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The Lords
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1
Doors
2
Miscellaneous
3
The Lords
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Look where we worship.
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We all live in the city.
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The city forms - often physically, but inevitably
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psychically - a circle. A Game. A ring of death
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with sex at its center. Drive toward outskirts
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of city suburbs. At the edge discover zones of
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sophisticated vice and boredom, child prosti-
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tution. But in the grimy ring immediately surround-
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ing the daylight business district exists the only
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real crowd life of our mound, the only street
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life, night life. Diseased specimens in dollar
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hotels, low boarding houses, bars, pawn shops,
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burlesques and brothels, in dying arcades which
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never die, in streets and streets of all-night
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cinemas.
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When play dies it becomes the Game.
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When sex dies it becomes Climax.
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All games contain the idea of death.
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Baths, bars, the indoor pool. Our injured leader
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prone on the sweating tile. Chlorine on his breath
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and in his long hair. Lithe, although crippled,
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body of a middle-weight contender. Near him
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the trusted journalist, confidant. He liked men
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near him with a large sense of life. But most
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of the press were vultures descending on the
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scene for curious America aplomb. Cameras
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inside the coffin interviewing worms.
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It take large murder to turn rocks in the shade
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and expose strange worms beneath. The lives of
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our discontented madmen are revealed.
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Camera, as all-seeing god, satisfies our longing
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for omnisciece. To spy on others from this
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height and angle: pedestrians pass in and out of
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our lens like rare aquatic insects.
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Yoga powers. To make oneself invisible or small
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To become gigantic and reach to the farthest things.
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To change the course of nature. To place oneself
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anywhere in space or time. To summon the dead.
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To exalt senses and perceive inaccessible images,
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of events on other worlds, in one's deepest inner
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mind, or in the minds of others.
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The sniper's rifle is an extension of his eye. He
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kills with injurious vision.
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The assassin (?), in flight, gravitated with
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unconscious, instinctual insect ease, moth-
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like, toward a zone of safety, haven from the
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swarming streets. Quickly, he was devoured
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in the warm, dark, silent maw of the physical
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theater.
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Modern circles of Hell: Oswald (?) kills President.
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Oswald enters taxi. Oswald stops at rooming house.
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Oswald leaves taxi. Oswald kills Officer Tippitt.
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Oswald sheds jacket. Oswald is captured.
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He escaped into a movie house.
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In the womb we are blind cave fish.
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Everything is vague and dizzy. The skin swells and
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there is no more distinction between parts of the
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body. An encroaching sound of threatening,
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mocking, monotonous voices. This is fear and
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attraction of being swallowed.
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Inside the dream, button sleep around your body
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like a glove. Free now of space and time. Free
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to dissolve in the streaming summer.
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Sleep is an under-ocean dipped into each night.
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At morning, awake dripping, gasping, eyes
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stinging.
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The eye looks vulgar
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Inside its ugly shell.
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Come out in the open
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In all of your Brilliance.
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Nothing. The air outside
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burns my eyes.
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I'll pull them out
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and get rid of the burning.
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Crisp hot whiteness
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City Noon
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Occupants of plague zone
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are consumed.
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(Santa Ana's are winds off deserts.)
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Rip up grating and splash in gutters.
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The search for water, moisture,
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"wetness" of the actor, lover.
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"Players" - the child, the actor, and the gambler.
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The idea of chance is absent from the world of the
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child and primitive. The gambler also feels in
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service of an alien power. Chance is a survival
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of religion in the modern city, as is theater,
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more often cinema, the religion of possession.
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What sacrifice, at what price can the city be born?
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There are no longer "dancers", the possessed.
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The cleavage of men into actor and spectators
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is the central fact of our time. We are obsessed
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with heroes who live for us and whom we punish.
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If all the radios and televisions were deprived
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of their sources of power, all books and paintings
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burned tomorrow, all shows and cinemas closed,
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all the arts of vicarious existence...
