The Propaganda Cafe

egon schiele four trees

2010-10-21T00:09:00.000-04:00

schiele's painting four trees draws the eye from the four trees to the sky. Schiele could have easily called this work four skys. his use of the rolling hills caresses the viewer into the third tree from the lest and immediately thereafter into the orange of the sky. the fourth tree from the left as been unduly harmed by a stroke of transparency that casts the tree to the side even though it may be the largest and most bountiful. The gradualness of the sky encourages the viewer to take part in each layer, it instructs us at the same time as it encourages us not too look back at the ground or the trees. The moderate use of oranges in the lower sky is not abnormal and can be seen routinely in other artists work during this time period and to this day. what remains a mystery is schiele's use of transparency as noted above.

of future and men

2010-10-17T23:43:00.000-04:00

i feel it necessary to defend my self. over the course of a dinner last night i rambled on about how the world was changing and what changes were on the horizon. perhaps i bored the hell out of my dinner companions. when i jump into these rabbit holes, i know not whether it was the blue or the red pill but i do know i am onto something. increasingly i see the literary world most at risk. i see newspapers and books fading off - being replaced by electronic denizen tabloids, blogs that run journalistic desks, discrete punch holes in the firewalls of pakistan, china, iran, iraq and afghanistan that pour raw data onto unknowing masses. these changes will forever punish the literary world for not reading the tea leaves earlier.

old newspaper ideologies will drive profit and sustainability into early graves. journalists who can take advantage of the new media flows that circle the globe constantly will become the new media players of our time. what i have seen over my career in information is that most information is freely available and that it is in the interpretation that we often fail.

newspapers and magazines that copy their style and thinking in the electronic medium are doomed to fail. Research, source, write, release will be replaced by write, release, modify and modularize. by modularize i mean that your thoughts whence written will be changed into something different perhaps unlike your original intent. you will then need to capture what your ideas has become and make it your own and hopefully profit from it in the future. profit is not money profit is acumen and reverence.

i believe all media is at risk and i believe the way we receive information will undergo such a significant revolution that we will look back at information overload as merely a synapse misfiring. we are at the moment in our lives where we can not handle the entirety of the data that is available to us. however through advances in bio - computing and nanotechnology a new information frontier is near. these are not just disciplines that are only academic, companies have been formed and continue to be formed that will exploit bio computing and nanotechnology for good and for profit(note the difference)

do you have any thoughts germany

again on Egon Schiele

2010-10-16T00:43:00.000-04:00

Every since I visited the Leopold Museum i have been fascinated with the work of Schiele. I bought a few books that described his life and inspirations, they also detailed his ailments. It would appear that all great painters and artists are afflicted with something that cuts their life short or makes it unbearable> I would like to think that most often it is because of the ailment that there are able to be so creative. What interests me most about Schiele is his depiction of death. be it trees or people he has an ability with death. Schiele details death as one witnesses the theater - a spectators. he does not allow us access only a glimpse. He is a master at detailing the obvious trust the subject has in death or the process of dying where many other contemporary painters expose death as merely a spectacle and one that should not be observed.

still searching

2010-10-16T00:23:00.000-04:00

I am scouring the net looking for idealistic ways to embed videos on websites and allow people to post their own videos quickly to a site. It is the genesis for a business idea that I am working on. The most common method that i have been using is simply posting youtube videos, but i am addicted to how vimeo (http://vimeo.com) looks on a website. I discovered vimeo through the work of vincent moon a videographer. you need to see his stuff http://www.vincentmoon.com/

where are we going

2009-11-24T09:44:00.002-05:00

I fell into the trap the other day and read 'the shack'. I read the 'davinci code' for the same reasons. it was popular and i just had to know what was going on- what was making people talk so much, what was driving them back to reading and away from television screens. I read the 'code' in a couple of days and read 'the shack' in a night. the only similarity between the two books was the ravenous appetite that was built up for the two books. the differences are a mile long, especially when you take into account the marketing machine behind teh two. one had a major motion picture studio, celebrity author, celebrity actor(is there another kind), money, money,money. The other published the book out of their garage and marketed the book through word of mouth. This is not twitter and facebook word of mouth either although that did pick up and yes Oprah picked it up to. I have to admit that there has only been two books promoted by Oprah that have crossed my desk. I was tricked into reading the Lovely Bones and then of course - the shack.

