Sunday, June 26, 2011

Images of Dust


Images of Dust

I always seem to come back to the book and I suppose it is normal having spent so much time in it even if it is in a distant past and altogether it has some good parts and/or principles and the age alone makes it interesting. So here it is again.


Gen 3:19  In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 


So we are dust and air and  no air and we are but dust. The spirit of the earth.


Exo 20:4  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Exo 20:5  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God,


This century seems to take IMAGES for granted but it was not so for thousands and thousands of years.  


Images in the past were hard work plus they were ultimately almost always lies as one would embellish, alter, an image for a thousand reasons: fear, greed, twisted conception, artistic license etc.

And it seems to be a point of contention in more than one folklore: Muslims and mosque, Africans indigenous afraid of losing their "souls" (breath, air), Australian Aborigines warnings here on the television every time the image of someone dead might appear.

Even by today's standards most images are still lies, no need for a YouTube video here on make-up and Photoshop. 

Images also are very important in celebs worshiping, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, well if paying a fortune to paparazzi is NOT bowing and serving I don't know what it is.


Even an untouched image becomes a lie in no time because Father Time is never done with His ravaging entropic work.  How often does one catch oneself dreaming about a girl or a boy in a movie just to realize that either the worshiped youth is now 90 years old and as wrinkled as an old rotten apple or even worst nothing but a pile of dust and your little fantasizing has just become a creepy necrophilia in real time.

It seems to give weight and value to the many warnings we've had for millenniums against images of all sorts.  Reality, Truth therefore would not, could not, be an image as Reality is constantly changing and an image is not.

So where does this leave us in this age of a TV in every single waiting room and digital cameras on every mobile phone?

Well here we go again with this cross between an elephant and a rhino?

What do you get?

Elephino!

 (Hell if I know for the thick ones) :)

But where there is smoke there is fire and therefore food for thought about image worshiping or just image "engraving" of any kind the Hollywoodian or others.

So start feeding that grey matter of yours before it turns into grey dust soon.



 P.S. that still leaves to "explain" my 25,000 Travel Photos I would never delete for all the money in the world! LOL 
Nostalgia is not what it used to be but I happen to love Nostalgia.
Plus also the joy and beauty as ephemeral as it is that one finds in photography. I am all for the ephemeral since that is all we are dust unto dust and ephemeral for the ephemerals, small pleasures.

Transitory pleasures in the Transitorium!

Maybe that is what is the "trouble" about images.

It is not the Schopenhauer's

Not minding the times but the eternities 

it is rather maybe

Not minding the eternities but minding the times 

but what else is a straitened temporal temporary terrian supposed to do?






Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Right To Silence?


Not from a Legal point of View, rather from an ethical, a spiritual, a freedom point of view.


One does not have the right to silence near the ocean or on a hot summer night full of crickets, or in a suburb full of lawnmowers.  

Peace here is not an option or a choice on the cafeteria menu.  

Where does one go to "hear" absolutely nothing at all? 


In a quiet moment here I have the tick-a-tack of the keyboard, the fan running in the kitchen and very little noise considering it is supper cooking time. Music is off for a change and I am just trying to think.


Today was one of those conspiracy day when two planes were practicing their very noisy acrobatics just above my head and where I had visions of owning a bazooka or one of them choppers downers (FIM-92A Stinger) the Americans sold to the mujahadeen in Charlie Wilson's War or of being Snoopy with goggles and leather helmet and scarf in the a Red Baron Spitfire and shooting the 2 mofos down.  In fact I was telling the wife that if I had one of them Stingers I would only have to shoot one plane down, the other would get the message fast and fly the fuck out of Dodge as fast as he could. :)


Next was some neighbour reading his roster titled "Let's annoy Joe" and realising it was his testosterone time to crank some chainsaw sounding Neanderthal instrument, argh, argh, argh.  I need one of them chamber that cuts out all senses and sensations.  


In fact I think I would enjoy silence but I don't know for how long.  What really annoys me more and more recently maybe is more  like the Loss of Control over my environment.  


For instance a few things here :
1. Vacuum
2. Dish Washing
3. MRI machine


Vacuum and Dishwashing noise do NOT annoy me when I make it, the sacred "I" again, but when anyone else makes that noise around me I get annoyed if not irritated


MRI machine for some strange reason do not annoy me one bit, maybe because I know how long it's going to last or that it can't be helped and in fact it is almost soothing in a primordial, primal kind of way, a bit like a noisy womb I guess.


