Public Relations Stunt
barrett john erickson
>
>[...]
> 1929 Andre Breton asserts that the ultimate Surrealist act is someone
> firing a pistol into a crowd.
for the record (again), what was written in the second manifesto was
translated (i don't have the text in french) as:
"The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street,
pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger,
into the crowd. Anyone who, at least once in his life, has not dreamed of
thus putting an end to the petty system of debasement and cretinization in
effect has a well-defined place in that crowd, with his belly at barrel
level."
in a footnote, he made it quite clear that he did not consider this the
"ultimate Surrealist act" but, as he wrote, the _simplest_ (i.e., not all
that valuable and not one he recommends above all others).
this is no small point considering the fact that popular
(mis)interpretation still insists on considering this a call for random,
individual and nihilistic violence, where Breton clearly intended to
describe an act of social rebellion.
-- barrett
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of
the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and
future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be
perceived as contradictions."
...André Breton
xepera
>footnote
Breton is a remorseless, vicious criminal. His corpse should be
exhumed and tried in the Sorbonne before a thesis committee.
Brandon J. Freels
---BJF
xepera wrote in message <6u9664$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>...
barrett john erickson
>
> -and shot himself in the
>
> >footnote
>
> exhumed and tried in the Sorbonne before a thesis committee.
Breton isn't anything. hasn't been since 1966. i don't see any point in
honoring or vilifying corpses.
perhaps if you have something more meaningful to say about what you
percieve as Breton's failings, you might provoke an interesting discussion.
your original post, however, was simply inaccurate and misrepresented the
content of a text which _is_ significant to surrealism (both historic and
contemporary).
even in this neglected space, that requires response.
elag
"Brandon J. Freels" wrote:
> You religious folk are all the same.
>
> ---BJF
>
> xepera wrote in message <6u9664$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>...
>
elag
xepera wrote:
>
> Breton...
elag
and dream. - Breton
barrett john erickson wrote: a lot of stuff.
Brandon J. Freels
Religion is just an unsuccessful search for lost intamacy.
Priests should be spit on. Nuns sodomized. And followers excluded.
---BJF
elag wrote in message <36084943...@concentric.net>...
Brandon J. Freels
from? Tell me about your mother?
xepera wrote in message <6u9664$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>...
>Breton is a remorseless, vicious criminal. His corpse should be
Brandon J. Freels
received from the intellectually minded Mr. Barrett. It is embarrassing that
such teen angst, this attention getting device of which I have witness
before on the newsgroup, is consistent. Knowing that this is the surrealism
newsgroup it would be logical that any negative comment about Breton would
receive protest. This xepera individual should spend more time reading
surrealist novels than ancient Egyptian texts, and should realize there is
not god, no mad scientist, and definitely no reason for thinking there is.
In conclusion I must also say that for someone such as xepera, who is
interested in Egyptian bullshit, please do not try and quote Breton for
obviously you, as a follower of "gods," will always misunderstand, and
mis-quote.
thank you,
Brandon Freels
elag
absolutely nothing to you! Catch?
elag
My goal is to poll the mole in that coal hole.
My sole role is to take the soul toll from the whole troll.
Better stop while i'm on a roll.
elag
"Brandon J. Freels" wrote:
> Perhaps this xepera is just looking for a response like the one she has
> received from the intellectually minded Mr. Brandon...
> you... " will always misunderstand...
Brandon J. Freels
Cadmium Flute wrote in message <361a83c2...@139.134.5.33>...
>once tamed the fearsome mountain lion will become brilliant! it is
>because tameness equates to brilliance that zoos exist and are such
>money-spinners for the evil wild animals that run them, all of whom
>have lost their "intamacy".
Cadmium Flute
the desert! the invention of the word "noggin"! their relentless
persecution of people from the arctic zone. their overt kinship with
the odd leathery skinned "leather-duds" entities (so-called, now
apparently extinct or underground). their incredibly efficient
alphabet!
their incredibly efficient algorithm for walking.
can you imagine... carting all those big giant dog rock slabs
backwards and forwards across the desert... all the time with that
zany back-and-forth hand-and-hips thing going... with the leather-duds
standing by in the shade sipping tall glasses of sand and pumping the
bangles out of transmitters in their buttocks...
the egyptians were so full of shit. i like their style.
now, whats this guy saying down here...
On Tue, 22 Sep 1998 19:16:27 -0700, "Brandon J. Freels"
<Fre...@ethergate.com> wrote, with insanity in its loins:
>Perhaps this xepera is just looking for a response like the one she has
Cadmium Flute
because tameness equates to brilliance that zoos exist and are such
money-spinners for the evil wild animals that run them, all of whom
have lost their "intamacy".
On Tue, 22 Sep 1998 18:59:43 -0700, "Brandon J. Freels"
<Fre...@ethergate.com> wrote, with insanity in its loins:
>Of course we are: we are all brilliant.
Brandon J. Freels
because they were "cut off."
Why such love for a group of people who believed in a god with the head of a
hawk?
Cadmium Flute wrote in message <36187fb0...@139.134.5.33>...
Dale Houstman
> "Breton is a remorseless, vicious criminal. His corpse should be
> exhumed and tried in the Sorbonne before a thesis committee."
*
I am not certain at all whether you are "serious serious" about this
or only
"serious": I would be interested though in hearing your reasons for
thinking
this of the man, if you do...If you don't and this is all
post-modern "tough
poise" well...never mind...Is it personal? (How old are you?) or is
it some
Dada vs Surrealist tic taken to the limit? An ancient provacateur?
Are you
a Situationalist lacking a situation? Oulipo-ist giving lip? I don't
quite "get it"
or grok...
Dale H
Dale Houstman
once tamed the fearsome mountain lion will become brilliant! it is
because tameness equates to brilliance that zoos exist and are such
money-spinners for the evil wild animals that run them, all of whom
have lost their "intamacy".
*
Brilliant fists! But not much more...Zoos exist because animals
force themselves on us:
their love for our over-anxious regard is perverse. And, as
perverts, their
imprisonment should please us, but, as it doesn't, we are proved
to be perverse. Thus
there are cages being built for us behind the animals' pearly
minds: ten thousand dark
little bunglaows stretched along a steel beach called Mullholland
Drive. Our concern
(now so white-hot and fringed with sentimental cilia) will be
canned and returned to
our beds at night, where our children (Mud and Thud) pretend
to be birds spottled
with bruise-blue shadows and fearsome lice with tiny lions'
heads. Now this is just a
theory of Containment which predates the Theory of Perusal:
Dr Berner (Nietzche's
erstwhile companion in Vienna) was said to have learned
to love Nature through an
exercise he called "Cortical Triage" and whose particulars
have escaped us.
However, it appears (according to a note to Nietzche)
to have involved specific
animal fat baths and a "calming toy made of squirrel:.
The echo in the room
where Mud and Thud reside seems to prove this point about
that point: don't
bother waiting up, Mother's not coming home. Friedrich
died horribly, and
Berner (for the most part) is forgotten. Stay away from
the curbside. Banks are
zoos for expectations and beds are zoos for "interminable
intamacy".
Zrack
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"This xepera individual should spend more time reading
"surrealist novels than ancient Egyptian texts, and should realize there is
"not god, no mad scientist, and definitely no reason for thinking there is.
as a pantheist, I object.
religion shouldn't be rejected because it is a worship of gods,
but because it is a worship of *dead* gods. the imagination
creates all gods, so gods are a proper object of surrealism.
anything which destroys gods (either atheism or religion) is
a foe of surrealism.
practice any religion you want, as long as you make up a new
pantheon and catechism every morning.
--
"Dobbs comes surging out against the Conspiracy's stupidity like a
multicolored snake from a vending machine!"
His Most Feathered Eminence, the Ur-Beatle
Cadmium Flute
>Gideon Flakewrote:
>
>> once tamed the fearsome mountain lion will become brilliant! it is
>> because tameness equates to brilliance that zoos exist and are such
>> money-spinners for the evil wild animals that run them, all of whom
>> have lost their "intamacy".
>
> *
>
> Brilliant fists! But not much more...
with brilliant fists we can beat people up and steal their brilliant
heads
>Zoos exist because animals force
>themselves on us:
> their love for our over-anxious regard is perverse.
they should be locked up!
>And, as perverts,
>their
> imprisonment should please us, but, as it doesn't, we are proved to be
>perverse. Thus
> there are cages being built for us behind the animals' pearly minds:
so pearly... those witty moths...
>ten thousand dark
> little bunglaows stretched along a steel beach called Mullholland
>Drive. Our concern
> (now so white-hot and fringed with sentimental cilia) will be canned
>and returned to
> our beds at night,
ive got tubes for this
>where our children (Mud and Thud) pretend to be
>birds spottled
they *are* birds
> with bruise-blue shadows and fearsome lice with tiny lions' heads.
