Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793

"Our subjectivities are all cyborgian collages of flesh with signs and images, and with past and present tech." ~ McKenzie Wark

fightpunch, Cyborg 3, 2013

Popular crimes in Mega-City One:

• Blitzers: hitmen with self-destruct bombs implanted inside them which detonate if they surrender when apprehended.
• Body-sharking: loaning money to people willing to put a loved one into cryonic storage for collateral.
• Chump-dumping: conning aliens into believing Earth is a paradise, taking their money, and then dumping them into space.
• Face changing crimes: the illicit use of face changing machines to commit crimes and fraud.
• Futsies: People who can no longer handle the fast pace of life begin to suffer from "Future Shock," become psychotic and begin to commit crimes.
• Numbers racket: buying computer passcodes for industrial theft.
• Organ leggers: those who cut up citizens and sell their organs on the black market.
• Perp running: transporting felons off-world.
• Psycos: telepathic protection rackets.
• Stookie glanding: butchering Stookies, an intelligent alien race, for the anti-aging drug they produce.
• Umpty-baggers: pushers of umpty, a candy that tastes so good it forms an instant psychological addiction.

The Conceptual Advertising of J.G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard's 'Advertiser's Announcements'

25th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests

Born this day

In Back of the Real

I have recently updated the technology behind this site to replace Django with AngularJS as the primary front-end web framework. The site is now a single-page application that efficiently loads the data asynchronously via JSON feeds. It still uses Python as the backend programming language and remains hosted on Google App Engine where it stores all its data in Google's schemaless NoSQL datastore.

RIP

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill 
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 

Honoré Daumier, The Chess Players, 1863

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Rowland S. Howard, Dead Radio, 1999

The Last Poets, When The Revolution Comes, 1970

Modest Mouse, Float On, 2004

Graham McGeorge, Eastern Screech Owl, 2013

Edgar Degas, Dancer Putting on Her Slipper, 1896

To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia. Nymph, in all thy Orisons
Be thou all my sins remembered.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ~1600

Jean de Pomereu, Sans Nom 10

BBC Newsnight's 3 minute guide to Thomas Piketty's Capital

View of the pre-Hispanic Aztec city of Tenochtitlan (now part of Mexico city), the largest city in the world before its fall to Cortez in 1521.

Diego Rivera, Detail from The Marketplace Tlatelolco mural in the Palacio Nacional de Mexico, 1945