~*Vivere. Ridere. Amore*~
The Mystified Magistrate
And Other Tales
It is all too easy to condemn Sade, as many have done, as mad, and thus dismiss his works as aberrations, pure and simple, best left unread, perhaps even burned. That the "monster author" (Napoleon Bonaparte) was an inveterate libertine, that he was openly bisexual, as much enamored of feminine beauty as he was of the callipygian portion of the human body, is uncontested. That the years behind bars affected his health as well as whetted his imagination to unbelievable heights (and depths) none would dispute. But as we have seen, Sade was less an incomprehensible aberration than a product of his age, one who, admittedly, seized the various strands of the social fabric and rearranged them into a diabolic anarchical pattern, standing the world, as it were, upside down. Much of his philosophical work, and indeed his personal letters that have survived, reveal a man who was as intelligent as he was intolerant, as principled as he was violent, as sensitive as he was arrogant. But he was certainly not mad.
- Alice's blog
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Plastic Passion is a Hycoscine Heart
Autobiography, by Dorothy Parker
Oh, both my shoes are shiny new,
And pristine is my hat;
My dress is 1922....
My life is all like that.
~N o s f e r a t u~
Nosferatu: The Silent Adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula Nosferatu: The Silent Adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula Posted on March 28th, 2008. --> Released in 1922, the German Expressionist film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, offers a chilling adaption of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (get free audiobook of Stoker’s work here). The film was made by F. W. Murnau and stars Max Schreck. Watch it below. (Or buy a copy here).
(No subject)
Hi Alice.
I love that "chick in the forest" photo.
Although, it almost looks like a crime scene.
Or if we time-travelled with a camera into a book,...perhaps into a scene from "Justine" by Marquis de Sade.
Darn. Now I'm not so sure I like the photo, anymore.
But, I wouldn't mind time-travelling with you. :)
And, I sound high already, and I'm not.
~*~
*
And Yet The Books
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
Czeslaw Milosz

*
Did somebody say...
...Justine...
?
*super smiles*
...
How late are you staying up tonight, SR?
Rite of Spring
**Lesbian Chic**
Random
quote...
"Now the dreams that you would have, and had, in shared experience are root dreams. Such root dreams serve as a method of maintaining inner identity, and of communication."
The Early Sessions, Book 7
Session 282, Page 13
John Cage
**Lesbian Chic**
Seth. Cool.
I'm gonna try to stay up for a bit. Tomorrow will probably be my later night. I intend to visit Sederville again tomorrow night.
How about you?
My friend, radiofreedoghouse, surprised me and came to visit for a couple days, house hunting. So, I'm a bit beat.
Apparently, he's up and decided to move to Tucson with his fiance ASAP. He believes we can do a lot of musical and video mischief to post on-line soon. Apparently, he took the time & spent the big bucks to buy all the fancy technology gadgets, bought a recording studio & established a record label.
I would like to do a low-budget music video response to Bunnypants' "Brown, brown grass of home" song,...once all the gadgets are hooked up. ;)
Gots ta have the love & anarchy.
Les crimes de l'amour
...
Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes the worst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend with Vice, and that, in an entirely corrupted age, the safest course is to follow along after the others? Somewhat better informed, if one wishes, and abusing the knowledge they have acquired, will they not say, as did the angel Jesrad in `Zadig', that there is no evil whereof some good is not born? and will they not declare, that this being the case, they can give themselves over to evil since, indeed, it is but one of the fashions of producing good? Will they not add, that it makes no difference to the general plan whether such-and-such a one is by preference good or bad, that if misery persecutes virtue and prosperity accompanies crime, those things being as one in Nature's view, far better to join company with the wicked who flourish, than to be counted amongst the virtuous who founder? Hence, it is important to anticipate those dangerous sophistries of a false philosophy; it is essential to show that through examples of afflicted virtue presented to a depraved spirit in which, however, there remain a few good principles, it is essential, I say,- to show that spirit quite as surely restored to righteousness by these means as by portraying this virtuous career ornate with the most glittering honors and the most flattering rewards.
...
I suck the marrow out of the weekends..
that's how fucking pathetic it is to work full-time...
I wanna see and hear the mischief....Are you in a band or something? Because I had time to check out some of your myspaces today and I am not even sure who is you or who is your friends..so if you are in fact in a music thing..SHOW ME..dammit...
;) Or it's Goddess Delirious 4-ever...
A Forest
Asking for Roses, by Robert Frost... (excerpt)
A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.
