There's a lot to say about this subject so let's kick it off with a quote from one of today's top thinkers:
Migration is very good for the world generally. If more people migrated, this world would blur more. We need to get rid of patriotism and nationalism and all the evil these words are. Let's mix this world up like a sponge cake. Let's migrate and integrate and have babies of all the races. If this happens, we just might learn to populate space altogether without hate. To sum it up, let's all mate with each other and go in to the galaxy as a new race.A great big mixed up human living migrated being.
- Rik Albatros
Right then, let's get to it. I'll see you on the other side,
Mark
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Announcements -- Oddio Kids2008--0-6-T09: 0:1:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.1.12008-06-08T10:06:38Z2008-06-08T10:06:38Z"No Author Statedrss_feed@mungbeing.com
Katya at Oddio Overplay has started a new project called Oddio Kids, the world's first netlabel devoted to kids. It features music for kids by kids and by cool grownups, as well as audio stories, printable books and paper toys. All of it is free.
What a wonderful project! Keep an eye on this, as it is sure to be historic.]]>Announcements -- Gus Fink's Boogily Heads2008--0-6-T09: 0:1:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.1.22008-06-08T11:06:33Z2008-06-08T11:06:33Z"No Author Statedrss_feed@mungbeing.com
Gus Fink's Boogily Heads are available. Each one-of-a-kind character has a name and story and is derived from original Gus Fink sculptures that were faithfully reproduced into a 1.75" to 2.25" PVC art toy. These things are beautiful and we love Gus!
]]> -- Albert Schweitzer2008--0-6-T09: 0:0:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.1.52008-06-08T10:06:01Z2008-06-08T10:06:01Z"No Author Statedrss_feed@mungbeing.com Baltimore Clayworks Group Show of Students Works from 2007-2008
Baltimore, Maryland
May 31- June 21st, 2008
]]> -- Go KRAZY! 2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.1.72008-06-08T01:06:13Z2008-06-08T01:06:13Z"All Night At The Vancouver Art Gallery
Friday June 27th, 2008
9:00 pm to 5:00 am
July Fourth..."No Author Statedrss_feed@mungbeing.com
Friday June 27th, 2008
9:00 pm to 5:00 am
July Fourth Toilet, an eclectic band of accomplished multidisciplinary artists known for their infamous live shows blending wildly experimental interpretations of popular music forms with high-concept theatricality, will be presenting a 3-room, 8-hour show of music, multimedia, dance and performance art, hosted by the VAG Fuse series as part of the KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art exhibit.
Courtroom One will feature three performances of Dionysian sludge machismo-drippage skronk from the newly-released limited edition vinyl album July Fourth Toilet presents Balls Boogie featuring Me and Bobby McGee plus!: Kentucky Whore and Many Others. Rock turns in on itself and eats its own emasculated tail at 10:00pm and midnight.
Courtroom Two will feature ongoing improvisational sound art to illustrate themes of transformation, movement, inner voyages of discovery, outer journeys through the universe, birth and rebirth, and rites of passage best avoided. The performance will be accompanied by multiple projections and live scratch animation on 16mm film.
The Rotunda will feature a performance of the piece "Enter the Princess" created specifically for the natural acoustics and shape of the Rotunda using placed choral voices and Chinese gongs in a spectacle of ceremony and visceral sound vibrations accompanied by minimalist dance based on ancient Indian yogic poses. The singers will encircle dancers who face inward to the center of the circle as they move to the pulse of the live score: movement as sound, sound as movement.
Fuse will also present music, art and multimedia by Arowbe, Vancouver Community Gamelan, Felix Culpa Theatre and the NEOGRAF collective, plus a 12-hour live drawing jam by Vancouver comic artists.
Info: http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/events_and_programs/fuse.html
website: Jully Fourth Toilet
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/julyfourthtoilet
]]>Migration in Myth2008--0-6-T09: 0:3:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2007:27.22007-08-22T01:08:47Z2007-08-22T01:08:47Z"Personal Prologue
It is possible that my initial interest in myths and legends stems from..."Tala Barrss_feed@mungbeing.com
Personal Prologue
It is possible that my initial interest in myths and legends stems from the form of reading texts I came in contact with, both in Hebrew and later in English, in my earlier stages of reading. Such texts included in large part fairy tales and legends from around the world, and the imagination expressed in them had a great effect on my mind. It is also possible, however, that the imaginary world attracted me first because it was where my inclination lay even before I could read those tales. The fact is, since these earlier years of my life I haven't stopped reading this kind of literature – i.e., fantasy; and when I started writing, it has also been the main subject of my own work.
I define myth and legend in the following way: A myth is a personal tale which uses a curt, symbolic language to tell about events that are of actual natural, historical or social character. Such a tale is often connected with divine and/or magical deeds, and refers to the collective experience of a tribe or an ethnic group. A legend is a tale that elaborates on a known myth, introducing in it more personal and descriptive details, while retaining its miraculous content. Fairy tales and folk tales are such legends, where close examination can discover the short, symbolic myth that stands at their basis.
Introduction
Many stories of migration from around the world, which can be shown as actual events, have been originally told as myths and legends by people of no written literature. There is plenty of evidence to show that migration has been one of humanity's greatest and most frequent activities, which has been told about in many ways besides myth or legend. Archeologists have told about the migration of pre-Homo sapiens beings from Africa to the edge of Eastern Asia when they found bones hundreds of thousand years old of what are called the Peking and the Java men. Anthropologists tell about the migrations from Africa of the peoples who later settled in Australia and America. Historians have told stories of migrations mentioned in written evidence, like Gibbon's book the Decline and Fall of ancient Rome.
Personal stories of individuals or families have been told in modern times about their migrations from one country to another. As a part of such personal story, I can mention my own parents, who came from Eastern Europe to the Land of Israel following an old myth which will be elaborated on below. Here I met my husband, whose family's personal story includes the migration to America from the same area in Eastern Europe, and then his own to the State of Israel. Both personal stories represent that of the endless migrations of the Jewish people around the world for the last 2000 years.
I. Abraham
One such individual but representative story appears in the Biblical book of Genesis, telling about the wanderings through some parts of the Middle East of the family of Abram ("High Father"), the first ancestor of the Jewish people, who were a migratory people before they settled in the Land of Canaan. The title of Abram's, who later became Abraham, was Ha'ivri ("The Hebrew" – a title still used by the Russians for the Jews); the root ['vr] means "to pass by" or "to cross over", which is a good title for a tribe that is not settled on the land but passes by as shepherds and traders, migrating from one place to another. The origin of that family lies, according to the story in Genesis, at the southern part of Mesopotamia; from there they went to Haran, situated in the northern part of what now is Syria; then they came south, passing through Aram (Lebanon) and ended up in the Land of Canaan. This was not the end of their migration, because in times of drought they went down to Egypt, from which they migrated again back to the Land of Canaan, where they at last settled by the creed of God expressed in the following words: "Go from your country, from your birth place and your father's home to the land I shall show you." (Gen. 12, 1). There they began cultivating the land and thrived for hundreds of years, until exiled from it when it was conquered by foreign powers.
The Biblical books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel (including the tales of Kings Saul, David and Solomon) can be considered a continuation of various legends about the settlement of the Israelites in the Land of Canaan, which was gradually turned into the Land of Israel. But the last part of these tales of ancient Israel, as it appears in the two Biblical books of Kings and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, actually belongs more to written history than to legend or myth. Some of the events told about in these books have parallels in Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, proving their validity.
The initial myth, however, the migration of Abram and his family, forms the basis for the recognition of the Land of Canaan, later known as the Land of Israel by the Jews as their home land promised to them by God. It is the reason for their recent migration to it, their settlement there and the creation of the State of Israel.
II. Cadmos
Although the story of Cadmos, or Kadmos, is considered a Greek myth, his name places him according to its Semitic meaning in the east (kdm). It is told (according to Robert Graves' Greek Myths) that Agenor, Libya's son by Poseidon, left Egypt to settle in the Land of Canaan. Agenor had four sons, among them Kadmos and Phoenix, and a daughter Europa. These names by themselves have geographical indications: Libya was and is still today situated on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa; kdm is that sea's eastern shore; and Phoenix had given his name to the Phoenicians. The Mediterranean Sea is indicated by the Sea god Poseidon, and Europa had given her name to the whole continent of Europe.
