flow painters in post-civilization world preparing ritual space, from afterculture.org
Environment:
Green Discussion: Karavans
Forums offer some interesting and informed debates on green
matters from Peak Oil to Korten's new book The Great Turning
which I reviewed yesterday. The forums complement an information
website. The site is run by Peter Ireland, a Bellingham-based
entrepreneur and 'green' venture capitalist. Peter writes:
We have
tried to have a
discussion on Korten's book for a couple of months now at my forum. Ran
Prieur called it "Final Empire for Dummies" in reference to Kotke's
classic "Final Empire." He may be right. It's probably what's needed.
What I have discovered in trying to run the discussion thread is that this view of history is so opposed to how
most people see the world, that it simply "does not compute" with them.
Even the few that do grasp it, just shrug their shoulders to indicate
"Well, it's always been like that. What can you do? Nothing really."
They then try to change the topic. Anyone who brings this stuff up is
easily dismissed as a crackpot or anarchist nutter.
So what can you do about it? A
few years ago I first discovered your blog when doing research into the
power of story telling. Therein lies part of the solution. Instead of
lectures that make people feel as if they are being scolded, you need
stories and art to show them that there's another way to live. One of
the best examples of this can be found here. [note: the illustration above is from that site].
Bulldozing the Bottom of the Sea:
You thought agribusiness ("contained animal feeding operations") and
genetically engineered monoculture were inhumane and ecologically
disastrous. Take a look at what megatrawlers are doing to our oceans.
Australian Video on CO2 Emissions: Making pollution and waste visible and obvious. Thanks to James Rait for the link. James also points out this BBC video with Richard Attenborough taking on global warming skeptics.
Why Wal-Mart's Move to Organics Will Make Things Worse: Michael Pollan in the NYT explains that embracing organic (or anything counterculture) while still insisting it adhere to the old business model
(slash costs, buy everything offshore, squeeze suppliers) is
counterproductive, creates fragility in the market, and corrupts
innovation and sustainability rather than contributing to it. This is
why big established companies make lousy innovators, and why they're
unsustainable. "To say you can sell organic food for 10 percent more
than you sell irresponsibly priced food suggests that you don't really
get it â that you plan to bring business-as-usual principles of
industrial "efficiency" and "economies of scale" to a system of food
production that was supposed to mimic the logic of natural systems
rather than that of the factory." Thanks to Umair Haque for the link.
Politics:
Freedom to Fascism: Trailers
for libertarian Aaron Russo's new film. I am not a libertarian, but I
can see how this idea has appeal. It is in a way the antithesis of
Korten's argument: Korten wants us to work together to create states
that focus on collective well-being not unequal wealth. Russo wants us
to dismantle states because they cannot ever be trusted to do so. Both
are appealing to both progressives and conservatives. Thanks to Dale Asberry for the link.
Literature and Art:
Writing for Yourself: A brilliant essay on fiction writing by author Barbara W. Klaser. Teaser:
Of
course the writer needs to learn the basics, hone her skills. Then,
after writing for self, she needs to be willing to let someone edit her
work and be open to revisions. The two-minute rule [you have to grab
your reader in the first two minutes of reading] makes sense, too.
Something in any story needs to draw the readerâs interest in as soon
as possible, unless the writer just wants to hide her novel in a drawer
and bring it out to read on her own now and then.
But I think a writer needs to begin any work of fiction out of love, a personal hunger to write it. Something has to draw the writer in, make it worth the effort, and perhaps make it impossible not to write.
...And Other Creative Undertakings Require Intention, Too: And coincidentally (or synchronistically) Jeremy Heigh also writes about the importance of intention,
rather than commercial motivation, driving artistic or any other
creation (it also applies to entrepreneurship). This post of his is
sheer poetry:
I was looking at a
bit of art yesterday. A small, elegant sculpture made of marble.
Polished, flawless, stationary; it seemed to dance. This morning,
thinking of dreams and aspirations, the image of that sculpture slipped
unbidden into the mix.
There are parts of life that flow as
water. And there are others (those where goals and intentions are
relevant) where definite choices must be made. Choices that act as
chisels, or hammers, or sandpaper, or drills. Decisions that drive
directly and ruthlessly in a single direction. Deliberate action.
Creating
art and creating dreams can be a long, tedious, intentional process.
But both art and dreams require a set of intentions instead of a series
of responses.
Authors Pick Best American Novels of the Quarter-Century: The list of over 100 judges is awesome. Their list of best novels
is not. Twenty-six novels written by men, two by women. Almost all of
them written by a generation now in their sixties and older, about a
world that no longer exists. Nostalgic. But as Laura Miller at
Salon.com explains, the exercise really didn't make sense to begin with.
Thought for the Week, from JM Coatzee's Elizabeth Costello, that I reviewed a couple of years ago. Thanks to Michael Bérubé (via Renée) for reminding me about this.
Sultan
[a chimpanzee] is alone in his pen. He is hungry: the food that used
to arrive regularly has unaccountably ceased coming.
The man who
used to feed him and has now stopped feeding him stretches a wire over
the pen three metres above ground level, and hands a bunch of bananas
from it. Into the pen he drags three wooden crates. Then he
disappears, closing the gate behind him, though he is still somewhere
in the vicinity, since one can smell him.
Sultan knows: Now one
is supposed to think. That is what the bananas up there are about.
The bananas are there to make one think, to spur one to the limits of
oneâs thinking. But what must one think? One thinks: Why is he
starving me? One thinks: What have I done? Why has he stopped liking
me? One thinks: Why does he not want these crates any more? But none
of these is the right thought. Even a more complicated thoughtâfor
instance: What is wrong with him, what misconception does he have of
me, that leads him to believe it is easier for me to reach a banana
hanging from a wire than to pick up a banana from the floor?âis wrong.
The right thought to think is: How does one use the crates to reach the
bananas?
Sultan drags the crates under the bananas, piles them
one on top of the other, climbs the tower he has built, and pulls down
the bananas. He thinks: Now will he stop punishing me?
The
answer is: No. The next day the man hangs a fresh bunch of bananas
from the wire but also fills the crates with stones so that they are
too heavy to be dragged. One is not supposed to think: Why has he
filled the crates with stones? One is supposed to think: How does one
use the crates to get the bananas despite the fact that they are filled
with stones?
One is beginning to see how the manâs mind works. . . .
At
every turn Sultan is driven to think the less interesting thought.
From the purity of speculation (Why do men behave like this?) he is
relentlessly propelled towards lower, practical, instrumental reason
(How does one use this to get that?) and thus towards acceptance of
himself as primarily an organism with an appetite that needs to be
satisfied. Although his entire history, from the time his mother was
shot and he was captured, through his voyage in a cage to imprisonment
on this island camp and the sadistic games that are played around food
here, leads him to ask questions about the justice of the universe and
the place of this penal colony in it, a carefully plotted psychological
regimen conducts him away from ethics and metaphysics towards the
humbler reaches of practical reason. And somehow, as he inches through
this labyrinth of constraint, manipulation and duplicity, he must
realize that on no account dare he give up, for on his shoulders rests
the responsibility of representing apedom. The fate of his brothers
and sisters may be determined by how well he performs.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
