if everything you know is wrong, then all the problems you thought were insoluble
Yesterday was the end of my Endangered Cultures class with Thor Anderson. He is a combo of Bill Murray, Steve Martin, and Chris' Dad. Easily the best professor and class I've had in my educational career.
It was more like rehab from a fucked up, 1920s school system, that we are all in. The only class I ever wished hadn't ended. The class was filled with teaching us all to be humans again, cheating was promoted, helping each other was a requirement, there was no need to do assignments because there were no grades really, that illusion had been dissolved the first day. All we had to do was participate in the "game" of culture.
Our last day began with him ritualistically decapitating us with his wooden sword, the same one which he taught us to sword fight with in a previous class. (His reasoning was; "The pen is mightier, unless they have a sword and you have a pen.") This was the first stage; an escape from the culture we're in. Then we were all blind folded, handed a piece of string to hold onto; the string of life, and then he proceeded to guide us for 30 minutes on a walk; through the 'doorway', across streets and all over. We then came to a stop in a warm sunny feeling grassy spot, and positioned in our own spot, away from everyone else, and told to remove our blindfolds; recapitation, rebirth. My first sight was tall grasses, a big shiny lake with sun shining through the trees and a breeze blowing. That was our final, which Thor said would hopefully never end, but carry on with us for much longer. It was simple.
I've been an on-call camera for this paper for the past 2 months or so. It's been time consuming. I realize getting over comfort barriers is like digging a hole in the sand, but I've been getting a hang of it. I got to shoot a huge controlled burn a couple days ago which has been the highlight of the internship so far. I never knew how shitty smoke inhalation really is.
And a rant from a book I just finished:
"But he would no doubt be puzzled to learn that 20 per cent of the people control 80 per cent of the wealth, that the average child has by the age of eighteen spent a full two years passively watching television. Observing that over half of our marriages end in divorce and that only 6 per cent of our elders live with a relative, he might question the values of a society that so readily breaks the bonds of marriage and abandons its aged, even as its men and women exhaust themselves in jobs that only reinforce their isolation from their families. Certainly, a slang term such as 24/7, implying as it does the willingness of an employee to be available for work at all times, seems excessive, though it would explain the fact that the average American father spends only eighteen minutes a day in direct communication with his child." W.Davis
"We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines,don't even listen to NPR, create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, your giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world." T.McKenna
Very close (hopefully) to finding a new house in downtown. Instead of caring to know who I am, all they want to know is that I am a '680' credit report, cuts down on the whole human part.
It was more like rehab from a fucked up, 1920s school system, that we are all in. The only class I ever wished hadn't ended. The class was filled with teaching us all to be humans again, cheating was promoted, helping each other was a requirement, there was no need to do assignments because there were no grades really, that illusion had been dissolved the first day. All we had to do was participate in the "game" of culture.
Our last day began with him ritualistically decapitating us with his wooden sword, the same one which he taught us to sword fight with in a previous class. (His reasoning was; "The pen is mightier, unless they have a sword and you have a pen.") This was the first stage; an escape from the culture we're in. Then we were all blind folded, handed a piece of string to hold onto; the string of life, and then he proceeded to guide us for 30 minutes on a walk; through the 'doorway', across streets and all over. We then came to a stop in a warm sunny feeling grassy spot, and positioned in our own spot, away from everyone else, and told to remove our blindfolds; recapitation, rebirth. My first sight was tall grasses, a big shiny lake with sun shining through the trees and a breeze blowing. That was our final, which Thor said would hopefully never end, but carry on with us for much longer. It was simple.
I've been an on-call camera for this paper for the past 2 months or so. It's been time consuming. I realize getting over comfort barriers is like digging a hole in the sand, but I've been getting a hang of it. I got to shoot a huge controlled burn a couple days ago which has been the highlight of the internship so far. I never knew how shitty smoke inhalation really is.
And a rant from a book I just finished:
"But he would no doubt be puzzled to learn that 20 per cent of the people control 80 per cent of the wealth, that the average child has by the age of eighteen spent a full two years passively watching television. Observing that over half of our marriages end in divorce and that only 6 per cent of our elders live with a relative, he might question the values of a society that so readily breaks the bonds of marriage and abandons its aged, even as its men and women exhaust themselves in jobs that only reinforce their isolation from their families. Certainly, a slang term such as 24/7, implying as it does the willingness of an employee to be available for work at all times, seems excessive, though it would explain the fact that the average American father spends only eighteen minutes a day in direct communication with his child." W.Davis
"We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines,don't even listen to NPR, create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, your giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world." T.McKenna
Very close (hopefully) to finding a new house in downtown. Instead of caring to know who I am, all they want to know is that I am a '680' credit report, cuts down on the whole human part.