you heard it here first

surely you’ve all heard of Lorenz’s butterfly effect. generally it is phrased as some variation of the original which goes, “Does the Flap of a Butterflyís Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?” well the nonist has it on good authority (an authority who wished to remain anonymous- an “unnamed source” you might say) that in light of the extremely destructive hurricane events on american shores in recent years, president george w. bush has secretly undertaken an initiative to find out the truth about these “natural” disasters and will, in the coming days, announce his findings. these findings may shock you.

posted by jmorrison on 08/31 | news & views - headlines | | permalink
deutsche druckgraphik

i have to say the types of books you can pick up for next to nothing in this world amazes me. looking through the bargain bin at the strand is a treasure hunt every time. what i’d like to share today is some work from a 1969 book called deutsche druckgraphik. sammlung rothe or german prints from the collection of wolfgang and maria rothe. it’s an absolute gem. great print examples in many different styles. only wish they were in color. i’ve searched the web and found nothing on this collection. perhaps it was donated to a museum at some point, or perhaps not. in any case all i can offer by way of information on the plates to follow are the artists’ names. hope you enjoy.

posted by jmorrison on 08/30 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
remember the name of this game I cannot

The Pinball post and subsequent comments triggered a memory of a family friend who at one time was a freelance arcade game repairman.  His basement was filled with all sorts of machines he had nursed back to health, as well as a couple that stood only for show and had been gutted to provide parts.  Anyway, there was this one game he had that I have never seen anywhere else, and despite searching near and far have never found any information on.  What is most surprising about that is that it was a Star Wars game, so you would think that it would be well documented on the fanboy friendly web.  Have you ever heard of this game?

posted by Cast on 08/29 | sights & sounds - games | | permalink
immortalized in pencil 1

today i have tried something new and it was fun. i think i’ll have to do it again, and perhaps more times still. if i were a different sort of character i might even begin trying to convince you all that my actions were somehow meaningful, that the result was somehow important. i might begin explaining at yawn inducing length why it was “original.” i might concoct a manifesto with many big words and begin ever after referring to this undertaking as art. i might use exclamation points when i typed it, like this: art!! as it is though i’m not that sort of guy. i’m thinking of what i’ve done as a small homage perhaps or if not that at very least a bit of record keeping.

posted by jmorrison on 08/27 | lost & found | | permalink
seeing music

is jack ox well known? i’d never heard of her until today. she is an artist whose been attempting to systematically visualize music for over 20 years. from what i can gather (by pure inference) her most popular work was her visualization of Dadaist kurt schwitters’ famous 1923 sound poem the ursonate. (text here). since 1998 she has been working with programmer dave britton on the virtual color organ a 3D, fully immersive stereoscopic work intended for viewing at a virtual reality theater called the cave. (an early prototype and some specs) it’s all fascinating but what i wanted to particularly showcase here were some early applications of her visualization ideas which manifested themselves in the decidedly low-tech medium of oil paint.

posted by jmorrison on 08/26 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
another nonist public service

as many of you have surely noticed our blog depression pamphlet was very well received. for that we are glad. nothing fills us with more pride and satisfaction than the prospect of making a difference. with that in mind the nonist commission for snide and completely unsolicited public services is very excited to announce a new p.s.a. this time we hope to draw attention to a different problem entirely which we feel is equally as relevant to the world at large. we think this danger has been ignored for too long. won’t you help spread the word?

posted by jmorrison on 08/26 | piss & vinegar | | permalink
overheard in new york

I’m always stunned at the potpourri of phrases and conversations that you can come across while walking the streets of New York.  To me, it represents an idea that we are all moving through life in what we think are direct paths, but are actually vectors that can be pushed, manipulated, and otherwise influenced by all the other vectors of other people’s lives that collide with our own.  In other words, life is chaos, and there is no better reminder than the wierd, rediculous, stupid nonsense that comes out of people’s mouths.  Here is a great list of things overheard in new york.  I swear I never said any of them.

posted by Cast on 08/25 | sights & sounds | | permalink
thumpers, bumbers, flippers, and balls

i picked up a couple of dynamite books on pinball last week which i want to share. they come at the subject from different angles and with totally different aesthetics so i will post them separately. first up is pinball an illustrated history by michael colmer. it’s entirely possible that this book, published in 1976, was the last volume put out on the subject while pinball was still the ring-a-dinging technological pinnacle of the game room. the dominance of new fangled video games was just over the horizon. anyhow the book is an interesting read for sure but where it really shines is in the plethora of machine artwork reproduced within. below you’ll find a few of my favorite examples.

posted by jmorrison on 08/25 | sights & sounds - games | | permalink
the day you discard your body

where to begin? just read marshal brain’s the day you discard your body (which i will get back to in due course) and it put me in mind of a very particular kind of dread. it’s a dread which does not seem to have a name (at least not one i can find) but which i feel certain is widespread, in varying degrees of severity, all the same. the best way to describe it would be to call it the dread of being an organism. not a dread at being alive exactly, which is to say not the fear of consciousness, but rather a dread of all the soft, meaty, blemished, gooey, slimy, stinky, hairy, biology which makes life possible.

