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The Archaic Smile

It's so beautiful - our lunacy.

About Me

My heart is a card catalogue; I am a fervent archiver.
"As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough." - Linklater, Waking Life

"Oh my god, you're putting my mother's cats on the Supreme Court." - Donna Moss

"But maybe the last part of the symphony was the part she loved best -- glad and like the greatest people in the world running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen to it." - Carson McCullers, from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
"Every art contributes to the greatest art of all: the art of living." - Bertolt Brecht
"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. And in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." - Aeschylus via Robert F. Kennedy

"The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is." - anonymous, recalled by Howard Zinn in his book, A People's History of the United States

"The way doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn't take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Way is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Poetry, music and art have something in common with the contemplative experience. But contemplation is beyond aesthetic intuition, beyond art, beyond poetry. Indeed, it is beyond philosophy, beyond speculative theology. It resumes, transcends, and fulfills them all, and yet at the same time it seems, in a certain way, to supercede and deny them all. Contemplation is always beyond our own knowledge, beyond our own light, beyond systems, beyond explanations, beyond discourse, beyond dialouge, beyond our own self. To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being." - from New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

"People talk all day in a practical way, but real language that penetrates and affects people and carries wisdom is something different. That sort of connection is very emperical. It comes from the part of you that just understands immediately. All these types of things are gold, and yet they are dishonored or not paid attention to because that kind of tender communication is so alien in our culture, except in performance. There's a wall up between people all day long, but performance transcends that convention. If pop music were really seen as fine art or if fine art were popular, I don't know what the hell would happen. This wouldn't be the same country, because if the masses began to respect and really open up to fine art, it would bring about a huge shift in consciousness." - Jeff Buckley

"The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. In dwelling, live close to the ground, In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"In the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." - from Luke

"But how are you going to die one day, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother one cannot love. Without a mother one cannot die." - from Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

"I have found myself in many political discussions with people who vote for the Conservative Party even though that group's policies do not serve their needs. I have heard convictions expressed that simply boil down to: 'Well, the Labour or Liberal candidate doesn't sound as if he could govern. The Conservative fellow sounds more impressive.' What is usually swaying judgement is sound and fury, not sense and issues. We all make choices like this based on something that ephemeral. But how many of us are aware of it?" - from The Right To Speak by Patsy Rodenburg

"Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall. He lifts his voice, the earth melts. Be still, and know that I am God" - from King David

"In researching occult conspiracies, one eventually faces a crossroad of mythic proportions (called Chapel Perilous in the trade)... Chapel Perilous, like the mysterious entity called "I," cannot be located in the space-time continuum; it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. Indeed, like the Ego, it is even possible to deny that it is there. And yet, even more like the Ego, once you are inside it, there doesn't seem to be any way to ever get out again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside thought. &nbspEverything you fear is waiting with slavering jaws in Chapel Perilous, but if you are armed with the wand of intuition, the cup of sympathy, the sword of reason and the pentacle of valor, you will find there (the legends say) the Medicine of Metals, the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher's Stone, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp "That's what the legends always say, and the language of myth is poetically precise. For instance, if you go into that realm without the sword of reason, you will lose your mind, but at the same time, if you take only the sword of reason without the cup of sympathy, you will lose your heart. Even more remarkably, if you approach without the wand of intuition, you can stand at the door for decades never realizing you have arrived. You might think you are just waiting for a bus, or wandering from room to room looking for your cigarettes, watching a TV show, or reading a cryptic and ambiguous book. Chapel Perilous is tricky that way." - Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger I
"Jesus said, If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." - the gnostic gospels/Ibid, Nag Hammadi

"We have all experienced listening to speakers who sound insincere, overbearing, or just unsure of what they are saying. In effect, I think our voice becomes a sort of lie detector that instantly traps a speaker whenever he or she is being unauthentic. What we strive for, therefore, is not a beautiful voice but a voice rid of doubt and insecurity, a voice perfectly in pitch with the honesty of any text or feeling, a voice that in essence is sincere. Sincerity gives any voice compelling beauty." - from The Right To Speak by Patsy Rodenburg

"It was almost noon, and we still had more than a hundred miles to go. They would be tough miles. Very soon, I knew, we would both be completely twisted. But there was no going back, and no time to rest. We would have to ride it out." - from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

"As information - abundant, shareable, instantly accessible - now becomes the world's dominant resource, what does that mean for the prospects of fairness? Surely it means that people who get educated to convert information into knowledge and wisdom, who hone their intuitive powers, who learn how to achieve access to information and (even more important) what to select from the information overload that threatens us all, will likely be better off and more fairly treated than those who don't. But whether this happens depends, in every family, tribe, neighborhood, ethnic group, and political jurisdiction, on whether individuals (and especially children) are encouraged to learn the basics of communication and computation, permitted to think for themselves, and rewarded for brainwork above all." - from Birth of a New World: An Open Moment for International Leadership (1993) by Harlan Cleveland, former assistant secretary of state in the Kennedy administration, and U.S. ambassador to NATO under Lyndon Johnson

