Big Fish, Little Fish
Brandon Freels
but due to the developing idiocy of the other party I have decided to return
this correspondence to the arena it belongs.]
----- Original Message -----
From: "SwiftRain" <swif...@geocities.com>
To: "Brandon Freels" <b.j.f...@worldnet.att.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2001 8:50 PM
Subject: Re: Dreams (was Re:The Power Rangers' Secret Notes)
> Brandon Freels wrote:
> >
> > Sure, someone can be "aware" that they are dreaming. If that's lucid
> > dreaming then fine, it exists. But, you see, I'm not so sure about
> > this controlling bit. I don't trust "testimonials". How can you prove
> > that someone has had conscious control of their dream?
>
> How can you prove that anyone has conscious control of anything? How
> can you prove that people exist at all? How can you prove that this is
> really an email AND NOT A GIANT FISH THAT IS ABOUT TO BITE YOUR HEAD
> OFF? I don't give a fuck whether you can prove it or not, honestly.
> People who look for proof are never looking for knowledge. They're
> looking for ways to deny knowledge & repress ideas.
Only doubters are true seekers. Those who don't doubt don't think. Are you
implying that thinking and knowledge are incompatible?
> > As a surrealist I am interested only in the return or release of the
> > repressed drives, feeling, etc. Dreams in their natural state already
> > serve this purpose, but by putting the conscious in the position of
> > directing the dream (I would say that in a normal dream the conscious
> > plays the part of the viewer) you are taking those repressed drives,
> > the interior necessities, the natural directors, out of the director's
> > seat. Hence, there is no communication between the interior and the
> > exterior.
>
> Dreams are no different than the rest of life. I thought surrealists
> wanted to bring dreams and life closer together? Maybe I read wrong.
> Apparently I don't Understand Surrealism because it is Very Complex And
> Intellectual. Hah Blah!
Lucid dreaming reverses the intended merger. You say lucid dreaming brings
conscious control into the dream, but what the surrealist program wants is
to bring the controllers of the dream (the interior necessities) into
everyday life.
> YOU sir are not unrepressing ANYTHING. You are repressing EVEN MORE
> THINGS. Where your normal civilian, going about their normal duties,
> represses only the unconscious, YOU REPRESS THE CONSCIOUS TOO. What is
> that going to solve? You know what you have left when you repress both
> unconscious and conscious? SHIT! Pseudo-intellectual smelly poop.
>
> If you were really working to remove your repression of the unconscious
> and free up your drives and feelings, you would be SAYING SOMETHING WITH
> SOME REPRESSED FEELINGS IN IT. Or have you been repressing your ability
> to intellectualize and rationalize everything to the point of nausea,
> and this is your first fragile naive attempt to Act What You Truly
> Feel? HAHAHA! YEAH RIGHT! THAT'S FUNNY!
>
> YOUR conscious may be a passive viewer, but MY conscious is trying to
> have some fun here, thank you very much. Whenever I become lucid in a
> dream I go around hugging everything, turning things into light,
> laughing the world into oblivion. Dreams are nothing. If you take
> dreams seriously, as some serious serious way that the serious conscious
> relates to the serious unconscious, you're going to take DREAMS
> seriously and then you are going to take LIFE seriously and then you are
> going to DIE OF BOREDOM, if you're lucky. Destroy dreams, destroy life
> and then make what's left into sand castles. Fuck the imperialist
> machine. Fuck you. Thank you. Sorry.
>
>
> > I believe it is something that needs some kind of verification. Why do
> > you feel that it doesn't need verification?
>
> Because I have controlled my dreams. Back when I thought controlling
> things was a peachy thing to do (I'm mostly over that control
> business). It's easy. Simple and easy. Like Australia. Except it's a
> dream.
>
> If you want verification, give it a try. Warning: dreams work however
> you think they do. You'll have to drop your prejudices and
> preconceptions and be completely spontaneous.
>
> But that shouldn't be a problem, right?
>
> You're a surrealist.
>
> love,
> brett
Brandon Freels
failure, especially after reading the post below.]
From: SwiftRain (swif...@geocities.com)
Subject: Re: Is Hell Forever?
Newsgroups: alt.gathering.rainbow
Date: 2001-03-09 00:28:03 PST
Carla wrote:
>
> Love alone increases love.
Love is neither increasing nor decreasing, neither defiled nor
immaculate. Love is God, love is Truth, love is everywhere, love is.
I have seen hell and I understand those who were first driven to warn us
of this vision. Those who speak of hell as if it were a mundane event
-- you die and then you go off to hell, just like waking up and going
fishing -- they have not seen hell. They are not taking their own
religion seriously.
Hell is real. Hell is the place where we go when we are divorced from
the love of God and from the love of our fellow beings (who are
manifestations of God). It is not good deeds that will save you from
damnation, it is love. Jesus loved everyone he saw, and so those people
were saved from hell by his presence. One cannot suffer in the presence
of such a person. So it was that Jesus was able to save all, even those
who would have been damned! We can save anyone if we will just love
them!!
I guess my vision of hell is a vision of lonliness. An eternal and
unbounded unescapable loneliness. When we are safe in our homes with
our toys we can be lonely, but not that deep loneliness; we always have
reminders of love that surround us. When all of the reminders are gone,
when there is nothing in any distance in any direction to give us
sustenance, then we are in hell.
Love does not increase love. There is no equation to it, none, in any
direction. It is unfair. You can't make people love by loving them,
you can't make them love by hating them, you can't make people love at
all. When you love you create only the love that you create, and that
is what you should satisfy yourself with. If that is not enough love
then you must create more; you will not be complete until you create
enough love that no one else needs to love. When you alone create love
that fills every room you enter, that fills the heart of everyone you
touch, then you will be a messiah and you will be complete. But still
the people you touch will not love more. They will bathe in your love,
they will enjoy it, but they will not create their own.
The love of Jesus still reaches out to countless hearts and fills them
with love, because his love is infinite. But being filled by the love
of Jesus does not cause you to create love. People mistake one for the
other; they think if they go around enjoying the love of Jesus then that
is spreading his love. That won't spread it. It is much harder to
spread love than to enjoy it. To spread love you must have your own
love. You must be your own messiah. You must realize for yourself the
love of God for you, not for Jesus or for any other savior, for you, and
that is the only love you can give to the world.
All of this talk about hell is so much bullshit. If people believed and
felt the danger of hell they would not go around saying "you watch out
or you're going to hell!" What a callous thing to say, what a heartless
way to be. They are condemning people to hell by saying that; they are
spreading hell even further; they are tearing people apart. If they
understood hell they would go to the people who are damned and they
would hug them as tight as they could; they would extend the love to
them that will save them.
Where did all the love go? Where did it go? Or was there ever love. I
don't know. But we can choose again in THIS eternal moment, we can
choose love & we can choose to embrace the damned and bring them into
communion with us. Converting someone does no good if you leave them
where they are. They cannot just stay wallowing in damnation and be
saved there. They must be brought up. People are saved by bringing
them into community, not by giving them a book to read.
Reading a book about love and damnation and hell and salvation will just
make the damned realize their damnation, if they believe what the book
says. But there's nothing they can do about it. There's nothing you
can do to save yourself, to reunite yourself. That is why it's said
that we are reunited through Jesus, through the Church, we are reunited
by coming together in the name of God. Going away from each other in
the name of God just damns you twice: once for being seperate, and once
for taking the lord's name in vain.
I have seen hell. I don't need any theories about life and death and
heaven and hell and god and satan to know hell. There is hell, there is
suffering, here on earth as well as in death. People live in suffering
and die in suffering. There are so many people suffering right now.
Every moment spend reading bibles is another moment that people are
suffering! Every moment I write this annoyingly long sermonic rant is
another moment that people are suffering!
But I don't know where they are; I don't know how to reach them. I know
what to do, though, I think. I have learned a lot about how to love
people. What I don't know, I can learn. But I also have learned that
the people who are suffering the most are hidden away, in unreachable
places. They are suffering because they are seperated, because they
have no way to reach out. I don't know how to reach those people. I
know the hell that they feel & I have no way to reach them.
Strange! When I have felt alone it has never consoled me one tiny bit
that there were people who would help me if they knew where I was! Not
one bit. It would only have helped me if I could have reached out to
those people, connected with them. Strange how there are no tools for
connecting people. Even on the internet there don't seem to be any
tools for connecting lonely people. We connect to exchange textual
symbols with each other, but that's all.
Even here on AGR we talk about gatherings, but we don't seem to actually
connect people to each other. We get together once a year, but we do
that without the internet. The internet hasn't caused a single
gathering that I know of, has it? So we're not really being connected.
Just a different flavor of hell, a hell with lots of people typing text
to each other.
Sometimes I have pretensions of being a savior, not because I think that
I am qualified, but just because that's what the world needs. I imagine
that I could go out into the streets and speak to the people and show
them how to love each other. That I could walk and come upon people and
reach out to them & show them the love that is in my heart. But I can't
really. I try but I can't. I think if Jesus was here he'd have a
pretty hard time of it himself. There is no public square. People do
not listen to preachers on the street for long enough to see if their
message might be worth hearing. Everyone is in a box. If Jesus wanted
to save people today he would have to be in the business of home
invasion.
Maybe that's not true. I remember a tibetan lama came to my school a
few years ago, and his presence was magnificent. He could reach out to
people. The tibetans know what's going on. I was reading a copy of the
Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying, you know that translation by what's
his name. But I don't know where it is now. :( I'd really like to find
that. I think they know what's going on. They don't paint death in
simple black & white like christians do. They say that death is very
sophisticated and difficult, like life! Except deathier. And that most
of us aren't ready for it at all. We think that death will take care of
itself and it won't.
I'm not sure if death is all that hard. Maybe it depends on what you
expect out of it. Like life. Like life. But I think if we go into
death with love and an open heart, that should be enough. Enough for
now, enough for this lifetime, this cycle, this world.
If only we can find that love before we die.
Oh Jesus where are you? Some one some one must save us.
