Mark Splatter

search for Anarchistische Abendsunterhaltung comes out a winner. rereading Steppenwolf and in the mood for Anarchist Evening Entertainment, and this is what came up. Soundtrack for an excursion.

Mayday NYC 2012

International labor day. Halt work, in observance of the history of organized labor.

Whats the relevance?

May 1st’s significance applies, at very least, to anyone who has a job and collects a paycheck.
Public holidays tend to get obscured and overlooked, as we are highly engaged in our own microcosms of social dramas, personal spheres, and over saturations of information [#firstworldproblems].
#OWS adoption of the date is a fortuitous one; #ows and International Labor Day’s concepts coincide naturally. Raising awareness, particularly on a working class level, is exactly what the #ows hashtag is meant for. Breaking down the barrier erected by consumerist media saturation and blatant apathy that’s resulted. How one observes public holidays is up to the individual, and like any public holiday, secular or religious, May 1st has a history. With religious holidays in an increasing agnostic and diversified society, the tendency to ignore the cultural background of the holiday is often taken for granted. May Day is not just a day off from work thanks to the suffrages of some prophet or scripture we don’t align ourselves with.
In 1886, Labor Unions in Chicago held a general strike to institute the standard of an 8 hour work day (speaking of taking things for granted – how many white collar workers now work in excess of 8 hours a day without compensation?). The violence that erupted at the Chicago’s Haymarket square became legendary, immediately recognized internationally – and May 1st became synonymous with labor across the globe by left wing and workers organizations. Whats ironic is, due to the stigma of communism in the USA, both during 19th century and the McCarthyist era of the 1950s ‘red scare’, may day has been suppressed and commuted to every first Monday of September: Labor Day.

in 2012, public recognition for May 1st in the uSA is low, still. In Berlin, 2010, I spent the day on the street along with thousands more demonstrators spread through the city, all held with varied levels of civil conduct from celebratory to disobedient). New York, 2012 had substantial street level publicity via postering and stickering throughout the streets, leading up to the day of demonstrations. By calling for a general strike at work, school and even some against housework (fuck the dishes?!) made an appeal across the social spectrum to raise awareness.

10am, Bryant Park
Initially damp weather made me decide to forgo the bike bloc at Union Square. The alternative was a Bryant Park rally that would march on Union Square in the afternoon. Gathered there were the ows think tank, legal defense fund, OWS kitchen (which was a plus, my weekly budget has been 11$ since March) and screen printers guild – some of the same faces to be seen regularly at the ongoing Union Sq. OWS presence. Some performance artists brought their acts to the street, and the drummers which were integral to the actual march began to congregate. Meanwhile small informative workshop/info sessions had been arranged. I listened to one environmental session, citing agricultural economy’s effect on climate change, emphasizing the need for immediate reform. With just an hour to hit on such a dense topic, detail was sparse but the point was made, with reference to more detailed reading (ie, the populist party of the 1890s, ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’ and times-up). To my right, audience participation games were being held, and a makeshift marching band identified by random green patches of clothing marched through the crowd. Leaflets, magazines and newspapers were available in abundance. The most succinct and identifiable of which was thus:

After the environmental panel I made a question into the effects of transportation on climate change. The speaker David brought up PlaNYC2030 on the NYC website. I’d read the section on recycling last year. The efforts of NYC to improve the sustainability of the transit system are completely laudable, but still so much initialized potential lays ahead.

