David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


28 March 2009

More from the Lost History of Kelly and the AntiModeans (for Bernard Smith)

.
modean (see also: modern)

[mod⋅ean]

–adjective
1. of or pertaining to present and recent time; not ancient or remote: modean city life.
2. characteristic of present and recent time; contemporary; not antiquated or obsolete: modean viewpoints.
3. of or pertaining to the historical period following the Middle Ages: modean European history.
4. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of contemporary styles of art, literature, music, etc., that reject traditionally accepted or sanctioned forms and emphasize individual experimentation and sensibility.
5. (initial capital letter) new (def. 12).
6. Typography. noting or descriptive of a font of numerals in which the body aligns on the baseline, as 1234567890. Compare old style (def. 3).

–noun
7. a person of MODEAN TIMES
8. a person whose views and tastes are modean.
9. Printing. a type style differentiated from old style by heavy vertical strokes and straight serifs.

Origin:

1490–1500; < class="ital-inline">moderne < class="ital-inline">moderna, equiv. to L mod(o), mod(ō) lately, just now (orig. abl. sing. of modus mode 1 ) + -erna adj. suffix of time

TODAY:
Kelly Meets His Maker



25 March 2009

Old Label


The ground 'round here contains many old bits and pieces : two days ago this traceless rusting label re-emerged.





Old Paint

.
Every time I see an old paint horse, I think of you,
Old paint horse of mine that used to be,
Old pal o' mine that was, the best horse of all, because --
That's why, old horse, at last I set you free!

I've bought 'em by the thousand, I've owned 'em everywhere --
There's one stands out among 'em all alone;
Paint-marked everywhere, tail a little short o' hair,
Old horse, you never failed to bring me home!

'Member when they stole you for Pass City,
En locked you up inside the Juarez jail?
Said that you have eaten up an entire crop of wheat,
En I had to rustle round en get your bail?

En I got you cross the river en matched you en a race,
End we bet the last red dollar we could scrape?--
En how you bit old Rocking Chair, the horse you run against,
En made him turn his head en lose the race?

We was both young en foolish in them green days long ago,
I don't believe in telling stories out of school! --
'Member when we roped the pianner en jerked her out the door?
Hush up! Old Paint! you're talkin' like a fool!

Well, old horse, you're buried, en your troubles, they are done,
But I often sit en think of what we did,
En recall the many scrapes we had, en used to think it fun,
Es we rode along the Rio Grande . . .
Good-bye, old Kid!

by Jack Thorp
from Songs of the Cowboys, 1921

23 March 2009

IN PRINCIPIO ERAT BERRY

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Berrys' Antiques was a wonder heap! Your correspondent replays many memories of child-time regained amidst the shared toy box of Fran Berry - ever holding court over a pot of tea - and her son Richard.

(photo from THE AGE)

Along with Fran and Richard, the business has gone to legend.

Last year Young's Auctions dispatched part one of the Berry Family Collection. Part two, the Richard Berry Collection, will be auctioned by Young's at the end of this month.
(click here for the online catalog)
The Berrys' Antique Shop in Melbourne's Flinders Lane was an Australian landmark from the 1960s to 1993 when it sadly closed.

It was the way all antique shops should be - "an Aladdin's cave of unusual collectable and interesting items covering such a great range that it seemed to be a mixture of department store and museum," says David Young. He should know.

As the director of Young's Auctions in East Hawthorn, it was his challenging task to sort through the Berry family's private collection of antiquities and sell them at auction. (full article here)

James Cockington
The Berry family jewels
THE AGE
18 March 2009
Among the varied lots is a scene of looking and measuring that tickles the fancy of bLOGOS/HA HA : an 18th Century fan, 'Chinese estimate of an Englishman, lighter than a feather'.





In the office of bLOGOS/HA HA are a number of mementos from Berrys, including a 1955 calendar from Tangambalanga. Beneath it's image of a child and duck (surely after Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel) is the originary caption : "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"

IN PRINCIPIO ERAT BERRY


21 March 2009

20 March 2009

Here's looking ]Here's looking ]****[ at you, kid.[ at you, kid.

