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"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show."
(Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)

2005, May 12; 22:59 ::: Métal Hurlant

Métal Hurlant Numéro 26 (01/02/1978)
image sourced here.

2005, May 12; 22:25 ::: L'Echo des Savanes

L'Echo des Savanes numéro 84 (01/01/1982)
image sourced here.

2005, May 12; 22:25 ::: AH! NANA

Numéro AH! NANA 8 (01/06/1978)
image sourced here.

2005, May 12; 22:12 ::: Fables (1976) - Alejandro Jodorowsky

"Fables" - Alejandro Jodorowsky
image sourced here.

2005, May 12; 21:57 ::: De vulgari eloquentia (c. 1303-1305) - Dante Alighieri

De vulgari eloquentia is the title of an important essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist in four books, but aborted after the second. It was probably written in the years that preceded Dante's exile, between 1303 and 1305.

The first book deals with the relationship between Latin and vernacular, and the searching of an illustrious vernacular in the Italian area, while the second is an analysis of the structure of the song, a very important and noble literary genre.

Latin essays were very popular in the Middle Ages, but Dante made some innovations in his work: firstly the topic, which is the vernacular, was an uncommon choice at that time. Secondly, the way Dante approached this theme, that is giving to vernacular the same dignity that was only meant for Latin. Finally, Dante wrote this essay in order to analyse the origin and the philosophy of vernacular, because, in his opinion, this language was not something static, but something that evolves and needed an historical contextualisation. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_vulgari_eloquentia [May 2005]

see also: essay

2005, May 12; 21:37 ::: Uncommon Places : The Complete Works (1982) Stephen Shore

Uncommon Places : The Complete Works (1982) Stephen Shore [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

From Publishers Weekly
A teenaged photographic aspirant who hung around at Andy Warhol’s factory in its mid-60s heyday, Shore found success early: his first show at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was held when he was only 23. These 152 full-page, full-color shots comprise his serial project of the 70s, "Uncommon Places," which documented roadside America with a dispassionate, Andy-like emptiness. It’s an aesthetic that has been endlessly co-opted by American filmmakers like Gus Van Sant and Jim Jarmusch, but some of these 12 7/8" × 10 5/16" shots of prairies, parking lots, polyester-clad couples and plastic hotel furnishings manage to seem fresh nonetheless. Shore’s concluding interview with Lynn Tillman makes the Warhol connection explicit, and argues for a kind of meaning-making from the void: "Formalism often sounds like a kind of visual nicety, but if I use it, that’s not how I mean it." Beautiful, lush reproductions with minimal captions allow the photos to speak for themselves.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Originally published by Aperture in 1982 and long unavailable, Stephen Shore's now legendary book Uncommon Places has influenced a generation of photographers. Shore was among the first artists to take color beyond the domain of advertising and fashion photography. Uncommon Places--his visionary series of images of the American vernacular landscape of the seventies and early eighties--stands at the root of what has become a vital photographic tradition over the past three decades.

Uncommon Places: The Complete Works presents an expanded, definitive collection of the early work of this major artist, much of which has never before been published or exhibited. In 1972 Shore set out with a friend for Amarillo, Texas and--like Robert Frank and Walker Evans before him--discovered a hitherto unarticulated vision of America via highway and camera.

Shore approaches his subjects with cool objectivity, the photographs seemingly devoid of drama or commentary. Yet each image has been distilled, retaining precise internal systems of gestures in composition and light through which a parking lot emptied of people, a hotel bedroom, or a building on a side street assumes both an archetypal aura and an ambiguously personal importance. In contrast to Shore's signature landscape images, this new, expanded survey of the original series reveals equally substantial collections of interiors and portraits.

Shore's broad influence can be seen today in the work of countless contemporary photographers--Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Catherine Opie among them. Uncommon Places: The Complete WorksUncommon Places : The Complete Works (2004) Stephen Shore provides an opportunity to reexamine the diverse implications of Shore's groundbreaking project and offers a fundamental primer for the last thirty years of large-format color photography. --via Amazon.com

common - vernacular - places

2005, May 12; 21:07 ::: Ambroise Paré (1510-1590)

Artificial leg by Ambroise Paré (1510-1590)
image sourced here.

