Blog-girls post “Behind These Hazel Eyes” in earnest;  Stew finds a relatively obscure poem and finds that everything, everything is Illuminated, right here, summed up, immortalised in a Tarot archetype, the sum of the Postmodern world and his own paranoid place in it:

“there is nothing inside me but a large wound,
a hollow place where no one goes,
a windowless present, a thought that returns
and repeats itself, reflects itself
and loses itself in its own transparency,
a mind transfixed by an eye that watches
it watching itself till it drowns itself
in clarity:”

- Octavio Paz, “Sunstone”

The latest episode of New Artland should be shown on international aircraft;  it should be put on repeat.  It’s a perfect summation of our weird, bumbling, transitional culture.  An effeminate artist returns to his humble birthplace in Christchurch to install a plaque to commemorate his early life.  He meets the bemused owners, empty happy inarticulate Hobbit types, who agree more to the contract of manners and cameras than the idea of the artwork itself.  He’s greeted by confused kids at his old primary school and a Principal who asks “So, is it just a plaque, or what?”.  The plaque is installed, and is veiled by – perfectly – a recycling bin.  There’s an unveiling ceremony;  there’s more vaguely Maori ceremonial dancing by confused children, a bunch of gruff farmer types taking a break from their workshops for free sausages, a Mayor who spouts gibberish about “allowing us to celebrate his journey” or somesuch, and a Mr. Whippy van.  Along the way, Chris Knox smiles a lot and we’re treated to some “artistic” camera work which ends up feeling more like a drunk cameraman filming a ship during a storm.

van Hout’s final comment contains that quality of disingenuousness that seems to be the discourse of NZ Art – something along of the lines of “the nature of the artwork has changed:  it’s now a memorial of a day”.  I know his medium is the self-portrait, and that his idea was questions of commemoration:  who is celebrated, and who choses the celebrity:  but the fact is that the celebration is just as much of a commemoration as plaque:  they both inform each other.  The celebration commemorated the idea of the childhood van Hout wanted to immortalise more than the plaque.  I’m impressed with his artwork:  but I’m starting to wonder to what extent the episode of New Artland is the artistic document, and not the plaque itself.

I hesitate to comment on music, given my previous post, a gushing note on the Mars Volta album that I was astonished by for two hours, and haven’t listened to since.

Meshuggah‘s new album “Obzen” is what I was trying to say before.  Bleed is astonishing.  The other day, when some people were gathered at my house, one of them decided to load up Disturbed in Itunes.  Drunk as I was, I cast doubt as to their assumed sexual preferences.   When I was informed that they were pretty heavy, I loaded up Bleed, and pretty much cleaned the room out.  It was too “angry”.  I think it’s the best metal album since Mastodon’s “Blood Mountain”.

Jon Chang’s “twitch metal” is among the best music I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been following him since I discovered Discordance Axis a couple of years ago.  It sounds to me like the heart of the world beating – the result of a Hellenic imagination in a world of glass and concrete slabs, perhaps?  The petite sensations of the electric pulse Wikipedia head shot remote control society?  I know I’m being wanky but I think there’s some poetic legitimacy here.  He wears his influences on his sleeve:  his vision is of a Philip K. Dick uneasy dystopia crouched inside a utopia, ghosts in the machine screaming out short bursts of static, blocks of text like a code revealing brief snatches of hazy mirage hints at something that maybe was once real, official live footage brutalised and destroyed by it’s own medium, “Pikadourei” like watching the perception of every possible viewer at once…  When I play it, the response is always a grimace, and a shrug.  I get a lot out of Chang’s twin projects, “Hayaino Daisuki” and “Gridlink“.  Both have albums out shortly!

Also been listening to an exceptionally eccentric metal album by Frederick Thordendahl’s Special Defects:  “Sol Niger Within:  Version 333″.  I like it because it’s not Tool’s easygoing Eastern Mysticism – it’s more like a drug trip with no reference to anything but itself.

