The 2017 restoration of Tarkovsky's Stalker is being projected at IFC throughout this summer month.

Jane McAlevey 1964-2024

 

"By the 1980s.. the international arm of the AFL-CIO was implicated in supporting death squads in Central America that killed real labor organizers. I was then a young adult working on environmental issues in Central America, and the fact that unionists that I was working with, who were already deeply engaged in a battle with a capitalist class of the most brutal and violent nature, now also had to deal with killer thugs funded by the unions of my country, made a deep impression on me."

 

Raising Expectations and Raising Hell, 2012, p. 30

Daniel Richter,

Amselgesang, 2021, oil on canvas, 90 1/2 x 66 7/8 x 1 3/4 in

 

 

Peter Bruegel the Elder, Dulle Griet (Mad Meg), 1563, oil on panel, 45 in × 63 in, Museum Mayer van den Berg, Antwerp

 

 

Jim Shaw, Hillary Clinton as Mad Meg , 2017, graphite on paper, 14 in x 17 in

 

Jerome Rothenberg 1931–2024

 

The word "shaman" (Tungus: šamán) comes from Siberia & "in the strict sense is pre-eminently a religious phenomenon of Siberia & Central Asia" (Eliade).  But the parallels elsewhere (North America, Indonesia, Oceania, China, etc.) are remarkable & lead also to a consideration of coincidences between "primitive-archaic" & modern thought.  Eliade treats shamanism in-the-broader-sense as a specialized technique & ecstasy & the shaman as "technician-of-the-sacred."  In this sense, too, the shaman can be seen as a proto-poet, for almost always his technique hinges on the creation of special linguistic circumstances, i.e., of song and invocation.

 

In 1870 Rimbaud first used the term voyant (seer) to identify the new breed of poet who was to be "absolutely modern," etc:

 

  one must, I say, become a seer,

      make oneself into a seer

 

or as Rasmussen writes of Iglulik Eskimos:

 

     the young aspirant, when applying to a shaman, should

     always use the following formula

                takujumaqama: I come to you 

            because I desire to see

 

& the Copper Eskimos called the shaman-songman "elik, i.e., one who has eyes."

 

In a typical (self-)-initiation into shamanism, the new shaman experiences the breakdown of his familiar consciousness or world-view, and is led into a dream or vision at the center of which there is a often a song or a series of songs "that force themselves out without any effort to compose them."  [Thus: Isaac Tens, a Gitsan Indian practitioner cited in the accompanying text in Technicians.]  The dream & vision aspect, in fact, goes way past any limits, however loosely drawn, of shamanism, into areas where a priesthood (as developer & transmitter of a fixed system) predominates, &, on the other hand, into areas where "all men" are "shamans," i.e. are "open" to the "gift" of vision & song.

The Poetics of Shamanism (1968)

Francisco Goya, La familia de Carlos IV, 1801, oil on canvas, 110" × 132", Museo del Prado

“Every war has been a result of media lies”

— Julian Assange.

Free, free, free at last! pic.twitter.com/DoPBAhUYtA

— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) June 24, 2024

Donald Sutherland 1935-2024

Text of source material for Mr. X's soliloquy in which L. Fletcher Prouty, Colonel USAF describes the events in Dallas: Scroll down to "Cancelling Secret Service, Military, and Police Units in Dallas and Inserting False Actors in Their Place." The entire interview with David T. Ratcliffe is a worthwhile read.

Birthday boy

Starting this year's off with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in Caracas, Venezuela (2013) conducted by Joshua Dos Santos

"While the great composer was in fact born on June 17th in 1882, June 5th in the Julian calendar used in his home country of Russia at the time of his birth, Stravinsky, in his later years, preferred to celebrate his birthday on June 18th. WKCR will do the same!"

Douglas Sirk's 1967 adaptation:

 This summer, we'll be celebrating the 95th anniversary of Un Chien Andalou for the foreseeable future!