i am for obvious reasosn skirting over the religious questions that are posed and semi posed in the books. it strikes me that we in north america are in the midst of religious crises. North of the US border churches are for sale and south of the border it appears politics is in political crises . I do not know enough about the situation in the US but certainly up here every 5th church is for sale, attendence is down and money is very short. I wonder how much of an appetite we have for more religious paraphenilia writing.

just in time for fall

2009-09-02T12:21:00.001-04:00

a landscape

2009-09-02T12:19:00.002-04:00

another vase with flowers

2009-09-02T12:17:00.003-04:00

the transformaiton of a painting

2009-09-02T12:05:00.005-04:00

thought i would talk a little about the transformation of a painting, its evolution. I often start a painting in my mind many weeks before i put paint to canvas. Some people have a methodical almost ritualistic process they follow when painting. I would say that there are a few procedures that I follow with respect to the formation of the idea. Once i have an idea I visualize it with different colors and background and different depths.

seasons

2009-08-30T21:58:00.002-04:00

as the temperature tonight drops below 10 degrees we are faced with prospect of autumn approaching. For many it is difficult time as old man winter is just around the corner. for me it is my favorite season with all the abundant colors on display. the air is much fresher, nit just from a temperate perspective, but from how it enters the body and feeds us. today as i drove around the country side i could smell wood burning and i was immediately transported back to my fathers garage where he burned wood while he worked on his antique cars. Smell being the major sense for memory recall, the image was so vivid that i might well have started to talk to my father if i had not jolted awake by a sudden closure in the road.

This idea of memory and smell being so directly associated had me pondering if there was a causal relationship between other mental functions or situations such as deja vu or memory loss.

if we could all paint

2009-08-27T01:28:00.001-04:00

i am always on the look out for painters that can capture what i like to think of as the seance between landscape and impressionism. there is a balance of both i find in Peter Campbell's work. He deftly touches the trees with green and yellow only to draw more if it out with ochers. I like the balance that he displays in the demarcation of the fields. We at once believe we are close to the painting only to realize that the fields extend well beyond our touch. His play with the sky renders the painting all the more unattainable, for if it was blue we could all imagine it and forget analysing the painting. But his use of browns draws us in further, tempting us.

in between

2009-08-27T00:53:00.003-04:00

i think i died a little bit more tonight. sometimes the silence in between words can take away your soul and everything you believe in....which is worse? If all that we believe to be true comes crashing down around us where are we supposed to turn. If we have faith in colors and sounds what are we left with when they turn out to be a mirage.

how do you pick up life when you have stopped living it, when you have been caught in the rapture, the belief that there is something special where do you turn, should you have turned earlier in life. the choices we make all end up costing us something. It is just that we are unaware what that cost is and most often we are oblivious to it for some time. think of the people that you have hurt and where they are now, would you change anything in your life, would you turn the other cheek.

I am not one for leaving questions unanswered on the table so i say; i would never lose faith in colors i would always look to the sky, sounds are the most important measure we have. the coo of a baby, the moan of a lover; i do not believe in mirages i trust what i see; i do not stop living, i live each day as it is my last; this rapture is just, just something inexplicable; there are no regrets only memories; yes our choices cost us something; i would not have missed this, i am glad i am living this out; there is only one way to face things and that is head on.

i am sorry for having written this

the artist and the prism

2009-08-15T14:35:00.002-04:00

should all artistic endeavors start with inspiration or can it be subconscious drive. the premise behind the artist and the prism is that we are receptors and communicators but that we need a prism around us to disassemble the signals and stimuli that we receive. this prism, like a regular prism, takes a feed on one end and utilizes it to construct several variations that transport themselves across, through and out the other side of the prism. the artist receives these variations and within himself constructs an artifact. at times the artist may only be able to channel one of the variations and the resultant artifact is a minimalistic representation. others can carry many variations and channel them through to a complex piece.

