a blonde

“She reached into her bag and slid a photograph across the desk, a five-by-three glazed still.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.”

—Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940.

red to white, and then back to red again

“Myra’s mouth dropped open. She turned from red to white, and then back to red again. I knew she’d probably give me all-heck when she got me alone, but for the present she wasn’t talkin’ back.”

—Jim Thompson, Pop. 1280, 1964.

Sub Rosa

Sub Rosa, a collage by Paul Dean, 30″x30″. On display now through May 31st at the Baton Rouge Gallery. Don’t miss the real thing!
“Sub rosa” is Latin and translates as “under the rose.” Conversations that took place “sub rosa” were regarded as private and confidential. The structure of this collage is based on the rose cut, a very popular diamond cut until the nineteenth century when the better know brilliant cut was invented.

the seeds of writing

As a species, human beings have been on this planet for about 150,000 years. For most of that time they resembled people, as we know them now, only physically. But around 47,000 years ago something dramatic seems to have happened. Here we begin to find archaeological evidence of ritual objects and ritual burials that suggest a culture that we can begin to recognize as human. One explanation for this relatively sudden change is the invention of something for which there can be no archaeological evidence: spoken language.

Spoken language involves abstract concepts and their recombination, and where spoken language leads, human thought will follow. With the birth of language came the birth of human consciousness as we know it today. The stream-of-consciousness thought process that we take for granted was a by-product of spoken language. Just try to stop thinking with words for a moment. For most people, this is almost impossible. Of course there is no archaeological evidence of ancient conversations, much less private thoughts. But just as children today seem to absorb language rather than ‘learn’ it, the human brain took to language like a sponge and shows no signs of ever leaving.

The evidence comes from scattered burial sites, and is particularly strong in those niches and cracks where this pre-historic cultural activity has remained unerased by the passage of time. Seeming almost miraculous when they were discovered in the mid-20th century, the cave art of modern-day France and Spain, including the famous caves at Lascaux, bring modern humans tantalizingly close to the once-living people of who created breathtaking work, with stable artistic conventions, from 40,000 to 20,000 years ago.

The specific purpose of these cave paintings is unknown and probably unknowable, but clearly they were an important cultural reference point. The dominant colors are red and black. The larger paintings are of very specific animals, rich in detail and in fascinating arrangements relative to each other. These portraits are skillfully woven into the undulating texture of the rock, for maximum effect when viewed by lamplight.

We also commonly find stencilled hand prints of red and black. It has been suggested that watching his hand merge with the cave wall as paint was blown through a tube maybe been a significant spiritual experience, a merging with an otherly underworld, but it might simply mean “I was here,” a statement that still compels writers today. An early theory to explain the missing and partially missing fingers of many of these hands was that the violence inherent in the culture of the time explained the number of scars and amputations of the average cave man. A more plausible explanation is that they are ‘clan signs’ or signals that involved the folding of fingers.

Even simpler marks, dots and lines, appear alone and in groups. These marks probably signify a count of something . . . but what? Without a living, talking human to explain them, these marks remain mute. But Susan Wise Bauer, in The History of the Ancient World, calls these simplest of signs “the seeds of writing.” In combination with pictographs, the simple marks that seem to represent an abstract concept, rather than a specific thing, and over the course of time, they will mutate and evolve into the characters we now know as our roman alphabet.

—Paul Dean, Letterforms, 2007.

Two movies

Two recent movies that I might recommend, if you are inclined to trust me on movies, are Half Nelson and 10 Items Or Less. Half Nelson is about a crack addict history teacher. 10 Items Or Less is a wandering conversation between Morgan Freeman, as himself, and Paz Vega as a fed-up grocery store employee.
Two movies that I found entertaining and enlightening. For the sofa and the soul.

the firefly

“Long after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained inside me, its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul.

More than once I tried stretching my hand out in that darkness. My fingers touched nothing. The faint glow remained, just beyond their grasp.”

—Haruki Murikami, Norwegian Wood, 1989; translated by Jay Rubin, 2000.

