Hyborian Bridge 174

 Iran, or antique Persia, as many already know, is a vast and multi-ethnic expanse expanding from the Caucasus to the spice-routes of India. Previously I have espoused India, Iran and the proximal Turkey as god-fearing in their separate ways. 

This may strike some as a potential oddity, given the fractiousness of relations between the west and Iran since the 1975 Revolution that toppled the last Pahlavi.

Yes, that's obviously so, so I did some historical delving that might go some ways to explicating why Iran - and by implication Turkey and possibly India - is so beguiling to the individualist west.

Persia was far from.being united and was potentially fragmented. It took the cunning of warrior clans to forge and hold multiple regions under one Shah.

Medievally-speaking, the Safavids under founder Ismail originated the state post-Muslim conquest in 1501. Ismail established the Shah an authority under Sufism (or Shia Islam).

The Safavids ruled till the European Enlightenment, which introduced the doctrine of free-thought. Free-thought underpins the dogma of liberal-science, which some might feel is a contradiction-in-terms!

Science upholds the principle of inductive reason which -as noted passim -can easily approach a clinical sameness. The question is, is inductive reason more like a mirror of illusions that establishes differences that amount to sameness? (P176) The differences are logical (light) but not primordial.

Opposed to this is cosmic sameness (curvilinear naturalism, prev.) There is a sense of the primitive since the universe is old and vast, like Persia ("We are 5 billion year old carbon", Woodstock).

With the cosmic sameness come balance and fertility. One sees this in the harem of antique Shahs. By living under Sufism, the Shahs are in a sense honoring strength and fertility as God-given attributes.

Religions - whether Islam, Christian or Hindu - have simple symmetries that reflect a cosmic balance. The simplicity takes the form.of opposing deities in Hinduism; matriarchy and patriarchy in Christianity; the fertile crescent in Islam.

Following the rise of the industrial west, Persia was not again united until Reza Khan, a Persian officer from the Cossack Brigade (run originally by Russian imports), established the Pahlavi Dynasty.

The Persian Cossacks are another highly important factor , being composed originally of ethnic Caucasians (Circassians).

The Circassians had been massacred in 1864 by the Russians, and fled to the east. They subsequently played a major role in supporting the Qajar Dynasty, being disciplined and rigorously trained. To such an extent that, during an insurrection in 1896, they were told to

"Act in accordance with your own understanding and wisdom."

They acted as kingmakers to maintain Qajar authority until.the Constitutional crisis of 1907, followed by Reza Khan who, in 1925, became Reza Shah.

The authority vested in the Shah, being Sufism or Shia Islam, enshrined a type of humility under the Prophet. Most Shahs were not religious scholars and were just obedient to the scriptures.

Modern post-Revolution Iran, by contrast, is much less subtle and it is not simply a case of letting faith be free to flourish. The Supreme Leader is the sole authority on faith, and here it might be worth quoting from a review of The Unbroken Thread, by Iranian-American conservative Sohrab Ahmari.

At one point he draws on Augustine's City of God to argue that, rather than leaving individuals free to live as they see fit, the state should intervene to assist and encourage its version of the common good. (DT)

State intervention on religious questions is exactly what makes Iran under the Supreme Leader. Any faith - be it Confucianism or Christianity - is a temple that one honors, rather than a creation of the state. 

The Imams were historically powerful political figures who called the faithful to prayers (poetry, meaning, epistemology). It's like saying religion is a the creation of a logical order (of the state) instead of a primitive wonder of the cosmos.

Many Shahs were proficient poets who honored the language and belief of antique Persia. The question of poetry versus dogma seems to apply equally to modern Iran and the west, whether the dogma is liberal-science or the dogma of espousing sameness in a historically plural region.

Clinical sameness seems to be a symptom of modernity, whether it's called liberal individualism or Iranian orthodoxy. Religions on both sides have to retain primitive credentials that attract the spirit as opposed to the pure ego of state power.

Did Europe in the Enlightenment enter a parallel universe of inductive reason? This supplants the individual with logic in a similar way. The Supreme Leader supplants individual faith with state ideology.

Historically there may be state religion, but that is not the same as a religious-state that indoctrinates. Belief has to be free. I always think of Persia as the counterpart to Turan in the Hyborian Age. Vast and colorful and ethnically diverse and I suppose sort of religious zealots. But the Holy Tarim is an idol, not a materialistic leader of men.

Pictorial 176

If Einstein is wrong it's by a few centimeters since it takes place inside a convincing illusion; the mirror of electromagnetism (logic, straight lines) that convinces the ego with math. The hermetic mathematical illusion of CERN is convincing only if one ignores the presence of a universal aether (as Einstein himself hinted).

The illusion was entered by Newton (C4-C6) and essentially says that the more visible things are the realer they are (HB173). Light detects differences, and the operating principle of CERN is to detect ever-more minute differences (particles).

As time goes by, this becomrs the equivalent of sameness, since the differences are more and more minute. One approaches what could be called the vanishing point of technique (light, illusion, perspective).

The universe we perceive with lenses (HB56) is real but also illusory, in that we approach the vanishing point of technique (where differences equal sameness). Another word for this is Apollo - or the false Apollo - since it is so convincing to the ego of acolytes.

If you apply this to DNA (neo-Darwinism) , again one detects differences on DNA (genes). The differences are minute and exist outside of primordial sameness, which is curvilinear naturalness (throat, hip, spine, joint P175).

We are told (by "them") that the differences exist in competitive terms, but this is only true outside of curvilinear naturalness - which is ACTUALLY reality.

Newborn cubs, for instance, will nuzzle into their mother's body and find the teats even with eyes still shut. It's the fertile order of natural ease and grace (and blood and prey).

A competitive order is essentially sterile because it does not recognize the fertility of curvilinear naturalness. This is where we are.

Differences become sameness because the differences (in competiting) are so minute (P175). In their primitive sameness, things can be different; they have interesting dynamism that is not competition but just has a vague affinity of otherness.

This universe is the one where dirt and cleanliness coexist because it is a product of strength. A medieval castle with the rushes spread around and hounds  prowling is like a mini-ecosystem. Fragrances and oils abound; there are sometimes epic baths (see Valeria, prev.) An enlarged cave with hunting and falconry thrown-in, culturally retrospective and aristocratic.