if we were to remove the prism we, communicators and receptors, would be unable to interpret and synthesize the signals and we would merely reproduce what we hear, see, and smell. what i see around me is an abundance of reproduction. our society is built on reproduction and the purchase and repurchase by the citizenry of these reproductions. often as we reproduce these items(much different from artifacts) we lessen the original idea and create a less expensive reproduction that will reach even more consumers.

with so much stimuli for art; war, poverty, contra-wealth, propaganda, music - it seems society is at a juncture where it must step back from the stimuli and prism out some of the channels so that it can be accurately consumed and then recreated in art, what ever form it is.

through time the prism has been constructed through various chemicals and natural (indigenous) plant. it can not be claimed that the popularity of this construction has diminished but it has been removed from the foreground, relegated to the darker areas of the periphery. we need to establish a new construction method for the prism, a foundational base that allows children, adolescents through to middle age and seniors the opportunity to experience art. by touching all bases of the society we can produce a consciousness about our lives that can outlive taste and preference. i see children painting along side senior citizens in the city parks - painting supplies provided free of charge in an effort to recollect our consciousness and provide a venue for all of us to regain that amazing human ability to feel art.

In Between

2009-06-16T23:27:00.002-04:00

I searched in vain again tonight, through all my yellow pieces of paper, for an idea that has been with me for some time. I have written about it a few times and even tried elaborating on it. It is the idea that all meaning is found in between words and between meanings. Extrapolating on the first aspect of this we know that as people speak to us we sometimes start the processing of language instantaneously and that we mix experience and personal circumstance into this process just as fast. Meaning comes after the process cycle and it is only when we can see and hear space (in that this is possible through some sort of post processing chemical trigger that allows us to reach a conclusion) do we actually uncover meaning. Unfortunately we are all too often only processing and not understanding or finding meaning.

A friend of mine one day asked me if i had observed a new billboard on my commute in. He went on to describe in great detail the emotions and impact that this new billboard had on him. I, in fact, did not see the sign but processed much of what he said and found meaning in his words. One can presume that I was able to do this by way in part because i envied the fact that he remembered the sign and captured the essence and message of the sign so dramatically. I do not recall the content of the billboard only that i did not notice.

This causes me to evaluate my world differently. I am absolutely on the other end of the spectrum spending most of my process cycles on inventions and creations instead of absorbing datapoints at hand.

I did out of wonderful chance uncover a passage from my favorite writer that offers something similar.
"Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense to that life, the empty space, the gap is enormous. the desolation lies there, not in the facts." (pg 176, Shape of a Pocket, John Berger, 2001)

you have not been here

2009-02-26T23:22:00.004-05:00

one of the coolest places i hang out on the web is http://www.blogotheque.net/, be it in french there is much for anglophonia. one of my favorites is Bon Iver playing in front of the moose. their song flume is insane and i dont just say that because 1 of the three readers of this blog is from the US. i say it because bon iver is has got it- the pain the suffering the haunting all the elements of a song. i guess there i sno need to mention johnny flynn. check it out you will hammer the site day in and day out.

dont miss margaret and the nuclear so so's

good night and good luck

where are we

2009-01-17T16:10:00.005-05:00

I find that through my daily readings that we are lost, that i am particularly lost. I am specifically referring to economies and cultures.

We have little to no understanding to the connection between the current state of our culture and its impact, in both directions, on the economy. Consumers are inundated with advertisements proclaiming steep markdowns. This creates a sense of urgency for the consumer. I believe that advertisers and marketing agents are attempting to create a false sense of urgency through sensory overload. The link to culture is we are in all self aggrandizing purchase and consume mode that feeds insatiable emptiness with two important commodities; information and consumer goods.

Information being relatively cheap and consumer goods appearing to be relatively cheep. The linkeage to the economy is that if not for the current state of the culture there might not be a current economic meltdown. I sense that the economic meltdown is much,much more drastic and catastrophic then current media reporting allows us to believe. understanding the derivatives market and short selling proves too daunting a task for me but just my initial forays into these areas spin off a whole host of other data points.

