Sebastian Peake and Alan Moore

Apart from the fact that its Sonisphere next week which is exciting enough, i'm also going to see Alan Moore talk at the British library. I saw him speak at the ICA last year and it was brilliant, he's a seriously fascinating guy with a very cool attitude toward creativity and ethics. At the ICA talk I got him to sign my copy of swamp thing which he was very underwhelmed by. I guess once you've written graphic novels like watchmen which was included in Time magazine's 100 greatest novels of all time list, when someone comes up with one of your first comics that isn't even based on your own character but an adaptation, it seems a little strange. I can't help it, I love swamp thing.

Also, the following week there's a talk by Mervyn Peake's son Sebastian to celebrate the launch of the newly discovered sequel to the gormenghast trilogies. Mervyn Peake is one of my favourite authors so its pretty magic that there's a secret book found posthumously. Its as exciting as if they found another Nirvana record.

The book launch is at a place called the last tuesday society in Hackney which is worth a visit even if its not whilst there's a talk going on. Filled with weird objects, taxidermy and general weirdness its like a museum where you can buy all the stuff. Lecture wise it described itself as being "devoted to exploring and furthering the esoteric, literary and artistic aspects of life in London and beyond. "
have a look at the website and get tickets for the Titus awakes launch if you're not going to sonisphere- http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/

EVERYTHING IS A REMIX

Really interesting four part documentary on creativity that my good friend and director of our Milk Teeth video Stephen Agnew (https://twitter.com/#!/agnewsucks) introduced me to. Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes on writing music, from Dylan Carlson of Earth:
No-one invents anything in music, its all a continuum and people just rediscover stuff, change the shape and add..."

Watch Everything is a Remix HERE

VOCAB JUNE 2011

per·va·sive  adj. (esp. of an unwelcome influence or physical effect) spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people: ageism is pervasive and entrenched in our society.

substantia innominata, which literally means “substance without a name.”

cor·po·re·al  adj. of or relating to a person's body, esp. as opposed to their spirit: he was frank about his corporeal appetites.    having a body: a corporeal God.

ne·ot·e·ny  n. [ZOOLOGY] the retention of juvenile features in the adult animal. Also called PEDOMORPHOSIS.  the sexual maturity of an animal while it is still in a mainly larval state, as in the axolotl. Also called PEDOGENESIS.

pre·hen·sile  adj. (chiefly of an animal's limb or tail) capable of grasping.

syl·van (also sil·van)  adj. CHIEFLY POETIC/LITERARY consisting of or associated with woods; wooded: trees and contours all add to a sylvan setting.

se·man·tic  adj. relating to meaning in language or logic.

vo·ta·ry  n. (pl. -ries) a person, such as a monk or nun, who has made vows of dedication to religious service.  a devoted follower, adherent, or advocate of someone or something

qua·li·a  plural n. [PHILOSOPHY] the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena.

o·nan·ism  n. FORMAL 1 masturbation. 2 coitus interruptus.

Welt·an·schau·ung  n. (pl. -schau·ung·en ) a particular philosophy or view of life; the worldview of an individual or group.  German, from Welt 'world' + Anschauung 'perception'.

ob·fus·cate  v. [trans.] render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible: the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate their etymological origins.  bewilder

um·bil·i·cus  n. (pl. -ci or -cus·es) [ANATOMY] the navel.    [ZOOLOGY] a depression or hole at the center of the shell whorls of some gastropod mollusks and many ammonites.

ep·i·cene  adj. having characteristics of both sexes or no characteristics of either sex; of indeterminate sex

cos·mog·o·ny  n. (pl. -nies) the branch of science that deals with the origin of the universe, esp. the solar system.

sur·cease  n. cessation: he teased us without surcease.  relief or consolation

in·ter·ne·cine  adj. destructive to both sides in a conflict: the region's history of savage internecine warfare.

Mith·ra·ism  n. the cult of the god Mithras, which became popular among Roman soldiers of the later empire, and was the main rival to Christianity in the first three centuries AD.   Mith·ra·ic adj. Mith·ra·ist n. Mith·ras [MYTHOLOGY]   a god of light, truth, and honor, the central figure of the cult of Mithraism but probably of Persian origin. He was also associated with merchants and the protection of warriors.

a·cet·y·lene  n. [CHEMISTRY] a colorless pungent-smelling hydrocarbon gas, which burns with a bright flame, used in welding and formerly in lighting

hor·rip·i·la·tion  n. POETIC/LITERARY the erection of hairs on the skin due to cold, fear, or excitement.

cic·a·trix (also cic·a·trice )  n. (pl. cic·a·tri·ces ) the scar of a healed wound.    a scar on the bark of a tree.  [BOTANY] a mark on a stem left after a leaf or other part has become detached.   cic·a·tri·cial adj.  late Middle English (as cicatrice): from Latin cicatrix or Old French cicatrice. cic·a·trize  v. (with reference to a wound) heal by scar formation: [trans.] it was used to cicatrize certain types of wounds | [intrans.] his wound had cicatrized.   cic·a·tri·za·tion n.

