Yes, I know you don't know what that title means. Humor it as I lead you into more insights into art, symbolism, marketing, advertising and politics. Consider it as mysterious as the ancient Egyptian Ankh, if you will, as it will be a key in decrypting all the doorways to your mind and soul, and may allow you to plateau on to another level of eternal life.
I've been reading a book called The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard, and he outlines the methods used in marketing to reach peoples' motivations and unconscious minds, and to, of course, therefore reap more profits. One of the people who originated this deep psychological form of marketing is Ernest Dichter. In the Hidden Persuaders, Packard discusses one of Dichter's core principles in motivating people to buy. Peoples' universal needs for security, protection, safety, peace of mind, connection, and belonging are powerful motivating factors, he discusses, in whether if a person will be interested in buying a product. These things are a part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
There are other core doctrines of marketing as well. One of the most important of them is the concept of identity. Obviously different people have different identities, personalities, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These individual tendencies people have are associated with the kinds of cars people drive, the foods they eat, and the people they know. Marketers and advertisers go into excruciating detail in researching peoples' psychologies so as to make better sales. The online social medias of today go beyond marketers' and advertisers' wildest dreams. People basically open their souls up to the world in the virtual world.
I did some free association with words to continue on with the idea of identity in the market. I thought of things like "who you are, what kind of art you prefer, structure, strength, power, enforced, and steel." Some of these words sound like they don't have much to do with one another, but they do on an unconscious level. Just look at your dreams and how jumbled and irrational they can be. A lot of dream material is subtle symbols morphing and transforming across the different periods and places in your life.
Another day I had been discussing the magpie--a bird that is part of the corvidae or crow family--with a friend on Twitter. She told me that the magpie is a bad sign, or an omen in Native American folklore. I looked up the magpie, and, indeed, it is considered an omen in Native folklore. One aspect of the magpie plays the role of a trickster who is credited for playing deceptive schemes crafted by its intelligence on unwitting characters.
I continued on my own free association and research into the magpie. I found that "magpie" is a combination of two words. The first word is Margaret, or name, of which Mag is a nickname, and the second word is pie. So we have Margaret pie as the full name. Hence, the name "magpie" comes from Margaret + pie. It's really a trio combination because Margaret is a woman, and a magpie is a bird. So, really, magpie = woman + bird + pie to the unconscious mind perhaps; a woman with the name Margaret plus a bird from the crow family plus a pie. I wonder what kind of pie this combination would associate with?
Do lectures involving the usage of pie charts induce you to want to eat cheese cake after the lecture is over? The mathematical pi associates easily with pie, or cake, in the unconscious mind. Cheese cake is loaded with cream cheese and sugar, so it appeals deeply to our sense of sustenance, survival, and delicious taste. You could taste cheese cake on your taste buds from stored away memories from the past when I mentioned cheese cake.
I associated further on the magpie and I thought of Margaret Thatcher. I watched a video of her on Youtube to refresh myself on her style and character: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2f8nYMCO2I&feature=youtu.be . She's a magpie with a blue coat and glasses in that video, symbolically speaking. I declared, at the time, that Margaret Thatcher is a magpie in politics and campaigning because her last name can easily be associated with human "nest building," i.e. thatched cottages for the peasants of the world. Houses, cottages, and homes are symbols of security, safety, family, warmth, etc. If you free associate from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you just may have some great symbols you can sell to others through your own marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs.png
I mentioned earlier that the Ankh is considered the key to eternal life in ancient Egyptian mythology. Another friend on Twitter had mentioned that the Ankh is her favorite symbol after I had asked the question: "what is your favorite symbol?" I remarked that I had seen an ad that positioned a models hands in such a manner as to symbolize the Ankh. You can learn more about the Ankh here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh. She then did her own association and mentioned that the Ankh resembles the Christian crucifix "in the same way Guanyin looks like the Virgin Mary." I had no idea who Guanyin was, so I did my own research and discovered that she is the female bodhisattva who is associated with compassion from ancient East Asia. Learn more of her here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin.
