[Thanks to Divya Nair for introducing me to Andy McKee!]
NOW HERE'S 11-YEAR-OLD SUNGHA JUNG DOING A COVER OF ANDY MCKEE'S RYLYNN...
[First posted 5 January 2009]
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Andy McKee ~ Amazing Fingerstyle Virtuoso
[Thanks to Divya Nair for introducing me to Andy McKee!]
NOW HERE'S 11-YEAR-OLD SUNGHA JUNG DOING A COVER OF ANDY MCKEE'S RYLYNN...
Friday, February 9, 2018
What Rhymes With Aphrodisiac? An Interview with Rob Brezsny
Found this brilliant interview with ROB BREZSNY - multidimensional genius without portfolio - conducted by Sarah Phelan for Metro Santa Cruz in August 2005. I just have to blog it, if only because Brezsny comes pretty close to saying it all for me, and probably a lot more elegantly too!
GRAVE ENCOUNTER
In which we bury a symbol of paranoia in an effort to break on through to the other side with astrologer Rob Brezsny
By Sarah Phelan
Photographs by Dina Scoppettone
It began with an email from Rob Brezsny, that renegade genius whose syndicated Free Will Astrology column runs in 130 newspapers nationwide, including Metro Santa Cruz. Only this time Brezsny, who lived in Santa Cruz for 14 years and has since moved to Marin, wasn't writing horoscopes, but pushing his newest book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia (North Atlantic Books; $19 paper).
"Reading it is interesting and helpful, too, but a lot of good stuff can happen if you just let its edgy benevolence seep into your dreaming mind," wrote Brezsny, who urged me to sleep with a copy of Pronoia under my pillow for at least three nights.
At 296 pages thick, the copy of Pronoia that happened to be sitting on my desk didn't strike me as a dream pillow—even in softcover. But Brezsny's email did get me leafing through his weighty tome, whose cover (a flaming heart at the center of a labyrinth) and optimistic subtitle (How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings) had already piqued my curiosity. And once inside its pages, I was unable to resist the "dear gorgeous genius" love letter, or the "luminous tease page," which in typical Brezsny fashion exhorted me to "rebel against your horoscope," and "sip the tears of someone you love." And then there were Brezsny's miribilia reports, which reportedly come "live from your repressed memory of paradise," and include freeing gems, like the uplifting news that "black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep."
Promising to place my copy under my pillow (beauty sleep be damned), I emailed Brezsny my request for a face-to-face interview—something he deemed "so 20th-century, but fun, too."
He ended up suggesting that we meet at the Evergreen Cemetery in Harvey West Park to carry out a ritual burial of my share of paranoia, cynicism and snark.
"Not that you have any more than the rest of us; we all need to bury our load of psychic garbage," wrote Brezsny, adding that if I wanted to bury my paranoia then I should bring a symbol of it.
And so it was that after deliberating on paranoid symbolism for the next two weeks, I found myself standing beside the white picket fence that delineates Evergreen Cemetery, a picture postcard of George W. Bush in my hands. Brezsny says he chose this graveyard for our meeting because of many fond associations he has with the place, including meeting the love of his life, Ro Loughran, who he first spied "flailing like a whirling dervish on top of a sepulcher during a performance art event called "A Happy Birthday for Death."
Oddly enough, my first impression of the historic site, which contains the tombstones of some of Santa Cruz's earliest movers and shakers, was of a lover's quarrel, thanks to the pasty-faced goth couple with matching jet-black hair, who standing beneath the cemetery's metal archway were hurling poisonous insults at each other, as I approached.
Not wishing to invade their space and with Brezsny nowhere in sight, I wandered between the cemetery's white entrance pillars and up the redbrick path that meanders into the hills that flank Harvey West Park. Halfway along the path, I encountered a woman whose body was silhouetted by a blinding sheet of white light. Temporarily disoriented, I was just beginning to wondering if this lady—and the goth couple for that matter—were ghosts, when the apparition stepped out of the sunlight and into the shade, revealing herself to be Metro Santa Cruz photographer Dina Scoppettone, who told me that she had just found an old headstone inscribed with the name "Sarah"—a site she thought might be perfect for my paranoia burial ritual.
Just then an exuberant gaggle of school kids caught our attention as they entered the cemetery screaming happily and followed by a man with windswept silver hair, who was wearing a white lab coat over black clothes and carrying a clipboard and pen. As the sun glinted off the man's Harry Potteresque spectacles, I recognized him as Rob Brezsny, "the master of rowdy bliss" as he calls himself in Pronoia, who was here to help me bury my postcard of Bush "without hate." And so we spent the next hour, sitting on the some cold stone steps that led to a nearby grave and talking, as solitary yellow leaves drifted down from the tree canopy and onto the trails, where wind swept them along in dry rattling rustles.
METRO SANTA CRUZ: What can we do about paranoia in light of the fact that Rove is still roving and Bush just got, er 're-elected'?
BREZSNY: The worst thing is to let any of our responses to Bush make us like him, like the fundamentalist virus, which makes us believe the way we see things is correct.
Confess your fundamentalist virus.
My daughter is always busting me when I'm prejudiced against rich people. The mark of a fundamentalist take on things is that it's totally serious, literal and personal. Those are the three death grips.
How long have you been assuming your lab coat identity?
About six years, part time. I like some of the ways that scientists look at the world, how they shed their personal biases, how they don't jump on a little bit of data and make up stories, but just deal with what's there. One of my hypotheses is that the world is conspiring to give us exactly what we need, not from my ego's, but from my soul's, point of view. I put on the lab coat to inspire me, mostly. To remind myself that I'm a scientist, a researcher, not a know-it-all. I like to say I'm looking for the answers so I can destroy them and think up better questions.
Do you think that people sitting there, saying, 'Bush is our greatest teacher,' even as bombs keep killing people in Iraq, can lead to dangerous apathy?
I think the answer is to try to live in both of those realms and maintain a dual perspective. Yes, everything is going exactly as planned, but from the perspective that we as small egos can't see, it will work out in a way that may be immediately difficult and painful, but will be good for all. So you can sit there, but also be prepared to fight fiercely for beauty and justice and harmony, to be absolutely devoted to kicking ass in the most tender way possible. Being a pronoiac doesn't make you passive. There's a lot of fierceness in my particular approach to creating goodness and truth and beauty.
I notice you say 'pronoiac' and not 'pronoid.'
Pronoiac rhymes with aphrodisiac. Pronoid rhymes with paranoid.
By rhyming with aphrodisiac, pronoiac emphasizes a love of life?
Yeah, this pronoia is celebration. It's not a passive optimism. It's not an "ignore the darkness" kind of optimism. This is not a shopping-mall-in-Indianapolis kind of pronoia. This is not a gated-community kind of pronoia. It's a let-the-chaos-in kind of pronoia, because the Goddess is bringing us chaos over and over again. That's how she creates. So, pronoia's got to thrive on chaos. It can't be afraid of it.
A woman with a heavy Spanish accent called our paper a few months ago from Watsonville, and said, 'Rob Brezsny, he hates Aries.' She claimed your column always bashes Aries. Do you have a secret hatred of Aries?
(Laughs rowdily.) No, I love all the signs equally, but as you can imagine, I'm a huge projection screen for people. In general, that's probably pretty good. They can project onto me their inner teacher. They can imagine that I'm somehow the source of this information, when it's actually coming from them, because it's all in how you interpret my work. I think when I'm working at my best, I'm standing in for each person's inner teacher. Since lots of people don't know they have such a thing, I can provide a service, I can materialize it in the outer world.
Your work, then, is all in the interpretation?
I try to keep my intentions extremely clean and pure and loving, because I think that's the only thing that's going to work to ensure that people take what I say and use it in the best way. It's so important that your intentions don't get subverted, or appropriated by the ego or your desire to be loved or please other people. Not that those are terrible motivations, but to do what I do best, I have to give without any strings attached, with the smartest love I can summon.
What made you leave Santa Cruz?
My wife was going to grad school in San Francisco. I also had that sense that as long as I lived in Santa Cruz, that because I resonated so deeply with the starving artist archetype, I would remain a starving artist. I don't think everyone who lives here does that, to the contrary, but I felt I'd remain insular, if I stayed. And within a couple of years of leaving, my column took off and got syndicated, and I made a lot more money.
Do you pray for clarity?
I do. Most of my prayers start with gratitude, asking Goddess what I can do for her, rather than what she can do for me
Is Pronoia a character in Greek mythology?
In Greek mythology, Pronoia was the consort of Prometheus, the divine rebel who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. Pronoia is an ancient word that's been used in different contexts, but used to mean providence, or the abundance of spiritual gifts.
Do you see Pronoia as a female figure, or as a belief system?
I like to say it's a mode of perception and try to take out of realm of belief. I do like to see it as a muse, though, as a somewhat elusive but generous muse, which for me, because I'm a heterosexual man, tends to take a female form, and a muse that bestows an abundance and surprise and clues to me as a researcher. ... It's critical that what we call the archetype of the Divine Feminine returns in full force before we kill the world — or kill the world as it's inhabitable for us.
In 'Pronoia,' you call yourself Global Village Idiot and Fool Czar?
Right, although the president hasn't responded to my request to be appointed Fool Czar.
So, as Fool Czar, how would you exhibit compassion toward George?
I'd love to kiss his ass. I even offered to kiss Rove's butt without his underpants on, but I haven't had any response. And I'd love to talk about the fact that George W. Bush and I share astrological signs. We're both Cancer with Libra moon. I'd like to talk about ways we're similar.
