The Prince, his infamous Chapter 15

So is Machiavelli a realist? or a devil? i would say he's a realist, as he broke away from the usual "should be's" of how a king should behave, usually in a religious context, and looked at how truth manifests itself in practicality, or, in other words, he was more interested in truths that manifest themselves through effect, in the real world, not in a systematic value system that has no grounding in the :real world"...but this philosophy works for those who are practically minded, those who cannot rise to the shoulds of religious virtue, those who care not to rise to them and only care for worldly power...but there are those who rise, who seek to rise, and have the optimism to try and reach them, and are revered because of it, Machiavelli was only interested in the prince and his keeping of power, his keeping of the state, and if this meant he must do evil deeds then he must, but if you read elsewhere, he deplores the ones who do nothing but malice upon his own people and those of others, yet they are a good case study in how to keep power, because fortune deals her blows in whatever way she seems fit, and if evil triumphs over her obstacles, then, to Machiavelli, so be it...

whatever to keep your power, to Machiavelli, this is the name of the game in this treatise: power, to have said anything else, would be to regurgitate what had already come before, and his work would have drowned among the many

it is interesting how people have approached this work, how the term "Machiavellian" came to be, the senses it connotes, when i don't think he believed in these things, i don't think that murder and deceit and cunning are things he believed was at the heart of great men, or that he thought these things were "right", whatever that may mean, i think his code was beyond good or evil, it is about power, and the use and keeping of it, is power beyond good and evil? is that why power studies became so popular? because it is a step away from morality? is being a realist one who is out of morality's bounds? "whatever it takes" mentality, "no matter what you have to do" and these kinds of diatribes

its about a code of living, and, ironically it seems, that the lives of kings, kings of men, must be more practical than most, even though they are regarded as being the closest to God (minus the pope?) and could this be a message then? of the system? that the closer one is to reality, the closer one is to God? yet i cannot accept this version either, for in the mundane we are lost in it, the world...yet to find, once again, a balance, to find God in the World, that would be the goal? maybe its Einsteinian, the relativism of it all, that one must know thyself to realize which of the truths will work best, either for you, or any given situation...some need practicality, some need spirituality, could there ever be, one code?

Machiavelli says that man will have his virtues and his vices no matter what, and it is up to him, and his virtu, to decide how he will use them...in terms of kings, how they will serve him in his ruling of the state, and by extension, the ruling of one's life in all its forms, the State as life proper or the State as metaphor for life...i like to read Machiavelli like this, like Sun Tzu's Art of War, read as metaphor, as a how-to guide for living one's life

Machiavelli's The Prince...Some Thoughts

Build on the power of the people, they are not as mud, the nobles can be made and unmade everyday, those who commit crimes on the way to the throne, have difficulty in keeping what is deemed theirs by the time they reach it, it is best to be with the people, on the side of them, than those of the petty nobles, but do beware those nobles who are ambitious and want what is yours by right, they will go to great lengths in discarding you once you are met with adversity!

a parable of speech but one worth of the undertaking...

Use cruelty only when necessary and use it quickly, for the terrors that are needed day by day only serve to loosen your grip, use deceit and cruelty quickly hmmmm, does make sense, leave them with awe and satisfied, with awe and satisfied! how pungent, how true!  give them their thirst for blood! their vindictive thirst for justice! meet it and quench it, then they will be yours! they as the people, and perhaps the nobles as well...

Ah Lady Fortune, dost thou smile upon me? or thee? or...? Niccolo says to manhandle the wench, to get what is deemed yours, so Fortune's a dirty whore now? ie: see Macbeth for further reading on this one...
"And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, 
Show'd like a rebel's whore..."

Funny how Fortune has been seen as both male and female, how about Fortune as LBG? or tranny?...or a dog? that'd make sense, right?


