on being kissably elvish
Jun. 1st, 2003 05:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonark"I am for the birds, not the cages that people put them in"--John Cage
Yesterday I took the day off. During lunch, I read "The Ambient Century", which is quite a fascinating read. It's been controversial, because its author focused on some non-ambient "big name" artists, while neglecting many well-known ambient artists, but it's still a great read.
One thing that strikes me is the way in which so much music and creative expression I value was done by people who, when they did it, were carving new furrows in places other than the "established" institutions for "culture". Suffolk's Ipswich School of Art, for example, was known as a "cutting edge" experimental place in the mid 1960s, yet it was anything but a center of the cultural universe. Yet, the theories and practice developed there completely changed music, not least because of the influence upon Brian Eno's development as a music theorist. Mr. Eno's father was a mail man, and he went to the local art school. By all the "rules" that those who dominated the arts apply, he was not in a "prime" school. Yet,
the "centers of art" did not end up changing music--Brian Eno did.
I find repeatedly that the people I admire self-published, self-promoted, largely did not have capital, and just believed in themselves and in their friends. This informs me as I try to encourage people to value the work they can do, instead of wishing for some major corporation to pay them money so that they do not have to work outside their creative pursuits again. I have no problem with anyone turning their dreams into money, but I think that people underestimate their own power to advance their own agendae. One thing I like about Anais Nin, though she is far from my favorite author, is her unshakeable belief, even when everyone told her that her work was second-rate and unpublishable, that she should nonetheless self-publish her work and pronounce herself onto something. She may have been a shameless self-promoter, but ultimately she established herself as a name remembered today. I think there's much to be said for being in control of one's own creative product, even if one does not get rich doing it. So many of the greats were self-published. So much less outlet for inexpensive self-expression existed in their day. I look forward to the day when everyone recognizes that the idea of an intelligentsia who live in a superior culture is mere fantasy. One can create one's own aesthetic, and should in every instance. That doesn't mean that "anything goes"; it merely means that any new thing must be, well, new.
I had a fine barbecue lunch at Dickey's barbecue chain restaurant, after which I headed to the Heard Natural Science center. The Heard's hiking trails run through shady woodlands. I had forgotten my membership card, but the nice woman behind the desk looked me up on the computer. I went first on the Hoot Owl Trail, where I used my binoculars to examine a female cardinal, perched on a low-lying branch. I'm a bird-watcher, but not really a "birder", because I can watch the most common, non-birder-y birds for hours on end, and because I don't really know the species names beyond the most common ones. I saw so many different late Spring wildflowers all along the trail--queen anne's lace, daisies, susans, something that looked vaguely orchid-y but wasn't an orchid, and something that looked like wild elephant garlic but was something else. Outside the science center, a staff member held a prairie kingsnake. She said to me "this is a prairie kingsnake and he lives at my desk and it's cold in there and I brought him out here", which, despite being a bit run-on, did provide me the capsule summary I needed.
This week's mail brought to me a pencil cactus I'd bought for 4 dollars on-line. The pencil cactus came wrapped in newspaper. Pencil cactus, of course, is neither pencil nor cactus, but a euphorbia species without much in the way of prickly content. I found a nice pot at goodwill, ceramic wrapped in one of those "tough" colorful yarns, and went home and planted the cactus a/k/a milk plant.
The mail also brought the Richoh ff2 camera I bought for 15 dollars on eBay. The camera came with a little telephoto lens and a little close-up lens, in a lovably cheap "snap on" format. I didn't try it out yet, because I must battery and film it up (and, frankly, ask my wife how to load the film), but I did affix the lens to a throwaway camera I have for fun. I'll pick up the pictures today, and post them if they're fun. I also got Andy Soltis' Chess Digest book "Bird's Opening" in the mail from an eBay purchase. The copy is not of high quality, but the book is a good read--especially as it becomes obvious that the author does not really fancy the opening that much.
When my wife returned from her seminar, we went to dinner at Kebab n Kurry. Our area of Collin County had lots of Indian and Pakistani places, but the recent economic collapse in the Dallas high tech sector seems to have hit these restaurants particularly hard. Many great places are shuttered. Kebab n Kurry has been around for years upon years, though, and seemed to have a nice crowd. I had a tandoori combination, which satisfied me entirely.
