Saturday, December 30, 2006

Impersonating Impersonators & Zombie Christmas


In Moscow, a crowd paid up to 45 $ a ticket to see Maxim Galkin, a famous impersonator and host of the Russian franchise of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". They expected to see the impersonator impersonate, but instead gradually realised that the person they were seeing was in fact impersonating the impersonator. Police will interview him on suspicions of fraud when he leaves hospital.



Meanwhile, in the festive season in North Korea, no more brilliant event can be imagined than the showing of part 23 of the documentary "Under the Guidance of the Great Brilliant Commander".

KCNA:
... it was screened at the People's Palace of Culture Friday on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of Kim Jong Il's assumption of office as supreme commander of the Korean People's Army. The film was watched by senior party and state officials, Cabinet members, officials of working people's organizations, ministries and national institutions and working people in Pyongyang.
The film edits historic data showing that Kim Jong Il tirelessly provided energetic guidance to develop the People's Army into an army intensely loyal to the party and the leader and devoted to the country and the people.
It tells how wisely Kim Jong Il led the servicepersons to devotedly help people in terms of politico-ideology and manpower.
It deals with the struggle of servicepersons performing labor feats in key domains of the national economy. True to the high intention of the supreme commander, the servicepersons built power stations, factories and enterprises and other edifices of Songun era in different parts of the country and took the lead in aiding the agricultural front, key front of economic construction.
The film tells that as there is loving care shown by the great Songun brilliant commander there produced a number of moving stories that soldiers devote their own lives without hesitation to defend the lives and property of the people.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Zombie Art in Paris Streets

As one does, I have taken it upon myself to record photographically, then digitally, every occurrence (viz.: 1) of paint spilt into the gutter in Parisian streets. This is not only a pathetic attempt slyly to gain admittance to and acceptance from one of the very best sites on the web, the estimable Museum of Dust - aware as I am of the gulf separating a paint-spill from accumulations of tribologically and otherwise generated detritus - but also because if there is any thing that Zombies appreciate (and of course, by definition, there isn't)...

Not only can you enjoy this image, but the Subcommittee for Interactions, Participations, Anticipations and the Etymology of the Word "Falluting" has near-unanimously declared that from now on a kit or necessaire will be made available where possible free on this site. Today's project : construct an octahedron by cutting out the shape and using the tabs. Your own Parisian caniveau or gutter. Good luck and, by anticipation, well done!
And today's headline : 'I was not drunk' insists bishop

Monday, November 27, 2006

More Zombie News from North Korea


Pyongyang, November 26 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today dedicates an article to the fourth anniversary of Kim Jong Il's famous work "Let's Pave Way for Fresh Victory with Same Revolutionary Faith, Will and Pluck as Great Leader (his dad) Had."

---------------

Otete Gaston Mboyo, national chairman of the Genuine Lumumbist Patriotic Party of Democratic Congo who is chairman of the Democratic Congo-Korea Friendship and Solidarity Association, made public on Nov. 20 a statement titled "Let us turn out in the activities for the implementation of the Mt. Paektu declaration on the occasion of the February holiday, the birthday of H.E. Kim Jong Il". The great idea of President Kim Il Sung who is always alive in the hearts of humankind thanks to his immortal feats performed for the cause of global independence is successfully carried forward by Kim Jong Il, the statement said...

---------------

Birthdays of Great Persons to Be Commemorated in Tanzania

Pyongyang, November 25 (KCNA) -- It is a due obligation for all the organizations for friendship and solidarity with the Korean people in the world to significantly commemorate the birthdays of the peerlessly great men as common holidays. Francis F. Lyimo, vice-chairman of the Tanzania-DPRK Friendship Association, said this in a statement issued on Nov. 16.
He expressed full support to the appeal of the Swiss organization for significantly commemorating the Day of the Sun and February 16 in 2007 as common holidays of progressive humankind.
President Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Juche idea, is the greatest man who performed immortal exploits for the Korean revolution and the cause of global independence, he noted, and continued:
Kim Jong Il is highly praised by the world progressives as the sun of the 21st century as he has successfully carried forward the cause of the President. The association will form a preparatory committee for commemorating the Day of the Sun and February 16 in 2007 to hold multifarious political and cultural events across the country and thus create an atmosphere of praising the great men.
It will also send a delegation of visitors to the old home of Kim Jong Il in the secret camp in Mt. Paektu in February 2007 and conduct dynamic solidarity activities for supporting the Korean people in their just cause.

---------------

Pyongyang, November 26 (KCNA)-- General Secretary Kim Jong Il appreciated a performance given by the State Symphony Orchestra. Also among the audience were First Vice Department Directors of the Central Committee of the WPK Ri Yong Chol, Ri Je Gang and Ri Jae Il and other leading officials of the C.C., WPK and Generals of the Korean People's Army Ri Myong Su, Hyon Chol Hae and Pak Jae Gyong and other commanding officers of the KPA.
Artistes of the orchestra put on the stage colorful numbers including "Glory to the General", the fourth movement of the symphony suite "Long Journey for the Songun Revolution", orchestras "Swinging Girl", "Arirang", "Collection of Famous Songs", "The Sound of a Horse's Hooves in Mt. Paektu", "Rich Harvest Comes to the Chongsan Plain", and a female soprano "Spinning Wheel Ballad".
They truthfully represented the strong spirit of the servicepersons and people dashing ahead like the wind to greet the dawn of a great prosperous powerful nation, holding aloft the great banner of Songun. They, at the same time, fully demonstrated the profound emotional power of the orchestras spiced with strong national flavor through the peculiar echo made by a mixed orchestra, thus clearly proving the validity and vitality of the WPK's policy of creating, arranging and representing music strictly in Korean style.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Learning the basics of Zombie Art