∞♥∞
Where My Books go
All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken’d or starry bright.
William Butler Yeats
Random
"The ego is a state resulting from the third creative dilemma, which happens when consciousness of self attempts to separate itself from action. Since this is obviously impossible, since no consciousness or identity can exist without action, because they are inseparable, we have our third dilemma. A note of further explanation here. The difference between consciousness of self as a result of our second dilemma, and ego consciousness as a result of our third dilemma, should be made very clear. Consciousness of self involves a consciousness of self within, amid, and as a part of action. Ego consciousness, on the other hand, involves a state in which consciousness of self attempts to divorce itself from action, an attempt on the part of consciousness to perceive action as an object. Here we see that ego consciousness, in this attempt, strives to perceive action not only as separate, but to perceive it in such a fashion that it appears to ego that action is not only separate from itself, that is separate from the ego, but that action is initiated by the ego, and a result rather than a cause of ego’s own existence. These three dilemmas represent three areas of reality within which inner reality, or inner vitality, can experience itself. And here we have also the reason, or one of the reasons why, inner vitality can never achieve complete materialization. The very action involved in vitality’s attempt to materialize itself adds to the inner dimension of inner vitality. Action basically can never complete itself. Inner vitality, materializing in any form whatsoever, at once multiplies the possibilities of further materialization. At the same time, because inner vitality is self-generating, only a minute fraction of inner vitality is needed to seed a whole universe. Inner vitality attempts therefore to materialize itself completely, and yet because of its very nature, with each materialization it increases itself, making the attempt impossible. This is the basic dilemma, from which all types of reality spring. This of course leads us to the necessity for further discussion concerning the nature of inner vitality itself"
The Early Sessions, Book 3
Session 138, Page 289
Alice & Thespian Lipsti...
Alice great pictures and comments
Thespian Lipsti... GREAT "Rite of Spring"
it has been many moons since I have seen...but I have seen Joffrey & Nijinsky ;)
HI WD....
Okay, Alice...
I'm not sure I understand the expression "suck the marrow."
I can't help but feel that your destiny is to not work full-time.
I am merely a stumblebum who happens to play guitar and write songs sometimes. I am just completely clueless as to technology, be it video or music recording.
As for the mischief and the video. Well, that's coming.
I try to do mischief on-line via blogs and talking with you & such. I just have no 21st century skills.
The only crap that's me is the band, hugs anD rugs.
Bearer of unexpurgated crap... I like to think is part of the little charm & skill-set I may bring to the table.
I was basically convinced to hang out in a hotel room (Club Congress) with radiofreedoghouse for a couple of evenings & just smash on guitars & howl out some songs I'd written eons ago.
He mixed it with fancy equipment, the music sounds painful & society probably oughta pass some law against such behavior.
But, alas shit fertilizes the ground which sprouts pretty flowers.
I am the dumbass in this video wearing the headphones. (Can you hear the train go by the window right as the video clip ends?)
If I were you, I'd stick with Goddess Delirious.
I think dada is serious about what he does & that deserves respect. (But, it will make air-ono jealous, I'm sure.)
I'm not sure I really give a fuck about being serious.
It doesn't suit me. I just like being a smart ass, musically & otherwise, & try to stay on my path, possibly make humorous, relevant observations,...blah, blah, blah...
Had there been YouTube in mid to late 90's, I did have the perfect song written & performable about Clinton. But, alas, I'm not sure I even had a functioning tape recorder, then.
The chorus was: "I'm the former governor,
the current president,
I play the sax, but I'm known for
My whore, Monica."
The "whore, Monica," cliche was not common back then.
Anyway, Alice. Hopefully mischief is afoot via video soon comin' out of Tucson.
And, you'll be the first to be notified to warn people to run away. :)
-I'm not sure I even had a functioning tape recorder, then.-
Ha.. maybe an 8-track..(kidding) - we're cassette babies..
*
"whore"...hmm..sounds like how the media is referring to the Spitzer woman...As if she is to blame...I'm not sure if there's any blame...but I do think that the man and the woman are both responsible for their actions and outcomes..
*
Can't wait to see the vid and go back to the right myspace to explore..monday monday....
>;'(
grr..
Alice, Your Consciousness is Amazing....
;)
I know the term is inappropriate, Alice...
I probably knew it then, too.
But, the entire song was sung as if I was Bill Clinton.
So, it was Bill being a dick, yet again.
By singing an inappropriate, insensitive, degrading song.
The story line, which I forget (the paper's vanished amongst my clutter), was pretty funny in an insensitive way.
