Dreams and Surrealism
RCWilk
o Dreams and Surrealism
"Whoever wants to be creative in good and evil, he must first be an annihilator
and destroy values." - Friedreich Nietzsche
For many of us, when Surrealism is mentioned the image that generally come to
mind is the liquid melting clocks of Salvador Dali. But In Europe, Surrealism
was also a social , political, and poetic human liberation movement that
championed the dream.
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." -Rousseau in _Social
Contract_
Like the Romantics before them, the Surrealists saw that the reasonable and
rational held out a limited view for mankind, and that rationality, reality and
religion had so choked our options for experience that all the marvels and
significance of being were missed. Andre Breton, the father of Surrealism
within the Modernist movement, drew together this Romantic spirit with the new
leftist politics and the discoveries of psychoanalysis. "(Reality) revolves
in a cage from which from which release is becoming increasingly difficult."
(Brenton as quoted by Kelly, 1994)
The solution was the development of practices that challenged the old order
and offered the new in the cast out forms of madness, social anarchy,
disobedience, the shocking and the absurd. However, this anarchy was never
anything more than a temporary technique for merging the social and the
aesthetic, the dayworld and the nightworld the sane with the insane. Waking
and dreaming reality were to come together in Surreality.
In Surreality, the role of dreams was to usher in the astonishing and open up
to new possibilities. As Breton once said considering the amount of time we
spend in dreams and waking like, that there is "disproportionate attention to
waking life." (Kelly, pg 37) The dream is seen as offering a challenge in
ushering in the marvelous. The search was to be a synthesis of dream and waking
in Surreality, neither a compliance to conventional reality nor a retreat into
dreamland.
Sadly, Surrealism itself went the way of many Modernist movements, it became
formalized and choked in its own institutions. Breton's contacts with Freud
were not particularly productive and Breton's analysis of his own dreams fail
to bring to bear the wonderful spirit of surreality offered in other realms.
But the spirit of the movement has endured and has widely influenced not only
postmodern philosophy and practice in Europe but offered itself as a kindred
spirit of the human potential movements in the Americas in the 1960's that
also began to see the reality being served by the mainstream culture as
limiting, repressive and dangerous.
How then can we approach the dream so as to liberate the marvelous on one hand
without sinking into complete unreality on the other? Akhter Ahsen, a
contemporary proponent of Surrealism, offers some modern perspectives and
techniques on dreams and imagery that may begin to give up a clue to the
Surrealist Experiment.
From Ahsen in _New Surrealism, The Liberation of Images In Consciousness_ :
"One gets up in the morning and the eyes are still heavy with sleep. One opens
up the eyes and the light comes in so strong that one dives back into sleep to
avoid the traumatic impact of impassive reality.
The impassive reality can be so traumatic that the mind learns to withdraw
from it. The passivity of an unmoving reality is anti-mind. When you look, the
things stay there, nothing moves. But the mind wants to move. That is the
contradiction. And if the mind has already been bombarded and constrained by
replicas of immovable mental objects, dogmas and frozen belief systems, then
where is the original movements of the mind manifested? Where is the original
face of reality and its strength revealed? Where is the original face of
reality and its strength revealed? How can we get there?" (p118-119)
Exercise: Let us see how some of Ahsen's imagery exercises might be applied to
dreams to bring up back into contact with surreality and contact this original
face.
A. Look at something static in your room, a bookcase or door. Watch it for
about a half a minute and return your attention to it if you drift. Note the
dullness and umovingness of this outer reality.
B. Now pick a dream.
1. Pick an image in a dream and hold it in your mind. If you begin to wander,
bring the image back again and again for about a half a minute.
2. Locate the part of the image that pleases you the most and repeatedly bring
this part of the image back into you mind.
3. Note the place of the image within your awareness, and how the image seems
to be inside the mind.
4. Compare the image to the outer image you had. Which is more pleasurable? The
outside boring world or the new freshness of the inner image?
5. Which part of the dream image gives you a feeling of beauty? Explore for a
moment the beautiful aspects of the image.
6. Which part of the image gives you a feeling of power? What is the source of
this power and how does the dream image reflect this power? How might it be
developed?
7. Now hold this dream image again in your mind a few seconds and them look at
the outside world. Has the outside world now brighten up as a result? Note
how attention on the inner imagination can make the outer world look more
interesting.
8. Experiment with bringing into your dream image various people in your waking
life. Note how bringing them into the image, looking at them in detail and then
viewing them again in the outer world changes the way we view them.
Though Ahsen sees to miss the point that we are in the imagination as much as
the imagination being in us, his delightful array of imagery techniques (this
being but one of hundreds he offeres) still work to bring out the idea the we
can valorize dreamland imagery without getting lost it in, and that there is
place of exchange between the waking and dreaming world that offers us
tremendous sources of creativity and new possibilities in creation of our own
Surreality.
====================================================
If you like this essay and would like the full class, they start at the
beginning of each month at dreamgate.com
or
http://www.accesslearning.com/courses/psychology3.html
AUGUST 1, 1999
The History of Dreams
Instructor: Richard Wilkerson
This delightful six weeks class gives you both e-mail essays on the history of
dreams and
dreaming, as well as interactive labs and online dream groups to teach you ways
of exploring and
understanding your dreams.
From Robert Van de Castle, author of OUR DREAMING MIND,
"...It is a GREAT course!"
From Roberta Ossana, editor of The Dream Network journal
"Extraordinary and thorough coverage of dreaming from Day One and Multiple
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Course Outline:
Module 1. Introduction and Basic Recall Skills: The Peer-Relations
Approach
Module 2. Ancient Dreams: Messages from the Gods
Module 3. Sigmund Freud: The Dreamwork of the Unconscious
Module 4. Carl Gustav Jung: Mythic Dreams and Wholeness
Module 5. Other Pre- 1960's Dream Theories
Module 6. Frederick (Fritz) Perls : Gestalt Dream Techniques.
Module 7. Mindell and Gendlin: The DreamBody
Module 8. From Couch to Culture: Grassroots & Modern Dreamwork Movements
Module 9. Non-Interpretive Dreamwork: Lucid, Mutual, Paranormal &
Pro-active Dreaming.
Module 10. Dream Science and Dreamwork: Friends or Foes?
Module 11. Dream Anthropology: How Culture Influences Dreamwork
Module 12. Dreaming In Cyberspace: New Trends in Dream Sharing on the
Internet.
For the extended Syllabus:
http://www.accesslearning.com/courses/dreams/dreamhx_intro.html
Class Cost: $29.99 (US)
Registration Online http://www.accesslearning.com/courses/psychology3.html
Questions? You can e-mail me at rcw...@dreamgate.com
Richard Wilkerson
www.dreamgate.com
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www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
Web Manager, Association for the Study of Dreams
www.asdreams.org
Dale Houstman
RCWilk wrote:
>
>
>
> For many of us, when Surrealism is mentioned the image that generally come to
> mind is the liquid melting clocks of Salvador Dali. But In Europe, Surrealism
> was also a social , political, and poetic human liberation movement that
> championed the dream.
>
Yes, but in this "discussion" group you will find that surrealism
appears to be about...
... one-sided power struggles over ephemeral bandwidth
... harassment of the working class
... non-sequitors with a distinct middle-school flavor
It is disheartening, but you must go to the "new managers" -- yes; now
surrealism is also about who gets to be the Manager! To Hades with
collaborative actions! Get me someone who can tell me what to do!) --
to get information on that.
Run! It is not too late to escape...
DMH
Horace Confab
<378DC036...@gte.net>...
|
|
| RCWilk wrote:
| >
| >
| >
| > For many of us, when Surrealism is mentioned the image that generally
come to
| > mind is the liquid melting clocks of Salvador Dali. But In Europe,
Surrealism
| > was also a social , political, and poetic human liberation movement
that
| > championed the dream.
| >
| appears to be about...
|
| ... one-sided power struggles over ephemeral bandwidth
| ... harassment of the working class
| ... non-sequitors with a distinct middle-school flavor
|
| It is disheartening, but you must go to the "new managers" -- yes; now
| surrealism is also about who gets to be the Manager! To Hades with
| collaborative actions! Get me someone who can tell me what to do!) --
| to get information on that.
|
| Run! It is not too late to escape...
|
| DMH
Don't run!
Here is a possible version of management that isn't so bad.
A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions manager
of that thread. His or her control is in the form of suggestions. People
either like the suggestions or not. There is no law against them
responding in which ever way they care to. In fact, it is encouraged so as
to make things more interesting.
The suggestion manager's role is to suggest to a large group various "good
ideas", which not all members may have thought of. As usual, the areas
that get sustended amounts of attention will be a matter of "usenet
democracy".
In the first post, one could suggest --
lines of inquiry that seem particularly interesting
appropriate websites to fill gaps in a reader's knowledge
that everyone give a certain area a certain kind of attention, e.g.
"please focus on the positive aspects only; tomorrow we attack everything
-- mercilessly"
that his (or her) thread is meant to be regarded as a project, and not
just a thread
new directions for the thread as it progresses, for example if things seem
to be going wayward.
Here is a suggested format for the first post of this sort.
Subject: Project Biblical Surrealism
Author: Horace Confab
----
This project is for exploring issues relating to the Bible and surrealism.
At this point I would like people to help me explore the following areas.
1, Who first came up with the term surrealism, and what was suggestive in
his (or her) biography?
2, The relationship, if any, between automatic writing and the Bible
stories.
3, The combination of deep immersion in the Bible with something that
alters consciousness, like LSD or meditation.
4, Connecting the figures in the Bible with the various figures in
surrealism.
5, The "revelation" of surrealism
6, Does surrealism require grace or works; style or substance?
7, Surrealist heaven and hell; what are they like? For example, is surreal
hell normalcy, or unhappiness?
As well as suggestion managers, there can be "suggestors" who drop
suggestions onto various posts without having started the first one.
--
Don't listen to me
Andrea Chen
I'm too tired to respond in detail. But I want to say we definitely
need you in alt.surrealism. Please keep posting. This stuff is lovely
and biblical surrealism should have some wonderful effects. It
definitely increases the target market.
-the neu management-
Dale Houstman
Horace Confab wrote:
>
> A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions manager
> of that thread.
I find the word "manager" to be unacceptable; is it really necessary to
give a title to a person who merely posts a thread head? It is just more
useful and productive to attempt to act collectively, forgoing the
notion of managers (even spurious and temporary ones), and to quit the
knee-jerk animosities of RJM, Andrea and iv. These are huge distractions
that merely mimic thought and lead to rather endless threads dedicated
to nothing beyond the gratification of their own need to disrupt. Thus
they can take several positions, or no position at all. It is all well
and good to speak of "responding in which ever way" you care to, and
certainly people do. But three or more people with agendas based merely
on a desire to "win" rather than on a need to forge collaboration rather
neatly dissolve the very essence of surrealism in a muck of dishonest
antagonism and intellectual horseplay. I can scarcely recall a time when
these infections haven't scarred the vital tissue and festered inside
the core issues of surrealism. Luckily (and this they always forget) the
real work of surrealism occurs quite outside their policing embraces.
>There is no law against them responding in which ever way they care to. In fact, it is encouraged so as
> to make things more interesting.
But it isn't more interesting; the arguments are always the same;
someone posts something outside the venue of The Chen / RJM / iv league,
(it need only be the most innocuous postings by someone they have
determined to "bomb") and they pick and choose portions they can distort
to their slander and idiocy. And this goes on and on; we never are
allowed to achieve anything beyond the most shallow silliness, or
endless debate over nothing. One can ignore it, and I do more and more,
but one cannot claim it is in any way a part of what the essential
surrealist experiment is supposed to be about, and that is individuals
acting collaboratively to investigate and produce processes by which one
can liberate corrupted desire from the very "control" you allow in, even
if only slightly. A little boss soon wants to be a big boss.
> The suggestion manager's role is to suggest to a large group various "good
> ideas", which not all members may have thought of. As usual, the areas
> that get sustended amounts of attention will be a matter of "usenet
> democracy".
Except for the "manager" title I agree, but the strange thing here is,
this sort of process occurs *naturally* amongst equals, and the fact
that we need to discuss it as a "goal" says all that needs to be said
for this ng.
> Here is a suggested format for the first post of this sort.
>
> Subject: Project Biblical Surrealism
> Author: Horace Confab
>
> ----
> This project is for exploring issues relating to the Bible and surrealism.
Haven't we been down this road enough? The gravel is polished smooth..
>
> 1, Who first came up with the term surrealism, and what was suggestive in
> his (or her) biography?
Guillaume Apollinaire first used it in a play, althgough in a completely
different sense than it came to have under Andre Breton, who
appropriated the term but built around it a flexible (and people who
haven't read him enough or well enough forget this intellectual
flexibility) system of engagement with reality. I know almost nothing
about his early life, but do know he was a medical man, and thus a man
of science. This scientific approach (even to mysticism) is to be seen
throughout surrealism.
> 2, The relationship, if any, between automatic writing and the Bible
> stories.
Who knows? The term "automatism" is psychological and was used by
Gertrude Stein as well as Breton, but its existence as a distinct entity
in Biblical time is something I never consider. There is probably little
doubt that some of the Bible's texts were composed rapidly, or in a
state of disassociation brought on by malnutrition, thirst, ecstatic
desire, or any number of self-derangements. Ezekiel comes to mind. And
much of the Old Testament partakes of the common fund of mythos; there's
not much "new" in it. But we can't (or at least I don't) forget that
(for the most part) these efforts are geared towards exaltation of a
Boss with an Attitude, rather than toward self-revelation and
liberation. The Songs of Solomon are a marvelous exception (although
limply claimed by Christians as a paean to the body of Christ) and are
obvious relics of a hugley human desire for another's physical being.
But automatism? Don't know...
> 3, The combination of deep immersion in the Bible with something that
> alters consciousness, like LSD or meditation.
The fact is that "deep immersion" and LSD don't commonly ride the same
bus, and a "deep immersion" in a comic book is probably just as
productive. There are no great "mysteries" to poke out of the Bible like
a snail from its buttered shell. Of course evangelists will go to great
depths to "mystify" the book with arcane and performance-enhanced
readings (as the Catholic Church will do by downplaying it altogether),
but the separate books can be easily read for their sometimes charming
fairy tale qualities. The New Testament has a class of writers closer to
intellectuals, but their strong rhetorical skills have rather oppressive
feel, especially Paul, whose notions on sex and domesticity have ruined
Catholics lives for centuries now.
> 4, Connecting the figures in the Bible with the various figures in surrealism.
Jesus is Loplop? Leonora Carrington is Mother Mary?
> 5, The "revelation" of surrealism
Not enough info.
> 6, Does surrealism require grace or works; style or substance?
I don't see that "grace/works" is a useful dichotomy; could you
elaborate? The argument between style and substance (as the one between
form and content) really bores me. If anything I have learned from
surrealism that the gesture contains both and more, and there is no
useful separation.
> 7, Surrealist heaven and hell; what are they like? For example, is surreal
> hell normalcy, or unhappiness?
Heaven and hell are not considerations for me. "Normalcy" borders on a
non-idea.
> --
> Don't listen to me
Don't tell me what to do...