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Gorgeous geek (Lawrence Leung) as the Actor of Looking, on the front stage of yesterday's green guide.



Theatre of the Actors of Looking is also proud to present
Master Junior's (Chartres Cathedral labyrinth inspired)
"meta-Act after Gorgeous geek".


19 March 2009

for Magnus of the Universe

I am proposing to artists that they pass by art itself and work individually on the return to real life, the life in which a man no longer thinks he is the center of the universe, but in which the universe is the center of each man.
Yves Klein

17 March 2009

projection-space font family

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Inbox news today from FontHaus, of a FRAMES AND BORDERS font family as regarded by a little cartoon man.




15 March 2009

Intellectual property, that ludicrous fiction...

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The web we weave
Guy Rundle in today's Sunday Age.
Today, we're in a similar position as the feudal world was in the decades leading up to the great revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The web ostensibly makes the final separation between writing and material being. Text and images can be circulated at virtually zero cost instantaneously and universally. Old forms — the book, the film, the song — are being pulled apart by new forms using that total interconnectivity. Intellectual property, that ludicrous fiction, is effectively dead, as are many of the corporations that based their value on it...

(click here for full article)

The Word,
The Word Made Flesh
& all associated signs and brands

Registered .R.
Trademarked .TM
Copyrighted .©

-1995-



14 March 2009

projection-space collection (Entre les MURS)

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A big shout out to malE for this fetching extension (2nd image)
to p.112 Paris Vogue, December 2008–Jan 2009 (below).





13 March 2009

12 March 2009

"Whether we look at it ...

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China denounces Dalai Lama and says Tibet is earthly paradise
Beijing
March 12, 2009

CHINA'S state media has declared Tibet an earthly paradise, rejecting the Dalai Lama's claims that it had become a "hell on earth", and heaped scorn on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

The vitriol in the official media came a day after the tense anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising passed in Tibet amid a Chinese security lockdown...
(click to read this article)

Fifty years on, Tibet's cause is weaker but not crushed
Editorial, THE AGE
March 12, 2009

China is guilty of cultural genocide in the Buddhist nation.

FOR those who thought his public career was ending with a whimper, not a bang, the Dalai Lama has confounded expectations. This week the exiled Tibetan leader marked the 50th anniversary of his flight from his native land by declaring that during the past five decades Tibetans had experienced "hell on earth". The consequence of continual violent repression by the country's Chinese rulers, the Dalai Lama said, was that Tibet's religion, culture, language and national identity were nearing extinction. He did not call for independence, but renewed his long-standing demand that China grant Tibet "meaningful autonomy". Working for the cause of Tibet was the responsibility of every Tibetan, he said, and "whether we look at it from the global perspective or in the context of events in China, there are reasons for us to hope for a quick resolution of the issue".

That view of what might happen was emphatically rejected in Beijing, where a Foreign Ministry spokesman accused the Dalai Lama of lying, as Chinese Government spokesmen have so often done in the past. Then the spokesman launched into another familiar line: since its military occupation of Tibet in 1950, China had undertaken a comprehensive program of modernisation, culminating in the "widest and most profound" democratic reforms in Tibetan history...

"Whether we look at it from the global perspective or in the context of events in China, there are reasons for us to hope for a quick resolution of the issue."..Dalai Lama
(click here to read full statement by Dalai Lama)

11 March 2009

Dalai Lama speaks out on 'hell on earth' (frontpage of today's AGE)

Tibetan life 'hell on earth'
Matt Wade, Dharamsala
March 11, 2009
HALF a century after being forced into exile, the Dalai Lama has cast aside his conciliatory "middle way" approach to China and accused the communist Government of putting his people through "hell on earth".

In remarks certain to infuriate an already hostile Beijing, the Tibetan spiritual leader accused Beijing of "repressive and violent campaigns" that had killed hundreds of thousands of Tibetans and destroyed the region's cultural and natural heritage.

"These 50 years have brought untold suffering and destruction to the land and the people of Tibet," he said.

The Dalai Lama said that over five decades Tibetans had been thrust into such hardship that "they literally experienced hell on earth". He warned that Tibet's religion, culture, language and identity was "nearing extinction"...

