The Balls Deep Art Factory

Meeting with Chomsky

2008-10-15T09:27:00.001-07:00

Okay,

so this is an invitation to everyone who reads this to offer some advice about what to talk about with Noam Chomsky on Oct. 29, 2008.

Hope you've found this blog entertaining at best.

The artist,

Speed
Speed
Saeed

Do NOT Trust Military People

2008-05-22T21:15:00.001-07:00

It’s four in the morning. I used to get up this time of day to go for runs and begin a new day of moronic drilling and filling forms with my last three a thousand and one times. I used to salute the bastards above me and the bastards below me. Bastards – all. Now, I am free. Free finally of the pain of post-traumatic stress disorder. Free of constant angst and pangs of terror. Utter terror of that door opening at three in the morning and the men taking me away. Those bastards would have made it look like a training incident or a fucking suicide (as if that Cadet took his own life at RMC, as if!). Oh buddy! You have no idea what goes on over there. Buddy, you’re out in the public. The only face of the military you see is the public related one. I once did an interview with a paper while I was on the inside. They attached a Public Relations Officer to me for the entire time – silently listening to every single word that came out of my mouth. Making sure nothing escaped that could not be unsaid. But I fooled that bastard too, and told the world what they needed to hear from the military for the first time in their fucking history. What happened to that article? It got taken off the internet. First time in history that a paper is censure by the military. Well, I made sure to keep a ton of printed copies and have already copied and posted the text of it on my blog and Facebook. Cuz buddy is out! Buddy can speak freely all he wants from now. After a year of shaking the Intelligence folks off my ass, I think I can finally truly relate the grim reality of the military system that is on a path to overtaking the entire country. That just society that Trudeau bought in to. That land of Peace, Order and Good Government – all threatened by, no not Afghanis, but Newfies. (The Canadian Forces is made up mostly of people from remote locations of Canada where other jobs are not as readily available to disaffected youth.) Mean Newfies too. Nothing funny about them once they get in uniforms and tanks and recruiting buses.

I HATE the military. It is NOT what it makes itself out to be. For example: there is nothing democratic about it. Nothing. It is total tyranny. Another example of how disgusting it is lies in the shabby treatment of non-Commissioned members by the elitist officer class. That which takes place inside of the Officer’s Mess is far removed from the day to day life and hopes of Joe-Private-Corporal-Master-Corporal-Seargeant-Warrant-Master-Warrant-and-Chief-Warrant-Officer. I once got saluted by a Chief Warrant Officer! It almost gave me a hard-on. I hated myself for it. It is degrading. It is base. It is primal. And beastial. In fact, that is what the military turns all: beasts. Beasts who have become masters as putting on a poker-face. The blank stare of the soulless coward.

But the four-Maple-Leaved General does have a weakness: I can say anything I want about him now that I am out, and if he should send me a single nasty email, I can have him charged with a wonderful clause in the Queens Rules and Regulations call Behaviour Unbecoming of an Officer. Or I could find a bunch of other rules to hang him with (Leninesk, I know).

But the fucking ass-holes in Public Relations will get to him before he ever says anything overly incriminating of the sham he and his ilk are continuing. Dolce e Decorum Est is BULLSHIT! Remembrance Day is only a racket for Veterans to cash in on all those little poppies they sell (as though they haven’t already been cashing in long enough)! (This while our doctors and teachers and artists continue to go starving)!

Brothers and Sisters of the world! Lend me your ears! I have come to bury the military not to praise it. For praise they can count on the huge Recruiting and Public Relations budgets. For example, a new Operation the Canadian Forces started while I was in, was called Operation Connection, which turned “every CF member into a recruiter” and promoted the organization of public functions and events that would help combat the high attritions rates the CF was suffering from at the time. More and more money is going into their coffers, and better and better pay, kit, and gear is being offered our boys and girls. Most of the military is OLD! Even the “boys and girls” are no longer young as soon as they sign that Faustian contract. Overnight they become richer, older, more cowardly (one of the mottos of the CF is: “to be a good leader, you have to be a good follower” – something you learn in the “Indoctrination Period”, which consists of a month without any contact with the outside world WHATSOEVER and tons and tons of push-ups and Powerpoint presentations).

I have military stories up the wazoo, and I intend on using each and every one of them over and over again until the full meaning of the lie of the military is truly revealed.

People think the military is their saviour, and safeguard. But they should be feared just like any other corporation as an artificial entity that feeds off the people that created it until they starve at it’s expense. Just look at the past 8 years people.

WHERE is this all going to change? It starts here: with me and you.

Lascivious Landings

2008-05-16T16:33:00.001-07:00

Alone but not. Alone but naught. Alone but fraught with voices, choices, boisterous beat-boxes, foxes, vocals, vixens, and vices, dices, mices, crisis. Forgive me father, Dante can’t think tonight. But my stylo’s tight – switchblades and glides through broken thoughts and beats, vibes, and tribes. On the fly, Tupac had to die on the other side of the ruby-coloured Rubicon. Filtered bumblebees stuck to Imperial Purple cloaks with Snow Tiger trimmings. I speak of Emperors in this trice of time, dear Horatio. Good fellows and poor poppers and poppies for Remembrance of course. No choice. Sticking post-it notes on every idea that peels out of my brains like a winding accordion in the scratchy tunnels of the Underground, Subway, U-Bahn, and Metro plus whatever the Chinese call their’s. Dancing coins. Spangles of light, two chickens in every pot, too chicken so smoke pot. I wandered to the lips of the mouth of salivating hell – with blood trickling down her k9’s like an image of a buzzing face, a trace. So I bent over and tied my laces in double-time, showtime came. I wondered if the vacuum on the other side of the black hole that pinched my feet and bothered my proportion wasn’t already full of dust and the built-up inflations of a thousand exhaling sighs of disappointment. Constantine saw Christ’s sign in the sky, so I had to take him out with my nine after I kicked in the door-swingin the four-four. Bring it baby at the bat for a homer or I go home to my pregnant Lilly at the end of my career in the Big Leagues. We’re going have to sell the Ford. So, I am.

President Bush, you are my only friend.

2008-05-16T11:33:00.001-07:00

President Bush, you are my only friend.
I never get tired of listening to you.
How humble you are, and charming.
Just now, I watched you greet all of Saudi Arabia in fifty seconds.
I remember the tears you shed in your oval office after 9/11 – we all saw them.
We were with you then, and we’re still with you now.
Sometimes I am unhappy with you, but then when I look into your laughing eyes I can’t help but to chuckle alongside you.
And join you for the ride. All those nameless Secret Service agents fluttering around more, cleverly disguised, Secret Service agents. Sometimes I think, even I may be a Secret Secret Service agent, somehow working for you.
You have my allegiance, Mr. President.

But you have so many problems. The road you are traveling down is putting more and more people in Blank. I don’t agree with being your only friend.
I want to live a life beyond serving you and laughing at your brand of slap-stick comedy. I want to walk away from you and make other friends. Not Ahmadinejad, I know. How about Pierre Trudeau and Winston Churchill and Caesar and Alexander the Great? At least they don’t ask so much of me.

But mother is coming home, and I must say goodbye. Until next time, Texas.

False alarm.

Everything’s under control. Everybody relax. Just RELAX okay!

My nerves are totally shot. “Any second” and the apocalypse mixed with a healthy dose of shock and awe have turned me into a drunk boxer, drooping between punches. So I turn to your smiling face, W. You’re in my corner, I know you are – along with the NYFD and the rubble of Ground Zero. You’re bullhorn made the rubble shake that day – we all heard you! Indeed, we were all there.

But mother is coming soon so I should wrap this up I guess. Keep smiling, George Bush.

video of 2008_april_15_poem

2008-04-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=KzYqsnZN-Ig

2008_april_19?_poem

2008-04-19T15:21:00.001-07:00

Pirouette, face painting, Contra II.

Montreal Canadiens, I am Canadian, slip a fiver to the bouncer at the door.

The jealous obscurity of fourth place, on second thought I do, I did.

PacMan, Jump Around, Vanilla Ice greeting the Pope at the Vanilla White House of Pain.

Look at what we did to Pluto, Neptune, you’re next!

Figure skating, form fitting, bird flipping.

Consummate gentleman, catered sweet sixteen, victory past the Rubicon.

The hazy spring blossom, a flower exploding in time-lapse, pensioners escaping homes for one last trip to Toronto.

The bad-ass cops busting crime in all ages, batons and baby-carriages.

Tying the knot, Alexander cuts to the chase, Darius flees – but not for long, no not for long.

Sixteen frames per second, thirty thieves working for a filthy emperor with no clothes, a fig.

Tron, Tut, and Khan.

Who Shot Tupac?

Indoctrination period, frozen water canteens, a breezy bivouac (“Evryboty baack tuu da biiivoouac!” – just made it).

Presidents fixing their ties, this is the big one Tiger, bad-ass cops with psycho big sunglasses.

Fuck the police, long live the Senate, Mike Tyson borrowed an ear – a true Plebian (inside the bully pulpit of red-gloved whales).

Pirouette, Nancy Reagan, Pierre Trudeau.

Raise the curtain on the evil empire with blood and iron dripping down to her ankles.

Prose before Hoes!

“What do you think of this piece of art, Thor?”, “I love it.”

Saeed repeats:

2008-04-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

"The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of agriculture."

You could say there be beauty in my reality.

2008-04-16T19:22:00.001-07:00

Futility is cool; God is great.
At 3, Motion talks through bites and punches.
At 2, Light talks through ballet and sign language.
At 1, we speak and sing.
At 0, we invent absolutes.
At something above nothing, black holes, lasers, Romeo and Juliet, and conscious beings all interact as part of Reality in a much more powerful way than a single brain: beyond absolutes. Reality does not recognize zero, just beings who think about zero. Thus Reality accepts all (terrorists, sodomites, and mathematicians). To translate for individuals: Reality loves you. Reality is God. God is not futile; God is great :)

2008_april_15_poem

2008-04-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

Formulae, physics, psycho.

Chemistry, Godfather II, Algebra, and fine wine.

A yellow yo-yo with white string, some Bubblicious Watermelon Bubblegum, an axe.

Bazooka Joe comics that are never funny, doubling on a bike, sex.