DMH
Horace Confab
|
|
| Horace Confab wrote:
| >
|
|
| > A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions
manager
| > of that thread.
|
| I find the word "manager" to be unacceptable; is it really necessary to
| give a title to a person who merely posts a thread head?
It depends. It may be useful to speak of unconscious suggestion
management.
I'm going to create some new parts. There's this ruler scale. The scale
points in the direction of "suggest new ideas". The highest point on the
scale corresponds to when the suggestions manager is operating within "a
new kind of thread": a project thread. This is where he is most able to
effectively make suggestions; it's his project. At the bottom of the
pointing scale is when he finds himself posting to an ordinary thread. His
techniques for directing the readers attention include underhanded methods
such as style, attitude and derision; in comparison the relative
straightforwardness of projects makes motives more visible. The techniques
he uses to direct attention outside of a project are more likely to be
unconscious, as well as the motivation behind them. What does he want us
to do? Celebrate him, give him feedback, marry him?
A project, with stated goals and methods, is something of a liberation from
unconscious imperatives, because a project says what a person wants done,
and ideally, why. This starter person might say, please give your
attention to this area and tell me whether it could support this idea. He
could request the "collective unconscious" of a group's advice, and get
them flowing along the same lines by also requesting it.
| It is just more
| useful and productive to attempt to act collectively, forgoing the
| notion of managers (even spurious and temporary ones), and to quit the
| knee-jerk animosities of RJM, Andrea and iv.
What do you think about projects, where there's a topic and ten or so
questions? As you can see from our example below, there's no need to
actually mention the term "suggestion manager". It can just be there,
invisibly, as a kind of standard (which hasn't been defined yet).
Suggestion management and projects are intimately entwined.
| These are huge distractions
| that merely mimic thought and lead to rather endless threads dedicated
| to nothing beyond the gratification of their own need to disrupt. Thus
| they can take several positions, or no position at all. It is all well
| and good to speak of "responding in which ever way" you care to, and
| certainly people do. But three or more people with agendas based merely
| on a desire to "win" rather than on a need to forge collaboration rather
| neatly dissolve the very essence of surrealism in a muck of dishonest
| antagonism and intellectual horseplay.
I like the people you mention; I haven't experienced their dark sides.
Andrea Chen has boldly shown some subtlety in trying to juggle being
serious with being playful, always difficult; "iv" is obviously a useful
sort of person, if you swing literary; and I like RJM's writing.
You could get revenge on the gang for the tactics they use, by creating a
surrealist project. That would be a kind of revenge. Or not.
There's no reason why someone couldn't contribute to every kind of project;
no divisions are necessary. A suggestion manager is like a unifier. The
only problem I can see at the moment is that I don't think surrealism is
interesting enough to generate very many stimulating projects. Although,
just a few could last forever, even spawn newsgroups.
| I can scarcely recall a time when
| these infections haven't scarred the vital tissue and festered inside
| the core issues of surrealism. Luckily (and this they always forget) the
| real work of surrealism occurs quite outside their policing embraces.
Well there's one thing crystal clear: we're both dissatisifed with how
things are at the moment. Another clear thing to me is that we need new
concepts and ideas to make things better; we can't just eject the baddies
you know.
My suggestions are just a first go; maybe someone else will think of some
better ones and save the world.
| >There is no law against them responding in which ever way they care to.
In fact, it is encouraged so as
| > to make things more interesting.
|
| But it isn't more interesting; the arguments are always the same;
| someone posts something outside the venue of The Chen / RJM / iv league,
| (it need only be the most innocuous postings by someone they have
| determined to "bomb") and they pick and choose portions they can distort
| to their slander and idiocy.
Well, by starting projects, there is some pressure for people to do them,
and if projects become popular, the gang cannot help but be somewhat swayed
by "usenet democracy" to also do them, thus in fact making things more
interesting with them, if not necessarily better.
| And this goes on and on; we never are
| allowed to achieve anything beyond the most shallow silliness, or
| endless debate over nothing. One can ignore it, and I do more and more,
| but one cannot claim it is in any way a part of what the essential
| surrealist experiment is supposed to be about, and that is individuals
| acting collaboratively to investigate and produce processes by which one
| can liberate corrupted desire from the very "control" you allow in, even
| if only slightly. A little boss soon wants to be a big boss.
America has a president for a reason. The problem with the world is that
we have a civilisation of ideas, but it's an old civilisation. We need
something to be different. Something more playful, surreal, explorative.
Annoyingly, structures that free also restrain. The best solution I have,
better than suggestion managers, is unconditional love, but that is fraught
with complexities it seems.
| > The suggestion manager's role is to suggest to a large group various
"good
| > ideas", which not all members may have thought of. As usual, the areas
| > that get sustended amounts of attention will be a matter of "usenet
| > democracy".
|
| Except for the "manager" title I agree, but the strange thing here is,
| this sort of process occurs *naturally* amongst equals, and the fact
| that we need to discuss it as a "goal" says all that needs to be said
| for this ng.
It wasn't the definitive statement about suggestion managers. I prefer the
news things I wrote at the top of this post.
Maybe suggestion management is the way to liberate the collective
unconscious.
| > Here is a suggested format for the first post of this sort.
| >
| > Subject: Project Biblical Surrealism
| > Author: Horace Confab
| >
| > ----
| > This project is for exploring issues relating to the Bible and
surrealism.
|
| Haven't we been down this road enough? The gravel is polished smooth..
You mean talking about surrealism and the Bible, as opposed to projects in
general? Well, I think this has merit, and so much so that it could become
a unique newsgroup. But then I say that about everything.
| > 1, Who first came up with the term surrealism, and what was suggestive
in
| > his (or her) biography?
|
| Guillaume Apollinaire first used it in a play, althgough in a completely
| different sense than it came to have under Andre Breton, who
| appropriated the term but built around it a flexible (and people who
| haven't read him enough or well enough forget this intellectual
| flexibility) system of engagement with reality. I know almost nothing
| about his early life, but do know he was a medical man, and thus a man
| of science. This scientific approach (even to mysticism) is to be seen
| throughout surrealism.
Wasn't Breton something of a leader? He managed to combine flexibility
with enough substance to be remembered. Maybe there's something new to be
learnt from him.
| > 2, The relationship, if any, between automatic writing and the Bible
| > stories.
|
| Who knows? The term "automatism" is psychological and was used by
| Gertrude Stein as well as Breton, but its existence as a distinct entity
| in Biblical time is something I never consider. There is probably little
| doubt that some of the Bible's texts were composed rapidly, or in a
| state of disassociation brought on by malnutrition, thirst, ecstatic
| desire, or any number of self-derangements. Ezekiel comes to mind. And
| much of the Old Testament partakes of the common fund of mythos; there's
| not much "new" in it. But we can't (or at least I don't) forget that
| (for the most part) these efforts are geared towards exaltation of a
| Boss with an Attitude, rather than toward self-revelation and
| liberation. The Songs of Solomon are a marvelous exception (although
| limply claimed by Christians as a paean to the body of Christ) and are
| obvious relics of a hugley human desire for another's physical being.
| But automatism? Don't know...
Perhaps automatism combined with some kind of drug, combined with deep
immersion in metaphors of society produced the Bible.
| > 3, The combination of deep immersion in the Bible with something that
| > alters consciousness, like LSD or meditation.
|
| The fact is that "deep immersion" and LSD don't commonly ride the same
| bus, and a "deep immersion" in a comic book is probably just as
| productive.
What I should have said was that dreams often reflect the day and, perhaps
after reading a lot of the Bible, then having an eyes-shut LSD trip there
would be a similar, but more interesting, effect. I didn't mean reading
the Bible while tripping.
| There are no great "mysteries" to poke out of the Bible like
| a snail from its buttered shell. Of course evangelists will go to great
| depths to "mystify" the book with arcane and performance-enhanced
| readings (as the Catholic Church will do by downplaying it altogether),
| but the separate books can be easily read for their sometimes charming
| fairy tale qualities. The New Testament has a class of writers closer to
| intellectuals, but their strong rhetorical skills have rather oppressive
| feel, especially Paul, whose notions on sex and domesticity have ruined
| Catholics lives for centuries now.
The mystery is how the Catholics managed to project mystery onto the Bible.
Hmm.
| > 4, Connecting the figures in the Bible with the various figures in
surrealism.
|
| Jesus is Loplop? Leonora Carrington is Mother Mary?
Hmm..
| > 5, The "revelation" of surrealism
|
| Not enough info.
Well, what do surrealist texts make of the future, if anything. I mean, do
they make predictions like the Bible does; perhaps that one day surrealism
is going to be ubiquitous for all? How vast is the chasm between
possibilities and surrealist possibilities?
| > 6, Does surrealism require grace or works; style or substance?
|
| I don't see that "grace/works" is a useful dichotomy; could you
| elaborate?
Style is a kind of grace or form (of self); works is to do with content.
No great use at this time.
| The argument between style and substance (as the one between
| form and content) really bores me. If anything I have learned from
| surrealism that the gesture contains both and more, and there is no
| useful separation.
Well, clearly I'm sort of pro form, with my suggestion management and
project parts. I put the emphasis on form over content, but I also have
them together as one-- self-organising system, where structure is
provocation and content is movement. Provocation is anything that bounds
the universe; where it exists, I say there's been a failure to
unconditionally love reality. But that means chaos.
| > 7, Surrealist heaven and hell; what are they like? For example, is
surreal
| > hell normalcy, or unhappiness?
|
| Heaven and hell are not considerations for me. "Normalcy" borders on a
| non-idea.
|
|
| > --
| > Don't listen to me
|
| Don't tell me what to do...
|
| DMH
--
Leo Sgouros
> immersion in metaphors of society produced the Bible.
Sounds like monastic life, or a shaman.
How much information can a person learn at a time, really?
I was exposed to something really interesting years ago, that was basically
an accelerated crash learning program.We were given problems to solve,
problems that had no solution with existing tools.
We had to solve the problems to make the new tools to solve the
problems.Leaps were made using isolation and other techniques along with
dedicated imagery.
The place is gone now.
Biblical Accelerated Production Program tugs at me in a strange way.
Just a thought.
_L_
Horace Confab
<G5Wj3.102$YU3....@newse3.tampabay.rr.com>...
| > Perhaps automatism combined with some kind of drug, combined with deep
| > immersion in metaphors of society produced the Bible.
|
|
There must be different shaman recipes. If we could get the Bible writers'
one, that would be great. And a recipe to maximise the ability to learn.
| How much information can a person learn at a time, really?
With a visual language to make things compact, and a digital concept map of
varying detail for each wall of a house, there wouldn't be much of a need
to learn things. If everyone had access to the system, learning might be
irrelevant; creative thinking for generating new concepts would be the only
thing that matters. Actually though, this system might make it easier to
learn. ("The houses system")
There would be a need for individuals to be able to manipulate the concepts
and see the results (ideally the results would reorganise automatically).
Being able to send updates to other households would also be important.
| I was exposed to something really interesting years ago, that was
basically
| an accelerated crash learning program.We were given problems to solve,
| problems that had no solution with existing tools.
| We had to solve the problems to make the new tools to solve the
| problems.Leaps were made using isolation and other techniques along with
| dedicated imagery.
Got any recipes to share? Like, the techniques -- what is the isolation
technique?
| The place is gone now.
| Biblical Accelerated Production Program tugs at me in a strange way.
| Just a thought.
| _L_
So it goes.
Andrea Chen
> |
> | > A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions
> manager
> | > of that thread.
> |
> | I find the word "manager" to be unacceptable;
This is what makes it necessary. Neu Surrealism is about daring (at
least symbolically) the unacceptable.
>
> It depends. It may be useful to speak of unconscious suggestion
> management.
>
It certainly is. But at that point you enter onto a taboo subject, the
suble often unconscious manipulations of the group mind (which involves
a "politics" similar to those dealt with by RD Laing) is not something
that polite people care to talk about.
Which is why neu surrealists (and possibly Christian surrealists)
should talk about it and make it conscious
(neu surrealism is a process of revealing the unconscious)
But how?
By formalizing it and mocking the structures of the world.
Rather than imply "my glorious inspired surrealist imagination has
inspired (yes inspired, I'm truly inspired for I am artist! Hear me
talk about my liberated imagination!) I repeat I have been inspired for
reasons of glorious art to post this thread..."
we say (dryly):
"It is in the agenda of Christian surrealism to raise this topic."
Of course we hope for many surrealisms to exist on this thread so that
we may here a reply that the committee of red shoe surrealists objects
to this thread because there is no mention of Kate Bush (let us mock the
usual bickering)
while the neu neutopian provisional government demands that both
parties submit to examininations by the Texas Anti Grey Militia to
determine whether or not they are controlled by implants.
Let us insult each other, but lets do so with a bit of story telling
and having ritualized this process (with each of us asserting absolute
management) we may actually discuss the topics at hand. If in fact
there be any topics besides personalities.
The neu surrealist movement will reluctantly admit that the Christian
surrealists have indeed raised some interesting topics (rather than
merely reacted.) Therefore despite the damage it does to pure democracy
(led by the one woman who cares about humanity) we reluctantly admit
them into the governing management of alt.surrealism in which and every
member claims to be absolute boss.
Those who would like to join this elite ruling class must raise some
interesting topics of their own.
The above has been voted on and affirmed.
Thankyou for your cooperation in this matter.
Leo Sgouros
> Got any recipes to share? Like, the techniques -- what is the isolation
> technique?
>
Isolation meaning there were members unknown to each other in the same
project.
To be successful at certain problem solving it was decided that the
questions that the volunteers posed were as important as the testors
questions.What followed was the decision to provide the participants,
individually, with *any* information held, on any subject.Think about
that.It is no use to have a team solve a puzzle without all the pieces.
What ended up happening was the people who put on the program shut the
switch off out of fear of too much, too fast, and the complete breakdown of
the meaning of special compartmentalized information.The system thus
insulates itself from true oversight, as nobody is allowed to know enough to
prevent a bad or inordinately expensive system from being deployed.Imagine
discovering our most vaunted systems, when viewed as a whole in their naked
splendor, are nowhere near the bells and whistles they are supposed to be,
but since nobody was allowed all the pieces, who is the wiser?
*That* is how you get a 2 billion dollar plane that is useless in the rain.
I know the first question I asked, when tasked to perform a certain military
intervention, was "am I allowed to steal to carry this out"?
Meaning if I am tasked to prevent a ballistic missile launch, in my wargame
scenario, am I allowed to steal a Patriot Missile Battery?I was not, so I
came up with ionizing WW2 radar chaff using the same idea as "meteor burst
transmisssion"
Oberkommando Gneral Letenant Gilbert Van buren will now explain SCI, the
joke, and his coronary.
Looking at this tragedy unfold on the TV makes my fears of revealing this
stuff evaporate.
Fuck the old order.
> | The place is gone now.
> | Biblical Accelerated Production Program tugs at me in a strange way.
> | Just a thought.
> | _L_
>
> So it goes.
It hasnt yet begun to go.
But it *will*.
Horace Confab
<379094...@earthlink.net>...
| >
| > |
| > | > A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions
| > manager
| > | > of that thread.
| > |
| > | I find the word "manager" to be unacceptable;
Well, I chose the term because I saw "manager" in the tail of the post I
responded to and that inspired me to think of suggestion management.
Suggestion management is somewhere in between business management and
unconscious imperatives. Where in the middle? Well, on the ground level.
It's about being clear in motives and what you want.
| This is what makes it necessary. Neu Surrealism is about daring (at
| least symbolically) the unacceptable.
I do not think that suggestion management is at all unacceptable. The
problem is I chose a word that has such negative connotations. Perhaps if
I had chosen the term "Sugarsiza" it would have been easier to swallow.
| > It depends. It may be useful to speak of unconscious suggestion
| > management.
| >
|
|
| It certainly is. But at that point you enter onto a taboo subject, the
| suble often unconscious manipulations of the group mind (which involves
| a "politics" similar to those dealt with by RD Laing) is not something
| that polite people care to talk about.
I do like the word subtle.
I would like to introduce a new term, synthesis-sheets. These are possible
syntheses of any two opposing views. There could be a great variety of
sheets to any particular case.
You could say, A=one view, B=opposing view (valued attention), C=result
(reward). This is always true, I conjecture.
| Which is why neu surrealists (and possibly Christian surrealists)
| should talk about it and make it conscious
Yes; making conscious how to liberate the collective unconscious, is a
godly activity: the only way to pray.
| (neu surrealism is a process of revealing the unconscious)
|
| But how?
|
| By formalizing it and mocking the structures of the world.
I don't like mocking very much, although I do sometimes. But perhaps
there can be a number of synthesis-sheets involving different clashings of
suggestion management within the neu management system, both within and
against the pinks.
| Rather than imply "my glorious inspired surrealist imagination has
| inspired (yes inspired, I'm truly inspired for I am artist! Hear me
| talk about my liberated imagination!) I repeat I have been inspired for
| reasons of glorious art to post this thread..."
From a different angle, what I hate is when I post something artsy and no
one bothers to explore it. That's what I want, new ideas based on what I
produced. I don't want celebration. That's what's wrong with the world
today, people don't say what they want.
| we say (dryly):
|
| "It is in the agenda of Christian surrealism to raise this topic."
|
| Of course we hope for many surrealisms to exist on this thread so that
| we may here a reply that the committee of red shoe surrealists objects
| to this thread because there is no mention of Kate Bush (let us mock the
| usual bickering)
An unconditional loversurrealist doesn't mind anything. He thinks it's
surreal to be an accountant. He's like a little kid. Although, he would
never be an accountant.
| while the neu neutopian provisional government demands that both
| parties submit to examininations by the Texas Anti Grey Militia to
| determine whether or not they are controlled by implants.
|
| Let us insult each other, but lets do so with a bit of story telling
| and having ritualized this process (with each of us asserting absolute
| management) we may actually discuss the topics at hand. If in fact
| there be any topics besides personalities.
There is no need to insult. Personalities are the antithesis of
exploration. I'm sure we can explore this conflict successfully. Perhaps
not with each other, for exploration may be impossible, but definitely
unconsciously over the next five years. And derive new ideas. That is the
payoff. If you cannot generate relevant ideas on demand through surreal
means then you cannot be a member of the neu movement. Naturally, those
found inadequate in this area will be hanged.
Standards are good.
| The neu surrealist movement will reluctantly admit that the Christian
| surrealists have indeed raised some interesting topics (rather than
| merely reacted.) Therefore despite the damage it does to pure democracy
| (led by the one woman who cares about humanity) we reluctantly admit
| them into the governing management of alt.surrealism in which and every
| member claims to be absolute boss.
The Christian Surrealists... believe we are all basically surreal. How
could anyone argue with that? But they speak in platitudes. Or parables.
| Those who would like to join this elite ruling class must raise some
| interesting topics of their own.
It's okay with me if they can just post anything, So there's a bit of an
optional component here. Although as I say, my preference, my suggestion
is that the emphasis of posting be on what can be instead of what is (for
example, on new syntheses instead of on bickerings).
| The above has been voted on and affirmed.
|
| Thankyou for your cooperation in this matter.
I cast ye down!
Ali Hassan Ali Hassan
Is this your way of asking her out on a date, Horace? How surreal.
Dale Houstman
Horace Confab wrote:
>
> | > A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions
> manager of that thread.
> |
> | I find the word "manager" to be unacceptable; is it really necessary to
> | give a title to a person who merely posts a thread head?
>
> It depends. It may be useful to speak of unconscious suggestion
> management.
But once we speak of it and give it a title doesn't it lose some of its
unconscious panache?
> I'm going to create some new parts. There's this ruler scale. The scale
> points in the direction of "suggest new ideas". The highest point on the
> scale corresponds to when the suggestions manager is operating within "a
> new kind of thread": a project thread. This is where he is most able to
> effectively make suggestions; it's his project. At the bottom of the
> pointing scale is when he finds himself posting to an ordinary thread. His
> techniques for directing the readers attention include underhanded methods
> such as style, attitude and derision; in comparison the relative
> straightforwardness of projects makes motives more visible. The techniques
> he uses to direct attention outside of a project are more likely to be
> unconscious, as well as the motivation behind them. What does he want us
> to do? Celebrate him, give him feedback, marry him?
Don't get it; this appears to me to be merely a overly complex way of
approaching what happens naturally.
> What do you think about projects, where there's a topic and ten or so
> questions? As you can see from our example below, there's no need to
> actually mention the term "suggestion manager". It can just be there,
Why? If there is no reason to mention it (which, by the way, has already
happened), why allow it to exist as a possibility at all?
> invisibly, as a kind of standard (which hasn't been defined yet).
> Suggestion management and projects are intimately entwined.
>
> | These are huge distractions
> | that merely mimic thought and lead to rather endless threads dedicated
> | to nothing beyond the gratification of their own need to disrupt. Thus
> | they can take several positions, or no position at all. It is all well
> | and good to speak of "responding in which ever way" you care to, and
> | certainly people do. But three or more people with agendas based merely
> | on a desire to "win" rather than on a need to forge collaboration rather
> | neatly dissolve the very essence of surrealism in a muck of dishonest
> | antagonism and intellectual horseplay.
>
> I like the people you mention; I haven't experienced their dark sides.
You haven't tried hard enough.
>
> You could get revenge on the gang for the tactics they use, by creating a
> surrealist project. That would be a kind of revenge. Or not.
Who wants revenge? This entire subject is anathema. What I want (if I
want anything from Usenet except a casual diversion) is for people to
stop playing games they think are immensely deep, but in actuality are
just fancy forms of childish temper tantrums. "If I scream will mommy
drop her plate?" And the like. Name me one
thing Andrea has "discovered" that isn't common knowledge in a high
school psych course? It isn't whether or not you can get people to buy
into whatever piece of tripe you're fronting, or whether you can fool
others into believing the silliest statements and thus (like a fool)
taking them at face value. If that's all this is about (and I suspect it
is) then who cares? What I want is precisely what Andrea her ilk exist
to disrupt, a relatively calm discussion of surrealist theory. Nik
doesn't like "conversations" but what else is there here? A line of
debate and discussion and poems and drawings, political debates also.
And done with a degree of collaborative spirit, rather than gvw's "you
stupid fucking cock" crap and RJM's "throbbing member" and "I have a
history degree" brouhaha. I mean - who really cares? Everyone is
striving to create some revolutionary concept, or to panic people on the
street. But the fact is that collaboration amongst individuals IS
revolutionary, and certainly would be here.
>The only problem I can see at the moment is that I don't think surrealism is
> interesting enough to generate very many stimulating projects.
Again, this is the nature of the ng; my friends and I are filling up a
magazine regularly with contributions from like-minded individuals, and
the group is growing. We collaborate on texts, and events, and images.
They surely seem "interesting" to me. I'd say that too many of the
people who post here simply don't know what surrealism entails, so they
aren't interesting in the least. They somehow believe surrealism is
about a series of extremely repetitive confrontations so as to prompt
what are rather predictable responses. Andrea has prompted the same
responses for several months now, and she mainly aims for a stultifying
stasis created by purposeful confusion. This doesn't strike me as being
intriguing in the least, but she is obviously tickled to death by her
own "cleverness." So?
> Although, just a few could last forever, even spawn newsgroups.
Oh boy... more salmon eggs in the river!
>
> Well there's one thing crystal clear: we're both dissatisifed with how
> things are at the moment. Another clear thing to me is that we need new
> concepts and ideas to make things better; we can't just eject the baddies
> you know.
Yes and no: as mentioned in my replies to Nik, I am not particularly
expectant of this media becoming any more useful than TV or radio is for
the most part. It's a mildly amusing sideline.
>
> America has a president for a reason.
Someone has to gather the big money in his tiny hat.
> The problem with the world is that we have a civilisation of ideas, but it's an old civilisation.
America has a civilization, since it is full of cities, but it barely
has a culture, since almost all its true cultural artifacts are
outsider; blues, jazz, comic books, etc. America's sanctioned culture
(look what it has done to film!) is mainly shit. This isn't depressing
to me, as it could have been predicted, and my work lies elsehwere at
any rate.
>We need something to be different. Something more playful, surreal, explorative.
Progress and a too powerful urge toward "originality" can be as
destructive as tradition, since they tend to become ungrounded and
self-congratulatory. "Look at me, I'm burning a tampon painted like thew
Israeli flag! Applaud now..." Excrutiating...
>
> The best solution I have, better than suggestion managers, is unconditional love, but that is fraught
> with complexities it seems.
Or with risks.
>
> | > The suggestion manager's role is to suggest to a large group various
> "good
> | > ideas", which not all members may have thought of. As usual, the areas
> | > that get sustended amounts of attention will be a matter of "usenet
> | > democracy".
Of course, but this goes without saying.
>
> Maybe suggestion management is the way to liberate the collective
> unconscious.
Probably not, but...
>
>
> Wasn't Breton something of a leader? He managed to combine flexibility
> with enough substance to be remembered. Maybe there's something new to be
> learnt from him.
If you read him enough you'll see how flexible this notoriously
inflexible man could bne when it came to intellectual honesty, BUT he is
reviled and not read.
>
>
>
> Perhaps automatism combined with some kind of drug, combined with deep
> immersion in metaphors of society produced the Bible.
Well, the Bible isn't a book but a loose collection of tracts. Some may
well be the creation of some form of quick writing, or oral
transmission, but a lot of it (particularly the New Testament) is
obviously quite thought out, and the result of political consideration.
so it is difficult to speak of "the Bible" as a unity. It isn't.
>
> The mystery is how the Catholics managed to project mystery onto the Bible.
> Hmm.
By strenuously avoiding much mention of it, and by giving the orations
in Latin.
> | > 5, The "revelation" of surrealism
> |
> | Not enough info.
>
> Well, what do surrealist texts make of the future, if anything. I mean, do
> they make predictions like the Bible does; perhaps that one day surrealism
> is going to be ubiquitous for all? How vast is the chasm between
> possibilities and surrealist possibilities?
Breton (in the third Manifesto) speaks of the future of surrealism, and
admits that it is primarily out of his hands, but should have recourse
to what has gone before. It's not much of a prediction, and I don't
cotton to prophecy much (except as another aspect of imagination). I
don;t think considering the possibility of surrealism's "spreading
popularity" is productive.
>
Oh hell! What's the point... we're being watched!
DMH
Andrea Chen
> | This is what makes it necessary. Neu Surrealism is about daring (at
> | least symbolically) the unacceptable.
>
> I do not think that suggestion management is at all unacceptable. The
> problem is I chose a word that has such negative connotations. Perhaps if
> I had chosen the term "Sugarsiza" it would have been easier to swallow.
>
Horace breath deeply and try to understand my writing style. I state
that we *should* dare the unacceptable, that we should question all
these implicit assumptions and challenge them.
Therefore I support you. Someone says something is unacceptable and I
say that is reason to experiment with it. It's called challenging
authority.
Similarly in other parts of my post to which you responded I satirized
and acknowledged the personal spats to which Usenet threads often
(typically) descend. I personally believe the only way we can deal with
this is for all parties to admit they are potentially guilty rather than
blaming the other.
I go on the assumption that none of is innocent.
My style is one of (perhaps poorly done) irony and satire, I try to
include ambiguity to throw the mind off and make it think of certain
words and certain ideas in different ways.
Try to read my writing in this context. Otherwise you will find
yourself arguing with statements which are actually in substantial
agreement with what you have to say.
Horace Confab
| >
| > | This is what makes it necessary. Neu Surrealism is about
daring (at
| > | least symbolically) the unacceptable.
| >
| > I do not think that suggestion management is at all unacceptable. The
| > problem is I chose a word that has such negative connotations. Perhaps
if
| > I had chosen the term "Sugarsiza" it would have been easier to swallow.
| >
|
|
| that we *should* dare the unacceptable, that we should question all
| these implicit assumptions and challenge them.
My first such attempt found that the only reason it was unacceptable was
because it wasn't sugar coated.
I find "dare" to be a problem word, since it can mean two opposite things.
I am disappointed that you chose not to play with me as I was with you. If
you change your mind, the last thing that happened was that I cast you out
of Surrealist Heaven for being unable to generate relevant new ideas. The
garden of Eden is the collective unconscious liberated.
You see an apple tree.
Horace Confab
|
| Horace Confab wrote:
| >
|
| > | > A person who starts a new kind of thread is called the suggestions
| > manager of that thread.
| > |
| > | I find the word "manager" to be unacceptable; is it really necessary
to
| > | give a title to a person who merely posts a thread head?
| >
| > It depends. It may be useful to speak of unconscious suggestion
| > management.
|
| But once we speak of it and give it a title doesn't it lose some of its
| unconscious panache?
Unconscious suggestion management is a useful term in the sense that it has
something to do with unconscious imperatives and intention.
As Andrea says, this is something of a taboo subject, and is interesting.
Exploring, or "daring" the area has merit.
On the other hand, unconscious pananche has a high value to surrealists,
artists, and most people I suppose. You wouldn't want knowledge, true or
skew, to reck that.
This elan, or spirit, is the "signature" of the human being.
It may be the label usm will make the signature more beautiful, more
flowing; or the opposite might occur. Both seem equally possible.
Either a stepping stone or hay and a hole.
Consider usm and memetics. I have the opinion that memetics will open up a
world of unconditional love, mainly because memetics denies the self and
that is very compatible with ul. The ul environment could well be the
liberation of the unconscious, to be what it wants to be.
Or things like memetics and its babies-in-the-womb could lead to a new kind
of society where the only thing to be done is to cry together about how
terrible things are.
Could go either way.
| > I'm going to create some new parts. There's this ruler scale. The
scale
| > points in the direction of "suggest new ideas". The highest point on
the
| > scale corresponds to when the suggestions manager is operating within
"a
| > new kind of thread": a project thread. This is where he is most able
to
| > effectively make suggestions; it's his project. At the bottom of the
| > pointing scale is when he finds himself posting to an ordinary thread.
His
| > techniques for directing the readers attention include underhanded
methods
| > such as style, attitude and derision; in comparison the relative
| > straightforwardness of projects makes motives more visible. The
techniques
| > he uses to direct attention outside of a project are more likely to be
| > unconscious, as well as the motivation behind them. What does he want
us
| > to do? Celebrate him, give him feedback, marry him?
|
| Don't get it; this appears to me to be merely a overly complex way of
| approaching what happens naturally.
