Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Horses, logs and shovel, oh my

---

     At the beginning of last week, I stopped in at Wesley Clover Equestrian Park, after spotting the tent city that had sprung up. There are national-level equestrian competitions that have been going on for the last ten days, with a few more to come.

     At that time, I ran into a couple guys getting ready to stain and finish a large log-style picnic table, with carvings and built-in shelter. It was awesome.  :)

     Thanks to the Heritage Living guys for telling me about it.


Bear Carving by Heritage Living, Wesley Clover Park July 2016

Eagle Carving by Heritage Living, Wesley Clover Park July 2016
Picnic shelter by Heritage Living, Wesley Clover Park July 2016


Picnic shelter by Heritage Living, Wesley Clover Park July 2016
 ---

#ShovelMask , hiding.

#ShovelMask, hiding.  #BingoRageStudio July 2016

#ShovelMask, hiding.  #BingoRageStudio July 2016

#ShovelMask, hiding.  #BingoRageStudio July 2016




An open letter to the President of our Southern neighbours.

Mr Obama;

     It is with great trepidation that I write to you. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I know that all communications with the White House are probably scrutinised, closely. I know that all electronic communications are now recorded and screened and that by the simple act of writing to you, that I invite the malicious bureaucratic backlash of being placed on a no-fly list and having "local authorities" being notified of my "activities". This, however, is nothing compared to the risks of simply living in the war zones that you have authority over.

     85 civilians in Syria. "Uncounted" hundreds (thousands) in Afghanistan?

     I really hoped that your administration would make change. I am certain that the world is now less safe, however, after the continuation of foreign policy, civil forfeiture, criminalisation of minorities and the poor, economic non-justice and protection of the rich, driven by corporate interests and the wealthy and the powerful, themselves. Justification of killing. Justification of creeping fascism. Justification of theft.

     Efforts that require that much justification at the smallest levels, may not be justifiable, overall.

     Is it too late for you to make some real changes? I understand that much of what you wished to accomplish has been stifled. The world could use some real change.

Sincerely;

:Eric C. Keast

[This comment will be published to my blog, as well, as an open letter



Thursday, July 07, 2016

The Close and Desperate Stranger


---
       How do you reconnect after 25+ years, from someone who seemed like they could have been a good friend, sharing interests and budding artistic ambition, as such young men, but only, truly, met once? After such a long time, and divergent histories, lives, loves, families and employment tracks  :)

     Usually; it is a thing like weddings, reunions, funerals and slow, distant death. But, that is a poor excuse; imposing obligation and “duty” on close strangers.
      People you like and don’t know.
      People you were supposed to love, but never got the chance.

      So. You meet for coffee, agree on beer, instead. You talk. You amaze each other with informations and silences explained,
or at least shared.

      You talk film, you talk tv, you talk weather, you talk food, you talk death, then apologise.

      You talk life, you talk music, you talk smoke, you talk beer, you talk letters, you talk grandpas and grandmas, you talk shop.

      I love knowledge and would talk all night to delay tomorrow, but my friend must sleep.
I’m the close and desperate stranger today. Again.
A parent dying, far from home.
An emergent, satisfying, rural isolation’s eventual end, in the city.
No more deer.

      I love brothers in ways that can’t be repaid.
      The city is beautiful and I don’t hate it.
     
:Eric 07/07/2016



Tuesday, June 21, 2016

#BingoRageStudio VS. #TheUnknownArtistOfGlowfair2016

-

       Hey there, new BingoRagers. This is the bad-language version of my #GlowFair2016. Parents can find safe version of the #publicart project video at this link.  :)  But; please stay and check out the weirdness, below.

     From “behind not-quite-enemy-lines-more-like-behind quasi-symbiotic-relationship lines” at the #GlowFairFestival (TM)? {ERIC; get correct twitter citation.}; #Ottawa, rather than the “front lines of...”, which would imply some legitimacy. The shocking truth, as it is being revealed to me, about #GlowFair2016 (TM)?

        Or perhaps, the right question is not, what possible troubles and interests did I stir at GlowFair. The immediate question, is: How big a trouble did I just get myself in, with the neighbour?

          I’ll type the short explanation, then fill in the rest, but maintain the right to my fresh recollection. I arrived back from GlowFair Festival; via QCH(TM) Hospital, where I visited my Dad, for about 15 minutes (12:06?am should be on parking pass log), at about12:40 – 12:45 am.











        The front door was locked at XXX CheerfulSardineLane, where I reside. I looked inside and saw light, but noone moving, the window does not permit easy viewing, but I wasn’t worried about the door being locked, although it is the first time I can recall being locked out. I rang the doorbell, the dog barked and noone answered. I thought that the voices I heard from the backyard were from our back yard. I entered our yard, by reaching over the gate arch, which is hard, but opened on 2’nd try. The noise was from two yards over, or next door. All I heard, at first were women’s voices. I entered the back door around 12:45 am.

      The male neigbour arrived after 1 a.m.’ish? As I write this sentence, it say 1:53 am on my phone.

      He said he was from (216? blah blah). Said he was really social, but blah blah, “two little girls”...

       I had been listening to their music for half an hour or so, giving up on my archaic 32-bit former Vista (TM) box that Google (TM) refuses to make a Chrome (TM) browser for, now. Suck it you Linux (TM) box losers still trying to shake some worth out of that LomgHorn lapTop (TM). Allegedly, I used beer and (TM) , after talking to my neighbour (other side) about his telescope, the moon and Mars(TM) .

       Anyways... after male neighbour with the smooth line of shit basically shut down a really awesome evening, warm, filled with stars, a full moon, the closest Mars in decades and Motley Crue(TM) . WTF?

     Instead of being as cool as I was feeling after the #GlowFairFestival, which was aaawesooooome. Yay (story, next.), I basically came off as a creeper next door that nobody recognised. I have been introduced to a “Txxxxy? From next door” a few times, but could not recognise her in the dark and she was either not there, or refusing to vouch for me in the sudden creepstink that smoothguy (TM) was casting.

