Author Archives: Editor

Bertrand Russell on the Foolishness of Religious Belief

by Editor

British philosopher Bertrand Russell on why it is foolish to ‘believe’ in something that is totally unverifiable.  I think I would have really liked this guy.  I agree with him completely.  One should simply ‘suspend judgment’ on something as unverifiable as the existence of god.  There is so much religious dogma that the world would be so much better off without.  Many people over the years wrongly interpreted this web site with its book and candle logo as having something to do with religious belief.  It has been my profound pleasure to disappoint them.  The book and candle logo actually represent the intellect expressed through creativity, along with a nice light to read by.

My view on all religions that purport to represent the word of god is quite simple:  No god has ever spoken a single word to any human being on the planet throughout all of history.  If a god had spoken, it would not have done so in a subtle or confusing manner.  A giant mouth would have appeared above Mount Everest and it would have spoken very clearly and would have left no room for any doubts whatsoever.  That should be self-evident to anyone who is not mentally deficient.

Via Dangerous Minds

WikiLeak Video Appears to Show U.S. Military Killing Without Cause

by Editor

Extremely graphic video that shows killing:

WikiLeaks, an organization that releases whistle-blower information, has released a 2007 video that appears to be part of a U.S. military cover-up. It shows U.S. Apache helicopter gunship crews shooting a group of men on a sidewalk that included two Reuters journalists. They also kill innocent people who arrive to help the wounded, seriously injuring two small children in the process. We can hear the helicopter gun crews begging for clearance to fire on people who are simply talking on a street corner. After killing most of them, they then beg for permission to kill a man who stops his van to render assistance to a victim (one of the journalists, in fact) who is crawling on the sidewalk.  Even if the soldiers thought the van was in fact trying to rescue wounded insurgents, so what?  Since when and under what rules of war are medical personnel or rescuers fired upon and killed for helping the wounded?  That’s a war crime.

I cannot see anything on this video that would give any sane and rational person the slightest motive for firing a weapon.  It is clear and simple murder.

After seeing this video, I think it would have been perfectly justifiable for anyone, including an American, to have taken these helicopters down.  This makes one wonder just how many attacks against American troops might actually be perfectly justifiable self-defense.  The idea that money I’ve earned actually goes into the pockets of murderous military personnel like this crew is hard to accept.  What’s really frightening is how widespread these bad soldiers must be in our military.  After all, these gunship crews are supposed to be the cream of the crop.  These soldiers should not want to live with what they did.

I think everyone should show this video on every web site in the U.S.  And we should find the men in these helicopters and on the radios and charge them with murder.  If this is how we are fighting our wars, I want no part of it.

Jean-Luc Godard Interviews Woody Allen

by Editor

Jean-Luc Godard interviews Woody Allen… sort of.  What is clear to me from watching this video is that Woody Allen is an ordinary thinker.  Jean-Luc Godard is not.  And frankly I’m not certain who is funnier.  I think this is a devastating dismantling of Mr. Allen.  It’s bordering on open mockery.  Watch how Allen looks at Godard.  He hasn’t the slightest idea what’s going on.  Every single answer Allen gives is perfectly expected and we’ve heard all of them before from a hundred other filmmakers.  Godard’s questions however, come dropping out of the bottom of a 747 that’s flying without a pilot.

Jean-Luc Godard’s New Trailer is the Entire Film!

by Editor

Film director Jean-Luc Godard has made one of the sharpest comments on copyright, piracy and film advertising that I have ever seen by releasing a trailer for his upcoming new film, Socialisme, that is actually the entire film in super-fast forward for 1 minute and 7 seconds.  This is wit and intelligence like no other filmmaker in the world can muster.  Once you see the opening presented to you by the films of Godard it becomes very difficult indeed to get up the energy to go watch highly paid American film stars mug and smile their way through belabored mega-scripts that seek opportunities to display Coke bottles and laundry detergent alongside Aston Martins and designer shoes.  You begin to see that the Hollywood product is in reality just a very large catering operation and that movies are made with approximately 10 to 20 times the resources actually required to make any given film.  American films, even the ‘independent’ ones, are shot from exactly the same point of view and think that movies are about telling stories.  They are conceptually still living in the 19th century.  They all adhere to the ‘beginning, middle and end’ framework and they uniformly lead to a ‘climax’ and a ‘resolution.’

Godard, on the other hand, functions in the present, treats film as an actual art form, and always uses a unique point of view that cannot be pinned down or turned into a style.  He is death to James Cameron.  He murders people like Woody Allen.  He makes Scorsese look like the heavy-handed New York buffoon that he is.  Godard makes films by persuading people to give him money on the basis of totally fake scripts, then shows up with a note pad and a bunch of confused actors and decides literally on the spot what he might want to be making that day and hopes for the best when it comes to fitting his material inside the structure of a project he might happen to be working on.  In short, he works just like an artist is supposed to work.  He works from himself.  The fact that we have been misled by a century of industrial product aimed at showing us Paul Newman’s teeth is not of any concern to him.