My Alien Radio Manifesto

Just for the heck of it, and let’s say as a writing exercise, I have transcribed the legible text, in roughly the order it falls, from the first half of a sprawling accordion-fold collage book I made almost seven years ago. It’s dated 10/7/00. (Seven years ago. This is a pre- 9/11 rant!)
A.R.:MANIFESTO (part 1)
A sense of reality: the evolution of mental pictures. Alien Radio. Future Shock. ARE WE READY? Practical Psychocybernetics. Heaven and Hell. For The New Age. Sense and Nonsense. Psychic Detectives. THIS IS IT. BELIEVE YOUR EYES! Defining Science Fiction. And other essays on Zen and spiritual experience. Diagram of eye movement in normal reading. From the Sufi. The Rolling Stones in Gimme Shelter. Back of eye. BrrRrraaNNG. COMMUNICATION / COMPUTATION / CONTROL. HOW THE DAISIES GO TO SLEEP. Form Constants and Ineffable Experiences. Psychology Made Simple. The sun is very large or very small. O starfall, once grasped from a bridge. UFOS AND HOW TO SEE THEM. Not to forget you. To stand! A match has a head but can’t think. Man feel alien in a world without meaning. Amazing Science. Dread News. Amazing Truth Publications. FREE CATALOG. 1800 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW EXISTED. One millionth copy edition. The Sacred Mushroom. Know The Door Of Eternity. A she-cat’s prowl through the jungle of self. Destiny is tapping you on the shoulder. Microcosm. SCRIPT & SEAL. What is time? Five elements welded together to form one unit. WONDERLAND. Thermostatic control. A stereo dimension. Temperature control knob. SOME WILL BELIEVE—OTHERS WILL NOT. Much of the styling of a consumer object is simply sales promotion. THIS IS TODAY. International Radio. Produced with official NASA voice tapes and photographs. There are numerous interlinear decorations on all the plates in this section. The Subliminal Kid. A CELESTIAL ALPHABET EVENT. Magnified structure of malleable iron showing nodual carbon. Magnified structure of pearlitic malleable iron. NOW! ALL THE CRAP IN THE WORLD. AS SEEN ON TV! Rush of air. Fluttering. High pitch. A. R. Jet Set. Fig. 16. The general arrangement of the cerebrospinal nervous system. Fig. 10.20 Parabolic reflector. Marriage of the Sun and Moon. Mandala: two basic types, schematized. The Life And Death Of Stars. The most noticeable characteristic of consciousness is that it is continually changing. MAIN DECK. The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun. Close Encounters. Interstellar Overdrive. ILLUSION OR REALITY? The dot may be located as convenient. Diagram of three synapses. WHAT IS THE FUTURE? A trick you can play with a book. What is this? The Nile Song. Cosmic Trigger. Need the truth? WAS GOD AN ASTRONAUT? Why we find a seashell on the top of a mountain. The most exciting cult experience of all time! Rainbows of bursting color. Equivocal figures. Depth in space. Pulsating lights. Lenticular clouds. NOTICE! The Effect Of Continuity On Perception. The Stroboscopic Ballet. No poetry before ours. Completely revised. Proof of purchase. Mail this coupon. Finally finally finally. The miracle is on the inside! POETRY BEING BORN. The ‘sound’ of scents. New and exciting futuristic space age toys. Cut here. Trouble Funk. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Your own private sun. DO NOT OPERATE LAMP TOO CLOSELY TO SKIN. THE MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION. There was more. Slit-scan Stargate Corridor from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. ‘My empire is of the imagination.’ HIEROGLYPHIC INTERPRETATION. Cash will soon become illegal for all but very small transactions. To ‘know’ something intellectually and to experience it concretely are two very different things. Moon flowers. The First Book Of Time. The most eye-filling sight under the sun. DO NOT USE TOO LONG AN EXPOSURE. Stan Brackhage: Dog Star Man. ‘The totality of consciousness, the reality continuum of the living present.’ College student reading mathematical formulae. Things you should remember. Psychology Made Simple. Hoaxes. Hallucinations. Artificial satellites. Mirages. Beyond the senses are the objects, beyond the objects is the mind, beyond the mind is the intellect, beyond the intellect is the great Atman. Bright meteors. THE WORD SET FREE. THE COLLAPSE OF CULTURAL HIERARCHY. The Continuum Encyclopedia Of Symbols. What Jung believed about UFOs. The Space Age’Science Fact and Science Fiction. Visiting the East China Sea Fleet. THERE IS A GAP BETWEEN IDEA AND IMAGE. THE POWER OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. FROM UNKNOWN WORLDS. FANTASY. Reality. REALITY. An Anthology of Modern Fantasy for Grownups. More Brilliant than Diamonds. BRIDGE THE GAP. Starfish. GODS FROM OUTER SPACE. Power. This Way. Volume. CAUTION: INVISIBLE LASER RADIATION DO NOT STARE INTO BEAM. Colors may bleed when wet. The Inner Sleeve. AR. The Ancients Called It COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS. A WHOLESOME LIFE IN THE BEST OF TASTE. July 1973. The Invisible College. Deluxe Revolving Police Style Warning Light. Terribly scary—but no danger—just fun excitement! HOLOGRAPHIC SCENE SETTER. The vision of P-Funk is clearly oriented toward uplift—of the individual, of black people, and of all people. THE PSYCHIC WORLD. SKY-RIDER OF THE SPACEWAYS. An entire campaign dedicated to the subliminal. Increasing your perception. The Now Generation. What is the secret of its strange power? The Resolution of a Lens on Film. Tru-Vue FILM CARD. Pats. Pending. How The Subconscious Affects Our Purchases. Where the past and present are as one. Background. Middleground. Foreground. INSERT IN VIEWER. Fooled Again. THE BOOK OF MARS. Part of a halftone enlarged to show the dot formation. Slumberland. Funny pictures for you to color. PROJECT BLUE BOOK 1 MARCH 1967. Figure/Ground. XPOSED! UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE! Your class hears the letters from your records—sees the letters on the charts. I EXAMINED A LIVE SPACE ALIEN. What Separates Psychic Experience From Mental Disorder? Dendrites. Cell body. NO MESSAGE. With Six Other Witnesses. 40,000 YEARS AGO! NATURE’S ONLY RIVAL. Give your audience a strong reason to buy . . . fast! ESCAPE FROM ANY PAIR OF HANDCUFFS. Things To Come. THE GOD SIVA IN BRONZE. Legibility. The Closure Factor. The message arranged in 3 lines. Were The Ancient Astronauts Mistaken For Gods? WE ARE NOT ALONE. Led Zeppelin III. Superfly Presents STEREOLAB. Glyph. SPACE CRAFT CONVENTION. THE MARCH OF TIME. Aerial view of Stonehenge. THE ARROW OF LIGHT AWARD. Illusion or Reality? The glass bead game: the music of the spheres. Blow your mind. The only limitation is your own imagination. Design Variation. Signal Generator. AR. Radio Frequency. The white ball automatically rolled over from his palm to the top of his hand. THE EFFECT OF SUGGESTION ON BEHAVIOR. How A Snowflake Is Formed. THROUGH THE AGES. AR. Your Guide To Mental Pictures. Many type styles. Silver On Blue. UFOLOGY. FREE BOOKLET. Fig. 18. Over the brink of reason lies the strange world of THE MOST SENSATIONAL EXPOSE OF THE FREAK SIDE OF LIFE. Bend just until internal glass breaks. Shake well to mix chemicals. Fluctuations of Perception. WHITE GOODS. LADIES CLOAKS. The True Yoga. CAVE DRAWINGS OF STRANGE BEINGS IN SPACE SUITS. Unsolved. Stereographic Projections. Sunshine all year ’round. AR. ATARI. Futurism, which is only an accelerated sort of impressionism. RAZOR BLADE IN PYRAMID. PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS. NOW . . . new, short, easy way to profit enormously from your inner mindpower. Reusable. Recycled. Recyclable. Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. We believe whatever we want to believe. Demosthenes, 348 B.C. CAMOUFLAGE.

