The Subtle Anarchy of Fuzz Culture

 

Interestingly, many of the creatively gifted individuals mentioned by the creatively gifted Arsh Sharma, a musician, during the course of his spot-on exposé were not merely artists, but what we can refer to as pathologically creative artists, thinkers and musicians. Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Poe, Nina Simone... men and women who were so consumed by their creative flames, that their attention to their own survival was compromised. In a sense, the pathologically "gifted" are often savants, unable to successfully maneuver through the maze of the official world while absorbed in exploring dimensions of experience outside of the official playbook. That their visionary explorations - dismissed in their own time - were eventually appreciated (and capitalized upon) by those of future generations is an ironic twist. While it lends the artists a kind of immortality, in societies in which commerce is king, money trumps all (pun inevitable). In other words, when money talks, the world listens. Well, that is, apart from the dead artists... who are unlikely to hear the "ka-ching," and,  like the anonymous meek, have inherited little more than a silent, earth-filled grave.

But, Arsh Sharma takes the tragic artist meme one step further, in that, he proposes the artist's plight arose from the subtle antagonism society felt towards those mad members of the creative sector. And, he makes a good point. He has certainly has created the nucleus of a more thorough investigation into this unfortunate element of art history and culture and the ways in which it effects us today.

Fuzz Culture features a number of unique, alternative essays in video form. This one - redefining the word delusional - is one of my favorites. But, don't miss The Real Reason Artists Create (And Can’t Stop).

Thank you, Fuzz Culture; your insight is most welcome in a world which has somehow lost its way - and is desperately trying to find it!

The Transdimensional Moment (revised & completed 1/1/2026

 

Timestamp: December 15, 2025 - 4:08 pm. Cellphone photo, DS.

"I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:

It vexes me to choose another guide:

Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;

Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?

More glory and more grief than I can tell:

The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling

Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell."

- An excerpt from an untitled poem written by the perennially relevant, 19th century British poet and author, Emily Brontë in 1846. Read the full poem here.

(December 31, 2025, 8:00 PM.)

I am presently watching a beautiful twilight sky here in Albuquerque during this final daylight hour of the year 2025. Not quite as beautiful as the clouds I found earlier in December (in a similar timeframe), when the photo (above), and, specifically, the cloud (below) were taken. (Note: All 4 cloud formations in this post share the same tree.)

Timestamp: December 15, 2025 - 4:58 pm. Cellphone photo, DS.

The moon, which almost seems strangely full - strangely, because (I swear) it was in its new phase only 3 or 4 days ago - is nested in a pale puff of clouds. Then again, somewhere else in the world or outside of it, the moon is full, depending upon our hypothetical watcher's perspective.

The color of the sky is one shade of an indescribable iridescent blue/grey color I've seen nowhere else other than NM. The much paler clouds hover ghost-like there, darkening as the night cycles by. They'll continue to shift and transform - so slowly you won't even notice - till the early morning, before they drift away.

On this day, however, when the clock strikes midnight, an official transformation will take place: the year 2025 will slide into year 2026, AD (CE).* For some of us, it already has. For some of us it hasn't quite yet, which is why I wanted to post so late in the day. Because it's all so relative, and relativity is important when attempting to define a transdimensional moment. 

I confess, I've spent weeks attempting to rethink and redefine transdimensionalism after the content of Once Upon a Transdimensional Day forced me to fully realize that all previous attempts on my part were in adequate.

I want to apologize for leaving that post hanging in mid-air for weeks, with that prematurely-made promise: "Text to come." I didn't intend to lie; I just overestimated my ability to write that text. I didn't foresee the severe case of writer's block that would follow...

(This post is being written live; more appears below the jump!)

(Update, January 5, 2026: For my other 2026 post, see The Fool's Heroic Journey.

Once upon a transdimensional day...

 

Four Seasons - oil painting - 2020, Petras Lukosius.