Machiavelli has turned out to be not so hmmm...Machiavellian


The guy's got a conscience, its obvious, the whole "through whatever means" is there but its not like he agrees with it, in fact, he says one may acquire power through evil, yet he will not acquire glory, which, apparently, is the be all, end all of any great man/woman, existence proper etc. He says it himself that deeds, cruel deeds, which may be necessary for one to hold onto power, are evil, its not like he's throwing a blind eye at the situation, he's being pragmatic, practical, right? it was a manual, a how-to, an answers.com, a how to be a prince for dummies, dummy book, for a dummy, some fatcat Medici whom he wanted to impress just so he could get a job, his old job back that is, poor guy got demoted to being in the fields, (of his own villa btw) yet to a man like Niccolo, this was banishment and removal from what he held most dear, which can be tormentous, his own state...


p.s.: tormentous ...yeah, that's gonna make it to Websters one day...

p.p.s.: well, technically, he was actually banished from Florence, soooo not really demoted, was actually removed from the city by big burly Italian men who smelled of nasty Medici but...the sense is the same, right?

December 2011: Black Metal

How fitting, the darkest time of the year, yet one of the most festive, let's bring on the black metal!

1) Venom - Welcome to Hell (1981) - can definitely see, given the year (1981), of Motorhead's influence, mix of punk and rock, yet adding this satanic imagery, taking the "dark" gimmick to its most extreme, so here comes a dividing line (in terms of performer): was it only a gimmick? to be used as imagery from which to work with certain issues? or was it an extension of belief, are the people i'm listening to really believers in satanism? LaVey brand? is it so important that they be believers? what is the use of authenticity if we have the so-called "suspension of belief" necessary for fantasy/science fiction? whats the difference, if the stage/recording sets us apart as consumers, for the takers it is up to them to decide what is important to them, if and how they will understand what is being performed...

"In League With Satan" great song!

Halloween Music 2011: Goth

Explored the realm of Goth music this month, this month of Halloween, the decaying nougat of scary sentiment pouring out your eyeballs in an ecstasy of ne'er-do-wellin' goodness, or badness, or chaotic black hole in hearts smashed into strandy bits left in the mouths of wolves full of bloody cherokee tampon heads...anyways, there was none of this sap, as i have a strict aversion to such things, the over-heightened drama of what goth has become, yet drama has always played a part in it has it not? the idea of "gothic", perhaps but not so in the victorian sense, that verge of change, that intermediary between two worlds smashing, colliding, pummeling (great word)...dracula, frankenstein, the classics, right? goth. what is it, really? gothic architecture of the 14th century, what makes it so, goth? as before mentioned, could it be that meshing of difference, and the struggle to adapt? old and new?

Then how has the sense of  "darkness" come to play an integral, if not stereotypical, role in such discussion? these be my own musings of the subject, (have no research done) there could be the idea that darkness prevails in times of change, in times of struggle, the conflict brings about the dark, that surely is where struggle takes place, our first struggle in the darkness of the womb? our refreshing capture of the light seems to take us, entranced, into the realms of completion, of arrival, the transformation is complete here in the light, could it be otherwise? the gothic, the transferal, transitive exploration of struggle, for is it not in the forest out on the rim where our mysteries dwell? the unknown? the dark? tis where our unconscious is brewing, tis where it works, out in those hidden woods...

Here are the musics i checked out:

1) Xmal Deutschland - Fetisch (1981) und 3 EP's: GroBstadtindianer, Incubus Succubus, Sickle Moon great band, Fetisch and the first two EPs are golden, full of gothic/horror imagery, lo-fi production and a lot of imagination...memorable hooks as well as in "Incubus Succubus" and "Orient", need brush up on me German but really not necessary to enjoy their soundscapes...sadly, like so many, through the years they became more and more polished, more mainstream, and regrettably just awful, i mean by the third album the vocals are in English, as in, "we want commercial success! please love us america!" talent and ingenuity gave way to access, no good. Sickle Moon EP starts in this direction as well...at least we still can appreciate their real work: the early years!


2) And Also The Trees - And Also The Trees (1984) intense vocals, impish guitar, nice early goth!

3) UK Decay - 1979 to 1982 Singles (a fan compilation?) started out: delicious UK punk, soon morphing to the goth sound, perhaps could always be known as proto-goth?

4) Danse Society - Heaven Is Waiting (1984) and 3 EPs: There Is No Shame In Death, Wake Up, and We're So Happy great archetypal early goth sound from the UK, great EPs, the album not so much, tends to become lifeless and bland for a whole listen, you could get just as much out of the EPs and two songs from the album, "Come Inside" and "Wake Up", both are enough to satisfy your gothic black heart's desire!

