sinnersbleeders

No One Knows

2012-01-26T13:02:00.009-05:00

However many interior steps are set out, nothing will happen
unless divine aid comes to our assistance.
-Bonaventure in Mystical Itineraries

The young skeptic says, "I have a right to think for myself."
But the old skeptic, the complete skeptic, says,
"I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."
-GK Chesterton in Orthodoxy

Sinners, Namers, and Bleeders do not know what is happening.
sSs does not know what is happening.
UMMO does not know.
Matthew does not know.
and, as usual, Sleepy Heads is sleeping.

post by Matthew

The Structure?

2012-01-24T01:04:00.005-05:00

post by NAMERS

Wool Yamm Ess Brrrrr Oh Zzzz

2012-01-23T03:35:00.014-05:00

Dear sSs,
This is Bleeders insisting on using words. But to counter that violation I'll use my words to discuss the others (Sinners and Namers) rather than myself. I hope that'll make you happy. I know you are our god, and I'm trying to be obedient to the spirit of your instruction to avoid the abundance of words here at sinnersbleeders; but I'm a word-y guy.

Sinners and Namers have been reading a lot of William S. Burroughs this year. But not his fiction. He's famous for his novels, but they don't particularly care for them. Not that they are against them. They just find them tough slogging and little pleasure. They both read Junkie and liked it somewhat, and then tried reading some others like Cities of the Red Night and Naked Lunch, and decided they'd rather masturbate or smoke a cigarette than read those convoluded, cut up sentences. They're lazy readers. For example: they like Raymond Chandler in part because his sentences are short and don't have much punctuation.

Sinners and Namers are interested in Burroughs because of his non-fiction. They like him for the philosophy that comes out in his articles (Sinners thinks this one in particular is interesting), interviews, and non-fiction books like The Job, The Burroughs File, and The Yage Letters. Through his ideas he has become, for them, something of a weirdo Saint. Personally, I don't find him quite that impressive.

You, blog reader/skimmer, do not need to read Burroughs' words if you don't want to. If you'd prefer you can just look at pictures of the man. Look with some attention and see what looking offers. I've gone through google and bing images and pulled out my favourites. Maybe all you need to know is in the pictures.

Post by Bleeders.
I haven't provided sources for the photographs, 'cos it's just too much bother. Sorry. Google 'William S. Burroughs.'

The Excluded Middle

2012-01-19T23:57:00.004-05:00

We can never get close to the truth except through lying. -Abbas Kiarostami

We deny the earth principle of the third excluded term (the excluded middle enunciated by Aristotle) according to which propositions can only be true or false. The whole ontology of terrestrial thinkers is saturated with expressions like "to be," "I am not," "I exist," without any option for other forms of different content.
Unless you yourselves clarify your forms of informative communication, the process of seeking the truth will be very laborious and slow. -UMMO
go ahead, click this: )+(

There is no such thing as the mafia. -J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI

images are details from paintings. In order they are San Bruno by Francisco Ribalta, Saint Peter Martyr by Fra Angelico, and The Egyptian God Harpocrates by Jan Harmensz Muller

post by Namers (how's that sSs? Better?)

Sshhhh

2012-01-19T15:05:00.002-05:00

Harpocrates
god of silence
whispers through the pages
"Sshhhh!
Sinners, Bleeders, and Namers have used too many words."
post by sSs

The Way Men Dress

2012-01-16T01:18:00.011-05:00

Prada Fall/Winter 2012

This guy's jacket should be a slightly darker brown, but otherwise: this is how men will dress in heaven.

Especially the moustache. The red shirt (and the black turtleneck thing under it!) is the best piece of material I've seen on someone with a penis in a long, long, long, long, long, long time.

It's difficult to have fun with clothes if you have a dick. You go into the store and it's just square, square, and more square.

Not even the gay men I've known have dressed well. The flamboyance has no elegance. Perhaps I need to meet more gay men, or rich men.

I dress as well as I can, but I'm not rich, so I'm just another guy. I buy all my clothes at value village.

Namers says he's been looking in the women's section of the clothing store, trying to find something that isn't as conservative as Stephen fucking Harper.

Question: What can a man wear that isn't as boring as reality TV?

Answer: Vests, suspenders, ties, cuff links, scarves, and NOTHING ELSE. But perhaps we lack imagination.

Also, men were never as well dressed as they were, ficticiously, in Sidney Paget's Sherlock Holmes illustrations. Pinstripes, long jackets, high collars, smoking jackets (are you serious!!!) and glorious-glorious-glorious hats. What fun!

Have you not gotten obsessed with that drug-addicted and highly neurotic genius, Sherlock Holmes, yet? You fool!!! Forget the TV specials and blasphemous films, Holmes is IT!

post by Sinners.

Who is Kenneth Rexroth?

2012-01-13T01:55:00.016-05:00

In describing love and marriage the American poet Kenneth Rexroth said,

The process as I see it goes something like this: from abandon to erotic mysticism, from erotic mysticism to the mysticism of sacramental marriage, thence to the realization of the ethical mysticism of universal responsibility.

Wikipedia says in 1941 "Rexroth married the nurse and poet Marie Kass. They opened up their home to weekly literary discussions, anti-war protesters, and Japanese-American convalescents avoiding internment." Wikipedia also says, "Rexroth self-identified as a philosophical anarchist," and that he was "a pacifist, a conscientious objector during World War II, and was actively involved with helping Japanese-American internees."

Who is Kenneth Rexroth? I don't know. But I'm enjoying finding out.

A while ago my father told me about a man he'd met whose job it was, during the 1940s in Ontario, to transport German and Japanese-Canadian prisoners from one prison camp to another. Dad said he was a really nice guy. I believe him wholeheartedly. What a fucked up time.

post by NAMERS. The image is a collage of the military awards of Alexander Haig. I don't know why.

The Devil's Eye

2012-01-10T02:10:00.007-05:00

Few people are capable of true love. Their suffering is unbounded. It's been said that they are close to God, that they are mirrors reflecting his light, making life more bearable for the rest of us poor devils who fumble in the dark. This could be true. I know nothing about it. -from Ingmar Bergman's The Devil's Eye

In the summer of 2001 I fell in love with cinema. My companion in this love-falling was Dave McGregor. We shared an apartment for the summer, and together we pushed into the most esoteric corners of cinema we knew existed. Which is to say, we watched some of the stranger Hollywood classics, and not much more. All we had access to or knowledge of was what was available to rent at Regina's Blockbuster video and to purchase at A&B Sound. We did not even have the internet to guide us.

So we watched Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and Robert Redford's hidden gem Ordinary People. There were more: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Midnight Cowboy, all the Kubrick films, Dog Day Afternoon, and Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. So many great Hollywood movies.

Then I moved up to Grande Prairie on my own to make $ and had to do my cinematic exploration alone, scouring the shelves of Grande Prairie's rental stores in search of obscure-ish film titles. In 'Movie Update' I found a VHS copy of Ingmar Bergman's 1960 film The Devil's Eye. So I rented it. I'd never seem a Bergman film.

I took it home, put it in my VCR, and pressed play.

At first it seemed to be an unexceptional movie. But as I watched something extraordinary happened: I noticed what the camera was doing. It was hanging back. The shots were playing out in a subtly different manner from anything I'd ever seen before in my Hollywood upbringing: characters walked from room to room, and at times it seemed the director was as interested in the rooms the actors were in as he was in the actors themselves.

It wasn't trumpeted. Bergman wasn't screaming his interest. But it was there all the same. I'd payed close enough attention to notice that there was all this dead space in the film -the dead space of uninhabited rooms. Human faces were of interest to Bergman, but so was the space those faces lived in.

And that was it: with a few brief shots in a humorous Ingmar Bergman film my enlightenment, cinematic and spiritual, began.

Watch the clip above and you'll see it, if you look carefully.

This is unrelated to anything, but watch the camera zoom in at just after the two and a half minute mark. It's a beautiful little zoom. Even though Bergman came to hate this film I still admire it greatly. Greatly. Watch the above clip and I dare you to tell me there's not something significant going on in this little movie. I think it's very, very funny, and there are a few scenese which, I feel, are absolutely perfect: they could not be improved.

So far as I know this film is completely unavailable on DVD in North America, but it is available on youtube in a half-decent transfer (if I ran the Criterion Collection for one month, I would do whatever I could to add this film to their list of upcoming releases).

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8

post written by SINNERS

sSs EP

2012-01-08T23:04:00.004-05:00

'Cen eTe neR' is Bleeders' favourite track on this little EP.

Namers' favourite has a title that can not be written on the internet
because it contains "illegal characters."

Sinners likes the secret song best.

Please download sSs here.

ist T ts!