Meanwhile on the north side of the park the Think Tank had an open discussion where all of a dozen participants including myself addressed their standpoints on what is going on here and what they see in the OWS movement. For instance, why are you here? For me it was clear. To both express your own voice and to hear the voices if other people who acknowledge they have a voice. Another important point – the distinction between unaware and activist. What lays between, and what *IS* the role of ‘activist’ in a modern sense? Also, what is the objective of OWS? The radio operator who was micing the discussion chimed in, that what is being called for is change. Calling for change? Agreed. My observation is change is a continual process that never ceases. We never reach a point of finished. But milestones of achievement are arrived at, with concession and compromise, for instance the guy that brought up Papuan concept of the long anticipated event ending in a plateau of disappointment.
What it means to me is awareness and the simple incorporation of the zen tenet of mindfullness. Become aware and informed on local and global issues beyond what mass media presents – mass media is counterprogressive and pro status quo. some of the issues that have been making their way to the public consciousness are the environmental, the dependence of our political system on high finance, GMO products etc.
An activist is not a mask-wearing, black-block sloganeer. An activist is someone who makes a conscious action for a cause. The ways to exercise that action is as simple as shopping local artisan rather than major chain, boycott a big money chain, like Starbucks and McDonald’s, Walmart etc, and knowing why.
This is a time when the old systems are so decayed that the cracks are more than just superficial. While the 1% stands there with their finger in the dam. [insert thoughts from blackbook entry c.4/2 ] Another analogy: keeping the body alive, maintaining the life support of the family Patriach, for appearances knowing full well the faculties will never return, but by keeping the face alive keeps the concept alive, despite lack of substance behind it, the proxies to power – the 1% – maintain a hold on the power from the next logical heir to the estate. Who is that heir? The anarchist would answer : the people, to govern themselves without leadership. The communist would answer: the people to be governed amongst themselves. The democrat would answer: The people to be governed by elected officials. The republican would answer probaby something along the lines of: the elite, to govern the people.
I’m not here to provide that answer. The answer lies in an informed and active population contributing to the evolution of the systems of economy and government. This will not be a revolution of blood and fire, or paving stones thrown at police. Just as modern day warfare is not 100s of thousands of infantry and cavalry pitted against each other in a battlefield strewn with mangled corpses. Far from it. It’s economic warfare and information warfare. The aim of OWS is not to percolate a violent overthrow – its to inform the public at large of the inoperable disease that has killed democratic capitalism. It is to raise awareness and present the crimes of the offender before the victims. Only an involved and informed population

2pm, March to Union Sq.
The observers: I did see one suit shaking his head in annoyance. Here is one guy who’s perfectly organized life was being interrupted on his way to his midday grande latte enema. Tourists taking pictures, shop staff poking heads out to have a look. One Starbucks at about 30th street and Broadway had actually shut its doors to incoming customers while the march passed. Office workers on the balconies and windows observed from overhead and provided some birdseye imagery via twitter, instagram etc. By now the sun had come out and turned into a beautiful spring day to spend in the park. Anyone who took the day off work to attend the demo was, IMHO, well rewarded. After several performances moderated by one of the Labor Union reps, a second march took place down towards Wall Street. At Broadway and Houston at Bway/Lafayette, I saw one crusty kid running forward from behind at top speed. He was not being pursued, but seconds later another followed. She and one of her companions, both black-bloc/anarchos, collapsed and a swarm of police descended upon them. Most of the march stopped, including a large part of the forward body. There was no spectacular violence, as the police were conscious they were being watched and filmed. The police preence in general was quite LARGE, as you can see. When the commotion died down the route continued, drumming and chanting down Broadway down to Lower Manhattan, passing Zuccotti Park, which was NOT accessible to the march, much to many peoples disappointment.
Finally at Wall Street, the march was barred from entering. Many people sat down and the peoples mic functioned properly for the first time that I witnessed all day, going three, some say four times back to the rear of the march. At this point I noticed something strange. Someone in front of me said, “Hey, its a UFO.” Sure enough, about 30 feet in the air behind me was a flying object, a sort of black ellipse with 4 fan blades embedded keeping it hovering. I heard someone say something about drones and I wondered if it was a camera drone. No, just this, a commercial product, something more innocuous. I laughed as it clandestinely lodged itself in the tree branches coming out of Bowling Green, and struggled in vain to break free.
The procession ended around 10pm at The Veterans Memorial at 55 Water Street, at which point I headed back home after a long day in the streets in a peaceful protest. I’ll finish with one of the quotes that was handwritten on a placard in front of me that got me thinking, and captured one of the primary issues OWS has been focusing on:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies… The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” – Thomas Jefferson

in·im·i·cal/iˈnimikəl/

Adjective:
Tending to obstruct or harm: “actions inimical to our interests”.
Unfriendly; hostile.
Synonyms:
hostile – adverse – unfriendly – antagonistic – enemy

Life without heroes – is directionless and vague. One needs role models. Not figures to follow and idolize, but symbols. Emblems of virtues to lend strength. friends and compatriots to share advice and experience. No I’m not talking about Jesus. I’ll take Kafka, Villon, Pinocchio or Picasso, any day. Reminds me of the time browsing books and being moved by the sight of Ovid, Pasolini and Pesoa sitting next to each other on the shelf.

The past few months have been displaced as I awoke to find myself alone and without friend or hero. I’d sunken again. I’ve been living in a tomb. A bare minimum room just to pass through and ive had to content myself with. The days when I had a palace come back to my mind. Leeland way. Dunkerstrasse. I was happier to be on the street than to have to hole up in these bare minimums of dwelling.

I guess that’s the way it goes when it comes winter. Better to find somewhere to pen up and wait for wanderweather again. Last year I changed that mechanic around a little by couch surfing through Milan and Athens. Now in wavering between finding a fixed place in which to stow my stuff and my ass for extended periods or to take off on a trek cross country. Do I really need more wandering? There’s a lot of the US, Canada and Mexico I haven’t seen. Sedentary life is extremely dull. And I invariably fail at it, Resulting in low standard of living/self esteem.

On the positive side, there’s been plenty of time for recuperation and developing new talents, strengths and ideas. There’s a particular lyric from the Ramones that comes to mind often. “I knew I could do it, it just took a few years” which I’ve been finding coming true with the aspirations I’ve had years ago having already come to pass. As a teenager i dreamed of living on the road. On the road i dreamed if making my own postcards as mail art rather than buying postcards.

This past season I’ve been writing almost as much as I’ve been reading. Being able to bring all the concepts, from horror fiction to crime suspense, environmental and political commentary, into focused and coherent essays. Publishing them will be another skill to develop altogether.

Baals Hymn, as sung by David Bowie, based on Bertoldt Brecht’s play ‘Baal’

Whilst his mother’s womb contained the growing Baal
Even then the sky was waiting quiet and pale
Naked, young, immensely marvelous
Like Baal loved it, when he came to us

That same sky remained with him in joy and care
Even when Baal slept peaceful and unaware
At night a lilac sky, a drunken Baal
Turning pious as the sky grows pale

So through hospital, cathedral, whiskey bar
Baal kept moving onwards and just let things go
When Baal’s tired, boys, Baal cannot fall far
He will have his sky down there below

When the sinners congregate in shame together
Baal lay naked, reveling in their distress
Only sky, a sky that will go on forever
Formed a blanket for his nakedness

And that lusty girl, the world, who’ll laughing yield
To the men who’ll stand the pressure of her thighs
Sometimes gave him love-bites, such as can’t be healed
Baal survived it, he just used his eyes

And when Baal saw lots of corpses scattered ‘round
He felt twice the thrill, despite the lack of room
“Space enough” said Baal, “Then I’ll thicken the ground
Space enough within this woman’s womb”

Any vice for Baal has got its useful side
It’s the man who practices it, he can’t abide
Vices have their point, once you see it as such
Stick to two for one will be too much

Slackness, softness are the sort of things to shun
Nothing could be harder than the quest for fun
Lots of strength is needed and experience too
Swollen bellies can embarrass you

Under gloomy stars and this poor veil of tears
Baal will graze a pasture till it disappears
Once it’s been digested to the forest’s teeth
Baal trod singing for a well earned sleep

Baal can spot the vultures in the stormy sky
As they wait up there to see if Baal will die
Sometimes Baal pretends he’s dead, but vultures swoop
Baal in silence dines on vulture-soup

When the dark womb drags him down to its prize
What’s the world still mean to Baal, he’s overfed
So much sky is lurking still behind his eyes
He’ll just have enough sky when he’s dead

Once the Earth’s dark womb engulfed the rotting Baal
Even then the sky was up there, quiet and pale
Naked, young, immensely marvelous
Like Baal loved it when he lived with us

Vulture Soup
Since vulture meat is not going to be available I’m thinking turkey will be a substitute. Vultures I envision in a desert environment, so roots and desert herbs are going to be the base ingredients. Cactus would be the perfect addition.

Sage
Bay
Rosemary
Garlic
Onion
Chervil
Turkey meat, with carcass
Roasted Cactus

In a large soup pot boil turkey carcass (the bone remains of a previously cooked turkey, ie the leftovers) with generous amounts if flesh remaining. Along with it, a bouquet garni of bay, sage and rosemary. Optional: Chervil tubers, which can be substituted with potato.

Meanwhile, set cactus in an oven dish and roast til tender in a bed if oil, garlic and onions sprinkled with chopped chervil greens.

