gabrieldroberts

[gabrieldroberts]

Announcing A New Partnership Opportunity

From Gabriel D. Roberts:

In January, 2016 I began Eris magazine as an online co-op media outlet that would provide a more academic and progressive outlook on world events as well as highlight emerging artists and cultural trends. Last year I produced 14 short docs, 1 music video and finished pre-production of my first full length film, consisting of over 30 interviews in over 15 locations across Europe. As an online media outlet, Eris had 50 contributors on the masthead and all that content was managed primarily by myself, while assisted by Elisabth Brose.

In 2017 Eris the media outlet has been streamlined into Eris Films, whose primary goal is to produce and release full length films and documentaries into already present media markets such as Amazon, Netflix and traditional theaters. At present, production of the first film is in the works and the second film is now being planned.

The work requires investment:

While I've demonstrated the ability to produce quality content and put the work in and live spartan to make all of this possible, there is just no way around the fact that making a film requires more than just the artist themselves. The work requires partnership with a businessperson who has demonstrated success, understands the role of the artist and the role expected of them as an investor and partner.

Without a business partner who can invest in the films and help see them through with Eris from start to finish, we will still be able to complete the films on the docket, but the speed in which this can be done will be greatly diminished. Time is of the essence.

The time is now:

A good businessperson knows you can't just throw money at things, you have to have a plan and set goals and once those are set you have to remain faithful to the process of cultivation from start to finish in order to see positive results.  You must be proactive in finding the right people for the right tasks and delegating appropriately.

If you are interested in potential partnership with Eris Films, please share a little bit about yourself, your business background, your core values as well as any helpful documentation like links to your linkedin, resume, website in the form below.

[gabrieldroberts]

Eris Films Releases A New Reel

I'M GABRIEL D. ROBERTS, A NEW YORK BASED WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHER & FOUNDER OF ERIS FILMS.  I've worked extensively in the United States and Europe in film, photo and audio for the last ten years. I utilize the most advanced equipment and techniques to accentuate the beauty of the subject and its surroundings. The result is dramatic, rich and authentic.I possess a Master of Interdisciplinary Arts degree from the University of Washington, specializing in composition & film theory.

[gabrieldroberts]

We Just Want To Live In Peace

I interviewed a refugee living in a squat in Athens, Greece with over one hundred other men. He remains under a pseudonym and is obscured for his own safety. His story is one of over 30 interviews conducted for the forthcoming film. In light of the inauguration of a nationalist president and a new era of violent opposition to refugees in need, I thought it fitting to share this interview. 

[gabrieldroberts]

Lyn LeJeune Rising

I met author Lyn LeJeune (Elijah Rising) online, via inGroup Press back in 2011. We both had books out through the same publisher and promoted our titles together on Twitter and chatting, as writers will, about (what else?) books, books, writing, books...

 Since then Lyn LeJeune has published numerous Kindle singles and ebooks. Her books include the Southern Gothic with occult, voodoo, Cajun themes.

 Excerpt from Life and Death in a Small Southern Town:

In the summers of my youth, my father woke my entire family up at exactly 4 a.m. every Saturday morning. We packed our lunch, usually pop rouge (red pop) and baloney sandwiches, piled into our old black Buick and headed to the bayous about 20 miles south of Abbeville, Louisiana. We loaded up the boat my father had built with his own hands and sped southward down the Vermilion River, into Vermilion Bay, and then hooked east to Cote Blanche Bay. There we fished for drum and red snapper and seined for shrimp. The water was cool in the morning and only the surface warmed by lunchtime; if you plunged your hand in the water or dove in from the front of the boat, as we usually did, the water was frigid and clean and clear. Even now, when I close my eyes, I see the movement of baby shrimp, crab, sand sharks, the simple trilling of life. On the distant shore, flights of egrets and gulls and pelicans took wing, descending in search of the silver fish that nourished them, banking and circling the newly installed oil rigs. I will always remember this pure celebration of life. No child could have asked for finer days. 

Deliverance  

The Beatitudes: Of Ghosts Named Romeo and Pinch 

The Death of Gatsby 

Surviving America 

Life and Death in a Small Southern Town 

Read more about Lyn LeJeune: 

John J Gaylord Books interview, Backstory 

Connect with Lyn via Crimespace, Goodreads & Twitter 

Official Bio

Lyn LeJeune is the author of several novels. Her stories have been published in literary journals such as Big Muddy: A Journal of The Mississippi River Valley (East Missouri University), The Bishop’s House Review (Duke), The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Nantahala, Milestone, Identity Theory, Our Stories, Demolition Magazine and Stone Table Review, and The Best of Our Stories. She was recipient of the Paris Writers’ Institute Scholarship for study in Paris, France. Lyn studied writing at Skidmore, where she worked with Marilynne Robinson and Mary Gordon, Duke, and the Breadloaf Writers Conference. Lyn routinely holds seminars on writing and development of oral history projects and has a gift for one-on-one conversation, communicating with large audiences, and working with smaller audiences in venues such as book clubs and seminars. One of Lyn’s first readers for Elijah Rising was Howard Zinn, who commented: “I read it in two sittings, became involved in the story. You write very well! Best wishes, Howard Zinn” Lyn is 100% Cajun and makes the best gumbo in South Louisiana.

[gabrieldroberts]

THE WHEEL CONTINUES

 publication, influence by the Futurists tradition. The Dadas felt re-program we wish to be rather than the way you seen in be... time it's physical. I felt that the of my spirit. I wanted one that I think I know; that wife was on board. where a board of either sitting facing the doctor infamous couch. Either way, the subject of numerous international and the animals relish our loans As they wait for light at the foot of the throne The wheel continues ART MIMICS LIFE This is displayed in the symbolism a grey rabbit, yeah just like you

[gabrieldroberts]

THE SLEEPING, AWAKENING, CONSTRUCTS OF REALITY

THE SLEEPING, 

evolution as a species.

