"True Skin"

I am a great fan of style. Style will take you sometimes, to places that not even science can.

There is a tremendous short movie out called “True Skin,” written and directed by Stephan Zlotescu of N1ON Productions, an independent movie-maker that usually specializes in music videos. If you haven't seen it yet it's worth taking a look at.

"True Skin" - beautifully made sci-fi movie short.

Warner Inc. currently have the project in development as a full length feature and one never knows where they'll eventually take the basic story idea, which is as derivative as it also is classical too in the category of sci-fi. On the one hand the whole film short is something like a re-visualisation of Blade Runner, but really, the value of the effort lies in the stylishness of the creative visualisation itself – which is distinctly different from what Blade Runner was.

For one thing there is a certain up-to-the-minute reality about “True Skin,” when it comes to the technology of augmented humans. And there is a real moral tale going there about the seeming spiritual tragedies of 'mere' natural humans when they cannot overcome economic dire straits.

The emotionless expression on the face of the main character hides many conflicting and deep-as-the abyss feelings, and, as someone who has a level 3 (worst kind there is) autistic son, there is a perspective that I have about the ideas in the movie short that we have been able to see thus far: with the amazing computer-device interfaced capabilities of autistic people, it seems to me that autism is almost some kind of advancement that has exploded across the modern world exactly at the same time that highly portable, very advanced digital systems that augment the basic human sense channels and increase the rates and pathways and simultaneous access to data and sensory input.

Also look at the Daft Punk music clip of 'Digital Love'

I know that my son has amazingly deep emotions for a seven year old, much more mature and perceptive and balanced than you would ever suspect a seven year old should be able to intellectually process – but he can. Yet, if you go simply by the facial demeanour, you never could tell any of the signs of these things. All the same, it's almost as if these people (autistic people) quickly come to the conclusion that most 'normal' people are emotionally dumb, emotionally disabled if you like, and they refrain from even trying to communicate with people whose emotional sensitivities are simplistic...

There is a sadness on the face of the lead character in the movie short; at least it seems that way to me.

A sad, tragic future for humans?

I asked my son after watching the film what he thought the character was feeling at the scene toward the end (where I thought he was tremendously sad), and he said, 'he's paralysed by the uncertainty of limitless joy.'

Can you see the future, my friends? It doesn't have the people we have been used to, in it.

"Only Until Midnight..."

“Only until midnight...” This is what the fairy tells Ella in the classical tale.

This year, Universal is having 'its people' work on a screenplay development of 'Cinderella,' and Ann Peacock, screenwriter of Narnia fame, has the job of 're-imagining' – as they say about these kinds of things – the story for whoever Universal's marketing consigliere has deemed today's audience is, or is going to be.

Modern Cinderella's coach

I will be going to watch the eventual movie whenever it finally comes out, but mainly for the work of who in my own opinion is today's greatest living cinematographer – Bruno Aveillan.

Aveillan has 'only' ever in the past worked on commercial shorts for huge global brands: Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Swarovski, Guerlain, among a long long list of film adverts credited to him. Aveillan is from Toulouse and mainly works in France, although his professional reputation extends all over the world. He has not previously made a full length movie, much less a mainstream worldwide release feature film.



Bruno Aveillan

What the 're-imagining' of Cinderella is going to mean I have no idea but if I were a writer, the very last thing I would want to do, not for any amount of money on offer, is have to submit my mind to the drivel which appears to be the main entertainment fare of today's mass audience. Creating, imagining, fantasizing, do not seem naturally fit to the task of conservatism, mediocritization, and propaganda designed to keep the masses as idiotic as they are, and relieve them of any desire to improve themselves or their lot in life. It's a wonder Universal don't just get some radical Mohammedan preacher to work on the screenplay, hand out the full body-and-face covering black gowns to ugly unknowns they won't have to pay as the female leads and otherwise will be able to treat as animals or at minimum second class humans, and stick the premier on in Benghazi as a repentance for past 'offenses.'

“Only until midnight,” says the fairy.

“But why only until then?” Asks Cinders.

I could end with a typical a la mode stock jocular if not, even slightly offensive retort to that question. You know the kind of remark: 'because you're a crossdressing gay boy' or something along those lines.

There is a real answer; a one true, real answer.

