Gabriele Oettingen: Rethinking Positive Thinking (2014)

Gabriele Oettingen's Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation (New York: Current, 2014) alchemizes New Thought into New Science. Using the scientific method, Oettingen examines and refines ideas that have been around for quite a while, albeit in more mystical terms. Consider Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940), for example: "As one door shuts another door opens" -  in both "Intuition or Guidance," The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925) and "Success," Your Word is Your Wand (1928). 

Oettingen (with various assistants and collaborators) has conducted numerous studies that consider how effectively -- or ineffectively -- positive thinking works.

One of her conclusions seems to suggest a continuum spectrum, with positive thinking not-followed-up-by-action (dreaming only/"indulging") at one end, and negative thinking (nightmaring only/"dwelling") at the other. Indulging results in inaction, while dwelling results in paralysis. With indulging, one imagines great accomplishments to the point of not wanting to actually work toward the reality of such accomplishments; with dwelling, one is paralyzed with inaction because of perceived obstacles or excessive worries that may block one from achieving anything.

Oettingen brings up psychological contexts and possible origins (name checking William James and Sigmund Freud, for example) for our personal outlook and action styles, but that's not necessary to understand (or agree with) in order to deploy her suggested plan of action. Her suggestion? Utilize positive thinking but energize it with a technique she calls WOOP: 

Wish (what is your wish?) + Outcome (a good outcome if your wish were to become reality) - Obstacle (what's blocking your wish fulfillment?) = Plan (Outflank obstacle: If/then . . .). 

Using WOOP helps you focus on just about anything, for it is, as Oettingen states, "content neutral." 

Simple example. Suzy wishes to meet Sarah for brunch downtown. Ideal Outcome: they rendezvous, enjoy brunch and conversation and it's not too expensive. Obstacle: possible traffic issues, parking, eatery could be crowded, it's too pricey. Plan: do some research ahead of time about all of the above. If Highway 5 is closed, go via Route 23; if parking is full or the eatery is too crowded, go to a pre-considered backup place. In other words, have some kind of pragmatic plan, with alternative backup plans in reserve. 

WOOP can help one refine more grandiose wishes, too. Buddy may wish to make a billion dollars in one year, but there's a major obstacle to this wish's fulfillment: reality. Once he sees reality as a serious obstacle, he may determine on a more realistic wish: maybe save $1,000 in "x" amount of time. A personal obstacle Bobby has toward saving any $ is, perhaps, "impulse control." So, Bobby works with a partner on an if/then plan that will result in his actually saving $ toward his goal.

I've tried the WOOP technique now for a couple of weeks. So far, it's simple, direct, and works for just about anything.  I've already tweaked several either/or if/then decisions -- big and small -- simply by mind-mapping with WOOP. It's fun, it works, and it even lets you play "the game of life" with a little more cohesion.

Today's Rune: Possessions.  

Häxan (1922) / Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968)

Benjamin Christensen's silent movie Häxan (1922) clocks in at 87 minutes (or is it 104?); via Antony Balch, it morphs into a 77-minute version: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968), wickedly narrated by William S. Burroughs and accompanied by a jazz soundtrack courtesy of Jean-Luc Ponty and Daniel Humair. Both versions are weird and fascinating and come together on one DVD thanks to the Criterion Collection.

"Häxan integrates fact, fiction, objective reality, hallucination, and different levels of representation -- all within a first-person discourse. . . The mixture of narrative modes . . . is astonishing for its freedom and audacity." - Gillian Anderson, liner notes, Criterion Collection DVD, 2001. 

"At times, Häxan appears to be a literal depiction of the imaginings of people of medieval Europe . . "  Sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes both (the Devil's obscenely flickering tongue, for example). Crazy cool stuff, indeed, ending with little psychiatric episodes from the 20th century.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Shadowplay: The Elusive Origins of a 'Jungian' Quip, Part II

"What you resist, persists." ~ Attributed to Carl Jung. As noted in the previous post, I've been seeking the origin of this phrase, thought and idea, and have found it in many places, but without further documentation.