Ceremony

a half-truth because

-but I don't see

ripple of meanings

I bought it

Quite some

My sex

became rhythmic

angel fall?

matter in which position we might bet we 

people,

approach to

themselves in water, cool

Ormen

Ah-ah

orifices, what is inside vs

of dread

of being in the midst of so much

Katelan Foisy, Vanessa Sinclair,

single pedestrian. I feel

allow yourself to be

peace of the world.

revealed that man is

like television 

ducer for I show

that is the mother

chora, there are

functions and 

wilderness and 

stranger, as

shape dredged

stuck into that they

virtue of

The smash of glass

the well-known 

facets of the 

awakening, constructs of reality,

[gabrieldroberts]

A Classical Master: Michael Ritchie

I had the pleasure of visiting guitar maker, Michael Ritchie and watching him work in his studio at Lake of Menteith, Scotland.  The country air, rolling hills and stunning mountain ranges provided the perfect backdrop for a man whose earthy, humble and timeless style takes shape in every guitar he makes.  We sat over a breakfast of haggis, toast, tea, eggs over easy and blood pudding, in the cafe of the hotel overlooking the placid lake near which he calls home.  

When asked, "why classical guitars?", Michael answered, "The inspiration behind my guitar making is as old if not older than guitar making itself. I have always had a love for the instrument and in particular the nylon string with it’s softer more complex and alluring tone. As a guitar maker I am drawn to the origins of this instrument and the methods of construction employed within its tradition, guitars that were made often with the most basic of tools and materials and at a time when craftsmen had to be resourceful, work quickly and sell cheaply."

It was something wonderful to see how Michael produced every element of his guitars by hand, with every minute detail painstakingly tended to, resulting in a work of art that was inspiring just to hold.  Playing his guitars immediately brought a deep sense of history and craftsmanship, a song sung in every plucked string.  Truly marvelous.  See more of his work here: http://ritchieguitars.weebly.com/

[gabrieldroberts]

Iska Dhaaf Debuts Their Music Video: CHRYSALIS

Over the summer, I had the chance to go with Iska Dhaaf on a few tour dates and was blown away by their energy, erudite musicianship and their intellectual depth.  Their album, The Wanting Creature explores the landscape of the human condition in its endless search for satisfaction in all things passing.  The band taps literary heavy hitter, Karl Ove Knausgaard in their song, "We Are", highlighting the ephemeral nature of existence.  As the song rings on the ebb and flow of experience draws you into a solipsistic and euphoric coma only to raise the pulse and bring the melody to a fever.  "Laura Palmer" stalks across a winter landscape into the precipice between the real and the imaginary, questioning which is which.  The title track of The Wanting Creature offers a dulcet opioid rush of blooming energy, sounding like a modern hymn to the post apocalypse.

Chrysalis shares these themes, but with focus on the beauty and pain of transformation and how breaking and pain are paths to a newly emerging freedom.  Buy Their album, The Wanting Creature 

[gabrieldroberts]

The Power & Weakness of Patriarchy

By Daniel Leland Crook

To begin is to know that you will never be finished. This is the mantra of countless artists entire careers. This very same mantra could be referenced in the struggle for equal rights and laws for women, for queer and trans individuals, for people of color, for those with disabilities like blindness, autism, genetic or physical deformities; really, this mantra could be said for anyone in this nation with the exception of one combination of color, gender and sexual preference. Cis, white, heterosexual males not only get to write the rules themselves, they can change them at any time and, as we see before us now, they will if it best serves their own personal narrative. 

We know from our history here in America that it has always been the heterosexual white male in charge of institutionalizing anyone unlike himself, with help of war or economic oppression, multi-tiered systems in which individuals are essentially categorized from least to most valuable are implemented in to the very fabric of public opinion. This system insinuates that we, as human beings, are really just garbage needing to be separated in order to be properly dealt with. We all know that women and queer individuals are grouped in to one category while trans individuals sit slightly below them. Add melatonin to this equation and you will notice that there is not merely a one dimensional pyramid but many dimensions, side by side, separated primarily by skin color and economic standing. A trans individual of color in theirside of the pyramid sits slightly lower than say a white individual may on their own side.

The only thing in common between all sides of this fictitious pyramid is that they are all connected at the same point: the tip or, as it seems, the apex. Here you will find the throne of the traditional cis, white, heterosexual male. 

The funny thing about human existence is that no two individuals experience it in the same way, therefore creating social or sexual systems without leaving any room for elasticity, in all actuality, makes no sense at all. If we really are the universe attempting to understand itself, what we must understand is that the universe, while bound by its own laws, appears to be one massive, ever-changing equation running through a seemingly infinite number of outcomes at all times whilst still remaining absolute and without remainders. Even if one is to believe that there is a god, I come to the same conclusion for the inclusion of what could be described as "divine chaos" due to the observable nature of our surroundings i.e. Birth-death ratios, the cyclical and chaotic rules of nature, the nature of opinion and belief, murder, war, and for all intents and purposes, the fucking Atom Bomb! There can be no perfect, functional system with just these basic observations of our surroundings considered if that system is constructed of an immovable material. 

This leads me back to the beginning here, the great pyramid of straight white male supremacy. It's the same pyramid who's legacy can be found within rape culture, racist ideology, hetero-centric media and programming, conversion therapy centers, orthodox religious institutions, the work force, the world bank and beyond. This all seeing eye of scrutiny and oppression has extended it's gaze across the globe. The one thing that very few people seem to identify in this discussion is the excruciating psychological duress within the people responsible for these social, psychic and sexual atrocities. 

