MirrorsANDillusion

The Contemporary Pedant Continued

Two really is better than one.

Musical Chairs

Lucas Porter is a composer and one of three amazing classical musicians I have the privilege of collaborating with this April.

Look Up

Etching Room.

Time To Relax

Ben Buckland

For the past three years I have been trying to persuade my very talented friend, Mr Ben Buckland to print. Hopefully this will be the last push he needs!

Hipster and The Artist

I've  just read a fascinating article in New York Magazine titled, What Was the Hipster? Here are some interesting points.

There was an aestheticization of the mode of pastiche, as a characteristic mode of postmodern narrative. 
Here, “blank parody” gave way to a reconstruction of past techniques more perfect than the originals, in an irony without sarcasm, bitterness, or critique. Reflexivity was used as a means to get back to sentimental emotion.

After 9/11  the wifebeater-wearer’s machismo no longer felt subversive, the artistic concern with innocence turned from human absolution to the fragile world where life transpired in some more loving, spacious, and manageable future. 

In culture, the Hipster Primitive moment recovered the sound and symbols of pastoral innocence with  irony.

The contemporary hipsterism has been defined by an obsessive interest in the conflict between knowingness and naïveté, guilty self-awareness and absolved self-absorption. However the game of knowing-in-advance can be played with maximum refinement.

Within the Hipster Primitive there emerged a glimmer of an idea of refusal.

Witches Evolving Perceptions

I've always been drawn to Salem and have longed to visit Sleepy Hollow in NY.

Ergot is a powerful hallucinogenic. 

When eaten, there was the risk of death, but when absorbed through the thin tissues of the female genitals, the hallucinogenic effects were more pronounced with less ill-effects.  

Witch and broomstick was inspired by the sight of a woman rubbing herself on the drug coated smooth stick of her broom, writhing in the throes of hallucinations.