Natalia Vodianova

Indeterminacy 97

Certain tribes in Siberia trade several sheep for one Amanita
muscaria and use the mushroom for orgiastic practices. The women
chew the raw mushroom and the chewed pulp is mixed with blueberry
juice. This is drunk by the men and is productive of
hallucinations. It also changes the relation between the ego and
social ideals. Thus, the urine of those who have been affected
by the mushroom is in high demand and is drunk with pleasure,
for it contains a sufficient amount of the drug to continue its
wild effects. The Vikings who went berserk are thought to have
done so by means of this same mushroom. ¶ Nowadays we hear of
biochemical experiments using Amanita muscaria or other
hallucinatory mushrooms or the drugs synthesized in imitation
of them — experiments in which professors, students, or
criminals become temporarily schizophrenic, sometimes for the
novelty of it, other times for purely scientific purposes. Just
as we soon will travel to the moon and other earths, and add to
our telephone conversations the practice of seeing one another
while we speak, so one will do with his mind what he now does
with his hair, not what it wants to do but what he wants it to
do. People in the near future will not suffer from
schizophrenia; they will simply be schizophrenic if and when
they have the desire. ¶ Life is changing. One of the ways I’m
trying to change mine is to get rid of my desires so that I won’t
be deaf and blind to the world around me. When I mention my
interest in mushrooms, most people immediately ask whether I’ve
had any visions. I have to tell them that I’m very old-fashioned,
practically puritanical, that all I do is smoke like a furnace
— now with two filters and a coupon in every pack — and that I
drink coffee morning, noon, and night. I would also drink
alcohol but I made the mistake of going to a doctor who doesn’t
permit it. The visions I hear about don’t interest me. Dick
Higgins said he ate a little muscaria and it made him see some
rabbits. Valentina Wasson ate the divine mushrooms in Mexico
and imagined she was in eighteenth-century Versailles hearing
some Mozart. Without any dope at all other than caffeine and
nicotine, I’ll be in San Francisco tomorrow hearing some of my
own music and on Sunday, God willing, I’ll awake in Hawaii with
papayas and pineapples for breakfast. There’ll be sweet-smelling
flowers, brightly colored birds, people swimming in the surf,
and (I’ll bet you a nickel) a rainbow at some point during the
day in the sky.

- John Cage

A Scan a Day

Captain Blood (1935)

An enslaved English doctor and his comrades in chains escape and become pirates.

Another Michael Curtiz-Errol Flynn-Olivia de Havilland Hollywood blockbuster, a classic pirate movie and simply one of my favourites! A movie like this exemplifies in all aspects what cinema was made for.

Who's That Girl?

Sorstalanság (2005)

A 14-year-old boy's life is torn apart in World War II Hungary as he is sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

This is an adaptation from the famous novel by Imre Kertész, and at first I was noticing the difference in tone between film and book. However, the author himself has written the script, so I assume this to be intentional.

Where the book sees the goings on from the view of a young and innocent teenage boy who interprets everything as an adventure and even at times 'understands' and justifies the Nazis' doings, the movie comes in conflict with these same views, since the picture tells a different story. We have the 'real' images, the book tells us the what the boy 'sees'.

Nevertheless, this is an extremely well photographed movie with great actors, the harrowing events embedded in a child's life story. We definitely feel with him and understand that he has survived to a strange world in the aftermath.

Kate Moss irrégulière

A Song a Day

Aimee Mann - 4th of July

I know this song is a bit early considering it's title, but before I forget...

I first took note of the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann's music at the world premiere of the movie Magnolia at the Berlin Film Festival. I instantly fell in love with her voice and the songs and have been collecting her albums ever since.

I find this specific song to be not just beautiful, but in all aspects you see it something like THE perfect song in itself. Everything in this song fits as if it had to be this way and no different in any aspect.



Todays the fourth of july
Another june has gone by
And when they light up our town I just think
What a waste of gunpowder and sky
Im certain that I am alone
In harbouring thoughts of our home
Its one of my faults that I cant quell my past
I ought to have gotten it gone

Oh, baby, I wonder -
If when you are older -
Someday-
Youll wake up
And say, my god, I should have told her -
What would it take?
But now here I am and the worlds gotten colder
And shes got the river down which I sold her.

So thats todays memory lane
With all the pathos and pain
Another chapter in a book where the chapters are endless
And theyre always the same
A verse, then a verse, and refrain

Oh, baby, I wonder -
If when you are older -
Someday-
Youll wake up
And say, my god, I should have told her -
What would it take?
But now here I am and the worlds gotten colder
And shes got the river down which I sold her.

Devon Aoki

Indeterminacy 169

(ph: Cornell Capa)

Merce Cunningham’s parents were going to
Seattle to see their other son, Jack.
Mrs. Cunningham was driving.
Mr. Cunningham said,
“Don’t you think you should go a little
slower? You’ll get caught.”
He gave this warning several times.
Finally, on the
outskirts of Seattle, they were
stopped by a policeman. He
asked to see Mrs. Cunningham’s license.
She rummaged around in her bag
and said, “I just don’t seem
to be able to find it.” He then
asked to see the registration.
She looked for it but
unsuccessfully. The officer
then said, “Well,
what are we going to do with you?”
Mrs. Cunningham started the engine.
Before she drove off,
she said, “I just
don’t have any more time to waste
talking with you. Good-by.”

- John Cage