Cis, white men have long benefitted from building their place at the top financially, socially, sexually and legally but...not mentally. To uphold the standards necessary to apply to and carry out a life at the top requires a great deal of personal sacrifice but not in the way that is often mentioned i.e. time, money, blood, sweat or tears. Cis, white, heterosexual men built themselves a throne room deep in the rank corridors of a psychological fucking prison and, as an expression of their self oppression and rigid rule making, they've included us in their program; it's the only way that any of it will work. What we struggle to see is their struggle, their self loathing or their fear. Why can't we see it? In order to maintain such an unrealistic standard on both themselves and the world around them, they have to isolate their own identity, shrouding, denying or rebuking any thought that doesn't align directly with what I consider to be their "prime directive", that is, until something that directly challenges their stature is thrown right in their fucking faces like say, a Black Lives Matter protest, a woman "denying them" sex or taking up a position of power.

Say I, a queer male, brush up on one of these men at a bar, maybe my hand brushes their dick through their pants, maybe I even make eye contact afterwards; it is in this moment that the fear comes rushing in. Say that one of these men is fired from his job by a woman. The emasculation, the humility and the shame are able to destroy their fabricated and poorly reinforced sense of superiority. This isn't just white fragility, this is male fragility. This is what happens when you create a system that defines your superiority based on how many rules you can follow. These rules are to be followed from the moment you open your eyes until the moment that you are asleep. These rules even apply in your dreams. Heaven forbid you dream of something gay. What will all your straight friends think? What names will they call you? Will you still be a part of the pack if they find out? What if you slept with another man? Would it matter if he just sucked you off? What if no one finds out? In cases like these you can see just how shaky these foundations really are. 

One of the many benefits of growing up queer and gender fluid in America is the opportunity I've had to objectively observe just how precariously built the bridge of masculinity really is. A simple unexpected gust of wind and the bridge falls to pieces. We've all seen it on the news, "man shoots boss", "man rapes ex girlfriend", "man kills wife" etc. We are a nation of men on the brink of snapping. The magnitude of this influenced is so densely built in to the fabric of male expectation that it can even be seen permeating oppressed male communities. I know that in my time around the gay circuit, it certainly was no stranger to misogyny, gender stereotypes or a false sense of superiority. 

This brings me to my next point, Trump. I'm not interested in focusing too heavily on politics here but, allow me to reference a current event as an example. We just saw one of the finest examples of my talking points above take office. The entire election process, if you were able to reach beyond your echo chamber, showed us just how fragile and terrified the average heterosexual, white male truly is. They grouped together by the millions in defense of the political equivalent to Spam. A man who's history is not only easy to find but reprehensible, but few cared to look. Why? Was it because they felt their only other option was a woman? Was it because Bernie Sanders was too "soft"? Was it because Trump is the current embodiment of everything the average white man in America grew up to believe was masculine or successful? Was it the allure of a man living in his gold lain tower, lording over his beautiful, ex-model wife? I may not have the answer to these questions but I do have an observation. In this election one thing became abundantly clear to me: the patriarchy IS dying. We may see it's followers become leaders for the next 50 years but I can tell you, on a ground level, the ideologies of "days past" cannot withstand the storm of information and experimentation that we are receiving and engaging in. I implore you, if for no other reason than to attempt to prove me wrong, look deep inside yourselves in the coming 4 years boys, the relief from your suffering and, in turn, the suffering of millions of others is within you. Remember, we ARE the universe attempting to observe itself. We owe it our lives to discover the true nature of our existence on this planet, in this solar system, in the deep, potentially infinite void of space. 

You are more than the social cues and traditional responses that you have been conditioned to believe since birth. Face your fears and break the glass. It will only hurt for a second.

[gabrieldroberts]

NEED TO DELVE INTO

We were all thrown off by the November 8 election. Coming out of the fog, the cut ups created are reflective of my state of mind / the state of the world:

need to delve into

in redacted media culture people by reflections and opposed by solitary martyrs. More information will not save us from it, context and the body in action will. Mine is a corporeal witchcraft. It is the shadow's fluidity alive tries to illuminate, clarify and describe refusal to adhere to the experimented boundaries, that brings our achieve long-term relevance to individuals to the occulted nature of being and what it means to be human. Ultimately I propose creating a liberal breach, as the shadow is the realm of the fascial web its genetrix erotic, and eros triumphs over thanatos. The calligraphic shadow us supposed to ing. Poets

II

esoteric art world recently, it b In it goes in and out it comes for the first time - oral, anal and Art exhibition opened at A condition has long been known and described which occurs by the illustrious of thinking, after severe mechanical concussions, railway disasters and other accidents involving a risk to life; it has been given the name of 'traumatic neurosis'. The terrible war which has just ended gave rise to a great number of illnesses of this kind, but it at least put an end to the temptation voices were telling er usually called a "plastic" one, to organic lesions of the by mechanical force. The smasher. Another... by traumatic neurosis approaches that of hysteria in the wealth of fitting form, the exhibition spans its similar motor symptoms, but surpasses it as a rule in its from the early days of the Temple strongly marked signs of subjective ailment (in which it re- work created by The sleeping, resting, waiting sembles hypochondria or melancholia) as well as in the evidence it gives of a far more comprehensive general enfeeblement and carpet from Kathmandu lies beside swim, immerse

wondered if she was alive at all or just a collective projection stemming from the lurid desires of Sphinx of Tindertime those shady characters present. Me and culture. Initially, art was tied else, it seemed. By the door was a mirror. When looking at my reflection, I saw the image of the same Mental identification: from th seen sitting beside me. It was definitely time to go home. successful the ages of six month and two y Outside the establishment in question, a fair, fine and cold day was about to dawn. I inhaled, exhaled, inhaled the crisp, cold air. I was sober and clear again. For the moment, I thought to myself where I work and smiled. For the moment. outbreak Lying on her left side, alone in the darkness and silence, hot beneath her two layers of fur, of necessity motionless, O tried position we might be, to figure out why there was so much sweetness mingled with occupy both (and all) organises them into provocative the terror in her, or why her terror seemed itself so sweet. She realized the one of the things that most distressed her the atmosphere was heavily affirm, without prejudice to fact that she had been deprived of the use of her hands; not that her hands could have defended her (and did she really he continued. want to defend herself?), but had they been free they would at least have made the gesture, have made an attempt to repel the Surrealism vs Dada hands which seized her, the flesh which pierced her, to protect her loins from the whip to make way way from her; her body beneath. How the divine spark of in strange it was not to be which opposes the work of many days of hollow of one's own belly. The lips between her legs, her burning lips were forbidden her, and perhaps they were burning because she knew they were open to the first comer: to the valet Pierre, if he cared to enter. She was surprised that the whipping she had received had left her so untroubled, so calm, whereas the thought that she would probably never know

