by Ben Lerner

For the distances collapsed.
For the figure
failed to humanize
the scale. For the work,
the work did nothing but invite us
to relate it to
the wall.
For I was a shopper in a dark
aisle.

[oh, this is good, read on, read on ...] Continue reading »

Earth's dynamic fluid systems - not to be underestimated

Deepwater Horizon.

The Earth and all life functions as a continuously evolving, fluid, dynamic system that we barely begin to understand in it’s complexly interwoven entirety. Sucking out the oil and burning it off in a fashion marginally more evolved than the discovery of fire itself – e.g. the archaic combustion engine, proliferating to this day by the obtuse laws of corporate swaggery – is still just burning stuff based on nature’s de-structuring forces for near-sighted profit. This as distinct from the con-structive spiralic forces of natural growth systems and the plethora of quelled yet more visionary and progressive, life affirming technologies.

At what actual cost?

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“People assume that in the 21st century buildings should be made of titanium, because we have a narrow definition of progress. Maybe a 21st-century building is made out of dirt used in an intelligent and beautiful way.”

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shapeshifters.pdf (57KB)

Something catches your eye starting out of the forest below.  A lone figure, it appears, coming towards you now, up the winding path towards the brow of the hill where you are standing, wolf hounds at your side.  Judging by the weathered gait, it appears to be a rather tall old man, leaning into his path resolutely, as though into the wind for a hundred years.  There’s something curious about his demeanour, and before your eyes the distance between you is covered in a space of time that is somehow unsettling.  The old man stands in front of you suddenly and lifts his head from the ground for the first time, fixing you with a beguiling gaze.
“Good day to you” says he in a thick accent.  Middle Eastern? Hints of Eastern European perhaps? Even some guttural inflections reminiscent of Andean dialects – you can’t quite make it out.  You are slightly taken aback, but you ask “Good day… can I help you?”
“I doubt it” chuckles the old man with a little wicked laugh in his eyes.  They’re tremendously dark eyes, deeply set under unkempt eyebrows fanning out maniacally.  Continue reading »

Google Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin disparaging the commercialization of search engines said. “We expect that advertising-funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” They had a vision of allowing unfettered access to the sum of all human knowledge on line.

However Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt recently explained in an interview with Charlie Rose, “now we are an advertising company!” Today 99% of Google’s revenue comes from the ads it strews on websites across the internet. Google has become the internet’s largest and most determined info-polluter – effectively killing the dream of a commercial-free internet.

This should cause us to consider the long-term cultural consequences of relying on an advertising company to organize the world’s information. For the first time in human history, a single company both controls our access and corrupts that same information through advertising. Continue reading »

Listen up!

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Non resistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe. Through it, consciousness (spirit) is freed from its imprisonment in form. Inner nonresistance to form – whatever is or happens – is a denial of the absolute reality of form. Resistance makes the world and the things of the world appear more real, more solid, and more lasting than they are, including your own form identity, the ego. It endows the world and the ego with a heaviness and an absolute importance that makes you take yourself and the world very seriously. The play of form is then misperceived as a struggle for survival, and when that is your perception, it becomes your reality. Continue reading »

Inside this temple are mountains and rivers
there are forests of oak, mountain lions and moss

Seismic shifts and lightening bolts are inside
enervating every silent thought

All the dancing impulses of nature are here
laughter, grief, hunger swirling
in the winds and time

There is ecstatic music, echoing through these chambers
and starlight – all the infinite stars

Ruminations of the cosmos are within
the poet
says
inside this temple, is the one I love

- Anton10

bird song
in the city
false dawn

Oh great goddess,
mother of creation,
this earth

What silent hunger
causes big breasted women
to wander in my dreams.

Oh happy happy death – this fool
asphyxiated in the heaving depths
of the cleavage of the beloved.

- Anton10

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.” - George Santayana

Lewis drives us to a deserted beach just outside of town
There’s a tranquil, silky ocean. It’s silent but for a rushing
over the distant reef, and Lewis talking shit
A lone seagull stands on one leg feigning interest.

I’m just not in the mood – it’s cloudy
He strips of his shirt and performs yoga
There’s a significant paunch, a few old tattoos and
we sit there in the white sand, ignoring him politely but
he returns from the shore and talks
myopically and with too much enthusiasm.

Mirra is hungry for company – my sister is lonely too. It is a soulless city.
So we all end up on this desolate beach with a fool in thick glasses.
But, how did I get here really? Did I miss a turn?

I remember, as a kid, stabbing at my heart with painful thoughts,
probing for feeling. But at some point it had all become too much
and I cut myself off. Now here I am fumbling down a blind alley,
in the broad daylight of my life
while the one I’m trying to love
is far away.

I know in the deepest place of me, there is a love
and the truth of my feet rooted in the earth
that is so great, I’m afraid to let it rip through
and I hold on as tight as I can
to the little prison of my self
afraid if I let love in it’ll break me,
like it did in the beginning.

If I can forgive myself and all these innocent people
I might just find my way home…

- Anton10