Primitivism is the opposite to mindless advance into the mirror of illusions that attracts the ego. Where the reality becomes more mathematical and hence where differences become sameness.

I've never seen "Friends", but it's clear from a look at the set it's an everyman apartment of clinical tidiness. That's not wrong but it is a certain type of realism.

Taken to excess, it becomes clinical sameness that exists inside the mirror of illusions that approaches zero.

Viewed as cosmic scales, the universe is not ordered (light) or sterile, but balanced between sun and moon, male and female, day and night, predator and prey.

It's a belief in a cosmic balance, in fertility. One can believe in many things, but still

THE WORLD GOES ROUND (Liza Minnelli, New Orleans 1979)

Pictorial 175

This Pictorial is about the pictures so I guess makes it easier to imagine (images will be uploaded to rehsongcycle.com in due course.)

If we live in a corrupt universe of half-truths that corrupt naturalness, the traditional belief in the body as an arbiter of the natural order goes by the wayside.

The ego (head) tends to arbitrate reality in terms of the logical order (see Blake print of Newton as a physique that becomes a brain, prev.) 

Where the head (ego) arbitrates reality, there seems to occur a type of wordplay that is inherently confusing.

When the body becomes dirty, traditionally one bathes and the dirtier one is the more intense the bathing (see Valeria by Kayanan, prev.)

Dirt in a traditional order requires cleaning in terms of smell and discomfort, but it is not strictly speaking unclean in that dirt kills pathogens. A field or prairie is strong and fertile.

Mud is cleansing (or stale urine - see Fulling HB60). Products that are strong and natural and fertile are cleansing agents.

Strength tends to be of the body and its activities, and the body naturally gets dirty and requires bathing. Dirt is good provided it's cleansed. In a world of the head (ego), these primitive differences are not recognised as a natural state.

We instead approach a type of hospital-sterility that is essentially infertile. It's a confusion of infertility for cleanliness.

This might seem an odd link to Liza Minnelli, but she has a fairly filthy mouth! There is also the fact that Cabaret is set in the decadent and sordid underworld of 30s Berlin.

Joel Grey even is quoted as saying that he had to wear an old uniform and, "Their standards of hygiene are not what ours are."

Smell and sweat and bodily fluids are not what they used to be. Differences in the days of decadence were much more pronounced and in a sense bodily stronger.

Differences are healthy and vibrant and reek of fertility. The problem in the modern sense is that differences are so minute they are almost NOT differences, and there is sterile sameness.

But that sterile sameness is the opposite to a fertile sameness that is the product of curvilinear naturalness (HB173). Things in modernity are generally the opposite to nature, which is sort of tragic considering it's supposedly a Darwinian order.

How does this happen? It's partly wordplay and confusion. There has to be a primitive sameness for things to appear different; one can't be just different. Different to what? To other things that have the primitive sameness.

This whole problem of difference and naturalism came into Minnelli's subsequent musical, New York, New York by Martin Scorsese. Most people seem to see it as a failure, but it's an interesting one in that he tried to replicate the style of the 40s, 50s MGM musicals (and the Vincent Minnelli flair of staging.

Interesting as it was, as often with later films, over-thought-out. The haphazard approach is often more natural. The sets at timed resembled CG perfection against which characters acted.

The over-thought-out approach tends to suppress bodily acts that are loose and easy, as with Ginger and Fred. Another haphazard facet of the studio system is that there was often an element of the sordid. Physical encounters were commonplace and Minnelli herself was apparently conceived onset.

All that is a sign of strength and creativity. Scorsese insisted he was trying to portray two people of creative passion in the musical; his aim was true but the finished product doesn't have it. 

Modern films are often either CG type action or head-trips where nothing happens (see CC Beck, prev.) Both are a sign.of the over-dominant ego as opposed to naturalness of body (compare, say, Milius's Conan from 1982).

You could say this applies to.our view of nature. A fertile world is fairly filthy and so this is  strength of nature. However, we are told (by "them") to think of nature as clinically obsessed with competition, not as strong and fertile.

The bodily grace of creatures has to be a product of sameness that is curvilinear, not of any tendency to difference (such as competition). This entire unity of living things seems to be omitted by a science of ego and dogma.

There are rumors that Bezos is aiming to buy up MGM. Off the top of my head, there are four landmarks in the archive: Wizard of Oz; Vincent Minnelli musicals; Forbidden Planet; 2001:A Space Odyssey. For products of creative passion to be owned by a passionless zombie would be in pretty poor taste.

Hyborian Bridge 173

 SAINTS AND LIARS (Gary Numan)

'Intruder' is Numan's recent concept album representing Earth as an infected planet by an intelligent virus known as Man (from a poem by one of his daughters).

The rugged stickability from Are Friends Electric (prev) is highly principled and, while it's a cut above his peers, it's not quite What's Going On. The latter is less angry and more hymnlike. Numan chooses to come down on religious hypocrisy and "a fictitious God".

Could this be a case of Numan unbeknownst to himself being infected by the same scourge that is rampaging through Earth, namely the illusion that the more you see things the more real they are? (see Max Romeo 'Tan and See').

Quetzalcoatl is the Aztec god of rain and the morning star (Venus). The god represents these aspects of reality in divine essence. Both rain and the morning star exist, so why not the god?

The oddity of modernity is that the more convincing things seem, the more illusory they are. It's a world of ones and zeros; the dual-note repetition of 'Jirel Meets Magic' (prev), reflections of reflections.

In this world of sameness, recognizing otherness is hard. Numan may be bizarre, but it takes a bazaar man from.the 19th century to invoke otherness, and at the same time a psychic affinity (akin to Howard's historical adventures of Outremer and elsewhere.)

This was adventurer and scholar Richard Burton, who translated 'The Thousand Nights and a Night' in about 1883. Though well after Byron's Arabic romances, the djinns and bejeweled princesses of far away lands and seas caught the Victorian imagination.

Otherness can evoke recognition in.that differences have similarities in the physical sense of metamorphosis; the curvilinear naturalness of the clothes and the settings of antique Arabia, Persia, India.

