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Tuesday, April 21, 2020

La belle Verte / The Green Beautiful (1996)

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La belle Verte (French pronunciation: ​[la bɛl ˈvɛʁt]; The Green Beautiful) is a 1996 French film written and directed by Coline Serreau and starring Serreau, Vincent Lindon, Marion Cotillard and Yolande Moreau. Serreau also composed the original music score. It was filmed on location in Australia and France.

An enlightened non-materialistic and telepathic culture on a distant planet (called The Green Beautiful), sends back one of its members to Earth. She arrives in Paris and experiences first hand the destruction, materialist obsessions and fear which define humans. They use money and eat meat. They wear shoes and drive cars...disgusting.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

The Message Of The Tibetans (1966)


This is an extraordinary documentary film from the year 1966, portraying the lives of various people in many Tibetan communities in exile. The documentary touches upon every single aspect of traditional Tibetan life and culture, including Music, Medicine, Food, Art, Architecture, Religion, Yoga, Meditation and more. The film is by acclaimed French director Arnaud Desjardins. Here it is dubbed into English for the narration, with original sound for the voices of the subjects and music.

The full soundtrack to the film can be download here. 

Monday, April 13, 2020

The Transcendental Object At The End Of Time (Terence McKenna Movie)


Terence Kemp McKenna was an author, lecturer, philosopher and shamanic explorer of the realm of psychedelic states. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including metaphysics, alchemy, language, culture, technology, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He has been described by some as being "so far out, nobody knows what he's talking about", and by others as "the most innovative thinker of our times".

To shake us out of our perceptual torpor, McKenna played the holy fool, the crazy wisdom sage. He pushed our faces in the most exotic, lurid inventions of modern science and technology. What elevated him above most other prophets was that he delivered his prophesies with a wink, an implicit acknowledgement that ultimately reality is stranger than we CAN suppose.

McKenna’s métier was the spoken word — stand-up philosophy that meme-splices Alfred North Whitehead, Marshall McLuhan, James Joyce, William Blake and many others, delivered in a reedy, insinuating voice. Available throughout the Internet with titles like “Having Archaic and Eating it Too” and “Shedding the Monkey,” his lectures are tours de force of verbal virtuosity and pack-rat polymathy, leaping trippingly (in both senses of the word) from quantum mechanics to medieval alchemy, from the chaos theory of Ilya Prigogine to the neo-Platonism of Philo Judaeus.

This movie was created to present and collect (some of) his most profound thoughts, and to possibly show glimpses of the alchemical angel that Terence pursued throughout his life. It does not serve as a biography, (at least) three very important themes were left out for the simple reason that they take hours to unfold themselves: the experiment at La Chorrera, the relationship between the McKenna brothers, and the Trialogues with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abraham. And so, three books are essential to anyone who'd like to dive deeper into the life and mind of Terence McKenna:

True Hallucinations by Terence McKenna
The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss by Dennis McKenna
Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness by Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna, and Ralph Abraham

Created by Peter Bergmann, this is a movie/documentary/project/amalgamation made from everything Terence McKenna left us with, mixed with the music of We Plants Are Happy Plants.

From Terence McKenna's Eulogy to Leo Zeff:
Sometimes when Leo would sit with people, they would come out of their reveries and want to talk with him about what they were learning and seeing. And Leo would listen for a few minutes. But he then would always say: "That's fine, that's good, now return to the music." And I think that.. I like to think that Leo has now returned to the music. And some day so shall we. And to whatever degree we follow his example life here, the passage to whatever lies beyond will be made much easier.
Leo showed the way, because Leo knew the way. And I salute him for that, I say for all of us who were his tribe: Goodbye to the secret chief, goodbye to the man who saw most deeply. It's now for us to do as he would have had us do.


The Transcendental Object At The End Of Time

Part 1: Introduction 2:32
Part 2: Human Evolution 10:10
Part 3: Alchemy 15:02
Part 4: Plants 28:26
Part 5: Psychedelics 30:33
Part 6: Culture 34:25
Part 7: Psilocybin 39:48
Part 8: Leaving History 45:16
Part 9: How do you communicate with the mushroom? 51:23
Part 10: What is the voice? 54:18
Part 11: Conversation with Ram Dass 57:51
Part 12: DMT 1:09:46
Part 13: The DMT Experience 1:12:42
Part 14: Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abraham 1:26:46
Part 15: Rap, Rant, Rave 1:38:38
Part 16: The Big Bang 1:52:35
Part 17: Humanity 1:57:07
Part 18: "Why is it important for you to do this?" 2:02:38
Part 19: The Good, The True, and The Beautiful 2:12:30
Part 20: Kathleen Harrison 2:15:10
Part 21: Bad Trip 2:17:34
Part 22: High Water Weirdness Event 2:20:57
Part 23: The Promise Of Art 2:26:00
Part 24: Cannabis 2:35:45
Part 25: From Monkeydom To Starshiphood 2:41:41
Part 26: The Transcendental Object At The End Of Time 2:47:10
Part 27: Last Thoughts 2:51:12
Epilogue 3:10:20

