What the F***? (4)

..The area that is 'captured ' invariably corresponds to the individual head and, when you're inside that area, some things aren't visible or 'real'. The gritty aesthetic of freewheeling biker gangs, or the gritty aesthetic of schoolgirl badmouthing.

t.A.T.u.

Where there is grime and sweat, rebellion is not far behind since it is a form of wild expression free from monetary constraints. The wild and the physical are a primitive reality which is non-verbal and proportionate. Words tend to be used in a more physical and hence poetic style, while the dark psychology of modernity uses words in a crooked sense.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

It seems clear the 2nd amendment is referring to the establishment of small-town order within a wider context of freedom. America is the spokesman for the free world,  but what is freedom?

Primarily,  it has to be the psyche that is empowered (given free rein) within communes that exercise balance and proportion through self-governance. Self-governance (see passim) operates not through order but through low-level feuding. Old TV series like The Dukes of Hazard have that in spades.

So, order and freedom are opposites which tend to attract one another.  Where this is not understood,  words become crooked.

"It's a matter of freedom. You don't have that right in England  - it got taken from you. I have had to use my gun a couple of times but I haven't had to fire it. People tried to take something from me but then they saw my gun." (guy at NRA convention)

But the 2nd amendment is not a matter of anarchic freedom; it's a justification for order in communal settings which are intrinsically free. It's the state of intrinsic freedom - grime, dirt,  rebellion,  sweat, blood, manure - that is under threat in the 'free' world.

The NRA, composed of individuals,  uses crooked words to justify anarchy. First of all physical freedom is needed - a cowboy sensibility of the free range - and this empowers the psyche. Words are topsy-turvy owing to the fact that order and freedom are two poles of one thing. That is, grime or psychic expression in the wild. 

EC Tubb in Dumarest points to a similar arrangement the 'lowtown' settings of itinerant spacers.

By night the field held a certain magic; one born of starlight and shadows, enigmatic shapes and iridescent hues, the whole bound with the circle of blazing illumination tracing the perimeter beyond which lay only the mystery of contrasting darkness.  By day the magic had gone, to leave only the battered vessels, the dirt soiled with scattered debris,  vomit, urine and, sometimes,  blood. (Earth is Heaven, page 71)

Poverty is oftentimes psychic freedom; the psychic freedom of communal expression can outclass even political tyranny (see Latin America,  prev.) In other words,  the psyche is inspired by grime, and is able to indulge in momentary action - physical expression (gayness, rags, song, games. )

Where there is no physical detritus, both the psyche and physical health tend to suffer. We tend to exist in a society of ones and zeros,  reminiscent of the dual-note of 'Jirel Meets Magic' (prev.) 

Tubb hints at this type of odd madness in the Cyclan culture.

Rapport was never like this and, since the the time when he had spoken to Marle, it had been as always. The contact, the exchange, the euphoria which yielded ecstasy and which resulted from electromagnetic stimulation of the pleasure center of the brain. 

A thought which startled him - was it true? And why should it have come to him at all? (Melome & Angado, page 244)

The mirror of illusions is order without freedom (body, action, physical grime, revival) or the false Apollo of perfection (harbouring the profane serpent) without the physical grime of Dionysus. Essentially, this is the god of technology (the NRA and ABBA Voyage are one in that respect!)

It's all so convincing but, as CC Beck said,

..back in nineteen-aught-four, as we old-timers say, one if the early aviators took an airplane over to China, and the Emperor of China saw the plane as it flew around, and the Emperor was not impressed at all.. "Look, Emperor,  it's flying!" "Well, that's what it's supposed to do,  isn't?" (TCJ #95, page 66)

Other things apply, whether it's Musk's rockets or gene-editing techniques to boost crops in the wake of the Ukraine war.  Boosting crops comes at the expense of a healthy soil, and the soil is simply Mother Earth. Worms, nettles  caterpillars,  butterflies, birds, trees and so forth (large-scale similarities).

Trees surround communes; Man is part of Earth. It's not a walk in the park and in a cyclical sense things get messy. There are vagabonds..

.."Thieves! They robbed me of-"

"Why not?" Dumarest was harsh. "Did you think of the spacer when you went after his cash? Care what happened to him? The others you robbed? Di you give a damn for the animals killed so you can eat meat? The slaughters? The stink? The blood and pain? What makes you so special?" (Earth is Heaven,  page 93)

The cyclical land of invariable time or Earthspin. Technology is heading into the mirror of illusions of variable time so the choice is there. To rebel in a grimy sense (and be free), or to wind up cleaning machines in the order of crooked words.

What the F***? (3)

 He was a more drifting through an infinity of darkness touched with transient gleams. Sparkles which vanished as soon as observed; shimmer s which spread as if to illuminate the universe and then yielded again to darkness. An analogy Avro could understand, as it was a model he could appreciate for a its bare simplicity. A birth repeated again and again and each time, as yet, flaring only to die. Sense and logic destroyed time and time again by the forces of brute ignorance, but one day the cold glow of reason would eliminate all shadows and would illuminate the entire universe with its radiant splendor. (EC Tubb, Earth is Heaven, page 35)

The demonic Cyclan sound quite affable in this quote from the Dumarest saga but, of course, it depends whether you choose to think of Enlightenment values as good or bad! As has been noted previously, the future we (or 'they') seem to be heading towards is not so much a sequence of events (past-present-future) as a state of mind.

Without a course of progressive events -in terms of bodily movements - we are ever-nearing a sentience of sameness (the Amazon House of Things), and the sentence is delivered by the dragon of news, that itself seems to resemble motion-capture and expressive algorithms (prev.)

There was an Angus McKie story in HM with the punchline 'It all depends if you're an optimist or a pessimist', and that's about the size of it. If optimism is wrong, then all the ideals in the world aren't going to change the miasmic events.

That is to say, Enlightenment optimism that the values of the Enlightenment are right. While Enlightenment values may produce capitalist democracies, there has always been an alternate culture existing alongside or counter. In the 60s, Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolfe was a typical counter-culture motif (of anomie and danger to delicate psychic strands). The psychic strength of Art Nouveau figured in hippie posters.