Religious essence may not be strictly visible, but it could still be the essence that one finds in lands that have an essence of naturalness and self-belief.

When the looseness and ease vanishes, one could say religion vanishes with them. Psychic looseness may be one of the entries to faith. Burton writes,

All Faith is false, all Faith is true. 

Truth is the shattered mirror strown

In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.

In 1948 Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story called The Aleph. In it, a manuscript by Burton is discovered. The manuscript describes a magic mirror which reflects the entire universe. (DT)

Mirrors are useful things but one has to be sure that what they reflect is not simply another mirror, equally 'truthful'.

The mirror of illusions (of light and logic) seems to be able to detect differences - such as genes on DNA via x-ray diffraction (prev) - but the differences essentially approach zero because the mirror cannot detect the primordial sameness of the universe.

That is to say, curvilinear naturalness (HB 172). If that is a godlike artifice, then it is lost to the mirror.

With naturalness comes psychic strength, and with that affinity of otherness.

Differencrs (such as DNA) are essentially weak unless they are associated to primordial strength. We live in a world of differences that are so minute they may as well be nothing or zero.

The curvilinear universe is a product of belief as a sort of cosmic scales. The power and grace of the body (warrior, woman) versus the vision of the mind.

Visions again are things that are not necessarily visible. See Paul Radin's description of primitive 'types'; the shaman (visionary) versus the man-of-action (herder, warrior).

The notion that the more visible things are the realer they are puts one in thrall to the ego of acolytes of the mirror of illusions; the false Apollo of ones and zeros. Reflections of reflections that are weak and cannot recognize otherness that is strong and psychically pure.

Hyborian Bridge 172

 I thought I'd write the final.piece on quantum physics as a Hyborian Bridge just to simplify matters. Things can become over-complex.

For s start, quanta impinge on DNA in that any molecule - however big - does have some quanta effects. DNA is perceived as a diffraction pattern or wave.

If you say that this universe is Apollo - logic and light - it approaches the vanishing point of technique (owing to the geometry of light.)

This is equivalent to an electronic unuvrse of zero - the ones and zeros of an AI algorithm.

Inductive reason (Newton) always approaches this because it is pure information that convinces the ego. This is the acolyte Musk in his electrical future.

However, this ignores the physical reality, or the grace of curves and lines and joints of the body.

As has been said previously, different species have similarities based on curves and lines (metamorphosis; trees and limbs). The similarities represent a strength they is primordial and Conan-esque.

The strength of the spiral and the serpent. The warrior is part of this muscular ethos.

MW Kaluta, The Sacrifice

Strength comes from.similarity owing to the primordial reality of the cosmos (see UVS website). Kaluta's print envisages the crudities of the universe in a typical portrayal of the Dionysiac urge. Animal passion over reason.

The profound symmetries of the body are revealed in athletics - the original Greek Games. Symmetry produces simplicity and also subtlety - the two are brought together in the mechanics of nature.

Burne Hogarth (Tarzan), Dynamic Anatomy

Psyche (passion) emanates from the crudity and physical intensity of the power of the body.

A snake or a worm have snake/worm psyche. The curvilinear landscape of nature (Ymir) is outwith inductive reason that deals in pure information ("facts").

A useful way to.put it is to use the ancient Greek dichotomy. Apollo vs Dionysus. The universe is split between logic (Apollo) and passionate crudity (Dionysus).

The Greek maxim was "nothing to excess", and the closer one approaches to Apollo the more of an illusory reality one occupies. This is the pure logic of quantum physics which just produces ever-more mathematics.

The inductive reality goes away from.physical balance, which is strength. The sword of the warrior. An observer needs a balance within their psyche and the way they perceive reality.

Our modern acolytes of sorcerers of number resemble Hyborian sorcerers who are always up against the balanced muscular dynamism of the warrior.

Crudity is strength. Germs are strong and stimulate the immune system to create antibodies. Dirt is the prairie and the rough ways of old.

A haphazard order of curvilinear proportions like the one usually portrayed by Conan artists, is not a product of logic but of primordial balance. This entire old-time order is outwith inductive reason, and that includes really DNA.

DNA spotlights differences between things which are really very similar, such as the curve of a joint, or the throat. The similarities are outwith DNA in that they ate primordial and strong.

Pure information is weak but attracts the ego of acolytes (and hence AI). That can be taken as a sorcerous illusion (of the ego of acolytes of inductive reason).

The Dionysian urge is strong and fecund and naturally symmetrical. The naturalness and the grace and ease and lightness of touch are lost to modernity.

Apollo is a vision, as described by Nietzsche, that has to be countered by physical reality and crudity.

Pictorial 174

 The confusions of quantum physics (QP) could owe something to a type of wordplay rather than cold, hard fact. There is a mixture of certainty and precision versus the detection of waves that are fairly vague.

However, as theoretical physicist Matthew Francis says, the sea has waves that also contain particles (H2O). The fact per se that things can both be particle and wave is not that unusual.

The whole of Greek tragedy concerns the conflict between the individual and the public society. It was the reason Socrates perished.

How can an individual NOT also be part of  society and hence not act entirely individually?

The mystery of QP is due to the precise measurement which, as previously noted, is the creation of a geometric universe (such as the LHC torus).

The fact is that the real.universe isn't geometrical nor is it composed of light (diffraction). It's s physical substance.

The LHC is really a proton-buster that produces waves (diffraction) for the detector to detect. It's the destruction of physical reality that enables this detection.

This us why it resembles a simulation or electronic reality. The 'type' of ego that is convinced is the acolyte. The Greek maxim was "nothing to excess", and the LHC shatters that by relating everything to light (Relativity). A lot of it is pure hype (I like Grant Morrison the fantasist but he sure is a sucker for the claims of Big Science).

Light is ultra-precise, geometrical and convincing, but it's not reality. Reality is physical substance such as the arch of a throat. The product of balance and proportion in time.

All those are outwith the LHC which is outwith physical reality. Therefore it is also.outwith the psyche, since the psyche is associated to physical substance and ability to express, to act.

