dispactke

[dispactke]

Why did it take me 56 years to at last come to read the literary masterwork that is Dune? 

If I had read it in the 8th grade (around the time I read, say, The Old Man and the Sea), would it have changed the trajectory of my spiritual life? Would I have "found" Buddhism sooner? Have become concerned with environmental concerns of the planet more passionately? Islam? Military and realpolitik?

I'm almost ashamed that it took a curious work of cinema to get me to Herbert's book (and I'd already seen the David Lynch version in 1984!).

What a wonderfully engaging work of literature, so-called "sci-fi" that might have slipped through the literary cracks.

------------

"'There's an internally recognized beauty of motion and balance on any man-healthy planet,' Kynes said. 'You see in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all life. Its aim is simple: to maintain and produce coordinated patterns of greater and greater diversity. Life improves the closed system's capacity to sustain life. Life—all life—is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.'"

---------

"Now, Paul saw the contents of the mound exposed: the pale glisten- ing gray of a stillsuit, a battered literjon, a kerchief with a small book in its center, the bladeless handle of a crysknife, an empty sheath, a folded pack, a paracompass, a distrans, a thumper, a pile of fist-sized metallic hooks, an assortment of what looked like small rocks within a fold of cloth, a clump of bundled feathers... and the baliset exposed beside the folded pack.

So Jamis played the baliset, Paul thought."

-------

"We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols [he said]. We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive."

- from Dune, Frank Herbert

#dune #frank herbert

[dispactke]

Mur Murs (Agnès Varda, 1981)

[dispactke]

Though I finished it over a month ago, am still reeling from Hogan's Mean Spirit. Last excerpt of many, from the final page...

He began reading, "Honor father sky and mother earth. Look after everything. Life resides in all things, even the motionless stones. Take care of the insects for they have their place, and the plants and trees for they feed the people. Everything on earth, every creature and plant wants to live without pain, so do them no harm. Treat all people in creation with respect; all is sacred, especially the bats.

"Live gently with the land. We are one with the land. We are part of everything in our world, part of the roundness and cycles of life. The world does not belong to us. We belong to the world. And all life is sacred.

"Pray to the earth. Restore your self and voice. Remake your spirit, so that it is in harmony with the rest of nature and the universe. Keep peace with all your sisters and brothers. Humans whose minds are healthy desire such peace and justice."

#linda hogan #Mean Spirit #osage nation

[dispactke]

Battery Park City, NYC, eclipse...

#new york city #solar eclipse

[dispactke]

I used to eat at Florent after clubbing at Twilo: 3 a.m., it was delightful, maybe the restaurant I miss the most. Spent many a lovely latenight dinner at Coffee Shop; lost my biggest sports bet treating someone to dinner at Da Silvano (unmemorable); saw a notorious fight between Chinese kids and fast-food workers at the McDonald's on Essex & Delancey at 4 a.m. (I'd just gotten off work).

Shari and I went to Lucali long before the recent hype (and before children) with friends long divorced; I got "lost" many a time in the labyrinth that was the Limelight, the best for a Jeff Mills DJ set banger; the Albee Square Mall food court is presumably now the DeKalb Market food court at City Point; we've eaten at the new, revamped Delmonico's (recently); of course Sylvia's in Harlem, think I took my parents there once too; I WORKED at City Hall restaurant in Tribeca (served drinks to Orange Hair there); ate at Bubby's, also Tribeca, had friends that worked there; loved Diner in Williamsburg ― cool, hype food destination.

They kind of just mention but don't really talk about Odeon ― I probably ate more meals there (at the bar late night or seated at tables) than anywhere else in the late '90s ― restaurant folk ate there after work post-midnight before going out partying for the night...

#nyc #nyc restaurants #new york city #food

[dispactke]

(yup.)

#new york city

[dispactke]

The Eyes - "You're Too Much"

#the eyes

[dispactke]

"John Lennon broke up Fluxus"

(⁠・⁠o⁠・⁠)

#fluxus #yoko ono

[dispactke]

The story of how the drug game works is the story of contemporary economics, government, and culture?

#Youtube

[dispactke]

Zoom in on the moon...cool.

#the moon

[dispactke]

"Some of the younger people made fun of her. They were embarrassed by the old ways and believed the old people were superstitious. They were forward-thinking young people and those of them who still planted corn replaced the corn ceremony with chemical fertilizer. But after a few weeks, Belle's corn began to germinate and push upward while their fields remained bare, except for an occasional weed."