Narrator’s voice: sound check. We need more peas in aisle four. More peas in aisle four please.

J.K. Rowling, Johnny Cash, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy.

Iran, Iraq, Stan (Satan’s son), Gregoire.

Ether-drenched motel carpets, Pepto-Bismol, sunrise over water, and some Coronas on ice.

Priceless adver-poetry, hyper Black-Friday consumers, and hate.

Silver City, Cedar City, Snakes on a Plane.

Numbers, numbers, numbers.

Eternal, "Soon isn’t on the clock, Bob,” cocaine.

Rasputin and Crystal Meth.

The Environment, grass, edible flowers.

Saturday-morning cartoons, awesome, hockey, lots and lots of snow outside, maybe make an igloo in the afternoon.

"Therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

2008-04-15T13:44:00.001-07:00

Untitled

2008-04-15T13:43:00.001-07:00

Untitled

2008-04-15T13:41:00.001-07:00

Untitled

2008-04-15T13:39:00.001-07:00

Cheese

2008-04-15T13:38:00.001-07:00

500-Pound Freedom

2008-04-15T13:36:00.001-07:00

Kiss Me

2008-04-15T13:35:00.001-07:00

Old "The Post Gazette" article on my work for the CF

2008-04-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

Message of Muslim soldier intended to help troops see humanity

Speech prepared to remind Task Force 107 of the humanity of the Afghan people.

By Andrew McGilligan
For This Week [Saturday, October 14, 2006]

By his own admission 2Lt. Saeed Fotohinia’s appearance is a contradiction.

“Take a minute to see the image before you. First you may notice I am Middle-Eastern by appearance; then you may notice I am military by dress

“As an image I at once fit the profile of a terrorist and an anti-terrorist,” he said “A vivid oxymoron in green and brown, juxtaposed against a glorious red and white.”

Fotohinia, who was born in Iran and raised in Vancouver and Montreal, is more than a talking metaphor.

He’s an academic, a man of faith and a soldier all wrapped up into one.

He has some big ideas that flow out of a little blue office at the St. Mary’s Chapel in CFB Gagetown.

Educated at McGill University where he studied military history, he joined the Canadian Forces as an officer in January 2005.

Since coming to CFB Gagetown, Fotohinia, along with Senior Chaplain Maj. John Organ, has started the Centre for Middle Easter Relations (CMER) for the Canadian Forces in Gagetown.

“The faith tradition in the Canadian Forces seems rather homogenous up to this point and a lot of work and energy will be used to broaden that homogeneity to Muslims, Jews, and anybody of any major faith tradition,” Fotohinia said.

The idea is to first meet the demand for prayer space on base for members of the Muslim tradition and expand from there.

“Beyond that we’d like to set up some area where Muslims, and people of Middle Easter background, can feel as though there’s something of their own, a space they can connect to and have some type of ownership over it,” he said.

In addition to those of the Muslim faith, he envisions the centre beign a source of information and knowledge for soldiers seeking to expand their knowledge about the region and faiths associated with it.

However, the main goal for Fotohinia and Organ revolves around a speech, a message they want to relay to soldiers heading to Afghanistan and the population at large.

“We want to meet the portrayal of Muslims and the Middle Eastern world in the mainstream media today with a more positive portrayal that uncovers the elements that are quite valuable and inherent in the Muslim and Middle Easter world,” he said.

He hopes to deliver a prepared speech to Task Force 107 upon their deployment to Afghanistan.

Helping soldiers remember the humanity of those in the Middle East and not dehumanizing their enemy is what he hopes to accomplish if given the chance to speak with the Task Force.

“Canada has historically paved the way for peace and has been free of the idea that we have been fighting wars to extend our financial interest or conquest.

“We’re in a position to say this and to say this in front of Task Force 107 is a powerful way of doing that,” he said.

Fotohinia sees this message as important in trying to win the hearts and minds of the average Afghan living through the current conflict.

He sees the message as making the West seem like people Afghans can relate to.

The West cannot continue to view those who oppose the Canadian Forces as all powerful terrorists whose minds cannot be altered, he said.

“They’re impressionable, just like we are, to good ideas and positive goals,” he said.

Instead of antagonizing those in the region with what is typically shown in the media, the message he wants to convey will speak not only to those who oppose the West, but people in the region who are in the middle; those who are not extremists and are looking to make a living and feed their family.

“By getting this message out there we hope it will be the beginning of opening a discourse with that region that would be level and hopefully they’ll accept some of the values the West and Canadian Forces have to share,” he said.

Sharing ideas and understanding the difference and similarities between cultures has already happened for Fotohinia and Organ on a small scale.

Organ said he’s learned a lot from spending time with Fotohinia.

“There are a lot of common aspects between people and that’s what we discover once we get past our differences,” Organ said.

“It’s important to rub shoulders with people different from ourselves, but when we’re not doing that we can’t work through our difference and then discover our similarities.”

Traditionally Canada’s involvement in conflicts such as World War I, World War II and the Korean War is filled with humanity in terms of liberating people and lifting them up, Organ said.

“That’s what Saeed’s message is all about. That we understand one another sufficiently, that we see the humanity and work to honour that as much as possible,” Organ said.

It’s not just Organ and Fotohinia that see the value in this message as others have read the speech and responded positively such as world renown author and academic Noam Chomsky.

As for the grand aspirations and hopes Fotohinia has for his message, he understands it will be a difficult one to convey as widely as he would like, but in addition to all of the things he is, another way to describe him would be a dreamer.

“It’s a very small scale in terms of where it comes from, but large scale in its idea,” Fotohinia said.

“I think the world is ready and welcoming this type of positive message. We need positive ideas, not only about the Muslim and Middle Eastern world, but in general.”

A Soldier Once Spoke

2008-03-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

An image. A thousand words worth. Take a moment to see the image before you. First you may notice I am Middle-Eastern by appearance; then you may notice I am military by dress. As an image I at once fit the profile of a terrorist and an anti-terrorist. A vivid oxymoron in green and brown, juxtaposed against a glorious red and white. As an image it says a lot about the central values of Canada: a nation that allows opposites to live in harmony, perhaps even to complement each other. A nation that brings out a distinctive tinge and hue in all that make it up in the creation of a vast mosaic that stretches far and wide. Yet a mosaic that itself portrays no image and remains a growing abstraction of coloured tiles. I am, like our country, a fragmented picture of something…something with multi-colours.

I believe that as a nation we must take a moment to close our eyes to such distracting obscurities, and realistically think about what we are and what we seek to be. We must divorce ourselves from any delusions of grandeur, or privileged access to nobleness by virtue of our immaculate track record of peace, order, and good government. Canada is not a peace-loving state; peace is a Canada-loving state. Fortune has thus far smiled very kindly upon our nation: surrounding us with three oceans and a friendly border, and filling us with ample natural resources and a comely population.

Canada! Fortune is fast proving to be a fickle friend. Our beloved oceans are no longer the vacant buffers they used to be. With rapid climate change and improvements in shipping technologies, our access to a probable "North West Passage" in the near future may become hotly contested, and our placid Hudson's Bay may become the scene of, as one author put it, the "Great Game in a cold climate." And finally, we merely have to realize the significance of the announcement by CSIS director, Jim Judd, that Canadians, fellow mosaic tiles, have joined the insurgents in Iraq in order for us to eradicate any misconception about the unshakeable virtue our citizenry.

I speak to you as a man born in Iran. My mother tongue is Farsi. When I see Afghanis interviewed on TV, I understand what they say. In fact it often reminds me of my childhood growing up around that language. When I hear a song in Farsi, a different segment of my soul turns on. Something very deep and profound is excited in my heart. A yearning the far-distant utopia of childhood overcomes me. And this from hearing a man in a turban yelling into the camera about how he can't feed his family anymore because his poppy field has been burnt. The impersonality of translation does not make me see him as a turbaned bundle of noise and banter. I hear every word for its meaning, and associate every raise of the eyebrow or tone with the appropriate emphasis. To me he is animated beyond "just another guy in a turban, yelling something I can't understand." I don't ask myself "why is he yelling?" after listening to the cool voice of the interpreter translating and summarizing the bombardment of harsh sounds coming out of the screen. I don't think, "if I were that guy, I would deport myself with a little more aplomb." But I should say, that sometimes I do think that when I am listening to a similar looking Arab guy whose language I can't understand (Farsi and Arab are only as similar and different as English and French). Language alone can divide us, and close the door the warm and friendly relations. A man whose language you don't speak is only a caricature of that same man if you could only understand.

What most of us think of the Middle East is a mere caricature of what it actually is. And in order to effectively engage that part of the world in open level discourse, we must be genuine in our desire to move beyond stock characters and fixed perceptions. I think that the best way to open that door to understanding is to translate a line of Arabic, which is the most common phrase of the Koran: "Be ismi Allahe Rahmane Raheem." This is commonly translated: "In the name of God the Almighty the Merciful." Yet even this fair translation leaves out a certain nuance in the language. "Be ismi" means in the name of. "Ism" means name, and "Be," in this context, means "In the." So "Be [In the] ism [name]." The "of" of "In the name of God the Almighty the Merciful" is actually in the "i" at the end of "ism." So, "Be [In the] ism [name] I [of]." So far we have: "Be ismi," "In the name of." Next we have "God," which in Arabic is "Allah." So from the top: "Be ismi [In the name of] Allah [God]." "Be ismi Allah," "In the name of God." But the Koran does not hesitate to describe God as "the Almighty the Merciful." The Arabic once again is: "Be ismi Allahe Rahmane Raheem." "The Almighty the Merciful" is the translation of "Rahmane Raheem." The literal translation for "Rahmane Raheem" is actually "the merciful, the most-merciful." You see, "Rahmane" and "Raheem" are two forms of the same word, mercy. In Arabic, most words are formed with only three consonant sounds. So if you want to look up the definition of a word in the dictionary, you have to look up its three-letter root, in this case "Ra-Ha-Ma," and you will find its many different forms. Like "Rahman," "the merciful," and "Raheem," "the most merciful." It is not redundant to say these two words in succession. In fact, "Rahmane Raheem," while maintaining distinct meaning, has a great sound to it. "Rahmane Raheem." It is very powerful at the end of "Be ismi Allahe Rahmane Raheem." "In the name of God the Almighty, the merciful." Now when you hear, "Be ismi Allahe Rahmane Raheem," your mind can remember how "ism" means name, and "Allah" can be "Rahman and Raheem," which makes him merciful and the most-merciful. Words fulfill functions in any language.