Artificial hand by Ambroise Paré (1510-1590)
image sourced here.

Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) was a French surgeon, the official royal surgeon for kings Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III, and a leader in surgical techniques, especially the treatment of wounds. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Pare [May 2005]

see also: surgery

2005, May 12; 20:53 ::: Obedience

Obedience is the willingness to follow the will of others.

Obedience is often associated with social dominance and submission.

Some animals can easily be trained to be obedient by employing operant conditioning that places the human being in the role of a dominant animal. Other animals do not respond well to such training. Obedience schools exist to condition dogs into obeying the orders of human owners.

Human beings have been shown to be surprisingly obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority figures, as demonstrated by the Milgram experiment in the 1960s. Milgram carried out his experiments to discover how the Nazis had managed to get ordinary people to take part in the mass murder of the Holocaust. The result of the experiment showed that compliance to authority was the norm, not the exception. A similar effect was found in the Stanford prison experiment.

Extensive training is given in armies to make soldiers capable of obeying orders in situations where an untrained person would not be willing to follow orders. Soldiers are ordered to do seemingly trivial things like picking the sergeant's hat off the floor, march in just the right position, or align themselves directly, and how demanding the orders are is worked up from there, to the point where when the general tells his soldiers to place themselves into the fray in the midst of gunfire, they will give by this time a knee-jerk obedient response.

Obedience can also include:

  • obedience to laws
  • obedience to God
  • obedience to a dominant
  • obedience to self-imposed constraints, such as a vow of chastity

Formerly obedience was included along with honor and love as part of a conventional bride's wedding oath (but not the bridegroom's). This came under attack with the women's suffrage and feminist movements. Today its inclusion in the wedding vow has fallen out of favor. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obedience [May 2005]

2005, May 12; 20:46 ::: Crowd behaviour

Crowd psychology
Crowd psychology characterises the group dynamics of a large group (or "crowd").

Negatively construed as a "mob", positively seen as the expression of popular democracy, crowds have a reputation for fickle, often irrational and potentially violent behaviour. Skilled organisation and appropriate rituals may artificially promote intense solidarity and enthusiasm.

French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon is responsible for the early work on Crowd behaviour. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_psychology [May 2005]

2005, May 12; 20:39 ::: The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity--but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and PERHAPS--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.

You see he does not believe I am sick! --http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/ylwlp10.txtQ

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was first published in 1892 in The New England Magazine.

The story details in first-person style the descent into madness of a woman suffering from (as her physician husband describes it) a "temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency." In fact this depression is exacerbated by the narrator being confined in an upstairs room (to recuperate) by her well-meaning but dictatorial and oblivious husband. The room is decorated with yellow wallpaper that becomes the focal point of her insanity.

The story has been interpreted by feminist critics as a condemnation of the androcentric hegemony of 19th century medical knowledge. The narrator's suggestions about her recuperation (that she should work instead of rest, that she should engage with society instead of remaining isolated, etc.) are dismissed out of hand using language that stereotypes her as an irrational being and therefore not qualified to offer ideas about her own condition. Gilman indicated that the idea for the story originated in her own experience as a patient.

The Yellow Wallpaper is sometimes referred to as an example of Gothic literature for its treatment of madness and powerlessness. A version of it was performed on the radio program Suspense by Agnes Moorehead.

Reference
Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan. The Madwoman in the Attic (1980). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300025963 --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper [May 2005]

2005, May 12; 20:39 ::: Irrational

Irrationality is talking or acting without regard of rationality. Usually pejorative, the term is used to describe emotion-driven thinking and actions which are, or appear to be, less useful than the rational alternatives. There is a clear tendency to view our own thoughts, words, and actions as rational and to see those who disagree as irrational.

Types of behavior which are often described as irrational include:

  • fads and fashions
  • crowd behavior
  • unrealistic expectations
  • belief in logical fallacies
  • falling victim to confidence tricks
  • belief in the supernatural without evidence
  • stock-market bubbles

Why does irrational behavior occur?

