Culture is an energy

Culture is an energy. Confused? You will be. Especially since this is the third or so draft of a blog about glam, punk, crass, goth and post- anarchochaos magick. And david Bowie/ Diamond Dogs. I kept getting lost in the words until I realised that was the whole point. See the bits of Blake highlighted below.

Energy unrestrain'd is confusing, disturbing, frightening even. But the energy keeps moving on/cultures change leaving behind that which can be Bound and Restrain'd by Reason and so safely and meekly turned into History. But if I say anymore this will turn into another social anthropology lecture and that would be NO FUN.

This is Willam Blake speaking: you can see text with Blake's illustrations at http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

The voice of the Devil.All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age 2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.3 Energy is Eternal Delight

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.And being restrain'd it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, & the Governor or Reason is call'd Messiah.And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is call'd the Devil or Satan and his children are call'd Sin & Death.But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.For this history has been adopted by both parties.It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out, but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.

I got to Blake after struggling/ wrestling with too much confusion. I saw/ felt/ experienced Punk as Energy, as Desire break ing Free from the Bonds of Reason. If I had been more of an artist, I would have painted this in the way Blake did. I had a go with the three volumes of the Encyclopedia of Ecstasy, volume three of which (When Darkness Dawns) was a long Blake style poem.

But words are not enough. I don't know if you are familiar with cloud chambers, as used by physicists - if not see this http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/electron/section3/1911b.asp and have a quick lookat this more artistic version http://www.fractalus.com/kerry/gallery8/track.html

Cloud chambers don't show actual sub atomic particles/ energies, but show the tracks of where they have been. I look at words in a similar way. They show where energies have been, but not the energy itself.


Punk as cloud chamber

Imagine London as a cloud chamber. Imagine being able to take photographs of 'the punk explosion' as energy tracks, particle tracks. And then trying to analyse them - to pick out, just as the physcists have done, all the different types of 'punk energies/particles'. Physics has ended up with hundreds of particles - the more they look, the more they find. Same with punk.

So now we have things like 'post punk' which then spins off into a 'goth track' or an'anarcho 'track - as many different species of punk as you care to imagine.

But hang on, I was one of those particles, sucked in, looped around for a while and spat out again. I don't recall anyone saying 'I am a post punk' or ' We is goths" or whatever. The experience was what mattered, the ability to feel the energy - which was never clear and coherent, was a fuzzy mess of contradictions and confusions.

If anything we -the Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective , our fuzzy circle of collaborators and even random passing strangers- did our best to maintain the ambiguous confusion and chaos that was/ will be/ is punk.


So to keep on confusing you dear Reader , here is alink to an academic text http://www.praxis-epress.org/rtcp/kh.pdf on academic research and DIY culture[s]. Make of it what you Will.