The Fool's Heroic Journey (w/ Addendum )

The Fool, the unnumbered card of the Tarot deck's Major Arcanum - AI generated - by TyliJura.
Related images can be found here.

 

"the hero receives a call to adventure

•

they refuse the call

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they meet an inspiring mentor

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they decide to “cross the threshold” and accept the call

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they leave their home and face obstacles, enemies, and allies

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they fail to achieve the goal

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they try again and succeed

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they come home with a reward"

 - A list of the chronological order of events present in an archetypal heroic tale compiled by Joseph Campbell for his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces found in this Substack article. 

"The Fool is not foolish — he is brave. He reminds us to begin again with openness, to trust the journey even when we can’t see the destination, and to listen to our instincts and higher self. He is the hero before the story begins, the spark of curiosity and freedom that initiates transformation.

Whether you’re starting a new venture, moving through change, or seeking deeper wisdom, The Fool invites you to embrace the unknown with a light heart and a willing soul."

- Interpretation of The Fool of the Tarot found here.

"In Europe, the divinatory meanings of the Fool tend to be darker than in the Anglo-American world. These meanings include illusion, confusion, passive drifting, irresponsibility, and impulsive actions leading to chaos. At best, the card symbolizes radical freedom and a detachment from societal restrictions, allowing for a kind of creative genius."

- Another reading of The Fool card (Le Mat), alluding  to its negative, or inverted meaning in divination.

"And perhaps most fittingly for our reading of Tarot cards, William Blake says 'If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.' 

When dealt this card, we are given a call to adventure, the beginning of a grand new journey, or we are being shown our own silliness, the missteps that we have taken. In truth, these are the same thing, a chance to start again."

- Excerpt from an article featuring Fool archetypes from the classical tarot decks. 

For, yet, another (tarot) Fool offering on this blog, see this post.

Interestingly, the Fool is also interpreted as a "madman." Arthur E. Waite, on the other hand, refers the Fool as an alchemist, although in a derogatory way:

"The conventional explanations say that the Fool signifies the flesh, the sensitive life, and by a peculiar satire its subsidiary name was at one time the alchemist, as depicting folly at the most insensate stage." (See Sacred Texts.)

***

It will be the 12th day of Christmas when this post goes up, and the 5th day of the official New Year. Weirdly enough, at least in my experience, that official juncture - or portal - between 2025 and 2026 which we have so recently experienced has held true. For me, it's as if I walked into a different dimension of reality - and/or human experience - I had never (exactly) visited before; overwhelmingly similar to my general perspective but turned up a notch... like an increment on a dial. Then again, space-time might be (metaphorically) represented by a dial... but, possibly, in ways the Vitruvian dialers (Chapter 8)* could not have foreseen...

(More below the jump...)

Rebirth

 

Somewhere near the middle of this video a series of transdimensional shifts occur - worlds seamlessly spill into other worlds - which I find strangely satisfying. The video's maker -Tetouze - is also a musician and this might explain Rebirth's engaging fluidity. Enjoy!

An interesting and related article from Big Think:

The cinematograph, the “noematograph,” and the future of AI art

Hugo-winning author Ken Liu explores what early cinema and Chinese poetry can teach us about AI’s potential as a new artistic medium.

Morrisey and Bowie - Together & Live

Just found... via Morrissey's Rebels Without Applause YouTube page. Anyone who knew Mac would know that he would've probably given anything to see Bowie and Morrissey performing together. This duet took place in 1991 but the video wasn't uploaded until 3 years ago.

It's been awhile since I've beamed up something into the multiverse for Mac. Sometimes a news story catches my eye, but there's never enough enough passion or clarity in it to motivate me.

This one's for you, Mac!

As the Cosmic Yule Turns...

 

 

 

 

 ... expect a brighter tomorrow... no matter what the Overlords decree.  Happy Holidays to all!

(Note: for more Lisa Gerrard, visit Trans-D's holiday post.)

 

 

 

Orchestral Maneuvers on the Moon

"Almost four decades went by before lost recordings emerged that revealed something unsettling that the three Apollo astronauts had experienced while flying above the far side of the moon. The taped recordings contained "strange, otherworldly music coming through the Apollo module's radio," according to the upcoming Science Channel series, 'NASA's Unexplained Files.'