(I'm not even apologizing for the length. If you read this far you
deserved what you got. IMHO, YMMV, have a hot dog it's friday.)
love,
brett
SwiftRain
>
> Only doubters are true seekers. Those who don't doubt don't think. Are
> you implying that thinking and knowledge are incompatible?
conscious control -- in that case the conscious mind is some sort of
monster who would go about ruining the beautiful natural order of the
dream. But in waking life you want "proof" of things, you want to
reduce everything to simple formulae that can be understood by the
conscious mind.
What's the difference? Why should dreams be an untouched wilderness of
primal feelings, and waking life a dull plodding exercise in
rationality?
> Lucid dreaming reverses the intended merger. You say lucid dreaming
> brings conscious control into the dream, but what the surrealist
> program wants is to bring the controllers of the dream (the interior
> necessities) into everyday life.
pervert the natural order of dreaming depends on how you go about
dealing with yourself when you're awake.
A paragraph ago you liked truth and rationality! Isn't it more rational
to believe you are dreaming, if that is in fact what you are doing,
rather than believing you are awake, which is plainly wrong?
And another thing: if this is your idea of what a waking conversation
ought to look like, what on earth does it mean to "bring the interior
necessities into everyday life"? I expressed to you some of the
emotional imagery that your email evoked in me, and you call that
"idiocy"!
My impression is that if you were given control of a dream, you would go
around telling penguins that they are irrational and calling the sermons
of talking frogs idiocy. So, it's no wonder you want to keep yourself
away from your dreams. What I don't understand is why you don't want to
keep yourself away from the rest of your life, as well.
love,
brett
Brandon Freels
> What's the difference? Why should dreams be an untouched wilderness of
> primal feelings, and waking life a dull plodding exercise in
> rationality?
Giving free rein to the interior necessities, those drives responsible for
the dream, does not mean enveloping ourselves in a world of absurdism,
insanity or illusions, but rather of embracing passion, freedom, and
creativity. "Empiricism" (which is what I believe you mean by "rationality")
should not be excluded since it is a tool for smashing the illusions and
lies of repressive ideologies (such as capitalism and Christianity). Its
role should be reduced, allowing the natural drives to run free ... like
they do in the dream.
> And another thing: if this is your idea of what a waking conversation
> ought to look like, what on earth does it mean to "bring the interior
> necessities into everyday life"?
In Freudian terms, to release the id from the repression of the superego.
SwiftRain
>
> Giving free rein to the interior necessities, those drives responsible
> for the dream, does not mean enveloping ourselves in a world of
> absurdism, insanity or illusions, but rather of embracing passion,
> freedom, and creativity.
But wait, does freedom include the freedom to be absurd? Does
creativity include the creating of illusions? Who gets to judge what is
illusory and what is substance? (I wouldn't want to rush into
committing myself to an ideology without knowing what's acceptable
behavior.)
> "Empiricism" (which is what I believe you mean by "rationality")
> should not be excluded since it is a tool for smashing the illusions
> and lies of repressive ideologies (such as capitalism and
> Christianity).
What I wonder is: Who is ever going to smash the illusions of lies of
surrealism? Or is that taboo?
Is the problem you have with my post on AGR, which you reposted here,
that it uses Christian imagery? To you that implies that I am trapped
in the ideology of Christianity? I use Christian images on equal
footing with all other images. To resist an image is to imbue it with
power.
> Its role should be reduced, allowing the natural drives to run free
> ... like they do in the dream.
are. Your natural drives sound quite tame; mine seem to revel in
absurdity, contradiction, and meaningless emotion.
> In Freudian terms, to release the id from the repression of the
> superego.
this "id"? What does it do once it's given free reign? Does it make
strange noises at night? Does it talk to strangers? Does it wake up
with a hangover the next morning? Does it destroy the nation-state in a
blast of confetti and caramel popcorn?
What should I have for dinner tomorrow if I'm a surrealist? And more
importantly what should we discuss inbetween bites? Should we discuss
our emotions? Or should we just feel our unrepressed emotions
compelling our inner necessities while we discuss whether or not Dali
was really that great an artist anyway?
Seriously, why are y'all so obscure? Does being obscure "release the id
from the repression of the superego"? Or is it just a way to make sure
that no one joins the party uninvited?
love,
brett
Brandon Freels
> But wait, does freedom include the freedom to be absurd? Does
> creativity include the creating of illusions? Who gets to judge what is
> illusory and what is substance
Illusions and lies are forms of repression. Someone once said, "There is no
freedom for the enemies of freedom." I think that sums it up.
> But isn't it [empiricism] equally a tool for upholding those ideologies?
How so? How does empiricism uphold Christianity or capitalism?
[snip the flaming drivel]
Parry
>
> [Of course, I should have known that my correspondence with brett would be a
> failure, especially after reading the post below.]
>
> with love, because his love is infinite.
Jesus said, ““If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) But who cares
what Jesus says? The only thing that saves him from being a complete
twat is that he’s a fictional character.
> You must be your own messiah. You must realize for yourself the
> love of God for you, not for Jesus or for any other savior, for you, and
> that is the only love you can give to the world.
Until God turns out to be supermodel Angela Lindvall, I can’t imagine
any use for the love of gods.
-- Parry
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Nikolaus Maack
> What's the difference? Why should dreams be an untouched wilderness of
> primal feelings, and waking life a dull plodding exercise in
> rationality?
I just want to say that, Brett, I'm in agreement with most of what I have
seen you say, so far. From what I have seen of the surrealists in this
newsgroup, they pay a lot of lipservice to the unconscious, while rarely
taking in anything it says or does.
For example, when I suggest that something as innocent as losing your car
keys on the day of the big job interview could be interpreted as your
unconscious trying to tell you something -- I'm told this is mystic
nonsense. Well, perhaps it. On the other hand, perhaps this is exactly
what surrealists are looking for -- the unconscious is speaking to you!
While you're awake! It's saying:
"HEY YOU STUPID FUCKER! A big part of you does not want this job! Why
are you doing this? Stop and think about this for a second! HELLO!
HELLO?"
Freud talked about this. Jung talked about this. For some reason the
very modern and scientifically minded surrealists in this newsgroup CAN'T
talk about this without derisively snickering.
Meanwhile Brandon says stupid, stupid, stupid things about not tainting
the "purity" of unconscious dreams. HELLO? HELLO!? Your unconscious is
trying to talk to you, in dreams. It wants to engage in dialogue. If you
sit back and watch it, without thinking about the dreams, without engaging
them, it's not better than watching television.
I was under the impression that surrealism was about UNITING conscious and
unconscious -- not about saying that the unconscious is really super cool,
so let's watch it like we watch old "Dallas" reruns on television.
Consciously engage the unconscious. Talk to it. Play with it. Listen to
it. It is you, and it's trying to tell you something. Many things.
Don't ignore it. Don't define it away with talk of neural pathways and
rapid eye movement. Engage the you that is dark and shadowy and hides
behind your eyes.
I'm done ranting now.
> My impression is that if you were given control of a dream, you would go
> around telling penguins that they are irrational and calling the sermons
> of talking frogs idiocy. So, it's no wonder you want to keep yourself
> away from your dreams. What I don't understand is why you don't want to
> keep yourself away from the rest of your life, as well.
He does. I'm sure you've noticed.
Nik
--
Licking clouds while my toes
touch the centre of the earth.
SwiftRain
Jesus, God, Hell, or any other religious topic that I felt the impetus
to rant upon, are off-topic here on alt.surrealism. That's why I didn't
post them here. (At least no one reposted them to alt.atheism -- and
don't nobody get no smart ideas.)
Parry wrote:
>
> Jesus said, ““If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
> mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
> his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
understand this. But since you are not interested in understanding it,
I won't offend you by explaining it to you.
> But who cares what Jesus says? The only thing that saves him from
> being a complete twat is that he’s a fictional character.
in the rest of the monotheisms, pantheism, ancestor worship, nature
worship, etc., and you'll be left with pretty much yourself & a few
other atheists complaining about how everybody is so damn WRONG about
everything.
It's your choice.
- brett
SwiftRain
>
> How so? How does empiricism uphold Christianity or capitalism?
from -- except that if something in any way supports Christianity or
capitalism or any other idea that you happen not to agree with I'm sure
it would be disqualified. That's what happens when you play the
semantics game.
I'll just say this: Christians and capitalists both believe that what
they are doing is right and makes sense. People have been arguing with
them about it for the entire time that they have existed, and they have
not yet been convinced. I do not think that they are about to be
convinced any time soon.
> [snip the flaming drivel]
Why is it that anything you disagree with is "drivel" or "idiocy"?
I find it hard to believe that you are going to be able to accept the
perversities of your own repressed desires when you are unable to accept
ideas that mildly contradict your own, or exist on a slightly different
plane of intellectualism.
- brett
SwiftRain
>
> I just want to say that, Brett, I'm in agreement with most of what I
> have seen you say, so far.
INTERESTING disagreement. I mean I don't know a damn thing about
surrealism. You'd think a newsgroup full of surrealists would have
something interesting to teach me.
Instead I'm being told that I'm not sober & normal enough to be a
surrealist. Damn. Have to put all my weird crazy desires & emotions &
thoughts back in their place, in dreams, where they belong.
> I was under the impression that surrealism was about UNITING conscious
> and unconscious --
If one were to unite the conscious and unconscious one would get people
who are sick & twisted & evil & hilarious & rape their neighbor's dogs &
play chicken & laugh at shadows. Not people who post dead sober things
to usenet to appease their raging egos.
> Consciously engage the unconscious. Talk to it. Play with it.
You know if Dali wasn't really a real surrealist then I'm glad to hear
it, because his stuff is pretty and all but it just doesn't seem to
play. I mean if you're talking about opening a healthy dialogue between
conscious and unconscious, you really only have two alternatives: play,
or use the conscious to rip the unconscious to shreds.
> Listen to it. It is you, and it's trying to tell you something.
"Regard all dharmas as dreams. Roll out the red carpet because Christ
is coming and he's going to spank your ass. Please believe in fairies.
love, your unconscious"
- brett
Dale Houstman
"SwiftRain" <swif...@geocities.com> wrote in message
news:3AAD42C4...@geocities.com...
> Brandon Freels wrote:
> >
> > How so? How does empiricism uphold Christianity or capitalism?
>
> Well I'm not quite sure what definition of "empiricism" you are working
> from -- except that if something in any way supports Christianity or
> capitalism or any other idea that you happen not to agree with I'm sure
> it would be disqualified. That's what happens when you play the
> semantics game.