The story tells that Europa fell in love with a white bull on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean at Tyre, the Phoenicians' main city; she adorned it with flowers and rode it, until they reached the isle of Crete, off the shores of Greece. The bull was the god Zeus in disguise, but that name is sometimes interpreted as Dios, i.e. "god". As a myth, this tale can have two different meanings. One interpretation may be about the spread of the worship of the white bull as a god, from Egypt where it was known as Apis, through the Semitic eastern Mediterranean, to the southern parts of Europe. The other interpretation may be the migration and settlement in southern Europe of North African and Semitic people who worshipped the white bull as a god. Europa bore Zeus three sons, among them Minos – a name that was the title of the Minoan kings at Knossos, the capital of Crete.
In the story, Agenor (whose name is interpreted today as "Canaan" – the Phoenicians are defined as a "Canaanite" people) sent his sons in search of their sister. Phoenix, symbolizing the Phoenicians, reached Libya and founded Cartage, which is a historical fact. Kadmos wandered around Greece, perhaps showing the connection between its original inhabitants and some Semitic tribes, ultimately founding the Boeotian town of Thebes; as a parallel to the white bull, he is said to have worship a white cow. It may be noted that the Phoenicians were well known as a sea-faring people, and some scholars see evidence of their reaching America in their constant migrations, long before the Vikings. (Some also see the Jews as a branch of the Phoenician, or Canaanite, ethnic group, regarding their constant migration around the world as part of their initial character).
III. The Germanic Migration
In the site of Norse Mythology, it is claimed that "Some of the characters in the Nibelungen cycle of the Norse and German myths/legends may have their origins with real people from the 4th to 6th century AD, known as the Migration Period…" The Wikipedia stresses that claim in an article titled Nibelungenlied. It says that the Nibelungenlied, translated as 'The Song of the Nibelungs', is an epic poem written in Middle High German. It tells the story of dragon-slayer Siegfried when he was at the court of the Burgundians (Burgundy is a modern day county in France), of his murder, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge. The poem, called 'Nibelungensaga', is based on pre-Christian Germanic heroic motifs and includes oral traditions and reports based on historical and individual events of the 5th and 6th centuries. The epic is divided into two parts. The first part tells the story of Siegfried and Kriemhild, the wooing of Brünhild and the death of Siegfried at the hands of Hagen, and Hagen's hiding of the Nibelung treasure in the Rhine (Chapters 1-19). The second part tells the story of Kriemhild's marriage to Etzel, her plans for revenge, the journey of the Nibelungs to the court of Etzel, and their last stand in Etzel's hall (Chapters 20-39).
The historical background of the saga is the Germanic migration that was the cause of the final sack and fall of ancient Rome. In particular, it tells about Flavius Aetius defeating the Burgundians with the aid of Hun mercenaries near Worms in ca. AD 436; it also includes the 6th century story of the Merowingian queens Brunhilda and Fredegunde, and Attila the Hun's marriage to the Burgundian princess Ildiko in AD 453.
Old Norse parallels to that legend have survived in the 'Volsunga saga', the 'Prose Edda', the 'Poetic Edda', the Legend of 'Norna-Gest', and the 'Pithrekssaga'. In the Norse Mythology site, some names used in such legends are identified with those known from the historical narration. According to that site, Guntharius was a Burgundian king who ruled at Worms until the Huns wiped out his army in AD 437. In the Germanic myth he appears as Gunther, and in the Norse as Gunnar. In the 'Volsunga Saga' Ermanaric, the Ostrogothic king, appears as the Gothic king Jormunrek. Sunilda, the woman Ermanaric punished by having her torn apart by wild horses, is known from the Norse myth as Swanhild. Etzel must be the mythological name given to Atilla the Hun himself.
IV
Similar tales of individual migrations representing the movements of whole tribes or ethnic groups exist all round the world. From Italy there is the tale of Aeneas, a Trojan ally who lead the Dardanians (obviously connected with the now known Strait of the Dardanelles in that area) in the war against the Greeks. According to Virgil's mythical poem the Aeneid, after the war Aeneas wandered across the Mediterranean Sea by way of Libya and up to the Italian peninsula, where he made a pact with King Latinus of the Latins. The myth, which tells of a migration around that central sea, leads through other myths to the connection with Remus and Romulus, the mythical founders of Rome.
From New Zealand there is the story of the arrival there of the Maori tribes. In a site called Pele in the Wikipedia a myth is told about that goddess who was one of a family of seven sons and six daughters. She was a beautiful person who longed to travel; with the help of her brothers Pu-ahiuhiu ("Whirlwind"), Ke-au-lawe or Ke-au-miki ("Tide"), and Ke-au-ka ("Current") she went in search of another brother who had been lost. Pele traveled through many islands in the Pacific until she reached Hawaii, where she was established as the famous volcano by that name.
The Tibetans also tell a myth about their origin from India: According to popular belief, an ancient king named Rupati was the military commander of the Kaurava army. Rupati led his soldiers in a war against the Pandavas. After suffering defeat, the king fled to the northeast and established Tibet. This myth is based on the writings of an ancient Indian scholar who places the flight of Rupati approximately one hundred years after the death of Buddha.
From the site of United Cherokee the following story of the Great Plains Area is taken: "The first (American) Indians were on the other side of the ocean, and Old Man decided to lead them to a better place." After many adventures told about in this story, when they reached their goal Old Man showed his Blackfoot tribe how to live a civilized life.
In the site of African Science, Harold Scheub, a professor of African literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, claims that many African myths refer to the Bantu migration. An epic from the Venda people of Southern Africa, for example, recounts a journey from the north that may, according to historical evidence, have ended a millennium ago.
Conclusion
It seems, then, that people who migrated at some period in their remote history, especially before they had acquired the ability to write, find it easy to tell their story in the shortened version of myth, sometimes giving it the supernatural aspect of being moved by the will of gods, as the personification of some practical necessity. The use of the names of gods expresses people's ignorance of the concrete and actual causes for their own migratory actions, of which they may not have been aware at the time.
In modern literature, hardly any writer of fantasy pays attention to myth, either because such writers do not understand the essence of myths or legends and their symbolic connection with reality, or because in this era of freedom, writers feel they can do what they like with their material with no consideration to ancient literary history. I can't say that my writing is free from such liberties, belonging as I am to the present generation of writers; however it may be in my fiction, though, in my articles I still like to use such old ideas as the myth that lies behind present customs and behavior.
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Migration of the Body and Soul2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.32008-06-07T11:06:31Z2008-06-07T11:06:31Z"Migration of the Body and Soul" by Scott Gray, acrylic paint on canvas, 20x24, 2008Scott Grayrss_feed@mungbeing.com
From the Earth, to the Earth is how the body goes, but as for the spirit nobody knows.
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Paintings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.42008-06-06T12:06:14Z2008-06-06T12:06:14Z"West Meets East" by Godfrey Blow, acrylic on canvas, 152cm x 198cm, 2005Godfrey Blowrss_feed@mungbeing.comClaudio Parentela's eXTra finGer2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.52008-06-03T01:06:42Z2008-06-03T01:06:42Z"Claudio Parentela: Well, first of all please tell us a little about..."Claudio Parentelarss_feed@mungbeing.com
Claudio Parentela: Well, first of all please tell us a little about yourself.
Olaf Ladousse: Hello everybody, I'm an industrial designer that never had the opportunity to practice professionally what I've studied during my formation years in Les Ateliers ENSCI in Paris. I recycled myself as an illustrator but what moves me are musical notes. At the moment I pretend to be Turkish from Cyprus till Greek and Turkish succeed to live in harmony.
CP: Had you always planned on being an artist [or had you other hopes]?
OL: I never planned to be an artist but my way of living got me slowly to assume the fact that I may be considered as one. It must be great living from your art, I wish I achieve that.
CP: Do you have a preferred medium to work on? Why?