A Walk

by Rainer Maria Rilke, 1924

(Translated by Robert Bly)

"My eyes already touch the sunny hill

going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

it has inner light, even from a distance

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it,

we already are; a gesture waves us on

answering our own wave...

but what we feel is the wind in our faces."

***

Reveal Arriving - oil painting - 2020, Petras Lukosius.

Evening

by Rainer Maria Rilke

(Translated by A. S. Kline)

Slowly the evening draws on its coat

Held out to it by a row of ancient trees:

You gaze: and the landscape splits in two,

One part lifting skywards, while one falls,

Leaving you not quite part of anything,

Not quite so dark as the house, the silent one,

Not quite as surely invoking the eternal,

As that which turns to star each night, rising -

Leaving you (indescribably, to unravel)

Your anxious, immense, and ripening life:

So that, now bounded, and now grasped,

It becomes, in turn, stone in you, and star.

In a Field of Whispers (Ode to a Jack-o'-lantern)

 

One minute, you were there,

facing a moon enshrined by clouds.

Then, the lights went out.

And, the clouds came down in long, luminous spirals

clinging to your skin with cool, misty tendrils.

Ice silvers the rims of your darkened eyes and hollow mouth;

your last breath lost in a field of whispers...

where, slowly, you will coalesce, drop by crucial drop,

with those who creep upon the earth, and the hallowed grounds they cross.

- 2025, DS. Cloud timestamps: 1) October 7, 2025, 6:33 pm, 2) October 7, 2025, 6:33 pm, 3) June 25, 2025, 4:41 pm, 4) October 7, 2025, 6:32 pm, 5) July 31, 2025, 7:04 pm.

(More below the jump...)

Art Works!

"To be a successful artist you must be unrealistic and delusional."

- Contemporary writer and Art activist, Amie McNee, found here.

And that's just the beginning! :-)

In any case, artists - and this means you - if you or someone you know are suffering from fears of alienation, inadequacy or irrelevance, do yourself an immense favor and listen to the wise woman in the TED video above: The Case for Making Art When the World Is on Fire. She speaks for you. Her name is Amie McNee... (and her voluminous coat-of-many-colors is to die for)!

Artists at work

Today's hat-tip goes to the artists of Portland, Oregon, keeping the streets (and democracy) safe with insight, humor and music!

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

"Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say."

 Thank you, Portland, OR! (The artists in action.)

Note: My own, small, vaporous rant lies below the jump.

The Imaginarium (Complete, final revision: 9/20/25))

The sky erupts in a vaporous vision;

(Aqua Vitae,

the Water of Life,

the Living Water.)

•

Welcome to the Imaginarium

where a vacant space

in a timeless place

becomes a gateway

to the extraordinary.

•

We live in an aviary,

an aerial aquarium,

beneath gliding apparitions,

made of ice-coated pearls.

Phantom leviathans

encircle our perimeters,

(Continued below the jump...)

The Cloud Makers

 

After the rain, Albuquerque
- July 21, 2025, 3:05 pm, DS.

(Sand spins into mountains,

Mountains spin into streams,

Streams spin into fountains;

Clouds are made of these.)

- 2025, DS.

- The unpublished chant-like addendum to the poem, Nature's Signature, found here.

"The extensive and more personalized symbolism of clouds appearing in landscape painting at the turn of the twentieth century reflected the cognitive uncertainty we experience in relation to clouds, in their constant variability and instability, and the dictatorship of the imagination, which allows only a subjective description of the phenomenon."

- A quote from the excellent article: Cloudscapes over the Baltic Sea–Cloud Motifs in Finnish, Swedish, German, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian Symbolic Landscape Painting around 1900. The highlighted text acknowledging our "cognitive uncertainty" regarding clouds really resonated with me, but not merely for the reasons described. For someone who has invested a great deal of time watching them, the uncertainty lies in the method of their creation. While, logically one cannot accept intelligence is involved, it is also difficult to accept, in some cases, that clouds are fashioned merely by the random fluctuations of air currents. That is, unless we redefine our concept of "random," (made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision)... or, maybe, come to the understanding that, in nature, "random" includes patterns & processes not, yet, fully understood.