2012-01-06T02:07:00.006-05:00

From the forthcoming sSs EP. Full-screen and headphones or good stereo please.

sSs is illiterate. In fact, she/he has never learned to speak a language, other than glossolalia.

Film is better, but digital is easier and cheaper, so this little movie is digital.

The Torment

2012-01-02T03:33:00.005-05:00

Time simply dropped onto the table. Several morsels chose the painter whose art blows up the sky. God was something like phrases that were laid one on top of the other, and which set me laughing. For instance:

The Word is the same kind of illusion that Eve is, in that she's not a real creature, she's something made out of man's rib -well, what's closest to your rib is your lung, what comes out of your lung is your breath, what you use to speak with is your breath, all Word is manipulation of breath -Life is Breath, Death is No-Breath- uh, communication is use of oxygen to produce communication... and you have to communicate with somebody -you communicate with your own rib? -Brion Gysin in Here To Go

Every thought and every defining conception which aims to encompass and grasp the divine nature is only forming an idol of God... - Gregory of Nyssa, from The Life of Moses

We all find this book of riddles and it's just what's going on. And you can figure them out. The problem is, you figure them out inside yourself, and even if you told somebody, they wouldn't believe you or understand it in the same way you do. You'd suddenly realize that the communication wasn't 100 per cent. There are a lot of things like that going on in life, and words just fail you. - David Lynch

These men without motive who stay in their rooms because there seems to be no reason for doing anything else. -Colin Wilson, in The Outsider

God does not become present to human consciousness the way that an object in the concrete world is said to be present ... Speaking of God's presence is at bottom another strategy for saying the unsayable -and why many mystics have wrestled with the paradox that God is found in absence and negation more than in presence. - Bernard McGinn (emphasis mine)

Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was... -Exodus 20:21 KJV

[God] made darkness his secret place. -Psalm 18:11 KJV

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever. -Deuteronomy 29:29 KJV

Kick that man habit, man. -Brion Gysin

They could not define Allah, who was beyond human definition, nor could they precisely interpret messengership, a unique relationship of deity and man. Before very long, Sufis were able to freely say such things as: "I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not." -Idries Shah in The Sufis

I learned that just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. -David Lynch

We all live in the world as we imagine it, as we create it. And so, instead of enjoying its benefits, we are the victims of its defects. -Andrei Tarkovsky, from Sculpting in Time

Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies ...on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire. -from Walker Percy's The Moviegoer

"I don't feel the least bit like getting dressed," she said. "I really like swimming, I really like making love," she told me. "But I don't like dancing, I don't know how to enjoy myself, and I've always hated parties. Do you think that's normal?"
I hesitated for a long time before replying. "I don't know," I said at last. "All I know is that I'm the same." -from Michel Houellebecq's Platform

He doesn't like feeling that futility gets the last word in the universe; his human nature would like to find something it can answer to with complete assent. But his honesty prevents his accepting a solution that he cannot reason about. His next question is naturally: Supposing a solution does exist somewhere, undreamed of by me, inconceivable to me, can I yet hope that it might one day force itself upon me without my committing myself to a preliminary gesture of faith which (in point of fact) I cannot make?
The poet finds that he can answer this question with a 'yes.' ... He begins with reason, which, as it were, makes him self-sufficient, and he subjects all to the test of reason. Ultimately his reason informs him: you are not self-sufficient; you are futile, floating in a void. This is unanswerable. What is he to do? Demolish his own premises? ...
This experience of terror on the edge of nothingness was not an unfamiliar experience to many of the saints, Christian and otherwise. -Colin Wilson, in The Outsider

Most men will not swim before they are able to ... Naturally the won't swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they won't think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what's more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown. -from Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf

[William S. Burroughs] was asked if he had been able to think for any length of time in images, with the inner voice silent. "I'm becoming more proficient at it, partly through my work with scrapbooks... Try this: Carefully memorize the meaning of a passage, then read it: you'll find you can actually read it without the words making any sound whatever in the mind's ear. Extraordinary experience, and one that will carry over into dreams. When you start thinking in images, without words, you're well on the way." -from El Hombre Invisible by Barry Miles

Prepare to meet your God. ...Then take hold of ink, pen, and tablet. Realize that you are about to serve your God in joy. Begin to combine letters, a few or many, permuting and revolving them rapidly until your mind warms up. Delight in how they move and in what you generate by revolving them. When you feel within that your mind is very, very warm from combining the letters, and that through the combinations you understand new things that you have not attained by human tradition nor discovered on your own through mental reflection, then you are ready to receive the abundant flow... -unnamed Kabbalist, from The Essential Kabbalah

Every time I say: X is neither this nor that, neither the contrary of this nor of that … I would start to speak of God, under this name or another. God’s name would suit everything that may not be broached, approached, or designated, except in an indirect and negative manner. Every negative sentence would already be haunted by God or by the name of God, the distinction between God and God’s name opening up the very space of this enigma. -Jacques Derrida, from How to Avoid Speaking (thanks Boyda!)

All "paths of liberation" (brain-freeing schools) know that we cannot remain in the abyss of the nameless forevr, unless we choose to become hermits. (Very few do.) Once we have returned from a school of brain-change to the ordinary world, we again must see and think in masks, or we will not have the ability to communicate and deal with others. -Robert Anton Wilson in Cosmic Trigger: My Life After Death

post by NAMERS with help from SINNERS. The painting is The Torment of St. Anthony, by Michelangelo

Women

2011-12-31T03:46:00.015-05:00

&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_%28band%29"&amp;amp;amp;gt;Women&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;. Calgary, 2010&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;
Women. Calgary, 2008-2010

Internet says maybe they broke up. Maybe.

OK fine. Break up if you want. But please PLEASE PLEASE!!! make at least one more album.

When Namers, Bleeders, and Sinners saw WOMEN live in Montreal in 2009 in support of their first album WOMEN we arrived so early no one else was there. The bass player was talking to a girl on the street. The bar wasn't even open. So we walked around the neighbournood 'till the bar opened and then we sat drinking 'till the opening bands played. We got tipsy on cheap, lousy Quebec beer. We were early enough for the soundcheck. When the openers began playing we moved to the front of the stage and endured the opening groups in that tiny bar, and then...

oh glory...

Women!

Best band on the face of the earth.

Then in the summer of 2010 we downloaded Public Strain, smoked a lot of grass, and started listening. "Is it just me," we made Matthew ask his/our girlfriend, "or is this amazing?"

It wasn't just us. That record is spectacular. In a St. John's, Newfoundland record store that winter we found a copy of Public Strain on vinyl. "Have you heard that record?" an employee at the store asked us as Bleeders picked it up to admire the art.

"Yeah. It's great."

He nodded and smiled. We smiled back. We all knew the secret: BEST BAND ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

Marathon listening sessions (to Women and Public Strain) cemented a place in my heart for their music. Truly one of the best young bands of our time. Sorely missed. -Deerhunter's Moses Archuleta

Women (2008)
Public Strain (2010)

Buy here.

Tarkovsky's Polaroids

2011-12-24T16:53:00.005-05:00

Bleeders found a Russian website today featuring polaroids taken by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Check it out here.
Tonino Guerra talks about Tarkovsky's photography here.

The Master

2011-12-20T00:22:00.001-05:00

The Master

Would He L. N.

2011-12-16T18:59:00.006-05:00

From Hannah & Her Sisters, 1986.

Sinners was drinking milk watching this scene. He laughed so hard the milk ran through his nostrils.

Kuedo, 'Salt Lake Cuts'

2011-12-11T16:35:00.005-05:00

Kuedo, Severant. Berlin, 2011

That cover!

Pay $ here.

N/-\mers (more Gysin)

2011-12-09T01:16:00.025-05:00

The Fall New Puritan (from 'The Complete Peel Sessions')

Mr. Brion Gysin emphasizes that words are not the things they represent.

Take the word 'I.' What is 'I'? In what sense does 'I' exist? What is the thing that the word 'I' refers to? It's not a 'real' thing in the same way your chair is real, right? So what is it?

Maria Minerva Tallinn at Dawn

'I' exists as a word. We know that. It also exists in thought, certainly. 'I' is a thought.

'I' is a thought, and that's all it is. That's all.

Gysin wrote/cut-up (in an untitled piece in Here To Go):

I do not think
I am thought
not by a thinker
who would, too, be
thought
I am thought in action

Federal Duck Peace in My Mind

The word 'I' is referring to the thought 'I.' 'I' is a thought, but our language, the way we talk, makes that realization difficult/unlikely. Words are not to be trusted.

The 'thinker' is actually a thought.

New Ditty with Cindy Morgan

2011-12-08T02:18:00.009-05:00

Last night over supper Namers and I asked Sinners for his earliest memories of naked breasts.

