The trouble with authentic artists is that they’re in a silo both psychologically and culturally, so its not feeding the culture, and we have a Wasteland situation. Science, Art, Philosophy, Psychology, Media, Business, Politics, Technology, Religion are all walled off into separate silos. There’s no integration because they are controlled by protocols and systems, institutions. They are not feeding or being nourished by each other. The instutition becomes a complex both physically and psychologically that snuffs out the exuberance and spontaneity that gave birth to an organizing factor to begin with. This is what Nietszche calls “Groveling before sheer fact.” Nature, which unites and integrates, gives birth to all consciousness, becomes repressed by systems and institutions, which ironically enough were initially created to make life happy and instead have had the opposite effect.
Whenever a spring pops up out of the ground, people figure out they can make money from it, and build a wall around it and charge for admission. Then the spring gets angry, dissappears and pops up in a new, unexpected place.
“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”
I waited with baited anticipation for today. When Scoble said Friday that FriendFeed, a service that’d up until now I’ve only thought of as a backend aggregator of everyone’s Social Media (it is that too) was coming out with a new, improved UI today, my first thought was merely, “Oh, how nice.” Somehow in my mind FriendFeed has been the nice youngest child who is so sweet, comes up with the most unexpected things that charms everyone in the family, but never threatens the turf of big brother or sister, and everyone says how cute he is, how smart he is, and how one day he’s going to grow up to be someone really special and make someone really happy. Big brother and sister roll their eyes. They have other plans for the little twerp.
Well today, little brother, FriendFeed, just got a perfect score on the SAT and is heading for Harvard on a full scholarship! Friendfeed still has all the power and utilitarian tentacles reaching in all directions under the hood, but today instead of jumping in the workvan, if feels like getting behind the wheel of a new BMW. It’s warm, inviting, elegant, tasteful, and yet will get you going down the road in a heartbeat without feeling a thing except for perhaps a whisp of Steely Dan infusing the luxurious leather air all around with “In the Corner of my eye, I saw you, (Twitter) at Rudy’s and you were very high, you were high!” That’s how all the pro’s (Facebook) play the game. They change their name.
The first thing I read this morning was Steve Gillmor‘s piece in TechCrunch where he swooned so romantically, his writing was so fantastically beautiful, all I could think of was, “Why is this guy not a novelist?” Later today on the GillmorGang, his weekly podcast, one of his regular guest read a passage outloud from the piece to embarrass him. He sounded like an empassioned lover over the new FriendFeed. I thought it was too over the top too. I mean is he really comparing these guys to the Beatles? I thought. And then when Mike Arrington chimed in like the Grinch who stole Christmas saying that the game was already over, Twitter’s growth was too stupendous, their lead was too large, the tipping point had been reached and that was that, I felt like when Greenspan took our punchbowl away in 2000, and my dream of being an overnite internet millionaire with it.
Next I read another TechCrunch Piece about the beta launch by. Watched the shortened Youtube video it had attached at the end of the piece of the Friday demonstration to the tech press, and contined to refresh Scoble’s Twitter page every ten seconds to see if his longer videos of the same presentation in HD were up yet. Finally they came up and I watched them all. Bret Taylor, the co founder and Technical Engineer of FriendFeed gave the presentation. His cheeks blanched, his voice quivered a little as the stares of Gillmor, Arrington, Scoble et al. listened and watched. But his demeanor, sure it was nervous, but it was also filled a a great since of humility on the surface, but one could since the brilliance underneath the hood. And that is how this company and product feel. Very humble, very unassuming, still filled with a sense of wonderment of what is possible, eagerly listening to and respecting what the onlookers had to say, but also with tremendous power and potential one can feel under the hood. One had the feeling of when the young Google first made its quiet presence felt.
And since Brett Taylor is the architect of one of the most successful Google products, Gmail, one almost wonders if he isn’t more of the essence of the “good” Google we’ve grown to love more than its founders are.