>Now this is just a
> theory of Containment which predates the Theory of Perusal: Dr Berner
>(Nietzche's
> erstwhile companion in Vienna) was said to have learned to love
>Nature through an
> exercise he called "Cortical Triage" and whose particulars have
>escaped us.
> However, it appears (according to a note to Nietzche) to have
>involved specific
> animal fat baths and a "calming toy made of squirrel:.
nietzche got a lot of junk mail
>The echo in
>the room
echo in the room
> where Mud and Thud reside seems to prove this point about that point:
>don't
> bother waiting up, Mother's not coming home. Friedrich died horribly,
>and
> Berner (for the most part) is forgotten. Stay away from the curbside.
>Banks are
> zoos for expectations and beds are zoos for "interminable intamacy".
>
and i cant tell the difference
> Zrack
>
>>
>>
i feel like an ink jet nozzle
Cadmium Flute
>Any historian knows that the only reason the Egyptians got anything done is
>because they were "cut off."
>
>Why such love for a group of people who believed in a god with the head of a
>hawk?
its more believable than a human with the head of a god.
i will support any god with a good hawk-head on its shoulders.
Brandon J. Freels
it as surrealist. If you are lying I will castrate you.
---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
With insanity in my loins I propose you start a comic book!
--BJF
Brandon J. Freels
of man and the mind can only be obtained when we completely abandon all
religion. If you make up a god every morning I will accept it. If you try to
make everyone else believe in that god, I'll chew up your skull with my
loins of steel.
---BJF
barrett john erickson
> [..]
> religion shouldn't be rejected because it is a worship of gods,
> but because it is a worship of *dead* gods. the imagination
> creates all gods, so gods are a proper object of surrealism.
> anything which destroys gods (either atheism or religion) is
> a foe of surrealism.
perhaps you can enlighten us as to how you arrived at this perverted
concept of surrealism?
[balance of my original text deleted since Brandon said it better]
Dale Houstman
i feel like an ink jet nozzle
*
I'd like to feel your ink jet nozzle, and put a kink in your smozzle. But seriously folks...
Just last night on the nightly news (between the fire at the
cystic fibrosis FunPark and
the murder of twenty nurses at a poker marathon) it was revealed
that more information
on Nietzche's friend, Berner, had been discovered in the form
of an erotic novel he had
written for a French "one-hand reader" company: it concerns
a Swiss chocolate maker's
daughter, her erstwhile "vanderlustig" companion, the bakelite
salesman's son and
their exotic adventures in the back of an Arabic bakery van.
From what I could
gather (and that's not much with one hand) it has all the tender
pathos of Swift's (not
Tom!) work mixed with the athletic aesthetic of Swift's (not
Jonathan!) work: a sort
of "menage a twat" emerges when the rhinoplasty surgeon, Bosco
Tosca, finances
the removal of the van to a small town in Iowa and begins strange
experiments upon
each of their young (yet wizened) features. When the decide
to act out sexual
hi-jinks in their various guises, the book shifts into high
gear and disapears over a
runty little hill south of Farmington, only to be seen in the
sequel.
It seems symbolic yet filthy, tart with a tint of torte, sport. Read it in the funny papers...
Dale H
Dale Houstman
Priests should be spit on. Nuns sodomized. And followers excluded.
Whoa! Priests should be on spits. Nuns simonized. And followers followed.
Dale H
Brandon J. Freels
Dale Houstman wrote in message <6uefhc$h3a$1...@news-2.news.gte.net>...
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"Do gods really help push towards the emancipation of the mind? The freedom
how can you abandon religion? where do you think it comes from?
you can run from yourself all day, but you will never escape.
if this sounds pessimistic, remember: you won't lose any ground,
either.
if you accept my god, you will be one step behind, because by then
I will have made up a new one. MAKE YOUR OWN. you have scissors.
every morning in neandertal times, men looked everywhere and saw
a spirit, and thus began a great game which too many people --
priests and atheists in particular -- take too seriously. a god
is just a metaphor that lives, if only for a short while. when
the god dies, you have a funeral, and give birth to a new one.
are you so angry at metaphor? I do not believe it.
and as for the emancipation of the mind: the funny thing is,
you were never truely unfree until you chose to be so. if the
gods are unreal, you are a fool to believe they enslave you.
if they *are* real, then making new gods to fight the old ones
is no sin.
--
JAHWEH DAVE: "If you'll excuse me now, gentlemen,
I must staple my penises together."
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"Talysman wrote:
"
"> [..]
"
"> religion shouldn't be rejected because it is a worship of gods,
"> but because it is a worship of *dead* gods. the imagination
"> creates all gods, so gods are a proper object of surrealism.
"> anything which destroys gods (either atheism or religion) is
"> a foe of surrealism.
"perhaps you can enlighten us as to how you arrived at this perverted
"concept of surrealism?
surrealism = creativity
destruction != creativity
do the math. I believe you made the same argument about dada.
AHA! you are pierced by my sharp horns. will you embrace dada
to defeat the gods, or embrace the gods to defeat dada? which
is the greater enemy of surrealism?
I'm leafing through a little book called ARSENAL that purports
to be surrealist. I see some anti-religion messages, but they
all seem to be against *organized* religion. mixed in with these
are praises for the way native americans viewed the entire world
as sacred, references to Kabballah, references to alchemy,
references to the pantheism of Spinoza. how am I to interpret
this? are these so-called surrealists mere PERVERTS, as you
claim?
was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
eagerly awaiting your response.
--
"Hear the only sound of axe cutting air.
It has much say to you!" --- GYMKATA
Dale Houstman
What is with the sad devotion to supporting religion on this surrealism newgroup?
I may be missing something here but I don't see how
my statement: "Priests sholud be on spits" is a support for religion. And
elag's: "all you sacreligious folks are all tame"
could be taken as a call to be more extravagant in one's anti-religious
sentiments and actions. I don't know about elag (or you) but I'm with Peret
on this one: he said, after walking a battlefield of the Spanish Civil
War that the one good to come of it was "all the burning churches". I for
one think religion is a heresy of conscience, and take a back seat to no
one on its irrelevance to a continued human existence. Personally, I haven't
seen a whole lot of religious content here, and would move to respond if
I did: surely there's a "giveittome Jesus.com" group somewhere? But maybe
Brandon's seen some awful spectacle of god-groveling I haven't? The Egyptian
worship is probably the closest approach I've noticed, and that's pretty
weak. Seems to be mostly a linguisitc tic more than a full cardio-pulmonary
resucitation on one part of Osiris or another: but surely it doesn't hurt
to know enough religion to parody it, or exorcise its presence?
Dale "Julian the Apostate" H
Cadmium Flute
what is with the sad devotion to supporting your lack of support for
religion on this surrealism newgroup?
you should be devoting all your sadness to me and my lack of support
for this old surrealism group.
Dale Houstman flapped about, with insanity in its loins:
Brandon J. Freels
>how can you abandon religion? where do you think it comes from?
>you can run from yourself all day, but you will never escape.
Religion comes from crazy tarts like yourself. We are not born believing in
religion.
>if you accept my god, you will be one step behind, because by then
>I will have made up a new one. MAKE YOUR OWN.
I will never accept your gods. I will only laugh at them. Your foolishness
will be part of my study on religious fanatics. I would truely like to hear
about these gods you've created in the past and are creating in the future!
>every morning in neandertal times, men looked everywhere and saw
>a spirit,
STOP LYING! YOU HAVE NO PROOF OF THE ABOVE STATEMENT!
>a god
>is just a metaphor that lives, if only for a short while. when
>the god dies, you have a funeral, and give birth to a new one.
I am against metaphors. Say what you mean.
>and as for the emancipation of the mind: the funny thing is,
>you were never truely unfree until you chose to be so. if the
>gods are unreal, you are a fool to believe they enslave you.
>if they *are* real, then making new gods to fight the old ones
>is no sin.
The gods never enslaved me for they are not real, but the believers of those
unreal gods have tried.
elag
or orthodox beliefs of any kind. I do not, however, feel the need to
bludgeon the fab people of this group w/ my philosophy... especially
since they all have interesting things to say. I'd rather demonstrate
my philosophy in my actions.
As long as noone tries to convert me or start an abortion flame-war or
some such... I feel that everything I've read here belongs here.
"Dieu de la progression pardonne-moi c'est toujours le meme mobilier."
(God of progress forgive me it is always the same furniture)
-Breton (Sur la route de San Romano {1948})
"Brandon J. Freels" wrote:
> What is with the sad devotion to supporting religion on this
> surrealism newgroup?