I do like imagery; that is my excuse.
I'm just saying that what happens naturally is a bit disappointing at the
moment and needs a bit of a booster shot.
Suggestion managers, who appear briefly then dissolve to be replaced by
other ones with different projects, is a possible approach.
He is the self, for a while. Then he is not.
I think it is about institutionalising a better kind of natural (my
suggestion).
| > What do you think about projects, where there's a topic and ten or so
| > questions? As you can see from our example below, there's no need to
| > actually mention the term "suggestion manager". It can just be there,
|
| Why? If there is no reason to mention it (which, by the way, has already
| happened), why allow it to exist as a possibilMú ]
ity at all?
Oh. Well, because I want a better kind of natural. There is a need to
discuss it, in fact; what I meant was there is no great need to do so
inside of a project. That would be a distraction, unless the project was
about projects. The point of the term is to create a framework that may be
useful.
| > invisibly, as a kind of standard (which hasn't been defined yet).
| > Suggestion management and projects are intimately entwined.
| >
| > | These are huge distractions
| > | that merely mimic thought and lead to rather endless threads
dedicated
| > | to nothing beyond the gratification of their own need to disrupt.
Thus
| > | they can take several positions, or no position at all. It is all
well
| > | and good to speak of "responding in which ever way" you care to, and
| > | certainly people do. But three or more people with agendas based
merely
| > | on a desire to "win" rather than on a need to forge collaboration
rather
| > | neatly dissolve the very essence of surrealism in a muck of dishonest
| > | antagonism and intellectual horseplay.
| >
| > I like the people you mention; I haven't experienced their dark sides.
|
| You haven't tried hard enough.
I'm trying.
| > You could get revenge on the gang for the tactics they use, by creating
a
| > surrealist project. That would be a kind of revenge. Or not.
|
| Who wants revenge? This entire subject is anathema. What I want (if I
| want anything from Usenet except a casual diversion) is for people to
| stop playing games they think are immensely deep, but in actuality are
| just fancy forms of childish temper tantrums. "If I scream will mommy
| drop her plate?" And the like. Name me one
| thing Andrea has "discovered" that isn't common knowledge in a high
| school psych course?
I don't know. Andrea?
| It isn't whether or not you can get people to buy
| into whatever piece of tripe you're fronting, or whether you can fool
| others into believing the silliest statements and thus (like a fool)
| taking them at face value. If that's all this is about (and I suspect it
| is) then who cares? What I want is precisely what Andrea her ilk exist
| to disrupt, a relatively calm discussion of surrealist theory.
I would like that, but I think I have proved that it can exist. Look at my
two projects so far. The lines of inquiry in them may have been a bit slap
dash, but it's a start. The most important thing is to have a goal, I
think; although that may be my greatest mistake. Might be. I currently
just want to develop my ideas a bit more so they appear to have real
substance.
| Nik
| doesn't like "conversations" but what else is there here? A line of
| debate and discussion and poems and drawings, political debates also.
| And done with a degree of collaborative spirit, rather than gvw's "you
| stupid fucking cock" crap and RJM's "throbbing member" and "I have a
| history degree" brouhaha. I mean - who really cares? Everyone is
| striving to create some revolutionary concept, or to panic people on the
| street. But the fact is that collaboration amongst individuals IS
| revolutionary, and certainly would be here.
Well, I hope it happens.
| >The only problem I can see at the moment is that I don't think
surrealism is
| > interesting enough to generate very many stimulating projects.
I don't really know much about surrealism and of course it shows. I have
some bonds with it, and it's getting more interesting I admit.
| Again, this is the nature of the ng; my friends and I are filling up a
| magazine regularly with contributions from like-minded individuals, and
| the group is growing. We collaborate on texts, and events, and images.
| They surely seem "interesting" to me.
That sounds great. It would be good to have something like that here. One
day perhaps.
| I'd say that too many of the
| people who post here simply don't know what surrealism entails, so they
| aren't interesting in the least. They somehow believe surrealism is
| about a series of]
m extremely repetitive confrontations so as to prompt
| what are rather predictable responses. Andrea has prompted the same
| responses for several months now, and she mainly aims for a stultifying
| stasis created by purposeful confusion.
There's been rumors that her mother was a bot.
| This doesn't strike me as being
| intriguing in the least, but she is obviously tickled to death by her
| own "cleverness." So?
I think she'd be better off if she started some nice projects with goals
and lines of inquiry.
| > Although, just a few could last forever, even spawn newsgroups.
|
| Oh boy... more salmon eggs in the river!
I'm imagining surreal versions of all knowledge areas would be possible and
stimulating. Surreal biology for instance, combining The Waste's resources
within an ambient House System (concepts).
| > Well there's one thing crystal clear: we're both dissatisifed with how
| > things are at the moment. Another clear thing to me is that we need
new
| > concepts and ideas to make things better; we can't just eject the
baddies
| > you know.
|
| Yes and no: as mentioned in my replies to Nik, I am not particularly
| expectant of this media becoming any more useful than TV or radio is for
| the most part. It's a mildly amusing sideline.
I say the usenet cup isn't half empty, it's 51% full (with potential).
| > America has a president for a reason.
|
| Someone has to gather the big money in his tiny hat.
Yeah.
| > The problem with the world is that we have a civilisation of ideas, but
it's an old civilisation.
|
| America has a civilization, since it is full of cities, but it barely
| has a culture, since almost all its true cultural artifacts are
| outsider; blues, jazz, comic books, etc. America's sanctioned culture
| (look what it has done to film!) is mainly shit. This isn't depressing
| to me, as it could have been predicted, and my work lies elsehwere at
| any rate.
The internet is here to stay; it'll never leave -- at least not until
something that does everything it does and more replaces it. Prediction:
If things are to get more cultural, it will be within an internet system.
But for this to happen there has to be the necessary concepts in place.
Whether they are straight-out surrealist liberatory concepts, or something
of a variation, things have to change; and are sure to.
| >We need something to be different. Something more playful, surreal,
explorative.
|
| Progress and a too powerful urge toward "originality" can be as
| destructive as tradition, since they tend to become ungrounded and
| self-congratulatory. "Look at me, I'm burning a tampon painted like thew
| Israeli flag! Applaud now..." Excrutiating...
Standards make it real.
| > The best solution I have, better than suggestion managers, is
unconditional love, but that is fraught
| > with complexities it seems.
|
| Or with risks.
Perhaps they will become less over time. The entrepreneur doesn't just
take risks, he also minimises risks.
| > | > The suggestion manager's role is to suggest to a large group
various
| > "good
| > | > ideas", which not all members may have thought of. As usual, the
areas
| > | > that get sustended amounts of attention will be a matter of "usenet
| > | > democracy".
|
| Of course, but this goes without saying.
Although, I think it is good to use the term "usenet democracy" every now
and then. It doesn' t go without saying necessarily; some believe in
impenetrable cliques, and it's not true.
| > Maybe suggestion management is the way to liberate the collective
| > unconscious.
|
| Probably not, but...
But it could be; I am the "champion" of that idea; and I have to prove its
worth. It may be that in a week I will have thrown it away for something
very different.
| > Wasn't Breton something of a leader? He managed to combine flexibility
| > with enough substance to be remembered. Maybe there's something new to
be
| > learnt from him.
|
| If you read him enough you'll see how flm Ä Ä exible this
notoriously
| inflexible man could bne when it came to intellectual honesty, BUT he is
| reviled and not read.
He was apparently an iron fisted suggestion manager, sculpting surrealism
as he saw fit.
If surrealism could give me a Nikola Tesla quality visual imagination...
but I don't think it can do that.
| > Perhaps automatism combined with some kind of drug, combined with deep
| > immersion in metaphors of society produced the Bible.
|
| Well, the Bible isn't a book but a loose collection of tracts. Some may
| well be the creation of some form of quick writing, or oral
| transmission, but a lot of it (particularly the New Testament) is
| obviously quite thought out, and the result of political consideration.
| so it is difficult to speak of "the Bible" as a unity. It isn't.
Perhaps the old testament is god's unconscious and the new is his conscious
(expressed in Jesus).
| > The mystery is how the Catholics managed to project mystery onto the
Bible.
| > Hmm.
|
| By strenuously avoiding much mention of it, and by giving the orations
| in Latin.
Right.
| > | > 5, The "revelation" of surrealism
| > |
| > | Not enough info.
| >
| > Well, what do surrealist texts make of the future, if anything. I
mean, do
| > they make predictions like the Bible does; perhaps that one day
surrealism
| > is going to be ubiquitous for all? How vast is the chasm between
| > possibilities and surrealist possibilities?
|
| Breton (in the third Manifesto) speaks of the future of surrealism, and
| admits that it is primarily out of his hands, but should have recourse
| to what has gone before. It's not much of a prediction, and I don't
| cotton to prophecy much (except as another aspect of imagination). I
| don;t think considering the possibility of surrealism's "spreading
| popularity" is productive.
Ah.
| Oh hell! What's the point... we're being watched!
|
| DMH
--
We're being watched!
Dale Houstman
Horace Confab wrote:
>
> Consider usm and memetics. I have the opinion that memetics will open up a
> world of unconditional love, mainly because memetics denies the self and
> that is very compatible with ul. The ul environment could well be the
> liberation of the unconscious, to be what it wants to be.
>
> Or things like memetics and its babies-in-the-womb could lead to a new kind
> of society where the only thing to be done is to cry together about how
> terrible things are.
>
> Could go either way.
The lint trap of dualism. It could more likely go another way entirely,
since the cognitive net is so tiny in this case. Seine or Inseine? I
accept the Ur-notion of unconditional love but only under certain
conditions:
(1) We "hermeticize" all the broken articulations, leading to an
outbreak, or firebreak, across the path of the brush fire called
passion. Save the deer, forget the stones. Dream outlets into trees and
run!
(2) Social "connectiveness" is sacrificed for fleeting fun. We have to
catch the zombies on the run.
(3) I get to wear the ritual overalls to the barn dance of thanatopsis.
>
> I do like imagery; that is my excuse.
Good enough reason...
> I'm just saying that what happens naturally is a bit disappointing at the moment and needs a bit of a booster shot.
Maybe here, but e-vivre is bound to disappoint, because it's the
creature's character. We cannot escape to the outside of the "natural"
(whatever that means at this end of the century), we only drag the
perimeter line along with each new consideration. We can pretend to be
outside. We can pretend not to care about the difference (there is none)
between outside and inside. Baudelaire supports the artifice of fashion
over the fearful nakedness of the natural. One learns to love the
make-up more than the meat of the matter.
> Suggestion managers, who appear briefly then dissolve
The Fizzies of rhetorical forensics? The Alka-Seltzer of incentive?
Catalyst or dogalyst? Soluble Fits?
> Oh. Well, because I want a better kind of natural.
Nautral-Lite? Lo-cal natural? Naturalina, with flavor rinds?
> The point of the term is to create a framework that may be useful.
Down with the useful! Handling or being handled?
>
> I'm trying.
(Old Pleasantry): you certainly are!
> Well, I hope it happens.
Like most ideas for revolution, it already happens in experimentally
tiny forms and forums, and (honestly) that is enough for me. Like most
ideas for revolution, it will come to largely nothing, but an avoidance
of the midnight shootings and "procedural" floggings might not be all
bad. The world is pre-sold, and bought with unrecompensed labor.
Revolution one person at a time; one learns to savor the tiniest bites
from the rich, white flesh. It's a matter of sensual sensitivity, as
opposed to programmatic embolisms.
>
> That sounds great. It would be good to have something like that here. One
> day perhaps.
When and if, let me know. Frankly it would be happening here if it
weren't for a few more "energetic" individuals than myself; I am more
than content to find my low point and flow into it.
>
DMH
Andrea Chen
> I am disappointed that you chose not to play with me as I was with you. If
> you change your mind, the last thing that happened was that I cast you out
> of Surrealist Heaven for being unable to generate relevant new ideas. The
> garden of Eden is the collective unconscious liberated.
>
I will unhappily admit to being an idiot and reading your own post too
quickly thus illustrating through my example one of my dominant themes.
Actually I kind of like it, but damn it I shall deny this on
principle!
You can't throw me out of surrealist Heaven because according to a well
known authority surrealism and religion can't mix and even the mention
of heaven is oppressive! Wait a second! I never agree with that
expert! However in this case I do. Why? Because in this case his
opinion is useful to me and in addition I want to protest the tyranny
you are imposing on this group.
You can't toss me out of surrealist heaven! I wouldn't let you!
Mommy! The big boy is picking on me and being a fascist!
All right, you win. But let me tell you now that your totaltarian
antics are completely unacceptable! I shall return!
But for now I'm the evil bitch witch demon from surrealist hell!
(the sound of evil laughter fades in the background)
Andrea Chen
> On the other hand, unconscious pananche has a high value to surrealists,
> artists, and most people I suppose. You wouldn't want knowledge, true or
> skew, to reck that.
>
This is a common attitude among artists, but by definition it's in
opposition to surrealism.
"Automatic writing" was a technique borrowed from Freud which was
designed to bring forth the unconscious. The ghostly depths of dream
and what not were considered a "truer reality" than the conscious world,
they were the surreality.
The "surrealist project" is to "liberate the unconscious," to make it
conscious, to bring it into our world and make it visible, the
assumption being that with each layer stripped from the onion new layers
remain which become reachable only when the old has been revealed.
It's perfectly legitimate for an artist to treat the unconscious as a
black box which shouldn't be tampered with, but surrealism is about
loosing the world of dreams into the world of waking reality. This
requires that we find such things as "the mechanisms of dreams" build
them, wind them up and release them in this world.
>
> Could go either way.
>
> | > I'm going to create some new parts. There's this ruler scale. The
> scale
> | > points in the direction of "suggest new ideas". The highest point on
> the
> | > scale corresponds to when the suggestions manager is operating within
> "a
> | > new kind of thread": a project thread. This is where he is most able
> to
> | > effectively make suggestions; it's his project. At the bottom of the
> | > pointing scale is when he finds himself posting to an ordinary thread.
Interesting. But if we are serious, we need to discuss organization a
little more deeply. for example:
One problem is that those of us with big plans focus only on our
projects. Others slip into discussions and are ignored, important
possible lines are lost along with contributors.
> I'm just saying that what happens naturally is a bit disappointing at the
> moment and needs a bit of a booster shot.
>
I agree.
Do note that this puts you in conflict with the idea of the unexamined
unconscious and it's spontaneous upbursting (or stagnation.) You are
trying to manipulate human discourse.
> | > | But three or more people with agendas based
> merely
> | > | on a desire to "win" rather than on a need to forge collaboration
> rather
> | > | neatly dissolve the very essence of surrealism in a muck of dishonest
> | > | antagonism and intellectual horseplay.
This repeated charge starts to irritate me. When I first encountered
Dale it was he who took up "winning" as a goal. I pointed out that no
one could win on Internet because no one admitted using.
I also described the neu neutopian project and some of it's techniques
and how it successfully attracted some interesting writers. One idea I
mentioned was the issue of buttons which are essentially symbols or
statements which have certain effects (there is nothing original in this
general idea, but few of us have watched how they worked.)
Dale was appalled. His post didn't address issues, but compared me to
a scientologist, a landlord evicting widows and orphans, someone who was
tolerate of fascists (though over the years I've gone up against quite a
few hate mongers on the net) etc.
I responded calmly and noted each of the nearly dozen remarks of this
kind pointing out that they were buttons of the most blatant and
uninteresting type. I was told I was having a "hissy fit."
Over and over again I try to address Dales on specific issues be it the
unconscious or anarchy. We find out that my knowledge of psychology is
limited to that of high school or that I'm a fascist but we never sem to
be able to get down to the actual details of the matter.
As for the act of collaboration, it's me who raises over and over again
that it is possible that it can be done with some success in this
medium (this here and now were we play) and that I have some experience
in experimenting.
If someone doesn't like me that's fine. I could care less about being
a leader, but I *do* know something and not all of my ideas are stupid,
some are worth looking at and could be helpful to someone who wanted to
organize even if they didn't want me.
Instead we get remarks on how banal and trivial all my ideas are AND
claims that Usenet is not a good place for artists to organize, we
certainly don't get any attempts at organization here. I've seen a
number of people driven out for such crimes as liking Dali or being a
"nostalgic surrealist" (which isn't the proper kind.)
It's true I like horseplay. As for the desire to "win" you don't see
me engaging in hundreds of enraged posts to a single thread. I do
sometimes flame a bit, but then I typically leave the thread though I
may take up elements of the dispute at some later point. And rightly or
wrongly I have attempted to create collaboration in this here and now
while Dale has said that this isn't the place.
The charges above are pretty much a reversal of reality with Dale using
me to reflect himself. One can see why he is uncomfortable with
exploring the unconscious.
In the last week I have strived to refrain from mentioning certainly
issues by name though I do at times brush on certain topics because I
think them important. It is interesting that those who accuse me of all
sorts of disruptive behaviors take every chance they can to level vague
charges.
Certainly an interesting example for the discussion of manipulation.
> | drop her plate?" And the like. Name me one
> | thing Andrea has "discovered" that isn't common knowledge in a high
> | school psych course?
>
> I don't know. Andrea?
>
This could get long. But it won't. One issue I raised was "buttons"
which are essentially words and ideas which have effects. For example
"Bill Palmer" is a button (Bill Palmer is the worlds greatest writer is
another) "inform" is a button (good!) "manipulate" another (bad!)
I will happily admit that there is nothing original in this. I have
done so at least 3 or 4 times to Dale (yet he continues to claim that I
claimed to discover the idea.)
I do find the examination and experimentation with "buttons"
fascinating. In a lot of respects all I see is the obvious (but I still
don't believe it, a lot of me rebels against this quality of humanity.)
but it's still fascinating and I think discussion of buttons (we can
chose some other word) and experimentation in a sort of metadialogue
where we illustrate the tools of manipulation is useful.
Maybe not. But here is a real world example with Dale. A few months
ago Dale ripped apart a young ladies poetry rather cruelly. So with one
post I lined him to rec.arts.prose where he immedietely started to
engage in a flame war with a certain Robert Maughan. After a few weeks
of 3 or 4 posts daily I explained to Dale what I'd done and why. That
the encounter which was making him so furious was just a game for
Robert. He couldn't stop, he continued and it only stopped when I took
over alt.surrealism a few weeks ago.
Yet one of the first things I warned Dale about was the "endless loop"
the flamewar that goes on forever along with advice about how to pull
out of such a thing. If everything I say is so obvious and so trite why
is he so helpless?
If anyone doubts the fact that Dale can be easily controlled go to
dejanews, use the power search to set the group to rec.arts.prose and
look for Dale's name.
One of the parts of my "surrealist project" is to make people aware of
how we are so easily controlled by buttons. I also wish to desensitize
certain buttons and sensitize others in a different way so we look at
certain good words like "liberate" in a cynical way, this doesn't mean
the user doesn't have somethinbg valid to say, but given the history of
the 20th century I think such words should automatically raise a bit of
a warning.
This is perhaps reprogramming the unconscious.
Horace Confab
| Horace Confab wrote:
|
|
| > On the other hand, unconscious pananche has a high value to
surrealists,
| > artists, and most people I suppose. You wouldn't want knowledge, true
or
| > skew, to reck that.
| This is a common attitude among artists, but by definition it's in
| opposition to surrealism.
..Non-surrealist artists are repressed.
| "Automatic writing" was a technique borrowed from Freud which was
| designed to bring forth the unconscious. The ghostly depths of dream
| and what not were considered a "truer reality" than the conscious world,
| they were the surreality.
..To dream the impossible dream.
| The "surrealist project" is to "liberate the unconscious," to make it
| conscious, to bring it into our world and make it visible, the
| assumption being that with each layer stripped from the onion new layers
| remain which become reachable only when the old has been revealed.
..The brain as a body of organs.
| It's perfectly legitimate for an artist to treat the unconscious as a
| black box which shouldn't be tampered with, but surrealism is about
| loosing the world of dreams into the world of waking reality. This
| requires that we find such things as "the mechanisms of dreams" build
| them, wind them up and release them in this world.
..Life will be but a dream.
..Moreso than now.
| > Could go either way.
| >
| > | > I'm going to create some new parts. There's this ruler scale. The
| > scale
| > | > points in the direction of "suggest new ideas". The highest point
on
| > the
| > | > scale corresponds to when the suggestions manager is operating
within
| > "a
| > | > new kind of thread": a project thread. This is where he is most
able
| > to
| > | > effectively make suggestions; it's his project. At the bottom of
the
| > | > pointing scale is when he finds himself posting to an ordinary
thread.
|
|
| Interesting. But if we are serious, we need to discuss organization a
| little more deeply. for example:
|
| One problem is that those of us with big plans focus only on our
| projects. Others slip into discussions and are ignored, important
| possible lines are lost along with contributors.
..Need a hive culture.
.."Come alive at the hive".
| > I'm just saying that what happens naturally is a bit disappointing at
the
| > moment and needs a bit of a booster shot.
| >
|
| I agree.
|
| Do note that this puts you in conflict with the idea of the unexamined
| unconscious and it's spontaneous upbursting (or stagnation.) You are
| trying to manipulate human discourse.
..True.
..Overtly.
..With suggestions.
| > | > | But three or more people with agendas based
| > merely
| > | > | on a desire to "win" rather than on a need to forge collaboration
| > rather
| > | > | neatly dissolve the very essence of surrealism in a muck of
dishonest
| > | > | antagonism and intellectual horseplay.
|
| This repeated charge starts to irritate me. When I first encountered
| Dale it was he who took up "winning" as a goal. I pointed out that no
| one could win on Internet because no one admitted using.
..losing.
| I also described the neu neutopian project and some of it's techniques
| and how it successfully attracted some interesting writers. One idea I
| mentioned was the issue of buttons which are essentially symbols or
| statements which have certain effects (there iq« » s nothing
original in this
| general idea, but few of us have watched how they worked.)
..The label in itself.
..The thing in itself.
| Dale was appalled. His post didn't address issues, but compared me to
| a scientologist, a landlord evicting widows and orphans, someone who was
| tolerate of fascists (though over the years I've gone up against quite a
| few hate mongers on the net) etc.
..It is the agenda of the Christian Surrealists to love Dale.
| I responded calmly and noted each of the nearly dozen remarks of this
| kind pointing out that they were buttons of the most blatant and
| uninteresting type. I was told I was having a "hissy fit."
..What a breton.
| Over and over again I try to address Dales on specific issues be it the
| unconscious or anarchy. We find out that my knowledge of psychology is
| limited to that of high school or that I'm a fascist but we never sem to
| be able to get down to the actual details of the matter.
..Just too old for your malarky.
| As for the act of collaboration, it's me who raises over and over again
| that it is possible that it can be done with some success in this
| medium (this here and now were we play) and that I have some experience
| in experimenting.
..I wonder how it can be done.
| If someone doesn't like me that's fine. I could care less about being
| a leader, but I *do* know something and not all of my ideas are stupid,
| some are worth looking at and could be helpful to someone who wanted to
| organize even if they didn't want me.
..I bet.
| Instead we get remarks on how banal and trivial all my ideas are AND
| claims that Usenet is not a good place for artists to organize, we
| certainly don't get any attempts at organization here. I've seen a
| number of people driven out for such crimes as liking Dali or being a
| "nostalgic surrealist" (which isn't the proper kind.)
..That is something to study.
| It's true I like horseplay. As for the desire to "win" you don't see
| me engaging in hundreds of enraged posts to a single thread. I do
| sometimes flame a bit, but then I typically leave the thread though I
| may take up elements of the dispute at some later point. And rightly or
| wrongly I have attempted to create collaboration in this here and now
| while Dale has said that this isn't the place.
..What a tough world.
| The charges above are pretty much a reversal of reality with Dale using
| me to reflect himself. One can see why he is uncomfortable with
| exploring the unconscious.
..The Flatulent Menance.
| In the last week I have strived to refrain from mentioning certainly
| issues by name though I do at times brush on certain topics because I
| think them important. It is interesting that those who accuse me of all
| sorts of disruptive behaviors take every chance they can to level vague
| charges.
..Dale, I prefer you to Andrea.
..Fight over me.
| Certainly an interesting example for the discussion of manipulation.
..Results inconclusive.
..More more more.
| > | drop her plate?" And the like. Name me one
| > | thing Andrea has "discovered" that isn't common knowledge in a high
| > | school psych course?
| >
| > I don't know. Andrea?
| >
|
| This could get long. But it won't. One issue I raised was "buttons"
| which are essentially words and ideas which have effects. For example
| "Bill Palmer" is a button (Bill Palmer is the worlds greatest writer is
| another) "inform" is a button (good!) "manipulate" another (bad!)
..Button is a type of meme.
..Are there other subtypes.
| I will happily admit that there is nothing original in this. I have
| done so at least 3 or 4 times to Dale (yet he continues to claim that I
| claimed to discover the idea.)
..Ethics of Neu Surrealism.
| I do find the examination and experimentation with "buttons"
| fascinating. In a lot of respects all I see is the obvious (but I still
| don't believe it, a lot of me rebels against this quality of humanity.)
| but it's still fas » k k cinating and I think discussion of
buttons (we can
| chose some other word) and experimentation in a sort of metadialogue
| where we illustrate the tools of manipulation is useful.
..Interference patterns in perception also fascinating.
| Maybe not. But here is a real world example with Dale. A few months
| ago Dale ripped apart a young ladies poetry rather cruelly. So with one
| post I lined him to rec.arts.prose where he immedietely started to
| engage in a flame war with a certain Robert Maughan. After a few weeks
| of 3 or 4 posts daily I explained to Dale what I'd done and why. That
| the encounter which was making him so furious was just a game for
| Robert. He couldn't stop, he continued and it only stopped when I took
| over alt.surrealism a few weeks ago.
..Evil Andrea should press many buttons simultaneously.
| Yet one of the first things I warned Dale about was the "endless loop"
| the flamewar that goes on forever along with advice about how to pull
| out of such a thing. If everything I say is so obvious and so trite why
| is he so helpless?
..You're both damaged children.
| If anyone doubts the fact that Dale can be easily controlled go to
| dejanews, use the power search to set the group to rec.arts.prose and
| look for Dale's name.
..Zap zap.
| One of the parts of my "surrealist project" is to make people aware of
| how we are so easily controlled by buttons. I also wish to desensitize
| certain buttons and sensitize others in a different way so we look at
| certain good words like "liberate" in a cynical way, this doesn't mean
| the user doesn't have somethinbg valid to say, but given the history of
| the 20th century I think such words should automatically raise a bit of
| a warning.
..Suitcase words.
| This is perhaps reprogramming the unconscious.
..Remake it in my image.
..Please.
Horace Confab
| >
| > I am disappointed that you chose not to play with me as I was with you.
If
| > you change your mind, the last thing that happened was that I cast you
out
| > of Surrealist Heaven for being unable to generate relevant new ideas.
The
| > garden of Eden is the collective unconscious liberated.
| >
|
|
| I will unhappily admit to being an idiot and reading your own post too
| quickly thus illustrating through my example one of my dominant themes.
..Dominant themes as pets.
| Actually I kind of like it, but damn it I shall deny this on
| principle!
Sounds like someone's got some popcorn on the oven.
| You can't throw me out of surrealist Heaven because according to a well
| known authority surrealism and religion can't mix and even the mention
| of heaven is oppressive!
..I'm pumping for bee heaven.
|Wait a second! I never agree with that
| expert! However in this case I do. Why? Because in this case his
| opinion is useful to me and in addition I want to protest the tyranny
| you are imposing on this group.
..You really are the craftiest of all my creatures.
| You can't toss me out of surrealist heaven! I wouldn't let you!
| Mommy! The big boy is picking on me and being a fascist!
..You're out already.
| All right, you win. But let me tell you now that your totaltarian
| antics are completely unacceptable! I shall return!
..Of course you will.
| But for now I'm the evil bitch witch demon from surrealist hell!
|
| (the sound of evil laughter fades in the background)
..You slither over to the apple tree.
..You see Eve.
.."Eve," you say, "Horace Confab knows very well that the instant you eat
that apple up there you will become like him, for your eyes will be opened
and you will be able to distinguish surrealism from repression!"
..How lovely and free the apple looked.
Dale Houstman
Horace Confab wrote:
> | This repeated charge starts to irritate me. When I first encountered
> | Dale it was he who took up "winning" as a goal. I pointed out that no
> | one could win on Internet because no one admitted using.
>
This is a lie. Actually my first (rather regretted) encounter with
Andrea involved my agreeing with her on most of her points in a post,
and then being shouted down for several months. She is gibbering here.
What she is upset about (of course) is that I made the mistake of
accepting (at first) her comments at "face value" which (of course) was
a sign of mental weakness. Then I made the larger mistake (from her
perspective) of not taking her seriously at all. But it all began when I
made the awful error of attempting ro converse rather than to play with
her mask. Call me naive, but this hardly adds up to my wanting to "win."
In fact, one of my first discussion with IT was about her stated goals
of "using" Usenet to transform the world in some vaguely-formulated
manner; I told her then (as I tell you now) that there is nothing to
"win" here, and that if (by some strange magic) Usenet did start making
revolutionary stomach noises, the government would step right in and
give it to Howard Stern, or the Royal Family.
DMH
Horace Confab
|
| Horace Confab wrote:
| >
|
| > Consider usm and memetics. I have the opinion that memetics will open
up a
| > world of unconditional love, mainly because memetics denies the self
and
| > that is very compatible with ul. The ul environment could well be the
| > liberation of the unconscious, to be what it wants to be.
| >
| > Or things like memetics and its babies-in-the-womb could lead to a new
kind
| > of society where the only thing to be done is to cry together about how
| > terrible things are.
| >
| > Could go either way.
|
| since the cognitive net is so tiny in this case. Seine or Inseine? I
| accept the Ur-notion of unconditional love but only under certain
| conditions:
..Conditional unconditional love? cul.
| (1) We "hermeticize" all the broken articulations, leading to an
| outbreak, or firebreak, across the path of the brush fire called
| passion. Save the deer, forget the stones. Dream outlets into trees and
| run!