--- from Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit

#linda hogan #Mean Spirit #osage nation #osage

[dispactke]

One of our McNally Jackson bookstores resides in the City Point mall near the intersection of Fulton st. and Dekalb ave. (near Flatbush ave.) in downtown Brooklyn.

We did not know a whole lot about the history of this edge of downtown Brooklyn that eventually crosses over into Fort Greene (and where the infamous new Brooklyn Tower, aka "Dark Fortress Sauron's Tower" also resides). The mall is next to what is the base of the tower, built on top of what used to be the Dime Savings Bank (I remember going inside this building in the '90s when it was still a bank).

Staff and I were always baffled as to why the "Albee Square W" street, presently nonexistent "Fleet st.", and "Prince st." (which apparently used to stretch all the way to Flatbush but ceased doing so many decades ago) so defined this triangle of corners and at least to some extent still define the area (the City Point building has a "Prince st." stone etching in it, which additionally always baffled us).

Sometimes customers who lived in the area as far back as the 1980s, and some even earlier, come into the bookstore and regale us with stories of the era. (McNally staff member Ben Richman has fielded most of these tales and performed much follow-up work hunting down proof of what he's been told.) Ben was led to a website called "Cinema Treasures" which provides a detailed history of the land the CP mall now resides on (and many lovely photos!).

The site does this because there was a theater at this location called the "RKO Albee Theatre" from 1925 to 1978, in the space where Primark presently resides (and Century 21 used to), right next to the Dimes Savings Bank. There are many photos of the theater and surrounding streets, elevated train lines, ads for entertainment at the theater, souls walking the streets from nearly a hundred years ago. Comments attached to the photos give a de facto history of this part of Brooklyn and specifically the entertainment at the theater over the decades. It is fascinating stuff.

The Marx Brothers performed vaudeville LIVE here in 1930. The 3-D It Came From Outer Space and The Ten Commandments movies played in the 1950s. In the 1960s Frank Sinatra movies played, and in the 1970s blaxploitation cinema. According to the site:

"The RKO Albee Theatre was closed on September 21, 1978 and was demolished in November 1978 to make way for the Albee Square Mall (which itself was demolished in the Summer of 2008). The up-market City Point retail and residential building was built on part of the site, and this contains the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn movie theatre which opened in October 2016."

As well as McNally Jackson Books City Point, established 2020.

#RKO Albee Theatre #McNally Jackson Books #City Point #Dimes Savings Bank #marx brothers #downtown brooklyn

[dispactke]

Steve Paul's The Scene

"Located at 301 West 46th Street in New York City, The Scene, which opened its doors sometime in 1965, was indeed the most renowned rock club in the USA for a short span during the mid-sixties..." 

#Steve Paul #Jimi Hendrix #The Scene

[dispactke]

Diagrams from a thirteenth-century version of the Ars Notoria.

[dispactke]

"Along the way back to his tepee, he found another bat. This one also he thought he would take home. He put it in the bag, along with the first.

When he reached his tepee, he opened the bag and looked in. The two bats were locked together, mating. He took them out, put them in a little hole in the ground and covered them with dry leaves. They stayed together, mating, for four days, the male with his fangs exposed. By the last day, the female had found her way out of the leaves and flown away. The male was dead.

Horse left the male bat out to dry, for his own bundle of sacred things. The bat medicine Sam Billy had told him about must have already been working in his favor, for the rabies he expected to attack him never took hold. He knew he had a calling or something, a gift to offer the world, and that must have been why he was spared."

- from Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan

#mean spirit #Linda Hogan #osage #osage nation

[dispactke]

The 'Zine exhibit at Brooklyn Museum, very cool and gets at the heart of what publishing should be. The sheer thrill and excitement of throwing one's cultural passions or a collective's identity into print ― by any means necessary. Thrilling, historical stuff. It's kind of crazy to see how far away from taking cultural risks we've gotten, and quite recently really. (Those were the days. Ain't gon' say it's all p.c. by any means). Glorious stuff.

#zine #zines #fan zine #punk rock #post punk #brooklyn museum #copy machine manifesto

[dispactke]

Fascinating stuff, the trip our water takes to NYC. (I think I put up a documentary on this subject too.)

#new york city #water supply