I thought further on the Ankh and how it has an opening on the head of it. I considered to myself that this may symbolize the opening of a door, or a womb. I thought that perhaps the Ankh could be the feminine aspect of Logos. Logos is a word from ancient Greece that is associated with reason and philosophy. It is considered a masculine aspect. Going further with the Ankh, it can be associated with the current digital age, and all the encryption involved. 1s and 0s are the most basic form of coding in computers and programming. Binary coding composes the more complex symbols and instructions in a program. I thought of the Ankh and how it can easily be a symbol for computer access, decoding, decryption, and unlocking entrances on the internet. The Ankh can also be associated with Ying and Yang as well.
I have gained a new interest in the types of art people like, the styles they are trying to communicate through their clothes, and the personalities they convey by the cars they drive now. For example, I was talking to some girl at a retail store, and she was telling me that she would hang Salvador Dali's art in her bathroom. What does this mean? I mean, Dali is very weird and surreal, but he's now considered mainstream and traditional through mass media. Perhaps Dali's art means nothing more than an accepted mainstream artist to this girl. I did mention to her however that the Spanish people revere the act of bowel moving much more so than other cultures.
Later on, I walked through a women's section at JC Penney, and saw a big display of some oversized double doors opening to a special display of clothing. There were also seats for people to sit in this square behind the doors as well. The oversized display was painted bright lemon yellow. At first, I didn't really know what this symbolized and what the designers intended to communicate to consumers. Then later, in hindsight, I realized that the opening doors symbolize a welcoming and friendly attitude. The fact that the doors and the whole display is oversized symbolizes a "bigger than life" perspective. The color yellow is often associated with friendship, friendliness, sociability, an open and light attitude, sunshine, happiness, having fun in outdoor weather hence "fun in the sun" during the Spring season.
In the evening, while I was networking online, I ran across a video by Dopplereffekt that plays an episode from the original Incredible Hulk TV series. I'd read about advertisers' research into the psychology of the alcohol drinker in The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard, and what was discovered is that drinkers like the transformation that takes place while drinking. Their whole personality changes, and becomes un-inhibited so that they can be more of who they want to be. Again, identity comes up here. I realized that The Incredible Hulk is actually a symbolic story of an alcoholic's life. It also alludes the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. Watch the video here and perhaps you may see a symbolic and dramatized transformation in the Incredible Hulk as it associates with drinking alcohol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIMv2CY32Bk&feature=youtu.be.
After operating on himself to give himself super strength and thinking he failed in his experiment, he leaves his laboratory, and gets stuck in the rain by the side of the road with a flat tire. His disappointed, and bitter state expresses the alcoholic's frustrated view of himself and his life. The rain storm symbolizes the drinking of alcohol, but it hasn't "hit" him yet. While he's in the frustrating throes of replacing his flat tire in the rain, something snaps inside of him, and he transforms into the Hulk. Many male alcoholics are known to fly into fits of rage while under the influence of alcohol. The rain falls from overhead in this video symbolically showing a man who is "under the influence." Water is often associated with emotions, and uncontrollability in unconscious symbolism. Alcohol allows many people to "unleash" and un-inhibit their emotions.
The Incredible Hulk is green, therefore possibly symbolizing jealousy. Jealousy is one of the biggest reasons why many a man flies into a fit of rage--jealousy of a possible competitor to his mate or desired mate. Green is also associated with witches, witch craft, paranormal phenomena, and strange scientific experiments.
While networking online, I then free associated some more and thought of symbolism in the media for people who are "anal." The first thing that came to mind was Metallica's untitled black album. It has a coiled snake on the front cover. The snake is depicted as tense, and coiling just like an anal sphincter muscle might while feeling stress and frustration. Listen to the song Don't Tread On Me, and you know in much more detail of the psychology of someone who is anally retentive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db1s-eV-Bd0&feature=youtu.be. I considered further what an anally retentive woman might imagine herself to be in her wildest fantasy of domination, since she feels very tight and controlled in her conscious life. I found this image while surfing the net and thought it might express a woman who wants to dominate with her sexuality and be completely un-inhibited from expressing herself fully: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BDR-Domination-Hot-Pink-Complete-Outfit/2014359?id=2014359&slug=BDR-Domination-Hot-Pink-Complete-Outfit#.UTLe2NC37wE.twitter.
I then went on to explore some symbolism behind the basic square. Squares are symbols of groundedness, of structure, of direction (hence, "the four corners of the earth"), architecture, angles, shelter, safety, protection, stability, etc. I've been making a whole series of art works based on the square in my Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) art project. Here's one example of a most recent image I made as part of the Y series: http://twitpic.com/c88muc. Then I thought about food. Are there types of food that have more "structure" to them than others? I thought perhaps carrots do because of their crunchy consistency. Carrots don't excite the taste buds however. This doesn't matter though, as structure doesn't necessarily have to excite the taste buds. It just has to be safe, grounded, and secure. Carrots can easily fit that description.