Oh please: the definition of "empiricism" is not a semantical game by any
means: it means the philosophy that holds all knowledge derives from sense
experience and experimentation. Now one can think what one likes of
Christianity, but faith hardly qualifies as an empirical event, no matter
which dictionary you are using.
>
> I'll just say this: Christians and capitalists both believe that what
> they are doing is right and makes sense.
Nazis thought what they were doing "made sense" too, and so do a million
other groups and individuals. It's irrelevant.
>People have been arguing with
> them about it for the entire time that they have existed, and they have
> not yet been convinced. I do not think that they are about to be
> convinced any time soon.
And so what? I don't think anyone here is claiming that they expect any
group is going to just give up because we argue against them. Again,
irrelevant, unless you really believe that one should give up thinking about
anything simply because nothing can be done about it in any forseeable
future?
>
>
> > [snip the flaming drivel]
>
> Why is it that anything you disagree with is "drivel" or "idiocy"?
I don't think the "snip" refers to anything he disagrees with, just with the
excluded section. It is - in other words - case specific.
>
> I find it hard to believe that you are going to be able to accept the
> perversities of your own repressed desires when you are unable to accept
> ideas that mildly contradict your own, or exist on a slightly different
> plane of intellectualism.
Why is it necessary to accept ideas you have reasons not to accept?
>
dmh
Brandon Freels
> Oh well that's fine. What I really expected was some sort of
> INTERESTING disagreement. I mean I don't know a damn thing about
> surrealism. You'd think a newsgroup full of surrealists would have
> something interesting to teach me.
Surrealism FAQ
Version 1.1 (February 2001)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
Introduction
What is Surrealism?
1.1 Pure Psychic Automatism
1.2 A Short Introduction to the Surrealist Movement
The Surrealist Revolution
2.1 Politics
2.2 Art and Literature
Surrealist Explorations: Play and Creativity
3.1 Automatism
3.2 Forced Inspiration
3.3 The Surrealist Collage
3.4 The Surrealist Object
3.5 Games
Some Surrealist Concepts
4.1 Black Humor
4.2 The Marvelous
4.3 Mad Love
4.4 Miserablism
The Periphery: Precursors, Fellow Travelers, et al.
5.1 George Bataille
5.2 Dada
5.3 Salvador Dali (Avida Dollars)
5.4 The Occult
5.5 Oulipo
5.6 Pataphysics
5.7 Psychoanalysis
5.8 Situationist International
Appendix
6.1 Further Reading in English
6.2 Online Documents
6.3 Online Surrealist Groups
6.4 Online Surrealist Resources
6.5 FAQ Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
Thanks to the common misrepresentations spread throughout the Internet and
academia by individuals hoping to reorient its focus Surrealism is often
misunderstood as an artistic style, a literary movement, a form of mystical
escapism into a world of illusions, convenient weirdness, and a variety of
other banalities. This Frequently Asked Questions was produced to combat the
onslaught of such disinformation. It will be regularly posted to
alt.surrealism, an open forum for discussion and a dumping ground for
anything that falls within the scope of Surrealist interest.
"Perhaps the greatest danger threatening Surrealism today is the fact that
because of its spread throughout the world, which was very sudden and rapid,
the word found favor much faster than the idea." ---André Breton, Surrealist
Situation of the Object
"Surrealism has declared, in every authentic manifestation, its commitment
to revolution; the displacement of the real import of the word by
inhibitions in the writings of college teachers does not alter that
commitment in the slightest. It merely means that there is promulgated the
illusion that critics have something to add." ---The Chicago Surrealist
Group, reply to The New York Review of Books
WHAT IS SURREALISM?
1.1 Pure Psychic Automatism
Pure Psychic Automatism is the primary and natural condition of the mind and
all its faculties free from the interference of external constraints such as
rationalism, aestheticism, utilitarianism, and religious superstition. This
autonomy is achieved only when the socially constructed apparatuses of
repression are dismantled and those ostracized characteristics of the mind
(innovative imagination, uncompromised desire, and so on) are reintegrated
into everyday life, delivering the mind to a state of free development and
spontaneity. It is in this state, where the individual has regained the
primeval senses, that the mind can move forward to an untainted awareness of
existence, which is the most complete experience of reality---a surreality.
Pure Psychic Automatism is synonymous with Surrealism.
"SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes
to express---verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other
manner---the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the
absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or
moral concern." ---André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism
"Surrealism is not a new means of expression, or an easier one, nor even a
metaphysics of poetry. It is a means of total liberation of the mind and of
all that resembles it ... Surrealism is not a poetic form. It is a cry of
the mind turning back on itself, and it is determined to break apart its
fetters, even if it must be by material hammers!" ---Declaration of January
27, 1925
"Surrealism, a unitary project of total revolution, is above all a method of
knowledge and a way of life; it is lived far more than it is written, or
written about, or drawn. Surrealism is the most exhilarating adventure of
the mind, an unparalleled means of pursuing the fervent quest for freedom
and true life beyond the veil of ideological appearances." ---Franklin
Rosemont, Andre Breton and the First Principles of Surrealism
1.2 A Short Introduction to the Surrealist Movement
The Surrealist Movement was founded in Paris in 1924 for the sole purpose of
changing reality through the dissolving of orthodoxy, the liberation of the
mind, and the reintegration of the inner necessities with the exterior life.
Opening the Bureau of Surrealist Research and eventually publishing two
journals (The Surrealist Revolution and Surrealism in the Service of the
Revolution) the original group's initial focus was on uncovering and
exploring the techniques that capture the real functioning of thought. In
their program these investigations (from sleeping trances to automatic
writing) were adjoined to scalding critiques of both the repressive art and
literature of the time and the culture of rationalism in general.
Through the 1930s the movement continued to grow in infamy and influence
with groups appearing in the United Kingdom, Japan, Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, Belgium, Portugal, Egypt, and a variety of other
countries. This fecund period ended with the Second World War, when the
Paris surrealists were dispersed or detained. Following the war the movement
found itself fragmented. André Breton could only partially reconstitute the
Paris group, as its former members were no longer on a common course.
Opposition to Breton's increasing interest in esotericism led to splinter
groups and competitors, such as Isadore Isou's Lettrist Movement and CoBrA.
In 1966, with the approval of Breton, the first indigenous surrealist group
in the United States was formed in Chicago by Paul Garon and Franklin and
Penelope Rosemont, which has remained the most visible group writing in
English, printing a variety of publications such as their journal Arsenal:
Surrealist Subversion. In September of 1966 Breton died and in March of 1969
the Paris group officially disbanded. However, the majority of the group
reemerged in 1970 with the Bulletin de Liaison Surrealiste.
Today the movement is a decentralized and international constellation of
groups and individuals committed to Surrealism's resilient principles. It
remains a work in progress, and along with the older collectives (in Paris,
Chicago, and Prague), smaller groups of surrealists continue to form around
the globe to work in the margins. Among recent groups are those in
Stockholm, Leeds, Madrid, Argentina, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Whether these
groups will only change the individuals involved or if they can have a
broader impact is a question of little importance. Rather, they are certain
that the drive for liberty is unstoppable, and that a revolution that
redresses the human condition will necessarily be surrealist.
THE SURREALIST REVOLUTION
The two principle expressions of the movement's thrust for complete freedom
are its political nature and its creative output: the first of which
criticizes culture for repressing the internal necessities, and the second
of which seeks to release them.
2.1 Politics
The movement's political stance, which developed out of Dada's spirit of
revolt and vague anarchism, hardened in 1925 as a response to the resurgence
in French patriotism and militarism when France sent an army to put down an
independence movement in Morocco. Resolving that a revolution in
consciousness cannot transpire independent of a revolution in man's material
condition the Paris surrealists began an association with the Communist
Party. During their brief alliance with associates of the hard line Clarté
periodical, who were uniquely sympathetic to surrealist stands and who
shared a common goal in working to subvert bourgeois culture, efforts by the
surrealists to demonstrate their Party loyalty were repaid with belittlement
and interrogations. To the Communist Party their synthesis of Marx and Freud
was an obstacle to total commitment to the Party.
In addition, there was a conflict over the direction of revolutionary art.
The Communist International had developed the concept of "proletarian
literature," which reduced art to the role of propaganda, and later the
Soviet Writers Congress officially adopted the doctrine of "socialist
realism," which the surrealists denounced as an attempt to enclose art's
revolutionary message in the conservative forms of 19th century bourgeois
aesthetics, entirely antithetical to creativity. The surrealists argued that
art's revolutionary value cannot be reduced to its obvious manifest message.
The artist requires absolute freedom to create new means of expression and
deal with such fundamental matters as psychology and sexual freedom,
concerns the Communist Party considered decadent. Through the 1930s the
surrealists grew more distant from the French Left and from Moscow, and in
1935 they broke away from the Communist Party altogether.
By the late 1930s, fascism had risen in Germany, Italy and Spain with the
complicity of the western democracies, themselves having become increasingly
oppressive. The surrealists continued to issue statements denouncing French
policy on the Spanish Civil War, the Moscow trials of the Stalinist purge,
and the Munich talks. In 1938, Breton and Leon Trotsky proposed the creation
of F.I.A.R.I. (Fédération internationale de l'art révolutionnaire
indépendant), an international association of Marxists and anarchists to
pursue a revolutionary art opposed to the decree of fascist dictatorship,
bourgeois democracy, capitalism (art for art's sake), and Stalinism (social
realism). Though hopelessness was setting in among anti-war activists,
F.I.A.R.I. groups were organized in France, Mexico, Argentina, England and
the U.S. The Paris group started a review, Clé, which lasted but two issues,
just long enough to record the deteriorating political climate.
Since the 1940s surrealism has remained non-aligned, often affiliating with
and supporting a variety of revolutionary movements that oppose the existing
conditions of the social, political, and cultural order, and issuing
opinions on contemporary political matters (such as advocating for world
disarmament, denouncing French colonialism in Indochina and Algeria,
protesting the Soviet intervention in Hungary, applauding the outset of the
Cuban Revolution before it was aligned with Russia, and, more recently,
siding with those responsible for the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992). In its
modern development the political position of Surrealism can be summed up by
the finale of the Chicago Group's Declaration of War (1971):
"Let us speak plainly. Until the last convict is out of prison and the last
'madman' out of the asylum; until the last army has been disbanded and the
last government overthrown; until the last church has been burned and the
last bank pulverized; until the last capitalist and the last cop have been
hanged to death with the guts of the last politician and the last priest;
that is, until men and women are truly free, surrealism will continue
relentlessly to provide miraculous weapons with which to struggle for this
freedom."
