thecages

My fellow blogger (and erstwhile Mouseketeer[1]), Britney Spears recently posted a poetic outporing on her official site entitled: 'Remembrance of Who I Am'.
It was immediately taken to be a major spit in the direction of K-Fed and its blazing across the internext led to its being pulled from the site almost immediately.
It was later re-posted with the tag '*This is for everyone who thinks they know me...' which, I assume, is somehow meant to spin it to be a spit in the direction of the media.

My fave stanza is this one:

The guilt you fed me
Made me weak.
The voodoo you did
I couldn't speak.

Anyhoo, without further ado - here's Bratney.



Don't you just lurve the cool font and rad pink colour?


[1] Tragically overshadowing the original Mouseketeer, Lonnie

While on the topic of kerrrrrrazzy, here's Son of Sam.
I first picked up on the Son of Sam story from the Spike Lee movie Summer of Sam.


I had never really gotten into Spike Lee films and didn't buy the whole auteur-thing that was being sold about him.
But I found Summer of Sam instantly engaging and clever.

What makes it work so well is that Son of Sam (the serial killer) isn't really the focus of the film, it's mainly concerned with a group of friends(?) in disintegrating Italian neighbourhood in the sweltering summer of 1977 (just months after my birth, imagine that).

However, while Son of Sam himself only features as a bit character his presence (the fear in the neighbourhood of the bogeyman) is what drives the tension within the group.
He features more as a natural force (as does the weather) than as a person.

What is interesting about Son of Sam is the totally flipped out letters he wrote to the cops.
And in a sense these letters are an eloquent summation of the poisoned environment that produces(and consumes) the characters of the film:

[...]Hello from the sewers of N.Y.C. which swallow up the delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has seeped into these cracks.[...]

Here's the poison pen himself:

Letter: Son of Sam to Joseph Borrelli
Left at scene of murder on April 17, 1977:

Dear Captain Joseph Borrelli,

I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemon hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the 'Son of Sam.' I am a little brat.
When father Sam gets drunk he gets mean. He beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood.

'Go out and kill,' commands father Sam.

'Behind our house some rest. Mostly young -- raped and slaughtered -- their blood drained -- just bones now.

Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can't get out but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by.

I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength then everybody else -- programmed too kill.
However, to stop me you must kill me. Attention all police: Shoot me first -- shoot to kill or else keep out of my way or you will die!

Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has had too many heart attacks. 'Ugh, me hoot, it hurts, sonny boy.'
I miss my pretty princess most of all. She's resting in our ladies house. But I'll see her soon.

I am the 'Monster' -- 'Beelzebub' -- the chubby behemouth.

I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game -- tasty meat. The wemon of Queens are prettyist of all. It must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt -- my life. Blood for papa.

Mr. Borrelli, sir, I don't want to kill anymore. No sur, no more but I must, 'honour thy father.'
I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don't belong on earth. Return me to yahoos.

To the people of Queens, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy Easter.

May God bless you in this life and in the next.

And for now I say goobye and goodnight. Police: Let me haunt you with these words: I'll be back! I'll be back! To be interrpreted as -

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang - ugh!!

Your in murder Mr. Monster

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang - ugh!!

Letter: Son of Sam to Jimmy Breslin
Mailed to Daily News, May 1977

Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C., which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood. Hello from the sewers of N.Y.C. which swallow up the delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has seeped into these cracks.

J.B., I'm just dropping you a line to let you know that I appreciate your interest in those recent and horrendous .44 killings. I also want to tell you that I read your column daily and I find it quite informative.

Tell me Jim, what will you have for July twenty-ninth? You can forget about me if you like because I don't care for publicity. However you must not foget Donna Lauria and you cannot let the people forget her either. She was a very, very sweet girl but Sam's a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood.

Mr. Breslin, sir, don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. No, rather, I am still here. Like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest; anxious to please Sam. I love my work. Now, the void has been filled.

Perhaps we shall meet face to face someday or perhaps I will blown away by cops with smoking .38's. Whatever, if I shall be fortunate enough to meet you,I will tell you all about Sam if you like and I will introduce you to him. His name is "Sam the Terrible".

