Today marks the occasion of Palestine Prisoners Day. It will see the Palestinian prisoners movement launching the Karamah (Dignity strike). They hope to place the oppressive nature of the Israeli state under the spotlight once again. In a brave move, highlighting the strength of Palestinian resistance to occupation, 1600 will embark on an indefinite strike demanding their basic rights as political detainess.
The Israeli state was created in May 1948, by a violent occupation of the land of the Palestinian people. This has been combined by a systematic policy of expulsion, persecution against the Palestinian people. Also since 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem as a result of the six-Day War, the West bank and the Gaza Strip, some 700,000 Palestinians have seen the daylight from behind the walls of Israel's prisons, which works out at about 20% of the total population of the Palestinian authority. Israel seems to deny the Palestinians their very existence, and their most basic rights: land, housing, education and health. In the Palestinian authority practically every person has a relative or acquaintance that has spent or is spending time in an Israeli prison. They are considered by the Palestinian people to be freedom fighters, whether they are members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other Palestinian organisation.
The "courts" of the occupation are part and parcel of this denial of Palestinian existence. All forms of dissent are criminalised and there are thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. Also confessions allegedly obtained by duress are accepted as evidence, and Palestines in the Occupied Territories are subjected to Israeli military law, while Israel's ilgal settlers are governed by Israel Civil Law, a clear example of an aparthid system. And many would consider the Occupied Territories themselves as one giant prison camp.
It is in this context that Palestinian political prisoners, including children, will atempt to break this silence, willing to die in order to highlight this daily reality of their lives. The majority of the 4,600 Palestinians have refused their meals today, while 1,200 of them promise to hunger strike indefinitely. Israel also still uses administrative detention, a legislation that dates back to British protectionl of the region. This procedure allows Israel to detain suspects indefinitely without charges being made against them, simply by repeating the implied 6 month periods of detention time after time.
Today is specially symbolic, because it is also the day that Israel release Khader Adnan, who himself spent 66 days on hunger strike.
They have many from the international community on their side, hopefully questioning the impunity of the Israeli state and their own governments involvement, sanding together and expressing their solidarity. Already their have been rallies worlwide to support them with detained activists from the 'Welcome to Palestine' flytilla joining them on hunger strike in solidarity. Hopefully the issue of the Palestinian prisoners will be revived, and they are not simply forgotten, and Israels violations against them will continue to be exposed, personally I support their struggle as part of a universal struggle for human rights, respect and dignity.
Art is an important part of life. Friday was the anniversary of the death of Carlo Carra, the Italian Futurist painter, who tried to imbue his panting with movement and life.
At their best his pictures literally glow on the canvas,, he stated off in life as an anarchist, though unfortunately by the end of his life he had drifted far away from this pulse and had swapped it for an ideology of coldness and reactionary political views, but his art I can't really disagree with, and it is this that lives on.
Sometimes you wake up, and theirs nothing one can do, but grin and bear it, let the mind drift, expand, relax, wait. This morning, I felt the flame of indecision, it must have been the grass, but among the tangle of tendrils and foliage, I asked why does our world have to be so splintered, behind us a riot of protection.
Changing the subject Samuel Taylor Coleridge like the other romantics, worshiped nature,and recognised poetry's capacity to describe the beauty of the natural world. Nearly all of Coleridge's poems express a respect for and delight in natural beauty. Close observations, great attention to detail, and precise descriptions demonstrate Coleridge's respect and delight with the 'immortal' joy of nature. I will end my musings with a poem from him that deftly illustrates this.
A Sunset
Upon the mountain''s edge all light resting,
There a brief while the globe of splendour sits
And seems a creature of the earth, but soon
More changeful than the moon,
To wane fantastic his great orb submits,
A distant hill of fire, till sinking slowly
Even to a star at length he lessens wholly.
Abrupt, as Spirits vanish, he is sunk!
A soul-like breeze possesses all the wood.
The boughs, the sprays have stood
As motionless as stands the ancient trunk!
But every leaf through all the forest flutters
And deep the cavern of the fountain mutters.
American, Poet...... her work was much influenced by the poetry of Chrisina Rossetti. She spent a lot pf her short life in ill health, and despite several men falling in love with her, she died after an overdose of sleeping pills. The following poem is from her 1920 collection, 'Flame and Shadow' which inspired and featured in a famous short story of the same name by the Science Fiction writer, Ray Bradbury. Bradbury published his story in the 'Martian Chronicles' in 1951, with the title 'August 2026: There Will Be Soft Rains' written in an era, like today when many people were concerned about the devastaing effects of nuclear weapons, the story depicts a world in which human beings have been destroyed by nuclear force. A cationary tale that followed the recent bombings in Agust 1945, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There Will Come Soft Rains.
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground
And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild-plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Russian animated film, from 1987 based on Ray Bradbury's story -Budet Leskovy Dozhd Director - Nazim Tylyakhozayev
They're closing our libraries, taking apart our N.H.S, taxing our elderly, causing fuel panic, giving bungs to the police, snooping on our e.mails and phone calls, attack the poor and generally stealing the future from our kids, and they expect us to throw a party for some old parasite. They really are taking the Mickey !!!
More wonderful stuff over here. http://anarchistmedia.wordpress.com/
Thom Gunn, I like his stuff a lot, we share a birthday. Borm in Britan, after moving to America, he became associated with San Francisco and the excesses of American bohemianism and all its primal urges. He wrote about violence and rebellion, love and decline, a life spent living on the edge, walking on the wild side. In his poems, as in his life he liked to take risks..... a life of studied abandon, he became known as a gay poet, who wrote in both traditional poetic forms and free verse, about the dispossessed, the marginalised where themes of love and lust interwined. Yet his themes also included the ordinary, the mundane, and was particularly good when tackling the 'sniff of the real'. One of lifes bright things, sadly departed, another one of those poets that I keep on returning to. The following poem I find beautiful, delicate in its flow. Enjoy.
Considering the Snail
The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth's dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,
pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts, I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail's fury? All
I think is that if later
I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
umagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.
Reprinted from Collected Poems Faber and Faber 1993
Yep..... we're all in it together these days. Don't panic carry on regardless! But lets face it, it's the poorest who seem to be getting hit the hardest, while 5 million pensioners were being robbed of their pensions, did not see Millibandy or Cleggy causing to much of a fuss.
All part of the same heierarchy that seems to want to tell us what to consume and when to consume it, what to think and where to think it, what to dream and when to dream it, giving alienation new and dreadful dimensions. And as for the worker who is actually conscious of being alienated, of being exploited, who dares on insisting on their right to strike , well not under the Labour Party, the Conservatives or the Liberals you wont..
All the mainstream parties have to offer is the absurdity of living under capitalism, same old social layers, that treat people as disposable fodder.
Guess theirs a lot of anger in the air at the moment, but room for optimism too, a need for change, it was demonstrated in Bradford last week, the people are fed up with the same old same olds. At the moment, unfortunately I think its going to get a whole lot worse before it starts getting any better, and Cameon and his ilk keep on playing the blame game, but blaming the victims instead of the financial institutions who caused this economic crisis in the first place. And if you happen to be mentally ill, do not for God sake go out dancing, your not allowed to look as if your actually having a good time, they'll stop your benefits, their aim to keep us afraid. Well some of us aren't anymore, simply tired and had enough.
Oh look at the politicians on parade, hey love the olympics, fawn at the Queen, support pointless wars, well a lot of us don't support any of that little lot, clearly in a time of austerity, if you scrapped that little lot their would be a huge amount of money to spend, on things of far more importance. Their answers to put up the price of cheap lager, and the price of Moet and Chandon Champagne remains unaffected, kill of our N.H.S, privatise essential services.. All in it together, I think not.
Soon I hope their complaceny will be shaken, the potential for an awakening is thir, we have to say no to apathy......we have to rage, against their machine, be resiliant, keep saying no to their capitalist domination, escape from their status quo........ show them all the contempt they deserve, so as Eostre approaches, time to take stock..... we must not let them crush our expectations, we must remain free to dream, I really believe that their common thread can be defeated by a common united opposition. So Happy Eostore all...
Solidarity hey its such a lovely word....... a change is imperative, a faith in a future not based on their old formulas. The future could be very beautiful or it could continue as it is...... why do Milliband, Cameron and Clegg all seem to operate from the same thread, because all of them are afraid of the latent power of us all, they need one another in order to control us, and hey it does not need to be this
way
The American poet Adrienne Rich passed away last week at her home in Santa Cruz, California. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, the elder of 2 daughters of Arnold Rich a doctor and Helen Jones Reed, a gifted pianist and composer.
She married in 1953 and bore 3 sons, at a time when she was still struggling with conflicts over the prescribed roles of womanhood verses that of artistry. But as time moved forward she confirmed her identity as a lesbian, which radicalised her fusion of political commitment and poetic artistry.
She first published a volume of poetry in 1951, which earned praise from W.H Auden .Her poems were ones of defiance and fury, against convention, and as a force for change, which also revealed a tenderness and warmth, with moments of uncertainty and self questioning. She is considered to be one of the most influential poets of the late twentieth century. There is scarcly an anthology of feminist verse that does not contain her work or engage with her ideas. She is credited with bringing the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.
Her concerns also included questions of language and history, the denial and claiming of power, the action of poetic imagination in change, a politics of place and of struggle.
In one of her uncompromising essays she wrote 'All human life on the planet is born of a woman. The one unifying, incontrovertible experience shared by all women and men is that months - long period we spend unfolding in a women's body.'
Her pamphlet ' Twenty one Love Poems' 1977 which was incorporated into the following years 'Dreams of a common language.' marked one of the first direct treatments of lesbian desire and sexuality, a theme which she continued with throughout her work.
As well as using words as a force for change, she attended rallies against the vietnam war, organised poetry reading for peace and marched for womens rights, fundraised for the Black Panthers, and was a supporter of the progressive Jewish movement New Jewish agenda. In 1997 during the Clinton administration she rejected the National Medal of the Arts, because of Clintons anti-arts policies. writing ' There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art- in my own case the art of poetry - means nothing if it simply decorated the dinner table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonoured.' and as late as 2002 with painful arthritis marched against the Iraq War, she was also a supporter of Palestinian liberation.
She despised oppression of every kind and hurled against it. Throughout her life she spun words from a revolutionary tongue, pointed the direction while embodying the essence of the destination, with declarations of love and war. She said ' The poem arrives at itself with the immediacy of sunlight stinging glass.'
Long may her spirit be remembered. R.I.P.
Adrienne Rich - What kind of Times are these
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks of into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who dissapeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread,
but don't be fooled this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
it's own ways of making people dissapear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light -
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it dissapear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything?
Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
Adrienne Rich at a glance.
WAIT (2006)
In paradise every
the desrt wind is rising
third thought
in hell there are no thoughts
is of earth
sand screams against your government
issued tent hell's noise
in your nostrils crawl
into your ear-shell
wrap yourself in no-thought
wait no place for the little lyric
wedding-ring glint the reason why
on earth
they never told you
WOMEN
My three sisters are sitting
on rocks of black obsidian.
For the first time, in this light, in this light, I can see who they are
My first sister is sewing her costume for the procession.
She is going as the Transparent lady
and all her nerves will be visible
Ny second sister is also sewing,
at the seam over her heart which has never healed
ebtirely,
At last, she hopes, this tightness in her chest will ease.
Ny third sister is gazing
at a dark-red crust spreading westward far out on the
sea
Her stocking are torn but she is beautiful.
1968
PROSPECTIVE IMMIGRANTS PLEASE NOTE
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things looks at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises
Is is only a door.
THE ART OF TRANSLATION
1
To have seen you exactly, once:
red hair over cold cheeks fresh from the freeway
your lingo, your daunting and dautless
eyes. But then to lift towards home, mile upon
mile
back when they'd barely heard your name
- neither as terrorist nor as genius would they
detain you-
to wing itback to my country bearing
your war-flecked protocols-
that was a mission, surely my art's pouch
crammed with your bristling juices
sweet dark drops of your spirit
that streaked the pouch, the shirt I wore
and the bench on which I leaned.
