NOVALARK

Henry keeps an occasional blog called Novalark on Wordpress. You can find it HERE. Novalark is a term found listening to William S Burroughs on the album "Sugar, Alcohol, and Meat". Nova means new, and Lark is a kind of adventure. Lark was also a model of car by Studebaker, and Nova was a model of car made by Chevrolet that Henry owned, and this all makes the term even more amusing. You will find many different amusements and diversions on Novalark, interspersed with a few moments of clarity and insight.

CreativeSynth Articles

I used to write a column at an online magazine for electronic music, CreativeSynth. The column was called SPARK. Those articles are available below.

I've re-edited them a bit, making them more worthwhile a read with fewer typos.

The last sections, titled Lifecycles of Cultural Commodities was the basis of a lecture I gave at the Refrains Conference in Vancouver Canada, in October 2001. I think the points in it still stand, but aren't properly applied. I think that the scope isn't merely a style of music, but music itself as it has come to exist in this age of Mechanical Reproduction, and will come to fruition as a discourse on post-Musical society.
 

Life on the Border
(Cyberspace and the Frontier in Historical Perspective)

- by Beth Scannell

In 1893, the American Frontier, as it was then known, was declared "closed". Almost immediately, Americans influenced by everyone from Buffalo Bill to Frederick Jackson Turner began to re-invent our perceptions about the West and the Frontier. This "imaginative" frontier has become a basis for many aspects of American culture, including our involvement in and influence on the newest frontier, Cyberspace.

This thesis focuses on how this imaginative mythology about the American Frontier is affecting the development of culture in cyberspace, by looking at cultural formation particularly in graphical virtual reality communities.

Life on the Border
 

By the Late John Brockman
- by John Brockman

"By the Late John Brockman" by John Brockman is an amazing book. Intensively referenced, this book accomplishes with ease and brevity far greater and more powerful philosophical innovations than anything I have read in many many years. "By The Late John Brockman" is copyright © 1969, 1970, 1973, 1997 by John Brockman and all rights are reserved. The posting of this Internet is with permission granted by the author.

So, without further delay, Click on " By the Late John Brockman", and read one of my favourite books.

By the Late John Brockman
 

European Mind
- by Russell Means

While visiting friends in England, I was given this booklet of a speech by Russell Means, an Oglala Lakota Indian. I feel that the statements made in this essay are profound, important, and worthwhile, and should be heeded by all people the world over.

As the booklet was transcribed by hand from a tape of the speech, I left in the typographical errors, as they highlight the
weaknesses of oral tradition, something Mr Means is quick to defend. (I don't always agree with everything he says...)

On the other hand, and more importantly, his is a good and necessary counterbalance to the prevailing western metaphysical and philosophical tradition. I urge you to read it. He speaks a great deal of Truth.

European Mind
 

War is a Racket
- by Smedley Butler

Smedley Butler was a Major General in the Marine Corp in the late 19th and early 20th Century and a lifelong Republican. After his fair share of butchery, he left the Corp and spoke of what he could clearly see: that War Is A Racket, designed to make the rich richer by killing. This document discusses in some detail his ideas regarding what is going on in the American Empire, and some ideas towards a solution. His words have a chillingly contemporary ring to them.

War Is A Racket
 

A Conversation with Jean-François Lyotard
-by Bernard Blistène

I read this article back in the mid 1980s and found it rather inspiring. I folded it up and stuck it in a book, and forgot about it. Over the years it has not faired well, nor has the book it was stuck in. In fact, I had to send the book to recycling.

Before I committed it to the recycle bin, I found the article, and it is still quite interesting! I did several searches on the internet, and as far as I know, it basically doesn't exist any more. So, rather than have it disappear, I sat and typed the whole thing up. I have NO idea what magazine it's from.

Back in 1985, the French philosopher, Jean-François Lyotard,  curated an art exhibition, and this interview is primarily about that. However, it has many other interesting digressions and points to it. A very interesting read from the early days of postmodernism.
 

Les Immatériaux

Assorted Experimental Diaries
- by Fa Poonvoralak

I came across these writings in the late 1980s. Poonvoralak studied maths at Warwick University, UK, and his philosophy reflects this - categories of experience become variables or states or factors that become interchangeable, transformed and transcended. I find his ideas oddly provocative in a very gentle and humanistic way. As they feature an anti-copyright notice, I present them to you here.
 

Poonvoralak - A New Diary

Poonvoralak - Another Diary

Poonvoralak - Book of Ordinary Writings

Poonvoralak - Model of Functional Art