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We are content with the "given" in sensation's
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quest. We have been metamorphosised from a mad
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body dancing on hillsides to a pair of eyes
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staring in the dark.
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Not one of the prisoners regained sexual balance.
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Depressions, impotency, sleeplessness... erotic
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dispersion in languages, reading, games, music,
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and gymnastics.
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The prisoners built their own theater which
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testified to an incredible surfeit of leisure.
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A young sailor, forced into female roles, soon
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became the "town" darling, for by this time they
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called themselves a town, and elected a mayor,
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police, aldermen.
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In old Russia, the Czar, each year, granted-
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out of the shrewdness of his own soul or one of
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his advisors' - a week's freedom for one convict
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in each of his prisons. The choice was left to the
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prisoners themselves and it was determined in
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several ways. Sometimes by vote, sometimes by lot,
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often by force. It was apparent that the chosen
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must be a man of magic, virility, experience,
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perhaps narrative skill, a man of possibility, in
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short, a hero. Impossible situation at the
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moment of freedom, impossible selection,
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defining our world in its percussions.
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A room moves over a landscape, uprooting the mind,
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astonishing vision. A gray film melts off the
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eyes, and runs down the cheeks. Farewell.
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Modern life is a journey by car. The Passengers
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change terribly in their reeking seats, or roam
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from car to car, subject to unceasing transformation.
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Inevitable progress is made toward the beginning
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(there is no difference in terminals), as we
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slice through cities, whose ripped backsides present
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a moving picture of windows, signs, streets,
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buildings. Sometimes other vessels, closed
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worlds, vacuums, travel along beside to move
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ahead or fall utterly behind.
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Destroy roofs, walls, see in all the rooms at once.
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From the air we trapped gods, with the gods'
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omniscient gaze, but without their power to be
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inside minds and cities as they fly above.
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June 30th. On the sun roof. He woke up suddenly.
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At that instant a jet from the air base crawled
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in silence overhead. On the beach, children try
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to leap into its swift shadow.
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The bird or insect that stumbles into a room
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and cannot find the window. Because they know
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no "windows."
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Wasps, poised in the window,
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Excellent dancers,
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detached, are not inclined
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into out chamber.
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Room of withering mesh
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read love's vocabulary
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in the green lamp
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of tumescent flesh.
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When men conceived buildings,
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and closed themselves in chambers,
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first trees and caves.
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(Windows work two ways,
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mirrors one way.)
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You never walk through mirrors
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or swim through windows.
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Cure blindness with a whore's spittle.
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In Rome, prostitutes were exhibited on roofs
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above the public highways for the dubious
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hygiene of loose tides of men whose potential
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lust endangered the fragile order of power.
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It is even reported that patrician ladies, masked
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and naked, sometimes offered themselves up to
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these deprived eyes for private excitements of
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their own.
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More or less, we're all afflicted with the psychology
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of the voyeur. Not in a strictly clinical or
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criminal sense, but in our whole physical and emotional
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stance before the world. Whenever we seek to break
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this spell of passivity, our actions are cruel and
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awkward and generally obscene, like an invalid who
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has forgotten how to walk.
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The voyeur, the peeper, the Peeping Tom, is a dark
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comedian. He is repulsive in his dark anonymity,
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in his secret invasion. He is pitifully alone.
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But, strangely, he is able through this same silence
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and concealment to make unknowing partner of anyone
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within his eye's range. This is his threat and
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power.
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There are no glass houses. The shades are drawn
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and "real" life begins. Some activities are impossible
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in the open. And these secret events are the voyeur's
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game. He seeks them out with his myriad army of
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eyes - like the child's notion of a Deity who sees
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all. "Everything?" asks the child. "Yes, every-
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thing," they answer, and the child is left to cope
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with this divine intrusion.
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The voyeur is masturbator, the mirror his badge,
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the window his prey.