Where and who will you be

When I eventually cut the cord

Give it some thought

[gabrieldroberts]

3 Lessons I Learned Coming Face To Face With Refugees

"We are being treated like animals. All we ask is that we are treated at least like household pets. We deserve a chance." - Khaled (A refugee living in a squat in Athens)

Last year I made a concerted effort to turn my desire to change the world for the better into action. For me, as a multimedia artist, showing the reality of the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe has become a top priority. I chose this story because it reflects back upon us, questioning our ideal ethics vs. our actions as western nations. I chose it because, by traveling to Europe and seeing with my own eyes what is happening, I could confirm whether or not we could trust the narrative that CNN, NBC, ABC and FOX was giving us. The truth is so far from what you read hear and see that there is no use in even watching a moment of this. If you really want the truth, it's ugly, complex and rarer than gold. Through great personal pain and sacrifice I've brought back some unvarnished truth.

We are told that refugees are infiltrating Europe and many conservative voices say that this is so that they can enact Sharia law. The reality is that people 's families and homes are being literally blown to pieces, women and children are being stolen and sold into prostitution, men are forced to live in squats by the hundreds because there is no way forward and no way back. These things I HAVE SEEN WITH MY OWN EYES. This is the story I'm bringing to you in REFUGE.

We were all in and personally invested and now we had to call in every favor we knew, run every credit card to stay the course. We have survived in Europe this way for the last two months and have amassed over 30 interviews shot in cinematic 4K in 15 different European countries and are still gathering more right now.

We've gone hungry, we've been without help, or shelter, we've even been fed by the refugees themselves when we didn't have anywhere else to go, but this has brought us closer to that feeling of desperation, of want, of rejection and destitution. This has help us shed our privilege and hubris as Americans, 1st world citizens and men. We have been humbled.

 WHAT I’VE LEARNED

THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS IS A HUMAN CRISIS

When this all began, I had a head full of ideas about how things were, but I’ve found that the biggest reality is the most obvious and most overlooked; this is a human crisis.  I had been looking at the crisis in terms of how it affects Europe, but it is Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey that bears a much larger burden of new population than Europe.  Think about it for a second, the news tells us there is a crisis in Europe, but makes little to no mention of the crisis in the middle east.  Why?  Because we don’t actually care what happens in the middle east.  Americans and Europeans have been accustomed to hearing about violence in the middle east for endless decades.  To the western mind, there is a continual crisis.  My friend, Khaled says, “The middle east is on fire and with terrorists you don’t hear about in the news and we are trying to get away from these people.”

I realized that the word ‘refugee’ is like ‘immigrant’, or ‘nomad’; it’s a kind of soft-core dehumanization.  By using these words, people are reduced to subhuman status.  I had done this on autopilot.  Replace refugee with human; what will you do with a human crisis?  Are your ideologies the same?  Do we “shoot at their boats” like a recent Danish PM suggested?  My friend, Hassan, when confronted with this question said, “I am the same as you!  I have eyes, I have skin, I like to drink with my friends, I can dance and sing!  I am human just like you!”

Something as simple as this has changed the way I see my own words.  Words can lubricate the machinery of violence and our obtuse flailing of words continues to make it easy to inadvertently dehumanize.

2.  GOVERNMENTS ARE HURTING, NOT HELPING

I visited a community center in Copenhagen where they are providing childcare services, language classes and many other basic provisions.  When I asked the director what the government was doing about the refugees in their nation, he told me, “They are doing the very worst that they can to take it to the edge of human rights violations.  They are keeping them away from the population and hoping that they can keep them in these camps until the war goes away.  The problem is that we know statistically that refugees stay an average of 12 years in their host country and many of them simply stay after that long time.”  It was clear to me that the governments are putting bandaids on severed limbs.  Their solutions are for the most part temporary.

When I was in Paris, I visited a beautiful new center intended for refugees, but a closer look revealed that the center was mostly for show.  It could not house any meaningful amount of refugees.  What instead has been happening is cops roaming the streets at night beating up refugees and forcing them to move from one place to another all through the cold night.  Hundreds of children are on the street in Paris.  It was a total dump and a humanitarian nightmare.  This all comes from the policy of making them uncomfortable so that they will eventually leave.  The French destruction of Calais exemplified this failed policy, which drove refugees in large numbers into Paris itself.  But on the surface, the pretty new camp serves as a photo op for France to brandish while it too does “the very worst that they can to take it to the edge of human rights violations.”

Instead, it is the people of the nations of Europe that are helping, those who are actually being fought by cops and suppressed by the governments while trying to help.  In Berlin, Dirk, a long time social justice activist told us, “The Nazis and the government both put pressure on me from both sides because I am helping refugees of all kinds in ways they don't like.  There are many refugees more than just Syrian, but only the Syrians get help while many others are less popular.”  We discovered that Germany is sending away a number of refugees while accepting new Syrian ones.  While many refugees benefit from what Germany has done, an equal portion are left out in the cold.

3. IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO WATCH THE WORLD BURN

There is a deep feeling of helplessness that became even more present as I traveled Europe and especially when I made it to Athens; this feeling that there is so much work to be done.  As an avid user of social media, I know that many people care and have opinions, but I know of very few who are doing a single thing to help anyone, anywhere.  It has become clear to me that I need to rid myself of these kinds of people in my life, because people who only talk and don’t help are simply adding to the malaise of white noise.  Actions speak louder than words.  Right now, men sleep in squats, women sleep with their children on the streets of Paris, blankets are needed, volunteers are needed, food and money and shelter are needed.

