DreamFable

What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things --Gaston Bachelard
Most ideas here, mine or those of better representatives, run a bit counter to the prevailing (or once-prevailing) noises that the "W Gang" issue and enforce. Although the bad times and bad news of the world tempt us all into escapism, I've never thought that was a luxury I could indulge. The "Self" (including "myspace" 'virtual reality' ) is not an interest I overly cultivate unless its in connection to others, including the wide world. I prefer to thrive on awareness of everything around me near and far, good or bad, past and present, truth and fiction; it all MUST BE OBSERVED, even if not fully understood, whether it's someone's expressions, or their technique of music or writing that works, the furthest edge of Hubble Telescope images from 14 billion years ago, to musty corners of antique and vintage book shops, a new or ancient dance or song.
Too many people avoid and scoff at "the news" and especially avoid "sad" books or movies or documentaries.... Notice the root words: "A-Void." Avoiding, an aversion to, the 'void' that they fear, or feel, when they encounter the new, the strange, the Other, the painful. Yet, why shut down the mind, and its POTENTIAL ABILITY to reach and leap across the gap of the unknown? It's finally only the politicians, corrupt clergy or miracle cure-sellers who thrive on fear-mongering--and then ask for your money. Reality will squeeze in eventually, and they'll be unprepared! Sadly, their sheep-like fearful 'followers' will be too.
I prefer observation and confrontation over "belief" and always have. Show and see the evidence. (Mental effects on small laboratory machinery and quantum-sized objects is proven--simply called 'psi' in research literature; and poltergiests are apparently rare but real, but so much else is almost certainly psychological only... No, there's no evidence of 'vulcanism'...[sigh]; probably no evidence of ghosts either, except that people 'see something'); there's definitely no 'hidden planet' opposite our sun.... 2012 will end with celebrations of 2013 rolling in, for those who are left from hurricanes etc. I will not just 'believe' merely because an ancient (or contemporary) and likely epileptic 'seer' (or, Edgar Cayce the insomniac needing help; or, an 'engineer' who 'knows' the melting point of steel and glass towers in New York) 'believes' or 'saw' or 'is convinced' of something. (More is in the Blogs, especially my published/copyrighted article "U.S. Culture--Its Many Antagonists, 1770s to the 21st Century". Thanks to Sandra at SheVibe.com for April 2007 publication of it.) We must resist lazy "magical thinking," the worst bits of 24/7 pop culture escapism, coupled with the "a-voidance" by even post-modern "hip" culture of the dual threats posed by domestic authoritarian right-wingers and violent religious fundamentalism abroad (two sides of a similar phenomenon)-- all of these "laid back" easy-going cool-howz-it-goin crutches which too many smart people rely on are some of the real reasons we are in the dire straits we face as a world. Dig around, these opinions are backed up with some material inside the blog and in the Bohemian Gallery in My Pictures; a lot of people as you probably know are in this struggle.... (The Dreamfable page is also very much about some "laid back" escapist things, too, since I admit we need a break now and then to enjoy something artistic as an outlet, not to mention music once you find something decent.)
Wanted for the Bush-Cheney wars:
"Tempo passa, l'amore scompare e la danza finira', ma la speranza rimane, fino il prossimo ballo." - Time passes, love dissapears and the dance will end, but hope remains, until the next dance.
"John, look what we have here..." ..
.. Medium "Eva C." in 1912 Seance, Photo Likely Doctored in Development; see others like this in my photos
.... From 'Calendrier Magique' by Austin De Croze. Paris - L’Art Nouveau, 1895. Page 15. More at http://fantastic.library.cornell.edu/
--PAUL PARK, Science Fiction/Fantasy Author, interview in Locus Magazine, October 2006 (http://www.locusmag.com/2006/Issues/10Park.html) has this to say, which makes great sense:
“It struck me at a certain point that faith is almost antithetical to spirituality, not just in religious matters but in many others. When people have faith in their country, in their political party, in their leaders, it causes them to act in a way that can be controlled by others. That behavior comes out of a kind of laziness, where they don't examine the reasons why they do things. Doubt is a magical thing, doubt comes from God's hands and everything good that happens comes out of it, so it can't be inimical to spirituality. THE SEARCH for transcendence is very necessary, yet people want to stop and say, 'Now I've discovered the thing that is true and I can stop.' Especially in monotheism, this leads to a legalistic worldview: 'This is God's plan for us and we have to follow God's rules.' PEOPLE INVENT STRUCTURES that are largely about separating the world into groups of believers and nonbelievers.... [But] if you're honest with yourself, you admit that those moments when you say 'Now I understand' are ephemeral."