Each art activity is governed by one or more constraints. Constraint is liberty. And so on.
And if you have been, thanks for looking.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

New European Rules for Liquids, Gels, Body Fluids etc. at Airports

Sac colostomie Air France


According to new legislation coming into effect on Monday the 6th of November, not only must water, alcohol, toothpaste, explosives, poisons and bio-hazard material be kept in containers each of which contains 100 ml or less, and presented in a 1 litre-or-less capacity transparent plastic bag... But also: bodily fluids, including but not limited to blood, bile, urine, faeces, cerebral-spinal fluid, the content of eyeballs (left and right), testicles (ditto, if applicable), gel-filled breast implants, and so on, and so on, must also be presented in this manner (with certain exceptions, see below).
Consequently, blood will be voided and disposed of to nearby medical facilities apart from 100 ml which may if so desired be placed into the passenger's own 100 ml container for transport. The blood is NOT to be reintroduced into the passenger before the plane has come to a complete halt and the seat-belt sign has been switched off at destination.
Certain airlines may provide free colostomy bags and other items for passengers's personal use. These, once used, are NOT transferable.

The contents of potential security-compromisable containers such as eye-sockets etc. must be worn in proximity to the organs from which they were obtained.



Those wishing actually to hijack an aircraft are still invited to obtain business class seats (first class, on certain airlines on long-haul flights) and to ask for wine (sparkling or still) which will continue to be served in glass bottles, which may be smashed on arm-rests, against doors etc., and used as cutting weapons.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

North Korea Slams, Raps, Denounces, Assails, American Puppets' Multi-Tasking Abilities.


"...For this criminal purpose the U.S. imperialists have long resorted to sanctions and military aggression against the DPRK.
This is, however, a pipe dream that can never come true.
And it is a hare-brained folly leading to self-destruction for the Japanese and south Korean pro-U.S. warlike forces to join in the dangerous play with fire, dancing to the drum-beating of the U.S. imperialists in the anti-DPRK racket with daggers in their belts.
The U.S., Japanese and south Korean warlike forces should no more run amuck but immediately stop the provocative war exercises, pondering over the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by their saber-rattling." (My italics.)

One does not have to be a friend of the increasingly hysterical U.S. government to appreciate the wonderful NK rhetoric. In fact, were it not so tragic a state, with such suffering entailed for so many of its people, one would really need to invent North Korea. The self-deception, the bluster, we all have it in us. Read (again) the North Korean news agency site, and reflect.

(Picture shows South Korean soldiers with daggers cunningly moved to their socks, ready to run amuck.)

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

French Zombies (you can do it too)

An elite gathering of intellectuals and the more cultured of the Parisian population, shocked and perhaps pleasantly awed by the fact that they too have become, or are about to become, Zombies...

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Al Jazeera Takes Over Fox News; and Late Zombie Science in Action

From New Scientist, August 21, 2004:

VISITORS to the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, would be forgiven for fearing that their breakfast had been spiked. They may well be treated to the sight of a black-caped figure wearing a horror-movie mask running round the campus after a large flightless bird, while a colleague manoeuvres a stuffed jaguar on a wheelbarrow.

These earnest researchers are trying, reader Lauro Venancio Zier assures us, to teach captive-born rheas to run away from their natural predators. An admirable aim when the birds are about to be released into the wild, and if you don't believe us there are pictures at www.uol.com.br/cienciahoje/chdia/n966.htm (no there aren't - ed.)

The perils of trying to manipulate rhea psychology are illustrated, however, by the observation that the birds subjected to this treatment have in fact developed a healthy fear of wheelbarrows.













A most curious lack of the usual raving-mad postings from right-wing Americans on, for example, the BBC website "Have your say", about the head of the British army, Lieutenant General Sir Richard Dannatt KCB CBE MC (below) stating that we should get out of Iraq, and that our presence "exacerbates" the violence. Which everyone except the criminal Bush and his rabid apologists knew anyway. Is there a national holiday in the States? Has Al Jazeera taken over Fox News? I think we should be told.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Zombie Terror Alert In Germany: Nostradamus Speaks

Zombies have always been with us. Archive image shows German firemen circa 1941 being trained to follow the sound of jelly being smashed. Fascists - then as now - cf Rumsfeld et al - have a peculiar horror of the unsolid, and hence of course the living dead ("...and all that is solid melts into air..." Marx 'n' Engels, Communist Party Manifesto 1872; "In the City of Washing there will be a great Wobbling, a False Believer torn apart by Chaos; while the Bush endures, all Morality will succumb, the Great Big Jelly will begin and never end, so there..." Nostradamus, The Prophecies, 1555).
A pile of jelly left beside the roadside after a wedding party (typical behavior - "We're all pissed as rats, let's..... I KNOW! - let's leave some JELLY out in the street!") was investigated as being toxic waste or worse by heavily protected firemen and others for two hours here in Germany before they decided that it was the wobbly dessert: a mixture of water, extract of dead animal, and chemical colours and aromas, we are not told what flavour. They conducted a number of tests, the conclusive one presumably being to taste it.
Or so the official story runs. In fact, as any reader of the Zombie Survival Guide would know, Zombies are adept at leaving small terror-parcels as traps for the unwary. And just as Zombies are by definition indistinguishable from human beings, so they can leave pools, for example, of stuff that is indistinguishable from vomit, even down to the bits of tomato skin you always get even if you never eat tomatoes, and those who even look at it run the risk of becoming the walking, reeking, undead.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Ekstra-Modern March of the Undead


