Saturday, 26 September 2009
Moritz von Oswald with Max Loderbauer and Vladislav Delay
Throbbing Gristle Make Their Own Buddha Machine

The Buddha Machine is a tiny box that emits calming ambient sounds-- "I've never heard music as good for reading as the Buddha Machine," wrote our own Mark Richardson in a 2006 column praising the device. Something tells me Throbbing Gristle's take on the Buddha Machine-- dubbed the Gristleism-- will not be quite as soothing. Made by the industrial provocateurs along with original Buddha Machine creator Christiaan Virant, the Gristleism features "thirteen original and uncompromising loops" and promises a "mix of signature TG experimental noise, industrial drone, and classic melodies and rhythms." Perfect for those days when you need some background music to go along with dissecting dead animals or staring at TV static. More info here.
Census Worker Killed By Asphyxiation: Police
A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago. The word "fed" was written in felt-tip pen on 51-year-old Bill Sparkman's chest, but authorities have released very few other details in the case, such as whether they think it was an accident, suicide or homicide.@ 'HuffPo'
Friday, 25 September 2009
US Patriot Act used mostly in drug cases
In the debate over the PATRIOT Act, the Bush White House insisted it needed the authority to search people's homes without their permission or knowledge so that terrorists wouldn't be tipped off that they're under investigation.
Now that the authority is law, how has the Department of Justice used the new power? To go after drug dealers.
Only three of the 763 "sneak-and-peek" requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) quizzed Assistant Attorney General David Kris about the discrepancy at a hearing on the PATRIOT Act Wednesday. One might expect Kris to argue that there is a connection between drug trafficking and terrorism or that the administration is otherwise justified to use the authority by virtue of some other connection to terrorism.
He didn't even try. "This authority here on the sneak-and-peek side, on the criminal side, is not meant for intelligence. It's for criminal cases. So I guess it's not surprising to me that it applies in drug cases," Kris said.
"As I recall it was in something called the USA PATRIOT Act," Feingold quipped, "which was passed in a rush after an attack on 9/11 that had to do with terrorism it didn't have to do with regular, run-of-the-mill criminal cases. Let me tell you why I'm concerned about these numbers: That's not how this was sold to the American people. It was sold as stated on DoJ's website in 2005 as being necessary - quote - to conduct investigations without tipping off terrorists."
Kris responded by saying that some courts had already granted the Justice Department authority to conduct sneak-and-peeks. But Feingold countered that the PATRIOT Act codified and expanded that authority -- all under the guise of the war on terror.
Feingold, the lone vote against the PATRIOT Act when it was first passed, is introducing an amendment to curb its reach. "I'm going to say it's quite extraordinary to grant government agents the statutory authority to secretly break into Americans homes," he said.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
From Qaddafi's 'The Green Book'

WTF???
Fox & Qaddafi
Fox -- which refuses to broadcast speeches by President Obama -- put Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi on air for 90 minutes Wednesday. (CNN and MSNBC also broadcast the bizarre speech.)
When Fox finally cut Qaddafi short, 'reporter' Eric Shawn immediately said "the top news" of Qaddafi's speech was that "he kept on calling Barack Obama 'our son'...because of the President's African heritage."
Transcript:
FOX ANCHOR JON SCOTT: Wearing his regal robes, Muammar Qaddafi gets ready to speak to the United Nations General Assembly. I'm Jon Scott along with Jane Skinner.
[ fast-forward through 90 minutes of Qaddafi rambling ]
FOX REPORTER ERIC SHAWN: Let me start with what is probably one of the top issues that he raised, the top news, in the sense that he kept on calling Barack Obama "our son." Muammar Qaddafi referred to him as "our son." He called the President of the United States "my son." He says this because of the President's African heritage.
By the way, remember that the same Fox News that just gave Qadaffi a 90 minute platform to spew his propaganda attacked President Obama earlier this week because a U.N. seating chart may end up seating President Obama near the Libyan leader during a Security Council meeting.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Hakim Bey - Poetic Terrorism
Weird dancing in all night computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave poetic terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of existence. Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.
Go naked for a sign.
Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty.
Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--poetic terrorist-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement...
The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by poetic terrorism ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the poetic terrorism is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails.
Poetic terrorism is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, poetic terrorism must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerrilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now.
An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate poetic terrorism. The poetic terrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE.
Don't do poetic terrorism for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the poetic terrorist Muse has possessed you.
Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best poetic terrorism is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.
T.A.Z. by Hakim Bey, produced by Bill Laswell will be posted at (Son of) very soon