So I thought I might as well give it a go at some point. I didn’t have anywhere really appropriate, like an altar or anything, but I do have a beautifully framed print of Caspar Friedrich’s “Tree of Crows” which I have yet to hang up, so I laid the cards upon the glass surface. I’m using a Rider-Waite deck, as it seems fairly synonymous – although I’d rather be using the Tarot of Marseille. And as I’m using the Rider-Waite I thought it only polite to use the Celtic Cross. What we have is A, over which B is crossed, then C, D, E, F, in the position of East, South, West, then North. G, H, I, J ascend from the bottom to the top to form a pillar to the East. The meanings of these positions becomes hazy and intuitive. An excellent explanation by Waite himself is worth reading. Anyway, here’s the reading:

A= Judgement

B= VI Cups

C= The Star

D= The Lovers

E= King of Cups

F= King of Wands

G= Page of Cups

H= The Tower

I= IV Pentacles

J= King of Cups

I thought I ought to ask myself the Prufrock Question, from the famous poem:

And here’s some of my thoughts on the results: Firstly, I screwed up. I ought to have picked for myself a Significator rather than have one accidentally turn up. But it works out well, being Judgement. It’s all transcendence into the divine or inner nature, and I suppose that was mostly my question. VI Cups is about the transitional nature of childhood, and as an obstacle I suppose that transcendence is being limited by frameworks which need to be revised; habits which need to change. The root of all this is The Star, which I read as a muse figure, translating the universe into life through her language. Supposedly this is my unconciousness, while my conciousness is the King of Cups, who represents creative intelligence. The past, which I should let go, is The Lovers, which I read to suggest that ideals must perish, that a loss of innocence must occur. The counterpoint, King of Wands, seems to be a guardian, cloaked in his beliefs, who communicates through his staff. He seems priestly, and like the Knights looks off into the distance, as though already elsewhere.

My present self, or possibility, is Page of Cups, of whom Waite’s description is so awesome it needs to be writ in full: “A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form”. Yes. But the next card, representing how I am seen by others, is troubling. The Tower is generally an unhappy card. I reckon in this aspect, it’s an Icarus story. Waite quotes: “except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” Perhaps I am seen to be building a Tower of Babel while figuring myself to be building an Ark. Retribution will gather itself from accumulated failure in strike in some kind of embolism/mental breakdown and topple my Crown of Intellectual Thought and down will topple my twin selves of Artistic Judgement and Withered Humanity. In other words, it may be seen that I am being a dick. Moving on though: my Hopes and Fears, my Guidance, or possibly Overlooked Factor is represented by IV Pentacles. Seems to be a card of obsession. The guy is walking in Pentacles: is crowned by it and clings to it. Maybe I hope that I have a path; maybe I’m overlooking a certain inheritance, an obligation. But certainly I am focused.

The result of all this, the last card, is Knight of Cups. He carries his cup with unhurried dignity. What does this mean? Am I to be a bearer of a standard? Is this some kind of relay, passing along the cup to someone else? It is an obligation, and it is an obsession. He sits tall in his saddle with a surety of those who have decided upon a path, and decided that it is the only path worth walking. He is the bearer of a standard and this standard consumes him. It consumes his innocence and his humanity. The standard is the vessel which carries the stuff of life to that which needs to be born. The journey is a quest towards that muse, that one who can use the standard to actually manifest reality. Will it be me? Or will I die and pass it on to someone else?

Well that was fun!

Auckland yesterday offered itself in beauty. Twilight was eerily sepia toned. Slipping out from under The Quad stairs, I noticed Rod Serling, who said “I put it to you that freak atmospheric conditions in conjuncture with convenient positioning of the Sun created a brief zone of illusion – a zone very much like The Twilight Zone“. I said, You’re probably right. As we sat stoned while the credits rolled I remarked that someone must have got laid in Heaven tonight for the sky to produce such beautiful afterglow.