..Furry and purple of type broom-broom.
| (2) Social "connectiveness" is sacrificed for fleeting fun. We have to
| catch the zombies on the run.
..Go so fast that the cabal knocks them over.
..Then we help them up.
..Then knock them over again.
| (3) I get to wear the ritual overalls to the barn dance of thanatopsis.
..Yee and of course haw.
| > I do like imagery; that is my excuse.
|
| Good enough reason...
|
| > I'm just saying that what happens naturally is a bit disappointing at
the moment and needs a bit of a booster shot.
|
| Maybe here, but e-vivre is bound to disappoint, because it's the
| creature's character. We cannot escape to the outside of the "natural"
| (whatever that means at this end of the century), we only drag the
| perimeter line along with each new consideration. We can pretend to be
| outside. We can pretend not to care about the difference (there is none)
| between outside and inside. Baudelaire supports the artifice of fashion
| over the fearful nakedness of the natural. One learns to love the
| make-up more than the meat of the matter.
Test of liberation is in whether you have the gumption to put lipstick on
dead men's soles.
| > Suggestion managers, who appear briefly then dissolve
|
| The Fizzies of rhetorical forensics? The Alka-Seltzer of incentive?
| Catalyst or dogalyst? Soluble Fits?
A form and then a dissolution. The field is white. Snow.
| > Oh. Well, because I want a better kind of natural.
|
| Nautral-Lite? Lo-cal natural? Naturalina, with flavor rinds?
Banana split natural.
| > The point of the term is to create a framework that may be useful.
|
| Down with the useful! Handling or being handled?
Useful is a tool of the oppressors! I never realised.
| > I'm trying.
|
| (Old Pleasantry): you certainly are!
I believe in the power of Try. Try this Try that. There's so much to Try.
It's very deep. Deeper than the seas.
| > Well, I hope it happens.
|
| Like most ideas for revolution, it already happens in experimentally
| tiny forms and forums, and (honestly) that is enough for me. Like most
| ideas for revolution, it will come to largely nothing, but an avoidance
| of the midnight shootings and "procedural" floggings might not be all
| bad. The world is pre-sold, and bought with unrecompensed labor.
| Revolution one person at a time; one learns to savor the tiniest bites
| from the rich, white flesh. It's a matter of sensual sensitivity, as
| opposed to programmatic embolisms.
Mmmm.. flesh.
| > That sounds great. It would be good to have something like that here.
One
| > day perhaps.
|
| When and if, let me know. Frankly it would be happening here if it
| weren't for a few more "energetic" individuals than myself; I am more
| than content to find my low point and flow into it.
That's not Try talk.
| >
| DMH
|
Dale Houstman
Horace Confab wrote:
>
> That's not Try talk.
Are you a member (throbbing or otherwise) of the Tri-lateral Ommision?
I must admit that I am not as enamored of struggle as you are (or seem
to pretend you want to be). That this might be a function of my age or
my natural inclination toward laziness. Don't Do It!
What if everyone laid down to sleep or to take it easy at the same time?
A sort of a couch revolution? A case of Divan Intervention?
DMH
Leo Sgouros
Dale Houstman <dale.h...@gte.net> wrote in message
news:3794583C...@gte.net...
>
>
> Horace Confab wrote:
>
> > | This repeated charge starts to irritate me. When I first
encountered
> > | Dale it was he who took up "winning" as a goal. I pointed out that no
> > | one could win on Internet because no one admitted using.
> >
> This is a lie. Actually my first (rather regretted) encounter with
> Andrea involved my agreeing with her on most of her points in a post,
> and then being shouted down for several months. She is gibbering here.
> What she is upset about (of course) is that I made the mistake of
> accepting (at first) her comments at "face value" which (of course) was
> a sign of mental weakness. Then I made the larger mistake (from her
> perspective) of not taking her seriously at all. But it all began when I
> made the awful error of attempting ro converse rather than to play with
> her mask. Call me naive, but this hardly adds up to my wanting to "win."
> In fact, one of my first discussion with IT was about her stated goals
> of "using" Usenet to transform the world in some vaguely-formulated
> manner; I told her then (as I tell you now) that there is nothing to
> "win" here, and that if (by some strange magic) Usenet did start making
> revolutionary stomach noises, the government would step right in and
> give it to Howard Stern, or the Royal Family.
>
> DMH
Indeed Dale, we are taking pre-emptive measure to ensure nobody gives it to
Howard Stern or the Royal Family.
Jerry Springer?
Now there is a thought.
8^)
Ali Hassan
universe as "Horace Confab" <punsl...@hatmail.com> wrote:
>Andrea Chen <fallin...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
><3792F7...@earthlink.net>...
>| >
>| > I am disappointed that you chose not to play with me as I was with you.
> If
>| > you change your mind, the last thing that happened was that I cast you
>out
>| > of Surrealist Heaven for being unable to generate relevant new ideas.
>The
>| > garden of Eden is the collective unconscious liberated.
>| >
>|
>|
>| I will unhappily admit to being an idiot and reading your own post too
>| quickly thus illustrating through my example one of my dominant themes.
>
>..Dominant themes as pets.
A pet theme as a dominatrix. Now, *that* is surreal. But,
unfortunately, all too common.
>
>| Actually I kind of like it, but damn it I shall deny this on
>| principle!
>
>Sounds like someone's got some popcorn on the oven.
>
>| You can't throw me out of surrealist Heaven because according to a well
>| known authority surrealism and religion can't mix and even the mention
>| of heaven is oppressive!
>
>..I'm pumping for bee heaven.
>
>|Wait a second! I never agree with that
>| expert! However in this case I do. Why? Because in this case his
>| opinion is useful to me and in addition I want to protest the tyranny
>| you are imposing on this group.
>
>..You really are the craftiest of all my creatures.
>
>| You can't toss me out of surrealist heaven! I wouldn't let you!
>| Mommy! The big boy is picking on me and being a fascist!
>
>..You're out already.
>
>| All right, you win. But let me tell you now that your totaltarian
>| antics are completely unacceptable! I shall return!
>
>..Of course you will.
>
>| But for now I'm the evil bitch witch demon from surrealist hell!
>|
>| (the sound of evil laughter fades in the background)
Oh, Jesus. My kids were meaner when they were still wearing Oshkosh
B'Goshes. Which, come to notice, you "surrealists" still are. Well.
That explains a few things.
>..You slither over to the apple tree.
>..You see Eve.
>.."Eve," you say, "Horace Confab knows very well that the instant you eat
>that apple up there you will become like him, for your eyes will be opened
>and you will be able to distinguish surrealism from repression!"
>..How lovely and free the apple looked.
Nobody ever asks the apple's opinion in this goddammed story. That's
why this particular universe is so unbalanced. The snake was a
bystander. What a scam.
Andrea Chen
> ..It is the agenda of the Christian Surrealists to love Dale.
>
It is the project of the neu surrealists to ignore Dale.
The damn thing is that he and his friends are so consistent and well
practiced in their charges that *I* almost believe them (*)
A note to Nik who keeps bombarding me with letters demanding that I
explain and justify myself in his terms. When I point out (over and
over again) that I respond to Dale etc. with issues that I think can
justifiably be considered surrealist (often giving examples) it's
because it's repeated over and over again that I don't want to discuss
issues, that I wouldn't engage in dialogue.
I am responding to often repeated *charges* (which is no longer
necessary.) Now Mr. Nik I'm not making any public charges against
you. I'm not interested in a lot that you do, but if I'm not interested
in something I ignore it. Some interesting work has come from you.
It's you who are making charges against me (tyranny, destroying the
group, the usual. I have no obligation to answer these charges (though
I did bother once.) If I were saying you were doing all sorts of nasty
things, then there would be some moral requirement for me to reply.
But what you are saying is "I Nik dislike what this person is doing and
I am going to state it in ways which approach inflamatory and this
person *should* reply to my discontents." This is not something I
accept. I have limited time, I see no reason why I should give it to
someone who questions me in an undiplomatic way and I know your previous
record, you spent months squabbling with certain people. I'm not
interested.
(*) Horace in that response that said I dissapointed you, you managed
to do one of those reality shifters which so fascinate. Due to your
posting of some serious questions and some quick reading I focused on a
few words and read them literally and decided I might be facing a
sincere, nice, but not too sophisticated a kook who I wanted to gently
keep from going off too far.
Rereading the post there was absolutely no way that a sane, perceptive
person could have reached such a conclusion, but I did. This kind of
reality filtering fascinates me and it was astounding to see how much
evidence I ignored. Textual LSD.
Andrea Chen
> Oh, Jesus. My kids were meaner when they were still wearing Oshkosh
> B'Goshes.
This is *so* true. I'm such a nice and sweet person and I can't do
anything mean and everyone always picks on me and says I'm a tyrant and
stuff, but I just smile and try and be a nice girl even though Horace
through me out of surrealist heaven which means I don't get to ride on
the Zeppelin and meanwhile I've got to form a shadow government to run
alt.surrealism because my guidance counselor said it would look really
good if I wrote that "I managed and directed an organization of over a
thousand imaginery people and I knew all of ther names." This seems to
be the kind of experience that large corporations are looking for, but
does anyone help me?
No! Right now I'm reduced to selling Apples on the street. Fortuntaly
lots of people buy them, but there's this bad boy who keeps screaming
that my Apples are coated with a mind altering drug and that anyone who
bites one will become a zombie. And I mean, yeah, like big deal so
what? People need variety in their lives. Lots of people get to be
zombies, but hardly anyone gets to be *my* zombie (though there's hope
for civilization that this will change.)
So it's really hard for me to recruit the 1,000 imaginery people for my
imaginery organization which is really too bad because if more people
don't start buying Apples I won't be able to turn in my resume to
MacDonald's before summer is over which means I won't have any new
clothes!
Waah! Why is everyone so mean to me?!
Nikolaus Maack
Andrea Chen (fallin...@earthlink.net) writes:
> But what you are saying is "I Nik dislike what this person is doing and
> I am going to state it in ways which approach inflamatory and this
> person *should* reply to my discontents."
Actually, that's what you perceive me to be saying, despite my many
attempts to assure you that I am not trying to say any such thing. Which
is frustrating.
What I have been saying is, "Andrea, do you ever stop and wonder if we're
wasting our time on the internet? Maybe we should focus our energies on
the real world, and use the internet in the way it was intended, as an
organizational tool. Do you think your neu neutopian project(s) can
achieve anything, given that they are confined to the usenet universe?
Does this place matter that much? I think we both overestimate it's
value. What do you say?"
Your response to the above is to say that I am attacking you, accusing you
of things, and belittling you. Evidently I am pressing some of your own
buttons, and you're unaware of it. That's something to consider, is it
not? We all have "triggers" that set us off, triggers we aren't even
aware of, and I believe that I've pulled several of yours at once.
Nik
--
A silver fish swims
silver circles in the ink
of my golden pen.
Dale Houstman
Nikolaus Maack wrote:
>
> do you ever stop and wonder if we're wasting our time on the internet? Maybe we should focus our energies >on the real world
But this dichotomy between the internet and the "real" world is a false
one, equivalent in some ways to your earlier "duo" of "doing stuff" and
"mere conversations"; the internet is part of the real world, but it is
one in which conversations (of various kinds) take place. But I just
don't find this as unreal or frustrating as you; for one thing I find
conversations to be actions, and communion of any kind (even this
limited sort) to be as productive as most "real world" activity. As I
said; for many of us a life of the mind is commonplace. But, as to the
notion we are wasting our time on the internet, it depends on what you
expect to come of it. And anyway, surely time is as much to be wasted as
it is to be exploited? "Just Don't Do It"
DMH
Andrea Chen
> What I have been saying is, "Andrea, do you ever stop and wonder if we're
> wasting our time on the internet? Maybe we should focus our energies on
> the real world, and use the internet in the way it was intended, as an
> organizational tool. Do you think your neu neutopian project(s) can
> achieve anything, given that they are confined to the usenet universe?
> Does this place matter that much? I think we both overestimate it's
> value. What do you say?"
>
Of course I'm wasting my time on Internet. Do you realize I hardly
watch any TV? Sometimes this takes hours out of my day.
I am trying to use the net as an organizational tool. I'm trying to
fond ways to get people to collaborate in things. I find that people
are willing to collaborate and do grunt work and put up with people they
don't like for their jobs, but not for organizing the things they are
supposedly passionate about. So I'm wasting my time, but I am convinced
of the technical practicality of what I'm talking about so I scream in
the wilderness.
Look Nick, there is nothing stopping you from organizing in the "real
world." But I wouldn't be much help because I'm well over a thousand
miles away. Why do you worry about me? Just do it. I've told you the
nature of my project, gather the talent, organize it, start building
publicity in other media, use this to finance the project through
selling material on paper, possibly electronically and possibly creating
environments with advertisements (both of the later become controversial
and I have no desire to recreate the hundreds of pages of discussion on
these and related topics (which don't seem to make it to dejanews.))
OK this is (was) my project. A self supporting collective of artists.
Maybe it's impractical, maybe it won't work. But not because it's
pragmatically impossible. We've seen how much potential there is to be
ripped off from the people with too much money with anything involving
the net. If we'd had a couple of hundred people doing good work,
editing and attracting readership we could be holding a corporation
whose current inflated value was in the billions.
We didn't. The reasons are primarily psychological. One of them is
Andrea Chen is a bad person. I responded to those people, "fine do it
without me." There are lots more, but one of them is right there in
your reply. "This is wasting our time. You can't do it." and your
special addition Nick, "let's do what I want to do." The damn thing is
Nick is that you don't even dare carry out your projects. I gave you a
gimmick which could in theory make your onion distribution self
propagating (do this to fulfill the last wish of a dying child.) You
didn't do this. You stopped at a few booths.
You are programmed for failure, you want to fail. You (and so many
others) don't want the responsibility of success. Look what I propose
could be impossible, you could be right, but we could only find out by
having a significant number of people try and put in a few hours a week,
week after week. I think I did a lot as one person and I could get
people to play with me, but none to really believe and take
responsibility for the vision. But that isn't because it's a stupid
idea, it's because something frightens us from taking power. It's like
this taboo which must be stopped.
I mean look at you Nik. You don't simply say you don't want to be
involved, you repeat (as above) the message that this is useless and we
should do something (unspecified) else. You can't remain neutral on the
subject, you have to act as my defacto detractor.
Nothing is stopping you from acting in the "real world," but rather
than do that you want to spend time convincing me and everyone else that
what I do is a waste of time. Why?
> Your response to the above is to say that I am attacking you, accusing you
> of things, and belittling you.
Nik, you have used some heavily loaded language. The fact that you
can't see this bothers me. There is a lot of righteousness in it and an
assumption that what doesn't interest you shouldn't be here.
Now this is human. The danger is when we play innocent of these
tendencies. Above you talk about the intention of the creators of the
net (as though there were any such things) yet you support spamming
(posting the same message independantly in different groups) and oppose
crossposting.
Dale Houstman
Leo Sgouros wrote:
>
> Indeed Dale, we are taking pre-emptive measure to ensure nobody gives it to
> Howard Stern or the Royal Family.