But sometimes, it's quite the challenge to find the rhyme when writing songs; and if you're too politically correct when trying to be funny, you end up not being funny.
Yep, conscious evolution is needed. And is happening.
Let's pretend you never heard that chorus. Please.
We'll try this one.
"Off with the clothes; get those joints lighted.
Massaging your thighs, girl; ... getting you excited.
Gonna be your horse; while you go riding.
Comin' inside you; I think there's something you're hiding."
"We're having a freak reunion.
Don't arrest us, 'cause our signs say "Peace."
We're inviting you to the party.
Stop in for a hit and a missus' at least."
XOXOX Alice. :)
And thanks, Alice. Since I consider you to be a band member, I highly value & am very grateful for your vision & view. :)
Consciousness...
Alrightie...it is what it is...and assuming you mean amazing in a goodly way...thank you... but even if you mean it like 'hmmm she is an odd bird'....thank you too.. :)
I see now, SR..ok I just thought that Democrats liked the
Clintons....I missed something between then and now I think.. :)
It was all queued up in my craw already when I heard some tv blurb calling that other girl "the cause of the downfall of Spitzer"....it pissed me off something bad this morning...
:)
I'm over it...
and on this now....
"Off with your clothes; get those joints lighted.
Massaging your thighs, girl; ... getting you excited.
Gonna be your horse; while you go riding.
Comin' inside you; I think there's something you're hiding."
"We're having a freak reunion.
Don't arrest us, 'cause our signs say "Peace."
We're inviting you to the party.
Stop in for a hit and a missus' at least.
That's a spicy meatball.... *yum*
!! I'M SO EXCITED TO BE IN YOUR BAND !! Thanks! I'll try not to let you down...
XOXOX I'm grateful for you too..I probably would't still be here if you didn't reincarnate yourself here again... (So blame Sir Real, BLOG!) ;)
Blonde Nude
Renoir
You could never let me down, Alice.
Friends forever. And bandmates, too.
I hate that women are treated poorly & unfairly blamed.
Part of me wishes I knew Spitzer so I could beat his ass.
The other really tragic part of that sad story is that Eliot Spitzer was the only guy willing to crack down on Wall Street misdeeds after the Enron, Worldcom, etc... fiasco.
He realized that the federal government had no intention of prosecuting the bad guys, so he decided that since he was Attorney General of New York, and that Wall Street operates out of New York, he was gonna try to stop the crooks. As a result, Wall Street hated him & the general population of New York gradually became a fan of the crimefighter. He was brought down by a Republican operative. Nonetheless, if our Puritanical culture would just take a sane view on human sexuality, prostitution would be legal, and Wall Street would be pissing their pants right now about going to jail, instead of worrying about losing their yacht.
And, what sucks about Eliot was that he was a fucking hypocrite. He cracked down hard on prostitution, as well as on Wall Street crooks. What a knucklehead.
I'm sick of fucking people being irresponsible assholes.
At the restaurant, Canal, in Scottsdale, where radiofreedoghouse just retired as GM, staff papers & stamps at the door said: "DBDB" Meaning: Don't be a douche bag.
Love & cooperation is all this world needs to speed up the pace of its evolution.
---
I'm fading a bit, Alice. So how 'bout maybe we try riding this train of thought further down the rails, possibly off the rails, tomorrow.
Love. Love. Love.
Sir Real
(P.S. Sweet dreams. And, I'm sorry I'm fading.)
I'm hoping to write you an e-mail tomorrow, too. :)
It's a Virtual ....
Hey Kevin.
I hope you're well.
G'nite Kevin.
The Third Wheel problem
Hi Sir Real
good night 8-)
-Don't be a douche bag-
:)
Yes....off the rails tomorrow...I'll even suffer the hardship of the Saturday afternoon nap just to make sure I have half a chance of Living Saturday to its fullest.... (aka sucking the marrow out of the day)...
*
-The Third Wheel problem-
LMFAO....k..too funny, Kev.... :) HAHA...
you know I loves me some DD...
Oh Yo Ko
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Yoko Ono: FEMAIL - Jan/Feb 2008
Yoko Ono: FEMAIL - Jan/Feb 2008
Excerpts from Yoko’s fanmail replies.
Imagine if you were in China and if there was a blonde blue eyed man walking.
They might call out "Hey, Brad, where’s Angelina?!"
You’ll be surprised what I have put up in my time, and still do.
You will find what you want to do, when the time comes.