Ever-expanding list of contributors, whose work is featured:
(please mention it in the comments if you run into your art/footage)

Videos and audio recordings

SOUND PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Mike Kawitzky
Lorenzo Hagerty/Matrix Masters

VISUALS:
TAS
DMTRMX
Ben Ridgway
Simon Haiduk
Wanderweird
The Art Of Salvia Droid

Ken Adams, Bruce Damer, Sacred Mysteries, Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham, London Real

Wednesday, April 08, 2020

Three Tapes by Angus MacLise

Tape One
Tape Two
Tape Three
Pleasure Editions’ first music release, and what a rare honor it is: a 3-cassette compilation of unheard music from MacLise’s vast and wide-ranging reel-to-reel back catalogue containing everything from tape experiments to folk jams, spoken word to synth noise insanity—all animated by the remarkable spirits of MacLise and his cohorts.

Some of the inner thoughts of Angus MacLise come to light in a group of 16 letters recently sold online, sent to Piero Heliczer between 1958 - 1960:

In one long, discursive letter MacLise expands further on his negative feelings towards America: "About the U.S. - it seems as if a dehumanized garden has been made of it - my wonderful huge U.S…. And so, I see, the States has not, by a long sight, been tailor made for me… we were never really suited to the land, it was never our legacy - only a vast spoil awaiting exploitation; our spirits and presences never arose with this soil, and our old lands remain, in essence, virgin - while the U.S. and all the W. Hemisphere has been raped until bloody and mauled into sullen subjection… Well, piero I've worked myself up into a conclusion about the U.S. and I'm satisfied with it, at least for the present."

The same letter, written in a Frankfurt hospital during his spell in the army, describes in some detail what MacLise refers to in another as "a kind of 'crack-up' or minor nervous breakdown". He begins: "I suppose I should unravel for you the twisted silence I consciously kept since I've been in the army… The first big flare-up was in Alabama after I had written the first of my only two compositions since I've been in the black hole of military puppets - At that time I went Awol and remained in Memphis, with a brain fever, in an obscure hotel… when I had recovered I returned and not long afterwards came overseas - and in november I began writing a musical score - then, suddenly, I cracked when they continually interrupted the work in progress… I was now charged with outright and flagrant aggression and balking, so I was sent to the nut ward - and I hope to be kicked out; I only trust they'll do this when I hit the U.S. - here's one of the narrations from the musical score" (lengthy exposition follows).

Elsewhere he relates how "the actual facts of my 'tragic incident' were incurred on my guard post in les bois (d'ennui) when I fired the ammunition off in my weapon, indiscriminately and impartially in the spirit of their best democratics. When I arrive in States I plan to go to 'Frisco to get an opera of mine produced - it isn't actually an opera but an encyclical with a double entendre like: pas savant. Percussion accompaniment, narration dance sequences, improvisation by a chamber group."

The letters are peppered with references to friends and relatives: "om is with child in ny and speaks to me of lonely wilderness + awaits her husband… I think she visits now with aldous uncle in long island… + also I have seen yr brother who now works at 2 or 3 jobs - 1 as waiter at a village ice cream parlor + I think he plans to study insects in the caribbean";

encounters missed: "Am on Rue des Ecoles having journeyed Mme Loyer has said that you had fled and penetrated the Forêt" (Madame Loyer, Heliczer's landlady at the Contrescarpe'); and the strength of his friendship with Heliczer, strained by separation: "I miss your presence, but our stride is different - although we are both friars. I fear now from things which Olivia has said - the thing is that GREAT things are expected - but they happen just by being there and not in things like expatriate manifestos I cannot be depended on for anything except words of love and poems Perhaps we are not good companions for long stretches…".



The Making Of An Underground Film - CBS News 1965


The Making Of An Underground Film - CBS News 1965 with Piero Heliczer, Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Stan Brakhage, Velvet Underground.