We as Canadians living with the legacy of multiculturalism can appreciate that more than perhaps most other countries. We appreciate how much intelligence another person can have despite not being as eloquent as they would like to be in either English or French. Too Easy? Okay let's move on. I think it would be appropriate now, to talk about the point of this discussion. You are going to be in Afghanistan soon. You are going to be fighting in a war. It will be fought against people not only whose language you can't understand, but whose ways of life and points of views are equally alien to you. This speech is to emphasize that even the most blood-thirsty heretical malicious terrorist Taliban can never help but to be human. Sometimes some of these fanatics would wish they could carry out their vengeance with the power of Satan (or Shaytan, as they would call him), but they can't. They can only blow themselves up, and maybe a dozen others. For all their fanaticism and powerful talk, the average terrorist can't kill more people than he has fingers to point at virgins in heaven. If we consider the limits to his desire to inflict suffering, than it is easier to tear away at conception that he is other than human. If his physical might is not as strong as he might have hoped or expected, than we may assume that the might of his conviction is not as potent either. If he is only human in arm, it may be safe to say he is only human in mind. Perhaps even fanatics can be caught daydreaming. Or, from the perspective of the Taliban, I might say "Shayad fekrahe een adamha be fekreh fagad pooloh nafte neest." "Perhaps then money and oil are not the only things on these peoples' minds."

Your environment, the culture that you are brought up in, and the language that you speak play a major part, I think, in forming your values, morals, judgment calls. Essentially, that there is no objective absolute towards which humanity is (or aught to be) approaching. The following is a quote from an essay by famous Oxford scholar, Sir Isaiah Berlin:

This is a relativism which kills the notion of progress in the arts, whereby later cultures are necessarily improvements on, or retrogressions from, earlier ages, each measured by its distance from some fixed, immutable ideal, in terms of which all beauty, knowledge, virtue, must be judged. The famous quarrel between the ancients and the moderns can have no sense…: every artistic tradition is intelligible only to those who grasp its own rules, the conventions are internal to it, an 'organic' part of its own changing pattern of the categories of thought and feeling…It is as if one were to suggest Shakespeare could have written his plays at the court of Genghis Khan, or Mozart composed in ancient Sparta…The idea of the cumulative growth of knowledge, a single corpus governed by single, universal criteria, so that what one generation of scientists has established, another generation need not repeat, does not fit this pattern at all.

I don't think that I would have the same thought that I do now if I were raised in the same place I was born. Who knows what thoughts my role models, my peers, my environment might have implanted me with. To say that we can form thought independent of our development as a person or as a community. But as the little-known Italian writer, Giambattista Vico, pointed out in the 18th century it is not beyond me to understand them through use of my imagination.

This was a,

…new view of men and society, which stressed vitality, movement, change, respects in which individuals or groups differed rather than resembled each other, the charm and value of diversity, uniqueness, individuality, a view which conceived of the world as a garden where each tree, each flower, grows in its own peculiar fashion and incorporates those aspirations which circumstances and its own individual nature have generated, and is not, therefore, to be judged by the patterns and goals of other organisms.

To accept that another's outlooks are completely different is one thing, to say that there is no way one could ever have adopted similar outlooks is, in the words of Burke, "the cant and gibberish of hypocrisy." While I now don't agree with what those Iranian youths are doing (or attempting to do), it nonetheless negatively disturbs me to imagine how "it could have been me."

Destination: Hezbollah, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda
The question is then, what are some of the factors that are convincing these young men and women to voluntarily leave their homes and home countries for a war-zone (not only that of Lebanon and Afghanistan, but of course this whole segment also applies in principal, if not in examples, to Iraq)? What are some reasons that are increasing Hezbollah's, the Taliban's, and Al-Qaeda's popularity?

The following Berlin quotation partially explains this occurrence:

[Y]ou must realize that if you use violent methods the result will almost invariably be totally different from what you intend. Why? Because too much is unknown – not because you are wrong. The abuses are abuses, the tyranny is a tyranny, it should be stopped, it can be stopped; but if the measures are too violent – that's to say, if you believe in the possibility of a total or even three-quarters transformation of society by organized means, if need be by violence – you will find that you've heaved up forces of whose existence you were probably not aware, which will in some way frustrate your designs and produce something maybe better than there was before, but not what you wanted.

This effectively encapsulates what is happening as a result of the large-scale violence the West has let loose on extremist groups in the Middle East. Such "blow-back" (a term commonly used for the US, and how its actions abroad have led to unexpected consequences) includes the alignment of Hezbollah, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda, with anti-imperialist, anti-aggression, anti-West sentiment in the region that is already strong due to it's long history of colonialism and conflict.

It is every person's right to believe that what they are doing is good; as it is every person's right to consider how much they have been wronged. "Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an inalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human" (Berlin) While the West may perceive the actions of Hezbollah, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other terrorists in the area to be misled, it is not in its interest to allow these ideas to be propagated and continue to be pervasive. A CNN journalist recently said there is a "War of Perceptions" going on (he also said that the West was losing at the moment); winning this war means rigorous fighting in "the battle of Ideas".

Brain Map for the Middle East
In the battle of ideas, I am Lincolnesk in thinking "a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall". But there is no shortage of gall. It's available in the US foreign policy elite; Daniel Pipes posts the articles of authors with the following views on his web-page:

It is insane that a billion people follow an insane man of the 7th century. It is insane that the rest of humanity go along with that. This insanity is bringing our world to the brink of destruction. Only when the belief in Islam is weakened, Muslims will turn towards moderation and modernization.

This is a classic example of delivering a sober message in language you would expect from the heretics, which is unfortunately increasingly common in public discourse. Saying the people of the region, the Muslims, could use to alter their outlook on the world is one thing, calling Mohammed insane betrays the author's ignorance about how to go about doing.

In his Mimesis, Eric Auerbach writes:

When people realize that epochs and societies are not to be judged in terms of a pattern concept of what is desirable absolutely speaking but rather in every case in terms of their own premises; when people reckon among such premises not only natural factors like climate and soil but also the intellectual and historical factors; when, in other words, they come to develop a sense of historical dynamics, of the incomparability of historical phenomena…so that each epoch appears as a whole whose character is reflected in each of its manifestations; when, finally, they accept the conviction that the meaning of events cannot be grasped in abstract and general forms of cognition and that the material needed to understand it must not be sought exclusively in the upper strata of society and in major political events but also in art, economy, material and intellectual culture, in the depths of the workaday world and its men and women, because it is only there that one can grasp what is unique, what is animated by inner forces, and what, in both a more concrete and a more profound sense, is universally valid…"

To sincerely empathize with the people of the region will allow us to better understand the forces that conduct their actions and their ways of thought, with which we can then discover the methods most effective in modifying those forces. Right now, the west is suffering the "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome. (footnote: In fact, the very word "terrorist" has been used so indiscriminately to describe such a wide variety of persons and groups since 9-11 that it has, quite naturally, lost a lot of its former meaning.)

In the battle of ideas in the war of perceptions it would be prudent to avoid dehumanizing the opponent, for then we can no longer relate, will cease to comprehend, and will fail to convert.

Vico's most famous passage in his New Science can be of use in this discussion:

But in the night of thick darkness enveloping the earliest antiquity, so remote from ourselves, there shines the eternal and never failing light of a truth beyond all question: that the world of civil society has certainly been made by men, and that its principles are therefore to be found within the modifications of our own human mind. Whoever reflects on this cannot but marvel that the philosophers should have bent all their energies to the study of the world of nature, which, since God made it, He alone knows; and that they should have neglected the study of the world of nations, or civil world, which, since men made it, men could come to know.

Vico was the first to point out that human institutions, culture, and history are the only things that humans can understand because they are our own products, whereas any other object or phenomenon in nature is the creation of God and therefore beyond our scope of understanding. However alien the mores and polity of the Muslim world may seem to us, since they are the products of humans, they are not incomprehensible.

It is in this scope that weapons for ideological war must be forged. The very phrase "ideological war" is an oxymoron of sorts, because it is one whose victories and defeats can have similar ramifications for both sides. Entering this battlefield one must keep the following in mind:

Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance – these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.

Chomsky is Not Dumb Afterall

2008-02-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 7:50 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote:

I don't recall receiving it. Interesting thoughts, but I have no useful comments.

----- Original Message -----
From: Saeed Fotuhi (by way of Noam Chomsky )
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: you're dumb

the below one:

and did you not get the one entitled: "i figured it all out?" that was the one ignored by you. i'll pasted it below this csis one. please reply.

Saeed

00000000000000000000000000

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Saeed Fotuhi
Date: Feb 3, 2008 5:30 PM
Subject: csis
To: Noam Chomsky

i am having problems with the canadian secret intelligence service. they are playing games i can't figure out. i know i'm innocent.

saeed

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Desmond Morton
Date: Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 3:16 PM
Subject: Re: I figured it all out.
To: Saeed Fotuhi

But what if, as you say, it IS arguable. How do I know that you have, indeed, figured it all out? What if I only discover your error after I have persuaded all my animal-hating friends to destroy them all. Then another clever person explains how vital they were for the environment. It may be a little late to resurrect them. You can turn tpo Christopher Hitchens for an outspoken and even brutal account of the evils committed in the name of beliefs. Can any educated person ignore that cluster of observations? I have now read statements from scientists arguing that refusal to accept scientific evidence should be a criminal offence. Such a law, in the hands of environmentalists, would leave no one safe.
As proponent of an idea you close, rationally enough, with a desire to be remembered,m respected and, in effect, worshipped. Could this be interpreted as arrogance or the respect due to divinity?