a new level of visual pollution

“In the new computer age, the proliferation of typefaces and type manipulations represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture. Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest.”

—Massimo Vignelli; Michael Bierut, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Typeface, 2007.

three new letters

“[Claudius, emperor of Rome from 41-54 C.E.,] invented three new letters and added them to the alphabet, maintaining that they were greatly needed. He published a book on their theory when he was still in private life, and when he became Emperor had no difficulty in bringing about their general use. These characters may still be seen in numerous books, in the record of daily events, and in inscriptions on public buildings.”


—Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, translation and footnote by Joseph Gavorse, 1931.

the Yellow Turbans

“The Yellow Turbans were much more than a simple group of rebels: they were a millennial sect looking forward to the coming of a golden age. The millions of Chinese who lived unspeakably hard and grim lives were looking not just for political solutions, but for immediate hope. The Yellow Turbans offered exactly this. Their leader, a Daoist teacher named Chang Chueh, claimed that the had the power to do magic. He announced that he could heal sickness. . . . He promised that if they took his medicines, they would be immune from wounds and could fight in battle without fear. . . .

By 182, the Yellow Turbans had a following of over three hundred and fifty thousand poor, desperate, landless, and angry Chinese. By 184, they were ready to rise up and fight against their oppressors.”

—Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World, 2007.