More trains of thought.. With an openended (hey, it was open so i crawled inside) stopover in Elsinore. As I think and read and write I come across these linkages. Writing a sort of ballade of my own, I conjured up Elsinore, to relate a certain element of madness. What comes to mind from Elsinore from other perspectives? I found a poem in Portuguese (http://www.poetryinternational.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=4904) Mário Cesariny “You are welcome to Elsinore”. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fynpiRix0u0&feature=youtube_gdata_player)
My ballade listed off a register of neo scholar saints, the very same class of individuals I mentioned yesterday. The Picassos, the Piafs, Morrisons, Nicos, Rozzs, Gainsebourgs and Dalis. The icons like Pinocchio, Waldemar Daninsky, and Harlock. to allocate them to positions of the tarot. This recognition of some grand work underway makes this time of sparing and regeneration worthwhile. I’m coming to the end of a cycle and very relieved I did not try to rush into spring without going through this phase. Serendipitously, I’ve reached the final volume of the series I’d dug into in the winter, and amassed a sizable stack of books read on my shelf.
This morning in the news was an article marking the 20th anniversary of the Washington Square Massacre, in which dozens were injured when an Oldsmobile plowed through the pedestrian square in NYC. It mentioned an interest group AutoFree NYC, which gives even more ideas like the ones I’ve been thinking about, and ideas that are being talked about and set into motion. I look forward to investigating one if their monthly meetings.
I believe in automobile free urban zones. Cars are highly unnecessary especially for personal use. Two weeks ago as I was on a particularly long walk I started to think about reducing, and displacing, vehicle traffic in a city like new York by adding a layer above sidewalk level to the streets. The objective being to segregate vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Along with reintroducing tramlines to the New York transit system like most european cities (take Amsterdam or Berlin) this Wouk make the streets of new York safer, cleaner, less polluted and more efficient.
The obstacles? Who would the upper level be assigned to in consideration of safety, practicality without sacrificing the street level store front that is a staple of urban dwelling? Would it be possible to sink lanes rather than raise? I would opt for having vehicles travelling underground through tunnels (formerly street level) while giving pedestrians raised, airy, above ground plazas with greenery and open space free from traffic noise and congestion.
I would ideally take some 99 percent of vehicles off ALL streets, sheerly out of obsolescence. that’s another article altogether, though. But I envision the roads travelled by silent running compact clean green vehicles.
The article on the Washington square massacre used a great term that deemed worthy of word 9f the day , you-a culpa. Taken from a latin prayer expressing guilt, ala mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. The invented Youa culpa displaces the blame on someone else in grand style, canonized in the urban dictionary.

Last weeks food styling photoshoot results, for a flier for a series of DJ gigs in NYC at Motor City Bar in the LES. the first flier I made a few months ago used a film still captured from Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” with a food motif, so this time around I tried to build my own image with a specific color palette. The results were delicious, with black rice, golden beets, plums, blood oranges, dried chipotles, and a snack of kalamata olives and a dark red rinded cheese.
[ Photo, edits and typography all done on phone apps ]

Tonight, Monday, April 16, 2012, I’m at Motor City bar, djing from 10 til late, with a collection of trashy sounds smuggled in from overseas.

“Monday night music tasting from the vinyl cellars of the Splatterhaus. Deep cuts of aged post-post punk, fresh green indie stuffed with pimento, pickled punk, and a funky beat euro-filmscore salad.
Wash it all down with a whiskey, wine or beer from NYC’s best and oldest Detroit style dive bar.”

Motor City 127 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002

Back in November I was looking for another figure to incorporate into the series of Heroes I’ve been printing. Already in the same series ive reproduced images of Denis Hopper, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jeffrey Lee Pierce. I eventually decided on Pier Paolo Pasolini for the next visage. It would have coincided with his death, November 2, 1975. The prints were unsuccessful themselves since I haven’t been able to achieve the same results with DIY materials since arriving to the USA.
One of the images I discovered in my Pasolini research was astounding. Not because of its graphic nature, but I could not tell if it was a painting or a photograph. After some further research I discovered it was Pasolini himself, post mortem. My initial impression was that it was an artistic sketch in color, in the same look and feel as Egon Schiele, one of my favorite Austrian painters. It may also have to do with that most of my image viewing is done on a display no larger than a playing card. But the posture of the figure, the color palette, and even the vantage point all bring Schiele to mind. To illustrate, some examples.