2
It's only a branch like any other
green with the flare of life in it
and ifI hold this end, you the other
that means it's broken
broken between us, broken despite us
broken and therfore dying
broken by force, broken by lying
green, with the flare of life in it
3
But say we're crouching on the ground like children
over a mess of marbles, soda caps, folil, old foreign coins
- the first truly precious objests. Rusty hooks,glass.
Say I saw the earrings first but you wanted it.
Then you wanted the words I'd found. I'd give you
the earrings, crushed lapis if it were,
I would look long at the beach glass and the sharded shelf
of the lightbulb. Long I'd look into your hand
at the obsolete copper profile, the cat's eye, the Lapis.
Like a thief I would deny the words, deny they ever
existed, were spoken, or could be spoken,
like a thief I'd bury them and remember where.
4
The trade mames follow trade
the translators stopped at passport control: Occupation: no such designation- Journalist, maybe spy?
That the books are for personal use
only -could I swear it?
That not a word of them
is contaband - how could I prove it?
1995
DEDICATIONS
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to be quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plain's enormous spaces around you
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of idetity with strangers.
i know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatique of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty
I know you are reading this poem which is not your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening to somethiing, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
A REVOLUTIONARY POEM
A revolutionary poem
will not tell you who or
when to kill, what and
when to burn, or even
how to theorize. It
reminds you . . . where and
when and how you are
living and might live, it is
a wick of desire
Selected works
Selected Poems. Chatto & Hogarth P Windus 1967
Twent-one Love Poems. Effies press. 1976
Selected Poems, 1950-1995.Salmon Pub 1996
Dark Fields of the Republic : Poems 1991-1995.W.W Norton 1995
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010
Diving into the Wreck. W. W. Norton 1975
A wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems 1978-1981. W.W Norton 1982.
Further to my post earlier this week, on the 43rd day of her hunger strike, Israel has supposedly made a compromise. They have decided to co-exile her to 7 years to the Gaza Strip. I am glad that she has survived her ordeal and that she will not now join the ranks of the Palestinian martyrs. But technically she will still be denied her freedom, banished to the open prison which is Gaza. Far away from her home village Burqin in the northern part of the West Bank and far away from her family. A woman I add who has never had any formal charge laid against her. Still the abusive practice of Administation continues, with more than 300 Palestinian prisoners still being held in these circumstances. Also the growing use of hunger strikes amongst other prisoners will continue to cause major hiccups for Israel in the long run.
The people of Palestine will not forget Hana Shalibi's courage and the stuggle for justice, reform and liberation for Palestine and the Palestinian peope will continue.
And today ( incidentally the day after Palestinian Land Day) and tomorrow, the international community will continue to protest and demonstrate, campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions will go on, until Israel complies with International law and stops responding with blind indifference.
Viva Palestine.
The Conservative Party's policies deeply unpopular at the moment. Aren't they always. As for their leader, well ! ! ! Here's a lovely song that sums up the general feeling, that I can see being sung up and down the country, that will be guarateed to wipe away the smug smiles of many a tory.
So it's farewell to the NHS
Legal aid and pensions
Working for your dole
When employmen's in a hole
And not to fuckin mention
Tax cuts for the richest
Benefit cuts for the richest
Can you please explain to me
Why we should tolerate your shit anymore?
Cameron, I would call you a cunt,
But you don't have the depth or charm
And if we should ever meet
You'll also meet my bailing arm.
Cameron, I would call you a cunt
But the usefulness and beauty are amiss
And if we should ever meet
I'll be giving you a Glascow kiss.
It's a bit wierd getting your jollies
From inreasing our risk of dying
Or can you just not get it up
Without the thought of poor folks crying?
You punch tables, victorious
Each time you whack another coffin nail in
While I punch pictures of your face
Man, my hate for you is unfailing..
Cameron, I would call you a cunt,
But you don't have the depth or charm
And if we should ever meet
You'll also meet my bailing arm.
Cameron, I would call you a cunt
But the usefulness and beauty are amiss
And if we should ever meet
I'll be giving you a Glasgow kiss.
You murder what we breathed life in to for years
Rape the state born from our blood, sweat and tears
Abuse our children with all these unnecessary cuts
If we ever meet, may your god help your nuts..
Cameron, I would call you a cunt,
But you don't have the depth or charm
And if we should ever meet
You'll also meet my bailing arm.
Cameron, I will call you a cunt
As you are very good at pissing
down on those living hand to mouth
Let's hook up for some Glasgow kissing
The following video poem in solidarity with hunger striking Palestinian prisoner was created by the Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah.
Hana Shalabi is a Palestinian political prisoner. She was released over 2 years ago from administrative detention on October 18 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal. She was rearrested less than four months later on February 16 2012.
Yesterday marked the 40th day of her hunger strike. It has been reported that she is in danger of imminent death and has great difficulty standing and has extremely low blood pressure.
She is one of over 200 Palestinians currently held in administrative detention in Israeli prisons. This practice allows Israel to hold detainess for up to 6 months ( and can also indefinitely renew the decision).In total their are 4,637 Palestinian political prisoners in the jails of the Israeli occupation, 20 of whom continue to be held in isolation, from Palestinian national leaders and Palestinian children, all of whom are demanding freedom. Hana Shalabi wants freedom or death, and not just for herself. It's for all the wrongfully imprisoned Palestinians.
Yesterday Hana's appeal for the ending of her administrative detention was denied. Stating that she was resposible for her own recovery. Administative detention dates from the British Emergency Law of 1945 under the British Mandate of Palestine.
Amnesty International has issued a new appeal calling for Hana's release and declared her a prisoner of conscience.
- however,many other human rights organisations have maintained complete silence.
Cultivate Hope - words by Rafeef Ziadeh, music by Phil Monsour.
PleaseClick here to send a letter to Israeli officials demanding Hana's release.
Mr Ferlinghetti 93 years young, yesterday....... so belated birthday greetings to this beat icon. A heretic, rebel, civil libertarian, painter , poet , publisher...... who is still writing, painting,plain speaking, travelling widely. I thank him for his huge wonderful contribution to the world of literature. As I post this I realise I am baking, it's a rather balmy , beautiful spring day over here in my little corner, so in a minute, gathering up some of his books and finding a quiet spot somewhere, to bathe a while in some of his thoughts, and enjoy some moments of peace.
Sometime During Eternity
Sometime during eternity
some gus show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad
And moreover
he adds
It's all writ down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won't even find
for a coupla thousand years or so
or at least for
nineteen hundred and fortyseven
of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me
for that matter
You're hot
they tell him
And they cool him
They stretch him on the Tree to cool
And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning his name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is the king cat
who's got to blow
or they can't quite make it
Only he don't come down
from His Tree
Him just hang there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
from the usual unreliable sources
real dead
From These are my Rivers New and Selected Poems 55-93
New Directions Press
Constantly Risking Absurdity
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce percieve
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or
step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying
leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair external form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
Reprinted from A Coney Island of the Mind New Direction Press
"No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin - Nye Bevan
Today woke up with great sadness and anger, the Tories insidious N.H.S bill has been passed. Medical experts believe the tory's changes will do horrible harm to our health service. It makes me wonder who the hell voted for the tories. Their policies when they put themselves up for election seemed to suggest to me an ideology of pure hatred, and one of divide and rule. Perhaps they are the same people who spent yesterday fawning over the Queen in Westminster, whilst our beloved N.H.S was being kicked in the guts. The people who voted for them and those who have kept them in power, the lib dems have sounded the death knell for the N.H.S and for this they should be thouroughly ashamed. The N.H.S is to me like the pulse of the nation, essential, where my father worked and dedicated himself to, for over 30 years. The people who voted for the Conservatives are the same people who must accept resposibility for the slow demonisation of the unemployed, the marginalised, the weak, the mentally ill. So David Cameron and Andrew Lansley keep on smiling as they rob the poor to pay the rich. Proving time and again, what contemptable bastards they are. Their Budget today, proving that we really are not in it all together, housing buget cuts already means soaring homelessness, the poorer you are the hardest your hit, tax cuts for the rich... nothing about the thieving banks, help for students, help for people getting jobs, for communities that they have already started battering apart. Yesterday I was full of Springs promise, celebrating the rebirth of nature, today I try to keep on keeping on, just...... so let me compare for a moment . The Conservatives like to think of themselves as ineradicable, indestrutible and imperishable, but like their nearest relation the cockroach this is not true, when crushed they can make a horrible cracking sound...... we must not let them defeat us, we have the power to beat them back. Ah I'm feeling better already.
essayist, novelist, absurdist philosopher, futurist... maverick genius, political activist, visionary, prophet, discordian, existentalist prober of imagination, anto-fundamentalist.... profoundity leaps in his works, just when I think i'm getting what he's told me, he leads me on to another thread. Born in Brooklyn , Wilson was many things, his books ended up in many a hipsters library, the counterculture embraced him, some however could not seperate fact or fiction. His 'Illuminatis' trilogy - Eye of the Pyramid, Golden Apple, and Leviathon incorporated elments from the cult literature of the time: borrowing elements of Colin Wilson, Philip K Dick, Flann O' Brien, Carlos Castenada, Timothy Leary and Kurt Vonnegut in a mix that bordered on the academic to the downright hilarious, like some philosopher writing on some heavy duty drugs. He did prodigiously consume and was an advocate for the taking of all sort of drugs, and became a strong opponent of what he called " the war on some drugs." Initially though had started using cannabis as a way to alleviate the misfortunes of Post-polio syndrome. He worked with psychedelic guru Timothy Leary on two books Neuropolitics ( 1978) and The Game of Life (1979) and began to become a serious practitioner of stoned sensations. Writing under the influence , he said he wrote the first draft of each book "straight, the second stoned, then straight, then stoned, and so on , until i'm absolutely delighted with every sentence, Or until irate editors start reminding me about deadlines, whichever comes first." A prodigious talent, he went on to write numerous books, and became linked with the Church of the Sub-Genius, the Association for Consciousness Exploration and E.Prime. He taught me to never trust anything that I read, but along with Burroughs I keep returning. Even though in life and in his books the sentiment is one of anti-religion, their is to me a semi mythical,mysticism to his work, but then drugs are known for taken us to the furthest reaches of human consciousness, and a lot of us who take these sacrements , have a rebellious nature already, and even before taking anything illicit we were questioning, reason and all forms of authority. But Robert Anton Wilson pushed all possibities, becoming a master crafter of disinfomation, conspiracy theories and twinkling pages full of suspect devices. Otherworks were the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy (80-81) Prometheus Rising (1983) and William Reich in Hell (1987) By the time he departed this planet, he had found himself many devotees and with his grey hair and long white goatee had taken on the air of a taoist sage, prophet or sorceror. He had also manged to upset a considerable amount of people, he'd stopped paying his taxes and was in considerable debt, a strong advocate of freedom in its many forms, his political and social credos were ones of questioning, EVERYTHING, so their were quite a few enemies out there. Some say the C.I.A killed him , others that he is very much alive, theories grow. What he definitely did teach was that " the universe contains a maybe." So he might be hovering around somehere, illuminating an argument with some cunning laughter.
The following fim Maybe Logic is a fascinating , hilarious and mind-bending journey in his mult-dimensional life, spanning 35 years and the best of 100 hours of footage, thorughly tweaked, tansmuted and regenerated. It feature Tom Robbins, R U Sirius, Ivan Stang, Paul Krassner, Valerie Corral and Douglas Rushkoff. The soundtrack includes music by the Boards of canada, Animals on Wheels, Tarentel, Funki Porcini, Amon Tobin and the Cinematic Orchestra and others. However all the above I may have just simply made up, who knows for definite.
"There are periods of history when the visions of mad men and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common sense interpretaton of data available to the so called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already."
" There is no governer anywhere, you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of death, even. All existing Society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses, Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists."
- Robert Anton Wilson
MAYBE LOGIC: The Lives & Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson
Rachel Corrie was killed 9 years ago today in the Gaza Strip in Palestine on March 16th 2003, trying to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian family.
She was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer whilst undertaking nonviolent direct action. Her name has not been forgotten and carries on being an inspiration to solidarity activists around the globe. Today we remember her.
