Head Like a Hole
God money, I'll do anything for you
God money, just tell me what you want me to
God money, nail me up against the wall
God money, don't want everything, he wants it all
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take that away from me
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take that away from me
Head like a hole, black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control
Head like a hole, black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
God money's not looking for the cure
God money's not concerned about the sick among the pure
God money, let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised
God money's not one to choose
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take that away from me
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take it
No, you can't take that away from me
Head like a hole, black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control
Head like a hole, black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
... You know who you are.
— Trent Reznor, 1989
"The improvement of men's minds and the improvement of his lot are one and the same thing"
— Francis Bacon
"The complexity of the problems facing mankind is growing faster than our ability to solve them"
— Doug Engelbart
"VR can either be beautiful art and sympathy or terrible spying and manipulation. We set its meaning"
— Jaron Lanier
With Savage-Pictures fill their Gaps;
And o’er uninhabitable Downs
Place Elephants
for want of Towns
— Jonathan Swift
Marry me, girl, be my fairy to the world, be my very own constellation
A teenage bride with a baby inside getting high on information
And buy me a star on the boulevard, it's Californication
Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement
And Cobain can you hear the spheres singing songs off Station To Station?
And Alderaan's not far away, it's Californication
Born and raised by those who praise control of population
Well, everybody's been there and I don't mean on vacation
— Red Hot Chili Peppers
"I wish to God these calculations were executed by steam..."
— Charles Babbage, The Analytical Engine
I woke the same
As any other day except a voice was in my head
It said, "Seize the day
Pull the trigger, drop the blade and watch the rolling heads"
The day I tried to live
I stole a thousand beggar's change
And gave it to the rich, yeah
The day I tried to win
I dangled from the power lines
And let the martyrs stretch, yeah
Singing one more time around (I might do it)
One more time around (I might make it)
One more time around (I might do it)
One more time around (I might make it)
The day I tried to live, yeah
Words you say
Never seem to live up to the ones inside your head
The lives we make
Never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead
The day I tried to live
I wallowed in the blood and mud
With all the other pigs, hey
— Christopher Cornell
Celui-là tissera des toiles;
One will weave the canvas;
l’autre dans la forêt par l’éclair de sa hache couchera l’arbre.
another will fell a tree by the light of his ax.
L’autre, encore, forgera des clous,
Yet another will forge nails,
et il en sera quelque part qui observeront les étoiles afin d’apprendre à gouverner.
and there will be others who observe the stars to learn how to navigate.
Et tous cependant ne seront qu’un.
And yet all will be as one.
Créer le navire ce n’est point tisser les toiles, forger les clous, lire les astres,
Building a boat isn’t about weaving canvas, forging nails, or reading the sky.
mais bien donner le goût de la mer qui est un, et à la lumière duquel il n’est plus rien qui soit contradictoire mais communauté dans l’amour.
It’s about giving a shared taste for the sea, by the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a community of love.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “Citadelle” (“The Wisdom of the Sands”) 1948
Cosmopolitan Greetings
Stand up against governments, against God.
Stay irresponsible.
Say only what we know & imagine.
Absolutes are Coercion.
Change is absolute.
Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.
Observe what’s vivid.
Notice what you notice.
Catch yourself thinking.
Vividness is self-selecting.
If we don’t show anyone, we’re free to write anything.
Remember the future.
Freedom costs little in the U.S.
Advise only myself.
Don’t drink yourself to death.
Two molecules clanking us against each other require an observer to become
scientific data.
The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal
world (after Einstein).
The universe is subjective..
Walt Whitman celebrated Person.
We are observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.
Universe is Person.
Inside skull is vast as outside skull.
What’s in between thoughts?
Mind is outer space.
What do we say to ourselves in bed at night, making no sound?
“First thought, best thought.”
Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.
Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.
Syntax condensed, sound is solid.
Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.
Move with rhythm, roll with vowels.
Consonants around vowels make sense.
Savour vowels, appreciate consonants.
Subject is known by what she sees.
Others can measure their vision by what we see.
Candour ends paranoia.
— Alan Ginsberg
St. Andrew's Day, 1935
Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over
The bending poplars, newly bare,
And the dark ribbons of the chimneys
Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,
Torn posters flutter; coldly sound
The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves,
And the clerks who hurry to the station
Look, shuddering, over the eastern roves,
Thinking, each one, ‘Here comes the winter!
Please God I keep my job this year!’
And bleakly, as the cold strikes through
Their entrails like an icy spear,
They think of rent, rates, season tickets,
Insurance, coal, the skivvy’s wages,
Boots, school-bills, and the next instalment
Upon the two twin beds from Drage’s.
For if in careless summer days
In groves of Ashtaroth we whored,
Repentant now, when winds blow cold,
We kneel before our rightful lord;
The lord of all, the money-god,
Who rules us blood and hand and brain,
Who gives the roof that stops the wind,
And, giving, takes away again;
Who spies with jealous, watchful care,
Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,
Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,
And maps the pattern of our days;
Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,
And buys our lives and pays with toys,
Who claims as tribute broken faith,
Accepted insults, muted joys;
Who binds with chains the poet’s wit,
The navvy’s strength, the soldier’s pride,
And lays the sleek, estranging shield
Between the lover and his bride.
— George Orwell, 1935
Before [his] eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary Deep - a dark
illimitable ocean, without bound,
without dimension.
— Milton
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at;
— Henry David Thoreau
The gentle journey jars to stop.
The drifting dream is done.
The long gone goblins loom ahead;
The deadly, that we thought were dead,
Stand waiting,
every one.
— Walt Kelly
"Remember, though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp
- provided it’s loaded."
— Robert A. Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Chapter 1, “The Marching Hordes” (p. 14)
"All understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears."
— Susan Sontag
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“We live in a world of Applications, but if you think about it applications are one of the worst ideas anybody had. [...] Applications kind of draw a barrier around your ability to do things, what you really want is to gather the resources that you need to you and make the things that you want out of them”
— Alan Kay
Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in a trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out, kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin cap
In a pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten.
Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA
Look out, kid
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don't tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plainclothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.
Ah, get sick, get well
Hang around an ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You're gonna get hit
By losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hanging 'round the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin' for a new fool
Don't follow leaders
Watch the parkin' meters.
Ah, get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles.
— Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twighlight of the Idols
But maybe I did go mad for a time, I don't know. There are days that are great blanks to me now, as I stand here on the brink of Chaos. God knows what they held, and I'll never see a shrink to find out.
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber