Doug Beube: Breaking the Codex

Intriguing. If I was asked to use one adjective to describe Doug Beube: Breaking the Codex, or Mr. Beube’s art, it would be intriguing. As an avid book lover and someone who truly believes that printed books are still necessary even in this electronic age, my first reaction to Mr. Beube’s art work was shock. Here was someone who was manipulating and destroying printed books and atlases as a form of art. This went against years of being taught to protect and safeguard books. Getting past this initial thought and remembering that art is always an expression of the artist, I began really examining the artwork in this book, the wonderful essays on the work, and the composition of the book itself, and I was intrigued.

Mr. Beube uses books as others use canvas, paint, clay, etc., and he does it beautifully. The piece “Feast” (1993-ongoing) is a wonderful example. In this piece, Mr. Beube has placed a Bible open to the Ecclesiastes scripture that states, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die…a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak…” in a bedside table. He then poured honey over the bible, filling up the entire drawer and covering the bible completely. This is an ongoing piece that is still on display. Over the years, dust, bugs, hair, and all other manner of things floating in the air came to settle in the honey, and the honey began to crystallize and harden. The close photos are unfortunately only from the beginning of the project, but it is noted that now the the book is obscured and unreadable. Essayist Betty Bright speaks to this piece, saying, ” In Beube’s treatment, the message is literally hardened, even corrupted, suggesting how easily comforting words of scripture can become rigid beliefs in the minds of religious extremists, who then invoke these same words to denounce others.” The ability of Mr. Beube to create something so complex with such powerful underlying meanings while using such simple and common items in his art is inspirational.

Maps, atlases–you use them to plan a trip, teach your child geography, and not a whole lot more. Where we see something for a basic purpose, Mr. Beube sees a way to create a political statement using art. In “Amendment” (2005), he cut the pages of an atlas into equal size strips and then added zippers to the end. The result is that now the viewer can change the entire political climate by moving country borders around attaching them in other places (such as moving a middle eastern country to be on a border with the United States…). With such an extensive ability to play with borders, this can spark conversation and debate for hours or days; not to mention the thoughts of peace that this promotes by trying to show that borders can just be things listed on a map.

My personal favorite is “Vest for the New World” (2008). Can you imagine a book becoming a weapon? Mr. Beube did. Using volumes of the New World Atlas, he created a new kind of vest style bomb, one that can explode knowledge instead of destruction. The pages of the New World Atlas are rolled and stuffed into tubes that are attached to a plastic vest with wires attached at the end. With sixteen tubes in all, eight attached to the front and eight to the back, this vest very much resembles a vest bomb. As with a large number of his pieces, there are so many implications that can be drawn from this piece that you almost have to go back and consider it multiple times, over a period of time, just to cover a few of them.

Books inspire thought, new ideas, the sharing of those ideas, and so much more; by using this medium, Mr. Beube manages to accomplish the same things with his artwork. All of the photographs are of such amazing quality that some of them can show you the small granular detail of the very fibers in the books. There are so many views of most of the art that you get a full appreciation of the piece; not quite as good as being there, but about as close as a book can get. The artwork is enhanced even more by the essayists that Mr. Beube chose to include. These individuals have such a wonderful insightfulness into his work and great use of written word, that the combination of the words and images create a book that is easy for anyone to read and enjoy, but one that challenges your every day thinking. This book will be on my coffee table, starting conversations for years, I am certain.

Breaking the Codex is more than just a book about artwork; it is an expression on how books are viewed today and how they could be viewed. We are slowly phasing out the written word; in doing that are we going to lose all that our books have to offer? Will we lose our physical connection to books? Who knows for sure; but, this I can tell you with certainty, if you read Mr. Beube’s book (which I highly recommend you do) you will find yourself with a whole new perspective on books. Maybe the next time you pick up your favorite book you will see it in a different light.

You can contact the reviewer, Kelly Munoz, at kellycmunoz@yahoo.com.

“Dream Girl”

By: J.B. Elliott

I would begin this short tale with the phrase once upon a time; however, this is no fairy tale, nor is it a story for entertainment. This tale is a warning; a warning for anyone who is under the misguided conception that ghosts are only present on the silver screen, and the chill on your neck is only a cool breeze from the fan.

