Art, Politics, Religion

Holy art critics!

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Seems like superstition is the only thing that makes objection to a work of art homocidal.

A few years ago, Danish cartoons skeptical about Islam and Muhammad led to death threats, attacks, and death. Now many people have lost their minds over a YouTube movie critical of Islam. Riots. People dead. For what? Superstitions.

On February 14, 1989 Iranian cleric and ruler Ayotollah Ruhollah Khomeni ordered a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, author of the new book The Satanic Verses. The fatwa was a sentence of death. Khomeni offered the  bounty out of his own pocket.

Did Khomeni actually read the book? Probably not. A mild book. A fatwa is not issued against non-believers. Rushdie, who grew up Muslim, was an apostate. THAT was worthy of death. Khomeni was also contending with a raft of shit for hundreds of thousands of Iranian deaths in an ongoing battle with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Wrestling with the ambiguities of war and fading public relations? Declare a holy war against a straw man!

Rushdie lived under death threats for many years. Publishers and translators of the book were attacked and left for dead. Why? Superstition.

And many significant figures in the West were of little help. Rather than defend the right to free expression, several thought Rushdie brought the misery and mortal peril upon himself for seeming to challenge superstitious beliefs. “Respect of faith” was deemed more importance than free expression. Examples:

“I well understand the devout Muslims’ reaction, wounded by what they hold most dear and would themselves die for.”
– Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury

“Both Mr Rushdie and the Ayatollah have abused freedom of speech.”
– Immanuel Jakobovits, chief rabbi of Great Britain

Ecumenical attacks on free speech are not a solution. Superstitions make people think they are no longer bound by the social contract or the law. Superstitions cause people to believe that misbehavior in this life will lead to eternal reward in the next life. Misbehavior in this life can be a fine thing, but eternal bliss is false. Its touted rewards tend to be numbingly dull or tellingly revenge-driven and tawdry.

I’ll take bad art over sloppy books claiming magical powers any day.

But, hoo-boy, by this THIRTEEN MINUTE MOVIE TRAILER this movie looks like an unholy mess!

Activity, Poetry, Writing

‘Pillar, ‘pillar burning bright

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On the Amazon Trail in Eugene, I saw two caterpillars today. One alive, one dead. A poem:

A long wooly caterpillar slinked o’er a jogging trail.
Its steady undulations puffed “I cannot permit a fail.”

It focused its ambition on crossing to the low cool green,
And got there, relieved now to be beyond the human scene.

A shorter wooly, charged one-third the way, gasped, then upturned.
Feet to the sun, its plumpness biding pick up by a bird.

Drying, its spirit whispered as it passed our mortal sight:
‘I burned life’s candle at both ends, and gave a lovely light.”

Art, Poetry, Writing

Hospital, doggerel antidote – what is truly great

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Bradley: His Book, 1896, by William Henry Bradley, NYC Metropolitan Museum of ArtHad a spare hour yesterday, spent it writing in a hospital cafeteria. My first productive period in a month and a half. Felt good to be in a hospital out of volition. No cause to visit anyone, or to get treatment. No vigil. Taking agency against amoral Nature. Did you feel the burn, there, physical entropy? Did ya? Sure, the eventual victory will be yours, but to rage, RAGE against the dying of the light, yesterday gave off a lovely light.

A couple lines of musty doggerel yesterday stuck in my head yesterday. In the gym today, I tried to find something to chase that away. Scanning my iPod, found “Seascape” by Stephen Spender. The catch? The track is named “Seascape” on the iPod, but it was “I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great” that I listened to over and over. Let that be a warning about the integrity of bootleg poetry tracks downloaded during the Napster heyday of 2000-01.

I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great
Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Pop Culture

‘Breaking Dawn’ Part 2: Tackle that cat!

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I’ve seen the other ‘Twilight’ movies and will gleefully pinch the loaf and watch the final one when released.

This preview makes me forget the 7-8 hours of my life already given over to the films chock full of dull talking. Now I only recall a constant loop of vampires of dogs running at each other in the same field over and over.