Perhaps ice cubes give drinks some structure. Do you feel like you're drinking the contents of a building while your drinking a special drink in a tall glass? Like you're drinking all the life, blood, thought, work and energy out of a glass building streaming with condensed water on the sides of its cylindrical shape? After all, it could be Friday after a bustling day at work, and that special drink is just waiting for you to conquer the rest of the day by unleashing all your pent up frustrations through a nice drink. What I'm doing here is showing you what commercials, advertisers and marketing schemers do to induce you to thoughtlessly identify with their promotions.
Traditionally, women are depicted as passive objects of beauty in art. I recently made some drawings for a friend who is working on an independent film. He sent some images to me to work out some imaginative ideas for him to use in his film. I drew the images more like the scenes he sent me, rather than going off on my own imagination, and exploring different themes like he requested. Nevertheless, I keenly observed how the girl I drew in these pictures is doing something. She's actively involved in a creative process, which, traditionally, a woman wouldn't normally be doing. Please take a look at what I'm talking about: http://twitpic.com/c7fei9.
I realize what I'm blogging about at length here is quite disjointed, seemingly unrelated and ad hoc. That's why I titled part of this article as ad hoc. It's thrown together from a bunch of recent thoughts, research, and discoveries I've recently made. To add to this seeming unrelatedness, I now want to briefly discuss politics and how the centralized public relations agencies, and mainstream media sources manufacture our perceptions of the world for us. One gaping example that I, and many others observe time and time and again, is the fact that the US's mainstream corporate/state media absolutely acquiesces to Washington's initiations and commands of military aggression around the planet. Things such as avoiding foreign entanglements prescribed by the forefathers of America are completely disregarded, and nonsensical acts of aggression are justified under mythologized, perpetual, and incipient terrorists that are implied as popping out at any minute and wreaking havoc on our lives. President Bush even claimed that the US has declared war on an un-definable enemy. In other words, anyone can be an enemy now according to the US government, and it's sidekick mouthpieces in the mainstream media.
If a truly impartial observer were to view these states of affairs from the outside, she or he could effortlessly conclude that America's own dictators are promoted as good, and not dictator-like, while clearly acting and behaving just like dictators do by successively removing one basic human right after the other. Meanwhile, dictators in other countries--most preferably impoverished ones with rich natural resources--are promoted and advertised as evil and bad in the mainstream press. President Obama took this Orwellian nightmare a step further in his signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve 2011-2012 which allows him to decide if you're a terrorist upon his own whims without being encumbered by any due process of law whatsoever. It is a law known pretty much in every culture around the planet that every fair judicial process includes the presumption of innocence. Under Obama, this natural humane law has been tossed out.
I know that many people feel passionate about regulating guns now, especially after all the shooting tragedies that have occurred in recent times. I personally feel that this campaign to regulate guns in America is a political attempt to start stripping the second amendment to the US Constitution. With all the ideas I presented to you at the beginning of this article that are used in marketing and advertising, you ought to be suspiciously aware of the fact that deep psychological marketing techniques are used to manufacture perceptions in politics as well. To me, the US's centralized media is nothing more than psychological illusions designed to "key in" (alluding to the Ankh) on your deepest fears, insecurities, frustrations, hopes, desires, and dreams.
I wouldn't be surprised if members of the inside club of the Republican party are just as committed to the disarmament of American citizens as Democrats are. I personally take more liberal stances on a lot of issues since I've read enlightening books by Noam Chomsky, and Naomi Klein. I do take one conservative issue to heart however, and that is the second amendment, and the right to bear arms. This was originally signed by the founding fathers of America as an inalienable right, just like the freedom of speech is.
I recently asked the staff at Democracy Now! in a tweet whether if they thought that Malcolm X would agree with Obama's determination to start eliminating the right to bear arms. I see Obama's lawless activity in bailing out and protecting top financial frauds in the central banking system of America as indicative that he wants to disarm America so that he can feel more safe and protected for continuing his immunized criminal activity. His disregard for the Geneva Conventions, disregard for avoiding foreign entanglements, and his condemnation of innocent whistle-blowers such as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange is more proof. I already mentioned the National Defense Authorization Act, and, recently, he just signed for John Brennan to be the head of the CIA who will not say whether if he can now assassinate American citizens extrajudicially. I'm sure he's assassinated all kinds of people already, including American citizens.
I get the feeling that Democracy Now! is relatively anti-second amendment. I don't blame them considering the wake of mourning from the recent domestic mass shooting tragedies. Looking back on the considerations of identity in forming political perspectives, I often associate the hosts of Democracy Now!, such as Amy Goodman, with the hippie movement in the late nineteen-sixties. This was a powerful identity change for American perception in general during the Vietnam war, and it was won through social movements that had the terms "flower power" and "flower children" attached to them signifying that peaceful methods are the best means for mass change. While I agree with this viewpoint for the most part, I also think it's an illusion to think that slowly disarming Americans of their right to bear arms won't affect the peoples' ability to socially, and peacefully move politicians towards more humane efforts.
Throughout history, dictator after dictator disarmed the people of their country so as to better brutally control them. Carl von Clausewitz, the military strategist for the Prussian army during the Napoleonic wars described in his book, On War, that one of the most important acts that must be performed in defeating an enemy is disarming him. I am not a proponent of war, but I am a proponent of self-defense, and with all of the previously reliable institutions symbolically and socially crumbling through rampant corruption practically everywhere around citizens in American society, I feel all the more passionate about defending the second amendment. Like Ingo Swann, the teacher of remote viewing for the US government, might state it from his books, Secrets of Power, the number one rule of those in power is "de-powering" everyone else in ANY meaningful and possible way.
I see power as a big wave, and those who own the means to surf that wave have already created a marginalizing societal pyramid scheme for everyone else. In this way, everyone else is preoccupied with "climbing the ladder to success" while the whole ladder is just a manufactured tool to keep the rabble preoccupied with marginalizing activities while elites play the real games of power. Nevertheless, as Ingo Swann discusses in Secrets of Power, power arises from that which is insignificant, and he compares this process to the origination of a tornado from a mere wisp of wind among millions of wisps of wind.
This leads into an idea that I've long held as integral in the development of one of my styles of art. I consider trash as universally, and stereotypically insignificant and repulsive to "everyone." Therefore, I imagine that, as an artist, I often want to look where no one else will look so as to attain rejected creativity, discarded "power," and thrown away love. While living in Nebraska, I was lucky enough to have a nice sized studio in the basement of the old house on the family farm. My grandfather had left all kinds of farm work materials and equipment behind after he died. Even after the farm sale, there was still a whole bunch of junk that really couldn't be used for original purposes anymore. I used some of this junk and put it into a lot of pieces of art, as well as many items that would normally be considered trash collected by my grandmother. My grandmother lived through the great depression of the 1930s in America, so she was very conscientious about saving every possible thing that "might be of use."
Since it looks like America is headed for another great depression, I mention that last paragraph above to inspire people to creatively use their junk and trash for other purposes they can use them for if they use their imaginations. I also raise that point to symbolically involve people in the process of empowerment through so-called insignificant means. This is to help people show themselves that power and creativity resides within themselves, and not in the leaders of Washington who live in a matrix of lies and forcefully try to grow an empire corrupted by deception more and more every day. The great ponzi scheme heisted on the rest of the world by the central financial fraudsters of Western imperialism is starting to bust at the seams as evidenced by the failing quantitative easing money printing strategies to spur economic growth.
To me, power on earth is a mere crimp in the grander scheme of things. I visualize it as a small crimp from a canvas stretcher on a vast piece of canvas. It's an attempt by a select few human beings who grant themselves statuses of "apotheosis" so as to excuse themselves from the laws applied to the rest of humanity by themselves. This, of course, is just an indoctrinated fallacy applied to everyone so that people stop seeking the infinite possibilities that are inherently a part of every human beings' potential and heritage. Your job as subjects to these politicians and fraudulent investment bankers is to remain thoroughly unquestioning in the false hopes they weave around you through public relations campaigns, political campaigns, corporate sigils, advertisements, marketing schemes, religious institutions, and educational institutions.
Most people seem to prefer the lies of politicians over the straight forward exercising of militant power by political leaders on "radical groups" and their "little rebellions." The "bigger picture" to elites is basically ownership and domination of the world. Yet, they can't even find success in financing the wars they wage, and country invasions they initiate.