What are those ways?
We're both good at touching into the collective imagination. However, in my opinion, he manipulates that for the powers of greed, of elitism, of militarism and materialism, whereas I'm trying to, I suppose, manipulate it in the name of beauty and truth and the elimination of hierarchy, of pure democracy and feminism. I'd like him to consider creating some new holidays. One of them would of course be the Bliss Blast.
As part of one of the exercises in your book called 'Rank Your Favorite Doomsday Scenario,' I went on the Internet, typed in 'paranoia' and got tons of hits. Waco. Men in black. The Bay of Pigs. The Bermuda Triangle. Chemtrails. Black helicopters. UFOs. Tinfoil Hats. The missing WMDs and 9/11. Bin Laden. Seems like it's a pretty good time in the history of world to be paranoid.
A pretty interesting time.
So, you're swimming against the stream with your pronoia?
I'm not gonna claim that the news is 95 percent good, but I would like to work on the hypothesis that maybe it's fifty-fifty. I think that the absurd domination of bad news is curious and suspicious. It seems to suggest that those who identify themselves as educated and elite communicators in our society believe the opposite of what the poet John Keats said, which is, 'If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.
The media and a lot of politicians seem to say the exact opposite, which is, if something is not ugly, it is not true. And that's a cockeyed view of world. I'm not advocating that we ignore the darkness and pretend, for instance, that we're not living through a mass extinction event. For example, biologists say we're living through the greatest extinction of species in 65 million years. However, in my opinion we're in the midst of tremendous abundance as well — tremendous beauty and joy and pleasure. The apocalypse is not happening sometime in the future, it's already under way. It's a slow motion apocalypse and it's both apocalypse in the current sense of word, which is a collapse, a degeneration of things falling apart, but also in the ancient sense, which is an awakening. So, right alongside all this collapse and degeneration is awakening and birth and fountains of incredible creativity and reinvention. To be honest, as educated intellectual people, we need to report on the other side.
Tell me about the homeopathic medicine spells in your book. Do you put the bad, negative stuff inside them?
Yes, you recognize the negative. You put it in its place and surround it with blessings, with a spell of protection, so it won't reach out and grab some part of our subconscious mind and say, "This is true. You are like this." So, in a sense, these spells protect us against our temptation to resonate with ugliness, evil and ungenerous anger. Jung talked about the shadow, that part of ourselves that is wounded, sick, that never grew up right. So, we have to have a relationship with our shadows. If we try to deny or ignore their existence, they will bite us in the ass, subvert our good intentions, undermine what we're trying to do. We need to make sure that before we go out and ask the world to change, that we're in very close contact with the ugliness in ourselves and that we're working to redeem that and transform it.
We take a break, during which Brezsny retrieves a long-handled shovel from his car for our burial event. But as he poses beneath the cemetery's metal archway, and I dig a hole safely away from the graves, including the "Sarah" headstone — a police car turns onto Evergreen Road and slows to a crawl, its uniformed occupants eyeing our merry trio with detached curiosity.
Immediately, my paranoia, which I have not yet buried, springs back to life, taunting me with questions, such as, 'Is it illegal to bury a photo of the U.S. president, especially if you're an immigrant on a green card?' Not knowing what else to do with the evidence, I jam it into my pants, with the unintended consequence that Bush's photo ends up kissing my ass. (Hey, maybe the exercise is already working!) And the minute the cop car passes by, I hastily dig a shallow grave, lay Dubya's picture in it with as much kindness as I can summon and cover it up with soil, moments before the cop car cruises by again and Brezsny and I resume our interview.
In 'Don't Think of an Elephant,' George Lakoff warns against framing the debate in the opposition's language. Are you dancing around on the philosophical side of that equation, with your vision of pronoia?
In the Jewish magazine Tikkun, almost immediately after the November election, Rabbi Michael Lerner began talking about how the left can't keep ceding spirituality to the right. We have to add a spiritual aspect to our perspective. That's why a lot of people just gravitate de facto to the right, because at least they recognize or include the element of spirituality. But there are people on the left who represent the spiritual side of left. We do have a moral vision, a very powerful vision about what's good for most people.
As the aftermath of 9/11 showed us, clearly our fears can be manipulated. Is there also a button for happiness?
Right now we as a society are addicted to fear. We need an intervention, to talk in 12-step language. We're so accustomed to being motivated and moved and fascinated by fear that we've lost the capacity to even imagine that pleasure and joy and regeneration and integrity can be interesting. I think it takes a retraining, on a personal level... The first step is to have the intention to be happy. Who'd have thought of that?
What do you believe in?
My personal belief is that there are many other dimensions besides this particular one and that there are beings that are not physically manifest: some are stupid, some smart, good, some bad, some in between, just like in the material realm, but I believe the caricature of angels, kind of a New Age parody, if we look back at John Milton and William Blake, who consorted with angels and many great literary and intellectual minds who took angels very seriously, seriously, not just as a metaphor, not as some empty hope, but as literal entities. I believe in angels, angels who are working full-time to create beauty and truth and love in the world. Unfortunately, they want and need us to identify and ask for what we need, and most people don't do that.
Why do people need to ask?
Because this is a collaboration, not a fascist regime. Contrary to what fundamentalist Christians would say, this is a collaborative effort. The whole point in free will is to participate in a collaborative effort, not leave it to some all-knowing spiritual forces. In a greater sense, I believe in God or Goddess, a single divine intelligence that animates the universe and is simultaneously aware of 500 million galaxies and their function and the six kittens that were recently born to you. From the ego side, that sounds impossible, but I don't think a belief in angels and divine intelligence is required. Some of the greatest spiritual workers on the planet are atheists, but they are supremely ethical, their spiritual work having firmly to do with improving conditions on earth.
In 'Pronoia,' you write, 'I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.' So, after 'Pronoia' has been out for a while, you're not going to tell us you don't believe in it anymore, are you?
My policy is to believe in the things that inspire me about 75 to 80 percent. I say that about astrology, too. I would never think of saying that I believe in astrology 100 percent, or in feminism or in the perspective of psychology, or leftist politics. All those things, when you identify yourself so entirely with them, that there's no "you" outside of those ideologies, then I think you lost, you're upset, you're possessed by ideas. That's always dangerous, even if the ideas are great ideas. So, I think it's important to maintain skepticism about pronoia. Some people have written to me in a critical way that I expected. Most people resonate pretty well with the philosophy of pronoia, but some say, "You are deluded, you are helping to spread stupidity and laziness." I can understand the fear that if we work at seeing things optimistically, we might lose sight of everything that's wrong with the world. I don't think I'll do that, but that's a valid fear, so in that sense, I'm skeptical of pronoia and I'm not going to promote pronoia as a cure all.
What about the flaming heart in the labyrinth on the cover of 'Pronoia'?
It's the heart on fire, the heart inflamed with the desire to bring beauty and truth and love and justice and harmony to the whole world. Pronoia is not a passive thing. It's fierce, it's filled with strong intention to bring that message that life is much better than it's being portrayed right now, that there's a lot we can do to emphasize what works, and we have to do that aggressively.
William James, the philosopher, talked about how we need a moral equivalent of war. What I take that to mean is that we all have this martial force within us. It's an inherent part of every human being. Unfortunately, it's usually expressed as war and conflict and anger, but there are other ways to express that martial force. As aggressiveness expressed in the name of feminine values. That's my particular angle. That's why I call myself a macho feminist. I want to bring the message of relationship, of intimacy, of love, of caring for other human beings with the same force that a macho dude might use in his struggles to take over the oil fields in the Middle East. This has macho force behind it, but it's done in the name of joy, peace and harmony. That's what that image says to me.
What was your motive for writing 'Pronoia'?
When Henri Matisse started his work, critics said he threatened to undermine civilization, that's the power artists had in some eras of history. It's hard to imagine anyone saying that about a painter or an artist today. It's been demonstrated that art has the power to remake the world, whether to subvert existing values and/or create new ones. I'd like to return to the Henri Matisse kind of place.
So ended our interview, and shortly thereafter, strange stuff started happening. No, the Bush regime did not immediately crumble to dust under the weight of its lies, like vampires in full daylight. Instead, things I thought I'd been paranoid about for years in my personal life turned out to be my angels whispering in my ear all along. And when I confronted the truth it turned out to be more beautiful than the ugliness of living in a lie. So, be advised: burying your paranoia may change your life, not necessarily in the way you were expecting, but in a way that will free you to see the truth and beauty in your own life—perhaps even with humor. As for the bigger picture, I'll leave you with a vision that Brezsny describes in Pronoia's "I Have a Dream" section:
Metro Santa Cruz © 2005
"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
GRAVE ENCOUNTERIn which we bury a symbol of paranoia in an effort to break on through to the other side with astrologer Rob Brezsny
By Sarah Phelan
Photographs by Dina Scoppettone
It began with an email from Rob Brezsny, that renegade genius whose syndicated Free Will Astrology column runs in 130 newspapers nationwide, including Metro Santa Cruz. Only this time Brezsny, who lived in Santa Cruz for 14 years and has since moved to Marin, wasn't writing horoscopes, but pushing his newest book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia (North Atlantic Books; $19 paper).
"Reading it is interesting and helpful, too, but a lot of good stuff can happen if you just let its edgy benevolence seep into your dreaming mind," wrote Brezsny, who urged me to sleep with a copy of Pronoia under my pillow for at least three nights.
