tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84111372024-03-07T23:52:17.709-08:00SuburbanalitiesAn Internet cul-de-sacKevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-23372457042494877072021-12-15T18:56:00.003-08:002021-12-15T18:56:59.345-08:00Creating git repositories on public source forges (GitLab, GitHub...)<div><h1 style="text-align: left;">Creating git repositories on public source forges</h1><p>Last updated: 20211215<br /> </p><h3 style="text-align: left;"> Create local directory:</h3> <br /> mkdir <repository name> && cd $_<br /> <br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Create repository on GitLab/Hub:</h3> <br /> GitLab:<br /> Menu -> Create new project -> Create blank project<br /> GitHub:<br /> TBD<br /> <br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Initialize local repository and push initial commit:</h3><br /> git init --initial-branch=master<br /> git config --global user.name "Kevin Bowen"<br /> git config --global user.email "kevin.bowen@gmail.com"<br /> git remote add origin git@gitlab.com:kevinbowen/sampleproject.git<br /> # git remote add origin git@github.com:kevinbowen777/sampleproject.git<br /> git add .<br /> git commit -m "initial commit"<br /> git push -u origin master</div>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-47955890906207232672018-12-20T13:31:00.000-08:002018-12-20T13:31:05.872-08:00<h2>
Upgrading OpenSSL from 1.1.0 to 1.1.1 in Linux Mint 19 and Ubuntu 18.04</h2>
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According to the <a href="https://www.openssl.org/source/" target="_blank">OpenSSL website</a>:<br /><br />> The latest stable version is the 1.1.1 series. This is also our Long Term Support (LTS) version, supported until 11th September 2023.<br /><br />Since this is not in the current Ubuntu repositories, you will need to download, compile, and install the latest OpenSSL version manually.<br /><br />Below are the instructions to follow:<br /><br />1. Open a terminal (<kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>t</kbd>).<br />2. wget https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-1.1.1a.tar.gz<br />3. Unpack tarball with `tar -zxf openssl-1.1.1a.tar.gz` and then `cd openssl-1.1.1a`. <br />4. cd to `openssl-1.1.1a`<br />3. Issue the command './config'.<br />4. Issue the command 'make' (You may need to run `sudo apt install make gcc` before running this command successfully).<br />5. Run `make test` to check for possible errors.<br />5. Issue the command 'sudo make install'.<br />6. Backup current openssl binary:<br /> sudo mv /usr/bin/openssl ~/tmp<br />7. Create symbolic link from newly install binary to default location:<br /> sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/openssl /usr/bin/openssl<br />8. Run command 'sudo ldconfig' to update symlinks and rebuild library cache.<br /><br />Assuming that there were no errors in executing steps 3 through 6, you should have successfully install the new version of OpenSSL.<br /><br />Again, from the terminal issue the command <br /> openssl version<br />Your output should be as follows:<br /> OpenSSL 1.1.1a 20 Nov 2018 <br />
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<span class="fullpost"></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-160410729785187312018-12-13T08:37:00.000-08:002018-12-20T13:32:39.831-08:00<h2>
Pre-flight steps for a Linux Mint desktop upgrade</h2>
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Upgrading from Linux Mint from 18.3 to 19 on my systems was essentially painless.<br />
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There are a couple of things that I have gotten into the habit of doing prior to performing systems upgrades to provide me some peace of mind:<br />
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1. Back up your system.<br />
2. Separately back up your .config and .local directories (I am selective in choosing which application preferences to preserve across machines and store them on dropbox).<br />
3. Make a list of any PPAs you might be using and remove them from your sources.list or Update Manager. Here is a pointer to a script to get you started.<br />
4. I store my <a href="https://github.com/kevinbowen777/dotfiles" target="_blank">dotfiles</a> on a repo in GitHub (and replicate them out to GitLab and BitBucket), so that I can easily restore my bash, vim and tmux settings.<br />
5. Make a list of your favorite apps (Personally, I use vimwiki stored in dropbox for my sysadmin notes).<br />
6. I've found the following site very useful when turning up a new system: https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/Home (It's Mint-centric and has some very sane recommendations. Don't run the suggestions blindly. Review them closely and see if it applies to you.<br />
7. Maintain a separate /home partition so that you can easily restart, or completely blow away, an installation if you need to without fear of losing your personal data.<br />
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This may sound like a lot of work to those just getting started in the Linux/Mint world; but, some conscientious janitorial work upfront saves one from frustration down the road.<br />