5) Bauhaus - In The Flat Field (1980) too bad i missed the live show! great stuff, namely "Dark Entries" and "Double Dare"

6) The Cure - Pornography (1984) and whats a gothic review study without a little Cure, huh? heard this one before, threw it in the pot for thickness, this album to me (and as i found out part of a gothic trilogy of albums, the point when the cure found their niche, their classic goth sound) is a little raunchy for the cure, and helped to define their moody, dark sound

Halloween Horror II: The Foreign Horrors

Xenophilic foray into the horror sublime...stuck with that which was not uprooted and regurgitated from the American film collection, but wanted to sprout out, into the horror sublimities of foreign lands, foreign ideals and culture, what does the horror aesthetic mean in these different perspectives? these differing cultures? are there Bakhtinian carnivals in us all? universals to be shied away from, there are the viscerals of horror, the fear, is fear universal? are typical American fears the same as Japanese or Congolese fears? What is to be scared of in the Philippines? Do they find what is gross to be analogous to our own vomitings? Unfortunately i cannot peruse them all for now, since as far as my minuscule research has shown, there are sadly no Congolese horror films that i am aware of (Congo does not count, bad, bad American movie with animatronic apes"Ugly, woman...") but is interesting a thought nevertheless, what fears are universal? if at all? death? murder? open-faced surgery? monsters? demons? ghosts? what do our fears tell us about others and ourselves? across cultures? what does the term, horror, mean in these other lands, with other topography, religions and foodways? an interesting discussion to be sure, here's what i found...

1. Man Bites Dog (1992) cult film classic, serial killer genre, shot in the cinema verite style, follows a murderous rampage by Benoit by a happenstance film crew, whose goal here is to showcase ...? is it obvious? evil? murder? etc? based on this thesis, this narrative of a murderer's life, down to the balmy sundries of his trivial life/lives, are the viewers implicit? being entertained by this monster? we ae charmed by his wit and humor, his charisma splashes across the screen, do we root him on?only the most sadistic of us,

the "darker times" of the latter half of the film, after the film crew have ensconced themselves within the patronage of Ben, after they ran out of funding for "film", cannot pursue the project without the film, they have become interdependent, co-dependent even, in their relationship, one fueling the other, it does indeed seem that his escapades seem to heighten with every frame shot, yet we cannot be sure of this given no account of his actions before filming, yet it does seem to call into question the act with audience relationship, the seeming want of the audience for him to outdo himself every time, the voyeurism turned to bloodlust, can he top himself with every slash and cut? are those who watch with vigilance, implicit in the murders? as are the film crew, who only turn to become his lackeys by the end, in need of patronage, they become guilty, yet were they not from the outset? from the first frame shot upon a victim dying their last breath?

Ben as artist, proved as such with his colors of aesthetic philosophy, music, and poetry, is seen in a certain light: an artist. and so with every artist, there is a need for an audience, and as we perceive his "work" we perceive moral and ethical ambiguity resound, a kind of performance art as it were, only if it were real, would not be judged the same, it is comedic and distant enough for us to, in the abstract, philosophize the problem of Benoit and cinema verite in general...

Are we not participants in this moral outrage? are we not murderers as well? swooned by delight and intelligence, charisma? we have effectively said yes to Manson and Jones, cult-effective proper, yet should this all be taken so seriously? or should it? tends to blur the line between participant and observer, as in Bakhtin's carnival, in fact, it has some other similarities with his functions of carnival: crown/decrown, curses and billingsgate (could the actor here murdering be an example of this parade? this ceremony?) the mesalliances that happen: ie the serial killer with his mother, and grandparents (where is the father btw? no mention hmmm...) having jovial times, the pairings could be seen here? perhaps? is this what makes the proverbial serial killer who hides by day in his white collar existence a method example of carnival? a mixing of distinct realities in an "everyday"moral world where distinction is king, to a realm of undivided awareness and insanity a collection of haphazards...

Man Bites Dog as carnival!