There are other factors, such as Japanese prints and the oriental line. There is, of course, Nietzsche's flamboyant Zarathustra and the expression of the moment. Do, in fact, momentary acts run counter to the Enlightenment, in that they are not thought-out? Does the presence of thought and description destroy poetry as in Alan Moore's essay 'Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas'? (in Watchmen).

The sentience of sameness may just be another word for death (as in Korvac, W8). If the future is a state of mind, the course of events by contrast in a physical sense is cyclical and revives from decay. In other words, analytical thinking, for all its technical benefits, has limits.

The limits are those of the body, and Jean-Luc Godard made a similar point with the scene in Goodbye to Language of the guy on a toilet seat adopting the pose of The Thinker. Greek lewdness and innuendo are the other side of the coin to Apollonian reason (or the mirror of illusions) of modernity.

Where the body is concerned, differences count instead of mental sameness, in that the body is a fighting instrument. The anti-Enlightenment attitude espouses ritual fights between differences or sexes, much as in animal displays (see the Siena Palio.)

Ritual fighting (I mean as in boxing or martial arts) is in-the-moment and reactive, and there is a limit to the amount of thought possible (see Raducanu passim). Bruce Lee developed a system for this called Jeet Kune Do, which has no inflexible style and so is very flexible to events. 

The body is a cyclical instrument of power as opposed to a mental system of information. In The Way of the Dragon, Lee pokes fun at Western morés when toward the beginning he's sitting on a toilet seat with the door wide open. The coarse humour grates on western sensibilities (of hygiene and reason.)

Momentary action and coarseness are the values that run counter to the Enlightenment and could therefore represent a counter-revolution (from Descartes and the course of technology.)

Partly, I guess, it's a religious choice. I noticed the von Trapps, the singing Austrians who went to America, have similar attitudes to the Amish. Epistemology is the philosophy of understanding, and if one understands religious precepts as opposed to technological ones that could be fair enough (especially psychically and in terms of physical strength.)

Coarseness, in that sense, could be horse manure (dirt which cleanses with strength). In that way, the cyclical life is strong and clearly takes place in invariable time (of the stars and Earthspin) as opposed to the variable time of machines and Relativity (or Relativity-machines).

Physical coarseness and fighting. This could be pulp heroes; it could be blues (Canned Heat, prev); it could be the self-government of rough neighborhoods (see Detroit, Drama3).

Fights, or ritual conflict, is not ideal but has a type of glamour (West Side Story). As an alternate to the sentience of sameness there may be something in it. Low-level feuding may simply be the best way for people to interact and retain independence of spirit.

In the reality of low-level feuds (often in a group as in Canned Heat), momentary action and coarseness are the key. One experiences life as opposed to being told what it is (by teacher stroke algorithm). In that sense, there's bound to be a much better balance between the abstract Apollo and the physical Dionysus.

In Fito de la Parra's memoir, Canned Heat are a stirring summary of that. The Bear in fact died virtually penniless, and it was only under Fito's expert guidance that the band regenerated. 

Anything that's anti-Enlightenment (anti-establishment) has to have a much wider horizon of understanding (than technology). It has to essentially take in psyche and physical strength (beat-up volkswagens, the power of rust). This might imply that momentary action and coarseness are left to just 'happen', as was often the case in the 60s.

The fact is that without spirit and dirt there is zero momentary action and the whole thing is choreographed by social-media, algorithms and motion-capture. The future of dark psychology where truth is just the latest fiction.

WHEN THE EARTH MOVES AGAIN

What the F***? (2)

 The roughness and toughness of sticky situations is often where it's at in nature. What I've been trying to get at is the absence of psyche in a universe of number (machine, engineering). And yet we are steadily progressing towards a state where most live in the Amazon House of Things with an assumption of hygiene, as opposed to sleaze (see Shanghai, TofF2).

If that is the mirror of illusions (DNA, electromagnetism, detection by X-ray diffraction) it harbours a dark psychology where words are misconstrued. Words rely on a physical or non-ambivalent reality. The non-ambivalent reality is composed of the rhythms and melodies of large-scale similarities (see Haeckel, prev.)

Large-scale similarities needs must be primitive since they universally rely on spin, Catherine wheels and so forth (see kids' games P200). There has to be a sequence of events whereby kids learn from and are exposed to a physical condition of primal reality.

The primal reality is under threat from the illusion of order the likes of Dawkins proselytise (see quote R3). Without a sequence of developments from primitive roots, it is only imposed order (by acolytes of the mirror), not a spontaneous and happy event.

Dawkins' assumption is that attitudes and behaviour are programmed to the brain, whereas it's much more likely they are learnt from a sequence of developments in rough neighborhoods.

Roughness is a tonic that spurs the psyche to react and exist inside a body that is reflexive. For a start, what is behaviour without breathing? The rhythm of breathing sets a tonic for the body and is a primitive form of reality (for animals).

In Living the Blues, Fito de la Parra's memoir of Canned Heat, he relates a farcical episode of yoga enthusiast Alan Wilson.

Alan was very serious about Hatha yoga and tuned me onto it.. after The Bear's outburst of "fucks" before the teeny-boppers Alan had to give a deposition. He was sure he could bring yoga power down on the prosecutor with proper breathing techniques, so he would breathe in hard while answering each question.

"Are you in this band?"

Sucking in his breath: "Yes."

"Were you on stage with Bob Hite on the night in question?"

Big suck: "Yes "

"Did you hear Hite say 'fuck' on stage?"

Whooooosh: "No."

The other guys are laughing behind their hands. Even the district attorney obviously didn't know whether to worry about these dangerous lunatics he was questioning or just give up and giggle with the rest of us. (page 191, 192)

Hysterical, but the point is that without primal rhythms there could be no sequences of development. The body is a mechanical system of systems that functions at every level. A living community has rhythms, as do the seasons. The galaxy is a spiral.

As was noted in P200 and elsewhere, this is only possible where time is invariable. Variable time is an invention of futurologists who worship machines (see 'The Airtight Garage').

Variable time distorts natural rhythms and takes us into a world where primitive origins are abandoned. The future has a type of sentience that only allows for sameness (of numbers) and not the physical differences that are exciting and rhythmic.

Culturally, I'm meaning Arabian belly dancing or American boogie. The blues is a mixture of simplicity and subtlety, with the ability to have odd measures of 13 bars. Feel and spontaneity are contrasted to the interpretive tradition of western classical.

On the other hand, without feel no music is worth anything, it is so fundamental to experience. Verbally, the blues is very physical with double-entendres or hints of scatology or insults.

The problem with the modern scene is it only appears real to the ego which is obsessed by numbers (see ego-compulsion, Grace Slick.) Reality is actually rhythmical and hence the physical realism of the blues.

Dawkins assumes the reality is numerical or algorithmic from the point of view of DNA. It's a mistake of ego-compulsion; the body functions rhythmically or not atall. The throat is a miracle of condensed intertwined rhythms that connect head to body and enable speech and breath and song.

The physical reality (of survival) has to have primitive roots and has to occur in the invariable time of the constellations and the myths of Man.

What the F***? (1)

 The physical aspect of psyche seems to have become something of a theme. In other words, the physical condition of humanity that imbues strength of mind.

When conditions are harsh, mental strength is more likely to be present. For example, when Kanye West suggested going back to the land with a mule and eight acres. The self-reliance is a matter of faith. 

The 28th Dumarest, Melome, pushes this quite far, and the female interest (one of them) is a trainer of big cats in a planetary circus (somewhat reminiscent of the parallel realities in Judgement Night) who almost takes our one of his eyes with her whip ('leather traveling at supersonic speed'.) Jealousy of Melome is the key. This is somewhat reminiscent of the scene in X-factor where Scott and Jean fight over Phoenix (prev.)

Fights are physical, and the physical gives rise to the psyche - in comics particularly. Another facet broached is the idea that the cyber group-mind might get bored. Cyber Avro was an angel (via the affinity twin) and..

Avro moved, feeling nothing in his amniotic tank, likening his existence to those who had gone before. The fortunate ones now sealed in their capsules, minds released from all physical irritations, free to think, speculate, extrapolate - was boredom the answer?

..Avro spun in his tank as his mind became infused with burning images. The mountains. The crystalline glitter of nests. The sheen of wings and the glow of sunlight warming pinnacle and crag. The moonlight which bathed the world in a silver, nacreous glow. The stars. The rain and cloud and gentle winds. The taste of crisp, morning air. The smell of grass. The soft impact of another living, breathing shape.

Madness! (page 114)

The theme of physical/psyche suggests that the two cannot be separated, so that a detached brain inevitably gets bored and loses the will to be ins vat. Avro is captivated by aerial experiences as an angel, and you could imagine the smells and shapes of a garden captivate in similar fashion.

The strength of a garden is often in its rough ways. Leaving nettles and other weeds allows butterflies to lay eggs. It's sleazy and fairly easy. So what is clearly missing in the Cyclan plan for domination is the ecology. Partly that's because ecology is productive and depends on sleeping around, which the cybers don't do atall.

Partly, though, it's just the sense of laissez-faire. Untidiness is a boon and mulch is a must for vibrant growth (colour, smell, sound of birds and circadias).

The physical condition is untidy. Kids prosper in their rough games. The development of kids depends on a sequence which is tied to instinctive traits (sucking the teat.) In a cybernetic system, that sequence can be stymied (the pandemic has apparently slowed tots verbally.)

The basic point is the physical condition powers the psyche. Without the physical condition the psyche can be disempowered. Now, a sequence has to be a physical thing; it depends on movement such as the spin of the Earth. These sequences all take place in invariable time. Classical Greek myth.

Living in variable (or Relative) time distorts the primal rhythms. This is the future of the head advocated by the likes of Musk. Thee is a dark psychology of sameness that ties development to computer-time (measurement.)

Contrasted to this, the physical condition is tied to physical movements. Godard, in Goodbye to Language (prev), has several scenes of a guy on a toilet seat seeming to adopt the pose of The Thinker accompanied by scatological sounds.

This is a very classical, comic scene. The lewd or scatological are prevalent in Aristophanes. Grace Slick calls it 'Chaucerian trash' in Somebody to Love?

Life is boring without that physical condition because there is no lightweight humour. One is left with number and measurement and even when it's obvious there are scatological connotations (R7) it doesn't register with the cybernetic brain. Nevertheless, there is that condition because of the thinker's pose. It's human comedy.

The physical and primitive supply ready insults, insults that the entrenched political class seem not to favour (prev.) Words should be free to use and connected to the physical reality or we enter a parallel system of sameness. Words ultimately depend on physical life which is non-verbal and proportionate (the zodiac.)

The dark psychology of modernity uses words in a crooked sense. This is apparent in Ukraine where both the Ukrainian fighters and the Russians are labelled 'Nazis' by eachother. 

Words only have meaning where the physical life is strong and reflexive. In nature either one wins or loses, either one is living or dead. Tubb typically takes this to extremes. In the fight between Dumarest and ringmaster Zucco, he suddenly realized his peril..and the way out (see Bruce Lee, prev.)

A telepath. Zucco's special skill which Shakira had mentioned. A man who could read thought and act before they had been turned into movement. A fighter against whom there could be no calculated defense..

Why did Zucco want him to attack? 

"Come," he said again. "It's time you made up your mind."

Time?..

Action too fast for thought, born of the reactive instinct honed by numerous combats and augmented by Dumarest's natural speed. The speed was too fast for Zucco to follow and he backed across the ring toward the tunnel where Valaban stood, Reiza at his side, Shakira a shadowy figure behind.

"No!" Zucco backed further, face distorted with terror as he read the grim, unrelenting purpose in Dumarest's mind. "No'!" (page 143,144)

(Oddly enough, the story concerns a diva who's song penetrates the past, with a Columbian cameo!)

LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO MY SONG

Revivalism (7)

it seems like the Sagittarius black hole could be a consequence of the galactic spin, rather than as is implied a fulcrum. The fact we can observe it isn't necessarily meaningful in terms of spin.
(A similar argument might apply to DNA being a consequence of rhythm, rather than DNA somehow being responsible for it..) - posted on swordsofreh forum

A fulcrum is a point of leverage, so one thing you assume is that a lever has a sense of proportion. IE, is it a million light years long or several kilometres?