Not knowing what the future holds I shall say farewell and I will see you at the next job. Or should I say you will see my handiwork at the next job? Remember Ms. Lauria. Thank you. In their blood and from the gutter "Sam's Creation" .44

Here are some names to help you along. Forward them to the inspector for use by N.C.I.C: "The Duke of Death" "The Wicked King Wicker" "The Twenty Two Disciples of Hell" "John 'Wheaties'- Rapist and Suffocator of Young Girls"

PS: J.B. Please inform all the detectives working on the slaying to remain.
P.S: J.B., please inform all the detectives working the case that I wish them the best of luck. "Keep 'em digging, drive on, think positive, get off your butts, knock on coffins, etc."

Upon my capture I promise to buy all the guys working on the case a new pair of shoes if I can get up the money.

Paranoia:
1. Suspicion of others that is not based on fact.
2. A psychosis characterized by a system of delusions with often include the belief of persecution or grandeur without hallucinations.
3. A mental disorder, or an element of several other mental illnesses,
characterized by suspicion, delusions of persecution and jealousy.

Reading a revisionary article about Talking Heads in my new favourite magazine[1] last night, I was struck by this paraphrase of Charles Manson by David Byrne: 'Paranoia is the highest state of awareness'.


Having dipped amateurishly into and out of paranoia to a lesser or greater extent for some years(haven't we all?) this little bite of Manson's psyche is, to me at least, either a great discomforting truth, or total bullshit.

Here's the original from a Rolling Stone interview of 1970 (by which time Manson was already hanging out with bubba at the US government's expense - in the chookie):

Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? Watching, tuned in, completely aware.
Christ on the cross, the coyote in the desert -- it’s the same thing, man.
The coyote is beautiful. He moves through the desert delicately, aware of everything, looking around. He hears every sound, smells every smell, sees everything that moves.
He’s in a state of total paranoia, and total paranoia is total awareness.

Now, through the rest of the interview it becomes quite clear that he (Manson) is, in fact, crazy. And not just the kind of crazy that could get one aquitted of murder (in his case it didn't), but real-deal, bona-fide kerrrrrrazzy.

Here's some more from the same interview:

Yeah, well, paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just a form of love.
Paranoia is the other side of love. Once you give in to paranoia, it ceases to exist.
That's why I say, submission is a gift, just give in to it, don't resist.
It's like saying, "Tie me on the cross!" Here, want me to hold the nail?
Everything is beautiful if you want to experience it totally.

...

I can get along with girls, they give up easier. I can make love to them. Man has this ego thing. I can't make love to that. Girls break down easier. When
you get beyond the ego thing, all you're left with is you; you make love with yourself.
With a girl, you can make love with her until she's exhausted.
You can make love with her until she gives up her mind, then you can make love with love.

Yup - loopy.

But is what he says about paranoia (about it being the highest state of awareness) from the same fruitbowl?
And not just whether it is the highest state, but also, and here I'm making a leap for which I hope Manson doesn't come and haunt me, a desired state of heightened awareness.

Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? Watching, tuned in, completely aware.
[...] He moves through the desert delicately, aware of everything, looking around. He hears every sound, smells every smell, sees everything that moves.

I've never cut up my sofa cushions or smashed every lightbulb in my house in an attempt to find the little microphones that I'm damn fucking sure the cops have planted, but I have been in that state where your eyes zip about incessently and you're constantly fingering a blunt, heavy object.
And from these experiences I can clearly say that it certainly is a very heightened state - everything is sharp and edged and cuttingly clear.
It's a state in which every tinkling dink or tiny rustle has encoded within it a clutch of hints and warnings about the world and what it's trying to do to you.
And in that sense I suppose I do agree with Manson.

But where the whole thing falls apart (why he's kerrrrrrazzy and I'm not) is in his own words: 'He moves through the desert delicately'.

There's nothing delicate about paranoia, nothing balanced or open.
It's all about keeping precise tabs on the outside world: what is it's state (the world) and what is my state? And what does the world's state mean for my state?

Paranoia doesn't involve taking in anything from your surroundings - it's about manning the gate and keeping the catapults primed.

The coyote doesn't keep catapults primed - it is why the catapults are there in the first place.
This beautiful state that Manson describes is exactly what paranoia tries to deflect.

[1] The Word - mainly for the free CD

The above is one of my favourite T-shirt slogans.

Phobialist.com lists a junk-load of phobias - all of which are apparently real.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to include what I believe must be a common phobia: Fear of the sounds that other people make in public toilets.
How about Splashypublophobia?

Here's a selection of what they do list:

Ablutophobia- Fear of washing or bathing:
Elderly Lady: 'Roooverrr!'
Rover:        'Woof! Aaaaarggghh!'

Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions:
Guy One:      'So whaddaya think?'
Guy Two:      'Aaaarggghhh!'