At 296 pages thick, the copy of Pronoia that happened to be sitting on my desk didn't strike me as a dream pillow—even in softcover. But Brezsny's email did get me leafing through his weighty tome, whose cover (a flaming heart at the center of a labyrinth) and optimistic subtitle (How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings) had already piqued my curiosity. And once inside its pages, I was unable to resist the "dear gorgeous genius" love letter, or the "luminous tease page," which in typical Brezsny fashion exhorted me to "rebel against your horoscope," and "sip the tears of someone you love." And then there were Brezsny's miribilia reports, which reportedly come "live from your repressed memory of paradise," and include freeing gems, like the uplifting news that "black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep."
Promising to place my copy under my pillow (beauty sleep be damned), I emailed Brezsny my request for a face-to-face interview—something he deemed "so 20th-century, but fun, too."
He ended up suggesting that we meet at the Evergreen Cemetery in Harvey West Park to carry out a ritual burial of my share of paranoia, cynicism and snark.
"Not that you have any more than the rest of us; we all need to bury our load of psychic garbage," wrote Brezsny, adding that if I wanted to bury my paranoia then I should bring a symbol of it.
And so it was that after deliberating on paranoid symbolism for the next two weeks, I found myself standing beside the white picket fence that delineates Evergreen Cemetery, a picture postcard of George W. Bush in my hands. Brezsny says he chose this graveyard for our meeting because of many fond associations he has with the place, including meeting the love of his life, Ro Loughran, who he first spied "flailing like a whirling dervish on top of a sepulcher during a performance art event called "A Happy Birthday for Death."
Oddly enough, my first impression of the historic site, which contains the tombstones of some of Santa Cruz's earliest movers and shakers, was of a lover's quarrel, thanks to the pasty-faced goth couple with matching jet-black hair, who standing beneath the cemetery's metal archway were hurling poisonous insults at each other, as I approached.
Not wishing to invade their space and with Brezsny nowhere in sight, I wandered between the cemetery's white entrance pillars and up the redbrick path that meanders into the hills that flank Harvey West Park. Halfway along the path, I encountered a woman whose body was silhouetted by a blinding sheet of white light. Temporarily disoriented, I was just beginning to wondering if this lady—and the goth couple for that matter—were ghosts, when the apparition stepped out of the sunlight and into the shade, revealing herself to be Metro Santa Cruz photographer Dina Scoppettone, who told me that she had just found an old headstone inscribed with the name "Sarah"—a site she thought might be perfect for my paranoia burial ritual.
Just then an exuberant gaggle of school kids caught our attention as they entered the cemetery screaming happily and followed by a man with windswept silver hair, who was wearing a white lab coat over black clothes and carrying a clipboard and pen. As the sun glinted off the man's Harry Potteresque spectacles, I recognized him as Rob Brezsny, "the master of rowdy bliss" as he calls himself in Pronoia, who was here to help me bury my postcard of Bush "without hate." And so we spent the next hour, sitting on the some cold stone steps that led to a nearby grave and talking, as solitary yellow leaves drifted down from the tree canopy and onto the trails, where wind swept them along in dry rattling rustles.
METRO SANTA CRUZ: What can we do about paranoia in light of the fact that Rove is still roving and Bush just got, er 're-elected'?
BREZSNY: The worst thing is to let any of our responses to Bush make us like him, like the fundamentalist virus, which makes us believe the way we see things is correct.
Confess your fundamentalist virus.
My daughter is always busting me when I'm prejudiced against rich people. The mark of a fundamentalist take on things is that it's totally serious, literal and personal. Those are the three death grips.
How long have you been assuming your lab coat identity?
About six years, part time. I like some of the ways that scientists look at the world, how they shed their personal biases, how they don't jump on a little bit of data and make up stories, but just deal with what's there. One of my hypotheses is that the world is conspiring to give us exactly what we need, not from my ego's, but from my soul's, point of view. I put on the lab coat to inspire me, mostly. To remind myself that I'm a scientist, a researcher, not a know-it-all. I like to say I'm looking for the answers so I can destroy them and think up better questions.
 |
| Grave New World: Both Rob Brezsny and George W. Bush share the same astrological signs - Cancer with Libra moon - yet only Brezsny adheres to the ancient Spider-Man koan: 'With great power comes great responsibility.' |
Do you think that people sitting there, saying, 'Bush is our greatest teacher,' even as bombs keep killing people in Iraq, can lead to dangerous apathy?
I think the answer is to try to live in both of those realms and maintain a dual perspective. Yes, everything is going exactly as planned, but from the perspective that we as small egos can't see, it will work out in a way that may be immediately difficult and painful, but will be good for all. So you can sit there, but also be prepared to fight fiercely for beauty and justice and harmony, to be absolutely devoted to kicking ass in the most tender way possible. Being a pronoiac doesn't make you passive. There's a lot of fierceness in my particular approach to creating goodness and truth and beauty.
I notice you say 'pronoiac' and not 'pronoid.'
Pronoiac rhymes with aphrodisiac. Pronoid rhymes with paranoid.
By rhyming with aphrodisiac, pronoiac emphasizes a love of life?
Yeah, this pronoia is celebration. It's not a passive optimism. It's not an "ignore the darkness" kind of optimism. This is not a shopping-mall-in-Indianapolis kind of pronoia. This is not a gated-community kind of pronoia. It's a let-the-chaos-in kind of pronoia, because the Goddess is bringing us chaos over and over again. That's how she creates. So, pronoia's got to thrive on chaos. It can't be afraid of it.
A woman with a heavy Spanish accent called our paper a few months ago from Watsonville, and said, 'Rob Brezsny, he hates Aries.' She claimed your column always bashes Aries. Do you have a secret hatred of Aries?
(Laughs rowdily.) No, I love all the signs equally, but as you can imagine, I'm a huge projection screen for people. In general, that's probably pretty good. They can project onto me their inner teacher. They can imagine that I'm somehow the source of this information, when it's actually coming from them, because it's all in how you interpret my work. I think when I'm working at my best, I'm standing in for each person's inner teacher. Since lots of people don't know they have such a thing, I can provide a service, I can materialize it in the outer world.Your work, then, is all in the interpretation?
I try to keep my intentions extremely clean and pure and loving, because I think that's the only thing that's going to work to ensure that people take what I say and use it in the best way. It's so important that your intentions don't get subverted, or appropriated by the ego or your desire to be loved or please other people. Not that those are terrible motivations, but to do what I do best, I have to give without any strings attached, with the smartest love I can summon.
What made you leave Santa Cruz?
My wife was going to grad school in San Francisco. I also had that sense that as long as I lived in Santa Cruz, that because I resonated so deeply with the starving artist archetype, I would remain a starving artist. I don't think everyone who lives here does that, to the contrary, but I felt I'd remain insular, if I stayed. And within a couple of years of leaving, my column took off and got syndicated, and I made a lot more money.
Do you pray for clarity?
I do. Most of my prayers start with gratitude, asking Goddess what I can do for her, rather than what she can do for me
Is Pronoia a character in Greek mythology?
In Greek mythology, Pronoia was the consort of Prometheus, the divine rebel who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. Pronoia is an ancient word that's been used in different contexts, but used to mean providence, or the abundance of spiritual gifts.
Do you see Pronoia as a female figure, or as a belief system?
I like to say it's a mode of perception and try to take out of realm of belief. I do like to see it as a muse, though, as a somewhat elusive but generous muse, which for me, because I'm a heterosexual man, tends to take a female form, and a muse that bestows an abundance and surprise and clues to me as a researcher. ... It's critical that what we call the archetype of the Divine Feminine returns in full force before we kill the world — or kill the world as it's inhabitable for us.
In 'Pronoia,' you call yourself Global Village Idiot and Fool Czar?
Right, although the president hasn't responded to my request to be appointed Fool Czar.
So, as Fool Czar, how would you exhibit compassion toward George?
I'd love to kiss his ass. I even offered to kiss Rove's butt without his underpants on, but I haven't had any response. And I'd love to talk about the fact that George W. Bush and I share astrological signs. We're both Cancer with Libra moon. I'd like to talk about ways we're similar.
What are those ways?
We're both good at touching into the collective imagination. However, in my opinion, he manipulates that for the powers of greed, of elitism, of militarism and materialism, whereas I'm trying to, I suppose, manipulate it in the name of beauty and truth and the elimination of hierarchy, of pure democracy and feminism. I'd like him to consider creating some new holidays. One of them would of course be the Bliss Blast.
As part of one of the exercises in your book called 'Rank Your Favorite Doomsday Scenario,' I went on the Internet, typed in 'paranoia' and got tons of hits. Waco. Men in black. The Bay of Pigs. The Bermuda Triangle. Chemtrails. Black helicopters. UFOs. Tinfoil Hats. The missing WMDs and 9/11. Bin Laden. Seems like it's a pretty good time in the history of world to be paranoid.
A pretty interesting time.
So, you're swimming against the stream with your pronoia?
I'm not gonna claim that the news is 95 percent good, but I would like to work on the hypothesis that maybe it's fifty-fifty. I think that the absurd domination of bad news is curious and suspicious. It seems to suggest that those who identify themselves as educated and elite communicators in our society believe the opposite of what the poet John Keats said, which is, 'If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.
