Maybe another theme to close my ruminations for today? Different ways in which I am ‘expecting ‘… and maybe an unknown collective to which I belong?
Richard Oelze ‘Expectation. 1935-6.‘
I wonder what he would paint if he were alive in the Summer of 2020?
Die Erwartung or ‘The Expectation’ is his most important and famous work. It depicts a group of people staring into an empty landscape with their backs to the observer. It is regarded by many to be a fundamental picture in the history of painting – although, one of the men is looking towards us …
Carolyn Burke comments on Expectation‘s ominous mood: “it is impossible not to see in the work the years of its composition, 1935-1936, and in the mute backs of its Magritte-like subjects bourgeois refugees already on their way to the death camps.”
An odd sort of day today, but delighted to come across this phrase by Mina Loy! YES! YES! YES! Reject the ready-made absolutes!
Distinguishing her aims from those of the Catholic Church and Freud, Loy writes: “The aim of the artist is to miss the Absolute —- the only possible creative gesture —- whereas the mystic impulse is to embrace a ‘ready-made’ in the way of absolutes / And the Absolute of this new mechanised mysticism of the Psycho-Analyst is the Unconscious.”
Linking the Catholic God to the Freudian Unconscious as “ready-made” absolutes, Loy implies that such concepts and the belief systems they engender are received mechanically.
Mina met Freud in Vienna in the spring of 1922 – and sketched Sigmund.
The Ghost of a Flea c.1819-20 William Blake “He saw a horrible grim figure, ‘scaly, speckled, very awful” – wrote John Varley
‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.’Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ Act 4 Scene1: 38-9
Don J Trump is no god, but sadly is regarded as one by millions of his fellow Americans – a man, greatly admired or respected’ –
DJT once promoted a post claiming he is “heaven sent” and suggesting Obama “kicked” Jesus out of the US in a string of tweets just days after Christmas 2019.
He then went on to retweet praise for himself, including one post from January 2018 with a picture of a man who appears to be Jesus Christ and a caption saying: “Obama kicked me out. Trump invited me back.”
“I truly believe this man was heaven sent in order to save and protect the most gracious, benevolent, and in turn, prosperous country ever,” the caption to the post said, referring to the president.
AND ON READING THIS MOST PEOPLE JUST LAUGHED!
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump“Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…and the Jewish people in Israel love him….
….like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God…But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for…..
AND THE MAJORITY ARE STILL LAUGHING!
Horbowy, head of a local chapter of a pro-Trump motorcycle club “My mother started crying. She comes from Pentecostal background, and she started speaking in tongues. I haven’t heard her speak in tongues in years,” he said. “I thought, look at my president! He’s establishing the Lord’s kingdom in the world.”
Did he feel that conflicted with the Gospel of John, where Jesus said “My kingdom is not of this world”?
AND THE MAJORITY ARE STILL LAUGHING !
“I believe it’s like Ephesians 6: 10-19,” said Horbowy. “I believe this is a president who wears the full armor of God.” But one of those verses – verse 12 – says explicitly that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood”, but against spiritual enemies. “Well,” Horbowy said. “He’s fearless.”
Did you know that the man who actually came up with those chilling words was Blazing Saddles director and legendary funnyman MEL BROOKS whose company Brooksfilms produced the movie? This fascinating fear fact was revealed by Cronenberg himself in the course of Beyond Fest’s recent retrospective tribute to the Canadian horror-meister.
“At one point, Mel was saying, about that particular moment, he said, ’When he says, Don’t be afraid, the answer should be, Yes, be afraid, be very afraid,’” Cronenberg recalled to moderator, fellow director, and Movie Crypt co-host Joe Lynch after a screening of The Fly at Los Angeles’ Egyptian Theatre.
“He wasn’t really giving me dialogue, he was just reacting. And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to put that in the script.’
So let’s say it was a collaboration. BUT IT WAS MEL WHO CAME UP WITH THAT.”
Mel Brooks – 94 years young
IN THE FLY, Seth (Jeff Goldblum) continues to deteriorate, losing body parts and becoming less human in appearance … he soon realizes he is losing his human reason and compassion, DRIVEN BY PRIMITIVE IMPULSES HE CANNOT CONTROL.
As a C21st Uberfly, Don J Trump never had any human compassion to begin with, but he has an arsenal of primitive impulses.
DOK.fest München @home 2020 | #UNFIT. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DONALD TRUMP | T… https://youtu.be/2XiFh5FW6j8 via @YouTube
As a life-long student of human history, a lover of philosophy (philo-Sophia), and a devotee of many poets and their insights into the human condition, this article is devastating … and in response, I found myself speaking a movie phrase from 1986 … ‘BE AFRAID.BE VERY AFRAID”
Every horror fan is familiar with this phrase, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Spoken by Geena Davis in David Cronenberg’s 1986 film THE FLY, these five words were ultimately used as the tagline for the beloved body horror movie.
The decision of the Turkish regime to make Hagia Sophia, one of the most important monuments of Christendom, a mosque can only be considered as an unacceptable attack on culture and civilisation. Of course, no one can deny to modern Turkey, if its people want it, (something that is not at all certain), the right to become as “Islamist” as it wishes, abandoning the tradition of its founder Kemal Ataturk. But it can do so by building and honouring its own monuments and places of worship, not by using monuments and places of worship built by others. One also wonders why the Turkish elite seems to believe that it helps the prestige of their country to recall every now and then, in the year 2020, the conquest of the capital of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Anyway, if there is one thing that humanity needs more than anything today, in so difficult a situation, it is the tolerance and respect of one nation for another, of the followers and representatives of each religion for the others. This is a one of the main criteria for the civilisation of every human being and of every people.
The Fugitive Stag 