We came home and went for a walk around our neighborhood. By the Glendover Park pond, we saw a large white heron fishing. He had such style, standing stock still, watching the water, before zapping in quickly and grabbing a tiny mosquito fish. The swallows overhead proved less dainty, whipping in and out as ever to catch pond bugs. A passing neighbor and my wife had a conversation which would be titled "dead neighborhood snakes I have seen", but I had little to contribute on the herpetological road kill front.
I've been reading the guide to "Good Fiction" I bought at the under 5 dollar atore, and thinking about how many great novels I've never read---"Ulysses", "Remembrance of Things Past", and so much of the 20th Century "canon" of greatness. I don't really worry about the lack, but I really should tackle Proust someday. I think I'd rather build a terrarium, though.
This morning I spent time at LJ's [Unknown site tag] community, reading up on all the various LJ communities I could join. The sheer number of communities based upon having LJ'ers rate one as "hot" staggers me. Speaking among the non-hot majority, I'm intrigued how having strangers rate one's photographic preen interests folks so much. I'm also intrigued by the number of communities based upon "ask me a question" and other similar contrivances. I have wanted to found a community almost since I arrived on LJ, but so far, I have not come up with one that more than I would want to post into. But I may invent one soon, perhaps on the 100 poem idea or musical absurdity or kazoo madness or another of my mundane interests.
I liked the name of the communitykissme_imelvish. Apparently, this community encourages those who are, well, elvish, to post about their elvishness. The posts tended to be rather inadequately fleshed out, although, on reflection, once one has expressed one's kissable elvishsness, what more is there to say? As one of the non-elvish, non-fae, non-smokers, I can nonetheless imagine that once one has asked for a kiss and expressed a kinship with Tolkien's eldar, one has just about covered the waterfront.
With some mild regret, I took the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
glamourbombs community off my lists, as as community about being fae (i.e., fairy in the old-fashioned sense) and spreading various magicks through mundane society through individual action, while interesting, has the commonplace distinction of being about a series of things which I am fundamentally not--fae and magickal. Besides, although I thought the moderator of that community is just grand, she had to spend a lot of time posting messages like "just because you put a sweet message in someone's locker doesn't mean you've committed 'poetic terrorism' and 'glamour bombing is about making love in public as a ritual, more than spreading glitter and My Little Pony stickers'. I tried to pitch in and help with a comment on "what is 'poetric terrorism', but I worry that the part about how one can be fae or an Elk or a Mason in my comment may have been imperfect for a 'fae' community. I do not have a fae bone in my body, though, so maybe I'll be excused. So I unjoined, but wish them well (it appears they may have just deleted, but perhaps a reincarnation will be at hand). This, of course, keys into the gurdonark Theory that All Vacuums are Filled with Debate and Controversy. I'd better choose my new community carefully, so that I can handle either side of the resulting debates.
Yesterday I took the day off. During lunch, I read "The Ambient Century", which is quite a fascinating read. It's been controversial, because its author focused on some non-ambient "big name" artists, while neglecting many well-known ambient artists, but it's still a great read.
One thing that strikes me is the way in which so much music and creative expression I value was done by people who, when they did it, were carving new furrows in places other than the "established" institutions for "culture". Suffolk's Ipswich School of Art, for example, was known as a "cutting edge" experimental place in the mid 1960s, yet it was anything but a center of the cultural universe. Yet, the theories and practice developed there completely changed music, not least because of the influence upon Brian Eno's development as a music theorist. Mr. Eno's father was a mail man, and he went to the local art school. By all the "rules" that those who dominated the arts apply, he was not in a "prime" school. Yet,
the "centers of art" did not end up changing music--Brian Eno did.
I find repeatedly that the people I admire self-published, self-promoted, largely did not have capital, and just believed in themselves and in their friends. This informs me as I try to encourage people to value the work they can do, instead of wishing for some major corporation to pay them money so that they do not have to work outside their creative pursuits again. I have no problem with anyone turning their dreams into money, but I think that people underestimate their own power to advance their own agendae. One thing I like about Anais Nin, though she is far from my favorite author, is her unshakeable belief, even when everyone told her that her work was second-rate and unpublishable, that she should nonetheless self-publish her work and pronounce herself onto something. She may have been a shameless self-promoter, but ultimately she established herself as a name remembered today. I think there's much to be said for being in control of one's own creative product, even if one does not get rich doing it. So many of the greats were self-published. So much less outlet for inexpensive self-expression existed in their day. I look forward to the day when everyone recognizes that the idea of an intelligentsia who live in a superior culture is mere fantasy. One can create one's own aesthetic, and should in every instance. That doesn't mean that "anything goes"; it merely means that any new thing must be, well, new.
