Author Archives: Cimaxion

Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters): Kindle Book by Levi Asher

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Levi Asher, the writer behind the long-running Literary Kicks site, has decided to move into the world of Kindle ebook publishing.  He’s starting the series off with a philosophical essay on the Objectivism of Ayn Rand.  Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters) expands upon several posts Asher has made recently in his ongoing Philosophy Weekend discussions.  The focus on philosophy and its requirements for logical thinking and argument is especially needed right now in a political and ideological world of harsh opinion and attack masquerading as argument.  I often do this kind of attack-dog arguing myself.  It’s fun and it clears the sinuses effectively.  But it does not really serve much purpose.  Rational philosophical debate does serve a purpose and tends to foster respect between opposing parties.

Ayn Rand, for me, is simply the author of a very readable but rather simplistic novel, The Fountainhead.  I tried to read Atlas Shrugged, but gave up after two hundred pages, finding it so belabored and filled with lunkheaded ideas that I simply couldn’t put up with another speech from one of its cutout characters.   However, Rand also has a body of philosophical writing that seems to have been very influential and is having some kind of a resurgence lately among mostly conservative-minded people.

I have always thought that Rand was basically reacting violently to the mass-mindedness she saw everywhere in the first half of the twentieth century.  That mass-mind quality led millions to death via the trenches of World War I or the concentrations camps and genocide of Hitler and Stalin.  In the face of such horror, I think I too would have found solace in elevating the individual above all else.

I have purchased my copy of the Kindle book but I have not read it yet.  When I do finish the book and if I feel competent to do so I will try to write a little review.  But since I know Levi Asher’s writing very well from his fascinating blog I can certainly recommend that you head over to Amazon and buy a copy of a book that is for thinking.

Get Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters) on Amazon

The Discipline of DE: Short Film by Gus Van Sant

by Cimaxion

Here’s a 1982 16mm film by Gus Van Sant that’s based on a William S. Burroughs short story from his collection, ‘Exterminator!’ The film perfectly captures the dry Burroughs humor that’s actually dead serious. There’s no advice in this film that one shouldn’t take. Thanks to Marc Campbell at Dangerous Minds for posting this. You can read more about the film there.

Facebook Appears to Delete Photos and Pages Related to Gay Men Kissing

by Cimaxion | 3 Comments

If this photo upsets you or offends you, then kiss my ass.  Facebook appears to have deleted a page set up to organize a protest over two gay men who were thrown out of a British pub for kissing at their table.  (Update: It turns out that the protest organizer made the page private.  But it still looks as though Facebook removed some other posts and pics related to this issue.)  Over the course of my life I have observed many men and women kissing in restaurants, bars, taxis, airplanes, streets, theaters, Ferris wheels, boats, beaches and on television.  It’s a simple act of affection that is practiced by all cultures worldwide.

If a man and a woman feel something for one another, they kiss.  If two men feel something for one another, they kiss.  If two women feel something for one another, they kiss.

Facebook doesn’t seem to see it that way.  They appear to consider it offensive.  Objectionable.  Perverse.

This is what’s wrong behind the scenes with corporate control of major communications tools.  You get some unevolved, intellectually limited, vapid, sexually repressed jackasses running the show and suddenly no one is really allowed to communicate freely anymore.  This is a sure indicator that we need to move off of services like Facebook and into fully open-source social networking tools.

Mark Zuckerberg may be one of these mental midgets (Don’t be fooled by the movie.  It doesn’t take much to code Facebook really.  It’s just MySpace with a white background.) with problems in the sexual arena.  Those dull watery eyes might be a dead giveaway.  At any rate, he presides over a company that is apparently banning photos of men kissing while fully clothed.

Candlelight Stories supports the rights of all gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual persons.  Those rights include the right to kiss and the right to marry and the right to carry on in any way they see fit.

It does not escape me that some of Candlelight’s slower readers will find this post surprising and perhaps offensive.  To those readers I say, get the hell out of here, take your kids with you and don’t let the door hit your expanding ass on the way out.  I don’t publish for you.  Never have.  Never will.  I consider you monkey people.  Unattractive, limp, unschooled, unappealing and quite frankly disgusting.  If you were to read another word of my writing, I think I would vomit.

For those others of you who understand that we all have the same right to kiss, go onto Facebook and share this photo.

100 Year Old Little Nemo Animation by Winsor McCay

by Cimaxion

The Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex blog has a post about Winsor McCay’s early animation efforts from 100 years ago. This is a film that features the cartoonist impressing his skeptical artist friends with moving characters from his great comic strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland.

The actual Nemo animation starts at the 8:15 mark.  Enjoy!

Thanks to Short of the Week for the tip.

TED Film From Arrested Chinese Artist

by Cimaxion

This is a film presented at the TED conference from the famous Chinese artist who was recently kidnapped by Chinese authorities. He has completely vanished along with thousands of other artists, journalists, writers, intellectuals and human rights workers who have been taken in the past several months. This artist speaks very simply and clearly about the situation in his country where his government watches him all day long and sees nothing wrong with bulldozing his studio to the ground because he expresses some criticism of what he sees around him.

What I do not respect about this video is the simpering nitwit from TED who introduces the film by stating that the TED conference takes no position on China. He then goes on to bend over for China and mentions how many people have been lifted from poverty in China. How far up China’s ass can this guy fit his head, I wonder? How can any organization not take a position on China? I’m sure if Hitler were around today and rambling across the land on an extermination campaign, this bunch from TED would take no position on that.

Look at this little notice on TED’s YouTube page where the film is hosted:

TED is a non-partisan, nonpolitical organization and we understand the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest. But for anyone who believes in the power of ideas, of human imagination, it is heartbreaking to see one of the world’s great artists shackled in this way. We will be tracking developments carefully. Here is the film.