OL: I'm engraving linocuts for my illustrations, circuit-bending for my music and lately I'm blinded by neon lights. I had the opportunity to build 2 of them for different exhibitions and get currently stuck in front of any pharmacy cross with a stupid smile on my face. Sadly in my neighbourhood they are changing those neon crosses for LED technology.
CP: Do you go through any certain processes while trying to produce your work?
OL: As I work through different mediums at the same time, music, graphic, bricolage… ideas are running through my head during the day, during the night, then when I run short of time I stop thinking and start to work. I always suspect of my first idea and wait to the second one when the object I'm building gets broken or my drawing gets stained I know I'd finished it just the previous moment.
CP: What are you working on at present?
OL: I'm preparing the merchandising of the first Japanese tour of my band LCDD: t-shirts, record covers, etc. and writing letters to great authors to invite them to the next issue of my fanzine ¡QUÉ SUERTE!
OL: I don't really focus the sources of my inspiration, it's daily life that influences me. It could be the concert I saw the day before, the news in the paper or the graffiti at the corner.
CP: What are some of your obsessions?
OL: Religions, all of them. It's an abuse of power. I'm God's personal enemy.
CP: Which galleries have you shown at and which galleries would you like to show at?
OL: I don't make many exhibitions at galleries, I collaborate to artistic events on different forms; playing live with my bands (Las Solex and LCDD), gluing posters in the streets - lately in Senigallia; a collective exhibition at Scion space in LA. I'm much more interested in travelling showing my art than getting to a specific gallery.
CP: If people would like to contact you, how would you like to be contacted?
OL: Last year I started my website where you can contact me and see all the different aspects of my work, but what I like most is to receive physical mail, you can write to me or better send me drawings at my P.O. Box address: ¡QUÉ SUERTE! - Apdo. Correos 18280 - 28080 Madrid, Spain
CP: Do you have any suggestions or advice for artists that are just starting out?
Claudio Parentela is a prolific and productive artist who conducts interviews with other artists from around the world. Consequently, he has two sites containing his interviews. MungBeing is proud to work in cooperation with Claudio to present extended interviews with some of those artists. Please read more great Claudio Parentela interviews at The eXTra finGer, Foggy Grizzly, and LADy LaMbandPopsy.
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Remodernist Paintings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.62008-06-07T10:06:57Z2008-06-07T10:06:57Z"the birdman of folkestone" by Matt Bray, oil on natural unprimed canvas, 6" x 4", 2008
Matt Brayrss_feed@mungbeing.com
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Al Mokisa's Glorious Property2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.72008-06-06T12:06:37Z2008-06-06T12:06:37Z"Al Mokisa's Glorious Property" by Muayad Muhsin, oil on canvas, 80 x 120 cm, 2008Muayad Muhsinrss_feed@mungbeing.com
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Birds2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.82008-06-07T11:06:51Z2008-06-07T11:06:51Z"One Bird Flew Away" by Jacqueline Jones, oil on canvas, 20cmx20cm, 2008Jacqueline Jonesrss_feed@mungbeing.comMungBeat! -- Most Big Sad Time at Planet Cool2008--0-6-T09: 0:3:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.8.82008-06-02T10:06:45Z2008-06-02T10:06:45Z"Most Big Sad Time at Planet Cool" by bibblebibblerss_feed@mungbeing.comlink
[click next to read a fascinating interview with bibble]
The Men Behind the Man: Puttin' on the Schitz
an interview with bibble
B: If you were me, and I were interviewing myself about how famous I'm not, what kind of questions would you ask?
b: Definitely not that kind.
B: Did I lead with the wrong one? I know we went over this before but I seem to have misplaced my notes... [shuffles papers]
b: It's your interview.
B: Quite right. So why name your band Bibble?
b: First of all, it's bibble.
B: Sorry.
b: Sure. I don't mean to be a jerk about it, it's just that that lower case b is very, very important to me...
B: I see. Can I ask you about it?
b: Of course not.
B: Gotcha. Secondly?
b: Secondly what?
B: 'First it's lower case...'
b: Secondly, I kind of have a hard time using the word "band".
B: You mean, like you have some kind of disability?
b: No, asshole. I don't want to sound pretentious but --
B: Too late.
b: Original. But really, whenever someone asks me what I do and I have to say either say "I'm a musician/artist" or "I'm in a band". If I say the former, they assume I'm some former art-school kid (I am, but not willingly), their eyes sort of glaze over and they look for another line of conversation. If I say, "I'm in a band" they want to know "what kind of music do I do?" and I have to try to invent a name for my idiosyncratic wankery.
B: [laughs] You don't want to sound pretentious?
b: Hey look buddy, I've got a line of people waiting to interview me, so we can just move right on from your lame ass shtick.
B: Fine by me. Well folks that about wraps it u--
b: No. Wait...
B: It's ok.
b: I can't help it...
B: I know.
b: I'm s --
B: Don't.
b: Thank you...
B: Ssshhh. You were going to tell us about the name bibble.
b: A number of years ago I invented a cartoon character called "Mrbibbledog" who kind of existed in this landscape of religious, social, and otherwise ideologies and he kind of had weird pulp adventures with all of these archetypes. I never wrote it but I started using the name online and eventually started writing music as him after I left college. The word itself was really just because it was a nonsense word that everyone immediately assumes is the word "bible" misspelled. At the time, mostly what I wanted was to be needlessly provocative. It's a pretty loaded word, and much moreso since I chose to associate with it. The word "bibble" was meant to be an opposite in that regard.
B: You grew up religious.
b: Not by choice. [laughs] Why, does it show? I can't imagine how I could hide it. But taking on a character doesn't mean you have to "be" him by any stretch of the imagination. Although to say bibble as an overall project isn't imbued with the notion of "wish fulfillment" would be incredibly dishonest.
B: So you're parodying something because you actually love it and think it could be meaningful?
b: See this is exactly what I mean by "idiosyncratic wankery".
B: You are interviewing yourself.
b: No you are!
B: Touche. You were saying?
b: That associating as hard as I have with the idea of "parody" at the same time as associating as hard as I have with the idea of "wish fulfillment" might have been a poor choice of opposites.
B: Hindsight, and all that.
b: Right.
B: So tell us a little about Most Big Sad Time at Planet Cool. That's quite a title.
b: It was fridge magnet words. I think one of my roommate's friends did it.
B: Is the album about keeping things cold and magnetized?
b: Clearly.
B: So, no?
b: No.
B: You recently moved to Philadelphia, (which is the topic Mungbeing wanted you to write about and you did this nonsense instead) - has that had any influence at all on the album or your work in general?
b: Well it's funny because at first I thought it was a flimsy pretense to try and get in this issue, but Mark was like: "You didn't have to migrate just for us!" and I thought it was so funny and in a way true that I knew I'd made the right decision.
Because it's really silly and it's also really true. I used to joke before I moved that I was moving to Philly to make hiphop. I'd just spent the past five years or so convincing everyone (including myself) that I was an indie folk kid and I more or less believed it. The moment I moved to Philly I saw a show that made me want to say goodbye to that aesthetic, then I was promptly kicked in the metaphysical nuts and Hard Touching was born like a kidney stone.
B: Hard Touching is...?
b: An ultra-experimental anti-dance group of sorts. High on pretense, low on concept. I do something distantly resembling "rap" about Jesus while my a-sonic cohort Young Adonises makes things squelch and bop. We're on the myspace, as the kids say.
As that project progressed, I found myself with some more free time and I started focus on a new bibble album that would somehow bridge the gap between my last album, Grave Cries, which was this lo-fi bedroom folk thing, and Hard Touching. In that way the concept of the album also became about bridging disparate things, or at least confronting multiple sides of seeming-opposites. And that just sort of emerged out of taking a step out of the safety of family and friends and jumping into an entirely new location, full of brand-new social interactions and survival situations.
B: MIGRATION! You did it!
b: [imagines applause] Thank you thank you I'd like to thank God -
B: Anyway...
b: Oh. So yeah. Because cities are all "about" the Future, and I was planning on using absolutely no real instruments this time around, I thought I could get away with a sort of sci-fi story. I've always wanted to write a sci-fi story. As I worked with the words I started working with themes of identity, fame, power, control, double agents, jesus, etc. My favorite movie during this time was David Kelly's Southland Tales. You know, the one everyone hated. It popped my future-dystopia-leftish-bullshit-fetish-hater cherry hard. Got me thinking a lot about social spaces, the proliferation of cameras in said spaces --
B: Not normally fodder for a pop record.
b: Well I'm first and foremost a reactionary; if there's one thing 15 years of private Baptist school taught me, it's that. If I have to write a pop record (I don't but I made myself) I'm gonna do it my way! Ain't nobody payin' for this shit.
B: Point. Would it change if you did?
b: Without a doubt, but that's not the point. Besides, social issues have been a part of pop music forever. But more importantly it was about how cameras change peoples awareness of themselves and the way they interact with their social (read: manufactured) environment. So I dunno, I've always been interested in this stuff, I can't help but put it in the work.
B: If that makes it difficult to achieve what's traditionally known as "success" --
b: Then fuck success.
B: The end.
]]> -- Concrete Daisies2008--0-6-T08: 0:2:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.8.92008-06-06T02:06:16Z2008-06-06T02:06:16Z"The song Concrete Daisies was written a few years ago after traveling..."Allison Barkleyrss_feed@mungbeing.comhttp://www.mungbeing.com -- Melancholia2008--0-6-T08: 0:1:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.8.102008-06-06T02:06:19Z2008-06-06T02:06:19Z"I'm a musician, artist and darkly comic poet from the North of England. Here are two more songs..."Ashley Reaksrss_feed@mungbeing.comhttp://www.mungbeing.com -- Two Audio Compositions2008--0-6-T08: 2:3:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.8.112008-06-07T10:06:41Z2008-06-07T10:06:41Z"
jody franklinrss_feed@mungbeing.comhttp://www.mungbeing.comStuckist Collage2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.92008-06-08T12:06:08Z2008-06-08T12:06:08Z"Go Waste" by Michael Dickinson, 2008Michael Dickinsonrss_feed@mungbeing.comMigrations of the Heart2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.102008-06-02T11:06:17Z2008-06-02T11:06:17Z"My name is Allegra and this is the story of what happened when I was seven years old.
I am..."Allegra C. Chesnutrss_feed@mungbeing.com
I am sitting at the feet of my maternal grandfather, who is an old man of the Cherokee tribe of Indians. He named me just hours after my birth. He went to the hospital with my grandmother and looked at me a long time, my mother said. Then he turned to her and said that I was "une petite allegre" - a little joyous one - and must be so named. My mother protested that I had already been named Susan on the birth certificate, but he was adamant, and in fact made such a ruckus in the hospital that finally they had a new certificate made out just to keep him quiet.
Now I am sitting on the old cypress porch next to his rocking chair. He rocks slowly, slowly, speaking in his soft Cajun French dialect. I can't speak it myself, but I understand it, just as he understands my English though he will never admit to speaking it. He refuses to speak the white man's language, but he has never extended his feelings for the white man to me, his half-white granddaughter.
He is telling me my favorite story.
"We lived on the farmland behind the levee," he said. "It was good. Your grandmother grew the melons, the okra, the beans, the mirletons. Everything grew in that fine rich dirt. I fished for the family. In the swamp we had the catfish, the crawfish. In the woods I killed the deer, and the rabbits. One time I found a baby deer. Someone had killed its mother, I found the carcass. I brought the baby home and your mother raised it, gave it milk from the cow. When it grew up we had to let it go and your mother cried for days. She was soft inside like you."
"Tell me about the alligator, Grandfather," I insisted, as I always did. I didn't like thinking about the baby deer, growing up and leaving. I was sure I would cry too.
He always smiled at my demand. This storytelling was our ritual together.
"One time I found a baby alligator in the swamp," he said. He held up his hands about ten inches apart. "So cute, you never think he grows up to be the monster that kills anything he wants. I brought him home. We built a cage out of chicken wire and wood, put in a tub of water and a box for him to hide in. He eats anything we give him but mostly he wants meat and fish so I know we can't keep him too long. We need the meat and fish for ourselves, and it's work to hunt and fish. But your uncles, they were just boys then and they loved having the alligator, and they took care of the extra work to feed him for a long time."
Grandfather pauses to refill his pipe and I gaze into the night, where fireflies are lighting up the night with sporadic flashes. Just beyond the screened porch are lurking the great menace of a Louisiana night, mosquitoes, in such size and numbers that you'd think they could drink you dry if you encountered them.
Once I could tell his pipe was going again I spoke up. "How big did he get? How big?" I demanded.
He laughed out loud. "Big enough that we could have made shoes for the whole family from his skin!"
It was what he always said, and I always made a little fist and punched him gently on the leg. "No, Grandfather, we don't kill our pets!" I said.
"He was about four feet long and half of him was mouth. And his mouth was full of great big teeth." Grandfather gestured with his hands. "So he was becoming dangerous. One day Roy fed him a rabbit and he nearly took Roy's hand off. It was time to take him back to the swamp and turn him loose."
"How did you do it?"
"Well," said Grandfather, "we had to trick him. We couldn't just pick him up anymore. So I tied a piece of meat to a big stick and dangled it in his cage. When he bit down on it, Roy jumped in the cage and tied his mouth closed with some rope. Then we pulled out the stick -"
"You let him have the meat?" I asked.
"Oh yes. It was his last meal as a pet."
"Then what?" Knowing what came next but wanting to hear it again.
"Well, once he couldn't bite us, Roy and I picked him up. He was real heavy. He started lashing his tail back and forth. It was like riding a bronco at a rodeo. They should have that at rodeos," Grandfather said with a chuckle. "Wrestling alligators. Much harder than riding a wild horse. A real Cajun rodeo." He drew on his pipe, exhaled, then continued.
"We weren't sure what to do, at first. He was so heavy, and he was fighting us so much, we didn't know if we could make it over the levee and down to the swamp. It was nearly a mile. At first I thought maybe we'd just tie a rope over his nose and lead him like a dog. Then Roy said we should tie a rope around his tail too and drag him."
"Did that work?" I asked, grinning.
"Nope. It was like trying to drag a wild horse by the tail. Those 'gators are tough and mean as the devil. He was real mad by this time, too. Normally after a 'gator has dinner he likes to sit in the sun and rest a spell. No way he wants to be dragged around like a sack of potatoes. He was dragging his feet and twisting and turning and Roy and I were exhausted and we hadn't gone more than a quarter of a mile."
"So what did you do?"
"Finally we tied both ropes to his nose and just dragged him straight. With both of us pulling on his front end it didn't matter so much what he did with his back end. When we got him over the levee we were just a few hundred yards from the swamp, so we just cut the ropes off him and let him go."
"Did he head for the water?"
"Indeed he did. He couldn't get away from us fast enough. I guess I really shouldn't have brought him home in the first place, or not kept him so long. But he was so cute, at first."
Then I said what I always did. "No, Grandfather, you did the right thing. It's always good to bring baby animals home."
We sat there in the darkness watching the fireflies.
And then I broke the ritual, asked something I'd never asked before. "Why don't you and Grandmother still live on the land by the levee?"
He was silent for a long while. Then he said, "White man came, said he was a surveyor. Said I was on a white man's land. Said that man was going to drain the swamp, build roads, build houses. Told me to get off. He had a gun, a pistol, not a gun for hunting. When I got back to the house, there were other men there. They wrecked the garden, killed the chickens, scared your grandmother and the children to half to death. We packed up and left the next day. They all had pistols. We moved into town, right here on the edge where nobody would bother us. Been here ever since."
Not knowing what it meant, except that it was bad, I made a fist and tapped my grandfather's knee like I was driving in a little stake, tapping over and over till his big old hand came down on mine and held it.
As we sat there a roaring came out of the darkness, bright lights, yelling of young voices as a truck raced by and a beer can, half full, struck the screen of the porch.
I flinched but my grandfather seemed not to have noticed. The beer smell overrode the scent of the jasmine my grandmother had planted all around.
"Why'd they do that?" I asked him.
"No telling. They're young, stupid, drunk. Lots of people don't like Indians, black men, anyone not white. Nothing for you to worry about. Time for you to be in bed, now." His tone was final and I didn't argue.
I stood. He placed his hand on my head and muttered some words in his own, real language, his Indian language, which he only spoke at special times. Then in French he said "Go, now."
And I went into the house, got a pillow and went to sleep in front of the fan in the little living room. I was only seven, and the poverty of the house never struck me. It was how grandfather and grandmother lived, is all.
As I was falling asleep I heard the truck again, the voices. But I knew Grandfather was there on the porch, and I was safe. Or so I thought.
Late in the night, I dreamed I heard a loud noise, but if I woke I don't remember it now. I vaguely sensed a great bustle in the back of the house, people moving, but I was a tired child, and I slept heavily. Only in the morning did I discover the truth.
Young white men in a truck. Not content with throwing beer cans. A rack full of hunting rifles. Dead drunk but one of them sober enough - or just plain mean enough - to aim straight at Grandfather's heart.
I went to the bedroom door, saw Grandfather sleeping. His chest covered by Grandmother's finest quilt. His voice, saying "lots of people don't like Indians." And then I was scared. I was an Indian too. Would someone come and shoot me? Where could I go to hide what I was?
The police arrived, looked at the hole in the screen, the hole in Grandfather's rocking chair. Shook their heads. Who knew? Could be anybody. They left the way they came, languid of motion.
All day relatives arrived. My own parents arrived. But I sat in a corner and ignored them all. To be hated for what you were? Not for what you did, or said? I hated the white boys who killed Grandfather. But what about Mr. Beauvais, the man who owned the corner store where I bought candy? He was always real nice to me, and sometimes gave me more candy than I had money for. He was white.
Looking back, of course, I can see that my mind was far too young to grapple with it. But even now, as an adult, I'm not sure I grasp it. I've seen bigotry, I've known it, but I can't say I really understand it.
To this day I can't stand the smell of beer.
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Migration Drawings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.112008-06-07T02:06:59Z2008-06-07T02:06:59Z"Atom Man Migration #1" by Ian Pyper, ink and watercolour on A4 Paper, 2008
Ian Pyperrss_feed@mungbeing.com
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Donnie's emigrated too2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.122008-06-08T02:06:59Z2008-06-08T02:06:59Z"
I've been chasing myself around but I don't have the stamina any more.
I can't find the energy..."Ashley Reaksrss_feed@mungbeing.com
I've been chasing myself around but I don't have the stamina any more.
I can't find the energy leave my bed.
I'm even too weak to strip off beside Donnie's grave.
I take my hand and rest it on a Jew's forehead.
I've been diagnosed as fucking sick.
I am my mum's private hell.
My father, my grandfather and my forefathers smoke damp cigarettes as the laundry woman massages her own beauty.
Do you ever imagine people suffering?
I've noticed that depression makes me release tomorrow's breakfast; my wonderful, violent depression, which is black and sooty underneath; pungent too.
This futile land reminds me of white flakes.
Glimmering lakes trickle over the spiralling of the moon's opening.
The gushing wind brings echoes of the cries of my descendants.
Nature's wailings disturb the ghosts of my anguished forefathers.
And all the while the Lord is haunting my brother's arse, like Grandpa once did.
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The Three Romes2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.142008-06-02T09:06:11Z2008-06-02T09:06:11Z"VALENTINIAN III
Valentinian III, the last of the Theodosian house was the son of Galla..."Buzzsawrss_feed@mungbeing.com
VALENTINIAN III
Valentinian III, the last of the Theodosian house was the son of Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius and wife to the Visigothic king, Adolfus. Galla had quite enjoyed her marriage to Adolfus and her authority, that last to an even greater degree. The assassination of Adolfus struck both from Galla and she became the prey of Adolfus' successor, Singeric. Singeric tormented Galla and subjected her to most vile of abuses until her quota of restraint was exhausted and Galla provoked a revolt that devoured Singeric in his turn. Wallia next assumed the Gothic throne, a warrior-king in the mold of Alaric who also emulated him in a desire to add Africa to the Visigothic domains. The continuing lack of a navy confounded this design as well as the fears of his soldiers who trembled over the very thought of a sojourn on the sea in the midst of constant storms. The approach of the formidable Constantius translated these qualms to the land, and a treaty was rapidly agreed to in which the theoretical allegiance of the Goths to Honorius was affirmed. Galla was to go back to Ravenna in return for a regular supply of grain that might feed Wallia's troops and indulge his martial aspirations through the conquest of fellow barbarians, the Suevi, who had established themselves in Spain after the final collapse of the Rhine frontier.
Galla's reunion with Honorius was the occasion of yet more misery as she was compelled to wed Constantius. She indulged her resistance until the nuptials forced her to indulge Constantius and she gave birth to Valentinian. Galla resigned herself to the marriage and sought to teach the simple Constantius the art of Ambition. This led to his and Galla's sharing authority with Honorius' indolent ministers until his passing a few months later. Honorius then attempted a seduction of Galla, and her rebuff caused him to fear she might call on the Gothic troops to rise up in rebellion. Honorius then quietly ejected Galla and the young Valentinian from the palace and they eventually found a sanctuary in Constantinople. Soon thereafter, word of Honorius' death arrived, and it was concealed until a large force of troops might be assembled for a westward march on Ravenna. There, one Johannes, the first secretary of Honorius took advantage of circumstances and occupied the vacant throne and sought to solidify his claim through the use of arms. This prompted a further activity in Constantinople as a collection of ships was assembled to support the advance on Ravenna. Johannes' attempts to maintain himself in purple foundered, even as the greater part of the Imperial fleet sank in a violent storm in the Adriatic. Johannes' cause was forsaken as Galla approached, and the gates were thrown open to them as a bound Johannes was presented, a bloody trophy beheaded in the arena at Aquileia.
The Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II, resisting a fancy to assume rule over the whole of the Empire, garbed Valentinian in the ornaments of state and, with the assent of Galla, betrothed the boy to his daughter, Eudoxia. At this time, Valentinian was but six years old, and power lay exclusively with Galla as her son was brought up in pleasure and dissipation lending to the formation of a flabby spirit foreign to the sword. This ensured that the military affairs of the Empire would be the concerns of other men, the generals Aëtius and Boniface, amongst the final specimens of the old Roman valour to be found in the West. Their amity might have saved the Empire; their enmity deprived it of Africa. Boniface, who had been unyielding in supporting Galla's cause whilst she was in exile, was named to the governorship of Africa and enjoyed her first favour. Unfortunately he kept an alliance with some of the soldiers that had espoused the Imperial bid of Johannes, and Aëtius, nurturing resentments, saw a vulnerability and a chance to advance his standing. Aëtius served Galla in Ravenna and used that proximity to inform her that these ties could potentially be dangerous. Galla was craftily induced to remove Boniface from office; even more cannily he sent a secret letter to Boniface commiserating with him and urging him to resist the injustice that he further intimated might be a death sentence. Boniface was urged to fortify his province and this done, Aëtius returned to Galla with loud public tidings of this ingratitude of Boniface. The regular Imperial troops were called to the standards, and in Africa, Boniface, quite aware his provincial garrison would be unequal in battle with soldiers commanded by Aëtius, consulted his desperation, and sent a trusted friend to the camp of the Vandal chief, Gonderic, in Spain. This intrepid Vandal had led his tribe into Spain along with the Suevi and subdued both Roman and barbarian, had won the cities of Seville and Cartagena and the possession of a small Roman fleet in the harbour of that last named. This enabled the Vandals to accept Boniface's invitation to come to Africa in his support. The passing of Gonderic and the accession of his brother, the fearsome Gaiseric, only furthered the designs and aims of this Vandal enterprise.
At length, through the invitation of Gaiseric who feared that the Eastern emperor would again make the Mediterranean teem with ships and with aims of restoring Africa to Valentinian, Attila bounded over the Danube through a cleverly manufactured pretext of an insult. The Eastern Empire abandoned any notion of further naval adventures in the face of this threat and hastily mustered its doubtful soldiers. The contest of arms was unequal, all collapsed before the Huns who raided and plundered throughout the Balkans with impunity, all subject to the rapacious edicts of a dark and dwarfish man on horseback. Constantinople offered, and Attila accepted, a generous tribute that all but drained the state coffers in the name of purchasing the Hun's departure at any price and calm the cringing and cowardly displays of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius II. His sudden overthrow calmed them with finality, and the new Eastern Emperor, one Marcian, at least assumed the appearance of courage and refused Attila's tribute. Attila was accustomed to Roman servility and he broadcast a terrifying roar to all about him. He resolved to reprove Marcian, but Attila, bored with easy spoil, sought first to enhance his empire with the subjugation of Gaul and Italy and the devouring of their riches, and compelling Marcian to trade the extinction of the Western Empire for the survival of the Eastern.
Aëtius, long settled amongst the Huns and become a companion of Attila, instructing him in the various manners of things Roman, used his position to induce a pardon from Galla with the aid of 60,000 Hunnish troops. Galla, informed of the approach of Aëtius, at once obliged and enhanced his rehabilitation with the office of consul, a noble title and the command of all the Roman forces of the West. The whole of the power of the Empire of the West was presented to Aëtius, although Valentinian III was allowed to retain the drape of purple about his shoulders and the pursuit of pleasure in the palace at Ravenna. The final collapse of the West was stayed by 20 years through the military prowess of Aëtius and his ability with sword and his possession of a genuine valour and not the feigned variety of one strutting safely behind a wall was a knowledge that spread far. His assistance was solicited by the Britons, abandoned since the reign of Honorius, to disperse the fleet of Saxon ships that were descending onto their island as England arrived at the point of a sword. Galla beseeched him to intercede with Gaiseric and conclude a treaty that protected Italy from the predatory designs of the growing Vandal navy. Closeted in a tent with Attila, Aëtius used his reputation and proximity to Attila to bargain, to cajole, to flatter, to dissemble and to eventually reduce the Roman tribute, free enemies from the being the possession of Attila's wrath and settle a contigent of Huns in Gaul to serve as a caution against any further expansion of either the Frankish kingdom in the north and the Visigothic kingdom in the southern reaches of Gaul that were encouraged to expand into the forested void left by the expiring Roman authority.
This authority however continued to subsist upon the labours of Aëtius and his attentions to Opportunity. Such was presented when the daughter of Theodoric, King of the Visigoths was wed to the Vandal King Gaiseric's son. Gaiseric soon brooded over unwelcome Visigothic influence in his court and vowed to remove it, charging the Visigothic bride with the attempted poisoning of his son. His reprisal was severe, the bride's nose and ears were severed and the mutilated young woman was sent back to her royal father. Theodoric bellowed in fury, and apprised of these developments, Aëtius assured the Visigothic king that Spain's ports and harbours would soon fill with fleets and intentions to fall upon the African coast and visit destruction upon Gaiseric. Aëtius reflected in a private moment that were this venture successful, Africa would be restored to Roman control and the oaks of Spain then speedily fell in numbers most vast to construct a mass of boats.
Gaiseric, aware of the preparations and desirous of maintaining his kingdom, appealed to Attila for support, and Attila, preparing for an assault upon the Western Empire, split his grizzled face in a wide smile. He assured the Vandal embassy from his habitual locale of horseback that his invincible Huns would soon sweep into Gaul. These words scarcely uttered, the command was given for the camp to be struck, the green Hungarian steppe was quit, and soon the Hunnish standards streamed and whipped through the forests of Germany. Attila raced ahead, horse hooves pounding the rivers into foam and soon bounding forth into the Frankish kingdom and commanding their alliance. Reinforced, Attila passed the Rhine and Gaul was submitted to the sword. Save for those towns that might claim the protection of a saint or produce a priest to intercede, Massacre and Pillage ruled over all of the north of the province.
The coming of Attila to Gaul strengthened the uneasy and uncertain pact between Roman and Visigoth considerably as a mutual peril was discerned at Ravenna and at the Visigothic court established at Toulouse. All regarded Aëtius as the one man who might halt Attila and arrest his course deep into Gaul. But mutual suspicions between the two courts still intruded and set asunder any attempts at union as Attila approached the walls of Orleans and grasped the city in siege. Aëtius was induced to call for the Italians to don boots and heft up blades and endure the sound of the trumpet without quailing. Slowly they mustered and even more sluggishly they crossed the Alps and forayed into Gaul, meeting the Visigoths and finding them inclined to espouse Attila's cause. Aëtius sent emissaries, led by one Avitus, a future Emperor of the West, to Theodoric. They were at first rebuffed, and only their persistence gained them an audience. Avitus grimly strode before Theodoric, arms outstretched, seeking that the valour that had departed from the Roman and now abided in the Visigoth in the name of the defeat of Attila. Avitus reminded Theodoric how the Goths had suffered horror from the Hun before, of the need to defend the shrines and churches from desecration and of the necessity to protect the vineyard and the wheat-field that furnished Theodoric's dinner. The Visigothic king was convinced by these arguments and instantly agreed to a partnership. He transmitted these points of view to his soldiers and the few members of the subject tribes of Attila who had escaped his rule and found a sanctuary in Gaul and these worked to kindle zeal in their breasts. Trumpets sounded before the standards and swarms of warrior answered the martial summons and thronged the roads to Orleans, bravely but doubtfully withstanding the rigors of the embrace of Hunger and the attendance of Panic that abetted Attila.
Attila who despite his impetuous, savage nature, was guided by the advice of his circumspection and discerned the advance of Aëtius and his Visigothic allies. The siege of Orleans was lifted and Attila commanded retreat lest the Huns be exposed to defeat, the plains of northern Gaul perfect to assist the withdrawal of the mounted horde of Asia. The Visigoths, however, were fleet of boot and their vanguard fell upon the straggling rearward columns of the retiring Huns, and in this initial skirmish, Torismond, the son of Theodoric, espying his adversary from a grassy height, bounded down the slope, lance leveled and delivered a speedy capitulation. Attila was informed, trembled and called at once for his shamans. Foreseeing the future from a loop of intestine and a bone sliver from a slain victim, the shamans returned the grim news that both Attila and his enemy would soon perish. Attila, inveterate on horseback, grunted and galloped away into the midst of his army there through the arts of oratory to rouse his men to valour and victory. His men were a motley amalgam of tribesmen from the Channel to deep in the steppes of Asia and the enduring discord and suspicion between them stoppered their ears and ensured Attila's defeat. The prescience of the shamans was confirmed as a sudden flight of Ostrogothic arrow fell upon King Theodoric as he rode along his ranks. Attila esteemed this as a victory, shooting ire from his beady eyes at his shamans, exulting over the tumult that stole through the Visigothic army. He was thus blind to a second descent of Torismond and his horsemen who suddenly plunged into the heart of the Hunnish army, spreading havoc and notions of flight that matured swiftly into a rout, the strew of hysterical men across the fields in all directions, only halted by the cessation of battle at nightfall. The Huns migrated to a circle of wagons, there instructed to gather saddle and bundle and assemble them into a bonfire, where, if this last refuge was breached by the Visigoths, Attila would cast himself upon it and deny his foe this grandest of all war trophies. Darkness communicated disorder to the Visigoths as well as they returned to their camp to rent the air with cries of sorrow over the loss of Theodoric, confirm Torismond as their new king and eagerly consult their vengeance and plan the destruction of Attila. In the midst of the roars and bellows and shrill blares of the Gothic trumpet, Aëtius appreciated who had become the true masters of the West, and he hastened to Torismond's tent, there rushing in, publicly concerned that Torismond should return at once to his court and secure his position; privately Aëtius was concerned that the triumphant Visigothic energy might expend itself in another march to Rome.
As the sun rose again, and no Visigothic assault transpired, Attila cheered his survival. He did presume that he was the focus of a trap and remained within the safety of the wagons for some days before he passed again beyond the Rhine to revive his forces, and his vanity in the forests of Germany. This accomplished, in the spring of 452, Attila resumed his imperious ways and demanded the hand of one lady of the court of Ravenna. All that was delivered to Attila was the scorn of Ravenna, and, after a display of fury and affront, Attila requited it through a rapid march through the Alps and onto the plains of the Po River. Aquileia was again bound in siege, again depended on the plenty of its supplies to see it through the travail and counted on the ever-increasing poverty of Italy to force a Hunnish retreat. The increasing privation forced the Huns to mount a scaling ladder upon the walls to seize the city by storm. This was repelled, and as the scanty supplies if the area were exhausted, Attila was implored to quit the venture. Attila glowered, fixed his petitioners with a fiery glance and turned away. He discerned a favorable omen in the sky, the flight of a stork and its family from a nest in the wall that followed one of his riders galloping around the city. This was communicated to Attila as representing the fall of Aquileia and this aided the return of resolve to Attila's fighters. The siege was resumed in full vigour, and soon a breach appeared in the wall, through which the Huns swarmed in to smite with extinction this proud city. Its denizens fled, strung out across the countryside, some to gather on a marshy island in a lagoon nearby, this rude settlement to become the city of Venice.
Attila then recommenced his southward march, utterly unopposed. Valentinian III, disdaining any notion of donning armour, abandoned Ravenna and raced to Rome, with quite public intentions to quit Italy altogether, seeking passage on a fleet ship too rapid for Danger to pursue. Calls for the Visigoths to defend a Rome entirely helpless before Attila were rebuffed, and the promises of Constantinople to assist its Western partner in Empire were seen as doubtful and uncertain, while Aëtius, in the field with only a few stalwart troops could only hope to delay, not defeat the advance of Attila. In this moment of supreme crisis, with the approach of a haughty heathen, savage in the extreme, and an enemy of the Church unlike the nominal Christian Alaric, the Senate and the people of Rome assembled an embassy to meet Attila in his camp. Amongst the emissaries was one Leo, the Bishop of Rome who had eagerly joined the messengers in the hope of protecting the rest of the martyrs and the lives of his flock. They strode forth quickly and soon reached Attila's encampment, sprawling across the former estate of Virgil. Attila was banqueting and in a festive mood, admitted the Romans into his tent, showing them every respect and offering them the use of his table. The embassy declined and began to plead to Attila who pulled thoughtfully at his short beard. More wine was brought out and goblets offered. Attila, though his usual beverage was mare's milk, had become quite speedily accustomed and attached to the blood of the grape during his Italian sojourn and soon quaffed it in an intemperate manner. He gulped his latest measure, wiped his stubble-framed mouth and suddenly dashed his goblet to the floor and announced that he intended the capture of Rome. Attila's eyes fogged with wine, he quizzically studied the form of Leo, attired in a gleaming and bejeweled array of sacerdotal splendour, kneeling in prayer. Leo opened his eyes and rose to his feet suddenly, declaring that Rome was under the protection of the Apostles and Attila would be struck instantly dead if he challenged the power of Peter and Paul and called for Attila to behold their spectral forms holding flaming swords that surely were appearing behind their successor at this moment. The fog upon Attila deepened, fed by wine and superstition and the awe that Leo's appearance inspired, and at length, Attila declared that he would vacate Italy. The camp was shortly thereafter broken up, Attila mounted his steed and in his version of a throne, some majesty returned to him and he vowed he would again return to Italy, defiant of Leo, of this lady of the court was not surrendered to him. In the meantime, he compelled a local maiden of the country to join his procession and his swarm of wives. Attila returned to his Hungarian home, there to wed and perish in a crude wooden palace he had ordered constructed. The morning after his wedding his body was discovered at the side of his weeping bride, felled by stroke. Anguish dispelled celebration and the palace instead became the scene of a funeral, Attila buried with spoil placed inside three coffins, one of gold that contained Attila's remains, that was placed in a silver coffin which in its turn was put into an iron one. His Empire perished with him, his demise yielded no clear successor, only a struggle amongst his chieftains and the revolt of the subject tribes that resumed their independence and smote the Huns mightily, scattering them, their remnants falling back again onto the Asian steppes, there to vanish under the weight of shame and the progress of new tribes drawn forth westward in search of pasture and plunder.
Valentinian III remained at Rome for next two years, an utter non-entity that only accident accorded the honours of belonging to the race of Theodosius. As the Hunnish emergency passed, he idled and spent hours in dissipation and when their promise was expended, he was consumed with an intense envy of Aëtius. This was heightened by Aëtius' rash decision to elevate his position through the marriage of his son to Valentinian's daughter. His partisans teemed in the offices of state attesting to his authority that was sounded in arrogant declarations. He pronounced yet more of these, as he bounded unbidden into the throne room to command Valentinian to yield his daughter at once. Valentinian, deeply affronted, was moved to avenge his station through his first-ever use of a sword. After a moment's struggle in drawing the strange object, he plunged it into the breast of this last Roman that would have been taken as a kinsman by Caesar or Trajan. Valentinian's minions, excited by his display of unexpected aggression, emulated him, sinking blades into the perforated form that was Aëtius and then poured out into the streets, quickly broadcasting the story of the fall of Aëtius and worsening the disdain that the city felt this feeble parody of a Caesar.
This disdain reached a fatal moment for Valentinian, as, whenever he recovered from his periods of wine-induced stupor, he would pursue the aims of another passion through the ravaging of the wives of the important men of Rome compelled to appear in his bedchamber. In 455, one of the targets of his lust was the devoted and virtuous wife of one Petronius Maximus, an eminent senator. Through a ruse, the woman was tricked into appearing at the palace in order to collect a gambling debt, and there, she was seized by palace chamberlains and conducted to the Imperial bed, burdened with the effects of Aphrodite and the leering form of Valentinian. He leapt upon her, his excitement escalating as the woman cried and screamed until he had indulged himself sufficiently. The tearful lady was then released, and she fled back to Petronius and the much more welcome space between his arms. She related the tale between sobs and Petronius flushed with rage and the desire for revenge. Petronius' colleagues in the Senate were informed of this latest infamy of Valentinian's and they rose as one to declare the offended husband Emperor of the West. The ivory beards sought an easy ally in the supporters of Aëtius and two of them were appointed to the position of assassin, eager to visit a stern chastisement on the murderer of their benefactor. Shortly thereafter, Valentinian attended a military exercise, surrounded in the midst of soldiers, and then, the conspirators struck. With swords drawn, they suddenly rushed upon Valentinian, sheathing them in the Imperial breast. No one attempted to parry the assault; all thereafter were given to rejoicing when the news of the fall of Valentinian III was communicated. Thus perished the House of Theodosius, the sunset of Imperial majesty in the West when brightest, stark, barbarous darkness as it fell.
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Stuckist Paintings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.152008-06-07T11:06:58Z2008-06-07T11:06:58Z"hermes, the god of traveling" by Elsa Dax, acrylic, 2005Elsa Daxrss_feed@mungbeing.comUnknown Portrait Variations2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.162008-06-07T10:06:47Z2008-06-07T10:06:47Z"Unknown Portrait Variations" by Mark Planisek, Silkscreen prints, 22"H x 43"W, 2007Mark Planisekrss_feed@mungbeing.comThings I've Learned About Babies2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2007:27.172007-08-22T01:08:47Z2007-08-22T01:08:47Z"There's a direct correlation between the amount of knowledge your baby is gaining and the..."Mark Givensrss_feed@mungbeing.com
There's a direct correlation between the amount of knowledge your baby is gaining and the amount of acting up your baby does.
Sometimes "good enough" is the best you can do.
Dora the Explorer's last name? Marquez.
Here's what my son wants for his birthday:
a racing car
a boat
a whale
a reindeer
shampoo
If I haven't said it before, it's EASY to put food on your family - especially those under 3; they will probably help, too.
When children ask, "where did I come from?", don't overthink it. The answer is probably something like, "You were over there and then you came in here."
I think my son will one day write a book called "Rules, damned rules, and the Daddies who enforce them."
This bimonth's thought: "Everyone came from somewhere else. What are you doing here?"
NEXT ISSUE: You cannot be in my club. No, you can't.
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Collage2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.182008-06-07T11:06:58Z2008-06-07T11:06:58Z"Gavin, Alec and Trish contemplate their forthcoming disappearance" by Ashley Reaks, collage, 30 x 42 cmAshley Reaksrss_feed@mungbeing.comArbor Day2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.192008-06-02T11:06:19Z2008-06-02T11:06:19Z"I was born a lemur
Among the tribe of birds
Navigating through their song
Foraging for..."R.S. Deeserss_feed@mungbeing.com
Among the tribe of birds
Navigating through their song
Foraging for words.
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Bird Drawings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.202008-06-08T12:06:53Z2008-06-08T12:06:53Z"Bird Woman in the City" by Liz Parkinson, pen and ink, 2006Liz Parkinsonrss_feed@mungbeing.comIgnorant Art Ism [Passage of one body into another at death: <i>Anagram</i> (14)]2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.212008-06-07T02:06:09Z2008-06-07T02:06:09Z"Socrates may venture that the living spring from the dead, but perhaps it is death, and not hope,..."Pablo Visionrss_feed@mungbeing.com
No amount of 'smart rationing' can resolve mere words into truth.
The Bhagavad Gita might claim that new bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments, but, even disregarding the shoddy tailoring of these insidious rags, I think it more probable that these cosmic squatters expire with their dubious tenancy.
Any mystic 'rioting mantras' are no more than speculative fishing for one specific atom in the sea of the universe.
The Chuang Tzu may state that there is existence without limitation, and although I may be inclined to agree that the dead of the past have become the petrochemicals of the present, and may yet live on to destruct the more tangible ether of this planet, I fear there might be some radical divergence of views regarding the nature of existence itself.
And, much to the disappointment of the spiritually unfulfilled, nor will peyote or yage or shamans ever transmute the 'giant rainstorm' into anything more significant than prosaic precipitation.
The vacuity of those that take Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence, and mould it like clay, to produce ornaments to furnish their pre-existing prejudices is beneath good and evil, and, most assuredly, beyond plausibility. And whether Nietzsche abhors a vacuum, or not, some still feel the need to fill in spurious answers to the unknown, instead of accepting, and embracing the void. Kant is probably best just considered in terms of pronunciation.
This 'naming traitors' may serve to show that words can exist for things which do not, but considering the speed at which the real reincarnation into worm excrement approaches, it may be advisable to cease the pretence that juggling words into meaning is any less futile than life itself.
One can attempt to build a flimsy umbrella of defiant delusion to protect against the one destiny that we all share, but I think I would prefer to feel the elements against my skin, and experience the sensations of the here and now. Perhaps Sartre should have finished his sentence, and declared hell to be other peoples' idea of heaven, but at least he had the good sense to realise that the best use of philosophy was for seduction rather than enlightenment.
If there is any transmigration at all, it is conceivably of DNA, much the same as it is with all animals, irrespective of their delusions of mediocrity. The transmigration of souls is an idea that seems to appeal to those who seem most dissatisfied with reality, and would this not, therefore, be a perverse preoccupation with perpetuity? The attempt to instil meaning into that which has no meaning, is no more than a shallow, contrived, and ultimately, unfulfilling word game.
link
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Visual Voodoo2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.222008-06-07T02:06:04Z2008-06-07T02:06:04Z"Scary Fuckin' Puppet Show" by Jeff Davis, Acrylic on Paper, 16" x 12.5", 2008Jeff Davisrss_feed@mungbeing.comFlight Driven2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.232008-06-07T04:06:00Z2008-06-07T04:06:00Z"Flight Driven" by Callie Danae Hirsch, Acrylic on black etch paper, 2007 Callie Danae Hirschrss_feed@mungbeing.comPsychedooolia Drawings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.242008-06-08T09:06:05Z2008-06-08T09:06:05Z"Dreaming of a Better Life" by Jason McLean, 2008Jason McLeanrss_feed@mungbeing.comRecipes2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2007:27.252007-08-22T01:08:47Z2007-08-22T01:08:47Z"The Barber's Closet was a Madison, Wisconsin institution. Located down a stairwell and behind a..."No Author Statedrss_feed@mungbeing.com
Fortunately for you, the MungBeing readers, a copy of the infamous Drink Menu was discovered deep down in the murky depths of the Cache Cow Archives. The original copy was salvaged by a peculiar sailor named Kenny and his boyfriend Paul in the last few months of The Barber's Closet's life and has been stored, seal unbroken, for eleven years. It is with a mixture of profound sadness and nervous excitement that we are offering to you the last remaining vestige of this long-lost and much loved watering hole, available in the coming months, one piece at a time.
With only one further ado, MungBeing Magazine proudly presents the Barber's Closet Drink Menu!
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Recipes -- Hot Drinks2008--0-6-T03: 0:0:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.25.122008-06-02T10:06:18Z2008-06-02T10:06:18Z"Viennese CoffeeWarmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Mozart
Coffee to 1/4" below rim..."No Author Statedrss_feed@mungbeing.comViennese Coffee
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Mozart
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Almond Coffee
Warmed Coffee Mug
1/2 oz. Tia Maria
1/2 oz. Amaretto
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Hot Apple Pie
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Tuaca
1 Scoop cider
Hot Water to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Irish Mocha
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream
1 Spoon cocoa
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Dutch Coffee
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Vandermint
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Raspberry Truffle
Warmed Coffee Mug
1/2 oz. Chambord
1/2 oz. Truffles
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip and Chambord drizzle
Chocolate Monk
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Frangelico
1 Scoop Cocoa
Hot water to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Keoke Coffee
Warmed Coffee Mug
1/2 oz. Kahlua
1/2 oz. Brandy
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Peppermint Pattie
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Dr. McGillicuddys
1 Scoop Cocoa
Hot water to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip and Green Menthe drizzle
Hot Buttered Rum
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Meyer's Dark Rum
1 Scoop cider
1 butterball
Hot water to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Cinnamon
Irish Coffee
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Old Bushmills
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Hot Toddy
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Korbel
1/2 tsp. Honey
1/4 Lemon squeeze
Hot water to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Nutmeg
Coffee Alexander
Warmed Coffee Mug
1/2 oz. Korbel
1/2 oz. Dark Creme de Cacao
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip and Nutmeg
Jamaican Coffee
Warmed Coffee Mug
1.0 oz. Tia Maria
Coffee to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
Nutty Irishman
Warmed Coffee Mug
1/2 oz. Rail Irish Cream
1/2 oz. Frangelico
1 Scoop Cocao
Hot water to 1/4" below rim of mug
1 short straw
Garnish: Whip
]]>Recent Works2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.262008-06-07T04:06:47Z2008-06-07T04:06:47ZBoogilyheadsGus Finkrss_feed@mungbeing.comFlee as a Bird2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.272008-06-08T09:06:14Z2008-06-08T09:06:14Z"Flee as a Bird" by jody franklin, 2008jody franklinrss_feed@mungbeing.comMigration Paintings2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2008:27.282008-06-08T12:06:53Z2008-06-08T12:06:53Z"migrating bird" by Matt Sesow, oil on matboard, 14" x 18", 2002Matt Sesowrss_feed@mungbeing.comGuidelines and Deadlines2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2007:27.292007-08-22T01:08:47Z2007-08-22T01:08:47Z"NEXT ISSUE
THEME: Exclusivity and Closed Systems
[please see the note in the..."Mark Givensrss_feed@mungbeing.com
NEXT ISSUE THEME: Exclusivity and Closed Systems [please see the note in the Afterward.]
DEADLINE: July 14th, 2008
RELEASE DATE: August 3rd, 2008
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Afterward2008--0-6-T09: 0:4:Ztag:www.mungbeing.com,2007:27.302007-08-22T01:08:47Z2007-08-22T01:08:47Z"
Thank you for joining us in this exploration of migration. I find it interesting that the..."Mark Givensrss_feed@mungbeing.com
Thank you for joining us in this exploration of migration. I find it interesting that the majority of contributions were of a visual nature. Perhaps that's just a function of the time of year, or the alignment of the moon(s), but it always fascinates me - the way people choose to explore whatever themes are presented.
Which leads me to an interesting thought: the theme for the next issue is "exclusivity and closed systems". Now, I don't know about you but sometimes a strict theme starts to feel like an exclusive closed system of it's own. So for the next issue I would like to open it up a little and make the theme merely a SUGGESTION and not a rigid, dogmatic dictate. MungBeing is about the contributions we receive, not whatever silly notions we've got here at MungBeing Central. So there you have it. Don't leave anything out.