The year 1965 was perhaps the most important year for much of the 60’s underground’s imaginative and innovative activities. For Piero, there is little doubt it was the high point in his creativity and eminence. The remarkable Walter Cronkite of the CBS News, always on the alert for an interesting story, decided to do a feature on “underground” film. His first investigations coincided with a day Piero was shooting a 12-minute short called Dirt, part of the later unfinished 3 hour epic, with music performed by Velvet Underground. The CBS News crew did a 6-minute report of Piero’s film Venus in Furs, and included Velvet Underground, asking only that wear their shirts, as they had been topless at the first meeting.

“The Making of an Underground Film,” was a profile of Piero Heliczer and Velvet Underground, and turned out to be the one and only television coverage for both the band and the filmmaker. It’s interesting that Walter Cronkite and the CBS News also showed 30 seconds of a Brakhage movie, with poetry by Creeley/McClure a sort of stutter-stammer rapid-fire montage made up with hazy images. All very difficult to understand or make head or tail out of it. Writing about it now, I wonder what Cronkite thought about it. Maybe he dug it as people claimed but it was unlikely that the CBS or people watching the program took the underground seriously. Was it all just a joke to them? Was CBS News making fun of the underground scene or just having fun?

Heliczer usually shot his films silent and added sound on tape; in fact, his “screen adaptation” of William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch in 1968 is “a film for tape recorder, no projector needed.” But, in some instances, Heliczer used live musicians to provide a soundtrack to his films, and ph_flyer_first rushes one ad hoc group playing behind the screen at a Heliczer installation entitled The Launching of the Dream Weapon in early 1965 changed its name later that year to the Velvet Underground. In November, Heliczer had the Velvet Underground perform on the set of his film Venus in Furs and this shooting was filmed by a CBS News crew for an episode of Walter Cronkite Presents entitled “The Making of an Underground Film,” which was, in part, a profile of Piero Heliczer and turned out to be the only network television exposure for both the band and the filmmaker.

Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol, Piero Heliczer, New York 1965


Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Einsturzende Neubauten - Halber Mensch (1986, full film remastered)


The ruins have been prepared for us by master artists. Civilisation has granted us enough pause to consider its making. The rhythm of your heart, breath and organs are the beginnings of music. Where there was once nature, there is now the silence of cement, or the scream of steel and the bone shaking clang of iron, electricity and skin.

Halber Mensch (or 1/2 Mensch; English: Half Man) is the third studio album by German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. It was released on 2 September 1985, through record label Some Bizzare Records.

Halber Mensch (also known as 1/2 Mensch) is a 1986 film by Japanese director Sogo Ishii with German band Einstürzende Neubauten. It was originally released on VHS, and re-released on DVD in 2005. The film's title comes from the album of the same name.

The one-hour film documents Einstürzende Neubauten's visit to Japan in 1985. It includes concert footage along with scenes of the band performing in an industrial building. Several songs from the "Halber Mensch" album are presented as music videos, some with accompanying Butoh dancers.

Saturday, April 04, 2020

Don Emilio & His Little Doctors (1982), by Luis Eduardo Luna


This film, by Luis Eduardo Luna, is one of the very first films -if not the first- documenting ayahuasca among mestizo population of the Peruvian Amazon. It was part of Luna's field work carried out in the Iquitos area during July and August 1981, concentrated on the practices of Don Emilio Andrade Gomez, a "vegetalista" living 12 km from the city. The film Don Emilio and his Little Doctors (1982) was made during that time. It is a complement to Luna's doctoral dissertation "Vegetalismo. Shamanism Among theMestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon" (Full PDF), published in Stockholm in 1986.

Don Emilio was born in Iquitos in 1918. When he was 14 years old, and while working in the Amazon river, near the mouth of the Napo river, he took ayahuasca for the first time. He did it in order to curarse, a term that implies the cleansing and strengthening of the body. When he took ayahuasca for the fifth time, while keeping to the prescribed diet imposed by his teacher, an old man with a flute and a drum appeared in his visions to teach him icaros, magic melodies.

The Man with the Golden Arn (1955)


The Man with the Golden Arm is a 1955 American drama film with elements of film noir, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson Algren. It recounts the story of a drug addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world. Although the addictive drug is never identified in the film, according to the American Film Institute "most contemporary and modern sources assume that it is heroin", in contrast to Algren's book which named the drug as morphine.

The film stars Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold Stang and Darren McGavin. It was adapted for the screen by Walter Newman, Lewis Meltzer and Ben Hecht (uncredited), and directed by Otto Preminger.[4] The film's initial release was controversial for its treatment of the then-taboo subject of drug addiction.[3][5] It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Sinatra for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Joseph C. Wright and Darrell Silvera for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Elmer Bernstein for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Sinatra was also nominated for best actor awards by the BAFTAs and The New York Film Critics.[6] The film is in the public domain.