The media and a lot of politicians seem to say the exact opposite, which is, if something is not ugly, it is not true. And that's a cockeyed view of world. I'm not advocating that we ignore the darkness and pretend, for instance, that we're not living through a mass extinction event. For example, biologists say we're living through the greatest extinction of species in 65 million years. However, in my opinion we're in the midst of tremendous abundance as well — tremendous beauty and joy and pleasure. The apocalypse is not happening sometime in the future, it's already under way. It's a slow motion apocalypse and it's both apocalypse in the current sense of word, which is a collapse, a degeneration of things falling apart, but also in the ancient sense, which is an awakening. So, right alongside all this collapse and degeneration is awakening and birth and fountains of incredible creativity and reinvention. To be honest, as educated intellectual people, we need to report on the other side.
Tell me about the homeopathic medicine spells in your book. Do you put the bad, negative stuff inside them?
Yes, you recognize the negative. You put it in its place and surround it with blessings, with a spell of protection, so it won't reach out and grab some part of our subconscious mind and say, "This is true. You are like this." So, in a sense, these spells protect us against our temptation to resonate with ugliness, evil and ungenerous anger. Jung talked about the shadow, that part of ourselves that is wounded, sick, that never grew up right. So, we have to have a relationship with our shadows. If we try to deny or ignore their existence, they will bite us in the ass, subvert our good intentions, undermine what we're trying to do. We need to make sure that before we go out and ask the world to change, that we're in very close contact with the ugliness in ourselves and that we're working to redeem that and transform it.
We take a break, during which Brezsny retrieves a long-handled shovel from his car for our burial event. But as he poses beneath the cemetery's metal archway, and I dig a hole safely away from the graves, including the "Sarah" headstone — a police car turns onto Evergreen Road and slows to a crawl, its uniformed occupants eyeing our merry trio with detached curiosity.
Immediately, my paranoia, which I have not yet buried, springs back to life, taunting me with questions, such as, 'Is it illegal to bury a photo of the U.S. president, especially if you're an immigrant on a green card?' Not knowing what else to do with the evidence, I jam it into my pants, with the unintended consequence that Bush's photo ends up kissing my ass. (Hey, maybe the exercise is already working!) And the minute the cop car passes by, I hastily dig a shallow grave, lay Dubya's picture in it with as much kindness as I can summon and cover it up with soil, moments before the cop car cruises by again and Brezsny and I resume our interview.
In 'Don't Think of an Elephant,' George Lakoff warns against framing the debate in the opposition's language. Are you dancing around on the philosophical side of that equation, with your vision of pronoia?
In the Jewish magazine Tikkun, almost immediately after the November election, Rabbi Michael Lerner began talking about how the left can't keep ceding spirituality to the right. We have to add a spiritual aspect to our perspective. That's why a lot of people just gravitate de facto to the right, because at least they recognize or include the element of spirituality. But there are people on the left who represent the spiritual side of left. We do have a moral vision, a very powerful vision about what's good for most people.
As the aftermath of 9/11 showed us, clearly our fears can be manipulated. Is there also a button for happiness?
Right now we as a society are addicted to fear. We need an intervention, to talk in 12-step language. We're so accustomed to being motivated and moved and fascinated by fear that we've lost the capacity to even imagine that pleasure and joy and regeneration and integrity can be interesting. I think it takes a retraining, on a personal level... The first step is to have the intention to be happy. Who'd have thought of that?
What do you believe in?
My personal belief is that there are many other dimensions besides this particular one and that there are beings that are not physically manifest: some are stupid, some smart, good, some bad, some in between, just like in the material realm, but I believe the caricature of angels, kind of a New Age parody, if we look back at John Milton and William Blake, who consorted with angels and many great literary and intellectual minds who took angels very seriously, seriously, not just as a metaphor, not as some empty hope, but as literal entities. I believe in angels, angels who are working full-time to create beauty and truth and love in the world. Unfortunately, they want and need us to identify and ask for what we need, and most people don't do that.
Why do people need to ask?
Because this is a collaboration, not a fascist regime. Contrary to what fundamentalist Christians would say, this is a collaborative effort. The whole point in free will is to participate in a collaborative effort, not leave it to some all-knowing spiritual forces. In a greater sense, I believe in God or Goddess, a single divine intelligence that animates the universe and is simultaneously aware of 500 million galaxies and their function and the six kittens that were recently born to you. From the ego side, that sounds impossible, but I don't think a belief in angels and divine intelligence is required. Some of the greatest spiritual workers on the planet are atheists, but they are supremely ethical, their spiritual work having firmly to do with improving conditions on earth.
In 'Pronoia,' you write, 'I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.' So, after 'Pronoia' has been out for a while, you're not going to tell us you don't believe in it anymore, are you?
My policy is to believe in the things that inspire me about 75 to 80 percent. I say that about astrology, too. I would never think of saying that I believe in astrology 100 percent, or in feminism or in the perspective of psychology, or leftist politics. All those things, when you identify yourself so entirely with them, that there's no "you" outside of those ideologies, then I think you lost, you're upset, you're possessed by ideas. That's always dangerous, even if the ideas are great ideas. So, I think it's important to maintain skepticism about pronoia. Some people have written to me in a critical way that I expected. Most people resonate pretty well with the philosophy of pronoia, but some say, "You are deluded, you are helping to spread stupidity and laziness." I can understand the fear that if we work at seeing things optimistically, we might lose sight of everything that's wrong with the world. I don't think I'll do that, but that's a valid fear, so in that sense, I'm skeptical of pronoia and I'm not going to promote pronoia as a cure all.
What about the flaming heart in the labyrinth on the cover of 'Pronoia'?It's the heart on fire, the heart inflamed with the desire to bring beauty and truth and love and justice and harmony to the whole world. Pronoia is not a passive thing. It's fierce, it's filled with strong intention to bring that message that life is much better than it's being portrayed right now, that there's a lot we can do to emphasize what works, and we have to do that aggressively.
William James, the philosopher, talked about how we need a moral equivalent of war. What I take that to mean is that we all have this martial force within us. It's an inherent part of every human being. Unfortunately, it's usually expressed as war and conflict and anger, but there are other ways to express that martial force. As aggressiveness expressed in the name of feminine values. That's my particular angle. That's why I call myself a macho feminist. I want to bring the message of relationship, of intimacy, of love, of caring for other human beings with the same force that a macho dude might use in his struggles to take over the oil fields in the Middle East. This has macho force behind it, but it's done in the name of joy, peace and harmony. That's what that image says to me.
What was your motive for writing 'Pronoia'?
When Henri Matisse started his work, critics said he threatened to undermine civilization, that's the power artists had in some eras of history. It's hard to imagine anyone saying that about a painter or an artist today. It's been demonstrated that art has the power to remake the world, whether to subvert existing values and/or create new ones. I'd like to return to the Henri Matisse kind of place.
So ended our interview, and shortly thereafter, strange stuff started happening. No, the Bush regime did not immediately crumble to dust under the weight of its lies, like vampires in full daylight. Instead, things I thought I'd been paranoid about for years in my personal life turned out to be my angels whispering in my ear all along. And when I confronted the truth it turned out to be more beautiful than the ugliness of living in a lie. So, be advised: burying your paranoia may change your life, not necessarily in the way you were expecting, but in a way that will free you to see the truth and beauty in your own life—perhaps even with humor. As for the bigger picture, I'll leave you with a vision that Brezsny describes in Pronoia's "I Have a Dream" section:
"I'm the president now ... and so are you. I am the supreme Commander of the United Snakes of the Blooming Haha ... and so are you. And what we proclaim is that in the New World, we will love our neighbors as ourselves, even if our neighbors are jerks. We will search for the divine spark even in the people we most despise, and we will never dehumanize anyone, even those who dehumanize us. I have a dream that sooner or later, every one of us will become a well-rounded highly skilled, incredibly rich master of rowdy bliss—with lots of leisure time and an orgiastic feminist conscience."
Metro Santa Cruz © 2005
"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
[First posted 30 November 2007]
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
An Exercise in Stress Management
Picture yourself near a stream.
Birds are softly chirping in the crisp, cool mountain air.
Nothing can bother you here.
No one knows this secret place.
You are in total seclusion from that place called "the world."
The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
The water is clear.
You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you're holding under the water.
[Roy Hilbinger sent me this, author unknown. First posted 18 January 2007]
Monday, February 5, 2018
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Punishment versus Reward (revisited)
I consider myself fortunate to be living in a village with a population of around 150. The thing about village life is that it’s much easier to understand patterns of human behavior, because life is less cluttered than in a complex urban environment. You could say my village is a compact microcosm of the rest of the planet: what happens here, happens everywhere else, though on a much smaller scale.
My village is located between two rivers, amidst lush greenery surrounded by misty mountains. The air here is fresh and the water pure. Excellent fengshui, as the Chinese would say. In fact, life in this enchanting little village is as close to heaven on earth as it gets. Except that a few adolescent boys have been showing delinquent tendencies. Out of sheer boredom and an excess of energy, they break into houses and steal small items – foodstuff, watches, handphones, even toothpaste and cosmetics. Several times, after they made off with my belongings, I have caught them and ordered them to return whatever they took. Each time, the kids have been relieved that I didn’t appear too angry (since I didn’t hit them, as their fathers would invariably do). I usually sit them down and lecture them for an hour or so, after which I offer them hot drinks and, occasionally, some food. Every time this happens, they apologize and shake my hand, and everything is peaceful again - at least for a few months!
These teenaged wannabe criminals all have one thing in common: fierce fathers who never show their sons any affection, and hardly ever give them any attention - because they have far too many kids and can barely manage with their meagre earnings as daily paid laborers. Senseless acts of delinquency are a perverse form of protest. Their criminal behavior stems from an urge to express displeasure at what they experience as an unfair and unjust world.