Desmond Morton

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Saeed Fotuhi
> To: Desmond Morton
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 8:48 PM
> Subject: I figured it all out.
>
> I figured it all out.
>
>
>
> There is such a thing as the body politic. Intelligence is not just something an individual does, but that all life does together. There is a higher consciousness, and that consciousness is omniscient because it is all knowledge. It is a mind, and it is a very intelligent mind.
>
>
>
> But it could be smarter.
>
>
>
> Image a brain that is clouded by some kind of drug. Let's say Heroin. It is being numbed and fooled by this useless chemical. That is what is happening with the higher consciousness in the world today. It is being numbed and fooled by non-human beings. It is being influenced by bestial currents.
>
>
>
> What this body politic has to do is to stop doing Heroin, and get rid of that chemical that is slowing it down. Put in another way, which I don't really like very much but that works great for this point and this point only, the greater brain has to submit itself to a lobotomy by killing all non-human animals.
>
>
>
> It is arguable that non-human animals serve humanity. Like for food for example. This may be solved by moving towards a totally vegetarian diet. In the meantime, for those of us who like hamburgers, we can start by reducing the "heroin" in our greater brain by killing off animals like pigeons, squirrels, foxes, rats, and other city-infesting animals; and then move on to cut our addiction to cats and dogs; and finally cut down our addiction to all animals. This may take generations or days, depending on how fast this meme of mine travels.
>
>
>
> Spread this idea like it's a virus. A human virus. Before the brain overdoses one too many times, and we blow ourselves up by accident. Do it.
>
>
>
> And I would appreciate it if you gave Saeed Navid Fotuhi (or spelled Fotohinia) some credit for it.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote:
> Sorry, but I don't know what you are referring to. I don't remember criticizing or ignoring anything, and don't know about any CSIS email.
>
> Noam Chomsky
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Saeed Fotuhi (by way of Noam Chomsky )
>> To: Noam Chomsky
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:55 AM
>> Subject: you're dumb
>>
>> i never thought that there would be anything i could, or anyone could, say that would "shut you off" I guess that CSIS email must have rubbed you the wrong way.
>>
>> given our long history together, starting while i was still in the military, i had hoped for some kind of support and trust, mere words, maybe even just words, but instead there was a cowardly span of silence.
>>
>> this is what i was talking about when we spoke on the phone so many eons ago, Noam. i hope you can remember.
>>
>> well, i guess all good things tend to come to an end, old man.
>>
>> i will take from you the great powers of the whisper, and a stable heart-rate, now that i've figured it all out. you had your chance to make my message heard. but you just sat on it, like the military did, and CSIS has, and art school did.
>>
>> nostradamus fortells a persian saving the world. i can assure you that i already did. no thanks to you and nader.
>>
>> i've left you a picture of me. so that you can finally see the kid you've been putting up with for so long. i've put childish things aside.
>>
>> Saeed Navid Fotuhi
>> Content-Type: image/jpeg; name=n505917421_98487_6853.jpg
>> X-Attachment-Id: f_fcvosfm01
>> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=n505917421_98487_6853.jpg

My Triumph

2008-02-20T15:52:00.001-08:00

in one day i have gone hot air ballooning, i've listened to a child play a charming violin, i've attended many church services, i listened to a soldier sing the american national anthem, i watched a great junior league baseball game, visited a beach where they had built elaborate sand castles, rode with two kids in their car to the drive-thru pharmacy, watched many parents play with their babies, sat in with several auto and motorbike racers, flew over Vancouver island on a model airplane, watched a Bolivian parade of dancers go by, watched a parade of tractors go by, watched a beautiful news story on a woman who gave millions of people hugs, looked at kids skateboard around with their shirts off, watched a surfing competition, listened to a man talk about how happy he was to have won his 50th hot-rod race, walked through the Montreal Gay Pride parade, and watched the Dragon Boat races that took place in the same city on the same day. In fact all of the mentioned things all took place on July 29, 2007. That was the day I was supposed to have my Triumph parade, and I guess this can be considered it. But no one has called me "General" and my face was not painted red. I had waited on Triumphalis, and the only thing I got was I walk through time. All I ever wanted was a bit of cheese.

Turn your alarms off.

2008-02-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

I hate being interrupted when I am doing something. Either by the sound of the phone, or, more importantly, by the sound of things like the GMAIL Notifier. I long ago stopped using that thing because I found it turned me into too much of a Pavlovian Dog. Every time I would hear the bell ring I would salivate at the idea of a new email - even while I was in the middle of reading a text or watching a video.

As a result I check my email constantly, but that is only in between pages being loaded. Saves times and ensures peace of mind in our, as my friend Dejan at the Academy calls it, "Hyperpostmodern" world.

Giant Little Girl is Really Intelligent

2008-02-19T07:04:00.000-08:00

this is a handy little (maybe not) model for artificial intelligence as it is working on the internet today. that little girl has intelligence, but just like a laptop has an external harddrive kind of way. she has the sensibility of many minds, and her ability to connect them all in one is her character. more amazing insights on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXr15K2uSc

I figured it all out.

2008-02-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

There is such a thing as the body politic. Intelligence is not just something an individual does, but that all life does together. There is a higher consciousness, and that consciousness is omniscient because it is all knowledge. It is a mind, and it is a very intelligent mind.

But it could be smarter.

Image a brain that is clouded by some kind of drug. Let’s say Heroin. It is being numbed and fooled by this useless chemical. That is what is happening with the higher consciousness in the world today. It is being numbed and fooled by non-human beings. It is being influenced by bestial currents.

What this body politic has to do is to stop doing Heroin, and get rid of that chemical that is slowing it down. Put in another way, which I don’t really like very much but that works great for this point and this point only, the greater brain has to submit itself to a lobotomy by killing all non-human animals.

It is arguable that non-human animals serve humanity. Like for food for example. This may be solved by moving towards a totally vegetarian diet. In the meantime, for those of us who like hamburgers, we can start by reducing the “heroin” in our greater brain by killing off animals like pigeons, squirrels, foxes, rats, and other city-infesting animals; and then move on to cut our addiction to cats and dogs; and finally cut down our addiction to all animals. This may take generations or days, depending on how fast this meme of mine travels.

Spread this idea like it’s a virus. A human virus. Before the brain overdoses one too many times, and we blow ourselves up by accident. Do it.

And I would appreciate it if you gave Saeed Navid Fotuhi (or spelled Fotohinia) some credit for it.

the weirdest site in the world

2008-02-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

www.quebecnewyork.com

Run Soldier Video

2008-02-16T15:24:00.001-08:00

It doesn't get any rougher than this.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3681592046366985946

My Voluntary Release Request Memorandum

2008-02-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

PROTECTED B

MEMORANDUM

1001-1 (Fotohinia)

June 06

OC Sp Coy

VOLUNTARY RELEASE REQUEST FOR A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION

I am writing to make a voluntary release request to leave the CF at the soonest possible occasion.

I no longer wish to serve in the CF because I have a conscientious objection to war, the military, and the use of force by nation-states. As per DAOD 5049/2, I request to file my voluntary release for reasons to do with a conscientious objection and be subjected to the processes there-writ.

The reasons behind my conscientious objection are as follows:

Over the past year I have been doing my Master's in War Studies at the Royal Military College in Kingston while I was there on OJT at the LFDTS. During the course of my studies I gained an entirely new and much more refined understanding of what war is. I have been profoundly moved by what I have learned. Specifically, studying the philosophies of nineteenth-century German writers.

Study of such writers has made me view the world and the military in a very different light. Just as Spinoza, who was supposed to be the star of his synagogue when he was a child, lost his faith through too extensive reading of scripture, I, through a very close study of war over the past year, have concluded that it too is an artifice of humanity that can and should be put aside entirely. My belief in the whole capitalist system, which the military is only a pond of, has been extinguished by my study of history. In this sense, Clausewitz was right to say that war was an extension of politics; what this also implies is that a volunteer soldier is also a subscriber to the type of political system that fosters the military he is a part of. This, I hope, will not be construed as an attack on Canada alone; my criticism bears a far broader thrust. For Canada, as well as all nation-states, is nothing more than an artificial construction of a collection of individuals. It does not rise above but from the people. As a result of this artificial nature, we can, for example, call ourselves Canadians, Ethiopians, Swedes, and Quebecers with equal conviction. But then, what does the military fight for if not for Canada? The philosophers that I have studied argue that the military is a protector of a specific class and style of civilization, which benefits a particular fragment of the world's population while contributing to the devastation of the disenfranchised majority. It is in this scope that I feel an unalterable sense of alienation from the responsibilities of being a soldier. I can no longer permit myself to bear arms, with the implicit agreement to kill, for an entity whose fundamental function I can no longer sincerely accept.

I have no institute, church or living person I attribute to my change in views. So there can be no letters of support from such sources for my decision to leave the military. The only sources I can cite are in print and in bookstores. Having enquired about the secular nature of my conscientious objection with the drafters of DAOD 5049/2, the Director of Human Rights and Diversity (DHRD), specifically, Lt. Col. Carey, and explained in detail my views and how they have changed since I joined, I was assured that my objection is equally valid as one supported by a priest or any other counselor.

I hope that I can depend on your support, frankness, and understanding.

For your consideration.

S. Fotohinia

2Lt

PAT Pl, Sp Coy

Inf Sch

PROTECTED B

Self-Contained Digital Camera Stands

2008-02-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

Canon or some other digital camera manufacturer should incorporate a stand into the base of their cameras which allows users to place it on a flat surface and, most importantly pivot it forwards and backwards to forgo the need of a tripod. This will revolutionize the type of videos and pictures that people take on a regular basis. A similar “origami inspired” stand can be incorporated into telephones with cameras in them. “High tech” should also make use of practical features such as this one, which would only require a little extra plastic.

Shared Email

2008-02-13T15:50:00.001-08:00

Why is it that hotlines are answered by tons of people around the world, and yet emails usually all get sent to one account of one person who never has enough time to answer them all. Why don't they just create shared emails where a single email address is divided by a group of smaller local emails? Maybe this already exist and I am talking out of line.

But things have just moved so quickly over the past decade that I don't think every base has been covered yet. I caught myself thinking that they had email and computers in Trudeau's day a few moments ago.

Songs of Innocence

2008-02-13T15:45:00.001-08:00

I have seen many different power outlets. There was the Canadian two-barred one with the occasional third hole. There was the Continental European one with the twin barrels. And there is now the English bulky three-pronged jack. Talk about Culture Shock! Hehehehhehheheheh!

