Clipmarks | abailart's clips

Morning in the Streets: social documentary

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:42:35 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Half hor film on site.

Morning in the Streets, made by the BBC's Northern Film Unit, was publicised as an "impression of life and opinion in the back streets of a Northern City in the morning". The city in question is never identified: scenes were shot in Manchester, Salford, Stockport and Liverpool then combined as if capturing a single half-day in a single location. Because the film is impressionistic rather than journalistic, this artistically licensed deceit is easy to accept. While a minority of viewers disliked the film, it was hailed for bringing television documentary to a new level of artistic ambition, worthy of film antecedents. And in fact, after its broadcast Morning in the Streets became part of the non-theatrical documentary repertory, available for years for 16mm bookings.

Clip Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Clip Source: www.screenonline.org.uk

It's not a faultless film.

But the imperfections almost work in favour of the film, which is beautiful rather than pretty.

Clip Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Tags: liverpool, north west film archive, documentary

Ouroboros: the serpent eats its tail

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:08:59 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.dragon.org

The Serpent biting its own tail is first seen as early as 1600 years BC in Egypt. From there it moved to the Phonecians and then to the Greeks, who called it the Ouroboros, which means devouring its tail.

Clip Source: teek.artspots.com

Clip Source: altreligion.about.com

Clip Source: z.about.com

Clip Source: www.wilsonsalmanac.com

Clip Source: www.wisdomportal.com

V838 Monocerotis: Hubble Space Telescope/NASA
(February 8, 2004)

Clip Source: users.ucom.net

Clip Source: www.xzentradi.com

Clip Source: www.groundzeromedia.org

The serpent locked on its tail represents immobility and yet coils around the earth demonstrating perpetual movement. It represents the confusing message of your end being your beginning, your disintegration becoming reintegration. It is death before the spark of creation. It is believed to be the representation of the grand eternal cycle.

Tags: ouroboros

The Meaningless of Meaning

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:43:21 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: <<<To Nabokov, skimming the Present without sinking into the Past is a miracle that befits only the most experienced: "Otherwise the inexperienced miracle-worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish" (if I may add) under the weight of past associations.>>>

Thus do we think we have thought and felt and experience the One, the Abyss, the Edge, the Love.... yet the graceful lightness of being is elusive and we are weighed down always, especially 'Now' (oh, its 'Power'!) by the depreciating luggage of our conceptual memories and ossified identities.

Clip Source: blogs.psychologytoday.com

Meaning is a process of filling in the blanks of the mind… with words… that trigger other words… that trigger more words… As we grow and acquire language, we, in essence, acquire a baggage of associations that weighs us down as we try to skate the thin ice of presence.

Nabokov, in Transparent Things, writes: “When we concentrate on a material object <…> the very act of attention may lead to our involuntary sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want to stay at the exact level of the moment.”

“A thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film.”

Meaning is an artifact of the Past, not the actual fact of the Present.

instead of seeing reality as it is, we see a “so-called” reality

Language constructs perception: first, the word, then, the perceived reality.

Tags: nabokov