Influences on my art and music, reflected in chapters of my lives, through riddles, clues, and multi-layered loops of sound.

Curated by Zeena Schreck

Total Runtime: 0:52:32

Zeena Schreck is an artist/photographer, avant-garde musician, author, animal rights activist, yogini in the Drikung, Karma Kagyu and Nyingma Tantric Buddist lineages and the spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement.
Visit: www.zeena.eu

Zeena's latest release of The Vinyl Solution - Analog Artifacts, Ritual Instrumentals and Undercover Versions compiles newly remastered re-releases of 12 ambient sonic magic tracks from Zeena and Nikolas Schreck's rare Radio Werewolf vinyl recording collaborations between 1989-1992 as well as 2 bonustracks never previously released to the public by Radio Werewolf, now for the first time on CD.

Available at:
http://zeena.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=1

PLAYLIST WITH COMMENTS

1. Opening credits to Beat Girl, 1960.
John Berry's music is the best thing about this cheesy Z-grade flick.

Shameless promotion: For the contemporary Beat journal that keeps all the hep cats' claws sharp, visit Beatdom http://www.beatdom.com/. Their Crime Issue #12 features my contributions as cover mugshot and my theater monologue Night Shift, Richmond Station.

2. Frankie Laine performes “Jezebel”
To find out what Jezebel's supposed sins were, visit Janet Howe Gaines's informative article in Biblical Archaeology Review:http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/how-bad-was-jezebel.asp

3. Santana - “Black Magic Woman” 1971

4. If you want to sing out, sing out - Harold and Maude
Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, wrote the soundtrack for the film Harold and Maude 1971. Selected clip is Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort singing “If You Want to Sing Out” from the film

5. Mae West sings “I'm an Occidental Woman in an Oriental Mood for Love” from the 1936 film Klondike Annie.
In the film, West's character is a wayward Frisco woman who gets herself into trouble but assumes the identity of a dead missionary, committing herself to following through with the virtuous deeds of her newly assumed identity, transforming sinners by using her street-smarts and wit (a tantric crazy wisdom message, delivered the way only Mae West could.).

As a neophyte Vamp, West was a great inspiration to me. For my 16th birthday, I had the privilege of meeting her (what a rite of passage!). She gave me her stamp of approval. A rarity, I was told. For she was not fond of many women.

6. Kiev Portella's stirring performance of Nino Rota's “Il Duca di Württemberg”
Originally composed for Fellini's Casanova soundtrack.
To learn more about Kiev Portella, visit: http://www.kievportella.com/

7. Klaus Nomi: In his last live performance, before his death, singing “The Cold Song” composed by Henry Purcell.

8. Daniel Johnston: “Held the Hand (of Satan)” 1990
This song best conveys the mood in my life circa 1990, at the finale of my media notoriety as High Priestess of the Church of Satan, during the Christian fundamentalist witch hunt in the U.S. before resigning from that position and leaving the U.S.. It should be noted that this reflects the year this Daniel Johnston song came out, long before he'd become the Hipsters' darling he's known as today.
To learn more about Daniel Johnston, visit: http://www.hihowareyou.com/

9. Carl Orff's “O Fortuna” from “Carmina Burana” performed by U.C. Davis University Chorus, Alumni Chorus, Symphony Orchestra and Pacific Boychoir, Jeffrey Thomas conducting followed by a clip from “Ein Kleines Welttheater” featuring the closing scene from Carl Orff's “Der Mond: Oh da hangt den Mond” based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm
I chose this fantastic, bombastic rendition of “O Fortuna” not only because it's good, but because it's performed in part by one of my many former workplaces, U.C. Davis! I also chose this particular video because it coincidentally combines two of Carl Orff's compositions which I encorporated into personal rites in the months after leaving the U.S. while living in Vienna.

10. Egyptian born, American electronic music innovator Halim El-Dabh performs “The Expression of Zaar” a.k.a., "Wire Recorder Piece" (1944).
The earliest use of tape sampling as experimental electronic music, this piece consists of recorded sounds of an ancient zaar ceremony (a ritual of possession, usually by a woman or effeminate man, practiced in Ethiopia, Northern Sudan and Southern Iran). This ceremony was recorded using very early wire recording devices then manipulated, processed and re-recorded for the desired tonal quality. The completed piece was presented in 1944 at an art gallery event in Cairo.
To learn more about Halim El-Dabh, visit: http://www.halimeldabh.com/
To learn more about the Zār cult and ritual, visit: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zar

11. A devotional prayer to the Hindu Goddess Kali in the film Devi by Satyajit Ray, 1960.
In this clip from the film, the girl incarnates the deity Kali after having experiences as a result of Bhakti yoga devotional practices, or path of grace.
To learn more about Kali, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
To learn more about Bhakti yoga, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti_yoga