The study of irrational behavior is of interest in fields such as psychology, cognitive science, economics and game theory, as well as of practical interest to the practitioners of advertising and propaganda.

Theories of irrational behavior include:

  • people's actual interests differ from what they believe to be their interests
  • mechanisms that have evolved to give optimal behavior in normal conditions lead to irrational behavior in abnormal conditions
  • people's interests are controlled by emotional mechanisms, and "rationality" as such is a meaningless concept
  • apparently irrational decisions are actually optimal, but made unconsciously on the basis of "hidden" interests that are not known to the conscious mind
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrationality [May 2005]

see also: romantic era - fashion - instinct - human nature

2005, May 12; 20:07 ::: Chet Askins covers


image sourced here.


image sourced here.

2005, May 12; 20:06 ::: Female Trouble expo at the New York Public Library

Cyanotype. Anna Atkins and Anne Dixon.
image sourced here.

Female Trouble
Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era
review by Geeta Dayal

How can one gaze at Harriet Shelley's suicide note, smudged with 200-year-old tears, and not feel a chill? (She drowned herself while pregnant, after which husband Percy eloped with Mary Godwin, who would later publish Frankenstein.)

You can sense the presence of tortured spirits haunting the library throughout this exhibit, which showcases rule-breaking British women of two centuries ago—from poets and novelists to courtesans and cross-dressers—and is empowering and almost impossibly affecting.

There's a tattered 1787 request from Margaret Nicholson, who attacked George III with a dessert knife, beseeching him to release her from a harrowing Bethlen insane asylum. (He never would, and she died there in 1828.)

Equally harrowing is the announcement detailing the hanging of young cook Eliza Fenning for attempted murder. (Her weapon was yeast dumplings laced with arsenic.)

Some of the most spellbinding displays are at the very end, past the Wollstonecrafts and Austens and Radcliffes. Situated near a simplistic arithmetic textbook for women, explaining how to add grocery bills, are works by top female scientists of the time—like astronomer Caroline Herschel and mathematician Ada Byron. But best of all are the cyanotypes by botanist Anna Atkins. Her images, delicate and ghostly, have a strange power to them—much like the women who fill the exhibit's walls. --Geeta Dayal via http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0519,adayal,63847,13.html [May 2005]

see also: women - romantic era

2005, May 12; 19:24 ::: Prude

A beach censor arresting two women in Chicago in 1922 for violating the laws concerning proper beach attire. The image comes from the collection at the University of California at Davis housing materials collected by the late Roland Marchand. The precise date and the original place of publication of the image are not available.
image sourced here.

Prude
One who is excessively concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous. --AHD

WORD HISTORY   Being called a prude is rarely considered a compliment, but if we dig into the history of the word prude, we find that it has a noble past. The change for the worse took place in French. French prude first had a good sense, “wise woman,” but apparently a woman could be too wise or, in the eyes of some, too observant of decorum and propriety. Thus prude took on the sense in French that was brought into English along with the word, first recorded in 1704. The French word prude was a shortened form of prude femme (earlier in Old French prode femme), a word modeled on earlier preudomme, “a man of experience and integrity.” The second part of this word is, of course, homme, “man.” Old French prod, meaning “wise, prudent,” is from Vulgar Latin prodis with the same sense. Prodis in turn comes from Late Latin prode, “advantageous,” derived from the verb prodesse, “to be good.” Despite this history filled with usefulness, profit, wisdom, and integrity, prude has become a term of reproach. --AHD

Puritanism in films from Film As a Subversive Art (1974) - Amos Vogel
Within the last twenty years, international cinema has indecisively, yet irrevocably moved from prohibition to permissiveness as regards nudity, with censors everywhere thrown into disarray by changing mores and unorthodox court rulings. What used to be confined to exploitation and underground films has now entered the mainstream of commercial pro- duction, though full frontal nudity is still rare. Most puritanical are the supposedly revolutionary societies (Russia, China, and their satellites), closely followed by nationalist leftist or totalitarian rightist move- ments, each afraid of the body for its own reasons,while more liberal attitudes prevail in Yugoslavia, England, America, and Scandinavia.