--eVan, March 4th, 2013
I've been reading a book called The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard, and he outlines the methods used in marketing to reach peoples' motivations and unconscious minds, and to, of course, therefore reap more profits. One of the people who originated this deep psychological form of marketing is Ernest Dichter. In the Hidden Persuaders, Packard discusses one of Dichter's core principles in motivating people to buy. Peoples' universal needs for security, protection, safety, peace of mind, connection, and belonging are powerful motivating factors, he discusses, in whether if a person will be interested in buying a product. These things are a part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
There are other core doctrines of marketing as well. One of the most important of them is the concept of identity. Obviously different people have different identities, personalities, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These individual tendencies people have are associated with the kinds of cars people drive, the foods they eat, and the people they know. Marketers and advertisers go into excruciating detail in researching peoples' psychologies so as to make better sales. The online social medias of today go beyond marketers' and advertisers' wildest dreams. People basically open their souls up to the world in the virtual world.
I did some free association with words to continue on with the idea of identity in the market. I thought of things like "who you are, what kind of art you prefer, structure, strength, power, enforced, and steel." Some of these words sound like they don't have much to do with one another, but they do on an unconscious level. Just look at your dreams and how jumbled and irrational they can be. A lot of dream material is subtle symbols morphing and transforming across the different periods and places in your life.
Another day I had been discussing the magpie--a bird that is part of the corvidae or crow family--with a friend on Twitter. She told me that the magpie is a bad sign, or an omen in Native American folklore. I looked up the magpie, and, indeed, it is considered an omen in Native folklore. One aspect of the magpie plays the role of a trickster who is credited for playing deceptive schemes crafted by its intelligence on unwitting characters.
I continued on my own free association and research into the magpie. I found that "magpie" is a combination of two words. The first word is Margaret, or name, of which Mag is a nickname, and the second word is pie. So we have Margaret pie as the full name. Hence, the name "magpie" comes from Margaret + pie. It's really a trio combination because Margaret is a woman, and a magpie is a bird. So, really, magpie = woman + bird + pie to the unconscious mind perhaps; a woman with the name Margaret plus a bird from the crow family plus a pie. I wonder what kind of pie this combination would associate with?
Do lectures involving the usage of pie charts induce you to want to eat cheese cake after the lecture is over? The mathematical pi associates easily with pie, or cake, in the unconscious mind. Cheese cake is loaded with cream cheese and sugar, so it appeals deeply to our sense of sustenance, survival, and delicious taste. You could taste cheese cake on your taste buds from stored away memories from the past when I mentioned cheese cake.
I associated further on the magpie and I thought of Margaret Thatcher. I watched a video of her on Youtube to refresh myself on her style and character: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2f8nYMCO2I&feature=youtu.be . She's a magpie with a blue coat and glasses in that video, symbolically speaking. I declared, at the time, that Margaret Thatcher is a magpie in politics and campaigning because her last name can easily be associated with human "nest building," i.e. thatched cottages for the peasants of the world. Houses, cottages, and homes are symbols of security, safety, family, warmth, etc. If you free associate from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you just may have some great symbols you can sell to others through your own marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs.png
I mentioned earlier that the Ankh is considered the key to eternal life in ancient Egyptian mythology. Another friend on Twitter had mentioned that the Ankh is her favorite symbol after I had asked the question: "what is your favorite symbol?" I remarked that I had seen an ad that positioned a models hands in such a manner as to symbolize the Ankh. You can learn more about the Ankh here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh. She then did her own association and mentioned that the Ankh resembles the Christian crucifix "in the same way Guanyin looks like the Virgin Mary." I had no idea who Guanyin was, so I did my own research and discovered that she is the female bodhisattva who is associated with compassion from ancient East Asia. Learn more of her here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin.
I thought further on the Ankh and how it has an opening on the head of it. I considered to myself that this may symbolize the opening of a door, or a womb. I thought that perhaps the Ankh could be the feminine aspect of Logos. Logos is a word from ancient Greece that is associated with reason and philosophy. It is considered a masculine aspect. Going further with the Ankh, it can be associated with the current digital age, and all the encryption involved. 1s and 0s are the most basic form of coding in computers and programming. Binary coding composes the more complex symbols and instructions in a program. I thought of the Ankh and how it can easily be a symbol for computer access, decoding, decryption, and unlocking entrances on the internet. The Ankh can also be associated with Ying and Yang as well.