U

C

LA

José Clemente Orozco, Modern Human Sacrifice, 1932-4, Hood Library, Dartmouth College

José Clemente Orozco, Gods of the Modern World, 1932-4, Hood Library, Dartmouth College

José Clemente Orozco, Symbols of Nationalism, 1932-4, Hood Library, Dartmouth College

 

 

 

 

infant

 

add

a

 

 

 

 

 

 

war y

ears 

Albert Heath 1935-2024

Birthday boy

Johann Sebastian's

Hap

Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi on the TikTok bill that just passed the House.

“It’s not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-tac-toe…a winner. A winner.” pic.twitter.com/faTlxgPMGN

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 13, 2024

Eric White,

The Secret Square (HOLLYWOOD SQUARES), 2024

Oil on canvas

182.9 x 182.9 cm | 72 x 72 in

..

White's painting hangs at 54 White til March 30th.

Lyn Hejinian 1941-2024

 

 

In the mass of my hallucination soaked 

this international ellipsis 

the sky, to speak 

 

most intimately when speaking 

of birds, is clumsy 

Ellipsis is strong, and I can't absorb it 

 

with love 

(the selfishness of continuity) 

of the uncut 

 

(The Person, 1994)

 

(I regard this to be an opportune time to upload the Guelph, Ontario Electric Ascension perf with Larry Ochs on tenor, which I've been meaning to do) 

.....

Aaron Bushnell 1998-2024

The last walk of Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old member of the US Air Force who self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington in protest against US involvement in Israel's genocide in Gaza.https://t.co/FwAAH0GJ8B

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) February 26, 2024

 

 

(Chris Hedges memorial)

Damo Suzuki 1950-2024

Tony Cedras 1952-2024

on the harmonium and accordian here

 

John Pilger 1939-2023

 

(John Rees obituary)

 

(filmography with additional video links)

 

The Quiet Mutiny (1970)  (His first.. "the first documentary to show the open rebellion within the drafted ranks of the US military [in Vietnam] that led to the withdrawal of the land army in 1973. "When I flew to New York and showed it to Mike Wallace the star reporter of CBS 60 Minutes he agreed. "Real shame we can't show it here"" Pilger said in an interview with the New Statesman.")

 

The Most Powerful Politician in America (1974) (George Wallace) 

Zap! The Weapon is Food (1976) (Kissinger’s policy of refusing aid to countries that do not support his government in the United Nations and the existence of a “Zap Office” specially set up in the State Department to monitor voting patterns...  American Secretary of Agriculture Dr Earl Butts says that he is “not very sympathetic with the food needs of a nation where their governments and their leaders are constantly demeaning the United States”.)

 

Do You Remember Vietnam? (1978) 

 

Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979)

 

The Mexicans (1980) (Stark assessment of the Mexican economy during the CIA-backed administration of the PRI's José López Portillo)

 

The Search for Truth in Wartime (1983) 

 

Nicaragua: A Nation's Right to Survive (1983)

 

The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back (1985) 

 

Japan Behind the Mask (1987) 

 

War By Other Means (1992) (Third World debt)

 

Death of a Nation: The East Timor Conspiracy (1994) 

 

Apartheid Did Not Die (1998)  

 

Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq (2000) (Effects of sanctions) 

 

The New Rulers of the World (2001) (IMF, World Bank, WTO) 

 

Palestine is Still the Issue (2002)  (Updated with Ilan Pappé conversations)  

 

Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War of Terror (2003)

 

Stealing a Nation (2004)  (Britain's removal of the Chagossian peoples from the Chagos Islands)  

 

Latin America: The War on Democracy (2007) 

 

The War You Don't See (2010)  (War propaganda)

 

Utopia (2013) (Indigenous Australians)

 

The Coming War on China (2016) 

 

"The Coming War - It's Time to Speak Up" (2023 editorial):  "Post-modernism is in charge now.. Democracy is notional now; there is the all-powerful elite of the corporation merged with the state and the demands of “identity.”.. The rise of fascism in Europe is uncontroversial..."

Prabha Atre 1932-2024

Les McCann 1935-2023