Meanwhile, you should make sure that you are in good health, and know as much as possible about the world we live in. For that, you should listen a lot and read a lot.
Don’t make your world small by not opening yourself to learning about what we, humans did in history, and are doing now.
John and I were able to do things for the world because we were learners, first. Both of us read a lot before and after we’ve met each other.
Words are power. You should be exposed to powerful words to become spiritually powerful.
Meanwhile, Think Peace, Act Peace, and Spread Peace.
Be a powerful person. I wish you all the best.
While you are working in the way only you can, you will suddenly discover that you are part of a huge group of people in the world working for the same thing, but each in a different way.
We are all together. That’s why this movement, if you call it, is getting stronger and stronger. Together, we will shift the axis of this globe to peace rather than war.
Welcome to the family of peace and love.
I love you!
John would have been very, very upset that this beautiful city of New York was subjected to terrible violence. But think of the violence that killed John. That was a very sad day. From one New Yorker to another with love, yoko.
I get very upset, angry and sad when unnecessarily mean things are written - just about anybody. Why can’t we be fair to each other? Life is so short. Why spend the time to tell nasty lies about people? After being subjected to all that for the past 40 odd years, I still don’t understand it. But I am here, and probably wiser for the mistreatment I’ve received. So I probably should be thankful to those blue meanies. They made me a strong woman.
Hmm... guilty pleasures...
Everything that makes me ecstatic eating...chocolate, chocolate chip ice cream, brownies...
Okay, let’s not go on about it! Kiss, kiss, kiss, yoko
We are all entertained to death. We don’t have time to unfocus ourselves from the various daily entertainment we surround ourselves with.
I call people who come to me with good intentions as Angels.
But in my speech, I am moving one step up and saying that even the ones who come to me with bad intentions are Angels because they might be giving me an awareness I needed, and letting me find a solution to the problems, thereby making me a more powerful person.
Let’s make 2008 a better year for all of us, ourselves, our families and friends.
You are helping the planet to be peaceful just by being you.
But if you want to do more, just do more of what you’ve been doing:
Think PEACE, Act PEACE and Spread PEACE.
I’ll say it again.
You are helping this planet of ours, just by being your good self.
So stay well as long as you can for the sake of our planet.
Have fun as well being you.
I’m an ancient Zen Buddhist. Well, probably!
Hi, Sluts of Steel! FEMINIZATION OF MAN? You just gave me a laugh which I needed so very much at this time. Thank you. Have a great 2008.
Thank you, Libby, for your sweet message.
When John passed away, I told the world that there would be no funeral for John.
John is still in our hearts and in our minds.
Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace.
Together, we should do that and make 2008 a great year.
You don’t have to get anywhere.
You are beautiful as you are now.
Anybody can make a difference and do. We are all together. Each one of us counts.
If the people in China can shift the axis of the globe by jumping at the same time, we can shift the axis of the world to Peace TOGETHER. Together is the key here.
In your mind, Think Peace, Act Peace, and Spread Peace with us.
Visualizing is a strong way to change the world.
Please take a good care of yourself. I love you!
We all are skeptics now.
What an age we live in!
But we’ll change it, won’t we?
The Change is gonna come. The Change is coming. The Change is here!
But just in case, it slides back a bit, let’s keep pushing.
Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace!
Thank you. What a beautiful age we live in!
DREAM POWER is an expression taken from my song Dream Love, in the album, It’s Alright.
It became the title of an annual charity concert in Japan.
It’s a concert in which famous Japanese singer/songwriters sing John’s songs in tribute to John, by choosing the song they love. All proceeds from the concert goes to building schools for African and Asian children. So far, we did 7 years of these, and built 65 schools already. We are aiming to build 100 schools by the 10th year.
I’m very happy that No, No, No hit number one! It’s a difficult song to hit, I thought.
Well, times are changing... That was Sean’s favorite, when he was a young boy. I don’t know how he feels now, that he is an accomplished singer/songwriter himself...
I don’t think you need any degree to become an artist.
As a true feminist, you should not put down your fiancée on what he believes in.
Just humor him. You will realize that you have to do that a lot with men.
They are different from us.
Men tend to believe in degrees and medals. They created them!
Be satisfied with being you, and how you communicate.
There are billions of people out there.
Some people will definitely be touched by the way you communicate, rather than way John and I did.
So believe in yourself, and communicate your thoughts exactly in the way you think.
That’s the best you can give to the world.
