The Breaking Time

"We are made of layers, cells, constellations"

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made of layers, cells, constellations." - Anais Nin

(A tip o' the hat to Emma Alvarez Gibson for this one)

All Times Break

I was extremely happy when Damien Williams agreed to become a contributor here and submitted this piece for our relaunch. In his own wonderful style, it pulls together classic lore, poetry, mysticism, and pop culture for a fascinating meditation on this blog's core theme.

They tell you never to start a story with a quote, so I won't. I'll start with two. Here we go:

“It is said that what is called 'the spirit of an age' is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world's coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.” - Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, 1716

“. . .The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand. . .” — "The Second Coming," William Butler Yeats, 1920

And then there is, of course, the ever-popular I-Ching Hexagram 23 (~1,000 BCE), aptly titled Breaking Apart:

This pictures a time when inferior people are pushing forward and are about to crowd out the few remaining strong and superior men. Under these circumstances, which are due to the time, it is not favorable for the superior man to undertake anything.

The right behavior in such adverse times is to be deduced from the images and their attributes. The lower trigrams stands for the earth, whose attributes are docility and devotion. The upper trigram stands for the mountain, whose attribute is stillness. This suggests that one should submit to the bad time and remain quiet. For it is a question not of man’s doing but of time conditions, which, according to the laws of heaven, show an alternation of increase and decrease, fullness and emptiness. It is impossible to counteract these conditions of the time. Hence it is not cowardice but wisdom to submit and avoid action.

 We have always lived in the breaking times. We have always felt that every period of major upheaval is the end of the world, the final days, the utter Apocalypse, come at last. And we're right. Every major shift of perspective ends the world in which we lived, and brings to bear a completely new perspective. In fact, most often that perspective is necessarily new, because the only ones who survive the shift (or collapse, as some would have it) are those who can adapt to the radically altered contexts in which they find themselves.

As ever, we must adapt, or we will perish, and this isn't news.

A walk-on part in the war: Heavy Metal East goes to battle

Back in 2008, I wrote a piece for Coilhouse on the heavy metal subcultures in the Middle East, and the amazing bravery of the young people participating in them. It was a trend that

As the protests, uprisings and revolutions have rocked that region this year, I wondered what happened to those same metalheads. It was their generation, after all, that forms the core of the protests, and given their fire for a different world, I figured many had to be involved.

In this piece from the Atlantic, I found my answer, or at least part of it:

MANY MEN HAVE psyched themselves up for war by listening to rock and roll or heavy metal. But how many have sung Pink Floyd’s “Mother” within earshot of the enemy in the dead of night? “When it got really quiet, we’d play guitar and sing ‘Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?’” said Abdulfatah Shaka, 22, his rocket-propelled-grenade launcher at his side. “The snipers would get furious and start shooting everywhere.”

---

Less than three months earlier, Shaka was an engineering student who had never even held a gun. Bassam Essraity, a handsome 23-year-old with gelled hair and a trim beard, who now sat opposite him cradling a Belgian-made assault rifle, was doing media studies. They would play guitar together, jamming on the beach or hanging out in parking lots at night in their cars, doors open, drinking strong coffee or bottles of non-alcoholic beer.

After asking me to sit on his left—firing RPGs had destroyed the hearing in his right ear—Shaka explained that his introduction to pop and rock, and to the English language, came via the Backstreet Boys. As he learned to play the guitar, and broadened his musical horizons through Internet downloads, his taste grew more refined. “Neil Young, Metallica, and Pink Floyd, especially Dark Side of the Moon,” he said. “Iron Maiden and Nirvana too,” Essraity added. “We were just young guys enjoying music, dreaming of freedom.”

Then, in the third week of February, the revolution began. Shaka stuck close to his uncle, who had fought in Libya’s war with Chad in the 1980s. His uncle grabbed an RPG launcher when Misurata’s armory was overrun. After blasting two of Qaddafi’s tanks, he was shot dead. His weapon, still stained with blood, was handed to Shaka. Essraity, whose house had been hit by a tank shell, joined him on the front line, as did Hazim “Haz” Bozaid, a powerfully built 29-year-old with a goatee, a stocking on his head, and a black Sepultura T-shirt. An import manager, he was also the lead vocalist and guitarist in a local thrash and death-metal band called Acacus. “I was inspired by Megadeth, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Chuck Schuldiner’s Death, that sort of stuff. It was not easy to find in Libya, so if you got something on tape, you guarded it like gold,” he told me.

The whole piece is emotionally wrenching, to say the least, and I was on the verge of tears by the finale.

Here's a country under the control of a psychopath for decades, with a radically different culture. But music is still music and humans are still human. It's spread past its original borders to something far more univesal. I don't know of any more potent symbol of a Breaking Time at its bravest than Libyan rebels goading a tyrant's snipers with Mother do you think they'll like this song? Another world is coming, bastards.

For the Heavy Metal East, it was just about living their lives and finding some expression for what they felt. But it wasn't that easy. The music was banned, but they listened to it anyway, and made their own. They wore the shirts and threw the horns, even if it meant a beating or jail. When they wanted their tyrants gone, they protested. When it was clear that wasn't enough, they picked up weapons and fought.

And here they are, a long long way from their smuggled tapes and garage bands, in a besieged, desperate city, many of their friends already dead, fighting. Singing "Mother" to taunt the snipers and "Wish you were here," well, just because.

Now, with Tripoli Street liberated, Shaka and his men were enjoying a day of rest before heading off to battle elsewhere. Bozaid talked about the metal festival he wanted to stage when Qaddafi was finally defeated. “It’s my dream—Hazfest,” he said. “It’s going to come true, if I’m still alive.”

I hope it will. The world, that world, is a fine place, and worth fighting for.

\m/

"The insolvent phantom of tomorrow:" King, Eisenhower and balance

Today, a holiday and an anniversary collided. The holiday is, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The anniversary is somewhat less well known: 50 years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his farewell address.

There, on national television, the President, the former Supreme Allied Commander and a staunch conservative by the standards of the day, said the following:

We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Now, look at this section from King's searing A Time to Break Silence:

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Two very different men are speaking in two very different voices, but the overlap is impossible to miss. By the time King spoke, many of Eisenhower's fears had proven true.

As an exercise in contrast, try to imagine the backlash a president today would face if, as Eisenhower did, they declared "permanent peace" a key goal. Going further, what if they added that, instead of trampling enemies abroad, they wanted "a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."

Keep in mind too, this was a time when, rather than dispersed insurgents, America faced the very real possibility of another world war, with an actual industrial power as an enemy. The justification for massive military spending was far better then than now, yet far fewer challenge it.

"The very structure of our society" indeed.

It was not the address' only prophetic moment, look at these particular observations:

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.

---

As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Hard not to cringe at that last line.

Eisenhower framed his speech around "maintaining balance" as the way to navigate the competing demands of the rapidly modernizing world. Balance here is strength without the worship of raw force. It is brilliance paired with humility. 

Forgotten in King's elevation to secular sainthood is the fact that he too advocated balance, "the need for blending opposites." Nonviolent did not mean powerless, and peaceful did not mean an aversion to necessary conflict. King had his rules, but his movement was out to win specific rights; and fought like hell to get them. Forgetting that lesson is a major reason today's would-be reformers fail to compel balance.

To that end, here's a King quote that doesn't receive the attention it should:

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.

To balance, because it's still the best way forward.

Jodorowsky, Dali, and the Dune that never was

Moebius' concept sketches for Duke Leto Atreides, Sardaukar soldier. More here.

After reading an interesting article on Alejandro Jodorowsky's art in Coilhouse 4, I decided to refresh my knowledge of the man, limited mostly to his films and Metal Hurlant work.

So I'm poking around his wikipedia article when I find this:

In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the film rights to Dune from Arthur P. Jacobs. Jodorowsky was set to direct. In 1975, Jodorowsky planned to film the story as a ten hour feature, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize and Mick Jagger. The music would be composed by Pink Floyd, Magma, Henry Cow and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger. Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while Foss was brought in to design the film's space ships and hardware. Giger began designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius' storyboards, and Dali was cast as the Emperor with a reported salary of $100,000 an hour. His son Brontis Jodorowsky was to play Paul. Dan O'Bannon was to head the special effects department.