Synchronicity -- an idea Jung definitely espoused -- has converged, thanks to: recent conversations; an article I'm writing about Edward William Johnston (1799-1867); and Barry Miles' epic tome, Call Me Burroughs: A Life (New York: Twelve, 2014), which I finished reading a couple of weeks ago.

Johnston, because of his pertinent essay "Genealogy of Ideas” Southern Literary Messenger: Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts. Volume VIII, No.  9 (September 1842): pages 548-555. Richmond, Virginia: T.W. White. Link here. Ideas have a traceable "genealogy," Johnston posits. They rarely appear out of the blue, except for in their first incarnation.

Burroughs, because of his idea of the "word virus:" that words and ideas spread through time and space as a virus.

Which reminds me that Ebola has been around since 1976 -- and was widely covered in the news at the time.

In turn, AIDS is now traced back to the Belgian Congo in the 1920s. (See James Gallaher's "Aids: Origin of pandemic 'was 1920s Kinshasa,'" BBC News (2 October 2014). Link here.

So how about the "resist, persists" quip (and its variations) attributed to Carl Jung? Where can it be traced back to?

In the previous post, I left off with this, from Robert J. and Alex W. Fraser's As Others See Us: Scots of the Seaway Valley (Ontario: Beamsville Express, 1959):

What you resist, Persists
All though [thought] is energy
All things are in Motion
. . . . .

And I earlier noted the widespread use -- either with no attribution or with uncited attribution pointing to Jung -- of this "word virus," especially in the last ten to twenty years. 

Here's a latter-day repetition of both elements that occurs after the 1959 book, As Others See Us:

"What you resist, persists." ~ Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1 (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 1996), page 100.  

"1. All thought is energy.
2. All things are in motion.
3. All time is now."

Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 3 (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 1998), page 114.

Walsch gives no citations.

Which leads me to believe, for now, that all three of these texts are drawing from older sources, perhaps via back channels, such as ideas from earlier "New Thought" and "Power of Positive Thinking" texts. In other words, these same words are used in the same order, but neither As Others See Us (1959) nor Conversations with God (1996, 1998) are their originators, rather they are transmitters, "infected" by earlier "carriers" of statements they spell out verbatim.

The true origins of these statements will either eventually come to light, or they will remain hidden in mystery.  Digitization of older texts will continue to be useful in figuring out these kinds of genealogies of ideas and word viruses -- helping us "get to the bottom of things." 

Today's Rune: Flow.  Illustration at top from Thought-forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1905).  

Shadowplay: The Elusive Origins of a 'Jungian' Quip, Part I

You may have heard or read this quip, widely attributed to Carl Jung:

"What you resist, persists." Or, alternately, "What you resist persists."

This could have to do with procrastination: when you have a toothache and put off going to the dentist, the toothache will not go away.  You have to deal with it sooner or later.  

Among other things, Jung discussed the need to understand oneself, to integrate different dimensions of the personality, including submerged or "shadow" aspects. Those that are ignored (resisted), will continue to pose a challenge to one's conscious being until explored and absorbed. More or less.

I'm fascinated by the origins of quips and quotes (or quotations, if you prefer) and interested in Jung's ideas. Hence my question: did Carl Jung really write or say "what you resist, persists?"

Searching Google Books and general internet search engines, one can see this Jungian quip fairly well spread around in texts and via the internet through the past ten to twenty years, a sort of meme. In the massive global best-seller, for instance, Rhonda Byrne's The Secret (Atria Books, 2006) -- based on Byrne's documentary film of the same name -- we can find on page 142:

"'What you resist persists.'  Carl Jung (1875-1961)."

However, here and elsewhere, no more specific citation is given. Perhaps the attribution to Jung is made up out of thin air?