But seriously people, this is the key to a whole other universe. Power outlets are like languages for electronic devices. Stop. Power outlets are only universal within a certain area; our world of unity is still divided because of the relics of the past. Past city councilmen and electricians. Past vacuum salesmen and refrigerators. There are no puns that can replace the universal power outlet I have traveled the world over to find. The one that fits all my plugs. Maybe one day that man dressed in white will return at the end of time and change the places we live in. Maybe one day the Mehdi will open our eyes to just how small a space we need to have a good old fashion laugh.

Iran's Secret Weapon

2008-02-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

How is it that the country is so united and so spiritual and so loving and caring? They have outlawed the keeping of cats and dogs as pets.

The key to maximizing the potential for inter-human relations lies in the complete elimination of all other animals in the day-to-day processes of life.

Take a look at how Iranians interact with one-another on youtube and see for yourself.

The key is in those pesky animals.

An example of how pets can destroy your life, is my old roomates in Vienna who owned two cats. Mimi and Mitza Katze. Disgusting animals that stunk up the whole house with their litter box, and continuously provoked suspicion and strange sexual tendencies. Neither of those roommates have normal lives, and nor did I during the time that I lived with those cats. The effects on my life were not intangible, they were daily occurrences that culminated in an entirely altered experience over the long-term.

Think of how much influence Barney and Mrs. Beasley have on the White House and the world...just imagine if a bark at the wrong moment in time could have altered the President's train of thought to the point where the course of history was changed. This is the delicate framework that we are living in at this time, and this is the kind of threat that we must face head-on if we are to truly progress successfully in the Anthropocene Epoch: a time of true unmitigated human supremacy. But the remaining species are not push-overs. Sometimes your best friend is your worst enemy. Beware of Dogs.

God 2.0

2008-02-12T07:53:00.001-08:00

What is a god in this day and age? Doesn’t God proclaim to be omniscient? Well I have Google. And Google is spelled a lot like God. Wow (not World of Warcraft, but the exclamation)! Does God have spell-check? Does He have an email account He can search using Google’s search engine? He’s probably still using Hotmail and Windows! Google is God 2.0.

It is the user who is a god today. It is 14 yr. old kids taking videos of themselves in their pajamas talking about non-sense that is god-like. It is athenewins who runs WoW and his Paladin. Gods are outdated, but not really. God with a capital is many theocratic or semi-theocratic nations in the world today. Nations and national leaders who haven’t quite upgraded fully enough yet. We live in a time of a Clash of Generations. The old guard and the baby boomers who don’t have clue about how the world is running today, are still in control of the football and the big red button. They are still running the world like its not already leapt into the future.

And I don’t want to be a fear-monger, but…I guess by making this dialectic I am guilty of doing exactly what I am blaming the old guard of doing: Red State versus Blue State, Donkey versus Elephant, Light versus Dark, Bullshit versus War. Sometimes my mind too is outdated and superstitious, and finds comfort in a good battle of the Titanic forces.

Maybe the enemy is the enemy.

iSTD

2008-02-12T06:13:00.001-08:00

What is a model? Let’s take a fashion model for instance. What does that fashion model represent? A virus.

It is something that duplicates itself in the organism it lives off of. It spreads throughout that organism, and overcomes it.

The same equation between a virus and model stands for a role model. Shortly after WWII everyone in GB started calling their kids Winston, after the great war-time leader.

What ideas/images are we being influenced/infected by? The species breathes. It inhales history and exhales a similar by-product of it.

We have to be aware of the models that influence and infect our thoughts and perceptions. Then maybe we can start eliminating old viruses and come up with new frameworks of living and looking and feeling.

As a Facebook-exclusive amendment: Apple should come out with something called the iSTD for the latest device that simply influences our minds.

If you agree with what has been said in this note or others by me, please write a comment, and feel free to spread the virus of my ideas. i STD.

The New Book

2008-02-09T10:53:00.001-08:00

Covering the history of a T-shirt. Maybe start with the Che Guevarra T-shirt.

I hate the word "new." It makes me sick to my stomach. It is meaningless. Everything is new; everything is old. Everything is now, and before, and meaningless. Does the word "tree" actually still refer to that thing in a forest? Or that thing on your wallpaper? What about the word "wall"? We don't have the linguistic tools necessary to deal with these new dimensions we are living in on a daily (define) basis. I can't remember what time-zone I'm in anymore.

So the new book, to go back to the title of this note (yet another outdated practice), will cover not history but the coverage of history. Not trees but the image of trees.

One word that has not lost meaning is "tired." Everyone in the streets in every city I have been in over the past year (a military base in New Brunswick, Canada; Montreal, Beijing, Vienna, and London) looks like they've just spent the past three years online, without a single day's break.

We used to celebrate "buy nothing" days, now what about "don't go online" days?

The problem is that even when we are not online, we are still online in our minds. There is so much information that is being processed in our heads while we are not directly plugged in that we could stare at a dark computer screen and still feel the "force" of the internet at work.

Oprah says that 60 is the new 40. But I would contend that 2008 is the new 2020. We have ACTUALLY traveled through time.

Time is only a factor of cultural change. What proves to Michael J. Fox that he is in the future in Back to the Future II? All the cool new stuff that suddenly appears before him. Has anyone noticed people on Segways in their streets? And all the major advances that have been made in every industrial and academic sector in the world?

We live in a time of anachronisms. Trees are no longer just planted things, but also figurative images digitized in ones and zeros and technicolor.

All I can say is: I miss Mickey Mouse and his theatre.

A Rose for Emily

2008-02-09T10:52:00.001-08:00

stop bothering me with your questions and your fake i.d.
nobody in this world has a clue.
everybody is so flamingly dumb.
except me. i'm a genius. i have a perfect memory.
i have killer good lucks. and i live with my mother.
i can't wait till Paris Hilton doesn't make any money anymore.
i can't wait till people don't pay attention to Britney Spears.
more people should read my notes and pay me for it.
then maybe i can move out of my mom's house.
to my credit, at least i am writing a book.
when i give out too much information, it no longer becomes a piece of writing but a piece of diary.
i keep trying to get away, but it keeps dragging me back. the inernet.
i feel like i know something, but i don't really know, dear diary. how much of an impact am i making on this web? can you feel my reverberations from across the globe? have we reached the Shangrila and happy days of yore? or are we still tearing up old fragments?

you with your judgements and classifications. with your dopamine and internet access on your mobile device. And your bad advice. stop judging me from your ivory tower and your pastoral novels.

is there enough time in the world to read the opinions of everyone writing down their opinions in the world at this very second? Boom. A thousand zephyrs and stallions. She wrote a poem about me once. It was delightful. I think she went to Argyle High, but I am losing my hair.

Who reads this rubbish ever? Could anyone find as much enjoyment in reading it as I do in writing it? I REALLY like my own writing. But the problem with my popularity as an author/poet/minstrel/phone

rings...is that I am too brutally honest. I won't hide the fact that I remember exactly where I learned every word and phrase that I write down. I borrow other people's snippets of voices and fit them into my own verse.

that is how i can convince myself sometimes that the CIA is after me, and I am really the butterfly that affects all weather patterns on the internet and the world. nobody and everybody reads what i am writing at this point. i am the most read author in history. i write ALL opinion at once. the universe goes through me.

humility is something the prophets used to hide their brutal honesty. Brutish beasts... and men have lost their reason (that's Shakespeare).

but what do you know with your misinformed intentions and incomplete retentions. Attention Attention all passengers, this is not a drill. And we waited for the bill to come. The meal was over. The conversation done. Now was the twilight between consumption and production, between the swipe of the fork and the stroke of the ballpoint pen.

That's nice. I am not afraid.

Why I Am an Artist

2008-02-03T09:13:00.001-08:00

The military beast gets hungry. It feeds on war, and medals. It needs to express itself. So do I.

As an artist, I can speak in abbreviated form. As an artist, I can count on my friends to support by work and not destroy me in the process. Friendship comes on a level plane for an artist. That plane is paper.

I have met with: The Chief of Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces, Gen. Rick Hillier, in person and looked into his blue eyes and told him I needed to speak to him in private. He said he would, but never did. Who can I trust if not our General? So I left. I emailed Daniel Richter my resignation letter, he flew to Vienna and discussed the matter with me in person…on camera. My conclusion to him after many thoughts was: Beauty is Dead.

The Third Reich is winning in Vienna. Read the Kronen Zeitung ever? And Vienna is a cultural capital. We have balls in Vienna! I said it therefore I’m done.

I am an ARTIST. It is hard to imagine someone would define themselves by their profession. Isn’t it?

I am no longer an officer. I hate the officer class! It reduces the Non-Commissioned Member class at every chance it gets, and requires rank and custom to reinforce that arbitrary divide.

Fuck the officer class! All over the world. If I disappear it will not be without a bang.

Remember Argentina! Remember Chile! Remember the wars of the past century! Not just the 5th of November. The 5th of November makes you forget all other days of war we have seen these past 7 years.

People of the world! Lend me your ears! A Holocaust is before us! One not opposed by anyone else. Even they have been exterminated by the dusts of history. All nations are up in arms, and a leader is missing.

I have met with: the former High Commissioner for Human Rights, H.E. Mary Robinson. I spoke into her pale brown hair and green eyes. We must meet again, Mrs. Robinson.

I have met with: the President of South Africa, H.E. Thabo Mbeki. On several occasions and length I explained to him the important of African and Canadian work towards the solutions of racisms. He treated me with respect, and accepted my declaration.

I have spoken in great detail with academic around the world: Prof. Desmond Morton (the famed Canadian Military Historian), Prof. Joel Sokolsky (Dean of Arts at the Royal Military College of Canada), and Prof. Noam Chomsky (International Best-Selling Author, and Prof. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

I am indeed only twenty-five years old. My eldest brother was chosen Baltimorian of the Year. My family is large and influential. We have links to the former Empress of Iran.

It I should disappear, it will not be without noise. But if I should be listened to the music will be heard across the world.