The way to get a complex modeen world into some sort of order is I terms of physical and psychic strength. In actual fact, Lee Perry's dub (P173) does this by collating seemingly bizarre info. "Blackboard Jungle" (Dubblestandart) has the line, "respect my piss", which is just a way of signifying the strength of dirt and giving it some psychic value in life (see also Fulling).

It's not so much that QP is bizarre as that life lived physically and truly has bizarre elements that are also strong.

Going back to R Crumb's interview (prev), he asks Reilly at one point why a young woman should like his" sexist, racist" material. She says it's he honesty, the exoressiof his psyche as well as the sense of giving it to "the man", the establishment.

He agrees and says he had anger towards women. The French take a similar line that the idea that sexual relations are dominant or subordinate is vastly too simplistic. Crumb was subordinate but then, through skill and craft, became dominant.

Again, the relation between the individual and society is there. Which is real? It's not a QP question; it's a question of physical substance and psyche.

Crumb also likes rough lines and cobblestones (living in a southern French village). A physical creation of artisans. One would find this old, haphazard order in places like Addis Ababa (prev) that are spiritual centres.

QP is a spiritual vacuum; a hoover of Big Science.

Going back to Minnelli's role in The Sterile Cuckoo,l (P172), her boyish beauty creates a frisson which works against the social milieu of the day (1969). She seems to think of her compatriots as socialised weirdos, and her girlfriend as a "creepy virgin".

Her character us fairly obnoxious, and that makes for an interesting film. Are we now in modernity acting as 'socialised weirdos'? Is there a malaise that doesn't recognize individual strength of psyche?

Minnelli famously thinks of herself as 'the best' and, while  that may not be humble, it's also very classic. The Greeks thought if themselves s the best, and the Romans still aspired to their height.

That's psyche that emanates from the crudities and strength of physical reality

Pictorial 173

 If the half-truths of the madhouse of CERN for theories of certainty occupy the higher echelons of modernity, it might explain why so many facts in our benighted culture lead to utter confusion. One is constantly told everything and ends up knowing nothing.

R Crumb was interviewed the other day by Reilly in a typically elliptical ramble. At one point he said he was drawing less but doing more reading and research. He'd been researching particularly the medical and other implications of Covid-19.

Even so, he admitted he was clueless and all he could say is, "What the hell is going on?!?"

That seems relatively typical, in that the certainties of science require a certain type of head to understand them, same as the statistical analysis of quanta phenomena requires an AI supercomputer.

The fact that Crumb is totally intelligent and  also clueless seems to say a lot. What I think it says is that the vanishing-point of technique always is pointing to AI.

The vanishing point is what is found or what is pursued in a field of pure geometry - which is what quantum physics is. Light has innate geometry (straight-line perspective) and Relativity is the gateway to the CERN mathematical universe of today. The geometry is through light or electricity (photons or bosons) into the large hadron nucleotides of fundamental research.

The gateway is through reflections or copies or repeats since this is what the geometry of light is. The research is conducted inside a geometric universe where copies and reflections are par for the course.

Inside the universe, everything can be copied or split-ip and reformed. These are the sterile "facts" that seem.to attract the Nobel committee.

A universe where everything is planned always approaches the vanishing-point of technique because it is a product of pure geometry and mathematics.

These certainties convince the ego which builds the modern order. Crumb also mentioned the late 19tj and early 20th century American streets, houses, towns and cities that he held in high esteem.

The building-over of beauty is a modern innovation of certainty (see Ayn Rand The Fountainhead).

The unplanned, the naive and expressive, the rough craftwork are the product of natural symmetries that are powerful and illogical. Sun/moon; predator/prey; male female.

This is the fertile area of spontaneity where the ramshackle and the frankly filthy are swathed in beauty. In this old-time universe, the psyche and the physical reality are intertwined. Where earthy crudities pepper the air nostalgically (Hyboria, natch.)

Physical and psychic strength are products of a fecund universe, one which cannot be cleared of dirt and germs, and where symbols of authority are often dynastic.

The scene is typically ramshackle; areas which develop at their own pace and in their own way. The sense of psyche or spirit is associated to physical ruin.

GIVE THANX AND PRAISES (MEGATON 3) (Lee Perry arr Dubblestandart) 

In Addis Ababa at the time of Haile Selassie, there lived an urchin called Asfaw Yemiru who was scholarly and after attending school started to teach ragged orphans under the trees.

Yemiru needed to build a school, so

"I decided to chance the traditional practice of hurling myself in front of the Emperor's car, with the hope that he would listen to me.. It wasn't a good time to intercede because there had recently been an attended coup.."

Asfaw persuaded him to grant him 300 square metres of land up against the Wingate School wall. (DT)

Life is never perfect, but where the psyche and physical fecundity persist, there is hope and goodwill.

[The collisions in LHC are observed electronically. For example, hadron-hadron collisions produce diffraction patterns that can be observed electronically. The geometry is designed to facilitate electronic observation. Therefore, it can be viewed as an electronic simulator, as opposed to the real.universe that is physical (and that can emanate psyche or spirit). So, maths in a way replaces spirit in the LHC]

Pictorial 172

It's interesting that, despite not necessarily seeing eye-to-eye, me and Vincent of UVS seem to have largely coalesced. This brings to mind Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote,

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of idle minds

This foolishness seems to satisfy the delusionary quest of the minds attached to CERN in their endless pursuit if "new" particles.

Consistency is their aim, within the hermetically sealed illusion of a torus-shaped universe. If the universe were geometrical that might be worth something.

However, it seems much truer to say that,

The illogical borrows from the logical (Corneille) - see Le Mepris, rehsongcycle.com

Closed-house logic is a well-known syndrome, after all. But the symmetries of nature are not stall logical. They are simply powerful opposites and attributes. Sun/moon; prey/predator; night/day;male/female.

Whereas CERN resembles a sterile madhouse of the weakness of acolytes' egos, nature resounds in the strength of fertility. The one represents the detached head; the other the body-in-motion.

A sterile system does not perceive symmetries in nature, it only perceives the madhouse symmetries of an illusory order (the torus or doughnut-shape).

The profound symmetries of the body are revealed in athletics - the original Greek Games. Symmetry produces simplicity and also subtlety; the two are bound together in the mechanics of nature.