2.2 Art and Literature
For the surrealist the use of art and literature is unconditionally directed
at the unleashing and exploring of the imagination, free from such retarding
devices as premeditation and aesthetics, so that the work can be ruled by
desire alone and cover, as Breton stated in Surrealism and Painting, "the
whole psychophysical field (in which consciousness constitutes only a very
small segment)." The surrealist use of art and literature stands opposed to
the notion of talent and the domination of so-called specialists. Following
in the footsteps of Lautréamont's famous maxim that "poetry must be made by
all," surrealists appreciate art and literature for their ability to
manifest the individual's internal and emotional order, and believe that
everyone has the capacity and necessity to create.
"... surrealist painters, who are poets, always think of something else. The
unprecedented is familiar to them, premeditation unknown. They are aware
that the relationships between things fade as soon as they are established,
to give place to other relationships just as fugitive. They know that no
description is adequate, that nothing can be reproduced literally. They are
all animated by the same striving to liberate the vision, to unite
imagination and nature, to consider all possibilities a reality, to prove to
us that no dualism exists between the imagination and reality, that
everything the human spirit can conceive and create springs from the same
vein, is made of the same matter as his flesh and blood, and the world
around him." ---Paul Éluard, Poetic Evidence
"The art of painting, as I conceive of it, consists in representing through
pictorial technique the unforeseen images that might appear to me at certain
moments, whether my eyes are open or shut." ---Rene Magritte, from a letter
to Mr. and Mrs. Barnet Hodes
"Centuries from now, any art that takes new paths toward a greater
emancipation of the mind will be Surrealist." ---Andre Breton, from an
interview with Jose M. Valverde
SURREALIST EXPLORATIONS
3.1 Automatism
Automatism is a behavior of the body whereby subverting the restraint of
consciousness an individual is compelled to perform involuntary motor or
verbal activities. It can be achieved through a variety of techniques, the
best known being the practice of automatic writing which Freud advocated as
a way of getting around self-censorship. This technique originated with the
Spiritualists who were the source of the trance sessions and other devices
employed by the surrealists. The surrealist use of these devices, it is
worth remembering, is not one of Freudian therapy or absurdities like
communicating with the dead, but for liberating the imagination. The results
of automatism can be found in the paintings of Joan Miro and André Masson,
in André Breton and Philippe Soupault's The Magnetic Fields, and in the
sleeping trances of Robert Desnos. It is a common misconception that
surrealists object to any revision of a text that has been written
automatically. In fact, after the initial experiment of The Magnetic Fields
automatic texts have been habitually edited.
"The whole point, for Surrealism, was to convince ourselves that we had got
our hands on the 'prime matter' (in the alchemical sense) of language. After
that, we knew where to get it, and it goes without saying that we had no
interest in reproducing it to the point of satiety; this is said for the
benefit of those who are surprised that among us the practice of automatic
writing was abandoned so quickly." ---André Breton, On Surrealism and Its
Living Works
"I resolved to obtain from myself ... a monologue spoken as rapidly as
possible without any intervention on the part of the critical faculties, a
monologue unencumbered by the slightest inhibition and which was, as closely
as possible, akin to spoken thought." ---André Breton, Manifesto of
Surrealism
3.2 Forced Inspiration
Forced Inspiration is the liberation of imaginative associations through the
suggestive quality of a particular perception that gives way to the
dictation of the internal and emotional order, revealing the veiled-erotic.
This method of creative interpretation, which has been utilized in the
teachings of Leonardo da Vinci, in the everyday activity of cloud watching,
and in psychoanalysis through the Rorschach Ink-Blot Test, was first used
within the realm of Surrealism by Max Ernst who theorized in his Beyond
Painting a technique called Frottage, whereby crayon or graphite is rubbed
on paper which as been placed over an object or texture with the hopes of
revealing or inspiring an image. Since then a number of similar techniques
all focused on revealing or inspiring previously unforeseen images out of
ambiguity have developed, such as: Decalcomania (pressing paper on a
non-absorbent surface of which gouache, ink, or oil paints have been spread,
originated by Oscar Dominquez), Fumage (passing paper over a smoking candle,
originated by Wolfgang Paalen), and Grottage (scrapping paint from the
surface of a painting, originated by Ernst). Salvador Dali's
Paranoiac-Critical Method is also an example of Forced Inspiration, but its
imaginative associations do not come from an ambiguous source, instead they
come from a more defined perception, creating a double image or even a chain
of images. Forced Inspiration is synonymous with Interpretive Delirium.
3.3 The Surrealist Collage
The Surrealist Collage is a method of gluing together the displaced bits and
pieces of originally unrelated images onto a flat surface to create a new
unforeseen image, most notably seen in the works of Max Ernst. This
principle of displacement can also be used with language and other forms of
creativity, such as with Lautréamont's famous line from Maldoror: "As
beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a
dissecting table."
"The value of the image depends upon the beauty of the spark obtained ...
the two terms of the image are not deduced from the other by the mind for
the specific purpose of producing the spark, [but rather] they are the
simultaneous products of the activity I call Surrealist, reason's role being
limited to taking note of, and appreciating, the luminous
phenomenon." ---André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism
3.4 The Surrealist Object
The Surrealist Object is an object, real or imaginary, that has been removed
from its original utilitarian role within the confinement of everyday life
by the dictation of the internal and emotional order. The earliest known
collector of these objects was the German writer Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
who, in 1798, completed a list of imaginary instruments, the most popular
being "a bladeless knife with the handle missing." Since the first group
exhibition of Surrealist Objects in 1936 numerous types of objects have been
invented or theorized, such as: the Found Object, the Natural Object (such
as stones or shells), and the Perturbed Object (deformations), all of which
rely on how the object interacts with the finder's interior necessities.
Other objects include the Interpretive Object (an object physically or
interpretively transformed by the finder) and the Poem-Object (a poem in
which several of the words are replaced with physical objects).
3.5 Games
The surrealist use of games, like that of art and literature, is primarily
focused on the subversion of premeditation and rational constraints, but in
addition it is also a subversion of the artist's ego with the potential for
revealing the Marvelous heavily relying on the release of collective
creativity. The most famous of these games is the Exquisite Corpse, a game
of paper folding whereby each player creates an incomplete image or phrase
that is unseen by the other players who will then complete the image or
phrase. Specific rules are required for the linguistic version of the game:
player one writes a definite or indefinite article and an adjective, player
two writes a noun, player three writes a verb, player four writes another
definite or indefinite article and an adjective, and player five writes
another noun. The first sentence obtained from this method was "The
exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine." Another game is the game of
Question and Answer (also known as the Game of Definitions), whereby a
question or word is provided by one player, and an answer or definition is
provided by another player who has no knowledge of the question or word
provided by the first player. The question and answer (or word and
definition) are put together to reveal the results, such as:
What is the desert? A dove alighting on a flame.
What is evolution? A calligraphic box of anatomical forms.
SOME SURREALIST CONCEPTS
4.1 Black Humor
Black Humor is a type of humor, often ironic and macabre, where the drive
for pleasure surmounts the trauma of the exterior world. An example taken
from Freud would be that of a man sentenced to be executed on a Monday who
exclaims, "What a wonderful way to start the week!" Exemplary in the works
of Jacques Vaché, Jonathan Swift, and the Marquis de Sade.
4.2 The Marvelous
In its central characterization the Marvelous is a revolt against and an
overturning of common sensibility that is guided by desire and governed by
pleasure. In Mad Love Breton recognized three distinct manifestations of the
Marvelous: fixed-explosive (the juxtaposition or unification of two distant
features), magic-circumstantial (a coincidence manipulated by desire;
synonymous with Objective Chance), and veiled-erotic (the alternating
between two or more coherent perceptions). All of these manifestations rely
heavily on the freeing of the individuals own subjectivity and imagination,
and a reorientation to the inner necessities. The Marvelous is synonymous
with Convulsive Beauty.
4.3 Mad Love
Mad Love is an overwhelming and excessive pursuit of love driven by an
irrational momentum that is often compulsive and spontaneous, and has little
to do with choice and more to do with internal necessity.
"Only love in the sense that I understand it---mysterious, improbable,
unique, bewildering, and certain love that can only be foolproof, might have
permitted the fulfillment of a miracle." ---André Breton, Nadja
"The act of love, just as with a painting or a poem, is discredited if he
who surrenders to it does not do so in a trance." ---André Breton, Apertures
4.4 Miserablism
Miserablism is an inurement to misery, occurring when the deficiencies of
existence are accepted as normal or unavoidable. Defined by Breton as "the
depreciation of reality in place of its exaltation" and further elaborated
by the Chicago Surrealist Group as "the rationalization of the unlivable,"
Miserablism is one of the main enemies of Surrealism, cultivated by economic
rationalism and religion.
THE PERIPHERY: Precursors, Fellow Travelers, et al.
This is not an exhaustive list of the periphery, but rather a short list of
groups and individuals from the periphery who have, at times, been relative
to the discussions at alt.surrealism. Further suggestions and participation
within this section is encouraged.
5.1 Georges Bataille
Under construction
5.2 Dada
Under construction
5.3 Salvador Dali (Avida Dollars)
Under construction
5.4 The Occult
Under construction
5.5 Oulipo
Under construction
5.6 Pataphysics
Under construction
5.7 Psychoanalysis
Under construction
5.8 Situationist International
In 1956 two para-surrealist groups, the International Movement for an
Imaginist Bauhaus and the Lettrist International, met at the First World
Congress of Liberated Artists and soon after unified (along with the
fictional London Psychogeographical Association) to form the Situationist
International.