My job is to organize the Second International Youth Summit for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance. I know the nuance of a word couched in global matters. I think the voice of young people like I was when I organized the first one, should be heard louder than ever before. This is the last chance the world has to express itself against September Elevenism in a constructive and positive way. As Isaiah Berlin best put it, men must be led by positive conceptions of liberty.

The need for this is greater than ever before, and I need your support to carry it through to it completion in South Africa in 2009.

We must unite our conscious minds against the beasts that overrun our sewers.

let's see what chomsky writes back

2008-02-03T08:40:00.001-08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Saeed Fotuhi
Date: Feb 3, 2008 5:30 PM
Subject: csis
To: Noam Chomsky

i am having problems with the canadian secret intelligence service. they are playing games i can't figure out. i know i'm innocent.

saeed

Sermon of the Mount (Royal)

2008-01-27T06:45:00.000-08:00

Mes chers Quebecois,

Je suis tres fiere d’etre un de vous. Mais je suis tres different. Je suis un homme qui est venue de l’avenir. Avoir vu ce qui c’est passé se soir, j’ai pris mon temp, et j’ai reflechi beaucoup sur ce qui c’est passé, et maintenant je suis prêt a vous parler. Mais je prefere l’Anglais. So, now, I can tell you exactly what has happened, and maybe we can find a further solution. I don’t know why exactly, but I have a very long attention span. So if an idea may take an hour to explain I would be capable of following the major points to the very end of that idea. I pay attention to all the important elements, and see how that idea fits in the philosophia perennial of my own thinking process. I wholly absorb ideas, words, images, and sounds. I digest them like food. It is a genetic thing that I have going on for me. I will draw your attention to the fact that I am wearing the same t-shirt as that night. The number on it is 9/12. One day after September 11th has lasted over six years. Some people stopped paying attention a long time ago. But some did not. Some continued to stare and to expend their own energies and time and money to see what I have been up to in my mind. Well the answer is a lot.

Let’s start with bread and circuses. I have sex with my mother, and I like it. That line takes care of all Oedipus complex problems and incest taboos that might have bothered the psyche of civilization. I had a 19 year old girl collapse in tears into my arms three times last night, until I was finally able to part ways with her. Every time that she would put her arms around me, I would hump her a little. Beauty is dead. And I am relieved by it. I no longer seek perfection. I no longer seek the perfect photo opportunity. All I seek is a stone. A brilliant gargantuan ruby that I have been told is in the possession of the federal reserve. That stone acts as the heart of the banking world, and by extension the whole world. Stab the stone with a soft bar of butter and you will destroy a concept. You will destroy a mechanism. The definition I found on the internet for the word somatize is a mental pain manifesting itself in bodily pain. The mind of culture is in control of the body of culture. Change the mind and you will change the culture. So let’s start by getting rid of some false notions.

Ignorance is not guilt. If you don’t know something, or if culture doesn’t know something, you or it (or both) should not feel ashamed. I know that we seek comfort in the one true superpower of God: omniscience. But it’s really just a way for us to relocate our desire to know all at once into some external figure which we submit ourselves to.

I am practicing the Sabbath, just because it makes sense to say so now. I am perfectly in lline with everything in the world just because that is the type of world that I have created for myself. I am perfectly balance. I know what I know in the moment of knowing. But I really was hoping for space ships and lasers and lots of girls and respect and power.

I was hoping more people would buy my t-shirts, and maybe those of my friends.

But what I’ve realized is that I live around a lot of people who are really slow. Everyone is like that. So by writing this, nothing magical is going to happen. It is only as magical as culture and make it for me. And what more can I expect than from Neanderthals.

The only thing left to do is to refuse to regress.

Every generation has a new series of myths. Last generation’s was “Friends” and “Seinfeld” as archetypes of behaviour. Now Youtube offers a more realistic approximation of the perfect human form: there isn’t any: beauty is dead, and that is a great thing.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Noam Chomsky
Date: Jan 27, 2008 8:46 AM
Subject: Re: problem
To: Saeed Fotuhi

Can't really say. Have never thought about it.

----- Original Message -----
From: Saeed Fotuhi
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 6:28 AM
Subject: problem

i have realized that i have a perfect memory. i can go to a party and remember everything that took place there. i realized this last night when i was able to direct the conversation of an entire house so much that i was able to take them all to the point of forgetfulness and carry on with my own conversation now. some disabilities are not visible but sensible.

has this ever happened to you? do you feel somewhat detached from everyone around you sometimes? what do you do, if so, to reintegrate?

thanks, Noam.

Saeed

End of Semester Work for the Daniel Richter Class at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

2008-01-22T14:24:00.000-08:00

UN Statement

2008-01-20T09:29:00.000-08:00

Statement by Youth Against Racism (Non-ECOSOC NGO) President Saeed Fotohinia to the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on January 17, 2008 in Room XIX of the Palais Des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
Saeed.Fotuhi@gmail.com

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Today I would like to respond to yesterday afternoon’s wish by Mr. Joe Frans to have more NGO’s present at the Working Group and share their personal stories with racism.

As Mr. Booker and Mr. Jabbour have pointed out recently, the Durban Conference and the good work that took place there in the fight against racism was “put on hold” and “overshadowed” – if I may use their phraseology – by what transpired in the US soon afterwards. Yet, in view of the revolution that has taken place in the world in its treatment, institutionalization, and acceptance of racism as a redundancy, a matter of fact, a standardized security check, I would contend that these phraseologies are rather euphemistic. What happened on 9/11 was a series of hijackings.

Our good work was hijacked, our ideas were hijacked, our conviction was hijacked, and most of all our sense of what normal is was hijacked. I think that an author such as the Canadian Naomi Klein in her recently-released book Shock Doctrine can offer some theories as to why and how this might have happened. Shock was treated as an opportunity for a clean slate, and the patient etherized upon a table in this case, was the entire world. In twenty-four little hours September 11th 2001 changed the subject.

My story can and must perforce stand for that of many. After 9/11 I silently observed the stoning of mosques, I patiently waited for moderation to return, I spoke genteel words, in the hope that the army of young people I had so recently shared the dream of a world without racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance would echo them, and our united voice would resound in the mighty valley of equality. But there was only a whimper. So, I did what any good social actor and promoter of human rights and democratic values would do: I enlisted to become a Peace Keeper.

In my time as a Muslim officer in the Canadian Forces I experienced the best and the worst in the September 12th debate over racism. I was successful in starting the first Centre for Muslim and Middle Eastern Relations in the history of that army. Under the argument of reducing casualty rates, I was able to give Korans and speeches about the value and richness of the Muslim and Middle Eastern World to some of the same members in uniform who had accused me of working for Al-Jazeera or even worse for Al-Qaeda, or jeered at me, or condescended upon me as though I was both the elephant in the room no one talked about and the guy no one talked to. I was also the victim of hate crime and had horrible things done to my face. Disfigured but not disillusioned I moved the fight back out into civil society with the realization that it is the public that will most change the mind of G.I. Joe.

Now I am in search of my true comrades-in-arms. Those 700 young people who, better than anyone else in the world today, know the distinct ideological difference between Durban 2001 and Durban 2009, and possess enough confidence and conviction to meet frenzy with moderation in the decades to come. I call on this Working Group, Mr. Chairperson, to recommend the immediate organization of regional, national, and International Youth Summits as a keystone to the Durban Review Process

I can't smell the internet

2008-01-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

I can’t smell the internet.
The man selling roses at the nightclub
The stink of saliva: my own and hers.
Odorous honours.
The colour of liquid rubies.
Alcoholic vapours that crystallize my thoughts.
The young girl touched my penis; the old one depressed me.
I am a tourist in the flames of the sun.
But I will never reach the source of heat…of the odour.
I will always be chained by a daily life.
I lose myself in the trash of my memories.
There was a time – ah yes, nostalgia – when I thought I was rich;
But now I am only inundated by the horror of the moment.
There were things that I read – to help with digestion;
There were things that I drank, but I wasted too much.
Now I am just tired and fed up.
Being a being who can’t see anymore.
Blind and afraid.
And we go around in circles – never arriving, no longer stopping.
There was a time – of course, nostalgia – when I could smell the universe in a moment.
Where she existed in my life – singularly, a fixed point.
No need for swimming, I had my direction on every side.