>
> Dale Houstman wrote in message
> <6uefhc$h3a$1...@news-2.news.gte.net>...Brandon J. Freels
Brandon J. Freels
>to be surrealist. I see some anti-religion messages, but they
>all seem to be against *organized* religion.
Precisely! But all religions that spread are organized.
mixed in with these
>are praises for the way native americans viewed the entire world
>as sacred, references to Kabballah, references to alchemy,
>references to the pantheism of Spinoza. how am I to interpret
>this? are these so-called surrealists mere PERVERTS, as you
>claim?
Studies of different cultural beliefs are completely valid. I am a fan of
cave art, but I would never try to incorperate my admiration into
surrealism. Why don't you read these praises and see if they call Native
American religion, the Kabballah, alchemy, Spinoza, forms of surrealism or
not! Probably not. Like the pre-surrealist (Swift, Roussel, Vache) they are
not to be considered surrealists, but are of surrealist interest. I would
place mythology of all kinds in this area also. But to try and digest these
religions forms as completely surrealist is impossible.
>was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
At times both.
---BJF
barrett john erickson
> [... stuff more or less dealt with in other posts]
> I'm leafing through a little book called ARSENAL that purports
> to be surrealist. I see some anti-religion messages, but they
> all seem to be against *organized* religion. mixed in with these
> are praises for the way native americans viewed the entire world
> as sacred, references to Kabballah, references to alchemy,
> references to the pantheism of Spinoza. how am I to interpret
> this? are these so-called surrealists mere PERVERTS, as you
> claim?
first, i called no one a pervert. i refered to a "perverted concept of
surrealism".
as for the chicago group, i've made comment in the past, and i don't feel
any need to add to that right now.
i've also never had any interest in religion, organized or not, but as far
as your references are concerned, i would think (without trying to defend
them) that the operative element in the pieces you refer to is a holistic
(featuring an integrated imagination) and _non-theological_ experience of
reality which has no place for submission to imposed or accepted
hierarchies.
but if you give me some specific ARSENAL references it might be
illuminating to dig a bit deeper.
>
> was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
i can only answer that Blake is irrelevant to _my_ imagination, since i
haven't read any of his work in decades (since college) and can't remember
that which i did read.
Dale Houstman
> a god is just a metaphor that lives, if only for a short while. when
> the god dies, you have a funeral, and give birth to a new one.
This simply isn't true, as aesthetically pleasing as it seems: try telling any
believer in a god (and a god isn't a god without believers) that his god is just
a metaphor and you might get a metaphor in your larynx. If god is a metaphor then
it is one that has gotten "out of hand" as it were, and it is not "just" anything
anymore. To reduce the concept of "god" to a game of paper and scissors is simply
to deny the import of the word. If you make up a new god every morning, then you
are mislabeling it; it is now just a concept to be played with and not a
particularly lively one either, since it is all vestige and no substance: the one
thing that might have made the ancient worshippers of (say) Mung "surrealist" in
any way would be their total manifestation of a dream into the waking world. You
have even removed that; intellectual playthings disguised as gods are not gods,
and they're barely intellectual. They're cute...
I doubt Brandon is mad at a metaphor...he might be peeved that you are calling a
metaphor a god, but that's not the same thing is it? It might provoke me if you
insisted on calling your nose a bridge to the twenty-first century but that
doesn't mean I hate bridges or your nose.
> you were never truely unfree until you chose to be so. if the
> gods are unreal, you are a fool to believe they enslave you.
>
Many many many people are unfree through no choice of their own; this is a
notion that sounds good until the people with the Big Sticks find you hidden
behind your bookcase. As for the other part: gods don't enslave people, people
who believe in gods enslave people, and they are very real.
> if they *are* real, then making new gods to fight the old ones is no sin
well, that wolud be for "them" to decide wouldn't it? If the gods were real,
then your puny little attempts to create new ones wolud have earned you a
shrieking eternity in a steaming Mookpit by now. Your ideas here seem confused...
> Dale H
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"Brandon J. Freels wrote:
"> What is with the sad devotion to supporting religion on this
"> surrealism newgroup?
[ ... ]
"Personally, I haven't seen a whole lot of religious content here, and
"would move to respond if I did: surely there's a "giveittome Jesus.com"
"group somewhere? But maybe Brandon's seen some awful spectacle of
"god-groveling I haven't?
I take Brandon's comments as being similar to a Repudlickan
complaining that a Demoncrat is "soft on crime".
... or the religious right complaining about hollywood
"glorifying violence". I myself can't think of any movie
that *glorified* violence, although I can think of many
that *portrayed* violence.
maybe this is the same kind of semantic confusion?
--
YAHWEHOAHEH!!!!
xister
Brandon J. Freels wrote:
> Do gods really help push towards the emancipation of the mind? The freedom
> of man and the mind can only be obtained when we completely abandon all
> religion.
See Brandon J., this is what I don't get about you. You rail so hard against
religion, yet you fail to see that you treat surrealism as one; this holiest of
holy things that can only move in a direction that was set up by people in
another time and place. You speak of freedom and you don't even allow yourself
the freedom to see other people's points of view. If you do see their piont of
view, then you certianly don't give yourself the freedom to accept them and
their belief system. I agree with and admire the original surrealists; I
wouldnt be sending posts like a madman to alt.sur if I didn't. It's why I
believe that I'm a surrealist- because the art I make (not the dada that I post)
resonates in me with the art and poetry that I have found in the surrealism of
the past and present. No matter how hard anyone may try (even Breton himself) to
keep surrealism pure, doesn't mean that the flavor of surrealism won't change
tomorrow- clearly, it has changed much since Breton's time, and probably won't
even be reconizable to us in another 60 or so years. So why not let surrealism
take it's course, and let the people who consider themselves surreal be as much
or as little surreal as they want to be in this group. After all alt.sur isn't
the defining edge of surrealism anyway.
> If you make up a god every morning I will accept it. If you try to
> make everyone else believe in that god, I'll chew up your skull with my
> loins of steel.
>
> ---BJF
--
Reply (sans hyphen) to the x-i...@earthlink.net
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothin' you can measure anymore
The Blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
and it's overturned the order of the soul...
When they said, "Repent!" I wondered what they meant.
I've seen the future brother, it is murder...
-LEONARD COHEN-
qagi
<Fre...@ethergate.com> adds the following to the body of human wisdom,
>Do gods really help push towards the emancipation of the mind? The freedom
>of man and the mind can only be obtained when we completely abandon all
>make everyone else believe in that god, I'll chew up your skull with my
>loins of steel.
>
>---BJF
>
>
I add daily to the store of my own protectors. Clouds have desires and
trees have willpower. shackles have tortillas. Ka-Boom. Questioning my
own answer...
--
Dr G Reindeer
Foundation For Magical Gnome Research
xister
Brandon J. Freels wrote:
>
>
> >was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
>
> At times both.
How convenient an answer, would the same be true for Dali being that he
believed in (*shudder*) Catholicism?I find it interesting and at the same time
frustrating that heros of mine (Blake, Dali, and others) that I think would
renounce anything as silly as an organized religion, yet they believed....
Wholeheartedly. This is why I believe that as a (quote)surrealist(unquote) I'll
keep my options open, and not choose to disbelieve anything *too* much.
Although one thing I have noticed is that Dali and Blake especially seemed to
take the symbols/words of the Christian faith (read: the one god
theory/Catholicism) and make them irrivocably their own in their art. In my
view that's better than blind faith (then of course, what isnt?)
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"as for the chicago group, i've made comment in the past, and i don't feel
"any need to add to that right now.
repost, please?
"i've also never had any interest in religion, organized or not, but as far
"as your references are concerned, i would think (without trying to defend
"them) that the operative element in the pieces you refer to is a holistic
"(featuring an integrated imagination) and _non-theological_ experience of
"reality which has no place for submission to imposed or accepted
"hierarchies.
ah, so here is the problem: we do not speak the same language.
for me, a god is exactly that: holistic and non-theological (as
you are using the term.) for you, a god is so much more: it is
the sum of all the negative things done in any god's name.
to illustrate this, let me tell you three stories of my religious
experiences:
1. I looked outside a window. the sun was close to setting,
and shone through the trees in golden rays, playing on the
leaves and forming those eerie shafts of sunlight you can
sometimes see that look like something solid but translucent.
looking at them, I temporarily slipped out of conscious
awareness and ceased to be seperate from the act of looking;
there was no sun, no tree, no I; and I realized that there
would be no such experience unless all of these were involved.
"this is god," I said.
