have helped you more, and I will honour your memory, and actual (not pretend) friendship, as long as I have another breath left in me. I wish, I really wish I wasn't writing this. I really will miss you.
(photos by Einar Snorri, 1995 - used without permission, but I hope he won't mind)
[edit] some photos of the "studio" (NT&V), ca. 2000
 |
| the back of Jóhann's head bottom right. |
Monday, December 18, 2017
not going gently, into that night of goodness. or similar.
so it seems that prophesy is unavoidable, and that which is done in dark jest is inevitably taken the most seriously. Z'EV, someone I worked with on many projects and for some years, has slipped away, and quite a bit falls from the lip-chamber, escaping as it should have a long time ago.
I first met him when I came to Amsterdam for the first Hafler Trio lectures. he sat in the front row and asked 'tricky' questions. I had wanted to meet him for years. and so I did. he was living close to the Central Station with his then 'partner' Dr. Dorothea Franck, and later we would become Mother Tongue. slowly but surely we saw each other most days and most nights; I did live sound for him so many times I lost count, mixed tapes, remastered cassettes so they could be released on LP, treated tapes so they could be further played around with, composed tracks for him with his material while he lay in bed with the 'flu, and delighted him when he arose, designed promotional material and record covers for him, and a great deal more, generally involving carrying odd-shaped pieces of metal and encountering difficulty with trains. we played Dutch billiards at a bar across the road from where I was living in a squat, very close to the centre of Amsterdam, the name of which I forget because we always referred to it as "The Second Office." we were pretty good. we listened in awe to the production on Neil Diamond's greatest hits. really. Z'EV and Doro were incredibly kind and generous to me in my ridiculous, self-imposed nightmare of a transition period of moving from the UK to Holland. I took his tsing-tsa (Tibetan hand bells) to London to record his composition "Geelgalayah" and they broke in the middle of the session. actually shattered into several pieces, without having being abused in any way. I tried to hide this fact, and he discovered the broken pieces before I had a chance to even try to replace the bells. it is impossible to convey how guilty and terrible I felt.
I saw Z'EV play many times, mixing, equalising and effecting his sound as part of the performance with him; and on a good night, I swear, there was nobody to touch him. nobody. what is a painful fact is that much of what was amazing either a) did not even record onto tape (the frequencies were so extreme that no cassette on earth would have held them) or b) were so badly recorded as to be useless. no amount of treatment could save them. I tried. really. a few made it through. so bear in mind when you hear his work that much that would completely blow you away is lost forever, and much of what you can hear was many times greater in actuality. it is of course possible to say that about many people, but in Z'EV's case, very much more than just true.
Z'EV had many stories, and I listened to all of them. this was a man who told me that he had seen The Doors perform before they were signed to a record label, after all, just to give one example. but some of them were somewhat painful. there was a double attitude; on the one hand, his pioneering work was truly neglected, and it was indeed obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that it had been copied wholesale and watered down for great career effect by others. however, on the other, there was an undeniable self-destructive side to him of which I could tell many stories but will not, that he himself revelled in, in a perverse sort of way. this was coupled with a bitterness which while understandable, was also clung to a little too tightly and paraded a little too often for comfort.
Mother Tongue once performed at the AIR Gallery in London; this was to have been a major opportunity to get a financial backer, and big things were going to happen. supposedly. Genesis P-Orridge (as was) videotaped the event, and captured a horrible, ugly, quite unbelievable fight after it between Z'EV and Doro, revealing the side that was desperate to have what "he deserved," and blaming anyone he could when it did not arise as he wished. I truly hope that tape does not exist any more. the "deal" never materialised, and a major breakdown took place which was a very disturbing thing to witness, which we all did for a day or so. so it can be said with certainty that I saw him at both ends of the scale and a great deal of what was in-between.
I sat with him and helped him edit his entire history up to that point, which became "One Foot In The Grave" and was his first real release outside the channels he had been 'stuck' in, his first real 'retrospective' and his first CD(s). I was still involved with Touch, and introduced him. I thought he deserved a professional, properly done package of quality to show how incredible some of the work he had done was (and is). he nearly destroyed this by coming to the appointment to master it all with me and lighting a huge joint. after me strongly suggesting to him that dealing with the presentation of his life's work might be better served with a clear head, he left, and came back the next day. not under the influence.
gradually, I left Amsterdam, and eventually Holland. Z'EV went through a series of ever-more bizarre living situations, including a room which was surrounded by doors, and in someone's office, sleeping under a desk, so that he for the first time in his life worked office hours, I recall him telling me. he helped me understand the Qabalistic/Numerological processes and details so that "I LOVE YOU" (the third, unreleased part of the so-called "Sexual Trilogy") could be finished. (well, it isn't really, but it got to the stage that it could be presented live.) I learned that his hearing had deteriorated somewhat, which is not suprising, given the battering his shell-likes must have taken over the years. this was confirmed when I heard some work where I recognised the signs of top-end hearing loss that I had noticed with a few others that I had worked with, and heard from some mastering engineers that the tapes which Z'EV submitted were quite some work to make useable. but in the end, I think he knew this, and worked with it, and if anyone could make it work, it would have been him. after all, the sound was only a small part of what he was dealing with.