TED ‘understands the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest!’

Oh my god!  Yes indeed.  They understand this concern of a totalitarian murdering government that is more than happy to make people vanish into prison because they want to complain about being beaten by a policeman.

Hey TED, here I come with my ticket!  Gosh, I wouldn’t want you to be concerned that I might boo one of your presentations.  Wouldn’t want that, would we?

Lifting people out of poverty in China is not what we need to be doing. We need to be shutting these people out entirely. We need companies that do not fill their computers with Chinese parts. We need toys that do not come painted with Chinese lead poison. We need to treat this totalitarian country the way it deserves to be treated. A rich China doing business with every company on the planet is not going to advance freedom for anyone. China needs to be pushed into abject and brutal poverty. Only then will the conditions exist for a revolution.

I opened up my Dell computer the other day to blow some dust out. The first things I saw were multiple ‘Made in China’ stickers on various components. Screw Dell. Screw every Western company that buys a single circuit board from China. Screw China.

Ford Magic Skyway Film from 1964

by Cimaxion

At the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, Walt Disney built the Ford Magic Skyway ride which took visitors on a ride in Ford cars through history and into the future. It makes me realize that all we are really doing when we visit Disney theme parks is celebrating nostalgia for the 1950s and 60s. Were we ever naive enough to actually attend a World’s Fair?

Five Artists: 1971 Documentary Film

by Cimaxion

Here’s a 1971 art documentary featuring five black artists. Compare this to a bloodless piece of work like the NOVA documentary I posted yesterday where artists are posed on a red pillow in front of a blue wall to spout off about their ‘brands’ and the business of art while a DSLR camera puts them either to the right or the left of frame because that’s what good composition looks like in 2011.

The artists featured are:

Barbara Chase-Riboud, a sculptor living in Paris
Charles White, a painter in Los Angeles
Betty Blayton, a painter-collage artist and director of the Moma Art School In Harlem
Richard Hunt, a sculptor in Chicago
Romare Bearden, a New York painter who uses collages and cut-outs

Enjoy these five artists who actually sound like artists.

NOVA: An Art Documentary That Entirely Excludes Black Artists

by Cimaxion

I wanted to like this film. I tried really hard. It was filmed during the Nova Contemporary Culture which happened in July and August 2010, at the MIS-Museum of Image and Sound, and SESC Pompeia, in São Paulo, Brazil.

It put me off with a few too many artist comments about art being a business and branding. There are a few real pretentious twits running through this art documentary. There’s also a lot of very nice, clean, well-behaved, pleasant, comfortable, easygoing, precise, smooth, color-balanced art going on here. I’ll be clear and remind my hesitant readers that I’m really quite the shining example of a creep. When I walk into a gallery I’m looking for the artist who is capable of throwing dirt into my eyes and laughing at me while I wipe it off. Most of the art in this film looks like it has been pre-approved for use by IBM in their next commercial.

I’m not looking for an artist who can tape off their lines straight and make them intersect at the farthest corner of the room. Draw crooked why don’t they? There’s so much goddam masking tape in this film it could wrap the Empire State Building six times over.

But if you watch this thing all the way through you just have to notice that out of all these young up-and-comers there’s apparently not a single black artist involved. I couldn’t find one. Maybe I missed something. But I went back and checked. How do you achieve something like that in 2011? Seriously? Don’t you have to work overtime hours to purposely exclude black artists from a documentary or a major art show like this? Can it be true that there are no black artists capable of sticking masking tape to a museum wall and painting inside the lines? Don’t black artists travel to Brazil?

It may not be director Isaac Niemand’s or producer ROJO‘s fault that the cast excludes black artists, but then perhaps they should have filmed a different art show. Maybe it’s Brazil’s fault.

I feel a little bad about criticizing a documentary film on Vimeo because their service is so based on mutual support and respect between artists. But that kind of thing has severe limits in the world of grownups and serious people.

Art is not preschool. It’s not about support and encouragement of creativity. Self-help bullshit doesn’t have a place in art. Art is about beauty, ugliness and thought that gets up in front of you and is willing to knock you unconscious without apology, willing to scare you, horrify you, enrage you, enrapture you, unsettle you, save you, uplift you, insult you, smash you, whither you, confuse you, ennoble you, or destroy you. But it does not ever want to please you.

Keep the pleasant art in Brazil thank you.

NOVA the film from ROJO on Vimeo.

Justus 2: A Film by Ryan Spring Dooley

by Cimaxion

Ryan Spring Dooley (aka MarvinTiberious on YouTube) and Juppy Nash made a catchy little tune and played it on an Italian rooftop where they could enjoy the place they were in and become infected with art. Dooley’s films are a constant stream of creativity and artistic perception unlike anything else. He combines old and new and creates works so easily expressive that you wonder why anyone needs anything more than paper, paint and a camera to do anything. Watch this film and wonder at just how good it really is. Masterful.

The filmmaker is also using Kickstarter to fund a bigscreen project:

Woodpecker: A Film by Rouzbeh Rashidi

by Cimaxion

Rouzbeh Rashidi is an Iranian filmmaker living in Dublin, Ireland. This film is a portrait of a day in the life of a man who works at a convenience store. Rashidi doesn’t want to show you the things you might want to see in a person’s normal day. He is interested in minute and detailed impressions. He focuses closely on things and lets them speak for themselves. The film conveys an unsettling mystery through its calm observation and beautiful black and white photography.  One of the most interesting things about this film for me is simply how happy the film’s subject looks while he is working.

The filmmaker has a website.