A series of neat assassinations would take care of that, but then we
would have to keep it up as they sped from recipient to recipient:
Imelda Marcos, Steven Spielberg, Andrew Dice Clay, Jellybean Benitez...
I couldn't keep up, delicious as the thought is.
Of course they could probably simply disrupt it entirely with a few
nicely placed missiles, or merely by bombarding us with microwaves.
"Let's see what Leo has to say today. Oh, my hand's on slow broil!"
DMH
Leo Sgouros
Dale Houstman <dale.h...@gte.net> wrote in message
news:3794F212...@gte.net...
I see discussion here about this not being the real world, but I hear you
saying if we get some movement out of it, the authorities might get scared
and pull the plug.
I wonder which it is?
I am planning to group some more people under me as being my
counterintelligence corps.I am going to set it up just like the real world,
and using some of the tricks I have vocalized, we are going to go out into
various groups and smack people awake.
We need to coordinate our efforts, so when a group is finally listening, the
elegant writers can step in and take control.
This is about taking over usenet.
We are going to take over usenet.
I plan on instilling in my unit two simple guidelines-
1-respect what has come before you(in terms of people heirarchy)
2-the need to make sure the playing field is leveled(this may involve some
of my agents acting as *wild card* destabilizers)
The very methodical and public acts should cause a few heads to turn.The
fact that this is done out in the open in public(and not through private
e-mail, which could have conspiratorial overtones)hopefully(!) will cause
someone to actually attempt to shut us down.
How else will we know we are making a difference?
Also, my group is going to unmask all the sock puppets.
Everywhere.
That in itself should get everybody screaming for our blood.
_L_
Ali Hassan
Because.......
Jesus WANTS IT THAT WAY!
( tm. Peter Boyle)
Brandon J. Freels
Horace Confab
personalities. I do not necessarily agree with any of them with my
deepest. The final result of 67 points gives a feeling of huge structure
which, when all the contradictions are replaced with subtleties, will be
very nice.
Suggestions:
-open up new directions
-produce syntheses
-find a way forward
1. "Increase the target market"
2. "When there are no goals, the unconscious drives the show"
3. "Directing a select groups attention is a way to create a one-pointed
dialogue"
4. "Very little gets done when there is animosity. Disruption should not
be an end in itself, but a means"
5. "There is no end in sight"
6. "Everyone says they want collaboration"
7. "Policing embraces don't work"
8. "There is a need for new ideas and new concepts"
9. "Structures that free also restrain"
10. "The standard for suggestion management is the quality of the
suggestions."
11. "Popularity makes for self-enforcing"
12. "The way to learn is to use recipes."
13. "It is good to consider usenet as a social laboratory and do
experiments"
14. "To become free, we must first shine a light on our shackles"
15. "This can be done by using deconstruction"
16. "Our goal is to find out how guilty we are"
17. "The more ironical clashes between surrealisms the more deconstructive"
18. "Only then when we are X will it be possible to have reasonable
discussions"
19. "In the scheme of values, Active is better than Passive; Provocation
beats Movement."
20. "The distance between what is safe and what is uncomfortable may be
socially imputed connotation instead of thought or self-based-feelings"
21. "There may be a great number of syntheses for any two opposing views.
A contradiction is a state of affairs that cries out for subtlety in
typage"
22. "The belief that mocking is a necessary early approach has value"
23. "Dryness, cynicism and irony have higher values than uncritical
enthusiasm"
24. "There may even be a value in maintaining the status quo"
25. "Standards are possible. 'He is very good at the Horace standard; but
his Nik quotient is low"
26. "The only solution to spats such is to admit all parties are guilty"
27. "There is nothing worse than arguing with people about things they
substantially agree with"
28. "There is a value in playing the fool and there is a value in showing
the foolish in others"
29. "The cabal knows if you've been good or bad"
30. "Part of the issue of Dale versus Andrea is expression of unconscious
versus analysis of unconscious"
31. "There is a value in inventing a framework for discussing organisation,
and suggestion management is there, ready to be pumped up"
32. "Andrea is only interested in playing games, not in going from her
Stage One (deconstruction, disruption) to Stage Two (harvesting ideas and
insights)"
33. "The ideal state for alt.surrealism is debate, discussion, political
debate, stories poems drawings.
34. "Collaboration is revolutionary"
35. "The status quo is reinforcing"
36. "The positive result of memetics is unconditional love"
37. "We need a better kind of natural"
38. "A goal for neu surrealism to synthesise hypnosis, memetics, dreams,
creativity"
39. "The so-called surrealist project is to examine the shackles and give
the spirit its truest expression"
40. "We must open Pandora's Box and look inside before we die"
41. "Important lines of inquiry are being lost"
42. "It is possible to win in this democracy. In particular: win/win"
43. "Usenet democracy may dictate much of what the "independent" voices
say, not unlike the unconscious operating upon us"
44. "Surrealism suffers from the same clash idiom of the 'unconscious'
society that it emerged from; society still pulls the strings"
45. "There is always a way out"
46. "A strategy is to mimic the opposition"
47. "People have vague charges as well as specific ideas that they value.
These values are the agenda. There is not a high value placed on other
people's ideas"
48. "Press your own buttons"
49. "Come alive at the hive"
50. "There is a need for rule by alien intelligence"
51. "The sock puppets will be unmasked"
52. "A few phone booths are better than twelve coffee grinders"
53. "Reality shifters and buttons: now there are two things"
54. "The purpose of all is to find the purpose. If we knew what we were
doing we wouldn't need to be doing it"
55. "Gather the talent, organise it, increase the target market, make lots
of money, take over the world, establish art utopia"
56. "There is a huge responsibility of success -- both of thought and
action"
57. "Conversations are actions"
58. "Wasting time on the internet depends on what your goal was and how
closely you moved toward it"
59. "Just don't do it -- don't lead, but be. Let others be"
60. "There may be a need to formalise when one is being provocative and
when one is collecting the value"
61. "Revolution can happen in small groups"
62. "Couch revolution"
63. "D.H. should ignore A.C. and vice versa"
64. "There are consistent false worlds"
65. "Nik the dick"
66. "If you're not interested in something, you should ignore it"
67. "There is something to be said about not making too much out of
nothing"
Here is a way forward:
Suggest many interesting topics.
Then reformat as a kind of project as suits.
My suggestions:
1. Surrealism and hypnosis
2. LSD, surrealism, and invention
3. Surrealism versus repression
4. Designing a new Dali
5. Surreal Biology
6. Surrealism for the postpostmodern
Dale Houstman
Leo Sgouros wrote:
>
> I see discussion here about this not being the real world, but I hear you
> saying if we get some movement out of it, the authorities might get scared
> and pull the plug.
> I wonder which it is?
That discussion is not my idea; I tell Nik that Usenet IS part of the
real world, although that part in which only conversations between
strangers goes on. Nik seems frustrated that we don't "act" here, but
that is really impossible. I DO say that I think the power to change the
greater world from Usenet is very limited, and that (this being a part
of that real world) IF we did somehow manage to gather impetus for
revolutionary change from this disparate bunch of carping egoisms, our
position is vulnerable. It's no different than trying to start an armed
insurrection from a depression beneath a well-armed hilltop. Possible,
but silly.
> I am planning to group some more people under me as being my
> counterintelligence corps.I am going to set it up just like the real world,
> and using some of the tricks I have vocalized, we are going to go out into
> various groups and smack people awake.
> We need to coordinate our efforts, so when a group is finally listening, the
> elegant writers can step in and take control.
> This is about taking over usenet.
> We are going to take over usenet.
You can if you want, but the problem here is that your "subjects" can so
easily slip away that this victory would be a hollow one, since your
"Fourth World" would be empty. Also, for the most part
counterintelligence isn't used to "smack people awake" but to confuse
the issue so that any information gathered "on the other side" is
corrupted or useless. But, since the advent of the Internet's "speed
rumor" aspect, this proliferation of false (or true but trivial)
information has reached epidemic proportions already, and has only added
to the general feeling of powerlessness and obsession with the glitter.
The thing is it is fine to "smack people awake" (although in this world
I think people need more sleep), but what are you going to tell them
once they wake up? And how do you know you are yourself "awake." What
constitutes being "awake"; the use of the word "sock puppet" on a
regular basis? Possession of the idea that pushing people's buttons will
som\ehow brings us to a new world order? A desire to be a "new manager"?
> The very methodical and public acts should cause a few heads to turn.The
> fact that this is done out in the open in public(and not through private
> e-mail, which could have conspiratorial overtones)hopefully(!) will cause
> someone to actually attempt to shut us down.
If I were in a position of actual power and read this I would laugh,
kiss my dog, and go off to work quite reassured that Usenet (and the
rest of the world) was secure.
> How else will we know we are making a difference?
They will shut you down if they think you are in the position of making
a difference, and then only if that difference is anti-productive for
them. I imagine (just like TV) that this chaotic and pointless "carping
warehouse" serves more the function of diassociation (of individuals and
groups) than disruption (of social fabrics), so why even think of
turning that distraction off?
>
> Also, my group is going to unmask all the sock puppets.
> Everywhere.
> That in itself should get everybody screaming for our blood.
>
The proliferation of the word "sock puppet" in Usenet is a cheering sign
of perpetual adolescence on the part of the "revolutionary council."
They could probably be defeated by offering acne cream and free pizza if
they would just put down their mouses for a day or two. And go mow the
lawn, for chrissake!
DMH
Nikolaus Maack
Dale Houstman (dale.h...@gte.net) writes:
> But this dichotomy between the internet and the "real" world is a false
> one
If the internet is a place of the mind, then it's safe to conclude that
most minds are of little or no consequence. Promise me we'll never speak
of which Simpsons character is our favorite.
I note that you say "conversations" take place here instead of
"communication". Was that deliberate?
Nikolaus Maack
Andrea Chen (fallin...@earthlink.net) writes:
> OK this is (was) my project. A self supporting collective of artists.
I thought your project was nothing more than cross-posting, spreading
memes, showing people their buttons. The above seems entirely different
from that.
> "This is wasting our time. You can't do it."
Again, you totally distort what I say! Does all criticism strike you as a
personal attack, Andrea? Did you not read what I actually wrote, which
was a QUESTION and not a STATEMENT? I'm asking you, "Are *WE* wasting
*OUR* time?" When did I say you can't do anything? You can do whatever
the hell you want. Isn't that obvious?
> I gave you a
> gimmick which could in theory make your onion distribution self
> propagating (do this to fulfill the last wish of a dying child.) You
> didn't do this. You stopped at a few booths.
The onion project isn't my major goal. I thought that was obvious. It's
somewhat silly and stupid. I'm looking for more interesting things to do.
That's why I've been organizing a group in Ottawa, a surrealist group, out
in the real world. We're going to get together on Sunday in a local
coffee house and organize. Hopefully, if all goes well, this would be a
regular get together to plot and scheme and do.
I don't expect you, or anyone, to come one thousand miles to help me do
so. What I'm *asking* is, "Wouldn't we be better off organizing in the
real world?" Meanwhile, I'm doing that very thing.
Which renders your statements about seizing power somewhat silly, I
suppose. As that's my plan.
> I mean look at you Nik. You don't simply say you don't want to be
> involved, you repeat (as above) the message that this is useless and we
> should do something (unspecified) else. You can't remain neutral on the
> subject, you have to act as my defacto detractor.
Show me where I said the words "this is useless".
You can't hear me. None of my words are actually reaching you. I've
tried to correct for this and failed. When it becomes apparent that the
words are somehow getting distorted in the listener's ear, and the
problem can't be fixed, it's time to stop speaking to that person.
> Above you talk about the intention of the creators of the
> net (as though there were any such things) yet you support spamming
> (posting the same message independantly in different groups) and oppose
> crossposting.
I support SPAMMING? Andrea, where on earth did you get THAT impression?
At one point I posted the same message TWICE, to two individual
newsgroups. If that's your definition of spamming, you're a crazy person.
Anyhow, I see no point in talking to you any further. I genuinely believe
you can't hear me. And I see no reason to frustrate myself further.
Good luck with whatever it is you're doing.
Nikolaus Maack
Dale Houstman (dale.h...@gte.net) writes:
> That discussion is not my idea; I tell Nik that Usenet IS part of the
> real world, although that part in which only conversations between
> strangers goes on. Nik seems frustrated that we don't "act" here, but
> that is really impossible.
That's somewhat inaccurate.
What frustrates me is that the only thing that happens in alt.surrealism
is discussion about surrealism theory. There's not much discussion about
what we can actually DO outside the internet when we turn off our
computers. What surrealism *is* gets tossed about, but what surrealists
*do* doesn't get much air time.
Also, there's little or no discussion about personal experiences with
surrealism. Dale, I'm still very interested in hearing the details of
your flyer project, where you sent flyers to major corporations. What are
the chances that I'll ever get to hear about it?
Usenet is a life of the mind, where the mind has been seperated from the
body with an axe.
I've been considering to learn how to ride a unicycle. I've been
considering getting a bunch of friends to learn how to ride unicycles.
Imagine five or six people riding unicycles through the streets of
downtown, each of them dressed in impeccable business suits.
These are the sorts of events I'm going to work to bring about.
> They will shut you down if they think you are in the position of making
> a difference, and then only if that difference is anti-productive for
> them.
This is true. A clear example of this is how the pay-for-porn sites went
out of their way to take over the sex sections of the net. It is nearly
impossible now to find a good erotica themed web site that doesn't ask for
money. Part of this is American legislation protecting "the children",
but another big part is the pay sites actively going out of their way to
fuck over everyone else. They hunt down and kill people who give anything
away for free.
The reason the alt.sex.* hierarchy is spammed to death is clear: that's
free sex. The pay sites want you to pay for it. No one is going to read
10,000 sex ads a day. But swamping the group with spam assures them
that they are the only source for smut.
About a year ago, I could do a "yahoo" search on "erotica" and turn up
dozens of short story boards. Each was a collection of smutty usenet
writing. This past weekend I did a search and wound up with page after
page of pay sites. After 20 minutes or so, I couldn't find any
straight-forward free story sites. I gave up and headed to DejaNews
instead.
Were the free erotica people "making a difference"? Sort of. They
represented what the internet used to be about: free material, free
knowlege, cooperation. Slowly big business crept in, and now they're
RUSHING in. This is no longer the wild west, but a gold-rushed mining
town where they sell plots of land for ridiculous prices and a shovel and
a pick costs you a month's pay.
*sigh*
Brandon J. Freels
I admire your drive for action. Feeding onions to homeless phone booths
will, by all means, make their tongues smell better.
Andrea Chen
the context of neu surrealism. While I could nit pick your previous
points I find they make a fairly good model of the group (though
incomplete and in need of counter models.)
One nitpick I shall make is the implication I have (perhaps falsely)
read in several of your posts. This is that I haven't stated an agenda
and a variety of possible topics.
I would argue that I have. I have put many of these in the context of
the multiple definitions offered by others. I have repeated many of
them a number of times.
1) Surrealism as a "liberation" of the unconscious. Put into more
coventional definitions the notion of surreality as a greater reality
(the reality of dreams and the unconscious) which should be released.