Jung's Red Book

If you want to immerse yourself in the deepest recesses of one of the greatest minds of all time, try to find a copy of Jung's Red Book. An indecipherable labyrinth of pictures and text, leading you through Jung's unconscious whilst he grapples with man's purpose, the struggle between good and evil, his own spiritual journey. Some light fluffy reading for you. Its not a literal narrative, but it goes back to the post I put up about automatic writing. See the below quote from an article written upon the book's publication.

"A clue to its value for Jung can be found in the advice he later gave to a client who was experiencing the deeper and sometimes frightening parts of her mind. “I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can — in some beautifully bound book,” Jung instructed. “It will seem as if you were making the visions banal — but then you need to do that — then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book and turn over the pages and for you it will be your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal.”

For more pictures from the red book

For more information on Jung

For a book about Jung's relationship with the esoteric

THE OPENING OF THE EGG

"on the evening of the third day, I kneel down on the rug and carefully open the egg. Something resembling smoke rises up from it and suddenly Izdubar is standing before me, enormous, transformed, and complete. His limbs are whole and I find no trace of damage on them. It's as if he had awoken from a deep sleep. He says:

"Where am I? How narrow it is here how dark, how cool-am I
in the grave? Where was I? He seemed to me as if I had been outside in the
universe- over and under me was an endlessly dark star-glittering sky- ]and I was in a passion of unspeakable yearning.
Streams of fire broke from my radiating body-
I surged through blazing flames-
I swam in a sea that wrapped me in living fires-
Full of light, full of longing, full of eternity-
I was ancient and perpetually renewing myself-
Falling from the heights to the depths,
and whirled glowing from the depths to the heights-
hovering around myself amidst glowing clouds-
as raining embers beating down like the foam of the surf, engulfing myself in stifling heat-
Embracing and rejecting myself in a boundless game-
Where was I? I was completely sun."

Transmigration- rebirth

Been reading a lot about metempsychosis or reincarnation. This is an extract from the new advent summary of beliefs concerning metempsychosis through various religions and cultures throughout history. This specific excerpt comes from a chapter on the Jewish Rabbins and the parts in quotes are taken from Traditions of the Rabbins (Quarterly Review, April, 1833)

The imagery is phenomenal.

The following is a sample of what awaits the "guiltiest of the guilty". "The dark tormentors rush after them with goads and whips of fire; their chase is ceaseless; they hunt them from the plain to the mountain, from the mountain to the river, from the river to the ocean, from the ocean round the circle of the earth. Thus, the tormented fly in terror, and the tormentors follow in vengeance until the time decreed is done. Then the doomed sink into dust and ashes. Another beginning of existence, the commencement of a second trial, awaits them. They become clay, they take the nature of the stone and the mineral; they are water, fire, air; they roll in the thunder; they float in the cloud; they rush in the whirlwind. They change again; they enter into the shapes of the vegetable tribes; they live in the shrub, the flower, the tree. Ages on ages pass. Another change comes. They enter into the shape of the beast, the bird, the fish, the insect. . . . Then at last they are suffered to enter into the rank of human beings once more."

The tell-tale brain

This is a passage from V. S. Ramachandran's book The Tell-Tale brain which is an exploration of the abnormalities in human brain function and what they can reveal about how the brain works. Its super interesting and looks at all kinds of weird and unusual phenomena such as synesthesia (seeing numbers as colours, tasting words etc) and phantom limbs.

This passage really fascinated me though- its an explination of humour, why we find things funny- in scientific but simple terms.

Any joke or humorous incident has the following form. You narrate a story step-by-step, leading your listener along a garden path of expectation, and then you introduce an unexpected twist, a punch line, the comprehension of which requires a complete reinterpretation of the preceding events. But that’s not enough: No scientist whose theoretical edifice is demolished by a single ugly fact entailing a complete overhaul is likely to find it amusing. (Believe me, I’ve tried!) Deflation of expectation is necessary but not sufficient. The extra key ingredient is that the new interpretation must be inconsequential. Let me illustrate. The dean of the medical school starts walking along a path, but before reaching his destination he slips on a banana peel and falls. If his skull is fractured and blood starts gushing out, you rush to his aid and call the ambulance. You don’t laugh. But if he gets up unhurt, wiping the banana off his expensive trousers, you break out into a fit of laughter. It’s called slapstick. The key difference is that in the first case, there is a true alarm requiring urgent attention. In the second case it’s a false alarm, and by laughing you inform your kin in the vicinity not to waste their resources rushing to his aid. It is nature’s “all’s okay” signal. What is left unexplained is the slight schadenfreude aspect to the whole thing.

And the same holds for tickling. The huge adult approaches the child menacingly. She is clearly outmatched, prey, completely at the mercy of a hulking Grendel. Some instinctive part of her—her inner primate, primed to flee from the terrors of eagles and jaguars and pythons (oh my!)—cannot help but interpret the situation this way. But then the monster turns out be gentle. It deflates her expectation of danger. What might have been fangs and claws digging fatally into her ribs turn out to be nothing but firmly undulating fingers. And the child laughs. It may well be that tickling evolved as a early playful rehearsal for adult humor.

comic con

pretty excited about THIS
amazing line up of comic book artists, should be amazing.