Equally simplistically, there is the subject of dirt and cleanliness, which is present in any organism. In human terms, societies adopt rituals of bathing, oiling and fragrance which again are associated with classical antiquity.

Rituals and bodily ceremonies are indicators of the strength, not weakness, of symmetries in organic life.

What that seems to say is that the rituals of society are full of natural symmetries, but they are not necessarily logical. "The illogical borrows from the logical", meaning logic exists inside nature, but it is not what nature is.

Aether, in that sense, is the strength" they" choose to ignore inside their wilful fantasyland of particles physics and insane geometry.

The powerful symmetries of nature enable us to dance with grace and skill. It has been said that Indian classical dancers can invoke stillness. If so, the stillness might have attributes of the powerful flux that enables the experience of living and inevitably dying.

In 1969 film The Sterile Cuckoo, Minnelli's character Pookie and her beau are watching the fall (of leaves)

"The colors are wonderful"

"That's because they're dying"

The goofy film is sad, in that the characters seem out-of-touch both with each other and with the work-man-like environment of conformity in Ivy League institutions.

The resemblances to Ghostworld (prev) are many and varied. Minnelli calls the mainstream fraternity "creeps" and seems to think jocks are bound to be "faggots" (that would never occur in our benighted most modernity).

It's not really fair to the guys who are just trying to have a good time (again like Ghostworld), but a wider malaise permeates both pictures really.

The fact that Pookie may be bigoted makes the story more interesting. No one is perfect; no one is logical unless in the modern madhouse of sterile conformity.

Minnelli subdues her "ishness", mainly meaning the primordial reality of the arch of her throat and all it contains.

The long-view of the story is that we die and joys are short-lived. The other truth occurs when Minnelli strips, and the guy gasps,

"You have a beautiful body, Pookie"

Truisms never change; clichés never die. Beauty and death, whether in the shape of the 60s flic, Jaime Hernandez (prev) or Maeterlinck's Pelleas and Melisande (prev). 

All these are powerful truths that slip by the  egos of acolytes in their illusory world of pure geometry and logical order.

Logic - and all the other -ologies - are contained in the spontaneity that is natural power, the arch of a throat, of a branch in fall.

Logic is not a culture of a long-standing order. "Nothing to excess" was the Greek mantra. Greek temples are known for their balance and subtle proportions. The microcosm that reflects the larger cosmos.

Pictorial 171

 "ONE SIZE FITS ALL"

Zappa and The Mothers of Invention's 1976 album hit - as noted previously - the apogee of 70s hippy-culture on the noggin. The cover of a cosmic sofa is genius-level of Bosch-like proportions.

On its sofa of sophistication, the western mainstream floats through a cosmos of certainties that confuse with half-truths. Prominent amongst the spokespeople of certainty are Musk and Thunberg, the Aspergers twins (unrelated to the Martian Castor and Pollux).

The certainty is electromagnetism - the electric-green future they have planned. We view the cosmos through a heavy-duty world of the head that is all too easily convinced by the mirror of illusions - light and electricity.

By cutting-off the physical world of springiness and mythic naturalism - the terrain of nymphs and dryads and niche - the lightness of psyche is lost. A dread sameness persists.

We supposedly live in resolved space such as DNA which is detected by light (x-ray diffraction, prev.) Light has the certainty of geometry and attracts the head of the acolyte that likes certainty.

On the other side of certainty is archetypal.naturalism - the subtle simplicity of the throat that sings, human or sparrow (Piaf).

Mythic naturalism is Diana the huntress who lopes beneath the baleful moon, hounds baying. The throat that roars; the teeth that tear; blood and the springiness of turf where rough paws lope.

The crude medium of decay and compost lurks beneath springy feet. The archetypal springiness is lost on the cosmic sofa whirling through vistas of facts and figures.

One of the biggest figurations of all is that posed by CERN: the particulate nature of reality. I had a short correspondence (course) with Vincent of UVS website (prev) which is worth repeating.

As noted in P170, photons are a form.of electromagnetism - albeit uncharged - and Vince notes..

The claim that a photon has no mass is analogous to the idea that sound has no mass. If physicists denounce the medium such as air whereby sound waves propagate, they could claim there is no substance in which the "massless sound particles" propagate st the speed of sound.

As noted awhile back, Einstein was inclined to believe in aether, and it makes good sense unless there are ulterior motives for not believing.

These motives are essentially that light (and hence electromagnetism) are innately geometrical. All particles have to be detected (in order to be seen to exist), and they have to be detected by light or electromagnetism.

CERN is a torus; in other words a geometrical construct. All the data it receives is detected geometrically in electromagnetism.

Science starts with light (Newton's knives, C4-C6) and that is the entry to the mirror of illusions. We've now reached the stage where the four forces - electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear, gravity - are bring brought together by high-energy collision at CERN.

A neat example of this was the electroweak photon, the product of two.photons coalescing. What scientists (acolytes) assume is that there must be some ultimate equation of forces. That can only be so if particles exist WITHOUT an aether carrier.

If particles coalesce IN aether, the eather is the fundamental constituent that has primal spontaneity. Spontaneity is the one thing missing from.science but, after all, how can an equation tell God what to do?

That's hyperbole but the sacramental side of natural power is the stuff of mythical fecundity. The Innocent and the bestial. Red Riding Hood and the wolf.

What I'm basically saying is particles are a geometrical construct perceived through the sterile prism of electromagnetism. We are inside that world of half-truths. 

Outside of pure geometry exists the vibrant area of aether and primitive power (see BWS The Ram and the Peacock). The primordial cosmos, what the Greeks might have called Eros or fecundity.

Pictorial 170

 The crude and vulgar elements in nature; the Cider With Rosie-esque mix of innocence and bestiality. Extremes are not something in accord with a universe of sameness where offhand, off-color remarks offend and cause the next protest.

In a world of protest no one is powerful save those who have inner spirit. Martin Luther was powerful not because he was a protestor against the corruption of tradition but because his spirit was strong.

The countries with inner spirit such as Iran, Turkey, ndia are strong even though they cause frequent offense. In a spiritual setting, the milieu of a mosque or temple , the sense of stillness activates the imagination, the spirit soars. Indian classical dancers pirouette into the stillness of creation.