When I was totally depressed about losing my husband, John, I looked at myself in the mirror and felt terrible. Because I looked all stiff with a saggy mouth. I told myself that I had to stop my mouth looking saggy. So I smiled in the mirror. Yes. That looked better. Then I kept practicing to smile in the mirror. Finally my whole body was smiling. It took a long time to be how I am now - 27 years from my husband’s passing. I had to do it little by little every day to get well. I hope you will, too.
Dance through life is a conceptual act.
You let your heart dance. You let your body dance in your mind as you walk. You’ll be surprised what happens. A good one: Listen to the rhythm of "dancing" in your mind when you are confronted by unpleasant people. You will find yourself being pleasant to them, and you can wash them off your mind very easily afterwards.
When I was struggling to make a living, I did everything I can - from being a waitress to being a translator. I always felt that creative work I did was something sacred and I did not want to commercialize it. Maybe it is hard to have such an attitude these days. So I don’t know. Just do what you can do to survive but never compromise with your artwork.
I was in Gakushuin. It’s nice to hear from somebody who speaks about that time of my life.
We were all sent here to be the caretakers of this planet. It’s so clear, isn’t it?
David Peel has been one of the very few "good" friends from way back.
Many of so-called friends after John’s death betrayed us. He hasn’t.
He has been very gracious to the point of being noble. I think very highly of him.
I wanted the video for Happy Xmas (War Is Over!) to shake up people who celebrate Xmas without thinking of all that - people who think wars are justified. That version was not to preach the converted like you. If you knew that, maybe you would have understood. If I made a version of sweet and sad mixed, people will probably come back to me and say, "can you take out those sad bits?" Right?
I don’t expect anybody to see that video more than once. It is a reminder of what is happening in the world. The rest of the time, it’s good to listen to the song, only, as you ended up doing. That DVD is like a Zen Shock. It’s not entertainment, it’s educational. One day, I hope, that DVD will not be necessary.
Whatever hard week we have, we are together.
Remember and trust in the family of Peace and Love, which is what we are.
You are right in assuming, that I try to just keep on doing my work.
There is no time to respond to those people who have negative feelings about me.
First of all, there are so many.
So if I started that, I have to be using my energy just to respond to them!
Don’t worry for me.
Together, let’s worry for this planet.
Let’s worry for the innocents who are maimed and killed.
Let’s worry for our children who will have to cope with so much anger coming from the abused. Let’s try to heal this globe with our love.
We don’t have a lot of time anymore.
Dec 9th, 2007 - "It was an honor to join in the ribbon of ’Imagine’ that wove its way around the world last night." The above message from you was very special for me. Suddenly, I saw the ring around the world made by the song, Imagine. Thank you for your reminder and your beautifully succinct report of your day. Have a great 2008!
I believe Jung is right. There is some vast collective consciousness that we are all a part of. And I know that that is the consciousness of goodness, universal peace and love. And I know that we, the family of peace and love, are now spreading the light of peace on Earth. And I know that you are a very important part of it as well, whether you admit it or not.
So thank you. Thank you for being you. Let’s have a good year without any fear.
Life can be very tough. But if it isn’t, you’ll never learn. So you have to just wish your friend well, but let him take care of his karma. He will be a wiser and stronger person for it. Good luck!
"How did you stay together for so long and keep your love so pure and true?"
When you meet the right person who is true, honest and filled with light, you won’t have to ask that question.
Nena, you get butterflies in your stomach even if you were just facing a stiff exam! So that’s not what love is about. You said you already knew what it was like to fall in love, but you didn’t think the guy was good enough for you. Well, I don’t know what makes a guy good enough and what doesn’t. John and I, both of us were not perfect people. We had warts and scars. But we still loved each other and couldn’t think of going anywhere else. So... I guess you know when that happens. I wish you luck.
John and I thought we were soul mates. I think it depends on what you think of your relationship, too. You are lucky if you meet a person you regard as your soul mate. You are even luckier, if you spend your life with him/her. I wish you a lot of happiness.
I performed in Washington DC last year!
In fact, I put up a billboard IMAGINE PEACE in Chinatown.
(At the Verizon Center at 7th and G Streets NW, Washington DC).
"We should prevent violence like we try and prevent cancer."
Well said. Yes.
We have a strong need to heal our planet from cancer of the body and the mind of all living things. Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace!
I am so glad that you listen to my songs like HELL IN PARADISE.
Well, it’s still hell, right?
We must change that.
Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace.
And let’s see what happens.
I feel very lucky to have so many MySpace & Facebook friends.
But you have five thousand friends, too.
We are a family.