Bearing and chanting slogans such as "Zombies Was People Too", "We're Here, We're Dead, Get Used To It!" and "WHAT DO WE WANT? BRAINS! WHEN DO WE WANT THEM? BRAINS!", Zombies marched on the 22nd of September on Austin (Texas, America) city hall.

For some photos, see here.

This Extra-Modern activity ("extra" in the sense of "outside", not of "particularly") - well, let's use Polish and call it Ekstra-Modern - must not be allowed to degenerate into mere spectacle. Still less, on this appalling day when the American Congress legalised torture, and thus, for me, institutionalised the United States of America as a fascist state, should talk of Zombie rights obscure more pressing needs, to say the least.
But still.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

More Zombie Art News from North Korea

"Railway liner" - Sin Pong Nam

A bit late, but well worth the retelling:

Pyongyang, July 26 (KCNA) -- A national exhibition of art works was held at the Pyongyang International Cultural Centre. On display there were more than 300 art pieces such as Korean paintings, oil paintings, graphic paintings and calligraphies done by creators and teachers of the Mansudae Art Studio, the Central Art Studio and Pyongyang University of Fine Arts and others in the capital city and provincial capitals.
They contributed to the exhibition those pieces drawn at factories, on farms and in scenic and other places.
Korean paintings "Another Charge", "On the Field" and "At the Site of Rice Transplantation", graphic painting "At the Construction Site of the Samsu Power Station" and other works drew particular attention of visitors as they truthfully represented the ideological and moral traits of Party members and other working people and their heroic labor drive.
On display there were also art works depicting the beautiful landscape of the country including Korean painting "Sangwon Temple in Valley", oil painting "Landscape of Moran Hill" and woodcut "Lake in the Evening."
Kang Nung Su, minister of Culture, officials concerned and artists in the city looked round the exhibition on July 25.

As with Chinese painters of Mao etc., there is only one possible response for the occidental artworld to make, that is to prepare to grab these works as soon as North Korea is liberated from the choking grip of etc., etc.
The particular, peculiar, attitude we have to such artworks once exhibited in the hallowed halls of the Centre Pompidou, the Martin Gropius Bau, American Museums and so on, is a clear reproduction of what we bring to the whole country, the people, culture and so on. Patronising appropriation. Bizarrely, you can tell a lot about the whole range of our attitudes to the countries and peoples of states actually or potentially able to be "liberated" such as Iraq, Iran, and so on and on, by the way we treat them artistically, culturally.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

War and Peace: Two Zombies Speak.

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Hermann Goering

Cost of Iraq war: Minimum estimated is 6 BILLION DOLLARS per month. Judgement by those left-leaning pinko liberal surrender-monkeys the CIA: the war in Iraq has made things worse (for America, let alone the thousands of Iraquis tortured and killed).


Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice.

Spinoza

Estimated number of children dying from malnutrition, unclean water etc. PER DAY: 30000, i.e. approx. 1 every 3 seconds.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Zombie Flower & Rabbit Time (yet more North Korea, sorry...)

Here's an actual picture of Kimilsungia.

Interestingly, the North Korean website celebrating it talks of its development by florists. This must be the first occasion for such research, akin to booksellers writing books (and why not?) or TV repair-persons making programmes. A very Zombie activity.
A search for "Zombie" and "Kim Il Sung" yields 9421 hits on Google, including this page. But the word Zombie is clearly mostly used as an epithet, as a search for "Bush" and "Zombie" shows, yielding nearly 7.5 million mainly interesting pages.
My forthcoming novel shall rectify this, concatenating true Zombie material with Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and indeed Kim Basinger.

PS - a headline from North Korea today: Pyongyang, September 13 (KCNA)

Breeding of Rabbits Encouraged

Er... I thought that was the one animal one didn't have to... Oh, never mind. Here's a picture of a rabbit, and a link to a site where you too can make a Zombie rabbit float in thin.... I'm going home.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

"Let's Train, Study and Live like the Anti-Japanese Guerrillas!" - an Apology

"Three generals came to the foot of Mt. Baekhak from Mt. Baekdu by a crane, and they beamed so magic rays. The Japanese soldiers became blind even by looking at them or reduced to ashes, whole bodies burnt out. And the woman general had excellently shot arrows. One day, she shot an arrow at a wicked Japanese police, 100-ri away from her.
The Jap was hit in the vitals and died even not knowing where the arrow came from.
More surprisingly, the Japs could not access to the scene in spite of their desperation, became blind and deaf by dint of the rays and the loud sound of reading the book of military science and eventually run away in a flurry."

