Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. --
Buddha
Universal love, archetypes, extremes, metamorphosis, literature (esp. poetry), art, music, movies, languages, warriors, spirituality, philosophy, mythology, evolution, mental disorders (apparently)... You can find some of my poems on the web, several in the .. journal, Mark(s) http://www.markszine.com. Click on the archives.
Movies:
Scarface, Spinal Tap, Gladiator, The Godfather trilogy, Wings of Desire, Hail Mary, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Bad Education, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, Yellow Submarine, Ali: Fear Eats The Soul, Mother Kusters Goes To Heaven, Institute Benjamenta, Early James Bond, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Pink Floyd -- The Wall, Damage, Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, Heavy Metal, Murmur Of The Heart, Blade Runner, Annie Hall, Ma Mere (2004), 2001: A Space Odyssey, and lots and lots more...
Television:
Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the other side of things. --
Jean Baudrillard
Books:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Where The Wild Things Are; Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame; all of John Ashbery's poetry; The Structure of Magic (Richard Bandler & John Grinder); The Hero With A Thousand Faces; Man's Search For Meaning; Modern Man In Search of A Soul; A Brief History Of Time; Gravity's Rainbow; Neuromancer; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; The Teachings of Don Juan; and lots more...
The poet doesn't invent. He listens.
--Jean Cocteau
“There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.â€
John Ashbery
“The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.â€
John Ashbery
Heroes:
From an interview with Joseph Campbell...
Campbell: Exactly. The Buddhists speak of bodhisattva - the one who knows immortality, yet voluntarily enters into the field of fragmentation of time and participates willingly and joyfully in the sorrows of the world. And this means not only experiencing sorrows oneself but participating with compassion with the sorrow of others. Compassion is the awakening of the heart from bestial self-interest to humanity. The word "compassion" means literally "suffering with."
Moyers:But people ask, isn't myth a lie?
Campbell: No, mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth - penultimate because the ultimate cannot be be put into words. It is beyond words, beyond images, beyond the bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told. So this is the penultimate truth.
It's important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor. Thinking in mythological terms helps to put you in accord with the inevitables of this vale of tears. You learn to recognize the positive values in what appear to be negative moments and aspects of your life. The big question is whether you are going to be say a hearty yes to your adventure.
Moyers:The adventure of the hero?
Campbell:Yes, the adventure of the hero - the adventure of being alive.