I kept digging, going as far back in time as I could easily search. The earliest usage of the quip that I have been able to locate so far is from this unlikely sounding source: As Others See Us: Scots of the Seaway Valley (Ontario: Beamsville Express, 1959).  

I've only been able to pull this pertinent scrap from a digitized preview, without specific context, but here it is, rendered as:

"What you resist, Persists" - followed by a couple of other intriguing lines that led me to additional findings. Meanwhile, if anyone knows more about any of this, please add to the comments section.  All comments are welcomed, of course -- not resisted.

Part II will continue this thread through the shadowplay -- in search of their origins.

Today's Rune: Flow.  Illustration at top from Thought-forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1905). 

   

There Be Dragons: The Madrid Codex

Detail from the Madrid Codex -- a hieroglyphic Mayan book most likely dating to Pre-Columbian times (that is to say, prior to 1492 A.D.).  The snake-like creatures look a lot like dragons, the kind of images you might see in ancient China. Clusters of glyphs could be mistaken for keyboard arrays from the 21st century. 

Where is this preserved now? In the Museo de América, Madrid, Spain. 

Is there a collective unconscious, as Carl Jung and others have posited?  When you see something as mind-blowing as the Madrid Codex, certain archetypes or symbols do appear universal. Before such a work, an eerie feeling tingles through the beholder -- it did me, for sure.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

W.E.B. Du Bois: The Birthday Party

Thinking of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) reminds me of a lot of things beyond his books and ideas, public campaigns and transcendent inspiration. It reminds me of the 30th Street Post Office in West Philadelphia, a grand building with engaging postal workers, one of whom once held forth on Dr. Du Bois while selling me Du Bois stamps (must have been 1992-1993). "Some people will try to say his name in the French way, but they'd be wrong and need to look it up or ask me," he said, chuckling.

Philadelphia is a great city for talking with people, as all cities have been, in my experience. Strength through diversity. Yearnin' and learning.

Today is Du Bois' birthday. 110 years ago, he published The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a book on social psychology (sociology if you prefer), about the structures and systems of society, how they shape perception, worldview. Du Bois was cool -- with things like the "veil of double conciousness" to ponder, like an evolving blend of Marxian social thought and psychoanalysis with an African American focus. This was cutting edge, keeping in mind that Freud's Die Traumdeutung / The Interpretation of Dreams was first published in 1899. The Souls of Black Folk came into being almost exactly as Carl Jung finished his dissertation across the sea, what would later be translated as Psychology and the Occult. New and reshaped ideas abounded. They still do. Du Bois was part of it. Happy birthday to him.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.      

   

The Specials: Dawning of a New Era in the Concrete Jungle

The Specials' first album, produced by young Elvis Costello, came out in 1979; it inspired a lot of musicians in various parts of the world, including in North Carolina, where I lived at the time. The Pressure Boys was one band that comes to mind, right off the top of my two tone head. The Specials album was -- and still is -- an ideal backdrop for social gatherings. The music is wild enough to keep things interesting, quiet enough to keep stray thoughts from evaporating. Particularly in the USA, it's conciousness raising, because the sound draws from the 1960s, fuels it up a notch and mixes in some new stuff. Along with The English Beat (aka The Beat), it's sort of like mixing together some Kinks, ska, reggae, punk and Motown into one holistic milieu.

The Specials' lyrics reflect a sophisticated awareness of British socio-political realities in the 1970s. Just a couple of little samples from "Do the Dog" shows this:

All you punks and all you teds
National Front and natty dreads
Mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads
Keep on fighting 'till you're dead . . .

Who am I to say?
To the IRA
To the UDA
Soldier boy from UK
Am I just a hypocrite?
Another piece of your bullshit
Am I the dog that bit
The hand of the man that feeds it?

(Teds = Teddy Boys; National Front = whites-only neo-fascist party; IRA - Irish Republican Army; UDA = Ulster Defence Association).

