==pla|\|ing lakes==

Saturday, April 23, 2005

R.I.P. John Mills

Premiered in Hamlet in 1929! I was just watching Tunes of Glory & Bright Young Things a few weeks ago.

Selected filmography.

He was Hayley Mills' dad.

8:58 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, April 22, 2005

An inquiry into the Gnostic view of the Archons

The element of fear figures largely in the behavior of the Archons and their effect on humanity. In the Old Testament, fear of God is held to be one of the primary marks of religious experience. The possibility that human fear is a kind of nutriment for certain invasive extraterrestrials has been widely argued in the ET/UFO debate. The Second Treatise of the Great Seth says that the agenda of the Archons is "fear and slavery." The Archons wish to keep humankind under "the contraint of fear and worry." (NHLE 1990, p. 367) Other passages also warn against the Archons' use of fear as a psychological weapon.

In another striking detail, the reptilian type seems to be holding a sphere in its jaws, recalling the mythical image of a serpent who offers forbidden fruit: for instance, the Serpent in the Garden of Hyperborea with the golden apple in its mouth. Is the neonate eating from this rounded fruit? Gnostics had their own version of what transpired in the Garden of Eden, events in which the Archons were deeply involved, and so it is perhaps not surprizing to see hints of the Paradise scenario at this primal stage of cosmic activity.

All this activity in the fractal generation of the Archons is imaginal, but it is not imaginary, i.e., not purely made up in our minds. Recreating what Gnostic seers observed is a sober use of imagination, not a flight into make-believe. It takes non-ordinary reason to describe what is happening here, but the scenario so developed is entirely reasonable and coherent on its own terms.

9:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Perhaps this is why the whole idea of organ transplants doesn't work for me -- I just wouldn't be myself if I got one...or someone else would be me

"According to this study of patients who have received transplanted organs, particularly hearts, it is not uncommon for memories, behaviours, preferences and habits associated with the donor to be transferred to the recipient" [The Anomalist]

In 1997, a book titled A Change of Heart was published that described the apparent personality changes experienced by Claire Sylvia. Sylvia received a heart and lung transplant at Yale–New Haven Hospital in 1988. She reported noticing that various attitudes, habits and tastes changed following her surgery. She had inexplicable cravings for foods she had previously disliked. For example, though she was a health-conscious dancer and choreographer, upon leaving the hospital she had an uncontrollable urge to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and order chicken nuggets, a food she never ate. Sylvia found herself drawn toward cool colours and no longer dressed in the bright reds and oranges she used to prefer. She began behaving in an aggressive and impetuous manner that was uncharacteristic of her but turned out to be similar to the personality of her donor. Interestingly, uneaten Kentucky Fried Chicken nuggets were found in the jacket of the young man (her donor) when he was killed.

Opinions about the plausibility of cellular memory were sought by William Novak, the co-author of the book. Pearsall proposed that the immunosuppressant drugs could conceivably lower the threshold for patients to potentially register cellular memories stored in the transplanted organs . Schwartz and Russek proposed that the rejection process might not only reflect the rejection of the material comprising the cells but also the systemic information and energy stored within the cells as well.

9:41 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

A short history of "industrial" pioneers Throbbing Gristle

9:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sight and Sound gives its blessing to Birth

Glazer's films are full of arrivals and birth canals. There's an undeniably amniotic sequence in Sexy Beast in which Winstone and his gang break into a flooded tunnel. Elsewhere a dead Kingsley threatens to struggle up through the floor of Winstone's swimming pool, a fear realised from his dreams, slouching towards metempsychosis. The motif of different worlds, different rooms, suffuses the film. And look: here's a young boy too, a dark, semi-naked youth who cleans Winstone's pool, a creature of the sun-cracked Spanish soil, almost a sprite. One also remembers the stripped-to-the-waist boy in [the video for Radiohead's] 'Street Spirit' - an uncanny white child who watches chairs fly through the air as Thom Yorke warbles. I'm not surprised when Glazer tells me he's interested in archetypes; he often deals in a cracked version of Jung's Puer Aeternus.

In the opening shot of Birth - conducted by Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown in one of his rare returns to the technique he pioneered - a man dies in a tunnel in New York's Central Park while out jogging in the snow. The man, barely seen, is Anna's first husband Sean. The tunnel seems familiar from other movies, and its location gives a clue to what's to come. Central Park has been a key character in many New York films, often used to suggest escape and transformation: think of Louise Brooks on a day out in Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926), of Cat People (1943) or of Jack Nicholson turning into a wolf in Wolf (1994). This is the world of fairytale - an important word in my conversation with Glazer.

9:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Business Week on why you desperately need to pay attention to blogs now or lose everything! [lazy geek]

8:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Just watched Birth which I thought was surprisingly good, even though I liked director Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast -- actually that was mainly for Kingley's performance -- this is a big leap forward

I vaguely remember the brouhaha about Nicole Kidman kissing the boy, but the film's existence slipped my attention.

When I saw that Jean-Claude Carrière co-wrote the screenplay -- well, no wonder.

Lovely photography, and evocation of the upper class in Manhattan, along with the original and psychologically mature take on reincarnation and how it might affect people faced with proof.

Not too sure about the title though...

10:32 PM - [Link] - Comments ()