GLIMPSING THE HIDDEN....
Caspar David Friedrich's 'Cemetery of the Cloister in Snow'. "The image...enables us to gain an understanding that is universally applicable of the obscure impulses that move beneath the surface of our emotional life--an understanding not possible through artificial analyses. Ideas stand outside this life as fixed.... [But] since it is prelogical, the image mirrors psychic life in the process of gestation, sometimes even at its source." - p. 306, Ideas and Images in World Art by Rene Huyghe, 1959.
"Friedrich, the sole landscape painter who…had the power to move every part of my soul, the one who created a new genre: the tragedy of landscape." --sculptor Pierre-Jean David d'Angers
Actress Sarah Bernhardt and historic painter Alphonse Mucha embodied the Art Nouveau movement. Forget the irony and deconstruction of our dry era for a moment and just look at how they did it:
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"Countdown" with Keith Olbermann, weeknights on MSNBC, 8:00 ET, 7:00 CT, exposes the conservative right wing's corrupt grip on our government and culture in prime time, and in the ratings routinely beats the Oh-Really Factor on Fixed Noise Channel. Here below in YouTube is Keith Olberman's complete March 12th 2008 scathing "Special Comment" against the negative, old Alabama Governor GEORGE WALLACE-STYLE race-baiting, religion-baiting campaign being run by Hillary Clinton and her neocon gang against incipient Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
Excerpts include: "....your own advisers are slowly killing your chances to become president. Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for ANY Democrat to become president. In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media and righting an unfair advantage bestowed on Sen. Obama. You may think the matter has closed with Rep. Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation. But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning as if Barack Obama were the Democrat and YOU were the Republican. As Shakespeare wrote, Senator, that way madness lies. ...Do these advisers have Senator Clinton say..., “This is how I police my campaign, and this is what I stand for,” while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role in the campaign? No. Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient. And that she should then call them “regrettable,” a word that should make any Democrat retch. And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to "stick to the issues," and then to let her campaign manager TRY to bend them beyond all recognition, into Sen. Obama’s fault! And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Sen. Clinton’s campaign back into the vocabulary ... of David Duke. “Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”
HOW'S THAT? Apart from sounding exactly like Rush Limbaugh attacking the black football quarterback Donovan McNabb? Apart from sounding exactly like what Ms. Ferraro said about another campaign, nearly 20 years ago? So, apart from sounding like insidious racism that is at least two decades old? Apart from rendering ridiculous Sen. Clinton’s shell-game about choosing Obama as vice president? [When he's had the lead in delegates and popular votes ever since Jan. 3rd!] It sounds as if those advisers want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap, ignorant, vile racism that underlies every syllable. ... She is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness. And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns; a disturbing, but only borderline remark. After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the “3 A.M.” ad, a disturbing but only borderline interpretation ... And after that moment’s hesitation in her own answer on "60 Minutes" about Barack Obama’s religion; a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness ... After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern, false or true. After those precedents, there are those who see an intent, false or true. After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign’s anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe, falsely or truly, as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice that still haunts this society voiced and to not distance the campaign from it. To not distance YOU from it, Senator! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-CpdOH5wm4
Rolling Stone Readers Poll: #1 2006 Artist, Bob Dylan; #2 Album of 2006, Dylan's 'Modern Times'; #2 Single of 2006, 'Someday Baby' by Bob Dylan. I'd rank it all #1!
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