I have gained a new interest in the types of art people like, the styles they are trying to communicate through their clothes, and the personalities they convey by the cars they drive now. For example, I was talking to some girl at a retail store, and she was telling me that she would hang Salvador Dali's art in her bathroom. What does this mean? I mean, Dali is very weird and surreal, but he's now considered mainstream and traditional through mass media. Perhaps Dali's art means nothing more than an accepted mainstream artist to this girl. I did mention to her however that the Spanish people revere the act of bowel moving much more so than other cultures.
Later on, I walked through a women's section at JC Penney, and saw a big display of some oversized double doors opening to a special display of clothing. There were also seats for people to sit in this square behind the doors as well. The oversized display was painted bright lemon yellow. At first, I didn't really know what this symbolized and what the designers intended to communicate to consumers. Then later, in hindsight, I realized that the opening doors symbolize a welcoming and friendly attitude. The fact that the doors and the whole display is oversized symbolizes a "bigger than life" perspective. The color yellow is often associated with friendship, friendliness, sociability, an open and light attitude, sunshine, happiness, having fun in outdoor weather hence "fun in the sun" during the Spring season.
In the evening, while I was networking online, I ran across a video by Dopplereffekt that plays an episode from the original Incredible Hulk TV series. I'd read about advertisers' research into the psychology of the alcohol drinker in The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard, and what was discovered is that drinkers like the transformation that takes place while drinking. Their whole personality changes, and becomes un-inhibited so that they can be more of who they want to be. Again, identity comes up here. I realized that The Incredible Hulk is actually a symbolic story of an alcoholic's life. It also alludes the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. Watch the video here and perhaps you may see a symbolic and dramatized transformation in the Incredible Hulk as it associates with drinking alcohol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIMv2CY32Bk&feature=youtu.be.
After operating on himself to give himself super strength and thinking he failed in his experiment, he leaves his laboratory, and gets stuck in the rain by the side of the road with a flat tire. His disappointed, and bitter state expresses the alcoholic's frustrated view of himself and his life. The rain storm symbolizes the drinking of alcohol, but it hasn't "hit" him yet. While he's in the frustrating throes of replacing his flat tire in the rain, something snaps inside of him, and he transforms into the Hulk. Many male alcoholics are known to fly into fits of rage while under the influence of alcohol. The rain falls from overhead in this video symbolically showing a man who is "under the influence." Water is often associated with emotions, and uncontrollability in unconscious symbolism. Alcohol allows many people to "unleash" and un-inhibit their emotions.
The Incredible Hulk is green, therefore possibly symbolizing jealousy. Jealousy is one of the biggest reasons why many a man flies into a fit of rage--jealousy of a possible competitor to his mate or desired mate. Green is also associated with witches, witch craft, paranormal phenomena, and strange scientific experiments.
While networking online, I then free associated some more and thought of symbolism in the media for people who are "anal." The first thing that came to mind was Metallica's untitled black album. It has a coiled snake on the front cover. The snake is depicted as tense, and coiling just like an anal sphincter muscle might while feeling stress and frustration. Listen to the song Don't Tread On Me, and you know in much more detail of the psychology of someone who is anally retentive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db1s-eV-Bd0&feature=youtu.be. I considered further what an anally retentive woman might imagine herself to be in her wildest fantasy of domination, since she feels very tight and controlled in her conscious life. I found this image while surfing the net and thought it might express a woman who wants to dominate with her sexuality and be completely un-inhibited from expressing herself fully: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BDR-Domination-Hot-Pink-Complete-Outfit/2014359?id=2014359&slug=BDR-Domination-Hot-Pink-Complete-Outfit#.UTLe2NC37wE.twitter.
I then went on to explore some symbolism behind the basic square. Squares are symbols of groundedness, of structure, of direction (hence, "the four corners of the earth"), architecture, angles, shelter, safety, protection, stability, etc. I've been making a whole series of art works based on the square in my Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) art project. Here's one example of a most recent image I made as part of the Y series: http://twitpic.com/c88muc. Then I thought about food. Are there types of food that have more "structure" to them than others? I thought perhaps carrots do because of their crunchy consistency. Carrots don't excite the taste buds however. This doesn't matter though, as structure doesn't necessarily have to excite the taste buds. It just has to be safe, grounded, and secure. Carrots can easily fit that description.