I was always fascinated, and in awe of his written/translations. it is a huge shame and sad reflection that most of it was never published.
we planned to do a US tour in 2003. the artwork and an extract from the CD that was to accompany it are here:
http://simplysuperior.org/RANDOM/Z-MT/
and of course, like most of these things, it never happened. the title of the CD came from an actual toast I once heard in a Liverpool bar, and Z'EV truly loved it. it took years between me telling him of it and it getting used. and it didn't, eventually. and now it does. ironic, to be sure.
we also planned to re-release the Mother Tongue record "Open In Obscurity" with extra material on CD. Z'EV had it mastered by a friend of his in the 'states, and the dreaded and now defunct Phonometrography were to re-release it. again, some sort of offence was caused in the communication stream, and this never happened. a sketch for the typography for the sleeve is here:
http://simplysuperior.org/RANDOM/Z-MT/MT-cover.pdf
between this and today, something happened, and it seems I will never know quite what it was. a month or so ago, I wrote to him to invite him to have a conversation as part of the podcast "WWHWW?" the reply was so extreme in its hatred, that I was quite taken aback; I had been aware of some stories floating around, but nothing so savage that would generate such a response. and now, I cannot ask, and I cannot even try to repair any damage, real or imaginary.
I subsequently discovered that he had removed me from his history; Wikipedia page, home page, everything. he is not the first, and possibly not the last, but it is still very odd and unfathomable to me why such things happen, and that the erasure of someone from history is thought to be even possible, let alone desireable.
Z'EV was always someone that you were either 'for' or 'against'. there were no half-measures. principally from his side.
I was always 'for' him, even in the dark times. he taught me a huge, actually unquanitifiable amount, which I will never, ever be able to repay. my gratitude will endure.
it is not how I would have wished to have this story end, but that's how it has to be. he would have called everything I have written here "bullshit," but I hope that he would have been wrong about at least most of it, at least this time.
(if anyone is interested in releasing the two items mentioned here, please get in contact.)
I first met him when I came to Amsterdam for the first Hafler Trio lectures. he sat in the front row and asked 'tricky' questions. I had wanted to meet him for years. and so I did. he was living close to the Central Station with his then 'partner' Dr. Dorothea Franck, and later we would become Mother Tongue. slowly but surely we saw each other most days and most nights; I did live sound for him so many times I lost count, mixed tapes, remastered cassettes so they could be released on LP, treated tapes so they could be further played around with, composed tracks for him with his material while he lay in bed with the 'flu, and delighted him when he arose, designed promotional material and record covers for him, and a great deal more, generally involving carrying odd-shaped pieces of metal and encountering difficulty with trains. we played Dutch billiards at a bar across the road from where I was living in a squat, very close to the centre of Amsterdam, the name of which I forget because we always referred to it as "The Second Office." we were pretty good. we listened in awe to the production on Neil Diamond's greatest hits. really. Z'EV and Doro were incredibly kind and generous to me in my ridiculous, self-imposed nightmare of a transition period of moving from the UK to Holland. I took his tsing-tsa (Tibetan hand bells) to London to record his composition "Geelgalayah" and they broke in the middle of the session. actually shattered into several pieces, without having being abused in any way. I tried to hide this fact, and he discovered the broken pieces before I had a chance to even try to replace the bells. it is impossible to convey how guilty and terrible I felt.
 |
| "Shemesh" A.K.A. "Geelgalayah" score. |
I saw Z'EV play many times, mixing, equalising and effecting his sound as part of the performance with him; and on a good night, I swear, there was nobody to touch him. nobody. what is a painful fact is that much of what was amazing either a) did not even record onto tape (the frequencies were so extreme that no cassette on earth would have held them) or b) were so badly recorded as to be useless. no amount of treatment could save them. I tried. really. a few made it through. so bear in mind when you hear his work that much that would completely blow you away is lost forever, and much of what you can hear was many times greater in actuality. it is of course possible to say that about many people, but in Z'EV's case, very much more than just true.