There can be no physical leverage without proportion so, for a start, where does proportion come from? It could easily come from the shape of s galaxy that gives the overall breadth of the galaxy. You have a physical shape but, since it's already in spin, there's no need for leverage in any case!

This whole argument is reminiscent of Katie Bouman's black hole imaging (HB56). What is imaged is essentially a product of electromagnetism and computer algorithms (she's a computer-imaging engineer.) The thing that's imaged happens to be at the centre of the galaxy, since it's the centre of spin (with centripetal forces.)

It's fundamental in the sense that the shape of the galaxy dictates it; in a sense it's the asshole of the galaxy. It's an object that depends for observation on numerical fixation, somewhat like Grace Slick's quote on anal-compulsion (HB62/1). The fixation on the object is a matter of numerical compulsion.

Outside of this numerical area is the universe of rhythm and melody (etc.) A body's power has leverage owing to the sense of proportion (which is balanced artfully). This seems to be why we live in a topsy-turvy world of variable (mathematical) time, where primordial rhythms are completely distorted. This is what is called measurement - or is it in fact a parallel reality, the mirror of illusions?

Alongside this is a dark psychology of distorted natural rhythms. We are supposed to cheer modern advanced, but DNA is mainly junk that happens to be detectable by X-ray diffraction (electromagnetism). The quantification of data hides the fact that the body's irregularities and illogicaliare are able to read miscoded sequences, or 'mistakes' in the copies (see fish swarms, prev.)

The modern scene convinces the ego owing to its numerical quantification of data. If you take a census, that would be highly convincing, but it's still illusory without the physical condition of street rhythms and melodies.

If these still exist then the census must be said to be valuable. The physical reality, like a galaxy, has a mechanical life that is highly proportionate and balanced. The idea of mechanical engineering without those is a non sequitur.

Without the 'body logic' (see Corneille, the illogical borrows from the logical, prev) of balance and proportion, the modern world becomes a sort of dark farce of zeros. Instead of the primitive, instinctive reality of strength, one is continually told what to do by 'them'.

One should be free to use the words one wishes, only according to Nina Jankowicz 'disinformation' is not allowed. I take issue with this thesis; reality is quite hard to define and should be a broad spectrum. 

They also want to 'protect' people from insults. Does Yidiot count as that? In short, insults are physically telling and can carry a grain of truth. The affinity of differences, antagonistic balance, as opposed to the dark psychology of sameness when words become meaningless.

The physical and primitive, instinctive truths that forestall a political entrenchment (Revivalism 1). The spin of the galaxy, the free spirit of communal antics in the dirt of the Earth. 

Bob Hite has more breadth than any number of Jankowicz clones.

LONG WAY FROM LA

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (6)

 (from Zodiac)

Tying together preceding themes without forming a Gordian knot is fairly tricky, so keeping it somewhat short..

The Dionysian urge in modernity is distinctly absent, so we have the false Apollo, or the illusion of moving forward into the future (a perpetual vanishing-point of technique.)

The psyche is joined to the proportionate rhythms of the body by a sense of the primitive. The origin of things is primitive, and so one looks to the past rather than the future.

Primitive origins, or the egg, have a certain childish simplicity. Now, as a hypothesis, everything from the point of view of Earth is to do with opposites. Everything going away from Earth is approaching the vanishing-point (or an illusion.)

Earth is found (formed) at a focal-point of opposites (sun/moon). Not exactly original thinking, but the other point is that words lose their meaning when used capriciously in the pursuit of an illusion. It's a dark psychology of compulsive distortion of natural rhythms (by the ego.)

The non-capricious use of words is to accept that luck - Fortune - exists and to just go with it. If there is a psychic reality, it affects the free-form motion of the body in active pursuits (games, hunting.)

Fortune frees the mind and body from distortions of natural rhythm. The muscles operate in antagonist pairs; the action is graceful, not logical.

Pulp futures go into the past more often than not, as is the case with Dumarest's medieval-style houses and feuds. 

.. These internal conflicts echo his impact on the people around him. He's attractive to women (because rugged bad boy) but they know they can't keep him and their family disapprove. He's a potential ally in local conflict.. but - since he has no local network - politically and socially weak when he takes sides. (Page, Blackgate.)

In some ways Tubb is a Darwinian writer of survival, but if the body is itself primitive (by origin), this changes the way one sees it. Instead of forever going into the future, survival has to balance with the traditions of the past - and it is pretty savage.

On a similar tack, I had another tooth problem, this time on the other side of the face. The pain was bad but I held on and it took over a week to subside. In other words, the body if left to its own devices can be strong enough to protect you.

This argument comes into Dumarest. One shouldn't carry it to absurd conclusions, but to experience pain is an acceptance of bodily strength. One has to take the rough with the smooth.

EVERY TIME I CRYYoutu.be/CFMz9DOhaJ8

To be rough and tough is to also be calm and joyful (full of spirit). The hypothesis is that modernity is heading in exactly the opposite direction: into a future that is not balanced or antagonistic. 

This future is an illusion of the ego. It doesn't exist, hence the present confusion. Without the psyche, all that we have is personality. Putin is falling into the same trap as America in Afghanistan: the idea that technological might is everything.

It's an illusion without the psychic dimension of rebellion, antagonism, the ancient cities and beliefs. Rebellion is strong and conveys a type of rough harmony. Tyranny is ok if one can rebel.

With technology one has to believe, so it's worse than any religion, a type of ultimate tyranny of the mind. One can't have non-believers, and this probably harks back to the invention of the transistor or first semiconductor post war. 

This instigated the cybernetic era, and therefore we are in variable time (GPS). One is then bound to believe in an electric-green future which is always tending to electricity (cybernetics or variable time.) 

This is the future of the Amazon House (see Babcock Ranch TofF2). But without the antagonism of rough living (Shanghai pig manure) there can be no revival. The physical situation of revival from decay imbues a psychic strength.

If Earth is the focal-point of opposites, then this is the reason it's no illusion. We see infinity around us: to approach it would be illusory (variable time.) It's a concept (Dr Strange).

The pseudo-future we see has no physical antagonism; no roughness, harshness, pain, and therefore no revival and no psychic strength.

