Farmacia - Nada de nada y Te puedo abrazar

Here's a couple videos from a rather one dimensional Argentine pop band called Farmacia. For better or for worse, the songs will probably get stuck in your head. I think when I wanted to be a rock star, though I never envisioned something like this, I was a goof ball and probably would have ended up looking a lot like this guy on stage. I was always into the more pensive front man thing but I had enough energy to power a small city for a day in my 120lb lanky body and music was (still is) like a drug for me. Even if you don't end up digging these videos, remember one thing. At least they are having fun making music, I'm writing term papers.

FARMACIA Nada de Nada (video) from FARMACIA on Vimeo.

Like we said: "Cats"

This just goes to prove that we were right all along: Cats are subversive slaves of modernity.

To be fair, this video is obviously edited. I really don't think it needed to be edited though.

Highlights:

- "Petting is so paseé"

- "That says a lot about life, and about cat massage"

- "You don't need a swimming pool for this breast-stroking"

Thanks for the link, Xpoferens

Borges and Birds

At the Jorge Luis Borges Conference that I just attended and where I read a paper on "El sur," there was a presentation referencing Borges's great story(?) "Argumentum ornithologicum" which traced Borges's logic very closely. I kind of wandered in and out of listening to the ponencia and so I don't think I could come close to giving itjustice. "Argumentum," however, has not completely left my thoughts and so I reproduce it here below along with its Andrew Hurley translation:

"Cierro los ojos y veo una bandada de pájaros. La visión dura un segundo o acaso menos; no sé cuántos pájaros vi. ¿Era definido o indefinido su número? El problema involucra el de la existencia de Dios. Si Dios existe, el número es definido, porque Dios sabe cuántos pájaros vi. Si Dios no existe, el número es indefinido, porque nadie pudo llevar la cuenta. En tal caso, vi menos de diez pájaros (digamos) y más de uno, pero no vi nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, cuatro, tres o dos pájaros. Vi un número entre diez y uno, que no es nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, etcétera. Ese número entero es inconcebible, ergo, Dios existe."

"I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted. In this case, I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer--not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, etc.--is inconceivable. Ergo, God exists. (trans. Andrew Hurley)"

There is too much here for me to go into because I am a very impatient thinker and writer. I think that this is still stuck in my craw because of what I am studying at the moment. I’ve been trying to link visual culture to ecocriticism and I think that the doubt that comes through Borges’s argument is related to what we would call our “wonder” before nature. We stand at the top of a cliff at the edge of the Grand Canyon and we try in vain to absorb a whole image/idea of what we see before us. Later, when we try to share what we saw/experienced we often fall silent and we reduce our experience to the ineffable. Of course this won’t do so we use hyperbole or better yet we go prepared and we take a picture as if an image communicates better than words when it really is just another filter, perhaps.

Just like with our consciousness’s before the Grand Canyon, I think any encounter with the ‘other’ of nature, whatever the scale or location, is constructed in several spatiotemporal instances and that we constantly return to and playback. A poem or a photograph gives us something akin to what Benjamin calls “unconscious optics” with regard to our wonder before nature. Then again, it’s late and I should be working on something else.

"Borges's ruiseñor"

Ekphrasis

Margins of New York

The storyboard of a Saturday, our view over Calvary

of a flickering, modern skyline haunts our attachment

to fleeting time, even if we know that we will never

really catch the slow, plodding car ahead of us that

can’t seem to pick a lane and stay in it.

45 miles per hour in a winter rain obliges us to use the

passenger side door window as a self-evident filter that

keeps the rain out, even as each drop slides up the glass

and tries to get in after floating like a pearl over the dead.

I ask her to lean back so that I can twist my neck and

gaze at the faded height of New York and the darkening

breadth of the cemetery through the speckled afternoon.

“I’ll take a picture” she says. “Keep your eyes on the road.

We don’t want to get in a wreck."

"I’ll take a picture so you can to see the same view as me.

You'll be able to relive the experience through the photo.”

How do I tell her what I know? The moment is gone,

there is nothing but the present and her photograph

captures only ghosts, only a view of a city both dead and

alive. We cross the bridge and “We should make time to

visit the city when it's not raining” is all I can say.

This is just a little poem that I'm working on. Any constructive criticism is appreciated.

*Picture taken by my wife with some focused "editing" on my part.

The Great God Bird: Nature: Art/Science/Culture

Two videos with Sufjan Stevens ethereal song "The Great God Bird" about the elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker - otherwise known as the Ghost Bird (see documentary "Ghost Bird"). I am writing about the interactions of Art, Culture, and Science in humanity's idea and relationship with what we have been calling "Nature." I certainly view these two videos quite differently. The official music video (the pretty girl and the flowers) made me want to discard it right away as somehow missing the point or as over-romanticizing the the song's message about the loss and sense of a need to recover a species of non-human life. The second one which was made by a Youtuber out of Discovery Channel footage of the behind-the-scenes video of the documentary about the woodpecker seems a great contrast to the mystical, even spiritual, aura of Steven's tribute to the "Great God Bird."

What do you guys think? Is there a metaphor in the official video that I'm missing out on? Do we think of our experience IN "nature" as a beautiful walk in a field of flowers while we photograph everything is sight? Or is it this observation-as-a-way-to-know experience that drives us out into the wilderness to be sure that we haven't indeed eliminated another non-human? Perhaps it is more like singing, and listening to, the song: both a in- and out-of-body experience, a subliminal and sublime event?

Here are the lyrics to the song:

In the delta sun, down in Arkansas
It's the great god bird with its altar call
And the sewing machine, the industrial god
On the great bayou were they saw it fall
It's the great god bird down in Arkansas
And the hunters beware, or the fishers fall
And paradise might close from its safe flight flawed
It's the great god bird through it all

And the watchers beware, lest they see it fall
And paradise might laugh when at last it falls
And the sewing machine, the industrial god
It's the great god bird with it's altar call
Yes, it's the great god bird with its altar call
Yes, it's the great god bird through it all

There's a lot more to say but...

Traces

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

I like the idea that we leave part of ourselves behind as traces. I want to say that the idea of the 'trace' is Derridean. Who can lend me a hand in this matter?

What is your first thought when you see this mate brand?

I thought it was one of those brands that market's mate as a health supplement. COLON CLEANSING MIRACLE IMPORTED FROM SOUTH AMERICA!!! GENTLY CLEANSES THE TOXINS FROM YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM AS YOU DRINK THIS SOOTHING TEA FROM PARAGUAY!!!!! THE SANITARY CONFIDENCE THAT COMES FROM DRINKING COLON BRAND MATE WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!