The staccato of rap can induce a hypnotic stillness which catches fire to the soul. Rap is a rebuttal of the notion words needed only be factual as opposed to springy and rhyme-rich.

Soul has a springiness that is nothing to do with logical processes. A spider hunts on its web; it has no aim other than to feed and mate and continue its designs in flying objects.

Rap has a primitive simplicity that allows for more subtle interpretations than the glorified achievements of Taylor Swift. The heroic Sunday Services by Kanye West are like dark relics of a cowled medieval soul.

The businessman in West is building a manufacturing milieu with such spiritual.roots (prev.) Instead of a sofa-culture of the head favored IT institutions, there is song and dance, ritual on Earyh beneath the heavens above.

Thus does simplicity become subtlety. If it is true that archetypes of nature exist, they will be found in soulful milieux where the voice of eternity is summoned by choral chants.

If a spider is an archetypal form, it has a geometry that is as spontaneous as a galactic cluster. Archetypal geometry exists outside of the resolved space of modern science - be it CERN or an atomic bomb. Impressive demonstrations of the vanishing point of technique. Convincing to the ego.

The electrical world we live in is an.inductive one, reduced to the data of ones and zeros of global AI. According to Vincent of UVS website (prev) even photons may be electrical 

A photon is a tiny particle that comprises waves of electrical energy. As shown by Maxwell, photons are just electric fields travelling through space (aether). Photons have no charge, no rest mass, and travel st the speed of light.

Trapped in an.electric-green future by the likes of German Green Baerbock, we will.have no association with the mythic naturalism of archetypes of life and death. The spider that springs; the vulture that soars.

The electrification of data leads to ever-greater complexity, whereas only simplicity allows the subtlety of interpretation.

Outside of resolved space (straight lines, light, electricity) exists archetypal geometry that is simple.

The UVS archetype is postulated as a 137 (1+136) nested hypersphere of 3-spheres. Thus numerical fundamental is discovered in all the known atomic elements.

Anything of that numerical standard can be related to a traditional zodiac of 12 signs which is highly symmetrical. The key is in interpretation rather than in conventional data of resolved (straight line) space. Those who say Einstein space is bent; yes, straight lines can bend (end of statement!)

Resolved space is DNA also in that it can be resolved to data (electricity, algorithm). Outside of this exists real, archetypal space.

For instance, the mucus glands of the throat are coded by DNA. The throat itself and its subtle simplicity has a mythic naturalism that has the purity of song.

Inductive science deals in half-truths that expand the reach of data into fields where rightly the archetypes of naturalism rule. The throat that roars with anger; the teeth that tear with hunger. The hunt that litters the ground with blood. The springiness of the turf where rough feet lope. The strength that reeks of natural processes. This is the archetypal terrain of nymphs and dryads where niche provides shelter in a cosmos of primal fecundity. Accept no substitutes.

RIP Lloyd Price ("the true king of the 50s")

Pictorial 169

 Well, as I look back it seems to me that Citizen Kane was one of the first movies where the camera moved all over the place. There's an old saying that lawyers were taught by their professors: "When the law's on your side, talk about the law; when justice is on your side, talk about justice; when nothing's on your side, talk!" In movies, if nothing is happening on stage, move the camera. And nothing was happening in Citizen Kane, so the camera kept roving all around the place and looking through keyholes and that introduced the style of illustrating which was very popular at the time where you'd have a couple of people necking seen through an.ornate candlestick in the foreground or through a keyhole, or reflected in a glass of wine or something. All trick stuff, move the camera, make up for the lack of action. (CC Beck, TCJ #95, 1985)

This interview so long gone gets more subtle as time goes by. Throughout it, Beck espouses naturalism - unforced and free-form - against what he calls "realism".

The question, "how do you portray reality?" is quite vital since, clearly, we now live in a world of lenses (HB 56) which simply copy what is there.

But, as noted previously, lenses represent logic and light and detect the logical side of things such as DNA (x-ray diffraction, prev.) Going back to the ancient Greeks, they lived in a works of spontaneous metamorphosis which is fundamentally fertile.

In other words, a world of lenses emphasizes sterility and inertia. It looks real, but is still a type of illusion (the mirror of illusions).

This question of "realism" was picked-up by the symbolist playwright Maeterlinck (Pelleas and Melisande, prev.) He came to think that the human passions blind us to deep truths that are seen through a twilight world of stillness.

He called it "static theatre", and explicitly likened it to ancient Greek theatre whereby actors wore masks. The resounding, clarion voice is heard, the lyre sings eternal, on the stage where imagination is invoked by dramatic gestures.

This suggests something like Max Romeo's lyric, "the more you look, the less you see" (Tan and See, prev.) Again, this harks back to CC Beck's comment on stopping action and letting the imagination take over.

The contradiction contained in Maeterlinck is that being still causes the imagination to soar and become active. I'm s bit like CC Beck and not impressed by watching actors' heads. The pulp films I prefer (including Jean-Luc Godard and Blaxploitation) have a naturalism partly owing to low budgets. In, for example, Black Mama,White Mama (P168) the acting is all pretty low-key , camera work by Justo Paulino is relatively static, and the battle on the waterfront at the end is colorful, convincing and bloody.

What does passion add to that except more ham acting? I think one has to be very careful of passion in the modern world in that it can be copied by AI (see Japanese example, prev.) 

"They" then write stories that divert us from the strength of living in nature, which is essentially fertility. Maeterlinck was a classicist, but his main concerns were death and the meaning of life. "The Bluebird" could be likened to the evergreen "It's a Wonderful Life".

Meaning (epistemology) and being (ontology) have somehow to be related to eschatology. Maeterlinck was influenced by his fellow Belgians Bruegel and Bosch, where the dances and frolics of life are intertwined by the macabre and frightful.

This was also a preoccupation of decadent artists, like Huysmans. In a realistic situation vis-à-vis fertility, there are foul-smelling waters and the presence of decay (see Jaime Hernandez, prev.) This is the milieu depicted in Bosch.

