TagGrant Morrison
My friend Richard Phantastica has a blog, with posts about EsoTech, Grant Morrison, Gilles Deleuze, and William S. Burroughs. Check it out.
Wes Unruh explores Timothy Leary’s Neurocomics (torrent here) and Alan Moore’s Promethea (torrent here):
As I was reading this work, I was struck by how similar the work is to that of Alan Moore, specifically Promethea. Not simply the psychedelic nature of the work, but the way in which both of these works were about the underlying philosophical and metaphysical beliefs of the authors, and both presented in the most holistic way possible. They’re more like modern alchemical texts, grimoires for the psychonaut, without the layers of metaphor that Mike Carey might throw in or the allegories Chris Claremont developed to spread occultic ideas through more mainstream comics. (Granted, Grant Morrison does this in his own way as well, but not everyone is fully armed to read The Filth and his politics have raised more than a few eyebrows… )
These comments from the Grant Morrison in Arthur Magazine thread but I thought it would be worth highlighting them on the front page.
The first comment comes from Trevor Blake:
Role models for Aryan supermen, cartoon ethics, trusting in Bush / Blair /Nixon, negating the drive toward individuality, the holocaust was perfectly valid… y’all remember this next time you hear someone say ‘I don’t like [x], he’s a fascist.’
Morrison found flaws in his previous sense of what the purpose of his life and life in general was. He ditched the flawed understanding. Excellent.
He replaced it with a bigger ‘purpose’ in which everyone is as groovy as everyone else. Bunk.
Here’s the scoop: he, me, everyone, and everything has no ‘purpose.’ Some humans can give themselves a purpose that is satisfying. That’s about it.
In response, I cited another choice Morrison quote:
‘Asked about the current state of the world, particularly the war in Iraq, Mr. Morrison offered, ?perhaps it’s just an essential part of the system, as horrible as that may seem.’ He wasn’t particularly interested in being part of any active anti-war movement, and noted that in his previous experience, a number of those people only seemed to be ?interested in meeting up with the police.”
Then I went on:
I’d like to think that it goes with out saying that I don’t endorse Morrison’s philosophy on this, but since people very frequently confuse my opinions with the opinions of people I quote here, I figure I’ll set the record straight: I think Morrison’s whole ‘it’s all part of the system’s plan’ philosophy is a bunch of crap. I’m also not fond of his ‘individuality is an illusion’ stuff.
I don’t disagree with what I’ve read about Manuel DeLanda’s position on individuals and societies, but I haven’t read his new book yet. Shaviro’s review is here. He seems to reach a logical conclusion distinct from the over-romanticizing of of the individual and the problematic concepts of new age collectivism.
I look forward to reading Bloom’s Lucifer Principle as well.
‘Here’s the scoop: he, me, everyone, and everything has no ‘purpose.’ Some humans can give themselves a purpose that is satisfying. That’s about it.’
Agreed, more or less. Nothing has any meaning save for what we impose on it. This is not bad/depressing, but liberating.
Bush and his cronies did not have to invade Iraq to fulfill some systemic destiny. They made a choice. We have a choice as well – accept the decisions made by the control machines, or struggle to change things.
Arthur Magazine has posted their now classic interview with Grant Morrison on their web site:
And The Filth came out of that, trying to understand that every cherished thought and belief had an equally valid counterpoint. Once I realized I had to think about this stuff and I had to deal with it, I decided to treat it as an Abyss experience, based on the ideas of kabbalistic magic. Because that at least gave me a context to deal with the experience. According to Kabbalah, or to Enochian magic, the Abyss is a kind of Ring-Pass-Not for consciousness, which means that beyond that, the typical self-aware 11-bit consciousness you use to get through the day, doesn’t operate. The kabbalistic idea of the Abyss is manifold. There’s a kind of crack in Being and the crack is the moment of the Breath before the Big Bang. It’s also the crack of dead time where we do nothing when we’d like to do something, the crack between the thought of doing and actually doing. That gulf can become immense and daunting. We might decide to be President and do nothing, leading to a life of reproach and regret. [chuckle] Then you’re in the Abyss. So I felt this confrontation with difficult material coming, and I chose to frame it as a trip into the Abyss, I took the Oath of the Abyss, from the Thelemic version of Kabbalah, the Aleister Crowley version, and…again all this stuff really is to me ways of contextualizing states of consciousness. Crowley also talks about the demon Choronzon who’s the guardian of the Abyss, and Choronzon is a demon who takes any thought and amplifies until it becomes a completely disorienting storm of disconnected gibberish.
Jesse Walker’s wonderful obit for Robert Anton Wilson at Reason.
Also, here’s a post to Reason’s blog about Wilson’s influence in libertarian thinking. I chime in in the comments with some quotes by RAW about socialism, not so much to refute the idea that he was a libertarian, but to show the nuance of his political thinking.
R.U. Sirius’s Revolution Party platform was a great attempt at creating a reasonable fusion of libertarian and left-wing political thinking, though I think it was ultimately too heavy on goals and too short on solutions (Note: I once tried to found an official Washington State Revolution Party based on R.U.’s platform).
RAW’s diverse literary legacy includes the likes of Grant Morrison, James Curcio, and Damon Lindelof… but what about his political legacy? I’ve been impressed with the balanced thought of a lot of people at Reason Magazine (especially Walker), and I think Abe Burmeister is one of the most insightful commentators around (I’ve plugged his Nomad Economics book before). And of course, Ken Macleod. Any other “non-Euclidean” political thinkers I’m forgetting?
If anyone is swinging by Technoccult after the talk I gave tonight, follow the link for a couple decent videos which we didn’t have the time to cover in class:
This first video will expand on the practise of the sigil which we covered in the last part of class. This is of Grant Morrison, author and head of the London lodge of the Illuminates of Thanateros. And he’s wearing a Donna Karan suit, mmm yeah:
Here are the links to the Marik essays, which are really quite phenomenal pieces on chaos magic in general and should be required reading (not just for you all, but for anyone on this site in general):
Another pop culture reference, by Nine Inch Nails, where the lyrics are worth more than the visuals, but here it is in its multimedia format from the live show. Listen to the lyrics and refer back to class:
And if you have the time, a good speech put on by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club:
A link to the PDF handout I mentioned for download in class.
The one email in particular I recieved years ago from one student, a science major, who experimented with sigila.
Cheers, everyone!
Don
Nagi Noda has directed this Coca-Cola ad, which I believe is airing in the U.K. and Australia. We witness a girl drinking cola then progressing in iterative static poses down through the house and out into the garden. Here other people are encountered in similar sequential mode, providing a dizzying display of colour based on the Coke branding. The characters interact and the static scenes are seamlessly intercut with live action throughout the continuous long shot.
For anyone familiar with The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison, Noda’s commercial struck me as extremely reminiscent of the issues in which Ragged Robin gets stuck in and outside of time. Interesting to watch if you’re a fan of the comic or the concept in general.
Watch an embedded video via the jump.
Something I’ve been meaning to blog for a while: Barbelith’s been compiling a Grant Morrison interview archive.
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