And from "Concrete Jungle" (compare with the very different Bob Marley song of the same name):

I have to carry a knife
Because there's people threatening my life
I can't dress just the way I want
I'm being chased by the National Front.

Meanwhile, it's 2013 and Barack Obama is about to be sworn into a second term and on top of that, The English Beat are coming to play Dallas. Yes!

Today's Rune: Signals.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

I'm far enough into Karl Marlantes' Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (Grove Press, 2010) to form an initial response. It's an absorbing read, riveting, filled with meticulous detail. Visceral. Leeches and jungle rot. Soldiers sizing each other up, trying to figure out what's going on around them.  Well worth checking out. A lot of telling details about the US-Vietnam War at the micro level, many of them new to me, for sure.

Today's Rune: Signals.

Fort Worth vs. Ingmar Bergman

Fifty years ago, the City of Fort Worth had the dubious distinction of blocking the showing of Ingmar Bergman's Academy Award-winning film Jungfrukällan / The Virgin Spring (1960) at the Capri Theatre, a long-since demolished venue that showcased independent world-class films and inspired, among others, Fort Worth musician T-Bone Burnett (by his own reckoning) to widen his horizons in life-changing ways.   

In JANUS FILMS, INC. v. CITY OF FORT WORTH 354 S. W. 2d 597 (1962), this act of censorship by the "Board of Censors" of Fort Worth was justified in part by the following statement:

The ordinance [Fort Worth Ordinance No. 2475] provides that no permit shall issue for the exhibition of motion pictures (or other forms of entertainment) which are, in the opinion of the Board of Censors, indecent or injurious to the morals of the citizens of Fort Worth, or which would tend to promote or encourage indecency, immorality, or racial or sectional prejudice, or juvenile delinquency.

If this ruling had stood, in 2012 it could have still been called upon to justify blocking the screening of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012) or Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012). As it is, well -- I'll get to that.  
 
Presumably, the supposed justification for suppressing an Ingmar Bergman film was nullified by the US Supreme Court in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).

Meanwhile, Fort Worth no longer has any daily venue for the screening of independent or international films. There is only the Magnolia at the Modern (Art Museum), which shows films only on weekends (usually), and the Lone Star Film Festival, which has been held once every year since 2007. For a city of its size (a little bigger than Detroit proper), Fort Worth is in serious need of a permanent "alternative" theater.  If we're lucky here, the planned Citizen Theater on Magnolia Avenue may bring succor by sometime in 2013 or so.  

Today's Rune: Movement.     

 

Tortillas and Salsa

More inspiration from Gustavo Arellano's TACO USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (New York: Scribner, 2012): charting the relative spread of the tortilla and salsa in the lexicon of published books.

"The tortilla is the essence of Mexico, what unites the country from Tijuana to the jungles of Chiapas to outer space [where they've been prepared by Mexican American astronauts José Hernández and Danny Olivas, for instance], even if geography stretches it or condenses it, fries them or rolls them or -- shudder -- puts them in cans . . . Without the tortilla we have no taco, no burrito, no enchilada, no nachos or tortilla chip . . . or . . . quesadillas. In short, with no tortilla, there is no Mexico. There is nothing" (page 197).

In the above Ngram for Anglo-American English language texts ranging from 1950 to ca. 2010, blue stands for tortilla and red, salsa. Salsa -- a word that doubles as a type of dance, thus complicating precision of usage here -- overtakes tortilla in 1989/1990.  

In Spanish books, the use of the word salsa has been ascendant since 1952 -- a nearly forty-year jump on Anglo adaptation. 

Today's Rune: Signals.  

