"I think of you all the time..."
"I hardly ever think of you, in fact right now I'm thinking of doing my laundry."

iki, ma...

went to a lecture on japanese aesthetics yesterday. japanese arts are very holistic and not separate from other parts of society. it is not possible or desirable to separate 'aesthetics' from other philosophical threads. i wish i had seen this lecture when i was younger since i have been constantly in an (east-west) identity crisis. the japanese have been going through this same process since the they were forced to modernize/westernize in the 19thC. there is something very deep in my psyche that reacts to japanese arts, like noh plays... and there it was laid out for me in this film. the sound is something primordial. another point is that noh is transmitted to the younger generation orally, that there has to be a master on site to correct you. this same principle applies to being japanese or any other nationality (?) that you need to live there or at least have parents of that nationality. but pardon me while i work this out because i am a couple generations removed from japan. my parents did some inculcating, but this is beyond me, something biological, like salmon...

dear photograph

there's a lovely website called dear photograph, in which people take pictures of old pictures at the same scene and write comments. today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and so today's one is particularly touching. i know that it was much more horrific for so many people, and i haven't begun to digest what happened that day. all i know is i was there on the phone talking to my friend about a fire at the WTC then, chaos, then 'no more WTC' what do you mean i said...
new york was my home like it was for so many and i wasn't watching the tv. i was there. the smell. the pile. the obituaries. Here is an interview from a fireman someone who was really there

my friends are still there and i am here in ireland. thinking about the day that time fractured. more than time, the world fractured. here in ireland they are talking about the aftermath of 9/11, what the US did after, how they squandered the opportunity to bring the world closer, squandered goodwill...

Gil Scott-Heron

I heard about the death of Gil Scott-Heron and I have to admit I didn't really know who he was. The phrase, 'Godfather of Rap' meant fairly little to me. So my first introduction was this video.

It was a good introduction to understand where he was coming from, recollecting memories, in this understated way ---'mistreated to the maximum' --- referring to death of some of the Civil Rights leaders...

Sorry for pulling quotes but he's just so brilliant -- 'Even if you ain't got no job there's some shit you could be doing...the last thing that's available to you is your right to complain.'
(I should read this phrase everyday) He talks about helping people and how it helps your soul and therefore the energy you radiate to others...
'People who spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, they know what they look like, sort of...The way that you know how you look really is the expression on other people's faces...'

He is most known for , 'The Revolution will not be Televised.' It's an amazing rap about commercialism and marketing of events. Jeremy Clarkson wrote a piece about video and catastrophic events -- saying basically, if there is no video of it doesn't make an impact (ie, the Rwandan massacre) and conversely that the Japanese Tsunami/meltdown wouldn't have been front page news (back in the day)...

Love the future

On any given morning I read a lot of random information and according to Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian spam filters are not the answer. No one forces me to click links about plastic surgery record holder Cindy Jackson but I suppose when I sign out of Yahoo I should just look away. I don't have an efficient brain for filtering or filling information.

The recent imprisonment of Ai Weiwei gets filed somewhere in my gut-brain, churning and indigestable...
I admire the creativity of the Chinese for using a similar sounding 'Ai Weilai' (Love the future) to avoid the censors, but that phrase was blocked as well.

Onslaught

There has been so many catastrophic events lately, of 'biblical' proportions, as the news says. And eventually the news fades and recedes. But the earthquake on March 11, the tsunami that followed and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan will not be forgotten anytime soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami


I know this blog is supposed to be about things that 'inspire' me but some things just thrust themselves into your consciousness and won't go away. Just this morning I awoke from a dream in which I was sleeping and awoke to see the water rising above my windows...

Last time in London

At the Whitechapel -- enjoyed the show of John Stezaker's collages. It is only an image pasted on another image in a surreal way but it was pleasantly disturbing. Having just watched part of this documentary on the future of art in which art is mindblowingly open, collaborative and technologically dependent, I supposed it's comforting to just look at a few collages.