If James Cameron showed up at my door with a contract to be in his next film, I would shove him backwards off my front porch.  But I would fly to Europe to stand in the background of a Godard film for free.

National Poetry Month – April 2010

by Editor

It’s almost here.  April will be National Poetry Month, during which we celebrate the placement of words into various shapes, patterns and meanings that only a select few can decipher.  Don’t worry, if you saw the poetry reading at the most recent Presidential Inauguration, she was only placed at the podium to intercept bullets.  That has nothing to do with poetry.

For those of us fortunate and intelligent enough to avoid the study of poetry in a university, the month of April can be a strangely rewarding treat.  It’s an awkward and sort of a lame month of celebration, but it works.  Don’t ask me why.  Just think of yourself as being in the National Poetry Month and walk into a good bookstore and go to the poetry shelf to see what happens.  If you’re a total dumbass, nothing will happen of course.  But if you can read, you might start wondering why words make you want to have a coffee, or a piece of bread, or some wine, or cheese, or wear a hat, or some old boots.

I think I am going to celebrate Poetry Month by posting parts of my unfinished new video.  It mixes images, music, and words to make something that can really only be explained in terms of poetry anyway.  So I claim the right, during National Poetry Month, to be somewhat mysterious, cryptic, unfinished, insulting, fuzzy, indulgent, and unintelligible.

Audio Podcast Novel: Robinson Crusoe (Part 9)

by Editor | 1 Comment

DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 9

Let’s get on with our story, shall we? It’s a good story and reading it is a lot of fun. Difficult, but fun. Defoe’s language is up and down and backward and forward. It makes you think fast. Try picking up the book and reading any part of it out loud and fast. It’s tricky. But it’s a very good way to learn more about how Defoe’s mind worked. Amazing. Are you starting to wonder why Crusoe constantly reminds us of things and says things like: ‘As I told you before,’ or ‘As I said earlier?’

He almost insists that you follow the correct sequence of events, but he skips ahead in order to achieve a much more important goal. He wants you to follow along with his state of mind. That’s why his story-telling language is so twisty and folds back on itself so often. This is certainly one of the most fantastic things about Defoe’s novel. Its obsessive focus on the man’s state of mind sets a precedent that influences almost all of literature following Defoe. It is really this that makes the book so modern.

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Read by Alessandro Cima

Illustration is by NC Wyeth (1920)
Crusoe battles the currents on the far side of his island

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 17)

by Editor

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO

This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.

Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.

You can purchase the high-quality paperback from Amazon for $11.95 or just $1.99 for a Kindle e-book version.

You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)

You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99

Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.

When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.

Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.

Get all the chapters of the book podcast here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

This book is read by the author.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Reality Hunger: I Think David Shields Missed the Joke

by Editor

I finished it a couple of weeks ago.  Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields is a fascinating read most of the time.  Some quotations are simply better than others.  I have my favorites.  Hemingway gets quoted for his: “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.”

What might Ernest have meant by that? Did he mean that a writer should be writing what he/she knows?  Writing from reality?  David Shields seems to think so.  He puts this quote in the chapter called ‘Reality.’  But I don’t know.  I think the inclusion of this quote is a weak pin in the framework of Reality Hunger.  I don’t think Hemingway had any concern whatsoever with reality.  I don’t think Hemingway’s ‘shit’ equals ‘fiction’ or ‘made-up.’  I think Hemingway’s ‘shit’ equals shit.  My shit-detector is going off and it’s pointing in Mr. Shields’ direction.

His book pinpoints the weakness of fictional form in today’s reality-obsessed culture.  The more real we get in our art, the more real our art will be.  We see it all around us, this fixation on reality shows and data and news and of-the-moment information.  We want people to write memoirs more than we want them to write fantasies with fictional characters running around dragging us through the usual plot structures of the worn-out novel form.

I’d believe David Shields if he’d tell more lies.  His book is a big collection of quotations from writers, artists, philosophers, academics, photographers, and filmmakers through history.  The quotations lead us ever closer to the general idea that the observation and reporting of reality in and of itself creates all the fiction we really need.  The pulling together of various shards and bits of reality and observation build art and culture.  To hold a memoir writer hostage to absolute truth is futile and ridiculous because the writer’s job is simply to write.

But I think I’d prefer the book if, having read it to the end and found the appendix with all the sources of the book’s quotations listed, I then could go on to discover that every single one of the quotations was in fact… fake.

The book should have been an absolutely made-up total fake because that would be really real.

Animation: Skhizein

by Editor

Jérémy Clapin made Skhizein, a CG animation in which a man finds himself standing about a foot to the side of his actual position in the world. My question is: if he’s standing off to the side of himself, wouldn’t he be seeing everything from the point of view of his actual self since he touches things from that point of view?

Obama Signs Healthcare Bill – Big Fu*king Deal

by Editor

I’m for health care reform because I’m about as liberal as one can get. I would never in a million elections consider voting for a Republican candidate for any office whatsoever.  But I also have a nasty habit of biting off the political hand that feeds me and then spitting it back.  I’ve seen the rock-bottom brutal racism and stupidity of the healthcare reform opponents and the Tea Party protesters who look to me exactly like Ku Klux Klan members.  I think they need white hoods to go along with all their racial epithets and homophobic remarks.  The fact is that the United States desperately needs some kind of health reform to reign in the murderous insurance companies and protect all people, not just those who make lots of money and can afford absurdly priced, flimsy medical coverage.  Now that I’ve said that, I will also say that this country also needs a vice president who does not say ‘it’s a big fu*king deal’ on television in front of the world with his arms around the President.  His remark is shameful and not in slightest bit funny.  It put his president in an uncomfortable position during an important and historical moment.  Obama should have asked him to kindly leave the room.  Biden is a liability and needs to be dropped from the ticket in 2012.  He will be.  Watch.  All Republican campaign commercials will now feature Joe Biden saying ‘Big Fu*king Deal.’

As for the health reform law, I think it is obviously unconstitutional.  There.  I’ve said it.  I will be rejected by most of my friends now, but it’s the simple unavoidable truth.  The law’s central requirement that all Americans buy health insurance from private companies is ludicrous and will be quickly rejected by the United States Supreme Court.  Already, fourteen states have filed a lawsuit declaring the law an infringement of states’ rights.  They are correct.  Taxing Americans in order to cover them through a public policy is one thing.  But forcing them to give money to insurance companies that routinely murder people by withdrawing medicine from them is an entirely different matter.  I think Democrats are in a frenzy of forced celebration over a victory they know is somewhat temporary.  A conservative Supreme Court is going to dismantle this thing in a hurry.  The federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce does not give it the power to force people to engage in that commerce in the first place.  If I don’t want to buy something, I don’t have to buy it.  Certainly, we are all obligated to buy car insurance if we drive.  But we choose to drive.  We are free to not drive and not buy car insurance.  But the health reform law forces Americans to pay corporations… for being alive at all.

Obama did not have the courage to push a public insurance option through.  He made a deal with Murder Incorporated and he is going to pay a very steep price for this mistake.  A reform bill without public insurance coverage should have simply forced the insurance companies into strict codes of behavior.  It should not have forced every single U.S. citizen to hand cash over to these horrendous people.  No way.  It’s actually pretty shocking to see this happening during a Democratic administration.  The plan is actually this: to have Internal Revenue Service agents investigate people who don’t buy insurance and to levy penalties upon them.  That’s like a government penalty for not buying your tires at Sears.

It is not necessary to argue about the reform bill anymore.  It is law now.  But I can predict that no law requiring private medical insurance coverage is going to be on the books in two years’ time.

Audio Podcast Novel: Robinson Crusoe (Part 8)

by Editor

DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 8

Robinson Crusoe struggles to harvest his corn, make bread, build a boat and sew some clothes. The efforts he makes are constantly set back by mistakes and errors in judgment. He deals with his lack of expertise in the various arts that he must call upon with a certain amount of humor. Pay attention to how Crusoe constantly monitors his state of mind and is ever willing to discuss his mistakes and to poke fun at himself.

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Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Film: 21-87

by Editor

Another film by Arthur Lipsett, the filmmaker who is the subject of an upcoming animation by Theodore Ushev. This one is called 21-87 and it’s a masterpiece.  It seems to have something to do with trying to see how people are deadened somehow by the modern world.  The filmmaker uses documentary clips in a mix-up with collage audio that unsettles the viewer.  What is this life force behind us?  And why do we keep trying to behave like machines?

Film: Very Nice, Very Nice

by Editor

Here is a well-known film by Arthur Lipsett, the filmmaker who is the subject of an upcoming animation by Theodore Ushev. It’s called Very Nice, Very Nice. It features a layered collage soundtrack with still photos and film clips. It conveys a general sense of unease and remoteness in urban people of 1961. I like it with the possible reservation that it relies too heavily on photographs. I think it’s very tricky to use still photos in a film and pull it off and I’m not sure that Lipsett is entirely successful.  It’s good, but has a static quality, a reserve that I don’t fully admire.  The filmmaker is too well-behaved and does not pull the trigger.