I was crashing at my brother and his wife’s house one night while I was traveling for work; I am naturally a frugal person so a hotel was out of the question—also this is the only time I get to see my little nephew. That evening had been uneventful; I had been playing with Tucker with his fire trucks and Tonka toys after super. When it was time for everyone to turn in I assumed my position on the couch like I always do. Tucker is terribly afraid of the dark—a fear that is bordering on pathological, so the house is dim–never dark. With a night light in each room and a fish tank glowing behind my head in the den it was easy to see my surroundings; but this house was a second home to me, I know every nook and cranny with my eyes shut. This was the first evening, however, when the filter on the fish tank was turned off, ridding the den of the perpetual babbling brook that I was accustomed to rocking me to sleep.

As I lie there listening to my brother snore down the hallway a strange noise found my ear. It was not a noise as much as it was a conversation; a conversation I could hear, but not hear. It was as though they were in the room with me but their volume had been turned down. I strained to listen to their conversation but to no avail; I was staring in the direction of the voices—in the corner beside the front door. I know it sounds strange, but I was not frightened by the events taking place around me; perhaps I was not completely aware of what was taking place in the room with me—I do not know. However what I do know is what happened next during the course of this night changed me forever…

After a few minutes the voices I had been listening to silenced while my sixteen-hour workday caught up with me and sleep made me its willing companion. My dreams swam with the images of my wife, from a time before we traded rings and she changed her last name. We were in this ethereal world that was full of autumn colors and a cool nip in the air; her jacket was only half buttoned, revealing the sensual curve of her collarbone and the paleness of her skin—I was truly content.  As we ran and reveled in the freedom that is youth we tumbled down, falling into each other’s arms, “I love you” I told her.  She leaned in and kissed me deep—a kiss of a dream where momentarily two souls feel like one; in real life these kisses are rare; just a few times is a person granted this magnitude of passion. I pulled her close closing my eyes tightly to capture every sensation, relishing every moment, but then something was wrong—she felt different. She became cold as the grave and her skin turned damp; I pulled away opening my eyes, “Hold me, I’m so cold…” I was horrified; this was not my wife!  I jerked back, her hair was wet and long, it clung to her face and her arms like sea weed stuck to a pear; her skin was ashen gray with black under tones as though her blood ran tar black through her veins. She smelt of mold and mud; she wore only a tattered nightshirt. She reached for me, “I’m so cold…” as she touched my arm I bolted awake.

Relief washed over me as I woke in my familiar surroundings; that was until I touched my shirt–my shirt was damp. Had I sweated through my shirt? I wondered; I could not have—I was not sweating. I removed my shirt and tossed it towards the laundry room and lay back down; I was too exhausted to even think in any clear manner. I closed my eyes, hoping to recapture the image of my wife again—no such luck.  I was aware of the fact that I was dreaming, but the world around me felt like nothing the dream world should.  I was still on the couch, but now I was sitting up and this mystery woman was seated beside me—her eyes were silent pleas of complete and utter desperation.  “I’m so cold and scared—hold me…” A single tear ran down her cheek. I put my arm around her shoulder—I was not scared by her, but for her. She moved close to me and my body shivered with the cold that radiated off of her like that of a frozen pond; her dampness touching my bare side. She slowly and softly began to weep into my chest—I cannot describe how this hurt every fiber of my being; her cries were so tormented it was torture to my dreaming ears simply to hear them. The conversation in the empty corner began again, this time with just enough volume for me to make out a few words—the girl, trouble and fix it. “Leave me alone!” she screamed into the empty conversation-filled corner.  Her sobs now came in deep ragged gasps; I forced myself to hold her as tightly as I could, trying to calm her, to soothe whatever it was that was tormenting her so.  Her coldness had traveled to the very core of my body. I was drained of energy and was fighting the urge to lean to the side and lay down. Time had no meaning in this world of dreams and tears.  I finally lay to the side, lying behind her with my arms wrapped around her, “Don’t let me go—I’m so cold…” Her weeping had slowed but not stopped.  “Shut up!” she yelled at the low conversation—I bolted awake.

The part I am about to relay to you turned my skin to goose flesh and my stomach to acid—I was turned the opposite direction on the couch than I had been when I fell asleep. The sheet was beneath me rather than over me and I could still feel her lying on my right arm. Shivers traveled down my neck making my teeth chatter in my skull; I touched my arm—water—on my arm, my chest, even my pajama pants were wet; not only wet but muddy too—the conversation in the corner continued. I decided to go into work extra early that day and forgo any more sleep—I had slept with the dead once that night; I was not going to do it again.

Newspaper Headline:

DECEMBER 23, 1936

POLICE BELIEVE THEY HAVE IDENTIFIED THE BODY OF LAST WEEK’S MURDERED FEMALE.