12. Will Gell performing Erik Satie's “Gnossiennes No.1 (Lent)”.
Gell compiled his own choice of images for this YouTube video.
To learn more about Will Gell, visit: https://plus.google.com/105995653455527971687/posts

13. The Mystery of Rampo Soundtrack, Akira Senju
Akira Senju composed the soundtrack to the film The Mystery of Rampo, by the directors Rintaro Mayuzumi and Kazuyoshi Okuyama; a film about the Japanese supernatural fiction and mystery writer Edogawa Rampo, who himself was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. This clip is the opening scene.
To learn more about the Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edogawa_Rampo

14. Music from Nino Rota's “Charleston dance” from the film soundtrack of Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Featuring '50s era video footage of Al Minns & Leon James from the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.

15. Kelsang Chukie Tethong sings/composes the Amitabha mantra Om Ami Dewa Hri to Piano music accompaniment.
Premiered at “Celestial Songs” concerts on 11/11/11 at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall . Video credit: Bernard Ho.
To learn more about Kelsang Chukie Tethong, visit: http://www.kelsangchukietethong.com/
To learn more about the “Celestial Songs” concert performance on 11/11/11 at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall, visit: http://www.manyeelam.com/cs.html

To learn more about the Amitabha Phowa practice, the most direct method to attain enlightenment at the time of death, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phowa

My esteemed root lama, H. E. Choeje Ayang Rinpoche, is the preeminent authority in our time of the Phowa practice. Considered the world's living Phowa master, a lineage-holder of both the Nyingma and Drikung Phowa, he continues the unbroken line of Drikung Phowa lamas from Buddha Vajradhara.

Ayang Rinpoche's Amitabha foundation centers: http://ayangrinpoche.org/amitabha-foundation-centres/

Doc - Future Shock

Orson Welles narrated 1972 documentary adampted from Alvin Toffler's book of the same name, which examines the effects of rapid industrial and technological changes upon Society

Curated by Dave Taylor

Total Runtime: 0:42:36

A documentary film based on Future Shock, a book written by the sociologist and futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. The film was released in 1972 with Orson Welles as on-screen narrator. Future Shock grew out of an article "The Future as a Way of Life" in Horizon magazine, Summer 1965 issue.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] The book has sold over 6 million copies and has been widely translated.

In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time".

Toffler argues that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation" – future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of the future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock, he also popularized the term "information overload."

"The film, darkly dystopian and oozing techno-paranoia, is a valuable reminder that — as our friend Nick Bilton keenly points out — societies have always feared new technology but ultimately adapted to it. Or, better yet, adapted it to their needs. Future Shock is an excellent companion to contemporary books tackling the same issue, such as Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants, putting our modern fears in perspective and grounding our present techno-paranoia in its proper historical context."

Read more: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/01/12/future-shock/#ixzz1LajS9yR4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock

Movie - Rollerball (Norman Jewison, 1975)

The classic dystopian film depicting a world run as a global corporate state and the rollerball teams the corporations own

Curated by Markus Fiedler

Total Runtime: 2:05:04

Rollerball is a 1975 dystopian science fiction film directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by William Harrison, who adapted his own short story "Roller Ball Murder", which first appeared in 1973 in Esquire magazine. Although it had an American cast, a Canadian director, and was released by the American company United Artists, it was produced in London and Munich.

In the film, the world of 2018 is a global corporate state, containing entities such as the Energy Corporation, a global energy monopoly based in Houstonwhich deals with nominally-peer corporations controlling access to all transport, luxury, housing, communication, and food on a global basis.

The film's title is the name of a violent, globally popular sport around which the events of the film take place. It is similar to Roller Derby in that two teams clad in body armor skate on roller skates (some instead ride on motorcycles) around a banked, circular track. There, however, the similarity ends. The object of the game is to score points by the offensive team (the team in possession of the ball) throwing a softball-sized steel ball into the goal, which is amagnetic, cone-shaped area inset into the wall of the arena. The team without possession of the ball is defensive and acts to prevent scoring. It is a full-contact sport in which players have considerable leeway to attack opposing players in order to take or maintain possession of the ball and to score points (in the overpopulated world of the original short story, the object of the game is to kill off the other players). In addition, each team has three players who ride motorcycles to which teammates can latch on and be towed. The player in possession of the ball must hold it in plain view at all times.

Rollerball teams, named after the cities in which they are based, are owned by the various global corporations. Energy Corporation sponsors the Houston team. The game is a substitute for all current team sports and for warfare. While its ostensible purpose is entertainment, Mr. Bartholomew, a high-level executive of the Energy Corporation, describes it as a sport designed to show the futility of individual effort.

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December

What's On Today?

"We are already post-human." – William Gibson

Today curated by:
The Sadnesses

Live Music Show - Zeena Schreck