The classic court attitude towards the subject is perhaps best represented by the New York State censorship decision, which instructed its staff as follows: "In the scene, in which the girl is tortured while hanging by her hands, eliminate all views of her with breasts exposed." (Richard S. Randall, Censorship of the Movies, 1970) This "instruction" clearly considers nudity to be more dangerous than violence; or, as Lenny Bruce the great and tragic social satirist observed, Americans cannot stand the sight of naked bodies unless they are mutilated. --Film As a Subversive Art (1974) - Amos Vogel

see also: puritan - Victorian - morals - taboo - virtue - good

2005, May 12; 15:19 ::: Rebel Without a Cause (1944|1955)

James Dean, photocredit unknown

Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 film which tells the story of a rebellious teenager who comes to a new town, meets a girl, defies his parents, and faces the local gang. The title is a reference to psychiatrist Robert Lindner's 1944 book, Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath.

Rebel Without a Cause became a movie which spoke to a generation: the teenagers of the early 1950s. Although James Dean had already become a star with the release of East of Eden earlier in the year, this movie solidified his role as the voice of the generation. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The Griffith Observatory is featured prominently in the film, and is the site of the movie's climactic scene. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Without_a_Cause [Apr 2005]

Rebel Without a Cause: The Story of a Criminal Psychopath (1944) - Robert Mitchell Lindner [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

From Book News, Inc.
First published in 1944, this work contains the full transcriptions of 46 hour-long sessions of hypnoanalysis, in which psychoanalyst Lindner attempted to, and felt he succeeded in, exposing the hidden psychodynamics of "criminal psychopathology," rooted in painful memories from the past that the subject had suppressed. The author argues that hypnoanalysis substantiates and verifies the concepts that psychonalysis used to explain behavior dynamics. --via Amazon.com

Antisocial personality disorder (Redirected from Psychopath)
Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a personality disorder which is often characterised by antisocial and impulsive behaviour. APD is generally (if controversially) considered to be the same as, or similar to, the disorder that was previously known as psychopathic or sociopathic personality disorder. Approximately 3% of men and 1% of women have some form of antisocial personality disorder (source: DSM-IV).

Although criminal activity is not a necessary requirement for the diagnosis, these individuals often encounter legal difficulties due to their disregard for societal standards and the rights of others. Therefore, many of these individuals can be found in prisons. However, it should be noted that criminal activity does not automatically warrant a diagnosis of APD, nor does a diagnosis of APD imply that a person is a criminal. It is hypothesized that many high achievers exhibit APD characteristics.

Research has shown that individuals with APD are indifferent to the possibility of physical pain or many punishments, and show no indications that they experience fear when so threatened; this may explain their apparent disregard for the consequences of their actions, and their lack of empathy when others are suffering.

The recent, controversial science of sociobiology attempts to explain animal and human behavior and social structures, largely in terms of evolutionarily stable strategies. For example, in one well-known 1995 paper by Linda Mealey, chronic antisocial/criminal behavior is explained as a combination of two such strategies.

According to the psychoanalysis of Freud, a sociopath has a strong Id and ego that overpowers the Superego. The theory proposes that internalized morals of our unconscious mind are restricted from surfacing to the ego and consciousness. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath [May 2005]

Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) - Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

What do Humphrey Bogart with a cigarette, Bertholt Brecht, Marlene Dietrich's cheekbones, Billie Holiday, James Dean, Lenny Bruce's irony, Eldridge Cleaver, Chrissie Hinde, heroin and gangsta rap all have in common? They are, for lack of a more precise word, cool. -- Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc, amazon.com

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is a play by Ed Graczyk, and its film version, directed by Robert Altman, and starring Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black, Sudie Bond and Kathy Bates.

It tells the story of a group of women, all members of a James Dean fan club, who meet on the anniversary of his death in the small town in which Giant was filmed. Many critics wrote that the film version did little to expand the story from its stage origins, however the actors were generally praised for the depth of their characterisations.

