Batteries are fishy

So according to a book I read called Dark Light by Linda Simon, when Alessandro Volta read about the electric organs of torpedo fish (pictured above) back in the 18th century, he decided to try to imitate the organ with metals.

That resulted in this: the voltaic pile, which according to some sources was the very first battery.

So, if the battery is an imitation of a fish organ and transistors are imitations of neurons (or synapses), what other technological innovations can we trace to organic blueprints?

'Children' by Ewa Lipska

Children get together for nostalgia nights.
Children get together at executive sessions.
Children have experience.
Some do not know about swans.

Children have identity cards. Birth certificates.
Case histories. Death certificates.
Children choose the leader who
makes a speech on a rocking horse.

Children kidnap ministers and aeroplanes.
Children emigrate to the ends of the earth.
Children inform on their parents.
Children fight for the right of dolls.
Children sit in astrakhan furs.
Pink cakes float in the air.
Children remember the Imperium Romanum
and sadly nod their little heads.

In the vast nursery of nations
children play ball and
spit cherry stones at one another.
They switch on an artificial sun
that rises like a mitigating circumstance.
Then children put their toys away
and earnestly start to work
on new children.

(1972)

Wondering at Houdini and the Miracle Mongers

I wrote my first biography on Harry Houdini. I was in middle school, and I thought he was an intriguing figure. How could someone be so famous for "magic"?

Recently, my interest in him sprouted up again, and I checked out some books from the library both by and about him. The ones about him generally are not so good. They are mostly written by more recent magicians who just build him up as a mystical celebrity, which is interesting because Houdini spent a lot of time "disproving" mysticism, spirituality, sooth-saying, etc. He was much more about physical acts.

One book by Houdini, Miracle Mongers and their Methods has provided me with a couple awesome quotes and I am only a few pages in...

"But when we tire of space flight and electronic wonders, might we not yearn for the days when we could see, before our very eyes, a piece of red-hot iron bitten off by some diminutive oriental in a turban, or wonder at a frail lady who supports the weight of a dozen men?" -James Randi (in the introduction)

Pretty ridiculous. Also....

"All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance." -Samuel Johnson (quoted by Houdini in the preface)

This second quote reminds me of the concept of DeBrau which I read about a few days ago. It refers to this mime named DeBrau who got put on trial in France and all these people came to the trial just to hear his voice. The author was using DeBrau's name as a gloss for the effect of getting captivated by unfamiliar sounds. Sort of like Stendhal syndrome...

neither true nor false

I finished Mount Analogue book by Rene Daumal this weekend on my way to Los Angeles. It's sort of a surrealist parody of Bacon's New Atlantis and very funny. Lots in there about living with modern scientism and its absurdities.

A quote for the books:
"A knife is neither true nor false. But someone who grasps it by the blade is truly in error." (88)

Los Angeles was fun and enormous and incomprehensible. A man on the street told me to demonstrate good leadership skills for my 'younger sister.' I heard a radio personality explain that 'the sports is always there' in sports-comedy. I took a few videos, bought orange solar shields, and met some new friends.

bonds

I am reading Genet's Thief's Journal. It's rather lurid (I think that's the word anyways), but there's a quote or two that have caught me.

"Between them and me there will be even fewer bonds, and the last will be broken if to their contempt for me I oppose my love of them."

Reminds me immediately of Apollinaire's Calligrammes from this summer (the poem "Liens") ... compassionate futurism, heh.

"We know that our language is incapable of recalling even the pale reflection of those bygone foreign states. The same would be true of this entire journal if it were to be the notation of what I was. I shall therefore make clear that it is meant to indicate what I am today, as I write it. It is not a quest of time gone by, but a work of art whose pretext-subject is my former life. It will be a present fixed with the help of the past, and not vice versa."

This works with my notes on nostalgia and what not ... the projected past makes a stabilized present collective subjectivity kind of thing.

There are also some images that I like (a proud rock in a river of contempt, the tube of used vasoline [an untouchable object of police contempt and yet/thus powerful; also, a parallel to Proust's madeleine]). I have gotten a little bored with it though so I think I will be skimming the rest of the way.

the boys i mean are not refined

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

-cummings

style to language

"It was Proust who said that 'masterpieces are written in a kind of foreign language.' That is the same as stammering making language stammer rather than stammering in speech. To be a foreigner, but in one's own tongue, not only when speaking a language other than one's own. [...] That is when style becomes a language" (Deleuze and Guattari, 98)

a king listens

"Language, in the world, above all is power. Whoever speaks is powerful and violent. To name is that violence that distances what is named in order to possess it in the useful form of a name. [...] To name has been given only to a being capable of not being, capable of making this nothingness a power and this power the decisive violence that opens nature, dominates it and compels it. That is how language projects us into the dialectics of the master and slave with which we are obsessed. The master has acquired the right of speech because he has gone so far as to risk death: alone, the master speaks, and his speech is commandment. The slave can do nothing but listen. To speak is what is important; he who can only listen depends on speech and only stands in second place. But hearing, this disinherited, subordinate, and secondary side, finally is revealed to be the place of power and the principle of true mastery" (Blanchot 32-33)

rilke

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

===

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
- Letters to a Young Poet

===

I love the dark hours of my being
in which my senses are engrossed;
for in those hours, as in old letters,
I find my daily life already lived,
far off and done-with, like in legends.
From them I've learned I have room
for another, timeless, spacious life.
Sometimes I am like a tree
which, ripe and rustling over a grave
fulfills that dream which the departed boy
(through whom its warm roots are pushing)
had lost in sadnesses and songs.

hitchcock presents

these are reactions to some episodes of "hitchcok presents" and two or three hitchcock films.

Revenge
A young wife seems dazed, raped but the crime is unknown. Her husband bludgeons someone with a pipe when she points and says "he did it."
though the husband thinks he has had his revenge, immediately after he returns from the bludgeoning, the wife points to another man and says "he did it"
male/female modernity.
the only clue: a carnation in her hand when she was discovered after the crime.

Premonition
A man returns home and wants to reconcile with his distant father only to discover that he himself has in fact murdered his father and been put in an isnane asylum.
the camera lies at the beginning when a plane comes in as if the protagonist was arriving from his overseas work as a conductor.

Breakdown
Capitalist gets in a wreck and becomes paralyzed. He gets buried alive but we can hear his voice over.

Back for Christmas
An old man buries his wife.
Scene where he writes as a letter in her voice on the typewriter. keeping her alive through writing.

a bullet for baldwin
an old worker, just fired, kills his boss only to have an imposter, hired by the 2nd in command, replace the boss the next day.
as the 2nd in command assumes control of the firm, the imposter again gets fired and kills his boss.
you can kill your boss but he can always be replaced.

the case of mr. pelham
a man becomes aware that a double of him has been encroaching on his life.
the double becomes him though because the primary man, at least in our eyes, tries to be differentiate himself.
the double starts to succeed as the primary is cast out.

vertigo
creating the other in one's own vision
the alienated james stewart crafts the imposter who fooled him into her previously imposed form as was constructed by the puppet master, the man with the money
who wanted to kill his own wife.
the imposter wants to be loved for who she truly is, whatever that means, while james stewart wants honesty wants reason wants his ideal love.
the ideal created for us by culture at large is what we desire but it itches us. we get perturbed so we craft the real in its image until we find it too disturbing and we want to end it.
the inevitable mourning of the ideal.
but when we come face to face, the guilt jumps out of the dark. there is no escape without the destruction of the selves.

the creeper
a guy goes around the neighborhood killing women (who may just deserve it, according to one old hag).
when the husband of our couple has a beer with a friend:
he's the working man talking with the newspaper man who's been reporting on the creeper
"running out of things to say about him. even running out of theories. next, we'll be runnin' out of women."
the wife used to see the newspaper man
"why do we do it, ed? why do we take it out on on somebody else? especially on someone you love"
"very simple"
"simple?"
"no one else would put up with it"
"yeah, i guess you're right"
"don't worry about it. everybody takes out his grudges on somebody else. usually the wrong person. take our friend here.
he takes it out by killing the woman he's got something against."
"[Laughs] Well, I didn't go that far. You think they'll catch this guy anywheres near soon?"
...the creeper...
the newspaper man likes to hurt people. he pretends the creeper. the young beau. he does kill her but she returns. he loves and hates her for leaving.
the real creeper was a locksmith


babydoll functions similarly

we are all voyeurs. the protagonist. the guilt laden wrong man. transfered guilt.


39 steps
the man with the handcuff. the girl slips out of the other cuff, but she sticks around because she realizes he was only playing as a murderer.

fata morgana poem by herzog

207
00:50:29,300 --> 00:50:32,019
The Blitzkrieg is insanity.

208
00:50:59,860 --> 00:51:03,773
In Paradise, even gentiles move mountains.

209
00:51:03,860 --> 00:51:06,772
There, wars are prevented by mothers.

210
00:51:08,140 --> 00:51:10,449
There, you expect herons from the left.

211
00:51:12,420 --> 00:51:15,218
In Paradise, ruins mean happiness.

212
00:51:16,340 --> 00:51:19,332
There, you find gates without borders.

213
00:51:19,420 --> 00:51:23,936
In Paradise, plane wrecks have been
distributed in the desert in advance.

214
00:51:27,260 --> 00:51:30,411
There, the landscape
is as God has commanded it to be.

215
00:55:15,860 --> 00:55:19,819
In Paradise, you call hello
without seeing anybody.

216
00:55:20,860 --> 00:55:24,773
There, you quarrel with strangers
to avoid having friends.

217
00:55:26,060 --> 00:55:29,257
In Paradise, man is born dead.

218
00:56:56,460 --> 00:56:58,451
While you are sleeping,

219
00:56:58,540 --> 00:57:02,010
acids gnaw and leeches suck
at the tuna fish.

220
00:57:03,060 --> 00:57:07,656
While you are dreaming,
an apple from a tree falls onto your brow.

221
00:57:07,740 --> 00:57:11,699
While you are waiting, trains break in two.

222
00:57:11,780 --> 00:57:15,011
You breathe softly,
as though you were dead.

223
00:57:16,460 --> 00:57:18,451
While you recline,

224
00:57:18,540 --> 00:57:22,818
carelessly strewn stars look out into space.

225
00:57:24,500 --> 00:57:28,732
While you are sleeping,
God softly walks over the fields with Maria.

226
01:01:29,340 --> 01:01:33,094
In the Golden Age,
man and wife live in harmony.

227
01:01:33,180 --> 01:01:36,616
Now, for example, they appear
before the lens of the camera

228
01:01:36,700 --> 01:01:40,932
death in their eyes, a smile on their faces,
a finger in the pie.

229
01:01:41,900 --> 01:01:44,858
Running, they train themselves
harder and harder.

230
01:01:44,940 --> 01:01:47,500
Weightlifting, too, is rewarding.

231
01:01:47,580 --> 01:01:50,970
Unforgettable, however, remains
a jump from the lighthouse.

232
01:03:07,980 --> 01:03:12,531
In the Golden Age,
traces of Paradise can still be discerned.

233
01:03:12,620 --> 01:03:15,737
Here, for example, a boat once landed.

234
01:03:15,820 --> 01:03:18,539
Furiously, the waves beat against the shore.

235
01:03:19,860 --> 01:03:22,658
In the background,
smoke is rising, that is to say,

236
01:03:22,740 --> 01:03:24,810
not even worse than you expected.

237
01:03:24,900 --> 01:03:28,449
Stones that were cast
do not return by themselves.

238
01:04:07,660 --> 01:04:11,050
In the Golden Age,
man does not forget to pray

239
01:04:11,140 --> 01:04:13,859
lest God's end be uncomely.

240
01:04:15,300 --> 01:04:17,894
More than by death, even,
blessing, and curses,

241
01:04:17,980 --> 01:04:20,414
man is perturbed
by smoke over the world.

242
01:04:20,500 --> 01:04:23,412
Beneath the earth,
the children have found a fire.

243
01:04:24,420 --> 01:04:28,618
And now the parents wish suddenly
to return to houses of stone.

244
01:04:30,140 --> 01:04:34,099
That's enough, even one of these
thoughts would have done.

245
01:07:10,220 --> 01:07:13,929
And yet, you're forcing harvests
from this mysterious soil.

246
01:07:14,020 --> 01:07:18,775
Lts thriving brings pain as well as joy
to the field workers.

247
01:07:18,860 --> 01:07:23,536
It's difficult not to encounter a camel
on the wayside,

248
01:07:23,620 --> 01:07:27,374
typically harnessed
as a pack, work, or riding animal.

249
01:07:27,460 --> 01:07:29,416
Riding animal!

250
01:07:35,140 --> 01:07:39,611
And here, as soon as we turn to the right,

251
01:07:39,700 --> 01:07:42,772
the visitor's joy is gone.

252
01:07:42,860 --> 01:07:46,978
The view is horrifying,
and almost, silence is necessary.

253
01:07:47,060 --> 01:07:49,858
Prepared for something, we ask ourselves,

254
01:07:50,020 --> 01:07:51,612
Where are we going?

255
01:07:51,700 --> 01:07:53,975
And silence is the answer.

256
01:07:54,060 --> 01:07:56,415
We're gliding through the landscape

257
01:07:56,500 --> 01:08:01,494
and it seems as if this tragic mission of
strange beauty, yet otherwise hell,

258
01:08:01,580 --> 01:08:03,298
will never end.

259
01:08:04,300 --> 01:08:07,610
We cannot withstand this sight for long

260
01:08:07,700 --> 01:08:11,852
and an inner voice urges us
to look at the vigorous plant growth

261
01:08:11,940 --> 01:08:14,977
that we are forcing from the earth.

262
01:08:24,700 --> 01:08:26,736
What can we learn from the turtle?

263
01:08:26,820 --> 01:08:32,099
She has four fins which she uses
to move forward.

264
01:08:32,180 --> 01:08:37,618
She has a hard shell and a hard belly.

265
01:08:38,980 --> 01:08:44,213
Here she has the head
with the mouth where she eats.

266
01:08:46,180 --> 01:08:49,934
And she has a rear end
where it comes out again.

267
01:09:08,700 --> 01:09:11,453
I'm going to get her again.

268
01:10:52,020 --> 01:10:55,854
There is nothing like
the Peace of the Golden Age.

269
01:10:55,940 --> 01:10:59,057
War is proclaimed dead by Peace.

270
01:10:59,140 --> 01:11:01,210
Nothing is as great as the sand.

271
01:11:01,300 --> 01:11:04,417
Nothing is as great as the Peace.

272
01:11:04,500 --> 01:11:06,934
The land is entranced with Peace.