Meet Gerry Fialka

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gerry Fialka a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Gerry, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

My optimism is rooted in how my parents raised me, with love and concern for others. It comes from other people and the words of Marshall McLuhan, who said, “You mean my whole fallacy is wrong.” … “Carefully make plans then do the opposite.” … “The Balinese have no word for art they do everything as well as they can.” … “How about technologies as the collective unconscious and art as the collective unconsciousness?” … “The artists of our culture, ‘the antennae of the race,’ have tuned in to the new ground and begun exploring discontinuity and simultaneity.” …”Understanding is not having a point of view.”… “Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior.” McLuhan called his probing process “applied Joyce” examining Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, which must be read outloud with a group of people. Joyce sought epiphanies in everydayness, satirized information overload, and invented language about language with new words like “laughtears” and “feelful thinkamalinks.” One must “BE HERE NOW” and live in the present. “Artists live in the present and write a detailed history of the future.” – Wyndham Lewis

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My story is summarized on my Wiki entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Fialka
and https://gerryswake.com/
and my many youtube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@gfa1930/videos

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1- Dedication to people 2- Dedication to laughing 3- Dedication to learning, insights like: “This concern which interests us more than anything else: the blurring of the distinction between art and life.” – Marcel Duchamp… “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius …”Get your job and your life as mixed up as possible” -?…
“I am a failure, but not a miserable failure” – Frank Zappa….Turn breakdowns into breakthroughs, flip rejection into redirection. …”I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own tastes.” -Marcel Duchamp. Improve by reading https://laughtears.com/QuoteFlyers.html

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. These two short videos summarize:

and

and do not forget to explore this paperback:
https://maditsmadfunny.fandom.com/wiki/MAD%27s_Snappy_Answers_to_Stupid_Questions

Contact Info:

• Website: https://laughtears.com
• Youtube: GFA: https://www.youtube.com/@gfa1930/videos
• Other: Join us in exploring: Media archaeology, McLuhan’s mosaic writing, effects-precede-causes, sense-ratio-shifting, and Tetrad management to percept plunder the recent future. James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake turns the eye into an ear via Finneganese (language about language).

  “Art is the civilized substitute for magic” – Wyndham Lewis.

  “Art is confession; art is the secret told. . . . But art is not only the desire to tell one’s secret; it is the desire to tell it and hide it at the same time. And the secret is nothing more than the whole drama of the inner life.” -Thornton Wilder.

  “ESP is old hat when effects precede causes” – McLuhan.

  D.H. Lawrence’s “secret waters” overflow with epiphanies in everydayness, satirizing information overload, & contradicting ourselves so as not to conform to our own ideas.

  “Nothing is what I want.” – Frank Zappa.
  Also visit:
  https://www.youtube.com/@brunohstraus/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@improbablywrongabouteveryt6781/streams
  https://www.youtube.com/@gerryfialka6732/featured
  https://www.youtube.com/@pxlthis86/featured
  https://www.youtube.com/@rondopandit/featured
  https://www.youtube.com/@gerryfialka6233
  https://www.youtube.com/@ConcernedNetizen/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@EricAhlberg/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@elienation/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@gerryfialka4692
  https://www.youtube.com/@WillErokan/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@goblinrose/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@johnnysmoke3/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@suzywilliams244/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@thesecretwaters8558/videos
  https://www.youtube.com/@supernovanudge9962/videos

Image Credits

Gerry Fialka with PXL 2000 Toy Video Camera photo by Alfred Benjamin.