Upward Spiral #8 – The Interpersonal.
In this very intimate episode Eric Duffy and Ken Vallario explore the interpersonal as a political space.
Upward Spiral #6 – The Pros/Cons of Full Economic Collapse
In this bonus episode (possibly our best yet)…we feature a recording of an unplanned discussion about the benefits and dangers of the possible economic collapses that we’ve all imagined are possible. This episode not only features one of our most engaging discussions but King’s Corner is back with an awesome picture of what it looks [...]
Culture Is Your Reality.
Culture is a field of perception, a mind-state that pre-registers incoming information as belonging to conditioned categories. It is an inevitable totalitarian aspect of growing up as a social animal. It is innate to the experience of culture that many aspects of one’s own are not only imperceptible but that they are perceived by other [...]
Upward Spiral #2 – Sanity and Society
In our second episode we explore the themes Sanity and Society in response to our recent viewing of David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook. Co-hosts Ken Vallario and Eric Duffy, with special guest star Byron King. Enjoy! As always, if you have any feedback we would love to hear from you.
Movie Review – A Dangerous Method
It is often the case when we think about Freud and Jung that we project backwards our ideas about what it means to be a doctor, what it means to provide treatment, as the world in which we live, at least in theory, has very rigid notions about how we are to relate to medicinal [...]
Movie Review – Melancholia
Last night I was feeling melancholic…this is rare these days…I am usually a happy ole chap…but I am familiar with the feeling…I have swum in its waters enough in my life to know when my feet are wet. After my family went to sleep I decided to put down my work and look for a [...]
Nature vs. Nurture
Our feelings about animals and industry are not solely about the animals. No, the rising distaste surrounding our treatment of animals in the meat industry reflects our own experiences within a world of concrete and steel. Humans are shuttled to and fro within a mechanized world that extracts their life essence to unknown ends, in [...]
Emotional Rescue
Until we can trust the fidelity of the channels through which we receive information we ought to guard ourselves from forming very strong opinions about events that require the highest level of contextual sophistication. In fact, when a muddled mess is presented to us as a debate we ought to assume that there are forces [...]
Societal Diagnosis – Personality Disorder
I have long believed that all of society could be looked at through the psychological perspective. And I think, at some point, one is able to diagnose one’s immediate social environment as lacking all the signs of mental health. In response to the ongoing Travon Martin controversy, I’ve been horrified by the willingness of our [...]
The Carnage of Law
After watching this hilarious and dark and serious film I was compelled to point to it as a great exemplification of a feeling that is particular to our time, in the way that existentialism was particular to the early 20th century. In this film you will encounter something that has become a norm, when people [...]
Self Diagnosis
If I grew up in today’s world I would be diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder because of my daydreaming…I would be diagnosed with Asperger’s because of my fantasy life…and I would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder because of the intense despair I felt about the way people treated one another. When I was a [...]
Open Letter to David Graeber and Chris Hedges…
After watching the video interview of Chris Hedges, and reading the follow up letter by David Graeber (both below) concerning the Black Bloc occupy tactics, I wrote my own open letter. Please share. Open Letter to David Graeber and Chris Hedges Dear Distinguished Dudes, As a member of this ‘struggle’ I cannot help but see [...]
The Terminator
1. I’ve argued before that the current Occupy Movement is a struggle against an economic system driven by computational devices…machines. Now, we see the development of a computational/mechanized army. In other words, the machine war is becoming more real by the day…it is no longer a metaphor. 2. People who are versed in history are [...]
Job Creationism
when people are talking about ‘job creation’ what they really want, whether they know it or not, is to live in a society with a vision, with a mission, with something to cooperate for…our crisis comes from a lack of this, and from an awareness of our planet and the cosmos, and the utter paralysis [...]
Did you see this?
Did you? Did you see this? Cause, I did…and if you are watching this for the first time, then guess what, i saw it before you did. But seriously folks…it’s funny…but, as usual, that’s not why i’m posting it…i’m asking you ‘Why is it funny?’… And my answer is part of a growing thesis I [...]
The Anonymous Survival Guide
For your reading pleasure I recently found this…Be warned, it’s a little frightening…click the link below to download the 15 page pdf… Click Here for Main Page
American FreakShow
I watched the whole video below, and the reason I’m posting it here, on my ‘art’ site, is not because I think it is a good thing. On the contrary, I think the whole environment looks unhealthy and dangerous. However, it does point to a deep fracturing of our social lives, whereas people from all [...]
The Horror – Suicide and Condiments
For the last 2 years suicides among U.S. Troops were greater than the number of troops killed in battle. I heard this on the Smiley and West show on NPR…as they reported the top under-reported stories of the year. Click Here to Listen (relevant story at 10:30) As I was sitting in a diner [...]
Framing the problem #1 – The Idiot
Hundreds of years after the Enlightenment we still suffer from the same issue – Assholes and Idiots in leadership positions. Because we all are products of a scientific society it is always tempting to get bogged down in the details, in the schemas, in the isms…but at root is the perennial problem of dealing with [...]
The New Year – 2012 Begins
Happy New Year Everybody! 2012 will be here in a few days. And I predict it will be a year so transformative that we will seriously consider reconfiguring our calendar around it at some future date. Having just spoke to Byron King the creator of Globatron.org, we have decided to resume projects that were once [...]
There’s a Priest, a Rabbi and Santa Claus…wait, this is not a joke…
I attended the Duarte Square action on Saturday…another amazing gathering of the movement. Wanting very badly to avoid arrest, I stood to the side as I watched religious leaders climb the fence and try to Occupy a space for the movement from one of the richest religious institutions in the world. The energy is electric [...]
Wrong Turn at Albuquerque – The Coming Insurrection
Recently while waiting for a friend at the Strand Bookstore in NYC I saw a strange little pile of blue books on one of the book islands in the store. It was intriguing, so I went home later and ordered a copy, instead of buying one with cash as I should have. To keep this [...]