The random appearance of a cicada in a cloud shot.
Cellphone photo,  August 25, 2025, 4:28 pm, DS.

The cloud introducing this post is one of the exceptional clouds.  It possesses an almost unworldly presence. Perhaps, this is due to the subdued coloring of the sky that day after it had rained. It has a dreamlike quality. What is especially intriguing about it, however, is that it's a cloud which is in the process of transforming. Moreover, it isn't isolated; it appears to be one element in a peculiar circle of clouds. (See below)

An odd ring of clouds - July 21, 2025, 3:07 pm, DS.

You may not recognize it at first. It is the cloud on the far right, which, in my eyes, appears to have grown a human head seen in profile! The rest have no recognizable shape but they, too, are odd, if not downright weird. The small dark cloud (towards the left) is a prime example. What exactly is that square-shape below it?

Now, I do not manipulate or edit the content of my photos in any way. They appear as nothing more than what they are, but, if this photo were an actual painting - and, in ways, it almost looks like one - we might assume it was painted by an imaginative artist... a Surrealist of Nature, (if this wasn't an oxymoron). In other words, and the point I'm attempting  to make is that, while the odd group of clouds was not manufactured, they seem to have arose from an imagination.

Personally, I think this is what attracts me to clouds... a weird sense of witnessing something imaginative where no "imagination" should logically exist. This represents another cause for the "cognitive uncertainty" mentioned earlier, but, for a visual artist it represents something else as well... that is, a conundrum: what defines art when the source of an intriguing creation is not merely inhuman, but is logically without consciousness? In this case, we might say it's a Beauty of Nature/Nature of Beauty kind of thing, but, ultimately, this does not tell us enough.

So, who or what are the Cloud Makers? I doubt it's possible to know. But, the question is tantalizing and will be carried into a future post: The Imaginarium.

Clouds, Time & Spiraling Planes (revised August 19)

 

Credit: Jinik Renatus, Jinikal Art.

(Update: September, 9, 2025. A new, and even better video from Jinikal. This one features amusing little pentagrams! See: Cosmic Joy: The Infinite Playgrounds.)

It occured to me recently that in the earlier days of blogging, I made a point of trying to feature new digital artists on Trans-D, a habit I somewhat abandoned after the genre grew to such a degree I could no longer keep track of it. And, I can only marginally keep track of the burgeoning AI video artists; new artists seem to appear literally every day.* But, every now and then, a video makes an appearance that resonates on a personal level - call it kismet - and, well,  Jinik's In a World Where Time and Space are Distorted is one of those videos.

Don't be fooled by the title. Time and space are not "distorted." In terms of spatial effects, they are either intentionally (or intuitively) orchestrated and organized around the laws of pentagonal phi and/or the Fibonacci series,** and best of all, Jinik created some fantastic spiraling clouds! Regarding time, spiral clocks  (also here) and time spirals are all the rage in cyberspace, everywhere from scientific circles to Fantasy Fandom worlds.

As it happens, spiraling clouds are not unusual in the real world. I see them every day, albeit on a smaller scale. Inset left (above) is an example I shot earlier this summer but often the golden spiral's signature paisley shape can be found on a much larger scale. (Below is a detail of a photo found in a previous cloud post.)

A cloud in desperate need of a Phi-shell!

Clouds and spirals? Can't get any better! Thank you, Jinik Renatus, your video made my day!

(My apologies for all the typos and delays with the text... hopefully, now corrected!)

______________________________________________

* I have been featuring them on Mac's memorial, with the latest appearing on this post... and his birthday post.