Instead of passively accepting what the commodity system has made of living
(a boring mess of alienation and separation) the Situationist International
chose as their basic premise the construction of a new way of life. Their
social critique of capitalism, as theorized in Guy Debord's Society of the
Spectacle, began with their identification of the spectacle, a web of images
and representations (such as advertisements, television, sports events,
newscasts) that develops from the perspective of those in power. The
spectacle is collectively viewed and constantly renewed, turning the
individual into a passive receptor by replacing leisure (what do I want to
do today?) with entertainment (what do I want to see today?). The individual
is no longer active, but exists in a petrified state of buying and selling
experiences.
For the Situationist International the spectacle could be subverted and a
new way of life could be discovered by the individual's management and
construction of situations, those temporary settings of life that are
characterized by a superior emotional quality. The construction of
situations would be based on the theory of Unitary Urbanism, defined as the
use of an ensemble of arts and techniques that would contribute to an
integral composition of the urban space or environment, recovering that
space from the manipulation of the spectacle. Unitary Urbanism would rely on
the method of detournment, whereby a preexisting artistic element is reused
in a new ensemble, and the field study of Psychogeography, defined as the
gathering of information on how the environment influences the psychology of
the individuals. This information can be discovered through the method of
the dérive, a transient passage through a variety of ambiances, and once the
proper information is obtained it would be applied to the construction of
situations.
The Situationist International remained somewhat obscure until 1966 when
they published Mustapha Khayati's On the Poverty of Student Life at the
request of and funded by the student union of the University of Strasbourg.
The pamphlet, which lambasted universities for institutionalizing ignorance
and ridiculed modern culture and its officials, was denounced as a
misappropriation of public funds. The result was a public scandal and the
closure of the student union. Khayati's highly distributed pamphlet
eventually found its way to the University of Paris at Nanterre in early
1968, and inspired a group known as the Enragés to graffiti the walls of the
campus with Situationist slogans and to sabotage lectures. A general protest
followed in May where students engaged in political discourse and even
questioned the idea of the university itself, which eventually lead to the
closure of the college on May 2nd. Action committees set up by the
Situationist International and the Enragés were struck to spread the protest
to schools and factories throughout France, and by May 21st Paris was
paralyzed by a general strike. For this brief period France appeared to be
on the brink of revolution, but de Gaulle regained power with the assistance
of the military and dissolved the situation.
Despite the growth of interest in their ideas following this period the
Situationist International disbanded in 1972.
APPENDIX
6.1 Further Reading in English
Surrealist Authors: Louis Aragon ("Paris Peasant," "Treatise on Style");
André Breton ("What is Surrealism? Selected Writings [ed. Franklin
Rosemont]," "Manifestoes of Surrealism," "Surrealism and Painting," "Nadja,"
"The Communicating Vessels," "Mad Love," "Arcanum 17," "The Lost Steps,"
"Break of Day," "Free Rein," "Anthology of Black Humor," "Conversations: The
Autobiography of Surrealism," "The Magnetic Fields [with Philippe
Soupault]," "The Immaculate Conception [with Paul Eluard]"); Leonora
Carrington ("Down Below," "The Hearing Trumpet"); Robert Desnos ("Liberty or
Love," "Mourning for Mourning," "Selected Poems"); Max Ernst ("The Hundred
Headless Woman," "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil"); Michel Leiris
("Aurora," "Brisees: Broken Branches"); Pierre Mabille ("Mirror of the
Marvelous"); Benjamin Péret ("Death to the Pigs," "A Marvelous World").
Anthologies: "The Poetry of Surrealism" (ed. Michael Benedikt), "A Book of
Surrealist Games" (ed. Mel Gooding), "The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist
Writing on the Cinema" (ed. Paul Hammond), "The Autobiography of Surrealism"
(ed. Marcel Jean), "The Custom-House of Desire" (ed. JH Matthews),
"Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions 1928-32" (ed. Jose Pierre),
"Surrealism" (ed. Herbert Read), "Refusal of the Shadow: Surrealism and the
Caribbean" (ed. Michael Richardson), "Arsenal: Surrealist Subversion 4" (ed.
Franklin Rosemont), "The Forecast is Hot!" (ed. Franklin Rosemont),
"Surrealism and Its Popular Accomplices" (ed. Franklin Rosemont),
"Surrealist Women" (ed. Penelope Rosemont).
While the best critical overviews of and introductions to Surrealism are
Franklin Rosemont's introduction to "What is Surrealism? Selected Writings
of André Breton," Penelope Rosemont's "Surrealist Women," and the many books
of JH Matthews, the following books merit attention as they were used as
sources for this FAQ: Sarane Alexanderian, "Surrealist Art"; Jacqueline
Chénieux-Gendron, "Surrealism"; David Gascoyne, "A Short Survey of
Surrealism"; Helena Lewis, "The Politics of Surrealism"; Maurice Nadeau,
"The History of Surrealism"; Rene Passeron, "The Concise Encyclopedia of
Surrealism"; Jose Pierre, "An Illustrated Dictionary of Surrealism."
6.2 Online Documents
What is Surrealism? by Andre Breton:
http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/whatsurr.html
What is Surrealism? by Andre Breton (alternative link):
http://www-e815.fnal.gov/~romosan/surrealism.html
Declaration of January 27, 1925:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1925surrealism.html
Murderous Humanitarianism:
http://www.postfun.com/racetraitor/features/murderous.html
6.3 Online Surrealist Groups
The Chicago Group: http://www.surrealism-usa.org/
The Czech & Slovak Group: http://home.ti.cz/~surreal/surrealindex.html
The Netherlands Group: http://www.geocities.com/surrealisme_in_nederland/
The Paris Group: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jjmeric/
The Portugal Group: http://members.tripod.co.uk/surrealismo/
The Stockholm Group: http://www.users.wineasy.se/vertsurr/
Surrealists in Minnesota: http://www.magneticfields.org/
The Wisconsin Group: http://www.execpc.com/~bogartte/Counterclockwise.html
6.4 Online Surrealist Resources
The Library: http://www.kalin.lm.com/author.html
No More Words:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/NoMoreWords.html
Surrealist Writers: http://www.creative.net/~alang/lit/surreal/writers.sht
6.5 FAQ Acknowledgements
Brandon Freels (brandon...@netzero.net): principal author, editor.
Parry Harnden (ame...@norlink.net): contributing author.
February 10, 2001
SwiftRain
>
> Now one can think what one likes of Christianity, but faith hardly
> qualifies as an empirical event, no matter which dictionary you are
> using.
naturally, is based upon the direct "sense experience" of God.
I think if you talked to more Christians you would discover that when
they say "faith" they do not mean the definition of "faith" which the
theologians have foisted upon them. They mean that they had a direct
experience of God, of spirit, of the transcendent nature of experience,
and from that came to a rational -- empirical, if you like -- belief
that God is real and important in the life of human beings.
> Why is it necessary to accept ideas you have reasons not to accept?
uniting the conscious and unconscious. The unconscious not only
believes things which are contrary to the conscious, it believes things
which are contrary to EACH OTHER. If you can't accept contradiction
without being frazzled you ought to stay in nice well-lighted rooms with
white walls and stay out of the dark corners of the mind.
- brett
Sven
> Dale Houstman wrote:
>>
>> Now one can think what one likes of Christianity, but faith hardly
>> qualifies as an empirical event, no matter which dictionary you are
>> using.
>
> Not all of Christianity is based upon faith. Gnostic christianity,
> naturally, is based upon the direct "sense experience" of God.
>
> I think if you talked to more Christians you would discover that when
> they say "faith" they do not mean the definition of "faith" which the
> theologians have foisted upon them. They mean that they had a direct
> experience of God, of spirit, of the transcendent nature of experience,
> and from that came to a rational -- empirical, if you like -- belief
> that God is real and important in the life of human beings.
Rational maybe, based on their own subjective experiences, but most
definitely not empirical.
>> Why is it necessary to accept ideas you have reasons not to accept?
>
> It's not necessary, as such. It seems to me like a necessary step in
> uniting the conscious and unconscious. The unconscious not only
> believes things which are contrary to the conscious, it believes things
> which are contrary to EACH OTHER. If you can't accept contradiction
> without being frazzled you ought to stay in nice well-lighted rooms with
> white walls and stay out of the dark corners of the mind.
There's a big difference between accepting contradictions in the pursuit of
something, and accepting contradictions in the discussion afterwards. I
think maybe part of the problem in communication of late stems from an
ambiguity about where the "rational" bit steps in.
If I have a vision where my legs are on fire but they aren't, fine. If I
then try to tell you in the smoking room later that my legs are on fire but
they aren't, you may have a good case to ignore my ramblings.
Brandon Freels
> Why is it that anything you disagree with is "drivel" or "idiocy"?
Its not that I disagree with anything you said, but rather what you said
merited no response at all. How can you expect me not to call it idiocy?
SwiftRain
>
> Rational maybe, based on their own subjective experiences, but most
> definitely not empirical.
"subjective"?
The experience of many mystics is that it is the mortal world which is
subjective and illusory, and the divine world which is objective and
true.
Personally I observe that God Is Love in exactly the same way that I
observe whether there is cream in a cup of coffee. I consider both
suppositions, in the name of open debate and respecting differing views,
to be open to criticism -- but I just don't see the point of declaring
someone's observations of their world to be a priori counterfactual just
because they don't fit some specific dogmatic worldview.
That's what got us into this mess, if you'll remember.
- brett
cythera
<3AAD47A3...@geocities.com> to Nikolaus Maack:
>
>I mean I don't know a damn thing about surrealism. You'd think a newsgroup >full of surrealists would have something interesting to teach me.
1.) Don't expect anyone to teach you anything.
2.) Even if alt.surrealism actually were "a newsgroup full of surrealists"
(there are very few surrealists posting here), how could you be sure that
what they told you was valid in any way? (you could not be, just as you cannot be sure that anything I am typing to you is valid.).
3.) The point:
a.) educate yourself.
b.) don't accept the untested word of any man or woman.
And get over caring what strangers might think of you or tell you about yourself. Nik, this is for you too, should you want to listen.
cythera.
_______________________________________________
Submitted via WebNewsReader of http://www.interbulletin.com
Nikolaus Maack
> Oh well that's fine. What I really expected was some sort of
> INTERESTING disagreement. I mean I don't know a damn thing about
> surrealism. You'd think a newsgroup full of surrealists would have
> something interesting to teach me.
