welcome to the monkeyshpere

ever get the feeling that reality outside your own circle of family, friends, acquaintances, and arch enemies is… well… unreal somehow? ever notice that you can walk through the streets passing hundreds, thousands, of people at a clip and not even notice a single human face? ever rest your eyes on or near a stranger on the subway and see a loose collection of body parts, clothes, accessories, and reading materials rather than what might properly be called a person? well welcome to the monkeysphere. what is the monkeysphere exactly? read this funny but also strangely compelling essay and find out. go ahead, it’s good for you, reading being fundamental and all.

posted by jmorrison on 02/27 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
rivers and tides

i guess it’s old news but i saw a documentary last night called rivers and tides about artist andy goldsworthy and was just blown away. i’ve been aware of his work, but by no means versed in it. the film was one of the most inspiring art documentaries i’ve ever seen. it captures something beyond goldworthy’s work in particular, something idealistic about the functions of art, it’s place in the world, and it’s lack of permanence. “earthworks” are extremely poetic and i’m embarrassed to admit seeing goldworthy’s so vividly represented had me revisiting old fantasies about leaving everything behind and moving into the mountains somewhere.

posted by jmorrison on 02/27 | sights & sounds - film | | permalink
the haight-ashbury of the adriatic, however briefly

with scant commentary of mine own,  I quote a thrilling history tidbit which is taken from t.a.z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism By Hakim Bey:

posted by tbuckner on 02/26 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
jmorrison kidnapped! future of the nonist in doubt.

we received word that jmorrison, super-admin here at the nonist, was kidnapped in the early hours of the morning from his manhattan apartment. his girlfriend returned home from the gym to find him missing. she received a ransom note via email making certain demands which only readers of the nonist can comply with. though the fbi have made it clear we should not attempt to deal directly with the kidnapper we’ve included the ransom note below. his loved ones have asked that you please do all you can to help get jaime returned home safely. we, the management, ask the same. please see below.

posted by management on 02/25 | announcements | | permalink
our godless constitution

pretty informative article over at the nation about the founding fathers’ true attitude toward religion as opposed to the current revisionist notion that the country was founded on christian ideals. from the article: our constitution makes no mention whatever of god. the omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of alexander hamilton’s flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of “foreign aid.”  haha, witty bastard. see below for a few quotes from the old felers themselves…

posted by jmorrison on 02/25 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
anatomical dreamtime

happened upon this incredible gallery of anatomical images called dream anatomy. most of the images are from a time before the dry, clinical, diagraming style we are used to today held sway. from the introduction: in the early modern era, the boundary between art and science was ill-defined. anatomists and their artist collaborators made use of familiar modes of representation - the iconography of landscape, nudity, mythology and christianity. artists tried to create illustrations that were accurate, but also amazing, beautiful, and entertaining. think detailed and informative but also odd, surreal, and sometimes grotesque. the above link is the informative path, which i recommend, but if you prefer here is a direct link to the simple gallery. (p.s. don’t forget to check out the outsider art section. wink wink.)

posted by jmorrison on 02/24 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
the underground railroad of perversion

There are corners of the world that you don’t want to find. There are corners of the world that without hyperbole are the last place you’d want to end up. It dawned on me recently that while many of the larger rules concerning where or where not to wander into mistakenly have been well documented, there exists a lesser known list of many places that are in many ways more frightening than their more infamous counterparts.

posted by Cast on 02/22 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
cower, art lovers, before the beethoven’s fifth of stupidity

So I want to get out of my funk and into the funk. Maybe I should record some songs and put them up on the web after all. I registered a couple of weeks ago on garageband, the music website run by such minds as Sir George Martin, who produced the Beatles while they were producing the music industry as we know it, and Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club. Apple makes a recording software package called garageband too, but Sir George and Jerry were there first, and the name is to be shared amicably. Anyhow, before I can post my own songs for other listeners to review, I pay about twenty bucks a tune or review a couple dozen songs.

posted by tbuckner on 02/22 | sights & sounds - music | | permalink
free freedom freebie

I have a rule, not necessarily an infallible rule, but I count it generally reliable. Folks say “you get what you pay for,” meaning that “you pay more, you get more.” Here’s my rule: in those vague areas of ‘spiritual advice’, self-improvement tips, and re-engineering your own mind, my rule is “you usually get what you don’t pay for.”

posted by tbuckner on 02/21 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
word on the street

came across this truly fantastic site chronicling scottish broadsides from 1650-1911. For almost 300 years until the mid-19th century broadsides ruled the streets. they were the tabloid press of their day, and when i say tabloid, i mean tabloid, all modern negative association is certainly applicable. they are fascinating. a quick browse through the categories reveals quite clearly that no matter how much we decry the fall and failings of the media, in truth, nothing has really changed. these broadsides are the oprah, us weekly, entertainment tonight, ny post, crossfire, court tv, and weekly world news of their day, all rolled into one. categories include body-snatching, apparitions, dueling, pirates, incest, prostitution, transvestites, freemasonry, and treason just to name a few. the site itself is extremely well done and a read through the broadsides, with their gorgeous machine text and woodblock illustrations, offers a fine window into the quality of human informational hunger, then and now. enjoy. (via mefi)

posted by jmorrison on 02/21 | sights & sounds | | permalink
god loves abortion

Great article at the times (reg. bla) discussing the clear implications of what intelligent design says about “the designer.”  Snip:

“And why should the human reproductive system be so shoddily designed? Fewer than one-third of conceptions culminate in live births. The rest end prematurely, either in early gestation or by miscarriage. Nature appears to be an avid abortionist, which ought to trouble Christians who believe in both original sin and the doctrine that a human being equipped with a soul comes into existence at conception. Souls bearing the stain of original sin, we are told, do not merit salvation. That is why, according to traditional theology, unbaptized babies have to languish in limbo for all eternity. Owing to faulty reproductive design, it would seem that the population of limbo must be at least twice that of heaven and hell combined.”

HaHa.

posted by rich on 02/21 | lost & found - belief | | permalink
makeover at delphi, or apollo in drag

noticed a link over at metafilter a few days ago pointing to some classical greek and roman sculpture retouched to appear painted in the full color scholars believe was originally present. i’ve seen these images before but it’s as if my mind obstinately refuses to allow them in, refuses to allow the the dearly held conception of hellenistic art as a pure, elegant, platonic ideal. are my neurons each rapid firing art critics in their own right? or are they just so used to processing bleached and time sanded marble that no other images compute? because these painted statues, man, they really challenge some popular notions of what our enlightened forbearers were up to.

posted by jmorrison on 02/19 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
velocity gnome and shags: saving the future

“There’s Someone at the Door, He Says He’s From the Future.” so begins a conceptual art piece with shades of john titor, neurocam, and that michael douglas movie the game. the artists began tracking the internet activities of a random 18-year old computer gamer named kolin (or velocity gnome as he was known online). they monitored and recorded his AOL instant messages and gather information about his friends and family from other sources on the net. blending this data with scenarios from video games and sci-fi films, they developed a mythology in which Kolin is “singled out as the savior of the human race.” they deliver a 40 page scrapbook to his home that incorporates photographs of him and excerpts from his personal correspondence. one of the artists shows up on Kolin’s doorstep, introduces himself as his “mentor from the future,” presents him with the book, and leaves without further explanation.

posted by jmorrison on 02/19 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
It’s only funny ‘cause it’s true.

I once read a science fiction story called Baxbr/Daxbr which Google reminds me was written by Evelyn E. Smith. In it, an ordinary man who does daily the crossword puzzle in the newspaper comes to realize that it is being used to send coded messages in advance of an alien invasion. This isn’t so unusual, and variants of this have actually been used by different belligerents in history. The allies let the french resistance know the normandy invasion was imminent by including in a BBC broadcast the phrase “the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor,” upon which the Maquis blacked their faces and blew up every railroad track and telegraph pole they could. I’m telling you this so you will understand and act to stop the menace our unsuspecting Earth now faces: the Zogg!

posted by tbuckner on 02/19 | lost & found - wtf | | permalink
isometric cityscapes of m-city

ambitious, ingenious, and impressive, m-city is a street art project being executed in poland (i believe). using a huge array of isometric illustrations cut into stencils the artists “build” sprawling cityscapes in paint. the illustrations themselves are pretty gorgeous, recalling the pixelated architecture of isometric perspective games but retaining a loose, handmade, feel. they cover a whole array of iconic urban structures and supporting infrastructures. the accompanying site offers a look at all of the individual stencils, photos of some resulting pieces, a movie (which helps clue you in the not only the general concept but also to the method) and a virtual m-city constructor where you can build your own online. all in all extremely well done. kudos, or as the young hooligans say, “props.” (via wooster collective)

posted by jmorrison on 02/18 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
hibernian, fortean, joycean fustian; blather!

Ah, the Irish. ‘tis said the good lord created alcohol so that they would not rule the world. Mystical, lyrical, jesting and questing (I probably stole the last couple of words, but who can remember?) So you know when some inhabitants of that fair isle set themselves to do a website filled with odd tales of the unnatural, the nonsensical, the numinous and ruinous, the criminal and the subliminal, the sublimely heretical and the just plain disrespectful, you know, don’t you then, that they will bring a certain flair to the task? I’ll say no more; ‘tis all blather.

posted by tbuckner on 02/18 | sights & sounds | | permalink
just in case…

with today’s conveniently pre-budget and totally specifics-free wmd terror warning, with north korea’s unheeded nuclear capabilities announcement, and with iran next on the preemptive hit list, perhaps now is a good time to learn to start worrying and fear the bomb? fear is poinless i guess but with a born again christian apocalypse nigh perhaps a bit of good old fashioned preparedness is in order… and when i say old fashioned, i mean

old fashioned.

posted by jmorrison on 02/18 | lost & found - wtf | | permalink
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