Luis Buñuel: La mort en ce jardin, Take Three

Luis Buñuel's La mort en ce jardin (1956) / Death in the Garden. Once away from the miner village in the first part of the film, a motley assemblage of key characters must flee by river and then into thick jungle, in a frenzied attempt to reach Brazil before pursuing soldiers overtake them. Once into the wild, desperately hungry and going loopy, different characters unravel while partially clinging to notions they learned in "civilization."  Castin (Charles Vanel), suffering from a head wound, and Father Lizardi (Michel Piccoli), the Catholic priest, are affected the most. Castin turns to dark thoughts, while Lizardi is torn between his theoretical beliefs and the more immediate needs of group survival. In a particularly noteworthy scene, he guiltily tears sheets from his cherished Bible as possible fuel for a small fire.

The theme of trying to hold on to sanity and some form of compassion while struggling for survival informs many compelling tales, real and imagined. A few spring to mind immediately: Buñuel's Robinson Crusoe (1954) and El ángel exterminador / The Exterminating Angel (1962); Peter Brooks' 1963 version of William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies; and Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002), based on Władek Szpilman's 1945 memoir Śmierć Miasta / Death of a City. 

Do you have any favorites of this sort of survival story?  What grabbed your attention?

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

Luis Buñuel: La mort en ce jardin, Take One

Luis Buñuel's movies would be ideal for the marooned, assuming electricity was available. La mort en ce jardin (1956) /Death in the Garden provides a microcosm of the history and psychology of humankind, which is another way of suggesting its universal nature. 

The specific setting: a mining camp and adjoining village (in the first half) and a river and riparian jungle (in the second half) in mid-20th century South America. Here, archetypical, mythical types mix with historically realistic conditions. A chain reaction of conflict is caused by 1) a decree to take over the mine, backed by the local soldiery and opposed by the miners, many of them "not from these parts;" and 2) individuals seeking to exploit the situation or ride the chaos on all sides. Buñuel is able to see (and show) events from multiple perspectives in a way that is relevent and timeless.

Here, in a scene that could be taking place in any number of hotspots in 2012, Capitán Ferrero is trying to figure out why one of his men and two miners have suddenly become casualties and, what next?

Including Ferrero (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos), all of the major characters could just as easily be placed in a similar setting today, or even five thousand years ago: Djin (Simone Signoret), a prostitute; Shark (Georges Marchal), a roguish adventurer; Chenko (Tito Junco), a roguish trader-merchant; Father Lizardi (Michel Piccoli), standing in for all organized religious power; Castin (Charles Vanel), a foreign miner-worker; and María (Michèle Girardon), Castin's deaf-mute daughter.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

The Real Glory

The title and soundtrack may be incongruent, but Henry Hathaway's 1939 adaptation of The Real Glory, a 1937 novel by Charles L. Clifford, sheds a lot more light on American foreign policy than was probably intended at the time. Though set in the Philippines in 1906, parallels to American frontier fighting and US military adventures in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan shout out to be heard. But is anyone listening?

The Real Glory stars Gary Cooper as a sort of action-doctor, along with David Niven as Lt. McCool. They are based in a small village enclave on Mindanao, part of a cadre training "native troops" (as they are called in the movie).  The biggest threat to happiness apparently comes from the Moro* people, Muslims who'd fought against the Spanish for nearly four hundred years, and now (in 1906) the Americans, and later the Japanese, and later still, the  Filipino central government (through the time of this post). 

One American officer complains that he could not possibly train the local "constabulary force" in ten years, let alone sooner.  Another quips: "From now on the little brothers will have to stand on their own feet -- if they can."

Other interesting stuff to watch for: Moro strategy and tactics. The Moros, even as portrayed in the movie, are relentless guerilla fighters and raiders. They gather intelligence about the American enclave, assassinate officers with suicide attacks. They set ambushes and traps and use punji stick pits. They cut freshwater supplies to the village in order to force small contingents out into the jungle and then attack them on rough chosen ground. And so forth. The American commander responds by fortifying the village with sandbags, putting up barbed wire, and rounding up village Moros, forcing them into the village stockade. What happens to the prisoners after that we are never told.      