It is believed by authorities that Iris Parker, age 26, a woman of unfortunate reputation, is the identity of the female that was found last Wednesday in Suttler’s Pond. It is not known if Miss Parker was the victim of a violent crime or the victim of an illegal medical procedure. As Miss Parker’s chosen profession brought her into contact with shady characters, it is not hopeful that the investigation will provide any leads. Miss Parker’s family is unknown–her body will be interred by the county within the week.

J’Rie Elliott is a mother, wife, daughter, and accomplished horseback rider from Alabama, USA. She can be reached at dixiepoet@gmail.com

Having just moved to Oakland, when I was informed that I would be covering a couple of poetry slams for Synchronized Chaos, I couldn’t have been more excited.  The last poetry slam I went to in Miami (my hometown), masqueraded as a house party, with two happy pit bulls pacing back and forth on the patio.  When I walked in, a guy who looked like Cheech Marin but sang monotonously like Carlos Santana was at a microphone, surrounded by a couple dozen people, all with bongos and guitars, as Cheech Santana would adlib while the house band played anything and everything (which included Bob Marley’s “Jump Nyabinghi”).  Slams in Miami were a bilingual musical affair, half Def Jam, half Sandra Cisneros.

In New Orleans, my adopted home, slams were musical as well.  There was a rhythm to it, just like everything else in the city.  The last slam I went to in that town featured poets from Team SNO, an awarded poetry team, as well as a poet who was featured in the HBO Series Treme, and the main event of the night was a poet who finished his set dressed up as an alligator.

So I was curious what this slam by the bay would feel like, with every city I’ve lived in being completely different than the next.  And the West felt very different than the Caribbean/Southern mescla that I had experienced in New Orleans and Miami.

The slam I went to was the Berkeley Slam at the Starry Plough, right off Shattuck by the Ashby BART stop.  It was a cold night for this Cuban, and it definitely had me practicing the concept of layers, for the bar, which had a good population to it, was not cold at all.

The host of the Berkeley Slam was a poet who went by the name of Toaster.  Toaster is a high-energy host, which fit the setting well considering the buzz that was coming pre-show from the lively audience.  He was funny, got people’s attention, and whipped out a book of Alicia Keys’ poetry, which he painfully read from, when the crowd wasn’t responding fast or loud enough, as a form of torture (which, I might add, worked quite well).  The audience participates often in this slam, with the judges being volunteers, as well as coming up with the word of the day (which in this case, was “hamartia”).

I was impressed with the diversity of the poets who performed; with everything from letters to Rihanna to poems about admitting to your parents you smoke pot to the troubles that fifth graders in California have with a system that is stacked against them.  Many of the poets incorporated the word of the day without anything too cheap being invoked.  While half the poets were regulars, their names being called out and the energy in the building rocking with them, the other half seemed to be from out of town, or trying their luck out, with respect being paid to them as if they were an intimate friend.

The featured poet performs between the first and second round in this Slam, as well as at the end of the slam.  On this night, the featured poet was Carrie Rudzinski, who was wrapping up her tour on her way home.  Carrie’s poems are phenomenal, and the emotional intensity of them smacks you from the very beginning.  Carrie is a master at establishing the rhythm of her poems early, whether she is repeating lines such as “My God, My God,” or counting failed lovers, you can feel yourself bobbing your head to her beat, as you inch closer and closer to her and farther and farther from the back of your seat.  Whether it is stories of her road trips, running into security for the Governator, or stories about her grandfather and grandmother, Carrie transports you into her world.  And you won’t be leaving it anytime soon, with lines such as “I’ve eaten my reflection enough times, and I am still hungry” sticking with you long after you’ve taken the BART home and planned to go to sleep.

The Berkeley Slam is a fun experience, where you will see great featured poets, along with some regulars and some newbies.  The poetry will always be good, with cash incentives and good crowds fueling the machine that is this slam.  With thematic slams being prevalent, this slam never gets old.  Come to the Starry Plough on Wednesdays for a good time.

************

On October 25, 2012, I attended the Oakland Poetry Slam at Studio 1924.  Despite the fact that this Slam just so happened to occur during the Game 2 of the World Series, and on the one-year anniversary of Occupy Oakland being raided, I’m glad I went to this event.  The crowd was still really into it, with the poets who performed not being short on talent, intellect or emotion.

The host of the slam was Nazelah, a poet who had just gotten back with her team from Boise, Idaho, where they performed in a poetry slam competition.  After a quick dialogue with the audience, she started the night off with a poem of her own, introducing it as a “Poem for myself and for all of us.”