2. I stood on a street corner, watching the birds getting ready
to roost. they were flying together in a flock, circling,
diving, rising, and I became fascinated at the way they moved
not as individual birds, but as a single large organism of
many bodies, flowing through the sky. and I further realized
that the movement of this many-headed beast was determined
not only by the desires of each bird, but by the demands of
all their ancestors for a million years, and by the masses
of air that flowed around them... and me. and again, I stopped
feeling apart from what I was watching and became a part of
what I was watching -- it was all one harmony.
"this is god," I said.
3. I sat in my livingroom, watching TV. while watching, I began
to become less aware of it as a conscious process, and began
to feel that it was not I watching TV, but the TV that was
watching TV. we were watching each other... and I was watching
myself watching TV. again, it was all a harmonious process,
me sitting in the livingroom at night in front of a glowing
screen.
"this is god," I said.
so you see, for me, god is not a who or a what, but a how. god
is that realization of the interconnectedness, the joyous discovery
of pattern in what is supposed to be chaos. you would probably
call this a holistic view, but the word "god" holds so much distaste
for you (because of the horrors you've seen?) that you would not
share my realization.
because every god begins in that same way. when the Greeks
imagined Zeus throwing lightning bolts, it is because they saw
some kind of pattern, a wholeness in the world that frightened
and awed them. it was only after this first illumination that
they began to kill the god Zeus with the inanities of religion.
this is why I say "make a new god every morning". if you keep
giving birth to new gods, you won't have time to kill them, or
anyone else.
"but if you give me some specific ARSENAL references it might be
"illuminating to dig a bit deeper.
I'll have to type some of these up later.
"> was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
"i can only answer that Blake is irrelevant to _my_ imagination, since i
"haven't read any of his work in decades (since college) and can't remember
"that which i did read.
I wasn't relly asking if you liked him or not. Blake worshipped the
imagination, called it "Jesus the Imagination", in fact. it was his
chief god.
--
"Hey! Who put sci-fi-movie-esque tits in my friend's VEAL?"
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"Talysman wrote:
"> a god is just a metaphor that lives, if only for a short while. when
"> the god dies, you have a funeral, and give birth to a new one.
" This simply isn't true, as aesthetically pleasing as it seems: try
"telling any believer in a god (and a god isn't a god without
"believers) that his god is just a metaphor and you might get a
"metaphor in your larynx.
that's THEIR problem.
I'm willing to suffer for my art.
"intellectual playthings disguised as gods are not gods,
"and they're barely intellectual. They're cute...
it's not an intellectual process, but an imaginative, emotional,
and spiritual one. see my response to BJE.
here, I'll simply quote St. Janor: "You don't use your *brain*
to think about your religion!"
"Many many many people are unfree through no choice of their own;
there's always a choice. you just might not like the options
offered to you, or be strong enough to assert your choice.
but there's ALWAYS a choice.
"> if they *are* real, then making new gods to fight the old ones is no sin
" well, that wolud be for "them" to decide wouldn't it? If the gods
"were real, then your puny little attempts to create new ones wolud
"have earned you a shrieking eternity in a steaming Mookpit by
"now. Your ideas here seem confused...
either the gods are real, or not. if I make a god, and gods are
real, then my god is just as real as any other, and may even be
stronger, because it would be young and fresh and not yet bled dry.
--
"He bestrides the HATE of serial killers,
with just a few measly saucers."
Dale Houstman
Dale wrote: try "telling any believer in a god that his god is just a metaphor and you might get a "metaphor in your larynx.
that's THEIR problem....uh, no: it would most definitely be YOUR problem
it's not an intellectual process, but an imaginative, emotional,
and spiritual one.
"You don't use your *brain* to think about your religion!"
Tell that to Saint Augustine or Blake. Or are you one of those people (like the ancient Greeks) who think the brain is just there to cool the blood? I suppose (by this conversation) that you actually believe in the soul as an entity. Well, that's the end of any reasonable discussion.
there's always a choice. you just might not like the options offered to you, or be strong enough to assert your choice. but there's ALWAYS a choice.
either the gods are real, or not. if I make a god, and gods are
real, then my god is just as real as any other, and may even be
stronger, because it would be young and fresh and not yet bled dry.
Enough for me: arguing religion is a waste of space.
I must say however that your notions seem all too "wiffy" to be either
imaginatively forceful or intellectually involving.
I am glad however, they are of service to you...
Dale H
barrett john erickson
> "i've also never had any interest in religion, organized or not, but as far
> "as your references are concerned, i would think (without trying to defend
> "them) that the operative element in the pieces you refer to is a holistic
> "(featuring an integrated imagination) and _non-theological_ experience of
> "reality which has no place for submission to imposed or accepted
> "hierarchies.
>
> ah, so here is the problem: we do not speak the same language.
> for me, a god is exactly that: holistic and non-theological (as
> you are using the term.) for you, a god is so much more: it is
> the sum of all the negative things done in any god's name.
>
well, i don't think it's that simple. Brandon is correct when he states
that the references and explorations do not necessarily imply that the
authors consider them within (as opposed to tangent to) the sphere of
surrealism. but, again, i'd like to be able to deal with these references
specifically.
as for:
> to illustrate this, let me tell you three stories of my religious
> experiences:
i appreciate your attempt to clarify, but i'm going to pass on commenting
beyond saying that i just don't see any point in using a word like "god"
which is so riddled with maggots. and since i've pretty much reached my
limit of tolerance for the terms of religion (i get indigestion easily), i
find myself blind to any further attempts to clarify them and simply have
to let it drop here.
(especially now that we may have a potentially interesting investigation
going on "desire".)
> "but if you give me some specific ARSENAL references it might be
> "illuminating to dig a bit deeper.
>
> I'll have to type some of these up later.
yes, please, but you can just give me article titles and page numbers if
you wish (i assume you're refering to the latest issue from the late
80's?).
Brandon J. Freels
>imagined Zeus throwing lightning bolts, it is because they saw
>some kind of pattern, a wholeness in the world that frightened
>and awed them. it was only after this first illumination that
>they began to kill the god Zeus with the inanities of religion.
WHY DO YOU DRIP YOUR MESSAGES WITH SUCH FALSITIES LIKE THE ONE ABOVE? YOU
HAVE NO PROOF ANCIENT CULTURES DID ANYTHING!
---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
believe 1933), is obviously a crack against the imagination. He is just
illistrating Frued's theories like a jackass. Anyone can do that by opening
a textbook. I suppose you're going to call textbooks surrealist now?
Mr. Avida Dollars can stick his crosses up non-xister's earthlink!
---BJF
xister wrote in message <6uj7pg$av7$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
>Brandon J. Freels wrote:
>> >was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
>>
Talysman
in alt.surrealism:
"Brandon J. Freels wrote:
"> >was William Blake a foe of the imagination, or its best friend?
"> At times both.
"How convenient an answer, would the same be true for Dali being that he
"believed in (*shudder*) Catholicism?I find it interesting and at the same time
"frustrating that heros of mine (Blake, Dali, and others) that I think would
"renounce anything as silly as an organized religion, yet they believed....
"Wholeheartedly. This is why I believe that as a (quote)surrealist(unquote) I'll
"keep my options open, and not choose to disbelieve anything *too* much.
"Although one thing I have noticed is that Dali and Blake especially seemed to
"take the symbols/words of the Christian faith (read: the one god
"theory/Catholicism) and make them irrivocably their own in their art. In my
"view that's better than blind faith (then of course, what isnt?)
Blake can hardly be condemned for Catholicism or for adherence
to the One God theory. first, before he embarked on his personal
poetic vision, he was a member of a Swedenborgian (or pseudo-
Swedenborgian) church; this was more like a precursor to spiritualism
or theosophy. second, his poetry is centered around a created
mythology heavily influenced by Kabballah, with the gods Urthona,
Los, Red Orc, &c. emanating from an unnamed and unnameable impersonal
godhead. third, his use of Christian symbols were completely
reversed; a good thorough reading of _The Marriage of Heaven & Hell_
will dispell any notion that Blake was a Christian in the usual
sense of the term (angels routinely represent the forces of evil
in his prophesies; Red Orc, the incarnation of violence and rebellion,
is a heroic figure; and the devil in _Marriage of Heaven & Hell_
symbolizes Blake himself.)