He was eleven years old-ish, Sinners told us. His Mom and Dad had rented Caddyshack because they'd watched a few scenes on television years before and laughed a lot. They didn't realize how vulgar it was when the TV censors weren't there to remove the swear words and cut out all the sexuality. Sinners' family sat down to watch the movie one Sunday afternoon -a pure, polite fundamentalist family- only to recoil in horror and embarassment at Sodom and Gommorah on-screen before them. His father kept fast-forwarding through scenes, waiting for the funny part to begin. Half the film was hidden behind the wavy lines of a VHS tape racing ahead to the next scene. Eventually the tape was stopped, and something else was put in instead.

That night, after everyone else in the family had fallen asleep, Sinners and his sister snuck into the living room -guilt-ridden and fearful- to see what their father's righteousness had saved them from experiencing.

Mostly it was just a lot of swearing that had been skipped. But near the middle of the movie was a scene featuring the actor Cindy Morgan, topless in a sex scene. "Eeeew!" whispered Sinners' sister, a few years younger than him. "What's he doing to her?" Sinners offered no response, and then she figured it out for herself. "Oh."

Sinners had seen bare breasts once before in his sheltered, rural existence: in a magazine he found as a six or seven year old, stuffed behind the seat of a loader he was climbing onto in a gravel pit outside of town. Sinners and his friend Jeremy rode their bikes out to the gravel pit all the time, and one night Jeremy dared him to see if the loader, which was always parked there, was locked. It wasn't.

And what peculiar treasures it possessed! A stinky beer can, and a magazine full of pictures of adults riding each other around. One lady, wearing no clothes at all, was spraying herself with a green garden hose, and seemed to be enjoying it immensely. "Look, they're giving each other horse-y rides," Jeremy said as Sinners turned the page.

"It's sex," Sinners said, correcting his friend. He wasn't certain that's what it was, but he knew that sex involved nakedness and private parts, and there was plenty of that on the page.

"Oh," replied Jeremy. "It's funny."

Questions for Control

2011-12-04T23:55:00.011-05:00

Namers recently read a book called
HERE
TO
GO
which contains a bunch of interviews with and other material written by or about the influential mystic/misandrist/inventor Brion Gysin that help guide the reader through some of the man's ideas. Near the end of the book Gysin tells of coming in contact, not personally, but "through IBM Seattle," with an entity called CONTROL. One could ask it questions and it would respond. Numerous questions and answers are recorded in the book. Such as:

Q: Who is God?
A: Control.

Q: What is L. Ron Hubbard's R2-45?
A: Assassination technique.

One question seemed particularly absurd; it was asked by Gysin's friend and collaborator William Burroughs.

Q: Is the C.S. Lewis-Tolkien mythology historically valid?
A: Yes.

The question comes out of the blue and is not otherwise discussed in the book. But it made Namers smile, and led him to see what the internetsSs had to say about the historical validity of Professor Tolkien's famous mythology. All kinds of weirdness ensued (scroll down to 'Genesis of the Holy Grail' lecture by Laurence Gardner).

Blue Hawaii, 'Blooming Summer'

2011-12-01T01:40:00.010-05:00

Blue Hawaii. Montreal, 2010.
Blooming Summer
buy it here from arbutus records

Sinners likes this album a lot. I, Bleeders, think it's pretty cool. But Namers! Namers spent this week trembling at the thought of it. He's going through this period of obsession with women singing over synthesizers, and is in love with at least eight girls now. I mean, really in love. "But only with their voice: the voice as its own person" he said once when I was making fun of his crushes. Sometimes he closes his eyes and breathes deep through entire songs.

There aren't many albums like this one which the three of us enjoy all the way through.

Precedent Djonn Efken Eddie

2011-11-29T02:23:00.007-05:00

Who killed him, and why does it matter?

If this hawkish, eloquent man was killed by, or with the knowledge of, people inside the US government, as so so so so so many investigators suggest is likely, what would the implications be? If the official story on that tragedy turned out to be a lie, what about all the other official stories?

Ultra-Leftist historian Michael Parenti's take on it is the best introduction we can think of to the wild, wooly world of JFK conspiracy.

Do you really want to go down that rabbit hole? Of course you do.

Download the lecture here (scroll down to 'The Gangster Nature of the State'), and try to ignore the self-satisfied applause and laughter of the audience; or begin listening on youtube (skip to 6:30 if you want to jump right into the JFK stuff):

part 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

This blog entry was written by Namers. He's interested in what he calls 'The Power Elite.' That phrase makes Sinners and Bleeders roll their eyes. They played ping-pong while Namers was typing.

'Allucinazione' Preev Ewe

2011-11-26T00:59:00.011-05:00

Italy, 2011.
die Rected bi Cosmotropia de Xam
Ffownnd heer
The preev ewe is much much better than the movie, but if you want to be disappointed you can watch it here.

Sleep ∞ Over

2011-11-22T06:29:00.013-05:00

Sleep ∞ Over. Austin, Texas, 2011.

For a couple weeks in September of this year, every day between 14:34 and 14:38 Danish junior high school intercoms blasted excerpts from Stefanie Franciotti's synthesizer-based pop songs. As the music played some of the sensitive, straight boys developed crushes on the ethereal voice and made abstract doodles in their margins, or drew moustaches on the pictures in their textbook instead of learning about Brazilian culture or algebra. The jock girls rolled their eyes and re-folded the notes they'd been writing with three different colours of pen; the teacher's pets clenched their jaws or re-crossed their legs, and underlined the date at the top of their looseleaf; and none of the teachers attempted to explain why the music was interrupting their class -for they too were slightly hypnotized.

Before she was Sleep ∞ Over Ms. Franciotti was in the band Silver Pines, and they're a crush-worthy band too; but they never got played over a school intercom.

Austin, Texas has been awesome for a long time.

Buy Sleep ∞ Over's album Forever here.

)+(

2011-11-20T05:09:00.019-05:00

Waking this morning we were surprised to discover we occupied the body of Bashar al-Assad. Usually it is that Matthew character we inhabit (he knows about us by now. He's even named his albums after us), but some days we occupy other humans. Who it will be can not be predicted. We are directed by UMMO. We wake up each morning unsure of whose body we will dominate. In November 2010, for an entire week we were Michel Houellebecq. We smoked a lot of cigarettes that week. And took mescaline. We'd never experienced that before.

But this morning we entered a luxurious bathroom and brushed Assad's teeth with colgate. Super-shiny. Then we flossed. We got dressed, and tied his tie in a windsor knot. On our way out of the bedroom his wife Asma said something in Arabic which we could not understand. We made him nod, and she seemed satisfied. We knew somehow that we were destined for a meeting with military leaders. But it seemed that despite being put in an Arabic-speaker's body, we could not comprehend the language. This might be, we realized simultaneously, a difficult day.

It's tough times in Syria. Like, there's some crazy shit happening: grenades hitting buildings, and doctors getting beaten to a bloody pulp for trying to help wounded protestors. And worse things than that. Much much worse. It might be all-out civil war soon. The US is involved. And Europe. Everyone's watching. It's no fun here.

Entering a small office room full of men in uniforms, a short man with a greying moustache made more Arabic-sounding noises directed at our guy. We raised Assad's lips to smile, then wandered to a black leather chair in the center of the room and sat down. The military men sat down in chairs of their own and waited for us to make Assad speak. We began to panic.

"What will we do?" Sinners asked the rest of us telepathically.

"I dunno," replied Namers, "but they're waiting for him to say something."

"Screw it," Bleeders said with a shrug, "let's have fun."

The generals were waiting patiently. We made our man rise to his feet. He is very tall. We used his left hand to stroke his moustache. And then, with long, exaggerated steps, we carried Assad's body to a computer in the corner of the room, made him load up this video online, and directed him to sing along at the top of his lungs.

download or buy

Occupy Sinnersbleeders

2011-11-19T22:48:00.010-05:00

Nobody comes here anymore. They're all on facebook, where you can't even change your background colour.

Gasp! Gasp!

We die.

Kaputz. (hey! I'm dyin' here. Anyone? Anyone? Nope.)

Fizzle fizzle.

There Is

2011-11-17T16:55:00.002-05:00

a problem with the system.

There Is

2011-11-17T14:46:00.003-05:00

"...a power in the soul which alone is free... It is free of all names and void of all forms, entirely exempt and free, as God is exempt and free in himself. It is as completely one and simple as God is one and simple, so that no man can in any way glimpse it. ...So truly one and simple is this [power in the soul], so mode- and power-transcending, that neither power nor mode can gaze into it, nor even God himself! In very truth and as God lives! God himself never looks in there for one instant, in so far as he exists in modes and in the properties of his persons. ...For God to see inside it would cost him all His divine names and personal properties: all these he must leave outside, should he ever look in there. ...in that sense he is neither Father, Son, nor Holy Spirit, and yet is a something which is neither this nor that. ...In this part the soul is the same as God and not otherwise."