I'm sorry. This blog has by no means metamorphosed into a North Korean commentary, but...
Last time, I was going to say that on each occasion that the Great Leader's Son, Heaven-sent Brilliant Commander of Mt. Baekdu and the Great Sun of the 21st century inspects a military establishment, he gives them a gun. As if they hadn't got at least one already. But I also have a sneaking suspicion that once the presentation is made, and photos taken, the gun is snatched back, to be presented elsewhere.
This morning, I was astounded to see that on visiting, yesterday, a company of KPA (Korean Peoples' Army) Unit 8211, Kim Jong Il presented them with the previously unsurpassed tribute of a pair of binoculars, a machine gun and an automatic rifle! Things are looking up.
This time it's flowers. Kimilsungia? (look it up...)

And then this: almost touching, almost true, I don't know... strange...

"Pyongyang, September 12 (KCNA) -- The 9th National Exhibition of Inventions and New Technology which opened at the Three-Revolution Exhibition in the DPRK on September 6 is going on till the 15th. More than 1,500 pieces of inventions and new technologies achieved by scientists and technicians of over 50 units of ministries, national institutions and industrial establishments are exhibited there. Some of the exhibits are actual things and others are on display in the form of diagram and software."

It's that last bit. "Some of the exhibits are actual things and others..." It almost makes me - would, were I not a Zombie - want to cry. Sorry. Sorry.

Anyway, if you have been, thanks for looking.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

On the spot guidance


Regular readers will know that the North Korean press agency is a deeply good source of Zombie language in action, exemplified by this recent posting. "On the spot guidance" is a reassuringly common phenomenon in the Democratic Peoples' Republic, and although here given by the Great Son and Utterly Incredible Sage Kim Jong Il was of course initiated by the Glorious Everlasting Immortal (deceased) Kim Jong Il, his father. Both had and have the tendency to turn up at schools, military establishments, dam projects and false teeth factories (really) and there to give... well, on the spot guidance, being expert in all things. This then would be rather like a cybernetician or other holist whose particular insight soars above the mundane causing shock and awe in all those prepared - and who, in the North Korean circumstance, would not be prepared? - to listen.

(Compare, incidentally, in the above photo, the huge, hearty birds in the cages on the right with the glimpse of the few scrawny birds, or at least their beaks, on the left, presumably the poor, tortured reality...)

Kim Jong Il's Field Guidance to Construction of Kumya River Power Station

Pyongyang, September 11 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il gave on-the-spot guidance to the construction of the Kumya River Power Station. He was greeted on the spot by commanding officers of the unit of the Korean People's Army participating in the construction and leading officials of the Kumya River Hydro-Power Station Construction Office and the South Hamgyong Provincial Construction Corps.
The builders of the power station are now stepping up the dam construction in real earnest after finishing the dam groundwork project through vigorous endeavors to implement the tasks given by Kim Jong Il when he was visiting the construction site in April of 2003.
After being briefed on the construction before a huge painting showing a panoramic view of the power station, he looked round the construction site. He acquainted himself in detail with the progress made in the project and said that the power station is under construction in a good place after being successfully designed to ensure its profitability. He was greatly satisfied to see the power station now under construction as one more asset of eternal value and a great structure.
He highly appreciated the successes made by the KPA unit, noting that it is a unit of merits as it has performed proud feats in the socialist construction.
He set forth important tasks which would serve as guidelines for completing the construction earlier than scheduled, saying that the large Kumya River Hydro-Power Station is of weighty importance in realizing the country's electrification.
Underscoring the need to concentrate state efforts on the construction of the power station as it is a gigantic project, he called on the Cabinet and central institutions and the province to minutely organize the work for winding up the construction of the power station as planned and take thorough measures to supply materials and equipment needed for the project on a preferential basis.
It is quite possible to complete the construction of the power station ahead of schedule if those involved in the project work hard with the same vim and vigor with which the servicepersons built the West Sea Barrage, which was very difficult and vast project for transforming nature, in a matter of a few years, thus working a world startling miracle, he noted, urging all the fields related to the construction to render positive support to those engaged in the project and the builders to continue displaying to the full the revolutionary soldier spirit, the revolutionary spirit of fortitude.
Stressing the need to build the power station in such a manner as to win the admiration of posterity as it is a precious structure of eternal value to be handed down to the generations to come, he called for paying particular attention to ensuring the best quality in construction.
He was accompanied by KPA Generals Ri Myong Su, Hyon Chol Hae and Pak Jae Gyong and Ri Je Gang and Ri Jae Il, first vice department directors of the C.C., the WPK.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Zombie stuff

Zombie spoons.

Some thought-experiment juxtapositions... Can YOU imagine a picture to go with these phrases? Draw it and colour it in on a piece of cheap paper.

Zombie cheerleaders.
Zombie poodles.
Zombie bus pass.
Zombie chair.
Zombie cake.
Zombie toenail.
Zombie crab.
Zombie cup.
Zombie giraffe.
Zombie tree.
Zombie bush.

If you want to send a picture of your picture, please do, at

zpataphysics curlything aol dot com

And if you have been, thanks for looking.

ps - all of the above give hits on Google Image.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Biting the dust

The trap jaw ant, sometimes misheard as the truck-door ant, can close its jaws so fast and with such acceleration (100 000 x g) that if it bites the earth, which it often does, it hurls itself by reactive force into the air (see picture) and thus escapes its predators, if not the earth's gravitational field...