Another line from The Real Glory: "If you believe in marriage, never say 'yes' to a soldier." The great San Francisco earthquake is referenced, and a cholera epidemic figures prominenently, as does a wise Spanish Catholic padre. The music soundtrack is very lame, but otherwise, interesting film.

*Moro sounds like Moor and Moors, and derives from the same Spanish Christian nomenclature for Muslim historical adversaries in Spain.

Today's Rune: Harvest.   

"Get Villa and Get Him At Once!"

It was like some crazy dream. Pancho Villa and his cross-border raiders rode into the town of Columbus, New Mexico, in March, 1916, blazing away, burning the town and escaping back into Mexico. Elements in the USA sprang to arms and gave chase with a "Punitive Expedition" including George Patton on horseback, bi-planes, trucks, telegrams and Buffalo Soldiers. At some harrowing points during the nearly year-long operation, American troopers crashed into Mexican federales and nearly provoked a second Mexican-American War. Pancho, meanwhile, at odds with the federales and Doughboys, escaped capture.

Only German U-Boats provided cover and a way out for the Americans: entry into the First World War, heading "Over There" to Europe. Out of the frying pan, into the fire . . .  Meanwhile, Mexico's sense of nationalism, if anything, was bolstered; perhaps most significantly, the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States was ratified in February, 1917, just as the last US troops were leaving Mexico.

Isn't the recruitment poster above quaint?  Like so many others, it coaxes volunteers using patriotism and a sense of adventure:

"COME ON, BOYS, BE READY TO SHOULDER THE TRUSTY SPRINGFIELD" . . . "THE BOYS ARE NOW CROSSING THE ALKALI DESERTS AND JUNGLES OF MEXICO." WHAT FOR?  THE GOVERNMENT ORDERS ARE GET VILLA AND GET HIM AT ONCE!  . . . The Flag, Old Glory . . .

At the outset of any conflict, it works every time.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.    

Africa

Another continent most of us not from the continent (or hemisphere) probably know little about.  I've made some effort, inspired by an African Studies Class, but still emphatically feel as if I understand almost nothing about African complexities -- some that seem to shift and some that seem to endure. I do know how "the West" tends to cover Africa in movies, shows and via the news: as a nightmare of epic proportions. Or as an area of endangered wildlife and starving, fighting people.  Jungles and deserts, mountains and Veld.  What is the human population of Africa in reality? More than one billion as of 2010.

Given the weird skew on things and even if you already live somewhere on the continent, where (else) might you want to visit, explore or live in Africa?   I've got some ideas for myself, but am more curious about ideas from anyone reading this.

Today's Rune: Signals.

London: Sir John Soane's Museum

While doing my ICOMOS library internship in London in the early 1990s, I stayed part of the time with architects John Adams and Marina Dunbar Adams in Clapham. They were always giving good advice about places to check out; one of them was Sir John Soane's Museum at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Primarily an architect, Soane (1753-1837), like Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), loved to tinker endlessly.  The museum shows this. Walk around and see his crazy love of Neo-Classical designs and artifacts. (Neo-Classical?  Inspired by ancient Greek and "finer" Roman architecture, and by Renaissance Italy).  In more than one way, it's a trip. 

http://www.britishtours.com/360/soane-museum.html

Soane's whole place is filled with nutty treasures, but even people like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung populated their offices with all sorts of totems and artifacts from other times and other places.  More on them at some point, I suspect.  How about you?  Do you have favorite things around you while in repose?

Here's to a more civil society as strived for by MLK and his spiritual cousins . . . 

Today's Rune: Journey.

A Terrible Love of War

If memory serves, Friedrich Engels quipped (in German, well before the First World War): "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." James Hillman's A Terrible Love if War (2004) gets at war from a Jungian archetypal perspective. Hillman, now in his eighties, shows a wide-ranging understanding of the history of war. The book is arranged in four major chapters, designed to evoke and provoke thought:

War is Normal
War is Inhuman
War is Sublime
Religion is War


Nagasaki mushroom cloud, August 9, 1945.