Meister Eckhart. Sermons and Treatises. Vol. 1. Sermon 2.

There Is

2011-11-17T03:31:00.004-05:00

No God. No enlightenment. No mind. No self. Neti Neti.

"Tell them that there is nothing to understand." -UG Krishnamurti

David Robert Jones, 'I've Got Lightning'

2011-11-15T03:27:00.000-05:00

David Bowie. Somewhere in 1970. From 'The Shadow Man.'

sinnersbleeders discovered no links for purchasing the compilation.

The Monochrome Set, 'Early Recordings'

2011-11-13T14:45:00.001-05:00

Hornsey, London, England. 1975-77.
The Monochrome Set, from Early Recordings.

We discovered this compilation album at ghostcapital. Purchase the record here.

Their 1983 singles and b-sides compilation 'Volume, Contrast, Brilliance' has also been on heavy rotation here in Valhalla, where sinnersbleeders lives rent-free.

Again Ms. Foster

2011-11-11T01:41:00.011-05:00

Somewhere around 2008 the acoustic guitar died. Someone threw it off the back of a moving truck in Arizona and, unfortunately, that was it. Goodbye!

We reconstructed the demolished instrument and it seemed to make the same noises as before, but the magic had been lost and we began neglecting the old thing. It sat in the corner collecting dust.

But those were the days of un-natural time. Now (as apocalypse approaches) we're stepping into the time of the individual, away from the clock and the tick-tock of the somewhere-out-there and the "we can measure it," and back into time as it is experienced. This rediscovery of experienced time is changing everything (everything!) -including that old acoustic guitar. It's as dead as it ever was; but now death has a different meaning.

How long is this song? As long as it feels.

Josephine Foster has been a REVELATION.

NAMERS

2011-11-08T01:48:00.005-05:00

Sinners and Bleeders
meet the newest member of the family:

Download here
Myspace
cbc radio3
youtube

Sinners said this was the best song:

Bleeders disagreed and said, "That one's weird. Everyone'll like this one":

Namers spoke up meekly to say, "I know it's abrasive, but my favourite part of myself is when the guitars get really loud on Western Land":

Bleeders

2011-11-07T03:02:00.006-05:00

Written/recorded between 2004-2010 in Grande Prairie, Calgary, and Montreal.
Download here.

BLEEDERS
1. The Riddle Sound
2. In Camera (featuring Alanna Wilkinson)
3. Congregation
4. After Harmony Korine
5. I Low My Arm
6. The Walls
7. Bleeder
8. Great Siege of the North Atlantic
9. Wrap Her in the Sun
10. Ambition Song
11. Jacob's Ladder
12. Candles

Sleepy Heads EP available here.
Sinners LP available here.

Steve Treatment

2011-11-05T18:25:00.005-04:00

From the Change of Plan 7":

From the 5A Sided 45 EP:

London, 1978-79. Steve Treatment.

"Punk" is a word.

sinnersbleeders found this on student driver.

Buy it for $60.21.

si sredeelbsrennis

2011-11-01T02:58:00.004-04:00

sinnersbleeders is an abandoned city.

There Are Eyes Above

2011-10-31T04:28:00.003-04:00

Colorado, USA, 2005. From the album 'Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You.'

Ghosts took control of car stereos all over town this morning; Mid-way through restaurant commercials and coldplay songs the warbling voice of Josephine Foster and her trembling guitar broke in. "That's better," the gentle phantoms thought as the song began. "This haunting business is a lot of fun."

Spend $ here.

Tunisia

2011-10-28T01:17:00.004-04:00

Who is Rashid Al-Ghannushi?
sinnersbleeders didn't know, so it poked around online.

Apparently Al-Ghannushi said:
"For women, there was no path to freedom, knowledge or self-determination except through a revolt against Islam and its mores and the imitation of the West -until the Islamist movement. Before the emergence of the Islamist movement, woman found herself in an unstable and decaying society whose 'liberation' was purely superficial: nudity, eroticism, leaving the house and the intermingling of the sexes. So she revolted against these superficial manifestations and called for the return to Islam. But not without trepidation, because for women the return to Islam still portended a return to the age of decline: the harem, self-negation and the inability to determine her own destiny."

wikipedia says

inayat's corner says

Here is an article he wrote about the Tunisian election.

The Economist said some incorrect things.

Julianna Barwick, 'Flown'

2011-10-26T23:15:00.008-04:00

Julianna Barwick. From The Magic Place LP.
Brooklyn, USA, 2011

My father told me about going to a very conservative, pentacostal church service -the kind of thing where everyone's white, the women wear hats or scarves to cover their heads, the men are gentle and soft-spoken, and children are playing hide-and-seek in the lobby. After the sermon instead of singing a hymn a white-haired gentleman sat down in front of the piano and struck a single chord; a woman in the congregation began improvising a wordless melody built on the resonating piano chord. Soon another woman from the congregation joined in with her own melody overtop of the original. Then a man added a third melody, then another woman, another man, and eventually the whole room was singing; there were a hundred melodies rising into the overall song of the room.

That's what I picture when I hear this song.

Spend $ here.

"The Flesh Profiteth Nothing; The Mind Profiteth Nothing"

2011-10-25T00:24:00.005-04:00

Today sinnersbleeders offers two excerpts from Mr. Aleister Crowley.

Taken from 'The Preliminary Lection' (yes, 'Lection') of Liber LXI vel Causae:
In the Name of the Initiator, Amen. In the beginning was Initiation. The flesh profiteth nothing; the mind profiteth nothing; that which is unknown to you and above these, while firmly based upon their equilibrium, giveth life. In all systems of religion is to be found a system of Initiation, which may be defined as the process by which a man comes to learn that unknown Crown.
Though none can communicate either the knowledge or the power to achieve this, which we may call the Great Work, it is yet possible for initiates to guide others.
Every man must overcome his own obstacles, expose his own illusions. Yet others may assist him to do both, and they may enable him altogether to avoid many of the false paths, leading no whither, which tempt the weary feet of the uninitiated pilgrim. They can further insure that he is duly tried and tested, for there are many who think themselves to be Masters who have not even begun to tread the Way of Service that leads thereto.
Now the Great Work is one, and the Initiation is one, and the Reward is one, however diverse are the symbols wherein the Unutterable is clothed.

From 'The History Lection' -where he's telling the story of a man who built a particular type of a group:
[He] did prepare all things by his arcane science and wisdom, choosing only those symbols which were common to all systems, and rigorously rejecting all names and words which might be supposed to imply any religious or metaphysical theory. To do this utterly was found impossible, since all language has a history, and the use (for example) of the word «spirit» implies the Scholastic Philosophy and the Hindu and Taoist theories concerning the breath of man. So was it difficult to avoid implication of some undesirable bias by using the words «order,» «circle,» «chapter,» «society,» «brotherhood,» or any other to designate the body of initiates. Deliberately, therefore, did he take refuge in vagueness. Not to veil the truth to the Neophyte, but to warn him against valuing non-essentials. Should therefore the candidate hear the name of any God, let him not rashly assume that it refers to any known God, save only the God known to himself. Or should the ritual speak in terms (however vague) which seem to imply Egyptian, Taoist, Buddhist, Indian, Persian, Greek, Judaic, Christian, or Moslem philosophy, let him reflect that this is a defect of language; the literary limitation and not the spiritual prejudice of the man.