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (5)

 Physical perfection has a dark psychology owing to the dichotomy that something perfect tends to suppress the dragon - the primitive, reptilian source (spine, throat.)

Into the dark psychology go all the clean and sterile advances of modernity - 'clean meat' (prev), GPS calculation, DNA editing. The profane serpent of distorted rhythm.

The basic reason for the distortion is that there are large-scale similarities that go unrecognised. Where there are large-scale similarities, Man is part of the fecund cosmos, and harmonises with it (the UVS website contains comprehensive examples.)

A harmonic cosmos (of song) cannot be physically perfect (of calculation) because obviously harmonics overlap and vibrate in a fantastically subtle sense (water supposedly does this via H-bonds in homeopathy.)

The harmonic universe is fecund- Dr Strange- like - and contains dark elements - but the elements are not suppressed. Gothic medieval is a good enough term. The dark, or what you could call the ogrish, bloody elements are part of reality and make it pretty interesting (incidentally, the anime Attack on Titan has a Gothic medieval sensibility of ogrish giants that swallow humans whole, blood drenching the screen. Probably not surprising since it's by the creators of Death Note).

Where the dragon is not suppressed, of course it can be attacked by the pure knight. The presence of blood and decay are part of the dark reality that modernity suppresses - becoming the profane serpent.

While Relative time leads to physical perfection (information, calculation), invariable time has the darkness of myth and blood (sun and moon or Earthspin). Myth and melancholy and memory give meaning to the harmonic universe. Shoot the Sun Down is for sure melancholy as opposed to meaningless and modern!

To give an extreme example, the dinosaurs were wiped-out by a mighty asteroid hitting the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. From a mythical perspective, that could be taken as Fortune, that later gave rise to the ancient gods of Mexico (Quetzalcoatl etc.)

I have always believed that all things depend on Fortune, and nothing on ourselves. (Byron)

Whereas modern people are endlessly anxious about "the next hit", harmonic Fortune gives it over to the mythical realm. But this realm only exists in invariable time (of spinning-tops - P200); the era of calculation is also the era of anxiety.

You could say: but how do we know there isn't an asteroid heading this way? The point is, there is a calculated universe, but the universe of myth is the one of belief and faith. You could spend your resources on future anxiety and live in a permanently anxious state.

After all, what is the psyche? It can best be comprehended as a type of harmonics that ties into the cosmos. Yes, the modern era has personalities, but melancholy psyche is much rarer (guys like Cat Stevens, Buffy, Paul Kantner)

Melancholy is just the other side of the coin to freeing the mind from thrall to anxiety - the gaiety of youth ('Guileless beyond hope's imagining' - Byron.) Large-scale similarities - or what you could call harmonic reality - are fecund and speak of rites of spring. Dionysus and the bull.

Trees and bent boughs and limbs intermix in the youthful spring of revival.

Suddenly,as they passed under the spreading branches of a great oak, something descended from above - something long and shining and sinuous - and draped itself over the neck of Petronel before it slipped to the ground. The mare shied and danced on her hind legs..

'What on earth was it?' demanded Nicholas. 'I thought that she would have me off this time.'

Hal extended his right hand, carefully, so as not to alarm the mare again. He was holding a long silver band.

'It's a girdle,' he said. 'A lady's girdle.'

'But where did it come from?' cried Nicholas in astonishment.

Hal lowered his voice. 'There's a maid in the tree'..

'Oh, please,' said a voice from above. 'I didn't mean to do it. I only wanted to peep, and then my girdle came undone.'

It was a girl, a little girl, younger than Nicholas. She was sitting on a cross bough, with her feet dangling and her skirt rumpled all round her.

'Who are you?' asked Nicholas. An idea had come to his mind, but he just couldn't believe it.

'I'm Cecily,' she said simply. 'I wanted to see you before you saw me, and I knew you'd come this way. So I got up into the tree..'

The relief was so tremendous that Nicholas began to laugh. It was not only relief from the fright with Petronela, but also relief from his dread. He had worked himself into a state of misery about meeting his betrothed. And here she was, not a fine lady nor a prim young mistress, nut just a naughty girl up a tree. As he laughed Cecily began to laugh too. Then Hal joined in, and the three of them laughed till they could scarcely stop. (Cynthia Harnett, The Wool-Pack, page 103)

The gaiety and sexuality of living in the wild forest comprise really the myth of psyche, the song of the cosmos. Without the large-scale similarities, one is compressed by calculation in a mini-world that convinces the ego.

(illos by Harnett)

The day ends with a late dinner by candelight and congenial conversation with friends over a couple of mugs of mulled wine. While you and the dog enjoy the warmth of the big stone fireplace, you read a few pages of an essay on freedom by Thomas Jeffersob. Then you both climb the Dutch-tiled stairs. The distant sound of the grandfather clock in the hallway - eleven chimes - confirms it's time to retire. The last thing you see before you drop off to sleep is the view through the bedroom window: bright stars shining through a clear atmosphere, unclouded by smog or artificial lights of any kind. (Grace Slick, Somebody to Love? memoir page 25 chapter 1798 or 1998?) 

Psyche BWS

As was previously suggested (ND3), the wordless world is the original one (of myth), but we live in a topsy-turvy world where words define the physical reality.

The dark psychology exists in the calculated world, but cannot exist in the fecund cosmos. Words (news) nowadays have lost their reality for that reason. The neutralizing dragon sterilises reality in the compulsion to create illusory order.

The opposite tendency is to simply leave things to decay and fester and stage periodic revivals. Leaving things entails metamorphosis (see Buffy quote) and the disorder that creates order (songs round the campfire.)

In a world of calculation, leaving things be is not a ready option ('Let it fester, friends'). That's the dark psychology and compulsion that entices the ego of acolytes. The dichotomy of physical perfection with the personality that abandons psyche and melancholy for a futuristic illusion that can never exist without the profane serpent of distorted rhythms.

(see Zodiac)

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (4)

The film ends on a downbeat note with only Rainbow (Walken) and Sunbearer (Martinez) standing.

"Where will the wind take you?"

"To the Alamo"

(the Texan war standoff)

Leaping on his horse, Sunbearer hazards,

"The old ones say, nothing lives long but the mountains and the earth."

