Accordion binding. Black book cloth over boards. Image converted to text using ASCII/HTML conversion software. Printed on 80lb cover stock and joined with PVA. Bound January of 2011. Five books in addition. Full size image
A series of four books of poems housed in a paper-over-boards slipcover. Book cloth and gold silk-screened Japanese mulberry paper is used on each cover. Books are single signature hardcover bound with binder’s thread, beeswax, and polyvinyl acetate. Two sets of four books in addition. Written from 2009 through 2010. Bound in March of 2010. Full size
The book’s title was taken from a Navajo hunting song. 32 pages, single-signature, hardcover. The book’s poem was typewritten on a 1935 Royal portable typewriter in red and black ink on heavyweight photo paper. Illustrated on 80lb brown linen paper. Written and bound in April 2011. One book in addition. Full size: 1 / 2
These are the first books I made this year. Commissioned by James Kupka. Binder’s thread and a flat turquoise bead close the cover. A thin board covered in black book cloth reinforces the string’s connection to the cover. Cover paper is gold silk-screened Japanese mulberry. Assembled with polyvinyl acetate. Full size image 
Here’s the latest roundup of the ridiculous music videos I’ve seen recently.
These two sort of look like they listen to DM:
…but they sound more like this girl:
Here’s the real version:
This is an amazing documentary about the history of Black Los Angeles. So many people should watch this: Crips & Bloods: Made in America
The latest self-proclaimed “Jesuz” reincarnation (dude who shot at the White House) made a video audition to get onto the Oprah show. It’s available for viewing on “u-shewb”:
Three thoughts made me think about three things. First, this guy got his view on “partying” from expert partier, Andrew W.K.:
(It’s best to play them both at the same time)
The second is how ultimate subjectivity fosters the illusion within the individual that he/she is the Jesus/God/deity of his/her own personal reality. How people play this out can be through normative or deviant behaviors. It’s easy to take deviant behavior for it’s face value and judge Oscar as a lunatic. It is difficult to see his actions and thoughts as a microcosm of messages within a larger social and cultural trend.
It’s even harder to see our own narcissism. Further, it is very difficult to integrate what we can learn from Oscar’s insanity and dysfunction into our lives. This would mean giving up the idea that everyone is “entitled to their own opinion” and “everyone’s opinion is equal.” This would also mean that elders have to be in touch with WISDOM, rather than claiming to be experts.
The third thought I had in regards to the “Pick Me Oprah, I’m Begging You” video came from the part where he talks about “the system.” I thought of Oscar as being the illegitimate, yet immaculately conceived son of Jorge of the Casualties, whose expertise in “streetpunkery” is derived from the length of his liberty spikes AND receding hairline:
(You know he’s credible)
Remember this guy from our adolescence? He gave us such powerful lyrics as: “I’ll never change my ways / Don’t tell me what to do / Don’t tell me what to wear / I’m gonna do it as I please / That’s the way we live”
Oscar must have learned the good word from Jorge, who wrote the “Streetpunk Psalms.” If Oscar is Jesuz, wouldn’t Jorge be God in this line of thinking? Do you think going on Oprah constitutes selling out for the son of God? Or is Oscar just another greasy poseur?
I’ll settle for having more questions than answers BECUZ I’M NO EXPERT.
Carl Jung attempted to explain Eastern wisdom to the Western world, especially teachings about the ancient oracle named the I Ching, the Book of Change. He would constantly apologize about its lack of grounding in any scientific or empirical models, evidence, understanding, or rationality. The I Ching is based off of intuition and synchronicity alone, and the global capitalist culture then and today will never understand anything about it.
One thing I have learned in my work with the I Ching and some Jungian wisdom, is this: there is nothing to comprehend, understand! Have faith in it, don’t try to understand, compartmentalize, and comprehend it from the brain, and learn to become a wiser, kinder, stronger, and a more balanced person.
This is the hallmark of how I want to work with people. I don’t want to be brilliant about how people are dysfunctional—which is something I’ve seen the dominant “helping professional” system operate from—I want to help people be better humans. I do not want to deconstruct why people are dysfunctional, which seems to be what a lot of academia in the social sciences aim for, I want to better the world.
These seem like similar things, but I feel they are fundamentally different. If we focus on all of the sickness of the world, estimating and judging and contemplating the bad things, nothing new comes of it. We has humans are still sick because the work to become better cannot be solely be a reaction to the sickness. The social system we live in is genocidal to the human spirit. I want to live from a place of embracing the truths of aliveness, love and compassion. I don’t want to understand everything that is wrong as a problem to fix. I want to be alive and help others to be alive.
This is where I truly became disenchanted with sociology. I began not to care about social problems on the level which the discipline offered. The understandings of the “problems” and “solutions” that theorists talk about do not help me to form a new way to live. If we stay inside this model, that social dysfunction is a problem to be solved, we stay inside of the problem and are lost in it. Energy from outside this culture needs to be embraced to help us heal.
It’s sad so many people seek to become experts. There is no such thing as a true expert, and the best people can do is to wear the mask of an expert. What is the draw to this? Do they want to be validated or valued by others? Do they want to feel powerful? Is this how they view adulthood?
People seem to look to experts to be reassured that life is linear, non-chaotic, and can be predicted. It seems to me that people act on what experts say because it correlates with what they already feel on the inside. Is this a way to stay a child? To feel safe?
The part in this documentary about the Shaman throwing the bone on the ground is priceless. It happens ten minutes and 30 seconds into the third part of the video. It shows that surrendering the idea that life or life situations can be evaluated, predicted, and measured (thereby trusting a synchronistic force, the cosmos, chance, etc.) is beneficial.