I read in this Arsenal book a review of Malcolm de Chazal's
work; he was praised by Breton as one of the three greatest
surrealist poets in the French language since WWII. here are
quotes from the review that may help you reconcile your love
for Blake with your love for surrealism:
Breton--whose admiration for Chazal, as we have seen,
was immense--was one of those who argued that [Chazal's]
occasional "mystical" language was really more heretical
and hermetic than religious. As Georges Bataille pointed
out around that time, Chazal was much closer to William
Blake than to St. Theresa.
and later on:
It is unthinkable, in any case, that Chazal's writings--
any more than Blake's or Fourier's or Saint-Paul-Roux'
or Jarry's--could be appropriated by religionists for
apologetic ends.
one more quote, since it's relevant to the debate going on
in this thread. Chazal apparently was rewriting the Bible
in his own vision, and his _Pentateuque_ states that "in
the beginning, *light* existed without God, who was not yet
born--and that it was *man* who, in creating God, thereby
constructed the universe."
I actually had not read that sentence before I talked of
creating gods. my influence was mainly Blake and Robert
Anton Wilson.
--
"Hear the only sound of axe cutting air.
It has much say to you!" --- GYMKATA
Brandon J. Freels
Talysman's experiences are borderline encounters with the sublime,
marvelous, enigmatic, etc.
As for Talysman's reference to the Greeks I am a bit erfed. Are you speaking
in:
a) Historical sense?
b) Surreal view of history?
c) your own stupid and ignorant interpretion of what you think you know
about in order to support your own view?
I think your speaking in C.
If you were speaking in a historical sense you would realize that we have
not enough information to know where the idea of Zues came from.
If you were speaking in a Surreal view of history your rendition would have
sounded more like this:
because every carcass begins in that same crater. when the Greeks
imagined Zeus riding donkey bolts, it was because they envisioned
some kind of patty cake, a whole mess of the world that devoured
and liquidated them. it was only after this first bonk on the head that
they began to eat the god Zeus with the testicals of Jimbaba.
As for your foolish statement: "this is why I say 'make a new god every
morning'. if you keep giving birth to new gods, you won't have time to kill
them, or anyone else."
You are given birth to nothing. Nothing is being killed. You can't kill
something that doesn't exist.
From now on, if you are going to try and make historical references I would
hope you will do your best to avoid stupidity.
---Brandon
elag
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid
Stupid Stupid Stupid
Brandon J. Freels wrote:
> P.P.S.
>
> As cordially as possible I will kindly ask this Talysman individual how it
> has come to its "peverted" sense of history?
>
> You act as if you were there:
> First you sighted the neanderthal man and their spirits
>
> Second you sighted the greeks and their "descovery" of Zues
>
> We will never truely know how these groups of people worshiped their gods,
> or created them. I have heard myself that during Greece's highth as a
> civilization they were primarily atheist. As for neanderthal man the idea
> that he will see "spirits" is desolvable. There is no proof. If you have
> proof share it with the group.
>
> ---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
situations does not mean that "its is god!"
Only a fool would use such a definition for an experience. If you truely
examine the situations I am sure you will come to a more interesting,
complex, and phychological realization.
Simply calling an experience "god" is choosing a quick cliche for an answer
to an indept question. If you don't want to answer the question you can just
state the question: "What is happening?" You don't need to come to any
conclusion such as "god" or anything else. Especially if its a cliche, and
especial it its a cliche that means nothing.
---Brandon Freels
Brandon J. Freels
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
[ originally, I wasn't going to respond. it is obvious
Brandon doesn't "get it". butmaybe someone else will... ]
what does the word "god" mean, Brandon?
you seem to think it means "a huge invisible hairy man".
if I believed the same thing, then everything I have said would,
in fact, be nonsense.
but I don't believe that, which is why I said "here is how I define
'god'" and gave my experiences as examples.
ultimate experience can NEVER be explained. all human explanations
are only approximations of reality, not the reality itself. is the
word "dog" really a dog?
to think you can explain reality, to think that the name is the
thing, THAT is religion. disagree with the religious beliefs of
others, and they will react emotionally as if threatened physically.
you always respond at least twice to every ONE of my posts that
mention "god", Brandon... and this time, you responded three or
four times... so go back and reread the previous paragraph, and
think about it...
--
"Your thirteen clitorises strongly suggest
your amorality."
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"WHY DO YOU DRIP YOUR MESSAGES WITH SUCH FALSITIES LIKE THE ONE ABOVE? YOU
"HAVE NO PROOF ANCIENT CULTURES DID ANYTHING!
OK, I'll admit it:
there are no ancient cultures, it was all a dream.
now go back to sleep.
--
"Talk to this dimension every Sunday!"
Talysman
in amazement, I beheld barrett john erickson <bar...@MagneticFields.org>
write in alt.surrealism:
"Talysman wrote:
">
"> ah, so here is the problem: we do not speak the same language.
"> for me, a god is exactly that: holistic and non-theological (as
"> you are using the term.) for you, a god is so much more: it is
"> the sum of all the negative things done in any god's name.
"well, i don't think it's that simple. Brandon is correct when he states
"that the references and explorations do not necessarily imply that the
"authors consider them within (as opposed to tangent to) the sphere of
"surrealism. but, again, i'd like to be able to deal with these references
"specifically.
[ ... ]
"> "but if you give me some specific ARSENAL references it might be
"> "illuminating to dig a bit deeper.
">
"> I'll have to type some of these up later.
"
"yes, please, but you can just give me article titles and page numbers if
"you wish (i assume you're refering to the latest issue from the late
"80's?).
if you mean "ARSENAL/SURREALIST SUBVERSION 4", published in 1989,
yes... I assume what I have is a magazine in trade paperback form
and not an anthology.
as a preface, I'll point out that the ARSENAL people themselves seem
to support the same position as you. for instance, the article
"Against the Academic God-Seekers" (pp106-108) is quite vehemently
anti-religion (and completely misinterprets Eliade, but we'll ignore
that.)
interestingly, Jablonski avoids making the same kinds of statements
about native american religion; he won't even call it that, but uses
the PCism "native american folk-life myth". I could point out that
this distinction between european "religion" and native american
"myth" has been made before, but to the detriment of native americans.
but I could also point out that Emile Durkheim made it clear that
religion is a process of making boundaries and categories for reality,
and the areas where boundaries overlap (proving the illusory nature of
the boundary) are regarded with awe or dread. thus, in medieval
christianity, there was a boundary between supernatural events and
normal human ability; anyone that seemed to cross that boundary was
either a saint or a sorceror/witch.
and in every religion I'm aware of, believers make a distinction
between what *they* do and what *other people* do... for example,
there's a little christian cliche about "religion is man reaching up
to god; christianity is god reaching down to man." Jablonski's
article illustrates just this sort of religious behavior, although
he'd have a stroke if someone were to point it out to him.
a final not on Jablonski's article: the quote ` ``religion'' itself is
only a very recent and highly truncated (repressed) version of primal
humankind's richly poetic and symbolic species life' is pretty
laughable and utterly wrong, and proves that Jablonski has completely
missed the point. "religion" is the name for poetry and symbolism
when they become objectified! and it's been going on forever! it is
only comparatively recently that people started to make a distinction
between the poetic and the religious.
most of the religious/surrealist suggestions in ARSENAL come through
in poetry or prose quoted *by* the ARSENAL group, though. I already
mentioned the article on Malcolm de Chazal (pp125-127), and I think I
quoted the article as saying that Breton defended Chazal's mystical or
religious outlook... the article also quotes Chazal as writing: "my
only spiritual friends in France are the surrealists." since the only
danger I see in religion is in taking it too seriously, I have no
problem with someone equating the words "spiritual" and "surreal".
there are also numerous other references to religious, mystical, or
occult themes in various poems or articles in ARSENAL, which I can
name, I suppose... except that it proves nothing, other than that s
surrealist can mention god without being struck dead by either god or
Brandon. someone once said something like "there is nothing human
that is foreign to me", and since humans invented religion, I feel I
have to accept it somewhat.
in Uppsala, there is a stone cross with a picture of Thorr slaying the
Midhgardh Serpent.
--
"Mrs. Peal, we're in slow motion!"
Brandon J. Freels
means "a huge invisible hairy man" if I believed the same thing, then
everything I have said would, in fact, be nonsense.
GOD: a foolish cliche used by idiots to explain situations in which they
have no answer or intellegent response. The use of god to explain an
experience is just as common as someone using "red as a rose" do define a
color. When people describe things as "god" we get nowhere for it is an
empty word. If people have experience in which they prefer to call "god" I
would much rather them omit the word, but explain the situations as best
they can without reverting to cliches.
As for the "big hairy man" I personal don't believe in a big man, or in
hair.
---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
define 'god'" and gave my experiences as examples.
I object to the world god for its voidness. I object to the idea of god(s),
wether experience based or anthropomorphic, because they are all frauds.
If you define your experiences as god you are cheating yourself the joy of
investigating your mind.
---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
explanations are only approximations of reality, not the reality itself. is
the word "dog" really a dog? to think you can explain reality, to think that
the name is the thing, THAT is religion.