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| Will Smith & his son Jaden at eight |
In a society where there is a great divide between public and private behavior – where politicians and businessmen only pay lip service to virtue – deceit and hypocrisy become a way of life. Kids may have little economic or political power, but we cannot assume they are stupid. They can see right through the grown-ups’ lies. Especially in recent years, when so many children are born with far greater potential intelligence than their parents and grandparents, they are certainly not going to behave like obedient little sheep.
So when I read in the newspapers about how the government intends to “beef up security” or “stiffen penalties” I feel like grabbing these “grown-ups” and yelling in their faces: “Look in the mirror instead of always blaming somebody else! Do you honestly believe the way to deal with the rising crime rate is to recruit more policemen? Have you asked yourself why there seems to be more and more crime? How about your own behavior? Is it really beyond reproach? What kind of values do YOU embody?"
All work and no play not only makes Jack a dull boy, it can turn him into a rebel without a cause. Parents who work so hard “for the children’s future” may end up ruining their kids emotionally. All living things thrive on love, fresh air, and sunshine. This is scientifically true, not just a romantic notion. Even plants grow healthier and happier when they sense the gardener’s affection for them - what more our own children? Let’s get honest with ourselves first. Our kids will start being honest with us when we choose to reward, instead of punish, them for being themselves.
[First posted 26 December 2006]
Friday, January 26, 2018
PRIMATE POLITICS REVISITED
Hey, don't get into FEAR over a bunch of chest-thumping primates and their monkey tricks. I assume everybody is a racist until they transcend the very idea of "race." Look at the Orang Asli. Lowest rung on the "economic ladder" - and even they call Indian people "Keling"! After 26 years I'm still "Cina" to them. But they don't know any better. Most folks don't know any better until they've pulled the ethnic wool away from their eyes. The bad vision is called Cultural Imprinting.
Sure, every time I experience lousy work attitudes in corporations like Telekom or Syabas (the privatized Selangor water company) I joke about the fact that they're monoethnic (100% Melayu) outfits. Having grown up during the NEP years, it's hard not to feel miffed about racial quotas. Yet, when it comes down to interpersonal contact on a daily basis, I don't harbor negative feelings about Malays... or even the genocidal Israelis who are merely pawns of certain cynical and opportunistic elements amongst their own leadership... yup, just like the Malays!
What's been apparent to me is that among the Melayu, there's a great divide between the Anglophonic upper and upper-middle classes and the more plebeian post-kampong types. My English-speaking Malay friends are all pretty cosmopolitan and share most of my perceptions and values. However, the ones that suffer from chronic inferiority complex ultimately become aggressive as a way to compensate for their ego insecurities. Some end up holding positions in Umno or PAS and that's when they turn into Bangsa-Ugama extremists. They're really quite pathetic - no flag to wave beyond the mere fact of being born "Melayu" and "Muslim." Even so, they never question what it actually means to be "Melayu" or "Muslim." Indeed, the term "Malay" is so nebulous: the majority originate from Sumatra, some have Javanese, Bugis, and Siamese genes; others Chinese; many are descended from Arab, Turkish, and Indian Muslim traders - you won't find a more mongrelized genetic mix (except perhaps in Europe!)
That's why they cling tenaciously to the fact that the King of Melaka embraced Islam several hundred years ago (before that they were all vaguely Hindu, influence of the Srivijaya and Majapahit Empires). The same syndrome applies to the Khazars whose kingdom disintegrated in 900 A.D., after their monarch had officially converted to Judaism in a political maneuver to sidestep Rome's imperialistic designs. Many generations later, the Khazar Jews became a widely scattered fraternity who told themselves that as Jews they were Yahweh's "Chosen" and therefore had every right to regard non-Jews as expendable and exploitable "infidels" (goyim, they called anybody who wasn't Jewish).
Interestingly, the Orang Asli have derogatory names for the Malays (originally they were all called dagang, traders): e.g., the Batek call them gob, and the Temuan, jobok. Other folks, in turn, called the Orang Asli sakai - pretty much the equivalent of nigger! That's true everywhere, people in fear label others: geeks, gooks, frogs, wops, micks, greasers, chinks, ragheads, squareheads, dickheads...
My point is: it's "normal" for insular communities to be innately or outwardly xenophobic. What do the Chinese call Europeans? That's right, red-haired devils! So... why get worked up over low-grade displays of primate territoriality? That's the lowest common denominator of politics everywhere - it's the same in the UK, USA, Australia, Sweden, Germany, France.
And no matter how stupidly brutish the politicking gets, there will always be good, honest folks you can befriend who don't give a shit about your ethnicity. Let's celebrate humans who genuinely, passionately envisage Heaven on Earth, here and now, simply by allowing love rather fear to fill their hearts.
[First posted 26 December 2006]
Saturday, January 20, 2018
ENEMIES OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE! (updated & revisited)
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| Abdul Gani Patail, the slimiest Attorney-General Malaysia has had to endure (at least until Mohamed Apandi Ali took over!) |
Look at these faces closely, folks. Some you already know, only too well - like the Famous Anus pictured right, pretending piety while oozing semen and lying through every orifice...A few you wouldn't recognize even if they were sitting next to you on the train. If overzealous investigating officer DSP Jude Blacious Pereira (below, left) wasn't in uniform, would you recognize him on the street? Why are the Malaysian police going all out to convict one guy for "consensual sex" - while thousands of serious crimes, including the cold-blooded murder of foreign nationals, continue to remain unsolved?
They all have one thing in common: their involvement in the obscene plot to put Anwar Ibrahim back behind bars over a nonsensical charge of sodomy - in the hope that with Anwar locked away, the opposition coalition called Pakatan Rakyat will lose its impetus to replace Barisan Najis as the government of the day in Malaysia.The statutes against anal and oral sex are a relic of Victorian era colonial rule. Whereas in Britain these statutes have long fallen into disuse and died a natural death, in Malaysia they have been dusted off and abused, twice, to persecute one particular individual - a charismatic political figure named Anwar Ibrahim, whose greatest crime was to challenge the extended dictatorial reign of Mahathir Mohamad, who became prime minister in 1981 and only stepped down on 31 October 2003 under pressure from his political party, Umno.
Anwar had been imprisoned for 6 years in 1999 and an insidious attempt was made on his life while serving out his sentence through gradual arsenic poisoning. All this occurred under Mahathir Mohamad's watch - and the same old shit is happening again to Anwar Ibrahim under Najib Razak's insufferable crime ministership.
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| Dr Seah Lay Hong, government forensic chemist, seems less concerned with the truth than keeping her job... |
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| Shafee Abdullah, appointed DPP, demanded an even stiffer jail term |
Saiful the Accuser stated in open court that he had visited the then deputy prime minister, Najib Razak, and his flamboyant wife Rosmah Mansor, at their private residence a couple of days before lodging a police report against Anwar. Najib himself was forced to admit as much during a press conference on 3 July 2008. This fact alone is enough to cast an opague shadow of serious doubt over the entire political charade.
If we allow this illustrious son of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, to be imprisoned again for a completely anachronistic "crime" - and it's absolutely irrelevant whether or not the accusation leveled against him has any basis whatsoever - then we as citizens of this nation fully deserve to be mentally shackled, morally deformed, and condemned to neverending BN mismanagement unto forever.
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| Najib Razak and his spendthrift spouse Rosmah Mansor: Goodbye... begone... and please don't come back!
[First posted 22 February 2011, reposted 30 October 2014]
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Saturday, January 13, 2018
From the Planet.... GONG! (In loving memory of Daevid Allen)
The Origins of Gong
Gong came into being almost by accident in the late sixties when Daevid Allen was refused entry back into Britain following European dates with Soft Machine. Deciding to stay in Paris, Allen began working alongside Gilli Smyth and various musicians on what would eventually become the phenomenal Gong.
The first recognized recordings from the band were Magick Brother, Mystic Sister (1970), followed by albums such as Camembert Electrique, Flying Teapot, and You.Various permutations of Gong have worked together over the years under various names including Mother Gong, Expresso Gong, Gongmaison, Planet Gong, and so on and so forth. They have all included an amazing array of musical talent moving through the ranks, to name but a few: Didier Malherbe aka Bloomdido Bad de Grasse, Steve Hillage, Pierre Moerlen, Mike Howlett, Steffi Sharpstrings, Tim Blake, Hugh Hopper, and Robert Wyatt.
Gongmaison came about in April 1989 after Daevid Allen's return to the UK and, more importantly, following a French gig with former Gong member Didier Malherbe (pictured left, the most amazing wind instrumentalist alive on Earth - but, alas, a fact known only to initiates of GAS - or the Gong Appreciation Society!).
The name "Gongmaison" alluded to the mixture of house/jazz that the band played at the time - which, in fact, was nearer to house music although it still contained all the relevant Gong elements of old. This video clip comes from the band's performance in the early nineties and was filmed at the Fridge in Brixton.The line-up includes key members of Gong - Daevid Allen, Didier Malherbe and the wiccan poet Gilli Smyth aka Shakti Yoni (right) who developed her own vocal technique dubbed the Space Whisper. It was Shakti Yoni, in fact, who helped to craft Gong's elaborate cosmomythology through her inspired poetry and storytelling.