July 2011: Werrrrrnerrrrrr (Werner Herzog Film Festival)

In celebration of Herzog's (finally and much anticipated) Cave of Forgotten Dreams coming to the local cinema, thought a ramble through his other works was in order for the month, a trip through documentary, fictional realizations, and montage surrealist escapes in the nether, without ever seeming to detach completely from existence at large, culminating in the sense of drama that alludes to the idea of fantasy and reality, the interconnectedness of each, and the difference that surrounds them both, seeming opposites upon a connected stripe...all of them filtered through Herzog's unique and sublimating keen sense of his/our world, and his inner mind...

Herzog shares with me a sense of the infinite, and the finite, the things in the universe that inspire awe, sublimity and those things and events that reach farther downward, more vertical in perceiving, reaching towards the bottom, and the highest reaches: religion, science, myth, history, the dark, the light, the Popol Vuh...creation and destruction, atrophy and entropy, are all flush within his creating, his recognizing, also the absurd and the insane, elements of which seem to always be present in his work, for, tis within him for sure, as in us all...those great translators are those who have not fully gone, for the fully recognized ones are the ones who cannot share, for they are fully dead in mind, in body , in soul, and cannot reach out to us, nor should they care to, having been immersed in such victifying liquid...no they have gone indeed, never to return as it seems, as it should be, as it has always been and will be...yet those who have tasted, those who taste, those whose existence lies on the parallel, on the border of which, those are the greatest artists that have ever lived, those who can share with us the oblivion of living and dying, of life and death, of the dark and the light, and live to tell us in creative ways, in ways that we can relate to, understand and comprehend those things that seem alien, that seem too unrealistic to care for, puts us in the right frame of mind to care, changing our paradigm perhaps for the rest of our lives, worn through the essence of being...

1) Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011) An excellent work, and saw it in 3D, which was probably one of the greatest uses of the technology besides pure entertainment, for purely entertainment purposes, for it brought to life those cave walls, and the paintings upon them, made by some long distant relative of us all (??) in spirit and in blood, that charismatic artist, or that sullen, melancholic one, who found himself in the cave, with an urge to create, was it random? was ti ritualized? was it everything he or she had hoped it would be? did he make error in his mind? in his fully formed, modern man, living prehistoric mind? did he ask for help? did he do it alone>? did the ones who came after finish his work when he was left stranded to die within the cave? or was he rushed off in a hurried scene, relishing his work, was it a sacred ritual, was it a place that was used for centuries? for days? for an hour? did trees and the ground outside not fit his ideal of the "perfect canvas"? how long did it take? did he feel like it was his masterpiece? was the best thing he had ever done? or were they sketches upon the rock in passing idleness? did the mean anything? did they mean anything at all? was it entertainment? was it obsessive? compulsive? must he had done it then or never?

30,000 years ago were they made, were they inscribed upon the wall of that there cave, what others lurk in the shadows upon our Earth? waiting to be found? or not waiting, but fulfilling their very purpose in the dark? what do the tell us? now? of ourselves and of them they who drew it upon the rockened stone? leaving it up to them to decide for us, would be too easy a task, thousands upon thousands of years had to pass for the journey to be complete, for the art to be pleasured and absorbed, studied by those and all of us who still care to look, how many were showed? did he feel pride? was it a woman instead? waiting for the hunt to come? watching the youngers in boredom and disbelief she inscribed upon the wall "i want this here, i want this...i covet that which i do not have" was there jealousy in the midst? was there cunning? Herzog was mostly transparent in this, as he should have been, only coming to the fore in bits with his Herzoggian insights, which up until the end (with the postscript numbers one and two) were completely Herzog and welcome, for his always broadens the mind in some way, he who hath made the journey to tell us from the parallel...