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Urge to come to terms with the "Outside," by
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absorbing, interiorizing it. I won't come out,
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you must come in to me. Into my womb-garden
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where I peer out. Where I can construct a universe
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within the skull, to rival the real.
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She said, "Your eyes are always black." The pupil
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opens to seize the object of vision.
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Imagery is born of loss. Loss of the "friendly
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expanses." The breast is removed and the face
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imposes its cold, curious, forceful, and inscrutable
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presence.
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You may enjoy life from afar. You may look at
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things but not taste them. You may caress
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the mother only with the eyes.
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You cannot touch these phantoms.
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French Deck. Solitary stroker of cards. He
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dealt himself a hand. Turn stills of the past in
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unending permutations, shuffle and begin. Sort
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the images again. And sort them again. This
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game reveals germs of truth, and death.
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The world becomes an apparently infinite, yet
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possibly finite, card game. Image combinations,
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permutations, comprise the world game.
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A mild possession, devoid of risk, at bottom
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sterile. With an image there is no attendant
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danger.
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Muybridge derived his animal subjects from the
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Philadelphia Zoological Garden, male performers
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from the University. The women were professional
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artists' models, also actresses and dancers,
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parading nude before the 48 cameras.
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Films are collections of dead pictures which are
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given artificial insemination.
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Film spectators are quiet vampires.
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Cinema is most totalitarian of the arts. All
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energy and sensation is sucked up into the skull,
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a cerebral erection, skull bloated with blood.
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Caligula wished a single neck for all his subjects
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that he could behead a kingdom with one blow.
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Cinema is this transforming agent. The body
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exists for the sake of the eyes; it becomes a
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dry stalk to support these two insatiable
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jewels.
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Film confers a kind of spurious eternity.
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Each film depends upon all the others and drives
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you on to others. Cinema was a novelty, a scientif-
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ic toy, until a sufficient body of works had been
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amassed, enough to create an intermittent other
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world, a powerful, infinite mythology to be dipped
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into at will.
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Films have an illusion of timelessness fostered
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by their regular, indomitable appearance.
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The appeal of cinema lies in the fear of death.
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The modern East creates the greatest body of films.
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Cinema is a new form of an ancient tradition - the
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shadow play. Even their theater is an imitation
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of it. Born in India or China, the shadow show
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was aligned with religious ritual, linked with
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celebrations which centered around cremation of the
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dead.
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It is wrong to assume, as some have done, that
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cinema belongs to womenn. Cinema is created by
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men for the consolation of men.
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The shadow plays originally were restricted to
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male audiences. Men could view these dream shows
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from either side of the screen. When women later
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began to be admitted, they were allowed to attend
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only to shadows.
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Male genitals are small faces
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forming trinities of thieves
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and Christs
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Fathers, sons, and ghosts.
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A nose hangs over a wall
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and two half eyes, sad eyes,
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mute and handless, multiply
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an endless round of victories.
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These dry and secret triumphs, fought
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in stalls and stamped prisons,
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glorify our walls
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and scorch our vision.
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A horror of empty spaces
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propagates this seal on private places.
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Kynaston's Bride
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may not appear
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but the odor of her flesh
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is never very far.
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A drunken crowd knocked over the apparatus,
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and Mayhew's showman, exhibiting at Islington
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Green, burned up, with his mate, inside.
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In 1832, Gropius was astounding Paris with his
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Pleorama. The audience was transformed into
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the crew aboard a ship engaged in battle. Fire,
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screaming, sailor, drowning.
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Robert Baker, an Edinburgh artist, while in jail
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for debt, was struck by the effect of light shining
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through the bars of his cell though a letter he
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was reading, and out of this perception he in-
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vented the first Panorama, a concave, transparent
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picture view of the city.
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This invention was soon replaced by the Diorama,
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which added the illusion of movement by shifting
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the room. Also sounds and novel lighting effects.
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Daguerre's London Diorama still stands in Regent's
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Park, a rare survival, since these shows depended
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always on effects of artificial light, produced
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by lamps or gas jets, and nearly always ended
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in fire.
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Phantasmagoria, magic lantern shows, spectacles
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without substance. They achieved complete
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sensory experiences through noise, incense,
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lightning, water. There may be a time when
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we'll attend Weather Theaters to recall the
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sensation of rain.
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Cinema has evolved in two paths.
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One is spectacle. Like the Phantasmagoria, its
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goal is the creation of a total substitute
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sensory world.
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The other is peep show, which claims for its
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realm both the erotic and untampered obser-
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vance of real life, and imitates the keyhole or
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voyeur's window without need of color, noise,
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grandeur.
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Cinema discovers its fondest affinities, not
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with painting, literature, or theater, but with
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the popular diversions - comics, chess, French
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and Tarot decks, magazines, and tattooing.
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Cinema derives not from painting, literature,
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sculpture, theater, but from ancient popular
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wizardry. It is the contemporary manifestation
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of an evolving history of shadows, a delight in
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pictures that move, a belief in magic. Its
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lineage is entwined from the earliest beginning
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with Priests and sorcery, a summoning of phantoms.
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With, at first, only slight aid of the mirror and
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fire, men called up dark and secret visits from
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regions in the buried mind. In these seances,
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shades are spirits which ward off evil.
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The spectator is a dying animal.
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Invoke, palliate, drive away the Dead. Nightly.
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Through ventriloquism, gestures, play with objects,
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and all rare variations of the body in space,
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the shaman signaled his "trip" to an audience
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which shared the journey.
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In the seance, the shaman led. A sensuous panic,
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deliberately evoked through drugs, chants, dancing,
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hurls the shaman into trance. Changed voice,
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convulsive movement. He acts like a madman. These
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professional hysterics, chosen precisely for their
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psychotic leaning, were once esteemed. They
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mediated between man and spirit-world. Their mental
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travels formed the crux of the religious life of
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the tribe.
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Principle of seance: to cure illness. A mood
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might overtake a people burdened by historical
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events or dying in a bad landscape. They seek
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deliverance from doom, death, dread. Seek posses-
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sion, the visit of gods and powers, a rewinning
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of the life source from demon possessors. The
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cure is culled from ecstasy. Cure illness or
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prevent its visit, revive the sick, and regain
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stolen, soul.
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It is wrong to assume that art needs the spectator
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in order to be. The film runs on without any eyes.
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The spectator cannot exist without it. It insures
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his existence.
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The happening/the event in which ether is introduced
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into a roomful of people through air vents makes
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the chemical an actor. Its agent, or injector,
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is an artist-showman who creates a performance
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to witness himself. The people consider themselves
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audience, while they perform for each other,
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and the gas acts out poems of its own through
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the medium of the human body. This approaches
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the psychology of the orgy while remaining in
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the realm of the Game and its infinite permu-
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tations.
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The aim of the happening is to cure boredom,
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wash the eyes, make childlike reconnections
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with the stream of life. Its lowest, widest
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aim is for purgation of perception. The happening
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attempts to engage all the senses, the total
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organism, and achieve total response in the face of
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traditional arts which focus on narrower inlets
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of sensation.
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Multimedias are invariably sad comedies. They
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work as a kind of colorful group therapy, a
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woeful mating of actors and viewers, a mutual
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semimasturbation. The performers seem to need
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their audience and the spectators - the spectators
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would find these same mild titillations in a freak
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show or Fun Fair and fancier, more complete
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amusements in a Mexican cathouse.
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Novices, we watch the moves of silkworms who excite
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their bodies in moist leaves and weave wet nests
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of hair and skin.
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This is a model of our liquid resting world
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dissolving bone and melting marrow
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opening pores as wide as windows.
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The "stranger" was sensed as greatest menace
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in ancient communities.