Get More: 2012 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music

 

Five! Five wondervul movies! Ah ah ah!

Politics

What’s up with Presidents today and their hippity-hop?

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Made this image macro, bewildered, like many across the nation, by Clint Eastwood co-opting a Bob Newhart routine where Newhart would pretend to carry on one half of a conversation with an invisible party.

Eastwood’s performance could have been MUCH tighter. A good premise, but way too drawn out. Rehearsal was sorely needed.

Pretending Obama is a hothead is bizarre. Vice President Dick Cheney was a TOTAL hothead, who shot a man in the face. Could you imagine a photo of Obama wielding a gun? Significant portions of the country would turn brown from people shitting themselves.

Activity, Art, Music, Parenting, Pop Culture

Snapshots of “Paparazzi”

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Driving with the kids for about two hours today, we listened to Lady Gaga and Adele. Putting them on means the kids keep the headphones off. We shifted to ‘West Side Story’ in the last 20 minutes.

“Paparazzi” came on, and I visualized (while still driving safely) the three moments in the video I like the most.

1.) Malady-afflicted celebrity bravely and stylishly taking to the red (okay, lavender) carpet on crutches (2:54 mark):

2.) The Mickey Mouse ensemble with plastic/wax lips she has when poisoning her attempted murderer (5:45 mark):

3.) Dishevelled sass when getting her mugshots at the police station (7:16 mark):

The full video for your convenience (all about saving you the keystrokes in a search engine):

Activity, Art, Pop Culture, Reading

Quickie post – Marilyn and James Joyce

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A fast entry because I’m tired of a squirrel carcass being the toppamost post. Here’s a photo of Marilyn Monroe reading ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce. One may snort derisively. Remember Monroe was married to esteemed playwright Arthur Miller. She likely enjoyed the book. Also this photo is adorable and brainy and hot.

Uncategorized

O squirrel, my squirrel!

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After 6th grade I went to a summer camp on the University of Oregon campus where we stayed in dorms for two weeks. Outside our dorm was a squirrel who checked on us, even on the 2nd floor. We named him Fred. For all I know, more than 30 years on Fred is doing fine. Not so this fellow. Alas.

Poetry, Reading, Writing

Origin of “text”

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On a lark, I looked up the word “text” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here’s what that Good Book gives as the origin:

“Etymology: < French texte, also Old Northern French tixte, tiste (12th cent. in Godefroy), the Scriptures, etc., < medieval Latin textus the Gospel, written character (Du Cange), Latin textus (u-stem) style, tissue of a literary work (Quintilian), lit. that which is woven, web, texture, < text-, participial stem of tex-ĕre to weave."

I had never thought of text as a tissue or something that is woven into a tissue. It always seemed a linear train of words flopped one over the other, then stacked sheet over sheet. Or typed up and pasted in. A product to be stored. Had never considered it as a planned fabric both lateral and longitudinal. I like that very much.

Art, History, Politics, Reading, Writing

Gore Vidal now through the door marked “exit”

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I’ll miss this guy. He was sometimes full of horseshit, but when others claimed he was full of horseshit often they were proven to be wrong. So allowance must be given.

He tended to bring out the worst in people who weren’t confident in themselves. Interviewers/journalists suffering from what Harold Bloom would call the anxiety of influence got con-testy with Vidal, which he would detect and throw back. The best interviewers were fine in their own skin and ended up in decent conversations or giving him good setups for his lapidary phrases and tales.

He loved his country, his republic, with a deep love that meant always wanting better, and wanting to ward off its perceived decline by calling out when it had more pomp than substance. No, that’s way too buttery. He saw our country as a Miss Havisham, and described her past charms and decay in great and savage detail. If he had a magic wand to restore her vitality he would, but he knew woefully no such wand was available.

Feeling sore about both Vidal and Christopher Hitchens dying within a year of one another. I doubt I’ll be as deeply eager what any other public figure, or eager to be suprised by what any other public figure thinks.

Chronically elegiac with a zest lit from a core of hope.