Category Archives: Operation:Mindfuck

RealityTropes?

Articles by others, Culture-jamming, Get out of my head Charles!, Internet - a series of tubes, memes, Operation:Mindfuck, politics, Propaganda, shameless self promotion, society

Over at Chaos Marxism, a cunning plan has been hatched.

I’m down with this.  God knows, all I do every day is read political theory texts and blogs anyway, it would be nice to engage myself somewhat more critically with the whole process.  I have also been taking notes from TV Tropes, for my own attempts of fiction, once I start writing fiction again (in between searching for jobs, reading, blogging and contributing to several internet fora – sooner or later, something will give, most probably me).  Should those come to fruition, I’ll probably spend days getting people to read them, so no doubt you will all know when it happens.

Anyway, I know a couple of peeps from PD, such as Cramulus, have also expressed potential interest in this project, and board members always have tons of hosting space lying around, doing nothing (for some bizarre reason).  Hopefully, enough people will register interest to get a viable site going once I get to pitch the idea to the members.  Worst comes to worst, I’ll dump the ideas on a free blog until someone less in debt and more technically competent than me gets a Wiki on the project started.

Edit: NlhasdAJHLgkgli.  Seriously, that’s what the inside of my head feel’s like.  I tried, but my mind is so fried right now I can’t express myself the way I want.  I need a proper night’s sleep.

Welcome to Professor Cramulus’ Fun Lab

bizarre, Operation:Mindfuck, Professor Cram's Fun Lab, Situationism, Tin-foil hats, , , , ,

Greetings and Beatings, spagwads and spaguettes from the far reaches of the internet. This week I am kicking off a new feature here at Verwirrung. My corner of the blog, which is theoretically going to be regularly updated, will feature a recurring posts about GAMES, PRANKS, JAKES, and MINDFUCKS.

In my column, which is called Professor Cramulus’ Fun Lab, you’ll read about awesome stuff you can do. Like many, I am not satisfied by movies and TV and the various forms of cultural idolatry available in 2009. I prefer hobbies which allow me to participate creatively. To that end, I intend on telling you about pranks, games, and projects which you can actually get involved with. I’d also like to talk about varying forms of Guerilla Surrealism, (culture jamming, situationism, etc) which I consider a delightful form of game.

I’m really interested in games. It’s weird, but I think that as an adult, you have to re-learn how to Play. Play is something that kids do naturally. They can entertain themselves using their imaginations, something that astoundingly few adults remember how to do. Games are a way of connecting us back the kind of wide eyed, hysterical, can’t catch my breath I’m laughing too hard fun we had as kids, but now we have the added brainpower of adulthood.

I’m also interested in pranks. Pranks are sort of like satire. They suggest a funny or surprising twist on reality. They also have the ability to help depict what’s wrong with the world. I’m not generally into altruistic pranks. To me, fun is the bottom line. There’s a sort of altruism there though – the world could use a laugh at its own expense.

So in the coming weeks, this column will explore some of those ideas and many other stupid ones. This week, I’ll give you a simple one by Max Flax, from the Apocrypha Discordia. (page 40)

check it out below the tear…

Continue reading Welcome to Professor Cramulus’ Fun Lab →

Verwirrung 2.0

counterculture, current affairs, Discordianism, metablogging, Operation:Mindfuck, Propaganda, shameless self promotion, writing

For those of you who read Warren Ellis’ excellent blog, you may be aware that today is meant to be the fifth Annual Rabbit Hole Day, in celebration of the birthday of Lewis Carroll.

However, we are not doing that.  Not as such.  Instead, we have decided to launch our revamped blog.  Myself and Cramulus threw some ideas around while drunk a few weeks back, and this was essentially the result.  We want Verwirrung to be more than just a blog for the Principia Discordia community.  We want the blog to be a place where we can network, link, confer and argue with people, as part of our drive to improve and understand the crazy world around us.