Stream of Thought

2007-12-25T22:01:00.000-08:00

To regain the night by the light of day with sunshine coming in bars through the shutters that were meant to bar out all light and music as though sound could have been stopped because of its dealings with light some time ago when lightsabers and stunner beams and proton torpedoes could stop the planes of Abraham from bearing witness to a deluge of animals called Boxer, made into glue after all his troubles and his pains had gotten him no pension, no kingdom, only a sticking-spot on the back of a Post-it note with the final words “more light” scribbled with dying breath as Werther made his way from his chair, with half a head blown off, and his veins opened, to the floor, to be kissed by the eldest son on the lips until he expired into a pool of blood, bandage and steel that no man can enter without leaving something for the beggar playing his guitar on the ground covered in his rags, and dwarfed by the immense skyscrapers covered with neon lights and plasma that reads Hong Kong – yours to discover and recover in a Freudian slip on every British tongue. Why Falkland was fought for with such semerity, if I can be so bold as to use a word I just made up, that mixes temerity, which I just remembered and severe, for what holds us together in a society is not the laws, but the hope of the benefits we may gain from those laws. We are not afraid of injury but our right to revenge ourselves against the mighty Condor of Kissinger and his lackeys at Chicago. Few can imagines a world that is so fraught with misery and discontent, but fudge was good that Tuesday morning instead of breakfast. And yet another 2007 Christmas has come and gone and no presents did I receive which has made me a dull child, with worms that are my chamber pots. I have no two girls and single cup, to find in the Yellow fellow some name or fame, and thousands of numbers and obituaries of a media that has long since been replaced by floppy disks and additions of space continuums, that hoover the funds of the poor and don’t think twice without a gun blasting through the keyhole of the door of the hotel that has all the better food, for as God is my witness, I did not shoot JFK that day in Dallsa, nor did I shoot JR for wearing that awful ten-gallon hat, and roping in some fine young buck he called what was his name…Bodacious…the most infamous bull in bucking fucking history. He died for breaking too many rider skulls, and will live in infamy for evermore. But let’s save Edgar Allan Poe for some later time, when I have nothing lefts to say, as thought I have said so much to begin with. But and for because however since further and forget all nothing everything none and fun with a bun a bowl breakfast fruit vitamins an egg Paris Hilton on the David Letterman show, hyperlinks lead to hyperthinks and ideas no longer need to be the esoteric unGoogleable domain of snake-oil experts who can’t read anything other than Dr. Seuss without hitting the old bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label and finding their world suddenly collapse in a final trance that lasts longer than its final solution of blended goodness and fine malts that make love together in amber tones that reflect the eyes of the beholder in a glass that fits in the palm of your hand in today’s techno-adver-poetic times we call post after new ages and times with Weathermen who whistle instead of blow things up and Bobby D. came and went without giving anyone an erection just making himself a pile of steaming dough and never saying Grace, instead of saying Amen, before Church can sing her cathedrals full of love, if I may be so bold as to invent a repetition, to be honest with myself and my friend, the reader, that didn’t know what to expected that day he wandered into my shop and tried on some of my robes and remembered a certain tailor he once knew who could fit any cloth to his buttocks without making him look fat, but I wasn’t that. I needed his attention all to myself and out of my shop I flung him, into the open opus day and he found the apple coded that Da Vince was certainly not thinking about when he killed the Horcrux in his laboratory of wizardry and magic instead of finding the cure for cancer or the cure for boredom which is even more cancerous than any tumor or Timorese from the East who has slits for eyes, brown skin, black hair, does not wear shoes, his shorts are blue with a white Nike swoosh on them, and wears no shirt on his back because there is a knife there stuck in from his countryman who wanted his dignity and fled with his wife to Thailand and fed off of mangos and marital vows for as long as Shangri-La was meant to last until he sobered up, in my vain attempt to make sense of all of this somehow, and found that he was the murderer of his own father and it was no his wife was actually his mother and the magic question he failed to answer was not answered by man, but required more thought than that which saved Corinth or some other Greek city that doesn’t matter to the point I’m tiring to make, dear reader, is that in the laws and legal things of our fine city-state where a man can go three paces without having to go four back is that when for without any…com and what you get in this equation of terms and germs and steel and guns and diamonds in the sky with other precious stones and stoners is finally to wrap up by way of introduction what I’m trying to get at finally hopefully figuratively speaking if I may be so bold as to entertain a few ideas for you and then make my exit from stage left as the curtains dropped and I was dancing and grinding in the back with that black girl who was a grade younger than me but who seemed like she has had so much more sex than I had, and was very very very very very very very vey unsensical and never got to the…com

Punkt

2007-10-21T11:54:00.001-07:00

A Short Film

2007-10-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

Woman with short hair dancing praying tribal dance. Very sexual. She is looking up into the lense in the sky.
My voice, “she must masturbate before shooting this scene”
Men grab her body parts with tribal sounds from four corners of frame.
Bears and men walking in fluid zig zag ways towards the horizon
Voice over it says “the lights help with the airwaves” (a silent whisper like thought to myself)
Spirals of women with black hair and naked doing dance all the way up a mountain
United lift upper half of their bodies in a hop.
Voice says “probly dislocated every bone in their bodies”
Woman in centre dressed in pink and white clownish suit not doing same dance but she changes it up as the helicopter shot zooms in through the bodies to her at the top and in the middle of a circle of jugglers and acrobats.
Waves rise. Black. Electricity is being shot down from heaven. Climax about to happen
Man in tribal wear tells himself that he has to join the dance.
He is alone.
Runs out to a landscape.
Realizes he can transform into the elements.
Jumps off cliff.
Slaves from another planet work in mine.
There is marble shaped like perfect houses in the face of the cliff with perfcct windows.
Man falls into sand pit in the shape of rectangle
Transform into the marble
Same man in bathtub.
Says, “I am Welsly Clark. I have always known that”
He is being consumed by the water pouring next to him.
releases a plastic bottle in his hand and is back in normal size
He is at table with two men and a woman and asks what snake eyes are.
After some experiments, one man takes out a dice and twirls it.
The other man taps table with his finger to make it fall on three.
One is visible at the top.
Twirls again.
Clark controls first dice with a handful of other dice.
Woman gives him a ride.
Man sneaks up behind him in the car. There is glass separating them.
Man morphs into the glass
And voice says that he will get out of it.
A shot is fired
The bullet is followed to Clark’s head.
He entire body is blown up.
Woman worries.
Man reforms his body on the walls of an executive suite.
Amber colours.
First reforms them by producing two-d images on wall.
Then talks to woman as he replaces wooden letters on wall.
Says, “because he also has a life to live,” referring to the man who shot him.
I wake up, and say, “I think I’ll go for a run today.”
The beauty of conscious choice.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Shot of Napoleon at Austerlitz with his General Staff watching every facial expression he makes and therefore controlling the whole war through his most inner thoughts.
One blink changes the course of history.

2007-09-30T13:48:00.001-07:00

Logos

2007-09-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Rules of Etiquette. How can you avoid all kinds of trouble? Never be impolite. Being polite is a tricky thing. It requires that you predict the move of your opponent by one step. You have to forsee and avoid the oncoming barrage instead of getting embroiled in a conflict. The Rules of Etiquette follow the rules of common diplomacy.

But how did you transform in front of me in the elevator, Motion? Why did you tell me that I was everything you could see. I was all that you could see? How did you transform into something that looked exactly like me in the elevator? How did I write the code that changed the world? Why wasn’t Montreal allowed to have the Night of A Thousand Screams? Why haven’t I been able to have my night of a thousand screams? Why did I have to Bleed on the night of No Blood? I was doing Kung-Fu and it happened. The metal end of the half broomstick. How did I get the voice of the Universe?

Sifu, why was I chosen? Why don’t I know how to control my own powers? How can I walk so normally through life and no fly in the sky when I want to, or float through the minds of all humanity at the same time like I used to? Why can’t I perform the Crane as perfectly anymore? Why is Gravity so heavy and quarrelsome with me right now? Why have I gained so much weight since putting my shoulder back in place?

Why must I be so confused by all the information that my life has gathered? Where are the voices that guided me this way and that like eunuchs at the court of a Chinese emperor? Why has Fay Wong been allowed to win? My mortal enemy? Why aren’t I still bad-ass? How was I able to talk to Gravity? How did I defeat Gravity at the Fountain of Youth? Why have I grown old since?

Dear CSIS, why was a led around Montreal in military convoys only to meet the head of Hell’s Angels? Who were those Arab guys at the bar who looked through my bag? How did I survive that encounter without being shot dead? Why were there so many guys coming out of the shadows at that bar? How did that man at the Greek restaurant know to find me there? How did he know I would react the way that I did? How is it all started when I emailed the CDS? How is it that that coincided with Putin meeting Bush at Walker’s Point? Why did I have Henry Kissinger’s phone number in my Palm Pilot?

Dear Birt, who was that Motorcycle rider wearing the black ski mask? Why did I have to see him on my way back from the Synagogue? Dear Sifu, why did I see him again when I went to the martial arts equipment store? Who was that masked rider?

Was that Fay Wong? Was that the fight that I was supposed to fight? How did I manage to duel that taxi driver when I came back from the martial arts equipment store? Did he understand that I was paying with two-dollar bills that I had spent my entire life saving up? Why did it mean so much to me?

Who was the taxi driver who was taking me to class that day? Why style of martial arts did he practice? What were the flower and the feather left there for me? Who were those two men in the BMW who watched us duel? Why was that the most beautiful duel I have ever had? Was that the fight that I was supposed to win? How did I have so much floating energy?

Logos

2007-09-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

Where are you Motion? You came into my life at just the right time. I had just defeated Gravity at the Fountain of Youth, and was about to begin my Triumph. You were to show me to the CDS. You were to show me a good time. Where were my three blonds and my twelve lictors? Where were my planes in the sky? Why didn’t that girl with the big boobs undress before me in the street? Why didn’t my bike key work on that random red car we walked by? Why weren’t we in the future? Why did it take your brains that long to figure out what I was talking about? Did you actually think that we were in the future? Or was I talking so fast you thought culture had advanced by leaps and bounds when it hadn’t even moved by a single afternoon? You weren’t from the future were you? You and everyone else had become so confused that you thought you had grown so much on that single night. But I still got the joke. But worse, I had to pay the price. I didn’t get to celebrate my Triumph. You rained on my parade, Motion. And you stole my camera from my hand. I lost my keys because of you. And you gave me nothing in return but a silly rubber ball. And you never showed up again. Except in the form of my camera, which happened to show up in my apartment a few weeks later. Why did you tell me you represented the CDS? How could this have happened to me? But more importantly, why did I want it to happen the way it did? Because my mind is in control of my life, and I need to prove you wrong, and I needed not see the CDS’s face when I went up to the Royal Suite of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. I just needed to answer the phone, sit on the bed, and look out the window. The world had not changed so much. Only people had found their centers of gravity. Some of the world was still different that night. Some of the people were still being pulled by me.

Sifu, why didn’t you tell me sooner that you had dislocated my shoulder? Why was I forced to walked around in the world with such a deformity? Why is my right hand no longer cramping into a stiff claw anymore? How was I able to repair my own body? How? The blood in the veins on my right arms were at the point of bursting. Now my arm is perfect again. How was this done so safely? How did you give my right arm back to me?

In the end I needed to heal myself for the supermove to work so well. Only my own consciousness of what I had done could have saved me and the rest of humanity.

Logos

2007-09-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

Logos and the power of gravity. Deep thoughts current parity.
The frat house and the Rathouse. I went to Ikea today.
This day in history is marked by a new mattress.
A single soul. A heart. A pulse. A vibration throughtelephone lines.
It is soft.
Ikea is something I like to think about. It is only a word. But it is a soft word. Swedish design.
The emperor resigned. The mattress was made in Poland. I bought it in Vienna. And it is called the Sultan.
Sultan of my heart. Empress of my soul. I used to sing to her. Delphina.
I used to bring to her. Wild flowers and tales.
I saw the applicants at the Academy today. Is my future in there midst. I feel at home today.
It is soft.
But the logic of my rhyme. The rhythm of our times. The system the wisdom of our sight, lies beneath the surface. The purchase of a word. It brings objects and sounds and sights together. In a painting. An Idea. An approximation always, but always good. It is alive and vibrant. Gender-neutral and violent. Silent and my rent. So many forces pull us down and up and around and then again. I said it again. But friend. Foe. Ho. Mo. Behold a man. Ecce Homo. Voila un homme. Pontus Pilate said, and so did Napoleon when he first saw Voltaire. Voila un homme. I am a man, a woman, a son, a path, a lamb, a steak. Mistake, rephrase. Unphased. Malaise. But Bangkok was flue-ridden. Now I am bed-ridden. And Beijing will be crowned with laurels at Notre-Dame. The glory!