I watched all of Scoble’s HD footage of the event. The Spirit of Scoble seems to be infused with the personality of this company, and to me that is just another A+. No one questions his credibility. He relishes in the wonder of these things and how they mesh at the nexus of social interactions mixed with marketing. And besides, if you can’t be as excited and exuberant about what your doing in life, how you spend your time, as he is, then what really is the point? How could you go on droning on about this stuff if your only perspective is that of a VC wanting only to make money from something, no matter what it takes. That takes the life right out of it, and usually the money too.
The more I played with FriendFeed the Beta tonight, the more excited I got. It’s not only warm, fuzzy, elegant, and smooth, its fun! It has the keys to the Castle. It’s found the Grail Castle of Social Media, I think precisely because it makes what is productive, what is useful, the same thing as what is fun.
You must go sign up for the new FriendFeed. Watch Scoble’s vide: 20 Things About FriendFeed, how to use it and his latest blogposts about it including ¬†Tips for Real Time Web working on new¬†friendfeed , and just start playing with it. You’re going to love it. You’re going to constantly be amazed at all the cool stuff it can do, and now with style. I think Arrington is wrong. I’m putting my money on this horse named “FriendFeed”, even if its 20-1 right now because I think its Secretariat. Twitter is clunky. It must have fail whaled a hundred times on me today. And its becoming more MySpacey, LA/Euro Trashy every day. Twitter is where Myspace was a few years ago, tons of people signing up everyday, tons of Media Coverage, Stars signing up, making their own “pages.” FriendFeed is going to come from behind in this race and mow it down, and in the long run I think it might even catch Facebook too.
I don’t care what the foam sea squalls say:
The mountains are made of mint.
Green I spend gliding upon the emotion-
Less ramp besieged by the creepy Count de Bourgie
Of my psyche. The orphaned Queen of my heart will jump
Straight down into her moat and drown
If the adventurer of my soul forgets
To stay on his horse.
A jacketed smoke walk down to the Bourbon wall.
It stretches a few quarters, but the one
Inside, it tunnels inward Universe upon Universe.
A bleek streak.Beaker Street. Jazz blue smokes Bitches Brew
To whites of eyes carved out of stone
Demi-Gods staring back double fisted.
They can take it even pinned to a mountain for centuries.
We (the children still inside me) roll in the dough, little sprinkled whites,
As pigeons of possibility sip cappucino on the departing square.
Someone shuffles down a back alley
Of my heart. A glance, and two dark, soft eyes
Surrender the Yucatan night as the beach waves
Dive in from the hole the Dinosaur asteroid made.
We shriek down to drink the Greek god’s salty blood.
I buy trinkets for her and two dresses embroidered with firebirds,
One for Mum. They will fly us to the shore. The rest, well…we must save some words.
The phone call goes through but I don’t hear her voice.
(Who could in this situation?)
Someone else (the sloucher) whispers a void
That sucks away the beach sunrise sunset dream.
The cats blur in the fiber
Glass behind locked chained links for winter, but the matted Tabby
Of my bewilderment is stuck in the roof of my ego
And moans for food, for a way out.
Oh, how I reach!
Sound gets through, light gets through, all the forces of nature get through
But there is still something else we are waiting for. What is it?
I never forget the freaky blizzard where even the flowing
Fountain turned into block. Don’t tell me life isn’t quantum.
(Even after wave after wave almost drowns me)
Someone, no, not just anyone, She turns to me laughing gingerly in the cold,
Dark back alley of the warehouse district,
But I let the flashy city’s neon outlines carry me away,
Building upon building seeking the sacred pyramidal top.
Soon enough, though, I’ll be alone in the Pontiac,
Bristling at the bones,
Nestling into the concrete, filling another Weller
With spring water, looking at the gate still not crumble,
Even as the giant hundred year oaks howl at the city’s brick tablets.
My one hand left snakes, and an eye opens the Sun curtain.
One tree and a bounding suspicion race
God knows where but the car’s breath
Roars in the hope that at least it’s somewhere,
Home to someone,
Who might finally have that expression on her face
We’ve been waiting for
Our whole life.