Z'EV had many stories, and I listened to all of them. this was a man who told me that he had seen The Doors perform before they were signed to a record label, after all, just to give one example. but some of them were somewhat painful. there was a double attitude; on the one hand, his pioneering work was truly neglected, and it was indeed obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that it had been copied wholesale and watered down for great career effect by others. however, on the other, there was an undeniable self-destructive side to him of which I could tell many stories but will not, that he himself revelled in, in a perverse sort of way. this was coupled with a bitterness which while understandable, was also clung to a little too tightly and paraded a little too often for comfort.
Mother Tongue once performed at the AIR Gallery in London; this was to have been a major opportunity to get a financial backer, and big things were going to happen. supposedly. Genesis P-Orridge (as was) videotaped the event, and captured a horrible, ugly, quite unbelievable fight after it between Z'EV and Doro, revealing the side that was desperate to have what "he deserved," and blaming anyone he could when it did not arise as he wished. I truly hope that tape does not exist any more. the "deal" never materialised, and a major breakdown took place which was a very disturbing thing to witness, which we all did for a day or so. so it can be said with certainty that I saw him at both ends of the scale and a great deal of what was in-between.
 | ||
| Your Humble Narrator, Z'EV, Doro Franck = Mother Tongue. photo by Esther Wollheim. |
I sat with him and helped him edit his entire history up to that point, which became "One Foot In The Grave" and was his first real release outside the channels he had been 'stuck' in, his first real 'retrospective' and his first CD(s). I was still involved with Touch, and introduced him. I thought he deserved a professional, properly done package of quality to show how incredible some of the work he had done was (and is). he nearly destroyed this by coming to the appointment to master it all with me and lighting a huge joint. after me strongly suggesting to him that dealing with the presentation of his life's work might be better served with a clear head, he left, and came back the next day. not under the influence.
gradually, I left Amsterdam, and eventually Holland. Z'EV went through a series of ever-more bizarre living situations, including a room which was surrounded by doors, and in someone's office, sleeping under a desk, so that he for the first time in his life worked office hours, I recall him telling me. he helped me understand the Qabalistic/Numerological processes and details so that "I LOVE YOU" (the third, unreleased part of the so-called "Sexual Trilogy") could be finished. (well, it isn't really, but it got to the stage that it could be presented live.) I learned that his hearing had deteriorated somewhat, which is not suprising, given the battering his shell-likes must have taken over the years. this was confirmed when I heard some work where I recognised the signs of top-end hearing loss that I had noticed with a few others that I had worked with, and heard from some mastering engineers that the tapes which Z'EV submitted were quite some work to make useable. but in the end, I think he knew this, and worked with it, and if anyone could make it work, it would have been him. after all, the sound was only a small part of what he was dealing with.
I was always fascinated, and in awe of his written/translations. it is a huge shame and sad reflection that most of it was never published.
 |
| 3 incredible, extraordinarly potent, transformative and transportational translations. unpublished. (as far as I know) |
we planned to do a US tour in 2003. the artwork and an extract from the CD that was to accompany it are here:
http://simplysuperior.org/RANDOM/Z-MT/
and of course, like most of these things, it never happened. the title of the CD came from an actual toast I once heard in a Liverpool bar, and Z'EV truly loved it. it took years between me telling him of it and it getting used. and it didn't, eventually. and now it does. ironic, to be sure.
we also planned to re-release the Mother Tongue record "Open In Obscurity" with extra material on CD. Z'EV had it mastered by a friend of his in the 'states, and the dreaded and now defunct Phonometrography were to re-release it. again, some sort of offence was caused in the communication stream, and this never happened. a sketch for the typography for the sleeve is here:
http://simplysuperior.org/RANDOM/Z-MT/MT-cover.pdf
between this and today, something happened, and it seems I will never know quite what it was. a month or so ago, I wrote to him to invite him to have a conversation as part of the podcast "WWHWW?" the reply was so extreme in its hatred, that I was quite taken aback; I had been aware of some stories floating around, but nothing so savage that would generate such a response. and now, I cannot ask, and I cannot even try to repair any damage, real or imaginary.
I subsequently discovered that he had removed me from his history; Wikipedia page, home page, everything. he is not the first, and possibly not the last, but it is still very odd and unfathomable to me why such things happen, and that the erasure of someone from history is thought to be even possible, let alone desireable.
Z'EV was always someone that you were either 'for' or 'against'. there were no half-measures. principally from his side.
I was always 'for' him, even in the dark times. he taught me a huge, actually unquanitifiable amount, which I will never, ever be able to repay. my gratitude will endure.
it is not how I would have wished to have this story end, but that's how it has to be. he would have called everything I have written here "bullshit," but I hope that he would have been wrong about at least most of it, at least this time.
(if anyone is interested in releasing the two items mentioned here, please get in contact.)
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