The last image is of the parasol, marking the woman's grave, blowing away.

The wheel of Montezuma they were rolling off, the hazy sun, the bullseye target, the parasol. Round emblems of a stark, desert symbolism.

Symbols of the desert are life and death things. The scuttling lizard, the vulture that lands on the staked-out Rainbow. They speak of psyche or the wordless meaning of the cosmos.

There was a piece on Raphael in DT, and I sent this (unpublished) letter.

Alastair Sooke has this tendency I've noticed of protesting too much about detractors of Raphael. If you divide art into the physical or the psyche as an experience, Raphael can't be faulted on the former. It's the psyche that lacks depth. This is presumably something like what the Pre-Raphaelites felt in the 19th century, that Raphael was the initiator of a trend to physical perfection at the expense of psyche. Now at the end of Modernism we have the physical perfection of science. What is lacking, is the question that springs to mind 

Modernism is the perfection of one thing at the expense of another, which is the meaning of the cosmos (epistemology). The words of Sunbearer are completely antipathetic to modernity, but it could simply prove that we live in a hyper-realistic illusion.

What appears to be physical perfection is illusory (Apollo) because without the psyche everything is an illusion. In other words, physical reality is far from perfection, but it is cosmically real.

The Beguiling of Merlin

Burne-Jones' gnarled boughs are tangled in an expression of Merlin's fraught brows, under the gaze of the Lady of the Lake. The physical reality is composed of large-scale similarities that are seen in branches, trunks, limbs, the strewn stars over the crescent moon.

The large-scale similarities (see Haeckel prev) enable differences to be perceived. The tangled and incestuously clinging lines (vines) of nature echo a type of cosmic fecundity.

Dr Strange (DNO3) has this cosmic erotic frisson (in the comely shape of Clea), gnarled and steaming. The human being is not alone in the cosmos because of these large-scale similarities, which is where myth starts.

Dr Strange #3 1974 (reprint of Lee/Ditko)

Lines metamorphose one into the other in a type of cosmic debauchery that knows no boundaries. The lines themselves animate the forms.

Where Ditko is all vibrant lines, Brunner is formal and less esoteric (still pretty good, obviously!)

The sun spins in the desert wind, the body reels under the sun, the wheel spins, the crescent moon flickers under the tired gaze. The spinning universe exists in invariable time because otherwise there cannot conceivably be any primordial rhythms (see spinning-top P200 HB209) and UVS.)

Invariable time is mythic time, and activates psyche. In other words, we live inside an illusion that appears physically perfect but where the psyche is inactive or dormant.

Psyche has to depend on invariable time, where all things are connected in spinning rhythms. The expressive line conveys this universal psyche. Japanese anime, for instance, is pretty good at this, and points to the opposite direction from Raphael's perfectionism.

Japanese popular prints strongly influenced Western art styles in the 19th century (Art Nouveau, Mucha) with their sinuously sexy and expressionistic verve. Large-scale similarities enable the psyche to be imbued.

Hokusai

Margaret Brundage
Sinuous, flowing vibrancy

If physical perfection is an illusion of the West (the ego or the head), this applies to literally everything. For example, the GPS calculations of Relative time that  distort cosmic rhythms (see prev.) The perfectibility applies to a universe of brainwaves or electromagnetism, akin to the corporate Cyclan demons in the Dumarest pulp series.

From Raphael to Einstein, the illusion is perfect, the psyche ever-more dormant.

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (3)

The expressive psyche of debauched linework is something that connects Egon Schiele (see HB199) with Ditko's Dr Strange. A line that is fertile, and without fertility there can be no renewal. The dichotomy of nature is the land of death and revival - even more clearly delineated in Noto's "Red Lace".

Ditko is a stranger to straight lines.

The Brothers Hernandez have synthesized a lurud and fascinating world out of Steve Ditko's paranoid skylines and the more shadowy and garbage-filled corners of Gasoline Alley..(Alan Moore, Love and Rockets book one.)

His linework contradicts his later enthrallment to Rand's Objectivism and, in Dr Strange, the deathlike figures such as Eternity and Dormammu's sister Umar of the Dark Dimension, speak of the conquest of fear that is associated with the forest of death and rebirth (see Gilgamesh).

This is essentially the Gothic situation that was partially usurped by Renaissance ideals (see especially Dürer, prev.) The idealism of death may seem somewhat negative, but within it harbours the physical strength that is our birthright.

Essentially, science only knows what science tells it (to know); it's logical as opposed to a dynamic balance of cosmic strength and fertility. Once the mirror of illusions is entered, the ego is convinced by the numerous straight lines that feed the logical processes 

This culminates in the Relativity of time and GPS calculations of distorted rhythm - see the spinning-top of Earth (and sun and moon) and BWS 'Artemis and Apollo' P200 etc.

GPS is convincing to the brain, and in fact leads to a universe of electromagnetism or pure brainwaves - as opposed to the physical reality of spinning bodies (the fates). The 'free' market enters the mirror of illusions, which is where we are now.

A free-market has no interest in revival from death and therefore no interest in strength or fertility. HB199 cites India PM Modi's reluctant acquiescence to the small farmers over free-market principles that would decimate their lifestyle.

As noted there, small farmers are economically inefficient but ecologically efficient, and the ramshackle habitats retain pests that otherwise are driven-out to become toxic parasites (as with Covid; see Minnesota Institute of Environment.)

Modi can count himself lucky; he has stepped-back from the Western - and Chinese - mirror of illusions; a world of weakness and infertility, of noxious chemicals and feeble cows.

Here's a link that spells-out how convincing the illusion is once inside. Genus (ignore pictures) is researching genetic ways to breed cows with 'friendly' digestive tracts. The trouble is, cows that are grass-grazed on Alpine slopes are not methane polluters; the research is purely for the enfeebled lifestyle of shed-kept herds (see prev.)

This leads directly to Weekend and Grace Slick's quote on "anal-compulsives". The physical strength and fertility of a natural system constitutes a lifestyle that is hardened and is not susceptible to genetic tricks of the ego-compulsive head. 

Where there is untidiness and a physical state of almost debauchery, the psyche is strong and relatively relaxed. One doesn't have to go as far as Charles Manson to reach this state; it's a physically natural situation of the fields and the herds.