The movie was an important turning point in fulfilling the movie career aspirations of Cher. After trying for several years to be taken seriously and given an opportunity as an actress, Cher was regarded as something of a Hollywood joke, until she performed in the stage version of this play, along with Black and Dennis. The strong reviews she received for her stage work paved the way for her to be cast in the film version. She was tipped to secure an Academy Award nomination for her role as Sissy, and although this did not happen, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. This success led to her being cast in Silkwood in 1983, for which she received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_to_the_Five_and_Dime,_Jimmy_Dean,_Jimmy_Dean [May 2005]

see also: youth - cool - hip - rebel - psycho

2005, May 11; 22:16 ::: EC Comics and the Comics Code


Tales of Terror: The EC Companion (2002) - Grant Geissman, Fred Von Bernewitz [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

From Booklist
Nearly 50 years after they were crushed by moral guardians outraged by their Grand Guignol excesses, the genre comic books published by EC Comics still enthrall readers who grew up with them and generations of younger fans, too. EC's horror, science fiction, and war comics remain unsurpassed, and the early EC issues of Mad vitally influenced a generation of humorists and cartoonists. EC's output has been the subject of many lavish publications, including slipcased, oversize reprints of the runs of several titles and massive coffee-table tributes, but this book by two longtime fans is something else again. Its heart is a checklist, with detailed writer and artist credits, of every single EC comic book. This core is rounded out with interviews of comics creators, photos, private sketches, and other memorabilia, such as EC publisher William Gaines' testimony before the U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating horror comics. Most of the previous books about EC were designed for a relatively mainstream audience. This one aims at the hardcore fan-addicts--and should hit that target dead center. Gordon Flagg via Amazon.com

Cover of Tales from the Crypt, published during the 1950s

1950
EC Comics launches its "new trend" of horror comics signaling a new era in comics. Titles published are Crypt of Terror (Tales From the Crypt), Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, Crime Suspenstories and Two Fisted Tales. --http://mediastudies.sacredheart.edu/resources/comtime.htm [May 2005]

These short stories inspired the magazines which would carry those names (Crypt of Terror later became Tales from the Crypt), and their sister-title, The Haunt of Fear. Each first appeared in 1950 and became an instant success. --http://www.geocities.com/utherworld/seasons/horrorcomix.html [May 2005]

Crypt of Terror #17 was 1st issue of Crypt Keeper tales, from EC comics.
image sourced here.

After the comic book industry imploded during the 1950s in the wake of the hysteria caused by Dr. Frederick Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent (and, just as important, a shakeup in the distribution companies who sold comic books and pulp magazines in America), most of EC Comics' titles were cancelled. William Gaines attempted to revive a few of the science fiction based EC comics, watering down the story lines and artwork in order to conform to the newly founded Comics Code. However this was unsuccessful, and instead the company shifted its focus to publishing the comedy and satire magazines.

William Gaines waged a number of battles with the Comics Code, in an attempt to keep his magazines free of censorship during the later days of EC. One notable incident involved his threatening the members of the Comics Code board with a lawsuit after being ordered to alter the climactic scene of a science fiction story, so that one of the characters would not be seen sweating. When EC found a large audience of young readers embracing its humor magazine Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD, the company abandoned its other titles and focused exclusively on publishing MAD magazine for the next four decades. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertaining_Comics [Aug 2004]

Dr. Fredric Wertham
Dr. Fredric Wertham (March 20, 1895–November 29, 1981) was a German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of mass media—comic books in particular—on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent (1954), which led to a U.S. Congressional inquiry into the comic book industry and the creation of the Comics Code.

Wertham's writing, in books and magazine articles, turned exclusively to the unwholesome effects of the media, and comic books in particular. He was not alone in these criticisms, but as a respected clinician who had been called to testify in trials and government hearings, he was particularly influential. Seduction of the Innocent (1954), and Wertham's subsequent public testimony about comic books, represented the peak of this influence.