** I want to be perfectly clear about my use of mathematical terms regarding art here. That is, while phi may, indeed, be mathematically present in a work of art, the exact math is not required for it to fit the criteria of possessing the Golden Meme; best described as a shape, sound, or movement based on a mathematical ratio present in the geometry of the pentagram - in itself, a fractal - that is so perfect in its mysterious beauty and/or powerful efficiency that it might be described as Divine, or Golden. Regarding space-time, the Golden Meme represents a key to understanding the eternal.

(Note: The Golden Meme as a theory and an artistic investigation is mine alone and is not currently recognized as valid by any accredited source. It is also in its infancy. In any case, for me, it serves as an organizing center for the pentagonal phi material I've been amassing for 6 years. See: Reflections on Water, or the golden snail shell on the sidebar.)

The Philosopher's Dove (with Addendum)

 

The enigmatic glyph of a pigeon poised in flight, Albuquerque - one frame of a cellphone video - June 2, 2025, DS.

A pigeon is considered feral when one member of its line has, at some point in time, severed ties with (human-produced) domesticity.

Pigeons - rock doves - are free agents in human cities. Huddling together in small groups high up in the rafters of old, abandoned buildings, they are quiet, gentle, trusting creatures. We know them mostly by the snapping sound of their beating wings.

Time-stamped: August 1, 2025, 6:22 pm.

They are essentially travelers, vagrants and refugees and are generally despised (and exterminated) by property owners. After all, pigeons do not pay rent, nor do they sing for their supper. They search for seeds that have fallen on the pavement, trodden by human feet, or flattened beneath the wheels of a driverless car.

Time-stamped: July 31, 2025, 1:19 pm.

But, the sky glorifies those in flight and, in flight, the rock dove is as fleet as any bird.

Always, the sky, whispering in silent, Sylphid syllables, welcomes its feathered acolytes back into its cool, incorruptible embrace.

(Continued below the break...)

A Word about Charlie, a Cat's Cat (Complete)

 

A Cat's Cat - cellphone photograph - July 22, 2025, DS.

(As I write, the clouds have been scarce for two days in Albuquerque; the blazing sun has held them hostage. So, I feel motivated to address other matters... such as our resident Cat, Charlie.

Regarding this post, I think it was my idea, but as Charlie seems uncharacteristically enthusiastic about it, I have my suspicions.

In any case, Charlie has waited for me to finish it for months now, so, I hope he enjoys it; i.e., I hope to remain in his favor.)

Charlie is a Cat's Cat. Allow me to explain.

To begin, we must define Cats in a way Charlie would approve. It isn't as if he's holding a tiny gun to my head as I write this - he can't, he's sleeping - no, he just wants me to set the record straight. So, here it goes.

First up (and most importantly), Cats do not, never have and never will belong to humans. They are - all of them - wild. And, unlike most other "domesticated" beasts, human companionship will never alter a Cat's essential wildness. (Try telling Charlie he's domesticated. No, really, go ahead.)

In actuality, the situation is reversed. Human entities belong to Cats. Allegedly, (according to Charlie) this was written into an ancient Universal Feline - Human Pact, which stated that, in return for certain services (vermin extermination, toxin removal, cuteness, emotional rescue & psychic management), Cats would forever Rule. And, so, they do.

Charlie, for one, had not come to stay for more than several days in our present abode - formerly he was the self-appointed motel security guard - when he informed us he was, indisputably, His Royal Majesty, the King of all Cats to whom we must now bow down in willing servitude. And, so, we did.

Lastly, Cats seem to possess an almost alien intelligence... as mysterious as their mineral coated, almond-shaped eyes. This, I suspect, is because Cats originally came from another world. We'll call it (for a momentary lack of imagination): the Planet of the Cats. In other words, the "chariots of the gods" had cats on board!* And, the ancient Egyptians knew this; they didn't build temples to their feline overlords for nothing.

Charlie** won't admit to this, of course... because it goes without saying that Cats never divulge anything. Also, they never stoop to unnecessary chatter unless it's directly beneficial to them... dinner, for example.

(More below the jump...)