Bones

Zero point fluctuation.

Indecision hangs all around

A rolling fog

As regular as the twelve bar blues

A metronomic impact fractures bones like plaster

The surface cracks in tiny increments

The degraded facade

And the ice comes

Low pressure

From overseas to underfoot

Under radar

The animal senses on override

They all begin to flee

Curtains get drawn

Windows boarded up

Layers of clothes added to layers of clothes

Fires stoked and candles lit

A stockpiling of all things that

Will burn

And the ice comes

Approaching like a childhood memory

An unconscious event best forgotten

It rises back up through cracks in the floorboards

And the men sense nothing

While the ubermensch knows all

And prepares

Regresses his mood

Retreats into himself

All negative energy and positive reality

Becomes null within the void

Synapse activity lessens as

The best of us become still

And wait for this season

To pass overhead

Knowing that the centre star

Will absolve us of

All this agony.

the chz

Some randoms added to the chz images blog.

My other blog that continues to lack both rhyme and reason.

Gig

Find yourself 8 quid and get down to this in February:

Several eyes smiling into the golden door of heaven.

I am in retrograde orbit

As parchment disintegrates in the rain

Drops

I am bruised fruit

And sweet and soft and living underneath

Shiny

Green apples

I am the furthest place from home

The space between as the

Space between proton and

Electron

I am the fallen mountain

The smoking volcano

I am the hours it takes to breathe in

And out again 100 times.

Skelethon

coming soon.

Have you seen them?

This'll be a good view for us old timers...

The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography

Premieres at the Sundance Festival on the 21st January



Opening today at all 11 Gagosian galleries around the world,

including two in London, Hirst's spot paintings are taking over

the planet. Hirst has produced almost 1,500, and currently has

a team of assistants working on one with a million spots that

will take over nine years to complete.

Crimble tunes

Yes it's January... I'm on the ball as ever, here are the current tunes accompanying my daily post-Xmas commute:

Good News

that's what the fuck I'm talkin' about.

GT

Poached from SkateDaily

"Next, on Exploitation Theatre...Blacula, followed by Blackenstein, and The Blunchblack of Blotre Blame!"

Just added this to the Lovefilm list...

Eve Arnold, 1912-2012

Coming up though college studying graphic design, an interest photography came later on and most of that was of a very particular style – Albert Watson and those guys that used hard lighting and a style that looked in itself quite design-based. Eve Arnold was the first photographer I discovered of a more 'traditional' output. The picture that did it for me initially was a backstage shot of Charlotte Stribling, which what was once my favourite photograph of all time. Even without the Marilyn Monroe photos, which are in my opinion the best images ever shot of her, Eve Arnold’s pictures were just something that connected with me for no apparent reason.   More here

Dark sheets of pain.


It was a joke
Intended to be funny to me
But often the water can flow in reverse
The words deciding to walk on their own
And all you can do is follow...


I walk under this sheet under cloud
Under a predictive galaxy
Full of mistakes
Arms full of silver
Slivers of acute pain
Inaction the order of the day
Through and across rain soaked cobbled streets
Twisting ankles
Slipping souls


Daylight memories vaporise like
Fog
Replaced in the ether by strangled voices
Happy words floating on ice cream sundaes
Nothing is real now
Voiceboxes causing rifts in the system
Cracks in the pavement to swallow me
Up

Names drop
Faces fall
Grins stretch across the quiet horizon
The start of this morning resonates
And reflects the beginning of this year
The end of the last life
Full of mistakes
Arms full of silver
Slivers of acute pain
Inaction the order of the day

We remain happy in our solitude
Energised by our lack of solace.

Shrigley

Seeing as I missed the Pipilotti Rist show, I'm going to make sure I get to the Hayward to see this when it opens in February. David Shrigley is hilarious, I highly recommend a visit.

Futile Devices

Nothing to report this early in the day/week/year. So this will more than suffice for now:

Happy January.

Précis

How do you summarise 12 months where not much happened? For me at least, it was pretty much by the book. Painting by numbers without straying outside the lines. I have no idea about anything at the moment... though I can say with some certainty that the world probably won’t end next year (funny how all those who unquestioningly follow Pope Gregory every day of their lives suddenly ‘believe’ in the prophetic Mayan calendar isn’t it).

That aside, there are no statements to make. No finalities or punchlines, no gong to signal time’s up. I just want to be home. Locked doors, Xmas TV, fancy booze and family. Seriously – that’s all I need. 

And some mini sausages wrapped in bacon. 

Merry Xmas.

Just. A. Ride.

Happy Birthday Bill.

Mass wasting. 

The tumult began in such a

Far

Distant

Past

We could not begin to fathom the genesis of the fall

But at least we could recognise

The fall

At the very least

The gross thundering awoke our ears

To the day’s real light

To the day’s white bleach

A bird-scaring shriek of white

A high pitched velocity of this thing

Intangibility become destructive force

Laughing

All

The

Way.

Automatic Writing

New.

We lay under a hall of mirrors.

A hundred walls across us,

For hours, days, weeks

We lay there

Conscious,

Sane,

Yet unwilling to rise.

The weight of crashing sounds inside

Us -

Gravity playing no part

Other than a muted distraction,

A throat tickle.

Sickening guitars strum while

Our hearts - stone become iron

Feel nothing of it.

Steel,

Concrete,

Stone, pebbles and black tar slabs

Crush down at a glacial pace.

And each word,

Every black letter, one after the next,

Add to the ending...

Unhelpful and laughing and deceitful and,

We lay under there

A hundred years across us.

We lay there

Conscious,

Barely relevant,

Unwilling to rise.

Slow voices turn stomachs while

Our hearts – iron become ore

Feel nothing of it.

Hate,

Love, rain, snow and ash

All drifting down, as a swan feather in the

Summer breeze.

And each line,

Sentence and crying shame of the ink

Splattered page,

Grasps at throats

Claws at skin, and still

Fails to hold

On.

Prickle-Prickle, The Aftermath 67, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3177

 

 

from Atheism.com:

Much of what people associate with Christmas pre-dates Christianity. Traditional Christianity celebrates the death of holy people, not their birth. In 274 CE, pagan emperor Aurelian proclaimed December 25th ‘Natalis Solis Invicti’ the festival of the birth of the invincible sun. Saturnalia already occurred around this time along with many other celebrations. Christians took over this and other Roman festivals.

Evergreen trees and holly were important because they held their green colors despite the harshest winters. The Santa Claus character is usually traced to Saint Nicholas, a patron saint of children on whose day - December 6^th - gifts were given to kids. Beyond the idea that that people are supposed celebrate the birth of Jesus on this day, this is all that Christianity has directly contributed.

modern notions of Santa Claus can also be traced to the writings of Washington Irving — writings often meant as satire, yet which also often ended up being read as factual. His stories about New Amsterdam being dominated by a cult which celebrated the figure of Saint Nick were popular and he often returned to the figure of Saint Nicholas, even writing about “old fashioned” Christmas celebrations which he simply made up.

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has not been his only influence. He seemed obsessive about the holiday, and more than once he depicted lavish Christmas feasts rife with “old fashioned” traditions which were little more than literary creations. Nevertheless, people followed right along, enchanted with the atmosphere he created and wishing to capture it for themselves.

Clement Moore is credited with writing the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas which almost singlehandedly created the modern American conception of Santa Claus, what he looks like, and what he does (without ever using the name Santa Claus). At this point Santa Claus is fully secularized. There is no reference to sainthood, Christianity, or Jesus. Instead, Santa has a pagan image — he is, after all, described as an elf. Nast also establishes Christmas ideas like hanging stockings by the fireplace.

Illustrator Thomas Nast is the one who gave America the physical pictures of Santa Claus, thus providing a common, shared vision of the primary symbol of an increasingly secular holiday. Nast also added numerous key details about his life which hadn’t been used by others before: Nast’s pictures showed Santa reading children’s letters, watching their behavior, writing the naughty and nice lists, and living at the North Pole.

It was just after World War II that people complained about over-commercialization of Christmas and started to try to “put Christ back into Christmas.” But why at this point in history? Blame it on the war: during the conflict, people had to shop early in order to get Christmas gifts to the troops overseas in time. Merchants, of course, benefited from the early shopping and made a point of reminding people to shop early — even after the war ended.

Thus the lengthy holiday shopping season was born and it’s been getting longer ever since. Over time people have learned to try to shop even earlier in order to beat the maddening holiday rush — and retailers, being the good public servants that they are, have sought to accommodate them with earlier and earlier holiday sales. By and large, the spirit of giving has become predicated upon a spirit of buying.

Such is our modern Christmas: a large number of ancient pagan practices, a few pieces of Christian traditions, and a large number of modern creations which are almost entirely secular in nature, no matter where they got their inspiration from. I see little room and little need for any “Christ” in all of this - but more importantly, I see little place where a “Christ” could be put back into the mix.

So when you find someone talking about putting Christ back into Christmas, you can ask them what part Christ really played in Christmas to begin with. Although you may not be interested in celebrating holidays with any religious trappings whatsoever, Christianity’s hold on Christmas, from a religious perspective, is rather tenuous. If you’re an atheist who would like to enjoy the holiday, you should be able to do so without giving Christianity a second thought.

n.b: (The post title is the Discordian/Erisian date of Xmas 2011)

And while we’re on ‘traditions’...

 

Brave

yay!

COMING SOON

Viewage

Watched this last night.

Any film that contains the line 'I'm bi-furious' wins. It's that simple.

Jo Frazier 1944 – 2011

Not much to say except watch the documentary above if you can. RIP.
Articles HERE and HERE.

as EL-P might say - Pure BK.

Her in

Life in a Day

Watched this last night. Good stuff.

Quote of the weekend

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. Rimbaud