Apeirophobia- Fear of infinity:
Guy:          'One div zero, hmmmm... ... Aaarghhh!'

Anablephobia- Fear of looking up:
Guy:          'Oooh a bird! Aaarghhh!'

Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
Guy:          'Mmmm... sandwiches. Aaaarrrrgh!'

Barophobia- Fear of gravity:
Guy waking up:   'Yawwwn, num, num... Aaarggghhh!'

Bromidrosiphobia or Bromidrophobia- Fear of body smells:
Guy waking up:   'Yawwwn, num, num... Aaarggghhh!'

Chorophobia- Fear of dancing:
Guy visiting Octoberfest:   'Aaaarrghhh!'

Eleutherophobia- Fear of freedom:
Tourguide at Octoberfest:   'Ok, just do whatever you want'
Guy:                        'Aaarrgghhh!'

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
Guy:                  'What the fuck is Hippopotomonstr.... Aaaarghhh!!!'

Ideophobia- Fear of ideas:
Guy with lightbulb:   'World peace IS possible! Aaaarghh!'

Ithyphallophobia- Fear of seeing, thinking about or having an erect penis:
Guy:                  'Alright! MTV Spring Break - yeah!  Aaaaarghhh!'

Nosophobia or Nosemaphobia- Fear of becoming ill:
Guy:                  'AAatch-aarrrgh!'

Numerophobia- Fear of numbers:
Elevator:             'Ding!'
Guy:                  'Aaaaargghh!!'

Siderophobia- Fear of stars:
Guy:                  'Oooh a shooting - Aaargh!, Aaarghh! again!' (see Anablephobia)

Sophophobia- Fear of learning:
Guy addressing psychologist:   'You mean to say that I'm afraid of... Aaaarghh!'

I'm generally uncomfortable with the ad campaigns that vorsprung-type companies deploy from time to time - the type where they showcase the revolutionary

work of an artist or architect (including a suitably thoughful voice-over by said artist/architect) and then add their little badge onto it at the end.
What it's saying is: 'Here's this fantastic person and his/her visionary work. Oh, and we're also as cool as they are.' plhhhhh!

A new campaign by BMW is a perfect example of this. It features dutch artist Theo Jansen and his mind-blowing kinetic sculptures. Anita and I were literally gasping the first time we saw them move - these are some of the most beautiful things I've seen in years.

So, yuck to BMW for glueing themselves remora-like to the artist, but kudo's to BMW for supporting him and letting us see his work.


On to his Strandbeest kinetic sculptures.

From his site (grammar and all :)

Theo Jansen, artist, studied science at the University of Delft Holland. The first seven years being a artist he just made paintings. Then he starts a project with a big flying saucer, which could really fly. It flew over the town of Delft in 1980 and brought the people in the street and the police in commotion. Since about ten years he is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic matierial of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventualy he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.

The video clips are a recommended download as it's really only when they are in motion that they make sense.
Animaris Geneticus Ondula (2.5 MB)
Animaris Currens Ventosa walking (654 KB)
Animaris Currens Ventosa waving (1.9 MB)

His beasts are made from PVC piping used to construct a skeleton and a forest of twitching legs (mergers of crab and centipede) that are powered by rotors or reptilian wings on their backs.
The wind power is transferred in the most amazing way to these hordes of legs and, yes, they walk.
And they don't shuffle along; they zoom - a human has to trot to keep up with them.
The effect is mezmerizing.


The engineering of these sculpture is just as fascinating; combining the simplicity of leverage with the elegance of one of the sweetest things in all of com-sci: genetic algorithms.


It is a great comfort to me to know that are artists and engineers and architects and computer geeks out there building wild things like this.
While the are at it (and each of us does the same in small ways) there's no reason to fear the banality of malls and American Idol.

I don't really keep up with ca$h money games on the internet (i.e. games where the player wins small amounts of cash, paid for by advertisers). But (via digg) - here's Moola.

What makes this model interesting is that players don't win by beating the system; they win by playing other players.

In a nutshell:
- You start out by watching an ad and answering a question about it.
- This gets you $0.01
- You then play a simple game against another player, staking your $0.01.
- The winner of this game takes the $0.01 from the loser thereby doubling their balance to $0.02
- The winner can then choose to play another game for $0.01 or move up to level 2 and play against another player who is willing to stake their $0.02.
And so, before you know it, you have a money tree that will on level 30 pay out in excess of $10million.


So here's what makes it interesting:
The system is funded by advertisers who pay Moola for each ad watched. Moola pass on $0.01 of this to the person who watched the add. Once this is done the game is set in motion and the player can keep on playing (without costing Moola or the advertiser any more money) as long as they are willing to keep on risking their winnings against another player.

Therefore the dilemma that the player faces is how much to risk on a game. Playing a $0.01 game means that you're probably playing against a weak player and losing that $0.01 won't hurt. But it's not going to get you any closer to that cigarette boat in the Caribbean.

The real money is in being willing to risk, say, $10000 to play against another $10000 player.

There's an elegance to this model that is similar in spirit to a serious poker game[1].
But because the jackpot only comes up when one player is willing to bet his $5million in one game and finds another player with the same ca$h willing to do the same thing the stakes are arguably much higher than in just about any poker game.

So, will I play? Nope.
In order to make a dent in this thing you'd have to be willing to burn many hours to get to the higher levels and the risk increases linearly with each level.

On Moola bulletin boards there are numerous threads where people discuss (at length) whether cashing out at $11 is a good strategy or whether it is better to hang in till $18.

Also, since you can only bet as much as another player is willing to risk getting above, say, level 20 could involve hanging out with some real sharks.

And the first bots are guaranteed to be playing already.

[1] I was amazed to see, when I first watched a really high stakes poker game, how often players fold. It is unlikely that, from a table of 10 players, you'll have more than two or three players willing to stake any money on a hand.

Ok, here we go, it's high-minded blab time[5].

The core principle of anarquismo sin adjetivos is that all forms of anarchism (Social Revolutionary to Anarcho Capitalism to Primitivism) are welcome and that spending energy on arguing amongst the different streams is wasteful. After all, the end goal is always freedom.

Apart from this concept, which I support, my interest is individualist evolutionary which is
an approach that is:
a) not radical - there's no talk of bombing government buildings
b) not communal - fuck collective ownership
c) not anti-capitalist

What it is, is seriously opposed to coercion[1] and seriously in favour of individual contracts (social or otherwise).

That said, I do try to take in as much as possible of many of the other forms, but there are some which I simply cannot take seriously; for example, primitivism.

The founding idea of primitivism is that modern society is deeply and fundamentally screwed up - to the extent where there is no way of correcting[2] it.
The only practical solution (proposed) is to abandon modern society and return to a primitive (hunter-gatherer) existence.
This is sometimes referred to as 'going feral'.
This involves renouncing all things modern including phones (easy) and dentistry (fuck) and moving back to the wild.

There are a couple of groups/communes that are actually doing this. They are selling all their possessions[3] and moving out into wild reserves where they proceed to build housing from bark and animal hides that they tan themselves.

Here's one: they seem to go by two names, Rewild and Wild Roots.
Perhaps they are two groups who've merged[4].


Here's the deal:

Wildroots is a 30-acre radical homestead adjacent to the Pisgah NF in Madison County, Western NC. (about 45 minutes from Asheville). Our focus is on experiential learning and living, while practicing, developing and sharing skills for rewilding and reconnection. Check out our website for our calendar of upcoming events, and to subscribe to our mailing list. Visitors are welcomed, and we're always looking for new folks to join us.

Ok, first let's start with some mockery:

• Can anyone take a person seriously who describes themselves as feral with pride?

• And how about people who sign their letters as

        Much Love,
       Sky and Griffin

• These groups also seem to face some conflicting urges. They want to get their message out and therefore have websites, but websites are a modernity and therefore fundamentally evil. The end result is that their sites tend to say things like:

[You'll] be unable to contact us through email or voicemail. It ties us to town & tends to become distracting & somewhat irritating after awhile. Any
correspondence will have to be done via our PO box:
Sky & Griffin
PO Box 108
Eagle, AK 99738

• They are pacifists who wouldn't dream of killing any living thing, but whoop with joy at donated hides or found roadkill.
  

As hunting season begins, we start contacting taxidermists and butchers for hides, and already we've received 50 fresh deer hides from a local butcher, many
of which we freeze at our neighbor's house for later use. We have fleshed many hides in great efforts that sometimes last into the night, a group of a few of us compiling buckets of fat and scrapings, happy in contradiction as a car blasts light and music onto our efforts. We have also managed to scrape and tan
some hides while dealing with the general inundation.

• Lastly, do they take along scissors? It could get mighty hairy out there after a few months.

But really here's why I can't take them seriously:
Primitivists stand fast in their belief that society (again with the save-the-world nonsense) can't be corrected and so they withdraw from it.
But they insist on making a point of, by their hairy example, wanting to pull the rest of society along with them.