So, first off, our blogging is going to increase.  By a lot.  Secondly, our writers are each going to concentrate on a particular sphere of interest, in addition to using the blog to write about whatever they feel.  So, for example, we will have writers here concentrating on the Law of Fives and how the brain works, on the art of pranking and operation mindfuck, some idiot dealing with politics and warfare, a guy investigating online subcultures, someone keeping a close eye on the world of religion, someone who can help you prepare for any situation, a guy interested in how maps do not correspond to reality, a biology expert and much, much more.

Secondly, we want our blog to be more of a community.  We want to break into the blogosphere, have people reading us and agreeing or disagreeing, but in short to have a lot more in the way of connectivity with the rest of the world.

Our focus is going to be on the near future, in all our fields.  What will happen 20 minutes in the future.  We want to equip you with knowledge you will find useful, and hopefully you can equip us in return.  I don’t need to tell anyone here that rough times have started, and this is probably the first recession of the internet age.  Lets see what we can do with this incredible tool, while the power is still on.

And most of all, we want to have a good time.  I’ll let each of the writers introduce themselves individually.  Bye for now.

The new face of radicalism: flash picnics

bizarre, counterculture, Culture-jamming, Operation:Mindfuck, politics, Situationism

No, I’m not making this up.

In exactly a week’s time, in a supermarket somewhere in or around Paris, a couple of dozen young French activists are going to choose an aisle, unfold tables, put on some music and, taking what they want from the shelves, start a little picnic. The group “L’Appel et la Pioche” (The call and the pick axe) will have struck again – fruit and veg, dairy or the fish counter will have been transformed into a flash protest against global capitalism, rampant consumerism, bank bail-outs, poor housing, expensive food, profit margins and pretty much everything else that is wrong in the world.

The “supermarket picnic” will go on for as long as it can – before the security guards throw the activists out or the police arrive. Shoppers will be invited to join in, either bringing what they want from the shelves or just taking something lifted lightly from among the crisps, sweets or quality fruit already on the tables.

“L’Appel et la Pioche” have struck four times so far and have no intention of stopping what they claim is a highly effective new way of protesting.

“Everyone is bored of demonstrations. And handing out tracts at 6am at a market is neither effective nor fun,” said Leïla Chaïbi, 26, the leader of the group. “This is fun, festive, non-threatening and attracts the media. It’s the perfect way of getting our message across.”

Linked to a new left-wing political party committed to a renewal of politics and activism, Chaïbi’s group represents more than just a radical fringe and has been gaining nationwide attention.

I’m in ur conspiracy theoriez, doin performance art

Art, Articles by others, bizarre, conspiracy, counterculture, Culture-jamming, Discordianism, download, Lulz, Operation:Mindfuck, Situationism, Tin-foil hats

Link

The very idea of a 911-TV-Fakery researcher faking their own suicide as a performance art piece is incredibly synchronistic for me given the last year and half’s experience of investigating the mysterious double suicide of conspiratorially minded artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. In that case several folks at the Rigorous Intuition and Dreams End websites and forums were talking about the wild and weird world of Situationist performance art and related artistic movements, some of which seem to involve a lot of parapolitical intrigue that sometimes includes hoaxing, culture-jamming and even the faking of people’s murder or suicide, aka pseudocide. Other discussions centered on the idea of both real-world and online group-stalking and gaslighting of people driving them to perhaps commit suicide. In my interview last year with parapolitical activist, writer and researcher Len Bracken (author of the biography on Situationist movement leader Guy Debord – Revolutionary) I brought up the possible confluence of some of the wilder personalities within the 911 Truth Movement (folks who seem more like performance artists than activists and researchers) and the Situationist and Discordian communities.

Also, a link to the mentioned interview can be found here.

101 ways to make everybody’s day weirder

forums, Operation:Mindfuck

1. Midway through the day, change into a different set of clothes. If anybody notices, insist you’ve been wearing the same clothes all day.

2. Answer the phone with an arbitrary question.

3. Switch all the clothes in someone’s dresser with clothes from someone else’s dresser (possibly yours). If they live together and will bump into each other wearing each other’s clothes, all the better.