Perhaps ice cubes give drinks some structure. Do you feel like you're drinking the contents of a building while your drinking a special drink in a tall glass? Like you're drinking all the life, blood, thought, work and energy out of a glass building streaming with condensed water on the sides of its cylindrical shape? After all, it could be Friday after a bustling day at work, and that special drink is just waiting for you to conquer the rest of the day by unleashing all your pent up frustrations through a nice drink. What I'm doing here is showing you what commercials, advertisers and marketing schemers do to induce you to thoughtlessly identify with their promotions.
Traditionally, women are depicted as passive objects of beauty in art. I recently made some drawings for a friend who is working on an independent film. He sent some images to me to work out some imaginative ideas for him to use in his film. I drew the images more like the scenes he sent me, rather than going off on my own imagination, and exploring different themes like he requested. Nevertheless, I keenly observed how the girl I drew in these pictures is doing something. She's actively involved in a creative process, which, traditionally, a woman wouldn't normally be doing. Please take a look at what I'm talking about: http://twitpic.com/c7fei9.
I realize what I'm blogging about at length here is quite disjointed, seemingly unrelated and ad hoc. That's why I titled part of this article as ad hoc. It's thrown together from a bunch of recent thoughts, research, and discoveries I've recently made. To add to this seeming unrelatedness, I now want to briefly discuss politics and how the centralized public relations agencies, and mainstream media sources manufacture our perceptions of the world for us. One gaping example that I, and many others observe time and time and again, is the fact that the US's mainstream corporate/state media absolutely acquiesces to Washington's initiations and commands of military aggression around the planet. Things such as avoiding foreign entanglements prescribed by the forefathers of America are completely disregarded, and nonsensical acts of aggression are justified under mythologized, perpetual, and incipient terrorists that are implied as popping out at any minute and wreaking havoc on our lives. President Bush even claimed that the US has declared war on an un-definable enemy. In other words, anyone can be an enemy now according to the US government, and it's sidekick mouthpieces in the mainstream media.
If a truly impartial observer were to view these states of affairs from the outside, she or he could effortlessly conclude that America's own dictators are promoted as good, and not dictator-like, while clearly acting and behaving just like dictators do by successively removing one basic human right after the other. Meanwhile, dictators in other countries--most preferably impoverished ones with rich natural resources--are promoted and advertised as evil and bad in the mainstream press. President Obama took this Orwellian nightmare a step further in his signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve 2011-2012 which allows him to decide if you're a terrorist upon his own whims without being encumbered by any due process of law whatsoever. It is a law known pretty much in every culture around the planet that every fair judicial process includes the presumption of innocence. Under Obama, this natural humane law has been tossed out.
I know that many people feel passionate about regulating guns now, especially after all the shooting tragedies that have occurred in recent times. I personally feel that this campaign to regulate guns in America is a political attempt to start stripping the second amendment to the US Constitution. With all the ideas I presented to you at the beginning of this article that are used in marketing and advertising, you ought to be suspiciously aware of the fact that deep psychological marketing techniques are used to manufacture perceptions in politics as well. To me, the US's centralized media is nothing more than psychological illusions designed to "key in" (alluding to the Ankh) on your deepest fears, insecurities, frustrations, hopes, desires, and dreams.
I wouldn't be surprised if members of the inside club of the Republican party are just as committed to the disarmament of American citizens as Democrats are. I personally take more liberal stances on a lot of issues since I've read enlightening books by Noam Chomsky, and Naomi Klein. I do take one conservative issue to heart however, and that is the second amendment, and the right to bear arms. This was originally signed by the founding fathers of America as an inalienable right, just like the freedom of speech is.
I recently asked the staff at Democracy Now! in a tweet whether if they thought that Malcolm X would agree with Obama's determination to start eliminating the right to bear arms. I see Obama's lawless activity in bailing out and protecting top financial frauds in the central banking system of America as indicative that he wants to disarm America so that he can feel more safe and protected for continuing his immunized criminal activity. His disregard for the Geneva Conventions, disregard for avoiding foreign entanglements, and his condemnation of innocent whistle-blowers such as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange is more proof. I already mentioned the National Defense Authorization Act, and, recently, he just signed for John Brennan to be the head of the CIA who will not say whether if he can now assassinate American citizens extrajudicially. I'm sure he's assassinated all kinds of people already, including American citizens.