Seven Sufi Jokes

2011-10-21T20:54:00.015-04:00

Idries Shah wrote that, "It is believed that the mystical effect of seven Nasrudin tales, studied in succession, is enough to prepare an individual for enlightenment." So here we go:

1.
Nasrudin walked into a shop one day.
The owner came forward to serve him.
"First things first," said Nasrudin; "did you see me walk into your shop?"
"Of course."
"Have you ever seen me before?"
"Never in my life."
"Then how do you know it is me?"
-from Idries Shah's book The Sufis

2.
Nasrudin applied for a job. The manager did not feel he was qualified, so he asked, "Can you read and write?"
Nasrudin replied, "I cannot read, but I can write."
The manager was surprised. "Then write!" he said, and offered him some paper. Nasrudin immediately started writing on it. He went fast -- one page, two pages, three pages.
The manager said, "Now you stop! Please read what you have written, because I cannot read."
Nasruddin said, "I have told you - I can only write! I can't read."
-as recounted by Osho

3.
Nasrudin had been calling on his girlfriend for over a year. One evening the girl's father stopped him as he was leaving and asked, "Look here young man, you have been seeing my daughter for a year now, and I would like to know whether your intentions are honourable or dishonourable?"
Nasrudin's face lit up. "Do you mean to say, Sir,"he said, "That I have a choice?"
-from this website

4.
One day Nasrudin began telling everyone he was God, and because of this he was brought before the Caliph, who said to him, "Last year someone claimed to be a prophet and he was put to death!"
Nasrudin replied, "It was well that you did so, for I did not send him."
-as told by Idries Shah

5.
Nasrudin entered a formal reception area and seated himself at the foremost elegant chair. The Chief of the Guard approached and said: "Sir, those places are reserved for guests of honor."
"Oh, I am more than a mere guest," replied Nasrudin confidently.
"Oh, so are you a diplomat?"
"Far more than that!"
"Really? So you are a minister, perhaps?"
"No, bigger than that too."
"Oho! So you must be the King himself, sir," said the Chief sarcastically.
"Higher than that!"
"What?! Are you higher than the King?! Nobody is higher than the King in this village!"
"Now you have it. I am nobody!" said Nasrudin.
-from this site

6.
A judge in a village court had gone on vacation. Nasrudin was asked to be temporary judge for a day. Nasrudin sat on the Judge's chair with a serious face, gazing around the public and ordered the first case be brought-up for hearing.
"You are right," said Nasrudin after hearing one side.
"You are right," he said after hearing the other side.
"But both cannot be right," said a member of the public sitting in the audience.
"You are right, too" said Nasrudin.
-from this site

7.
Nasrudin was out riding when he saw a group of horsemen. Thinking this might be a band of robbers, Nasrudin galloped off hastily. The other men, who were actually friends of his, said, "I wonder where Nasrudin is going in such a hurry?" and trailed after him to find out. Nasrudin, feeling himself pursued, raced to a graveyard, leapt over the fence, and hid behind a tombstone. His friends arrived and, sitting on their horses, leaned over the wall to ask, "Why are you hiding behind that tombstone, Nasrudin?"
"It's more complicated than you realize," replied Nasrudin, discerning what had happened. "I'm here because of you, and you're here because of me."
-as told by Robert Anton Wilson

Caravelli, 'L'étrange Docteur Personne'

2011-10-18T21:38:00.007-04:00

Yesterday the hollow moon was carried off by a gentle wind.

To my surprise cowboys from Sweden -once hidden by our lunar neighbour- were now visible floating in space, drinking tea and blaring this song from ancient speakers.

Claude Vasori (AKA "Caravelli").

William Burroughs & Gus Van Sant, 'The Discipline of DE'

2011-10-16T04:54:00.004-04:00

Gus Van Sant, 1982

Taken from William Burroughs' fascinating piece of the same name.

It's not a perfect film. Not even great. But there's something there. Burroughs writes of "the final discipline of doing nothing," and sinnersbleeders finds that amazing. What's he saying, "final discipline"? Final?

Final.

It reminds me of a U.G. Krishnamurti quote:

"Unfortunately, the servant, which is the thought structure, has taken possession of the house."

How to See Nothing

2011-10-13T23:57:00.003-04:00

In the diary of St. Jonah of Kiev were scribbled numerous quotations, such as:

PLOTINUS says,
"Once you have uttered 'The Good,' add no further thought:
by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency."

RABIA BASRI says,
""You know of the how, but I know of the how-less.""

BRION GYSIN, after cursing Edmonton, says,
"I could easily blast so much keef night and day I become a bouhali; a real-gone crazy, a holy untouchable madman unto whom everything is permitted, nothing is true."

DR. SEUSS says,
"Mincome. What? Huh?
Do not fall in love with yourselves, with the nice time we are having here.
Occupy Wall Street."

The Clean, 'Boodle Boodle Boodle' EP

2011-10-08T19:16:00.010-04:00

Dunedin, New Zealand, 1981. The Clean.

Boodle Boodle Boodle was their first release, and it's the only one I enjoy all the way through.

Their single, Tally Ho!, also from 1981, is a lot of fun too.

The first time I heard 'Point That Thing Somewhere Else,' it was the middle of the night and I was waist-deep in recently downloaded late-70s/early-80s skinny white kid guitar rock. I was trying to introduce myself to that whole world. Most of the bands were really awful. But when that song came on I just closed my eyes and surrendered. It's a minute longer than it needs to be, but whatever. Pop songs from after 1970 are usually too long (my theory is: after 3 minutes or so you've got to really work to justify why you're going on so long).

Purchase The Clean merchandiseproductitemstuffthingsandwhatnot at flying nun records.

Around (A Long Take)

2011-10-03T02:04:00.007-04:00

A film I collaborated on in Montreal with my friends Sylvain Chaussee and Emilie Serri was never able to get edited because the film stock was too old and thus looked faded and gray when developed. It was planned as an eleven-minute take of continuous camera movement.

We did video rehearsals before shooting on 16mm. Sylvain edited some footage from those rehearsals and made a video instead of a film. I hope you like it.

Full-screen and headphones or a good stereo, please.

For more of Sylvain's work click here.
For more of Emilie's work click here.

U.S. Maple

2011-10-02T04:04:00.006-04:00

Even when you don't want it to, sometimes the sky pours noisy noisy rock.

U.S. Maple. Chicago, 1995. From the album 'Long Hair in Three Stages,' but this is the only song I liked on it. It has a great cover.

The State is bad. End the Fed.

HNC, 'I Dream I Dead'

2011-09-28T00:55:00.002-04:00

HNC, 'I Dream I Dead'

WHAAAAAAAAATTTTTT?????!!!!!!???????!!!!!!!!

Tokyo, 2011.

Robert Altman

2011-09-24T03:12:00.018-04:00

California Split is a 1974 Robert Altman film. It's very funny.

I like the way the camera moves: lots of slow zooms simultaneous with lateral tracking. The blocking is beautiful too, and there's an accidentalness to it -as is so often the case with everything about Altman's films.

Gosford Park is another Altman favourite of mine. It came near the end of his long, prolific career. I love the film more every time I see it. When I'm seventy years old and on my thirty-sixth viewing how large will my love have grown? There's so much to pay attention to, and all of it is rewarding.

'Seeds of Contemplation' and 'The Essential Kabbalah'

2011-09-22T00:23:00.007-04:00

Visiting a friend in Regina this summer I purchased a pocket-size copy of the American Catholic Thomas Merton's Seeds of Contemplation from the Religion/New Age section of a little bookstore in a strip-mall.

My copy is in terrible shape. Every time I open the book several new pages come unglued. It's in shambles now, and I'm only half-way through. I enjoy watching it disintegrate as I read it.

Merton's ideas of God are very unlike those I encountered in the Evangelical church. I'd heard he was a somewhat unorthodox Christian (that was what got me interested in reading him), and now I see just how eccentric he is -at least compared to the Christians I've read up 'till now.

For example, in a chapter on faith he writes:

Since God cannot be imagined, anything our imagination tells us about Him is ultimately a lie and therefore we cannot know Him as He really is unless we pass beyond everything that can be imagined and enter into an obscurity without images and without the likeness of any created thing. And since God cannot be seen or imagined, the visions of God we read of the saints having are not so much visions of Him as visions about Him; for to see anything is not to see Him.

That section from Merton reminded me of a piece I'd read in a book that I regularly pull off my shelf: The Essential Kabbalah, compiled and translated by Daniel C. Matt. In that book (also in a section on faith) an unnamed Kabbalist writes,

Every definition of God leads to heresy; definition is spiritual idolatry. Even attributing mind and will to God, even attributing divinity itself, and the name "God" -these, too, are definitions. Were it not for the subtle awareness that all these are just sparkling flashes of that which transcends definition -these, too, would engender heresy.

... As the human spirit verges on complete clarity of faith, the final subtle shell of corporeality falls away -attributing existence to God. For truly, existence, however we define it, is immeasurably remote from God. The silhouette of this denial resembles heresy but when clarified is actually the highest level of faith. Then the human spirit becomes aware that the divine emanates existence and is itself beyond existence. What appeared to be heresy, now purified, is restored to purest faith. But this denial of existence in God ...requires exquisite insight. (emphasis mine)

It could be that Merton would differ with the Kabbalist, but their ideas seem complimentary to me.

The Index, 'Black Label Album'

2011-09-20T02:19:00.006-04:00

We return. This time more as a music/movie/book blog. First up:

The Index. Detroit, 1967. I think these are garage recordings, and the band's a little sloppy in keeping the beat, but I like that. It's part of the charm. Also, I'd take their version of 'You Keep Me Hangin On' over The Supremes' any day.

Fruitface and 'Bye Bye'

2010-10-18T13:19:00.001-04:00

The Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia,
Margrave of Moravia, Prince of Piombino,
King of the Romans, King of Slavonia,
King of Croatia, Archduke of Austria,
King of all Hungary,
Rudolf II
says,
"Check this out!"