posted by jmorrison on 08/24 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
typophone 1

file this under experiments. remember the game “telephone?” where you’d sit in a circle with a bunch of other kids and whisper something into the ear of the kid next to you? then he’d do the same, around the horn, until it got back to you? the idea was that the story would mutate slightly with each re-telling and by the time it went full circle it’s be something totally different. ho ho ho much hilarity would ensue.

posted by jmorrison on 08/21 | sights & sounds - games | | permalink
the opaque civilization

picked up an exhibition catalog at strand yesterday for a show held at the guggenheim in 1984 called the opaque civilization by artist will insley. i’ve never heard of will insley and a quick internet search turned up very little other than the fact he was born in 1929, studied architecture, and taught at the school of visual arts at some point. image-wise there is a single paltry piece to be seen. the guggenheim show evidently represented a career long fascination with abstract architecture the totality of which insley termed the opaque civilization. in the catalog he explains that theory is a major element in the process and understanding of his work. said theories, will be willfully withheld here, however, because to be totally frank, i can’t figure out exactly what they are. see below for some pieces which make up the opaque civilization.

posted by jmorrison on 08/20 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
the stoned-ape

as an avowed nonist my distrust of accepted truths creates in me a natural fondness for a certain kinds of theoretical kookiness. the sensible side of my personality registers this affinity as a weakness and attacks incoming tin-foil milliners like a platoon of pissed off white blood cells, not allowing it take strong position behind the fortifications of belief. (yeah it’s a mixed metaphor, so what?) my creative side on the other hand revels in kookiness, rolls in it, breathes it deeply, and smiles. the singularity, transhumanism, crypto-zoology, hell string theory! all are interesting and good fun. taken as speculative fiction this stuff is very effective at firing the imagination. one practitioner of this pleasurable cerebration was psychonaut, hash smuggler, butterfly collector, and lovable kook-extraordinaire terrance mckenna.

posted by jmorrison on 08/20 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
is a door more than a hole in the wall?

the theory-minded art lovers among you (if there are any) might enjoy chewing on this a while: magritte the architecturologist by nold egenter, which attempts to understand magritte in terms of architectural spaces he constructed. quote: very likely it is not by chance that, in opposition to contemporary movements suggesting the dissolution of space, magritte tenaciously remained loyal to perspective as a means to represent space. he needed the tectonically constructed view and its fixed eye point to make his statements. if your not so into theory (i can sympathize) check out the illusion of reality site instead.

posted by jmorrison on 08/19 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
same broom, same street: minor white

thought tonight i’d showcase one of my favorite photographers of the old guard- minor white. great name isn’t it? hard not to amount to something with a name like that. he had quite a career having studied under alfred stieglitz, edward weston, and ansel adams, then later in life becoming an influential teacher at r.i.t. and m.i.t. as well as co-founding aperture magazine. he was hailed at the time of his death as an american master though he is largely forgotten today. “yeah, yeah, words, what about his photos? were they any good?” well i’m glad you asked see below for a small sampling.

posted by jmorrison on 08/19 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
human dna in trees

Georg Tremmel and Shiho Fukuhara plan to grow trees that store the genetic traits of humans. It would mean a person’s DNA could live on, with the tree, as a memorial for life, or ‘transgenic tombstone’.

from the biopresence website: The goal of Biopresence is to introduce human characteristics to a plant, without changing the genes of the resulting plant.

Shiho asks: How will the behaviour towards this tree change? Can this tree be a monument and memorial to someone? Will you eat an apple from your grandma tree?

posted by Ben Dalton on 08/19 | tech & science - bio | | permalink
fraternal supply catalog no. 439

reproduced in its entirety, for your enjoyment, the demoulin bros. & co 1930 fraternalism supply catalog. amazing! you have to imagine normally well behaved, respectable, guys heading off after work to their lodges to unleash the silly pranks and bizarre contraptions from this catalog on one another. the fuzzy wonder goat, the electric branding iron, the guillotine, drinking the goats blood, the lifting and spanking machine, trick guns, not to mention the endless masks and costumes, all just the tip of the iceberg. each with detailed explanations, though all the explanation really needed is: “nothing is more fun than humiliating others.” great find via mofi.

posted by jmorrison on 08/18 | sights & sounds - games | | permalink
zen stories to tell your neighbors

came across this little collection called zen stories to tell your neighbors. quote: This web site is a collection of stories from the Orient, mostly Zen and Taoist tales. Why am I suggesting that you tell these stories to your neighbors? Is it because these are among the oldest stories in human history and have withstood the test of time? Is it because Zen and Taoism are ancient religions offering profound insights into human nature, the cosmos, and spirituality?... Maybe. Or maybe it’s just because they are fun to tell.  or maybe for some other reason entirely. below i have reproduced one story, called “a useless life” to give you a taste.

posted by jmorrison on 08/17 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
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