The impact of GONG on my life
In the early 1970s I was in the habit of shopping for LPs in Singapore. My favorite source was Sing & Co. on Hill Street because they always had some real finds in the cheap bin. On one such occasion I spotted three albums by an unknown band called Gong. Drawn to the cover art (which depicted Pot Head Pixies in their Flying Teapots), I bought two albums without a moment's hesitation - and I wasn't disappointed one bit! In fact, I couldn't wait to return a few weeks later for Angels Egg which I had been forced by budget constraints to leave behind :-)In 1969 I had been subjected to electroshock therapy on account of the amazing "visions" I'd been experiencing - of contact with extraterrestrials and angels and an Earth reborn in rainbow splendor, gone the historical (and hysterical) nightmare of smelly politics, rotten economics, and perpetual war. Looking at the Gong album artwork and listening to their fantastic music enormously cheered me and reconnected me with my core being. In Gong I had found my own spiritual and musical family at last - indeed, I'd go as far as to say Gong helped me regain my cosmic equilibrium and PHP humor! [PHP in this instance refers, of course, to "Pot Head Pixie" - NOT "Hypertext Preprocessor"!]
Gong's music, I thought, was akin to dervish dancing in that it induced in the listener a beatific trance state, opening one's consciousness to the kaleidoscopic worlds awaiting our discovery within our own neurology. Through all the ensuing decades, Gong and everything they represent have served as trusty friends and soul-family.I'm indeed overjoyed to learn that Gong is very much alive and well. Daevid Allen is now a still-spritely 69 and rumored to be living in Byron Bay, New South Wales. His latest project is the University of Errors and I recommend a leisurely tour for some exquisite mental stimulation and not a few hearty belly laughs.
OWLY SONG by Daevid Allen (animation by Merav Shacham aka Bananamoon)
Watch GONG live in Nottingham, 1990!
The entire 7-part concert is on YouTube but as I can't embed the videos here, just click on each segment (if you don't have the patience to sit through all of it, go for Part 5 where Didier goes wild on his Yamaha WX7!):
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 | Part 6
Daevid Allen in 1975: Cozmik Mad Hatter, Wizard of the Keys, and Master of Fohat! [First posted 20 June 2007, reposted 13 March 2015]
DAEVID ALLEN DIED ON 13 MARCH 2015. BUT HIS SON ORLANDO MONDAY ALLEN (ALSO A BRILLIANT MUSICIAN & PRODUCER) IS KEEPING THE FLAME BURNING BRIGHT FOR HIS MAGICAL PARENTS DAEVID ALLEN & GILLI SMYTH!
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Soft drinks, hardheadedness, missionary aliens & funky ad campaigns that never saw the light of day...
1985 AD CAMPAIGN PROPOSAL FOR FRASER & NEAVE (MALAYA)Concept & Copywriting - M. Eeel (Antares)
Artwork by Mohd Nor Khalid (Dato' Lat)
Story Outline
On a planet called Glug (where thirst is unknown) there are two intelligent species, viz., the Fun-loving Effs and the very Nice Enns.
The Effs and the Enns are highly evolved beings, sparkling of spirit and always joyful. Since there are no serious problems on Glug, young Gluglings are usually sent on special missions to more primitive worlds where through service and direct experience of hardship they acquire maturity.
Earth happens to be an important training ground for Glugling youths. This is one planet where Boredom, Thirst and General Nastiness abound: ideal conditions for the eager young Gluglings to learn through service to those less fortunate.
The main characteristic of the Effs is that they are Fun-loving. The Enns, on the other hand, make a life practice of being Nice. Working in close cooperation, the Effs and the Enns are dedicated to spreading Fun and Niceness throughout the Cosmos.
Our story is essentially set in the tropical zone of Planet Earth specifically a spot designated Station 17 – better known to Earthside cartographers as the Malay Archipelago. At the start of the Aquarian Cycle in Earth’s Solar System, the year 1883 by Gregorian reckoning, Project Waterbearer was launched. Taking human form in the persons of John Fraser and David Neave, two friendly Gluglings began a soda water bottling operation in the bustling port of Singapore.
The rest is F&N history.
Sub-Elements
Conditions on Earth at the inauguration of Project Waterbearer are hideous, to say the least. The sluggish atmosphere makes it easy to become hot-tempered and nasty which results in constant quarreling among a large proportion of Earthlings. The natives are hostile and suspicious and will not accept any kind of Fun and Niceness – unless appealingly packaged and appropriately price-tagged.
Working through the agency of Fraser & Neave, the Effs and Enns discover that trying to dispense Fun & Niceness on Earth brings with it many pitfalls and paradoxes. They learn that helping Earthlings have Fun is very hard work; and that promoting Niceness entails a certain amount of aggression. (These philosophical sub-elements can be drawn upon whenever the plot thins out and needs heavier ballast.)
The F&N strategy revolves around the idea that most Earthlings have developed hard heads as a result of constant knocking against artificial barriers (also known as Walls). Perhaps if they acquired a fondness for SOFT DRINKS, they would feel more relaxed and kindly towards each other.
Another factor is the initial resistance put up by avid believers in Hard Drinks. An interesting tale can be told about how F&N eventually solve the problem and bring about a planetary reconciliation. (The introduction of F&N cordials and mixers – and the acquisition of a brewery.)
Exobiological Notes
Effs and Enns are fluid existences and airy spirits. As such they do not have a fixed form or shape. When they travel they usually occupy canister or bottle type craft. In short, Glugling vessels can look like anything from a barrel to an ice-cream cone.
On Glug, the Effs and the Enns live in beautiful colonies of bubbles, floating freely over the friendly seas of this remarkable jug-shaped planet.
EPISODE ONE
[Illustration: Paradise on Glug]
On the planet Glug there are no serious problems. The Gluglings found out a long time ago that life is Fun – and that the best way to live is to be Nice to everyone. But you can only learn these things through hard experience. That’s why so many young Effs and Enns receive their further education on EARTH…
[Illustration: Glugling briefing session showing Earthlings confounded by walls]
Planet Earth: a popular training ground for young Gluglings. A planet where boredom, thirst and general nastiness abound. Why are so many Earthlings bored? Because from the time they’re very small their enthusiasm is blocked by artificial barriers called “walls.” (Besides, they get very few good shows on TV.)
[Illustration: scene of typical Earthside mayhem]
Why do Earthlings get thirsty? Because their frustration makes them quarrel a lot and they become hot and bothered. Why are they so often nasty? Because they’re thirsty and bored – and always running into walls makes them extremely hardheaded (even when they’re not wearing helmets!)
And so, Project Waterbearer was launched by an enterprising bunch of young Effs and Enns…
EPISODE TWO
[Illustration: zodiacal image of Waterbearer with replica of Planet Glug]
The objectives of Project Waterbearer were: (i) to restore enthusiasm and a sense of Fun among the Earthlings; (ii) to moisten their throats, parched from useless bickering, and (iii) to make them feel Nice all over.
[Illustration: Effs and Enns put on their thinking caps]
What was needed was: (i) something BUBBLY; (ii) something WET, and (iii) something very PLEASANT…. Hmmmm.
[Illustration: The Soft Drink unveiled]
And so… Glug created the Soft Drink as the answer to Hardheadedness. (The Gluglings also invented the Bubble Bath… but that’s another story.)
EPILOG
We never heard back from Fraser & Neave, unfortunately! :(
Monday, January 1, 2018
New Year Special: Two of my favorite YouTube oracles in an hour-long freestyle chat!
Lionel Nation
Published on Dec 31, 2017
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Friday, December 15, 2017
Excerpts from a channeling of Adamus Saint-Germain by Geoffrey Hoppe
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| Geoffrey Hoppe of the Crimson Circle |
There’s too much of a chasm between the ones who are conscious, the ones who know what a choice is, the ones who are allowing the integration of the Master and the human, so many that understand that, that it’s created a New Earth. It’s not what you’d think of as Nirvana, but it is the place to go to be the creative expression of your soul, with a lot of human attributes, but without ever getting stuck in the human attributes.
Then you have a whole group on the planet here who is still into their processes, into their evolution of the Self, but it’s not congruent with the ones who are really allowing their true consciousness. So, you have a lot who are still going through their human lifetime-after-lifetime experience.
Then you have a group, which I haven’t talked about yet, that is holding on so much to the old, to the past, primarily to the old masculine energy and it includes a lot of women. A lot of women who do not want the responsibility to be side by side with Adam, a lot of them that actually like wearing the prairie dress and making dinner all the time and that kind of stuff.
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| Saint-Germain of the Violet Flame |
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It’s been a quiet journey, a lonely journey and a difficult one, because of the doubts, because once in a while you lose that inner compass, that inner knowingness of why you chose to be here. You didn’t come to try to save the planet. That does not work. But you know, because of what you’re doing within yourself, taking on things that aren’t even yours; you know what you’re doing by being here, being a presence. Not a lecturer, not doing sermons, not preaching, but being a presence on this planet and staying in the body and actually totally changing the dynamics of the body, the DNA.
The DNA is this amazing, hardly even understood, kind of what you would call a light thread, spirit thread, we sometimes call it the angel thread. It’s the life-giving force behind everything. It’s the programming. It’s the software of life. But even that’s changing right now. You’re changing in your body, and I do have to chuckle to myself when I hear: “Oh, my body. The aches and the pains and what I’m going through.” And I’m like, “Breathe it in. Accept it, because you asked for it. Don’t resist it,” and I know that sounds opposite of what you think you should do – run from it, fill yourself up with supplements and holy oils and everything else. No. You’re going through a phenomenal change. Can you let yourself experience it? So remember for a moment, why you’re here, why at this particular time. I’ve told all of you, you could have allowed your enlightenment last lifetime, a couple lifetimes ago. You’d have probably croaked right away and come to the other side. But you said, “No, I’m going to come in, in this time and I’m going to go through this change, in the body.”