Also,

try to find new matthewmusic at The End of Being.

.-(}{[:]}{)-.

2010-06-23T21:51:00.006-04:00

Anuther West (I never knew)

Peaeking through the door

+
-_=_-

I am king

* L *

Ring-a-ding

and
Q Q

Mother of all
Wowee!

W K
>-{}-< W Q
Truth in mind,
create with tongue

-=-
:
.
Closer to joy
.
:
.
.

-=-
Winterkönig
Eternity called
Where (do I care?) is my body?*

*oh body! oh body! oh body!

Leaves of Grass

2010-06-04T22:53:00.005-04:00

God(s) and father(s). I haven't rambled in a while.

It's my Dad's birthday. Two days ago we discovered, in a long overdue conversation, that he in his kindhearted Christianity, and I in my supersoft atheism, aren't so far apart as I'd thought. We're both looking for a similar thing: what he calls the Christian God, and I call ______. And we both hold Jesus in reverence. We also both like Hebrews 11:6, which says, "...[God] is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

I'm still seeking, and never wandering far from home. Hopefully I don't get too flaky. Meh, whatever.

I drew a chalk labyrinth on my apartment parking lot last month. It's on your side, a labyrinth is. No dead ends. No tricks. Just a path, and you know exactly where it's going. So why are you doing it? I dunno.

You do so know why.

I used to pray, but was easily distracted. Reaching, striving, wandering... "oh, sorry Lord, my mind was somewhere else -what did you say?"

"Try the labyrinth, it might help you listen."

"Who is that? I can hear you just fine. Any other suggestions?"

No response. Silence. So I gave God my voice.

"Try, umm, I dunno. Try Leaves of Grass," I imitated. "Thoreau had it as an ally. I know you like him." Was I being sacrilegious? I meant my God-voice kindly, inviting the silence to take over any time it wanted to. No mockery. Only love.

Then God imitated me. "Yeah," he said, "Thoreau was the first person I heard say 'Slow down. You say it only takes an hour by train? You forgot all the time spent saving cash for the ticket. Try walking instead. I only work a couple months a year. Like a fur trapper in 1960s Saskatchewan.'"

Yes, folks still fur-trapped in rural 1960s Saskatchewan. My dad did. He was just a kid, but he remembers families who lived simple lives (what might be called poor) but only worked 3 months a year. "It was a different way of life," Dad told me. I'll bet.

Why work if you don't love it? Pay the bills, then stop. Like Ankh-af-na-khonsu. Like Sylphs. I too am foolish with money. Drop out.

What? Matthew this post is a convoluted mess. *o*o*

Don't listen to me, or anyone. Do what thou wilt.

Don't even listen to that.

Listen? How can you listen? These are letters, not sounds. And the links are nonsense-ish. So you can trust them.

Huh?

The voice of God and the voice of my father are linked. I can't help it. Noticing that link may have helped me realize God was all in my head. But I like my father's voice, so it isn't that bad.

This post would've been better if I'd misspelled every word. And added more pictures. And begun more sentences with And. And, exactly. Destroy all language. Lovingly. Make words your slaves, not you theirs.

Don't learn old languages. Make up new ones and teach them to no one.

Good grief.

Also,

BLANKITY BLANK

Outremont Manor

2010-05-18T15:46:00.003-04:00

Full-screen and headphones (or a good stereo) please. If not, I love you.

I made this movie in collaboration with:
Jared Chevalier
Igor Ivanov
Sylvain Chausée
Ara Mahrejian
Leah McGrath-Reynolds
Joel Hubick
Philipe Léonard
Emilie Serri
Pollyanna Langford-Lacny
Emir Togrul
Julie La Gall

It's an inferior digital transfer, but that's all I can afford.

The words at the end come from Timothy Leary's 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness.

pomegranates 1.0

2010-05-16T22:19:00.001-04:00

pomegranates 0.9

2010-05-16T22:16:00.001-04:00

pomegranates 0.8

2010-05-16T22:14:00.001-04:00

pomegranates 0.7

2010-05-16T22:11:00.001-04:00

pomegranates 0.6

2010-05-16T22:10:00.002-04:00

pomegranates 0.5

2010-05-16T18:28:00.001-04:00

Pomegranates

2010-05-11T23:50:00.006-04:00

I'm tired of having possessions. If you want to burgle me, it's alright. Just leave Leah's things alone, okay?! My stuff, her stuff. Is it "our" stuff now? Hers, mine, ours -what a drag. It's just stuff. So try not to wake us up if you come while we're asleep. Thanks.

Also, sinnersbleeders is going into slow motion. I'm pulling up up up and away. I'll do something here once a month, or maybe once a year. I dunno. I'm gonna post the Outremont Manor video soon though (Not that anyone's holding their breath, but I apologize for the delay. I've had -and am having- trouble producing a digital transfer of my film that retains the integrity of the image. I didn't anticipate it taking so much time. What on film looks luminous looks washed-out on video. Grrrr). I'm an internet addict sometimes, and that's cool and good and fine -but I'd rather be addicted to collecting light bulbs. Or pomegranates. I can't believe I spelled that correctly. Pomegranates.

What's the longest word you used in the past week? Mine was probably pomegranates.

I love you all.

Wunihmunthiss

2010-05-07T14:48:00.004-04:00

"Your cat's name is Wunihmunthiss," a friend said to me on Monday. The cat -who Leah and I call "Minou" or "Kitty" or "Cat"-was reclined on our sofa.

"How do you know it's Wunihmunthiss?" I asked.

"I heard it. In my head a voice said it, and now I know."

"Okay." I looked at Minou. "Wunihmunthiss," I repeated to myself. "It sounds like 'one a month.'"

"One a month?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I don't know how it's spelled."

We debated for a while trying to get the sounds right. We almost went with Hwunhamungthizz. Or "one amongst us." I'd never invented a word for a sound before.

The links are just 'cos I've been reading about obscure western religions. That's a mummified cat.

The Yage Letters

2010-05-05T09:43:00.001-04:00

"...most of us were about the idlest young dogs that squandered away their time on the pavements of Paris or London. We would not work. I declare in all candour that...the average number of hours per week which I devoted to literary production did not exceed four."
-George Augustus Sala, writing of the bohemian culture in 1880s Grub Street.

In Bohemia I dug a hole
Looked inside to find
Beatniks, Dandies, Water-drinkers
Mums, Grandpas, Hobos
Alchemists, Smokers
Thieves and Cobblers
and even -on rainy Sundays
Artists of the Tudor Court

All of us spinning around her in a field of burning grass.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter

Elizabeth

Arthur

I like new like you like new. I?

2010-04-25T14:50:00.007-04:00

Nice to meet you. My name is Mathew, Mathew Wilkinson.

Hi, I'm Matthew Wilkinson too. Just like you.

Weird. My name is Matthew Wilkinson too, just like both of you guys. I take photographs.

Photographs? I'm Matthew as well. Hi. I have "skills, both technically and interpretationally." It's weird, us all having the same name. There's lots of us.

Skills? I'm vanishing. It's quite nice. I've made some movies.

I like new like you like new. I do like new. Like you.

I tried to make something old new last summer. Foiled! Failed. But I got one scene out of it that felt complete. So it's called Horses.

I like new.

Digital version of the now-complete Outremont Manor on this page soon.

Radha Ma Playin' Tex, and This Ent Coail

2010-04-24T17:46:00.013-04:00

Radha Ma is Radha Ma.
This sentence contains the letters, T,H,I,S,E,N,T,C,O,A,I and L. D too.

Bede Griffiths

Interview with Radha Ma. Her answers are in plain text. Playin' Tex.
-------

It has been suggested that the mind must be destroyed for liberation to occur. Do you have a mind?

No, no. The mind is illusion. The mind does not exist anymore. I don't know what mind is.

You say that you don't have mind; if you got in a car then you could drive the car, right? When you worked as a tax officer you could work with computers and with figures and calculations, right? So for doing those kinds of things you need a mind.

Sure, also I have a point of view to answer all these questions and I should have a dictionary in my mind to speak all these words, right? But it comes spontaneously from consciousness, from my inner being. It's not through the mind. Mind always manipulates, judges; nothing of this happens here. Before I answer a question I don't have to think whether I am right or wrong, nothing like that. That is the problem with the mind. The mind always calculates and manipulates, but when something comes from spontaneity - the mind never existed here. I don't know whether I am right or wrong from your point of view, I don't care about it either. There is no judgement, nothing. It just happens.

read the full interview here. Or patrol the moon.