Among the ways I have proposed such a release is:
a. examination of our behaviors, the unconscious reveals itself into a
multitide of ways of which free association, automatic writing are only
one path. I also encourage examination of the "social mind" because
this collaborative effort also holds the simmering forces at bay. This
includes analysis of our behaviors and also discussion of topics. I
have strived to chose topics which can be developed from the original
surrealism. For example I think Breton's obsession with the random
could usefully be explored in terms of chaos theory, complexity theory
and self organizing systems.
b. The creation of a complex dream world here. This would use symbols
borrowed from oneself and society and involve the acknowledgement of
others play (eg. Christian surrealism.) Unlike traditional art it isn't
a form in which we pull things out of the unconscious, lay them on some
detached medium and observe, we take on roles, act and often get caught
up in the play. The dream or fantasy world is made conscious and like
real dreans forces intrude which are beyond our control though these are
often from others.
2. Another definition (offered by Dale) was (roughly) the overcoming of
artificial barriers. I distrust the concept of artificial because I
think many of the behaviors which plague us are natural, that artificial
willed creations are in that case the path to liberation, but I do agree
with the impulse. Dealing with the barriers we impose on ourselves is
perhaps my obsession (though I have discussed larger social patterns.)
And example of a self imposd barrier is one which states (roughly) a
cluster of interesting artists can't be gathered into a group, if they
were it would have no real value, if it did the government would shut it
down. We limit ourselves before we start.
I argue that a part of this liberation can be done by the use of
techniques which shift "normal" perspective and that such techniques can
be practiced on Usenet often with incredible power, you have the tool of
the written word combined with a dynamic artificial "world" in which
people are deeply involved.
3. The often repeated claim in this group that surrealism isn't about
art it's about social transformation (or some such things.) I have
proposed a project which has some minor chance of doing something and at
the least offers us a chance to deal with the difficulties of
organization, experience which can be helpful elsewhere. Certainly
there are other opportunities in the "real world" though I don't see
them being dramatically successful, but if indeed surrealism is about
this then shouldn't it take it's opportunities everywhere, shouldn't it
act everyplace possible. Indeed such efforts could support each other.
Now for your suggestions within the neu surrealists context with brief
opening introductory qualities.
>
> My suggestions:
>
> 1. Surrealism and hypnosis
Yes of course. Hypnosis or chanting are techniques which shift the
state of the mind. At subtle levels these and other related tools (eg.
repetition of an idea) help direct our minds. Most evidence indicates a
limited power to hypnosis, for example someone told that a chair isn't
on the stage will not see it, but will walk around it. I find this an
interesting metaphor for the social condition in which we deny the
existence of certain behaviors, but clearly govern our own reactions in
response to them.
> 2. LSD, surrealism, and invention
LSD, shifting perceptions. Relevant. The failure of the LSD dream, it
was once thought to be a major force of transformation but rarely is.
Invention, yes once again it often involves shifting perspective, but it
also involves (artistically, scientifically, technologically, socially)
lots of routine struggle at a task and then eventually (scientifically
often in the bath) a breakthrough. In terms of actual invention the
process is opposite of LSD which often involves instant revelation which
proves of questionable value. I was just reading the account of a
psychologist who found the secret of life in a sign above a urinal which
said "flush after using." Certainly one can play with this a bit, and
come up with something useful, but is it the actual labor that would
make it somewhat transforming?
> 3. Surrealism versus repression
A restatement of themes 1 or 2 mentioned above.
> 4. Designing a new Dali
I am comfortable with this precisely because Dali knew how to link his
work into the public mind and spread his vision for fame and profit.
But here we get down to moral questions. Dali is generally decreed in
this group precisely because of his methods of success and because
Breton didn't like him. With such an approach you conflict pragmatic
action in the world with artistic purity. This is a legitimate
conflict. As devil's advocate I have tended to expouse the marketing
side, but there are real dangers of something becoming what it opposes.
> 5. Surreal Biology
Explain.
> 6. Surrealism for the postpostmodern
A useful marketing ploy.
>
Brandon J. Freels
> Also, there's little or no discussion about personal experiences >with
surrealism.
Yesterday I was discussing the death of JFK JR with a family member, and
their compassion for what I see as the attempted American crowning of modern
royalty (which is disgusting). Not long after the discussion ended I went to
pick up my mail, and found in my mailbox a letter from JFK JR (something
about saving the whales?).
Magic-circumstantial?
Horace Confab
..I would very much like to see what it would be like in practice. I mean,
more than it is already --
..I have no specific nor urgent comments to make at this time.
..Good luck with neu surrealism.
..When it suits my heavenly interests, I will direct my millions of
christian surrealists to help you establish the new society.
Nikolaus Maack
"Brandon J. Freels" (fre...@teleport.com) writes:
> Yesterday I was discussing the death of JFK JR with a family member, and
> their compassion for what I see as the attempted American crowning of modern
> royalty (which is disgusting). Not long after the discussion ended I went to
> pick up my mail, and found in my mailbox a letter from JFK JR (something
> about saving the whales?).
> Magic-circumstantial?
Synchronicity is sweet. Sugar-coated clockworks dissolving on the tongue.
We receive "messages" like this every day. I don't know that they mean
anything, but they can feel very meaningful.
The sensation you had, when you picked up the letter and saw it for what
it was, is exactly the sort of sensation I want my surreal acts, my
surreal art to bring about.
"What the--? But I was just... Weird. Maybe the universe has meaning to
it. Maybe everything is interconnected. Maybe reality is a bigger place
than I'd first thought."
Then again, maybe that isn't the reaction you had.
Dale Houstman
Horace Confab wrote:
>
> Here are the ideas values and attention areas I have found minus the
> personalities. I do not necessarily agree with any of them with my
> deepest. The final result of 67 points gives a feeling of huge structure
> which, when all the contradictions are replaced with subtleties, will be
> very nice.
>
A RAGGED RESPONSE TO A FEW OF YOUR 67 POINTS
1. "Increase the target market"
If I am forced to use the word "market' in any context other than
a local fish market, I will only claim that I am my own "target
market." All other considerations of this sort are about power and
egoism. And, all that aside, why am I supposed to be dedicated to such
commercial crap: to bolster the Surrealist Empire as envisioned by
Andrea, or just to render more efficient the promotion of empty
sensation ala Nik? I cannot be intrigued by the simple need to "up the
ante" in either excitement or audience participation. If any of us begin
to either judge or adjust our imaginations by consideration of what it
may or may not achieve in "popularity" then we might as well give it up
entirely.
2. "When there are no goals, the unconscious drives the show."
The unconscious creates the goals initially one would assume, so I
would think the unconscious usually has the wheel. At any rate, I barely
know what the unconscious might be beyond a projection.
3. "Directing a select group's attention is a way to create a
one-pointed dialogue."
Again: power. Despite Nik's assertions to the contrary, I am not
attempting to restrict his approach to surrealism but to enlarge it.
4. "Very little gets done when there is animosity. Disruption should not
be an end in itself, but a means."
Very little gets done at any rate, and especially not on Usenet.
This descendent of the neighborhood bar or general store is not about
to become a useful tool in the "war" of consciousness, but rather
another distraction. In the greater world of course, animosity drives a
lot of action. Whether one wants to be driven where it is going is
entirely another question, and not always one of great utility.
Oftentimes, there is no choice.
5. "There is no end in sight."
Is this good, bad, or some non-dualistic other?
6. "Everyone says they want collaboration."
But only a very few either mean it or know what it is. This is the
only real tragedy of Nik's failure to elicit an Ottawan response to his
call: a few more minds in the mix may have prompted him to drop his
parade of self-conscious japes and to consider a different course. He
may have been forced to collaborate, to give up the control he obviously
craves.
7. "Policing embraces don't work.":
How about embracing police?"
8. "There is a need for new ideas and new concepts."
Always, but these ideas must be grounded in critical consideration
and not be merely tinier versions of the rancid sensationalism that
already surrounds us. It is not enough (and at any rate it is all too
easy) to shock pedestrians.
10. "The standard for suggestion management is the quality of the
suggestions."
Determined by the suggestion rabble? The suggestion subordinates?
The inklings of the underlings?
11. "Popularity makes for self-enforcing."
In every way this one makes me ill. If ideas are to be judged by
"popularity" (or even pre-judged in light of potential popularity), soon
all we would hear would be popular ideas which (of course) are almost
always crap.
12. "The way to learn is to use recipes."
No: the first to create a recipe didn't use a recipe, he used his
senses and imagination. But one would be wise not to ignore entirely
what has come before in some wild rush to sensation and originality. One
learns by testing, proofing what has gone before to see if it still
renders viable results, and by testing new concepts against both these
"axioms" and the real world of experience.
13. "It is good to consider Usenet as a social laboratory and do
experiments."
As long as I am neither the rat nor the technician, this appeals
to me. Unfortunately, most of us tend to place ourselves in one or the
other role.
14. "To become free, we must first shine a light on our shackles."
As long as you are not borrowing this light from the jailer, who
will expect something in return? Can we assume shackles ARE light?
15. "This can be done by using deconstruction."
Deconstruction was a useful tool in the re-making of reading
(although I believe it ruined the experience for
far too many people), but it is essentially an instrument of academic
obfuscation, and another pathway for the critic to use in his program of
wresting control over another's text away from the creator.
16. "Our goal is to find out how guilty we are."
I am more than willing to leave this dirty job to the Christians.
19. "In the scheme of values, Active is better than Passive; Provocation
beats Movement."
Activity isn't a value, and neither is Passivity. If the Nazis
had been less Active, would they have had more or less value? Is there a
time and event that you can imagine in which Passivity would be a good
thing? Movement can be Provocation; but the question always remains:
what are we attempting to provoke? That's where the value lies, and it
is difficult enough to ascertain.
21. "There may a great number of syntheses for any two opposing views. A
contradiction is a state of affairs that cries out for subtlety in
typage."
Yet this is the crime of dualism; to assume there will be only
two views and that they must be opposing, and that (always) truth lies
somewhere between, when (in actuality) truth often lies outside the
parameter of either opinion.
23. "Dryness, cynicism and irony have higher values than uncritical
enthusiasm."
But what about critical enthusiasm, or do you believe all
enthusiasm is uncritical?
24. "There may even be a value in maintaining the status quo."
This should go without saying: should we maintain the present
ratio of oxygen/nitrogen in the atmosphere or force it to invert? It
isn't - at any rate - a matter of tossing out the baby with the
bathwater, but of determining values for one's own life, and of
re-investigating the aspects of existence for their efficacy. There are
many structures that function fully well in our world. This isn't about
a complete turning over of the apple cart, but maybe a fairer
distribution of the fruits?
26. "The only solution to spats is to admit all parties are guilty."
Rather: that all are intent on forging a collaborative union, and
that we are essentially innocent.
30. "Part of the issue of Dale versus Andrea is expression of
unconscious versus analysis of unconscious."
There is no Andrea. At least not for me. She revels too much in
her poison for me to consider her healthy. I avoid her every movement
toward stasis.
33. "The ideal state for alt.surrealism is debate, discussion, political
debate, stories poems drawings."
These are all fine. I don't know if they constitute a "state" and
I am not (despite assertions to the contrary) apt to define what and
what is not "ideal" for alt.surrealism. What would be better
(considering the "surrealism" in the title) is that people come here
with some preliminary notion of what surrealism is, so that we wouldn't
have to endlessly argue over core issues. But that would bore the likes
of Andrea, and further frustrate the teen dreams of Nik, who wants to
redefine every word until none of us have a common language. Pure
silliness.
43. "Usenet democracy may dictate much of what the "independent" voices
say, not unlike the unconscious
operating upon us."
Democracy is an overstatement here; rule of the people: no rules,
no people. One can only define Usenet as
as democracy if one finds the mob to be an epitome of some liberating
impulse, rather than a corruption of
the collaborative desire.
44. "Surrealism suffers from the same clash idiom of the
'unconscious'society that it emerges from; society
still pulls the strings."
Yes - but "society" is a generic term; we make of society what we
will. Society is like Nik's "Most people" in that it is partly a
delusion. But a collaborative and consensual delusion. People can (and
do!) occasionally awake from these dreams.
46. "A strategy is to mimic the opposition."
Until we become them? This is the problem with "tools"; any
utilization of them without considered intent leads to obsessive
behavior. Obsession is depression.
55. "Gather the talent, organize it, increase the target market, make
lots of money, take over the world,
establish art utopia."
The pure swinishness of this cannot be described; the terms it is
couched in reveal only that I would avoid
this person AT ALL COSTS.
59. "Just don't do it - don't lead, but be. Let others be."
By "Just Don't Do It" I was referring - semi-facetiously no doubt
- to a worldwide "ca'canny" or work stoppage. Nobody do nothing for pay
or for power. Go home. Watch the owners sweat when they realize that
corporations don't "produce" anything, they only steal and stockpile the
labor of others.
61. "Revolution can happen in small groups."
In a single individual.
63. "D.H. should ignore A.C. and vice versa."
She's kill-filtered, so I beat you to this. However it is too bad
my initials aren't D.C.
65. "Nik the dick"
This is counter-productive; he merely miscomprehends and
restricts surrealist activity to a series of self-
amusing "startlements" that lack critical weight, and seem to exist only
to relieve his desperate boredom. But
he is no "dick."
Way forward:
1. Surrealism and hypnosis.
The surrealists themselves experimented with this as a way to reach
and liberate the unconscious. I am afraid
what they found unnerved them rather. At any rate, our understanding of
hypnosis has grown only a little, yet it seems obvious that is partly an
instrument of power; i.e. recovered memory, UFO "accounts." I am not
encouraged in this area.
2. LSD, surrealism, and invention.
Not certain how this triad plays out. I have taken a bit of LSD and
have no qualms with it as a tool for
disengagement and renewal; or no qualms beyond the obvious ones. But to
rely on it too much is pointless. The
one question is always "Yes, but what do I do with my new eyes?" and
(really) you don't get much out of LSD
that you don't put in; I watched drunken soldiers using it as just
another kind of beer.
3. Surrealism versus repression.
Goes without saying. The problem is to identify repression when you
see it. Look for words such as "new
management" and "leader" and "make lots of money."
4. Designing a new Dali.
One was quite enough, even if I knew precisely what you meant. At
any rate, no one could "design" a Dali. Despite whatever qualms I might
have with old Salvador, I do believe he invented himself.
5. Surreal biology.
Biology is surreal, and Darwin is its Breton.
6. Surrealism for the postmodern.
Surrealism isn't for the postmodern, whose cool cynicism and grasp
of easy irony are anathema. At any rate, post-modernism seems dead in
the wash of renewed New Age/Christian blindism. From one dead end to
another.
DMH
Michael Voytinsky
Dale Houstman <dale.h...@gte.net> wrote:
> Andrea, or just to render more efficient the promotion of empty
> sensation ala Nik?
Is there anything wrong with empty sensation? So many people
experience no sensation at all, and spend much of their life on auto-
pilot. IMHO, before we can do anything else we have to whack the
autopilot.
> may have been forced to collaborate, to give up the control he
>obviously craves.
You make Nik sound like some sort of control freak. I live in the same
house as he does, and if he is a control freak, we could use more
control freaks like him. (I have been roommates with a real control
freak.)
--
Michael Voytinsky
Ottawa Ontario Canada
http://www.igs.net/~michaelv
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