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What to do? Allow. Allow. As odd as it seems, what you’re going through right now is the greatest experience of any lifetime. You are going through in-bodied enlightenment and some days it really sucks. I mean, some days you just want to vomit on spirituality because it’s so difficult, and other days it’s like you feel, “Oh, yeah. It’s all coming together.” This is absolutely appropriate. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong when your body hurts.
I’d love to show you what is happening at your cellular level, your DNA and within. You are totally bringing in a very different – I don’t like the term light body, because everybody thinks of this fuzzy, glowing thing, and it’s not that. You’re bringing in a true energy body that’s relatively independent, where you no longer have to be feeding off of other people or food or anything else. A true energy body. It’s a non-parasitic body. And every physical body, every human body is parasitic. First of all, you have parasites in your gut right now. They’re there. Listen... “Erggh! Let me out of here!” (squeaky voice). And your physical body is parasitic. It needs and feeds on energy, whether it’s other people, whether it’s food or anything else. You’re addicted. The true energy body that’s coming in doesn’t need that. It’s – I don’t want to say 100 percent – but it’s mostly independent. So, you’re going through this on the fly. You’re remaking yourself. It would have been easier to have died and start all over. But you’re stubborn. You insisted, “No, we’re going to stay. We’re going to do it right here while we’re living,” so take a deep breath. You’re right where you should be.
[Full transcript of channeling at Crimson Circle]
Friday, December 1, 2017
Kiss My Arse ~ In the Name of Common Humanity (by Salleh Ben Joned)
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| Holey Man performs arse-kissing ritual to help the faithful find true love |
I had a dream last night. Most of my dreams are quite weird, but this one was weirder than any I’ve ever dreamt. I think it was inspired by something that happened at the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) General Assembly last Friday. At this gathering, this “Assembly” of the dominant party in the governing coalition, a Kelantan delegate, thoroughly disgusted with the dirty tactics (note “dirty”) used by ambitious Umno desperadoes in their premature campaign for the next year’s party elections, told an old filthy joke that brought the house down. The joke is about the quarrel among the various parts of the body as to which one is really powerful and therefore should be the boss. The brain says it is and should be in control of the rest because … Then the mouth, the nose and so on; each with its own irrefutable reason for making the claim. The anus, naturally, has the last say. It triumphantly declares that it is more powerful than any of the rest, including the brain: if one morning it decides to close up for good the body is finished, man. Kaput!
Related to such an august gathering as the Umno General Assembly, the joke was truly edifying; so edifying that it inspired my weird dream. I dreamt I was invulnerable (kebal in Malay). Neither the keris nor the parang could penetrate my skin; even the notorious Kelantanese kapak kecik that flies in the night at the bidding of its frantic owner couldn’t harm me. It seemed that I had finally attained (in the dream, that is) the much sought-after ilmu kepala tahi.[1] Ilmu what? Kepala tahi. Kepala what? Tahi. This is no ordinary ilmu, man; this is esoteric ilmu. But tahi? Tahi??? I think you’re just being your usual vulgar self again … Of course I’m being my “vulgar” self. I’m always “vulgar” – vulgar in more than one sense you know: not only “coarse or “filthy” (your meaning), but also “common” as in “common people” (i.e., ordinary people, unashamedly close to the earth, and reveling in it).
But back to the IKT (less offensive thus abbreviated?). I tell you it’s not something I dreamt up, though its “reality” and efficacy were confirmed for me only in my dream. IKT is a form of magic power which the Malays used to believe in; some in the remote kampungs (villages) probably still do. (No, you won’t find it in Skeat’s Malay Magic; it’s apparently too vulgar even for that huge tome) IKT can be acquired (so my uncle told me) by snatching the sausage-like T (it has to be a “sausage”; watery stuff’s no good) as it emerges out of somebody’s anus. This might be done on a Thursday night (Friday night to the Malays). I won’t strain your tolerance of the “vulgar” by going into the lurid details of the messy business. It’s sufficient to tell you that it must be done in a certain way, and that after you have acquired the precious substance you must wipe your body thoroughly with it, the wiping accompanied by the recital of certain mantras. Then you must avoid water for the next three days. If you observe all this, you’ll be kebal. Insya-Allah. (And please don’t listen to envious cynics who say that you’re kebal because nobody would come near you anyway.) With IKT, you don’t need your brain anymore; or rather your brain has come down and joined forces with your anus. What you’ve got now is a sort of “thinking anus.” The unity of the body, of the highest and the lowest, the refined and the filthy is now truly yours. Hang on to it for dear life. Now, what has all this stinking business to do with literature? Literature… yes.
Well, the dream, the old joke dredged up at the Umno General Assembly, the mysteries of IKT – all this reminded me of a curious novel I read earlier this year. And with it, the thought I have been thinking about on and off quite sometime on the subject of the vulgar, the filthy, the taboo, the “last frontier” of the body, physical-spiritual, sensual-mystical body, in both literature and folk imagination. The novel is by a Tongan anthropologist-writer Epeli Hau’ofa and titled Kisses in the Nederends (Penguin, New Zealand). This comic satirical novel is literally and symbolically about an arsehole. As far as I know, Epeli Hau’ofa is the first writer to devote a whole novel to the hole. And in a way it is a perfect illustration and proof of the anus’s claim in the Umno General Assembly joke that it is the most powerful part of the human body; it can abuse its power to become the most tyrannical dictator and capable of subjecting man to the worst humiliation imaginable.
Kisses is a tall tale, one of the “tallest” I’ve read. Written in a style that is clearly influenced by a grotesque realism of Francois Rabelais, it is about a Tongan who suffers from an incurable “pain in the arse,” an ulcerous fistulated anus. The book opens with a bang, a stinking assault of farting, followed by a duet between the mouth (snoring) and the anus (farting), and the hero’s waking up in excruciating pain in his bottom. Then the rest of the book takes the hero on a mock-epic search for a cure, from the bizarre treatments of traditional medicine to an organ transplant in an ultra-modern New Zealand surgery. (Yes, the hero ends up with somebody else’s anus, a white woman’s down there.) This disgustingly hilarious Tongan tall tale ends happily with the cured hero triumphantly proclaiming a new religion of true brotherhood (and sisterhood) of man. Its slogan? “Kiss my arse!”
Kisses is a tall tale, one of the “tallest” I’ve read. Written in a style that is clearly influenced by a grotesque realism of Francois Rabelais, it is about a Tongan who suffers from an incurable “pain in the arse,” an ulcerous fistulated anus. The book opens with a bang, a stinking assault of farting, followed by a duet between the mouth (snoring) and the anus (farting), and the hero’s waking up in excruciating pain in his bottom. Then the rest of the book takes the hero on a mock-epic search for a cure, from the bizarre treatments of traditional medicine to an organ transplant in an ultra-modern New Zealand surgery. (Yes, the hero ends up with somebody else’s anus, a white woman’s down there.) This disgustingly hilarious Tongan tall tale ends happily with the cured hero triumphantly proclaiming a new religion of true brotherhood (and sisterhood) of man. Its slogan? “Kiss my arse!”
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| Epeli Hau'ofa, author of Kisses in the Nederends |
You need to have a strong stomach to read and enjoy this book to the end. My wife doesn’t; after a few pages she threw the little Penguin out of the window in utter disgust. The writing of Kisses was actually inspired by the author’s own experience. Poor Mr Hau’ofa actually suffered from a terrible pain in the arse much like his hero’s, a sort of piles which the Tongans call kahi (k not t). True to the South Pacific philosophy that laughter is the best medicine, the novel proved to be the best therapy for the author, who suffered from a psychological malady even after the successful operation on his anus. But the novel is not only a therapy in the form of a tall tale; it’s also an allegory that carries a serious social and spiritual message for the Tongans and other island peoples of the South Pacific, and by the implication for modern man in general.
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| Francois Rabelais (1494-1553) |
The third book, a sort of proto-science fiction, recounts Gulliver’s experience on the flying island of Laputa when he visited the School of Political Projectors at the Academy of Lagado; there he meets weird professors or projectors who are distinguished by their ingenuities in the service of the state. They have, for example, developed a special technique for discovering plots and conspiracies against the government. The technique involves examining the diet of all suspected persons; finding out “times of eating; upon which side they lay in bed; which hand they wiped their posteriors”; then to take “strict view of their excrements, and from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgement of their thoughts and designs.” The whole business is based on the belief that “men are never so serious as when they are at stool,” and because of that their stool can tell us all kinds of things; for example “if the ordure has a tincture of green” that means when the suspect was having his stool he was “straining to think of the best way of murdering the king, but quite different when he thought only of raising an insurrection or burning the metropoles.”
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| Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) |
There has been much debate among scholars and critics about the meaning of Gulliver’s Travels, especially Book Four. The debate has to do with Swift’s real attitude to the Houyhnhnms: does he share Gulliver’s admiration for the cold-blooded super-rational horses or doesn’t he? Related to this is the question of Swift’s scatology, what its very pronounced presence in his writing means when we try to determine his attitude to man and to human nature.
