KJP and I took a daytrip up to Kutna Hora a few weeks ago. It's home the one of the most important silver mines of the olden days, a ton of Communist Palankas, a cathedral or two... oh yeah, and the Kostnice Ossuary.
It's powerful, being in a church cellar filled with bones. My emotions vacillated betwixt the recognition of a Archetypically Jungian sacred place, redolent with ancestral calm, and a rocking case of the heebie-jeebies.
The skulld have me thinking of the few who've passed since I've posted last. 3 come to mind.
; Masashi Kitamura, Arthur Lee, and Syd Barrett. Kitamura came to me late in the formation of taste. Lee never really blew my mind. Syd... I can't say enough.
It was Opel that turned me on to him. I know the early Floyd, and, admittedly, it was a coyote guide on more than one confused and colorful night spent during mis-directed adolescence. It was his delicate solo songs that hit home with me. The rhythm on Rats alone is enough to bend your mind if you lend an ear. He sums it up for me at the end of Dolly Rocker when his strumming finally just falls to pieces and he sighs "oh my". I don't feel as though I can express to what degree he helped me in my own darkest days. People talk about the tragedy of a lost genius. I think that's selfish. I feel that the delicate meat of his loss is that he wanted to be in a band and meet girls, and it all went soso wrong. "oh my"
Well, let's move onto what else I missed whilst on hiatus. Once again, GW puts his best foot forward on this side of the ocean. Meeting with the biggest economic powerhouse in the EU? Butter her (that's right! a chick! In charge, no less!) up with a little vulcan nerve pinch.
Ah, Mel Gibson... Christopher Hitchens says it more eloquently than I ever could, as per usual. I mean, he refers to that one Jesus movie as a "twistedly homoerotic spank-movie."
While we're on Nazis, read up on Heydrich. KJP and I were wandering the streets and came upon the orthodox cathedral of Cyril and Methodius. We went to the basement on a whim, and found out about the parachutists. In short, 4 Czech resistance fighters dropped into Bohemia in order to kill Reinhardt Heydrich. He was Hitler's solution to the "Jewish Problem." These Parachutists dropped in on a purely suicidal mission just to take out this piece of aryan white shit. They ran right up to his motorcade and dropped a grenade in his lap. To the scumbag's credit, he held on for a few days. The Czechs hid out in the basement of this cathedral. For a second, they had a chance of surviving. The church was covering for them. Hitler was shitting his shorts. then, one of their buddies ratted them out. Almost instantly, the cathedral was surrounded. These guys were down in the crypt with half the nazi forces outside of the door. They can't give up, because that would mean unspeakable torture, and, plus, they've gone this far to give up without a scrap. They sit in the tombs, shooting any nazis coming through the door. At one point, the rat who snitched even stuck his head over the hole, telling them to give up. What do do? These guys started digging like absolute madmen. They took a metal pole and started to dig into solid rock in a last-ditch effort to make it to freedom via the sewers. They dug about 8 feet into concrete, brick and rock with a 4-foot metal pole. This is with a bazillion Nazis beating down the door. Alas, they saved a bullet apiece for when all hope was truly lost. They used those 4 bullets. Hitler responded by killing all the church leaders and their extended families. He levelled the town the parachutists were from, killing everyone in it.
I've been reading tons of Freudian theory lately. I'm more interested in his influences and the prototypical sources of the talking cure. For the last few weeks it's been hysteria, phobia, and perversion as they relate to Mesmerism. This cat, Charcot, was a big influence on Sigmund. He crystallizes something unnameable that I feel about the role of the analyst in analysis (Heisenberg, I might be looking in your direction). Anyhow, enough of the boring history and blahblah. I just think it's funny that Freud had this painting of Charcot in mid-session at Salpêtrière hanging above his couch.I wonder what little Hans thought, or, more importantly, Dora...
As an aside (think Parfait), has anyone seen any Waits shows? I want details.
Well, let's get the photo bizness out of the way. This page has tons of great stuff. Looklooklook!
This has been around awhile, but they still make me smile. How else to say it, but French women flashing a street photographer...
Check out Ernesto Timor. He's got so much work to peruse, and his links are worth a peek or two.
These are made of money... Holy Wow, Batman!
Sorry for the Robin quote, but how else was I supposed to preface a worthless page like this? Who wants a new desktop wallpaper?
Again, yet another validation for spending time sifting through Russian Photo pages...
Sometimes, when I see a tram go by with its windows full of people, I think of the last supper. Now, I think of spools of thread, too.
Dave's in Japan.
It's a little late in an already lengthy post to start talking about Japanese stuff that I find to be cool, but you have to peep this little fella out.
Mis-printed Type...
In conclusion, Slime Moulds move...