It’s nice to know that their are so many of us believing in Peace and Love.
Know that we are a family of light.
Let’s give light and joy to people who are now in the family of darkness.
Thank you for continuing to love John and understanding his work and his spirit.
He was one and only.
We all get good energies from knowing him and thinking of him.
His spirit is growing in all of us.
By all means, come visit Strawberry Fields.
You won’t regret it. It’s a beautiful place.
When you get there, look for the IMAGINE circle and IMAGINE PEACE: Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace.
Let’s make 2008 a great year for all of us!
Each person has her/his own way of dealing with life. So I don’t think I can tell you what to do. But if you bared your soul, that means he knows what you want, whatever his answer is, he should not make you wait around like that. That’s cruel. Don’t wait around. Just move on. If he’s meant to come to you he will, even if you moved on.
I say, Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace. You are already doing that. Keep on doing, and you will be surprised how effective you are. Don’t think your thoughts have to be printed in publications, or be quoted on the radio. Power works in mysterous ways. Your thoughts alone have the power to change the world, and it will. Just keep thinking and you will see. Don’t keep thinking how awful it is now. Don’t put your energy on negative thoughts. Just keep visualizing the bestest the most for our now and the future.
!I know it’s very, very difficult when one is going through separation/divorce. Very grating on your nerves, isn’t it? Be strong. It’s a blessing in disguise. Hard to think that way, but it is. I went through two divorces before I married John. I didn’t know it then, but without those divorces, I would not have gotten together with John. Your soul mate is waiting for you to get through this period, whether he knows it or not! Smile and the whole world smiles with you, etc.
Thank you for telling me that Bob Dylan talked about me on his radio show, "Theme Time Radio Hour". I did hear about it, but I didn’t get the tape yet. I intend to. I love and respect Bob deeply, (who doesn’t?) so this is really a fantastic news for me! I’m most grateful to him.
My heart feels alive, just hearing the word Vienna. It’s one of the cities I love very much.
I was an artist before I knew I was one. I started very, very young. Like 4 years old. But all of us are artists at that age. Just some of us stick to it, and some of us forget it. I stuck to it, because I needed a security blanket! John’s sense of humor comes from the same root as why I stuck to being an artist. He needed a laugh in his life, because his life was so hard.
This question has been asked many times: "Are you really Yoko?"
It’s understandable that you guys all think that maybe not.
This is me, talking.
I can only answer maybe 10 or 15 messages a night.
Sometimes I may not answer any for a whole month!
That has not happened yet.
I am the one who is answering them.
I think that’s better than 200 answered by a machine!
I hope you agree.
Thank you for letting me know your thoughts about ’Remember Love’.
Yes. I like that song, too.
Have a great 2008.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=24446558...
My Hundred Books, by Robert W. Service
*
A thousand books my library
Contains;
And all are primed, it seems to me
With brains.
Mine are so few I scratch in thought
My head;
For just a hundred of the lot
I've read.
A hundred books, but of the best,
I can
With wisdom savour and digest
And scan.
Yet when afar from kin and kith
In nooks
Of quietness I'm happy with
Sweet books.
So as nine hundred at me stare
In vain,
My lack I'm wistfully aware
Of brain;
Yet as my leave of living ends,
With looks
Of love I view a hundred friends,
My books.
Thursday 21st January 1971
Thursday 21st January 1971
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
talk to Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali
for the underground magazine "Red mole".
TA: Your latest record and your recent public statements, especially the interviews in Rolling Stone magazine, suggest that your views are becoming increasingly radical and political. When did this start to happen?
JL: I've always been politically minded, you know, and against the status quo. It's pretty basic when you're brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere.
I mean, it's just a basic working class thing, though it begins to wear off when you get older, get a family and get swallowed up in the system.
In my case I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days; that would be around '65 or '66. And that religion was directly the result of all that superstar shit - religion was an outlet for my repression. I thought, 'Well, there's something else to life, isn't there? This isn't it, surely?'
But I was always political in a way, you know. In the two books I wrote, even though they were written in a sort of Joycean gobbledegook, there's many knocks at religion and there is a play about a worker and a capitalist. I've been satirising the system since my childhood. I used to write magazines in school and hand them around.
I was very conscious of class, they would say with a chip on my shoulder, because I knew what happened to me and I knew about the class repression coming down on us - it was a fucking fact but in the hurricane Beatle world it got left out, I got farther away from reality for a time.
TA: What did you think was the reason for the success of your sort of music?