Babumpshnnnnn

2010-04-22T01:27:00.003-04:00

..........................
---------------
==========
\/\/\/\/\/\/\

U & EE
Ewe + Vee

Aym tryyyyying to find a new way in the internets.
Kajjee Kajjee. It's hard, Kajjee.

Is Was
Had Has
Said Do
Am
I've forgotten the difference, hallelujah!

Exhibit A: It's Me

2010-04-19T22:11:00.006-04:00

Hello.

You woke up in heaven with princes.
Royal.
10th in line and a life of luxury.

It is eternity. Move at that pace. If ______ want to. If _______ can.

Like Prester John.

.-=<(0)>=-.

2010-04-12T14:31:00.011-04:00

siggssgg88b8gg88gg88w
88gg88gg88fcgg8gg8gg8
88gg8gg88gg88gg88gg8

I amassed a huge stash of interesting music from various blogs (like this one) last week. I've been processing it ever since. Dozens of albums. Mostly psychedelic rock from the 1960s. Much of it is horrible, but I'm sifting through it and finding some gems.

West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band -most or least pretentious band name I've ever heard.

I also found some great Beatles b-sides I'd never heard.

MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE

2010-04-06T06:55:00.008-04:00

SKImmmmmm ing across the internets

H e r b e r t M a r c u s e

Elect R i c k -------- Count Erpoint

A r B i rA t I o N

G N O S ETIRUOVAF WEN YMMY NEW FAVOURITE S O N G

Outsider Art. Hello wider consciousness. Are we all L'Étranger?
Says mind to body, hello -you are me. Who is running the show?

How much beauty lost because society had no room for it? Too busy making war.

OR BRAYVE SOULS WHO LOSE THEYR WAY TRYING TO MAYKE MONEY. STARVE INSTEAYD.

STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.STARVE.

Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

also,

These kinds of poemy link cluster things are more fun to write. From Internetworld prose to Internetworld poetry. Ok.

I like thinking about how no one would likely click every single link -or maybe no one ever clicks them. I'm just leaving a door open on the internet.

This blog will evaporate into the swift internet winds. Such is the nature of time in a virtual world. Time. Time. Time. It's not so solid, I think. Not so solid at all. It's warm in Montreal. Almost hot a couple days ago. cbcnews says it's like that across the country. I realized I feel closer to last summer than I do to two months ago. I was talking to Joel about it. He told me Martin Heidegger didn't trust chronology.

Two months ago is further away than last summer as far as I see it right now. The theory doesn't seem to fit reality entirely. Not my perception, anyways.

I'm curious what it'll be like to evaporate into the real winds. All things must pass. Must is the future. The moment is now. We are passing, and have, and will. And have and will again. Or not. Time flutters before my sleepy eyelids now. Into dream world with dream time. Dreamtime.

I'm trying to be in the moment. Moment to moment, like Dennis Hopper. The moment is eternity. It's all there is. Not in the limited sense ("Oh? That's it? That's all there is?"), but in the sense that everything's already right there in front of us. Everything. As Hopper says in the interview, "The door opens, you see a guy, you see a gun, you react."

These are the kinds of thoughts I get after long, slow meandering bike rides.

Leah's writing a paper on Mr. Hopper. There's a trashy biography of him laying around our house.

Out of the Blue is still a movie I love a lot.

Fears and the Christians in Antioch

2010-03-25T12:03:00.010-04:00

I don't have a favourite film anymore.

But I'm realizing I don't like when fear is used for dramatic tension. Generally.

Also,

I had this nice moment the other day.

I overheard a conversation rising up from the street below our apartment. "They weren't called anything," a male voice said. "'Hippy' was just what they got called by people later. But there was a time when the hippy scene wasn't anything. It was just happening."

As a Christian I remember thinking about this time before in the history of Christianity -from the death of Jesus 'till "they were first called Christians in Antioch" (Acts 11). Before Antioch they just were what they were. It was just happening.

What's my point? I dunno. Something.

On My Stereo XIV: The Outsiders

2010-03-21T13:20:00.006-04:00

The Always Blue Society is expanding my ear lately.

I'm in the midst of an experiment. All I'm listening to is psychedelic rock from the late 60s and early 70s. That's it. Nothing else. Well, Johnny Cash too.

Stuff like The Outsiders.

What's on yours?

video dump

2010-03-18T12:12:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd post some videos 'cos I don't know what to say.

This is interesting.

Asd efghijk lmnop

2010-03-14T01:48:00.005-05:00

The Majj Eee Pojj ih taysh Uns of Laughter Miss Crass.

Internet says. says says sya ays sya ays syaaysysays!

Nonsense Makes Sense

2010-03-10T08:15:00.004-05:00

Alchemy
Clickity-click
Norwegian Vacuum Museum

I shaved my beard and left a moustache. It's warming up here. I walk around the house shirtless and Leah tells me, "You look like a hick."

Graduating from Culture
OoO
Baigong Pipes

Outremont Manor

2010-03-02T02:02:00.011-05:00

Dowker Island

The shoot for my short film happens this weekend. Wish me luck. It's a stranger film than last year. Or it looks that way now. Part-musical. It's called 'Outremont Manor.'

Economics

2010-02-28T11:27:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine is an agorist. I'd never heard of it before. Agorism.
Wikipedia says, [Agorism] holds as its ultimate goal bringing about a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges – a free market.

GK Chesterton advocated distributism.
Wikipedia says, The ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals.

I don't know how much I believe in politics anymore, but I'm certainly no friend of our current economic system. I like what Houellebecq said. I can't remember the exact words. In Platform. The main character, Michel, says something about how he doesn't believe in having loyalty to anything other than an individual. That resonates with me. So, Agorism, Distributism, whatever, they're all good and nice, but they're ideas, not people.

On My Bookshelf IV: The Mythographer

2010-02-25T00:09:00.004-05:00

I've been able to enjoy The Mythographer again. Which has been lovely lovely lovely.

Also,

Slow happiness.

I had this whole long entry written. Bloated. It all came down to me trying to explain what I mean when I say, "Slow happiness is better than sadness. It's the most beautiful thing."

This band I'm in is allowing me to expand beyond sad ballads into slow, slow, slow happy music.

We're called 'Window.

Window
Playing at le Cagibi on March 21.'

On My Bookshelf III: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Remember Be Here Now

2010-02-15T11:10:00.010-05:00

Colours, colours, colours. Words and words.

Informal tone commence now!

I read Remember Be Here Now very quickly. Eagerly. Because there were so many new truths in it. New. For real. No kidding. Old, of course, but new to me.

And I'm still skeptical ("Good." "Fine." "Zzzzzzzz"), but it was interesting. Like, the author really takes you somewhere. But the only way you can go with him is if you've almost thought about it before.

Sounds like crap, right? Yeah. I see what you mean. But I liked it. A lot.

True story. Part One is a book about a Harvard professor who takes a lot of drugs, but doesn't like having to come down from the high. Back to this reality where there's internet and cars and complex relationships. So he goes into his mind and gets all spiritual. Goes to India and finds something like answers.

Part Two (most of the book) is all these words and drawings that help guide you through a thought-process. That's the really interesting part. I read it twice.

Part Three is the religion part. I started reading it, but it veered into describing a path that doesn't ring true for me. The author, Baba Ram Dass, is Hindu -and sorta Buddhist in places. I'm not Hindu. Not really interested in going there.

Ram Dass once said (not in Remember Be Here Now, somewhere else), "He that teaches those that do not want to hear is performing an immoral act. And, besides, they can't hear it anyway..."

I like that. Or at least the spirit I perceive behind it. Certainly I'm not in a place to learn how to be a good Hindu. I can't believe in that stuff. The religion stuff. All the gods and goddesses and miracles. Nah. The truths Hindus have unlocked, on the other hand...

I dunno what else to write.

-------------

Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is New Journalism about Ken Kesey (the guy who wrote the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), and Neal Cassady (the guy On the Road is sorta about), and a bunch of other people who called themselves The Merry Pranksters. They took a lot of psychedelic drugs, and lived semi-communally in 1960s California, just before the counter-culture explosion of Haight-Ashbury and all that.

Ginsberg shows up. So does Larry McMurtry.

The 60s the 60s. Shut up about the 60s.

Alright, I will.

But I'm really interested lately in those pockets of humanity that always seem to exist pushing the edges, clearing the way for the future.

Dangerous dangerous.

Yeah, for real. Cautious cautious. I am.

Reason reason. Okay. I like reason. It's very helpful.

Also,

Joel wrote something dense and interesting here.

What have you been reading?

Ramblee-amblee

2010-02-12T14:08:00.006-05:00

My computer had a heart attack and died two days ago. I've fixed it, but I lost all the data files. I had all my music and videos backed up on a portable hard drive, but I lost most of the demos and half-completed songs from the past year or so. And a lot of little ideas jotted down for Hafford.