4. Put things which couldn’t possibly be mailed in people’s mailboxes, like a glass of water, or a bowl of popcorn. Write the address on it and attach proper postage.

5. When you’re about to enter a room full of people, call one of them on your cell phone. In a desperate, very serious voice, explain: “There’s no time to explain, but I’ve been kidnapped and replaced with a robot which looks just like me. Oh shit, I gotta go!” and hang up quickly.

6. Hide notes that people will find when they’re cleaning. Suggestions include: “This note was hidden on <date> and it took you this long to find it?”

7. Hide a note which says “Congratulations! You found me! Re-hide me for ++GOOD LUCK”

8. Put non food items in the fridge. It’s often very startling to open the fridge and see a telephone or car keys or something which totally doesn’t belong there. If asked for an explanation, say, “After a hard day, there’s nothing like a refreshing, ice cold magazine.” or pencil sharpener. or toilet paper. or tooth brush. or whatever.

9. Alternatively, hide other people’s things in the fridge. When your housemate asks, “Where’s the remote control?” you can nonchalantly say “Oh, it’s in the fridge.” Protip: have a change-of-topic or excuse to leave the room on the tip of your tongue so as to avoid any followup questions.

10. Record something short, and put a few minutes of silence on both ends of it. Hide your mp3 player + speakers somewhere with that track playing on repeat.

11. If you can surreptitously record someone and put THEIR voice on the tape, even better. Hide the recording somewhere where they’ll probably hear it. Imagine how weird it would be to hear your own voice coming from somewhere unseen, and not be able to figure out what’s happening.

12. Put up a sign anywhere you want with an arbitrary question.

13.  Skip to work.  Especially effective if your company makes you wear “business professional” attire.

14.  Break out into spontaneous Irish Jigs in the hallway.  You get more viewers when you do this between 12 noon and 1 PM and do it near the break room.

15.  Neck poking is fun. Nobody expects it, and it gets quit a reaction.

16. Inappropriate multitasking:  Brush your teeth while cooking.  Floss while standing at a urinal.  Mix n’ match gone wrong.

17. Sit down in a hallway, aisle, etc.  Someone is sure to ask if you’re OK.  That’s your set up.

18. Use the most inefficient utensil possible to eat.  (Eating Combos or pretzels out of a bag with chopsticks was pioneered by Leln and myself)

19. Stop a conversation with “Wait a second…”, and then see how long it takes someone to butt in.  Act incredulous when they ask why you said it.  Insist you never did.

20. Insert “Spies are everywhere.” or “The walls have ears.” into otherwise harmless conversations.

Continue reading 101 ways to make everybody’s day weirder →

Why Discordia is more relevant in 2008 – Discussion

current affairs, debate, Discordianism, Humour, Internet - a series of tubes, Law and Disorder, Law of Fives, media culture, Occult, Operation:Mindfuck, personal, politics, slack, society, Technology, terrorism, Trolling, war

Ripped this discussion, built on Cram’s earlier post and musings, from the forum.  Enjoy.

LMNO:  Because so far, nothing else seems to be working.  Because Discordia is about models, not absolutes.

Baron von Hoopla:  Bingo.

Cramulus: [to LMNO] that’s a great angle.  Could you expand on that a bit?

GA:  I don’t know about more relevant, because I wasn’t around 50 years ago.  It seems to me that the Cold War was in pretty dire need of some lightheartedness, even more than our current War on Terror.

It just seems relevant to me because I personally had (have?) a problem with taking things far to seriously.  And because many of the people around me have concepts like ‘mandatory’ and ‘forbidden’ and apply them to things that are really optional.

I makes me sad when people tell me that things like religion are to important to joke about, or old propaganda posters too offensive.  It bothers me when I get suspended from school or hauled before Loss Prevention for reasons like “I know that this is just a misunderstanding, but we must follow procedure.”  It hurts when I look around my infosphere and see nothing but advertisements, especially when those ads are meant to make people feel bad about themselves.

The world is ruled by an endless morass of strictures and convention, and no one wants to take responsibility for them.  People are perfectly content to let the train follow its own momentum down the tracks, even though they don’t like where it is or where it is going, because this is Policy, it’s what Everyone (the everyone in “everyone knows that…”) has Decided.  Rules and traditions might be annoying, but it’s Not In Our Power to do anything about them.

LMNO:  In today’s so-called “Information Age”, most of us are constantly bombarded with stuff.  Perhaps not with ideas, so much as pure input.  While for the most part this input is pretty much bias-neutral, an increasing amount of it is being supplied by people who have an angle.  What’s more, to get through to the growing population of Jaded Couch-Dwelling Fuckheads, there has been a new approach of making the stuff more-or-less self referential, as in, “we know you know we’re trying to manipulate you.  See how cool that makes us?”

So, what do you do when you are flooded by 50,000 points of view?  The old way was to have Rules and Tradition and Procedure and Black and White. To take that stuff and cram it into a narrow worldview, distorting what little information you actually notice.  Which only serves to hold you back, slow you down, and shut you up.

Our way, the Discordian way, is to make Temporary Models, make new Game Rules, to grab hold of the stuff and ride it out, making connections as you see them.  You do your best not to have your views manipulated by stuff, and you do your best not to manipulate stuff to fit your views.  Which serves to keep you on the Edge of What’s Going On.

At least, that’s the general idea.

Continue reading Why Discordia is more relevant in 2008 – Discussion →

Beautify our town!

Articles by others, Lulz, Operation:Mindfuck

Beautify Our Town!

One of the excellent ideas to come out of this year’s KallistiCon is the BOT project. In short, we have chosen a small town in the midwestern United States that we are going to beautify, Discordian style. Discordians have done some excellent concerted jakes in the past, usually aimed at businesses or governmental bodies. We thought, why not a town? Why not up the weirdness quotient for a whole town?

We have chosen a town. We have a specific project. We need your help.

We are in the preparation stage right now, and the project will commence on August 23rd, the Day of Discord.

Who: You! And your friends!

Where: The location will be disclosed to people who join the project via the project mailing list. We are in the process of compiling a database of addresses.

When: Starting August 23rd, and then on the 9th and 23rd of the month for the next six months.

Why: For the lulz. To make the world a weirder place. To find fellowship amongst freaks.

What: This is a letter writing campaign. Write a letter to someone as if you had bought a product from them, and you are writing to express how happy or unhappy you are with it. Please, get creative! You may have purchased a goat harness and found yourself unhappy that the goat didn’t come included, or find yourself extremely satisfied with your new dildo cozy since it keeps your dildo so toasty warm. Aim for the ridiculous! Once you’ve written a letter you’re happy with, print out five or ten copies and send them to different people.

For right now, join the mailing list to hear more as the date approaches. We’ll send you contact info for residents of Our Town and a few sample letters. You’ll also get to read letters other people are sending out, and be in on our other BOT projects.

Join up!

http://lists.discordian.com/listinfo.cgi/bot-discordian.com

Nigel, on the Switching Prank

bizarre, Operation:Mindfuck, ,

Over at the PD Forums, we were having a discussion about how to create discord within someone’s environment without ruining their day. Nigel had this advice:

Extremely subtle, confusing changes; funny. Extremely large, confusing changes; possibly funny, if done with a high level of forethought. I like to plant products in people’s houses, and do shit like replace their half-used jug of milk with a half-used jug of different milk, or put a handful of mayonnaise packets in their butter compartment, just because it’s subtle enough to make them question their own realities. Adding magazines to their bedside table or stuffing a pair of socks under the blanket at the foot of the bed, or adding a pair of shoes in their size to their closet, are also good. You can choose things which really DO fuck with people’s MINDS, making it a MINDfuck and not just an irritating obvious prank.

from the GASM Command forum.