I am not concerned with reality as you see it. I am not trying to explain
reality, only free the imagination. The use of "god" as an explination is
not freedom, but attaching a word to a situation you feel unable to explain.
I would rather have an explination that is indepth and unresolved than an
explaination that is simple and resolved. "God" for you shows a resolution
in your mind to an experience you feel was bigger than you. You define it as
"god" to catagorize it rather than describing it and studying it to single
it out and away from those other experience you've called "god."
I am against describing things as "god" for the simple reason that this word
"god" is supposed to defy explination or any attempt at an explination, and
use of the imagination. the word "god" is an avoidance of the mind.
---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
I am an insomniac.
---BJF
Talysman
"GOD: a foolish cliche used by idiots to explain situations in which
"they have no answer or intellegent response. The use of god to explain
"an experience is just as common as someone using "red as a rose" do
"define a color. When people describe things as "god" we get nowhere
"for it is an empty word.
[ Brandon makes a grievous philosophical error in #3 ]
"I am not concerned with reality as you see it. I am not trying to
"explain reality, only free the imagination. The use of "god" as an
"explination is not freedom, but attaching a word to a situation you
"feel unable to explain. I would rather have an explination that is
"indepth and unresolved than an explaination that is simple and
"resolved. "God" for you shows a resolution in your mind to an
"experience you feel was bigger than you. You define it as "god" to
"catagorize it rather than describing it and studying it to single it
"out and away from those other experience you've called "god."
"I am against describing things as "god" for the simple reason that
"this word "god" is supposed to defy explination or any attempt at an
"explination, and use of the imagination. the word "god" is an
"avoidance of the mind.
[ Brandon continues his error in #2, and makes an interesting
Freudian slip with deep mystical significance ]
"I object to the world god for its voidness. I object to the idea of
"god(s), wether experience based or anthropomorphic, because they are
"all frauds.
"If you define your experiences as god you are cheating yourself the
"joy of investigating your mind.
Brandon, you are still putting the cart before the horse.
do not bring your personal baggage into the definition of "god".
you presume that I believe in the supernatural when I say I see
god in the trees and wind. you are not listening to me, because
your mouth is open too wide.
I do not call my sublime experiences "god". I define "god" as
those kinds of experiences. you fail to see that... you keep
trying to link my attitude back to whatever horrible experiences
you may have had in a church; while I, on the other hand, try
to see in a basic human experience a possible real source of
the myths of man.
it would be like me saying that mermaids were based on the
experiences of sailors viewing manatees nursing their young on
a misty night... with you claiming that I was spreading vile
superstitions and destroying the imagination by calling manatees
"mermaids".
before you start investigating your mind, perhaps you should
take inventory and throw out the garbage.
--
Doesn't EVERYONE posting on Usenet get to be the God?
elag
experiences you may have had in a church; while I, on the other hand, try
to see in a basic human experience a possible real source of the myths of man.
elag: This is an excellent point... exactly what the surrealists were about...
> it would be like me saying that mermaids were based on the
> experiences of sailors viewing manatees nursing their young on
> a misty night... with you claiming that I was spreading vile
> superstitions and destroying the imagination by calling manatees
> "mermaids"
elag: More or less the way I see it... touché talysman!
Talysman
in alt.surrealism:
"Talysman wrote: you keep trying to link my attitude back to whatever
"horrible experiences you may have had in a church; while I, on the
"other hand, try to see in a basic human experience a possible real
"source of the myths of man.
"elag: This is an excellent point... exactly what the surrealists were
"about...
thanks, elag.
my beliefs may not be "officially" surrealist, but I always figured
I wasn't the only one. I've always thought the antigod stance of
surrealism was a holdover from Marxism. I don't buy Marx's political
theories (another divergence from surrealism, I know...) so I feel
no need to buy his religious theories. I *am* opposed to hierarchy
and groupthink, though, so this is where my beliefs are close to
those of other surrealists, and allows me to work together with
other surrealists on opposing repression.
just as long as surrealists don't try to force me to repress my
own desires for freedom.
--
Your thirteen clitorises strongly suggest your amorality.
xister
Talysman wrote:
>
>
> my beliefs may not be "officially" surrealist, but I always figured
> I wasn't the only one.
Agreed... The arguement I've made in alt.sur before is that if you adhere
yourself to the "Official Definition of Surrealism"(patent pending)
whether that be the dictonary's definition, or Andre's definition, it's
still limiting yourself. How can a surrealist be a surrealist if s/he has
to limit him/herself, and repress the desire to have fun with other
artforms or other ways of being in general?Surrealism is a way of life
*based* on what has been accepted as surreal already. Since every life is
different then how on earth can we all define surrealism in exactly the
same way? Dali got kicked out of the surrealist group for (basically)
believing and doing what he wanted to. Sounds in step with surrealism to
me.
>
>
> just as long as surrealists don't try to force me to repress my
> own desires for freedom.
Yeah, well you only get that in a few places around here....
barrett john erickson
>
> Talysman wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > my beliefs may not be "officially" surrealist, but I always figured
> > I wasn't the only one.
>
> Agreed... The arguement I've made in alt.sur before is that if you adhere
> yourself to the "Official Definition of Surrealism"(patent pending)
> whether that be the dictonary's definition, or Andre's definition, it's
> still limiting yourself. How can a surrealist be a surrealist if s/he has
> to limit him/herself, and repress the desire to have fun with other
> artforms or other ways of being in general?Surrealism is a way of life
> *based* on what has been accepted as surreal already. Since every life is
> different then how on earth can we all define surrealism in exactly the
> same way? Dali got kicked out of the surrealist group for (basically)
> believing and doing what he wanted to. Sounds in step with surrealism to
> me.
i think these questions come from a convolution of elements living and not
living.
i've always preferred to speak of (and yes define) the "surrealist project"
rather than attempting to define surrealism.
[and just to preclude any time waste, i fully admit to inconsistencies in
this without defending or disowning them.]
to wit:
the surrealist project is to fully integrate the liberated imagination into
every day living.
this has met with only minor resistance in surrealist circles (and some
reinforcing promotion) on the numerous times i've stated it. but what is
important to realize is that this is a definition of a "project", that is,
a process of liberation and integration.
the difficulty some people have is in thinking of surrealism as either a
club or a philosophy as opposed to, as you say, a "way of life" -- or more
accurately a "way of living" -- that is, a _process_.
a process which is active and open ended.
but as a process, surrealism _is_ like human life: it has a ("an" for the
sticklers -- it just never sounds good to my minnesotan ear) historical
beginning in Breton's definition (or Les Champs Magnetiques depending on
your perspective, "in" or "out" of the womb), but also an evolutionary
history of growth, development and transition resulting from its
explorations and experiments -- within and between "generations".
it's not that surrealism has rules, or is incapable of radical growth and
even mutation, it's just that, as a nearly 80 year old infant, it has
certain features which cannot be wished away -- that is, you can't just
claim it has another arm and have it be so, nor can you claim an arm is a
leg and expect to walk on it without difficulty.
as for Avida...
Dali got kicked out of surrealism for acting as if it had two asses and no
head.
xister
barrett john erickson wrote:
> Dali got kicked out of surrealism for acting as if it had two asses and no
> head.
Key word: Acting.... So you're saying Dali should have curbed his desire to
sell out/act like a fool/surrealist/etc? Or perhaps he should have adhered to
someone elses views of surrealism?
barrett john erickson
>
> barrett john erickson wrote:
>
> > Dali got kicked out of surrealism for acting as if it had two asses and no
> > head.
>
> Key word: Acting.... So you're saying Dali should have curbed his desire to
> sell out/act like a fool/surrealist/etc? Or perhaps he should have adhered to
> someone elses views of surrealism?
no, only that if he hadn't acted (i.e., made his incompatibilities
manifest), there would have been no way for the others to know he'd become
an ass with no head.
meant "acting" as in "doing" not "role-playing" (although i agree it was
nearly impossible to distinguish in dali, only the "doing" is important
whether it's part of a role played or not).
xister
barrett john erickson wrote:
> > > Dali got kicked out of surrealism
Kicked out of surrealism......Heh...heheehhheheeheh.....HAH!...HO HO HO
HEHEAHAAEAHEHEHAEA......(*ahem*) how un-surreal of the kicker....
> for acting as if it had two asses and no
> > > head.
...And of all of the things to kick him out for.....
> >
> > Key word: Acting.... So you're saying Dali should have curbed his desire to
> > sell out/act like a fool/surrealist/etc? Or perhaps he should have adhered to
> > someone elses views of surrealism?
>
> no, only that if he hadn't acted
Hadn't acted..... I know I'm taking this out of context, but it makes a point that
underlying it all, you're implying that he should have curbed what he wanted to do.
> (i.e., made his incompatibilities
> manifest),
And again I ask- incompatible to who? Other surrealists? Or is it the ideal of
surrealism laid down by the people (past and present) that toe the line of the
political standards left behind in that movement's wake? I mean, I understand the
difference between limiting yourself and guiding yourself towards a certain way,
but adhering strictly to ANYTHING (including surrealism itself) and wholly
dismissing other ways (no matter how silly or wrong they may seem to you) is wrong
and limiting (but then that's my opinion). I don't see any reason why
someone...ANYONE! should be in a position to tell me that my flavor of surrealism
is any more or less surreal than anyone else's. There's more than one flavor of
surrealism only because there's more than one flavor of people that dive into it.
Now certainly, you can reply to me by taking an objective tack, but I would like to
hear what you personally think.... Tell me how you personally *feel* about the
whole of surrealism, not what you've read in books...
> there would have been no way for the others to know he'd become
> an ass with no head.
This all sounds more like your opinion.... Or are you going to cite something from
history to validate this so that it fits in with your views on surrealism? i.e.
Barrett thinks Dali was a fool because the historical context from his point of
view (ala Andre Breton) supports it. Or is that just a coincidence? Dali may have
been an ass in some people's view as to what surrealism is
(past/present/public/private/whatever you want... But not Dali's view of
surrealism.... And usually those people never took the time to really try to figure
him out.
>
>
> meant "acting" as in "doing" not "role-playing" (although i agree it was
> nearly impossible to distinguish in dali, only the "doing" is important
> whether it's part of a role played or not).
You know why it was nearly impossible? Dali never role played... He was
penultimately himself, always.... Even when he fooled himself (and *that's* what he
did). After reading his books, I truly believe he had no choice in the matter
simply because I identified with too much of what he said.Tell me something
Barrett, are you someone that acts on all the desires that come into your head?
Would you kick a blind man in the street if you so desired? And even if it was for
self promotion (which is what I believe his aforementioned act was for) so
what?What does it really matter in the long run? The desire for Dali to self
promote himself (and surrealism) was a real desire. Would you do it to get what you
wanted? Have you ever had to fight your own mind to keep from doing something
(anything!) that might be detrimental to you? And I don't mean namby-pamby shit
either, I mean shit that could get your societal freedom revoked. Have you ever
come close to killing someone/something? The desire has been so great for me to do
certain things my hands have spasmed to do the action. Haven't you ever been on the
freeway and just wanted to ram the shit out of every car that you see? I have. And
that's no implanted societal desire or anything like that, I chose to be there (in
this case the freeway) and reacted to the situation I was in by wanting to make a
mess of the tightly compressed order that I saw around me. Or do you rationalize
those things away as meaningless or, teen angst, or not surreal? This goes back to
the "simplest surrealist act".
They're true desires. So what if Dali's were sometimes goofy or self promoting?
Does that really make him any less of a surrealist than anyone else?
Brandon J. Freels
because he resorted to formulation in his paintings.
His earlier work is much more surreal and what we think of when we think of
as Dali. His later work was meant to "sell."
I feel that Dali turned against surrealism at one point, because of his
disagreements with and what appears to be a dislike for Breton.
I could be wrong since I am not Dali expert.
---BJF
xister
xister wrote:
> And even if it was for
> self promotion (which is what I believe his aforementioned act was for) so
> what?--
You know, I take it back. I found the passage in "The Secret Life" and he did it out of
anger as a result of his desires to go to America being thwarted because of not having
money at the time. The blind (and legless) man just happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time. If you like, I'll quote the passage, but I'm not going to type all
that unless someone reallyreallyreally wants to see it.
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
>Koffee Klatch kiddies war with drunken sophists...
>Put on yr chucklegarb and watch the sparks fly!
"perhaps intellectuals really dosey-do with foreign
correspondents who admire their pineal glans?"
"yonder lies a llama!"
<turning erotically> "the Universal Motor?"
"Universal Studios... they manufacture men?"
"Circe ensnares!"
"Bitch!"
<repeat 13013 times OR KILL ME.>
--
chimpanzees are virtually never particularly
snake-like in the midst of the joy of battle.
Nikolaus Maack
"C. Endicott" (cend...@u.washington.edu) writes:
> "Circles are squares!"
Which caused the sudden memory of Circle-Square, a Christian kiddy show
that was aired up here in Canada. "Come together! Come together! Come
together, and let your light shine!" Rather suggestive lyrics, that. Now
I wonder why they called the show "Circle Square", and what it all meant.
They combined fluffy skits and puppetry with religious stories and song.
It was painful to watch, and yet I could not look away.
N.
--
"Likewise, I am no fan of Islam...but that doesn't preclude a
total ignorance of obvious good teachings in the Koran."
--Brian RA Sterling, Grandmaster Freenet Nutbar
barrett john erickson
>
> Brandon J. Freels wrote:
>
> > The reason I heard Dali was kicked out of BRETON's surrealist group was
you are probably closer to correct than i was. my response was just a bit
of flip extrapolation from xister's comment.
> I don't deny that, but I think that it had to do with the fact that American
> pop culture had embraced him as one of the icons of surrealism, and he imbraced
> it. And yes, his later paintings are formulated, but for a good reason. Dali
> ... [some worthwhile comments on dali]
but my problem with dali is not his art, but his identification as the
personification of surrealism for the unknowing in the usa.
i think dali was a terrific artist who made some marvelously challenging
images, with a lot going on in them, as you point out. in fact, i own a
couple of minor dali woodcuts.
[shit, i've been waiting a long time to do that old twist on the "some of
my best friends are..." line]
but that doesn't make him a terrific surrealist. surrealism is not about
art, its about bringing art to life.
[but of course, this is not a sufficient statement to define "surrealism".]
whether his exclusion (from the Breton group, as Brandon points out) was
justified on surrealist grounds or not is something i can't comment on,
since "surrealist grounds" are quite complex and the judgement against him
was (as it must be) on the totality of Dali's relevance to surrealism _as
determined by the surrealists of his time_.
> Also, Barrett himself said in a post (please pardon Barrett, feel free to call
> me on this if it's a false memory) that the surrealists had finally agreed that
> automatism was a dead end in and of itself. So where to go from there then?
yes, but it wasn't a matter of my "finally" agreeing, just a matter of
clarifying my actual position against a perception of my position.
where from there?
i posted under the heading: "for xister: why surrealism is not a soft drink
but dada is" an assessment of the current status of "what is surrealist?"
debate as i see it.
> **Another view to this point: There was a point where the surrealism of
> Breton's and Dali's and Magritte's time became acceptable to the masses. In
> fact it was imbraced in America and devoured. It entered our shared reality and
> became commonplace, and it happened in their lifetimes.... And as far as I'm
> concerned, that would be the exact time to revolt against the accepted ideal of
> surrealism.... When it becomes part of the established order of things.
but the point today's surrealists would make is that _surrealism_ didn't
become the established order of things. a neutralized and sanitized
_charicature of surrealism_ became established and displaced the real
surrealism in the popular perception.
people like Dali reinforced that imposter.
surrealism has been from the beginning, and remains today, an effort to
_overthrow_ the established order, because the established order denys the
imagination full play in daily living.
Dali remains condemned by surrealists today because he reinforced and
encouraged (through his actions) rather than fought that neutralized and
sanitized ("recouperated" in SI jargon) characture of surrealism as
absorbed by its enemy. he is seen therefore as a traitor to the surrealist
project to liberate the imagination.
> > I feel that Dali turned against surrealism at one point,
yes, exactly -- a much better way to view his "exclusion".
> In his art, I would agree... I think he took a turn towards classicisim and
> even a few stabs at pop art.But as as a way of life?.... I think in his heart,
> Dali was always a surrealist. And his art certianly was never devoid of it.
but, you see, this is exactly the inverse of the cause for his disrepute,
as i've outlined above.
the art is incidental. it is not the art but his complicity in the popular
neutralization of surrealism's revolutionary intent which removes him from
the surrealist community.
> > because of his
> > disagreements with and what appears to be a dislike for Breton.
>
> You know, it's funny, but for all the things I've read on Dali, I've never read
> anywhere of him saying anything against Breton publicly. Of course, it's been
> years since I have read anything in depth about or by him, so I might have just
> forgotton, or just never came across anything concerning their relations after
> the fallout.
the classic example i recall (the significance of which was pointed out to
me by a colleague, william dubin), is one evening in the mid-late 60's when
Dali strolled onto the set of the Dick Cavette Show with an anteater on a
leash. the anteater was Andre Breton's favored totem. so in a way that
would have been apparent only to surrealists, Dali was proclaiming himself
the master of surrealism, and Breton his amusing pet.
as an adolescent only familiar with the imagery of surrealism, i just
thought it was hilarious and typically Dali.
