ERIS’ NEW DRESS

A wonderfully Discordian media virus recently ran its course through the simultaneous resonance of our social networks, a meme so efficient and contentious that it became ubiquitous almost immediately, and can be invoked simply by saying “The Dress.”

Like the mythic Apple of Discord, thrown by Eris’ to instigate a fight amongst the gods, the ambiguously hued picture sparked immediate conflict amongst its viewers, who vigorously argued about its contents.

A media virus, as defined by Douglas Rushkoff, consists of a protective & sticky outer shell, and a hidden payload of memetic code. (A Trogan Horse for ideas.) The outer shell is the surface issue/face value of a meme, in this case, the question: “What color is this dress?”

The adhesive shell becomes attached to a host medium and thence its memetic programming gets injected therein. This meme was particularly sticky because people could not understand how anyone could possibly disagree with, what was presumed to be, their objective observation.

The memetic programming contained within the argument of “Black & Blue vs. White & Gold,” amongst all the science of perception, seems to be something akin to the zen koan: “Who is the great magician that makes the grass green?”

Without really realizing it, the internet just got a crash course in Maybe Logic :)))

DAN ON THE MOON

A single Q&A with Dan Harmon from a Reddit AMA

bc: Hi Dan!
Amongst everything else I really enjoy your story structure ideas, and am curious if you’ve ever read Joseph Campbell’s “Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake”?
(If not, it’s the first iteration of JC extracting the monomyth idea from James Joyce’s FW, a modernist version of the story circle, eternal return, etc.)
Similarly, do you like James Joyce at all?
Joyce influenced Campbell as much as Campbell seems to have influenced you, so in a sort of transitive property telephone game, you seem to me like one of the most Joycean writers around. (Intended as high praise!)
Sincere thanks for all the great work!
Also, here’s a drawing of you on the moon: http://i.imgur.com/7GUCwFo.jpg
bc

Dan Harmon: Ha, thank you for that art. I love it. And no, I haven’t read a single word of James Joyce and you’re right, I should, because you’re right, Campbell was obsessed with him. But unlike Campbell and probably James Joyce, I’m a lazy, shitty, self-satisfied blob of rapidly fading pop cultural influences and video game addictions.

RED STATE

A single Q&A with Kevin Smith from a Reddit AMA

Q: I had a really awesome time at the Red State premier at Radio City Music Hall! So much so that I drew this when I got home. Wd love to go to an event like that again!

A: Nicely done, sir.

Next SModcast Pictures Presents tour is with the Slamdance winning flick BINDLESTIFFS – which is about three high school kids who go ape-shit when CATCHER IN THE RYE is banned in their school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qahkCMIJzeU

Easily one of the funniest flicks I’ve ever seen.

Next year, SModcast Pictures will do another RED STATE USA-type tour with our first animated feature, JAY & SILENT BOB’S SUPER GROOVY CARTOON MOVIE. We’ll show the flick then Q&A after, all of which we’ll eventually podcast. We learned a lot touring RED STATE, so we wanna put it to use on BINDLESTIFFS and the cartoon JAY & SILENT BOB flick.

Digital Prophets

“These people, Joyce, to some degree Pound, McLuhan, they were the prophets of the world in which we now stand, the world of integrated interactive media, extraordinary data retrieval that erases the 17th century notion of the unconscious. Nothing is now unconscious if your data search commands are powerful enough.”
Terence McKenna in Riding Range w/ Marshall McLuhan

6:01

601Most every morning it takes me at least 2-3 shakes of a lamb’s tail to identify THE ALARM what kicked me from ZZZ satori.

Open fist smacks down again and again and again until what made the noise stop?

Oh Strange Numbers Beeping Box what do you want from me!?! Get up from what? The notion of time then occurs. Yes, right, but which one? Seven. I have to be somewhere at 7. Where? Work. Why? What? Okay. How long then until I must not sleep? Ultimately impossible mathematical contortions arise, abide, & cease. And what are habitually the final calculations? 10! More! Minutes!

(That I stayed up late to write this will hopefully amuse me in the morning’s groggy delirium)

[Nota bene: It didn’t]
bc – 12/04/06

DUBLIN IS BURNING

BLOOMING! On a bus to NYC, weather by Van Gogh. Reading that Usylessly unreadable book of odyssey, on the Mahayana, in the long memory, going forth by dayagain!

The Psilocybin speaks more of the many in THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED. Metemorphoses of word & thought through Spacetime, this light as a riverGeneral Semantics: Our use of language can severely alter our experience of Universe. Meanwhile, mine animism eyes spy translucent streams of organic ether, the open system, Alleluia! The Neurogenetic jam box spins Akashic records as the wheels on the bus go round and round.

The King and I will have our talk soon, of that much I am certain. He’s been on his cell phone speaking in foreign tongues for an hour now, when his call is finished, we will speak of things.

The King is dressed in the very most resplendent fineries, a man of gold and diamond and silk. A full page of TEXT embroidered on his shirt, soul on ice! I’ve a Dogs Playing Poker tie amongst my usual dorky rags, I hope I look ridiculous enough!

DAMN! Look at Shortie right there! (Across the way) Only just made of electricity!

A shimmering bundle of shakti, I wish for to tell her! “Excuse me, Miss, but it seems you’re a manifestation of the Waters of Life which pour into the world inexhaustibly, thank you.” Bah! She already knows. Everyone already knows, after their own fashion, and changing everyday, smiling then to full capacity, so help me Fucking Christ! Finally, after 600 pages, Jeems Jokes drops the F BOMB.

Abu is an Ambassador from Nigeria. (Foolish artisan myself, sir, what news?)  The language he was speaking has no name and he thinks it odd that I would assume it might. In Africa they have over 2,000 languages, most of which are nameless, communication is problematic. All around the world we speak different dialects of one same language, Abu suggests. (The logo substance of which the word is merely a reference!? Snoogans.) The rise of tyrant war lords and the resulting cultural isolation balkanized the once common language of ancient Africa. (Falling tower mythos seem to recur.) He tells me then of the African land, of their abundance, of a world not yet but rather to may-be. (4 times was the city rebuilded, Hooo Fasa.) He likes dialectic, the universal language, a babelfish called JIVE swims towards Wagadu, and the bus stops in Manhattan. “It was nice to meet you Abu!”

There’s the MAIN MAN then! Fellow bus passenger, and smiling face. We’ve MADISON UNDERGROUND business now if ya’ll’ll excuse us, our adventure having only just begun. NYC sun shines us a welcome.

Hello to everyone! and how’s your deal? A fine thing indeed it sounds and to all the best of luck. More of everything please and do keep the change. Thanks a million and have a nice day!

Eventually I meet a girl who makes me look ridiculous enough, THE END.