Distinguished modern writers Aldous Huxley and John Middleton Murry were apparently the first to confront the blatant fact of Swiftian scatology which earlier writers on Swift had ignored or pretended didn’t really exist. Huxley especially recognized the central importance of the scatological theme in both Gulliver’s Travels and three of his later poems (The Lady’s Dressing Room, Strephon and Chloe and Cassinus and Peter). But Huxley and Murry’s conclusion, that Swift’s scatological obsession (in Murry’s highly suggestive phrase, “excremental vision”) reflects a fundamental neurosis in the writer, a neurosis that made him a misanthrope or hater of human nature – this conclusion, I believe, is based on a misreading of Swift.
I am with the American writer Norman O. Brown here. Brown, whose breakthrough book Life Against Death (1959) first offered a balanced reading of Swift argues convincingly that Gulliver’s misanthropy is his, not his creator’s. Similarly, Cassinus, in the poem Cassinus and Peter, who “lost (his) wits” on discovering that “Caelia, Caelia, Caelia sh_t”, shouldn’t be confused with Swift. (Swift did go mad in the end, but not because he couldn’t stand the fact that women “sh_t“, as critics like Murry seem to suggest.) Cassinus is obviously a projection of the universal neurosis of civilized man who cannot accept and revel in the fact of nature that the body is a wondrous unity – of the higher and the lower, the spiritual and the bestial. Civilized man (or rather over-civilized man) is haunted by that reality of our human nature immortalized in the famous words of St Augustine: “inter urinas et faeces nascimur” (the seat of love is the foulest place in our body – implying that our most exalted, most spiritual aspirations are bound to our soiled flesh). Over-civilized man represses and sublimates his animality and that’s why he is sick.
I am with the American writer Norman O. Brown here. Brown, whose breakthrough book Life Against Death (1959) first offered a balanced reading of Swift argues convincingly that Gulliver’s misanthropy is his, not his creator’s. Similarly, Cassinus, in the poem Cassinus and Peter, who “lost (his) wits” on discovering that “Caelia, Caelia, Caelia sh_t”, shouldn’t be confused with Swift. (Swift did go mad in the end, but not because he couldn’t stand the fact that women “sh_t“, as critics like Murry seem to suggest.) Cassinus is obviously a projection of the universal neurosis of civilized man who cannot accept and revel in the fact of nature that the body is a wondrous unity – of the higher and the lower, the spiritual and the bestial. Civilized man (or rather over-civilized man) is haunted by that reality of our human nature immortalized in the famous words of St Augustine: “inter urinas et faeces nascimur” (the seat of love is the foulest place in our body – implying that our most exalted, most spiritual aspirations are bound to our soiled flesh). Over-civilized man represses and sublimates his animality and that’s why he is sick.
Epeli Hau-ofa is a mini Swift of the South Seas and is clearly a writer who affirms that wondrous unity. The phrase “mini Swift” though, may not be quite accurate, it can suggest something that is more Swiftian than “Hau’ofian.” Swift, that “tiger of the 18th Century English literature is a master of satiric comedy that is distinguished by its uncompromising fierceness; a fierceness that is not quite “Hau’ofian.”
Hau’ofa in Kisses in the Nederends is relaxed where Swift in Gulliver’s Travels and the satirical poems is Fierce and Furious; Hau’ofa’s hearty comedy is more Rabelaisian, wild and rompy – and hilariously breezy. In an interview with the New Zealand literary magazine Landfall, Hau’ofa says: “I am by nature playful, and playing with words, obscene or otherwise, is an aspect of that nature. But that is only one aspect of my use of dirty language. I use it also for other purposes. Firstly… I resorted to it as a way of presenting the effect of physical agony (that unrelenting “pain in the arse,” remember?) on Oilei’s psyche (Oilei is the aptly named suffering hero of Kisses), and on his relationship with those around him. But most importantly, I used it as a most unlikely tool for a discourse on love, purity and harmony…”
A comic satirical novel with an ulcerous fistulated anus as the prime mover and focus of the narrative – that kind of novel is “discourse of love, purity and harmony”? I’m happy to say, yes. Unlikely? Well, the author himself is fully aware that his use of “dirty language” is “a most likely tool” for such a discourse. He knows that “it’s never been done or even thought of before.” But that’s what makes it fun; it’s a form of creative experiment that shows that Hau’ofa the anthropologist is also a true writer. Hau’ofa asks the question that Rabelais asked centuries ago: “Why should we continue to loathe references to our organs of procreation and elimination, and not to other organs? Such questions have implications that go beyond mere body matters.
As Hau’ofa puts it they lead to “other questions about social and cultural institutions.” As he worked on the novel, laughing as he furiously scribbled (“I could not but laugh as I wrote”), the fundamental seriousness of the theme became more and more crystallized in his mind. The idea or ideal of bodily unity (and equality) came to suggest other forms of unity (and equality) – such as the social and political (thus the use of language with political connotations in Hau’ofa’s descriptions of the “rebellion” of the body’s lower orders, the bowels and the anus).
“I seriously said to myself,” Hau’ofa recalls in the interview, “that if we give due respect to the nether parts of our bodies, we would eventually eradicate most of the obscene expressions in language and therefore in thought. That should go a long way towards helping us to be more loving and caring of each other… Oilei’s search for a cure for his physical ailment is also a quest for purifying himself of violence and obscenity in language. Having attained his goal he invites everyone to kiss his arse. It is a joyous statement of the end of hatred, and a declaration of love for all mankind. It sounds bizarre but I’m serious about it… “ Bizarre maybe, but I can’t agree with Epeli Hau’ofa more.
Hau’ofa in Kisses in the Nederends is relaxed where Swift in Gulliver’s Travels and the satirical poems is Fierce and Furious; Hau’ofa’s hearty comedy is more Rabelaisian, wild and rompy – and hilariously breezy. In an interview with the New Zealand literary magazine Landfall, Hau’ofa says: “I am by nature playful, and playing with words, obscene or otherwise, is an aspect of that nature. But that is only one aspect of my use of dirty language. I use it also for other purposes. Firstly… I resorted to it as a way of presenting the effect of physical agony (that unrelenting “pain in the arse,” remember?) on Oilei’s psyche (Oilei is the aptly named suffering hero of Kisses), and on his relationship with those around him. But most importantly, I used it as a most unlikely tool for a discourse on love, purity and harmony…”
A comic satirical novel with an ulcerous fistulated anus as the prime mover and focus of the narrative – that kind of novel is “discourse of love, purity and harmony”? I’m happy to say, yes. Unlikely? Well, the author himself is fully aware that his use of “dirty language” is “a most likely tool” for such a discourse. He knows that “it’s never been done or even thought of before.” But that’s what makes it fun; it’s a form of creative experiment that shows that Hau’ofa the anthropologist is also a true writer. Hau’ofa asks the question that Rabelais asked centuries ago: “Why should we continue to loathe references to our organs of procreation and elimination, and not to other organs? Such questions have implications that go beyond mere body matters.
As Hau’ofa puts it they lead to “other questions about social and cultural institutions.” As he worked on the novel, laughing as he furiously scribbled (“I could not but laugh as I wrote”), the fundamental seriousness of the theme became more and more crystallized in his mind. The idea or ideal of bodily unity (and equality) came to suggest other forms of unity (and equality) – such as the social and political (thus the use of language with political connotations in Hau’ofa’s descriptions of the “rebellion” of the body’s lower orders, the bowels and the anus).
“I seriously said to myself,” Hau’ofa recalls in the interview, “that if we give due respect to the nether parts of our bodies, we would eventually eradicate most of the obscene expressions in language and therefore in thought. That should go a long way towards helping us to be more loving and caring of each other… Oilei’s search for a cure for his physical ailment is also a quest for purifying himself of violence and obscenity in language. Having attained his goal he invites everyone to kiss his arse. It is a joyous statement of the end of hatred, and a declaration of love for all mankind. It sounds bizarre but I’m serious about it… “ Bizarre maybe, but I can’t agree with Epeli Hau’ofa more.
In the novel, the character who helps to bring the light to Oilei is a guru and yogi named Babu. Babu is a wily character who can be both a clever entrepreneur and a prophet of spiritual and social liberation. Babu’s mission is to convince the world that “the anus is good, beautiful, lovable and respectable.” He declares that “It’s time that the status of the repressed lower organs” (note “repressed” and “lower” in both its psychoanalytical/biological and political meanings) “is recognized.”
He pointedly adds: “We treat our heads with respect and call our leaders heads. We could, with equal felicity, call them anuses.” Babu prescribes yoga exercises for his patient, designed to make him learn to respect his own anus so that it becomes truly part of him – and smells to his nose “as the fresh bud of spring.” One begins by learning to love one’s beautiful anus, kissing it meditating on it, inhaling its spiritual as well as physical aroma. Then the next step is to learn to love the anuses of our brothers and sisters. Babu demonstrates the truth and power of his teaching by kissing Oilei’s anus with love and respect. The guru declares “if the President of the United States and the Soviet Union do likewise at their next summit (sic) meeting there will be no threat of nuclear annihilation… As in most things we must begin from the top down. When the top meets the bottom, there will be eternal peace. The real obscenity, the novel says, is not the so-called “dirty language,” but man-made horrors like nuclear war. To ban that sort of obscenity from the life of man altogether we must learn to “greet, love, laugh and dance with each other in the middle of our zones of taboo.”
11 & 18 November 1992
[1] Ilmu: mythical knowledge or power
Kepala: head
Tahi: shit
[Originally posted in Salleh Ben Joned; first posted here on 25 February 2016]
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