jean seberg

this is a still from breathless (1960), a french film starring jean seberg and the extremely bad-ass jean-paul belmondo. i was struck by seberg's beauty instantly and fell in love with her by the end of the movie. i was even more shocked to find out she is an iowa native (from marshalltown), a ui grad, lived in mallorca, and politically supported the blank panthers and the mesquaki tribe, all of which are fun facts. not so fun, is the fact that she committed suicide in the 16th parisienne arrondissement by overdosing on barbiturates and alcohol while pregnant with her second child. though tragic she is still absolutely beautiful, if i had already mentioned that. rip ms. seberg.

a little mixtape action

a random set of songs for y'all, with no set of coherency whatsoever:

don cherry - brown rice
raphael saadiq - let's take a walk
lana del rey - video games (jamie woon remix)
flight facilities - crave you
hugo frederick - family affair
bayaka - 3 voiced song (from The Extraordinary Music Of The Babenzele Pygmys   And Sounds Of Their Forest Home)
serge gainsbourg - l'anamour
jacques brel - le moribond
goldfish - hold tight
philip glass - 1000 airplanes on the roof
eleanor freidburger - gold glitter year
stanley turrentine - sugar
idris muhammad - piece of you

張帆 - man chang fei

quartetto cetro - crapa pelada
recloose f/ joe dukie - deeper waters

also, highly suggest you check out:
blade runner the soundtrack
CANT - dreams come true
steve reich - music for six marimbas
steve roach - artifacts
the embassadors - healing the music
nguyen le - tales from vietnam

Old news for a new crowd

With all this fuss over the summer to present about the rampantly growing debt problem, I continue to wonder how the Right can say this when national debt quintupled under Reagan and Bush. I won't lie: Reagan certainly did wonders with the economy during his reign in office, but as Lloyd Bensen (D-Tex) said in the New York Times, October 6, 1988 "if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity, too." Though the debt bubble has gone from $10.7 trillion in 2008 to $14.2 trillion by February 2011 under Obama, has anyone been asking the question how we got to that original number in the first place. Here is a little chart to look at it. I´m far from offering a solution, but this should get us thinking a little bit. 

Bergson on Pity (1910)

The moral feelings might be studied in the same way. Let us take pity as an example. It consists in the first place in putting oneself mentally in the place of others, in suffering their pain. But if it were nothing more, as some have maintained, it would inspire us with the idea of avoiding the wretched rather than helping them, for pain is naturally abhorrent to us. This feeling of horror may indeed be at the root of pity; but a new element soon comes in, the need of helping our fellow-men and of alleviating their suffering. Shall we say with La Rochefoucauld that this so-called sympathy is a calculation, "a shrewd insurance against evils to come?” Perhaps a dread of some future evil to ourselves does hold a place in our compassion for other people's evil. These however are but lower forms of pity. True pity consists not so much in fearing suffering as in desiring it. The desire is a faint one and we should hardly wish to see it realized; yet we form it in spite of ourselves, as if Nature were committing some great injustice and it were necessary to get rid of all suspicion of complicity with her. The essence of pity is thus a need for self-abasement, an aspiration downwards. This painful aspiration nevertheless has a charm about it, because it raises us in our own estimation and makes us feel superior to those sensuous goods from which our thought is temporarily detached. The increasing intensity of pity thus consists in a qualitative progress, in a transition from repugnance to fear, from fear to sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility (Bergson 1910, 18).

Henri Bergson. "The Intensity of Psychic States". Chapter 1 in Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, translated by F.L. Pogson, M.A.  London: George Allen and Unwin (1910): 1-74.

Dalí´s Labyrinth of Inspiration

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989). The Railway Station at Perpignan, 1965. Oil on canvas.

116 x 160 in. Museum Ludwig, Köln. 

Temporariness and Courage

"I am an artist, and I have to have courage ... Do you know that I don't have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they're finished. Only the preparatory drawings, and collages are left, giving my works an almost legendary character. I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain."


-Christo Javachev


I love this quote. To me, it seems an inherent existential struggle as well as a struggle among our species that life is temporary. We are trivial in the scope of time, and I know that has to at least scare some of us. Berger and Luckmann comment in The Social Construction of Reality about how religion, for some, satiates that void by placing that potential meaningless in God's hand. Certainly, we must mean something then, right? I had always hoped to a recognized scholar, not so much during my life, but at least after I passed, influencing those who come after me. Though I still long to be an academic, it is to a lesser degree that I want to be remember. I'd rather change something without being noted for that ideal. Pessimistically unlikely, but yet that potential exists. This quote, however, shook me for a moment. He is right. What courage it must take to allow time devour you and your meaning, your work, your energy. Kudos to those who have such courage in our Brave New World. Live on strong, at least you are living for something. 

the united them vs. we

We’ve superseded failures.

Their grandiose repertoire of consternation.

Such ruthless aspirations, run amok.

Now rundown; divided, red and blue.

The peons bearing flags, bearing arms.

Feigning that they haven’t given in.

When they’ve wholly given up-

That passion to save what little we have left.


Brandon Lee Kramer © 2011