JL: Well, at the time it was thought that the workers had broken through, but I realise in retrospect that it's the same phoney deal they gave the blacks, it was just like they allowed blacks to be runners or boxers or entertainers. That's the choice they allow you - now the outlet is being a pop star, which is really what I'm saying on the album in 'Working class hero'. As I told Rolling Stone, it's the same people who have the power, the class system didn't change one little bit.
Of course, there are a lot of people walking around with long hair now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything.
RB: Of course, class is something the American rock groups haven't tackled yet.
JL: Because they're all middle class and bourgeois and they don't want to show it. They're scared of the workers, actually, because the workers seem mainly right-wing in America, clinging on to their goods. But if these middle class groups realise what's happening, and what the class system has done, it's up to them to repatriate the people and to get out of all that bourgeois shit.
TA: When did you start breaking out of the role imposed on you as a Beatle?
JL: Even during the Beatle heyday I tried to go against it, so did George. We went to America a few times and Epstein always tried to waffle on at us about saying nothing about Vietnam. So there came a time when George and I said 'Listen, when they ask next time, we're going to say we don't like that war and we think they should get right out.' That's what we did. At that time this was a pretty radical thing to do, especially for the 'Fab Four'. It was the first opportunity I personally took to wave the flag a bit.
But you've got to remember that I'd always felt repressed. We were all so pressurised that there was hardly any chance of expressing ourselves, especially working at that rate, touring continually and always kept in a cocoon of myths and dreams. It's pretty hard when you are Caesar and everyone is saying how wonderful you are and they are giving you all the goodies and the girls, it's pretty hard to break out of that, to say 'Well, I don't want to be king, I want to be real.' So in its way the second political thing I did was to say 'The Beatles are bigger than Jesus.' That really broke the scene, I nearly got shot in America for that. It was a big trauma for all the kids that were following us. Up to then there was this unspoken policy of not answering delicate questions, though I always read the papers, you know, the political bits.
The continual awareness of what was going on made me feel ashamed I wasn't saying anything. I burst out because I could no longer play that game any more, it was just too much for me. Of course, going to America increased the build up on me, especially as the war was going on there. In a way we'd turned out to be a Trojan horse. The 'Fab Four' moved right to the top and then sang about drugs and sex and then I got into more and more heavy stuff and that's when they started dropping us.
RB: Wasn't there a double charge to what you were doing right from the beginning?
YO: You were always very direct. ..
JL: Yes, well, the first thing we did was to proclaim our Liverpoolness to the world, and say 'It's all right to come from Liverpool and talk like this'. Before, anybody from Liverpool who made it, like Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Arthur Askey, had to lose their accent to get on the BBC. They were only comedians but that's what came out of Liverpool before us. We refused to play that game. After The Beatles came on the scene everyone started putting on a Liverpudlian accent.
TA: In a way you were even thinking about politics when you seemed to be knocking revolution?
JL: Ah, sure, 'Revolution' .There were two versions of that song but the underground left only picked up on the one that said 'count me out'. The original version which ends up on the LP said 'count me in' too; I put in both because I wasn't sure. There was a third version that was just abstract, musique concrete, kind of loops and that, people screaming. I thought I was painting in sound a picture of revolution - but I made a mistake, you know. The mistake was that it was anti-revolution.
On the version released as a single I said 'when you talk about destruction you can count me out'. I didn't want to get killed. I didn't really know that much about the Maoists, but I just knew that they seemed to be so few and yet they painted themselves green and stood in front of the police waiting to get picked off. I just thought it was unsubtle, you know. I thought the original Communist revolutionaries coordinated themselves a bit better and didn't go around shouting about it. That was how I felt - I was really asking a question. As someone from the working class I was always interested in Russia and China and everything that related to the working class, even though I was playing the capitalist game.
At one time I was so much involved in the religious bullshit that I used to go around calling myself a Christian Communist, but as Janov says, religion is legalised madness. It was therapy that stripped away all that and made me feel my own pain.
RB: This analyst you went to, what's his name. ..
JL: Janov ...
RB: His ideas seem to have something in common with Laing in that he doesn't want to reconcile people to their misery, to adjust them to the world but rather to make them face up to its causes?
JL: Well, his thing is to feel the pain that's accumulated inside you ever since your childhood. I had to do it to really kill off all the religious myths. In the therapy you really feel every painful moment of your life - it's excruciating, you are forced to realise that your pain, the kind that makes you wake up afraid with your heart pounding, is really yours and not the result of somebody up in the sky. It's the result of your parents and your environment.
