intellectual properties

red strings and rabbit holes

“I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!“

- Alice, in Wonderland

i love synchronicity, even if oblique.

as posted, BadUnklSista, the butoh performance group i often dance with, is doing a 2-night production in SF this weekend @http://counterpulse.org/ , a double-bill with The Carepetbag Brigade, an unlikely composition of amazing performance artists who are currently doing an extremely mad take on Jack and the Beanstalk. while some of BUS performances are loose, organic pieces that we rehearse very little for, this one was choreographed, and because i was back east visiting my family last weekend, i wasn’t able to attend the rehearsals and therefore wasn’t able to participate as a performer. we went as audience members last night instead. jay asked afterward why i so like abstract performance art - what do i get out of it/what do i love about it? (a side topic being that i don’t think people can choose what kind of art (including music) moves them. you can try to make yourself like an art form, but really i think you either do or you don’t, n’est-ce pas?)  i can’t explain how much it moves me, every time, but i’ll try.

do you have those dreams, where nothing makes sense, you’re not even sure who/what/where, but you wake up with a feeling as though you witnessed something so deep it meant everything? i have them often, and the Carepetbag Brigade’s “You Don’t Know Jack” performance was as such, with people doing odd things with unexpected objects, saying things that on the surface sound like mad gibberish but when digested, when it all hits you as one piece, as a whole, seems so universal that it means everything.  the poetic dialogue and songs were interwoven in odd but meaningful ways, the words carefully chosen, the physicality rich and directive, and at the end i felt as if awaking from one of those dreams. i couldn’t quite grasp what had happened, but i felt changed by it.

and then, Bad Unkl Sista’s performance, which i won’t even attempt with the details. most prominently, I am completely in love with Totter Todd’s music right now (the dark place inside that you act from but never look at/swallow your fear, swallow it whole/you’re killing yourself with your own beauty).  BUS performances are always an honest and intense look at that which we are, the pieces of ourselves which we hide, which we let eat us from the inside, and the joy at relieving ourselves from such self-inflicted prisons.  there’s a certain part of myself that i am really not liking these days (in short: judgmental, and vocally), which is often exacerbated by visiting my family, and the performance last night brought a lot of that to the surface.  i am thinking i need a long strand of red string to tie around my wrist as a reminder of a few things i need to work on for a while (in the performance, such a string was used as a representation of your fear(s), which it is suggested in both song and action that you ingest, digest, and then regurgitate into something that tastes like relief).

thank you Bad Unkl Sista for always bringing such beauty, whether i am inside it or watching from afar. there’s another performance tonight @counterpulse in SF, which i’m sure will be similar but different. if you like intensity and songs and dances and abstract dreams that seem to say almost nothing directly but mean everything, i highly encourage you to attend tonight.

what does this have to do with rabbit holes and synchronicity?  the new Alice in Wonderland opened in SF this weekend, and we have a large crew (30+) who will be going to see it tonight, many of us in costume. and while the Disney version is just fine, those who have read the original texts know that Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass are much more than childrens’ stories, and are quite philosophically intricate and more than a little bit metaphysical.  it’s obvious why the psychedelic community latched onto its metaphors.

so with all the anticipation for the new film and mind wandering in that direction for this past week, particularly visiting my mother, who has an enormous collection of Alice in Wonderland memorabilia in her dining room/living room cabinets (indeed: dolls and figurines and books and all sorts of collectors items), walking out of the performance last night felt like the start of a weekend-long visit down the rabbit hole. then after another night of intense, crazy dreams, waking up this morning, it’s true: i’m really not sure i am the same person i was when i went to sleep last night, and if not, who that means i am today.

no strings attached

i want to walk naked through the streets with you, barefoot, our bodies and minds worn clean.

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i don’t know what i was dreaming, but those are the words that were running through my head when i woke up this morning.

say yes.

.::.

Now will saying “yes” get you in trouble at times? Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes.”

- Stephen Colbert - commencement address at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, 2006

impossible regret

In 20 years, you will be more disappointed by what you didn’t do than by what you did.

–Mark Twain

within

.::.

The doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
–Herman Hesse

live large

~via

something to chew on

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I have an old dead friend named Linda who was waist deep in loving Jesus and she used to tell me that it would be perfectly evident when I was living God’s Will for me because life would feel effortless and joy would abound. — BHJ

QOTD

The only way out is through.

–@brittneyg

..::..

“I believe in the next five minutes.”

–JG Ballard

wait.

do i?

have you any dreams you’d like to sell?

previously blogged in 2007, but worth repeating.
thx, brit, for the reminder.