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Hope this helps. Enjoy the upgrade!Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-79934552355555036292016-07-19T21:42:00.000-07:002018-12-13T08:43:09.798-08:00Switching between Java versions in Debian based distributionsSwitching between installed Java versions can be accomplished using the update alternatives command.<br />
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To get a list of your installed Java platforms, run the following command from the terminal:<br />
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<b><i>sudo update-alternatives --config java</i></b><br />
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This will give you a list output similar to this:<br />
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There are 2 choices for the alternative java (providing <i>/usr/bin/java</i>).<br />
Selection Path Priority Status<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java 1081 auto mode<br />
*1 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/jre/bin/java 1071 manual mode<br />
2 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java 1081 manual mode<br />
Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:<br />
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In this case, the Open JDK 6 version is running. To switch to the Open JDK version 7, you would select option 1 at the prompt and press the Enter key.<br />
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You will now be running the OpenJDK 7 version. No other changes will be needed to switch your Java versions.<br />
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Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-16233848933243606382009-04-08T11:12:00.000-07:002009-10-14T00:03:03.954-07:00Bands I have seen in concertYet again, I continue with publishing useless lists<br />Here is one, created from memory, of all of the bands that I have see perform live.<br /><br />I'm sure there are many bands that I have forgotten.<br />I'm actually pretty amazed that I have remembered as many as I did.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />I would love to see the lists of other folks. Make fun of me as you like.<br /><br /><br />Bands I have seen in concert:<br /><br />Agnostic Front<br />Agent Orange<br />Alice Cooper<br />Anthrophobia<br />Arab Strap<br />Baby Flamehead<br />Big Smelly Fish<br />Black Flag<br />Bloodloss<br />Bongwater<br />The Boredoms<br />Boss Hog<br />Butthole Surfers<br />Buzzcocks<br />John Cage<br />Caspar Brotzmann Massaker<br />Nick Cave<br />Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds<br />Cloaca<br />Cocteau Twins<br />Cop Shoot Cop<br />Cornershop<br />The Creatures<br />Cro-Mags<br />The Cure<br />Dead Moon<br />Miles Davis<br />Dirty Three<br />Disgruntled Postal Workers<br />Mike Doughty<br />Dancing French Liberals of '48<br />Dead Can Dance<br />Deadspot<br />The Decemberists<br />Dee-lite<br />Dio<br />The Fastbacks<br />GBH<br />George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars<br />Gene Loves Jezebel<br />Glass Eye<br />God Bullies<br />Grateful Dead<br />Groovie Ghoulies<br />Grotus<br />GWAR<br />Homo Picnic<br />Imperial Teen<br />Jesus Lizard<br />Jet<br />Jon Spencer Blues Explosion<br />Judas Priest<br />King Carcass<br />The Knitters<br />Mark Kozelik<br />Kultur Shock<br />Laughing Hyenas<br />Love Battery<br />L7<br />Lubricated Goat<br />Lungfish<br />The Melvins<br />Mission of Burma<br />Moby<br />More Fiends<br />Mudhoney<br />Murphy's Law<br />Nashville Pussy<br />Nebula<br />New Order<br />Onyx<br />Pagan Babies<br />Painkiller<br />Pain Teens<br />Pigface<br />Piss Drunks<br />The Pleasure Elite<br />Psychic TV<br />Red Hot Chili Peppers/Fishbone<br />R.E.M.<br />The Replacements<br />Reverend Horton Heat<br />RUIN<br />Sage<br />Seals & Crofts<br />Sebadoh<br />She-Males<br />Sink Manhatten<br />Siouxsie and the Banshees<br />Sky Cries Mary<br />Sleater-Kinney<br />Slint<br />The Smiths<br />Sonic Youth<br />Spore<br />Stereolab<br />Ken Stringfellow<br />Suicidal Tendencies<br />Sun Kil Moon<br />Sunny Day Real Estate<br />TAD<br />10,000 Maniacs<br />Token Entry<br />Tom Tom Club<br />Tons of Nuns<br />Visqueen<br />Yo La Tengo<br />X<br /></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-76963240113646745332007-04-05T16:46:00.000-07:002007-04-05T19:30:54.947-07:00Bitch Kitty Racing - My latest project<a href="http://bitchkittyracing.com/">Bitch Kitty Racing</a> is an online "lifestyle and entertainment" magazine. For the last month or two, I have been assisting in the ongoing maintenance and promotion of the site.<span class="fullpost"><br /><br />John Moroney invited me to join himself and his co-founder, Keith Bingman in their quest for world domination. Besides being involved in a cool project and building a loyal readership, I've been busy learning some technologies that I haven't gotten my hands dirty with previously, such as RSS(news) feeds, podcast creation, and distribution, and testing.<br /><br />The site, itself, is powered by a light-weight, highly flexible <a href="http://www.rubyonrails.org/">Ruby on Rails</a> content management system called <a href="http://radiantcms.org/">Radiant</a>. Now, while I don't consider myself a developer, by any stretch of the imagination; I see this as a good opportunity to collaborate on a cool project, and try to get up to date on some cutting edge web applications. </span><span class="fullpost">I'm hoping , as time goes on, to also pick up a bit of the ruby programming basics.<br /><br /></span><span class="fullpost">Keith is the driving force behind the site design and functionality. He is also actively involved in the developer community behind the Radiant application. At this moment, he is creating extensions to help us manage the images and comments coming soon to Bitch Kitty Racing. The first is especially relevant since Keith is also a pretty good photographer. You should take a look at his work, here: <a href="http://keithbingman.com/">keithbingman.com</a><br /><br /><a href="http://radiantcms.org/"></a>John is the ringleader of the site and primary author of most of the content. He is also the star of the <a href="http://bitchkittyracing.com/bitch-kitty-tv/">Bitch Kitty Racing TV</a> podcasts. It's pretty funny, bizarre, and probably not safe for children, small woodland creatures, or work. We even made it onto <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=218845173">ITunes</a> with the series. Fun stuff.<br /><br />Let's see...What else can I pimp while I am at it? I hadn't really intended to make this a Bitch Kitty Racing promotional weblog post; but....<br /><br />Ah yes, we are also trying our hand at some band promotion with a local Seattle band, <a href="http://bitchkittyracing.com/bitch-kitty-records/featured-bands/hey-marseilles/">Hey Marseilles</a>. Rumor has it that the big labels are looking at them, so we are enjoying promoting them while we can.<br />All in all, Bitch Kitty Racing has been keeping me very busy learning new skills.<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-41910984911035813372007-03-08T06:05:00.000-08:002007-03-08T06:07:56.784-08:00Death of (another) philosopherI'm sure that relatively few people will care about this passing.<br />I was just listening to podcast from the NPR program,Fresh Air, and discovered that the French post-modern philospher, Jean Baudrillard<br />(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard</a>), had just recently died.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />I can't say that I am sad, or disheartened. Rather, I am somewhat amused by his passing. He is yet another of my self-appointed intellectual mentors who has passed on.<br />Gone beyond, so to speak, the illusion, that is the life he had lived.<br /><br />Call me what you will; but, I found his philosophy to be supremely influential upon my general worldview(along with Foucault, and Deleuze/Gauttari), and appreciate his contribution to the world, and human thought, in general.<br />I had always appreciated his willingness to tell the emperor(you, the reader) that not only did he(you) really have no clothes, but he wasn't even actually an emperor. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't consider Mssr. Baudrillard a nihilist. Far from it.<br />I actually consider him a comic, in a sense, perhaps in the most generous sense. He was a philosopher in the truest sense. But, in this day and age, philosphers are not needed by most people. So, instead, he, and his wrtings, were relegated to the backwaters of the media and inteligensia as the ramblings of an esoteric crank. Or, at worst, his messages were inscrutable, and thus irrelevant. I suppose that he might have appreciated the irony in that. I have a way with picking the winners...<br /><br />For better or worse, I guess his most famous quote is from the film "The Matrix". It is the character Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburn( whom I loved in Apocalyspse Now) that states to that dumbass initiate, Neo, "Welcome to the desert of the real."<br />He died on my mother's fifty-ninth birthday.<br /><br />You will be missed, funnyman.<br /></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-38130869668538084362007-01-17T01:20:00.000-08:002007-01-17T21:02:12.323-08:00T.S. Eliot - The Waste LandI've found some audio files of T.S. Eliot reading his classic poem "The Waste Land."<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /> Born in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at Harvard, Eliot lived most of his life in England. In 1948 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. The poem has five sections and has been split into four sound files: <ul><img src="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/images/speaker.gif" alt="[audio]" align="top" /><em>"The Burial of the Dead"</em><a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/burial/ts_burial_1.au">.au format</a> (3 Mb), <a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/burial/ts_burial_1.ram">.ra format</a> (0.3 Mb),<br /><br /><img src="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/images/speaker.gif" alt="[audio]" align="top" /><em>"A Game of Chess"</em><a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/chess/ts_chess_2.au">.au format</a> (3.2 Mb), <a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/chess/ts_chess_2.ram">.ra format</a> (0.4 Mb).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/images/speaker.gif" alt="[audio]" align="top" /><em>"The Fire Sermon" and "Death By Water"</em><a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/fire_sermon/ts_fire_3.au">.au format</a> (4.8 Mb), <a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/fire_sermon/ts_fire_3.ram">.ra format</a> (0.6 Mb).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/images/speaker.gif" alt="[audio]" align="top" /><em>"What the Thunder Said"</em><a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/thunder/ts_thunder_4.au">.au format</a> (3.7 Mb), <a href="http://www.suburbanalities.com/mambo/audio/eliot/thunder/ts_thunder_4.ram">.ra format</a> (0.4 Mb). </ul> <p> The Waste Land is considered to be Eliot's masterpiece, rich in symbolic, literary, and historical references as the poem explores the struggles of a soul in despair.</p><br /><p>Funny, this isn't how it sounds when I read it to myself...<br /></p><hr /> For additional information and references, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land"> Wikipedia::The Waste Land</a><br />N.B. These audio files were originally hosted at <a href="http://museum.media.org/radio/">media.org</a>. The site contains a large collection of media from the early days of the Internet rescued from digital oblivion. The HarperAudio section contains several dozen audio files of poems and excerpts from novels being read by their authors. Faulkner, Burgess, Hemingway, Thomas are just a few. <br />Even Shakespeare reading some of his sonnets!</span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-89345405087869517922007-01-12T21:44:00.000-08:002007-01-17T19:47:01.197-08:00RIP: Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007)Today, I was saddened to learn that one of my favorite <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_ontology"><span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">guerrilla</span> ontologists</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson">Robert Anton Wilson</a>, had passed away, this week, on January 11th.<br /><br />My first exposure to Mr. Wilson's ideas came through reading the <a href="http://hostgator.rawilson.com/illuminatus.html"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Illuminatus!</span></a> Trilogy which he co-authored with Robert Shea. I managed to stumble upon his work while in college, and found it to be a great balance against all of the "serious" and "deep" philosophical and ontological works I was digesting at the time. I found it to be an astounding compendium of ideas, both revelatory and fanciful, simultaneously conspiratorial, paranoid, and yet somehow playful and optimistic. His works were a welcome relief from the heaviness of German phenomenologists, and occult cranks.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />However, it was his other books that helped change the way I think, philosophically, about a lot of things, particularly his 'non-fiction' writings like <em><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cosmic Trigger</span></em> and <em style="font-weight: bold;">Prometheus Rising</em>. Specifically, I credit Mr. Wilson with helping me to allow humor into my particular Weltangshauung, as well as providing some cognitive tools that allowed me to understand socially constructed belief systems, or reality tunnels, as he called them.<br /><br />Here is one little factoid about Mr. Wilson, that I only learned about upon his recent passing:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"As a member of the Board of Advisors of the </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Informed_Jury_Association" title="Fully Informed Jury Association">Fully Informed Jury Association</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, he worked to inform the public about </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification" title="Jury nullification">jury nullification</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, the right of jurors to nullify a law they deem unjust."</span><br /><br />R. A. Wilson's <a href="http://hostgator.rawilson.com/main.shtml">Home Page</a><br /><br />Obituaries:<br /><a href="http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/01/12/062113.php">Blog Critic</a><br /><a href="http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/01/11/robert-anton-wilson-1932-2007/">R.U.Sirius</a><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/literary-loss_b_38549.html">Paul Krassner</a><br /><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/11/robert_anton_wilson_.html">BoingBoing</a><br /><a href="http://www.blather.net/zeitgeist/archives/2007/01/rip_robert_anton_wilson.html">Blather.net</a><br /><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/16454484.htm">Mercury News</a><br /></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-10163596198603753192006-12-25T12:12:00.000-08:002007-01-17T19:45:45.230-08:00Reading list for 2006<p>After breaking my ankle earlier this month, I suddenly find myself completely bed-ridden with copious amounts of time on my hands.