As I realised this it all started to fall into place. This therapy forced me to have done with all the God shit. All of us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there. The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them.
When I was a child I experienced moments of not wanting to see the ugliness, not wanting to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into my mind. Janov doesn't just talk to you about this but makes you feel it - once you've allowed yourself to feel again, you do most of the work yourself.
When you wake up and your heart is going like the clappers or your back feels strained, or you develop some other hang-up, you should let your mind go to the pain and the pain itself will regurgitate the memory which originally caused you to suppress it in your body. In this way the pain goes to the right channel instead of being repressed again, as it is if you take a pill or a bath, saying 'Well, I'll get over it'. Most people channel their pain into God or masturbation or some dream of making it.
The therapy is like a very slow acid trip which happens naturally in your body. It is hard to talk about, you know, because - you feel 'I am pain' and it sounds sort of arbitrary, but pain to me now has a different meaning because of having physically felt all these extraordinary repressions. It was like taking gloves off, and feeling your own skin for the first time.
It's a bit of a drag to say so, but I don't think you can understand this unless you've gone through it - though I try to put some of it over on the album. But for me at any rate it was all part of dissolving the God trip or father-figure trip. Facing up to reality instead of always looking for some kind of heaven.
RB: Do you see the family in general as the source of these repressions?
JL: Mine is an extreme case, you know. My father and mother split and I never saw my father until I was 20, nor did I see much more of my mother. But Yoko had her parents there and it was the same....
YO: Perhaps one feels more pain when parents are there. It's like when you're hungry, you know, it's worse to get a symbol of a cheeseburger than no cheeseburger at all. It doesn't do you any good, you know. I often wish my mother had died so that at least I could get some people's sympathy. But there she was, a perfectly beautiful mother.
JL: And Yoko's family were middle-class Japanese but it's all the same repression. Though I think middle-class people have the biggest trauma if they have nice imagey parents, all smiling and dolled up. They are the ones who have the biggest struggle to say, 'Goodbye mummy, goodbye daddy'.
**Lesbian Chic**
Jagger vs Lennon: London's
Jagger vs Lennon: London's riots of 1968 provided the backdrop to a rock'n'roll battle royale
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/jagger-vs...
**Lesbian Chic**
*
=Joycean gobbledegook=
I love his gobbledegook...thanks for that Thespian...
What are you all about tonight?
*
Wicked hands
Kev...& Happy Friday..BTW.. :)
Painting portraits.
Painting portraits. Inventorying supplies.
Starless and Bible Black.
**Lesbian Chic**
Err..
Saturday...
dammit weekend time flies!
-Starless and Bible Black-
What's that?
An Autobiography of the 1960s
http://books.google.com/books?id=h09kpMsfqCsC&dq=street+fighting+years&p...
**Lesbian Chic**
?
www.starlessandbibleblack.com/
The
void...
**Lesbian Chic**
Happy Friday Alice 8-)
King Crimson?
1974
Acid Mothers Temple and The Cosmic Inferno?
Starless and Bible Black
THE GREAT
THE GREAT DECEIVER
Health-food faggot with a bartered bride
Likes to comb his hair with a dipper ride
Once had a friend with a cloven foot
Once he called the tune in a chequered quit
Great Deceiver
In the door on the floor in a paper bag
There's a shoe-shine boy with a gin-shop slag
She raised him up and she called him son
And she canonised the ground that he walked upon
Great Deceiver
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, cadillacs blue jeans
In the night he's a star in the Milky Way
He's a man of the world by the light of day
A golden smile and a proposition
And the breath of God smells of sweet sedition
Great Deceiver
Sing hymns make love get high fall dead
He'll bring his perfume to your bed
He'll charm your life 'til the cold winds blow
Then he'll sell your dreams to a picture show
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cadillacs, blue jeans, dixieland playing on the ferry
Cadillacs, blues jeans, drop a glass full of antique sherry
**Lesbian Chic**
Adds
"look up Dave Chapelle show DVDs" to tomorrow's list...
That website was
That website was cool!
**Lesbian Chic**
Black Hole
http://users.utu.fi/petolo/crimson/starless.html
**Lesbian Chic**
Same with the Tariq Ali one..
thanks...
Welp I think I'm finally tired...been a hellacious week..surprised I made it this long
Dream...ummm..big, all...k? XOXO
(No subject)
Oh, baby!
Don't do that so abruptly.
**Lesbian Chic**
Better Late Than never.. :)
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
Sorry Alice,I couldn't find "Down By The Seaside".
"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."