Seduction of the Innocent and Senate hearings
Seduction of the Innocent described overt or covert depictions of violence, sex, drug use, and other adult fare within "crime comics"—a term Wertham used to describe not only the popular gangster/murder-oriented titles of the time, but superhero and horror comics as well—and asserted, largely based on undocumented anecdotes, that reading this material encouraged similar behavior in children.

Comics, especially the crime/horror titles pioneered by EC, were not lacking in gruesome images; Wertham reproduced these extensively, pointing out what he saw as recurring morbid themes such as "injury to the eye". Many of his other conjectures, particularly about hidden sexual themes (e.g. images of female nudity concealed in drawings of muscles and tree bark, or Batman and Robin as homosexual lovers), were met with derision within the comics industry. (Wertham's claim that Wonder Woman had a bondage subtext was somewhat better documented, as her creator William Moulton Marston had admitted as much; however, Wertham also claimed Wonder Woman's strength and independence made her a lesbian.) The splash made by this book, and Wertham's previous credentials as an expert witness, made it inevitable that he would appear before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency led by anti-crime crusader Estes Kefauver. In extensive testimony before the committee, Wertham restated arguments from his book and pointed to comics as a major cause of juvenile crime. The committee's questioning of their next witness, EC publisher William Gaines, focused on violent scenes of the type Wertham had decried. Though the committee's final report did not blame comics for crime, it recommended that the comics industry tone down its content voluntarily; possibly taking this as a veiled threat of potential censorship, publishers developed the Comics Code Authority to censor their own content. The Code not only banned violent images, but entire words and concepts (e.g. "terror" and "zombies"), and dictated that criminals must always be punished—thus destroying most EC-style titles, and leaving a sanitized subset of superhero comics as the chief remaining genre. Wertham described the Comics Code as inadequate. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Wertham [May 2005]

Horror and terror
William Gaines, head of EC Comics among whose best selling titles were Crime Suspenstories, The Vault of Horror and The Crypt of Terror, complained that clauses prohibiting titles with the words "Terror", "Horror", or "Crime", as well as the clause banning vampires, werewolves and zombies, all seemed targeted to put EC out of business. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority [Apr 2005]

see also: American comics - censorship - comics - Comics Code - crime - EC Comics - 1950s - horror - youth

2005, May 11; 20:38 ::: Some opposites

mainstream - undergound

good - bad

hero - villain

boredom - ecstasy

soft - hard

black - white

left - right

comedy - tragedy

day - night

low - high

men - women

see also: oppostion - theme

2005, May 11; 18:43 ::: ALLDISCO parties, NYC, USA

"(ALLDISCO) residents...capture the quintessence of Larry Levan's Paradise Garage and Frankie Knuckles' Warehouse parties with fists pumping... the air to the chic sounds of Prelude, Salsoul, marauding Giorgio and the Italian Disco beauties." --I-D Magazine

Alldisco.net: October 2nd, 2004
by ROB UPTIGHT

Edwin Birdsong - Rapper Dapper Snapper
Cloud One - Patty Duke
Whatnauts - Help Is on the Way
Kid Creole - I'm a Wonderful Thing
You Are the One break
William DeVaughan - Be Thankful for What You Got
Central Line - Walking Into Sunshine
Johnson Product - Johnson Jumpin'

--via http://www.alldisco.net/playlistsaudio100204.shtml [May 2005]

apparently involved in alldisco are Jeremy Campbell (designer of the excellently styled website), Rob Uptight, Daniel Selzer, PappaWheelie, author of this Miami bass article, Patrick Billard, Mike Simonetti, Chuddy, Neurotic Drum Band, Colbourne, Steve ShakeWell, James Duncan, Morgan Geist, Tim Sweeney, Roctakon, Benguin, Chupacabras and Jonny Sender

Jeremy by email:

The residents are: Jeremy Campbell, Dan Selzer, Rob Uptight, PappaWheelie.