I had a fine barbecue lunch at Dickey's barbecue chain restaurant, after which I headed to the Heard Natural Science center. The Heard's hiking trails run through shady woodlands. I had forgotten my membership card, but the nice woman behind the desk looked me up on the computer. I went first on the Hoot Owl Trail, where I used my binoculars to examine a female cardinal, perched on a low-lying branch. I'm a bird-watcher, but not really a "birder", because I can watch the most common, non-birder-y birds for hours on end, and because I don't really know the species names beyond the most common ones. I saw so many different late Spring wildflowers all along the trail--queen anne's lace, daisies, susans, something that looked vaguely orchid-y but wasn't an orchid, and something that looked like wild elephant garlic but was something else. Outside the science center, a staff member held a prairie kingsnake. She said to me "this is a prairie kingsnake and he lives at my desk and it's cold in there and I brought him out here", which, despite being a bit run-on, did provide me the capsule summary I needed.
This week's mail brought to me a pencil cactus I'd bought for 4 dollars on-line. The pencil cactus came wrapped in newspaper. Pencil cactus, of course, is neither pencil nor cactus, but a euphorbia species without much in the way of prickly content. I found a nice pot at goodwill, ceramic wrapped in one of those "tough" colorful yarns, and went home and planted the cactus a/k/a milk plant.
The mail also brought the Richoh ff2 camera I bought for 15 dollars on eBay. The camera came with a little telephoto lens and a little close-up lens, in a lovably cheap "snap on" format. I didn't try it out yet, because I must battery and film it up (and, frankly, ask my wife how to load the film), but I did affix the lens to a throwaway camera I have for fun. I'll pick up the pictures today, and post them if they're fun. I also got Andy Soltis' Chess Digest book "Bird's Opening" in the mail from an eBay purchase. The copy is not of high quality, but the book is a good read--especially as it becomes obvious that the author does not really fancy the opening that much.
When my wife returned from her seminar, we went to dinner at Kebab n Kurry. Our area of Collin County had lots of Indian and Pakistani places, but the recent economic collapse in the Dallas high tech sector seems to have hit these restaurants particularly hard. Many great places are shuttered. Kebab n Kurry has been around for years upon years, though, and seemed to have a nice crowd. I had a tandoori combination, which satisfied me entirely.
We came home and went for a walk around our neighborhood. By the Glendover Park pond, we saw a large white heron fishing. He had such style, standing stock still, watching the water, before zapping in quickly and grabbing a tiny mosquito fish. The swallows overhead proved less dainty, whipping in and out as ever to catch pond bugs. A passing neighbor and my wife had a conversation which would be titled "dead neighborhood snakes I have seen", but I had little to contribute on the herpetological road kill front.
I've been reading the guide to "Good Fiction" I bought at the under 5 dollar atore, and thinking about how many great novels I've never read---"Ulysses", "Remembrance of Things Past", and so much of the 20th Century "canon" of greatness. I don't really worry about the lack, but I really should tackle Proust someday. I think I'd rather build a terrarium, though.
This morning I spent time at LJ's [Unknown site tag] community, reading up on all the various LJ communities I could join. The sheer number of communities based upon having LJ'ers rate one as "hot" staggers me. Speaking among the non-hot majority, I'm intrigued how having strangers rate one's photographic preen interests folks so much. I'm also intrigued by the number of communities based upon "ask me a question" and other similar contrivances. I have wanted to found a community almost since I arrived on LJ, but so far, I have not come up with one that more than I would want to post into. But I may invent one soon, perhaps on the 100 poem idea or musical absurdity or kazoo madness or another of my mundane interests.