In the prudish, sterile world of today, people wrinkle their noses at a compost-toilet, when it is a pretty perfect example of dirt and cleanliness. Compost is clean-smelling and gives strength (to land).

The decadents and the symbolists were crude in the ancient sense of Aristophanes (prev.) Life realistically lived is crude (see Roman graffiti). The traditional agricultural practice of Fulling (HB60) involves the thrashing of limbs in relatively sexual movements.

Dirt and cleanliness are part of one process. As Robert Robertson said in HB60, stale urine was the original detergent. It cleanses by means of the strength of dirt, as does Fuller's earth.

Ancient civilizations whether Roman or Christian lived in cyclical agricultural systems where there was an abundance of squalor that was washed clean by the rains (see Shanghai and "Dead Pigs" prev.)

As was said previously, the carbon-cycle is the global system of circular decay that renders earth fertile. Fertility is vastly more fundamental than competition, but the fact is that logical science (number, algorithm) props up Darwin as the figurehead or bulwark of a competitive order.

That order is for sure not fertile - not crude, not vulgar or life-affirming - but "they" are convinced by the mirror of illusions into the numerical pathway of "fact". Only in the realm of popular culture is there coherent opposition (next).

Pictorial 168

 Having just got 3 Pam Grier Blaxploitation flics from the 70s, there's a direct lead-in to the formidable power of female fertility.

There's the weaving silhouette intro to Foxy Brown; a spicy bit of soul to die for (literally). There are 2 all-female action scenes. From Coffy, a party-time fight scene where Grier stuffs all the white chicks like a cuckoo in its nest.

From Black Mama, White Mama set on a Caribbean island with an all-female prison, the grime and stench of a jungle trip is washed away in a group shower scene.

One of the guards is lesbian and masturbates through a peep-hole. This is still a very good visual sign of the fragrant fertility on display in all its squalid beauty.

In our seemingly prudish modernity, the sexual aspect of communal.living is sadly lacking, for all talk of a "dark net."

All.this is slightly reminiscent of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls, which seeks to reclaim pornography from the industrial scale.

Again, if we're talking springiness allied to sexuality, Grier has it in spades. She doesn't just wait for the  man in a "me too" moment (yawn), she digs in and grabs his manhood. All they can do is look surprised!

Her intonation is second to nun. She says "motherfucker" exactly as it should be said (emphasizing third syllable). Accept no imitations.

These are called Blaxploitation films, but there is more than a passing resemblance to the Black Power movement of those times too. In Foxy Brown, Grier invokes the aid of a community council of brothers.

The milieu has a type of niche security that could easily be likened to a niche in nature. This is the way communes work if allowed spontaneity; before the sterile state drafts federal legislation.

I don't want to get too political about it, so choose to stick with the basic facts of blackness. The sleek décor; the shit-talk on the streets; the fairly fertile and feminine-oriented settings.

Without getting unduly left/right, we live in a society of the head. The detached head is not only prudish but tends to ignore the rampant fertility that exists in natural communes (see Lloyd Price, prev.)

After all, the Civil Rights era was neither left nor right, it was a federal political era of legislation. Niche security and fertility are both visible in these 70s films and invisible on today's societies.

A lot of what constitutes black power is to do with bodies and fertility with antecedents of tribal lore. The powerful effect if this is seen in the recent Black Panther film of a futuristic African milieu.

It's pointless saying that blacks should be "like whites" when that weakens their natural strengths. In Black Mama, White Mama, Grier is chained to Margaret Markov as punishment. The two are enemies but they buddy along despite everything.

These things are possible because low-level feuding creates a drama that enables differences to he resolved (see Rab Nesbit on rehsongcycle, currently suspended.)

That was also seen in High School Musical (prev) since all of this has a certain spontaneity. This is what federal intervention kills - left, right or in between (see prev on Detroit maintaining a strong milieu despite nonintervention setbacks.)

The current Republican favorite Tim Scott has been called an Uncle Tom and, while not condoning, it's easy to see why. Black power is communal power of security and a certain justice. It's not perfect but it does have things the mainstream system doesn't.

Niche security and sleek fertility. The essential point is that these are fairly spontaneous. Man's culture arises fro..nature and the power of nature, not the detached heads of acolytes of dead sorcerers of science and number.

For example, a fishing port only exists if the fish of the sea breed. With fertility comes an active life of hunting and fishing. The physical activity is allied to the lighter psyche (see endorphins, prev.) The community thrives through song and dance.

Why are modern societies so heavy? From the lack of a physical reality that has to be allied to the psyche. Fertility is a fundamental component of this reality. It has its squalid side (see prev on Aristophanes) and where there is filth there is fertility. Compost decays and cleans through strength. The nymphs and dryads enchant the streams.

Modernism convinces the ego with "facts" of number and algorithm. The mirror or illusions "they" want us to inhabit. It is a trap of weakness. Let the Russians follow Putin if they wish. Americans are supposedly free to choose different with the spontaneity of independent thought and action.

Pictorial 167

 What I personally got from the fluke viewing of High School Musical was the idea that a commune - like the human body - can be purely spontaneous.

The body, as has been.mentioned in various ways, can't not be spontaneous in order to function actively.

Morphogenesis gives rise to athletic form. While the athletic female figure has come in for some prudish covering-up of late, the 76 apogee was seen in Nadia Comaneci's tendon-stressed torso.

The physical stresses of the body work on the psyche by such means as endorphin release.

The notion of a psyche with no connection to the physical is an impossibility. With the physical expression comes the loosening of sexual.inhibitions; we are in a more Dionysian area.

As has been mentioned previously, the sexual expression of female workers in.fields is inevitable given.themixture of tightness and looseness in the clothing, accentuating power of limbs and free motion.

Prudishness can appear when the head becomes detached from the body as is happening in modern times.

Going back to the film, the pleasure principle could be seen to work for the entire commune, if it's true to say dancing and singing en masse establish a positive feedback of sensual activity.

On an even wider stage, the nymphs of the grottos are expressions of psyche in the secret places. On the northern plateau, Ymir bestirs himself with the boulders of his bones.

The physical connects with psyche everywhere, but is lost to a society of political words and economic spending.

