Monday, November 20, 2006

Friday, November 17, 2006

Navegação à Vista

navegação à vista para águas turvas;
as certezas noutro dia;
... noutra vida, talvez.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

L’Héautontimorouménos


Baudelaire

Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres ;
Adieu, vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!

(…)



Baudelaire, LVI. Chant d'Automne
Les Fleurs du mal
Seconde édition

I See


Trouble And Desire

Ned Riffle: I want adventure. I want romance.

Bill McCabe: Ned, there is no such thing as adventure. There's no such thing as romance. There's only trouble and desire.

Ned Riffle: Trouble and desire.

Bill McCabe: That's right. And the funny thing is, when you desire something you immediately get into trouble. And when you're in trouble you don't desire anything at all.

Ned Riffle: I see.

Bill McCabe: It's impossible.

Ned Riffle: It's ironic.

Bill McCabe: It's a fucking tragedy is what it is, Ned.



Simple Men, Hal Hartley (1992)

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Under The Weather


Thunder

She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern
Pacific going by



9th & Hennepin, Tom Waits

Fall


Rain

You will find me if you want me in the garden
Unless it's pouring down with rain
(…)





The Garden, Einstürzende Neubauten
(From the album "Ende Neu")

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Feel


Better

A Better Resurrection


I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me.


Sylvia Plath

Not Ok


Monday, November 13, 2006

Daily Sacrifices

Maria: Can you stop watching TV for a minute?
Matthew: No.
Maria: Why?
Matthew: Because. I had a bad day at work. I had to subvert my principles and kow-tow to an idiot. Television makes these daily sacrifices possible. Deadens the inner core of my being.



Em Trust, Hal Hartley, 1990

Friday, November 10, 2006

Fade To Black

Jusqu'ici Tout Va Bien

"C'est l'histoire d'un mec qui tombe d'un immeuble de cinquante étages; au fur et à mesure de sa chute il se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer: jusqu'ici tout va bien, jusqu'ici tout va bien, jusqu'ici tout va bien... mais l'important, c'est pas la chute c'est l'atterrissage."



Em La Haine, de Mathieu Kassovitz (França, 1995)

Thursday, November 09, 2006

What One Drank

Half Asleep

What cannot be forgotten reappears in dreams. At the end of this type of dream, half asleep, the events are still for a brief moment taken as real. Then the reactions they give rise to become clearer, more distinct, more reasonable; like, so many mornings, the memory of what one drank the night before.
Critique of Separation, Guy Debord
Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni (1961)
Translated by Ken Knabb

What true project has been lost?

Don't Know

WE DON'T KNOW what to say. Words are formed into sequences; gestures are recognized. Outside us. Of course some methods are mastered, some results verified. Quite often it’s amusing. But so many things we wanted have not been attained; or only partially and not like we thought. What communication have we desired, or experienced, or only simulated? What true project has been lost?


Critique of Separation, Guy Debord
Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni (1961)
Translated by Ken Knabb

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Awareness

Desenhos

a black dress. another world. a smile. an answer. body lotion. snow storm. my bag. too many rights and wrongs. skin matters. it really does. i regret the unprotected sex. i really do. does it matter? um barco em santa apolónia atracado no cais. uma gaja qualquer. se tivesse que te escrever não saberia o que dizer. as águas transparentes. todos as viram, menos eu. fui estúpido. foi a coisa mais estúpida que fiz. é talvez a única de que me arrependo. farias melhor se fizesses desenhos e te abstivesses de escrever.

Desperately

What Will Be

(...)

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land

(...)


The End, The Doors

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Orange Dust

Soma

For nearly 150 years Vedic Scholars have been in search of the mysterious plant of the 4000 B.C.E. Rigveda known as Soma. Soma was the plant around which the Vedic sacrifices took place and that was said to cause an ecstatic altered state of consciousness. But Soma was more than a plant, it and its expressed juice were also considered a god which was commonly used interchangeably with the god Agni, the god of fire.

The idea that Soma was a fungus, specifically the red capped Amanita muscaria mushroom, was first presented by the ethno-mycologists R. Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina Wasson in the 1960’s and published in their 1968 volume "Soma: The Divine Mushroom of Immortality."

W.L. Reese, in his Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion, states that "Agni (Soma) represents the trinity of earthly fire, lightning, and sun. In this extended sense he was the mediator between the gods and man." As in many other cultures it seems possible that a hallucinogen, in this case Amanita muscaria, was the doorway to entering the realm of the gods.



Wasson, R. Gordon. Soma: The Divine Mushroom of Immortality. Harcourt Brace Jovanovick, Inc., 1968.

Another Fragment

Funeral

I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.



Emily Dickinson

A Fragment

Leaves To Flame

When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game




anderson/weill

November

Friday, November 03, 2006

beta-carbolines

The beta-carbolines were first isolated in 1841 from the seeds of Peganum harmala, a small, bushy herb known as Syrian Rue which grows along the Mediterranean and throughout Central Asia.

It is also reported to have escaped cultivation and can now be found throughout the American southwest. Middle Eastern people have long used Syrian Rue as a folk medicine and for the unique red dye in Turkish and Persian rugs. Egyptians employed the seeds as an aphrodisiac and the plant has been considered as a possible (although unlikely) candidate for the mysterious Soma described in the Rig-Veda. Beta-carbolines have since been identified in several more plants including Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), and even within the human pineal gland.

The beta-carbolines are members of the indole family of alkaloids which includes the highly illegal drugs LSD, Psilocybin, DMT, Bufotenin, and Ibogaine. Interestingly, the beta-carbolines have never been scheduled as illegal substances. All of the indoles possess a structural similarity to the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.

Neuro-Alchemy: Beta-Carbolines as Potentiating Agents
by J.B. Fleming

Vacant

Empty Again

Thursday, November 02, 2006