I liked the name of the community
kissme_imelvish. Apparently, this community encourages those who are, well, elvish, to post about their elvishness. The posts tended to be rather inadequately fleshed out, although, on reflection, once one has expressed one's kissable elvishsness, what more is there to say? As one of the non-elvish, non-fae, non-smokers, I can nonetheless imagine that once one has asked for a kiss and expressed a kinship with Tolkien's eldar, one has just about covered the waterfront.With some mild regret, I took the
glamourbombs community off my lists, as as community about being fae (i.e., fairy in the old-fashioned sense) and spreading various magicks through mundane society through individual action, while interesting, has the commonplace distinction of being about a series of things which I am fundamentally not--fae and magickal. Besides, although I thought the moderator of that community is just grand, she had to spend a lot of time posting messages like "just because you put a sweet message in someone's locker doesn't mean you've committed 'poetic terrorism' and 'glamour bombing is about making love in public as a ritual, more than spreading glitter and My Little Pony stickers'. I tried to pitch in and help with a comment on "what is 'poetric terrorism', but I worry that the part about how one can be fae or an Elk or a Mason in my comment may have been imperfect for a 'fae' community. I do not have a fae bone in my body, though, so maybe I'll be excused. So I unjoined, but wish them well (it appears they may have just deleted, but perhaps a reincarnation will be at hand). This, of course, keys into the gurdonark Theory that All Vacuums are Filled with Debate and Controversy. I'd better choose my new community carefully, so that I can handle either side of the resulting debates.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 05:59 am (UTC)i like what you say here about self-publishing and having confidence in one's own aesthetic, even as an outsider, so to say. that bolsters up an idea of my own that i'm trying to run on. thanks!
please excuse my self-promotion, but this made me think of one of my very early posts on here. just fyi, no obligation to read:
Elven maidens and happy hookers
no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 07:56 am (UTC)But Merry B! What a cool handle! I took a survey on LJ, and it told me I was an Ent! Hrrrmmmm....hasty poll, that.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 07:59 am (UTC)At the same time, artists I respect often do work in aesthetic modes, influenced by their peers. But it's a curious thing, this artist thing, because it is so much easier to say what it is not, than to say anything about what it is.
So what do you think about art and aesthetics?
herein "random acts of kindness and beauty" are considered negatively.
Date: 2003-06-01 08:18 am (UTC)it is... just this thought, or perhaps I am
wrong but anyway let it be a question, isnt
the idea of random acts (a) impersonal
and (b) to the extent that it is personal it
is about oneself "look at me, how sensitive,
kind, beautiful, spiritual etc I am"?
in this sense it could be a kind of terrorism--
although this terminology of "poetic terrorism"
does not resonate with me at all-- but terrorism
because it is an inflicting rather than
an exchange?
no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 08:56 am (UTC)But I'm wary of putting folks down for being kind, even self-centeredly kind. Who is immune from self-centeredness in even the best case?
I think that the working theory for magickal people is that there is a connection with the mystical and "real" which is lacking, and which they seek to renew and create. As with so many things, one might agree with the diagnosis, and yet differ radically on cure.
But I do like the idea of more kindness,however motivated.
motivation
Date: 2003-06-01 09:27 am (UTC)and yet selfcentered kindness, just to give
counterpoint, has drawbacks (a) it is maybe
not really kind at all in the sense of being what
is wanted or needed and (b) the reinforcement
of a self worshipping personality is destroying
the person who thinks they are being kind as
a human being isn't it? perhaps destroying is
too strong a word but perhaps it is not
entirely so?
take the Crowlean K out of magical (the
Crowley people if as you say this is not something
you are very aware of, have an absolutely
disproportional presence in cyber space I have
found on livejournal anyway...I have known a
little about the esoteric and in the real world
they are not at all that level of presence)and
the magical idea is that magic which is self
centered is but sorcery...
+Seraphim.
Re: motivation
Date: 2003-06-01 12:19 pm (UTC)Sorcery! It's a great word. I do not know any spells, though, and that's just as well.
Crowley
Date: 2003-06-01 12:47 pm (UTC)I would say he is pretty much passe...I know I risk to
be somehow not popular with any enthusiasts of the
OTO reading this, but it is just my sense of things...
I believe the influence of Steiner, who is a loon I should
say--kind of Goethe with the elevator not reaching the
top floor--is far greater. Crowley was of course not
pure evil etc by a long shot but to my mind not very
amiable and a bore.
and others also more important... but let it be, in
general I take as wise the word of Evelyn Underhill
that in the end every magician must become a
mystic
well sorcery is not a good thing, if you wish to be a
mage that on the other hand is not in itself an ignoble
aim...these are words in a specific vocabulary but
sorcery I should say is that imploding in on itself of
an individuality which if not arrested ends in nonbeing...
I am not an esotericist one may say and so do not
know anything really...and anyone who disagrees reading
this, I offer that of course indeed I dont claim to know
more than I do...but I am what I am, exoteric or esoteric,
and this is how it seems to me.
and of course as on most things I think agreeing with
you...
+Seraphim.