As I mentioned this image came to my collection back in November. It reappears today for two reasons. I have been reading Pasolini’s Roman Poems. In ‘Frammento alla morte’, he writes: “e la vita era reale solo se bella” [Life is real, so long as it is beautiful]. Without art, be it grotesque or more traditional imagery, existence would be unrelentingly dreary. Ironic that the aesthetic of the poets death could provoke such a reaction.
Regarding aesthetics brings me to the second point that made the photo relevant. I’ve been running a tumblr depicting some of the images from my picture library. I halted posting a few weeks ago to reserve posts to constrain to a particular color palette, as part of an assignment in color theory and design. Greys, maroon, steel, blue-gray, ochres, dark reds… All of which appear here.

The final image that came up in my looking on Egon Schiele I wasn’t able to confirm as his although the style was similar, and a very attractive painting it is. I’ll make a note when I can locate the source.

I passed through this old city on the coast of Croatia. Port Saint Uvid… it was charmingly quaint, picturesque… the kind of place people send postcards from on a vacation tour. I was on my way to Vienna by train from Greece. I didn’t stop by there, but I do recall admiring the scenery as the train stopped on the narrow platform for a brief moment and i gazed out over the coastline while the sun was setting. For a half an hour or so the sun over the Mediterranean coast, masked by silhouettes of olive, cypress and evergreens. It made me fall in love with that stretch of coast.
I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that scene, or the name of that adorable little town, if the story I’m about to tell you weren’t so vivid and unforgettable.
I was two years later, and I had the coincidence to run through that village again. I was much worse off, to put it mildly. In the margin I scribble, this was more of some sort of tour of debauchery. I’d gambled away all my friends, credibility and money in Barcelona. But there was always booze around. Wine was always cheap, and I wasn’t so shabby that I couldn’t charm a few drinks out of a waitress or an old wife at a café. But nothing ever seemed to stick, least of all my hopes. So before long I’d be at the train station, in the bar. My train ticket was good for the whole season up and down the coast, so I at least always had places to go. The wisest investment I’d made before my luck went sour in the south of Spain. It was just after doing a job, one of those odd jobs night work my friends would throw me from time to time. I could smell things about to go bad, and I was getting restless and the fear was on me. I’d run afoul of the law, and my friends and supporters evaporated in a hurry. I stood in the spanish train station at a ticket vending machine and punched buttons to see what the most long lasting and cheapest ticket would be that would put as much distance between me and that country as possible, knowing I damn well didn’t have anywhere left to go.
A month later, I crawled out of a train compartment early in the morning. Actually I was thrown out, no point mincing around it. The conductor found me drunk and harassing other patrons of the train. I thought I was being charming… I only had a small briefcase, my jacket and a hat, luckily thats all, because if he’d thrown anything else at me as I tumbled onto the platform it might have done some damage.
Some coastal town on a ridge above the sea. Absolutely no one around. The water spread out smooth before me in the dawn. I staggered and lurched forward. Briefcase in hand, holding my hat against a breeze. I climbed up a flight of steps through a stone walled passageway, up to street level. From up here, it came back to me, this town, Port. St. Uvid.
Her name was Ysabel. The sun coming up through the window…. her lips were the horizon. I’d visit her and sneak into her room from the balcony, when her brothers weren’t home. She was a beautiful turquoise enclosed in a tarnished iron setting. She took me with her and her friends to the park where we drank more wine. I hadn’t had a day like this in ages. After months of dingy bars lousing about until sometimes noon, cursing the day heading out and home to strange beds, floors, couches, alleyways or hallways… this was a taste of a blissful, daylight existence I knew must be out there.
I never slept this whole time I was in Port Uvid. Until the police came and picked me up. After that it was all a blackout. I must have been running on pure alcohol and adrenaline, constant stimulation didnt leave time for getting tired or stopping. They let me out of the cell and it was dark already. They drove me back to the city, the Coastal police station was outside a little. Id been all but banished from town. reappearing anywhere else and i knew id be in for it. I lost my gold watch that didn’t work, a proud souvenir from one of the markets in greece which looked extremely handsome dangling from my vest pocket. if it wound up with the port police or the hookers in the cell with me i don’t know. but at this point i consider it fair trade for this tale to tell.

To come back, on the base of a vertebrae. Alexos wanders through the old cemetery… Discovered a bone there scattered among the debris of a fresh covered grave… The upturned remains of one if it’s previous occupants … A vertebrae bone.