For me, it is clear that this film is the first in many things I will do in my life, but it is an important step in committing to always having some kind of tangible action in my life.  It gives my voice power and it silences those who do nothing and want to remain inert while the world burns.  There is no savior, but we who collectively make change from the inside out.  For me, this film is my first direct action and I invite you to join me in raising awareness about what is going on here

If you wish to help us complete our film, here are the steps you can take:

1. CONTRIBUTE TO OUR FILM FUND. Before a penny of post production work can be done, we must recoup the 6K we've spent out of pocket in the last two months in order to stay in Europe and complete the film despite all setbacks. The remaining budget goes to pay for post production costs in audio, color correction, overdubs, translation and subtitles, legal and finalization. You may join the 36 other contributors already standing with us and receive all kinds of perks for your help, including film credits and other rewards. REFUGE CROWD FUND

2. SPREAD THE WORD. This is especially important in the next eight days while our crowd fund is going. This isn't an action film, it's a reality check. It's important to refugees who know the truth is not being told. They have told us they want this story to be heard far and wide. By sending a personal email to people you know who care, you can greatly increase our chance of success in completing this film on time and making a real difference.

3. LIKE THE FACEBOOK REFUGE PAGE. Click here and click LIKE. This way you will stay tuned. 

[gabrieldroberts]

TO SEE THE WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND: A SHORT GUIDE TO EVERYTHING MDMA

via psychologic-anarchist.com

The designer drug MDMA has caught a lot of flak from mainstream media over the years. Journalists, politicians, and other antediluvian types have failed to understand it, and have neglected researching it beyond biased governmental sources.

This intellectual dishonesty, of course, has led to the mass spread of myths and disinformation. But contrary to the rampant lie-mongering, the drug has been a godsend for people suffering from a variety of problems, especially latent traumas.

 But why has it been so useful?

MDMA behaves like a periscope turned inward toward the soul. It allows individuals to deeply introspect and examine their lives. For this reason, when the drug was first introduced to psychotherapy during the 60’s and 70’s, it was the therapeutic tool par excellence in couples counseling.

Psychotherapist Claudio Naranjo even wrote a insightful, albeit obscure book about his clinical experiences with the compound. The book is called The Healing Journey. It is recommended for anyone interested in how MDMA was used in a therapy. Naranjo implied that the drug was a communication and empathy enhancer. It inspired quarreling couples to solve their interpersonal problems without fear and with ample love in their hearts.

MDMA Psychotherapy Goes Underground, but Returns

However, not long after Nixon initiated the war on drugs, MDMA psychotherapy went underground or vanished entirely, removing one of psychology’s greatest boons from clinical use. Just over the last decade the drug has finally started to regain popularity in psychological and medical circles.

Today, researchers use it again to help “PTSD” populations overcome flashbacks and night terrors. The results have been positive thus far. Clinicians have found that it helps trauma survivors face and accept what they have been through and learn to cope with issues. MAPS, or the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, is one of the few organizations that has conducted this kind of legal research. They have plans to make MDMA a prescription medication by 2021.

As an aside, the compound should be completely legal anyway. People should be able to use it of their own volition. It is too therapeutic and useful to pretend that government’s know what’s best for everyone and who needs it the most. Individuals should have free reign to augment their psychology without coercion or interference.

Still, it would not hurt anyone to have knowledge about what they put in their body.

To See the World in a Grain of Sand

MDMA is fascinating because it invokes a powerful psychoactive experience, characterized by intense feelings of bliss, euphoria, wonderment, awe of nature, and love.

In the brain, the chemical triggers a massive serotonin “dump,” which is said to cause the altered state of consciousness it brings forth. However, some researchers believe the serotonin dump may also cause a cascade of other effects, including release of oxytocin and other neurochemicals. For more information on MDMA pharmacology please see this Erowid article: https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_info7.shtml

Some researchers have referred to MDMA as an “entactogen” and “empathogen.” The latter means it enhances sensual and tactile pleasures, and the former means it induces intense empathy, like Naranjo suggested. It is the combined effect of these pharmacological features that make it such a powerful agent. The experience it creates is so profound that it has been compared to a poem William Blake wrote called The Auguries of Innocence. The poem starts like this:

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.”

An MDMA.net article summed up what the poem was getting at:

“As well as acting as a ‘gateway to the soul’, MDMA “opens up the heart”. Taking MDMA induces an amazing feeling of closeness and connectedness to one’s fellow human beings. MDMA triggers intense emotional release beyond the bounds of everyday experience. The drug also enhances the felt intensity of the senses—most exquisitely perhaps the sense of touch. The body-image looks and feels wonderful. Other people look and feel wonderful too. Minutes after dropping a pill, a lifetime of Judaeo-Christian guilt, shame or disgust at the flesh melt away to oblivion.”

Anyone who has experienced the drug or witnessed people on it, will instantly understand the aforesaid experiential description. What is truly fascinating is how people interact and behave on the compound.

MDMA Behavior, and Quantum Personality Changes

People on MDMA can be seen holding each other tightly, kissing, touching, caressing, petting, talking deeply and incessantly about their shared love, and calling each other beautiful. Their eyes may be “rolling” and they might be grinding their teeth, which is a side effect of the amphetamine aspect of the drug.

To outsiders, people on MDMA might appear “drunk” but also improperly happy. They might think the people on it are crazy or strange. It might cause those unfamiliar with the compound’s effects to be fearful and nervous about those who are on it.

This is ironic though, because someone who has taken ecstasy may have a stronger sense of their personal emotional content and more internal awareness. This fact goes to show how emotionally detached and out of touch modern people are; especially since they are not normally in an “ecstatic” and emotionally vulnerable state of mind. The drug is so intense that some people claim it has augmented their personality forever.