There is much more to the story and i sense that the market turmoil has only just begun and the stimulus packages and bailouts might not be the best course of action. we need to understand the culture of the economy first before we offer a solution. It is difficult to support billions from my government and trillions from other governments to prop this problem up. We are doing nothing in the way of understanding the pysche of the economy. Is it possible that we need to stimulate the culture in order to stimulate the economy. think about it is it possible that motivating and stimulating 20 million culterites could solve many of the crisi facing civilization now or should we stimulate the aspect of our lives that is doing the most harm to us, that is robbing us of our communities, that are driving downwards culture and art, reducing human intellect to hours in a day, that are creating commute parents that are minimising the importance of values and ethics.

This is not to say that there are not important stimulus packages for the economy, just that we have forgotten that there is a much large problem on the horizon if we choose only to stimulate the economy.

spirit

2008-11-30T21:28:00.002-05:00

I was asked a while back what i was a force for, in other words what do i stand for. I chose 'spirit' as it is a word with so many meanings. I had a close friend along time ago talk to me about the importance of spirit, while at the time i was a bit lost and out of touch with my own spirit what this friend said is now ringing in my ears.

The word spirit, for me , comprises both the theological and metaphysical sense. There can not just be one side to spirit. it develops over time and is influenced by early childhood learnings. Complex isn't it. Spirit in the workplace makes real all the vlaues and ethics that are perhaps a bit too plastic to chew on. it also brings forward your reason to live.

what does spirit mean to you?

manufactured landscapes

2008-05-23T12:28:00.003-04:00

Manufactured landscapes is a movie about humanities insane ability to deconstruct our surroundings. The pictographs and its symbolism is too much for gravity. On a recent trip to Fort McMurray Alberta, Canada, I was quickly reminded of the enormity of our footprint. I witnessed earth moving machines that run 24-7-365. I viewed surveillance (how fitting) of large scissor like stone earth crushing turbines that revolve continuously. I was transported through this terrain on one of 900 buses in the booming town of Fort McMurray. While I did not get a chance to converse much with average folk, one even wonders what it means to be average in a town of transient wealth seeking individuals. I was inundated with images of destruction and uncommon violence of which I have never bore witness to. All this for the sake of fuelling a machine. Our economy and our economic future are tightly coupled to this town and there is little if any federal government presence.

The people are extremely energetic and spirited. there is a particular rhythm in town and nonsensical devotion to a singular mantra 'this has never been done before'. they appear to be correct there are no case studies on a boom of such proportions. They are 'going it alone'.

They are an ingenious crowd and one can not help but become a bit jealous of their progressive stance. I even thought about moving there as not to miss this boom, not from an economic sense but from an egotistically front. I did not want to miss out on this unique experience. A new frontier is shaping itself by its own accord and it is manufacturing a new landscape, whether or not we have the stomach for this new landscape is another question. I suspect that other parts of Canada, perhaps even sleepy Ottawa might start to take more notice.

a small portion from the book 'Propaganda Cafe'

2008-02-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

The staircase needed painting, he knew that. But so did many other things. Where would one start. You would have to paint the entire place. No use to have some floors bright, clean and new, when others had the scuff marks of a thousand soldiers. In fact this house might have been owned by soldiers during the civil war. The middle portion of each step had been worn down to a perfect bevel. At times it was dangerous. It did, however, create character. There is a market for this type of house this type of décor – faux hippy. Or rather expensive hippy. Some would see it as hippy chic others as simply someone whose taste has not yet developed past Renovation Hardware. As if the bevel was not enough, shaker, the white paint had scuffed of the middle of each stair revealing true hardwood. This appeared almost so obvious as to make Morrison believe that someone had purposefully removed the paint in certain spots. Surely the heavy shoes of 100 years did not create this.

As he rounded the last two stairs, Morrison caught himself thinking about things ended this morning, wondered if he had been too distant. He was known to be selfish with his thoughts, only concerned of whether they were organized or not. Pushing through the screen door the familiar sound of the rubber and steel latch clicked behind him. Morrison thought to himself that he probably could not describe the sound of the door latch or even be capable of purchasing a new one if he had to.

What if the latch breaks…What size is it…how big is the rubber stopper. Should I measure it, Should I get a spare one just in case.

There it is again, damn I need to get a hold of this.

Morrison was self diagnosed years ago with a severe case of self questioning.