The moment she got into her rhythm, it was clear why she was the host of this event.  Nazelah’s poetry would set the table for the rest of the performers, as her spoken word had a good rhythm and would have themes that would intersect with the feature’s poetry.  With lines such as “I think of how expensive a shrink would be if I couldn’t write poetry”, the line being punctuated by her shrug, I knew I was in for a night of good spoken word.

After that, we would have everything from a young freestyling poet (“my mind speaks freely, which is why they call it freestyle”), to Patrick, who help runs the poetry slam at the Starry Plough in Berkeley, whose poem talked about “LSD mixers” that his mom and dad would meet at, to a young poet who plowed through her first performance to much applause (“Life is like a roller coaster, I just need someone to hold onto me during the scary parts”) and then couldn’t help but do two more, to a poem that was half sung about “Dancing naked in the rain.”

Then Dahled Jeffries, who runs the Oakland Poetry Slam, came out and performed two poems of his own, including one that he did at the slam competition in Boise last week.  His poems were poignant, with strong imagery and concepts that lead us to the featured poet for the night, such as when he preached a “colorblind state is white privilege defined.”

The featured poet was Marc Marcel, who is a native of Baltimore, Maryland.  Marcel has been touring for quite some time now; he is a published novelist, as well as a spoken word poet who has two CDs out.  Marcel’s poems revolve around a spirituality found in the self.  His slow and precise delivery emphasizes the importance he finds in the words he is speaking.  Lines such as “It’s rather simple, you don’t have to do this in a temple,” cannot be given its rightful justice by just having it put on the page.  You have to hear him perform it, with that perfect delivery, as he stares into the audience, to truly experience it.  When in the poem titled “Now”, he repeats the line “Just tell me you remember, no matter how long it’s been,” it resonated with me in such a way that the line kept humming in my head for the rest of the night.

The Oakland Poetry Slam I went to was full of talented poets who performed fantastically.  Just by staying and talking to them afterwards, I feel like I learned more about Oakland, the spoken word scene here, and what it means to be a writer, than anything else I’ve done in town.  A good group that is filled with substance, there was quite a few people in the audience who were inspired to do their own thing after seeing other poets come up.  A moving event that happens on the second and fourth Thursday of every month, the next one will be on November 8^th, at the Spice Monkey.  Come out and see some good poetry; you’ll definitely find me there.

Sound Man

by Justus Honda

What if, sometime when you’re off-guard, when you’re walking with the purpose of doing
whatever it is you do, a peculiar ringing, something, a sound of some sort, emanates from
somewhere and floats through your head with your ears as doorways and in a second is gone?

And if you think nothing of it, later as the sun sets or rises or turns on, blazing warmth, or
whatever it does where you come from, you think of that sound you heard or witnessed before,
and you can’t replicate it in your mind’s ears with even the most powerful of your efforts,
and you know you must hear it again, so you wade through the auditory whirlpool of your
surroundings and individually test each ambient click from every corner and recess of the world
but find your search fruitless, and so unearth every object in your household and strike it pluck it
ring it cause it to make its natural sound.

But if no amount of attempts produce that elusive eerie ringing you once, maybe, might have
heard, then you may begin to accumulate objects, pots pans or any and all forms metal takes in
your world, making of each every combination of sound systematically, in a sort of auditory
alchemy, and thus your home may become cluttered with tiny and large singing things, an
orchestra of objects, perhaps, until every room and surface and cranny is occupied, and so you
must spread them out upon the sidewalk, crashing together each, taking each and attempting and
hoping to achieve that elusive sound. And though the ringings you create are not your ringing,
they are the ringings of other people, and they return to hear them each day, gather. And the
people they might call you the sound man.

And the children, maybe they stop by on their way to their tasks and toss you a fork or a needle
or a piece of sheet metal, copper steel silver brass gold, and smile and scurry off. Maybe
each time you take the new item of the sidewalk arsenal and hit the floor your skull the other
numerous bits of metal-ware, because you have been chosen to produce this one sound, that
sound you experienced, maybe, before, but no ringing of any of the objects creates the ringing,
that ringing you heard that one day,

And as you age the people they talk after gathering, they speak of the sound man and his
percussive obsession, his need to create what he calls the ringing, and far into your decline (your
nineties, maybe, or whatever old is wherever you are), they seem to all be telling you that you
will never hear the ringing you seek, and you never believe them until one day when you start
to think that maybe, just maybe, they are right, or, worse, maybe you wouldn’t recognize the
ringing if you heard it, or, worst of all, maybe, just maybe, you never heard the ringing at all—

If so, enraged, you’d heft a steel pot and throw it screaming at the sidewalk where it would crash
horribly, dent bounce scratch and skid on the pavement, and weeping you’d scatter your years of
accumulated metalwork and bend them and shatter them to shrapnel, and then collapse into the
wreckage of your world sobbing.