Psychologists refer to this experience as a “quantum personality change.” This is a kind of personality shift that happens as a result of insight or a spiritual epiphany. It is intense and immediate. Zen Buddhists call it satori, or the flash of insight. Close relatives of that person even recognize that his personality has changed drastically—most often for the better.

If any drug has the capacity to alter the psychological makeup of an individual, it would be MDMA—although the classical psychedelics like mushrooms and LSD can accomplish a similar personality alteration.

This is all great information, but an individual should also be aware of the possible dangers for consuming MDMA.

Possible Dangers of MDMA

As powerful as the drug is, it may not be completely safe. At high dosage levels it can cause neurotoxicity, which means the brain or nervous system becomes damaged as a result of chemical ingestion.

An Erowid article elaborated on the neurotoxicity of MDMA:

“The acute toxic effects of MDMA are well documented by hundreds of case reports of adverse events in illicit users. Considering how many people use MDMA, serious acute adverse events seem rare. MDMA appears generally similar to psychostimulants such as methamphetamine with respect to the risks of acute toxicity. With trained personnel, properly screened volunteers, and established protocols for monitoring and treating adverse events, these acute risks appear modest and do not present a strong argument against carefully conducted clinical research with MDMA.”

There is also the chance that person who uses it could overheat and become dangerously dehydrated. Historically, MDMA has been associated with the club and RAVE scene because the compound is often tied together by amphetamine compounds, as stated—which gives people the stamina to dance all night long.

However, all the dancing and edginess caused by the speedy effects, can intensify a person’s desire to drink water. But because of the psychoactive effects, sometimes they forget to drink and their bodies overheat. In worst case scenarios, death can occur from heat stroke.

Needless to say, everyone should do adequate research on any drug before deciding to partake. There are other possible consequences for using this compound, especially since its synthetic, but so far there does not seem to be any negative long term effects, so long as it is used in moderation. If taken with caution, a person could free themselves from the stranglehold of modern culture and experience the quantum personalty change.

Curing Drug Schizophrenia, Toward an MDMA Culture

But before people are freed from culture and acknowledging MDMA’s power, its taboo nature must be eradicated from people’s minds. This cannot happen through legislation or abolition of government alone, though. It must occur from people living spontaneously and embracing the MDMA experience. It must happen through people displaying their emotionally sensitive side, which is germane to problems of our time.

So long as people continue to feel uneasy about altered states of consciousness and being sensitive and emotive, MDMA will not be a culturally accepted compound, even if it gained a socially “legal” status and was totally adopted in psychotherapy settings. This would likewise prevent people from wanting to broaden their horizons or change their personality. In order to bust all the myths and hysteria surrounding designer drugs, people must be cured of their drug schizophrenia.

Currently, people only believe in the efficacy of tranquilizers, downers, sedatives, opiates, crawlers, and the host of psychiatric snake oils to “cure” them. But they do not seem to want to live, to be, to feel, and absorb all the vicissitudes of life. This is tragic because MDMA invokes the opposite of the modern social plague. It promotes fully being, youthful exuberance, awareness, felt presence of existence, and unbridled humanness. It is the drug for the enlightened and awakened, for the crowd who have escaped the coma culture in the hope of building something new and powerful—an MDMA culture.

“The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns.  If artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.”

-Terence McKenna

 To see original post, click here.

[gabrieldroberts]

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents Juxtapoz x Superflat

via e-flux.com

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents Juxtapoz x Superflat, a dynamic exhibition conceived by the renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and co-curated with Evan Pricco, Editor-in-Chief of Juxtapoz Art & Culture, a legendary San Francisco-based magazine committed to contemporary art, design, fashion and graffiti. Featuring the work of 36 artists from Japan, Korea, China, Canada, the United States and Europe, this exhibition opens at the Vancouver Art Gallery on November 5, 2016 and runs until February 5, 2017.

Juxtapoz x Superflat is a manifesto for new creative practices that can no longer be adequately described by the traditional categories of art and modes of production. Takashi Murakami and Evan Pricco conceived the exhibition as a survey of the most exciting visual art to emerge in recent years, with a heavy emphasis on artists who operate outside of the central hubs of the global art world. Expanding upon Murakami and Juxtapoz magazine’s interest in flattening high and low cultures, this exhibition includes work by artists whose practice has been shaped by a variety of sub-cultures including skate, surf, graffiti, street art, comics, design, illustration, painting, digital and traditional arts.

 “We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it.” With these words, written in 2001, Takashi Murakami famously declared that the future of Japanese art was “superflat." For Murakami the idea of “superflat” meant many things—a recognition of the formal qualities of contemporary design, anime and manga; the fundamental importance of sub-cultures in the conception of contemporary art; the persistent presence of a banal and superficial consumer culture; a flattening of traditional hierarchies; and a reconfiguration of the edges and boundaries that have traditionally shaped meaning in contemporary cultural production.

“Over the past 22 years, Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine has documented the creative life through underground art and street culture,” remarks Evan Pricco. “In recent years, with the increasing popularity of contemporary art, Juxtapoz has become the staple for accessible communication of emerging art forms, contemporary art, design, fashion and graffiti. The magazine's focus is a literal flattening of high and low cultures. In discussions with Takashi Murakami, Juxtapoz has curated a selection of artists covered in the magazine over the past two decades that encompass both growth and expansion in the sub-cultures they emerged from: skate, surf, graffiti, street art, comics, design, illustration, painting and digital and traditional arts.”