2) Grizzly Man (2005) Actually my second documentay by Herzog, Caves being the first, my first film having been Aguirre, Wrath of God from the "Insanity" series earlier in the year...also an excellent production by Herzog, still want to read the book that I suppose this documentary is based on, or better yet is supplemented with, however, the story is told with interview and with Timothy Treadwell's own video footage of his time spent with the bears, what gets me is the declination of his story, how it concludes and dovetails to the ending times, the hungry bear, isloated, not one that Timpothy was actuaslly famiolar with, the fact that he had come back to the area, at a time when he had never been there, his girlfriend with him, later in the year, after the summer was over, perhapos towrds hibernation time, food was scace and herees this hunman hanging around...it seemed cold, callous or was that a Herzoggian goggle? Timothy did indeed look anxious when he made his last taping, just minutes before he was attacked, anxious to leave tje front of the cmaera, anxious like he did indeed sense some dread, that death was lurkinr round the bush within a bear...or was that a Herzoggian goggle? were we lead to these conclusions by Herzog? isntr that what filmmakers do? all artists, all humans trying to make a point, indeed? bias manifest, yet for all that argu,memt, i do see it..."was this the bear?" Herzog asks, but metaphorically speakinf, Timothy did it to himslef, he did indeed walk the linme of the parallel, the obllisvion line, and Herzog took it from his death to compekete the jouirney, to relate to us, yet most people disreghard him as crazy, sadlym, they do not undrtans Timopthy nd what he was trying to do, its a shame really, a man who had no direction, was spiraling down anwya, takes it uiponm himself to chamion the bears of the alaskan wild, to educate those back "home" abotu what he has learned, wa slearnign at the time, he was beneficial, his work will endure and live on, yet what Herzog has done, is showcse the biographjy of a man set on destructon, yet one could not see it upon hsi outer libning, his enthusiasm, he was indeed becoming more and more detached from reality, one could argue this was how it all started anyways, but those who run the parallel are always said as such, as those who are crazy, insane, dense, on a path of self-destruction, Timothy was all these but so much more, he wanted a place, a significance, and whether it was insanity or bravery is up for debate, perhaps a mixture of the two?

Was it the bear, or Timothy himself who ate him up? Culpability seems to always dictate, yet the story's power lies not in this, nor his guilt for including his girlfriend on this dangerous expedition, again culpability aside, here is a man who did what most would not, would not even fathom, but because of this, he faced any fears he may have had, and overcame them, even to his own peril. and the peril of others, he loved it, til the end, he loved what he did, he relished every moment, how is that insane? perhaps those who bitter at their own lives, for seconds can empathize, yet what they tend to walk away with is, "Yeah, that Timothy guy is crazy..."

Romeo and Juliet cont...

"Through our tragedy are our bonds enlightened..." thus 'tis not Shakespeare, yet seems to be a summing of where we're headed in this play at large...yet in tragedy as in happiness/comedy do we also strengthen our bonds to our fellow common man, through life in general, the point? to live at large, living correctly fuses and endures our bonds with others, with indeed, the World?

but what does "living correctly" mean anyways?

Shakespeare fuses ideas together that are complex as they are beautiful, shadowing and enlisting facets of life that are enduring and woven, complexity that I heretofore had not realized, perhaps his insights are a part of what makes him a great dramatist? storyteller? poet? Surely. He brushes across certain ideas that are interesting like paradoxes and contradictions that are at home in each other's presence but not upon first glance are they in union, in fact, they are tied through their opposition, connected by what makes them opposing and at odds, their differences...one such idea connection not like this and infinitely interesting is the connection between love and death, Sjhakespeare has his characters Romeo and Juliet espouse such loving tender poetry to each other yet at the same time they touch upon darker aspects which truly give the story depth and feeling, a pathos, without which, would have the play wanting methinks

"Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye/
Than twenty of their swords"

This he says to a newest love, one indeed he had just met at the masquerade party ball down at the Capulet's happening Verona home...'tis not your regular rabble to a newest love, peril in thine eye? what is he jabbing at? death and love it is what Cemetery Man deals with, that lucid, not often apparent connection...but alas peril means danger here, (leading then to death logically) and so the teenage lust of danger and new love is obvious...it is passion, life, love, death all of it enrolled together, instead of life and death, there is indeed love and death...

O fiery Tybalt! O ratcatcher! You just had to put out the way the witty and rambunctious Mercutio! and then Romeo had to slain thee, to rebuke such a horrible fate upon his friend, death at the hands of a Capulet, one who was not even embroiled familial-wise with the whole feud within Verona, Mercutio actually being related to the Prince of the town, Escalus, Prince of Verona,a kinsman, one who decreed that the two families live in peace, and if they cannot, the ones who would be responsible for the duty breaking, public peace shatternment, would be executed in punishment, but ye know, those two who started the brawl, started the illegals, did die at their own hands per se in a way, Romeo being left to have the last, to have indeed a banishment i think is coming?