So most of the time when I say I want silence I mean more accurately I do not want YOUR noise imposed, forced down my throat or ears rather, raped into me.

I want MY noise, MY environment control.


On a short sidenote here, driving or being a passenger, also drives me totally bonkers because of the lack of control over so many idiots out there. My visions then are not Bazookas or Spitfire but rather a Tank or a Hummer with a huge bull bar to ram that moron that knew very well he DID NOT have the time to cut in front of me but didn't care. That will fucking teach him when I RAM his ass to smithereens, make him tumble five or six times and then beat his face to a pulp foaming at the mouth and screaming and spitting into his face, maybe , maybe he will be a little more reluctant to cut off the next driver next time since it seems to me that arrogant assholes if they understand anything at all is the language of reptilian fear.  


Do I have Issues you ask? 


Anger Management you say? 


ANGER MANAGEMENT? 


Well FUCK Anger Management! :) 


I don't need anger management. I need people (aka idiots) to stop pissing me off. :)


Anyway back to my right to silence, I am not sure how easy it was back in the days well let's say 1955 or even 1943 ( the year the Little Prince was written) and I wonder how silent a "desert" would be in the middle of the night. well it would not be silent on a horse with no name or on a camel anyway would it be only due to the noise them animals can make at times 

but where does one find Silence when one would love Silence at a particular moment? 

Hell Buddhists Temples are full of constant bell sounds.

It really seems to be a no win situation since galactic space is not readily available to the average Joe.

Two persons and the silence is ruined in a very short time. 


One person and then you got some water and food issues after a while besides the million other things that could invade your peace even in the middle of a pitch black night: coyotes, birds, dingos, crickets what else and what not.  Crows here a one of the big offenders, very noisy sounding almost human like a baby in distress.  That's another thing, baby, and you can forget the sounds of silence for months now, well on a long term basis anyway.


Now if you live in a cheap motel we all know that you also lost your right to silence as you do when you live in a trailer park or any other socio economical bogan rednecks laden neighbourhood. 
While I am on silence and noise control here is another one of my favourite rant. 


A plus de quatre on est une bande de cons says Georges Brassens. More then four and we are but a bunch of cunts roughly translated.


So here we go Sports and Musical assemblies or Concerts of many kinds. Ahhhhhhhh! 


The joy of watching a movie with yappers right behind you, you know? And all that Jazz.


Live music on YouTube is usually unwatchable to yours dearest here because of the dozens or hundreds  of morons that ruin it all. 

Classical Music seems to be an exception where people are more shall I dare say it CIVILISED.  

Opera and Symphonic Orchestras seem to get a decent respectful crowd ('cept for the obligatory cougher if it is recorded)  but God help you if you're a nobody singing in a drinking hole.


And don't get me going on Sports now. 

Those moronic ijuts that follow Hewitt everywhere, them Barmy Army, all the crazy drunks and those memorable VUVUZELAS.  Here is another image of forcing every single one of those Hell Machines up the ass of every perp that used one.


Even the sports commentators get on my nerves, has been losers who are telling the champion top players of the world what they are doing wrong and how they should do it.   
The very fact that they  are sitting on those chairs being paid a pittance compared to what they USED to make is a sure sign that their mouth is much bigger than their actions.  And that is not half as bad as when nothing is going on but god forbid we have dead air and the dreaded silence on radio of telly filling the gap with absolute A grade SHITE.  


I know I should practice my own rule and Fuck knows I don't but:


"The best policy when one has nothing to say is to SHUT THE FUCK UP!" :) Voila!


So in some form of a formless conclusion and confusion: 


Silence is NOT an option for the living.  


There is silence only in the grave or at least we hope.


But once in a while one can always dream a little. :)


If I don't type here all I hear is the quiet noise of my computer fan which is as good as it gets for a short moment, too short most of the time and usually at this time of the night in our liturgical routine here it is music time just before TV time at 7.  Nights are a little quieter after that but days are nightmares too often.


But noise like a fart knows no boundaries.  


Another reason why I take my noise reducing earphones anywhere I go most of the time. 
Shopping centres, trains and most of all waiting rooms
where we have all been invaded by Big Brother's screen propaganda blasting us over and over again whether we want it or not 


and a bit like Woody Allen in Annie Hall at least with them earphones I am not obligated to suffer unbearable stupid and smug conversations or brats and babies torturing their mothers.  

Live and Let Live and Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will but I think those went with the last T-Rex who could bite the head off of anyone that pissed him off without a blink or a single remorse.   

Who needs frontal or temporal lobes now? :)


Shalom!