     I pulled my shit inside and write this testimony, with mounting certainty about the coming break-in and appletini-waterboarding (TM). Until then, let me tell you about Glow Fair 2016 {Eric! Research}

       Okay. Right out in frontstreet. No smartassing around. No working some sorta old Ojibberish routine. Not with #MissLoontrout (TM), The Crack-Penguins (TM) and Nanabush (public domain) breaking big... but, not quite at #GlowFair2016.


    Okay. Here it is, no more e...I think that I just crashed the GlowFair Festival (TM).


      #OhFuck.

     It went really, really well  :)  (after the deathmarch of the one to 5’ish holiday hours). In the cool light of evening I met with many people and was given the opportunity to discuss my art with some random folks.

      I was set up, “off-Bank St.” ; not out of some standoffishness, just a sorta paracticality. I assumed that there had been a process and that, I had to miss it.

       But I wished to participate in a #publicart event of this coolness magnitude. I abandoned the black foamcore painting that I had started the evening before, and dumpstered a sketch of some sort from the immediate neighbourhood and inititiated a collaboration with this unknown artist.

      The sketch of a hand was made with a neon yellow ink of some sort, with some red marker. If you recognise it, please accept my sincere collaboration.  :)

   I’ll keep the vid short.  I just dumped the pics from my phone. It was a really great day, overall. I made some new friends and I think that I impressed some folks.

      I think that my setup traded traffic, for randomness and word of mouth. My new friend Liz really helped me out in the heat of the afternoon. Thanks, Liz.

     As my contribution to the #OttawaGlowFairFestival, #OttawaPublicArt TM and #CanadianCulture; I crashed it in a loving way, behaved in an informative and rational manner and tried to not be a nuisance. I am a recycler and friend to small animals.

     This video is a gift and a penance, but remember what happened to Caravaggio, after painting his gift and penance.  :)





    If I promised you a link to information about the ravishing #MissLoonTrout and her tragic “procedures”...   She loves my #mixedmedia and gets my horrifying #WilliamSBurroughs references.





Nanabush

My tumblr link

My twitter link.



Eric C. Keast; early fishing indoctrination, circa 1972.


#CutFootFleesWithTheBeast (Homage to #Guernica),
early iterations video.






Monday, June 20, 2016

A Shaman Story 001 #FoxMulder


        The following story was rewritten in the last week, or so. This is "draft05".
An initial draft was posted to my blog (here), not too long after the relevent episode aired.

     I will post  my #GlowFair explanations, soon.  :)

Detail pics of acrylic #painting on canvas:

 "Miss LoonTrout Got A Crappy Boobjob. Mr. And Mrs. Crack-Penguin Pull Their Tired Old William Tell Routine. Nanabush Is Alive, And In The World." (2012 iteration)







A  Shaman Story :

001 Special-Agent Fox Mulder ;  Shaman.

A       ...“I think that Fox Mulder, is a shaman, yo. He's been through some shit, but never got any, uhhh, training when he was young. He’s like one of those dickheads who take a stroll to the corner store and finds himself stuck in a horror of a universe with sentient, two-legged, two-armed, one-headed monstrosities chasing you around. That shit jangles the nerves, hard, like the spirits in your first tent....

      ... That boy sure coulda used a dose of the local botanical Ninjitsu... then, some prolonged, lucid dreamshitting; with, aaahhh appropriate orientation and training, of course.

      ... People think they can just drop ecstacy, channel a witch-doctor at the rollerdome rave and wear a fucking headdress, with sincerity. Think they’re fucking Geronimo’s ghost, but they’re smurf reruns ...”

b       My cousin, Lefty, has some strange ideas about things.

         Some folks say that he was going to be a medicine man, when he was young, “but, it didn't take...” or something. Any ways, if you’re hurting...   ya know, for real, or not... He’s the kinda person you talk to.

     But you gotta tell him the truth.

     He can’t stand lies, because they warp the world around him, and he sees it dissociate in front of him, even as we live our confabulations,
right - in – front - of him.

a      All my people are being pried from the Earth by advertisements, trends, social media, bad drugs, medicine, the dying of the living; instead of just acknowledgeing what is. The Milky Way is “no longer visible to more than 80% of North Americans”.

 (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/10/milky-way-no-longer-visible-to-one-third-of-humanity-light-pollution)

b         If people have no way to personally confirm that they are suspended in a galaxy, amongst galaxies... Is it any wonder that some people don’t believe in the moon landing or “sciencey things” like human evolution?

a      “In the latest episode of the X-Files, Mulder went on the shamanic voyage above the middle world, clouds and shit, thinking that he had taken “magic mushrooms”. He did not realise, at the time, that the new pseudo-Scully gave him a plac3b0.

        Fox Mulder, he induced shamanic trance... “$6 bucks the hard way”*
and traveled to the underworld; in a way that Carlos Castaneda failed to do.

b       Carlos had been too concrete in his earlier thinking and refused to follow the dancing hankerchief across the chasm. The old man was -not- happy.”

* “$6 bucks the hard way” was the most obvious and oblique and obnoxious and late teenish sexual reference I could come up with on the fly. I feel that it is something WSBurroughs’ish or HST... Some beautiful bullshit bravado.  :)    :Eric C. Keast

a     “Ayuh. He couldn't give in to the power. It’s much like trying to chase the underworld through vision, the first requirement is discipline. I am pretty sure he still called himself a Shaman, long afterwards. I do not know if he ever flew across the chasm, or not.

b       There wouldn’t be a goddamn hankerchief to help him out, the next time; that’s for fucking sure.

a       I dont remember, ever reading about it in his books, anyway. Ya know...  he mave actually done it... eventually, out there in the desert.


       I thought he had disappeared, long ago, but then he reappeared suddenly, online, with a history and pedigree that I did not remember. That’s a very shamanic thing to do; but my brain is ruined with whiskey rot, spiritocultural scarring, body neglect, memory extractions and sad premises; so is not to be trusted with those sorts of recollections.

b       It’s true. Either that, or someone in the Castaned Estate called his own self, a Shaman, being the Ghost Writers’ collective stand-in ego, legally, for the real thing.

     Ya know.... unless Carlos wrote it himself. Pretty sure he’s dead, tho ...”

a     Fox Mulder?

b     Castaneda.

a     “Ahhhhh... Anyways; Mulder's vision finally puts him in the shamanic canoe. Perhaps the most real moment of his life...

b      More real than the Lord Kimbo encounter?

a      That’s a really good fucking question. A real WTF episode, that one, ya know.

Good call, hard to say.

       Anyways, he’s face to face with the conscious soul of the reluctant terrorist... and he is paralysed with astonishment.”

b     “Terence McKenna says that dying from astonishment is the greatest danger of the DMT flash.”

a     “He sees the guy in his vision, right -spoilers- who's basically a stapled lump of meat surrounded by sniffer dogs and bulging suits “back in the real world”, but there, he can gibber, gesture, spaz and cry... and he does, real garbled-like... Mulder leans in; not quite eyeball-licking range...
    .... but is too amazed to make sense of it.”

b     “Transdimensional, slash, astral-communication, without an established personal practice of the pursuit of internal peace, is hard. Unless you get the sort of psychic psychedelic injection, that William S. Ginsburg would invoke ; Justify his screaming, flying, gunslinger cum-stinkin’ teen-cowboy, barn-sodomy fantasies. That shit never hit the broader market, it was too... Middle Eastern, too Oriental... for the plebes. The aristocrats never gave it up, of course.
         Too expensive for the rest of us.”

a     “Mulder comes-to, in the hospital, and not in the good way... and EVERYBODY... is on his dick!”

b     “I don't think that means what you think it mea...”

a     “EVERYBODY!... is standing on his dick!!”

b     “Okay, take it easy. Well...   that's different.

          She's on my dick, or he's on my dick just sounds sexual; it can't be helped, they're vague and suggestive...
     But someone standing on your dick is painfully obvious.”

a     “Mulder definitely got anal-probed at some time. He's been abducted by aliens... like, several times. And he spent... allottttaaaa time in Russian prisons.

     It’s not a moral failing, you know. Prison love. Sometimes you gotta go along to get along. Like Lawrence of Arabia, you know: Smile and think of England.”

     “That's got nothing to do with whether or not he's a shaman. Anybody can be a shaman. Not just perverts, victims and crazies.”


b     “Well, I think that you need a certain amount of crazy. Real crazy, real natural-like. Not just ‘not being an asshole’ kinda crazy. That's not fucking good enough, nowadays.”

a     “William S. Burroughs wrote of a man, disgusted with the way that the world had treated him and his retort was something like: You can't treat me like some greased and nameless asshole!...

     That was beautiful and genius. It's a double entendre, without the component of innocence. It speaks to his debauchery and situational virginity; situational innocence, if not actual innocence.”

b     “I don’t think that’s an example of a double entendre.

a      No. It's a double entendre, without, the component of innocence. Syntactically speaking”

b        “I don’t think that means. ”...

a       So.... Everybody thinks that Mulder failed. The bad guys are winning and little blue-eyed children are dying, while he’s off packing fudge..

b        “carrying freight”...

a        ...for “Big-Shroom”.

b    That’s right. Fox Mulder is a dirty mushroom-addict, at this point. Probably paying terrorists for mushroom fixes and clean piss (From young men farmed by a local Gamer Crew). That and running clown scams for the shroom cartel. The mushroom-backed, clown-whore racket has to be the dirtiest, lowest form of pimpetry known to man.”

a        The polaroids, alone, will make you rethink having children.

b          What. Wait. What, why?

 a           So’s they don’t grow up to run a clown-whore racket... Then it “all comes together”, of course. The brown guys get arrested. Like... all of them. In the hotel, the surrounding streets, the ice cream guy on the corner was arrested, and the nearest Koreatown was cleared out. I don't think he's banging Scully anymore.”

b     “So... the metaphorical boat, the shamanic canoe, supplied real-world information?”

a     “Yeah...    Didn't you watch it?”

b     “I think so. I'd still bang Scully. See her in that British mystery series about the buff, yet frustrated young scruffy Christian Greyish dude, whom is a serial killer and rapist?... she bangs everyone in that series. I bet she fucks him in the next season.

a     “It was just a week ago. How can you not remember if you saw it?”

b      Saw what?

a       “The X-Files episode that we’re talking about.”

b     “I don't have cable.”

a     “Oh...

     I bet that Mulder wouldn't be able to sleep, for days after that experience. His brain had been illuminated by the primal fire and vision and werehumans this season.... Well, one, anyways.”

b       “Nah. Too grounded. He’ll be sleeping before the credits...
and never fly again.”

a        “He's a secret agent, he flies all the time.”

b       “You know what I mean. He'll probably cave in and join the cabal eventually...

a        He could find a guide to show him the way through it all.

b        I bet he smokes smokey-pole before the end of the series. Buys into the corporate probing of our collective anus, invests his RRSP and declare “depopulation is yummy!!!! Arrrggghhh!!!  Thank you, Satannnnn....!!”.

Over and over.

a        Whomever contracted the Georgia Guidestones says that we should stick to 500 million people to survive on Earth.”

b     “Yeah. 500 million rich honkys, crackers, old boys and aristocrats. Ted Cruz is gonna wake up someday and be shocked to find he don't make the cut. Shit, they don't even want to take Bill Gates. ‘Is money’s too wet, still.”

a     “I figure that Mulder has got to take the pledge, fuck a chicken carcass on video tape and kiss Geronimo's skull. Then they will make him Bishop of Padua or some shit. The Vatican will put some fucking discipline in that atheist.”

b     “I like the new guy.”

a   “The new guy?”

b    “Yeah.”

a     “...  The pope?”

b     “Yeah.”

a     “You're such a victim.”

b     “The entire reason that we're here, is to save your ass.”


a     “Nobody asked you to... Wait. That’s not why we are here.
       I think that I asked for pizza and weed, actually. Where's the pizza?”

b     “I don't think that's relevant to our discussion.”

a     “Ah, Bro. Really?”

b     “I thought that you were dead.”

a     “Why? How!?”

b      “When I broke in, there was a definite whiff of rotten banana and santorum. Lots of it. Like the Banana Boat singer guy tried to dirty Sanchez a trucker at the Husky Stop and the waittress locked them in, turned out the lights and herded them to her dungeon under the fryers. I figured it was some sorta “pleasure accident”, like that guy from Kung Fu, so I finished it all. Where were you?.

a      There's nothing like the horrors of a dark, mossy, earthy stone and mortar basement. Dirt floor, roots, burrowing invertebrates, rot, filthy life and... unquiet.”

b    “Is that the place behind Theresa’s Minnow Shack?”

a     “Ayuh.”

b      “They got great nachos.”

a      “Yeah...

b          That basement is a portal into the underworld, but you really don’t wanna use it, unless you are already really fucked. But, if you have to, well... you are just more fucked, then.”



a     “The Buddhist monks of Asia were supposedly able to enter the shamanic underworld through physical discipline and deprivation. First Nations peoples of North america would starve themselves into vision and the underworld. Discipline. It’s all about fucking discipline. The discipline of laxative. The discipline of the lash. The discipline of pain. The discipline of dream & body. Flesh and bone. The discipline of warmed blankets, IV drip and the discipline of steel.

      The discipline of fist. The discipline of rope. The discipline of stone.

Discipline of Pleasure.

b     “Bullshido. I remember trying to visualise my way into the underworld using techniques from that Micheal Harner guy. Harmer? No, I think it's Harner.”

a     “How did it go?

b     “ Not very good. I could enter the tunnel to the underworld, beginning with a distinctive crack in a certain cliff at the waterline; waves pounding me down into the tunnel, past the surface. But, most times, I couldn’t hold it. Too much reality weighing my brain down.

     When it does work, I lose the focus and control of my eyes. The thread of that discipline were severed for me by culturecide and sexy missionaries.

      I try and follow the path down, falling, flailing, tumbling. I fell into the Earth, burrowed down and could never stay the path. It spits me out as an irritant.

     No discipline. No faith.

    Not enough history, anymore.



a      Tried it for years. Tried throwing chemicals at the problem, beginning with commercially available intoxicants.

       Started with high-dose nicotine. It found the path, quickly, but dissipated fast and was useless for sustained navigation. Found out later that making nicotine water from cigarette tobacco is a bad fucking idea. Don’t do it.

      I was determined to stick with plant medicines, preferably wild ones. But, even that felt like cheating.

      Smoking Labrador Tea that had been cured inside moldy pumpkins induced shared telepathy in a group but couldn't get you to the underworld. How are you supposed to fly, if you can't reach the underworld?! Sure, it made for stupendous circle jerks, but nobody was reaching Nirvana, that way.

     Dried banana peel was a bad joke until I found out about “wild banana”, but it was strictly for lucid dreamshitting.

b       That 80’s sitcom actor from “Broken House” is wrong about them bananas being “god's natural dildo”. They're actually a delicious little Chihuahua. By which, I mean, that some Indigenous people spent thousands of years domesticating and genetically nurturing little, starchy seedpods into delicious handlebars of chimpy goodness. As one does, molding wolves into four-legged chickens.”

     - Joint, whiskey intermission-

     I was never able to follow the path, all the way down.

a       Lucid dreaming escaped me. I hadn't dreamt a good sex dream better than the ones I had at 15. What the fuck was wrong with me? I tried drinking more, but that didn’t seem to help.

     I went camping for a few weeks, and once I was able to get away from television, I became a participant in my dreams again.

     I had become a viewer of my dreams. Watching my dreams and not being an effective agent in my own dreams, reduced to the viewer.

     I woke one morning and unzipped my tent, to dozens of loon pairs in the tiny bay. This was very unusual, Loons are solitary creatures who prefer one pair of loons per lake, but will make exceptions if the lake is big enough that they never, really, have to see the neighbours. They had flooded my bay at the end of summer. The air vibrated with their calls, the tent thrummed with my heat in the cool still air and I knew... I knew, that if I reached out and grabbed a strand of the energy in the air that it would rip me out the tent and I would fly. No big deal.

        I saw the Milky Way illuminate the horizon’s dark spiky silhouette across the bay and realised that I now possessed the ability to jump there.

      I watched a satellite tumble against the stars and could now reach out and smite it from the skies. The feel of lightning in your palms is something you get used to, fast, but if you don’t have technique, it will dislocate your arms from wrist to shoulder.”

b     “Did you reach out and grab the energy?”

a     “Nope. No point. I already knew what would happen and had the certainty of finally achieving mastery of the underworld and the power of flight amongst mortals. I zipped the tent up and went back to sleep... after the bears left.

      I don't think that Mulder claims any Indian blood. Unless he's part Navajo. The Navajo keep appearing in the X-files, for some reason.”

b     “That was because of Scully. Some dirty old Navajo fell in love with her and went to war with the smoking man and made love to her from the dead. The Navajo figure prominently in the mythology of the X-files arc.”



a       You take back that “dirty ol’ Navajo” remark, sir. I’ll let you know that Floyd RedCrow Westerman was a gentleman, an artist and a real heavy.

b       That’s true. He was also an actor, you fuckstick. If Laurence Olivier could play Darth Vader, then Floyd could play a dirty old man.

a     “Navajos, no joke. They came stomping out of the North like a mongol horde and cleaned out the whole Southwest before the Spanish were wearing diapers around their neck and travelling the New World.

       I’m of the mind, sure,  that they’re involved in that whole Chaco Canyon situation, too; either pooping in the fire, or sitting in the stewpot.”

b     “Did I just say that an old Indian man made mad ghost love to Scully?”

a     “Yeah.”

b     “See. Navajos no joke.”

     -cheesecake, tequila-

a     “Do you suppose that Mulder will quit the FBI and become a witchdoctor...  selling sweatlodge fingerbangs, dreamcatchers and sage bundles out the back of a pickup?”

b     “I think the FBI has a pretty good retirement plan, even for official fuckups. Maybe he could try writing.”

a    “I think the X-file writers will have him going “totally off-grid”, eventually.

b     They already did; in one of those X-Files movies, where Scully is abusing some kid in the hospital and falling in with with a pedopriest.



a       Yeah, but, I mean, more like some Grizzly Adams Roswell nut, tripping on Amanita-Reindeer piss, dictating conspiracy-theory podcasts into an analog dictaphone, mailing cassettes out to a third party remailer, who mails them to a third-party uploader.

       I bet he's alot like the Californication guy after he lost his family in that DMT bongfire then goes “full Native” at the sorority camp.

b     “Never go full Native.”

a      Huu-hmm. Got that one right, brother.

---

b         Did you ever hear of those white folks who hike up in the mountains, take strange dope, take off all their clothes, paint themselves glow-in-the-dark stripes, lube themselves up and run around the mountain trying to get abducted by aliens?

a          Ya. So?

---

b          Futures and pasts shake and merge, separate and disappear in front of his eyes and we don’t see a thing. The world is in constant freefall around him, a torrent of spacetime and rarely aware minds.

      Most people think they know what the truth is, but all they know is relative truth. Relative  truth is kinda like relative time and lightspeed; it depends on where you’re standing.

       Actual truth is real, however.  He sees part of it, but says noone can see it all, even on video.



a       Just because humans spin overlapping and generally agreeing descriptions of an event, series of events, or the last five minutes doesn’t mean that you are getting the truth. Always watch the video and question the source.

b      What if there’s no video?

a        There’s always fucking video.

          Most people don’t “see”. They narrate their surrounding.

        When you see, you are less surprised, less anxious. The little voice in your head, in all of our heads, though, it is hard to shut off. Especially if you’re not really aware that it is not whom you are.

Terence McKenna called it “The Logos” of the ancient Greeks. Sounds of human consciousnous still being forged, echoing through the ages through literature. You are not the little voice driving your car, flipping your burger and typing your spreadsheet.

       You.   You have to live in reality. That’s your job.

       It’s the job of the whole lot of yous to get  your shit together. You do not have an accurate picture of reality in your head. It’s kind of our job to be a little crazy for everybody else. It doesn’t work if someone hijacks the whole species’ awareness by design and all your sanity as some kinda bycatch.

a      You alls are muddying and shearing the world, at the same time, by spinning realities with your stories, your likes  and your stupefactions.

That is my job.
That was my job.

Does Shinto worship Marshall McLuhan? Google it.

Fini




Monday, April 18, 2016

Simon Schama and #BirdMosquitoHeartBattle art update, etcetera

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     Canadian "hero" General Wolfe appears in Simon Schama's History Of Britain, Ep.11 "The Wrong Empire".

     It is refreshing to personal awareness to see your country from a different perspective. We, Canadians, Indigenous and otherwise, tend to think of Canadian History as emergence from oral prehistory, directly into Mercantilism and written history through the choices of local peoples. We see it as a beginning, but it was the end of a long series of wars  with France, and the twilight of the British Empire in the Americas, but they left for India and did really shitty things over there, while their descendants continued doing shitty things over here.

     The geographic reality of the late 1700's: the French are nearly able to "box in" the English Empire on the N. American East-coast, by connecting the Mississippi Delta and then-unnamed St. Lawrence Seaway (Quebec); by way of Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. A line of military forts in the North, plus the Mississippi, itself, would be a North American Hadrian's Wall.

     England blew its wad and spent the warchest, the country's savings and future revenues to beat the French; the "crazy" attack on the Quebec cliffs and the Plains Of Abraham became inevitable under the realpolitik of the time. I was astounded to discover that General Wolfe is honoured in WestMinster Abbey, with an awesome sculpture. A martyr for empire.

     The people that were here, already... Allies, to be cheated, at a later date.

     I first became aware of Mr. Schama, as the presenter of the BBC series: The Power Of Art. Very inspiring and enlightening about art history and artistic striving. I like his voice, his writing and storytelling ability.

---

#BirdHeartMosquitoBattle
Updated, nearly done, for now. 23" x #52" x 4"
(formerly #BirdAmphibianHeart)
Acrylic #painting details #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa.

#pictographs #smokingmosquito #art #maraboustorks #landscape #sex #conflict #seeker #paishk #canoe #bullet #arrows

#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle, for sale at a #FirstNations artists page at #FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/271035953157/permalink/10154133955143158/

#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle #BingoRageStudio April 18, 2016.

#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle Birds and canoe #pictograph characters detail. #BingoRageStudio April 18, 2016.


#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle #SmokingMosquito detail, arrows. #BingoRageStudio April 18, 2016.



#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle #Seeker figure, over #Ottawa. #BingoRageStudio April 18, 2016.


#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle Newest element, #fish detail. #BingoRageStudio April 18, 2016.


#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle April2016 #BingoRageStudio

#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle April2016 #BingoRageStudio

#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle April2016 #BingoRageStudio
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#BirdMosquitoHeartBattle, for sale at a #FirstNations artists page at #FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/271035953157/permalink/10154133955143158/






Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Spring #ArtSale for office supplies; #BingoRageStudio.

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Hey BingoRagers.

     Hate to be so crass, but I need some quick cash to buy office supplies for impending grant applications. Payment info. down below, and I will update with a couple more sale pieces. Pls share, thanks.
:Eric

PS: See, also.

    I am reducing "LoonFightBlue"
(2016) canvas from $105.00, to $90.00; includes shipping, by mailing tube.  

     This work has been detailed and clearcoated since first posted.


#LoonFightBlue  #BingoRageStudio, Ottawa, 2016.

"Two Loons spar under twilight stars and planets." 

Acrylic painting on loose canvas , unframed/unstretched - 11"H x 16"W.

---

     Ottawa-only pickup or limited delivery special.  :)

    I am reducing "Return Of The Thunderbirds" (2014-16) ; stretched canvas from $550.00 to $300.00 ; for cash or CDN E-transfer.

     Irregular 6-polygon stretched-canvas. Acrylic #painting with papiermache fish relief, glass relief "thunderbirds" and pencil. 

     You can view a former iteration of this canvas at my tumblr page (opens in new tab/window), as I was working on the piece in the new #Ottawa #BingoRageStudio. Summer 2015.

     Approx. 31"W x 22"H x 4" D.
#ReturnOfTheThunderbirds  #BingoRageStudio, Ottawa, 2016. 
#ReturnOfTheThunderbirds , detail.  #BingoRageStudio, Ottawa, 2016. 
#ReturnOfTheThunderbirds , detail.  #BingoRageStudio, Ottawa, 2016. 

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I am reducing "12 Turtles" (2016); stretched canvas from $90.00 to $65.00.

Fragmentary #turtles surround one, resolved Turtle, in its darkness.

Acrylic #painting on loose, clearcoated, unframed, unstretched canvas; shipped, rolled in a mailing tube. Approx. 18"W x 24"H.

#12Turtles  #BingoRageStudio, Ottawa, 2016. #art #turtle
(Green on the edge is masking tape; now gone.)


---

(CDN funds in #Canada, Email transfer in Canada preferred and priority; USD funds to USA and foreign. USD and foreign orders necessarily take longer to ship. Thanks, in advance for your patience. Includes shipping.  "Square" card processing and PayPal accepted but take longer to clear.) 

Email erickeast@gmail.com, for availability info. before sending any payments.


Miigwitch and Thank You.

:Eric



Monday, March 28, 2016

In which, I suffer my first , ever, #ArtBattle loss. Lament Document Arise

-

#ArtBattle 377 Eric C. Keast, round 1 easel station.
---

Open letter to a new acquaintance
.

One thought about our food/gluten discussion last night, lead me to postulate a recipe idea for you. But, I have no idea if it will work, since I am too poor and lazy after suffering my first ArtBattle loss, to actually test it in the kitchen.   :)

Instead I will post this letter on my website & see if anyone tries to cook it. www.BingoRage.com --- Anyways, I offer it to you. ---

For a breadlike food option, perhaps there is a way to make a savoury "pancake", or crepe, with non-gluten flour.

Instead of sweet ingredients, use preferred flour (nut?), egg(s), olive oil, baking powder, seasoning and mix to pancakeilike batter, but slightly thin and oily.
Let it sit and thicken.
Pour batter in small (?) size,
add cubed, steamed vegetables/etc.
Cook to brown underneath and flip. Savoury vegetable pancake.

Additional options: milk in batter, cheese in add-ons, dressing for "syrup"?.

I think that keeping the veg. pieces small would help it cook all the way through the bottom, flipping it while the top is still uncooked, but gelled.   :)

---


"Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current" AB377-1-2 #ArtBattle #Ottawa March 2016, Photo from sister Holly :)
---

A message for -and open letter to- Art Battle,
to be posted shortly at my #BingoRageBlog {www.BingoRage.com}

Hi there AB. I was in my first ArtBattle -AB #377- last night and really loved the whole experience.
I do have a suggestion that may actually be a benefit to both artists and #ArtBattle.  :)

After my painting round, I spoke with a bunch of people about badly wanting to resolve the piece, a bit more.
Somebody mentioned that if it sold, she couldn't see why the customer and artist couldn't arrange to have more work done on the piece. Interesting thought. :)

I am writing, because I am offering to finish my unsold AB canvas, on my own blog...
so long as the customer spends at least $200 (plus shipping, outside of Ottawa) to purchase it from #ArtBattle. I also address what mistakes I made and how I will win the next one.  :)



Buy it, as is, for less, of course; or spend more and request that it remain, as is, in the original "Art Battle State". However the patron wants.

I am suggesting that potential customers spend at least $200 (Ottawa area, $200 + shipping, elsewhere? Whatever AB policy, is.)  for me to resolve the work entitled "Slow Fishing CrankBait, Slow Current" [Round 1 of AB #377, don't have the number handy.] and they contact #ArtBattle to make the purchase, same as any other AB purchase inquiry; except, perhaps, for an evolved payment structure for an artist-generated sale and artist-arranged service for #ArtBattle.

 If the art had an "opening bid" of $50 at AB#377, and I offer to "finish it" for a $200.00,
 then I suggest %75 ($150.00 for the artist); #ArtBattle gets twice as much than a $25 cut of the
"suggested worth" of a canvas in storage and unsold.

Once the sale is made, then #ArtBattle is no longer responsible for
fulfilling the finishing of the work, because that is an arrangement between
buyer and artist, made offsite.

I believe that more AB work will be sold as more are being generated and that your organisation can
give money to more of your participants, through making this option available to your artists and clients.

Of course, the corporate thing to do, would be to hoover up the extra sales without spreading more money around.

Sincerely,
:Eric C. Keast

---

Video of the moments before and the start of #ArtBattle #377,
link goes to FaceBook.

Next time, I will waste less time.   :)
Thanks Peter Purdy and crew.
Congratulations to winner Stephen Shugar.
{I will update this post when I find official announcement.}

---

The finished(?), and slightly soggy piece.

"Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current"   AB377-1-2  #ArtBattle #Ottawa March 2016
---

What Went Wrong? (In which, I suffer my first , ever, #ArtBattle loss.)

I couldn't believe it, when I received an invite to the next Ottawa #ArtBattle in my email, just a little while ago!! 

I was elated and also scared shitless. I'm not a very outgoing person, so the prospect of high-pressure painting, live, in front of a "big-city" crowd was threatening to blow my reality gasket. I've painted murals and canvases in front of schoolkids and Main Street small-town, #FortFrances,  Ontario, vicious punkrock junkies and inner-city hippies, stoned paintballer hicks and pranky college bros. But no timed, results-oriented, LIVE performance in front of artsy crowd and the threat of local celebrity.

 I already decided to start with a crankbait painting, because I had finished a commission of a pair for a friend, not too long ago.

"Bronze Floater And Silver Diver"_#BingoRageStudio

At that time, I had knocked out a quick study, before, as well. Of course, I took a couple days to do it, here and there. I often work on more than one piece at a time and divide up  the work if drying needs impose or burnout threaten.  :)

#crankbait study #BingoRageStudio 2016 "tiger" colour pattern

As a basis for the live, event painting, I decided to make my first 20 minute, timed painting, the night before. Honestly; I didn't want to "plan" a painting. It didn't feel quite honest, but it was reasoned to me that an honest reading of the rules clarifies that there is no thematic challenge offered in this version of #ArtBattle, therefore, no improvisational demand. A plan of action for your paintings is implied. OK.

  I also needed to try a 20-minute painting challenge to experience it and feel how much time it took to make a simple composition.

My initial canvas. I just sharpied an 18" x 24" border on my thin plywood "easel" in the #BingoRageStudio:

#ArtBattle 377 study 01. #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


#ArtBattle 377 study 01. #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


My first try was a mess for a couple reasons, and beautiful for the wrong reasons.
I loved the transparency, but knew that would disappear on a white canvas.
The tape edge makes great edges for presentation, but lose image real estate. I cut the lip off my crankbait by not taking the tape off at the right time. I liked the tape diagonals but thought they would glare on a white canvas.

2'nd try (Sorry for the crummy pic):

#ArtBattle 377 study 02. #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016

Smaller #crankbait, bottom rig instead of diving cast-retrieve/troll. Lakeweed and horizontal lines taped at water/air horizon and "river bottom". Only one main element in this image, however. The time spent taping may not have been worth the effort, in hindsight, after the battle.

3'rd 20 minute study:

#ArtBattle 377 study 03. #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


Total, unfinished disaster. In my defense, I had nobody to call out time for me. And, too much time spent brushing the background. I put a sponge in my pocket and picked up a better one at the Art Battle. Perhaps the unfinished 3'rd study helped put me in a looney frame of mind, however.

This is my first, under-the-lights, live #ArtBattle painting"

#AB377-1-2 "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current". #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


I was shaking like crazy, and using a sponge let me make a fast, wavy blue background and get my hands dirty; settled down. I finished the general crankbait, fast. I used my initials chop to make "fishey things in a school" and then set a loon against them. I filled time and canvas with sky, stream and landscape, while trying to think... what to do? ...how to finish it?

It was then I made my biggest mistake. It must have been the five minute mark or less; I decided to add a third character instead of detailing what I had. The little sunfish with the big tophat is edgeless. The loon is undone and the little fishey things buried. I overreached. I nearly froze before the end and the piece feels badly unfinished.

I am still happy with it. :)

If I were to resolve "the painting that should have been",
maybe it would progress something like this....

#AB377-1-2 "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current". #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


Revised "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current". #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


Revised "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current". #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


Revised "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current". #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


Revised "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current". #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa 2016


---

So... if you would like to purchase the artwork known as "Still Fishing Crankbait, Slow Current"  #ArtBattle canvas number AB377-1-2 and have me make something like these changes, plus or minus....
contact #ArtBattle #Ottawa and pay at least $200 for it.

Become a patron of the arts.




Friday, March 18, 2016

Short Story about Fox Mulder; Shaman. Other stuff.

---
Please check out the #BingoRageStudio #ArtSale page for real deals and uniquey stuff.
---

My response to a Reddit post about religion:

One evolutionary explanation for the emergence of monsters and spirits into human consciousness is a logical consequence of the "theory of mind" present in several animals, but greatly expanded in humans.

Being able to model what others might be thinking is a cause of modern paranoia, but also the basis for plenty of cultural development. Early on in our evolution, however, a particular heuristic (mental shortcut, subconcsious) produced a sort of "false positive".

Let us say that two apemen are sitting around a fire, 2 million years ago. Both hear a sound beyond the light that could be the wind, harmless game, or a serious predator.
One apeman always ascribes "agency" (bad actor and intentions) to the noise and runs away, while apeman 2 always brushes it off as the wind.
There is no consequence to apeman 1 running away and pissing himself because he fears something that does not exist, beyond primordial embarassment.
Apeman 2, however, faces the prospect of being eaten when he is wrong and no longer contributing his DNA to the genepool.

Therefore, belief in a "spirit world" develops from pantswetters who do not get punished, reproductively, for running from nothing.

---

While the preceding paragraph seems like a complete dismissal of the "spirit world", there is an odd feedback, by which this path leads to an "underworld". Oddly enough, this week's episode of the X-Files ("Babylon", S10E05) is a great illustration of the Shamanic Journey.

Here's a first draft (two guys; a & b) of something currently called:
"Shaman Story" March 09 First Draft 2016.


   a  “I think that Fox Mulder is a shaman... He's been through some shit, but never got any training.”

    b My cousin, Lefty, has some strange ideas about things. Some folks say that he was going to be a medicine man, when he was young, “But, it didn't take...”, or something.

 a    “In the latest episode of the X-Files, Mulder went on the shamanic voyage, thinking that he had taken magic mushrooms, not realising that the new agent bon-Scully gave him a placebo, but he induced shamanic trance, 6 bucks the hard way, and traveled to the underworld, just like Carlos Castaneda tried and failed to do, seein' as he was too concrete in his thinking and refused to follow the dancing hankerchief.”

b     “Ayuh. Couldn't give in to the power... I am pretty sure that he still called himself a Shaman, after.”

 a    “Anyways, Mulder's vision finally puts him in the shamanic canoe. Perhaps the most real moment of his life, and he is nearly paralysed with astonishment.”

b     “Terence McKenna says that astonishment is the greatest danger of DMT.”

a     “He sees the guy, spoilers, who's basically a lump of meat surrounded by sniffer dogs back in the real world, but here, he can talk... but Mulder is too amazed to make sense of it.”

b     “Transdimensional communication without internal peace is hard.”

a     “So, Mulder comes to, in the hospital, and EVERYBODY, is on his dick!”

b     “I don't think that means what you think it means.”

a     “EVERYBODY is standing on his dick!!”


b     “Okay, well, that's different. She's on my dick, or he's on my dick just sound sexual. It can't be helped, they're vague and suggestive; but someone standing on your dick is painfully obvious.”

a     “Mulder probably got anally probed, at some time. He's been abducted by aliens and spent time in Russian prisons.”

b     “That's got nothing to do with whether or not he's a shaman. Anybody can be a shaman.”

a     “Well, I think that you need a certain amount of real crazy, real natural, not just being an asshole. That's not good enough.”

b     “William S. Burroughs wrote of a man, disgusted with the way that the world had treated him and his retort was something like: You can't treat me like some greased and nameless asshole!... It's a double entendre without an innocent component.”

a     “So, everybody thinks that Mulder failed and the bad guys are winning, then it all comes together and all the brown guys get arrested... I don't think that he's banging Scully anymore.”

b     “So, the metaphorical boat supplied real-world information?”

a     “Yeah. Didn't you watch it?”

b     “I think so. I'd still bang Scully. See her in that British mystery series, she bangs everyone.”

a     “It was just a week ago. How can you not remember if you saw it?”

b     “I don't have cable.”

a     “Oh... I bet that Mulder won't be able to sleep, for days. His brain has been illuminated by vision and werehumans. Well, one.”



b     “Nah. Too grounded. He'll be sleeping before the credits... and never fly, again.”

a      “He's a secret agent, he flies all the time.”

b     “You know what I mean. He'll probably cave in and join the cabal eventually. I bet he smokes smokey pole before the end of the mini-series probe of our collective anus and declare depopulation is yummy.”

a      “Georgia guidestones.”

b      “Amen, brother. You're feeling me.”

a      “I'll never love you the way that you want me to. Whomever contracted the Georgia Guidestones says that we should stick to 500 million people to survive on Earth.”

b     “Yeah. 500 million honkys, crackers, old boys and aristocrats. Ted Cruz is gonna wake up someday and be shocked to find he don't make the cut. Shit, they don't even want to take Bill Gates money. Too wet.”

a     “I figure that Mulder has got to take the pledge, fuck a chicken on video tape and kiss Geronimo's skull. Then they will make him Bishop of Padua, the Vatican will put some fucking discipline in him.”

b     “I like the new guy.”

a     “You're such a victim.”




b     “The entire reason that we're here, is to save your ass.”

a     “Nobody asked you to. I think that I asked for pizza and weed, actually. Where's the pizza?”

b     “I don't think that's relevant to our discussion.”

a     “Ah, Bro. Really?”

b     “I thought that you were dead.”

a     “Why? How?”

b      “When I broke in, there was a definite whiff of rotten bananas and santorum. Lots of it. Like the Banana boat tried to dirty Sanchez a trucker at the Husky Stop and the waittress locked them in and turned out the lights and  brought them to her dungeon, under the fryers. There's nothing like the horrors that you can imagine in a stone and mortar basement, dirt floor and ”

a    “Is that the place behind the Minnow Shack?”

b     “Ayuh.”

a     “The Buddhist monks of Asia were supposedly able to enter a shamanic state through discipline. The same sorta thing is claimed for the Bullshido of twentieth-century Chinese film. And, the Hong Kong cinema, of course.”

b     “I remember trying to visualise my way into the underworld using techniques from that Micheal Harner guy. Harmer? No, I think it's Harner.”

a     “How did it go?





b     “ Not very good. I could enter the tunnel to the underworld, beginning with a crack in the ground, past the first guards. When I lose the light of my eyes, however, and have to follow the path down, falling. I could never stay the path. No discipline. Tried it for years. Starting throwing chemicals into the mix. Started by experimenting with nicotine. It found the path, quickly, but was useless for sustained navigation. Even that felt like cheating, but I was determined to stick with wild medicines. Smoking Labrador Tea that had been cured inside a moldy pumpkin induced shared telepathy in a group but couldn't get you to the underworld. How are you supposed to fly, if you can't reach the underworld?! Dried banana peel was a bad joke until I found out about “wild bananas”, that celebrity is wrong about them being god's dildo, they're a delicious little Chihuahua.”

     - Joint, whiskey-

     I never was able to follow the path down. Lucid dreaming escaped me. I hadn't dreamt a good sex dream better than the one that I had at 15. What the fuck was wrong with me?

     I went camping for a few weeks, and once I was able to get away from television, I became a participant in my dreams again. I had been watching my dreams, not being an agent in my own nights, but a viewer. I woke one morning and unzipped my tent, to see dozens of loon pairs in the tiny bay. This is very unusual, Loons are solitary creatures, who prefer one pair of loons per lake, but will make exceptions, if the lake is big enough that they never see the neighbours. They had flooded my bay at the end of summer, the air vibrated with their calls and I knew... I knew, that if I reached out and grabbed a strand of the energy in the air that I would fly out the tent and finally reach the end.”

a     “Did you reach out and grab the energy?”

b     “Nope. No point. I already knew what would happen and had the certainty of finally achieving mastery of the underworld and the power of flight amongst mortals. I zipped the tent up and went back to sleep, after the bears left.”
a     “I don't think that Mulder claims any Indian blood. Unless he's part Navajo. The Navajo keep appearing in the X-files.”

b     “That was because of Scully. Some dirty old Navajo fell in love with her and went to war with the smoking man and made love to her from the dead. The Navajo figure prominently in the mythology of the X-files arc.”

a     “Navajo's no joke. They came stomping out of the North like a mongol horde and cleaned out the whole Southwest before the Spanish were wearing diapers around their neck and travelling to the New World.”

b     “Did I just say that an old Indian man ghost made love to Scully?”

a     “Yeah.”

b     “See. Navajo's no joke.”

     -cheesecake, tequila-

a     “Do you suppose that Mulder will quit the FBI and become a witchdoctor, selling sweatlodge fingerbangs and sage bundles?”

b     “I think the FBI has a pretty good retirement plan.”

a    “I think that thewriters will have him go totally off-grid, like Grizzly Adams, tripping on Amanitas and reindeer piss and dictating his visions on a top-50 “Itunes” (Copyright, TradeMark, Registered) podcast. I bet that he's alot like the Californication guy after he loses the suit and goes “full Native”

b     “Never go full Native.”

fini

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Papier mache element of #ReturnOfTheThunderbirds , acrylic #painting #BingoRageStudio #Ottawa. 2016