Brandon J. Freels
I could at one point and I remember Barrett talking about Dali taking a
leashed anteater on a television show (I think Barrett wrote anteater), and
that this animal was Breton's favorite.
If this is so then it denounces Dali as a Surrealist due to the fact that
the selection of the anieater was to send a message rather than an
unconcious decision. He was resorting to Dadaist provocations.
Nothing against Dali. I just prefer his earlier works, before he transformed
himself into Avida Dollars.
---BJF
Clayton Francis
Do we have anything new to offer or conceptualize?
Brandon J. Freels
>My dear friends,
>Do we have anything new to offer or conceptualize?
Brandon: Ask those who keep appealing issues that have already been decided
by our predecessors.
xister
Brandon J. Freels wrote:
And accepted unconditionally by the willing s(h)u(e)r(e)r(p)ealists of today.
Brandon J. Freels
Do we deal with past issues? (non-xister's sheep proclamation)
Or move on to new ones? (Clayton Francis calls for progress)
---BJF
xister wrote in message <6vq39i$p0b$2...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
Clayton Francis
surrealism. But let move forward, and expand the boundaries already put
down by Aragon, Eluard and Breton. We must embrace what is, but never
stop there.
xister
barrett john erickson wrote:
> whether his exclusion (from the Breton group, as Brandon points out) was
> justified on surrealist grounds or not is something i can't comment on,
> since "surrealist grounds" are quite complex and the judgement against him
> was (as it must be) on the totality of Dali's relevance to surrealism _as
> determined by the surrealists of his time_.
Totality? That's black or white, either/or. Or better yet, cutting off the nose to
spite the face.
> but the point today's surrealists would make is that _surrealism_ didn't
> become the established order of things. a neutralized and sanitized
> _charicature of surrealism_
I think a lot of this was P.R. on Dali's part. For himself, but for surrealism also.
Think of it this way, if Dali and others hadn't taken surrealism to the masses there
would be a lot of people that would have never even heard of the word surrealism, let
alone that it was a movement towards liberation. And if that helps *one* person to
lean towards liberation of the mind then it was worth it...
> became established and displaced the real
> surrealism in the popular perception.
Yes, well... The charicature of surrealism aside, You are still arguing that there is
an established order to surrealism. I'm arguing against there being an established
order in surrealism... Why? Established orders are for the sheep! Even if they are
tried and true guidelines/estimations/whatever, they should forever be scrutinized
and each person/poet/painter/surrealist left to decide for themselves what works for
them.
There must be an established order of things for there to be guidelines as to what is
surreal and what is not. No?
And if it *is* a personal way of life, then that makes surrealism all the more
individualistic and against established notions previously acknowledged (as I see
it).
>
>
> people like Dali reinforced that imposter.
>
> surrealism has been from the beginning, and remains today, an effort to
> _overthrow_ the established order, because the established order denys the
> imagination full play in daily living.
So you're speaking of only one established order... The established order of say,
society... That kind of stuff. Not the established order that defines surrealism.
Which in my mind, denies me excursions into oh, say.... dadaism, and anything else
deemed non-surreal. And that is, of course, limiting my desire, my imagination, etc.
>
>
> the art is incidental. it is not the art but his complicity in the popular
> neutralization of surrealism's revolutionary intent which removes him from
> the surrealist community.
So basically he was "removed" by act of his own will or exclusion (suffice to say his
course veered ) for turning away from the established order that the surrealist
project had become. And I don't mean the surrealism that the world accepted, I mean
the established order of surrealism that the surrealists of that time ACCEPTED. Sure,
it's group think the first time around, but after that, it's all DOGMA.
Look at it this way: If the surrealist project succeeded and the established order
overturned, then the established order would be surrealism and the over thrower then
becomes exactly what it originally sought to destroy.
>
>
> the classic example i recall (the significance of which was pointed out to
> me by a colleague, william dubin), is one evening in the mid-late 60's when
> Dali strolled onto the set of the Dick Cavette Show with an anteater on a
> leash. the anteater was Andre Breton's favored totem. so in a way that
> would have been apparent only to surrealists, Dali was proclaiming himself
> the master of surrealism,
(heh) This part, I'd agree with,
> and Breton his amusing pet.
This part, no. Would've liked to have seen the interview tho.
JMichaeI
discussions of Tao and 'O' but both seem slightly out of place here. Shouldn't
we be focusing on things like paranoiac critical method and such? How about a
discussion of my hangnails?
------------------------------
http://members.aol.com/jmichaei
The only sin is willful ignorance.
Clayton Francis
the surrealist project is to fully integrate the liberated imagination
into
every day living.
nevertheless profoundly limited.
Can the imagination ever be as potent as the reality of every day
living? I am not sure this is so, unless one finds a mechanism whch
embellishes reality with imagination to such a degree that imagination
does not integrate with every-day living, but in fact consumes it.
barrett john erickson
>
> someone wrote:
> the surrealist project is to fully integrate the liberated imagination
> into
> every day living.
'twas i.
> Ok, this is good, but in my opinion a view which is practical but
> nevertheless profoundly limited.
> Can the imagination ever be as potent as the reality of every day
> living? I am not sure this is so, unless one finds a mechanism whch
> embellishes reality with imagination to such a degree that imagination
> does not integrate with every-day living, but in fact consumes it.
our "world as experienced", our daily "reality" is (with all its wonders
and all its banalities) the construction of our imagination.
it is not our imaginations which are limited but our use of them.
it is the imagination (the most complex and evolved of our senses) which
reveals and explores the poetic dimension latent in all our daily
activities. if it appears weak, if we do not experience that poetry, it is
because we have been trained to ignore it, to let it atrophe in our
abdications.
we should not settle for so little.
perceptor
Fascinan
>To "find" one's self , one must first learn how to " lose" one's self
...indeed.
and a natural extension of the above:
"In order to confront a self other than one's own self, one must first have a
self."
~Paul Ricoeur
elag
xister
elag wrote:
> To find one's elf one should leave a bowl of warm gooseberry jam under one's bed.
Or, one could bowl one's elf by goosing berry jam on one's head.
>
>
> Fascinan wrote:
> >
> > Perceptor:
> > >To "find" one's self , one must first learn how to " lose" one's self
> >
> > ...indeed.
> >
> > and a natural extension of the above:
> >
> > "In order to confront a self other than one's own self, one must first have a
> > self."
> > ~Paul Ricoeur
--
Reply (sans hyphen) to the x-i...@earthlink.net
"Some people SHOULD die,
that's just unconscious knowledge!"
-PERRY FARRELL-
Clayton Francis
a lengthy discussion with Barrett. Actually epistemology and the
philosophy of science is highly relevant to the topic of surrealism. I
am attempting to integrate the traditional problems of the theory of
knowledge (epistemology) with the notion of perception being
fundamentally embedded with theory, to form a new 'theory' of surrealism
which isn't so limited as say Breton's. Sorry if this is arrogant, but
it is just a opinion. Just because Breton and Dali's critical- paranoiac
method is famous and constructed by famous surrealists (not to mention
the success of such theories) does not mean that I cannot reject their
ideas and still be a surrealist. Surrealism if it is to truly free the
imagination we must begin by trying to understand what it is to exist,
and in this respect there is one word: PHILOSOPHY (whether it be
existentialism, empiricism, epistemology, Kant, and Kant's
transcendental idealism, or realism and scepticism, and indeed Barretts
love of cognitive science). We need to first understand, such that we
know our position. Once we know our position, we can remove what stands
in the way of freeing imagination. If surrealism becomes dogmatic in the
sense that we disallow new areas of explanation because Breton didn't,
then surrealism is dead. We must move on.
Talysman
write in alt.surrealism:
"Sorry If this has nothing to do with me, but I mentioned epistemology in
"a lengthy discussion with Barrett.
it was mainly an attack on me and others who don't like kneejerk
reactions to phrases that sound mystical. but go on.
" [ . . . ] We need to first understand, such that we
"know our position. Once we know our position, we can remove what stands
"in the way of freeing imagination. If surrealism becomes dogmatic in the
"sense that we disallow new areas of explanation because Breton didn't,
"then surrealism is dead. We must move on.
you won't get any argument on that from me.
well, except that my epistemology is borrowed from pyrrhonism,
so I assert that we can never truly know, only make good guesses.
whoever invented light switches made a pretty good guess, but
just because something works doesn't mean it's the whole truth.
--
living brains floating in vats dream of electron guns.