“That childhood fantasy endures only until midnight, because soon afterwards you will have grown up. That is the necessary overall effect of a Balenciaga gown and a new Rolls Royce and a bottle of G. H. Mumm. And a very different scene plays out with that lot after the main lights go out!”

Ann Peacock, let me assure you, will not be writing this kind of thing. It will all be very grandly filmed of course however, a real spectacle no doubt. And none will be the wiser about what really transpires with princes and glass-slippered dames beyond any fashionably blackly glittery midnight.

'Theory Of Mind?'

I do not subscribe to most of the ideas to be found in the Wikipedia entry on “Theory Of Mind” that attempt to explain what the human intelligent mind is.

As usual, the Wikipedia scientific folklore in question here starts off once again with some amazing words: “because the (mind) is not directly observable, this understanding is called a 'theory.'”

That is a rather silly assertion because there are numerous things in science and human intellectual endeavours that are in the abstract form as a set of rules or unchanging principles and are also not directly observable – but are far from being regarded as mere 'theory.' I think maths professors and all logicians might be inclined to agree with me on this. I would like to see some mathematicians apologizing that the intangible and unseen principles upon which all physical mathematical phenomena are based and some only observed in reality as quantum physical systems and structures – are merely theory.

The abstract principles and the rules themselves of logic are unable to be actually visually 'seen' outside of their actual practical physical examples, but they are not mere 'theories.'

Too many mediocre notions today are being passed off as 'knowledge' and 'knowns' and 'scientific understandings' with the consequence that real advancements are not being attained. Superficial observations are being promoted as 'high science.'

The self-reflectived person - in Balenciaga

The fallacy being presented quite assertively and confidently as strong 'scientific consensus' if not 'truth' exactly, comes about by the essayists being tricked by the attractively powerful truism that 'no one has direct access to the mind of another...' And that makes it seem as if a thing therefore cannot be known as a scientific fact.

Indeed, no one has direct access to the intangible principles behind all of observed mathematics or the rigorous and unchanging rules of Logic either – but that is far from a reason to call such things 'mere theories.'

There is a lot in modern philosophies of, and scientific discourse about, the mind, that indulges itself in semantics albeit with much strident assertion that such semantic statements are somehow to be taken as scientific knowledge. They are actually jargon emotionally loaded with a lot of professional territoriality.

And there is a lot of laziness and facile argument behind many of the modern approaches to knowledge. Yes, 'Mind' is a very complex thing to get a genuine focus on. But it doesn't make it impossible to come to terms with in a logically consistent and systematically reliable way.

Once you accept that the idea of 'Mind' has clear definitional fundamental rules for its being able to be described as 'Mind' at all, then you can certainly realize that such rules and definitional principles likely also have their 'geometrical' relationships, and their calculus, even their trigonometry and their dynamics. The basis for 'Mind' is mathematical. And there is a great deal of power to be had in comprehending the mathematical relationships behind how 'Mind' functions.

Awareness of the awareness of other people, is a presupposition to the often rhetorical question that is asked about politicial leaders, and leaders of the world of capital and banking: “Are they aware of what they are doing to people...?” And the real questions are more along the lines of “where is their focus since we know that they are aware, and if we know where their focus is we might understand why they are doing what they doing.”

Levels of awareness change depending on the foci of attention and the responses to immediate pressures from neurochemical sensations. Yet the presence of 'Mind' depends on the degree of abstract thinking genuinely available – that is, processing involving neurons not reacting to immediate sense stimuli but nevertheless linked to those stimuli – and the more distantly concertina'd outwards from the sensory stimulations, the more capable the individual is of truly determining their own actions over time.

My question is – are modern leaders genuinely capable of abstract thinking, or is this now the theoretical part; they once did have that capability, but now it is only a theoretical capability.

In theory new Chairman Yellen will slowly taper off... But in practice, not only will the immediate self-gratifications demanded by the banks by too forcefully pressing, but in fact, any immediate reaction to any new incident in the markets or in economies generally will demonstrate how little in control modern leaders really are. The western world has been getting away with the enduring momentum from the initial huge China market influence in the complete absence of coherent growth ideas. This only means that a single flaw in this model's behaviour will show up as a massive crisis to all market economies worldwide. Human beings, being what they are, will prompt those flaws into real present facts that will have to be faced, and coped with using the best of what human 'Mind' is capable of. Richard Dawkins believes in evolution; I believe in devolution. There are clearly rough times ahead. Very clearly.

Joy To The World

This Christmas is shaping like a good thing down here for a change. Nothing to do with Bernanke of course, and even less to do with the local dolts who have slid their way into the Federal government down here in Australia where the end of every year is always HOT.

Nope. Christmas is good here because I have always had a strong connection with the jolly old elf who lives in the North Pole. Now I'm sorry for all of those who can't pull strings like I have been able to all these years since I was a little kid... I saw this movie once when I was um, maybe four or five – Babes In Toyland it was called. An odd little movie, well not actually little really, it was in fact rather long as I recall now.

Ray Bolger - prototype NSA guy

Anyway, in the movie these children had stumbled upon a magical toy factory and discovered a kind of a ray gun that fired a red, as well as a green, ray. The red ray made you bigger, and the green one made you smaller.

The thing of it was, that all the excitement in the movie happened after the children made themselves very small and were able to go through a tiny door into some magical wonderland-type place or other, not that I recall its name or much of anything about it really, now. Um, maybe, Toyland I guess it was called!

What I did manage to learn from the parable was that 'you must enter through the narrow door...'

A red ray when its going fast, anyway

There are those types who tend to want to use 'the red ray...' And go through all the big doors. Take a look at for example this Kanye West fellow – he's what you call a classical sorcerer. He isn't so much a musician as a reverse chanter. I suggest that you don't try to copy him if you've a mind to do any kind of sorcery because you're liable to come to a good deal of harm, frankly. I mean to say, keep listening to his audio productions and you will soon discover that a state of clinical depression is not as organically-based a thing as some doctors care to believe.

Grren trees of Scandinavia - the larch

A huge expanded ego affects a lot of people and everyone can 'see you' and what you're doing. Going down the green ray path means however, not that many people ever get to see you and what you're doing or how you're going about doing it.

Yes I'm sure that if an elf or an NSA goblin happened to be watching me, they wouldn't learn a thing. Well, elves already know everything and the NSA is just plain too stupid to learn from my own use of the green ray.

Use the green ray and you get to play with the toys...

On Wealth, Now That It Is Christmas

Much of traditional, that is - contemporary - myth is stuff that is all a mix up of the real past. And there's not much any of us can do about that. People become very adamant in what they choose to believe regardless of any facts. Nicholas of Myra used a personal bodyguard called I think, the Varangian Guard – who were all Norsemen. The modern myth or legend, if you will, has a lot more to it than people nowadays recall of its actual basis. And although it is the tradition that Santa Claus gives away gifts, for odd reasons, a lot of the puritanical West has a huge problem with easy or gratuitous and gifted wealth and the private holding of it, and also with the people themselves, who possess wealth.

(Modern joyous tune for avant garde Santa)

Nicholas was horrendously wealthy – and I do mean fabulously wealthy. He threw gold coins into the window of some young girls and the coins fell into their stockings – but you know this story of course as it contains just a hint of sex, enough for the story to have endured the boredom of ancient repetitions of any folklore.

Avant garde, modern Christmas sled

Oh yes, personally indeed I do believe in Santa Claus. I can report very trustworthily to you that today's Santa Claus, sometimes goes about in a brand new Rolls or Bentley Mulsanne – you know, the one with the extra large bootspace – and he has accomplices who wear black silk stockings. He loves to drink the very best vodka – Snow Queen vodka. And he has magical powers. He has gifts for all good girls and boys everywhere. And very expensive gifts for the very best of them.

Very definitely there was a Nicholas of Myra. Today he is absorbed into the global idea of Santa Claus. Not my idea of Santa Claus, mind you, but the idea held by a large number of the public.

My own idea about Santa Claus is seriously more exotic and up-to-the-minute as far as fashion and technology is concerned. And you know what, my idea is more correct too, what's more; I have no difficulty convincing little children about it, especially when I have the car driven around for them.

By the way, I believe Mandela just died more or less on the anniversary of Nicholas of Myra's death. What d'you think the tradition about him will be a thousand years from today?