(click here for this article at THE AGE)

Media seeks end to Tibet harassment
Beijing
March 11, 2009
MEDIA and rights groups have called on China to end harassment of the press, after more than a dozen foreign reporters were detained or stopped while trying to cover events surrounding tense Tibet.

"These detentions must stop," said Jonathan Watts, head of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China. "By locking up and blocking reporters, the security forces raise suspicions about their actions...

(click here for this article at THE AGE)


09 March 2009

Anniversary Prayer

.

Backgrounder: Basic facts about Tibet

Special Report: Focus on Tibet
2009-03-09 14:42:10

LHASA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- This year is the 50th anniversary of the Tibet's Democratic Reform. In 1959, Tibetan serfs and slaves, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the region's population, were freed after the central government foiled an armed rebellion staged by the Dalai Lama and his supporters. Here are some key facts and figures about Tibet...

(click for more from China View)

China on alert as Tibetans set to mark uprising
Karl Malakunas,
Beijing March 9, 2009

CHINESE authorities have imposed a security lockdown in Tibet as the Himalayan region this week marks the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.

Beijing is desperate to prevent protests by monks and nomads after violent unrest last year embarrassed the leadership just ahead of the Olympics in the Chinese capital.

The Dalai Lama has called on his Buddhist followers to remain true to his non-violent cause, while also warning that worsening Chinese repression could provoke further confrontations...

(click for more from The Age)


08 March 2009

It's happening again

.
You were looking at a drawing :
a woman lying unconscious on the floor between two televisions.



Slowly she raises herself
sits up
revives.

She is trying to tell us something.

She switches ON one of the projection-spaces :



It's happening again.

07 March 2009

WFMU (click here)

.
Production crew at bLOGOS/HA HA listen to wfmu
and to it's many years of program audio archives.

Favorite programs include
Stochastic Hit Parade with Bethany Ryker (click here)
and Kenny G (click here)

Kenny G is wfmu's court jester. He (Kenneth Goldsmith) is also
the founder of UbuWeb, another great heap/archive/resource
much appreciated at bLOGOS/HA HA

If you haven't checked out UbuWeb, do yourself a favour (click here).


05 March 2009

04 March 2009

A beautiful sight

.
This photo of last week's Musk Vale fire was taken by local resident Pete Woods. Daylesford township is in the foreground, the fire is five kilometres south.



Perhaps the detail below will provide a better sense of scale in the image above : the old chimney (visible in both images) is in the grounds of the Daylesford Museum, home and archive of the Daylesford and District Historical Society. The Post Office is on one side, the Primary School on the other.



Yesterday all Victoria was on emergency alert with Fire Danger Index ratings off the scale, many times the 'extreme' index number. We were warned that strong north winds would blow all day, with gusts up to 12okm/hour, to be followed by a dangerous SW change late in the day. The winds did get to 12okm, and did blow all day, but by good fortune and great management the major fires still alight since Black Saturday were held and the few new starts were stopped.

Today is cool and there has been some rain. C and J and Susie the dog have returned from their third evacuation in two weeks. There is much general relief. Tonight, at the Daylesford Town Hall, I'll attend my seventh fire safety meeting since February 7.

The caption to this post refers to the beautiful sight two days ago of a team of Canberra firefighters (below) on the road opposite our overgrown gully - yes, we've been lobbying for more than ten years! - as they took up a waiting position to the north of Hepburn Springs. Big thanks, guys! The same to all the crews we've seen around town over the past week. Seeing one from Wallan, for instance, I realised that crew have probably been in the thick of their own massive fire for the last three weeks.
3 Mar 2009 ... The Kilmore East - Murrindindi Complex North fire is still going and is currently about 165,000 ha in size. The weather forecast for today is ...


The best sight of all was my brother 'Red' at the door yesterday morning. He'd come from Bendigo (where 50+ houses were lost on Black Sat) to face the day's potential with me. He ain't heavy!

01 March 2009

Act & Re-Act

.
Theatre of the Actors of Looking
is proud to present Madame Marie Curie as the Actor of Looking.



Theatre of the Actors of Looking is also proud to present Master Junior's "meta-Act after Madame Marie Curie: Actor of Looking".