I get the feeling that Democracy Now! is relatively anti-second amendment. I don't blame them considering the wake of mourning from the recent domestic mass shooting tragedies. Looking back on the considerations of identity in forming political perspectives, I often associate the hosts of Democracy Now!, such as Amy Goodman, with the hippie movement in the late nineteen-sixties. This was a powerful identity change for American perception in general during the Vietnam war, and it was won through social movements that had the terms "flower power" and "flower children" attached to them signifying that peaceful methods are the best means for mass change. While I agree with this viewpoint for the most part, I also think it's an illusion to think that slowly disarming Americans of their right to bear arms won't affect the peoples' ability to socially, and peacefully move politicians towards more humane efforts.
Throughout history, dictator after dictator disarmed the people of their country so as to better brutally control them. Carl von Clausewitz, the military strategist for the Prussian army during the Napoleonic wars described in his book, On War, that one of the most important acts that must be performed in defeating an enemy is disarming him. I am not a proponent of war, but I am a proponent of self-defense, and with all of the previously reliable institutions symbolically and socially crumbling through rampant corruption practically everywhere around citizens in American society, I feel all the more passionate about defending the second amendment. Like Ingo Swann, the teacher of remote viewing for the US government, might state it from his books, Secrets of Power, the number one rule of those in power is "de-powering" everyone else in ANY meaningful and possible way.
I see power as a big wave, and those who own the means to surf that wave have already created a marginalizing societal pyramid scheme for everyone else. In this way, everyone else is preoccupied with "climbing the ladder to success" while the whole ladder is just a manufactured tool to keep the rabble preoccupied with marginalizing activities while elites play the real games of power. Nevertheless, as Ingo Swann discusses in Secrets of Power, power arises from that which is insignificant, and he compares this process to the origination of a tornado from a mere wisp of wind among millions of wisps of wind.
This leads into an idea that I've long held as integral in the development of one of my styles of art. I consider trash as universally, and stereotypically insignificant and repulsive to "everyone." Therefore, I imagine that, as an artist, I often want to look where no one else will look so as to attain rejected creativity, discarded "power," and thrown away love. While living in Nebraska, I was lucky enough to have a nice sized studio in the basement of the old house on the family farm. My grandfather had left all kinds of farm work materials and equipment behind after he died. Even after the farm sale, there was still a whole bunch of junk that really couldn't be used for original purposes anymore. I used some of this junk and put it into a lot of pieces of art, as well as many items that would normally be considered trash collected by my grandmother. My grandmother lived through the great depression of the 1930s in America, so she was very conscientious about saving every possible thing that "might be of use."
Since it looks like America is headed for another great depression, I mention that last paragraph above to inspire people to creatively use their junk and trash for other purposes they can use them for if they use their imaginations. I also raise that point to symbolically involve people in the process of empowerment through so-called insignificant means. This is to help people show themselves that power and creativity resides within themselves, and not in the leaders of Washington who live in a matrix of lies and forcefully try to grow an empire corrupted by deception more and more every day. The great ponzi scheme heisted on the rest of the world by the central financial fraudsters of Western imperialism is starting to bust at the seams as evidenced by the failing quantitative easing money printing strategies to spur economic growth.
To me, power on earth is a mere crimp in the grander scheme of things. I visualize it as a small crimp from a canvas stretcher on a vast piece of canvas. It's an attempt by a select few human beings who grant themselves statuses of "apotheosis" so as to excuse themselves from the laws applied to the rest of humanity by themselves. This, of course, is just an indoctrinated fallacy applied to everyone so that people stop seeking the infinite possibilities that are inherently a part of every human beings' potential and heritage. Your job as subjects to these politicians and fraudulent investment bankers is to remain thoroughly unquestioning in the false hopes they weave around you through public relations campaigns, political campaigns, corporate sigils, advertisements, marketing schemes, religious institutions, and educational institutions.
Most people seem to prefer the lies of politicians over the straight forward exercising of militant power by political leaders on "radical groups" and their "little rebellions." The "bigger picture" to elites is basically ownership and domination of the world. Yet, they can't even find success in financing the wars they wage, and country invasions they initiate.
--eVan, March 4th, 2013