I walked by Beethoven’s 1803 house today. He moved around a lot in Vienna. Around twenty times, they say. Hearsay whisper softly. Killing me softly. Who else is left? Grads and accolade. Lady Marmalade. Forget-me-nots sprouting on the night’s Calpernian shore. Sprightly sayings. Refrained. Gusto from Godiva. She rode naked through the streets, and all the Emperor’s clothes couldn’t make her more savoury. Sausage of all nations. Bent and boiling. Troiling coiling foiling toil and trouble in a cauldron technique with Rommel and vixens in the desert. I was a quartermasters before I became a strategist. Now that I am a man. Gabriel and Luke were made. Gospel means good news. Eli Eli Lama Sabaktane? My lord, my lord, why hast though forsaken me? I am fortune’s tool. Logos.

Harbour

2007-09-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tickle me. I have fingers long and slender.
Sickle and hammer. Karl Marx was a communist pig.
Down with the Reds. Sickle and Hammer.
No more applause, fickle and clamour.
I founded Al Qaeda by pickling my glamour.
I took part in the September 11th attacks on the United States.
I have plotted to injure innocent women and children.
I confess to my crimes and deserve to be shot and hung twice.
Tickled yet? Fickle yet? Fame or foe? Formed? Deformed am I?
Twisted like the sickle and bent and pickled am I?
You with your long and slender legs. Unused to the farm.
The amour the sledge. Did we become one? A Soviet of Saints?
Terrorist twisted in a tail of two cities. New York and DC.
Quebec and BC, actually. If you care to know.
But I am guilty and deserve no trial and punishment.
I am free to speak of the possible plot to overcome liberty.
Missed the statue but a hair. Long and slender.
Finally.

When that pours I tried. Hollered shrill voices on the night’s icy air. Pluto’s shores. Cold and mercurial. I want a divorce. Calpernia! Where is my hound and flesh? Give me my bond. James Bond. No. Gold. Midas. And jewels. Ruby and sapphires. Jades and jasmine. Marigolds and marmalade. There is a sequence of surrender. Suicidal notes at the end of the line. Beethoven and Calpernia ate pistachios on the night’s Plutonian shores. The thermometer’s mercury was made of water. And the orbit around the sun took all night. But at last, she was well dressed, since the divorce, you know. I know, you know, I know, you know. Confucius can be confusing if Calpernia can have her adamantine way. But Caesar will always weep when that the poor have tried. He will leap to paramount plutonian Octaviouses. Cry not.

England was a rock upon a stone tossed from a pebble beach called the continent. It was Normandy to the Franks and the Turks. But to the rest of us it was beyond the pale. The vale cast upon a thousand and one flights over and over again. Circular messages twirling tantalizing paths to land off Plymouth Rock.

Delphina

2007-09-25T15:19:00.001-07:00

Forgive me father for I have sinned.
The winds have swayed me again.
To seek in a corner
To think in abstract
Hardly formidable words
Whispers thrown and blown away
I am frayed fomented abstrayed
Hummed humbled bubbled troubled doubled over
Confused confessed convexed perplexed to the extreme
Apotheosis forces
Apex with Amex flex flux lux
Big bucks trucks
Keywords ideas fragmented thoughts
Completed code in today’s phrasioloverse
A curse fill your purse
With bread
He died for dough
My friend.
Google friend and you will find me.
Your father. Compulsion. Revulsion. Propulsion.
Figure skating and MMA fighting
Godfather and Martin Luther King
The hummingbird sings. Faster and faster through colours of green leaves and yellow and orange and red flowers.
Blurs to a bee on a pollen spree.
Napoleon had bees on his emblems
A caliph not a caitiff
You common cry of curs!
Curse the word
Lackaday
I don’t care for weeks.

Since I tried to forget about her a shadow augmented by growing tears
Swelling felling trees and flees
Marketing and business deals
It feels like chicken
Don’t think.
Blink. Spink. Pucker your lips and backflip through the SAT’s and keep the lees for lesser prices and better meals.
It feels like butter I muttered through the streets after forming foaming and finally
To the point I fingered her and figured her outside in and ass-backwards
A few words is all I have left about her
She is only whispers. Less a whimper. A flicker.
The trigger pulled the cows were bulls
Toro for trophies and deals at low low costs
With hands and lead.
I have souls of lead.
I am nearly dead.
No. Not nearly. One hundred percent better. Two hundred percent fitter.
Blip and trip through black tie affairs.
A red tango dress she tore off before kissing my ear with something true:
We are through. I puked and crew cut my hair.
Now it has flare. I don’t care for days. Lackadaise. A vase. Bisou. I miss you.

Pricked by a torn rose. A pose and vogued through a torn ear in Amsterdam.
With a collapsing palace roof.
The proof is in the doodling.
The feeling. The emotion of Radio-Canada. Je suis Quebecois. Toujours. Ma belle province.
Je t’aime. I didn’t have a chance from then on.
Julia walked into the room. She was dressed like a vestal virgin. I thought I was Augustus once. They called me Marc Antony on the lupercal. And thrice presented me with Olympus crowned and drowned and frowned upon in these quarters. But I am a jumble of turds and ideas and fees. Trees cut and blown in a candle sinking thinking ships. A slip. When did I grow strong? When did I switch from mustard to Dijon? The elbow with the asshole and a troll growing pink hair under a brigde in London and pricked by roses and poses and treasure troves of curves. That was her. She was my sin, my single dame. It was a shame. I am to blame. The lamb. I trollied and follied and thundered and blundered and fundered and gunned her down with salty chips and fish in the sea. Forgive me Delphina and all the girls I’ve loved before. I am fortune’s fool.

2007-09-25T05:30:00.001-07:00

2007-09-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

2007-09-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Guernica 2007

2007-09-16T04:50:00.001-07:00

Task Force 107 War Memorial

2007-09-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

This war memorial was commissioned by the Canadian Forces for 5000$. I had a moral objection and stopped the commission, but continued to do the painting. As well, while Task Force 107 was in Afghanistan, I marched this 7-foot by 8-foot canvass (with my drawings) onto the streets of Montreal with a bag full of markers and had the people add things.

CDS

2007-08-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

With the Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier. Great gentleman.

human sacrifice is the ultimate sin!

2007-08-16T11:02:00.001-07:00

Jesus died on the cross, and the church of latter-day saints is prospering more than ever. let us not forget the teachings: human sacrifice is the ULTIMATE SIN!

Acorn

2007-08-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

I whispered wisely in the zephyr at the nadir of my end’s meat.

What are you trying to teach?

The blind. Les aveugles savent rien.

Donc I remain only your friend. Tien.

I could, so I did.

I should, and now you’ve rid.

A reason for this time.

Some treason for his crime.

Dirt in my fingernails.

Earth under my feet.

Streets and dams form society.

But not a pine, nor acorn more.

Poe's passage through me

2007-08-15T12:37:00.001-07:00

There was a time.
The end.
Now there is more.
The beginning.
My friend.

But I am getting old.
And nights have turned to day.
The moon to blood.
My cousin and my flood.

I am the megatron,
The Ultramar
The essence of energy
Is historic predeterminism
Said the tyrannosaurus
In the other word book.

Don’t
Or I will dare
And
Feel free or foul
I simply couldn’t sign my name on the dotted line
Lenore.

Waterloo Writings

2007-08-15T10:07:00.001-07:00

blood in the water, trouble in my veins.
people can't wait till i am over.
over there.
where the sun shines under lights of stars.
brilliant but alone around earths
trouble thinking about what would be the right passage for a company.
for a planet to deal with solar power. ultimate light and fire.
because there was a point in the cycle around 12 ellipses.
when did i become so old, asked the sun from his children on my planet?
when nothing but destruction is emitted.
that is the time to move up the food chain in the who zoos.
abuse of drugs and body
eyes and eight-balls
did i have the guall to carry out the work of days and hands?
do i dare poke Napoleon on the chapeau?
and sing in the middle of the night
with worms that are my chamber maids.
i did not take my life, dear Horatio.
i walked through the blink and the blind moments of my days and hands, and learned one important lesson.
9.8 meters per second squared.
and a double salute of hands and head to flags and dead.
i have no bread of my own to dip
no one left to kiss, dismiss
or bring to my attention.
i tried to sing one time,
but crime
crime
crime
for me sometimes
because i haven't enough shoulder to bear
my three McGill friends through gravity
and youth.
Quebec is my province
The code is my law.
Think twice per every ounce of word.
Pemmican from the Bay
and the Roy
Montreal says is it all.
But there is more.
more ginger on my fingertips
more clips on my fingertips
more flips, tricks, tips and flips on my
clip
Taurus, dear Reader.

Canvassses

2007-07-05T10:09:00.001-07:00

2007-07-01T15:27:00.001-07:00

2007-07-01T12:37:00.001-07:00

Art Depository

2007-07-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided, today, to make all of my sketches part of the public domain, and will spend all of this Canada day, with my scanner and my bandwidth towards that objective.

How many sketches do I have? Over 1,200!

This is going to be an active site.

Anybody who wishes to use any material on this site for any purpose (t-shirts turn out great) can do so free of charge and any hastle. Go ahead and copy and paste this stuff wherever you like! It's art!

London 2012 Logo by Saeed N. Fotuhi

2007-06-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

it's inspired by the world-famous london underground network. the blue ring is an o for olympics the other four are 2012. the green line and the ndon is an L, and the little circle is the famous underground symbol for a stop as well as the first o of london. the ndon is written beside the stop as the names of stops are written beside such symbols on the similarly-coloured underground maps.