It was extremely depressing to discover that the people in here are as
prone to intellectualism, hyper-rationality, dismissing everything because
it displeases them, etc, etc, as any other collection of coffee house
thinkers. I (like you) was expecting an open, violent, singing, spitting,
hissing mass of near lunatics who would joyfully embrace any idea for five
minutes if it meant a surge in pleasure.
Instead, wet blankets. Dozens of them. All insisting that atheism is
true, anti-capitalism is true, objective reality is true -- and anyone who
says otherwise is some kind of stinky post-modernist (pomo) muthah-fuckah.
But of course, they would never say "muthah-fuckah" -- they instead would
say "misguided dunce who fails to ackowledge the true surrealist concepts".
Have you noticed how everyone who is unliked around here is automatically
"stupid"? That, in itself, needs to be deconstructed. What price,
intelligence? Does the stupid person have nothing to teach us? Consider
the humble Downe's Syndrome drooler -- does he not possess a form of
brilliance?
I once dated a woman whose 21 year old brother had Downe's Syndrome. He
liked to take balls off the pool table in the basement and drop them on
the concrete floor. The balls bounced wonderfully, and the vision of it
seemed to fascinate him. He was so mentally retarded he was incapable of
speech -- and instead would only grunt, moan, or wail. He loved music,
and would dance like a fiend, shaking in place and waving his arms. If
music wasn't available, he would dance with the washing machine. A load
of laundry spinning was music enough.
This retarded man has more surrealism than TEN Brandons!
> Instead I'm being told that I'm not sober & normal enough to be a
> surrealist.
Doesn't it blow your mind? People who are supposed to be embracing the
unconscious are coming across as more rational than a humourless
mathematician with her emotional centres burned from her brain.
"I will now, for your amusement, recite pie to the two thousandth decimal."
> "Regard all dharmas as dreams. Roll out the red carpet because Christ
> is coming and he's going to spank your ass. Please believe in fairies.
> love, your unconscious"
The button of Jesus is fun to press. Like you, I see Christianity as a
useful symbol to play with. Jesus in a dress, Jesus as a New York hooker,
Mary as a dope fiend. Transubstantion is a great idea -- if we can turn
wine into the blood of god, and bread into his flesh, what can we turn
Twinkies into?
"This Twinkie is the cock of Jesus. Let it enter your mouth and spill its
sacred cream on your tonsils. Do not bite. Well, go ahead and bite.
What the hell."
Being afraid of Christ symbolism is just goofy. I've had this argument
with the others before. They say things like, "Well, okay, it's all right
to use Christian symbols in your writing. But only if you're going to
MOCK Christianity. Otherwise you're only reinforcing a social standard."
Like if I write a positive story about Christian values, I will
single-handedly restore Christianity to its glory days. I suppose it
*could* happen, but it's highly unlikely. And if I was going to pay lip
service to Jesus, I'd also feel obliged to give a positive nod to muslims,
jews, buddhists, taoists, and any other religious yokel who happens to
have two followers.
But I'm rambling. It feels good though.
Nikolaus Maack
> There's a big difference between accepting contradictions in the pursuit of
> something, and accepting contradictions in the discussion afterwards.
I think it's a useful state of mind to have -- being willing to embrace
the polar opposite of your beliefs. What if there is a God? What if
women and men aren't equal? What if shit was chocolate and chocolate was
shit? Would Hershey start making toilet paper?
What is depressing -- and painfully so -- is to see so many people say,
"What you just said is utter idiocy and merits no response." Because what
this actually means is, "What you have said is so counter to my own
personal experiences that I refuse to ackowledge even the possibility of
it." But just because it is outside the realm of your experience doesn't
mean it's wrong or worthless! Maybe it's outside the realm of your
experience and inside the realm of mine.
The realm of experience is a damn big place. If someone says to me (and
they have): "How can you NOT believe in God? Look around you! He's
everywhere!"
We were in the lobby of a government building at the time. But he wasn't
pointing at the plastic plants and the marble floor. He was pointing out
the doors towards a sunny, glorious Saturday morning full of promise.
While I did not see God in the sunshine, I had to admire and respect his
ability to see Him there.
To say to this man, "There is no God there! Show me, objectively, using
science and rationality, this God," is insane. It's like saying, "Show me
the palms of your hands, but without using your fingers."
Most importantly, if surrealism is truly about embracing the unconscious,
then constantly making appeals to rationality, empiricism, logic, and the
intellect is limiting the contact we could have if we embraced their
opposites. Irrationality, dream, illogic, and intuition -- those are in
the realm of the unconscious, and they need to be used just as often, if
not more so. Our world is so opposed to these things, and this bias
against them manifests in this newsgroup just as often.
> I
> think maybe part of the problem in communication of late stems from an
> ambiguity about where the "rational" bit steps in.
Agreed. But I think it's pretty clear that most of the people in this
newsgroup tend to have the rational bit in the centre of their focuse
nearly 24 hours a day.
> If I have a vision where my legs are on fire but they aren't, fine. If I
> then try to tell you in the smoking room later that my legs are on fire but
> they aren't, you may have a good case to ignore my ramblings.
Do I? Why? Maybe they are on fire, and I can't tell. Maybe you mean it
metaphorically. Perhaps you mean that they feel like they're on fire.
Or, alternatively, perhaps you are telling me they are on fire in order to
fulfil some sort of psychological error in your skull. No delusion is
without a reason, so why would you be having that delusion? There is
truth there.
To sum up, there is no excuse to ignore ramblings.
This is one of the things that amused me about Brandon's idiotic position
that I was manufacturing the dreams I posted here. Even if I was making
them all up, they would still be "dreams". After all, I would have
constructed the symbols and the story and they would STILL reflect who I
am and how I think and the dark structures that lurk in my skull.
An inauthentic dream -- one completely made up, that did not occur in a
REM state -- is still an authentic dream.
Or, to put it another way...
Robert A. Johnson (my hero for the next couple of days, until I read
someone else cool) described a story in his book "Inner Work". In it, he
has a client who is supposed to be engaing in "active imagination". This
client brings in pages and pages of a story he's writing every week. In
it, a princess is being chased through bizarre landscapes while a villain
pursues her. The story is swash-buckler-esque, big, dramatic, operatic.
Every week, when the man hands in these pages -- which are meant to be an
exploration of his unconscious -- he has a smirk on his face and a twinkle
in his eye. Johnson can tell something is up, but doesn't call the man on
it. He wants to wait and see what happens.
One day, the man walks in, and he's got the final chapter in his hands.
He throws it down in front of Johnson and says, "There, you fool! I've
been tricking you the entire time! I've been making it all up out of
nothing!"
Johnson sat there in silence, thinking, "Well, it's not the first time
I've been tricked." And then he just sat in silence for a moment. It was
then that the client's smile of triumph faded. Suddenly he was crying.
"You tricked me!" he sobbed. "It was real the whole time!"
For, in truth, within the story that the man totally made up was his
unconscious laid bare. The princess that needed rescuing was the man's
own anima, and the trickster chasing after her was his own trickster, and
the hero trying to save her was his own hero.
Such is the beauty of exploring your own psyche. Even when you think
you're faking it, you're not faking it. The inside of your head is an
enormous place, with many different personalities and many different
voices. When this man, this client, thought he was "faking it", a voice
that rarely got a chance to speak had finally ripped the microphone from
his hands and screamed truth into it.
Brandon Freels
> What is depressing -- and painfully so -- is to see so many people say,
> "What you just said is utter idiocy and merits no response." Because what
> this actually means is, "What you have said is so counter to my own
> personal experiences that I refuse to ackowledge even the possibility of
> it."
It was utter idiocy. It was full of sarcastic stabs at me, and had nothing
to do with "his position". Go back and read the post. Why should I respond
to those remarks at all? If I do we'll only have a flame war ...
> An inauthentic dream -- one completely made up, that did not occur in a
> REM state -- is still an authentic dream.
You've all but admitted it at this point.
Brandon Freels
> This retarded man has more surrealism than TEN Brandons!
Not very creative. Little kids can tell better retard jokes than this.
SwiftRain
>
> It was extremely depressing to discover that the people in here are as
> prone to intellectualism, hyper-rationality, dismissing everything
> because it displeases them, etc, etc, as any other collection of
> coffee house thinkers.
hurt. I mean, sorry, it's making my unconscious desires feel
unrealized. Please pass me the pipe and the automatism & I'll pack us
another bowl.
> Have you noticed how everyone who is unliked around here is
> automatically "stupid"?
inferiority complex. (For a passing moment I thought I might not be the
ONE AND ONLY true savior of humanity, but just one among many.)
Fortunately it has passed now.
> Consider the humble Downe's Syndrome drooler -- does he not possess a
> form of brilliance?
that I watch on a regular basis) and he told a moving story about a man
with Down's Syndrome volunteering to help him sing a gospel song. He
said that people with Down's Syndrome have a "special gift of
affection." Now of course we all know that, but my point is: JOHN
ASHCROFT! Even HE has something to teach us!
> If music wasn't available, he would dance with the washing machine.
suppose I will have to buy myself a radio!
> The button of Jesus is fun to press.
Button Of Jesus: BZZZT!
Host: Jesus?
Jesus: Surrealism.
Host: Please state your answer in the form of a question!
Jesus: What is surrealism?
Host: That's right!
> Like you, I see Christianity as a useful symbol to play with. Jesus
> in a dress, Jesus as a New York hooker, Mary as a dope fiend.
character to begin with. Jesus should be the patron saint of everyone
who opposes Christianity. If Jesus was alive today he would oppose
Christianity a million billion times more effectively than any whiney
atheist. He would BRING DOWN HOLY RAGE on these mutha-fuckas who are
taking the Lord's name in vain.
Remember Jesus overturning the money-changers tables? Try that in a
Christian church someday! See whether they hail you as the second
coming, or whether they start to consider using their crosses for their
original purpose!
Jesus Christ and his friends would come into church, raving like
lunatics, they'd refuse to be quiet, and the rabbi said to em: "WHAT THE
HELL ARE YOU DOING? WHY ARE YOU IN CHURCH DRUNK?" and they said "WE'RE
DRUNK ON THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD!" Now fast forward to 2000 & 1 and
preachers are actually retelling this story with stupifying sobriety to
churches full of people who sit quietly, dutifully, and pretend to be
interested. I was in such an audience and I almost laughed out loud. I
almost pulled a Jesus on them. Unfortunately it was my mother's church
& I didn't want to embarrass her.