This world of the head is convincing to the ego being composed of resolved space of straight lines.

The mirror convinces, at the same time as cutting the sensual and expressive. This occurs in every landscape. There is the difference between classic Disney and Pixar. Musically, in comparison of modern with classical.

To begin with, the sheer energy held me - but by the 10th climax, I began to rebel. There is a point where unremitting emotionalism seems a form of coercion, an unwillingness to give the listener space to think or feel [cf CC Beck on ET].

Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony, by comparison, seemed a model of artistic tact and balance. Yes, the conductor Gianandrea Noseda and the players gave the distress in the first movement and the despair of the last a huge - almost oppressive - weight. But what stayed in the mind were the quieter moments: the tender clarinet solos of Chris Richards, and the swaying grace of the second movement. Music doesn't have to shout to move us. (Ivan Hewett, DT)

Springiness and sexualiy give way to heavy realism. Modern artists (apart from comic book) seem to have great trouble drawing expressive physique as opposed to copying photos.

By cutting off the physical world, one even wonders if this affects the divorce rate! Everything physical affects the psyche, and a heavy-duty world of the head has no access to nymphs in their chattering lightness and gaiety.

The world of the metamorphosis of line and of dirt and cleanliness where squalor is washed away by the rainy season. Where the fertile female figure weaves resplendent.

Pictorial 166

 In case anyone thinks I'm from Alpha Centauri I'm bringing it right down to earth with a mashup of 2 films: Countryman from.1982 (prev); High School Musical from 2007.

WHITE GOLD

It strikes me the lyrics to the Poly Styrene number are quite naïve and truthful. Water shapes the world we live in. The Ice Giants still live in the North.

She wants presumably to fly a plane away from.the modern deluge of mental effluvium. Countryman starts with a scene of a light plane flying and crashing into the swamp. Country befriends the two survivors who the regime hunts as "CIA operatives" for corrupt political motives.

The scenes of fisherman Country feeding and preaching to the two Americans are joyful. He says naively,

"I just live my life. I run, I fish. I love the cow, the birds."

To him the plane is an invader that nature struck down. The same will happen to rockets that fly to the moon.

Country has "guidance" from the strength of earth and sea and plant and bird. The natural grotto of rock and raptor has psyche. The witch doctor inhabits the same plane (I Do Voodoo, Lee Perry.)

The strength of guidance has the naivety which we totally lack, stuck in our world of induction (sun, reason) and endless words (head, ego). Country lives in his body with the sea (Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea).

The scenes of Jamaican life are extremely polyglot and obviously the guys all get on, sharing the same patois. This racial mix is what attracted me to the second film, High School Musical.

To be honest, I would never watch this Disney effluvium and happened to have it to hand by sheer fluke. At the end I realized it was on the same level as Fosse!

It's essentially about smart types who get on even with cultural disparities. The plot revolves round 3 types - the academic or "brainiacs", the basketball and cheerleaders, the stage singers and dancers.

The good thing about the film is it's very dramatic, with no fighting (Countryman has one fight scene, shot as a sort of dream sequence). It's not too cute either, and the communal rush of joyful action has a truly American joi-de-vivre and spirit.

The question is, why can't communes be more like that, and as they are in Countryman with the amiable "Jaman" lecturing the kids on the nature spirits in our midst?

The answer has to be that we're led by disreputable politicians, as in Countryman, who spread false rumors. I'm thinking of Putin and Xi of course, but what does Biden do apart from $pend?

Joe related a story where he said to Putin, "I don't think you have a soul." As true as that probably is, what does he think Christ was doing in the temple? (I know he also said he's not Wall Street; unfortunately money recognizes no streets).

"We're different in a good way," says one of the characters in High School Musical. The fall out and bad blood between Efrom and Hudgens drives the story, and it is resolved by drama between their followers.

What I mean is the drama is between different types of people (academic, singers, sporty) who resolve their differences. They don't necessarily like eachother as Sharpay is still a self-centered shady-dealer. But where there is drama their is a communal psyche. The song and dance routines exhibit this tremendously..

Drama is the resolution, and drama depends on having different types in the commune (mingling). This gives the routines an anarchic zest (even though of course perfectly rehearsed).

This is the exact opposite to a society where resolution means doing without differences. Politicians $pend and $peak in the name of sameness. Efrom in an interview has a line where he says it's difficult to move your lips while dancing (lip-synching). A community is a physical area, first and foremost, and physical action comes first.

Carrying a spade, swinging a net, climbing a tree, herding (see Cider With Rosie). It's the Lil Abner syndrome. The good old boys and the Dukes of Hazard. A commune is physically musical in some sense, and from.this emanates a sense of psyche. Harlem and Detroit.

Politicians are essentially undramatic people (Merkel could be a marrow). If Putin is a "robber of the Russian soul" (as opposed to Russian queen), Biden may not be in the same class, but he implicitly robs the land of its communal drama.

I realize he only follows-on others since the 60s. The reason is that policy wonks don't deal in drama: to them that is a euphemism for unrest. No it's not; it's just life.

Without drama that resolves itseld musically - through the psyche of the commune - we are left with pure information. A police mentality (see also Lloyd Price's memoir of desegregation in Louisiana via song, Lawdy Miss Clawdy prev.)

The police exist to police communes, and it's unfair on them to ask to be more socially-political. The basic problem is only a dramatic society can resolve itself in a self-governing capacity.

Without the drama there is a society in name only. Politicians then use these words to advance their nefarious cause of $pend and $peak.

I'm not saying they are deliberately bad people; they are a certain type. They are spokespeople for an inductive system of logic as opposed to psyche.

Psyche is visible in the sense of musical symmetry and metamorphosis of line. In other words, the physical world can have psyche if it is allowed to self-govern.

The mirror of illusions or induction (of straight lines or light) cannot see this outside realism. 

Politicians are simply spokespeople for this illusion, be it Xi, bin Salman or Baerbock (the possible post-Merkel Green). They are people of the head, the ego, attracted to the straight-line illusion of words and numbers. Despite Modi, India still has its physical realism of communal squalor that speaks of life.

..as opposed to endless words of wonks. Neither of these two films are overburdened by speech and both are classics of different types.