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| LYRICS (by Charley Wu) Tell me visions of the fall Say, "Brothers and Sisters let's stand tall!" Well we had a plan--it was right, It was right, it was right. We thought we knew the Heart of Man. Poverty and destitution brings, An army of soldiers that can't sing. Well give me your hand--they're crying And dying to no end... History will bury all my friends. Obstacles, obstacles, They're laying barricades of Soviet-made Disposable, oracles We're taking to the streets Marching to defeat! It was a blueprint for Our failed revolution! Blueprints for Our failed revolution! It was a blueprint for Our failed revolution! Blueprints for Our failed revolution! | You may remember this image from the music video for this song, where it made a brief appearance shortly before it was set on fire.  Despite the short amount of screen time, this is an illustration that took my good friend Mike Ellis a whole week to complete. Last spring, he came to Vancouver to visit a girl, but in a classic story of heartbreak, he was locked out of her apartment, and spent a night sleeping on the floor of a bank. He finally got in touch with me (Charley) the next morning and stayed at with me instead, during which time he realized he didn’t even like her anyways. |
While showing Mike around town, I told him my idea for the blueprint and he agreed to draw it. Though the original was burned during filming, Matty had a chance to photograph the 36×36 blueprint with a medium format camera before the shoot. After spending many many hours on photoshop, we can finally present you with The Blueprint in all its glory. Now you can have this sweet image on your very own T-shirt for $15, including a digital copy of Oracles.
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The concepts wired into the blueprint are meant to reference an earlier age of scholars who thought they had discovered the natural necessities of human development. ”We have mapped out the human soul, and so it must be”, they said. They thought the success of their revolutions inevitable, and their motives common across all peoples of the Earth. What is the lesson to be learned from them?
There is something called the “Principle of Revolution” from an old, old book called the Dao De Jing. I want to talk about it, but first, let me put on my robe and wizard hat.
Somewhere on the internet, there's a picture of the whole band dressed as wizards
The Dao De Jing was written at a time when civilization was in decline and it seemed like the best of days were already in the past. There is a reference made to a tilting vessel (Ch. 9), that sits on a hinge underneath a constant spring of water. At the moment when the cup fills completely, the weight of the water makes it turn on its hinge and empty out all of its contents. Once empty, it springs back up, to be filled once more. This is the Principle of Revolution (反 fǎn). If you try too hard to reach one extreme, you will soon find yourself at its opposite. To revolve is the way of the universe.
"The injured will be made whole,
And the crooked will be straightened.
Emptiness will be made full,
And that which is broken will be remade.
The poor will be made wealthy,
And the wealthy will be deluded." (Ch. 22)
This is a philosophy that has been used by generals and artists, by kings and their prisoners. Not only do opposites tend towards each other, they rely on each other for their own existence, linguistically and metaphysically. ”The good are the teachers of the bad, and the bad provide means for the good.” (Ch. 27)
On the blueprint, you’ll find many dualistically opposing terms, such as empathy/greed and fate/freedom. These are all aspects of our human nature and connected through the complexities of our psyche. There will be no triumph of one side of our nature over the other, because if one side is destroyed, the other will in itself have no more meaning. Those who ruthlessly try to bring salvation to the World through blind ambition will only accomplish the opposite. These failed oracles of society think their cup full, but in turning around to show the world, the cup has emptied once more and they are left with nothing.
Note: All passages from the Dao De Jing are translated by Charley Wu from the original classical chinese. Yes I am a nerd who spent a whole summer learning a dead language while my friends were hanging out at the beach. Deal with it.
- Charley