"Basically rock and roll was stolen. The idea of a kit of drums and people standing in front of this formation - bass to the left, guitar to the right, and the guy in front singing - was taken from small combo jazz and blues; the instrumentation was, certainly. That has segued into something white people know how to do, which is go to school and attend a lecture. Basically, a rock show is somebody giving a speech to people who are looking for and receiving guidance. Sometimes it transcends that and gets pretty sexy, and once in a while a white person gets loose and actually starts to move with the music." - Iggy Pop

"This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing, and perfect will." - the book of Romans, chapter 12
"We are the Hidden Noise Collective, a collaborative community of individuals seeking creative and feasible alternatives to the predominantly unimaginative and unbalanced lifestyles we perceive growing in our social structure. We are responsible and productive people possessing a deep concern for the atrophy threatening the curious, experimental spirit that carries the human race onto more beautiful and intelligent stages of evolution. Our goal is to provide the public an oppurtunity to experience, firsthand, the benefits of a truly creative lifestyle, and to encourage them to explore the natural wellsprings of creativity within themselves." - the Hidden Noise Collective
"Don't take any guff from these swine." - Hunter Thompson
"Hussel hussel hussel
Grind grind grind
Why has everyone got hussel on their mind?"
- M.I.A.


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My Interests

culture,
science,
and acts of creation,
history
harmony
social patterns
argumentation
music
theatre
voice
movement
film
dance
communication
language
sound
overload
delirium
progress
scholarship
image
archetype
subtext.
Hidden Noise Collective
Intellectual Entrepreneurship
- I am an Extreme Trampoline master.
- I enjoy Dance Dance Revolution.
- I miss snow skiing,
rock climbing,
and the cold, brisk reflections of winter.
I have a newly discovered lay interest in mitochondrial DNA that my friends would likely describe as simultaneously endearing and irritating.
Current cocktail of choice:

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I'd like to meet:

the Glass Family.

Music:

- M.I.A.
- Art Vayelo
- Pastor Donnie Davies
- menwhopause
- Girl Talk
- Loney, Dear
- Kiiiiii
- ASOBI SEKSU
- Scott Matthews
- John Cameron Mitchell
- Lions
- Pegasus Now
- St. Vincent
- The Midnight Creeps
- Chris W. Paine
- I'm From Barcelona
- 45 Rebellion
- Strange Boys
- Tacks the Boy Disaster
- Animal Collective
- the Killers
- Jill Scott
- THE ARCADE FIRE
- JOANNA NEWSOM
- the Unicorns
- Architecture in Helsinki
- Cat Power
- William Hung
- 25% Toby
- Common
- the Tah Dahs
- Drawn By Jaymz
- Iron and Wine
- SUFJAN STEVENS
- the Hidden Cameras
- the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
- Patrick Park
- Beyonce
- Future Bible Heroes
- the Datsuns
- The Polyphonic Spree
- The Mars Volta
- the Libertines
- the Reindeer Section
- Jay-Z
- the Danielson Famile
- eX-Girl
- Explosions in the Sky
- KNIFE IN THE WATER
- the Avalanches
- Mum
- Mates of State
- The Starlight Mints
- the Sons of Sound
- the Shins
- tanktredimmunode- ficiencytelevision
- the Golden Arm Trio
- Smog
- Of Montreal
- The New Pornographers
- Arvo Part
- Paul Hillier/The Hilliard Ensemble
- the White Stripes
- Erykah Badu
- RUFUS WAINWRIGHT
- LE TIGRE
- Jonathan Fireeater
- Go Metric USA
- Neutral Milk Hotel
- Jon Brion
- Belle and Sebastian
- CORNELIUS
- Takako Minekawa
- Mouse on Mars
- Missy Elliott
- Timbaland
- PAPAS FRITAS
- BLONDE REDHEAD
- Cibo Matto
- Air
- Yo La Tengo
- Baboon
- The Cardigans
- Bedhead
- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
- Built To Spill
- BJORK
- LAURYN HILL
- Tripping Daisy
- the Flaming Lips
- Outkast
- STEREOLAB
- Weezer
- Pavement
- Pulp
- Radiohead
- Jeff Buckley
- Beck
- Aimee Mann
- Ben Harper
- Mazzy Star
- The Tahitian Choir
- Sophie B. Hawkins
- Nirvana
- My Bloody Valentine
- Miss Saigon
- George Michael
- Philip Glass
- The Pixies
- The Smiths
- Prince
- Madonna
- CYNDI LAUPER
- Culture Club
- Pat Benatar
- Little Shop of Horrors
- Dreamgirls
- The Soft Boys
- the Cure
- The Talking Heads
- THE B-52's
- Blondie
- the Gatlin Brothers
- HEART
- Television
- Abba
- The Ramones
- STEPHEN SONDHEIM
- Steve Reich
- the Jackson Five
- Pink Floyd
- Iggy Pop
- THE STOOGES
- Shuggie Otis
- Willie Nelson
- Stevie Wonder
- T-Rex
- Carole King
- Fleetwood Mac
- BRIAN ENO
- Marvin Gaye
- DAVID BOWIE
- Roxy Music
- Miles Davis
- Linda Yamamoto
- Michel Polnareff
- New York Dolls
- Bill Withers
- Black Sabbath
- Cat Stevens
- Al Green
- Van Morrison
- Laura Nyro and Labelle
- Joni Mitchell
- Nick Drake
- Johnny Cash
- Leonard Cohen
- Tina Turner
- Led Zeppellin
- Tim Buckley
- HAiR
- OS MUTANTES
- Judy Collins
- Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company
- Jefferson Airplane
- The Free Design
- the Hollies
- Melanie
- the Association
- Love
- The VELVET UNDERGROUND
- Donovan
- the Mamas and the Papas
- THE WHO
- the Kinks
- Aretha Franklin
- the Thirteenth Floor Elevators
- Mitch and Mickey
- Simon and Garfunkel
- The Beach Boys
- Bob Dylan
- The Beatles
- Shelley Fabares
- Dusty Springfield
- Santo and Johnny
- Mickey and Sylvia
- "The Wanderin Five and the Appalachians have a Hootenanny at the Limelight"
- Chet Baker
- NINA SIMONE
- Sergio Mendes
- Caetano Veloso
- ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM
- Stan Getz
- João and Astrud Gilberto
- Nana Mouskouri
- Charles Mingus
- Thelonius Monk
- JACQUES BREL
- Gwen Verdon
- Maria Callas
- John Rutter
- Kurt Weill
- Carl Orff
- Stravinski
- Ravel
- Dvorak
- CHOPIN
- Mozart
- Handel
- John Farmer
- Marenzio
- Gastoldi
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Movies:

- Baraka
- Pi
- Waking Life
- Rebel Without A Cause
- Velvet Goldmine
- Fight Club
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- The Color Purple
- Angels in America
- Six String Samurai
- Dark Side of the Rainbow
- Run Lola Run
- The Professional
- Brokeback Mountain
- American Splendor
- Dancer in the Dark
- 28 Days Later
- You And Me And Everyone We Know
- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Amelie
- Il Topo
- All About My Mother
- A Home at the End of the World
- Bullet in the Head
- Steal This Movie
- Bowling For Columbine
- Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
- Spellbound
- Capturing the Friedmans
- Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
- Clueless
- Waiting for Guffman
- Heathers
- Parenthood
- Little Shop of Horrors
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- Sweet Charity
- The Royal Tennenbaums
- Almost Famous
- Drunken Master
- High Fidelity
- Kung Fu Hustle
- Hot Fuzz
- Kicking and Screaming (1995)
- Wet Hot American Summer
- Old School
- 50 First Dates
- What's Up Doc?
- Clue
- Sixteen Candles
- Drop Dead Gorgeous
- Pecker
- Saved!
- The Ice Storm
- Magnolia
- American Beauty
- Kinsey
- Contact
- Thumbsucker
- Harold and Maude
- Withnail and I
- Hudsucker Proxy
- Badlands
- I Spit On Your Grave
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- East of Eden
- I Heart Huckabees
- Sin City
- Four Rooms
- Cabaret
- Repulsion
- The Flowers of St. Francis
- Forbidden Planet
- Carnival of Souls
- Bedazzled (1967)
- Jesus Christ Superstar
- Bonnie and Clyde
- Six Degrees of Separtaion
- Gummo
- The Fifth Element
- Lord of the Rings
- Stardust
- James and the Giant Peach
- The Wizard of Oz
- E.T.
- the Goonies
- Labyrinth
- Neverending Story
- the Dark Crystal
- Fantasia
- the Cremaster Cycle
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Television:

Television, in and of itself, is not inherently more or less evil than another other form of media. We don't all go around saying books are evil time wasters just because someone was stupid enough to publish Anne Heche's "psychology" book. There is every bit as much politics and big business in publishing as anything else. Be selective about what you take in. That said, these are television shows I have really enjoyed:
- Inside the Actor's Studio
- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
- Countdown with Keith Olbermann
- Hardball with Chris Matthews
- This Week with George Stephanopoulos
- Charlie Rose
- Live with Dan Abrams
- The Colbert Report
- Weekend Update with Tina Fey
- 30 Rock
- Conan O'Brien
- Lost
- The Muppet Show
- Gilmore Girls
- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
- THE WEST WING
- Sports Night
- Family Guy
- Arrested Developement
- Brothers and Sisters
- Dirty Sexy Money
- South Park
- Curb Your Enthusiasm
- Six Feet Under
- Freaks and Geeks
- Strangers w/ Candy
- Mr. Show
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force
- Malcolm in the Middle
- Firefly
- Queer as Folk (U.S.)
- Colonial Home
- Reno 911
- Simple Life
- Ally McBeal
- Picket Fences
- Quantum Leap
- Law and Order
- the Cosby Show
- 3.2.1. Contact
- Electric Company
- Punky Brewster
- Silver Spoons
- Wonder Woman
- Fraggle Rock
- the Smurfs
- Sid and Marty Croft
- Thunderbirds
- Who Wants to be the Governor of California
- Dance 360
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Books:

- Narcissus and Goldmund (Hesse)
- Franny and Zooey (Salinger)
- The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (McCullers)
- The Outsiders (Hinton)
- Fight Club (Palanhiuk)
- 1984 (Orwell)
- The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Chabon)
- The Televisionary Oracle (Breszny)
- the Da Vinci Code (Brown)*
- The Velveteen Rabbit (Williams/Tien)
- Oh, The Places You'll Go! (Dr. Suess)
- There's No Such Place As Far Away (Richard Bach)
- e e cummings
- Ezra Pound
- the Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu)
- The Book of Luke
- The Book of Acts
- Cosmic Trigger I (Robert Anton Wilson)
- New Seeds of Contemplation (Merton)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Thompson)
- Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties (MacDonald)
- Coming of Age in Mississippi (Moody)
- The Things They Carried (O'Brien)
- Robert Kennedy and his Times (Schlesinger)
- And I Don’t Want to Live This Life (Spungen)
- A Brief History of Everything (Burns)
- Birth of a New World (Cleveland)
- A People's History of the United States (Zinn)
- Hegemony or Survival (Chomsky)
- The Right to Speak (Rodenburg)
- On Acting (Meisner)
- The Theatre and it's Double (Artaud)
- Legislative Theatre (Boal)
* I understand it's poorly written and no one regards it as legitimate literature; regardless, it remains a relevant work of popular fiction, circulating and dispatching valuable imprints to the collective consciousness.
Plays:
- No Exit (Sartre)
- The Respectful Prostitute (Sartre)
- Largo Desolato (Havel)
- The Seagull (Chekov)
- Hamlet (Shakespeare)
- The Threepenny Opera (Brecht and Weill)
- the Bald Soprano (Ionesco)
- Small Craft Warning (Williams)
- HAiR (Rado, Ragni, McDermott)
- Sunday in the Park with George (Sondheim and Lapine)
- Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Martin)
- The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)
Periodicals:
- Vanity Fair Magazine
- Mojo Magazine
- the New York Times
- ZMag.org
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My Blog

The GREAT Flickr Upload of 2007

Click here to view hundreds of festive and resplendent original Turner-crafted images in a topically structured manner!!So, I've finally uploaded AND ORGANIZED all (okay, most; I'm still missing a lot...
Posted by The Archaic Smile on Tue, 04 Sep 2007 05:17:00 PST

Spring Break - Best South By ever!!!!

Best SxSW ever:Saturday:take the day off workRebecca just in from Londondrinks the night before atDog and Duckwith RebeccaEhrenand wifeygot to see Ashleywarm-up brunch atOpal's (Congress)with Gavin, A...
Posted by The Archaic Smile on Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:59:00 PST

My SxSW Schedule

Happy South by Southwest, everybody!!! Here are some great events not to miss this week:TONIGHT AT 8 - First, we're hosting a band from New Delhi called menwhopause for the week. They came in on Sat...
Posted by The Archaic Smile on Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:24:00 PST

e e cummings

sometimes I am alive because withme her alert treelike body sleepswhich I will feel slowly sharpeningbecoming distinct with love slowly,who in my shoulder sinks sweetly teethuntil we shall attain the ...
Posted by The Archaic Smile on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

The Rest by Ezra Pound

O helpless few in my country, O remnant enslaved! Artists broken against her, A-stray, lost in the villages, Mistrusted, spoken-against, Lovers of beauty, starved, Thwarted with systems, He...
Posted by The Archaic Smile on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST