BEAUTIFUL LOSERS: is it really fiction?

[UbiquiDP]

Whatever phase or obsession I'm in the midst of I can usually see connections with it in Beautiful Losers. Like all great abstract art it reflects the viewer's mind, and what you read into it counts as much to the overall feel as what the author actually wrote. Every time I've read BL it seemed like a vastly different book in many ways and this is obviously because I was a totally different person each time I read it.

Maybe there is something of Project MKULTRA mixed up in the book with all the other hundreds of ideas and influences.

This thread has reminded me why I avoid forums as a rule. I passed thru the other day to make a small observation about something and somehow stumbled onto this. There's just so much stress and ego. Does it really matter that much?

I guess it's the same reason why I've stopped letting my eyes go anywhere near soap-operas and reality tv shows.

Slowly moving toward silence. But still, I can't help but press the send button

Dominic

[Tchocolatl]

I guess it matters so much for humanponeysss2000 'cause she wrote a e-book about that. I think that victims of war - secret or not - have to go over the trauma by letting the world know about their truth. What is wrong with that?

But we must keep things in perspective. Wars always have a shadow, always, always, always, have a look at Bismark's writing, you'll see that he leaded a secret war. So this MKUltra project, this particular project in this particular time in this particulare place is not a unique phenomenon of the universes.

What one can expect, anyway from a "new world" like that :

This is what BL is about also.


Interesting links in connection (among many others):


http://www.npca.org/cultural_diversity/ ... /story.asp

http://thegoldweb.com/voices/sittingbull.htm

***

P.S. : how interesting to read you all about what comes out of BL, people!

[humanponysss2000]

I saw an interesting French film yesterday, called "Cache."

It's about a well-known TV personality (host of a literary talk show) whose family is suddenly terrorized by someone who has them under surveillance.

It's a very good study of paranoia and how it's fuelled by difference of race, class, and so on. The fact that the protagonist is famous means he lives in a glass bubble, and has to protect himself.

By the end, the audience is expecting the inevitable explosion of violence, as the plot keeps building up to a "revenge" scenario.

Well, the ending was a big surprise, and at first I think nobody in the theatre even GOT it. We are all so conditioned to expect the cycle of fear and anger to continue, all the way to Armageddon.

But really, we have a choice in the matter.

The future doesn't always have to be murder.

[~greg]

This thread has reminded me why I avoid forums as a rule.
I passed thru the other day to make a small observation about something
and somehow stumbled onto this. There's just so much stress and ego.
Does it really matter that much?

That's right, Dominic. All this "Sturm und Drang!"
( or, in English: "storm and urge",
or "storm and stress", or "dominic in drag" ...)

Sturm und Drang was revolutionary in its stress on personal subjectivity
and on the unease of man in contemporary society,
and it firmly established German authors as cultural leaders in Europe
at a time when many considered France to be the center of literary development.
(- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang )

Get over it Dominic. "Things have changed."
Your prissy country hasn't contributed anything culturally worthwhile, since the guillotine.

"No doubt you are right, my best of friends, there would be far less suffering
amongst mankind, if men -- and God knows why they are so fashioned --
did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory
of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity."

"And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair,
that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world
than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter
are of less frequent occurrence."

"I have been more than once intoxicated, my passions have always bordered
on extravagance: I am not ashamed to confess it; for I have learned, by my own
experience, that all extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and
astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane."

--- quotes from: The Sorrows of Young Werther

2000 readers committed suicide after reading The Sorrows of Young Werther.

And you may expect no less from this forum, Dominic, after
they read your comment here.

We can only hope that you'll be able to weather
the terrible sense of responsibility for this.
And can go on to lead a normal, and productive, life.

(edited to clarify quotations)

[Kevin W.M.LastYearsMan]

"2000 readers committed suicide after reading The Sorrows of Young Werther."

I don't know, Greg. Sounds like a pretty damn good book to me. From that quote it reads like it would be completely devoid of that pesky ego that he avoids comments boards so as not to see. You know, all of that jive about extrodinary men being misunderstood.

The comments strike me as being from someone who wants to look down on something that he's participating in. But he's above it because he understands the process far better than the rest of us. And he just wants to make sure that we know that. Kind of like Andy Warhol: I'm going to comment on our common culture (or lack of) but I'm going to make fun of it at the same time so that you'll know I'm superior.

Any book that causes 2000 people to off themselves is a book that I'll buy 3000 copies of.
Kevin©
The copyright symbol being my formerly silent homage to Jean Michel Basquiat.

[Kevin W.M.LastYearsMan]

Ooops. the comment about ego wasn't made by the same person who posted the quotes from the Sorrows of Young Werther. My point would have been valid if the same person made both posts.
I just didn't catch the, Dominic wrote, Goeth wrote part.
Kevin

[UbiquiDP]

All I was trying to say was that whenever I go into any forum (on any subject) it's usually filled with threads full of people getting extremely angry about very pedantic points. And then as much as I hate it I usually end up joining in.

Yes, I am a hypocrite and an egomaniac just like everyone else.

I wasn't trying to be above anybody. Who could possibly be above Greg?

I have to admit that I was unaware that the English invented the guillotine, Greg.

I guess I didn't like the idea of someone trying to nail down Beautiful Losers.

That's all really.

Be happy

[Tchocolatl]

The future would likely be made of our choices of today. Mix with what can not be expected. It is not pleasant to think about things that make us suffer, most people wait for the catastrophe to arrive before worrying about an event that could have been avoid with a little more consciousness of the reality. (I’m not talking of being paranoid for nothing.)

The future risks to be murder at this point of the History. This is a red sign. This is a necessary red sign to wake up the minds. I reminber the feeling I had at the end of this sci-fi novel (what was the title again, damn). Anyway. It was very interesting, and the end was unexpected either. In a monastery there was a special place called the “observatory” where a “chosen psychic” of each generation over the centuries took place and read the future for the monks and they were praying and acting accordingly in the world. This “chosen psychic” began with Maître Eckart (who really existed) and after him, they came by themselves at the door of the monastery out of an inspiration, often not knowing why the appealing to go there means, and the monk in charge to recognize the good person and to show him the “facilities” and how to use it take charge of training this person. At this point of the story we were in what is present time for us and a girl came to the monastery doors. It was her. She entered the observatory and when she get out of there… well… she saw the future, baby, it was so murder that not a sole human being was left on earth. It was written... well... Chocking. Simple and efficiently written. After reading this you begin to think that if it happened to the dinosaurs, why not to us? Baby?

People enjoy themselves in their cozy unconsciousness. If they can see the future this state of mind reserves to people they will have an occasion to wake up.

But many people don’t care: in the future, they will be dead. So. Well. I don’t talk about people who do their best. I mean the me-myself-and-I mentality of some people, like a cancer humanity has. We are linked to each other and all living organisms, this is the reality. There is a consequence for what we do. Some psychologists have develop an ecology of the communication between people. I guess it is a good mean to have peace in the future. One between so many. Keep running humanponeysss2000!

I like Daniel Auteuil very much, I must see this film, thanks a lot for the resume.

[humanponysss2000]

Hi Kevin...
Montreal was a big MKULTRA centre in the 1950s, andsome of the reasons were:

(1) a surplus of orphans, controlled by the Catholic Church

(2) McGill's position as an elite anglo university, headed by an American (Cyril James) who was a good friend of the eugenics movement

These stories are not exactly mainstream in Canada. That's why greg said MKULTRA was an urban legend. The whole history of this (I will leave out adjectives like "horrifying" and "bloodcurdling" to avoid offending the censors on this board) has never been officially told.

About the NFB, though: it began as a military propaganda bureau, making newsreels during the war. During the 1950s, it went through some upheaval, different factions tried to take it over. One faction was definitely military, but popular culture turned against that kind of thing in the 1960s. It's interesting to see, though, that important positions at the board often seem to be hereditary: i.e. if your dad worked on war propaganda, you had a good change in the 60s of finding a job there, even if you were outwardly a Flower Power type.

So I'm saying, the NFB, like almost all Canadian media, is a pretty closed, controlled outfit

Angel is interesting, because the sound track is clearly a straight recording of an acid trip. By then the public was ready to start tripping for fun.

Back to BL, which LC began in 1964, before the drug culture was popular. Making it popular was probably a brilliant idea that came after hundreds of people had taken it in experiments.

The LSD experiments at McGill began in about 1950-1, with project ARTICHOKE, essentially a military research project based out of US European headquarters, "coincidentally" located after the war in the IG Farben building in Frankfurt, Germany. US/ British military scientists had already killed a number of POWs and enemy spies with some of the other drugs they started testing on unwitting volunteers at McGill along with LSD. Dr. Cameron himself had conducted some of these lethal experiments in Germany, and found a whole population in Montreal that he could work on. He had the full support of the local press, owned by powerful Scottish-Canadian families that invested heavily in the programs.

The Canadian public has been fed a very different, much-diluted story about all this, and the NFB and CBC have been instrumental in spreading disinformation.

I could go on, because once I start... but it would probably just offend certain people. The implications of all this are... staggering is the word... Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we have a chance to catch up.

Once you know the secret of the experiments, all sorts of pieces suddenly fall into place, but getting the big picture requires some work, and openness of mind.

I did write a book on this, MY COLD WAR is my family's story and is published on line at http://www.lulu.com/content/140313

[lizzytysh]

Hi Ann ~

Perhaps, you could revise your link. When I clicked on it, I got the message that the page I requested cannot be found. In the meantime, I'll try Googling to get to your book.

~ Lizzy

[~greg]

I don't know, Greg. Sounds like a pretty damn good book to me.

"The Sorrows of Werther" was in my father's library
when I was a kid, and I read it then. So it's been a very long time.
But I know there were things in it more worth quoting that those 3 that I did quote.
They just happened to be easy to clip from Wikipedia.
And they seemed relevant.

Off hand, the only thing I remember about Goethe is that I had
some kind of 'thing' about him when I was a kid. I can't even
remember what the 'thing' was.

However, when it came to color-theory, Helmholtz definitely won me
over Goethe.
I know Goethe didn't loose everyone over that.
But those who still think he had anything important to say about it,
tend also to also think there's been some kind of conspiracy cover-up
suppressing his views. Which is an interesting phenomenon
in its own right of course.

I still have a thing about Hermann von Helmholtz, - still have
a picture of him on my wall.


-
About the quotes - I am not sure what your confusion was,
if any, - but we did seem to be on the same page about Dominc's comment.

I feel kind of bad about having picked on the kid.
It was just an impluse I gave into.
And the kid was only responsible for about 17 posts here at that time.

And he's just a kid.

(But I hate kids. "Damn their eyes."
--Kids and puppies.)


But I'll elaborate anyway.

The absolute worst thing about this kid
- this "Dominic"
- is that he is not French!

That's right! You heard me!

He has been calling himself "Dominic" all this time
just to trap me into saying something foolish.

But I've been pretending that I don't know this.
(I'm very good at that.)

Just to see, you know?


And I'll bet he's probably reasonable too,
and just hasn't show it yet just to trap me
into doing something foolish like characterizing him
as categorically unreasonable.

And I'm going to pretend I don't know this either.


Anyway, I wrote this about a half hour ago.....


The kind of thing Dominic said
always reminds me of the the 3 guys with mud on their faces
laughing at each other until one of them realizes he must
have mud on his face too.

Like the line in "A Few Good Men" --
"We wanted to live by a creed: God Corps Country "

Only Dominic's is: "why I avoid forums as a rule."

If that's not ego, I don't know what is.

Dominic wrote:
"Maybe there is something of Project MKULTRA mixed up in the book
with all the other hundreds of ideas and influences.
This thread has reminded me why I avoid forums as a rule.
I passed thru the other day to make a small observation about something
and somehow stumbled onto this. There's just so much stress and ego.
Does it really matter that much?"

His "small observation" had been that the album cover drawing
on Dear Heather looked to him like Anjani.

(--Which is because it is Anjani.
The point had been made by someone else before.)

And then he said:
"Damn, thought I might have actually had an original idea there for a moment.
Oh well... one day.
Dominic"

~

But that was a good observation, by Dominic.

And it was original.

He wasn't quoting it. He hadn't gotten it from anyone.
He got it on his own.

It's just that it turned out that
he happen not to have been the first to get it.

And that's what bothered him.

Which shows that he thinks of forum-exchanges
as some kind of contest.

And if that's not ego, then I don't know what is.



So then what does he do next?
In this dejected mood, with his feeling of failure?

He wanders around. And he sees a place where other people
have been expending a great deal of energy working out
some far-out, far more complex hypotheses
- about much more complex subjects.

( Which I, too, perhaps, happen to fear
will turn up very little of substance
in proportion to the effort being expended on then.

But so what?

It is true
that a lot of the effort is "wasted" in side issues
and ad-hominems and mistakes and unnecessary corrections
and unnecessary insults and unnecessary apologies
and unnecessary and-so-ons. But so what?

I put "wasted" in quotes there because I happen to know a little bit
about thermodynamics. In particular, that the 100% efficient "heat engine"
- is a pure pipe-dream.
It is a theoretical impossibility.

The complete mess which is "heat",
and which is the random motion of creativity,
can not be converted into substantial progress
beyond the Carnot limit.

Which is always less than 100%.

So, if you believe in God,
then to criticize this law,
- the 2nd law of thermodynamics,
- the 1st law of human interaction,
is to criticize God Herself.
)



But Dominic still needed to work-out his feeling of having failed
the "contest" (as he sees it.) He needed to add something,
somewhere, "original".