This state is relatively visible if one watches certain old westerns. I picked-up Shoot the Sun Down the other day, and it is clearly superior to anything modern. There are long spells of silence; long shots onto rock bluffs and Apaches; close shots of horse fetlocks and dainty steps. There is zero shot/counter-shot (N3).

Deliberately Sergio Leone-ish, the score chimes with insolent Spanish brass. Filmic to a fault, an Apache and a Navajo are played by half-natives A. Martinez and Sacheen Littlefeather (known as Brando's rep!) 

The physical strength of the settings delineates psyche also to a fault. The problem with having excessive dialogue is that films are filmic and horses don't speak. We get strength and inherent fertility in the English maiden (Margot Kidder) sold to a surly sea-dog.

SHOOT

Strength is proto-verbal or poetic; the lost world moderns have all-but forgot; the dried buffalo manure of Buffy Saint-Marie (HB70) and

GENERATION

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (2)

 It all started in '63; the original pulp imagination that comes from primitive roots. Those same routes that are described by Kari Hohne in The Mythology of Sleep: the Waking Power of Dreams (prev.) The forest of belief and fear that the hero must conquer and integrate to the Self.

Pulps are our books of conquest, and the fighting never stops - until everything is neutralised by sameness. This was why I took an unpopular line vis-a-vis the Ukrainian war, since the neutralizing dragon of the West is somewhat more subtle than a Russian tank.

Once everything is neutralised there will be no more wars since what is there to fight about in a kingdom of the dead? The physical reality is acrobatic and not of the head (ego.) It was the acrobatics of a Kirby cover that enticed BWS, according to a YouTube snippet.

Pulps are the acrobatic world; the primitive expression that is lost to calculation of the head. A good indication of what has been lost is to pit Tony Stark against Elon Musk!

Both are ostensibly doing very similar things. Helping the military (in Ukraine or Vietnam); miniaturising electronics (in satellite arrays or iron suits); acting the playboy (in Hollywood or Monte Carlo.)

What is to explain the fact that Iron Man's gadget-laden universe seems to increase in interest with each passing year, while Musk's becomes an electrically neutralizing force of palpable dimensions?

The answer is that Musk lives in his head while Stark lives in the dreamland  of the pulps. Dreams are myths, and despite any modern futurist credentials, are rooted deep in the past; in the forest of fear and the serpents of lore.

Musk is on a one-way trip to the calculating land of ones and zeros - the dual-note of 'Jirel Meets Magic' (prev.) The end-product of that trip is the neutralizing effect of information, or the vanishing-point of technique (sun, the Relativity of time.)

Dreams are primitive, primordial, serpentine and cannot be distracted by these neutral types of technique that lead nowhere. The calculating head is ineluctably drawn into itself, into the universe of electromagnetic impulses.

Outside is the dream that animates reality; the forest of fear; the labyrinthine, serpentine ways. Into this delves the Iron Man, and it is the old world of myth rather than a Brave New World of nothing.

It is ever the case that delving into myth opens the route to a revival, a renaissance. From Greek ruins come majestic insights.

In Tales of Suspense #43, Stark labs are assaulted by the Netherland, in the delectable shape of the lady Kala, who wants Iron Man to help them conquer the overworld. As descendants of Atlanteans, their technology is sophisticated, but Kala discovers this is one conquest she can't win.

Like Proserpine in Pluto's underworld, she cannot emerge except as a symbol of the death that gives strength to growing things (spring.) Like Proserpine, her diaphanous undergarments are a symbol of the lower regions that entice only to destroy.

The primitive blood and corpse-like land of the pulps is a harbinger of vitality that is lost to the calculating head. Like the dog in Goodbye to Language (N3) that rolls on decaying matter and springs up invigorated, the germs and nasties that inhabit the physical reality also imbue strength. Metamorphosis and revival are linked to lifecycle and the psyche of childlike wonder (imago).

Pulps inhabit a primitive, dreamlike world where the psychology is one of conquering fear, one that Marvel's heroes epitomised. The timeless area is like a type of detritus that continually revives.

The strength of revival is forever attached to immortality or death, and this gothic principle runs through comics. The Eternal Vishanti; the Living Tribunal; Eternity.

Ditko's dynamics in Doctor Strange may be the opposite of Iron Man, but the dreamlike and the primitive vistas are eternally there. Anything else is a wasteland that vanishes the further one advances into it. The mirror of illusions; the head of the sorcerer; the promise of a future that vanishes into the mists of oblivion; the land where calculation is everything and physical reality nothing; time is relative and eternity is nowhere; primitive realism and psychedelic grandeur are lost to time.

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (1)

The old in this case is myth. One can analyse archaic stories - such as the Gilgamesh saga - through the prism of dream symbolism, as Kari Hohne does in The Mythology of Sleep: the Waking Power of Dreams. 

The hero is forever fighting - reminiscent of Marvel Comics - and the aim is the integration of different aspects of their persona. Enkidu, the forest dwelling wild man, is sent to kill the tyrant Gilgamesh, but they end up partners in arms. They set off to kill Humbaba, hideous guardian of the Cedar Forest.

Fear can take on monstrous proportions, especially when it is trapped inside of the forest of our beliefs. (page 190)

Humbaba is the Shadow Self, who must be confronted, challenged, defeated and integrated with the Self. This is the heroic challenge. Conflict and defeat are keys to integrating Self.

If we are angry, we meet a world that is angry. If we only know pain, we find ways to validate it. This is something we fail to realize as Victims. (page 194)

It seems to me our modern world of confusion is to validate the Victim ethos, as opposed to the Hero ethos. We live in a world of isolated egos, never able to integrate Self through conflict.

Conflicts cannot only be psychological in nature, they exist in a concrete world of differences that manifest in nature as predator-prey.

These two recognise their opposite in eachother, and it identifies, strengthens their belief in Self. Without conflict and the battle, the integration of Self is hardly conceivable.

This is where feudalism is much more of a forest of belief and fear than is our modern neutralised world of ego. I did say earlier that Putin's aggression in Ukraine was confused because, in the normal course of events, communes are rebellious places, and they respond best to tyranny 

But we do not live in normal times; there is not so much tyranny and rebellion as the tragedy of an ego that is incapable of integrating the Self.

The Self can be integrated through tyranny and rebellion, as it was on the Middle Ages - and in the field of heroic fantasy. It can only be integrated through differences, it cannot be integrated in a world where everything becomes the same.

Putin's point about the Victim status of 'cancel culture' was well-made (namechecking JK Rowling, prev.) It is possible the West is trying to cancel Russia, and the route to sameness could be Ukraine.

To make this point completely visual, here's a clip of Putin's daughter Katerina, performing as a competitive 

ROCK'N'ROLL ACROBAT

Acrobats throw eachother around, and it's noticeable the man is heavier and taller to accommodate the tricky routine. Physically that's very apparent. Compare this with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

While psychologically he might be a she, physically speaking it's apparent the spread of shoulder and narrowness of hip are male. This matters if we live in a physical reality as opposed to just a psychologically fixated one (of the ego .)

The trouble is that the Western way is composed of distorted rhythms that neutralise the psycho-sexual aspect of physical reality. Back in P200, it was pointed-out that a spinning-top must have invariable time if it is to have a primordial rhythm. The Earth is a spinning-top, so it must have invariable time (not relative.)

The sun is spinning and pulsating; the moon is spinning and orbiting. In space they are acrobatically linked through invariable time. The closeness of the connection is almost incestuous. 

Artemis and Apollo 

So what has that to do with Ukraine? Ukraine has become a proxy war of the West versus Russia, whereby GPS missile technology is showing dividends.

GPS is relative time, relying on ultra-accurate calculation (by machine.) Musk's Starlink array is a vital part of this war.

While Putin might prefer to have s conflict of tyranny versus rebellion (a type of balance), the actual conflict is a proxy war of West versus Russia. The proxy-war does not care for ideals or beliefs, and is part of the Victim mentality that the West fosters in place of a true religion.

Both the West and Putin are confused, and this confusion spreads like a cancer to all areas of modern rule (misrule.) The Victim status has now descended on the Caribbean. They cannot accept that conflicts of the past are part of an evolving process, and instead only know anger and pain. Prince William, unfortunately, on a Commonwealth tour with Kate, is bent like a weak reed.

In a world of victimhood only the hero can conquer; only primordial myth can defeat the weakness of a modern rule of order that is disorder; the disorder of sameness; of calculation as opposed to belief; of neutralising information as opposed to psycho-sexual action.

The neutralizing dragon (3)

 Goodbye to Language is another typically montage-like film where a lot takes place offstage, here in the house of a liaising pair. It's sometimes from the dog's eye view of Roxy, the mutt who spies things at home and wanders round the forest (in 3D though mine was 2D.)

Launching into a review is not really the intention, and this is exceptionally difficult to critique, so I'll start by going back to the aforementioned 'shot/counter-shot'.

A lot of people may have felt, "but this is ubiquitous", and for TV shows I think it probably is. At random I looked at 'The Doomsday Machine' Star Trek episode from 1966. The opening has Kirk walking round the control room. He first asks Lt Palmer a query (the stand-in for Nichols/Uhura), then he proceeds to Spock and asks him.a query. Both had shot/counter-shot, followed by a distance shot of Sulu. 

It's logical without being creative, and the documentary format itself - interviews - is 100% logical (uncreative.)

However, films are films. In Goodbye to Language, the living room of the liaising pair has a large screen continually showing classic pictures. The last one shown was a silent film, and of course this is more like a drama with masks as opposed to language.

Godard idealises the silent era of such as Chaplin, and an ideal film does not necessarily have language as it's about seeing the world as it is (through a dog's eye view.)

I took a look at the trailer of Power of the Dog, and there was an action scene followed by the typical duo scene where there is shot/counter-shot. To use that is lazy directing because it follows the language. The language is covering the visual sense, directing it.

Film doesn't have to be like that. Another old film playing in the background had the two characters, man to left foreground, woman to right background. The sense of romance in the lighting and expressions and sound was palpable.

The other thing is that a camera is something you point. It makes things very easy and therefore technically lazy. Technique rules rather than the visual. The technique of comic books is different because it's often better to show the two characters, or to vary the angles. This is the opening to 'All Around the World' Planetary graphic novel.

Shot/counter-shot puts language at the head of things,  whereas a film should be filmic - visual. The difference of a film from a TV interview should be very apparent! Godard's films are vehicles for ideas, not language.

There are various ideas and quotes. The Apache word for world is forest.' The labyrinthine land where Gilgamesh roamed (prev.) Untidiness and darkness, soiled beauty, soiled maidens.

A labyrinthine place has a physical cycle of repair and regeneration. Words do not count there. We live in a topsy-turvy world where words have come to define the physical reality but, in fact, the reverse is the case.

The snake-like, labyrinthine ways are the ways of action, and from these come the epics of past ages. Words are born of the wordless. The shots of water in this film (and the others) have an Odyssey-like depth.

Going beyond words is going into myth. Myth is reality without the Dominion of language (of 'fact'). If this is the Western way, Europe and America are both on the wrong side of history. The two characters wander the house in a state of ennui - inspired by words?

He has a scene and theme reminiscent of Weekend (1967), where Byron, Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft (writer of Frankenstein) are wandering the forest of lake Geneva, declaiming. The romantic era is long gone, only Frankenstein remains!

'If Russia becomes European it will never be Russian again'. Another saying that holds water. Putin's principles are confused, as was noted previously, but to have the endless interviews of shot/counter-shot is going nowhere very fast.

Not  only forests are labyrinths, but towns and ports back in the day. That is what is being lost. The scented decadence of movement and force that provides romance and dark ambiance. Action, not words.

AMSTERDAM

Where there is communal action, rebellion is always there. Even in Russia, if Putin is a tyrant rebellion is still possible as we've seen.

The neutralizing dragon of news (words) renders things neutral, partly through this trope of shot/counter-shot, partly through ignoring the physical sphere entirely. Sex-differences are no longer de riguer (see Rowling.)

A neutral world is also one that is compulsive- as opposed to fecund or sexual. This makes another link to Weekend, which starts with a description of an anal-oriented orgy. Here it takes the form of the 'equivalence' of toilet humour.