Obsidian Noise

This cameraman has got to be the most committed journalist on the plannet right now. In this 12 minute film, you see bullets landing all around him, blood puddles when he stops to take cover. You see the resistance army walking and shooting while bullets skim and graze every surface around them. I’ve never seen a warzone like this one. The resisters are absolutely fearless, walking almost casually while the ground around them erupts, both sides yelling “god is great!” as they destroy each other in the horror world of Homs, Syria. One side fighting for an oppressive regime, one side fighting and dying for dignity and freedom.

When you see fighters walking around so calmly while so close to destruction and death– others and their own– you know it’s because they’re operating under the illusion of a trip to “heaven”. In their mind, it’s just not that bad. It’s one of the worst consequences of deep religious faith: lives simply matter less because it’s all about the “after life”, rather than… the only real one.

In the same way that people might accept you or reject you, art sometimes has a way of doing the same. You can look at a piece, like a cave painting, and it can refuse you. It’s almost as if it recognizes that you won’t be able to understand it, and so it shuts you out. Alternatively, it can accept you, welcoming you into itself, binding with you, inviting you into itself so that you may nod with it.

Tibet museum all day.

Great day. Someone is going to take what I created and modularize it to be used in other sites. They discussed fees and structures and I shot them all down. If it’s for educational use, it’s free. Period. Take it. Make people learn with it.

If they don’t, then you’re not allowed to use it.

Harsh?

Nope. Stuff like this works, we’ve done it before. Sometimes you have to practically physically force people to remove the dollar sign they’ve put on everything on the planet. Take that off and stop monetizing every fucking thing you see or think of you little retarded monkey!

But said with body language only. It’s fun. Try it and write to me and tell me about when you did it and how you felt afterwards.

Sometimes water is so thin, and sometimes it’s thick. But it’s always watery. 

You know why this is so interesting? I do.

It’s related to something I hate. Passive relativism. People come into schools with this idea of relativity, where everything is just a matter of perpective, there are no absolutes, and a “to each his own” belief system that applies everywhere, all the time. This is very common in the academy.

“It is wrong to prevent women from going to school.”

“That’s just your opinion! Stop imposing your culture on others!”

Sounds… tolerant. And we espouse tolerance, don’t we?

You go to a small village in central Africa and witness an ancient practice: the burning off of the clitoris of young girls. It’s been done for thousands of years. You see the girl. You see the man with the red-hot iron. She is panicking and screaming already, and two other men hold her down, legs open.

You are a visitor here, a guest.

What do you do in this situation?

Let’s say the situation passes, whether you intervened or not, and you are no longer there. But you know it continues every week, every year, every girl. Now what do you do?

1. If you believe it’s wrong and you can do nothing, you are lying to yourself: anyone is capable of doing something, at all times, everywhere. You are choosing not to intervene.
2. If you you believe it is not wrong, then OK. You are an enemy of mine.
3. If you believe it is wrong, but since you recognize that the village elders do not believe it’s wrong, and you do not think it’s right to interfere with “culture” or cultural practice, then OK.  I disagree with your choice and if we are in the same place, you will watch me intervene. If you try to stop me, you will be my enemy.
   
   

It the case that some things are wrong, everywhere on earth, regardless of what culture espouses it and ritualizes and believes it to be a good thing. I include the torture of children in that list.

For things in this category, there is no issue of perpective to take into account. There is no relativism. There is no imperialism. Slavery is wrong. Ownership of other humans is wrong. Physical abuse is wrong. There’s no cultural perspective involved here. It’s not about culture. It’s about people.

Try to torture a person in front of me, and I will stop you. We can discuss it afterwards, unless I have to kill you in order to protect other people from you. I don’t care how long you’ve been doing it, I don’t care what it represents, I don’t care what god you believe in. Mutilating children is wrong anywhere, any time, ever. I will impose this idea upon you as long as you oppose it, and you will lose.

To everyone in the academy who stands and watches when great injustices and disgusting sub-human acts occur, happy to describe them and document them for later consideration instead of doing something about it, fuck you. You’re an enemy too.

Coffee in a paper cup at the Plane Stop Diner. Soft seats, big windows. Suits everywhere and I feel thankful for not having gone that route.

“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Totally.

Electric Wizard playing in my ears as I draft another proposal letter. Shit, I could do this all day with a view like this one.

Back in regular action soon.

I’m often very eager to get away from Manhattan. When I travel I find new perspectives. I’m not sure what the specific causal attribute is.  Movement and travel can change a perspective so quickly,  provoking new considerations that were impossible just hours before when I was there. Now that I’m here, I see things so differently. Travel awakens motivations, new urgencies to live. Being away is a rock thrown in the calm pond of an habituated mind. Waking up in a strange place far from “home” starts new waves disrupting the old channels and directions, eventually settling into new patterns, new linkages, new constructions of knowledge and meanings.

The bus is a rock. The strange look from that huge woman with her tits hanging out is a rock. The weird accent from that black dude is a rock. The mustache of the man tearing my boarding pass is a rock, as is his subtle eye makeup. The teenaged girl reading the romance novel next to me is a rock. The way suddenly everyone wants orange or apple juice is a rock. The guy with the huge arms wearing sunglasses in the plane in a rock. The stewardess’s ass is a rock. My backpack under my legs is a rock. My hunger is a rock. The way my arm veins look on this armrest in this sunlight coming through this window is a rock.

The strange thing is that, despite all the great rocks and waves, as soon as I’m back in town I find myself feeling glad about it.

Firstly, I think about all the performances I’ll see. Extreme metal soothes me, just about anything from any subgenre– doom, sludge, grindcore (Godflesh is playing on the east coast this summer, btw) and the best way to experience this art form, like jazz, is live in a small venue. NYC is an important stop for these bands so I’ve been able to really dive into that culture pretty much whenever I want or need. That won’t be the case everywhere, that’s for sure, and I try not to take it for granted.

There are other things about this place that make me glad when I’m back. I like my apartment and my neighborhood. My place is small but I’m really comfortable there and like coming home. It’s humble and safe, it has enough space for what I need and contains nothing excessive or gaudy. I think if someone were to meet me and get a sense of what kind of person I am, they’d probably find my place to be a pretty good match. If I were spending dumps of money on a fancy place somewhere else in Manhattan, every time I’d come home I’d feel like a fraud, a person saying some things and secretly living other things.

There are many advantages living where I do. For one thing, I walk to work, it’s about 15 minutes away. That means I can come home for lunch if I want to. My workplace is ideal. The campus is beautiful and filled with neat things. I only have to wear goofy-fuck costumes if the meeting calls for it– some clients are jacket and tie puppets, and some are t-shirt and jeans. I just have to be respectful of those differences and not mismatch too extremely– no death metal t-shirts at the senior management meeting. No big deal.

My campus has two of the best libraries in the world and I make good use of them. I walk in on the weekends to spend a few hours reading or searching in peace. My gym and heavy bag are here,  good compliments to the MMA club downtown. I can work out in the middle of day or late at night, I can shower and sauna just about any time between 5a and midnight, 7 days a week, and I do all the time.

The other thing that’s nice about getting home is my building itself. There’s lots of weird tenant drama–hate– but the place itself is pretty solid. I can play extremely high distortion, high volume guitar and it doesn’t matter. I have an entire stack of amps that go from the floor to the ceiling that I can stand directly in front of and blast-wash myself with. I’m separated from my only neighbor by an elevator shaft and they can’t really hear anything.

I like being within walking distance of my favorite supermarket, it really sets me up well, though I haven’t actually been there in months, maybe since the injury, actually.

I like the people in my neighborhood. They’re all Dominican and they recognize me now and we nod. That took more than two years to develop.

My trip has been extended a bit, a few days. Happy out here, but will be happy getting back, too.

I haven’t been able to clean up the recordings I mentioned earlier in the week, but they’re waiting for processing once I get back home, which was supposed to be today. It’ll be worth it, don’t worry.

Look yourself closely in the mirror and find out whether you’re authentic in your context, or if you’re merely a pawn being controlled by forces around you. You can choose either way to be, of course, but you should always start by knowing the truth of yourself first, and then deciding how you want to be.

See you soon.