So he added "a discouraging word"
- a bit of pure stress - pure white noise,
- a pure ego trip,

-- by explaining that, as far as he's concerned,
all this (admittedly sloppy) creativity
that others have been expending
-- is all worthless tripe, to him.
(And he didn't say "to him".
He implied it was tripe categorically.)

And there you have it.
And it didn't contradict the 2nd law.

If Dominic had tried instead to sublimate his feelings of failure
into something creative, then he might have come up with something
useful. But necessarily far less than the 100% conversion of his bad feelings
that he achieved by saying something completely vacuous instead.


There are many many variations of this in any forum.

(Eg "Bee" will come around every now and then, just to say,
just before leaving, that, in her opinion, it was so much more interesting
around here when she used to come around here.
(so maybe she is a 'bee'. It sounds like what
bees might be saying, flower to flower. ))


anyway,

knowing Dominic as I do,
he'll probably now say something that makes complete rubbish
out of all I said here.
That's gratitude for you!

semper fi
~greg

Dominique, nique, nique s'en allait tout simplement,
..

[UbiquiDP]

Yes, my initial post was one of my more stupid ones. But if I apologise it will only sound like more egotism. J D Salinger once wrote, "a confessional passage has probably never been written that didn't stink a little bit of the writers pride at having given up his pride." Or something.

But I am interested in your constant use of the word "failure" Greg. You seem to use it most often when trying to wind someone up. You assume it will annoy them. Which indicates that it's something you yourself find very frightening. Is this something you'd like to talk about with the group? I'm sure we could help in someway. After all there's nothing to fear except fear itself. And spiders of course. And brain experiments. But mostly just fear itself.

I'm here for you brother!!

[humanponysss2000]

Hi Ann ~

Perhaps, you could revise your link. When I clicked on it, I got the message that the page I requested cannot be found. In the meantime, I'll try Googling to get to your book.

~ Lizzy

Hi

Oops
That should have been
MY COLD WAR
http://www.lulu.com/content/140313

[~greg]

I think you're on to something there, Dominic.


This is my all-time favorite song,
- the way Eric Burdon does it:

Many Rivers to Cross
--------------------------------------
- written by Jimmy Cliff
- as performed by Eric Burdon

Many rivers to cross,
But I can't seem to find
My way over.

Wandering, I am lost,
As I travel along
The white cliffs of Dover.

Many rivers to cross,
And it's only my will
That keeps me alive.

I've been licked, washed up for years,
And I merely survive,
Because of my pride.

And this loneliness just won't leave me alone.
Such a drag to be on your own.
My woman left and she didn't say why.
Well, I guess I'll have to try.

~

And this memory just won't leave me alone.
It's such a drag to be on your own.
My woman left, and she didn't say why.
Well, I guess I'll have to try.

Many rivers to cross,
And just where to begin,
I'm playing for time

There's been times I found myself
Thinking of committing
Some terrible crime.

Yes, I've got many rivers to cross,
And I can't seem to find
My way over.

Wandering, I am lost,
As I travel along
The white cliffs of Dover.

Yes,
Many rivers to cross,
Yeah, yeah,
Yeah, yeah,

Playing for time...

I've got many rivers to cross,
And I can't seem to find
My way over, ..Lord

I've got many rivers to cross,
Yeah, yeah,
Yeah, yeah, ...

Playing for time...

[~greg]

Who are that "we" Greg? You? And your multiple personalities ?
Otherwise I want a list of the silent ones behing this "we".

Like as Lizzy said,
it was idiomatic English.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith, being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow;
And yet, to times, in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
- Shakespeare, Sonnet 60

(see http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/60comm.htm , if you like.
But I apologize in advance for this.
I just happen to like the sonnets, and only meant this
as another example of idiomatic English.)



The 'we' in "bored are we?" is idiomatic.
It is not the 1st person plural, like as it seems,
but rather the 2nd person singular, like as it don't seem quite right.

It is however a common form of direct address in English.
Like as 'thou', only from the opposite color:

Another meaning of we is sometimes used in addressing
children, the elderly, and the sick, as in And how are we feeling today?
This is often considered condescending.
- http://www.33beat.com/Why%20Don%2Ct%20W ... Drunk.html

I meant it to sound condescending.

Like as it may be the first leg in a covert under-the-blanket effort
or experiment I'm considering conducting to see if I can make Ann Diamond
think she's a horse, and neigh, solely by means of subtle suggestions
and slippery innuendos, delivered in idiomatic English, across a few posts,
in this popular and important public internet forum.



Either that,
or I was just pissed off about something.

Definition: "idiom: an expression whose meaning
is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements."

Tchocolatl, do you know the American idiom:
"to pussy-foot around"?