 

Dali and Jodorowsky began quarreling over money, and just as the storyboards, designs, and script were finished, the financial backing dried up. Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that $2 million of the $9.5 million budget had already been spent in pre-production, and that Jodorowsky's script would result in a 14-hour movie ("It was the size of a phonebook", Herbert later recalled). Jodorowsky took creative liberties with the source material, but Herbert said that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship.

 

I believe "holy awesome bat-shit" is the correct expression. The tale only gets stranger from there.

The fierce urgency of now

A Time to Break Silence is a speech that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave exactly one year before his death. It's long, focuses in part on details of the Vietnam War and less well-known than some of his other oratorical masterpieces. I posted this (albeit with less complete video) last year too, and will probably post it again in 2011 too.

So why this speech in particular, and not I have a Dream?

For one, it represents a side of him not seen in much of the popular narrative. King connected his fight against racism to a much larger struggle for justice. Too often, in popular representation King is a figure who played a decisive role in winning a conflict long gone and can now safely recede into the national pantheon to look down in wisdom upon America. 

That needs to be shaken up, the struggle is not over, and King stood for a lot more than just the specific civil rights battles of the day. His words about "the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism" make a much larger — and for many, still uncomfortable — point.

Then there's this:

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

 

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

That's why.

The future is LOLspeak :-D!

It started simply, as most things do. The language was creaking: too slow, too specific and too long. Something else was needed, to turn the old bitch into a faster, sleeker creature bred for a new era.

The people should have known that something had changed when the president-elect's official victory proclamation screamed PWNED! in giant font. The doyens of proper language fumed about cultural degradation. But the purpose of language, after all, is to communicate, and everyone got the message loud and clear. The people (constantly enraged/cheering/aroused in their politics) craved color far more than the grey statesman tones of yesteryear.

Not too long after, "nom" landed in the dictionary as a proper verb (to nom, nommed, I nom your cake and you'll like it), pushing any number of older, longer charactered occupants aside into the abyss.

New generations, used to dubbing everything in their extended, networked circles "awesome" as a matter of tribal loyalty, needed new degrees of enthusiasm. OMFGroxxor! conveyed something more, and the recipient could be proud that they had received a superior compliment. The habits acquired in youth endured in strange ways, as the vulgar becomes normal, then refined. Slang is proper the second enough rich people speak it.

English was not pioneering anything in this area, of course. The Japanese had gotten there first.

Nor was it confined to the Anglo-tongues. A polyglot world needed something more. Logos had blazed the way, and few realized what omens lay in pictures of third world guerillas wearing shirts emblazoned with the Nike swoosh, cuddling next to their firearms. Not just the corporations, either, as by the end of the 20th century their direct enemies had turned the hammer and sickle into a global brand.

Then came the emoticons, sliding serpents into a longtime gap in the language. Simple words, in the hands of all but the skilled, could not convey a wink or a sarcastic tone. Yet one needed no skill, or even English, to comprehend :-) or the thousand pictograms it spawned. <3, too, was universal, and with every passing day, the demands of a million conversations further refined the symbols' use, adding nuances like a calligrapher's brushstrokes until they reflected all shades of emotion and intent.

It made sense, really, for a world with 7,000 living languages to stumble into a script with characters that encoded meaning instead of sound. The days were gone when horizons were so narrow that longer description in speech and the written word was a necessity. An ever-expanding common pool of images needed only basic references, as comprehensible in Nigeria as Chicago.

The high script still endured for refined literature or parsing deep ambiguities. But it was no longer the common word. The language that emerged a century later was coarser, boisterous and more vibrant. Perfect for a future wedded to the brutal invective and explosive enthusiasm of constant communication.

The linguistic storm crows were right: the language had degraded into a thousand pieces. But the guardians' ancestors had been right too, when they railed about the infection of foreign sound nuggets like thug, rendezvous and beef. Pure languages, like pure cultures, are ever a myth. Human tongues love to break things. But even more, they love to roll them around — for the flavor — and put them back together. They will do so until the sun goes black.

Srsly. ;-)