But maybe as you cry a little girl might approach and she might hold out to you a tiny silver
spoon (or any object or utensil created for someone small), and you’d hesitate, then take it and
flick it and hold it to your ear. And as you listen, what if you were to realize that this is the
ringing, and that you have been hearing it all your life?

Presented within the flow of the lives of real people and fictional characters, this is a gentle introduction to how some parts of the brain work.

Blue vs. Red

by Leena Prasad

“…My plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our children’s future. And in this election you can do something about it,” said Barack Obama. On the contrary, Mitt Romney said, “I’m not in this race to slow the rise of the oceans or to heal the planet.”

President Obama and Governor Romney’s views represent those of their constituency. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, 70% of Democrats “Worry a great deal / fair amount” about climate change, as opposed to only 31% of Republicans. This difference in the Democratic and Republican belief systems can have significant policy impacts regarding climate change.

From a scientific perspective, some of the general differences between Democrats/liberals and Republicans/conservatives can be observed in the workings of the brain. Much of the neuroscience research, however, that has been done in this area is inconclusive, and the results are controversial.  This article is not an exploration into the why or how these differences formed but it is an explanation of the differences that were discovered amongst the representative samples of subjects who self-identified as Republicans or Democrats or conservative or liberal.

A study conducted at University College of London in 2010 concluded that conservatives have a larger amygdala than liberals. The amygdala is responsible for emotional reactions that activate the fight-or-flight response. Other parts of the brain often moderate the primitive survival instincts of the amygdala and guide human behavior.  The methods used for the study and the results are highly controversial and have not passed the scientific rigor of replication and peer review.  Furthermore, there is no scientific correlation between the size and activity of the amygdala.

There are other studies, however, which found differences that have been replicated by many scientists.  A consortium of scientists based in San Diego, discovered that when participating in risk-taking behavior, Republicans show a higher level of activity in the amygdala than Democrats. Democrats, on the other hand, show higher activity in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) when presented with the same risk-taking tasks. The ACC is involved in many functions, both cognitive and emotional, but one of its primary jobs is to resolve conflict. A study published in Nature Neuroscience also describes higher activity in the ACC when liberals made a mistake in pattern recognition. They were able to correct the mistake and improve performance at a faster pace than their conservative counterparts.

Other parts of the brain are also involved in processing information and issues on the political spectrum. As such, these differences are not sufficient to pinpoint brain dynamics.  More extensive studies are required to both understand the differences and the means for communication with brains that exhibit these differences.

For now, how do we negotiate the differences in the belief systems and find a common ground? That’s beyond the scope of this article. But, understanding some of the differences in brain structure can at least provide an insight that the differences are hardwired in the brain. There are many studies that demonstrate that brain chemistry can be changed. This means that communication and negotiation can serve a useful purpose. If Mitt Romney and President Obama cannot agree, perhaps they can find a way to talk to each other and negotiate differences with a common goal of creating a harmonious existence for all Americans.

Upcoming…

December: neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change

January: food for thought, i.e., the affect of food on your brain

Leena Prasad has a writing portfolio at http://FishRidingABike.com and a journalism degree from Stanford University. Links to earlier stories in her monthly column can be found at http://WhoseBrainIsIt.com.

Dr. Nicola Wolfe is a neuroscience consultant for this column. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychopharmacology from Harvard University and has taught neuroscience courses for over 20 years at various universities.

References:

1. Darren Schreiber, et al. Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans, Emerging Politics, 2009,  [http://www.politicsemerging.com/Publications/RedBrainBlueBrain.pdf]

2. David M. Amodio et al. Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism, Nature Neuroscience, September 9, 2007.

3. Mooney, Chris. The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science–and Reality. John Wiley and Sons.

4. Mitt Romney’s Climate Change Remarks On ‘Meet The Press’ Outrage Environmental Activists, Huffington Post, Sep. 10, 2012

5. Obama Counterpunches on Climate Change, New York Times, Sep 7, 2012

6. In U.S., Concerns About Global Warming Stable at Lower Level, Gallup Poll, March 14, 2011 [http://www.gallup.com/poll/146606/Concerns-Global-Warming-Stable-Lower-Levels.aspx].