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Metamorphose. An object is cut off from its name,
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habits, associations. Detached, it becomes only
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the thing, in and of itself. When this disintegration
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into pure existence is at last achieved, the object
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is free to become endlessly anything.
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The subject says "I see first lots of things
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which dance... then everything becomes gradually
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connected."
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Object as they exist in time the clean eye and
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camera give us. Not falsified by "seeing."
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When there are as yet no objects.
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Early film makers, who - like the alchemists -
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delighted in a willful obscurity about their craft,
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in order to withhold their skills from profane
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onlookers.
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Separate, purify, reunite. The formula of
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Ars Magna, and its heir, the cinema.
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The camera is androgynous machine, a kind of
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mechanical hermaphrodite.
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In his retort the alchemist repeats the work of
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Nature.
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Few would defend a small view of Alchemy as "Mother
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of Chemistry," and confuse its true goal with those
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external metal arts. Alchemy is an erotic science,
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involved in buried aspects of reality, aimed
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at purifying and transforming all being and matter.
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Not to suggest that material operations are ever
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abandoned. The adept holds to both the mystical
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and physical work.
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The alchemists detect in the sexual activity of
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man a correspondence with the world's creation,
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with the growth of plants, and with mineral
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formations. When they see the union of rain
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and earth, they see it in an erotic sense, as
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copulation. And this extends to all natural
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realms of matter. For they can picture love
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affairs of chemicals and stars, a romance of
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stones, or the fertility of fire.
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Strange, fertile correspondences the alchemists
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sensed in unlikely orders of being. Between
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men and planets, plants and gestures, words and
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weather. These disturbing connections: an in-
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fant's cry and the stroke of silk; the whorl
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of an ear and an appearance of dogs in the yard;
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a woman's head lowered in sleep and the morning
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dance of cannibals; these are conjunctions which
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transcend the sterile signal of any "willed"
446
montage. These juxtapositions of objects, sounds,
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actions, colors, weapons, wounds, and odors shine
448
in an unheard-of way, impossible ways.
449
Film is nothing when not an illumination of
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this chain of being which makes a needle poised
451
in flesh call up explosions in a foreign capital.
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Cinema returns us to anima, religion of matter,
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which gives each thing its special divinity and
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sees gods in all things and beings
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Cinema, heir of alchemy, last of an erotic science.
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Surround Emperor of Body.
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Bali Bali dancers
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Will not break my temple.
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Explorers
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suck eyes into the head.
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The rosy body cross
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secret in flow
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controls its flow.
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Wrestlers
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in body weights dance
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and music, mimesis, body.
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Swimmers
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entertain embryo
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sweet dangerous thrust flow.
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The Lords. Events take place beyond our knowledge
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or control. Our lives are lived for us. We can
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only try to enslave others. But gradually, special
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perceptions are being developed. The idea of the
474
"Lords" is beginning to form in some. We
475
should enlist them into bands of perceivers to
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tour the labyrinth during their mysterious noc-
477
turnal appearences. The Lords have secret entrances,
478
and they know disguises. But they give themselves
479
away in minor ways. Too much glint of light in
480
the eye. A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a
481
glance.
482
The Lords appease us with images. They give us
483
books, concerts, galleries, shows, cinemas. Es-
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pecially the cinemas. Through art they confuse
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us and blind us to our enslavement. Art adorns
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our prison walls, keeps us silent and diverted
487
and indifferent.
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Dull lions prone on a watery beach.
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The universe kneels at the swamp
490
to curiously eye its own raw
491
postures of decay
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in the mirror of human consciousness.
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Absent and peopled mirror, absorbent,
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passive to whatever visits
495
and retains its interest.
496
Door to passage to the other side,
497
the soul frees itself in stride.
498
Turn mirrors to the wall
499
in the house of the new dead.
Phil Wickham - House Of The Lord (Offici...
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