Juxtapoz x Superflat includes work by Nina Chanel Abney, Chiho Aoshima, Urs Fischer, GATS, Kim Jung Gi, Kazunori Hamana, Trenton Doyle Hancock, John Hathway, Todd James, James Jean, Friedrich Kunath, Austin Lee, MADSAKI, Geoff McFetridge, Christian Rex van Minnen, Rebecca Morgan, Takashi Murakami, Kazumi Nakamura, Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor, Otani Workshop, Paco Pomet, Parra, Erin M. Riley, Mark Ryden, David Shrigley, Lucy Sparrow, Devin Troy Strother, Swoon, Katsuya Terada, Toilet Paper Magazine, Yuji Ueda, Yuji Ueno, Sage Vaughn, Ben Venom, He Xiangyu and Zoer & Velvet.

To see entire article, click here.

[gabrieldroberts]

Someone Accessed Silk Road Operator’s Account While Ross Ulbricht Was in Jail

via motherboard.vice.com

Attorneys for Ross Ulbricht, the man convicted of running the Silk Road online drug marketplace under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts” say they’ve discovered evidence that someone logged into the Dread Pirate Roberts account on the Silk Road forums six weeks after Ulbricht was arrested. Ulbricht was in federal custody at the time.

If this piece of evidence is authentic, the logical conclusion is that someone else had access to the account that was said to belong to the mastermind of the massive Dark Web drug bazaar. Given the login occurred after the principal arrest in the Silk Road investigation, it may also indicate that whoever did it was someone with a law enforcement background, had access to the investigation, or was “another” Dread Pirate Roberts.

Ulbricht is serving a life sentence for his role in operating the dark web marketplace. Earlier this week, Ulbricht’s defense attorney Joshua Dratel filed a letter with the US attorney’s office in Maryland, where Ulbricht still has a case pending, alleging that the defense team had found separate evidence of another corrupt law enforcement official involved in the Silk Road investigation (two law enforcement agents, a Drug Enforcement Agent and Secret Service agent “broke bad” and were previously convicted for various crimes, including attempting to steal Bitcoin evidence during the investigation).

"We don’t know when that person or persons originally gained access, or how many times they logged into Silk Road as DPR. We don’t know how many DPRs there were."

The bulk of Dratel’s letter says that a still-unknown government official sold information about the investigation to Dread Pirate Roberts and later deleted evidence of the arrangement. But the letter—portions of which have been described to Motherboard, but which has not been released publicly—also notes that an unknown person logged into the Dread Pirate Roberts account after it’s supposed owner was taken into custody.

Ulbricht was arrested on October 2, 2013. The Silk Road marketplace was taken down that same day, but the forums stayed up until November 22. His attorneys say that someone logged into the DPR account on the forum November 18.

These new details were uncovered by forensic analysts who studied backups of the Silk Road forums that were entered as evidence by the government during Ulbricht’s first trial. Ulbricht’s attorneys Dratel and Lindsay Lewis say that government tampering calls into question the evidence used to convict Ulbricht.

“The importance of the access issue is amplified by the fact that the timestamp for the last log-in by DPR on the SR Forum is November 18, 2013—a full six weeks after Mr. Ulbricht’s arrest,” Lewis told me in an emailed statement. “Thus, obviously someone other than Mr. Ulbricht was continuing to log in to SR as DPR.”

Lewis said this piece of evidence wasn’t brought up during a press conference earlier this week because the defense was “focused more on the evidence of tampering. Obviously, this is a significant bit as well.”

That there could be more than one person using the Dread Pirate Roberts account has been a popular theory among people who have paid close attention to the Silk Road case. At trial, Dratel said Ulbricht was framed by the “real” DPR.

Dratel and Lewis would not provide additional information about their findings; the letter sent to the US attorney in Maryland is aimed at pushing prosecutors there to open a discovery process that will presumably make more specifics about the evidence public.

It’s unknown whether other Silk Road administrators had the username and password for the DPR account, whether there actually were other “real” DPRs, or whether government officials were somehow able to get the DPR login credentials.

“They had access only to Ross’s laptop,” Lewis told me. “I don’t think they had access to the login credentials.”

At a press conference in Manhattan Tuesday, Dratel said the new evidence disclosed this week wasn’t brought at trial in New York because his team didn’t have enough time to fully analyze the data the government presented.

“We got six terabytes of information, and they were was no real way we could review all of that data in the time period allowed before trial,” he said.

Ross’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, said the new discoveries further call into question the evidence used to put her son away.

“There is a record in the database for every account, showing the most recent log-in. We don’t know when that person or persons originally gained access, or how many times they logged into Silk Road as DPR. We don’t know how many DPRs there were,” Lyn Ulbricht told me in an email. “It's the nature of digital evidence that it's easily changed, planted or deleted without a trace. That my son—or anyone—would get a life sentence without parole based on vulnerable digital evidence, especially when it's been corrupted, is a travesty of justice.”

See original post here.

[gabrieldroberts]

Exploring the Bay Area’s Hidden Tunnel Art

via kqed.org

 In the East Bay, hidden in thick trees and brush, lies a portal to another world. It’s down below the streets in a creek bed, where the mouth of a storm sewer opens up like a cavern. Inside, crawdads scuttle in ankle-deep pools, and ominous booming sounds echo throughout the vaulted interior.

A menagerie of fantastic paintings cover almost every inch of wall inside the half-mile tunnel that runs underground. Scott Finsthwait, the unofficial curator of the constantly evolving exhibit, walks the subterranean gallery regularly.

“This place is like a museum to me,” said the 45-year-old Finsthwait, an artist and photographer based in San Francisco, who is on a trek for the best street art. He declines to give up the exact location as the artists prefer that these tunnels remain a secret to the general public, to help ensure that their work is not painted over.

“This is sacred ground for street artists,” he said.

Increasingly, Finsthwait said as he walked along the tunnel, the best street art is found in out-of-the-way places like Orinda or Fairfax. His self-appointed role has been to find the best work and share it with the world; his photos feature street art pieces surrounded by fantastic streaks of light, like neon apparitions.

The tunnel Finsthwait explores on this Monday afternoon is pitch black. He turns a flashlight on and casts it across the paintings in the tunnel to see what has changed.

To see entire article and additional photos, click either here, or here.