> And if I was going to pay lip service to Jesus, I'd also feel obliged
> to give a positive nod to muslims, jews, buddhists, taoists, and any
> other religious yokel who happens to have two followers.
am personally offended at this childish statue-destroying rage they've
flown into. GOOD GOD, OPPRESSING EVERYONE WHO'S ALIVE ISN'T GOOD
ENOUGH? YOU NEED TO OPPRESS PEOPLE WHO LIVED 2,000 YEARS AGO?! GET
OVER YOURSELVES! (Just making sure, in case the Taliban is reading
this. You never know.)
> But I'm rambling. It feels good though.
- brett
SwiftRain
>
> Such is the beauty of exploring your own psyche. Even when you think
> you're faking it, you're not faking it. The inside of your head is an
> enormous place, with many different personalities and many different
> voices. When this man, this client, thought he was "faking it", a
> voice that rarely got a chance to speak had finally ripped the
> microphone from his hands and screamed truth into it.
question is:
if things which you do not think will lead to any exposure of your
true self often do, and things which you think will often don't, is it
really profitable to use techniques in a conscious attempt to unearth
our hidden selves?
or are we just as likely to discover our deep inner meanings while
pissing as while doing these fancy intellectual games to explore
ourselves?
So many exploratory techniques seem to have gotten reputations purely by
accident. Someone was pissing while they had a realization of
themselves, and so they told everyone else that they should piss as much
as possible, and (by mere brunt of statistics) these people often tended
to be pissing when they had their own realizations.
I think one thing is clear:
Techniques that consist of conscious manipulation of one's mind or
one's surroundings are likely to increase the power of conscious
repression, not decrease it. It's just common sense. The conscious
mind isn't going to enact techniques in such a way as to overcome its
own predilection for repression any more than it is going to enact a
technique that will get its head smashed in by a giant hammer. The
conscious mind LIKES repression. It does it for fun, sport, bread &
meat, and ultimately to sustain its own dominance of the mind. It's not
going to throw in the towel just for the hell of it.
The other option of course is for techniques for destroying repression
TO COME FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS ITSELF. That is, the rebellion must be a
real rebellion, not just a play for the amusement of the conscious
mind. There is, of course, no way to consciously promote or encourage
such a rebellion. Or is there?
And if there was, why the hell would we want to? We ARE the conscious,
aren't we? Right sirs? Why would we demand that these funky smelly
crazy repressed desires TAKE OVER and overthrow our ability to make
sensible decisions?
No I disagree with that entirely. Entirely. An abdication of power is
entirely possible. But it must be an ABDICATION. You cannot TAKE
CONTROL of the process of bringing repressed desires to the surface.
This is why automatic writing is a useful technique. It's not a
technique at all. It's a counter-technique. You GET RID of absolutely
all techniques and restrictions and rules. If you attempt to do
automatic writing "in order to bring unconscious desires to the surface
so that BLAH BLAH BLAH I HATE MYSELF" then you are just using it as a
tool to reenforce your dominance. It must be used as a genuine
exploration and abdication.
I think I'm getting this surrealism thing. Yeah yeah. I hereby declare
myself King Of Surrealism.
And now I'm abdicating. Thank you all for your support during my reign,
it's been great. I'll let the unconscious play for a while now.
love,
brett
Nikolaus Maack
> It was utter idiocy. It was full of sarcastic stabs at me, and had nothing
> to do with "his position". Go back and read the post. Why should I respond
> to those remarks at all? If I do we'll only have a flame war ...
Are you unable to handle sarcastic stabs? Do a few insults turn a message
from meaning to slime? I read his position, and while he smote you about
the neck and shoulders, he did so with a point and with good reason. You
embrace rationality far more so than irrationality, conscious more so than
unconscious. Do you deny this?
>> An inauthentic dream -- one completely made up, that did not occur in a
>> REM state -- is still an authentic dream.
>
> You've all but admitted it at this point.
(Dear nearly non-existent God, give me the strength to deal with the
humourless, objectivist people of the world.)
Brandon, I don't make up the dreams I post here. What I've had as a
dream, I label with the word "dream". What I'm making up, I label with
"automatic writing" or don't label, because it's simply a story.
What you have to ask yourself is WHY is the authenticity of my dreams, or
anything else I say to you, so vitally important? What possible
difference could it make? Why would you, for example, be concerned or
suspicious about my having a degree in psychology and creative writing?
Why would my having these BAs or not make a difference to you? All it
takes to get BAs is time and money and some skill. I had all three. You
can do it too, of this I'm certain.
There was once a phone-in show in Ottawa called "Sex with Sue". One night
I heard a person call up and say he (it) was a fully-functioning
hermaphrodite. Both sets of genitals worked absolutely perfectly, claimed
the person. He wanted to know if he could get himself pregnant.
As soon as I heard this man speak (it sounded like a man) I thought,
"Yeah, right. What a load of horseshit."
Sue, the host, took him seriously. She said that she had never heard of a
case where a hermaphrodite has both sets of genitals working perfectly.
Almost always one set is more or less just there in appearance. To have
ovaries and testes that function? Wow! And she got really excited and
took the caller perfectly seriously -- as though there wasn't a doubt in
her mind.
I thought she must be a complete idiot to buy this story. Then it occured
to me that she really had no other choice. What else is she going to do?
What sort of atmosphere would it set up for her call-in show if she said,
"Ppff! Yeah, right buddy! What a load of huey! Next caller, please!"
Sven recently said that, if he claimed his legs were on fire, and they
weren't, we would have every right to ignore his ramblings. I would argue
that, as surrealists, we have a responsibility to take EVERY story
seriously -- even the ones that are clearly lies. Because even lies tell
a truth. We don't always need to establish whether a story is true or
not, because the story, in itself, is always a true story. The pieces of
it can't help but be a part of the person's psyche.
Urban legends, for example. While often untrue factually speaking, they
reinforce values that people hold. They express a kind of inner truth.
People want the stories to be true. HIV positive people are stuffing
their tainted needles in movie theatre seats and the coin slots of pay
phones in order to infect "normal" people. Spreading such a story
reinforces the classic idea that the people who are sick are "out to get
us". People who believe such stories show us what they want to believe.
What risk do we take when we believe someone else's story? That they turn
around and say, "Ha ha, fooled you!" Does this matter? We're fooled
every day. We are all fools. And on the internet, what choice do we have
but to believe their story? Either they're making it all up or they're
not or a bit of both. My position is that even the most respectable of us
falls into the latter category -- we're all of us always telling the truth
and making it up at the same time. That's how our minds work.
barrett john erickson
"Nikolaus Maack" <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:98kcc8$35r$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> [...]
> Instead, wet blankets. Dozens of them. All insisting that atheism is
> true, anti-capitalism is true, objective reality is true -- and anyone who
> says otherwise is some kind of stinky post-modernist (pomo) muthah-fuckah.
> But of course, they would never say "muthah-fuckah" -- they instead would
> say "misguided dunce who fails to ackowledge the true surrealist
concepts".
>
> Have you noticed how everyone who is unliked around here is automatically
> "stupid"?
nik, what makes you look stupid is the way you flaunt your inability to
comprehend and retain even the shallowest nuance in what people have
actually said to you. apparently subtle colors confuse you so you simplify
and abstract and then react to your coloring book version as if it were the
original.
[ as you do in the paragraph before your question. ]
> That, in itself, needs to be deconstructed. What price,
> intelligence? Does the stupid person have nothing to teach us? Consider
> the humble Downe's Syndrome drooler -- does he not possess a form of
> brilliance?
>
> I once dated a woman whose 21 year old brother had Downe's Syndrome. He
> liked to take balls off the pool table in the basement and drop them on
> the concrete floor. The balls bounced wonderfully, and the vision of it
> seemed to fascinate him. He was so mentally retarded he was incapable of
> speech -- and instead would only grunt, moan, or wail. He loved music,
> and would dance like a fiend, shaking in place and waving his arms. If
> music wasn't available, he would dance with the washing machine. A load
> of laundry spinning was music enough.
the other thing that makes you look stupid is this habit of using little
anecdotes that don't quite match the situation -- and often better serve the
arguments being flung at you.
for instance...
in your little story, the "humble downe's syndrome drooler" playing in his
environment by bouncing billiard balls off the concrete floor doesn't assume
this is all the knowledge and experience he needs to be taken seriously in a
discussion of quantum theory among physicists.
you, on the other hand, seem to insist that we should all take your
uninformed and poorly shaped pronouncements seriously simply because you can
say the words "i am a surrealist".
those who know know you know nothing.
-- barrett
BLUE FEATHERS #3 is now available
http://www.MagneticFields.org/blue/
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
surrealists in minnesota
Sur...@MagneticFields.org
==============================================
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a
certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and
the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the
incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as
contradictions."
...André Breton
==============================================
Nikolaus Maack
> The other option of course is for techniques for destroying repression
> TO COME FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS ITSELF. That is, the rebellion must be a
> real rebellion, not just a play for the amusement of the conscious
> mind. There is, of course, no way to consciously promote or encourage
> such a rebellion. Or is there?
I know you were being all ironic when you said all this, but to a certain
extent, you're right. The unconscious rebellion DOES have to come from
the unconscious. And how do you encourage that rebellion?
Ask. Ask your unconscious to rebel. Give it a voice. Let is speak its
mind, for it is you. Say to it, "I'd like to hear more from you. Drop me
a line. Send me a postcard. Call me. We'll eat pizza and shards of
broken glass together."
A friend of mine got into the habit of losing important things. He'd need
his phone bill, to mail it out, and one second it was in his hand and the
next -- where the hell is it? What happened to it? It was gone.
My friend decided that he was doing this to himself. A part of himself
(his unconscious) wanted attention and wasn't getting it. It decided to
get attention by losing things. So my friend said to himself:
"Look, unconscious. I know you want some attention, but I really need my
phone bill right now. I will pay attention to you, I promise. But right
now, I really need my phone bill. So I'm going to hold up my hand and
just follow it at random and find my phone bill. Okay?"