I am sure there is a more scientific word for what ails me, but I am sure that more scientific prognosis comes with an even more scientific drug for which we have no idea as of yet the long term effects, having said that, we have spent 30 million on advertising this year so we are fairly confident that the general public will not read the scientific literature, or even understand it for that matter. Therefore it is our duty to remove the need for science and just make money, remove the need for the average person to read a boring science journal that uses scientific words.

The sun slammed into his eyes. Turning his head down and shutting his eyes he grasped for his sunglasses. His eyes watered as he rubbed them. As Morrison fumbled with his glasses he titled his head just a bit to see if this was an ordinary sun or if North Korea had replaced it with Uranium. It was still the same sun. But North Korea was the new problem. Morrison had been working for the last 3 years studying the psychological profile of North Korean President Km Jong-il. It was contract work and in Morrison’s mind it was definitely a government funded project. Although he was not to know this and why would he it did not matter to him where he got his money from. Everything is government – either regulated or profited. His media analysis work won him some impressive accolades. Which were not important but gets you good seats at restaurants on 52^nd street. Kim Jong-il was one crazy dictator. He was so infatuated with old Hollywood movies that he had 50 military analysts watching ebay on any given day looking for memorabilia. He had amassed one of the largest movie set furniture collections outside of 20^th century studios. While interesting in a plastic- follywood way, Morrison’s media analysis was a bit more tactical than this.

In University Morrison studied computer science and English. An absurd combination that destined him to answer the phone at some information help desk. Yet somehow he found a way to make it interesting. He was always capable of that. He developed a theory that people could be manipulated more by trash media outlets than by the so called professional media sources. In 2006 this theory held no water but as the internet exploded and traditional media lost it’s hold it became apparent that it was not traditional media that lsot its hold on the public but rather the public who lost control over their perceptions of what constituted verifiable media. Millions of people had become so addicted to reality television shows that communities and housing development sprouted up all over the wold dedicated to living and preserving certain reality shows. Morrison was at the forefront of understanding this phenomenon. He understood and predicted that the future was actually being televised. So it was that Morrison was offered a substantial contract to study Jong-il’s and media matrix. A term Morrison coined that suggests that we are not influenced by just one type or form of media but rather a very complex matrix of media confluences. The backers of the contract wanted Morrison to analyze the media psyche of Jong –il so that the they could make movies that would gradually change Jong-il, make him believe that America was not so bad. It was obvious that contract was some sort front for some shadowy part of the American intelligence apparatus.

It was this morning that Morrison was presenting his preliminary findings on another subject of investigation Kathy Reichs – a 33 year old single mother of 3 small children – who apparently fell into a media induced living coma. Reichs followed the tv show ‘living to die’ – a reality tv show about the wealthy people who put their parents in old age homes so that they can be more free to spend their money and not have to look after their parents – that she opened an old age home and is convinced 15 families to give their parents to her. Morrison was asked to study Reichs case and determine what triggered the living coma

u should read this

2008-02-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

one of the most concerning things that i have read as of late comes from Paul Van Eeden. You can read about his thoughts on the future of the financial markets at Theo's blog http://www.stokblogs.com/blog/1

Then after that wets your appetite you can go directly to Van Eeden and read more. Although for probably his most interesting and obviously profitable information you can pay him 1000 a year for access to his newsletter.

You know i have been reading alot lately about how quickly we are going to hell in a handbasket but, i have to say some of these guys come with some impressive credentials.

So what do you do tomorrow one guy says take your money out of the market keep half in cash and the other half in gold and another guy says go blow up some dams because the earth needs saving. What really makes people get out of bed these days. what makes us so blissfully unaware of the state of affairs.