[gabrieldroberts]

We need Outlaw Art now more than ever before

Fourth in my “Outlaw” anthology series, which includes volumes on poetry, literature and essays, the “Outlaw Bible of American Art”  contains a generous and even disproportionate number of visual artists from the Lower East Side, the East Village and the West Village, proving once more that the Village has been and continues to be the epicenter of underground art in America.

But just as significantly, the book offers a radical new take on the history of American art. It is an alternative canon — a roll call of often overlooked and forgotten creators — and an antidote to the soulless vacuousness of Andy Warhol, the vapid commercialism of a John Currin.

It is, too, a course correction to the corporate commodification and self-betrayals of the co-opted underground itself, in which, say, a skateboarding wheatpaster like Shepard Fairey willingly courts his own commercial appropriation in order to become a designer brand.

Outlaw art cannot be commodified. Its refusal is too vehement, its esthetic terms too volatile. Artists like Boris Lurie, a Buchenwald survivor who launched the NO!art movement, orDavid Wojnarowicz who battled on the front lines of ACT UP!, or Annie Sprinkle, who made her body the Bunker Hill of a sexual revolution, orClayton Patterson, who weathered repeated incarceration over the Tompkins Square Riots to defend the Truth, or Ana Mendieta or Sue Coe or Joe Coleman or Thomas Nozkowski, could and will not be soiled because their art is stamped with refusal and freedom, a rejection of limits and embrace of possibility that strike me as succinctly Outlaw.

Sonia Gechtoff was largely overlooked by the mainstream narrative of Abstract Expressionism, in no small part because it was, principally, a boys’ club. One of the first to reside in Westbeth, the West Village artists’ community, she lived next door to Diane Arbus and was the last to see Arbus alive before her tragic suicide. Today, Getchoff has begun to receive the acclaim she has long deserved, as a pioneering woman Abstract Expressionist.

“Portrait of Carl Panzram” (1993), by Joe Coleman, collection of Iggy Pop. Now legend among artists of the East Village, Joe Coleman is known for his explosive art performances, as well as paintings that have gained him a place in the firmament of art history. He occupies a place apart and alone, singular, a kind of dark, macabre chronicler of the depths of human depravity, part Mark Twain, part Hieronymus Bosch.

While fully aware of the tradition of mainstream art, their art flies in the face of conformity, to express the inexpressible, articulate the unacceptable, or voice the outrage that lies buried deep within the soul under the conditions of modern life. Outlaw artists are, as Sartre said of Baudelaire: “Not revolutionaries but men [and women] in revolt.”

Why art? And why do I call it “Outlaw”?

My mother, a Holocaust survivor, imparted to me the sense that civilization is not to be trusted; that beneath the surface of seemingly normal existence dwell monsters awaiting their turn. Those whom she saw most willing to defy those monsters were oftenoutlaws — armed partisans, Communists, artists, Zionists, renegade priests, even criminals. One thinks of Samuel Beckett, who served in the French resistance during the war, or Albert Camus, who edited the underground newspaper Combat.

Today, new monsters walk our earth from Trump to Putin and Kim Jong-un. In this strange, hostile world, language is subordinated to digital pyrotechnics. A disaffected population walks facedown in their iPhone screens.

Images, to be meaningful to them, must have the depth of language, the power of “War and Peace.”

In the work of Outlaw artists there is that and more. And though some of these works are probably 50 years old, they still seem freshly avant-garde, works produced in drafty cold-water lofts by artists grappling not just with art but with existence itself. Corrupting art world success has not ruined such efforts. It’s all there still and will be forever: the struggle to be alive, the quest for deeper meaning, the fury and sublime inspiration of the Outlaw Artist.

“The Outlaw Bible of American Art” (Last Gasp), 688 pages, color and black-and-white images throughout, $39.95. Kaufman’s other books include “Drunken Angel” and “The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.”

To see article in its entirety, additional photos and links, click here.

via thevillager.com

[gabrieldroberts]

NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: LOOKING BACK AT STREET ART'S PEAK IN "ELEVEN SPRING"

via papermag.com

Street art has always been transgressive, with underground artists marrying beauty with the power of illegal actions--art that went hand in hand with the very real danger of arrest. Now street art and graffiti have transitioned into a mainstream genre, and art on walls is as likely to be an ad coopting that power as an actual guerilla artwork.

Eleven Spring: A Celebration of Street Art, out this week, celebrates a pivotal moment in that change. It's the tenth anniversary of a massive, five-floor collaboration that brought together street artists from around the world to take over the building at the titular address in Soho. The contributors, including Shepard Fairey, Swoon, JR, Faile, and more, are a laundry list of the '00s era heavyweights--many of whom have gone on to have successful careers inside the traditional art world. We spoke with Sara Schiller, co-founder of website Wooster Collective and co-author with husband Marc, about the importance of the Eleven Spring show, the need for illegality in street art, and how New York has lost its edge.

What was the importance, looking back over ten years, of the Eleven Spring show in bringing street art to the general population and art world?

I think the importance of the show itself is that it happened at a really pivotal moment in street art where it was still more of an underground thing. It hadn't really entered the mainstream, brands hadn't co-opted it, etc. The Wooster Collective blog was this intersection of street artists from around the world. We were putting up art from all over the world, people were having a dialogue, and this building almost became the physical symbol of that. And what happened afterwards—and some people would say that perhaps Wooster Collective and the show helped this happen—is street art became much more mainstream. Gentrification is sort of always happening, cities are always evolving and changing. Soho had been such a hub for art, and this building in particular had been a living outside gallery for over a decade. As we saw that starting to change, both from the forces of property owners wanting to keep their buildings more pristine and a very active vandalism squad that was fueled to crack down on artists, a lot of those artists began to move out of the neighborhood and put their work up in other cities. Because New York had lost its edge, and it moved on to Berlin and Barcelona.

To see additional photos and interview in its entirety, click here.