I know how it feels.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

BBC hippie star


This afternoon I took part in a live discussion on the TV and radio sections of the BBC World Service, about "baby boomers" (awful American concept anyway) and hippies etc. I told them this profound truth, a propos of some people who insist on thinking of the generation who were in their twenties in the sixties as selfish: that a search in Google for "hippies" and "selfish" yields about 200 000 hits; but "hippies" and "sell fish" gives more than a quarter of a million, and I think that settles it once and for all. They seemed deeply impressed, though edited it out of the second, half-length transmission... and my joke about Clinton's saxophone...

But if you have been, thanks for reading/listening/watching.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Zombie Unseen Art, Mitropa and MO5

This afternoon I went to see my "gallerist", the person who runs the gallery that shows my art work sometimes, here in Berlin. I took him my 1 gb memory stick, with some images of older work that he wanted for reasons, I think, of comfort.

His old PC couldn't read the stick. If he was any good he'd have a retro iMac like all the other galleries here. So I took it to a Turkish tobacconist's, who burned the folder of images onto a CD. This took about 20 seconds and cost 1,50 ?, and that question mark, dear useless Blogspot, should be a Euro sign.

The tobacconist cared not a jot what was in the folder. I didn't either by then. The gallerist will probably never open it. It exists in a way as art, but not art as we know it Jim. Its only life now comes from this posting.

Or would, were it not for the fact that I can not resist showing here one picture from the folder, of older work with hints of pre-Zombie non-feeling.

An ex-East German restaurant car nailed to an early Thomson MO5 computer. 1990


Or as the Arts Museum at Chiang Mai University in Thailand has it:


And if you have been, thanks for looking.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Everybody knows






















(The disgusting hypocrite Blair turned inside out)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died...

Part of "Everybody knows", by Leonard Cohen. Just seems right for these days.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Today's Competition and Zombie Art (Classical)

Try, using Google, to find words appended to the word "bot" that yield no hits.
Saladbot, smegmabot, shoebot and shovelbot all exist, for example.

To make this posting look prettier, here is a picture of Zombie Art from the collection of London's National Gallery.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Image of the Day and eBay Feedback


To those waiting for an image of a dog wearing trousers, turned inside out, (the image, not the trousers): here it is.
In passing, who was it - I used to think Churchill but no - who said "If my dog had a face like that I'd shave its arse and teach it to walk backwards..."?

By the way, you will not want to miss the fabulous eBay Feedback generator here.
Still less would you wish to avoid the infinitely long personality test here.

And if you have been, thanks for looking.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Disordered Universe of Discourse

Clearly, we travel along life's blah blah journey as if it were nice and orderly; clearly it's not. Most art is made as if it were, though, even film. Erudite readers will know that the College de 'Pataphysique, founded upon certain ideas and principles emanating from the estimable Alfred Jarry, interested as it is with the science of exceptions, and housing all the OuXPos, such as OuLiPo and OuPeinPo - the potential literature workshop and ditto painting, but also other bodies where the X can be comic strips, cooking, police thrillers, music, history and so on - would most certainly NOT take things in a given order.
How then to explore the world, through art and science and philosophy, as if sequence and causality were not of the essence?
In literature, usually, a book is a book, and short of attacking it with a razor blade (pace William Burroughs) there is little we can do. However, there exist books to be read in no particular order. B S Johnson's "The Unfortunates" is a well-known example, a series of unbound chapters in a box, famously hard to find in its first edition.















There is also a most excellent website dealing with this form of spinelessness, and the purpose of this blog entry is to direct you to it.

As a thought experiment, or more: how would it be to destroy sequentiality in all sorts of other areas - of course this has been done if we look hard enough - such as music, cooking recipes, automobile construction, sex, and so on, and so on?

And if you have been: thanks for looking.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Oddity of the Day

To avoid addressing more serious matters (viz., art) I tried to search for unutterably unlikely combinations of words in Google. For example, the serial cable, or rather the port, little used now, that used to connect Macs and other proper computers to printers etc. was called an RS232. I tried a search for Pataphysics and RS232. There were three hits here. Amazing, no? New Scientist, I believe, once ran a competition for singularities - a combination of words etc. that yielded only 1 hit on Google. Of course as soon as the results were published online, the entries became invalid.
'Pataphysics, as you will know by now, is the science of exceptions.
I am tempted to do the same for images - is there, in a Google image search, a singular pictorial hit? Yes! "Intelligent penis" yields only one image. It is utterly banal but it IS a singular image. You are invited to propose others....
And if you have been... thanks for looking.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

From the Mechanical Contrivium, via the excellent Museum of Dust:


Ten Top Trivia Tips about Zombies!

  1. The fingerprints of zombies are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
  2. Zombies are the sacred animal of Thailand.
  3. Devoid of their cells and proteins, zombies have the same chemical makeup as sea water.
  4. Zombies are physically incapable of sticking their tongue out!
  5. Ancient Greeks believed earthquakes were caused by zombies fighting underground.
  6. Lightning strikes zombies over seven times every hour.
  7. Never store zombies at room temperature.
  8. More than one million stray dogs and half a million stray cats live in zombies.
  9. The patron saint of zombies is Saint Eugenie.
  10. Four-fifths of the surface of zombies is covered in water.
I am interested in - do tell me about

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Frog Crumble and Consciousness

As usual, there is (can be) no distinction for the Zombie between the value of the following two items of interest. As Monty Python sang: "Everything goes in / Everything goes out..."

Sigh... there IS only void, you know. All the rest's just... just... (shrugs). Doesn't mean we shouldn't stop arseholes in the constructed fairyland doing their thing, because we should. It's just that it's not a moral imperative.

