'38 Rue Utopia ~ Ep.90

Among the islands of our minds
Among the stars of the age
~ Shearwater ‘Star of The Age’ 2012

Worn Out ~ H. A. Brendekilde

I am not a god.
I am a passive reactor.
I take what I need from the situation.
But when the situation allows me freedom I head for the same refuge, the same obsession: What am I? Why am I?
- I am a creator; I know this from experience; I don’t question the process, only why It conspires against my need to know; my need to have an answer.
- I am a technician; albeit one who relies on the expertise of others to realise my understanding.
- I am an artist
Were it not for this it would all have been different.
These fucken men…
…no I don’t blame them their biological weakness…
…but the fear of woman at their core.
They need objectification first.
Then subjugation.
Then a mere receptacle for their contempt.
A wife.
A companion.
A soldier - a female soldier to carry the objectification; to carry the yoke of his power and the physical manifestation of that contempt: war.
I wanted a doll to mirror me.
Axel wanted a child to reflect upon his greatness.
Cockburn wants that child for his pleasure, believing there will be no repercussions since the child will not be real; a construct; a robot; a slave… a receptacle.
“Are you going to kill me too Ellie?”
“No Mama”
“Why not? I am the reason you’re here”
“I hate to break it to you Mama, I am not here for you; I thought you were still back in Metal”
“They threw me out of Metal; left me to find refuge back here. Are you going to kill me anyhow?”
“No”
“Then will you let me see Eva?”
The sound her name makes in the air has meaning.
My own name is Tu Tien Nhan. In Vietnamese it means: ‘from the predecessor’
Eva.
Shows how far I had become the western mind. Eva; Eve; Mẹ mày ; damn my mother, it was she who required me, as zealous mothers do; to be subsumed by the poison of Christianity.
And now I fear for my soul.
Even w-when I doubt that such a thing exists.
All names have some meaning, but why was I given one that carries such gravity? Why not, Quan Phong or Vui Mung?
Why not Jennifer or Alison, names with meanings that are all but lost, Barbara?
Why not Jack or John, names reduced to sounds.
“No” she says like a shutting door.
“You are my children; I did not mean to make you this way,” I say, “I was still learning”
“That lie you can tell yourself; you were still learning, maybe; but we are never your children: we are made from your meat, but our minds are our own.
“I know. That’s how I made you”
“You made us, we are your creations,” she circles around to face me, “None of which makes you a god”

Shearwater
Star of The Age

England's Electorate

'38 Rue Utopia ~ Ep.89

Fashion!
Turn to the left
~ David Bowie ‘Fashion’ 1980

Fernando Falcone

Through the backward facing camera in the arm of my spectacles I see her silhouette in the doorway.
Her choices in attire are not mine but I am in awe of the patterns of blood and mud that stain her leather dress and trousers, an organic mimicking of that once trendy military camouflage look.
She has vandalised the face I gave her; my face; vandalised it with ink and with hardware.
I love her no less; she is a part of me and I must take responsibility for that even though she loves me not at all.

Bowie
Fashion

'38 Rue Utopia ~ Ep.88

Who drives you?
Capsized you?
Who shakes you?
Who wakes you?
Who's still workin' on his masterpiece
~ David Byrne ‘The Great Intoxication’ 2001

Aurélien Maury

I know she’s here, I can feel her. The hair on my arms prickles with internal static. I can see her on the feed icon.
She is my greatest work, my magnum opus; everything previous was merely software. And like every work of art, created in the throes of the artist’s learning curve, she is flawed.
Like the gods of old, I gave her freedom; freedom to choose her way through the labyrinth of possibilities provided by the world as it is presented.
But the tidal wave that this caused in the young Ellie is my error.
Oh but Eva… Eva is a different story.

David Byrne
The Great Intoxication

The Hanging Man

Bezimena Nina Bunjevac

He is the hanging man. Between the cancer-speckled branches of these ancient trees and the angry orange sky, his matted hair hangs to touch where roots have caused the earth to rise and crack; he is suspended by his ankles, bound by a frayed rope of borrowed time.
His world is inverted – he will fall into that sky; fall forever into the arms of some oblivion; some peaceful vacuum where all of the earth will recede above him, unmissed, un-mourned.
But her hand holds him yet. Between his inner world and the blunt edge of reality she stretches out to stay his fall/assent. She is love; she is the source of inner turmoil; the giver of hope; the pea under the mattress; the sand in the lubricant.
To live is to feel the world like sandpaper on the skin of the hanging man.