If you really want to go down a path do some homework on the derivatives market and you will really get a shock, lets just loan each other some money and carry this all forward until such time that everything is back to normal -yeah that will work!

what will the future look like

2008-02-06T22:50:00.000-05:00

I have started writing letters to my 8 month old telling her what i think her life will be like in 25 years. It is a challenging and scary thing to do. No not writing, but taking a position - a position on the future. There have been a long line of thought tormented people in history who have been labeled as futurists who really never turned out to be anything than just weird people. A friend of mine put me onto MirrorWorlds by David Gerlertner who wrote, in the 80's remember, about how much software and computers were going to shape our future. I would say in general terms that he has overshot himself a bit as much of what he talks about has not come to real tangible terms, but nonetheless I do think he is on the right track. This book also got me wondering about how we interact with computers, i think i talked about this in another post but it still causes me concern. We should see some major design changes with respect to computers, in fact i think computers as we know it today will not be as important - they will become a quick antique. The interaction with computers will nto go away in fact i see it as something that will increase, i just do not see us sitting in front of boxes with square screens and the constant drone of the computer fan eating away at our sanity.

computers will be in the fabric of our buildings, processing will take place outside of our physical space and our visual interaction with computers will be tailored to our eyes and will make more use of other senses. Much of unnatural environment will be shaped by this change

What have you been up to

2008-01-31T15:03:00.000-05:00

I apologize to the unheard and uncounted for not posting in such a long time. What have I been up to?

Reading and writing of course. I have really focussed my writing on what the future of the environment will look like in the future and I expect to post a deluge of those poems soon.

What has got me thinking about this is an absolutely wonderful two volume book entitled "Endgame" by Derrick Jensen, in fact I was so enthralled by Jensen that I bought another one of his books entitled "Walk on Water".

He poses some important questions for us in terms of what actions we should all be taking to protect our landbase. Some might think of him as an extremist, I just see him as someone who has ideas that many of us are too afraid to posit

Well worth the read

Birds without Wings - David Gray

2007-01-19T22:10:00.000-05:00

Thought I would draw your attention to David Gray and his song birds without wings. You can not help but wonder how long we have left on this planet if we keep up at the rate we are going. We can not agree on much these days. Carbon Credits - Carbon Quotas, what will it be, what will become of us. Lately I noticed that I my priorities are changing and I am better able to come to grips with our situation. If you need help doing the same read the lyrics to the song, I bet you will start to understand.

wishing that something would happen
a change in this place
'cos I'm tearing off the fancy wrapping
find an empty package

take for a while
your trumpet from your lip
loosen your hold loosen your grip
on your old ways
that have fallen out of step
in a changing time
hoist a new flag
hoist a new flag

angry sun burn down
judging us all
guilty of neglect and disrespect
and thinking small

and death by boredom
and death by greed
if we can't stop taking
more than we need

but across the fractured landscape
I see the same things
tired ideas
birds without wings

birds without wings
birds without wings

and these are just thoughts
of lack lustre times
I've no interest
in excuses you can find

like you've had a hard day
now you're too tired to care
now you're too tired to care
you've had a hard day

well across the fractured landscape
I see the same things
tired ideas broken values
many with the notion
that to share is to lose
a hollow people bound by a lack
of imagination and too much looking back
without the courage to give a new thing a chance
grounded by this ignorance

(and the cat comes)
We're just,
birds without wings
birds without wings
birds without wings

Damien Rice

2007-01-02T22:12:00.001-05:00

This guy continues to impress me. I have watched several interviews with him, isn't you tube great, where it appears that he just wants to make his kind of music. His first album was full of simple acoustic sounds pounded down with heavy heart lyrics. Not sappy - heavy.

Here is one of his new songs

in the new year

2007-01-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

Was reading the news the other day and realised that I needed something for the blog for the new year. I have a loyal following out there, you know who you are, and thanks for the support. All the newspapers ran stories discussing the past and promoting the future. There are several things that come to mind about the future.

1. EverGreening - the continued move towards a green lifestyle. A continued green architecture movement combined with emerging green materials. 2007 will also see the environment king maker in politics, at least in Canada

2. Solitary Confinement - I think there is going to be a recognition that more people, while digitally connected, are becoming more physically isolated. Electronic communities connect people but on only so many fronts. There will be a recognition that this is putting some people at risk(healthy and safety)

3. Culture on Line - is not the advent of an e-culture but rather a move towards preserving and displaying culture electronically. The focus thus far has been on how the internet has changed and influenced our culture rather than picked it up by the bootstraps and propelled it. We saw some of this in Second Life last year, look for this to be a huge boom area. Get In.