A Terrible Love of War inspires additional posts, at some point. But for now here's a chillingly frank sample:

New day? New wars. More self-righteous killing . . . more earth despoiled in the name of the nation [-- any nation --] the leader, the cause, the god. And more prayers. Wars will go on; they will not cease and they will not change. . . [W]e can imagine and therefore understand -- not all of it, but enough to step away from delusions of hope and love and peace and reason. (p 217).

Maybe it's better to think in terms of truces, rather than permanent peace. Certainly the idea of a truce is more accurate, more realistic, a reminder of how fragile the state of non-war ever is.

Today's Rune: Mystery. Posted during Iraq (2003-present), Afghanistan (2001-present), the War on Drugs (ongoing), and so on.

Soul Power '74: The Movie

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte's Soul Power pulls together concert and interview footage from Zaire '74, a festival event* originally timed to coincide with "The Rumble in the Jungle" heavyweight championship boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman (see also Leon Gast's 1996 documentary When We Were Kings). The fight was delayed, but the music show went on. Features quips and performances by Ali, Don King, James Brown, Miriam Makeba, B.B. King, Celia Cruz, The Spinners, Bill Withers, Hugh Masekela, and more. Playing at select hip theatres this summer, including at the DIA in Detroit. *(Location: Kinshasa, Zaire, now Democratic Republic of the Congo).

http://www.sonyclassics.com/soulpower/




Today's Rune: Defense.

Something Hit Me Like an Atomic Bomb: The New York Dolls

Nestled between Mick Jagger/The Rolling Stones and Johnny Rotten & Sex Pistols, there's David Johansen and New York Dolls -- you betcha.

New York Dolls are what my friend Jim calls Wunderschlect (i.e. Wundervoll Schlechtes) -- a band so wonderfully bad they're good. A real seminal tribe from the 70s. They're "special." And they'll be playing in Austin, Texas, at Rachel Ray's SXSW party on March 21, 2009 (at Maggie Mae’s). Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain from the original lineup.

New album out in May: 'Cause I Sez So. Tracks include a resurrected "Trash," "Temptation To Exist" and "Exorcism Of Despair." Last album from the resurrected Dolls, including a little help from Iggy Pop: One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006).


Some of my favorites from the first album from 1973 (used to wake up to these on my radio alarm clock "like an atomic bomb," back in the early 80s, in Chapel Hill):

Personality Crisis
Looking for a Kiss
Vietnamese Baby (or as Johansen carefully sings it, Vi-et-nuh-mese Bab-ee . . .)
Frankenstein (you're gonna get it!)
Trash
Pills

And from Too Much Too Soon (1974):

Babylon
Stranded in the Jungle
Human Being

New York Dolls are funky funky but chic!

Today's Rune: Separation (reversed).

Blue Spoon

Who now remembers the US Invasion of Panama nearly twenty years ago?

Recent blog posts about fading newspapers, Stanley Kubrick's boxes and The Men Who Stare at Goats converged to remind me of several curious newspaper bits from 1989 (back when I relied a lot more on print sources). Now I can't find any traces of this on the internet, but here it is: Does anyone else remember reports of "men in black" firing at US Marines and other personnel in the months leading up the invasion? Strange firefights in the jungle? I've never once seen mention of them since.

But I do know now that US military planners launched Operation Blue Spoon well in advance of the actual invasion, which was dubbed Operation Just Cause at the last minute, and that there were many live fire and maneuver exercises prior to the invasion, too.

So my real question is this: Why would propaganda and psychological operations (Psyops) include planting vague and bizarre articles in American papers about Men in Black in Panama? It made little sense to me then, and still makes little sense to me now.

Today's Rune: Partnership.