'Come, we must all go back to the wild'.
Fuck you! Stop prescribing a cure for me.

If primitivists were pure in their intentions they would leave behind their artifacts (web sites, flyers, books, tie-dye banners) for others who are interested in primitivism to learn from, but would not insist on the breadcrumbs and healing vibe.

And people like this do exist: they're called ascetic hermits. And that is a lifestyle for which I do have an enormous amount of respect (though it is not the lifestyle that I choose for myself).

[1] From Practical Details by Josiah Warren

Society must be so converted as to preserve the sovereignty of every individual inviolate. That it must avoid all combinations and connections of persons and interests, and all other arrangements which will not leave every individual at all times at liberty to dispose of his or her person, and time, and property in any manner in which his or her feelings or judgment may dictate, without involving the persons or interests of others.

[2] One thing I thoghroughly dislike about anarchists is the notion of correcting/fixing society. Society isn't asking to be fixed. Wanting to heal the world and bring about a utopian society is paternalistic crap. All that is important is that each person should be allowed to think for themselves, make their own decisions and act freely.

[3] What do they do with the money made from the sale, do they burn it? And do they sell their possessions at a profit?

[4] Do they wear Survivor-style buffs and rename their tribe when they merge?

[5] As always I have to qualify this blab by saying that I, living in the glass house that I do, should not be throwing stones. In the put-up-or-shut-up stakes I'm the last person to be making a noise. But, here goes anyway...

I wonder if a term exists for getting all of your news of a particular type, in my case South African news, from headlines exclusively.
If you can't tell me what's happening in five words or less then don't bother.

Here's what I've learnt today.

Here's a great take on the importance of hacking in a free society.
It's from an interview (via this story) with one of the creators of Psiphon - Nart Villeneuve.

Hacking is an important philosophy we need to recover in our society, because so many systems of control are embedded in technology, most of which we're unaware of.
The more we take the screws off and understand how things work, the more we'll have citizens in control of their lives and the technological society they live in.

yeah!

Music: Matisyahu[1] the kick-ass Hasidic Jewish Reggae singer with the video for King Without a Crown

[1] Poser or not? I'm leaning to the 'not' side.

Henry (our neighbour) has, thankfully, gotten in some kids to redo the grafitti mural against his garage wall.
The previous one was a bit blah presenting a complex narrative commenting on contemporary social issues of teenage displacement zzz....
The new one is just a bunch of colourful scrawls - much better.

On sunday we drove out to Franschoek for the autumn vineyards - fantastic.
In an attempt to walk off a boozy lunch we strolled through the old graveyard. Life in the 19th century might have been simpler but it was a tough time to be an infant.
One family buried 4 children in one grave.
The eldest 4 years, the youngest about 2 days.

I'm really starting to get into the second season of Lost(sad, I know).
Things are now becoming reely strange with the discovery of the first bunker (Station 3 - The Swan) of the Dharma Initiative.

I like the way that the writers chose to adopt elements of chinese mythology into the whole thing (though the name, DHARMA, is a bit obvious [1]).

The station logo (The Swan)


is a very clever take on the i Ching Bagua



The other stations have similar reworkings of the same logo[2].

The downside is that all this mysterio/loco writing is fertile ground for the over-active imaginings of schizo types as evidenced at the Lost Forum.

[1] Egyptian hieroglyphs also feature which gives the whole thing a bit of a mystic shopping-basket feel :-[2] I can only find mention of 6 stations on the internext , though I suspect that there are 8 since this is an auspicious number in the i Ching and I doubt whether the writers would have been able to resist such juicy symmetry.

The Revolution will not be televised. it is happening live on the internet as we(uhm, I) speak (uhm, type).

Its bringer is DJ Danger Mouse and he makes The Neptunes look like Britney Spears.


In the last we years he has been responsible for three of the most influential musical productions around:

• In 2004 he produced the biggest bootleg ever - The Grey Album and became the first person to be nominated for a Grammy for an illegal recording.
• This he followed up by producing the Gorillaz' multi-platinum, multi-award winning Demon Days.
• And now he's one half of Gnarles Barkley - a virtual soul singer whose first single (the mindblowing Crazy) is the first song to top the British charts based solely on internet downloads.

Record companies all over the world are shitting their pants.

---

Update: I forgot to add another genius Danger Mouse collaboration: Dangerdoom with MF Doom. yowza!