He then reached out in a random direction with his eyes closed. When he
opened them, he found his hand was sitting on top of the phone bill. A
phone bill which, only seconds ago, had been completely invisible.
Is it this simple to establish contact with the unconscious? I think so.
We all spend so much time trying to drown out that inner voice, to bury it
in sound and action and music and motion and running around. All you need
to do, to let it have some say, is stop, speak to it, and wait until it
answers.
> And if there was, why the hell would we want to? We ARE the conscious,
> aren't we? Right sirs? Why would we demand that these funky smelly
> crazy repressed desires TAKE OVER and overthrow our ability to make
> sensible decisions?
My friend, in the above story, used to think that way. "But, I *am* the
conscious mind! The unconscious? That's where I bury my shit. When I
have feelings I don't like, when I have memories I don't want, I throw
them in the unconscious dumping ground."
I managed to convince him that what you bury there doesn't stay buried.
It comes back in new forms and bites you on the ass. "Deal with me, deal
with me!" is usually what the unconscious has to say. "You're ignoring
THIS, you aren't thinking about THAT, you're hiding THIS from yourself!"
And, right now, my unconscious made me (I made me) destroy a large
painting I'd been working on for the last month. It was a huge face (as
usual) but my unconscious told me to ruin it. Smash it. Get inside the
face. Now I have an enormous red canvas that is entirely red and all
wrinkly. (Sorry, technically it is entirely magenta.)
Why did I do this? I don't know, exactly. I could make up an explantion.
But what it felt like was my unconscious saying, "Crack that face open and
crawl inside. Now paint that. Now, we're inside the face. Wait and see
what shows up."
Whatever DOES finally show up should be interesting and frightening and
new.
Nikolaus Maack
> nik, what makes you look stupid is the way you flaunt your inability to
> comprehend and retain even the shallowest nuance in what people have
> actually said to you.
Barrett, you never really say anything any more. You used to talk about
ideas and philosophies and theories. Now whenever you show up, it's only
to tell me what a bad person I am. Is it possible that I have come to
represent an aspect of your own personality that is not being voiced? Is
it possible that inside of you is a Nik that wants to scream and play and
run around naked?
"Fuck this phony intellectual bullshit, Barrett!" screams your inner Nik.
"Let's just BELLOW! Let's tell stories and fight and smear red paint on
all the canvases!"
If you really feel there are some ideas that need to be expressed that I
am missing, I suggest you try to express them in a way that I can't miss
them. There's always a new audience in this newsgroup who needs to hear
your "wisdom". But for the love of all things unholy, please don't just
repost the old material you've saved on your hardrive. Find a new way to
say it.
But alas, whenever you do post your ideas, you insist on using words that
are so finicky and constipated that rarely does anyone have a clue as to
what you're saying. One would almost suspect that you're deliberately
obfuscating yourself in order to appear wiser.
"Authentic desire," for example. Not a bad idea. But the jargon, as
always, gets you in trouble. I suggest you define your terms before you
start using them, instead of your usual habit of defining them somewhere
at the end of your essay.
> in your little story, the "humble downe's syndrome drooler" playing in his
> environment by bouncing billiard balls off the concrete floor doesn't assume
> this is all the knowledge and experience he needs to be taken seriously in a
> discussion of quantum theory among physicists.
How do you know? Maybe he does. And maybe he's right. Maybe a quantum
phyicist would have a lot to learn from a retarded man with an armful of
billiard balls.
But, as usual, you make a clear mistake -- assuming that surrealism falls
into the realm of SCIENCE. A poet can learn from all experiences. Even a
mentally-handicapped individual has something important to tell a poet.
You're always stapling surrealism to the white labcoat's tails. I don't
see how doing so will get you any closer to uniting conscious and
unconscious. Oh wait, I forgot. You don't believe in the unconscious.
And yet you call yourself a surrealist? How very odd.
> you, on the other hand, seem to insist that we should all take your
> uninformed and poorly shaped pronouncements seriously simply because you can
> say the words "i am a surrealist".
One could accuse you of precise the same crime, Barrett. In fact, I do.
Your pronouncements are "poorly shaped", and your sources of information
are suspect. For instance, you're always quoting the "authorities", but
never yourself. You're the hole in the middle of your own life.
Where are you, Barrett? Who are you? Are you a cluster of badly
expressed intellectual concepts? Or are you some EXPERIENCES that always,
always go unvoiced? (You're both, of course. How sad that we only get to
see the ideas, the intellect, and never YOU. Your dreams, your guts, your
anecdotes. How long will you hide there, Barrett, in the intellect?)
Brandon Freels
"Nikolaus Maack" wrote
> Are you unable to handle sarcastic stabs? Do a few insults turn a message
> from meaning to slime? I read his position, and while he smote you about
> the neck and shoulders, he did so with a point and with good reason. You
> embrace rationality far more so than irrationality, conscious more so than
> unconscious. Do you deny this?
I don't embrace rationality or irrationality, because they don't exist. What
I do embrace is the return of the repressed.
SwiftRain
>
> nik, what makes you look stupid is the way you flaunt your inability
> to comprehend and retain even the shallowest nuance in what people
> have actually said to you. apparently subtle colors confuse you so
> you simplify and abstract and then react to your coloring book version
> as if it were the original.
complained of having wet blankets thrown on him. Funny in a "complete
lack of compassion, openness or passion" sort of way.
I would not dare to contend that you are wrong about surrealism. I
don't give a damn whether you are wrong about surrealism. What I think
you are wrong about is life. Life is meant to be lived openly,
passionately, with the zeal of a madman and also of a poet, if there is
a difference.
I am not offended by the contempt in which you hold Nik. He can defend
himself. I am however offended by the contempt in which you hold
coloring books. Why on earth would you want to insult coloring books?
When you say "subtle colors" you obviously mean black, white, and grey.
I would not dare say that you are wrong about surrealism, but you are
wrong about life. You are wrong about how to live a life which has
depth and meaning. If by chance you are right about surrealism, then
surrealism is just another brick in the grey walls of an oppressive
society. If you are right about surrealism, then surrealism should be
abolished, trampled, neglected, or at least no longer taken seriously.
- brett
SwiftRain
>
> I know you were being all ironic when you said all this, but to a
> certain extent, you're right.
> Say to it, "I'd like to hear more from you. Drop me a line. Send me
> a postcard. Call me. We'll eat pizza and shards of broken glass
> together."
Ana momken aakol el-ezaz, we dah ma beyewgaaneash.
Ami Kanch Khetay pari; amakey kichu khoti karay na.
Tá mé in ann gloine a ithe; Ní chuireann sé isteach nó amach orm.
Posso mangiare il vetro, non mi fa male.
Watashiwa garasu o taberaremasu; watashi o kizutsukemasen.
Ik kan glas eten, het doet geen pijn.
Mi povas mangxi vitron, gxi min ne doloras.
Ninaweza kula glasi, haiwezi kuumiza mimi.
I can eat glass; it does not hurt me.
> "Look, unconscious. I know you want some attention, but I really need
> my phone bill right now. I will pay attention to you, I promise. But
> right now, I really need my phone bill. So I'm going to hold up my
> hand and just follow it at random and find my phone bill. Okay?"
number of times, if it does not get what it wants. Sincerity is a
necessity.
I wonder if anyone here has ever had their unconscious complain about
them while doing automatic writing? Like "goddamn that conscious, I
never get a chance to say anything"? Ah no silly me no one here does
any automatic anything. Forgive me for asking.
- brett
sjdksds
"SwiftRain" <swif...@geocities.com> wrote
> The Taliban can go fuck themselves, though. As a follower of Buddha I
> am personally offended at this childish statue-destroying rage they've
> flown into. GOOD GOD, OPPRESSING EVERYONE WHO'S ALIVE ISN'T GOOD
> ENOUGH? YOU NEED TO OPPRESS PEOPLE WHO LIVED 2,000 YEARS AGO?! GET
> OVER YOURSELVES! (Just making sure, in case the Taliban is reading
> this. You never know.)
> - brett
Amidst the coverage of the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, no
one appears to have noticed the irony: that all this righteous outrage is
aimed at preserving the graven images of a man who built a doctrine out of
the struggle to cast aside material things. (kottke.org)
i find that sort of thing wildly entertaining.
mike
Nikolaus Maack
> I wasn't being completely ironic, merely partially ironic.
There is no such thing as pure irony.
(The previous sentence must be read with the understanding that it is
meant to be taken ironically -- and yet, it also is what it says it is.
Or something. Yeah, something. Something scathing and bitter and blue,
with flippers, that spits acid in the faces of babies.)
[Give me my fucking phone bill you unconscious son of a bitch!]
> Unfortunately the unconscious will only fall for such a trick a limited
> number of times, if it does not get what it wants. Sincerity is a
> necessity.
Yes. It will withhold your phone bill and your pants, should you refuse
to hold up your end of the bargain.
Yesterday evening I discovered that I have an angry, read-headed,
pre-adolescent boy in my head who wants me to smash things more often.
This probably comes as a surprise to no one.
> I wonder if anyone here has ever had their unconscious complain about
> them while doing automatic writing? Like "goddamn that conscious, I
> never get a chance to say anything"?
My inner, pissed-off, pre-adolescent called me a "pussy", and said he
likes to make me angry at random intervals for no apparent reason in order
to get his revenge for my having ignored him for so long.
> Ah no silly me no one here does
> any automatic anything. Forgive me for asking.
It is interesting to note how often people in here will debate the
concepts that make up surrealism, but rarely do they ever seem to DO
anything with them. And when anyone DOES do something, we get people
saying, "That was not a real dream!" and "You didn't really write that
automatically!"
Alas, the word is 98 percent critic, 1 one percent artist, and 1 percent
abstaining.
Nikolaus Maack
> Yesterday evening I discovered that I have an angry, read-headed,
[...]
> Alas, the word is 98 percent critic, 1 one percent artist, and 1 percent
^^^^
All typos mean something. But what? Freudian slits. Slits? I mean
cunts. Erm, uh, sorry, I mean, slips.
Laury
curl?
I'm not sure that this really explains the fishy smell.
--
Laury King at BT Internet dot com