The unexplained 'music' transmission lasted almost an hour, and just before the astronauts regained radio contact with Earth, they discussed whether or not to tell Mission Control what they had experienced:

'It's unbelievable! You know?'
'Shall we tell them about it?'
'I don't know. We ought to think about it.'

- From the Huffington Post article: Lost Tapes Reveal Apollo Astronauts Heard Unexplained ‘Music’ On Far Side Of The Moon.

***

There's a clip from the show on the Huffington Post article, but it is merely the first of two parts. Part 2 Is unlisted, but I found it here. I can't say I heard anything that resembles music, but, on the other hand, the astronaut's claims have never been successfully debunked.

Regardless of the answer to the anomaly, it begs the question: would SETI recognize an extra-terrestrial transmission if it was an alien musical composition?

Kind of like this:

And then again, remember this?

(And, a hat-tip to the original Orchestral Maneuvers...)

March 12 Update: Glitch Fixed

Thanks to the Powers That Be, the mysterious video problem I was experiencing on my blogs has been repaired.

To celebrate, I was inspired to upload something for your viewing pleasure. I spent about 4 hours searching through YouTube fractal videos looking for something beautiful, lush, cool, unique, under 5 minutes, with a soundtrack that wasn't distracting, irritating, or downright obnoxious.

I found two, possibly three... and all of them can be found on Truman Brown's YouTube channel. The one above is Afflux.

Thanks, TB, you don't know it, but you saved my day!

Five Years

Ziggy Stardust (re-imaged)

"While I share many of Burroughs' attitudes and literary inclinations, I'm less certain why I feel a commonality with Bowie. Maybe because of his performance in "The Man Who Fell To Earth"; I feel an instinctual rapport with "aliens" of all sorts. It may be that Bowie is the closest thing to a genuine extraterrestrial that I'm likely to meet in this lifetime."

- Mac Tonnies via a 2006 Posthuman Blues post

"Burroughs occupied a central place in the underground pantheon. Both gay and a drug addict, he explored these aspects of himself through some of the most challenging and disturbing novels written in English. Bowie was his Gemini twin, a wrecker of mores who was reaping fame and fortune as the deranged but beautiful creature of pop music. Burroughs might have been looking for a way into the mainstream, and might have believed rubbing elbows with Bowie would get him closer. During their talk, Bowie describes the full mythos behind Ziggy, describing a race of alien superbeings called the "infinites", living black holes that use Ziggy as a vessel to give themselves a form people could comprehend. Burroughs countered with his own vision to create an institute to help people achieve greater awareness so humanity will be ready when we make eventual contact with alien life forms."

- Excerpt from: Peter Bebergal's Season of the Witch - How the Occult Saved Rock & Roll found, along with an interview with the author, in this (November 12, 2014) Quietus article.

(Hat-tip to Grail-seeker!)

"I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies

I saw boys, toys electric irons and T.V.'s

My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare

I had to cram so many things to store everything in there

And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people

And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people

I never thought I'd need so many people"

- Lyrics from "Five Years" - released w/ The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1972, David Bowie

It was no secret that Mac was a fan of David Bowie (although not necessarily as Ziggy Stardust), and that "The Man Who Fell to Earth" - both the film and the original Walter Tevus novel - made a lasting impression on him. I once posted a clip of the movie on this blog, and another post featuring a fave Bowie tune of Mac's (and mine): Ashes to Ashes (1980). Both videos were swallowed by trolls, however, and the posts removed.

One could argue that the extreme memes planted by David Bowie in the early 1970s - in the persona of Ziggy Stardust, the gender-bending alien rock god with the mismatched set of eyes - didn't merely predict the eventual popularity of UFOs, extraterrestrial life, Mars, and science fiction, but spawned it. Seriously. I could say "you had to be there" but, this isn't actually true. Case in point, Mac wasn't even born until several years after Ziggy first took the stage - and, by 1975 - Bowie had already morphed into the Thin White Duke. It's significant though that while Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, he entered the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (founded in Kansas City, no less) in 2013, along with J. R. R. Tolkien and H. R. Giger. And, judging by the full list of sci-fi luminaries, Bowie appears to be the only rock musician inducted.

As for the gender-bending... well, I'm not saying that Ziggy spawned the eventual societal acceptance of same-sex marriages, but I'm betting he inspired quite a few boys (and girls) to question which team they were, in fact, really playing for. (And, judging by the pretty thing in the video featured at the end of the post... well, yes, we see.)

Then again, maybe it's just that sort of synchronicity in which a series of oddly-related phenomena tend to arise at the same time, but, I'll let historians work that one out. My goal was to remember Mac on the 5th anniversary of his passing, which is, in fact, today...

Compressorhead, The All-Robot Rock Band

"Fingers" via Kruger Media

"Along with Bones, 'the highest precision bass player in known existence,' and drummer Stickboy, who plays a 14-piece kit, these robots make up the German all-robot heavy metal band Compressorhead. According to the band's website, which pokes fun at its human readers as 'meatbags,' the drummer, like the guitarist, 'was created to exacting specifications. 4 arms, 2 legs, 1 head, no brain.'

Compressorhead's performance is controlled by MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and electro-pneumatic valves that are synchronized with 

the robots' head-banging movements."

- excerpt from: Raging Machines: Compressorhead, the First Robot Rock Band by Daniel Honan, April 16, 2013, Big Think

Well, you knew it had to happen sooner or later... I'm only surprised it took so long.

Of course, nothing apart from a kitchen appliance would prefer Compressorhead's cover of Blitzkrieg Bop to the Ramone's original "meatbag" version... however, not bad, not bad. And if you like this sort of thing, here's the raging machines covering "Bullet in the Head" by... um, those other guys.

Klaus Schulze - Plug in Code; Press Play

...And now for something completely different.

If you even have a passing interest in electronic music, from the techno-pop of Kraftwerk, the ambient music of Brian Eno, Vangelis (one of Mac's favorites, as he wrote the score for Blade Runner), or the early experiments of Tangerine Dream, then it's time you met the master of the genre, German composer, Klaus Schulze.

Above is an abbreviated clip of Schulze from a 2010 concert in Tokyo, Japan. Below, in the second video, Schulze composes his melody, punches in his percussion code, and allows all of it to play while he walks off-stage. I don't think one really "gets" electronic music unless they see a true maestro perform. The music becomes an almost scientific achievement, a network of reverberating sound crafted on a machine; but, if the composer is successful, one can still feel the human presence in the center of this web, and feel privileged to have access to this dreamer's dream.

And below is a beautiful, dreamy collaboration between Schulze and Peter Namlook, complete with a synthetic journey through the galaxies.

For those of you who might be interested in an earlier (1977) live clip of Schulze, featuring just the man and his machines, press play.

And, in the interests of "turning European", here's a teaser clip of a 2009 Schulze concert featuring that amazing, muse-possessed vocalist, Lisa Gerrard, from the now legendary band, Dead Can Dance.

Virtual Reality

No, your eyes do not deceive you; yesterday there was, indeed, a post here with the same title. For those interested, an updated version has now moved here.

I decided I'd post the same video, however... in memory of a Bowiephile I once knew.




Video link via Greg at The Daily Grail. (Thanks!)

Radiohead

I had a tough time choosing just one Radiohead video... the two other contenders were "Climbing Up The Walls" and "A Wolf at the Door"...

Red Rain

Had I been able to send Mac a link, I'd send him this one I found today... Featuring Peter Gabriel, Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe, three artists he greatly admired. Apparently this was a VH1 broadcast, but I've never seen it before.

Mad World

I found a link to this video on "Area 18" from an anonymous post... The song is from the movie "Donnie Darko", a favorite of Mac's - though not exactly up there with "Blade Runner"! It does seem fitting though, and I thank "Anonymous" for posting it.

This One's For You

I've had this song going through my head for about 5 days now. It was a mutual favorite of Mac's and mine. The original video is brilliant but a tad disturbing here, so I opted for this live clip from 2000.

Paul Kimball put a beautiful Smith's tune up for Mac... It can be found here: http://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2009/10/mac-tonnies-passes-away.html