I lost my father on March 1st, ironically enough my birthday. It was a world turning upside down experience. We talked like ten times a day all my life. I’ve always had this phobia of dead bodies, so the day he died I didn’t think I could go into the room. But something carried me there, and it was weird, instead of being a grueling, grotesque experience, it was a spiritual experience in a positive way. I kissed him. My sister was speaking to him. He seemed “there” I almost felt I could bring him back to life if I were just a few more steps along in my spiritual journey. I don’t know how to explain it. But it did give me peace, and I’ve held together surprisingly well ever since.
If I were Jung or Freud analyzing your dream I’d surely say your head symbolized the “Ego” and really the enemy was inside, the Ego wanting to put itself back on, wanting to “fight” Sometimes I think its the dead who are alive and the living who are dead. I don’t know where I get that thought. It just comes to me from time to time. Or at least I feel its some sort of continuum going on. Sometimes I think “How can anyone really die? What happens to their memories?” I think I’ll make this into a blog post, I write such long comments. I’m glad I ran across your topic. It’s prescient for me at this time.
You know there’s so much good music out there, good poems, good art, you can just consume it like food. And then you think Art is like a Metaphor for the most innermost part of your being actualized. You know like dancing is a metaphor for effortless motion, and singing a metaphor for exuberance. Art kind of like points us in the direction of , “Hey, Life is over here.”
Art is a symbol for what to do next, except no one ever does it, although they love to “entertain” the idea. And what is more no none will ever do it. The Goddess of the Ancient Temple of Sais says, “No one has yet lifted my veil.”
Update: 12/4/11 – I remember reading recently that Joseph Campbell said that “Art is the clothing of a revelation.” Now, if I’m thinking in terms of mythos, what do the monsters of Fairy Tales and Mythologies stand for? What are they metaphors for? They seem to be metaphors for something that is blocking, disrupting the revelation.
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
(Two email letters I sent concerning this subject)
March 22nd, 2009
Dear Adam Curry (@adamcurry),
Ending inflation and deflation is very simple. All that has to happen is for the Fed to keep the dollar/gold ratio in a tight range by printing dollars when the price of gold gets too low (ie 1997, $10 barrel oil) and selling bonds when the price of gold gets too high (ie Now!) to soak up the excess liquidity. There was no inflation or deflation until 1971 when Nixon closed the London Gold Window where one could exchange 35 dollars for an ounce of gold. Oil was 3.50 per barrell. When he closed the London gold window, the dollar became a floating currency and the great inflation of the 70’s began. There was no energy crisis. There never has been. We don’t need a Gold Standard per se, where we actually store the stuff, we just need a de facto Gold Standard where the relationship between the paper currency and the metal stays steady. The Fed has the tools to do this easily. Why is it not done? Because the establishment knows how to profit from these wild swings in prices, while the common man gets screwed. If you look at a chart of oil from 1920 until now it basically doesn’t move until 1971, and then the line goes up like Mount Everest. How is this possible during a time when the car and airplane were invented? Its simply because all inflations and deflations are monetary, ie floating currencies, and when the supply and demand of money itself gets out of whack so do the prices of all the commodities. You ask about a World Reserve Currency. We have one. Its called Gold. Everything is ultimately priced in terms of it.
“This is all in the realm of fantasy,” said Sergei Perminov, chief strategist at Rye, Man and Gore. “There was a situation that resembled what they are talking about. It was called the gold standard, and it ended very badly.”
The Gold Standard didn’t end badly. Nixon closing the London Gold Window in 1971 is what has ended badly. In other words, getting off the gold standard is what has ended badly. Look at this oil chart from 1920 until today. Look what it did beginning in 1971 when Nixon took the dollar off a de facto gold standard:
The only solution to this is having a “de facto” gold standard whereby the Fed keeps the dollar in a stable relationship with the price of gold. It can easily do this by printing currency when the price of Gold starts lower too much and vice versa selling bonds into the open market to soak up excess liquidity when the price of Gold begins to get too high. That’s the only way to end inflation and deflation that never existed before 1971. Keeping things the way they are will only keep the misery going. Look where its got us. The common man gets ruined, businesses can’t plan, and the engine of the economy has a monkey wrench thrown into it without a stable, standardized unit of account.