And a track I was almost done for Bleeders.

In the process of moving to the new place in Outremont I lost two of my synthesizers. Stolen when we were unloading our stuff. Weird.

So, I've been given a new hand. It's strangely liberating.

At a weekend-long film shoot I was given a number for where to rent cheap dollies and tracks. Suddenly a huge barrier between me and the kinds of films I want to make has vanished. Sitting around a friend's apartment, moving lights and cables every couple hours, drinking, hanging out talking with the people involved. It was very human on set.

That's important to me. I want to make human films. Extremely charitable films.

Liberty liberdee lihbrodee.

From S.F. Sorrow. Also recorded in Abbey Road concurrent with the recording of Sgt. Pepper's.

Concurrent? I'll just shove that in there.

Letters & (No) Drawings XXIV

2010-02-08T22:50:00.003-05:00

This and That
"This" is my number and "That" is my name
My number is named after me in this game
My number is Seven, my name is Fourteen
Until name and number reach just in between
The name of the number of course is Eleven
Plus two, minus four, minus one is now Seven
But why all the math? Because "This" is the key
"That" is why my name can not be number Three
My name is my number, they both are the same
And just so you know, you can not win this game

On My Stereo XIII: Raymond Scott, Joe Byrd, White Noise, The Byrds

2010-02-02T08:57:00.014-05:00

Soothing Sounds for Baby

An Electric storm

The American Metaphysical Circus

What's on yours?

On My Bookshelf II: The Light, The Thought Cloud

2010-01-25T17:06:00.008-05:00

The Light
The Thought Cloud

(Somewhere I hear a whisper. "The New Family." Like a voice from the sky.)

Also,

I had a dream recently that I was walking on Parc Avenue -a major street in Montreal- and there were no cars, so people were just walking all over the pavement. The city was quiet. Ever since then I've been thinking a lot about streets in the future. The future in my dreams.

Century of the Self

2010-01-23T18:37:00.005-05:00

I'm almost done watching Adam Curtis's Century of the Self. It's not the kind of cinema that inspires me, but the subject matter is interesting as hell.

Though I doubt very much that any of you will be tempted to take the plunge into a 240 minute documentary. I guess I'm just drawing your attention to it.

Pregnant

2010-01-15T18:42:00.004-05:00

A lot of things are, or feel like they are, on the verge of happening for me. A new short film, a showing of my pictures at a gallery (maybe, maybe), a band, and completing a bunch of projects. A bunch of stuff to devote myself to which will never pay my bills.

One of those projects is the destruction of some of my musical past. I'm taking Suicide Hill, Mothers Sons Fathers Lovers Daughters, and Bleeders of the Vast Expanse "out of print." In their place will be a new collection taken from those 3 releases: Bleeders. I'm debating including some new stuff.

I've had a couple requests to buy some of those albums, and I keep procrastinating my response. I'm pretty unhappy with those 3 releases. I almost wish that stuff wasn't out there, sometimes.

So, it's a cheat, and sets a dangerous precedent, but I'm gonna re-organize it.

My scanner's broken. That's why no 'Letters & Drawings' in a long while.

Cadgy Cogitations is great. Check the link on the side.

A New Decade; AVRAKEDABRA; Also, On My Stereo XII: Piper at the Gates of Dawn

2010-01-11T01:27:00.003-05:00

Found this laying around in some dusty internet corner:

A V R A K E D A B R A
_A V R A K E D A B R
__A V R A K E D A B
___A V R A K E D A
____A V R A K E D
_____A V R A K E
______A V R A K
_______A V R A
________A V R
_________A V
__________A

Naked word ladies, anyone?

Also,

Piper at the Gates of Dawn, by Pink Floyd. Their only album recorded under Syd Barrett's leadership. Recorded at the same time as Sergeant Pepper's, in the same studio!

There are times. Special times.

I don't know the narrative. There is no objective narrative. But somehow the progression began. Something happened. Some magical explosion.

On My Stereo XI: Cult bands

2010-01-06T19:22:00.007-05:00

Broadcast and the Focus Group - Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

I saw them just before Christmas, and it was simply the most insane show I have ever been to. I melted and merged with the room and the sounds. It was overwhelming. I looked at the friend I was with, sitting there wide-eyed. "Oh man! Oh man! Oh man! That was SO... Oh man!" he said after the show. "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. Oh man!"

I've enjoyed their previous records, but this one is outrageous. Another friend recently said, "It's weird that more people aren't talking about it."

Amon Duul - Phallus Dei

New Year's Eve at a friend's place, he puts this on and I know immediately, YES -this is it. This sound. This is the musical ancestry I choose. "Nobody listens to the Germans," says my friend, laughing.

What's on yours?

Cassettes

2010-01-06T00:18:00.004-05:00

Few people can afford to record music on 1/4" tape. But cassette tapes are still around. they're cheap, and in a good player they sound great.

Old 4-track cassette recorders are cheap. Though sometimes they're a challenge to track down.

They're the best investment ANY recording musician could ever make. I bought mine when I was 14 and I'm still using it.

Also,

Criterion is releasing Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life. I saw it several years ago on 35mm and it stuck with me for a lot longer than I expected it to. Quite a film.

The Roof Off

2010-01-01T20:00:00.004-05:00

Pick a Pickture

2009-12-26T00:58:00.003-05:00

Here is a comprehensible introduction to the wickedest man in the world, Aleister Crowley (under 'Talks, Lectures, Appearances...' look for Uncle Bob Explains Everything).

Why Go To School? Not for Facts

2009-12-19T23:25:00.005-05:00

"In the future," a friend suggested to me a few weeks ago on a 3am walk across the Plateau and Mile End, "everyone will know everything. We'll have all of human knowledge in a chip in our heads or something. Like wikipedia in our brain. There'll be almost no facts left to learn."

I imagined families in the rural West sitting around their supper tables with all of human knowledge at their fingertips. My family.

"So what will people talk about?" I asked, as we passed a lineup of jockish McGill students and half-naked girls outside some meat market.

"Exactly." Which isn't a response at all.

I thought of 2001:A Space Odyssey, and of my friend Joel -who is always asking the biggest possible questions.

I felt unrealistically hopeful.

Also,

I've been thinking and reading a lot about the West Coast and London during the late 60s.

Games For May

Merry Pranksters

Human Be-In

A Serious Man

2009-12-19T02:21:00.003-05:00

I didn't go to the theater much this year. Only one film I did see stuck around in my mind for very long after. Weeks and weeks.

So that's my top ten list for 2009.

New

2009-12-14T15:08:00.002-05:00

New PT Anderson film?

"I Face the World As It Is"

2009-12-10T11:17:00.003-05:00

Irony

2009-12-08T01:37:00.011-05:00

I still don't entirely understand what irony is. Leah's been patiently trying to explain it me. I just don't get it. All I know is that it's nothing like the Alanis Morissette song, and that the dictionary and wikipedia are not being very helpful.

Pictures III

2009-12-06T16:07:00.003-05:00

No time. Where does it go?

Few words. I offer images.

Pictures II

2009-11-29T16:44:00.005-05:00

On 35mm.

On My Stereo X, On My Bookshelf I

2009-11-23T15:24:00.010-05:00

Stereo:

Bookshelf:

I just finished Mordecai Richler's The Street. It was wonderful.

I recently ran across this excerpt from Richler's Joshua Then and Now:

His father, pulling another marker free of his Bible, told him about Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his only son, Isaac, to God, which apparently pleased Jehovah enormously. “Quote, for because thou hast not withheld thy son, That in blessing I will bless thee, in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, blah blah blah, unquote. Now we’ve got this covenant with God, time-honoured, and going on forever and ever. But if I had to sign on the dotted line today, I don’t know that I would. God’s always needling, testing, his wrath waxing hot. He’s a real blowhard.

Back in Egypt, for instance, when we were in Bondage, he could have got the Hebes paroled with only one plague, but no, after each one he hardened the Pharaoh’s heart so he could display his whole bag of tricks. And afterwards, once we were sprung, he never once talks to Moses that he doesn’t remind him - “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt”. Now in your life if hard times come and you have to borrow money, never take it from anybody like that, they drive you crazy reminding you every day what they did for you. I don’t care for such types.

What's on yours?

On My Stereo IX: Dirty Songs

2009-11-19T20:53:00.003-05:00

Here you go Dave:
My Favourite Dirty Songs,
although "favourite" isn't quite the word. Nor do they play on my stereo very often.

Sex Boy - Free Kitten
Moist Vagina - Nirvana
Puerto Rican Ghosts - MARS
and this (especially with the introduction):

And yours?

Secret of Levitation

2009-11-17T04:50:00.001-05:00

Wes Anderson

2009-11-15T16:42:00.004-05:00