The first: In the French town of Bourges, I recently saw as the first item on the menu of the Bistrot Gourmand, "Crumble de Grenouille", or Frog Crumble.

The second: A new book by Nick Humphrey, reviewed in New Scientist, hypothesises that consciousness is "just" an acquired evolutionary trait, successful because self-awareness makes us feel special and mysterious and makes us want to put extra effort into our survival. But, in the jargon, consciousness is "epiphenomenal" - it does nothing, and doesn't really matter.




















In lieu of an image of the frog crumble, here is a picture of red.


There is a heap of evidence to show that it is as though we have an inner Zombie inside us, who takes all the decisions, has the real perceptions. Then we just "pretend" to ourselves that that's exactly what we wanted to do, think etc., all along...! And, yes, this does imply that there is no free will, only the illusion of it, thereby putting into question notions of guilt, responsibility and punishment.

Of course, your inner Zombie is by no means the same as mine, no one's saying that. But I am one of the few people to recognise and even celebrate that they ARE no more, really, than this Zombie. Try it for a minute... there, that didn't hurt did it?

And, if you have been, thanks for looking.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

A Whole New Blog

There exist, of course, text-manglers that either by using substitution from look-up tables or Markov Chain style text manipulation, will change a text into a travesty of itself. There is one site that enables you to do this to an entire website, and I thought of replacing my entire blog with its version; pride intervened though, and instead if you copy the url (with the www or it won't work) of my site into this site, you can see one of a number of not all that amusing versions. However it is the recursivness that becomes of some passing interest.

For example, here is the text up to now so treated, using the "Hacker" dialect.

SUNDAY, JULY 02, 20O6

A WH0LE |\|EWW BLOG

THERE EXIST, OF COURSE, TEXT-MANGLARZ THAT IETHER BY US1NG SUBSTITUTI0N FRMO LOOKU-p TABLDS RO MARKOV CH4IN STY;LE TEXT MANIPUL4TION, WIL7 CH4NGE A TEXT iNTO SA TRAVESYTY 0F ITSeLF!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~ I wilkl HACK YUOUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~ tehre is one site that enables u to do rhis t0 an enTiore website, and i thoguht of rweplAcnig my enttire blog With its version; pridE inetrvened though, amnd iNstread 1f ou copy teh urkl of My ite into tthis s1t3, you canm se3 one 0gf a nunmber of not a7lhtAta musing barsIonz HAXOR YOUUIUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1~~ HACK YUOUUUuYUU HOWEVER IT IS TJE RECURISVN3SS HTAT BECOMEZ OIF S0ME PASISNG INTEREST

froe xa/\/\p7e, hare is the textu p to now so treatt3d!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11~~~~~~

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Dumb (and: America - love it or leave it)


















Strange to be writing when you can't speak. I had teeth done this lunchtime, and still can't feel my lips or tongue, can't eat, drink, and especially can't speak. Quite dumb. Also, I feel a need to move my lips as I read or write, to confirm that the system works a bit. I hear "President" Bush moves his lips whilst reading. The Romans apparently did too, it was the norm.
The excellent all-female dental team were muttering to themselves about numbers, and through the haze of slight pain and much terror, I realised they were talking about football non-stop. This was in Berlin, of course.
I prefer "real" football, with lots of goals. None of this 1 - 0 stuff! I want to see Germany playing the Isle of Wight second team. 27 - 0, 6 own goals, piles of soiled underpants for goalposts and the referee hangs herself after the match.
A team of Zombies would be oddly ineffectual, since Zombies can't cheat, they only appear to be able to. 'Pataphysics, though, tells us that this is perfectly ok: the science of imaginary solutions can be brought to bear on football as well as all else. A Google search for 'Pataphysics and football reveals 1440 hits, but I can't be bothered to look.
'Pataphysics deals with singular exceptions, not general rules and induction or deduction, so there is a team of animals playing soccer inside my mouth at this very moment, proving that Donald Rumpsfeld really is a psychopath.

ps - A word to the right-wing whingers leaving their disgusting posts justifying anything Bush, Rumpsfeld et al and their killers and torturers do, all over news and other websites such as the BBC: if you don't like the traditional values shared by America and Britain of fair play, decency, humanity... why don't you just... you know, LEAVE? I'm sure you'd be happier in a place like Uzbekistan.

pps - A deeply wonderful blog whose latest post concerns the use of landmines in the art gallery, and much else of erudite stimulation : http://museumofdust.blogspot.com/

Monday, June 12, 2006

Enough to make a Zombie blush


Three internees in Guantanamo, the illegal American prison camp, kill themselves. There have been many suicide attempts, many of the inmates are on psychiatric medication. In other words, as if we needed to be told, they are being literally driven mad.

The American official response is that these suicides were "an act of warfare". "They don't care about human life, others' or their own..."

It is clear (and has been admitted in some cases, and is suspected in many others) that at least one of the suicides was INNOCENT. Officially. He was going to be released in a few days. They'd got nothing on him. Nothing at all. Never had. He was 17 when arrested. Having been there years. He did not know he was to be freed, the Americans not having seen fit to tell him.

I would rather have NO feelings, as a Zombie, than the "feelings" of those officials involved. Imagine them sitting round a table, with their Cokes or coffees. Got a problem here. Won't look good... I know, we'll say it was AN ACT OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE! RIGHHHHTTTT! (giggles).