</p><p>To that end, I find myself writing again, rummaging through old letters, documents, and computer files long forgotten. Making lists happens to be one of those activities where I almost feel productive while exerting little effort. Such is life under the influence of Percocet.<br /></p><p>Below, I've managed to compile, from memory, a list of books that I have read in the past year. They are listed in no particular order. The nice surprise, for me, is that I somehow managed to read about one book every two weeks. I guess all that time spent commuting on the bus paid off in some small way. I'm sure that I have left a few off of the list. One of my New Year resolutions will be trying to keep better track of my reading choices.</p><br /><span class="fullpost"><br />Book List for 2006:<br /><br /><ol><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Apathy-Other-Small-Victories-Neilan/dp/0312351747/sr=1-1/qid=1167332753/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Apathy and other small victories</a> by Paul Nielan</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quicksilver-Baroque-Cycle-Vol-1/dp/0380977427/sr=1-1/qid=1167332837/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)</a> by Neil Stephenson</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heathern-Jack-Womack/dp/0802135633/sr=1-1/qid=1167336513/ref=sr_1_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Heathern</a> by Jack Womack</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Krakatoa-World-Exploded-August-1883/dp/0060838590/sr=1-1/qid=1167336474/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883</a> by Simon Winchester</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Map-That-Changed-World-William/dp/0060193611/sr=1-2/qid=1167333120/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">The Map that Changed the World</a> by Simon Winchester</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Child-Doris-Lessing/dp/0679721827/sr=1-1/qid=1167333174/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">The Fifth Child</a> by Doris Lessing</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Be-Good-Letters-Classics/dp/0812970152/sr=1-1/qid=1167333243/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">I Promise to be Good: the Letters of Arthur Rimbaud</a> by Arthur Rimbaud & Wyatt Mason</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Gilles-Rais-George-Bataille/dp/1878923021/sr=1-2/qid=1167333318/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">The Trial of Gilles de Rais</a> by Georges Bataille</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Marcel-Duchamp-Bachelor-Stripped-Biography/dp/0878466444/sr=1-6/qid=1167333584/ref=sr_1_6/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare: A Biography</a> by Alice Goldfarb Marquis</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dylan-Thomas-Life-Andrew-Lycett/dp/1585676861/sr=1-1/qid=1167333668/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Dylan Thomas: A New Life</a> by Anderew Lycett</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mouthful-Air-Language-Languages-Especially-English/dp/0688119352/sr=1-2/qid=1167336417/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English</a> by Anthony Burgess</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Age-Milky-Timothy-Ferris/dp/0385263260/sr=1-1/qid=1167334020/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Coming of Age in the Milky Way</a> by Timothy Ferris</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rats-Observations-History-Unwanted-Inhabitants/dp/1582344779/sr=1-1/qid=1167334102/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants</a> by Robert Sullivan</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Red-Empire-Espionage-Desire/dp/0060522755/sr=1-1/qid=1167334166/ref=sr_1_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire</a> by Amy Butler</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Am-Legend-ties-into-movie/dp/031286504X/sr=1-1/qid=1167334275/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">I am Legend</a> by Richard Matheson</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Post-Office-Charles-Bukowski/dp/0876850867/sr=8-1/qid=1167334414/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Post Office</a> by Charles Bukowski</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/David-Bowies-Low-33-3/dp/0826416845/sr=1-1/qid=1167334622/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">David Bowie's Low (33 1/3)</a> by Hugo Wilcken </li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lipstick-Traces-History-Twentieth-Century/dp/0674535812/sr=1-1/qid=1167334981/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century</a> by Greil Marcus</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Band-Could-Your-Life/dp/0316787531/sr=1-1/qid=1167335127/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991</a> by Michael Azerrad </li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Poets-T-S-Eliot/dp/0571089836/sr=1-9/qid=1167335220/ref=sr_1_9/105-9588136-7838066?ie=UTF8&s=books">On Poetry and Poets: Essays</a> by T.S. Eliot</li></ol><br />Useless trivia:<br />Percentage of non-fiction books: 70<br />Percentage of female authors: 15<br />Percentage of books that were on the NY Times Best Seller List in 2006: 0<br /><br />I thought, for about a second, of writing my own little, witty reviews for each one of the books on my list. But, then, I decided that I wasn't feeling very witty, and just linked to the books' listing on Amazon, instead. I will have to say, however, that "Apathy and Other small victories" has to be one of the funniest books I have ever read.<br /></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-7376882655407898382006-12-21T14:16:00.000-08:002011-07-30T18:09:25.435-07:00Censorship and Outsider Art - Adolf WolfliDigging through my archives, I found this little rant.<br />This note was in response to a friends comment on a gallery exhibit in which the artist was physically assaulted due to the 'controversial' nature of her works on display.<br />I can't locate my original note, or my friends' response. However, I did manage to find the original new article that sparked the following tangential digression into the genre of "Outsider Art"<br />From sfgate.com 05/30/2004: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/30/BAGF46UAJB1.DTL">Attacked for art, S.F. gallery to close</a><br /><br />I guess as an art school dropout; I've managed to retain a few coherent thoughts on the subject, however biased they may be...<br />I've also slept through my share of late evening art history classes after being up for 72 hours straight painting, talking, drinking, and god-knows-what-else, and still find it fascinating to this day. Even managed to get exiled/promoted to the honors classes, where I was forced to endure lessons on writing a coherent paragraph (no joke: opening thesis, body/proof, closing statement/summary.) However, I digress.<br />Please don't misunderstand me regarding the 'gratuitous' comment. I was mainly referring to artwork(visual, aural, etc.) that tends to jerk the audience around trying to elicit some Hallmark greeting card response, which I felt the artist in the woman's gallery was employing. Granted, that observation was from seeing only one image. I could be wrong about the artist's original intention; but, it looked like a blatant attempt to piss some people off. Unfortunately, it seemed to have worked and resulted in a person being bodily harmed, as well as destroying her source of income and livelihood. That sucks, and it's unfortunate, in my opinion, that art that appears, intentionally created to get a rise out of its audience, would have such tragic results.<br /><br />Adolf Wolfi links:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.rawvision.com/back/wolfli/wolfli.html">Raw Vision - Adolf Wolfli</a><br /><a href="http://www.phylliskindgallery.com/self-taught/artbrut/aw/">Art Brut - Phyllis Kind Gallery</a><br /><a href="http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=3FBD12E2-F01C-4D43-BA6FC0F2EC59A46D">The Artist and Art</a><br /><a href="http://home.pi.be/%7Espk/spktopoct94.htm">SPK summary</a><br /><br />On the other hand, you mention creations and works of art done by the criminal, and insane as being valid. While you neglected to include the criminally insane, and the insanely criminal, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. I've discovered some incredible artists that exist on the 'fringes' of society. While not I am not at all interested in the novelty of Ed Gein's clown paintings, I do find (see <a href="http://outsider.art.org/">'Outsider Art'</a> and <a href="http://www.rawvision.com/"></a> for some examples) or the Art Brut movement(<a href="http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com/Adolf_Woelfli2.html"></a>) founded/initiated by Jean Dubuffet to be really some really fascinating and compelling expressions of the human psyche( as if there were any other types..).<br />A great example of this, for me, would be the work of Adolf Wolfli, and the posthumous interpretation of his musicial by 'first generation' Industrial bands, SPK. Take a look at:<br /><a href="http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com/Adolf_Woelfli.html"></a><br /><a href="http://home.pi.be/%7Espk/spkzigzagfeb84.htm"></a><br /><a href="http://home.pi.be/%7Espk/spktopoct94.htm"></a><br />Yes, this band included Graeme Revell who is probably about as prolific composing film scores as Danny Elfman (of Oingo Boingo and Simpsons fame) who went on to score the soundtracks for such movies as, well, take a look here: <a href="http://imdb.com/name/nm0006251/"></a><br />In my opinion, this is a perfect marriage of the avant-garde meeting the 'fringe' elements of society, as expressed in art.<br />Of course, this was done at a time when groups like Throbbing Gristle were doing their COUM Transmissions performances and Richard Kern was documenting the underbelly of the Lower East Side with the likes of Lydia Lunch, et al. Different times, different boundaries which gave birth to the likes of Karen Finley, Diamanda Galas, Kathy Acker (whom I adore as a writer), and Robert Mapplethorpe as obvious, popular examples of the 'fringe' encroaching upon mainstream tastes.Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8411137.post-1097469156913583802006-12-15T21:29:00.000-08:002007-01-17T19:43:38.695-08:00She throws dice on the table of my mindWhile in art school, many years ago, I immersed myself in the study of the various and sundry art movements occuring in the early twentieth century, particular among those were dada and the surrealist movement. In was during this course of study that I happened to stumble upon a book, actually more properly called a novella, I would conclude, of rather meager physical proportions called <a href="http://www.babelguides.com/view/work/3615" title="The Story of the Eye" target="_blank"><i>The Story of the Eye</i></a> which floored me with its relatively straightforward depiction of urges, transgressions, and taboos in a highly dramatized, in fact, quite dreamlike tableau.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /> Within this story, Bataille captures a delightfully sensual, and erotically disturbing dream. I found a good, brief summary of this good, brief influential novella over at Amazon. I quote: <blockquote>Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror. Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album. Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only for adults who are not easily offended.</blockquote><br /><br />I am currently in the process of sorting through what remains of my book collection and began flipping through this book: <p> <b>Vision of Excess</b> <i>Selected Writings 1927-1939</i> by <a href="http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/georges_bataille.html" title="George Bataille" target="_blank">George Bataille</a><br /></p> <p><br />What follows, below, is a brief excerpt that caught my attention for no defineable reason. It is from his essay "The Pineal Eye" page 86<br /></p> <p>see the following sources for more info:<br /><a href="http://nasty.cx/articles/7/schultz/" target="_blank"> this outline</a><br /><a href="http://www.generation-online.org/p/pbataille.htm" target="_blank">this brief biography</a> or<br /><a href="http://www.supervert.com/elibrary/bataille.html" target="_blank">this summary of his work<br /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.supervert.com/elibrary/bataille.html" target="_blank"><br /></a><b>Vision of Excess</b> <i>Selected Writings 1927-1939</i><br /></p> <p><br />" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br />. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br />Like a storm that erupts and, after several minutes of intolerable delay, ravishes in semi-darkness an entire countryside with insane cataracts of water and<br />blasts of thunder, in the same disturbed and profoundly overwhelming way<br />(albeit with signs of infinitely more difficult to perceive), existence itself shudders and attains a level where there is nothing more than a hallucinatory void, an odor of death that sticks in the throat.<br />In reality, when this puerile little vomiting took place, it was not on a mere<br />carcass that the mouth of the Englishwoman crushed her most burning, her<br />sweetest kisses, but on the nauseating JESUVE: the bizarre noise of kisses, prolonged on flesh, clattered across the disgusting noise of bowels. But these unheard-of events had set off orgasms, each more suffocating and spasmodic than its predecessor, in the circle of unfortunate observers, all throats were choked by raucous sighs, by impossible cries, and, from all sides, eyes were moist with the brilliant tears of vertigo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /> The sun vomited like a sick drunk above the mouths full of comic screams,<br />in the void of an absurd sky . . . And thus an unparalleled heat and stupor<br />formed an alliance--as excessive as torture: like a severed nose, like a torn-out tongue--and celebrated a wedding (celebrated it with the blade of a razor on pretty, insolent rear ends), the little copulation of the stinking hole with the sun . . ."<br /><br />Here are some more links to information on George Bataille:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.temple.edu/gradmag/spring98/mosiman.htm" target="_blank">The Sovereign Value of Transgression: A Reading of George Bataille's <i>The Story of the Eye</i></a><br /></p> <p><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Bataille" target="_blank">George Bataille -- Wikipedia entry</a><br /></p> <p><br /><a href="http://www.marionboyars.co.uk/Specific%20title%20pages/mymother.html" target="_blank">My Mother</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bataille.htm" target="_blank">George Bataille -- short biography and bibliography</a><br /><br />And finally, a completely over-the-top, postmodern spew-for-all that I turned up in a search on Bataille, although I am not sure quite in what manner since my eyes rapidly began to glaze over when I attempted to wade through the article at such a late hour of the night.<br /></p><br /><a href="http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/nervous.html" target="_blank">Nervous Views from Within : Towards an Immersive Intelligence</a><br /></span>Kevin Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04572721795521666472noreply@blogger.com0