This is how it started:

I was one of the residents at Average Saturdays at Subtonic (http://www.tonicnyc.com) and invited Dan to join me for a monthly there. We did it for a few months with no real name or specific musical direction - though disco was a big part of what we played. The idea of doing a "theme night" had always appealed to me and, one week, I just decided to call it that, figuring, if it worked out, we'd keep doing it. Unfortunately, that night there were some plumbing problems (one of the reasons we ended up moving the party to Capone's in Williamsburg) the bar flooded and we had to cancel at the last minute and call everyone to tell them not to come. Bummer.

The next month went smoothly and we continued at Subtonic and Rob joined us. Towards the end of our time at Subtonic, we decided to do it twice a month and also start another party (The Beat Club - which would feature drum machine music from the 80's - electro, freestyle, miami bass, classic house, etc.). Joe (PappaWheelie) then joined us.

In the beginning of February plumbing problems struck again, but this time (with the help of our friend Chupacabras) we managed to find a place to move it at the last minute - Capone's in Williamsburg. Subtonic shut down for a while to work out the plumbing (and some financial) issues, so, since things were going well, we kept doing it at Capone's - alternating Saturdays with The Beat Club.

Dan and I have collaborated on the design for the website, flyers, etc. (I'm a web developer and he does print production and design). The font came from a book I found at a stoop sale on an art museum in Caracas. I do web stuff for a living. I wanted to offer a lot of unique content, so I decided to record all our sets and post mp3s and to try to get playlists up for each night that are as complete as possible.

We often have guest DJs. There's a pretty complete list (with some bios) up at http://alldisco.net/djs.shtml.

Jeremy, [May 11,2005]

2005, May 11; 17:16 ::: History of the concept global brain

History of the concept global brain
As the variety of names indicates, many people have independently developed the idea of society as an organism with its own nervous system, each adding their own insights to our understanding of the global brain. Simplistic analogies between a social system and the body, such as "the king is the head", "the farmers are the feet", date back at least to the Ancient Greeks and the Middle Ages. This analogy provided inspiration to the 19th century founders of sociology, being developed perhaps most extensively by Herbert Spencer. The evolutionary theologist Teilhard de Chardin was probably the first to focus on the mental organization of this social organism, which he called the noosphere. Around the same time, the science fiction writer H. G. Wells proposed the concept of a "World Brain" as a unified system of knowledge, accessible to all, very similar to the one proposed a few years earlier by the information scientist Paul Otlet. The term "global brain" seems to have been first used in 1983 by Peter Russell. The first people to have made the connection between this concept and the emerging Internet may well be G. Mayer-Kress and Joël de Rosnay. Francis Heylighen, Johan Bollen and Ben Goertzel appear to be the first researchers to have proposed concrete methods that might turn the Internet into an intelligent, brain-like network. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_brain [May 2005]

see also: global - brain

2005, May 11; 17:16 ::: Paul Otlet (1868 - 1944)

The Belgian Paul Otlet (1868–1944) can be seen as the founding father of bibliography, or what is now called information science. His major achievements include the Universal Decimal Classification, and a series of influential writings including the Traite de documentation (1934) and Monde: Essai d'universalisme (1935) on how to collect and organize the world’s knowledge. He founded the Institut de Documentation, the Mundaneum, and the still active Union_of_International_Associations to help collect this information.

Paul Otlet devoted his professional life to the problem of making recorded knowledge available to the widest number of people. Although he worked in an age before computer networks, he anticipated and may have indirectly influenced the development of the World Wide Web. His vision of a great "réseau" — Web — of knowledge included notions like hyperlinks, social networks, and the possibility of distributed classification.

Otlet's reputation plunged to obscurity in the wake of World War II (after the Nazis literally destroyed his most ambitious project, the Mundaneum); and his contributions to the field of information science have been overshadowed by an Anglo-centric focus on post-World War II information scientists like Vannevar Bush and Douglas Engelbart.

However, recent years have seen a renewed interest in Otlet's work. The Traité returned to print in 1989. In 1990, Professor W. Boyd Rayward published an English translation of some of Otlet's best writings.

The Mundaneum in Mons (Belgium) now houses Otlet's archives and museum. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Otlet [May 2005]

see also: Anglo-centric - bibliography - hypertext - information - knowledge - recording

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