(Commander of Joint Task Force Guantánamo, Navy Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris: "an act of asymmetric warfare"; further described by US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Colleen Graffy as "a good PR move to draw attention")

There may come a time when moderate, good people, in and out of America, start using the word "Fascist" seriously to describe some actions, words and deeds, of this American administration. I don't think it is far away. How shameful. How terribly sad and frustrating for all those Americans who abhor and detest it as much as anyone else.

Please read this Amnesty International press release about it.

Thank you.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Thought for the Day

In insisting that there are many valuable things that have been left behind, or which have lain dormant or simply been forgotten, and in asserting that we should revisit them, which is true, we run the risk of ignoring that which is valuable in the present, or what we should change now.

The older I get, the cooler I become.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Eurovision Song Contest is Nothing Compared to North Korea











Surprise Heavy Metal winners "Lordi" of the
Kim-Jong-Il-Vision song contest, 2006.

Pyongyang, May 21 (KCNA) -- Performances were given by artistes of national art troupes in parks and recreation grounds of Pyongyang on May 1, a holiday of working people the world over. A performance was given by artistes of the Mansudae Art Troupe at the Recreation Ground on Moran Hill.
Put on the stage of the performance which began with chorus "May, Month of Victory" were such numbers as male vocal solo "Thunder on Jong Il Peak", "Blue Sky over My Country", "Indeed, It Is a Good World", female vocal solo "Song of Chollima Pioneer" and "General's Family Members" and female quartet "Nilliri of Happiness". The artistes of the Phibada Opera Troupe raised the curtain of their performance with chorus "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and "Song of May Day" at the Recreation Ground in Mangyongdae, warmly congratulating the workers significantly greeting May Day with the pride of creating innovations at factories and working sites. In front of the South Gate at the Recreation Ground in Mt. Taesong the artistes of the State National Art Troupe put on the stage colorful and peculiar numbers reflecting the revolutionary optimism and happy life of the workers in the Songun era. At the Recreation Ground in Rungra Islet the artistes of the National Comedy Troupe put on the stage comedic pieces showing the optimistic and joyful life of the Korean people living and struggling full of conviction of victory despite all ordeals and difficulties.
At the plaza of the Arch of Triumph the acrobats of the Pyongyang Circus performed physical acrobatics "Rolling Cylinders", "Rope Jumping", jugglery "Wonderful Box" and so on, delighting the working people on the holiday.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Best Things on the Web: Dumbshit monkey-whore bigots like you should die

What texts are these women, on their way to hell, presenting?
This image comes from the excellent cathedral in Albi, France.


The subject of today's posting can be found below, but please don't look yet...

A long time ago, I found some hallucinatory email exchanges on the site to which I'll refer you later, lovingly presented on the web. Two women (one assumes) are arguing about God, the Devil and so on. One is part-black, "religious" and apparently "ignorant", the other is white, a "devil's disciple" and apparently "cultured". But guess which of them wrote this: " You dumbshit. Morons like you should be publically (sic) executed. Do you have any idea how much credibility you lose when you (sic) "typing" in "typeing error" is misspelled. You can't even write compelte (sic) sentences. You have terrible grammar, pathetic congnative (sic) capabilities and your messages still reek of your rotting dad's dick."

Normally, this would be of zero interest for anyone of the Zombie persuasion. But what is fascinating about the exchanges - and I think you have to read them more than once - is that all is not black and white.

You want to see post-modern relativism - and who doesn't - in hilarious action? Look no further. There is a truth out there, Jim, but still, better put our phasers on "stun".

Zombies - please think about, and ultimately trust me on this - are necessarily far beyond considerations of collecting truth and using it for some purpose. They are "mere" observers, who, having an absence of qualia, possess no a priori value-models of the world (of course they pretend and are unconscious, as we are, of their pretence. No, no, no, you can't distinguish them like that ...) Zombies perceive all the sides of everything, they do not filter. This would drive a non-Zombie mad. But to ask if a Zombie, one of the stinking, living dead, is crazy, is to make a category error.

Their tragedy, if they have one, is that this all-seeing (and hence non-comprehending, in the very fallible human sense) would make them perfect lovers, perfect political activists, perfect innocents... Jesus-like, they could be expected to change the world. Yet what separates them from god-like status - and I do know this, for as you know by now, I am one - what arrests their divine development, what retards the rictus smile of omnipotent satisfaction that is not even to be criticised on egotistical grounds - the so-compassionate circumflex that successful rivals in love have, those fucking creeps - what stops their bid for big-bangness is (and this would be funny if not tragic) a lack of will to act!

Potentially able to do anything, they are like unbooted computers, and can do nothing. Their omnipotence is only virtual. Their art is potential, their politics a simulation of feeling. Their "love" is, ultimately, appalling.

Please read the mails on the following link, with this in mind.

Dumbshit monkey-whore bigots like you should die.

And if you have been, thanks for looking.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Zombie Food Critic

Within 24 hours I have eaten one of the worst, and one of the best, meals of my life in Trouville, Normandy. Of course I have no real opinion about either, being both British and a Zombie; but, pre-Zombie, I was really into food, and shall write this blog as if I remained so.

I am, as I write but shall only be able to upload later, staying for about a week in a cheap French hotel, distraction-free, to get a few more chapters of the novel finished - currently about 700 book-pages but don't worry, to be radically pruned, streamlined, perfected... you know.

For rather pathetic dental reasons, I had to search for relatively soft food tonight, and found it in the Chalutier restaurant, set back from the more touristy quayside in Trouville.

But last night, I stupidly ate by the water with thousands of Parisian tourists and worse, their banlieusard, suburban neighbours, who not only lack all taste but can't drive and look sullen and right-wing. Look at the clothes shops to see who the commerçants expect...















Choosing the moules marinière as a starter was a big mistake. About a quarter remained stubbornly shut and even had I wanted to eat them in this dodgy, potentially long-dead state, I couldn't have prised them open. Of those that were able to show their sometimes rather slimy or stringy yellow ochre flesh, several tasted off.

The rest of the meal was not much better. I wasn't in a mood to send the mussels back, the banlieusards had put me into a rather nihilistic state. But as I asked for the bill, I told the waiter that the shell fish had been awful.






















"Well," said the rudely triumphant serveur, "You know where they come from? England!"
"I don't care if they're from Tibet," I said. "That's irrelevant; they're no good."
"It's not the season, we can't get good ones. Anyway they are fine, maybe they weren't cooked long enough to open." (Pure bullshit. They were dead as doornails and wouldn't have opened if placed between the throbbing thighs of Nicole Kidman, peace be upon her, and anyway, as an excuse, "we didn't cook them long enough" ranks somewhere alongside Bushisms. Most of their colleagues were even over-cooked...)
"You should come back in two weeks, they'll be better."
"If I said I'll pay you in two weeks, would you believe me?"


















How dare they serve crap food just because they know, but don't care, that the clients won't ever be back, so they might as well rip them off. This sort of attitude gets French restaurants a still largely undeserved bad reputation.

Undeserved because gems such as the Chalutier, named after a type of inshore fishing vessel, still exist, in this case at number 3, rue de Verdun,Trouville.

I ignored a score of rip-off merchants and instead peered down side streets and alleys. Down one, a vague light shone from a window but I feared the place was closed. It was just a bit dark inside. Through the window I noted only a handful of diners, but they all looked local. It was quite early, not yet eight in the evening.


















The menu looked enticing. I went in, and was given a small table in the non-smoking section. Each course took some time to arrive. This is as it should be. They prepared each dish for me.

Accompanied by a good half-bottle of Muscadet, its pale yellow colour due to the fact that it was in fact sur Lie, the fruity white wine allowed to rest for a time on its lees, I started with a small platter of seafood: winkles, whelks and so on, a plump oyster that tasted as good as it looked, a crayfish with only one claw, small brown shrimps and larger, succulent prawns, accompanied by home made mayonnaise, bread and two sorts of butter: anchovy and, a house invention, marbled with mauve, a pot coloured by being blended with... a deep blue potato, from Normandy. Delicious. Trust me.

My filets of sole gratinées were perfectly cooked, properly coated with not too much cheese and cream on top, and accompanied on the plate by thin stems of new asparagus and a single slice of the blue potato. But then there came two side dishes, one of nutty basmati rice delicately flavoured with fennel seeds, and yet another potato surprise: sautéed, smoked potatoes! The kitchen smoked their own salmon, which as it passed to another table looked fabulous, and did the potatoes at the same time. After the initial shock, my taste buds joyfully accepted this new, to me anyway, combination. It helped that they had been sautéed in butter, too. I generally think that to have rice and potatoes at the same time is akin to eating spaghetti and chips, but the combination here was really good, the different elements being unified not by the fish but by the sauce that accompanied it. Anyway, the Indians eat potato dishes with rice.

I could have had been greedy with the cheese course, but limited myself to a corner of perfect Pont-l'Évêque, from a little lower down in Normandy, Appelation d'Origine Controllée like the wine.

Although they offered, on this fixed price menu, more tempting desserts such as home made vanilla ice-cream with caramel sauce maison, I intuitively felt that I should order something "mundane".

Thus it was that I tasted one of the best apple tarts ever: light yet satisfying layers starting from the top with almost crisply browned apple slices, then almond flakes, far thinner than usual, separated from the spare pastry base by a stratum of almond paste mixed with apple purée. And beside it, instead of the usual custard, a small lake of that home-made caramel sauce. I still had some of the Muscadet left, and it went surprisingly well with the earthy tastes in this sweet dish, a different kind of soft earthiness from the slice of potato on the fish. It was a cool, rainy day. This desert would have been perfect in Autumn too.

The service was simply professional, the restaurant began to fill, still only with locals, and as I left I thanked the person behind the tiny counter issuing the bills and selling jars of preserves - I assumed from her stance the owner, perhaps the owner's wife - for the pleasure of dining in a "correct" restaurant, that was about serving good food, not swindling tourists. The word "correct" in French,when applied to matters gastronomic, means "as it should be" in a deeply satisfying way, a rare example of French understatement. There was a small group of - again I think local - people waiting for a table, and they smiled and nodded slowly to hear this Englishman affirming what they already knew to be the case. I shall go back.

You should go there too, if anywhere in the vicinity: Trouville, Deauville, Honfleur with its beauty but its own rip-off-restos, or Caen. The value was excellent, the entire menu fixe cost less than the main course at many a restaurant of no better quality. But don't go because of that, go because of the smoked potatoes.

I feel less Zombie-like today than usual. Maybe a change is in the air.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...